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, 20 years later.
Benjamin Graham and Crisis
A lifetime of devastating returns is a tragedy. Still, as experience and Benjamin Graham's brilliance have shown time and time again, every crisis brings with it solid opportunity.
Crisis allows you to take advantage of the jittery emotional makeup of other investors. As a group, investors have no stomach for crisis so rush from any company that runs into a large business problem. As a consequence, the price gets crushed.
When picking individual stocks, often the firms that have faced major problems prove to be among the best investments going forward – net net stocks are a perfect example of this. Companies that qualify as net net stock investments are often companies that have suffered a devastating drop in market value due to a large business problem. Investors are so pessimistic about the company that they sell the company’s shares down to a small fraction of what they’re worth – below a highly conservative assessment of their liquidation value.
The same is true of markets generally and here is the key point of this article: As markets get crushed due to economic problems, it brings opportunity for shrewd investors. Often, this opportunity comes in the form of lower prices for stocks generally, relative to some value metric. Some firms become undervalued to an even larger extent. Whether purchasing index funds or specific stocks that show extreme promise – significantly depressed markets can provide solid opportunity for large profits.
Japanese Value Stocks? Benjamin Graham Would Approve
Japanese value investors might very well describe their own experience as the Tokyo Miracle. Over the past 25 years, while the Japanese were suffering a stagnating economy and sinking stock market, Japanese value stocks racked up large returns.
In June 2013, HKUST Business School’s Value Partners Center for Investing, part of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, conducted a study of how 5 different investment strategies would have performed in Japan from 1975 to 2011. The group looked at both the average monthly returns and the growth of one dollar invested in Japanese value stocks, 5 classic Ben Graham strategies all together. They tested high earnings-to-price, high book-to-market, high dividend yield, and high cash flow to price. (Note that academic studies often use the reciprocal of commonly quoted value metrics.)
To test each strategy, the group screened out the smallest 1/3rd of Japanese value stocks based on market capitalization, then placed the rest into one of 5 different portfolios based on where the stocks ranked on one of the classic value investing criteria. In the end there were 25 different portfolios – 5 portfolios ranked from most expensive to least expensive for each measure. They rebalanced the portfolios at the end of each month.
Let’s look at the returns:
Results from 1975 to 2011 were very impressive with the cheapest equal weighted earnings-to-price stocks taking top spot with a 1.37% return month over month.
The results from 1990 to 2011 were even more impressive:
While the stock market sank 62% during this period, Japanese value stocks dominated. All but the book-to-price portfolios actually showed higher returns than what was achieved in the 1975 to 2011 period. Again, earnings-to-price took top spot, with the equal weighted portfolio achieving 1.51% monthly returns on average.
Value Partners Center for Investing also looked at what would happen if $1 were invested in each strategy from 1980 to 2011. As you can see below, given that the market ended the period flat, the returns to Japanese value stocks were phenomenal:
$1 invested in the book-to-market, dividend yield, earnings-to-price, cash flow-to-price, and leverage-to-price portfolios grew to $115.98, $81.88, $433.86, $281.49, and $6.62, respectively. One dollar invested into the Japanese stock market over the same 31 year period produced only $2.76. Pathetic.
What You Should Take Away From The Performance of these Japanese Value Stocks
There are a couple things I should take a moment to note about the study. The first is that these returns of these Japanese value stocks were achieved in no-cost portfolios. The group didn’t include trading fees as part of their study and assumed all stocks could be purchased at their quoted prices. No-cost portfolios don't exist in the real world but the study still does a good job of showing readers that value portfolios can still outperform in what was one of the most troubled global markets over the last 25 years.
Another drawback of the study is that it does not include Benjamin Graham’s favourite investment strategy, net net stocks. I can’t blame the authors for this – I doubt very much that a net net stock portfolio could have been put together from the mid-80s to the mid-90s. Net net stocks are rare in those kind of overheated markets.
Historically, net net stocks have outperformed all of Benjamin Graham’s other investment strategies. If the researchers had included net net stocks for the periods in which they could be found then I’m sure the returns of those portfolios would have been even better. Want to see how Japanese net nets have done despite the horrendous bear market? Click here.
Which brings us to today. The Japanese stock market has cooled off considerably over the last 25 years. Prices for stocks in general are very cheap. The average stock on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, for example, trades at a price roughly equal to its book value. To put that into perspective, the average S&P 500 stock currently trades for just under 3x book value.
The combination of the depressed price level of Japanese stocks and the fact that the Japanese stock market is one of the largest in the world means that there are a large number of net net stocks to pick from in Japan, not just a mountain of Japanese value stocks. That’s why Net Net Hunter will be focusing its effort on combing through the Japanese market to help bring you the best possible net net stock opportunities.
Start putting together your high quality, high potential, net net stock strategy. Click Here to get free high quality net net stock picks sent straight to your inbox each month.Ireland pictures : Gallery 4 : Deserted village, Slievemore, Achill Island Although abandoned as a permanent settlement sometime in the late 19th century, the deserted village at Slievemore, Achill Island, was used as a 'booley' well into the 20th century (some accounts suggest as recently as the 1940s). A booley village is one that is occupied for only part of the year, for instance for the summer months to allow cattle to graze on fresh pasture. Booleying was common on Achill Island in former times, and Slievemore is but the largest of many other former booley settlements on the island. A striking feature of the buildings at Slievemore is the height of the south-facing gable ends (see picture, below) which, to account for the slope of the ground, measure up to 3m in height. [more...]A widespread famine affected Ethiopia from 1983 to 1985. The worst famine to hit the country in a century,[2] in northern Ethiopia it led to more than 400,000 deaths, but, according to Human Rights Watch, more than half its mortality could be attributed to "human rights abuses causing the famine to come earlier, strike harder and extend further than would otherwise have been the case". Other areas of Ethiopia experienced famine for similar reasons, resulting in tens of thousands of additional deaths. The famine as a whole took place a decade into the Ethiopian Civil War.
The famine of 1983–85 is most often ascribed to drought and climatic phenomena. However, Human Rights Watch has alleged that widespread drought occurred only some months after the famine was under way. According to the organisation, and Oxfam UK, the famines that struck Ethiopia between 1961 and 1985, and in particular the one of 1983–85, were in large part created by government policies, specifically a set of so-called counter-insurgency strategies and "social transformation" in non-insurgent areas.
Background [ edit ]
[8] These are supplied values, intake values are about 60-70% of supplied energy.
Other area (Yr 2010)[9]
: Africa, sub-Sahara - 2170 kcal/capita/day : N.E. and N. Africa - 3120 kcal/capita/day : South Asia - 2450 kcal/capita/day Food Supply (Energy base)These are supplied values, intake values are about 60-70% of supplied energy.Other area (Yr 2010): Africa, sub-Sahara - 2170 kcal/capita/day : N.E. and N. Africa - 3120 kcal/capita/day : South Asia - 2450 kcal/capita/day
Before the 1983–85 famine, two decades of wars of national liberation and other anti-government conflict had raged throughout Ethiopia and Eritrea. The most prominent feature of the fighting was the use of indiscriminate violence against civilians by the Ethiopian army and air force. Excluding those killed by famine and resettlement, more than 150,000 people were killed.
The economy of Ethiopia is based on agriculture: almost half of GDP, 60% of exports, and 80% of total employment come from agriculture.[11]
In 1973, a famine in Wollo killed an estimated 40,000 to 80,000, mostly of the marginalized Afar herders and Oromo tenant farmers, who suffered from the widespread confiscation of land by the wealthy classes and government of Emperor Haile Selassie. Despite attempts to suppress news of this famine, leaked reports contributed to the undermining of the government's legitimacy and served as a rallying point for dissidents, who complained that the wealthy classes and the Ethiopian government had ignored both the famine and the people who had died.[12] Then in 1974, a group of Marxist soldiers known as the Derg overthrew Haile Selassie. The Derg addressed the Wollo famine by creating the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) to examine the causes of the famine and prevent its recurrence, and then abolishing feudal tenure in March 1975. The RRC initially enjoyed more independence from the Derg than any other ministry, largely due to its close ties to foreign donors and the quality of some its senior staff.[citation needed] As a result, insurgencies began to spread into the country's administrative regions.
By late 1976 insurgencies existed in all of the country's fourteen administrative regions. The Red Terror (1977–1978) marked the beginning of a steady deterioration in the economic state of the nation, coupled with extractive policies targeting rural areas.[citation needed] The reforms of 1975 were revoked and the Agricultural Marketing Corporation (AMC) was tasked with extracting food from rural peasantry at low rates to placate the urban populations.[citation needed] The very low fixed price of grain served as a disincentive to production, and some peasants had to buy grain on the open market in order to meet their AMC quota. Citizens in Wollo, which continued to be stricken with drought, were required to provide a "famine relief tax" to the AMC until 1984. The Derg also imposed a system of travel permits to restrict peasants from engaging in non-agricultural activities, such as petty trading and migrant labor, a major form of income supplementation.[citation needed] However, the collapse of the system of State Farms, a large employer of seasonal laborers, resulted in an estimated 500,000 farmers in northern Ethiopia losing a component of their income. Grain wholesaling was declared illegal in much of the country, resulting in the number of grain dealers falling from between 20,000 and 30,000 to 4,942 in the decade after the revolution.
The nature of the RRC changed as the government became increasingly authoritarian. Immediately after its creation, its experienced core of technocrats produced highly regarded analyses of Ethiopian famine and ably carried out famine relief efforts. However, by the 1980s, the Derg had compromised its mission.[citation needed] The RRC began with the innocuous scheme of creating village workforces from the unemployed in state farms, and government agricultural schemes but, as the counter-insurgency intensified, the RRC was given responsibility for a program of forced resettlement and villagization.[citation needed] As the go-between for international aid organizations and foreign donor governments, the RRC redirected food to government militias, in particular in Eritrea and Tigray. It also encouraged international agencies to set up relief programs in regions with surplus grain production, which allowed the AMC to collect the excess food.[citation needed] Finally, the RRC carried out a disinformation campaign during the 1980s famine, in which it portrayed the famine as being solely the result of drought and overpopulation and tried to deny the existence of the armed conflict that was occurring precisely in the famine-affected regions. The RRC also claimed that the aid being given by it and its international agency partners were reaching all of the famine victims.
Famine [ edit ]
Four Ethiopian provinces—Gojjam, Hararghe, Tigray and Wollo—all received record low rainfalls in the mid-1980s. In the south, a separate and simultaneous cause was the government's response to Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) insurgency. In 1984, President Mengistu Haile Mariam announced that 46% of the Ethiopian Gross National Product would be allocated to military spending, creating the largest standing army in sub-Saharan Africa; the allocation for health in the government budget fell from 6% in 1973–4 to 3% by 1990–1.
Although a UN estimate of one million deaths is often quoted for the 1983–5 famine, this figure has been challenged by famine scholar Alex de Waal. In a major study, de Waal criticized the United Nations for being "remarkably cavalier" about the numbers of people who died, with the UN's one-million figure having "absolutely no scientific basis whatsoever," a fact which represents "a trivialization and dehumanization of human misery.". De Waal estimates that 400,000 to 500,000 died in the famine.[20]
Nevertheless, the magnitude of the disaster has been well documented: in addition to hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions were made destitute. Media activity in the West, along with the size of the crisis, led to the "Do They Know It's Christmas?" charity single and the July 1985 concert Live Aid, which elevated the international profile of the famine and helped secure international aid. In the early to mid-1980s there were famines in two distinct regions of the country, resulting in several studies of one famine that try to extrapolate to the other or less cautious writers referring to a single widespread famine. The famine in the southeast of the country was brought about by the Derg's counterinsurgency efforts against the OLF. However, most media referring to "the Ethiopian famine" of the 1980s refers to the severe famine in 1983-85 centered on Tigray and northern Wollo, which further affected Eritrea, Begemder and northern Shewa. Living standards had been declining in these government-held regions since 1977, a "direct consequence" of Derg agricultural policies. A further major contributing factor to the famine were the Ethiopian government's enforced resettlement programs, utilized as part of its counter-insurgency campaign.[citation needed]
Average grain prices in Northern Ethiopia
(birr per quintal, 100 kg) E. Tigray N. Wollo N. Begemder November/December 1981 100 50 40 November/December 1982 165 65 55 November/December 1983 225 90 45 November/December 1984 300 160 70 June/July 1985 380 235 165
Despite RRC claims to have predicted the famine, there was little data as late as early 1984 indicating an unusually severe food shortage. Following two major droughts in the late 1970s, 1980 and 1981 were rated by the RRC as "normal" and "above normal". The 1982 harvest was the largest ever, with the exception of central and eastern Tigray. RRC estimates for people "at risk" of famine rose to 3.9 million in 1983 from 2.8 million in 1982, which was less than the 1981 estimate of 4.5 million. In February and March 1983, the first signs of famine were recognized as poverty-stricken farmers began to appear at feeding centers, prompting international aid agencies to appeal for aid and the RRC to revise its famine assessment.[citation needed] The harvest after the main (meher) harvest in 1983 was the third largest on record, with the only serious shortfall again being recorded in Tigray. In response, grain prices in the two northern regions of Begemder and Gojjam fell. However, famine recurred in Tigray. The RRC claimed in May 1984 that the failure of the short rains (belg) constituted a catastrophic drought, while neglecting to state that the belg crops form a fourth of crop yields where the belg falls, but none at all in the majority of Tigray. A quantitative measure of the famine are grain prices, which show high prices in eastern and central Tigray, spreading outward after the 1984 crop failure.
A major drain on Ethiopia's economy was the ongoing civil war, which pitched rebel movements against the Soviet and Cuban backed Derg government. This crippled the country's economy further and contributed to the government's lack of ability to handle the crisis to come.[citation needed]
By mid-1984, it was evident that another drought and resulting famine of major proportions had begun to affect large parts of northern Ethiopia. Just as evident was the government's inability to provide relief. The almost total failure of crops in the north was compounded by fighting in and around Eritrea, which hindered the passage of relief supplies. Although international relief organizations made a major effort to provide food to the affected areas, the persistence of drought and poor security conditions in the north resulted in continuing need as well as hazards for famine relief workers. In late 1985, another year of drought was forecast, and by early 1986 the famine had spread to parts of the southern highlands, with an estimated 5.8 million people dependent on relief food. In 1986, locust plagues exacerbated the problem.[citation needed]
Response to the famine [ edit ]
Despite the fact that the government had access to only a minority of the famine-stricken population in the north, the great majority of relief was channelled through the government side, prolonging the war.
The Ethiopian government's unwillingness to deal with the 1984–85 famine provoked universal condemnation by the international community. Even many supporters of the Ethiopian regime opposed its policy of withholding food shipments to rebel areas. The combined effects of famine and internal war had by then put the nation's economy into a state of collapse.[citation needed]
The primary government response to the drought and famine was the decision to uproot large numbers of peasants who lived in the affected areas in the north and to resettle them in the southern part of the country. In 1985 and 1986, about 600,000 people were moved, many forcibly, from their home villages and farms by the military and transported to various regions in the south. Many peasants fled rather than allow themselves to be resettled; many of those who were resettled sought later to return to their native regions. Several human rights organizations claimed that tens of thousands of peasants died as a result of forced resettlement.[citation needed]
Another government plan involved villagization, which was a response not only to the famine but also to the poor security situation. Beginning in 1985, peasants were forced to move their homesteads into planned villages, which were clustered around water, schools, medical services, and utility supply points to facilitate distribution of those services. Many peasants fled rather than acquiesce in relocation, which in general proved highly unpopular. Additionally, the government in most cases failed to provide the promised services. Far from benefiting agricultural productivity, the program caused a decline in food production. Although temporarily suspended in 1986, villagization was subsequently resumed.[citation needed]
International view [ edit ]
RAF C-130 airdropping food during the 1985 famine
Close to 8 million people became famine victims during the drought of 1984, and over 1 million died. In the same year (October 23),[26][27] a BBC news crew was the first to document the famine, with Michael Buerk describing "a biblical famine in the 20th century" and "the closest thing to hell on Earth".[28] The report shocked Britain, motivating its citizens to inundate relief agencies, such as Save the Children, with donations, and also to bring world attention to the crisis in Ethiopia.[29]
In January 1985, the British Royal Air Force carried out the first airdrops from Hercules C-130s delivering food to the starving people. Other countries including Sweden,[30] East and West Germany, Poland, Canada, United States and the Soviet Union were also involved in the international response.[citation needed]
Charity [ edit ]
Buerk's news piece on the BBC was seen by Irish singer Bob Geldof, who quickly organised the charity supergroup Band Aid, primarily made up of the biggest British and Irish artists of the era.[31] Their single, "Do They Know It's Christmas?", was released on 3 December 1984 and became Britain's best-selling single within a few weeks, eventually selling 3.69 million copies domestically. It raised £8 million for famine relief within twelve months of its release.[32] Other charity singles soon followed; "We Are the World" by USA for Africa was the most successful of these, selling 20 million copies worldwide.
Live Aid, a 1985 fund-raising effort headed by Geldof, induced millions of people in the West to donate money and to urge their governments to participate in the relief effort in Ethiopia. Some of the proceeds also went to the famine hit areas of Eritrea.[33] The event raised £145 million.[34]
In America, the supergroup USA for Africa released the single "We Are the World", written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, selling 20 million copies and raising 63 million dollars.
In France, French supergroup Chanteurs sans frontières released "SOS Éthiopie", which sold 1 million copies and raised 10 million francs (about 1.2 million dollars).
Other charity initiatives raised money for Ethiopia. On January 27, 1985, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints participated in a special fast, where members went without food for two meals and donated the money they would have used to buy food. The fast raised $6 million for the famine victims in Ethiopia.[35][36]
Effect on aid policy [ edit ]
The manner in which international aid was routed through the RRC gave rise to criticism that forever changed the way in which governments and NGOs respond to international emergencies taking place within conflict situations. International aid supplied to the government and to relief agencies working alongside the government became part of the counter-insurgency strategy of the government. It therefore met real and immediate need, but also prolonged the life of Mengistu's government. The response to the emergency raised disturbing questions about the relationship between humanitarian agencies and host governments.
However, according to Peter Gill, in his 2010 book Foreigners and Famine: Ethiopia Since Live Aid, 7.9 million people faced starvation in 1984, resulting in over 600,000 deaths; while in 2003 13.2 million "faced the prospect of a famine and only 300 died."[37]
Aid money and rebel groups [ edit ]
On 3 March 2010, Martin Plaut of the BBC published evidence that millions of dollars worth of aid to the Ethiopian famine were spent in buying weapons by the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, a communist group trying to overthrow the Ethiopian government at the time. Rebel soldiers said they posed as merchants as "a trick for the NGOs". The report also cited a CIA document saying aid was "almost certainly being diverted for military purposes". One rebel leader estimated $95 million (£63 million).[38] Plaut also said that other NGOs were under the influence or control of the Derg military junta. Some journalists suggested that the Derg was able to use Live Aid and Oxfam money to fund its enforced resettlement and "villagization" programmes, under which at least 3 million people are said to have been displaced and between 50,000 and 100,000 killed.[39] These reports were later refuted by the Band Aid Trust[40] and after a seven-month investigation,[41] the BBC found its reporting had been misleading regarding Band Aid's money and had also contained numerous errors of fact and misstatements of evidence:[40]
Following a complaint from the Band Aid Trust the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit found in its ruling that there was no evidence to support such statements and that "they should not have been broadcast". It also added that "The BBC wishes to apologise unreservedly to the Band Aid Trust for the misleading and unfair impression which was created".[40][42]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]Right-wing radio host Michael Savage is not pleased that the Obama administration plans to accept more refugees from the Syrian civil war, warning last week that President Obama could use the refugees to create a personal army that could take control of the nation.
Pleading with Republicans to shut down the government until not only refugees but all immigrants are blocked from coming into the U.S., Savage said “this mad man in the White House” wants to bring in Syrian Muslim refugees while excluding Christians.
“Are they members of ISIS? Is he bringing in an army to overthrow the people? What is he trying to do?” he asked. “At the same time he is bringing in 100,000 — no one knows how many — Syrian males of military age, he’s moving to disarm the American population. You want to paint a scary picture? A crazy picture? A conspiratorial picture? Go ahead, I just did.”CNN’s Jim Acosta was inundated by tweeted love and support from his peers after President-elect Donald Trump dismissed him and CNN as a “terrible organization” and as “fake news.”
“This president and his team do not have a respect for the First Amendment the way other presidents have coming before him,” Acosta complained. His media peers promised to stand together against “intimidation” from the White House.
But it was very different back in 2012, when Breitbart editor Neil Munro, then writing for the Daily Caller, asked a tough question of President Barack Obama when the president emerged from the White House to provide work-permits to at least 700,000 illegal aliens during a recession which sent millions of Americans into the unemployment lines.
Munro’s obvious question—”Why do you favor foreigners over American workers?”—became a media scandal, even though voters have been asking the same question for decades. The press, right and left alike, immediately condemned the question as “heckling”:
It’s an interesting contrast to the neutral or supportive coverage of CNN’s Acosta, whom Smith defended, saying “journalists should [not] be subjected to belittling or delegitimizing by the President-elect of the United States.” Acosta could have told Trump he was a “fake president,” as CNN’s Don Lemon reassured his colleague.
The press’s responses to the two incidents are revealing.
When it comes to Democrat malfeasance, the press immediately pounces on anyone who questions or exposes them.
Attack the leakers—and John McVoter should ignore the leaks, lest he be influenced by their contents and hand Russia a “hacking” victory. (This absurdity reached its height when CNN assured viewers that reading authentic emails from Democrats released by Wikileaks was “illegal.”)
Blogger Erik Wemple adopted this attitude when demanding Munro answer for his journalism via an interview with the Washington Post. Munro declined. “He appears to be learning what it’s like to have the questions coming at him,” Wemple responded triumphantly.
Five years later, shouting at the president-elect became Speaking Truth to Power for Wemple.
“CNN correspondent Jim Acosta wasn’t about to take Trump’s broadside against his employer sitting back,” Wemple writes of Acosta’s shouting at Trump. Better buckle up for this one! The scene was so intense Wemple can only get a partial transcript.
Wemple also turns up the invective against Trump for calling CNN “fake news”: “You read that right: The same guy who stood by his story about thousands of Muslims cheering the attacks of Sept. 11; who promoted the vile and racist lie of birtherism; and authored an untold number of other falsehoods is now ripping others for spreading ‘fake news.’ As if this term hadn’t already been twisted, thrashed and weaponized,” Wemple writes.
Wemple’s “racist” charge ignores the reality that Trump uses blowtorch rhetoric against most of his rivals, including GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. “Rafael! Straight out of the hills of Canada,” as Trump put it, adding that “the first thing that the Democrats are going to do is sue him on the basis that he’s not a naturalized citizen, that he wasn’t born in this country… I happen to think they’re going to win.” Media called this “birtherism” as well, but without the “racist” tag.
Let’s compare media analyst Howard Kurtz, now with Fox News, scolding Munro versus his indulgence of Acosta.
“Wolf, let’s not mince words. This was a monumental act of rudeness act by Neil Munro,” Kurtz intoned in 2012 on CNN. “Yes, reporters should shout questions at presidents when they’ve finished a statement… not while the president of the United States is addressing not just the reporters in the Rose Garden, but the American people via television.”
In 2017, yelling at the president-elect as he addresses the American people at a press conference is understandable for Kurtz.
When Trump is the target of questions, Kurtz shifts down to the passive voice, saying: “There was a confrontational moment at the presser when Trump started criticizing CNN and its correspondent, Jim Acosta, demanded to be heard. I can understand him shouting out, but when he did it repeatedly as the president-elect refused to call on him, it sounded rude.” The end result of the debacle is the media “unfortunately” handing Trump a “gift,” Kurtz writes.
Here is Munro’s explanation of the 2012 event, given to Fox News. Compare to the support Acosta received from media after bellowing at Trump. Obama routinely dismissed the concerns of Americans, and that’s fine with the privileged enforcers of the status quo. But when Trump dismisses a hostile media, that is an intolerable violation of the rights of the so-called “free press.”Palestine has recalled its ambassador in Pakistan Walid Abu Ali after India took objection to his presence at a rally with 26/11 Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed. The Indian government had denounced his attendance at the rally as 'unacceptable.'
We are supporting India in its fight against terrorism and because of that my Government decided to directly call our Ambassador to go back home, not to be Palestine ambassador to Pak anymore (for sharing stage with Hafiz Saeed): Palestinian Ambassador to India Adnan Abu Al Haija pic.twitter.com/JMN9b2CXug — ANI (@ANI) December 30, 2017
Palestinian Ambassador to India, Adnan Abu Al Haija was quoted by The Hindu as saying that what the ambassador did was 'not acceptable to my government.' Haija also said that Palestine has supported India's fight against terror.
The envoy has been asked to report back to Ramallah, Hindustan Times reported.
On Friday, the envoy had reportedly attended a rally organized by the Difah-e-Pakistan Council, an association of religious and extremist groups led by Hafiz Saeed in Rawalpindi.
The meeting generated sharp reactions from the foreign ministry, saying that it would take up the matter “strongly”.
"Government of India has strongly conveyed to the Palestinian side that the Palestinian Ambassador in Pakistan's association with terrorist Hafiz Saeed, who is proscribed by the United Nations. The concerns were conveyed both in New Delhi to the Palestinian Ambassador and in Ramallah to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, State of Palestine", the MEA press release read.
The Palestinian side too had conveyed "deep regrets", assuring India that they will take serious cognisance of their ambassador's presence at the event.
"Palestine highly values its relationship with India and stands with New Delhi in the war against terrorism, and will not engage with those who commit acts of terror against India," it said.
The controversy took place days after India, had voted in favour of a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for the United States to drop its recent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
With inputs from agencies
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.UofM Master's in Healthcare Administration Ranked No. 12
May 1, 2017 - The University of Memphis' Master in Healthcare Administration program has been ranked No. 12 by the online resource topmastersinhealthcare.com.
The UofM is ranked along with such prestigious programs as Columbia University, Johns Hopkins, George Mason, Seton Hall, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the University of Southern California.
The UofM is home to the only MHA program in Tennessee accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME). In addition to making U.S. News & World Report's Best Healthcare Management Degree rankings, the UofM has also appeared on Modern Healthcare's list of Top 20 MHA Programs.
"The University of Memphis School of Public Health is thrilled to see our MHA program held in such high esteem and recognized nationally for its excellence," said Dr. James Gurney, interim dean of SPH and Hardin Endowed Professor. "We have great instructors and an outstanding community-based internship component. Additionally, our MHA is among the three least expensive of the 30 programs ranked in Top Master's in Healthcare, so we offer a great value to our graduate students."
The program has a longstanding history in the field (it was first accredited in 1991) and requires 300 hours of internship experience – evidence that the UofM is dedicated to graduating career-ready, success-prone healthcare professionals.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Contact: Gabrielle Maxey
901.678.2135
gmaxey@memphis.eduThe CIA concluded that criminal, administrative or civil investigations stemming from harsh interrogation tactics were "virtually inevitable," leading the agency to seek legal support from the Justice Department, according to a CIA official's statement in court documents filed yesterday.
The CIA said it had identified more than 7,000 pages of classified memos, e-mails and other records relating to its secret prison and interrogation program, but maintained that the materials cannot be released because they relate to, in part, communications between CIA and Justice Department attorneys or discussions with the White House.
Nineteen of those documents were withheld from disclosure specifically because the Bush administration decided they are covered by a "presidential communications privilege," according to the filings, made in federal court in Manhattan. Some were "authored or solicited and received by the President's senior advisors in connection with a decision, or potential decision, to be made by the president."
Although the precise content of the documents is unknown, the agency's statements illustrate the extent to which senior White House officials were involved in decision-making on CIA detentions, interrogations, and renditions, a term for forced transfers of prisoners. These topics were the targets of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by liberal advocacy groups that compelled the CIA's disclosures.
The flow of documents, by itself, also suggests that the CIA's unorthodox interrogation program was the focus of behind-the-scenes debate at the highest levels of the Bush administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The documents indicate that lawyers at the CIA and elsewhere were aware that CIA personnel might be subject to criminal prosecution or other legal sanctions.
After the CIA's use of harsh interrogation tactics, including a form of simulated drowning, became known, the agency said they were authorized by a series of secret Justice Department legal opinions. President Bush has strongly defended the legality and efficacy of the program, and recently acknowledged that he approved of high-level White House meetings on precise interrogation practices.
The records submitted to the court list and briefly describe dozens of communications between the CIA and the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, or OLC. At least 10 were in 2004, five were in 2005, and seven were in 2006; virtually all were classified "top secret" or even more restricted.
"The CIA's purpose in requesting advice from OLC was the very likely prospect of criminal, civil, or administrative litigation against the CIA and CIA personnel who participate in the Program," said a declaration from Ralph S. DiMaio, information review officer for the CIA's clandestine service. He added that the CIA considered such proceedings "to be virtually inevitable."
Asked for comment, CIA spokesman George Little said, "Weighing relevant legal factors at the start of any new program is not only logical but is the responsible thing to do. Unfortunately, the fact that people and organizations follow the law does not prevent them from becoming the subject of litigation later on."
But Curt Goering, senior deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA, which is involved in the lawsuit, said the flow of documents shows that the Bush administration "didn't go into this system blind and they didn't build this system blind," adding: "It appears to be a calculated and calibrated effort to justify the unjustifiable."
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.The 2000 Rose Bowl was a college football bowl game played on January 1, 2000. It was the 86th Rose Bowl game and was played on January 1, 2000 at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California. The game featured the Wisconsin Badgers defeating the Stanford Cardinal by a score of 17–9. Ron Dayne, the Wisconsin running back, was named the Rose Bowl Player of the Game for the second consecutive year.[1]
Pre-game activities [ edit ]
On October 26, 1999, the Pasadena Tournament of Roses selected Sophia Bush, a senior at Westridge School and a resident of Pasadena, to become the 82nd Rose Queen to reign over the 111th Rose Parade and the 86th Rose Bowl Game on the first New Year's Day of the 21st century.
The game was presided over by the 2000 Tournament |
ダンジョン「ハイデル地下霊廊」を最奥まで攻略して帰るコース。
初期のＢＯ稼ぎとしても活用できるため、お世話になった覚者は多い。
オススメ属性：炎
レベル20～ ミスリウ森林「リンウッド地下水路」ＢＯ稼ぎ
リンウッド地下水路にはレベル１８－２０付近のモンスターが生息しており、ＢＯを持つ敵も出現する。
入口付近のクエスト「暗がりに消ゆ」を受注しておくとついでにクリアすることが可能。
「鱗持つ戦士達」もこなすとＡＰ＆経験値を少し稼げる。※夜限定
オススメ属性：氷
レベル23～ ブリア海岸「ハーピーの群を討て＆船は良き友」
＜船は良き友＞か＜ハーピーの群を討て！＞を周回します。
毎週レベルが変わるので、レベルが高い方をこなしましょう。
※どちらも低い週もあります。
どちらにもハーピーがいるので、攻撃が届かない職は非推奨です。
オススメ属性：雷
レベル28～ ブリア海岸「潮騒洞窟」ＢＯ稼ぎ
少し遠いが、経験値稼ぎ・ＢＯ稼ぎ・ＡＰ稼ぎ全てこなせる、隙のない狩場。
マッドマンやラージリザードが厄介なので、属性は氷がオススメ。
もし最奥のLv.33リンドブルムを狩る場合は、属性を炎にしよう。
オススメ属性：氷
レベル31～ ハイデル平原「ハイデル地下霊廟最深部」BO稼ぎ
低レベルでお世話になった「ハイデル地下霊廟」の続き。
レベル28-31の敵が出現する。深部と最深部の２つダンジョンがあるので、ＢＯを稼ぎながら長く楽しめる。
最後はワイトがいるので、攻撃が届く職ならサクッと狩って帰ろう。
オススメ属性：炎
レベル31～ ミスリウ森林「ミスリウ鍾乳洞」BO稼ぎ
ゴブリンが多いので狩りやすい。それと同じくらいマッドマンもいるので遅延には注意。
ＢＯの敵がいるが、少し遠いわりにダンジョンが短い。
オススメ属性：氷
レベル32～ ダウ渓谷「風鳴り洞窟」BO稼ぎ
比較的近いので＜霧に紛れた影＞だけクリアするAP稼ぎにもよく使われる。
ＡＰやＢＯも同時に稼げるが、スノーハーピーが多め。
対処できる職であれば、ダンジョン自体は短いが奥まで攻略しよう。
オススメ属性：雷
レベル45～ ザンドラ東部「屈強なる戦鬼達」lv46
キャプテンオーク等、オークの集団が出現するクエスト。
数が多いので、カウンター系のスキルを使うと戦いやすい。
1周数分で3700expを獲得できるが、敵の動きによっては一方的にボコられることもしばしば。
オススメ属性：雷
レベル45～ バートランド平原北部「戦鬼の影穴」BO稼ぎ
ドラワンからリム転移すると近い、Ver1.1最高のBO稼ぎ場所。
出現モンスターはオーク系の中型が多いので、反撃を喰らいやすい。
装備を整えてから挑もう。最奥のボスはlv45の脚装備を落とすことがある。
オススメ属性：雷
レベル49～ ザンドラ禁域「メルゴダ大水網」BO稼ぎ
Ver1.2最高のＢＯ稼ぎ場所。
難易度が高いが、経験値やお金も美味しいので練習してみよう。
リビングアーマー等の中型モンスターは2体同時の場合かなり厳しいが、このレベルになると場数も踏んで知識もあるはず。
特攻アビや態勢崩し等で、立ち回りを工夫して相手をしてみよう。
オススメ属性：聖Chick-Fil-A appears to be on the quite the expansion spree. According to The Courier-Journal, the Georgia-based chicken chain is in the midst of opening 88 new stores this year, bringing its nationwide total to 2,000 restaurants. Eater Vegas reports that Chick-fil-A plans to open eight to 10 restaurants in Las Vegas by 2020. The chain will also increase the number of restaurants it has in Louisville, Kentucky from three to five this summer. The Dayton Daily News writes that Ohio may get a few new Chick-Fil-A restaurants, too
Chick-fil-A has its eyes set on urban expansion as well. In March, the chain revealed it will open its first New York City location (not located within a NYU dining hall) in 2015. The company also has plans in the works to open in other major cities. USA Today writes that Chick-fil-A aims to "quickly expand" its presence in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles; the chain already has restaurants in both cities.
While Chick-fil-A started off as a regional restaurant, it has grown into a national name brand. In 2013, it managed to overtake competitor KFC as the chicken restaurant with the highest market share. However, KFC has a strong international presence while Chick-fil-A only has stores in the United States. Eater has reached out to Chick-fil-A for more information.Relaxnews
Before you spend a fortune on brand-new playground equipment, consider this: researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia found kids benefit more from simple, cheap items such as buckets and crates than they do traditional playground equipment.
The two-year study analyzed the play differences of elementary school children who used different playgrounds, finding that everyday items boost creativity and help children remain active while at recess.
Results were published in the international journal BMC Public Health.
The study looked at 120 students ages 5 through 12 from the newly constructed Emmaus Catholic Primary School in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Buckets, pipes, exercise mats, hay bales and swimming pool noodles were added to the school's playground, and researchers tracked the children's behavior.
The results were compared to a group of about 150 children from another area school whose playground featured traditional equipment such as slides and monkey bars.
Researchers found introducing children to "simple, everyday objects" on the playground at lunchtime or during recess not only improved creativity, it also boasted social and problem-solving skills and "cut sedentary behavior by half." The traditional playground, in comparison, was found to stifle active play that used imagination. Students who played with the everyday objects took 13 more steps per minute and played "more intensively and vigorously" than the children on the traditional playground.
"Conventional playgrounds are designed by adults -- they don't actually take into consideration how the children want to play," said lead researcher Dr. Brendon Hyndman of the School of Medical Sciences.
"These results could be applied to anywhere that children play and shift the debate on the best way to keep our children healthy," Hyndman added.Americans would rather read about the latest transgressions by Miley Cyrus than the latest horrors in Syria. Are we surprised?
Miley Cyrus arriving at the MTV Video Music Awards on Aug. 25. (Photo11: Kevin Mazur WireImage for MTV) Story Highlights What does this say about American culture and media
Is a twerking twentysomething more interesting than bombing Syria?
You probably already sensed that media coverage of Miley Cyrus' shenanigans would be more popular with Americans than stories about mass murder in Syria and the possible U.S. intervention there.
But someone has actually calculated exactly how much more popular Miley is than Syria: 12 times more popular. It's another one of those signs that suggests...well, something about the state of our culture.
A new survey by Outbrain, a leading "content discovery platform" on the Web, tracked traffic data from its network of 100,000 publishers and major news organizations and found that Americans viewed 12 times as many pages about Miley-the-twerker as they did about Syria-the-damned. New York magazine's popular fashion blog, The Cut, summed it up.
This disparity is in spite of the fact that hundreds of Syrians, including more than 400 kids, were recently gassed to death, apparently by their own government, and despite the fact that more than twice as many news stories about Syria have been published for every one about Miley in recent days.
The interesting bit about the data is that this disparity was the greatest in the USA, where President Obama is now in an uphill battle to persuade Congress and the American public to back his plan to bomb Syria and its stores of chemical weapons.
Miley interest, white-hot since her salacious twerk-fest on the Video Music Awards last month, significantly outpaces Syria interest in other countries, too, such as Australia, Britain, France and Germany.
In fact, Miley trumps Syria in every other country in the Outbrain network except Syria-supporter Russia, where interest was about even, and Israel, where next-door-neighbor Syria commands more attention for obvious reasons.
With Obama due to address the nation on Tuesday, Syria isn't leaving the headlines soon. But Miley continues to get coverage today, too. She appears nude in her latest video, and reports surfaced that her dirty-dancing habits may have caused Vogue to cancel her as a cover girl for the December issue.
Win some, lose some, but at least everyone is still talking about her.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1fRYMfnDon Coorough was born on a misty Halloween morning at 2:13 am in 1952, making him a Halloween Scorpio born in the year of the Dragon. He graduated from Montclair College Preparatory School in 1970 Cum Laude and co-Valedictorian.
He attended USC, and in the spring of 1972 co-led a sit-in at the USC ROTC building during Vietnam antiwar demonstrations and was a principle speaker at rallies.
Don played in bands during the 70s, 80s and 90s, and wrote many songs, including "They Died Young" which was recorded by the band The Tooners on their CD, "Rocktasia."
He worked for Murakami Wolf Films on the first Puff the Magic Dragon TV special and the feature film "The Extraordinary Adventures of the Mouse and His Child," as well as many high profile animnated TV commercials. Don later worked for Steven Lisberger on the TV special, "Animalympics," for Spungbuggy Works on many animated TV commercials and the mattes used to create the opening titles for the first season of the "Magnum, P.I." television show, for Kinney Vallas Animation on the animated TV special "Stanley the Ugly Duckling," and for Baer Animation on the TV special "Annabelle's Wish," the educational CD-rom "Connie and Bonnie's Birthday Blast Off," the "Rodeo" animation for the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas, the animated map sequences for the 1997 Discovery Channel production of "Eco-Challenge," and many more animated TV commercials.
Don also worked as the Music Coordinator for the 1983 live action, direct to video release of "Battling Beauties."
Don transitioned into a paralegal career and his legal writing was submitted to courts including the Arizona State Court of Appeals and The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Don began his writing career with freelance articles for the magazine, Log Home Design Ideas in 1998. He has had in excess of 25 of his poems as well as several essays and articles published by online literary journals and webzines (however, some of the sites no longer exist).
Today, Don Coorough focuses his efforts on his writing career. The complete collection of his poetry, "Love-ism Volume I: A Critical Mass and Other Poems," was published in January of 2013. His first book of essays, "Love-ism Volume II, Book 1: Essays on a Philosophy of Compassionate, Common-Sensed Evolution," was published in April of 2013. His second book of essays, "Love-ism Volume II, Book 2: Essays on a Philosophy of Compassionate, Common-Sensed Evolution," was published in June of 2013. His first novel, "Love-ism Volume III: Sitting in an English Garden - a novel," was published in August of 2013. Don has also written a screenplay adaptation of his novel which is currently being marketed to producers.PORTLAND, Maine — For the second time in recent months, police at the University of Southern Maine’s Portland campus are investigating anti-Muslim graffiti.
The phrase “Kill the Muslin” [sic] was found on Tuesday night written on a poster instructing people on what to do in the case of an active shooter, said USM spokesman Robert Stein. The phrase was written around an image of someone hitting a gunman with a chair beneath the header “Fight,” Stein said.
The implication of the graffiti appeared to be that a shooter would be Muslim, Stein said.
In an email to the university community USM President Glenn Cummings called the statement “disgraceful” and expressed regret that the school has not been able to prevent multiple anti-Muslim incidents over the past year.
“I am personally sickened by this and apologize to our many Muslim students whose presence on our campus and contributions to our university I could not value more,” said Cummings. “While we can not control the behavior of every single person who finds their way onto our campus, I can assure you our approach is that even one incident is too many and will not be tolerated.”
Last November, campus police investigated graffiti found in a student government office as a possible hate crime. In that incident “Deus vult” was written twice in the Woodbury Campus Center.
The Latin phrase translates to “God wills it” and was supposedly used as a rallying cry during the First Crusade. More recently it has been taken up as an insult against Muslims by the alt-right.
Hamdia Ahmed, a USM student and activist in the Muslim and immigrant communities, wrote on Facebook that the incident is “a hate crime.”
“I am completely disgusted by this!” Ahmed wrote.
Watch bangordailynews.com for updates.John Boehner: Republicans are 'never' going to repeal Obamacare
CLOSE Protesters shouted 'Kill the bill!' as the Senate prepared to vote on whether to debate the health care bill.
WASHINGTON — In case Senate Republicans weren’t already having enough trouble rounding up votes to repeal and replace Obamacare, here comes ex-House speaker John Boehner with a prediction that the GOP will “never” succeed in their quest to kill the law.
“Now, they’re never — they’re not going to repeal and replace Obamacare,” Boehner said at a private speech in Las Vegas, according to The Washington Post, which obtained video of the Republican’s remarks.
“It’s been around too long,” Boehner reportedly told the audience. “And the American people have gotten accustomed to it. Governors have gotten accustomed to this Medicaid expansion, and so trying to pull it back is really not going to work.”
Just last week, Boehner’s spokesman declined an interview request from The Cincinnati Enquirer, saying he didn’t want to wade into the fraught debate vexing his former congressional allies.
“He has no plans for interviews or public comment of any sort presently on this subject, out of deference to his former colleagues,” his spokesman, Dave Schnittger, said in an email. “We hope you understand.”
But while Boehner has been turning away media requests, he’s been eagerly accepting paid gigs where he candidly dishes on everything from President Trump's tenure to the the outlook for major legislation on Capitol Hill.
The Post reported that Boehner made his remarks on July 21 at a trade show hosted by Good Neighbor Pharmacy, a group of independent pharmacies — backed at least in part by a large pharmaceutical distribution company — that would have keen interest in the fate of the health care law.
Read more:
In his remarks, Boehner predicted that GOP lawmakers might be able to nix certain provisions of Obamacare, but not the entire law — despite the GOP's oft-repeated promise over the last seven years to wipe the Affordable Care Act off the books.
“When it’s all said and done, you’re not going to have an employer mandate anymore, you’re not going to have the individual mandate,” Boehner said, according to the Post’s account. Those are two unpopular provisions of the ACA.
“The Medicaid expansion will be there," Boehner said. "The governors will have more control over their Medicaid populations and how to get them care, and a lot of Obamacare taxes will probably go.”
Boehner’s comments couldn’t come at a more difficult moment for his party. The Senate is expected to take up a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare on Tuesday, but it’s not clear whether they have enough votes to pass anything — or even to begin debate.
Boehner has made similar remarks in the past — saying, for example, that the GOP’s pledge to pass tax reform was “happy talk.”
In his remarks to the Las Vegas crowd, he conceded that his successor as House speaker, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., wasn’t thrilled with such remarks.
The last time he made waves in a paid speech, Ryan texted Boehner a two-word reaction: “Gee, thanks,” Ryan said in that missive, according to Boehner.
Read more:
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2vXqSoNMeasurements: Height- 6'1", Weight- 210 lbs.
Projected Round: 7
Why he would be a good Redskin:
The Redskins have a lot of names at safety (Meriweather, Jackson, Doughty, Bernstine, and Gomes) but there is not a single one on the roster that is a guaranteed lock to make the final 53-man roster. So, it is more than likely that the Redskins come out of draft weekend with 2 rookie safeties. Rashard Hall would be worth a look as their second safety taken and you could find him in the later rounds. Hall is a smart, instinctive, in-the-box safety who can decipher plays and react to fill gaps and lay the lumber on ball-carriers. He's a four-year senior who finished his career at Clemson with 302 tackles and 17 takeaways (good for 3rd in school history). Hall graduated in just over three years, being named a three-time member of the ACC Academic Honor Roll. Scouts also suggest that he is a vocal leader who consistently makes sure everyone in front of him is in the right spots. You can tell he's got that big voice from his ACC Championship post-game press conference.
Why he won't be drafted by the Redskins:
His interception total is impressive but it's misleading. He is not a cover free safety by any means. He lacks the recovery speed and fluid hips you'd like to see from your last line of defense. From his film, it looks like he will benefit from being plugged into a role that keeps him in the box where he can hit receivers coming down the middle or stuff running backs squeezing through gaps. However, he does have a tendency to miss tackles because of highly questionable angles he takes on runs bounced outside. Especially with the passing game woes that plagued Washington's defense a year ago, having this type of safety could seem luxurious and unnecessary. Also, with such a great need for secondary help, the Redskins could elect to take their two safeties much earlier (ie. 3rd and 4th round) in order to get better value.
Bottom Line:
Rashard Hall, like Jordan Bernstine from a year ago, would make the final 53 as 1). Special Teams support. 2). Safety depth. Hall has experience on kick return coverage and would be a willing student for Keith Burns to coach up. He would have an immediate impact on that phase of the game which could use some solidifying with the loss of Lorenzo Alexander and potential release of Doughty or Gomes. Also, under the tutelage of Raheem Morris, he could develop into a solid strong safety in a few years. Plus, DeAngelo Hall will finally get 'D. Hall' on his jersey and if the two are ever on the same side the sub-par trash talk practically writes itself. "Don't throw the ball down the Hallway!" or "You're not Owen Wilson...you don't get a Hall Pass!"Prop Betting Tales: Vanessa Selbst v. Jason Mercier Wager Turns Sour
We haven’t really checked in with a post featuring some of the unusual high and low points from the 2016 World Series of Poker, and we’ll get to a summary-style recap of some WSOP happenings soon, as the current very busy news cycle allows. Today, though, we’ll delve into WSOP-related happenings, more specifically the land of high-stakes poker players and bracelet-related prop bets, featuring a now-public fallout brewing between Vanessa Selbst and Jason Mercier, over a bracelet bet between the two.
It’s an unusual bet at that, with Mercier getting 180:1 odds from Selbst on his winning three or more bracelets at the WSOP this summer. Mercier put up $10,000, and stands to collect $1.8 million should he win three events.
The bet was made some time ago, and it wasn’t the only such long-odds wager Selbst booked. Also publicly known is a 200:1 wager she made with Dmitry Urbanovich, again for a $10,000 base. Whether additional three-bracelet wagers have been accepted by Selbst isn’t known.
The catalyst in the story is Mercier’s great start so far. He’s already binked Event #16, the Deuce-to-Seven (single) Draw $10,000 Championship, and as play resumes today in Event #20, the Razz $10,000 Championship, he leads the final eight players and is the odds-on favorite to win his second bracelet of the series.
Enter Selbst, who’s publicly stated that she was intoxicated when she made the wagers with both Urbanovich and Mercier — noting also that the wagers were made and accepted on separate nights — and who undertook at least the start of a social-media pressuring against Mercier in an effort to try to “shame” Mercier into allowing to her to buy out of the bet.
Mercier hasn’t accepted any of Selbst’s offers to date, and he isn’t likely to until the razz tourney ends tonight. If he wins it, he’d be unlikely to accept (in my opinion), any offer too short of a million, noting that Selbst’s most recent offer to buy out of the bet appears to have been $100,000.
The greater issue, though, is Selbst’s very public rendering of her sour grapes about the prop bet and Mercier’s failure to let Selbst buy out — owing to her apparent intoxicated state while making said wager. Normally, we wouldn’t waste a story on this sort of a tale, but when Selbst took her attempted public shaming of Mercier to social media, then it becomes fair game for public discussion.
Selbst posted the following last night via her Twitter account:
After the majority of public sentiment went against Selbst, who also claimed that she was “near blackout” drunk when wagering with Mercier, and that Mercier was far less drunk, Selbst decided that maybe taking it to Twitter wasn’t such a hot idea. Still, that came with a final shot at Mercier:
I’m done tweeting for a while. Was just sharing facts. If facts shame Jason that’s on him. Msg me if u want action after razz, win or lose. — Vanessa Selbst (@VanessaSelbst) June 15, 2016
Obviously, making bets while intoxicated that could put a significant portion of one’s net worth at risk is not a good idea, not that Selbst needs any more reminders of that. Yet it’s hard to understand how anyone can seriously be taking her side in this flare-up. First, both Selbst and Mercier are professional gamblers, and a case of “wagering while intoxicated” is rarely or never accepted in that fraternity as an excuse to nullify a bet. Most of these dumbassed prop bets are made with the assistance of and under the influence of alcohol anyway, and why this one should get special treatment — especially since Selbst had made the earlier one with Urbanovitch under similar conditions — is utterly unknown.
Mercier might not be acting like a true “friend,” however one defines that, but nowhere that I’m aware of in the professional gambler’s codebook is there a rule for mandatory outsies between friends.
One interesting sideline is seeing other people using the dispute between Selbst and Mercier to push separate agendas. One example: Ryan Laplante. While I enthusiastically support Ryan and was proud of his own bracelet acceptance speech on Sunday following the massacre in Orlando, when I read the following Tweet from him, buried in reactions to and discussion of Selbst’s Twitter outburst, my reaction was, “Huh… what??”. It was in a drying-the-line discussion regarding what constitutes “ethical” behavior by players:
@randyohel profiting from a site that steals equity from you is fine, publicly promoting and being paid to do so = ethically wrong. — Ryan Laplante (@Protentialmn) June 15, 2016
That’s what you call a derail of the first order, using the Selbst-Mercier situation to take a shot at the site that happens to sponsor both players, PokerStars, over that site’s discontinuation of earned Supernova and Supernova Elite benefits last year.
It’s irrelevant in that sense, but it’s worth bringing up here because it does raise another important point. Whatever one thinks of PokerStars, pro or con, both Selbst and Mercier have to be fortunate to be under contract with the company in this era of belt-tightening and declining player sponsorship. In that light, taking the matter public, as Selbst has done, isn’t the brightest move. And she can’t blame the alcohol this time.
It’s a safe bet that PokerStars officials are not at all pleased with this ruckus between two of their patched-up reps. As I’ve already noted myself, elsewhere, it’s just one of several big reasons why sites such as Stars often view the signing of athletes and celebrities as a more-expensive but safer and more-lucrative move than signing pro players. Celebs generally have handlers, agents and press people around them to keep them from straying too far and too frequently off the farm, as has happened with both Selbst and Mercier here. But what a site often gets with their signed pros is, too often, … this.
One hopes that all this gets settled in a congenial manner. Yet one never really knows.The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutras community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
Abstract
We go on analyzing open source projects and making the software world better. This time we have checked the Blender 2.62 package intended for creating 3D computer graphics.
Introduction
We regularly check various open source projects in C/C++ and make reports on check results. It allows the world of open source programs to become better and us to tell programmers about the PVS-Studio tool. Reports usually contain far not all the issues we find: since we are not familiar with projects, it might be difficult for us to tell if certain fragments are real errors or just intricate code. It's OK. We always give the authors of open source projects a free registration key for some time so that they could analyze their source code more thoroughly. If a project is small, the trial version of PVS-Studio will be quite enough to check it, since it provides the full functionality.
Readers often say in comments that checking open source projects is just advertisement of our tool. They also give Coverity as an example of a tool that supports open source projects much more intensively.
This comparison is not fair. Improving quality of open source products' codes has become a result of realizing the Vulnerability Discovery and Remediation Open Source Hardening Project campaign. Within the framework of this initiative, the Coverity company was granted $297,000 to support open source projects [1]. That's not too much, of course, but if we were sponsored at least a bit too, we could be more active analyzing open source projects.
About the Blender project
Blender is an open source package for creating 3D computer graphics which includes tools of designing, animation, rendering, video postprocessing and also tools of making interactive games. Starting with 2002, Blender is an open source project (GNU GPL) and develops under active support by Blender Foundation [2].
The Blender package is written in C, C++ and Python. We naturally checked parts in C and C++. The size of the source code together with additional libraries is 68 Mbytes (2105 KLOC).
In this project, by the way, I seem to have met a function with the highest cyclomatic complexity I've ever seen. This is the fast9_corner_score() function which can be found in the fast_9.c file. Its cyclomatic complexity is 1767. But the function is actually simple, so you won't see anything incredible here.
Analysis was performed by the PVS-Studio static analyzer version 4.60.
False positives
The programming style used in Blender causes the PVS-Studio analyzer to generate a lot of false positives among which real messages get lost. As a result, you cannot start working with Blender without preliminarily customizing the analyzer. It's not that bad, however, as it may seem at first. It will take you few efforts to greatly simplify your work when reading the report.
Let me clarify the above stated idea using numerical data. All in all, PVS-Studio generates 574 first-level warnings referring to general analysis diagnostic rules. Just glancing through the report helps you understand that most of the false positives refer to macros BLI_array_append, BLI_array_growone and other macros starting with "BLI_array_".
These macros are safe but they are used quite often. The analyzer generates warnings V514 and V547 for the places where they are used. To get rid of these warnings you can add a special comment in the BLI_array.h file that contains definitions of all these macros:
//-V:BLI_array_:514,547
This comment can be added anywhere in the text. After that you'll have to relaunch analysis but the result will be quite noticeable: about 280 false positives will be eliminated.
All in all, the amount of first-level messages will be cut from 574 to 294 after adding one single comment! This example shows very well that presence of a large number of false positives doesn't mean that the report is difficult to analyze. The most part of noise can be often removed through quite little effort.
To learn more about methods of suppressing false alarms, please read the corresponding documentation section about suppression of false alarms.
Defects and odd code fragments we've found
Error in a macro
The sample given above shows how one can significantly reduce the number of false positives suppressing warnings related to certain macros. But before suppressing a warning, make sure that there is no real error. I know it from my own experience that when some warning concerns a macro, you feel an urge not to investigate the reasons and ignore it right away. But don't hurry.
For example, consider the DEFAULT_STREAM macro that is used more than once in the Blender project. It is long, so we'll cite only part of it here:
#define DEFAULT_STREAM \ m[dC] = RAC(ccel,dC); \ \ if((!nbored & CFBnd)) { \ \....
PVS-Studio's warning: V564 The '&' operator is applied to bool type value. You've probably forgotten to include parentheses or intended to use the '&&' operator. bf_intern_elbeem solver_main.cpp 567
Parentheses are arranged in a wrong way here. As a result, it is "!nbored" which is calculated first, and only then the & operator is applied to a Boolean value. This is the correct code:
if(!(nbored & CFBnd)) { \
Error while using a macro
An error here occurs not because of the macro, but because of a misprint when using it:
#define MAX2(x,y) ( (x)>(y)? (x) : (y) ) static Scene *preview_prepare_scene(....) {... int actcol = MAX2(base->object->actcol > 0, 1) - 1;... }
PVS-Studio's warning: V562 It's odd to compare 0 or 1 with a value of 1: (base->object->actcol > 0) > (1). bf_editor_render render_preview.c 361
If you expand the macro, this is what you'll get:
int actcol = ( ( (base->object->actcol > 0) > (1) )? (base->object->actcol > 0) : (1) ) - 1;
The "base->object->actcol > 0" expression always gives 0 or 1. The "[0..1] > 1" condition is always false. It means that the statement can be simplified to:
int actcol = 0;
This is obviously not what the programmer intended. The fragment "> 0" must have been taken along by accident when copying the "base->object->actcol" fragment.
This is the correct code:
int actcol = MAX2(base->object->actcol, 1) - 1;
Null pointer dereferencing
static int render_new_particle_system(...) { ParticleSettings *part, *tpart=0;... // tpart don't used... psys_particle_on_emitter(psmd,tpart->from, tpa->num,pa->num_dmcache,tpa->fuv, tpa->foffset,co,nor,0,0,sd.orco,0);... }
PVS-Studio's warning: V522 Dereferencing of the null pointer 'tpart' might take place. bf_render convertblender.c 1788
The 'tpart' pointer in the render_new_particle_system() function is initialized by zero and never changed until the moment of dereferencing. The function is quite complex and contains variables with similar names. This is most likely a misprint and a different pointer should be used.
Identical functions
The analyzer has found a lot of functions with identical bodies. I didn't investigate these messages too closely but I seemed to have found at least one error. Perhaps if Blender's authors use PVS-Studio, they can find other similar fragments.
float uiLayoutGetScaleX(uiLayout *layout) { return layout->scale[0]; } float uiLayoutGetScaleY(uiLayout *layout) { return layout->scale[0]; }
PVS-Studio's warning: V524 It is odd that the body of 'uiLayoutGetScaleY' function is fully equivalent to the body of 'uiLayoutGetScaleX' function (interface_layout.c, line 2410). bf_editor_interface interface_layout.c 2415
Intuition tells me that the uiLayoutGetScaleY() function should return the second item of the'scale' array:
float uiLayoutGetScaleY(uiLayout *layout) { return layout->scale[1]; }
Misprint in a homogeneous code block
void tcd_malloc_decode(....) {... x0 = j == 0? tilec->x0 : int_min(x0, (unsigned int) tilec->x0); y0 = j == 0? tilec->y0 : int_min(y0, (unsigned int) tilec->x0); x1 = j == 0? tilec->x1 : int_max(x1, (unsigned int) tilec->x1); y1 = j == 0? tilec->y1 : int_max(y1, (unsigned int) tilec->y1);... }
PVS-Studio's warning: V537 Consider reviewing the correctness of 'x0' item's usage. extern_openjpeg tcd.c 650
If you look attentively, you can notice an error occurring when assigning a new value to the 'y0' variable. At the very end of the line, a member of the 'tilec->x0' class is used instead of 'tilec->y0'.
This code was most likely created through the Copy-Paste technology and the programmer forgot to change the name of one variable during editing. This is the correct code:
y0 = j == 0? tilec->y0 : int_min(y0, (unsigned int) tilec->y0);
Unspecified behavior
#define cpack(x) \ glColor3ub( ((x)&0xFF), (((x)>>8)&0xFF), (((x)>>16)&0xFF) ) static void star_stuff_init_func(void) { cpack(-1); glPointSize(1.0); glBegin(GL_POINTS); }
PVS-Studio's warning: V610 Unspecified behavior. Check the shift operator '>>. The left operand '(- 1)' is negative. bf_editor_space_view3d view3d_draw.c 101
According to the C++ language standard, right shift of a negative value leads to unspecified behavior. In practice this method is often used but you shouldn't do that: it cannot be guaranteed that the code will always work as intended. This issue was discussed in the article "Wade not in unknown waters. Part three".
I suggest rewriting this code in the following way:
cpack(UINT_MAX);
Similar dangerous fragments can be found in other functions:Vegan cuisine is very innovative. Sure, some people might say that if you try to recreate a vegan version of every animal product based food there is, that is not innovative. But it is, because so many people come up with the most mind blowing techniques or very unexpected ingredients to create these “fake” foods. And we must admit that they are often so much more amazing |
IP press release. “In doing so, they robbed the state’s citizens of both their democracy, and air that’s safe to breathe.”HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. (CBS4) – Investigators have identified the driver of a Maserati killed in a crash in Douglas County.
Brandon Gionapoulos, 24, died when the blue Maserati he was driving landed in a ditch near C-470 and Lucent Boulevard. The mangled car was spotted by a passerby around 10 a.m. Saturday, but it’s not yet clear when the crash occurred.
Gionapoulos was a sales employee for the Mike Ward Maserati and Infiniti dealership and part of his job gave him access to the high-performance vehicles, authorities told CBS4. The dealership is located just about a mile from where the crash happened.
“Brandon was a wonderful young man who will be deeply missed by his family and by his coworkers at Mike Ward Automotive,” Mike Ward said in a statement to CBS4. “It is impossible for us to understand why these things happen and we are all extremely saddened by this tragedy.”
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said “reckless speeds” were a contributing factor in the crash.
Hours before, around 7:25 p.m. Friday, Gionapoulos posted a Facebook Live video showing the dashboard of a Maserati. The short video shows the vehicle going from zero to 111 miles per hour in just about 20 seconds, and then ends.
It has not been confirmed if the video is connected to the crash that claimed Gionapoulos’ life, but friends hope it serves as a warning to other drivers.
“Had a coworker lose control of this vehicle at the end of this video last night and has passed away. Please be careful when you drive!” a friend wrote on Facebook.
Authorities confirmed no other cars or people were involved in the crash and Gionapoulos was the only occupant of the car when it went off the road. An investigation is ongoing.
Kelly Werthmann joined the CBS4 team in 2012 as the morning reporter, covering national stories like the Aurora Theater Shooting and devastating Colorado wildfires. She now anchors CBS4 Weekend Morning News and reports during the week. Connect with her on Facebook or Twitter @KellyCBS4.
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A Liverpool supermarket is “secretly“ selling copies of the S*n newspaper to customers “under the counter“.
The Sainsbury’s superstore on Rice Lane, Walton, does not display the newspaper but upon being asked for it staff will discretely take copies out from underneath their convenience counter and sell it to customers.
The store is just two miles away from Anfield and the Hillsborough memorial.
ECHO readers expressed their upset at the practice as the store are profiting from the sales but are presenting the view that they support the campaign to rid Merseyside of the paper.
(Image: PA)
Sainsbury’s confirmed the store sold the S*n - and that it was up to individual customers to choose whether to buy it or not.
The newspaper has been vehemently boycotted throughout Merseyside and beyond ever since it printed repugnant and untruthful allegations about the behaviour of Liverpool supporters during the 1989 disaster in which 96 people were unlawfully killed.
One reader, who did not want to be named, said: “I’ve shopped in Sainsbury’s Rice Lane for years and always been proud to see that The S*n was not on sale there.
“I was recently told that Sainsbury’s do sell it but under the counter.
“For me, it’s not so much that they sell it – it is after all a free country and they aren’t doing wrong as such – it’s the duplicity of pretending not to, then blatently selling it anyway in an underhand manner that angers me.”
Another reader claims that they witnessed a woman with a full trolley load of shopping ask for the S*n newspaper and when they brought her a copy she said: “Right that’s that then I’m never shopping here again - you can keep your shopping,” before walking out.
In order to prove the claims an ECHO reporter went into the store and asked for a copy of the newspaper.
A staff member took a copy out from under the counter and handed it over.
A spokesperson for Total Eclipse of the S*n campaign said: “It’s unfortunate that this is happening and people will be upset about it, especially because so many big supermarket chains have comitted to the boycott.
“I would urge shoppers to continue to use stores they are confident aren’t making money from the sale of the newspaper.”
A spokesperson for Sainsbury’s said: “We fully appreciate the strength of feeling and emotion felt on this issue.
“We entirely respect the rights of customers who choose not to buy The Sun based on their principles and beliefs.
“However, we must equally respect the choices of those customers who do wish to buy the newspaper.”Obamacare: Jonathan Gruber was warning of premium hikes while Barack Obama was promising savings
It has recently been reported that the most popular Obamacare plans are going to see a rise in their premiums an average of 10%. We all remember Barack Obama running across the nation promising anybody who would listen that his healthcare plan would save the average American family about $2,500. So what happened?
Apparently nothing that was not expected, at least if you are Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber, because according to this story he released a report for the state of Wisconsin in 2010 which predicted massive healthcare premium increases.
Here is more:
Mr. Gruber’s study predicted about 90 percent of individuals without employer-sponsored or public insurance would see their premiums spike by an average of 41 percent. Once tax subsidies were factored in, about 60 percent of those in the individual market were projected to see their premiums go up 31 percent, according to his analysis. In addition, 53 percent of those insured by companies with fewer than 50 employees, would see their premiums rise by an average of 15 percent even after subsidies, Mr. Gruber forecasted. The report warned such increases could impact small companies’ decision whether to provide health insurance to their workers.
You can clearly see that he predicted skyrocketing premiums even after the subsidies were factored into the equation. It is true that this report was for one state but does anyone really believe the results would be different if the study was conducted in any or all of the other states?
Yet at the same time Barack Obama was telling everybody that his plan would save people money. Just another deception and a known untruth at the time of its utterance. Kind of like this one: if you like your plan you can keep your plan…
AdvertisementsI am in my fourth month of making a living in the Arts. February was largely consumed by the release of my new short film The Spaceman and a few graphic design jobs. I also set up animation and video production work for March. Here is an update of the things I’ve learned and accomplished since my last post. The purpose of this blog is to keep myself motivated and on track and to provide knowledge for those looking to make a similar decision.
Always Have A Passion Project Going
Even if you don’t have a project that is paying you it is important to keep yourself busy and to always learn new skills. For the past two years I was creating my short film The Spaceman. I wish I could have dedicated every waking hour to it but I had to pay the bills. What was important was that I worked on it every day even if only for an hour.
In February I gave two interviews in local papers, a radio interview on KCHO’s Weekend Showcase, and my first ever Podcast interview. I then set up a 2-Day premiere at our local theatre where I showed both of my films, had puppets and miniatures from the movie on display, gave a Q&A with people involved in the movie, and even sold some DVDs and Posters.
Getting these interviews and setting up the premiere didn’t happen overnight. All of this was slowly being planned over the last year. Every time I had an idea for how I’d like this project to end, I would write it down on a task list and revisit it to make sure I stayed focused. I set the premiere up before I was finished with the movie to give myself a deadline.
Finally seeing people’s reactions and talking to them about their experience with the movie was so fun. Putting yourself out there to the world can be painful sometimes but it’s worth it when you reach an audience. There were a lot of kids at my movie and hearing them say “awesome” during the movie meant I accomplished what I wanted to.
Always Do Your Best
There are always going to be projects that you aren’t thrilled about. They might seem boring or a waste of your time. I’m finding that it is my responsibility to always do my best in these situations. All of these years of working on projects I wasn’t vested in, have allowed me to become better visually and in turn allowed me to apply everything I’ve learned into my own projects.
By always doing your best you will be more satisfied (even if you fail), you will create a good reputation, and get return clients. Some days your best might be better than other days. For example if you’re sick, or there was a tragedy in your life, you couldn’t possibly do as well as other days when everything was great…but you need to try.
Learn How To Be Present And How To Daydream
I’ve been reading a lot lately about how to always be present. What this means is to not walk around asleep. To notice the world around you and be aware of where you are and how you are feeling. If you want to be an artist or designer this is crucial. By being present you will notice how the colors look on the trees, or how the shadows react at different times of the day. You can learn an enormous amount by being present.
but…
You’ve got to let yourself daydream. Some of my best ideas come from walking around not noticing the world or spacing out on the couch after a long day. Let your mind wander but understand how to bring it back and focus.
That was my February. If any of you have feedback on daydreaming, being present, or anything else you feel is relevant, please leave them in the comments below.
PART 1
PART2
PART3Ever since European haphazard “discovery” of the Americas, violence has been an integral part in the construction of identity in colonial lands. Indigenous and African peoples enslaved, murdered and abused for the greed of nations still profiting since colonization ad nauseum. This same abject subjugation thrives among Afrodescendants to discriminate against one another.
On September 23, the Constitutional Court in the Dominican Republic issued a ruling that targeted and retroactively revoked the Dominican nationality of descendants of Haitians born in the Dominican Republic since 1929, rendering them stateless. Some never have stepped foot in Haiti and may not even speak the language. The Dominican Constitution recognizes, in principle, that ‘all persons born in the territory of the Dominican Republic’ are Dominican citizens but the September ruling denies this birthright on the grounds that children of undocumented Haitians are ‘in transit,’ which normally applies only to tourists or visiting diplomats, those remaining in the country for 10 days or less. How does this apply to generations of Dominicans of Haitian-descent?
Those in power constructed this powder keg environment but will never be affected by its explosion. It is the people simply trying their best to live and survive whom suffer the most and unfortunately this scapegoating, xenophopia and anti-haitianism isn’t new. It’s been ingrained from even before Trujillo-era politics and massacre, to the most recent decades and codified in policy. No documents and proof of citizenship, means no hope to millions of Haitians and Dominico-Haitians. The 2004 Migration Law 285-04 revoked birthright (jus soli) for Dominicans of Haitian decent, 2007’s Circular 017, prohibited civil registry officers from giving anyone with “suspect” documents copies of their birth certificate, 2008’s Resolucion 12-2007 restricted access to personal identity documents and authorized civil registry officials to suspend state identification documents if they are “irregular,” 2010’s New Constitution of the Republic denied citizenship to children of nonresidents and 2013’s ruling has already brought the death of one Haitian man and the expulsion of over 200 Haitians after they turned to the police for protection for fear of targeted violence. They tragically ran straight to the aggressors.
This small island’s entangled geographies and histories of conquest, submission and ill feelings throughout French and Spanish occupation, Haitian occupation in the Dominican Republic and now immigration is salient and provides the backdrop to where it stands today. Neighbors, but not family. And that’s what identity is, what you are in relation to another or “other.” In the constructed Dominican popular imagination and nationality, they are not, what Haitians are, African.
Not only is this belief converse to facts, it ensures that Haitian migrants crossing the border seeking opportunities, can only access backbreaking manual labor, are relegated to abysmal housing and areas without basic services, while living under the constant threat of violence, deportation (and exploited bribes to avoid said deportation) for these perceived “differences.” Grave human rights violations through this marginalization, cruel treatment, sudden and arbitrary deportations, sexual assault and abuse. Gross hypocrisy from all angles especially economically.
As the government promotes deportation, they and private companies recruit and rely heavily on the cheap labor, barely enough for workers to eke out a living, to cut their sugar cane, build their projects, work their fields and serve their tourists. And this is where the international community can act, speak out and stand in solidarity. Refuse to spend your money in the Dominican Republic, attend programs programs and rallies to bring attention to this issue and spread the word. :
Ryan Hamilton, community organizer and student at the CUNY Graduate Center says they “are bringing students and scholars together in the effort to dispel some of the media myths currently promoted by the Dominican government,” for Thursday’s program (Un)Making a Dominican: Contextualizing the Ruling that Denationalizes Dominicans of Haitian Descent. He continues, “Elected officials and Dominicans in New York City need to have all the facts about the way this decision is undergirded by racism and human rights violations. Students have a right to know the truth and these scholars and activists, who have spent decades denouncing racism and human rights violations that lie at the heart of this decision.” The Dominican message is clear, Haitians are needed but not wanted. But the international community begs to differ and money talks. With profit margin playing a larger role and precedence over human life, we can send our message to those benefitting from the bottom line. No more.
Have you heard of the term Anti-haitianismo? Are you aware of the ongoing atrocity occurring in the Dominican Republic?
PLEASE WATCHA 38 North exclusive with analysis by Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., Michael Elleman and Curtis Melvin.
A recent article discussed the potential production of unsymmetrical di-methyl-hydrazine (UDMH) in North Korea. UDMH is an important liquid rocket engine fuel and is critical to North Korea’s long-range missile programs as it is used by the Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) and Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) systems, and will likely also be used by future IRBMs and ICBMs. The article identified several research papers published by North Korean researchers related to this capability including one suggesting that production may be taking place at the February 8 Vinalon Complex in Hungnam.[1] This assessment is supported by the fact that this complex contains production lines for both chlorine and ammonia, chemicals used in the production of hydrazine, the presence of waste water ponds, and recent construction activities within the complex.
We believe that this article represents a reasonable starting point for the discussion of potential UDMH production in North Korea. That said, we would like to suggest additional locations that are likely involved in this activity—most notably, the July 27 Factory (a.k.a., Aoji-ri Chemical Complex)—and provide some additional thoughts and information to further the discussion, with the goal of developing a more granular picture of North Korea’s UDMH production capability. While most analysts agree that North Korea possesses the scientific and industrial capability to produce UDMH, no firm open source evidence has been found confirming this notion. However, the failure to domestically produce the fuel would represent an extremely vulnerable single-point-of-failure that the North understands well and has most likely addressed, given known historical practices within its arms production industry. We look forward to further discussion on this subject.
Timeline to UDMH
North Korea’s first access to UDMH technology likely occurred around 1992 with its drive to acquire technology and engineers from the Russian Isayev and Makayev Design Bureaus.[2] The first industrial-scale (but probably intermittent) demand for UDMH likely occurred around 2004-2007 during the development and initial deployment of the Hwasong-10 (Musudan) IRBM and when a small number of these systems (known locally as the BM-25) were transferred to Iran.[3] Resumed and ongoing demand for UDMH likely began during 2014-2015 (the same time period as the papers produced by the North Korean researchers) with the run-up to Musudan testing. Demand has, undoubtedly, increased with the development and testing of the Hwasong-12 IRBM[4] and Hwasong-14 ICBM.[5] These requirements for UDMH were likely initially satisfied by acquisition of limited quantities from abroad. Increasing demands during the past 10 years, however, have likely led to both the acquisition of additional quantities of UDMH where possible and the acquisition or development of technology to produce the fuel domestically. Moreover, the national ideology of Juche (self-reliance) and the tightening of international sanctions provide extremely powerful motivations for the development of an indigenous UDMH production capability.
Chemical Production
Chemical production within North Korea falls under the purview of the Ministry of Chemical Industry and State Academy of Sciences, and to a certain degree the Academy of Defense Sciences and the Second Economic Committee. There are at least 15 known institutes within the State Academy of Sciences that are responsible for research and development within the chemical industry, nine of which are subordinate to the Academy’s Hamhung Branch.
The Hamhung Branch is one of the Academy’s oldest branches and has been responsible for guiding and implementing both theoretical and practical research and production within the chemical industry.[6] It has also played and continues to play a key role in chemical weapons research, development and production, the nuclear program and almost assuredly in the research and production of both solid and liquid rocket engine fuels. In day-to-day operations Hamhung Branch researchers are members of various subordinate research institutes and are often assigned out to production facilities to guide work, implement new technologies, and carry out a host of other responsibilities.
In general, the institutes of the Academy of Defense Sciences are responsible for defense-related research and development, while the bureaus of the Second Economic Committee are responsible for defense-related production. In the case of UDMH, the 5th Machine Industry Bureau, in cooperation with the 4th Machine Industry Bureau, would most likely be responsible for any potential production. Each of these bureaus operates its own factories or separate production lines within larger industrial complexes. As with the Hamhung Branch, researchers and technicians from these organizations are often assigned out to production facilities to guide work.[7]
Understanding the above organizational practices and chain-of-command is important to understanding the potential implications of the affiliation of researcher Cha Seok Bong, who is mentioned in the recent article as being affiliated with the February 8 Vinalon Complex. If Cha is an employee of the February 8 Vinalon Complex, it suggests that the facility may be producing UDMH. If, however, he has been seconded to the facility from the Academy of Sciences, Academy of Defense Science and Second Economic Committee it would suggest a broader North Korean interest in, or capability for, UDMH production.
In the article, the author indicates that there are no obvious signatures for UDMH production using commercial satellite imagery yet goes on to observe the presence of minor construction activity and waste water ponds within the February 8 Vinalon Complex suggesting a potential linkage to potential UDMH production. These features, however, are common characteristics of chemical plants around the world and should be viewed with caution when attempting to assess UDMH production within North Korea.
For instance, finding recent construction at a North Korean chemical facility is common. In 1998, the North began a major long-term and ongoing process of modernizing and restructuring of the chemical industry at large chemical complexes including the Hamhung Fertilizer Complex, Namhung Youth Chemical Complex, Sunchon Chemical Complex Enterprise and others. Less extensive projects have taken place at other chemical facilities including the February 8 Vinalon Complex, Ponghwa Chemical Factory, Sunchon Phosphorous Fertilizer Plant, and others.[8]
Likewise, a preliminary examination of available satellite imagery of a wide selection of North Korean vinalon and chemical complexes over the past 15 years, including all those noted above, shows that all have waste water treatment facilities (in the case of the February 8 Vinalon Complex this is the Hungnam Water Treatment Plant), settling ponds, access to nearby rivers, or a combination of these features. Therefore, the presence of waste water ponds in and of themselves is difficult to attribute solely with possible UDMH production.
Potential Alternative Production Facilities
While the February 8 Vinalon Complex is identified as a candidate for the production of UDMH due to its production lines for both chlorine and ammonia, there are a number of other prominent chemical complexes that either produce or use these chemicals and possess the scientific and practical experience and industrial capability to produce UDMH. Among these, three stand out as potential candidates for producing UDMH: 1) the July 27 Factory (a.k.a., Aoji-ri Chemical Complex); 2) the Hamhung Fertilizer Complex; and 3) the Namhung Youth Chemical Complex. All of these facilities have also been associated with the production of chemical agents and/or precursors, and all consist of a collection of independent but interrelated factories, laboratories, research institutes and support facilities, rather than a single entity.[9]
Among these, the one of greatest interest is the July 27 Factory (a.k.a., Aoji-ri Chemical Complex or 7.27 Factory) located in the northeast (42.522437, 130.349402), adjacent to the town of Kyonghung (formerly Undok).[10] During 2003, a defector, Yi Pok Ku, who worked in the North’s missile program, stated that the factory was built during the 1970s and is subordinate to the Second Economic Committee to produce chemical weapons. Yi further describes the facility as “…a factory which synthesizes propulsion fuel for ballistic missiles” and that Dr. Yi Sung Ki—the “father” of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and the inventor of vinalon—took an active role in the factory’s development and operations as an early director of the Academy of Defense Sciences.[11] Yi Pok Ku’s account does not provide greater details about the type of “fuel for ballistic missiles” being produced, but it is clear from the timing that it was too early to be UDMH for the chronological reasons noted above. He was likely conflating production of AK-20K/TG-02 with later production of other fuels for the P-15 (SS-N-2 styx) anti-ship cruise missile,[12] which uses these propellants and was then in domestic production.[13]
During the past five years, a number of infrastructure changes have occurred within the July 27 Factory, although it is unclear whether these are related to the national-level chemical industry modernization program noted above. It stands to reason that a factory designed and built to produce dangerous chemical weapons and highly toxic and corrosive missile fuel, and is still in operation, would be a strong candidate for the production of UDMH. Finally, there has long been a close relationship between the July 27 Factory and nearby July 21 Factory (a.k.a., 7.21 Factory or Kyonghung Explosives Plant), located 1.5 kilometers to the northeast (42.534961° 130.361007°), which produces explosives and chemicals used in the manufacture of explosives (e.g., ammonia, etc.), and maintains an extensive storage facility. Whether this relationship extends to potential UDMH production (e.g., sharing of scientists and technicians, supply of chemicals, provision of storage, etc.) is unclear.
Figure 1. The July 27 Factory and nearby July 1 Factory.
Figure 2. Close up of the northern part of the July 27 Factory.
Figure 3. Close up of the southern part of the July 27 Factory.
Figure 4. Close up of the July 21 Factory.
Another strong candidate for potential UDMH production is the Hungnam Fertilizer Complex. This complex and the February 8 Vinalon Complex are sometimes together identified in North Korean publications as the “foundation of the chemical industry.”[14] The Hamhung Fertilizer Complex is located 3 kilometers (39.838730°, 127.630050°) to the southeast of the February 8 Vinalon Complex and dates back to the period of the Japanese occupation. In addition to actually producing fertilizer, it has been involved in defense-related production since the late-1950s and associated with the production of chemical agents. It is composed of numerous independent but interrelated institutes, production lines and areas that support fertilizer production and other chemical production. Over the years, it has undergone numerous rebuilding and modernization programs that have also restructured its production activities. Significantly, a major modernization program began in the early 2000s and is still ongoing.[15]
Figure 5. The Hungnam Fertilizer Complex.
The last of the suggested candidate facilities is the Namhung Youth Chemical Complex located in the northwest section of the nation (39.650650°, 125.676436°), 3.8 kilometers northeast of the city of Anju. It produces fertilizer, plastics and a range of chemical products. It has been identified by the North as the nation’s “premier petrochemical processing complex.” A major modernization effort for this facility began in 2005 and, while much of this program was largely completed by 2013, additional work continues to date.
Figure 6. The Namhung Youth Chemical Complex.TheMinnesota Timberwolves today announced the team's Samsung NBA Summer League 2014 roster and camp information. Minnesota opens its three-game preliminary round schedule on Saturday, July 12 against the Dallas Mavericks at 5:30 p.m. CDT in the Thomas & Mack Center.
The Wolves Summer League roster consists of 2014 draft picks Zach LaVine (13th overall) and Glenn Robinson III (40th overall), as well as current Wolves players Shabazz Muhammad (14th overall in 2013), Gorgui Dieng (21st overall in 2013) and Alexey Shved. Assistant coaches David Adelman, Sid Lowe, Sam Mitchell and Ryan Saunders will split coaching responsibilities for the squad.
Before heading to Las Vegas, the Wolves will hold their summer league mini-camp with practices at the Life Time Fitness Training Center at Target Center beginning on Monday, July 7 through Thursday, July 10. The final 10 minutes of the first workout each day will be open to the media with players available following the session. Media availability will be sent out each day in advance, but the full mini-camp schedule with media availability is online at the Timberwolves Media Center.
The camp includes an open scrimmage on Wednesday, July 9 on the main Target Center floor. The scrimmage is free to the public beginning at 7 p.m. Following the scrimmage Wolves members will be have an exclusive autograph session with the players. Media availability for Wednesday's scrimmage will be sent out at a later date.
For the second consecutive year, this summer's event will feature a tournament-style schedule that will crown the NBA Summer League Champion on Monday, July 21. Teams will compete in three preliminary round games from July 11-15 before being seeded in a tournament running through the Championship Game on July 21. Each team is guaranteed to play at least five games.
The Wolves summer league roster is available below. Media availability times for next week's practices, a Summer League game schedule and bios on all 13 players are available now on the Timberwolves Media Center.
2014 Minnesota Timberwolves Summer League RosterCriminal lawyer Brian Beresh is prepared to go on the attack this week in an Edmonton courtroom on behalf of his client, Travis Vader, who has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the case of a missing Alberta couple.
Lyle, 78, and Marie McCann, 77, of St. Albert disappeared in July 2010 and their bodies have never been found.
Beresh will grill the RCMP and the chief Crown prosecutor, Michelle Doyle, about the way they handled the case.
He is expected to ask for a judicial stay of proceedings, citing an abuse of process by the Crown.
A mountain of evidence has been gathered by the Mounties. More than 600 investigators have worked on the file. There are tens of thousands of pages of disclosure.
But the Crown now admits the reason it asked for a stay of proceedings on the murder charges in March 2014 on the eve of the trial was because Mounties discovered a lot of the evidence wasn't passed along to the Crown or the defence.
Crown looks to blame RCMP
According to submissions filed last week by both sides, it appears the Crown is prepared to place all the blame on the RCMP.
The brief states: "Ms. Doyle elected to enter a stay of proceedings as opposed to making an application for adjournment because she had effectively lost confidence in the RCMP getting full disclosure to her in a timely manner."
The Crown's brief uses the description "disclosure fiasco," and admits the disclosure issues "are egregious and cannot be condoned."
The document also reveals the sergeant in charge of the investigation "spent virtually 10 to 12 hours a day trying to put this derailed disclosure train back on the tracks."
Crown prosecutor Ashley Finlayson is now assigned to this case, replacing Doyle, who has been promoted to chief Crown prosecutor.
Finlayson writes in his brief that major changes have since been made within the RCMP to fix "the poor disclosure practices of the police."
Mounties have now moved the Major Case units from various detachments to one centralized unit in Edmonton. RCMP have also hired more support staff to assist investigators with the disclosure process.
Defence lawyer Brian Beresh has been openly critical of the Crown and RCMP.
Evidence'shoddily gathered'
When the charges were stayed in March 2014, Beresh said the evidence was "shoddily gathered and it was a bunch of strings that were never tied together."
He added, "I'm also amazed at how poorly the information was provided to the defence."
He will argue the judge should impose a stay of proceedings to "protect the fairness of an accused's trial and/or to protect the integrity of the justice system."
Beresh claims Vader's charter rights have been clearly violated through the delays and lack of timely disclosure.
If Beresh's bid to get the charges thrown out fails, he wants the judge to stop the Crown from making any use of any evidence or materials gathered or not disclosed after the first stay of proceedings was entered in March 2014.
That would include two interviews RCMP conducted with Vader in December 2014 after the murder charges were recommenced.
Fascinating glimpse into details of case
While the actions of the Crown and the RCMP will be open for attack this week, the materials filed last week with the court provide a fascinating glimpse into some details of the police investigation never heard before.
There was an undercover surveillance operation the Crown admits "didn't result in any meaningful evidence but still should have been disclosed."
There were wiretaps, an undercover operation involving Vader and his sister, plus payments made to an agent who was a potential Crown witness.
The Crown's brief also reveals that after the March 2014 stay of proceedings, RCMP essentially conducted no further investigation into the murders other than checking tips that came in.
Mounties obtained a tracking warrant to put on Vader's vehicle in May 2014, but never used it because he was still in custody on other charges.
The final decision in the case rests with Alberta Court of Queen's Bench Justice Denny Thomas.
He will have to decide if there's been an abuse of process and if the first-degree murder trial should proceed next March.
And if it does go ahead, he must decide what evidence can be presented at trial.
The Crown insists its actions have been "laudable," and that all steps taken were done to protect the justice system and Vader's right to a fair trial.
The defence argues this is a clear case of the Crown unfairly asking for a stay and an abuse of process.
The hearing starts Monday and is scheduled to go all week.Petaluma Little League makes U.S. final LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SERIES Petaluma 11, San Antonio 1
South Williamsport, Pa. --
In its biggest game of the season, Petaluma made it look easy.
Hance Smith, who has been the best shortstop in the Little League World Series, answered the call again, this time with a first-inning grand slam that started Petaluma on its way to an 11-1 victory over San Antonio on Thursday and a berth in the U.S. championship game.
The boys from Sonoma County will play Goodlettsville, Tenn., at 12:30 p.m. PDT Saturday, on ABC.
Smith added a solo homer in the third inning of a game that was called because of the mercy rule after five innings. He was 3-for-3 with five RBIs.
Known as a streak hitter, Smith explained his surge: "I've made an adjustment at the plate by getting my hands out away from my body a bit."
Danny Marzo, after struggling on the mound in his first World Series appearance, was brilliant, dominating a loaded Texas lineup. Marzo allowed two hits and one walk and struck out 11 in pitching a complete game. He struck out the final seven batters he faced.
He showed he's a good sport, too, high-fiving Texas' Jordan Cardenas as Cardenas headed home on his third-inning homer - the only run Marzo allowed.
SOUTH WILLAMSPORT, PA - AUGUST 23: Hance Smith #10 of the West team from Petaluma, California celebrates his solo home run against the Southwest team from San Antonio, Texas during the first inning of their Little League World Series game on August 23, 2012 in South Willamsport, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images) less SOUTH WILLAMSPORT, PA - AUGUST 23: Hance Smith #10 of the West team from Petaluma, California celebrates his solo home run against the Southwest team from San Antonio, Texas during the first inning of their... more Photo: Rob Carr, Getty Images Photo: Rob Carr, Getty Images Image 1 of / 29 Caption Close Petaluma Little League makes U.S. final 1 / 29 Back to Gallery
Marzo, usually pumped up on adrenaline, said he was aided Thursday by a bit of psychological advice from coach Mike Slate, who told him to open the game as if "it's the second inning already."
By the second, San Antonio was already in a huge hole. Porter Slate, Logan Douglas and Bradley Smith started the first with long-count walks, Slate scored from third on a wild pitch, then Austin Paretti reached base on a strike three wild pitch. Hance Smith drilled a 2-2 fastball over the left-centerfield fence, 225 feet away, and two pitches later, Quinton Gago hit his second home run of the series for a 6-0 lead after one.
Gago's homer landed among fans on a hill well beyond the left-field wall.
"Runs early help," California manager Eric Smith, Hance's father, told the Associated Press. "It gives confidence to our pitcher and just makes everything a little easier."
Petaluma tacked on four runs in the fifth, ending the game on RBI singles by Gago, James O'Hanlon and Douglas. Hance Smith also scored on a passed ball.
"We ran up against a great team.... One through 12, every one of them can put the ball in play," San Antonio coach Jack Wideman Jr. told AP. "They were just smashing the ball."
Petaluma has 10 home runs in the tournament, and its lefty-dominated pitching staff has 47 strikeouts in 31 innings.
The Saturday matchup is expected to pit 6-foot-3 Petaluma ace Bradley Smith against Tennessee's Brock Myers. Tennessee sent Petaluma to the losers bracket earlier in the week. The winner will play for the world title against either Tokyo or Aguadulce, Panama, which edged Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, 2-1 on Thursday.Petrol prices have been reduced by Rs 1.09, while diesel prices have been hiked by 50 paise. The new rates are effective midnight.
"During the past fortnight, petrol prices have shown a downward trend while the INR-USD exchange rate has slightly depreciated. The combined impact of the two factors warrants a decrease in RSP(retail selling price) of MS (motor spirit) by Rs. 1.09/ litre at Delhi (inclusive of VAT) with corresponding decrease in other states." Indian Oil said in a statement.
This is the first drop in petrol prices since April. Petrol prices were last slashed on April 15, by 70 paise per litre, excluding local levies. It was the second reduction in rates in April as appreciation of the rupee against the US dollar made oil imports cheaper.
The last revision in fuel prices were undertaken on June 30 when petrol prices were hiked by Rs 1.69 per litre and diesel by 50 paise per litre. The government in January last year decided that diesel prices should be raised by 40-50 paise a litre every month until losses are wiped out.
The government freed petrol prices from its control in June 2010 and since then state-owned oil firms like BPCL, HPCL and Indian Oil have been revising rates on the 1st and 16th of every month based on the fortnightly average of international oil prices and the rupee-dollar exchange rate.
Non-subsidised domestic cooking gas will also be cheaper by Rs 2.50 per cylinder, Indian Oil said.
"International prices of LPG (liquified petroleum gas) also witnessed a downtrend during this period. As |
is that?!
We'll be kicking off the first stage of this project next week, so stay tuned to diablo3.com and get ready to Design a Legendary!(A) Experimental design and timeline. The OSFS protocol started when mice reached the age of 8 weeks. Mice underwent forced swimming session during the first four days (day -4 to -1). On day 0, desipramine treatment started and continued until the end of the experiment. Swimming session were regularly repeated until day 24. The NIH test was then applied from day 24 until day 27. On day 28, animals were sacrificed. (B) Effects of chronic desipramine in the OSFS model of depression on Crtc1‒/‒ mice and WT littermates. During the four consecutive daily swimming sessions prior to treatment (Days -4 to -1), all groups increased their immobility time. Crtc1‒/‒ mice were significantly more immobile than WT mice during the two last sessions (+p<0.05, +++p<0.001 vs. WT untreated). From day 0 to day 23, WT and Crtc1‒/‒ mice received either water (n=7 and n=11 respectively) or chronic desipramine treatment (20 mg/kg in drinking water, n=8 and n=11 respectively). Crtc1‒/‒ mice were significantly more immobile than WT mice, regardless of the treatment, during the whole procedure (+++p<0.001, vs. WT untreated). Desipramine-treated WT mice showed a progressive decrease in immobility time starting from day 9 of treatment (§p<0.05, §§p<0.01, §§§p<0.001, vs. themselves on day 2). Their immobility time was also significantly lower that untreated WT mice (*p<0.05, **p<0.01, vs. WT untreated). No effect of desipramine was seen in Crtc1‒/‒ mice. (C) Effects of chronic desipramine on the NIH paradigm in Crtc1‒/‒ and WT mice. Latencies to drink sweetened condensed milk are shown in the homecage and in the novel environment. Two mice were removed for having latency scores > 2 SD from the mean. One mouse was removed for never having drunk the milk during the habituation and test phases. No significant difference of latency between the different groups was observed in the homecage conditions. In the novel environment, desipramine-treated WT mice (n=7) showed a non-significant trend to a decreased latency as compared to untreated WT mice (n=6). Desipramine significantly reduced the latency of Crtc1‒/‒ mice (n=10) compared to untreated Crtc1‒/‒ mice (n=11) (##p<0.05 vs. Crtc1‒/‒ mice). Data are mean ±SEM.Moments before John Tavares tied Game 6 of the New York Islanders’ series with the Florida Panthers with 54 seconds left in regulation, Matt Martin may have gotten away with one:
Right before the Tavares goal. pic.twitter.com/HppjOXYWBQ — Matt Porter (@mattyports) April 25, 2016
Florida’s Vincent Trocheck was angling to attempt a shot at the Islanders’ empty net when Martin dropped to the ice and attempted to sweep the puck off his stick. Instead, he sent Trocheck tumbling to the ice, and eventually the Islanders went from defense to offense and sent the game to overtime.
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The Score called it a missed call. The Sporting News called it “the worst non-call of the Stanley Cup playoffs.”
First off, this angle doesn’t tell us if Martin got the puck first. But he probably didn’t. Which brings us to our next point:
DID YOU HONESTLY THINK ANY TRIPPING CALL WAS GOING TO BE WHISTLED WITH THE GOALIE PULLED IN A GAME 6?
C’mon, people: This isn’t the first rodeo for any of us. The Islanders aren’t getting called there. The Panthers aren’t getting called there. No team is getting called there. It’s always 'play on, playah' in that situation. If you think the Panthers were jobbed out of a Game 7 because of that call, you’re literally asking for a standard of enforcement that doesn’t exist in the playoffs.
There’s a reason Game 6 and Game 7 have a miniscule number of penalties in comparison to the previous three games and the regular season: The zebras don’t want to decide it.
--
Story continues
Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
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Kimmel confirms the 'Black Skinhead' rapper will appear on his talk show Wednesday night and 'neither of us is leaving until this government shutdown gets solved.'
Oct 9, 2013
AceShowbiz - Jimmy Kimmel will work out his issues with Kanye West on his talk show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" with the help of Dr. Phil. The comedian has confirmed the rapper's appearance on the ABC late-night program, telling his audience on Tuesday, October 8, "Kanye and I had a disagreement a couple of weeks ago, and it got a little bit out of hand. Tomorrow night, we will sit down and discuss it like normal people do - on television."
"It'll just be us, and Dr. Phil. And neither of us is leaving until this government shutdown gets solved. So if you've always wanted to see a talk show host get strangled by a pair of leather jogging pants, join us tomorrow," he added. Also taking to Twitter to spread the news, he insisted that his feud with West was not fake as writing, "Tomorrow night my guest will be @kanyewest."
Kimmel upset West when he spoofed the GOOD Music boss' interview with BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe. The comedian recreated the scene with two kids in place of West and Lowe. "Jimmy Kimmel, I don't take it as a joke...," West tweeted. "Jimmy Kimmel, put yourself in my shoes... oh no that means you would have gotten too much good p***y in your life."
Addressing this matter later on his show, Kimmel jokingly said, "Finally, I'm in a rap feud. I always wanted to be in a rap feud." He also revealed, "He told me I had two choices: apologise publicly... and that was really the only choice! The other choice he gave was that my life... 'Your life is going to be much better if you apologize.' "No trust fund for the TV news icon raises inevitable responses that he's successful now and doesn't need the money. But did the safety cushion do the real work early on? And with Gloria now in her mid 90s, where will the money that's left actually go?
Anderson Cooper has claimed for years that he isn't getting a dime of his mother Gloria Vanderbilt's money, which could add up to $200 million depending on how it's been invested and how much is left.
As he puts it, his branch of the Vanderbilt dynasty no longer considers inherited money anything but a “curse" that drags kids down and wastes adult lives.
His eagerness to earn his own millions is a testament to his personal brand. For all practical purposes, he's the face of CNN now.
As one of the highest-paid people on television -- $11 million a year -- he effectively writes his own ticket. If the channel interferes with that brand, he'll take the show elsewhere.
But he grew up with enough of a financial cushion to concentrate on the career instead of simply taking whichever job would pay the rent. He spent his 20s on passion projects with little or no payday. Then he came to TV late and worked his way up the ladder, which starts at an intern-level salary.
Until he was a bona fide star, he never had to cash in. He could always rely on family money to cover the bills. That's a great thing. As a result, he was able to build something on his own, keeping the Vanderbilt legacy behind the scenes until it really didn't matter any more.
The money had already done its job. He's wealthy on his own terms now, which is everything a high-net-worth parent could ask for. But in the meantime, his career success means that he hasn't managed to spend all of Gloria's money either.
And Gloria definitely inherited a lot of money and then achieved a remarkable feat of her own by building on it through her fashion house. If she’s not leaving it to Anderson, where will it go? And if we can’t figure out where that much wealth is headed, how sure are we that it exists at all?
Once the kids are independent and settled in their own careers, these are the questions wealthy families need to answer. Sooner or later, Gloria is going to die and the money left behind will go somewhere. Anderson may be responsible for it, he may be cut out of the loop entirely. Based on the facts we have, a few scenarios present themselves for the Vanderbilts.
Scenario 1: All in the Family. Anderson Cooper is by far the highest-profile of the Vanderbilt heirs but despite the media’s somewhat lazy tendency to focus on the famous one, Gloria had other sons. Stan Stokowski is now in his late 60s and running a Long Island landscaping company. He only makes headlines when a family wedding runs in the society pages, and that seems to be the way he likes it. Chris Stokowski famously stays off the radar entirely after a big fight with mom close to four decades ago. Gloria apparently tracked him down in Massachusetts, but even that reference is now pushing 35 years old. While both seem well out of the Vanderbilt loop, they may still be in the will because Gloria wants to make sure they get their share of the legacy – or because they never got rich on their own. Anderson Cooper is raking in $11 million a year from CNN and routinely donates book and appearance fees to charity. He doesn’t really need a massive trust fund to set him up for the rest of his life. If anything, rumors of nepotism have been enough of a drag on his professional reputation that it’s probably worth a lot more to him to refuse the Vanderbilt wealth he might have otherwise had coming to him. In that event, Gloria might not have needed to disinherit Cooper at all. All he would have needed to do is refuse the money when her executors hand it over. Stan and Chris, of course, are under no such obligation.
Scenario 2: Everything Goes to Charity. If Gloria doesn’t have a trust fund set up for any of the boys, her assets will eventually have to go somewhere. She might have friends or staff members she’d like to reward with a monetary bequest. And of course, she might follow the family tradition of philanthropy. If almost all the money goes to charity, she dies with something like a clean slate as far as the IRS and public opinion are concerned. One red flag here, however, is that Gloria is not known for her passionate support of any particular cause. Like Anderson Cooper, her advocacy is a lot more diffuse, so it’s anybody’s guess what charity or charities she would favor in her estate plan. We know, however, that she hasn’t signed Warren Buffett’s “giving pledge” and so is not under any public commitment to give her money away instead of leaving the bulk of it to relatives or other people she may like. Not all philanthropically minded rich people have joined Buffett – most of the 175 people on the list are bona fide billionaires and quite a few are self made – but if Gloria feels so strongly about making a difference, she could give the movement added cachet. After all, previous Vanderbilts managed to amass vast multi-generational wealth as well as fund universities, churches and artistic institutions. Gloria inherited some of that money and parlayed it into a high-fashion empire in the 1970s. Leaving that augmented fortune to charity would be in line with Buffett’s creed as well as Cooper’s own view of the Vanderbilt family as “believing in working.” But again, in the absence of known philanthropic passions, what organizations end up with the money, and why isn’t she lending them her celebrity now?
Scenario 3: The Money’s Not There. Gloria inherited the equivalent of $33 million in 1925 and family wrangling over the trust eventually accelerated her control of a bigger share. A lifetime of artistic and business pursuits presumably helped her independent cash flow, but unless she stopped taking distributions long ago, nine decades is a long time for a traditional trust to run. People have muttered that the trust was actually empty by the 1950s. And it’s unclear how much money the designer jeans and perfume actually made her. Like a lot of fashion people more interested in the creative end than the business, she sold the licensing rights to her name early on. In her late ‘70s heyday, Gloria was only earning $1.2 million or so a year on the clothes.
By the time the perfume came out, she was already fighting her partners over a relatively insignificant $1.3 million. A few years later, a Manhattan court ruled that her lawyer and psychiatrist had colluded to misappropriate a whopping $1.4 million from her accounts. In the meantime, the IRS seized and liquidated her assets to pay a $2.5 million tax bill. While the patterns should be familiar to all Trust Advisor readers, the figures are tough to reconcile with Gloria’s image as someone worth hundreds of times the amount of money in dispute in either case.
Maybe she lives quite nicely on $1 million a year plus the occasional check from a family trust. Maybe she had other investments that panned out extremely well over time. But I have yet to see detailed evidence that she was ever worth $200 million beyond vague references to her grandfather leaving that much wealth behind when he died in 1899, a quarter century before she was born.
Unless anyone can come forward and document Gloria Vanderbilt’s current net worth, it’s quite possible that Anderson Cooper is not in line for a vast trust fund because the money itself is just not there.
There’s no shame in that, of course. She may eat peanut butter every day, but it seems to be a matter of choice and not financial necessity.
And she looks great. However, “disinheriting” Anderson and the other boys may really be less about matter of family principle and more about economic realities.
A famous name only buys so much, even if it’s embroidered across millions of jean pockets. Like Gloria before him, Anderson Cooper turned that name into something even bigger. And he didn't even use the name.Call it a simple twist of fate — times two: A teenager in western New York state has saved the life of the same woman who years ago saved his life.
Seven years ago, Kevin Stephan of Lancaster, N.Y., was a bat boy for his younger brother’s Little League baseball team. A player who was warming up accidentally hit him in the chest with a bat. Kevin’s heart stopped beating.
“All I remember is that I dropped the bat off, and all of a sudden just got hit in the chest with something, and I turned around and passed out,” Stephan said.
Fortunately, a nurse whose son played on that team was able to revive him and save his life.
“I started CPR on him and he came back,” Penny Brown said.
Stephan’s mother said he was extremely fortunate. Brown was supposed to be at work that night, but was given the day off at the last minute.
Now comes the really interesting part.
Last week that same nurse was eating at the Hillview Restaurant in Depew, N.Y., when she began to choke on her food. Witnesses say patrons were screaming for someone to help her.
“The food wasn’t going anywhere and I totally couldn’t breathe,” Penny said. “It was very frightening.”
Doing the Heimlich
Restaurant employees yelled for Stephan to come out and help. “They knew I was a volunteer firefighter and they called me over and I did the Heimlich, and I guess you could say I saved Mrs. Brown,” Stephan said.
At the restaurant, they realized the amazing twist of fate they had just witnessed. Seven years ago, Brown had saved Stephan's life. Now at age 17, he had returned the favor.
“It's almost unbelievable,” said Stephan, who is also an Eagle Scout.
“The fact that it has been two individuals, that you know, helped eachother out in a pretty dire situation, it's pretty extraordinary,” Brown said.
On Saturday, the two met again at the Bowmansville, N.Y., Fire Hall where Stephan is a junior firefighter. He presented her with a bouquet of flowers, and his parents were also there to greet Brown.
Points to value of knowing CPR
Officials with the American Red Cross in Buffalo said this story highlights the importance of receiving training in first aid and CPR.
Judith Rucki from the Red Cross’ Buffalo office said, “We always ask people, if someone in the cubicle next to you went into cardiac arrest, do you know what to do?”
The man who trained Stephan at the fire hall, Dan Curtis, said he was trained by the American Red Cross.
“He called to thank me for teaching him what I taught him in order to be able to do what he did at the restaurant,” Curtis said. “It was just incredible. And as an instructor, you can't get a better compliment than that — when somebody in the civilian world takes what they learn in a four-hour CPR class and actually uses it to save someone's life.”
The Red Cross is planning an award presentation for Stephan, and so are the Boy Scouts.------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANOTHER UPDATE!!!! (6/20/11)We've got the T-shirt design in for the $50 incentive. It was designed by our friends, Lunch Buddies. Check it out:
------------------------------------------------------------------------UPDATE!!!!Anyone who pledges as little as $1 will get their name on our "Wall of Fame" in the brewery. One wall in the brewery tour area will be dedicated all the people who had a hand in opening Armadillo Ale Works. The more you pledge, the bigger your name will be printed on the wall.------------------------------------------------------------------------
HELP DENTON GET A BREWERY: We need additional funding so we can start brewing and distributing, allowing you to get your hands on some locally brewed beer! Kickstarter is a great way for supporters like you to send donations to projects like this one. In return, we’ll send you a gift (check out the list to the left >>>). Plus, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you had a part in opening Denton’s first brewery! Your card will only be charged if we reach our goal by June 30, 2011. If we hit our goal, it will allow us to actually brew and distribute our beer to your favorite watering hole. Here’s whatcha gotta do: - Start a Kickstarter account. All you have to do it enter your e-mail and create a password. Easy, huh? - Sign into Amazon. If you already have an account you're good to go! - Pledge $1 or more (your card will only get charged if we reach $30,000 by June 30!)
OUR MISSION: We want to open a small artisan brewery in Denton, TX called Armadillo Ale Works. We currently brew beer in ten-gallon batches using an old keg, two Igloo coolers, a couple of old tables, and turkey fryer. Oh, and we do all of this in Bobby’s parents’ garage. We’ve also taken over their lovely garden patio with fridges and freezers for our fermenting and cellaring space. We would love to distribute our beer and hopefully have it spread like wildfire throughout Dallas/Fort Worth area. Unfortunately, the government says it’s illegal to distribute our beer right now- something about health codes and how you can’t sell food that’s made in a garage and on a patio. Go figure! Sooooo, our goal is to get out of Bobby’s parents’ garage and into our own space, buy some brewing equipment that’s just a little bigger, and get approved to distribute our beer. We understand it’s one thing to have a dream and another to actually have the skills to make that dream come true. Bobby has homebrewed for 6 years and 3 years professionally at Saint Arnold Brewing Company in Houston, TX. Yianni has earned his bachelors in Entrepreneurship at the University of North Texas and will complete his masters in Strategic Management this summer. We’ve been hard at work for over a year now developing Armadillo Ale Works and we are confident that, with our skills combined, we will be able to make our dream a reality. WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO? The money that we raise here on Kickstarter will be used to purchase some new, bigger equipment and help us get a lease on a warehouse space here in Denton. For example: ~ $500 will get us a grain mill ~ $5,000 will get us some kegs ~ $17,000 will get us a brewhouse A BREWERY / VENUE / ART GALLERY / SUPER-FUN-TIME CENTRAL:
Once we move into our own space, we’d like to utilize it not just as a brewery, but as an outlet for local artists and musicians to showcase their talent. We plan to have art openings and concerts within the brewery and serve beer at those events.
OUR BEER:
We believe that bigger is not necessarily better, and good things come in small packages: like babies, puppies, and kittens. We believe beer should be no different. By staying small, we’ll be able to devote the time, care, and love to each beer, allowing us to take an artistic approach to our craft. Being small will also give us the opportunity to experiment and come up with some crazy special releases and seasonals too.
OUR STARTING LINE-UP:
YellaBelly BlondeDon’t be a chicken, this golden ale is light in color but not in flavor. The light malty-ness combined with a moderate amount of hops creates a very accessible and tasty brew.
Hefe-What?! HefeweizenHefeweizen may be hard to say, but this one is easy to drink. Hefe-What?! is a crisp and refreshing hefeweizen. Traditional clove and banana notes created by the yeast blend nicely with the unique citrus flavors from the addition of grapefruit peel and coriander. If you’d like to garnish it with fruit, forget about a lemon wedge or orange slice; you deserve better! We recommend a huge slice of a Texas grown Ruby Red Grapefruit.
FUIPA Imperial IPAIt’s not what you think, this is no ordinary pale ale. It’s a Freaking Unreal India Pale Ale! It’s got a gigantic malt profile and a fatty dose of hops. This big ol’ beer will swallow your face with every sip.WARNING: The FUIPA is a lot to handle. If you don’t think you can do it, you probably can’t.
Quakertown StoutThis full bodied stout is loaded with flavors of coffee and chocolate with a hint of nuttiness. Named for the displaced Quakertown settlement (1875-1922) in Denton.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT:
Denton is a great town that we deeply love. We intend to be extremely involved with local organizations and projects. Through donations, volunteering, and sponsorships, we hope to support and enrich our community.
So, pledge today and tell everyone you know to do the same! With your help, we can bring Denton it's first brewery.
Thanks & Cheers!
Bobby & Yianni
FUN LINKS:
Our Web Site
Our Facebook
Our TwitterWe're happy to announce that Reason 9.2 and a new version of the Rack Extension toolkit is now available!
When we created Rack Extensions we wanted to build a plug-in format that truly felt like Reason, with all the great workflow you guys expect. CV and audio connections, full automation, undo, integration with the Reason browser and much more.
Now, we've taken the next step! With Reason 9.2 and the new Rack Extension toolkit, developers can create devices with Reason's unique sampling feature and create much better, more user friendly interfaces with hideable widgets and panels, improved displays and more. We believe this will lead to even more exciting instruments, effects and utilities to help Reason users everywhere make more and better music. To show you just how great the new features are, Blamsoft and LoveOne have created two amazing synths.
Blamsoft's best-selling synth Expanse has been updated to version 2. The most exciting feature is that you can now load your own samples to create custom wavetables! It's also fully compatible with the Serum wavetable format, bringing an unfathomable number of new synth sounds to the Reason rack. I've personally had a lot of fun using Reason's sample feature to sample my guitar to create my own wavetables. Try it out and check the video below to see it in action.
Proton, developed by LoveOne in collaboration with Selig Audio, is a brand new synth and the first granular synth Rack Extension, which is exciting in itself. Based on the Neutron plug-in, Proton can load up any sample and synthesize new sound by throwing "particles" on the waveform to play parts of it. It sounds a bit like science fiction, but it's extremely fun and easy to use. Endless experimentation and interesting soundscapes awaits by simply dropping a sample on Proton and tweaking some parameters.
To update to Reason 9.2, simply launch Reason 9 or 9.1 and download your free update. And if you're on an earlier version or don't own Reason yet, there's never been a better time to get started. I'm really looking forward to see what new, exciting Rack Extensions that will be released. The only thing I know for sure is that there are now even more ways to get creative in the Reason rack.
Read all about Reason 9.2 here!
Mattias Häggström Gerdt
Reason Product ManagerThe Venum Training Camp in Pattaya is a brand new facility, a huge training space which already offers a variety of options including Muay Thai (primarily), MMA, “Combat Fitness”, and CrossFit. The floor is fully matted all the way throughout the space and there’s a kind of felt-like covering in the areas with hanging bags, which is a great option for preventing slippage from dripping sweat. This is the kind of thing you notice when you’ve been in Thailand for a while because what the floors are made of makes a huge difference in how your feet are going to be torn up – not “if,” but how. That said, the coverings that Venum chose, this felt-like carpeting, doesn’t rip your feet up. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it, and I love it.
Walk Through the Space – Video
above, video walk through of Venum Training Camp
Venum is located down a tiny side street off of Soi 6 on Thepprasit, about 5 minutes from my home gym Petchrungruang (map below). It almost looks like you’re driving up someone’s private alleyway, but the path soon opens up to reveal the huge camp maybe 200 feet in from the road. And despite the facility being brand new (officially open for only 2 weeks when I visited), it’s filled with local, seasoned Thai fighters and a handful of little kids in the early stages of their fighter paths. This is one of the special things about the Venum gym. While it has the advantages of a big fancy brand name gym, because it also grew out of the Sor. Klinmee Gym (the long time traditional family gym of Sudsakorn), it has the lineage and community of local kids and longtime Pattaya fight scene trainers, trainers that have spent their lives raising kids to be champions, and not just holding pads for westerns in western-oriented settings. I spend a lot of time at these smaller, old school gyms in Pattaya, and I recognized lots of young fighters and trainers from the community. It really seems to be the best of both worlds, in one gym.
photo by Tom Brown of muaythaiaction.com
There are already a few women who appear to be taking Muay Thai for fitness too, but they’re integrated into the space and a separate-but-included part of the activities. When the gym is full everyone kind of clusters in the area immediately around the ring – fighters working with trainers on the pads or clinching inside the ring, as well as people working on the numerous hanging bags and using the space on the mats. Even though everyone is gathered together, it feels “busy” without feeling crowded. There’s enough space for everyone but the energy of everyone working in the same space feels nice. But there’s certainly plenty of room to go around if you prefer to take more space for yourself.
Everything in the training camp is Venum brand and there’s lots of equipment to borrow if you don’t have your own: gloves, shinpads, jumpropes, etc. I saw a weighted vest, headgear, “combat ropes”, climbing ropes, a cage, dumbells and freeweights with some serious size for stacking, wooden boxes for box jumps and whatever else CrossFit people use them for, some TRX straps, monster truck tires, and a really cool jungle-gym structure. There are separate men’s and women’s toilet/dressing room/ shower areas. A small shop sells Venum apparel and equipment: sports tops for women, shirts (there was as snakeskin one I really liked) and shorts (board short and Thai style), and a long bar-style counter with some stools facing the ring. There are water coolers and plastic cups for sips between rounds, or you can bring your own waterbottle and refill it; there are also sports drinks and bottles of water for sale in a cooler. It’s pretty much an everything-you-need-is-here situation.
photo by Tom Brown of muaythaiaction.com
My experience in the actual space of the Venum Training Camp was just kind of an awe of how huge it is. I’m used to training in a small, family-style gym where the ring is the biggest open space available. I think for a lot of folks who are coming to Thailand for the first time, the big space and new, state of the art equipment will be really appreciated. And with a fairly tight-knit group of mostly Thai (a few westerners) trainers and fighters who have known each other for years and, in some cases, decades, you’re walking into an authentic Muay Thai training experience with active fighters. Venum Training Camp is co-owned by Sudsakorn Sor. Klinmee and Mehdi Zatout, both very established and experienced fighters and Sudsakorn is still a big active star for Thai Fight. Medhi has over 50 fights in Thailand and offers a very cool energy and confidence in how he carries himself to the space. You can read more about Mehdi in his Siam Fight Mag interview.
It will be interesting to see how Venum Training Camp develops as time goes on, but from my immediate impressions of the space, its training and the people involved with it, it seems like exactly the thing that Pattaya Muay Thai has been missing. If some of the gyms of Pattaya have lost some of their glow, a gym like this, with the presence of MAX Muay Thai fighting opportunities (fights every day of the week, big televised cards on the weekend), I believe will restore Pattaya as a prime Muay Thai training destination, helping everyone in the community. As a committed fighter at one of the smaller family Pattaya gyms, Petchrungruang, I’m happy to see Venum Training Camp happening. The Venum gym will be a huge draw of folks from a wide variety of experience or inexperience, offering more familiar and all-inclusive training options for those who are not yet ready for, or intimidated by, the self-directed and immersive style of training at smaller, family-style Muay Thai gyms.
The training is good, the trainers are very experienced and part of an authentic lineage of real, local fight culture, and there are active rising fighters, including one of my favorites, the new Thai Fight star PTT Petchrungruang who now trains there as a Venum sponsored fighter as there are very tough Thais his size to train against here. Jalma Klinmee, Sudsakorn’s wife and the gym’s social media director, told me that Rambaa (Sudsakorn’s cousin) will be coming by to help instruct MMA (you can see some of my private with Rambaa here). While the gym doesn’t appear to have any accommodation at this point, the camp is within walking distance to numerous rooms for rent on Soi 6, a bit farther out on Thepprasit, or if you rent a motorbike really anywhere you wish to stay in Pattaya. If you’d like a close, quiet, mid-range price option with an outdoor pool and on-premises massage parlor, I recommend the Royal Thai Residence on Soi 7 (Venum is on Soi 6, so these are very close in distance).
You can contact Venum Training Camp through either of two Facebook pages:
Sudsakorn Muay Thai Gym or VENUM Training Camp.
They are open from 7:00 AM – 11:30 AM and again for afternoon training at 3:30 PM – 9:00 PM.
Prices – Venum Training Camp
The package Muay Thai rates below (yellow: weekly, monthly) are for training twice a day, there is no once a day weekly or monthly Muay Thai package. Train once or twice, it is up to you. I should say that these are pretty reasonable rates on the Pattaya scale. The red package is for MMA, Combat Fitness and Cross Fit (see schedule below). The orange prices are all inclusive.
The 20,000 baht VIP rate per month, I’m checking on that now, will update.
The Venum Schedule
This is the provisional schedule, but as the gym is only a few weeks old there will be some changes to it. I’ll try to update the post as changes come. One change already made is that Cross Fit is only offered 3x a week instead of 6. But you can see the general philosophy here. The Women Time slot is interesting. The gym is closed to men at that time, on those days, so women can train in a Combat Fitness class without men (or anywhere else in the gym).
Map of Where Venum Training Camp Is
Below is an interactive Google Map of where Venum Training Camp is located. It’s very close to the local Muay Thai stadium Thepprasit, where all Pattaya fighters get their start, rising in the ranks.
Training With Sudsakorn
Sudsakorn Sor. Klinmee is a huge star on Thai Fight, and his smooth, counterfighting style has earned him fans from around the world. As part owner of the gym he brings strong Pattaya fight roots to Venum, and it’s real pleasure to see that lineage of training. His 7 year old nephew is going to be a monster fighter, you can feel it even in the way he hits the pads and flies around the space. Sudsakorn speaks of him with pride, and almost astonishment. “He loves Muay Thai” he says. There are already generation in the gym. I was there to shoot a private with Sudsakorn for my Nak Muay Nation train with legends features and this month will be the first time publishing one from an elite active fighter. I’ve filmed with legendary champions like Berklerk, Dieselnoi, Karuhat, Yodkhunpon, Chatchai, Sagat, Rambaa, and many more, but an active fighter is not in the same place as retired greats. He does not often give privates, so this was a special experience for me. I’ll be publishing a post on our training, but if you’d like you can see a few minutes of it on the Sudsakorn page. You can also see a photo album of us training together here.
If you would like to take a private from Sudsakorn – and he is insistent the he does not want to teach “tricks” or “moves”, but rather that the key to great fighting is control over the basics, proper spacing and timing – you MUST book in advance. The price is 3,000 baht for a full hour, and he is not always available due to a pretty full schedule as a fighter. Message his gym Facebook Page to arrange this.
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You can support this content: Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu on PatreonCIA loves Internet of things… for spying on you
CIA director David Petraeus (seen here playing Wii golf) is really excited about the idea behind the Internet of things. The thing is most excited about isn’t his refrigerator being able to order milk, but the effect that connected appliances and devices will have on “clandestine tradecraft.” In other words, he’s excited about being able to use these devices to spy on people.
Petraeus says that the treasure trove of data connected appliances and devices will be able to gather on a “person of interest” will make it much easier to see what potential terrorists and others are doing inside home and to intercept communications. He also noted that connected household devices with the potential to be turned in the spy tools “change our notions of secrecy.” While the CIA has numerous regulations and laws preventing it from spying on American citizens, it’s apparently a much grayer area when it comes to collecting geolocation data that many devices broadcast.
Most people know that smartphones and other devices have been discovered to store and transmit data on the location of the user, often without the user’s knowledge. This makes it easier for the passive collection of the data if the government wants to track a person. Interestingly, it appears that Facebook’s Timeline has helped the CIA produce a back history for spies. What do you think of the potential for the Internet of things to make spying on you easier?
[via Wired]It is already old news that the founder and CEO of Lululemon was forced to resign due to his “controversial” remarks on the proper use of his company’s clothing. When I wrote my original article, the thought that Chip Wilson may be risking his career (or at least his position) with his courageously honest approach certainly crossed my mind. To quote one of the great Red Pill works of fiction:
“This is Jack’s total lack of surprise”.
… But I digress…
A recent article by Raywolf about the predatory nature of |
't need to link you the hundreds of articles written by bloggers around basketball decrying Dell Demps rebuilding plan. If you go to a national site or a blog covering the Pelicans that is not us or Bourbon Street Shots you can find them by the hundreds. Rest assured that those people who wrote before the season that this is a flawed roster reach back to their preseason predictions whenever things go awry. Being "right" is fun on the internet.
Could the Pelicans get the ball to AD more? Sure. Would more Davis isolations actually improve the offense? The answer to that question is less clear. Anyone can point to a Tyreke Evans missed layup and bemoan his inability to finish. Fewer dig deep to discover that 40.3% of shots missed by Evans (according to NBA Wowy) are retained by the Pelicans.
Anthony Davis has made 168 shots all season. 90 of those shots were assisted by either Jrue Holiday (50) or Tyreke Evans (40). Another 20 of those shots came off offensive rebounds. AD has made just 11 of 34 shots after taking two or more dribbles. He is shooting 13 for 43 on Pull Ups. Anthony Davis has been insanely efficient. The positions that the Pelicans, mostly the guards, put him in is a much bigger reason than many want to admit.
Statistics from NBA Stats, NBA Savant, Basketball Reference, and NBA WowyThe Platte for This Is Fly
Sometimes it’s not about where you can go but what you can find where you already are.
For our 6th feature for This Is Fly, I joined writer Mark Rauschenberger and pro skier Ahmet Dadali on bikes with fishing rods in hand, to shoot a story based on fishing in the heart of Denver along the Platte River Trail.
The goal for this feature was to explore our options closer to home, navigating the gritty banks of the Platte in search of ‘city carp’.
Our feature ran as the cover story in the December issue of This Is Fly.
“Behind me is downtown Denver, complete with skyscrapers, noisy construction, and honking cars” - Mark Rauschenberger
“Back on the bikes, we pedal a little further south into the heart of downtown Denver. Along the way, we try our best to plot a new plan of attack” - Mark Rauschenberger
“What a trip it is to be surrounded by the city’s chaos and to find myself in a very familiar situation - standing in a river, waving a stick” - Mark Rauschenberger
“We fill our backpacks with fly rods, terminal tackle, and some adult beverages, hop on bikes, and search for giant carp. From my home, it is a short pedal to reach the Platte River Trail that bisects downtown Denver” - Mark Rauschenberger
Full feature below, for more images and behind-the-scenes content follow me on Instagram
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.What happened at Monday's meeting was a surprise because Commissioner Tony Grindberg was expected to introduce a resolution asking commissioners to consider placing two election reform proposals on the June election ballot: one to establish a two-stage primary/general election system for electing mayor and city commissioner, and the other to increase the size of the commission from five to seven members. But he did not do that.
Commissioner John Strand has repeatedly argued that the commission should instead vote on whether to place two recommendations made by the city's Elections and Governance Task Force on the ballot. That argument seemed to win greater support by Monday's meeting. Even Grindberg expressed support for that principle.
"We created this task force," Grindberg said. "It's our job to resolve it. Many in the public are waiting for us to make a decision."
The City Commission formed the Elections and Governance Task Force in August 2016 to consider and make recommendations for election reform. It considered a variety of proposals, but could only agree on two recommendations.
The task force delivered its recommendations in February. It recommended increasing the size of the City Commission from five to seven members to reflect the growth of the city. But it also recommended a novel system of voting called "approval voting." But approval voting is untested and no city commissioner has been willing to express support for it.
Approval voting is a system that would allow voters to vote for as many candidates on a ballot as they like. But approval voting is a new idea that remains untested. No other city in the United States uses it. The task force recommended approval voting as a way to address the problem of vote splitting and the fact that winning candidates in recent elections have received low vote percentages.
Vote splitting is a phenomenon that occurs when voters are forced to choose between ideologically similar candidates because they are limited in how many votes they can cast. For example, in Moorhead's mayoral election in 2013, Del Rae Williams defeated two more conservative candidates who split the conservative vote.
Recent Fargo City Commission elections have had a large number of candidates on the ballot, but even winning candidates have earned relatively small voter percentages. In the June 2016 election, the two candidates elected, Grindberg and Strand, received just 16.1 and 14.9 percent of the vote respectively among 11 candidates on the ballot. Under the present system, voters can vote for only the number of open seats on the commission.
With no city commissioners willing to back approval voting, Commissioner Grindberg instead proposed the city switch to a primary/general election system. But such a system was rejected by the elections task force.
Several commissioners expressed concern about implementing a primary system because it would extend the election process and might create "voter fatigue," reducing voter turnout. A primary system wouldn't eliminate vote splitting or assure a winning candidate would get a majority of the vote.
Commissioner Dave Piepkorn questioned the need for any type of election reform and said he believed the City Commission had more important issues to address.
"I haven't had one person call me, e-mail me, text me — why are we doing this?" he asked. "No one cares. We have a lot of important things going on in our city and this isn't one of them."Donald Trump's campaign Friday declared as "disastrous" the latest jobs report that showed unemployment dipping under 5 percent, The Washington Times reported.
Employers added 161,000 new jobs with the unemployment rate matching a low in January, which was the first dip under 5 percent in eight years.
However, the Trump camp called it "disastrous."
The report "underscores the total failures of the Obama-Clinton economy that delivers only for donors and special interests and robs working families," the Times reported.
"Nearly half a million people left the workforce last month, a painful and massive decline. Over 14 million have left the workforce since Obama came into office, bringing the total not working to 94 million," Trump campaign policy director Steven Miller told the Times. "In four days, voters will get the chance to vote to take power back from the special interests and return it to the people."
Further, the Trump campaign highlights that Obama is the first president not to have a single year of 3 percent wage growth.
CNN reported earlier this year that with unemployment under 5 percent, wage growth should be around 4 percent.The old general is crying, his cheeks trembling. His eyes are red from weeping. Then he buries his face in his hands. Brigadier General Abdulhadi Arafa is one of the most powerful men in Benghazi, in the entire rebel-held eastern part of Libya, in fact. The 64-year-old officer commands 2,000 members of a special-forces unit. And he did everything right a week and a half ago when, after 41 years of service, he decided to refuse to obey Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
When the revolt began, he ordered his officers to stay in their barracks, lock the gates and not take any action against the protesters. Their men were not to shoot at anyone unless they were shot at themselves.
The general has four sons and four daughters, who are all about the same age as the protesters marching outside. Thoughts of his children made it easier for him to decide that these youths represented the very Libyan people he had once sworn an oath to protect. He is crying, he says, because Gadhafi is a criminal for having ordered his men to shoot at his own people and even at children.
But this isn't something General Arafa couldn't have known before. Perhaps he is also weeping out of regret, for having spent decades serving a man who commits murder and seems to have only a tenuous grasp on reality. He has come to the courthouse across from the beach in Benghazi to pick up new orders from his new masters, of which there are now quite a few.
A Unique Experiment in Democracy
The Libyan revolt erupted in Benghazi, the country's second-largest city, in front of this very courthouse. Rebels from all over the country have now set up their headquarters in the austere-looking building facing the Mediterranean. The new rebel government, established last Saturday, consists of a committee and subcommittees to administer the city and surrounding region. It's meant to be a provisional government born out of the need to have someone in charge, someone to give orders and instructions.
The 13-member committee includes lawyers, professors and teachers. Representatives of committees from cities in southern Libya are in a hallway, searching for people they might know. They want to join the rebel leaders in Benghazi.
Gadhafi's renegade former justice minister has proposed creating a real transitional government for the entire country based here in Benghazi. A national transitional council also wants to coordinate the rebels in other captured cities from its courthouse headquarters.
What's happening here in Benghazi is an anarchistic experiment unique among the rebellions in the Arab world. In Egypt, by contrast, the military has temporarily assumed power and, in Tunisia, the structures of the former regime continue to function.
Celebrating Freedom
Crowds of hundreds and sometimes thousands gather in front of the Benghazi courthouse every day. As the waves crash against the shore and ocean spray fills the air, they walk along the coast road singing, dancing and praying, celebrating what they've accomplished and their newfound freedom until late at night.
On Wednesday, a rumor suddenly started circulating that a unit loyal to Gadhafi had attacked Brega, a key Libyan oil port 200 kilometers (125 miles) southwest of Benghazi, and that six men had been killed. When they heard the news, some of the young men in front of the courthouse started shouting, jumped into their pickup trucks and sped away. Brega seemed to offer an opportunity for them to test their strength.
Inside the courthouse, Khalid al-Saji is standing on a bench in a courtroom, leaning forward to make himself heard above the commotion. Saji, a lawyer with sharp features and thinning hair, is one of the 14 men who inadvertently launched the revolt. When the revolt started, he was chairman of the Libyan bar association, and now he's a member of the judicial subcommittee.
Though this is no longer used as a courtroom, he is wearing the robe he always wears in court. Draped over his shoulders is the rebel's red, black and green flag. The flag's colors are the same as those on the flag of the Kingdom of Libya that existed until 1969. That year, when the king went abroad for medical treatment, a colonel named Moammar Gadhafi overthrew the government in a coup. Drivers now use Gadhafi's green flags to wipe dirt from their windshields.
The Spark of Revolution
Saji has a lot of experience with the dictator's arbitrary behavior and with laws that did not apply to everyone. He himself has been arrested and detained, often for days or weeks at a time, for having filed suits against the government. Though such actions were theoretically permitted, Saji rarely won his cases.
On Feb. 6, Saji and three colleagues drove to Tripoli, where they had an argument with Gadhafi in person in his tent. The men had come to discuss two demands, one minor and one far more significant. Although their terms had expired, the members of the board of the country's bar association who were loyal to Gadhafi had refused to step down from their positions. They were able to refuse because Gadhafi and those close to him could ignore the rules and break laws with impunity. Saji was now demanding that the board members who had been newly elected be allowed to enter into office.
"Gadhafi talked to us because the uprising in Tunisia had made him nervous," Saji says. He eventually promised to appoint the newly elected board members. Then Saji and his colleagues got up the nerve to address their larger concern: They wanted a constitution that would require Gadhafi to also obey the law. They spoke and argued with Gadhafi, trying to convince him that he needed to institute some reforms if he wanted to keep his people calm. "But when we were leaving the tent," Saji recounts, "he said he wouldn't make any announcements until he felt the time was right."
On Feb. 15, the families of the victims of a 1996 massacre demonstrated in Benghazi. That year, Gadhafi's thugs had mowed down 1,200 revolting prison inmates -- the protesters' relatives -- with assault rifles. Two days later, a small group of attorneys led by Saji demonstrated for more human rights in front of the courthouse. As the hours passed, they were joined by more and more people. The uprising had begun. Soon the first shots were fired. Then the rebels set fire to Gadhafi's palace and the secret police building next to the courthouse, where regime opponents had once been tortured. The revolt soon spread to other cities.To begin, this tweet:
Also, Amazon Author Rank? What the hell are you. — James S.A. Corey (@JamesSACorey) June 6, 2016
To which I responded:
There's a certain point where you just let go of Amazon rankings because they have no relation to overall reality. https://t.co/ELJaaJNiDz — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 6, 2016
Which got me some “haa lolz sour grapes” comments which left me slightly confused, so I had do a bit of digging. Which, along with the desire to generally expand on this comment, led to the following.
A series of "inside pool" tweets coming up. It'll be over quickly. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
1. Got some sporky responses yesteday to my comment that Amazon Author rankings don't mean much overall; finally figured out why… — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
2. It appears some jackass I muted had tried to needle me by noting another jackass I muted had a higher Amazon Author ranking than me. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
3. This happened recently, so that my unrelated comment to a third author on the matter was seen as a response to the first dude. Yeah, no. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
4. One, it's nice my muting is working, since I learned about this nonsense by turdy little minions days after the fact. Best Twitter ever! — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
5. Also, really: Amazon Author rankings don't mean much in terms of overall sales, etc, especially if you sell in places other than Amazon. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
6. I've had single digit Amazon Author rankings in SF/F; I've been off the list of 100 entirely. As far as I can see, no impact on sales. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
7. The Amazon Author rankings may be marginally more relevant if you have no access to other sales venues. Otherwise, meh. It's for show. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
8. Which is not to say that if you have a high Amazon Author ranking (or higher than mine), you shouldn't enjoy it. Congrats! It's nice. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
9. But if you're using it as a way to status check yourself against other authors, then basically I'll just pat you on the head and move on. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
10. Also: Guys, I've rung my bell in terms of money and notability. I'm happy. You're doing better than me? Great! I don't actually care. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
11. I have all the money and notability I need. I'm set. What I want now is to write books I like, for people who I hope will like 'em. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
12. If you feel the need to compete against me, well, it's your life. But I'm not showing up for the competition. My life is not about you. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
13. (This doesn't mean I won't be happy when cool things happen to me. Just that I'm not looking around to see who I'm "beating.") — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
14. In short: If your anxiousness about status makes you try to snark me about mine, well, that's adorable. Hope that works out for you. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
15. And more generally, creative folk: Think about WHY you're concerned about status and its signifiers, and what it says about you… — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
16. …it's not wrong to keep an eye on them. Just remember, it's not a zero-sum game. There's room for all sorts of success. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016
17. Multi-tweet spree now concluded. Thank you. Compensatory kitten picture to follow. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 7, 2016The Obama administration has proposed using United Nations-guided principles to expand a type of zoning to coastal and even some inland waters. That’s raising concerns among fishermen that their favorite fishing holes may soon be off-limits for bait-casting.
In the battle of incremental change that epitomizes the American conservation movement, many weekend anglers fear that the Obama administration’s promise to “fundamentally change” water management in the US will erode what they call the public’s “right to fish,” in turn creating economic losses for the $82 billion recreational fishing industry and a further deterioration of the American outdoorsman’s legacy.
Proponents say the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force established by President Obama last June will ultimately benefit the fishing public by managing ecosystems in their entirety rather than by individual uses such as fishing, shipping, or oil exploration.
“It’s not an environmentalist manifesto,” says Larry Crowder, a marine biologist at Duke University in North Carolina. “It’s multiple-use planning for the environment, and making sure various uses … are sustainable.”
(Amateur outdoorsmen have been fighting for their rights for years, as the Monitor reports here.)
New way to manage marine resources
Faced with the prospect of further industrialization along America's coasts and the Great Lakes (wind turbines and natural-gas exploration, for example), the task force is charged with putting in place a new ecosystem management process called marine spatial planning.
Marine spatial planning (MSP), according to the United Nations, is “a public process of analyzing and allocating the spatial and temporal distribution of human activities in marine areas to achieve ecological, economic, and social objectives that usually have been specified through a political process."
That kind of government-speak scares Phil Morlock, director of environmental affairs at the reel-and-rod maker Shimano.
Mr. Morlock points to references by the ocean task force to “one global sea” as evidence that what’s really being proposed are broad changes to America's user-funded conservation strategy, potentially affecting even inland waters.
“I suggest that the task force recommend our model to the United Nations rather than us adopting the United Nations model,” he says in a phone interview. “The American model is the best in the world, so our question is: Why seek the lowest common denominator?”
Protections for recreational fishermen
Mr. Obama has said he will not override protections put in place by Presidents Clinton and Bush that established recreational fishermen as a special class.
But critics still worry about the Obama administration’s ties to environmental groups that espouse “anti-use” policies that put some habitats out of reach even for rod and reel fishermen, who take only 3 percent of America’s landed catch every year.
“Angling advocates point out that senior policy officials on the task force seem inclined to ally themselves with preservationists and environmental extremists who want to create ‘no fishing’ preserves, with no scientific justification,” writes ESPN.com’s Robert Montgomery.
On the other hand, nonpartisan experts say the task force has already made strides in better recognizing various stakeholder groups, including recreational fishermen, and that it doesn’t intend to undermine the ability of states to manage their natural resources, as many fishermen fear.
“There’s been huge progress by the task force in terms of being more inclusive in thinking about economic, ecological, social, and political concerns,” says Mr. Crowder at Duke. “The paranoia – and there is paranoia on all sides – is that the process will be captured. My hope is that mutual concern gets people to the table.”
The final report of the task force is expected in late March. Congress will decide its fate, unless Obama issues an executive order establishing MSP as the law of the water.The word revisionist derives from roots meaning “to look again.” And since history is an ongoing project, whose main purpose is to help us understand where we have come from and where we are going, we obviously need to keep taking fresh looks at the past as we propose new visions of the future.
Obligatory disclaimer: I am myself a historical revisionist of the so-called “war on terror,” having written or edited five books on the subject. My conclusion, in a nutshell, is that the State of Israel, whose intelligence service’s motto is “by way of deception thou shalt do war,” has (with the help of many other nefarious forces including rabid right-wingers, global domination enthusiasts, and voracious war profiteers) orchestrated a massive deception based primarily on false flag terrorism in general, and the 9/11 covert operation in particular.
My revisionist history of the “war on terror” poses a danger to Israel and its expansionist agenda. So its agents have relentlessly attacked me, smeared me, and waged economic war against me and my family. One of their favorite smears is the libelous “holocaust denier” canard that almost prevented me from entering Canada last week.
I am not a holocaust denier, under any conceivable definition of that problematic term. But I do support academic freedom and free speech, including the freedom to question facts and narratives concerning any of the innumerable holocausts and genocides of human history. The agents of Israel who are persecuting me claim I am a bad guy because I don’t think people like Ursula Haverbeck or Ernst Zundel or Germar Rudolf or David Irving or Robert Faurisson should be imprisoned for expressing politically incorrect interpretations of history. Whereas I think anyone who supports jailing “holocaust deniers” must be crazy.
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Questioning facts and narratives is how we re-vision history! Peter Frankopian’s recent bestseller The Silk Roads: A New History of the World provides a classic example.
Frankopian’s thesis, in a nutshell, is that Eurocentrism has blinded us to the way that Eurasia and North and East Africa form one super-continent that has been bound together, for thousands of years, by exchanges of goods and ideas. The center of gravity of world civilization, then, is much closer to Persia or Uzbekistan than to Athens or Rome, much less Paris or London.
The Silk Roads casts a new light on the late Zbigniew Brzezinski’s geostrategic vision outlined in The Grand Chessboard (1997). In that book, Bzezinski famously argued that in the chess game of global dominance, the center of the board is in the general region of Afghanistan. Why? Because the Eurasia-North Africa supercontinent contains the great majority of global population and GDP. Therefor, whoever controls the center (the general region of Afghanistan) will dominate the global chessboard. In that respect, little has changed since the days of the 19th century Great Game pitting Britain against Russia for control of Eurasia. No wonder the US has intentionally sabotaged all possibilities for peace in Afghanistan for the past 35 years, in order to create an excuse for a massive permanent US military buildup in the bulls-eye center of the world’s geopolitical heartland.
Frankopan’s assertion that the Great Game for control of Eurasia is THE game, and has been for millennia, casts new light on the two World Wars of the 20th century. Here we embark upon the dangerous ground of World War II revisionism – a much larger and more important topic than mere Holocaust revisionism. For the victors’ history of World War II, which amounts to a sacred Manichaean myth of good guys (Allies/Jews) versus bad guys (Axis/Nazis) is still used today by the Mighty Wurlitzer propaganda factory to brainwash Western populations into imagining themselves the good guys in every conflict, and seeing each new opponent as the new Hitler. In short, the mainstream mythic history of World War II is the centerpiece of modern war propaganda.
In his chapters 15 and 16, Frankopan completely overturns the generally accepted history of the two World Wars, which asserts that they were primarily about the threat posed by a rising Germany. Instead, Frankopan writes:
That Britain represented a threat to Germany – and vice versa – was, however, something of a red herring.”
He goes on to assert: “The reality of the story was very different. Although the days that followed the assassination of Franz Ferdinand saw a series of misunderstandings, discussions, ultimata and permutations that would be all but impossible to recreate, the seeds of war grew out of changes and developments located many thousands of miles away. Russia’s rising ambition and the progress it was making in Persia, Central Asia and the Far East put pressure on Britain’s position overseas, resulting in the fossilization of alliances in Europe. All that stood in the way of further erosion of the enviable platform that Britain had built over the previous centuries was a series of mutual guarantees designed to above all to keep Russia, the master-in-waiting, tied up.” (Emphasis added.)
What the two-phased World War of the first half of the 20th century was primarily about, then, was competition between the Anglo Empire (Britain/USA) and Russia for control of Eurasia. Germany was just a patsy. The whole name of the game, then and now, has always been: At all costs, prevent Germany from uniting with Russia!
This insight sheds considerable light on today’s geopolitical machinations. Many Americans who grew up during the Cold War are puzzled about why the Russians, who are no longer Godless Commies, are still the enemy – even when they are fighting OUR ostensible enemies, al-Qaeda and ISIS. The answer is that the Anglo-Zionist Empire, headquartered in New York, Washington, London, Hollywood, and Tel Aviv, is still primarily concerned with dominating the Eurasian heartland, and a rising Russia – whether it is Communist or democratic or Orthodox or pluralistic or what-have-you – constitutes an obstacle to world hegemony.
That Western project of establishing world hegemony may, according to Frankopan, be nearing its end. The rise of China, and the assertiveness of Russia and Iran, are symptoms, not causes; the underlying pattern is one of the Silk Road, the trade belt across the heartland of Eurasia, re-establishing itself as the real center of the world, relegating the marginal forces at the western fringes of Eurasia, and their gigantic settler colony in Genocided North America, to the margins where they belong.
In Frankopan’s revisionist outlook, the rise of “the West” (meaning the northwest edge of Eurasia) was a historical fluke, driven mainly not by education, literacy, inventiveness, and creativity, but by extreme bellicosity and subsequent hyperactive competition in the technologies of military mass murder. Europe, a land of feuding barbarians at the extreme fringes of the supercontinent’s overarching civilization, managed to temporarily conquer the world mainly because all the feuding between small, independent states fed innovative weapons technologies, especially those involving navies and shipbuilding. (Of course the Chinese had built bigger and better ships centuries earlier, but being civilized people rather than ultra-bellicose barbarians, they used those ships for trade and exploration, not conquest.) The conquest of the world via the oceans established a “new silk road” that put northwest Europe and North America at the center of global trade networks.
Today, as Russia helps stave off US-Zionist imperial domination in the Middle East, while China establishes a massive New Silk Road development project, it seems obvious that the days of Western domination are numbered. Ironically, new developments in weapons technology may be hastening this process: Just as improved navies established Western domination, improved anti-naval weapons, namely the new generations of anti-ship missiles, are helping end it. To take one example: The hardline Zio-imperialists want to wage war on Iran, but cannot do so with any assurance of victory, because Iran can use advanced anti-ship missiles to shut down the Strait of Hormuz – thereby not only keeping hostile forces out of the Persian Gulf, but also shutting down much of the world’s oil supply.
Frankopan’s revisionist view of world history helps us understand that the bromides peddled by high school history textbooks and the mainstream media amount to egocentric feel-good mythology that impedes rather than assists our understanding of reality. Like Ibn Khaldun, Frankopan binds together his historical narratives with what amounts to an all-inclusive theoretical framework; only in the latter’s case, that framework involves exchange and geostrategy in relation to the world’s one supercontinent, rather than a sociological theory of how “barbarism” and “civilization” cyclically give rise to each other.
My only critique of Frankopan would be his neglect of the crucial role of Islam as the central conveyor belt of supercontinental civilization during most of the past 1400 years. By establishing a common language, common culture, common weights and measures, and a common cosmology, metaphysics, and understanding of the meaning and purpose of life on earth, Islam has brought the world together more than any other single factor. Those wishing to pursue this issue further might begin with Marshall Hodgson’s three-volume masterpiece The Venture of Islam.
The Silk Roads poses a challenging question to Western readers: Are “we” going to continue being bellicose and parochial like our ancestors (and like the putative ancestors of today’s Zionist Jews, the early Yahwists whose jealous tribal god told them to hate and fear other tribes and their gods)? Or can we learn to be good global citizens, rather than dominators, of the One World Civilization that has existed for millennia?
The answer to that question may determine whether human civilization has any future at all.Special By By KJ Mullins Jun 23, 2010 in Environment Toronto - Southern Ontario and parts of Quebec and New York have just experienced a earthquake measuring at 5.0 magnitude. The seats were rumbling at 1:41 p.m ET. Wednesday as a mild earthquake hit Toronto and other parts of southern Ontario. Sitting at my desk reporting I watched my computer screen doing a jig on the desk. See the YouTube clip above for a video report of a user known as EmpireofMInd Twitter feeds say that Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto all felt the quake at the same time. The Ottawa Globe and Mail newsroom has evacuated their offices, and City Hall was also evacuated. Twitter feeds are stating that it was felt for 30 seconds in Markham and Thornhill. The Ottawa Citizen Twitter There have been some reports of power outages across Ontario and patchy phone service. This earthquake was one of the largest quakes felt in eastern Canada for several decades. The epicentre of the earthquake affecting Central Canada on Wednesday June 23 USGS The mild rumbling shook the floors in my office. There is no damage in my area. As news comes in this will be updated. CP24 reports a second earthquake was felt in the Ottawa-Gatineau area too. The City of Toronto released a statement about the earthquake affecting the city, On Wednesday in the early afternoon, an earthquake struck Southern Ontario, parts of Quebec and New York state. The earthquake's epicenter was about 61 km (38 miles) north of Ottawa near the Quebec-Ontario border. Photo courtesy U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center The epicenter is at 45.955°N, 75.546°W. That is 61 km from Ottawa, 58 km from Hull, Quebec, 52 km from Gatineau, Quebec and 49 km from Cumberland, Ontario. The quake was at a 19.2 km depth. Coincidentally, this earthquake struck on the same date (June 23) as one that A 5.0 magnitude earthquake hit central Canada and several U.S. states. The epicentre was located 61 km north of Ottawa.Sitting at my desk reporting I watched my computer screen doing a jig on the desk. See the YouTube clip above for a video report of a user known as EmpireofMInd taping the earthquake affecting his home in Ottawa.Twitter feeds say that Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto all felt the quake at the same time. The Ottawa Globe and Mail newsroom has evacuated their offices, and City Hall was also evacuated. Twitter feeds are stating that it was felt for 30 seconds in Markham and Thornhill.The Ottawa Citizen Twitter feed reports tremors were felt as far as Albany, NY and Flint, MI. The New York Times says the quake was felt as far away as Vermont.There have been some reports of power outages across Ontario and patchy phone service.This earthquake was one of the largest quakes felt in eastern Canada for several decades.The mild rumbling shook the floors in my office. There is no damage in my area. As news comes in this will be updated.CP24 reports a second earthquake was felt in the Ottawa-Gatineau area too.The City of Toronto released a statement about the earthquake affecting the city, writing : "The City has received no calls concerning bridge, building or other infrastructure problems."The epicenter is at 45.955°N, 75.546°W. That is 61 km from Ottawa, 58 km from Hull, Quebec, 52 km from Gatineau, Quebec and 49 km from Cumberland, Ontario.The quake was at a 19.2 km depth.Coincidentally, this earthquake struck on the same date (June 23) as one that hit Vancouver Island on June 23, 1946. The Vancouver Island quake was a 7.3-magnitude earthquake. More about Earthquake, Toronto, Quake More news from earthquake toronto quakeRecurrent neural network playing slime volleyball. Can you beat them?
I remember playing this game called slime volleyball, back in the day when Java applets were still popular. Although the game had somewhat dodgy physics, people like me were hooked to its simplicity and spent countless hours at night playing the game in the dorm rather than getting any actual work done.
As I can’t find any versions on the web apart from the old antiquated Java applets, I set out to create my own js+html5 canvas based version of the game (complete with the unrealistic arcade-style ‘physics’). I set out to also try to apply the genetic algorithm coded earlier to train a simple recurrent neural network to play slime volleyball. Basically, I want to find out whether even a simple conventional neuroevolution techniques can train a neural network to become an expert at the this game, before exploring more advanced methods such as NEAT.
The first step was to write a simple physics engine to get the ball to bounce off the ground, collide with the fence, and with the players. This was done using the designer-artist-friendly p5.js library in javascript for the graphics, and some simple physics math routines. I had to brush up the vector maths to get the ball bouncing function to work properly. After this was all done, the next step was to add in keyboard / touchpad so that the players can move and jump around, even when using a smartphone / tablet.
The fun and exciting part was to create the AI module to control the agent, and to see whether it can become good at playing the game. I ended up using basic CNE method implemented earlier, as an initial test, to train a standard recurrent neural network, hacked together using the convnet.js library. Below is a diagram of the recurrent network we will train to play slime volleyball, where the magic is done:
The inputs of the network would be the position and velocity of the agent, the position and velocity of the ball, and also of the opponent. The output would be three signals that would trigger the ‘forward’, ‘backward’, and ‘jump’ controls to be activated. In addition, an extra 4 hidden neurons would act as hidden state and fed back to the input, this way it is essentially an infinitely deep feed forward neural network, and potentially remember previous events and states automatically in the hopes of being able to formulate more complicated gameplay strategies. One thing to note is that the activation functions would fire only if the signal is higher than a certain threshold (0.75).
I also made the agent’s states be the same independent of whether the agent was playing on the left or the right hand side of the fence, by having their locations be relative to the fence, and the ball positions adjusted accordingly according to which side they were playing in. That way, a trained agent can use the same neural network to play on either side of the fence.
Rather than using the sigmoid function, I ended up using the hyperbolic tangent (tanh) function to control the activations, which convnet.js supports.
The tanh function is defined as:
The tanh function can be a reasonable activation function for a neural network, as it tends towards +1 or -1 when the inputs get steered one way or the other. The x-axis would be the game inputs, such as the locations and velocities of the agent, the ball, and the opponent (all scaled to be +/- 1.0 give or take another 1.0) and also the output and hidden states in the neural network (which will |
. Across Africa he gained widespread respect as an anti-colonialist and is held in deep respect within Tanzania, where he is often referred to by the Swahili honorific Mwalimu ("teacher"), and described as the "Father of the Nation". A cult of personality revolves around him and the country's Roman Catholic community have attempted to beatify him.
Early life [ edit ]
Julius Kambarage Nyerere was born on 13 April 1922 in Mwitongo, an area in the town of Butiama in Tanganyika's Mara Region.[4] He was one of 26 surviving children of Nyerere Burito, the chief of the Zanaki people. Burito had been born in 1860 and given the name "Nyerere" ("caterpillar" in Zanaki) after a plague of worm caterpillars infested the local area at the time of his birth. Burito had been appointed chief in 1915, installed in that position by the German imperial administrators of what was then German East Africa; his position was also endorsed by the incoming British imperial administration. Burito had 22 wives, of whom Julius' mother, Mugaya Nyang'ombe, was the fifth. She had been born in 1892 and had married the chief in 1907, when she was fifteen. Mugaya bore Burito four sons and four daughters, of which Nyerere was the second child; two of his siblings died in infancy.
These wives lived in various huts around Burito's cattle corral, in the centre of which was his roundhouse. The Zanaki were one of the smallest of the 120 tribes in the British colony and were then sub-divided among eight chiefdoms; they would only be united under the kingship of Chief Wanzagi Nyerere, Burito's half-brother, in the 1960s. Nyerere's clan were the Abhakibhweege. At birth, Nyerere was given the personal name "Mugendi" ("Walker" in Zanaki) but this was soon changed to "Kambarage", the name of a female rain spirit, at the advice of a omugabhu diviner. Nyerere was raised into the polytheistic belief system of the Zanaki, and lived at his mother's house, assisting in the farming of the millet, maize and cassava. With other local boys he also took part in the herding of goats and cattle. At some point he underwent the Zanaki's traditional circumcision ritual at Gabizuryo. As the son of a chief he was exposed to African-administered power and authority, and living in the compound gave him an appreciation for communal living that would influence his later political ideas.
The British colonial administration encouraged the education of chiefs' sons, believing that this would help to perpetuate the chieftain system and prevent the development of a separate educated indigenous elite who might challenge colonial governance. At his father's prompting, Nyerere began his education at the Native Administration School in Mwisenge, Musoma in February 1934, about 25 miles from his home. This placed him in a privileged position; most of his contemporaries at Butiama could not afford a primary education. His education was in Swahili, a language he had to learn while there. Nyerere excelled at the school, and after six months his exam results were such that he was allowed to skip a grade. He avoided sporting activities and preferred to read in his dormitory during free time.
While at the school he also underwent the Zanaki tooth filing ritual to have his upper-front teeth sharpened into triangular points. It may have been at this point that he took up smoking, a habit he retained for several decades. He also began to take an interest in Roman Catholicism, although was initially concerned about abandoning the veneration of his people's traditional gods. With school friend Mang'ombe Marwa, Nyerere trekked 14 miles to the Nyegina Mission Centre, run by the White Fathers, to learn more about the Christian religion; although Marwa eventually stopped, Nyerere continued. His elementary schooling ended in 1936; his final exam results were the highest of any pupil in the Lake Province and Western Province region.
His academic excellence allowed him to gain a government scholarship to attend the elite Tabora Government School, a secondary school in Tabora. There, he again avoided sporting activities but helped to set up a Boy Scout's brigade after reading Scouting for Boys. Fellow pupils later remembered him as being ambitious and competitive, eager to come top of the class in examinations. He used books in the school library to advance his knowledge of the English language to a high standard. He was heavily involved in the school's debating society, and teachers recommended him as head prefect, but this was vetoed by the headmaster, who described Nyerere as being "too kind" for the position. In keeping with Zanaki custom, Nyerere entered into an arranged marriage with a girl named Magori Watiha, who was then only three or four years old but had been selected for him by his father. At the time they continued to live apart. In March 1942, during Nyerere's final year at Tabora, his father died; the school refused his request to return home for the funeral. Nyerere's brother, Edward Wanzagi Nyerere, was appointed as their father's successor. Nyerere then decided to be baptised as a Roman Catholic; at his baptism, he took on the name "Julius", although later stated that it was "silly" that Catholics should "take a name other than a tribal name" on baptism.
Makerere College, Uganda: 1943–1947 [ edit ]
The main building at Makere University in Uganda, where Nyerere studied a teacher training course
In October 1942, Nyerere completed his secondary education and decided to study at Makerere College in the Ugandan city of Kampala. He secured a bursary to fund a teacher training course there, arriving in Uganda in January 1943. At Makerere, he studied alongside many of East Africa's most talented students, although spent little time socialising with others, instead focusing on his reading. He took courses in chemistry, biology, Latin, and Greek. Deepening his Catholicism, he studied the Papal Encyclicals and read the work of Catholic philosophers like Jacques Maritain; most influential however were the writings of the liberal British philosopher John Stuart Mill. He won a literary competition with an essay on the subjugation of women, for which he had applied Mill's ideas to Zanaki society. Nyerere was also an active member of the Makere Debating Society, and established a branch of Catholic Action at the university.
In July 1943, he wrote a letter to the Tanganyika Standard in which he discussed the ongoing Second World War and argued that capitalism was alien to Africa and that the continent should turn to "African socialism"; in his words, "the African is by nature a socialistic being". His letter went on to state that "the educated African should take the lead" in moving the population towards a more explicitly socialist model. Molony thought that the letter "serves to mark the beginnings of Nyerere's political maturation, chiefly in absorbing and developing the views of leading black thinkers of the time." In 1943, Nyerere, Andrew Tibandebage, and Hamza Kibwana Bakari Mwapachu founded the Tanganyika African Welfare Association (TAWA) to assist the small number of Tanganyikan students at Makerere. TAWA was allowed to die off, and in its place Nyerere revived the largely moribund Makerere chapter of the Tanganyika African Association (TAA), although this too had ceased functioning by 1947. Although aware of racial prejudice from the white colonial minority, he insisted on treating people as individuals, recognising that many white individuals were not bigoted towards indigenous Africans. After three years, Nyerere graduated from Makerere with a diploma in education.
Early teaching: 1947–1949 [ edit ]
On leaving Makerere, Nyerere returned home to Zanaki territory to build a house for his widowed mother, before spending his time reading and farming in Butiama. He was offered teaching positions at both the state-run Tabora Boys' School and the mission-run St Mary's, but chose the latter despite it offering a lower wage. He took part in a public debate with two teachers from the Tabora Boys' School, in which he argued against the statement that "The African has benefitted more than the European since the partition of Africa"; after winning the debate, he was subsequently banned from returning to the school. Outside school hours, he gave free lessons in English to older locals, and also gave talks on political issues. He also worked briefly as a price inspector for the government, going into stores to check what they were charging, although quit the position after the authorities ignored his reports about false pricing. While in Tabora, the woman whom Nyerere was arranged to marry, Magori Watiha, was sent to live with him to pursue her primary education there, although he forwarded her to live with his mother. Instead, he began courting Maria Gabriel, a teacher at Nyegina Primary School in Musoma; although from the Simbiti tribe, she shared with Nyerere a devout Catholicism. He proposed marriage to her and they became informally engaged at Christmas 1948.
In Tabora, he intensified his political activities, joining the local branch of the TAA and becoming its treasurer. The branch opened a co-operative shop selling basic goods like sugar, flour, and soap. In April 1946 he attended the organisation's conference in Dar Es Salaam, where the TAA officially declared itself committed to supporting independence for Tanganyika. With Tibandebage he worked on rewriting the TAA's constitution and used the group to mobilise opposition to Colonial Paper 210 in the district, believing that the electoral reform was designed to further privilege the white minority. At St Mary's, Father Richard Walsh—an Irish priest who was director of the school—encouraged Nyerere to consider additional education in the United Kingdom. Walsh convinced Nyerere to take the University of London's matriculation examination, which the latter passed with second division in January 1948. He applied for funding from the Colonial Development and Welfare Scheme and was initially unsuccessful, although succeeded on his second attempt, in 1949. He agreed to study abroad, although expressed some reluctance because it meant that he would no longer be able to provide for his mother and siblings.
Edinburgh University: 1949–1952 [ edit ]
The Old College in Edinburgh
In April 1949, Nyerere flew from Dar Es Salaam to Southampton, England. He then travelled, by train, from London to Edinburgh. In the city, Nyerere took lodgings in a building for "colonial persons" in The Grange suburb. Starting his studies at the University of Edinburgh, he began with a short course in chemistry and physics and also passed Higher English in the Scottish Universities Preliminary Examination. In October 1949 he was accepted for entry to study for a Master of Arts degree at the University of Edinburgh's Faculty of Arts; his was an Ordinary Degree of Master of Arts which, in contrast to common uses of the term "Master of Arts", was considered an undergraduate rather than postgraduate degree, the equivalent of a Bachelor of Arts in most British universities.
In 1949, Nyerere was one of only two black students from the British East African territories studying in Scotland. In the first year of his MA studies, he took courses in English literature, political economy, and social anthropology; in the latter, he was tutored by Ralph Piddington. In the second, he selected courses in economic history and British history, the latter taught by Richard Pares, whom Nyerere later described as "a wise man who taught me very much about what makes these British tick". In the third year, he took the constitutional law course run by Lawrence Saunders and moral philosophy. Although his grades were not outstanding, they enabled him to pass all of his courses. His tutor in moral philosophy described him as "a bright and lively member of the class and of the parties".
Nyerere gained many friends in Edinburgh, and socialised with Nigerians and West Indians living in the city. There are no reports of Nyerere experiencing racial prejudice while in Scotland; although it is possible he did encounter it, many black students in Britain at the time reported that white British students were generally less prejudiced than other sectors of the population. In classes, he was generally treated as the equal of his white fellows, which gave him additional confidence, and may have help mould his belief in multi-racialism. During his time in Edinburgh, he may have engaged in part-time work to support himself and family in Tanganyika; he and other students went on a working holiday to a Welsh farm where they engaged in potato picking. In 1951, he travelled down to London to meet with other Tanganyikan students and attend the Festival of Britain. That same year, he co-wrote an article for The Student magazine in which he criticised plans to incorporate Tanganyika into the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which he and co-author John Keto noted was designed to further white minority control in the region. In February 1952, he attended a meeting on the issue of the Federation that was organised by the World Church Group; among those speaking at the meeting was the medical student—and future Malawian leader—Hastings Banda. In July 1952, Nyerere graduated from the university with an Ordinary Degree of Master of Arts. Leaving Edinburgh that week, he was granted a short British Council Visitorship to study educational institutions in England, basing himself in London.
Political activism [ edit ]
Founding the Tanganyika African National Union: 1952–1955 [ edit ]
Having sailed aboard the S.S. Kenya Castle, Nyerere arrive back in Dar Es Salaam in October 1952. He took the train to Mwanza and then a lake steamer to Musoma before reaching Zanaki lands. There, he built a mud-brick house for himself and his fiancé, Maria; they were married at Musoma mission on 24 January 1953. They soon moved to Pugu, closer to Dar Es Salaam, when Nyerere was hired to teach history at St Francis' College, one of the leading schools for indigenous Africans in Tanganyika. In 1953 the couple had their first child, Andrew. Nyerere became increasingly involved in politics; within three months of returning to Tanganyika, he was elected president of the Tanganyika African Association (TAA). His ability to take on the position was influenced by his good oratorical skills and by the fact that he was Zanaki; had he been from one of the larger ethnic groups he may have faced greater opposition from members of rival tribes. Under Nyerere, the TAA gained an increasingly political dimension, devoted to the pursuit of Tanganyikan independence from the British Empire.
In campaigning for Tanganyikan independence using non-violent methods, Nyerere was inspired by the example of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.
On 7 July 1954 Nyerere, assisted by Oscar Kambona, transformed the TAA into a new political party, the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). Among the early TANU members were the three sons of Kleist Sykes, Dossa Aziz, and John Rupia, the latter an entrepreneur who had established himself as one of the wealthiest indigenous Africans in the country. Rupia served as the group's first treasurer and largely funded the organisation in its early years. The colony's governor appointed Nyerere to fill a temporary vacancy on its legislative council generated after David Makwaia was sent to London to serve on the Royal Commission for Land and Population Problems. His first speech at the legislative council dealt with the need for more schools in the country. When he said that he would oppose proposed government regulations to raise salaries for civil servants, the government recalled Makwaia from London to ensure Nyerere's removal.
At TANU meetings, Nyerere insisted on the need for Tanganyikan independence, but maintained that the country's European and Asian minorities would not be ejected by an African-led independent government. He greatly admired the Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi and endorsed Gandhi's approach to attaining independence through non-violent protest. The colonial government closely monitored his activities; they had concerns that Nyerere would instigate a violent anti-colonial rebellion akin to the Mau Mau Uprising in neighbouring Kenya.
In August 1954, the United Nations had sent a mission to Tanganyika which subsequently published a report recommending a twenty to twenty-five year timetable for the colony's independence. The UN was set to discuss the issue further at a trusteeship council in New York City, with TANU sending Nyerere to be its representative there. At the British government's request, the United States agreed to prevent Nyerere staying for more than 24 hours before the meeting or moving outside an eight-block radius of the UN headquarters. Nyerere arrived in the city in March 1955, as part of a trip funded largely by Rupia. To the trusteeship council he said that: "with your help and with the help of the [British] Administering Authority we would be governing ourselves long before twenty to twenty-five years."[109] This seemed highly ambitious to everyone at the time.[109]
The government pressured Nyerere's employer to sack him because of his pro-independence activities. On his return from New York, Nyerere resigned from the school, in part because he did not wish is ongoing employment to cause trouble for the missionaries. In April 1955 he and his wife returned to his Zanaki homestead. He turned down offers of employment from a newspaper and an oil company, instead accepting a job as a translator and tutor for the Maryknoll Fathers, who were preparing a mission amongst the Zanaki. By the late 1950s, TANU had extended its influence throughout the country and gained considerable support. TANU had 100,000 members in 1955, which had grown to 500,000 by 1957.
Touring Tanganyika: 1955–1959 [ edit ]
Nyerere returned to Dar Es Salaam in October 1955. From then until Tanzania secured independence, he toured the country almost continuously, often in TANU's Land Rover. The white colonial Governor of Tanganyika, Edward Twining, disliked Nyerere and regarded him as a racialist who wanted to impose indigenous domination over the European and South Asian minorities. In December 1955, Twining established the United Tanganyika Party (UTP) as a "multi-racial" party with which to combat the African nationalist message of TANU. Nyerere nevertheless stipulated that "we are fighting against colonialism, not against the whites". He befriended members of the white minority, such as Marion the Lady Chesham, a U.S.-born widow of a British farmer, who served as a liaison between TANU and Twining's government.
A 1958 editorial in the TANU newsletter Sauti ya Tanu (Voice of TANU) that had been written by Nyerere called on the party's members to avoid participating in violence. It also criticised two of the country's district commissioners, accusing one of trying to undermine TANU and another of putting a chief on trial for "cooked-up reasons". In response, the government filed three counts of criminal libel. The trial took almost three months and resulted in a three month case. Nyerere was found guilty, with the judge stipulating that he could either pay a £150 fine or go to prison for six months; he chose the former option.
Twining announced that elections for a new legislative council would take place in early 1958. These would be organised along the basis of ten constituencies, each of which could elect three members of the council: one indigenous African, one European, and one South Asian. This would move the country away from its concentration of political representation entirely with the European minority, but still meant that the three ethnic blocs would receive equal representation despite the fact that indigenous Africans made up over 98% of the country's population. For this reason, most of TANU's leadership believed that it should boycott the election. Nyerere disagreed. In his view, TANU should participate and seek to secure the majority of the indigenous African representatives to advance their political leverage. If they abstained, he argued, the UTP would win the elections, TANU would be forced to operate entirely outside of government, and it would delay the process of attaining independence. At a conference in Tabora in January 1958, Nyerere convinced the rest of TANU to his viewpoint. Nyerere saw it as an improvement, but which was still frustrating.
In these elections, which took place over the course of 1958 and 1959, TANU won every seat that it contested. Nyerere stood as TANU's candidate in the Eastern Province seat against an independent candidate, Patrick Kunambi, securing 2600 votes to Kunambi's 800.
TANU in government: 1959–1961 [ edit ]
Nyerere campaigning for Tanganyikan independence in March 1961
In March 1959, the British Governor of Tanganyika, Richard Turnbull, gave TANU five of the twelve ministerial posts available in the colony's government. In 1959, Nyerere returned to Edinburgh. In 1960, he attended a conference of independent African states in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a which he presented a paper calling for the formation of an East African Federation. He suggested that Tanganyika could delay its attainment of independence from the British Empire until neighbouring Kenya and Uganda were able to do the same. In his view, it would be much easier for the three countries to unite at the same point as independence than after it, for beyond that point the governments of the three states would feel that they were giving up their sovereignty through the act of unification. The idea of delaying Tanganyikan independence was opposed by many senior members of TANU.
In the August 1960 general election, TANU won 70 of the 71 available seats. As TANU's leader, Nyerere was called to form a new government.
In March 1961, a constitutional conference was held in Dar Es Salaam to determine the nature of an independent constitution; it was attended by both anti-colonial campaigners and British officials. As a concession to the UK's colonial secretary Iain Macleod, Nyerere agreed that after independence, Tanganyika would retain the British Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state for a year before becoming a republic. In May, Tanganyika achieved self-governance. One of Nyerere's first acts as Prime Minister was to stop the supply of Tanganyikan labourers to South African gold mines. Although this resulted in a loss of around £500,000 a year for Tanganyika, Nyerere regarded it as a necessary act in expressing opposition to the apartheid system of white-minority rule and racial segregation implemented in South Africa.
Premiership and Presidency of Tanganyika [ edit ]
Premiership of Tanganyika: 1961–1962 [ edit ]
Nyerere as leader of the Legislative Council
On 9 December 1961, Tanganyika gained independence. A ceremony marking the transition was held at National Stadium and was attended by the UK's Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Six weeks after the proclamation of independence, Nyerere resigned as Prime Minister, intent on focusing on restructuring TANU and trying to "work out our own pattern of democracy". Retreating to become a back bencher in the Tanganyikan parliament, in his stead, he appointed close political ally Rashidi Kawawa as the new Prime Minister. Many commentators believed that Nyerere had stepped down to avoid conflict with the increasingly influential African racial nationalists in his party. He then began touring the country, giving speeches in towns and villages in which he emphasised the need for self-reliance and hard work. In 1962, his alma mater at Edinburgh awarded Nyerere with a Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws; Nyerere stated that receiving the honour filled him with "immense pleasure".
During Tanganyika's first year of independence, its government focused largely on dealing with domestic problems. Under a government self-help programme, villagers were encouraged to devote a day's work a week to a community project, such as constructing roads, wells, schools, and clinics. In February 1962, the government announced its desire to convert the pervasive system of freehold land ownership into a leasehold system, the latter of which was deemed to be a better reflection of traditional indigenous ideas about communal land ownership. Nyerere wrote an article, "Ujamaa" ("Familyhood") in which he explained and praised this policy; in this article he expressed many of his ideas about African socialism. Six months after independence, the government abolished the jobs and salaries of hereditary chiefs, whose positions conflicted with government officials and who were often regarded as having been too closely associated with the British colonial authorities. The government also pursued the "Africanization" of the civil service, giving severance pay to several hundred white British civil servants and appointing indigenous Africans in their place, many of whom were insufficiently trained. Nyerere acknowledged that such affirmative action hiring was discriminatory towards white and Asian citizens, but argued that it was temporarily necessary to redress the imbalance caused by colonialism. By the end of 1963, about half of senior and middle-grade posts in the civil service were held by indigenous Africans.
You go through two stages in these colonial countries. One is when midnight comes; the clock strikes, and you are independent. Fine. But then begins a whole process of changing conditions and changing people. I had been talking to the people, telling them that the second process would not be easy... But one thing must change after midnight: the attitudes of the colonial people, their way of treating Africans as nothing. This must change after midnight. The colonized are now the rulers, and the man in the street must see this! If they have been spitting in his face, now it must stop! After midnight! This cannot take twenty years! We had to drive this lesson home. — Julius Nyerere on the deportation of white British individuals accused of racism
Over the course of the following year, a number of white British individuals living in Tanganyika were deported from the country, usually on 24 hours' notice, after they were accused of publicly expressing racist attitudes toward indigenous Africans. Concerns were raised about the lack of due process in such cases, with the deported individuals having no opportunity to defend themselves. Nyerere defended the deportations, stating that "for many years we Africans have suffered humiliations in our own country. We are not going to suffer them now." After the Safari Hotel in Arusha was accused of insulting Guinean President Ahmed Sékou Touré on the latter's state visit to Tanganyika in June 1963, the government ordered it to be closed immediately. When the white-dominated Dar Es Salaam Club refused admission to 69 members of the government and TANU who had requested membership, the government dissolved the club and appropriated its assets. Responding to cases such as this, some parts of the foreign press accused the Tanganyikan government of hypersensitivity and arrogance, while Nyerere sought to avoid becoming personally embroiled in such controversies.
Opposition to TANU's rule was slight, and in organised form consisted of only two small political parties: the senior trade unionist Christopher S. K. Tumbo founded the People's Democratic Party, while Zuberi Mtemvu formed the African National Congress, which wanted a more radical anti-colonial stance than TANU was taking. The government nevertheless thought itself vulnerable and in 1962 pushed through both a labour law banning workers' strikes and introducing a Preventative Detention Law through which it could detain without trial individuals deemed a threat to national security. Nyerere defended this measure, pointing to similar laws in the United Kingdom and India, and stating that the government needed it as a safeguard given the weak state of both the police and army. He expressed the hope that the government would never have to use it, and noted that they were aware how it "could be a convenient tool in the hands of an unscrupulous government".
The government drew up plans to create a new constitution which would convert Tanganyika from a monarchy with the British Queen as its head of state into a republic with an elected President as head of state. This President would be elected by the population, and they would then appoint a Vice President, who would preside over the National Assembly, Tanganyika's parliament. Biographer William Edgett Smith later noted that it was "a foregone conclusion" that Nyerere would be selected as TANU's candidate for president. In the November presidential election, he secured 98.1% of the vote, defeating Mtemvu. After the election, Nyerere announced that TANU's National Executive Committee had voted to ask the party's national conference to widen membership to all Tanganyikans. During the anti-colonial struggle, only indigenous Africans had been permitted to join, but Nyerere now stated that it should welcome white and Asian members; he also stipulated that "complete political amnesty" should be granted to anyone expelled from the party since 1954, allowing them to rejoin. In early 1963, Amir Jamal, an Asian Tanganyikan, became the party's first non-indigenous member; the white Derek Bryceson became its second.
Presidency of Tanganyika: 1962–1964 [ edit ]
President Nyerere and U.S. President John F Kennedy in 1963. Nyerere later commented that he had "great respect" for Kennedy, whom he regarded as a "good man".
On 9 December 1962, a year since Tanganyika became independent, it officially became a republic. Nyerere moved into the State House in Dar Es Salaam, the former official residence of the British governors. Nyerere disliked life in the building, referring to it as "my prison". He remained there for three years, until 1966. President Nyerere appointed Kawawa to be his Vice President. In 1963, he put his name forward to be Rector of Edinburgh University, vowing to travel to Scotland whenever needed; the position instead went to the actor James Robertson Justice. He made official visits to West Germany, the United States, Canada, Algeria, Scandinavia, Guinea, and Nigeria.
The early years of Nyerere's presidency were preoccupied largely by African affairs. In February 1963, he attended the Afro-Asian Solidarity conference in Moshi, where he cited the recent Congolese situation as an example of the neo-colonialism impacting the continent, describing it as part of a "second" Scramble for Africa. In May, he attended the founding session of the Organisation for African Unity at Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, there echoing his previous message, stating that "the real humiliating truth is that Africa is not free; and therefore it is Africa which should take the necessary collective measures to free Africa." He endorsed the Pan-Africanist idea of unifying Africa as a single state, although disagreed with the Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah's view that this could be achieved quickly. Instead, Nyerere stressed the idea of forming regional confederations as short-term steps towards the eventual unification of the continent. Pursuing these ideals, in June 1963 Nyerere met with Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta and Ugandan President Milton Obote in Nairobi, where they agreed to unite their respective countries into a single East African Federation by the end of the year. This, however, never materialised. In December 1963, Nyerere lamented that this failure was the major disappointment of the year. Later, Nyerere saw his inability to establish an East African Federation as the biggest failure of his career.
Nyerere was also concerned by developments in Zanzibar, an island off of Tanganyika's coast. He noted that it was "very vulnerable to outside influences", which could in turn impact Tanganyika. Zanzibar secured independence from the British Empire in 1963, and in January 1964 the Zanzibar Revolution took place, in which the Arab Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah was overthrown and replaced by a government consisting largely of indigenous Africans. Nyerere was taken by surprise by the revolution. Like Kenya and Uganda, he quickly recognised the new government, although allowed the deposed Sultan to land in Tanganyika and from there fly to London. At the request of the new Zanzibar government, he sent 300 policemen to the island to help restore order.
Facing mutiny [ edit ]
In January 1964, Nyerere announced the end of affirmative action hiring for the civil service. Believing the colonial imbalance to have been redressed, he stated: "it would be wrong for us to continue to distinguish between Tanganyikan citizens on any grounds other than those of character and ability to do specific tasks". Many trade unionists denounced the discontinuation of the policy and it proved the catalyst for an army mutiny. On 20 January, a small group of soldiers in the First Battalion calling themselves the Army Night Freedom Fighters launched an uprising, demanding the dismissal of their white officers and a pay rise. The mutineers left the Colito Barracks and entered Dar Es Salaam, where they seized the State House. Nyerere narrowly escaped, hiding in a Roman Catholic mission for two days. The mutineers captured senior government figure Oscar Kambona, forcing him to dismiss all white officers and appoint the indigenous Elisha Kavana as head of the Tanganyika Rifles. The Second Battalion, based in Tabora, also mutineed, with Kambona acceding to their demands to appoint the indigenous Mirisho S. H. Sarakikya as their battalion leader. Having agreed to many of their demands, Kambona convincedthe First Battalion mutineers to return to their barracks. Similar yet smaller mutinies broke out in Kenya and Uganda, with the governments of both calling for British military assistance in suppressing the uprisings.
The whole week has been one of most grievous shame for our nation. It will take months and even years to erase from the mind of the world what it has heard about these events this week. — Julius Nyerere on the army mutiny
On 22 January, Nyerere came out of hiding and toured the city; the next day he gave a press conference stating that Tanganyika's reputation had been damaged by the mutiny and that he would not call for military assistance from the UK. However, on 24 January he did request British military assistance, which was granted. The following day, 60 British marine commandos were helicoptered into the city, where they landed next to the Colito Barracks; the mutineers soon surrendered. In the wake of the mutiny, Nyerere disbanded the First Battalion and dismissed hundreds of soldiers from the Second Battalion. Concerned about dissent more broadly, he discharged about ten percent of the 5000-strong police force, and oversaw the arrest of around 550 people under the Preventative Detention Act, although most were swiftly released. He denounced the ringleaders of the mutiny for trying to "intimidate our nation at the point of a gun", and fourteen of them were given sentences of between five and fifteen years imprisonment. As the British marines left, he brought in the Nigerian Third Battalion to keep order. Nyerere attributed the mutiny to the fact that his government had failed to do enough to change the army since colonial times: "We changed the uniforms a bit, we commissioned a few Africans, but at the top they were still solidly British... You could never consider it an army of the people." Acknowledging some of the mutineers demands, he appointed Sarakikya as the new commander of the army and raised troop wages.
Presidency of Tanzania [ edit ]
Unification with Zanzibar: 1964 [ edit ]
Nyerere in a public procession
Following the Zanzibari Revolution, Abeid Karume declared himself President of a one-party state and began confiscating Arab-owned land for redistribution among black African peasants. Hundreds of Arabs and Indians left, as did most of the island's British community. Western powers were reluctant to recognise Karume's government, whereas the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc, and People's Republic of China quickly did so and offered the country aid. Nyerere was angry at this Western response as well as the wider Western failure to appreciate why black Zanzibaris had revolted in the first place. In April he visited Karume in Zanzibar. The following day it was announced that Tanganyika and Zanzibar would unify to form a single country. Nyerere dismissed suggestions that the unification had anything to do with Cold War power struggles, presenting it as a response to Pan-Africanist ideology: "Unity in our continent does not have to come via Moscow or Washington." Later biographer William Edgett Smith however suggested that a key reason for Nyerere's desire for unification was to prevent Zanzibar falling into a Cold War proxy conflict akin to those then raging in Congo and Vietnam.
An interim constitution was produced that referred to the united country as the "United Republic of Tangayika and Zanzibar". It referred to Nyerere as the country's president, with Karume as its first vice president and Rashidi Kawawa as its second vice president. In August, the government launched a competition to find a new name for the country; two months later it announced that the winning proposal was "United Republic of Tanzania". There was no immediate change to the structure of the Zanzibari government; Karume and his Revolutionary Council remained in charge, and there was no merging of TANU and the Afro-Shirazi Party. There would be no local or parliamentary elections on the island for many years. Zanzibaris made up only 350,000 out of Tanzania's total population of 13 million, although from 1967 they were given seven of the 22 cabinet positions and directly appointed 40 of the country's 183 members of parliament. Nyerere explained this disproportionately high representation by stressing the need for sensitivity to the islanders' national pride: in 1965, he stated that "The Zanzibaris are a proud people. No one has ever intended that they should become simply the Republic's eighteenth region."
Karume was erratic and unpredictable, and repeatedly embarrassed Nyerere. In |
the local taxi-owners association. “India’s tourism slogan is ‘Guest is God.’ But how can we worship guests who are doing all this nonsense?”
Goa’s narcotics trade is worth about $950 million a year, police officials say, and includes marijuana, heroin, cocaine, meth, ecstasy and synthetic drugs.
For a long period, drug trafficking in Goa was controlled by separate gangs run by Britons, Israelis, Russians and Indians, who maintained an uneasy peace by operating on different beaches, police said. But in the past four years, Nigerians have infiltrated the trade, with scant regard for others’ established turfs.
“The Nigerians have entered in large numbers and will sell to anybody and everybody — on the beach, outside clubs and on the streets,” said Kartik Kashyap, superintendent of the police anti-
narcotics unit. “That is why the public perception about them is negative.”
Police said 189 Nigerians have been arrested in Goa since 2010, on charges including lack of valid travel documents and involvement in drug trafficking. About 40 percent of the foreigners arrested on drug-trafficking charges in the state since 2009 are Nigerians.
Just two weeks before the killing of the Nigerian man, Goa’s police busted two major drug rackets, seizing more than four kilograms of amphetamine from a British drug-dealer and more than 450 grams of cocaine from two Nigerians.
Police say they have recovered more drugs from raids this year than in the past four years combined.
The drug gang wars are “a manifestation of the rot that has set in,” Kashyap said. “These activities cannot be divided among groups peacefully for long. If these gangs are not controlled now, things might turn horribly bad in future.”
But the drug-tourism trade has grown deep tentacles here. Last month, the Goa legislative assembly released a 104-page report on the nexus among politicians, police officers and the drug lords.
“How can the government tackle the menace when such powerful people are protecting and profiting from it?” said Mickky Pacheco, who chaired the lower-house committee that wrote the report.
Many in Goa say they worry that the wave of negative publicity will tarnish the state’s sunny sheen permanently. Goa did not report significant growth in domestic tourist arrivals last year, and it is no longer among the top 10 Indian states that attract foreign tourists, according to the national government.
Monika Burnier, a Swiss tourist turned travel agent, said she discovered “paradise” in Goa 20 years ago and began working to bring in new European visitors.
“Over the years, the chartered flights with tourists from Switzerland, Denmark, Finland and Holland have stopped,” Burnier said, shaking her head in dismay. “Look at what Goa has become now. Do you blame them?”MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Police scrambled to close down a network around the Manchester suicide bomber with arrests in Britain and Tripoli on Wednesday, as details about the investigation were leaked to U.S. media, infuriating authorities who fear a second attack is imminent.
British-born Salman Abedi, 22, who was known to security services, killed 22 people at a concert venue packed with children on Monday.
Authorities believe he had help in building the bomb, which photographs published by the New York Times showed was sophisticated and powerful, and that his accomplices could be ready to strike again.
Manchester police arrested five men and one woman on Wednesday, bringing the total held for questioning to seven, and searched multiple addresses in northern and central England.
Explosives were found at one site, the Independent reported, citing security service sources.
A source said British investigators were hunting for anyone who may have helped build the suicide bomb.
“I think it’s very clear that this is a network that we are investigating,” police chief Ian Hopkins said outside Manchester police headquarters.
“And as I’ve said, it continues at a pace. There’s extensive investigations going on and activity taking place across Greater Manchester as we speak.”
Abedi, who was born in Manchester in 1994 to Libyan parents, blew himself up on Monday night at the Manchester Arena indoor venue at the end of a concert by U.S. pop singer Ariana Grande attended by thousands of children and teenagers.
Police in Tripoli on Wednesday arrested Abedi’s younger brother and his father, who said he did not expect the attack.
“I spoke to [Salman Abedi] about five days ago... there was nothing wrong, everything was normal,” Ramadan Abedi told Reuters, moments before he was arrested.
A spokesman for the local counter-terrorism force said his brother Hashem Abedi was arrested on suspicion of links with Islamic State and was suspected of planning to carry out an attack in the Libyan capital.
The first arrest made in Britain on Tuesday was reported by British and U.S. media to be Abedi’s older brother.
Earlier, interior minister Amber Rudd said the bomber had recently returned from Libya. Her French counterpart Gerard Collomb said he had links with Islamic State and had probably visited Syria as well.
U.S. LEAKS
Authorities in Britain have become increasingly angered by U.S. leaks from the investigation, including the bomber’s name on Tuesday and the photos of blood-stained fragments from the bomb on Wednesday.
British police chiefs said the breaches of trust between security service partners were undermining their efforts.
Rudd had earlier scolded U.S. officials for leaking details.
“The British police have been very clear that they want to control the flow of information in order to protect operational integrity, the element of surprise, so it is irritating if it gets released from other sources, and I have been very clear with our friends that should not happen again,” she said.
But, hours after the warning, the New York Times published the detailed photographs.
A government source told the Guardian newspaper, “Protests have been lodged at every relevant level between the British authorities and our U.S. counterparts.”
British Prime Minster Theresa May will meet U.S. President Donald Trump at a NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday, but officials said she would cut short the second leg of her trip to the G7 summit in Italy.
The Manchester bombing has raised concern across Europe.
Cities including Paris, Nice, Brussels, St. Petersburg, Berlin and London have suffered militant attacks in the last two years.
SOLDIERS ON THE STREETS
The 22 victims in Manchester included an eight-year-old girl, several teenage girls, a 28-year-old man and a Polish couple who had come to collect their daughters.
Britain’s official terror threat level was raised to “critical”, the highest level, late on Tuesday, meaning an attack was expected imminently.
But with just over two weeks to go until a national election, May’s Conservatives and political parties said they would resume campaigning in the coming days.
Messages and floral tributes left for the victims of the attack on Manchester Arena lie around the statue in St Ann's Square in central Manchester, May 24, 2017. REUTERS/Jon Super
The Manchester bombing was the deadliest attack in Britain since July 2005, when four British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people in coordinated attacks on London’s transport network.
Rudd said up to 3,800 soldiers could be deployed on Britain’s streets, taking on guard duties to free up police to focus on patrols and investigation. An initial deployment of 984 had been ordered, first in London and then elsewhere.
Soldiers were seen at the Houses of Parliament, May’s Downing Street residence and at the London police headquarters at New Scotland Yard.
The Changing of the Guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace, a draw for tourists, was canceled because it requires support from police officers, which authorities decided was not a good use of resources given the threat level.
A source close to the bombing investigation told Reuters that the focus was on whether Abedi had received help in putting together the bomb and on where it had been done.
The bomb used in the attack appeared to contain carefully packed shrapnel and have a powerful, high velocity charge, according to leaked photographs from the investigation published by the New York Times.
The BBC reported that security services thought the bomb was too sophisticated for Abedi to have built by himself.
Police arrested three people in South Manchester, one woman in North Manchester, a man in the nearby town of Wigan, and another man in the central English town of Nuneaton.
CANCELED TOUR
Ariana Grande’s representative said on Wednesday she was suspending her tour to assess the situation and to “pay our proper respects to those lost”. The U.S. singer had been scheduled to perform two shows at London’s O2 arena this week.
Chelsea soccer club said it had canceled a victory parade that had been set to take place on Sunday to celebrate its Premier League title.
Several high-profile sporting events are coming up in Britain, including the soccer FA Cup final at London’s Wembley Stadium and the English rugby club competition final at Twickenham on Saturday and the UEFA Champions League final at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium on June 3.
Britain also has a national election scheduled for June 8.
All campaigning was suspended after the attack, although major parties said they would resume some activities on Thursday and national-level campaigning on Friday.
The government said a minute’s silence would be held at all official buildings at 1000 GMT (6.00 a.m. ET) on Thursday.
Slideshow (19 Images)
Greater Manchester Police said they were now confident they knew the identity of all the people who lost their lives and had made contact with all the families. They said they would formally name the victims after forensic post-mortems, which would take four or five days.
The bombing also left 64 people wounded, of whom 20 were receiving critical care for highly traumatic injuries to major organs and to limbs, a health official said.
France, which has repeatedly been hit by devastating militant attacks since 2015, extended emergency powers.
(For a graphic showing where the blast hit, click tmsnrt.rs/2rbQAay)US lawyers claim they have videos implicating Abu Dhabi royal in more cases of torture, a week after outcry over his assaults on Afghan businessman.
The wealthy Gulf prince at the centre of a "torture tape" scandal has been accused of attacking at least 25 other people in incidents that have also been caught on film, it has been claimed.
Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan is now under investigation in the United Arab Emirates after the shocking tape showed him beating a man with a nailed plank, setting him on fire, attacking him with a cattle prod and running him over.
But now lawyers for American businessman Bassam Nabulsi, who smuggled the tape out of the UAE, have written to the justice minister of Abu Dhabi - the most powerful of the emirates that make up the UAE - claiming to have considerably more evidence against Issa.
"I have more than two hours of video footage showing Sheikh Issa's involvement in the torture of more than 25 people," wrote Texas-based lawyer Anthony Buzbee in a letter obtained by the Observer.
The news of more torture videos involving Issa is another huge blow to the international image of the UAE. The oil-rich state has been keen to develop relations with wealthy western politicians, universities and corporations and to promote an aura of moderation and tolerance. But the shocking video of Issa torturing Afghan grain merchant Mohammed Shah Poor, whom Issa said had cheated him in a business deal, has heavily dented the UAE's reputation. Particularly damaging was the apparent involvement of a policeman in the torture and the impunity with which Sheikh Issa could act, even after the tape emerged. He is a senior prince related to powerful members of the ruling family in Abu Dhabi.
But now it appears the initial tape could just be the beginning of the problem. The new tapes apparently also involve police officers taking part in Issa's attacks, and some of his victims in the as-yet-unseen videos are believed to be Sudanese immigrants.
Buzbee said he would be happy to provide the new videos to the Abu Dhabi authorities, who have pledged to investigate Issa's activities. "I also have access to at least three witnesses, all of whom will testify that the brutality exhibited in the videos by Sheikh Issa is part of a pattern of conduct that has gone on for some time... I can also provide additional witnesses who were actually present during several of Sheikh Issa's torture sessions," Buzbee said in the letter.
The fresh revelations about Issa's actions will add further doubt to a pending nuclear energy deal between the UAE and the US. The deal, signed in the final days of George W Bush, is seen as vital for the UAE. It will see the US share nuclear energy expertise, fuel and technology in return for a promise to abide by non-proliferation agreements. But the deal needs to be recertified by the Obama administration and there is growing outrage in America over the tapes. Congressman James McGovern, a senior Democrat, has demanded that Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, investigate the matter and find out why US officials initially appeared to play down its significance.
The authorities in the UAE have certainly mishandled the emergence of the initial torture tape. The 2004 tape was obtained by ABC News and shown on television in the US. The UAE at first said that the matter had been privately settled between Sheikh Issa and his victim. They also added that UAE police had followed all their rules and regulations properly.
But that position did not last long in the face of a wave of international revulsion at the brutality on display. The fierceness of the criticism eventually forced the UAE government to both condemn the tape and announce a new investigation. The government "unequivocally condemns the actions depicted on the video", the state-run news agency said last week. It added that a government human rights group in the Judicial Department would also now review the matter. Local media also started to report the existence of the tape, having hitherto been silent on the story in the notoriously secretive country.
Buzbee welcomed the developments, but expressed scepticism that the investigation was genuinely motivated, because the authorities had known about the tapes for several years. "I am sceptical about whether there will be a genuine investigation, given that various officials have been aware of these issues for many years and given the fact that members of the government were actually involved in, or covered up, the torture," he said.
The tape emerged from a court case brought in America by Nabulsi. The American citizen is a former business partner of Sheikh Issa, and claims he, too, was tortured in the UAE after the pair fell out. Nabulsi said the first tape was shot by his brother on the orders of Sheikh Issa, who liked to view them later for his own pleasure.
Lawyers for Issa in America have attacked Nabulsi's motivations, accusing him of waging a media campaign. In a statement last week, Issa's lawyer, Daryl Bristow, said: "When all the facts are known, the one-sided story being told by Nabulsi will be completely addressed and Nabulsi will be discredited."HOMEOWNERS hit with enormous water bills because of leaks will have to identify the problem themselves to avail of a "first fix free" scheme.
HOMEOWNERS hit with enormous water bills because of leaks will have to identify the problem themselves to avail of a "first fix free" scheme.
The Irish Independent has learned that people will have just a year to identify a problem with their supply that is resulting in very high bills, after which they will be obliged to pay for repairs themselves.
The Government believes as many as one-in-10 homes -- or more than 100,000 properties -- will need leaks repaired when water charges are introduced from October 1 next.
But Environment Minister Phil Hogan confirmed that the Government's first-fix-free policy will place the onus on homeowners to identify a problem and will only apply for 12 months after charges are introduced. After that, it would be up to the homeowner to fund the repairs, he said.
He also said just €30m would be set aside to fund repair works, and that problems would be identified by homeowners who received bills which were larger than expected.
Average bills, while not yet decided, are likely to be €300-€350 a year based on the UK experience.
Speaking to the Irish Independent, he also revealed further details of planned reforms to the water sector including changes to planning rules which will oblige all new buildings – including private homes – to be fitted with rainwater harvesting systems to help reduce demand.
But he stressed that only ‘legacy’ leaks found within a year of charges being introduced would be repaired, and that funding would be available for a “short period”.
“We’re working on a policy and hope to have some capital monies available, about €30m,” he said. “About 10pc (of homes) may have leaks. There’ll be complaints made about bills, and if it’s a leak between the meter and front door it’s a legacy leak (and will be fixed).
“It will be for a short period, a year, and if it’s not identified in the first year, it’s not a legacy issue.”
In many cases, homeowners will not be aware they have leaks as the water can be found under front gardens and may never appear on the surface.
Most leaks are found around the stopcock of fittings, but they could also be in the pipe which would require the pavement or garden to be dug up and the pipe replaced. Older houses, serviced by metal pipes, are more likely to leak.
Average water use per person is estimated at 150 litres a day, but leaks can result in thousands of litres being wasted. A study by Galway City Council found that one home in the city was using 61,000 litres a day – the equivalent demand from almost 410 people.
Homeowners will have a number of ways to check if they are using excessive amounts of water – by comparing bills with neighbours living in similar household sizes, or by calculating the ‘average’ use per person against their bill to see if excessive amounts of water are being used.
Irish Water, which took control of the water network from January 1, has previously revealed that leaks were found in supplies servicing one in 20 homes already fitted with meters.
Repairs had been carried out after leaks were detected in mains pipes outside properties during the installation of meters, with experts putting the cost of fixing the leak at up to €600 each.
A total of 80,000 meters have already been fitted in homes across the State, and 1.05 million will be installed by December 2016.
Another 300,000 apartments will be billed based on an average, or ‘assessed’ charge, but a pilot project is under way to see if meters can be fitted in these buildings.
It had been expected that homeowners would have to pay for any repairs on their properties from their own pockets.
But last summer the Irish Independent revealed that the first-leak policy was aimed at softening the blow for homeowners who are likely to be hit with average bills of up to €350 each. The scheme will cover the cost of repairing pipes between the footpath, where the meter is installed, and hall door. It will not cover internal leaks.
Similar schemes are in place across the UK. Anglia Water pays for pipe repairs, but only for people on social welfare.
The policy being developed here will apply to all homeowners regardless of their income, but any subsequent leaks will have to be repaired by the customer. The Government expects as many as 100,000 homes to need repairs.
By Paul Melia
Irish IndependentResearchers using the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes have identified what they believe may be the youngest star-forming galaxy ever observed, seen just 700 million years after the birth of the universe itself.
This period in the history of the universe is thought to be a kind of cosmic "dark age," when space was suffused with clouds of cold hydrogen gas that had yet to coalesce into stars and galaxies. The galaxy observed, which astronomers think they are seeing as it was 12.8 billion years in the past, would thus have been one of the early points to light up with new-formed stars.
"This galaxy presumably is one of the many galaxies that helped end the dark
ages," said astronomer Larry Bradley of Johns Hopkins University, and leader of the study. "Astronomers are fairly certain that high-energy objects such as quasars did not provide enough energy to end the dark ages of the universe. But many young star-forming galaxies may have produced enough energy to end it."
Astronomers were able to take advantage of a natural lens in space to see so far back in time and space. A massive cluster of galaxies called
Abell 1689, about 2.2 billion light years away, exerts enough gravitational pull on the surrounding space to bend the path of light from objects behind it.
This natural "gravitational lens" effect essentially magnified the distant light by nearly 10 times, making it bright enough for Spitzer and Hubble to detect. However, it is still invisible in the ordinary light spectrum, because the expansion of the universe over time has stretched the wavelength of the light emitted by the young galaxy into the infrared spectrum.
By today's standards, it's a tiny galaxy, the mass of just a few billion stars like our Sun. But astronomers believe that was typical for early star-forming galaxies.
Astronomers Find One of the Youngest and Brightest Galaxies in the Early Universe [Hubble]
(Image: The "dark ages" galaxy, as seen by Hubble and Spitzer. The largest image shows the region of space involved, while the Hubble and
Spitzer insets show the barely visible image as seen in infrared light.
Credit: NASA; ESA; L. Bradley (Johns Hopkins University); R. Bouwens
(University of California, Santa Cruz); H. Ford (Johns Hopkins
University); and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz))Tyler Ardron made his Canada debut on the same day as Ospreys team-mate Jeff Hassler
Canada captain Tyler Ardron has signed a new three-year contract that will keep him at the Ospreys until 2017.
The 23-year-old, who was named Canadian player of the year in 2013, made a big impression during his first season at the Liberty Stadium.
The flanker is the 17th player to recommit to the Ospreys in 2014, joining the likes of captain Alun Wyn Jones,Eli Walker and Dan Baker.
"I'm very excited about the future after signing the new deal," he said.
"The amount of things I have learnt both on and off the field have helped me to develop as a person as well as a rugby player."
Ardron made 22 appearances in his first season with the Ospreys after moving from Ontario Blues in 2013.
Andrew Millward, rugby general manager at the Ospreys, believes Ardron, who has won 16 international caps, will only get better.
"We knew when we first signed Tyler that we had a fantastic prospect and a real athlete on our hands, and he is someone who has fitted really well into our environment over the last year," said Millward.
"He's got an outstanding work ethic, on and off the field, and is a natural leader.
"With that first year under his belt he is going to get better and better, and we see him playing a huge part in our future success so this is extremely positive news."
Ardron scored one of Ospreys' nine tries in their 62-13 Guinness Pro12 win over Edinburgh.The first real estate has been acquired for digital currency in Denmark.
A major Danish cryptocurrency platform, Coinify, has announced it processed the first real estate purchase conducted with the use of bitcoin. The buyer of the property preferred to remain anonymous.
In order to accept the payment in digital currency, the real estate agency Just-Sold created a merchant account at Coinify.
“We are very satisfied being the first real estate company in the Nordics using a blockchain currency in a real estate purchase. As an innovative company it is only natural for us being open to new technology and taking innovative steps – also within payment methods. It is a part of our business DNA,” said Jesper Jørgensen, CEO of Just-Sold.
Coinify enables customers to accept bitcoin and receive payments in local currencies, such as dollars, euros and other currencies. Last year, the company announced expansion across 34 countries within the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).
The residential property, located in the north-west part of Zealand in Denmark, was estimated at 117 BTC (nearly $50,000). According to Jørgensen, the new owner of the house is an early adopter of digital currency, who has bought bitcoins over an extended period of mining.
Speaking about the advantages of bitcoin over fiat currency, Coinify’s Compliance Officer, Joosep Vahtras, stated: “Whenever there are so called large cash transactions with traditional currency, there are always questions regarding the source of funds. According to Anti Money Laundering rules, a person must disclose the origin of assets when purchasing for more than the equivalent of 100.000 DKK (15.000 EUR).”
In addition to processing the payment, Coinify provided help with ensuring compliance of the transaction. The acquisition of property using bitcoin shows a new possible application of the digital currency.
With cash deposits, it is often difficult for banks to verify the source of funds. “Since banks operate with closed ledgers a great amount of resources are required for obtaining the information in midst of the bureaucracy and customer privacy. In comparison, Bitcoin as a payment system uses open public ledgers that are transparent and easily accessible for everyone,” Joosep Vahtras said. Vahtras added that Coinify uses Chainalysis to track the previous transactions and digital wallets of potential buyers.
The agreement, meantime, is not the latest property purchase deal realized with bitcoin. In 2014, the California-based real estate company, RealtyShares, became the first firm to sell property for digital currency.
The use of bitcoin for property purchase is just another step towards the wider adoption of virtual currency.Marissa Mayer will be Yahoo's fourth CEO in four years.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Yahoo has a new CEO -- again! And this time the selection came completely out of left field.
Marissa Mayer, a Google executive and one of the first two dozen employees at the search giant, will take the reins of the struggling Yahoo.
Mayer held many jobs in her 14 years at Google and most recently served as vice president of location and local services. For years she was one of most public faces of Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), appearing in numerous media interviews and delivering keynotes on behalf of the company.
She had been considered one of the search company's most powerful executives when Eric Schmidt was CEO, but when founder Larry Page took the helm and reorganized the company back in April 2011, she didn't land one of the top jobs.
Many analysts viewed her most recent position as step down from her previous role as the Google's search product head.
Mayer resigned from Google via telephone on Monday, according to a report in The New York Times. In addition to her role as CEO, she will become a Yahoo board member. Mayer also sits on the board of Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500).
Mayer's choice as Yahoo's CEO is an upset. Interim CEO Ross Levinsohn was widely considered to be the leading candidate for the job.
She takes over at a tumultuous time for a fading Web icon: She is the company's fourth CEO in less than four years.
"There's a lot to do," Mayer told Fortune's Patricia Sellers moments after Yahoo announced her appointment. She is starting her new job on Tuesday, just hours before Yahoo is slated to release its latest quarterly earnings report.
Yahoo had been in need of a leader since May, when Scott Thompson was ousted after just four months in the wake of a scandal over his embellished college degree.
Now, it's Mayer's turn to answer the age-old question: What, exactly, is Yahoo?
A company in transition
The company calls itself "the premier digital media company," and its news properties attract loads of traffic. But Yahoo's brand now has lots of baggage and a sprawling product portfolio.
Meanwhile, Yahoo has lost two of its former business strongholds. The company once led the search market, but it gave up on that sector three years ago. It's also losing ground with its other cash cow, display advertising, to newer entrants such as Google and Facebook.
Thompson took a stab at defining Yahoo during his few months at the company. In April, he reorganized the company into three groups: consumer, ad-focused "regions," and technology.
Thompson didn't get to see that vision through.
Yahoo's recent CEOs weren't able to pull off the turnaround, and their tenures were rocky. Before Thompson, Carol Bartz's phone firing followed a tumultuous relationship with the board. Her predecessor, Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) co-founder Jerry Yang, stepped down after shareholders were angered by his snubbing of a buyout offer from Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500).
On the positive side, most of Yahoo's previous directors were wiped out in a board shakeup in February. Three nominees from Third Point -- the activist shareholder fund that exposed Thompson's resume lie -- have instead joined the board, and a new chairman is in place.AS THE death toll over the violence in the Gaza strip pushes past 160, the world has reacted with anger over a photograph showing Israelis treating the bombing as a spectator sport.
Locals in the city of Sderot, west of Gaza, have turned a hilltop into a makeshift cinema, bringing up chairs and sofas to get a front-row seat for the fatal air assault.
The world has reacted with outrage after journalist Allan Sorensen posted a photograph of the so-called “Sderot cinema”, which showed Israelis flocking for a good view of the bombing, with one woman winking at the camera and giving the thumbs-up as deadly rockets light up the night sky.
Sderot cinema. Israelis bringing chairs 2 hilltop in sderot 2 watch latest from Gaza. Clapping when blasts are heard. pic.twitter.com/WYZquV62O7 — Allan Sørensen (@allansorensen72) July 9, 2014
Sorensen’s newspaper, Denmark’s Kristeligt Dagblad, reported that the event attracted more than 50 people who had turned the hill into something that resembled “the front row of a reality war theatre”.
It said people were celebrating the deadly light show by cheerfully sharing popcorn, smoking hookahs and applauding the bomb blasts.
“We are here to see Israel destroy Hamas,” Eli Chone, a 22-year-old American living in Israel, told the newspaper.
“Honestly. Look at the people around you. They live in this town and must daily deal with being shot at. There’s nothing to say that they are happy that the military is now fighting back. We sit and look at Israel creating peace.”
“And it’s also just good fun,” his friend added.
RELATED: Israel tells Palestinians to flee Gaza as it promises to escalate attacks on Hamas
Sorensen’s Twitpic has since been shared 1600 times — and attracted widespread condemnation.
@allansorensen72 disgusting! The jou of the other death... What a sad thing. — Saladino (@Saladinosafari) July 10, 2014
@allansorensen72 @Habibiline morality of a people so skewed that murder is a public spectle. an astonishing thing to see in this day/age? — Syed-Makki Shah (@SyedMakkiShah) July 10, 2014
@MathiFryy I'm sorry but people, any people, celebrating death anywhere is abominable. Nothing to do with this community or that. Period. — Aliya Nazki (@AliyaNazki) July 10, 2014
However, people on the other side of the conflict have also been seen to celebrate as militants fired back.
West Bank Palestinians cheered on Saturday as Hamas launched 10 rockets at the Tel Aviv area, but there were no reports of casualties or damage, The Jersalem Post reports.
“Today we have come to see the rockets hitting our cities occupied since 1948 and to see these moments of dignity and pride carried out by the resistance in Gaza,” one resident said.
“I invite everyone to come and watch the rockets, in order to confirm that the Palestinians are not weak, the Palestinians are strong. But because of the betrayals, and all that has happened in the past, now we are opening a new page for the resistance and Hebron will be the spark,” said another.
@JournoLawJ: The people of #Hebron city watching of Palestinian missiles launched from Gaza & falling on Tel Aviv pic.twitter.com/UusKv7IY0x — Liam (@liam_ziron) July 14, 2014
Meanwhile, thousands of people in the Gaza strip fled their homes and took shelter in United Nations schools yesterday after the Israeli army ordered them to leave in advance of intensified air strikes in the northern part of the coastal enclave.
The Palestinian death toll reportedly exceeds 160 as Israel continues its offensive against the militant Islamist group Hamas, which controls Gaza.
Diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire have yet to bear fruit, with US Secretary of State John Kerry speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a bid to prevent further escalation.
Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop says 17 Australians have been assisted out of the area as violence intensifies.
“Australians in Gaza are urged to leave as soon as possible,” she told Sky News.
The Australian Embassy in Tel Aviv is arranging a one-off assisted departure of Australians from Gaza, and the federal government has asked those wanting to leave to urgently contact the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.3.1K Shares Share
Life has always been a perplexing journey for me.
As a kid, I was surrounded by people fitting into molds – or at least attempting to. And I was in the latter group. No matter how I pushed or curved or bent, I was never quite up to the task of fitting the boy mold.
I was never boy enough.
I subscribed to the typical favorites of a socially approved boy – like video games, toy weapons, and action figures – and I believed that “boy things” and “girl things” were real (they’re not), but even still, I stood out and felt out of place.
It wasn’t until one Halloween night when my twin brother, my sister, and I were playing make-believe in our pirate costumes that my family took notice that I wasn’t truly following typical gender behaviors. I had suddenly got the urge to switch costumes with my sister.
I wanted to be the “girl pirate” instead.
My grandmother walks in after our quick wardrobe change and calmly asks us to switch back. The next Halloween, she got me a Batman costume and a Pink Power Ranger costume, for use in the house. I think she understood my non-compliance to gender long before I did, and I think she’s far more open-minded and intelligent than she’ll ever give herself credit for.
What is clear is that she loved me for me, and not whether or not I was going to grow up to be a “real man.”
These toys and costumes gave me a sense of power.
I got to be the person I saw myself as — a feminine boy and a feminine girl. Not being stopped from being myself made me feel like I had a right to exist, like I mattered just as much as anyone else.
And this empowerment stuck with me through the years – despite the lack of an active or visible queer community around me. As a result, I’m happy with who I am today and privileged enough to speak about my experiences being bigender.
This means that I don’t exclusively identify as a woman or a man.
My family was always very supportive of my differences in gender and sexuality, and I was allowed to do what made me happy.
Being both a feminine boy and a feminine girl made me happy.
I was never pressured to live up to the hyper masculine ideal that plagues boys in this world, so I came to terms with my gender early in my life. This was definitely a privilege.
The world is not nearly as inclusive as the friends and family that we choose — the ones who actually support us, at least. And even as a young child I could sense that other boys felt uncomfortable around me.
Cisgender men (ones who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth) and heterosexual men are taught not to embrace or explore gender fluidity – and I’m a living symbol of what they’re told to stay away from.
They’re taught to uphold normative societal values that being associated with a “sissy” like me could put their place in the world at risk. As a result, boys who choose to explore gender often have to do it in secret, with little to no guidance from the people around them.
I wish society didn’t tell boys to stay away from people like me, because all I want to do is start conversations, to tell boys it’s okay to step outside of the norm.
No one should have to spend years hiding because no one around them is telling them that they’re perfect however they choose to be, and that they can be happy living outside the mainstream.
The cause of this distance between boys and I clearly comes from a place of fear. It was easy for me to overcome my fears, and to explore, because I was not one of the boys put to the task of “being a man.”
I was lucky enough to live outside of the reality where not being tough would make me a target for harassment or violence.
The Dangers of Boys Exploring Gender
The same cannot be said for all boys in this world.
In other realities, showing emotion, or anything else society deems feminine, can lead to physical assaults and social outcasting. Boys can go from passing safely in the hallway to being called a “sissy” or a weirdo in an instant.
There’s not a long list of ways women have advantage over men, but in exploring gender girls definitely have more flexibility. A girl who loves cars, sports, and “boys clothing” might be called a tomboy, while a boy who loves Barbies, princesses, and dresses would, again, be a called a “sissy,” and possibly get assaulted in the process.
Regardless of perceived gender, it’s never okay to call someone outside of their name, whether it’s the socially approved “tomboy” or any of the many negative term against feminine or non-conforming boys.
It’s crucial for us to recognize that there is no positive or even neutral term in our culture for a feminine boy.
Given the challenges of gender exploration for boys, the act of affirming within yourself that you don’t fit the cis gender identity, or admitting that you might be a little different, are huge and powerful things.
(But please, don’t feel the need to find and accept your gender identity immediately. It’s not a race!)
Here’s a short list of things to remember if you feel like you may be, or know someone who is, gender non-conforming.
1. You Get to Decide How to Express Your Gender
You don’t owe anyone else your truth, and don’t have to live your truth according to anyone else.
Being gender non-conforming does not necessarily mean that you have |
the site's authority in order to use it to further their political ends. That is one possible theory, and this is the opinion of experts, which has some currency in our country too. I think that if this is not the case, it shows that the diplomatic service should be more careful with its documents. Such leaks have happened before, in the previous era. I don't see it as any kind of catastrophe. Larry King: What about the statement by the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates that Russian democracy has disappeared and that the government is being run by the security services? What is your response to the American secretary of defence's statement? Vladimir Putin: I am personally acquainted with Mr Gates, I have met him on several occasions. I think he is a very nice man and not a bad specialist. But Mr Gates, of course, was one of the leaders of the US Central Intelligence Agency and today he is defence secretary. If he also happens to be America's leading expert on democracy, I congratulate you. Larry King: So he is wrong in saying that your country is being run by secret security services? Vladimir Putin: He is profoundly wrong. Our country is run by the people of the Russian Federation through legitimately elected bodies of power and administration: through representative bodies (the parliament) and executive bodies (the president and the government of the Russian Federation).
As for democracy, this is a long-running argument we have been having with our American colleagues. I would like to recall that twice in the history of the United States the presidential candidate who ultimately became president of the United States won more votes in the electoral college but lost the popular vote. What's democratic about that?
And when we tell our American colleagues that there are systemic problems in this sphere we hear, "Don't poke your noses into our affairs. This is how things work here and this is the way it is going to be." We are not butting in, but I would also like to advise our colleagues not to poke their noses into our affairs. This is the sovereign choice of the Russian people. The Russian people unequivocally backed democracy in the early 90s. They will not be swayed from this path. No one should have any doubts on that score. This is in Russia's own interests. And we will definitely continue along this path.
The issue Mr Gates raised in the course of this diplomatic correspondence is clearly related to his desire to bring some pressure to bear on the allies over concrete issues. There are many such issues. Russia is seen as deserving this pressure because it is undemocratic: these measures have to be taken because there is no democracy there. We have heard this a thousand times. We have stopped paying attention to it. But it is still being used as an instrument of US foreign policy. I think this is an erroneous approach to take in the building of relations with the Russian Federation. Larry King: How would you describe your relationship with President Medvedev? As you know, there are some who say that he is Robin and you are Batman, to refer to those all-American heroes. Or in fact, to get it straight, that you are Batman and he is Robin. Vladimir Putin: Well, you know when Mr Medvedev and I were considering how to structure our relations and how to run the election campaign, the 2008 presidential election campaign, we were very well aware that many would try to create a split in our common approach to the building of the Russian state and the development of our economy. Because our interaction is a considerable factor in the country's domestic policy. But it did not occur to us that it would be done in such an impudent, brazen and aggressive fashion.
Such claims of course are aimed at insulting one of us, at damaging our sense of pride and at provoking us into taking steps that would destroy our effective interaction in running the country. I have to tell you that we have already grown used to this. I urge all those who are engaged in such attempts to calm down.
7.53am: The Chinese government seems to be upping the anti-WikiLeaks rhetoric. Ananth Krishnan, the Beijing correspondent of the Hindu, just tweeted this:
8.06am: Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at New York University, thinks aloud about WikiLeaks. He speaks very slowly for a New Yorker but he has some interesting things to say about WikiLeaks as a stateless news organisation.
8.16am: Here's an interesting antidote to all those American calls to treat WikiLeaks as a terrorist organisation. Writing in the LA Times two frustrated US federal investigators write that if WikiLeaks had been around in 2001 it could have helped prevent 9/11. They argue that information their superiors wanted bottled up could have been leaked to the site alerting the world to the possibility of a terrorist attack. (Hat tip to my live-blogging colleague Richard Adams).
The 9/11 Commission ultimately concluded that [would-be terrorist Zacarias] Moussaoui was most likely being primed as a September 11 replacement pilot and that the hijackers probably would have postponed their strike if information about his arrest had been announced. WikiLeaks might have provided a pressure valve for those agents who were terribly worried about what might happen and frustrated by their superiors' seeming indifference. They were indeed stuck in a perplexing, no-win ethical dilemma as time ticked away. Their bosses issued continual warnings against "talking to the media" and frowned on whistle-blowing, yet the agents felt a strong need to protect the public.
8.29am: The cables aren't all bad for Putin. One of them from US ambassador William Burns relays praise for the former Russian president by the Noble prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, four months before his death.
Burns wrote: "Solzhenitsyn positively contrasted the eight-year reign of Putin with those of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, which he said had 'added to the damage done to the Russian state by 70 years of communist rule'. Under Putin, the nation was rediscovering what it was to be Russian, Solzhenitsyn thought."
But as Luke Harding writes Solzhenistyn praise for Putin wasn't unqualified.
8.43am: David Horsey, a cartoonist for Seattle Pi, manages to get at least eight WikiLeaks story lines into one cartoon. Can you count anymore?
The Guardian's Steve Bell gives us a double dose of WikiLeaks cartoons with his If... strip and the main comment page cartoon. Both feature Prince Andrew, a trough of gold, and pig's ear.
8.57am: More signs of US twitchiness about WikiLeaks. New York's Daily News is tweeting that Julian Assange may be on a bar crawl in Manhattan. Gawker can't take it seriously.
Meanwhile the right wing talk show host Todd Schnitt is offering a $50,000 reward for the capture of Assange.
9.17am: The New York Times leads with a 2,300 word article on the revelations about Putin's Russia. Here's the nub:
The cables portray Mr Putin as enjoying supremacy over all other Russian public figures, yet undermined by the very nature of the post-Soviet country he helped build. Even a man with his formidable will and intellect is shown beholden to intractable larger forces, including an inefficient economy and an unmanageable bureaucracy that often ignores his edicts. In language candid and bald, the cables reveal an assessment of Mr Putin's Russia as highly centralized, occasionally brutal and all but irretrievably cynical and corrupt. The Kremlin, by this description, lies at the center of a constellation of official and quasi-official rackets.
10.02am: Two interesting lines emerged overnight in Australia
• The prime minister Julia Gillard strongly criticised WikiLeaks. "I absolutely condemn the placement of this information on the WikiLeaks website," she told Fairfax Radio. "It's a grossly irresponsible thing to do and an illegal thing to do."
• Daniel Assange, Julian's 20 year old son, told the website crikey.com that he was surprised his father hadn't been killed. He said he was proud of his father but confirmed he can be difficult to work with. "He gets easily frustrated with people who aren't capable of working up to his level and seeing ideas that he grasps very intuitively," he said.
10.11am: Salon's Glenn Greenwald blogs about the hypocrisy of the bloodthirsty reaction to the leaks in America.
The ringleaders of this hate ritual are advocates of - and in some cases directly responsible for - the world's deadliest and most lawless actions of the last decade. And they're demanding Assange's imprisonment, or his blood, in service of a Government that has perpetrated all of these abuses and, more so, to preserve a Wall of Secrecy which has enabled them. To accomplish that, they're actually advocating - somehow with a straight face - the theory that if a single innocent person is harmed by these disclosures, then it proves that Assange and WikiLeaks are evil monsters who deserve the worst fates one can conjure, all while they devote themselves to protecting and defending a secrecy regime that spawns at least as much human suffering and disaster as any single other force in the world. That is what the secrecy regime of the permanent National Security State has spawned.
10.32am: Sweden's Supreme Court has upheld a court order to detain WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for questioning over an alleged sexual assault, according to AP.
Assange, who denies the charges, had appealed two lower court rulings allowing investigators to bring him into custody and issue an international arrest warrant.
Today the Swedish Supreme Court rejected his appeal of the detention order.
10.42am: Another world leader gets a very undiplomatic pasting in the latest leaked cable. Next up in the stocks is President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan, who is described as "vain, suspicious, guarded, strict, very conservative", a "micro-manager" and "a practised liar".
Luke Harding writes:
<
Powerful writer... Turkmenistan president Berdymukhamedov. Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty
p>In the diplomatic equivalent of a mauling, the US embassy gives a brutal assessment of the president's talents, and those of his ruling family. Berdymukhamedov became ruler of the oil-rich former Soviet nation – known for its megalomanic leaders – in 2006.
The cable, released by WikiLeaks but originally sent by Sylvia Reed Curran, the US's charge d'affaires in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan's capital, fleshes out Berdymukhamedov's humble family background.
She says he is the only son in a family of eight children. She adds witheringly: "His father is a retired prison guard with the rank of colonel. The father, many in Turkmenistan think, is more intelligent than the son."
The website of the US embassy in Ashgabat says that Curran is still the Charge d'Affaires, but for how much longer?
Canadians "always carry a chip on their shoulder" in part because of a feeling that their country "is condemned to always play 'Robin' to the US 'Batman.' "
p>One of the many things we have learnt from these cables is that US diplomats are fans of the comic superhero Batman. There are unflattering Batman and Robin references about both Canada and Russia. Compare and contrast:
And
Medvedev continues to play Robin to Putin's Batman, surrounded by a team loyal to the Premier and checked by Putin's dominance over the legislature and regional elites.
11.39am: Tom Flanagan, a former senior adviser to the Canadian prime Minister Stephen Harper, now says he regrets calling for Julian Assange's assassination, (see yesterday at 8.38am).
Speaking to the Canadian broadcaster CBC, he said:
It was a thoughtless, glib remark about a serious subject," Flanagan told the Candian broadcaster CBC. I never seriously intended to advocate or propose the assassination of Mr Assange. But I do think that what he's doing is very malicious and harmful to diplomacy and endangering people's lives, and I think it should be stopped.
p>Julian Assange hysteria watch, part 94. The Atlanta-based radio station WSB is asking listeners to vote on whether Assange should be shot or put in jail. There is no third option.
So far most listeners favour shooting.
12.00pm: There's a very wry spoof Twitter feed for Julian Assange. The premise is that he is holed-up in his mother's back bedroom.
12.17pm: It seems that diplomat Sylvia Reed Curran, author of that stinging criticism of president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan, has moved on. She was sent to Vladivostok, according to the website of the US consulate there. The website of the US embassy in Turkmenistan has been updated since our 10.42am post.
12.31pm: A double dollop of revelations about Silvio Berlusconi have been published by the Guardian, and they don't look good for the Italian premier.
• US diplomats have reported startling suspicions that Silvio Berlusconi could be "profiting personally and handsomely" from secret deals with the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin. Exasperated by Berlusconi's pro-Russian behaviour, American embassy staff detail allegations circulating in Rome that the Italian leader has been promised a cut of huge energy contracts.
• Silvio Berlusconi's fondness for partying has also taken a physical and political toll on the Italian prime minister, according a friend in contact with the US embassy in Rome.Giampiero Cantoni, then chairman of the Italian Senate's defence committee, was quoted in a leaked embassy cable from October 2009 as saying the results of medical tests on Berlusconi had come back "a complete mess".
12.51pm:Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell told Fox News that the US has the power to shutdown WikiLeaks and block the leaks, but chose not to.
"This is a capability reserved for threats of much higher consequence than this," he told Fox News. He conceded that the revelations were awkward and embarrassing but would cause long term damage to America's "power and prestige".
1.32pm: Russia's leadership and supine television channels were deafeningly silent this morning over revelations that US diplomats view Russia as a corrupt, autocratic kleptocracy, writes Tom Parfitt in Moscow.
Russia Today, the English language broadcaster, did mention the leaks but focused on Putin's robust rebuttal on the Larry King show. It didn't explore the contents of the leaks, and is leading its bulletins on Putin's remarks about European defence.
p>
2.22pm: NPR examines the art of writing a diplomatic cable. Mark Lagon, a former US ambassador, enthuses about this wonderfully funny leaked cable by the then US ambassador in Moscow William Burns describing a drunken wedding party in Dagestan.
Lagon picks out this passage:
An Avar FSB colonel sitting next to us, dead drunk, was highly insulted that we would not allow him to add "cognac" to our wine. "It's practically the same thing," he insisted, until a Russian FSB general sitting opposite told him to drop it. We were inclined to cut the Colonel some slack, though: he is head of the unit to combat terrorism in Dagestan, and Gadzhi told us that extremists have sooner or later assassinated everyone who has joined that unit. We were more worried when an Afghan war buddy of the Colonel's, Rector of the Dagestan University Law School and too drunk to sit, let alone stand, pulled out his automatic and asked if we needed any protection.
3.02pm: Former EU commissioner Chris Patten described Romania as a "feral nation" during discussions about EU expansion, according to a cable unearthed by the Daily Mail.
3.17pm: The US swept aside British torture fears over secret spy flights from the UK Cyprus base, according to our latest WikiLeaks story.
As the 2008 row escalated, the US rejected the British concerns over torture in unequivocal terms, with one senior official at the embassy in London baldly stating in one cable: "We cannot take a risk-avoidance approach to CT [counter-terrorism] in which the fear of potentially violating human rights allows terrorism to proliferate in Lebanon."
p>Time for me to slope off. Richard Adams is raring to go in Washington. Good morning (all our times here are GMT) from Washington DC, where there is much interest in the World Cup decision coming in Zurich right about now. And of course all the latest details from the US embassy cables as they emerge.
3.55pm: So the US didn't get the World Cup in 2022, another disappointment after Chicago missing out on the 2016 Olympics. If only the US had sent Sarah Palin to lobby FIFA.
4.18pm: Tomorrow's print edition of The Economist contains a typically useful overview of the US embassy cable disclosures and WikiLeaks, suggesting that the nature of international diplomatic relations will be changed:
It would be an exaggeration to say that diplomacy will never be the same again. Self-interest means that countries will still send and receive private messages. But communication will be more difficult. The trading of opinions, insights and favours necessarily requires shadow, not light. Unofficial contacts such as businessmen, journalists, campaigners and other citizens who talk to American diplomats, out of goodwill or self-interest, will think twice about doing so.
After examining the US government's impotence in responding directly, it concludes:
In the longer term the odds are stacked against secrecy, particularly in countries that practise openness in other areas. One reason is that though individual jurisdictions often prevent a specific libel, privacy breach or copyright infringement, a story with a global reach will get out somewhere. Short of imposing Chinese-style firewalls and censorship, free countries cannot consistently stop their citizens finding out what their enemies tell them, including tales of the shadowy, sordid or sensational deeds done in their names.
4.35pm: Ross Douthat is a conservative who writes for the New York Times, and in his blog he takes the surprisingly common view that the problem with the WikiLeaks affair is that it will make matters worse and inspire a secrecy backlash:
It may be cathartic for critics of state power to cheer when Assange sticks an online thumb into leviathan's eye. But WikiLeaks is at best a temporary victory for transparency, and it's likely to spur the further insulation of the permanent state from scrutiny, accountability or even self-knowledge.
Quite how this would happen, the makers of this argument never quite explain but the nub is this: Don't complain that things are bad because they could get worse.
(Douthat does say: "Assange is not a terrorist." The effect is spoiled slightly by his very next sentence: "But he has this much in common with al-Qaida...")
An unexploded US Blu 24 bomblet from a cluster bomb, in northern Laos. Photograph: Barbara Walton/EPA
A secret plan by US and American officials to hoodwink Parliament over a global ban on cluster bombs is "damaging and disturbing", an MP and campaigners said today. It would allow the Americans to keep their cluster munitions on British territory. Ministers in the last Labour government had repeatedly said that the American weapons would be removed permanently. Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson said she had pressed ministers in the Labour government on whether the US would remove their cluster weapons from British soil. "I... received strong assurances that the process would be transparent and straightforward. These allegations are therefore extremely damaging." A British official had suggested last year that the loophole should be concealed from parliament in case it "complicated or muddied" the debate among MPs, according to the leaked American account of a private meeting. David Miliband, Labour's foreign secretary, and Hilary Clinton, the US secretary of state, approved the "concept" of permitting US forces to store their cluster weapons on British soil as "temporary exceptions" and on a "case-by-case" basis for specific military operations, the leaked cable reported. Chris Bryant, the junior Labour foreign minister who guided Britain's ratification of the ban through Parliament, insisted the legislation was too tightly drawn to allow any exceptions.
He accepted that such negotiations could have taken place at more senior levels than he was privy to, but said he had "asked some pretty searching questions" about the issue.
"There are no exceptions allowed for in the way we drafted the bill. If the Americans are relying on that then they were being led up the garden path by somebody. The whole point of signing up to the treaty is that we undertook not only not to use them ourselves but to try to prevent their use by friends and allies." Thomas Nash, the co-ordinator of the campaign against the weapons, the Cluster Munition Coalition, said : "It's disturbing that the US is seeking to determine British policy on cluster munitions. Britain is bound by the Convention on Cluster Munitions and should not be assisting the US, or any other country, in using the weapons". Another campaigner, Richard Moyes, director of policy at Action on Armed Violence, warned that the idea of the temporary exceptions was "extremely problematic" as it was unclear how long they could last. It could become a blanket loophole, he said, adding :"Any US request should be brought before parliament for public scrutiny in advance". The Foreign Office rejects "any allegation that the Foreign Office deliberately misled Parliament or failed in our obligation to inform Parliament."
p>The Guardian'shave an update on our revelations yesterday that the UK government plotted to create a loophole for the US military to escape the ban on cluster bombs on British soil:
5.13pm: My colleague Oliver Burkeman in New York alerts us to the news that Todd Schnitt – yes, the Todd Schnitt – is gunning for Julian Assange:
The elegantly-named Schnitt has announced on his radio programme – The Schnitt Show – that he's offering a $50,000 bounty for "credible information" that leads to the capture of Assange, according to ABC Action News, which alongside carries this much more interesting item: "Man killed in scooter/wheelchair crash – watch video"
John Hooper tiny Photograph: Guardian
The change to the Italian prime minister's plans was signalled just hours after the publication of US diplomatic cables alleging the two men had a secret business association in addition to their known personal and political links.
p>This just in: the Guardian's John Hooper in Rome reports that Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is rushing to an unscheduled meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin tonight in what history may recall as the " Bunga Bunga Summit ":
John Hooper also records the difficulties the WikiLeaks revelations have caused for Berlusconi back home in Italy in an already hostile political climate:
The release of the cables by Wikileaks deepened the crisis surrounding Berlusconi's already embattled government, which faces a motion of no-confidence on 14 December. Five centrist groups today stepped up the pressure on the prime minister, calling on him to resign and announcing that, if he refused to do so, they would table a censure motion of their own. One of the groups, Freedom and Future for Italy, was created by Berlusconi's former ally, Gianfranco Fini, who split from the prime minister in July. On paper at least, the split left the government without a majority in the lower house of parliament.
6.01pm: We are not the only ones blogging this stuff. Hats off to Greg Mitchell at The Nation, who has been putting in the hard work following all the US embassy cable news. The volume is now so great that it's difficult to keep up but Greg manages.
Thanks to Greg for finding this link on Glenn Beck's desperate attempts to suggest a serious connection between WikiLeaks and Beck's bête noir, George Soros.
6.19pm: You've probably already seen this but... the Onion reports:
Julian Assange Fired From IT Job At Pentagon
We gave him his first warning after the whole Iraq and Afghanistan war diaries thing, and strike two was when he forwarded that video montage of Nicolas Cage yelling to the entire staff," Defense Department human resources director Curtis Shannon said.
6.34pm: Many other publications are now on board the WikiLeaks express, including the right-wing Washington Times, which produces an excellent piece from the US embassy cables that shows the extent of secret diplomacy in the Middle East that goes on:
A classified 2009 diplomatic cable disclosed this week provides a rare glimpse into the secret and often high-level diplomacy between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, all countries that officially do not recognize the Jewish state. Contrary to the condemnatory rhetoric opposing Israel in public, Arab diplomats behind the scenes have asked Israel to carry messages to the US government and urged tougher action on Iran.
There's a nice quote from Yacov Hadas, deputy director of Israel's Foreign Ministry, telling an American diplomat: "They believe Israel can work magic" with the US.
6.51pm: When the US embassy cables were first released, Foreign Policy breezily derided them as "document vomit", while its national security writer Tom Ricks declared his blog to be a "WikiLeaks-free zone".
And guess what? Yesterday FP launched a new blog on its site, Wikileaked, to cope with "the massive amounts of WikiLeaks related content coming in". It's very good, combing through the cables to find gems like this description of Turkmenistan's president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov:
Berdimuhamedov does not like people who are smarter than he is. Since he's not a very bright guy, our source offered, he is suspicious of a lot of people.
And this "assassination attempt" on Berdimuhamedov – by a cat:
Another incident reportedly occurred two months ago that was feared to be an assassination attempt. It was committed by a cat that ran in front of the President's car as he was traveling to his residence in the village of Archibil.
7.22pm: The New York Times finds experts struggling to figure out how the US can prosecute Assange and WikiLeaks:
"There is a haze of uncertainty over all of this," said Stephen I. Vladeck, an American University law professor who has written about the Espionage Act, a 1917 law that prohibits the unauthorized retention or transmission of defense-related documents. "The government has never brought an Espionage Act prosecution that would look remotely like this one," he said. "I suspect that has a lot to do with why nothing has happened yet."
US Vice President Joe Biden
Vice President Biden described the complex nature of the security problem in Afghanistan, commenting that besides the demography, geography and history of the region, we have a lot going for us.
p>Joe Biden: funny guy. Justin Elliott at Salon passes on the vice president's dead-pan summary of the US's position in Afghanistan
8.07pm: The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill and Robert Booth report that the US state department's wishlist of information to be gathered on senior members of UN was drawn up by the CIA, not the State Department.
A senior US intelligence official said: "It shouldn't surprise anyone that US officials at the United Nations seek information on how other nations view topics of mutual concern. If you look at the list of topics of interest in this routine cable, the priorities represent not only what Americans view as critical issues, but our allies as well. "No one should think of American diplomats as spies. But our diplomats do, in fact, help add to our country's body of knowledge on a wide range of important issues. That's logical and entirely appropriate, and they do so in strict accord with American law."
View Wikileaks: Where is Julian Assange? in a larger map
WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange has become our modern-day Carmen San Diego. Without the game show.
p>While MSNBC runs its "Hunt for Julian Assange" logo, the Washington Post goes one better with its "hilarious" Google map devoted to the latest sightings of the WikiLeaks co-founder:
If you don't get that reference to an obscure American children's programme of the 90s, the New York Times explained in 1991:
The decision to produce Carmen Sandiego is in part a response to recent studies that reveal a tremendous ignorance of geography among Americans: according to a National Geographic survey, one in four cannot locate the Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean.
8.49pm: Never mind Julian Assange, where in the world is WikiLeaks, after Amazon kicked it off its servers by bending in the mildest of political breezes?
According to the Los Angeles Times, the WikiLeaks' online archives are safely stored in a bomb shelter inside a Swedish mountain, which looks remarkably like a Dr Evil-style lair:
Truly the stuff of spy films, the site features solid steel doors and high-powered computers and is resilient against a nuclear attack.
Have a look at the pictures: deep inside the bunker someone is stroking a white cat and wearing a monocle.
9.08pm: A lot of new US embassy cables in the pipeline on Afghanistan. Stay tuned.
9.19pm: Joe Lieberman strikes again, putting pressure on another US tech provider to WikiLeaks, reports Nancy Scola of techPresident:
Tableau, the Seattle-based data visualization company that had been hosting Wikileaks charts showing different visualizations of the State Department cables, is saying this afternoon that it took down the charts at Senator Joe Lieberman's request.
9.32pm: The Guardian has just posted a tranche of new material from the US embassy cables on the subject of Afghanistan, including this shocking detail in a cable from US ambassador Karl Eikenberry:
In one astonishing incident in October 2009 the then [Afghani] vice-president, Ahmad Zia Massoud, was stopped and questioned in Dubai when he flew into the emirate with $52m in cash, according to one diplomatic report. Massoud, the younger brother of the legendary anti-Soviet resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, was detained by officials from the US and the United Arab Emirates trying to stop money laundering, it says. However, the vice-president was allowed to go on his way without explaining where the money came from.
Others just posted include cables showing that surrender is the only option being offered to the Taliban, despite talk of negotiations:
The Obama administration and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, are determined to reject talks with Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, and have consistently worked to split his movement, according to US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks. "We have no illusion that Mullah Omar could ever join the government," General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, is quoted as saying in a cable to Washington on 20 January 2009. "There will be no power-sharing with elements of the Taliban," said Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, in another cable citing the Taliban's "unpalatable social programmes" and links with al-Qaida.
You read the whole lot here.
9.55pm: Some hot stuff about Gordon Brown from the US embassy cables about to land... stayed tuned.
10.17pm: A new poll out today shows that Americans aren't too happy about the leaked US embassy cables, and think they hurt national security, but only a bare majority class such leaking as an act of treason:
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 72% of likely voters say that when media outlets release secret government documents, they are hurting national security rather than providing a public service. Only 14% believe the opposite is true and that the media is serving the public. Just as many (14%) are not sure.
Rasmussen found that 51% of US voters consider the leaking of secret documents an "act of treason", while 28% disagree and do not think leaking such information is treasonous, and the remaining 21% are undecided.
Barack Obama and Gordon Brown: US diplomats repeatedly aired doubts about Brown's leadership. Photograph: Ron Edmonds/AP
In a scathing assessment of the former prime minister, George Bush's last ambassador to London blamed Brown for presiding over a "post-Blair rudderlessness" which prompted senior Labour figures to complain of their despair to the embassy. The diplomatic cables confirm that Barack Obama's allies were irritated by Brown's intense manner: he interrupted a Thanksgiving call to the current president's ambassador to lobby for a Tobin tax on financial transactions in the face of US opposition. "Prime minister Brown continues to press hard … despite being fully aware of US opposition to the tax," Louis Susman wrote in December last year.
p>The Guardian's Nick Watt looks at what US diplomats thought about Gordon Brown – and the result isn't pleasant reading for the former prime minister, labeled as "abysmal", or the Labour party, described as a "sinking ship" before the election:
10.53pm: One particularly delightful US cable about to be posted discusses Shriti Vadera, one of Gordon Brown's closest advisors, in some detail, saying "Vadera bears watching".
The 2009 profile pays tribute to Vadera's "intelligence and ability to implement policy" and underlines the high regard that she was held in by Brown and other members of the government. But it also includes some devastating gossip:
One Private Secretary told us Vadera would regularly scream from her desk, "Get me a cup of coffee" with a string of expletives attached, something almost unheard of in the polite British civil service and prompting three scheduling assistants to leave her office in three months. She also reportedly had screaming matches in front of subordinates with Development Secretary Douglas Alexander while she was at DFID. Insiders tell us she was moved from DFID at Alexander's request, though the move was billed as a promotion to the media. It is worth noting that Vadera can also be charismatic and charming, especially with external visitors.
Update: the full cable is here.
11.08pm: Nicholas Watt, the Guardian's chief political correspondent, blogs how the US embassy cables puncture Gordon Brown's hopes for a transatlantic career as an respected elder statesman:
The cables paint a picture, familiar to Brown's aides and now to the rest of us as we digest the books about his period in No 10, of a prime minister who grabbed hold of an idea and then rammed it down the throats of friend and foe. This means Brown sometimes forgot the diplomatic niceties.
11.23pm: These cables are going to keep British politics junkies busy for a while. Here's pen portraits of the likely Labour leadership contenders written by US diplomats in 2008. "As Gordon Brown lurches from political disaster to disaster," the cable begins, "Westminster is abuzz with speculation about whether he will be replaced as Prime Minister and Labour Parxty [sic] leader, and, if so, by whom."
The list ranks David Miliband first, and doesn't even mention his brother Ed as a contender. The Guardian has the highlights here but the American portrait of Ed Balls is particularly interesting:
Balls has performed badly as Schools Secretary and is accused of shirking responsibility.... Balls has shown himself to be less than suited to the top job: his public speaking is derided as "dull," his slightly awkward manner as "charmless," and he has many enemies within the party, precisely because of his relationship with the PM. Party insiders accuse him of cowardice because he tells Brown what he thinks Brown wants to hear.
11.47pm: The Guardian's comment pages carry a chilling op-ed by Alan Dershowitz, who warns that the cables about Middle Eastern diplomacy may have increased the possibility of war:
The disclosure that virtually every Arab country, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, would favour a military attack, as a last resort, to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons could have a discernible effect on the policies of several countries.
Mexican navy officers with arrested members of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel. Photograph: Reuters
Classified diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks also reveal a growing sense of alarm within Mexico's government that time is running out in the battle against organised crime and that it could "lose" entire regions. The memos detail blunders in the fight against drug cartels and a desperate search for a new strategy to save President Felipe Calderón's administration from a bloodsoaked fiasco.
p>The deluge of documents continues – US readers should not overlook a series of damning cables on the government of Mexico's inability to win the battle against its powerful domestic drug cartels:
Mexico's struggle is a story shamefully under-reported – El Pais has more (in Spanish), including candid comments by a government minister, Geronimo Gutierrez:
It is damaging Mexico's international reputation, hurting foreign investment, and leading to a sense of government impotence, Gutierrez said.
El Pais comments: "Un discurso tan descarnado, pronunciado en la intimidad de una reunión con colegas estadounidenses, jamás ha sido pronunciado en público por ningún mandatario gubernamental."
[Such bleak comments, made in a secret meeting with American colleagues, have never been made in public by a member of the government.]
12.23am: Political fall-out in Germany from the US embassy cables over the identity of the political insider ("Helmut M") who gave secret briefings to the US ambassador about the negotiations to form Germany's governing coalition, reports Der Spiegel:
Germany's business-friendly Free Democratic Party has identified the top-level national party employee responsible for passing secret information on to US diplomats during the negotiations to form the current German government in 2009. A worker at the party's headquarters who was chief of staff to the party's chairman and also the head of international relations for the national party came forward and admitted to being the source, an FDP party spokesperson said.
12.44am: Amazon has broken its silence over its abrupt booting of WikiLeaks off its Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers in the US, denying that it did so because of political pressure, in this statement:
There have been reports that a government inquiry prompted us not to serve WikiLeaks any longer. That is inaccurate. There have also been reports that it was prompted by massive DDOS attacks. That too is inaccurate. There were indeed large-scale DDOS attacks, but they were successfully defended against. Amazon Web Services (AWS) rents computer infrastructure on a self-service basis. AWS does not pre-screen its customers, but it does have terms of service that must be followed. WikiLeaks was not following them. There were several parts they were violating. For example, our terms of service state that "you represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content … that use of the content you supply does not violate this policy and will not cause injury to any person or entity." It's clear that WikiLeaks doesn't own or otherwise control all the rights to this classified content. Further, it is not credible that the extraordinary volume of 250,000 classified documents that WikiLeaks is publishing could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that they weren't putting innocent people in jeopardy. Human rights organizations have in fact written to WikiLeaks asking them to exercise caution and not release the names or identities of human rights defenders who might be persecuted by their governments. We've been running AWS for over four years and have hundreds of thousands of customers storing all kinds of data on AWS. Some of this data is controversial, and that's perfectly fine. But, when companies or people go about securing and storing large quantities of data that isn't rightfully theirs, and publishing this data without ensuring it won't injure others, |
that are more secure, flexible, and cost-effective than those produced by a team working in isolation.
The key is building a community.
That's why I'm pleased to announce that we've established an official White House presence on Drupal.org, an online community dedicated to maintaining and improving Drupal, the software that powers WhiteHouse.gov. We've released the source code for several Drupal modules in the past and we're now working with members of the Drupal community who are helping us improve We the People, the White House petitions system. In the coming months, we hope to release a new, "white label" theme for We the People that will make it easier for others to re-use the code and set up their own petitions systems.
Since August, we've also been active on another open source community site, GitHub, and released the code for We the People and our mobile apps, White House for iOS and White House for Android, there. For those who've been following the We the People project on GitHub, we'll continue to work with the community there to maintain both it and our mobile apps.
While an open source approach isn't the right solution for every software need, using and contributing back to open source software is one way that we're making it easier for the government to share data, improve tools and services, and return value to taxpayers. That's why President Obama's Digital Government Strategy encourages departments and agencies to participate in open source communities and adopt open source platforms.
Whether you're on Drupal.org or GitHub, interested in We the People or our mobile apps, if you're a developer we want to work with you. Visit the White House on Drupal.org or stop by the White House GitHub profile. You can also stop by our /Developers page to see a complete rundown of our open source projects and keep in touch on Twitter by tweeting @WHWeb.Heading into a game against his former team, the Pittsburgh Penguins, Michel Therrien has been getting heat not only from the writers and commenters on this site, but from all over the place. Inserting Douglas Murray and Francis Bouillon into the lineup over Alexei Emelin and Raphael Diaz seemed to instill in his team a defeated attitude before the game even began.
The Canadiens didn't show up, left Price out to dry, and got blown out.
Over the last week I had published a few articles on how bad the Canadiens were playing this season compared to last year, and one of the most common requests was to see how this season's Canadiens lined up against the Pittsburgh Penguins of 2008-09, for the 57 games before Therrien was canned in favour of Dan Bylsma.
As it turns out, it's downright deja vu.
Red is the Habs this season, blue is the Penguins until Therrien was let go. The Penguins went 27-25-5, the Canadiens are currently 27-18-5, with the main difference being the strong start by the Habs, and the incredible goaltending Montreal has received from Carey Price.
But that goaltending is faltering, as Chris Boyle pointed out this morning on twitter, because the Canadiens are allowing more shots from scoring areas. He created a gif to illustrate this using a heat chart.
The gif doesn't loop, but you can see it looped in video form to get the full effect here.
This is a giant disaster waiting to happen. Something has to give right away in order to save this season, and it's time for Marc Bergevin to man up and make a move.The Beat Generation was a literary movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized throughout the 1950s. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.[1][2]
Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959) and Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature.[3] Both Howl and Naked Lunch were the focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States.[4][5] The members of the Beat Generation developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists, who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity.
The core group of Beat Generation authors – Herbert Huncke, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Lucien Carr, and Kerouac – met in 1944 in and around the Columbia University campus in New York City. Later, in the mid-1950s, the central figures (with the exception of Burroughs and Carr) ended up together in San Francisco where they met and became friends of figures associated with the San Francisco Renaissance.
In the 1960s, elements of the expanding Beat movement were incorporated into the hippie and larger counterculture movements. Neal Cassady, as the driver for Ken Kesey's bus Further, was the primary bridge between these two generations. Ginsberg's work also became an integral element of early 1960s hippie culture.
Origin of name [ edit ]
Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948 to characterize a perceived underground, anti-conformist youth movement in New York.[6] The name arose in a conversation with writer John Clellon Holmes. Kerouac allows that it was Huncke, a street hustler, who originally used the phrase "beat", in an earlier discussion with him. The adjective "beat" could colloquially mean "tired" or "beaten down" within the African-American community of the period and had developed out of the image "beat to his socks",[7][8][9] but Kerouac appropriated the image and altered the meaning to include the connotations "upbeat", "beatific", and the musical association of being "on the beat", and "the Beat to keep" from the Beat Generation poem.[10]
Significant places [ edit ]
Columbia University [ edit ]
The origins of the Beat Generation can be traced to Columbia University and the meeting of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Carr, Hal Chase and others. Kerouac attended Columbia on a football scholarship.[11] Though the beats are usually regarded as anti-academic,[12][13][14] many of their ideas were formed in response to professors like Lionel Trilling and Mark Van Doren. Classmates Carr and Ginsberg discussed the need for a "New Vision" (a term borrowed from W. B. Yeats), to counteract what they perceived as their teachers' conservative, formalistic literary ideals.[citation needed]
Times Square "Underworld" [ edit ]
Burroughs had an interest in criminal behavior and got involved in dealing stolen goods and narcotics. He was soon addicted to opiates. Burroughs' guide to the criminal underworld (centered in particular around New York's Times Square) was Huncke, a small-time criminal and drug-addict. The Beats were drawn to Huncke, who later started to write himself, convinced that he possessed a vital worldly knowledge unavailable to them from their largely middle-class upbringings.[citation needed]
Ginsberg was arrested in 1949. The police attempted to stop Ginsberg while he was driving with Huncke, his car filled with stolen items that Huncke planned to fence. Ginsberg crashed the car while trying to flee and escaped on foot, but left incriminating notebooks behind. He was given the option to plead insanity to avoid a jail term, and was committed for 90 days to Bellevue Hospital, where he met Carl Solomon.[15]
Solomon was arguably more eccentric than psychotic. A fan of Antonin Artaud, he indulged in self-consciously "crazy" behavior, like throwing potato salad at a college lecturer on Dadaism. Solomon was given shock treatments at Bellevue; this became one of the main themes of Ginsberg's "Howl", which was dedicated to Solomon. Solomon later became the publishing contact who agreed to publish Burroughs' first novel Junky in 1953.[16]
Greenwich Village [ edit ]
Beat writers and artists flocked to Greenwich Village in New York City in the late 1950s because of low rent and the'small town' element of the scene. Folksongs, readings and discussions often took place in Washington Square Park.[17] Allen Ginsberg was a big part of the scene in the Village, as was Burroughs, who lived at 69 Bedford Street.[18] Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac, and other poets frequented many bars in the area including the San Remo Cafe at 93 MacDougal Street on the northwest corner of Bleeker, Chumley's, and Minetta Tavern.[18] Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and other abstract expressionists were also frequent visitors and collaborators of the beats.[19]
Cultural critics have written about the transition of Beat culture in the Village into the Bohemian hippie culture of the 1960s.[20]
San Francisco and the Six Gallery reading [ edit ]
Ginsberg had visited Neal and Carolyn Cassady in San Jose, California in 1954 and moved to San Francisco in August. He fell in love with Peter Orlovsky at the end of 1954 and began writing Howl. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, of the new City Lights Bookstore, started to publish the City Lights Pocket Poets Series in 1955.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Kenneth Rexroth's apartment became a Friday night literary salon (Ginsberg's mentor William Carlos Williams, an old friend of Rexroth, had given him an introductory letter). When asked by Wally Hedrick[21] to organize the Six Gallery reading, Ginsberg wanted Rexroth to serve as master of ceremonies, in a sense to bridge generations.
Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, Ginsberg and Gary Snyder read on October 7, 1955, before 100 people (including Kerouac, up from Mexico City). Lamantia read poems of his late friend John Hoffman. At his first public reading Ginsberg performed the just finished first part of Howl. It was a success and the evening led to many more readings by the now locally famous Six Gallery poets.[citation needed]
It was also a marker of the beginning of the Beat movement, since the 1956 publication of Howl (City Lights Pocket Poets, no. 4) and its obscenity trial in 1957 brought it to nationwide attention.[22][23]
The Six Gallery reading informs the second chapter of Kerouac's 1958 novel The Dharma Bums, whose chief protagonist is "Japhy Ryder", a character who is actually based on Gary Snyder. Kerouac was impressed with Snyder and they were close for a number of years. In the spring of 1955 they lived together in Snyder's Mill Valley cabin. Most Beats were urbanites and they found Snyder almost exotic, with his rural background and wilderness experience, as well as his education in cultural anthropology and Oriental languages. Lawrence Ferlinghetti called him "the Thoreau of the Beat Generation."
As documented in the conclusion of The Dharma Bums, Snyder moved to Japan in 1955, in large measure in order to intensively practice and study Zen Buddhism. He would spend most of the next 10 years there. Buddhism is one of the primary subjects of The Dharma Bums, and the book undoubtedly helped to popularize Buddhism in the West and remains one of Kerouac's most widely read books.[24]
Pacific Northwest [ edit ]
The Beats also spent time in the Northern Pacific Northwest including Washington and Oregon. Kerouac wrote about sojourns to Washington's North Cascades in The Dharma Bums and On the Road.[25]
Reed College in Portland, Oregon was also a locale for some of the Beat poets. Gary Snyder studied anthropology there, Philip Whalen attended Reed, and Allen Ginsberg held multiple readings on the campus around 1955 and 1956.[26] Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen were students in Reed's calligraphy class taught by Lloyd J. Reynolds.[27]
Significant figures [ edit ]
Burroughs was introduced to the group by David Kammerer, who was in love with Carr. Carr had befriended Ginsberg and introduced him to Kammerer and Burroughs. Carr also knew Kerouac's girlfriend Edie Parker, through whom Burroughs met Kerouac in 1944.
On August 13, 1944, Carr killed Kammerer with a Boy Scout knife in Riverside Park in what he claimed later was self-defense.[28] He waited,[citation needed] then dumped the body in the Hudson River, later seeking advice from Burroughs, who suggested he turn himself in. He then went to Kerouac, who helped him dispose of the weapon.[29]
Carr turned himself in the following morning and later pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Kerouac was charged as an accessory, and Burroughs as a material witness, but neither was prosecuted. Kerouac wrote about this incident twice in his own works: once in his first novel, The Town and the City, and again in one of his last, Vanity of Duluoz. He wrote a collaboration novel with Burroughs, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, concerning the murder.[29]
Gary Snyder [ edit ]
Poet Gary Snyder was an important member of the beat movement and is widely regarded as a member of the Beat Generation circle of writers. He was one of the poets who read at the famous Six Gallery reading, and he was written about in one of Kerouac's most popular novels, The Dharma Bums.[citation needed] Some critics argue that Snyder's connection with the Beats is exaggerated and that he might better be regarded as a member of the West Coast group the San Francisco Renaissance, which developed independently.
Neal Cassady [ edit ]
Neal Cassady was introduced to the group in 1947, providing inspiration to several of the Beat authors[citation needed]. He became something of a muse to Ginsberg; they had a romantic affair, and Ginsberg became Cassady's personal writing-tutor. Kerouac's road trips with Cassady in the late 1940s became the focus of his second novel, On the Road. Cassady's verbal style is one of the sources of the spontaneous, jazz-inspired rapping that later became associated with "beatniks". Cassady impressed the group with the free-flowing style of his letters, and Kerouac cited them as a key influence on his spontaneous prose style.[citation needed]
Women and the Beats [ edit ]
The female contemporaries of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs were intimately involved in the creation of Beat philosophy and literature, and yet remain markedly absent from the mainstream interpretation of the most important aspects and figures of the movement.[citation needed]
Beat Generation women who have been published include Edie Parker; Joyce Johnson; Carolyn Cassady; Hettie Jones; Joanne Kyger; Harriet Sohmers Zwerling; Diane DiPrima; and Ruth Weiss, who also made films. Poet Elise Cowen took her own life in 1963. Poet Anne Waldman was less influenced by the Beats than by Allen Ginsberg's later turn to Buddhism. Later, female poets emerged who claimed to be strongly influenced by the Beats, including Janine Pommy Vega in the 1960s, Patti Smith in the 1970s, and Hedwig Gorski in the 1980s.[30][31]
Sexuality [ edit ]
One of the key beliefs and practices of the Beat Generation was free love and sexual liberation,[32] which strayed from the Christian ideals of American culture at the time.[33] Some Beat writers were openly gay or bisexual, including two of the most prominent (Ginsberg[34] and Burroughs[35]). Some met each other through gay connections, including David Kammerer's interest in Lucien Carr.[citation needed]
For authorities, one of the most contentious features of Ginsberg's poem Howl were lines about homosexual sex. William Burroughs' Naked Lunch contains content dealing with same-sex relations and pedophilia. Both works were unsuccessfully prosecuted for obscenity. Victory by the publishers helped to curtail literary censorship in the United States.[4][5]
Considered racy at the time, Kerouac's writings are now considered mild.[citation needed] On the Road mentions Neal Cassady's bisexuality without comment, while Visions of Cody confronts it.[citation needed] However, the first novel does show Cassady as frankly promiscuous. Kerouac's novels feature an interracial love affair (The Subterraneans), and group sex (The Dharma Bums). The relationships among men in Kerouac's novels are predominantly homosocial.[36]
Culture and influences [ edit ]
Drug use [ edit ]
The original members of the Beat Generation used a number of different drugs, including alcohol, marijuana, benzedrine, morphine, and later psychedelic drugs such as peyote, Ayahuasca, and LSD.[37] They often approached drugs experimentally, initially being unfamiliar with their effects; their drug use was broadly inspired by intellectual interest and many Beat writers felt their drug experiences enhanced creativity, insight or productivity.[38] The use of drugs was a key influence on many of the social events of the time that were personal to the Beat generation.[39]
Romanticism [ edit ]
Gregory Corso considered English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley a hero, and he was buried at the foot of Shelley's grave in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome. Ginsberg mentions Shelley's poem Adonais at the beginning of his poem Kaddish, and cites it as a major influence on the composition of one of his most important poems. Michael McClure compared Ginsberg's Howl to Shelley's breakthrough poem Queen Mab.[40]
Ginsberg's main Romantic influence was William Blake,[41] and studied him throughout his life. Blake was the subject of Ginsberg's self-defining auditory hallucination and revelation in 1948.[42] Romantic poet John Keats was also cited as an influence.[citation needed]
Early American sources [ edit ]
The Beats were inspired by early American figures such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville and especially Walt Whitman, who is addressed as the subject of one of Ginsberg's most famous poems, A Supermarket in California. Edgar Allan Poe was occasionally acknowledged, and Ginsberg saw Emily Dickinson as having an influence on Beat poetry. The 1926 novel You Can't Win by outlaw author Jack Black was cited as having a strong influence on Burroughs.[43]
French surrealism [ edit ]
In many ways, Surrealism was still considered a vital movement in the 1950s. Carl Solomon introduced the work of French author Antonin Artaud to Ginsberg, and the poetry of André Breton had direct influence on Ginsberg's poem Kaddish.[citation needed] Rexroth, Ferlinghetti, John Ashbery and Ron Padgett translated French poetry. Second-generation Beat Ted Joans was named "the only Afro-American Surrealist" by Breton.[44]
Philip Lamantia introduced Surrealist poetry to the original Beats.[45] The poetry of Gregory Corso and Bob Kaufman shows the influence of Surrealist poetry with its dream-like images and its random juxtaposition of dissociated images, and this influence can also be seen in more subtle ways in Ginsberg's poetry. As the legend goes, when meeting French Surrealist Marcel Duchamp, Ginsberg kissed his shoe and Corso cut off his tie.[46][page needed] Other influential French poets for the Beats were Guillaume Apollinaire, Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire.[citation needed]
Modernism [ edit ]
Gertrude Stein was the subject of a book-length study by Lew Welch. Admitted influences for Kerouac include Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.[47]
Topics [ edit ]
Sweden A section devoted to the beat generation at a bookstore in Stockholm
While many authors claim to be directly influenced by the Beats, the Beat Generation phenomenon itself has had an influence on American culture leading more broadly to the hippie movements of the 1960s.[citation needed]
In 1982, Ginsberg published a summary of "the essential effects" of the Beat Generation:[48]
Spiritual liberation, sexual "revolution" or "liberation," i.e., gay liberation, somewhat catalyzing women's liberation, black liberation, Gray Panther activism.
Liberation of the world from censorship.
Demystification and/or decriminalization of cannabis and other drugs.
The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form, as evidenced by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and other popular musicians influenced in the later fifties and sixties by Beat generation poets' and writers' works.
The spread of ecological consciousness, emphasized early by Gary Snyder and Michael McClure, the notion of a "Fresh Planet."
Opposition to the military-industrial machine civilization, as emphasized in writings of Burroughs, Huncke, Ginsberg, and Kerouac.
Attention to what Kerouac called (after Spengler) a "second religiousness" developing within an advanced civilization.
Return to an appreciation of idiosyncrasy vs. state regimentation.
Respect for land and indigenous peoples and creatures, as proclaimed by Kerouac in his slogan from On the Road: "The Earth is an Indian thing."
The term "Beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958, a portmanteau on the name of the recent Russian satellite Sputnik and Beat Generation. This suggested that beatniks were (1) "far out of the mainstream of society" and (2) "possibly pro-Communist."[49] Caen's term stuck and became the popular label associated with a new stereotype—the man with a goatee and beret reciting nonsensical poetry and playing bongo drums while free-spirited women wearing black leotards dance.[citation needed]
An early example of the "beatnik stereotype" occurred in Vesuvio's (a bar in North Beach, San Francisco) which employed the artist Wally Hedrick to sit in the window dressed in full beard, turtleneck, and sandals, creating improvisational drawings and paintings. By 1958 tourists who came to San Francisco could take bus tours to view the North Beach Beat scene, prophetically anticipating similar tours of the Haight-Ashbury district ten years later.[50]
A variety of other small businesses also sprang up exploiting (and/or satirizing) the new craze. In 1959, Fred McDarrah started a "Rent-a-Beatnik" service in New York, taking out ads in The Village Voice and sending Ted Joans and friends out on calls to read poetry.[51]
"Beatniks" appeared in many cartoons, movies, and TV shows of the time, perhaps the most famous being the character Maynard G. Krebs in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959–1963).
While some of the original Beats embraced the beatniks, or at least found the parodies humorous (Ginsberg, for example, appreciated the parody in the comic strip Pogo[52]) others criticized the beatniks as inauthentic poseurs. Jack Kerouac feared that the spiritual aspect of his message had been lost and that many were using the Beat Generation as an excuse to be senselessly wild.[53]
During the 1960s, aspects of the Beat movement metamorphosed into the counterculture of the 1960s, accompanied by a shift in terminology from "beatnik" to "hippie".[54] Many of the original Beats remained active participants, notably Allen Ginsberg, who became a fixture of the anti-war movement. Notably, however, Jack Kerouac broke with Ginsberg and criticized the 1960s politically radical protest movements as an excuse to be "spiteful".[55]
There were stylistic differences between beatniks and hippies—somber colors, dark sunglasses, and goatees gave way to colorful psychedelic clothing and long hair. The beats were known for "playing it cool" (keeping a low profile),[56]
Beyond style, there were changes in substance: The Beats tended to be essentially apolitical, but the hippies became actively engaged with the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement.[57]
Literary legacy [ edit ]
Among the emerging novelists of the 1960s and 1970s, a few were closely connected with Beat writers, most notably Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). Though they had no direct connection, other writers considered the Beats to be a major influence, including Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow)[58] and Tom Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues).
William S. Burroughs is considered a forefather of postmodern literature; he also inspired the cyberpunk genre.[59][60][61]
One-time Beat writer LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka helped initiate the Black Arts movement.[62]
As there was focus on live performance among the Beats, many Slam poets have claimed to be influenced by the Beats. Saul Williams, for example, cites Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and Bob Kaufman as major influences.[63]
The Postbeat Poets are direct descendants of the Beat Generation. Their association with or tutelage under Ginsberg at The Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics[64] and later at Brooklyn College stressed the social-activist legacy of the Beats and created its own body of literature. Known authors are Anne Waldman, Antler, Andy Clausen, David Cope, Eileen Myles, Eliot Katz, Paul Beatty, Sapphire, Lesléa Newman, Jim Cohn, Thomas R. Peters, Jr. (poet and owner of beat book shop), Sharon Mesmer, Randy Roark, Josh Smith, David Evans.[citation needed]
Rock and pop music [ edit ]
The Beats had a pervasive influence on rock and roll and popular music, including the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison. The Beatles spelled their name with an "a" partly as a Beat Generation reference,[65] and John Lennon was a fan of Jack Kerouac.[66] The Beatles even put Beat writer William S. Burroughs on the cover of their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.[67] Ginsberg later met and became friends of members of the Beatles, and Paul McCartney played guitar on Ginsberg's album Ballad of the Skeletons.[citation needed]
Ginsberg was a close friend of Bob Dylan[68] and toured with him on the Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975. Dylan cites Ginsberg and Kerouac as major influences.[citation needed]
Jim Morrison cites Kerouac as one of his biggest influences, and fellow Doors member Ray Manzarek has said "We wanted to be beatniks."[69] In his book Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors, Manzarek also writes "I suppose if Jack Kerouac had never written On the Road, The Doors would never have existed." Michael McClure was also a friend of members of The Doors, at one point touring with Manzarek.
Ginsberg was a friend of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, a group of which Neal Cassady was a member, which also included members of the Grateful Dead. In the 1970s, Burroughs was a friend of Mick Jagger, Lou Reed, David Bowie, and Patti Smith.[citation needed]
The musical group Steely Dan is named after a steam-powered dildo in Burroughs' Naked Lunch. British progressive rock band Soft Machine is named after Burroughs' novel The Soft Machine.[citation needed]
Singer-songwriter Tom Waits, a Beat fan, wrote "Jack and Neal" about Kerouac and Cassady, and recorded "On the Road" (a song written by Kerouac after finishing the novel) with Primus.[70] He later collaborated with Burroughs on the theatrical work The Black Rider.
Jazz musician/film composer Robert Kraft (not to be confused with NFL Team owner Robert Kraft) wrote and released a contemporary homage to Jack Kerouac and Beat Generation aesthetics entitled "Beat Generation" on the 1988 album Quake City.[citation needed]
Musician Mark Sandman, who was the bass guitarist, lead vocalist and a former member of the alternative jazz rock band Morphine, was interested in the Beat Generation and wrote a song called "Kerouac" as a tribute to Jack Kerouac and his personal philosophy and way of life.[citation needed]
The band Aztec Two-Step recorded "The Persecution & Restoration of Dean Moriarty (On the Road)" in 1972.[71]
There was a resurgence of interest in the beats among bands in the 1980s. Ginsberg worked with the Clash and Burroughs worked with Sonic Youth, R.E.M., Kurt Cobain, and Ministry, among others. Bono of U2 cites Burroughs as a major influence,[72][73] and Burroughs appeared briefly in a U2 video in 1997.[74] Post-punk band Joy Division named a song "Interzone" after a collection of stories by Burroughs. Laurie Anderson featured Burroughs on her 1984 album Mister Heartbreak and in her 1986 concert film, Home of the Brave. The band King Crimson produced the album Beat inspired by the Beat Generation.[citation needed]
More recently, American artist Lana Del Rey references the Beat movement and Beat poetry in her 2014 song "Brooklyn Baby".[citation needed]
Criticism [ edit ]
The Beat Generation was met with scrutiny and assigned many stereotypes. Several magazines, including Life and Playboy, depicted members of the Beat Generation as nihilists and as unintellectual. This criticism was largely due to the ideological differences between American culture at the time and the Beat Generation, including their Buddhist-inspired beliefs.[33]
Norman Podhoretz, a student at Columbia with Kerouac and Ginsberg, later became a critic of the Beats. His 1958 Partisan Review article "The Know-Nothing Bohemians" was a vehement critique primarily of Kerouac's On the Road and The Subterraneans, as well as Ginsberg's Howl.[75] His central criticism is that the Beat embrace of spontaneity is bound up in an anti-intellectual worship of the "primitive" that can easily turn toward mindlessness and violence. Podhoretz asserted that there was a link between the Beats and criminal delinquents.[citation needed]
Ginsberg responded in a 1958 interview with The Village Voice,[76] specifically addressing the charge that the Beats destroyed "the distinction between life and literature". In the interview, he stated that "the bit about anti-intellectualism is a piece of vanity, we had the same education, went to the same school, you know there are 'Intellectuals' and there are intellectuals. Podhoretz is just out of touch with twentieth-century literature, he's writing for the eighteenth-century mind. We have a personal literature now—Proust, Wolfe, Faulkner, Joyce."[77]
Internal criticism [ edit ]
In a 1974 interview,[78] Gary Snyder comments on the subject of "casualties" of the Beat Generation:[79]
Kerouac was a casualty too. And there were many other casualties that most people have never heard of, but were genuine casualties. Just as, in the 60s, when Allen and I for a period there were almost publicly recommending people to take acid. When I look back on that now I realize there were many casualties, responsibilities to bear.
Three writers do not a generation make. Gregory Corso[80]
(sometimes also attributed to Gary Snyder).
Nobody knows whether we were catalysts or invented something, or just the froth riding on a wave of its own. We were all three, I suppose. Allen Ginsberg[81]
Films about the Beat Generation [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
Books [ edit ]
Campbell, James. This Is the Beat Generation: New York–San Francisco-Paris. LA: University of California Press, 2001. ISBN 0-520-23033-7
. LA: University of California Press, 2001. ISBN 0-520-23033-7 Collins, Ronald & Skover, David. Mania: The Story of the Outraged & Outrageous Lives that Launched a Cultural Revolution (Top-Five Books, March 2013)
(Top-Five Books, March 2013) Cook, Bruce The Beat Generation: The tumultuous '50s movement and its impact on today. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971. ISBN 0-684-12371-1.
. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971. ISBN 0-684-12371-1. Gifford, Barry and Lawrence Lee Jack's Book An Oral Biography Of Jack Kerouac, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978. ISBN 0-312-43942-3
, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978. ISBN 0-312-43942-3 Gorski, Hedwig. * [2] Robert Creeley 1982 TV Interview with Hedwig Gorski transcript included in special Robert Creeley Issue, Journal of American Studies of Turkey (JAST), No. 27, Spring 2008.
Grace, Nancy Jack Kerouac and the Literary Imagination, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. ISBN 1-4039-6850-0
, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. ISBN 1-4039-6850-0 Hemmer, Kurt (ed.). Encyclopedia of Beat Literature. Facts on File, 2006. ISBN 0-8160-4297-7
. Facts on File, 2006. ISBN 0-8160-4297-7 Hrebeniak, Michael. Action Writing: Jack Kerouac's Wild Form, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 2006.
, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 2006. Johnson, Ronna C. and Nancy Grace. Girls Who Wore Black: Women Writing the Beat Generation. Rutgers, 2002. ISBN 0-813-53064-4
. Rutgers, 2002. ISBN 0-813-53064-4 Knight, Brenda. Women of the Beat Generation; The Writers, Artists, and Muses at the Heart of a Revolution. General Books LLC, 2010. ISBN 1153571900 ISBN 978-1153571906
. General Books LLC, 2010. ISBN 1153571900 ISBN 978-1153571906 McDarrah, Fred W., and Gloria S. McDarrah. Beat Generation: Glory Days in Greenwich Village Schirmer Books (September 1996) ISBN 0-8256-7160-4
Schirmer Books (September 1996) ISBN 0-8256-7160-4 McNally, Dennis. Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and America. NY: DeCapo, 2003. ISBN 0-306-81222-3
. NY: DeCapo, 2003. ISBN 0-306-81222-3 Miles, Barry. The Beat Hotel: Ginsberg, Burroughs & Corso in Paris, 1957–1963. NY: Grove Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8021-3817-9
. NY: Grove Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8021-3817-9 Peabody, Richard. A Different Beat: Writing by Women of the Beat Generation. Serpent's Tail, 1997. ISBN 1852424311 / ISBN 978-1852424312
. Serpent's Tail, 1997. ISBN 1852424311 / ISBN 978-1852424312 Sargeant, Jack. Naked Lens: Beat Cinema. NY: Soft Skull, 2009 (third edition)
. NY: Soft Skull, 2009 (third edition) Sanders, Ed. Tales of Beatnik Glory (second edition, 1990) ISBN 0-8065-1172-9
(second edition, 1990) ISBN 0-8065-1172-9 Theado, Matt (ed.). The Beats: A Literary Reference. NY: Carrol & Graff, 2002. ISBN 0-7867-1099-3
. NY: Carrol & Graff, 2002. ISBN 0-7867-1099-3 Watson, Steven. The Birth of the Beat Generation: Visionaries, Rebels, and Hipsters, 1944–1960. NY: Pantheon, 1998. ISBN 0-375-70153-2When you can’t find what you’re looking for, sometimes you got to DO IT YOURSELF!
For ages, I carried a purse the size of a rucksack – the bigger the bag, the more crap you haul around. Did I really need a foil space blanket, lipgloss, small sewing kit, mascara, travel toothbrush, rain poncho, granola bars, first aid kit, eyeliner, waterproof matches, a “mini” Gerber Suspension tool with scissors, hand sanitizer, and two MREs? Did I suddenly become a survivalist?
After growing weary of the pack mule routine, I downsized to a clutch. A lipstick, credit cards, cash, and my keys – easy breezy, right? While I did like carrying less than an Eagle Scout on a two week camping trip – I missed having my camera and sketch book on hand. I was suffering from a Goldilocks complex – the first bag was too big, the second too small. I needed a bag that was juuussst right!
A few sketches, new fabric from Spool, and some time at the old sewing machine and I had my just right bag! It measures 14″ x 14″, with two large interior pockets to hold the small stuff.
It won’t fit a pup tent or a bedroll, but it carries what I need! It’s the purse that’s Just Right!
Which ultimately begs the question – what sort of gal lies around in bed all day and relies on large, potentially vicious, land mammals to fix her breakfast?
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.59 ± 0.93 0.06 ± 1–0 –0.64 (−1.0, −0.2)a −0.59 ± 0.9 −0.12 ± 1.0 −0.46 (−0.93, 0.00)a −0.00 ± 0.45 −0.19 ± 0.44 0.18 (−0.02, 0.39) LAZ −0.98 ± 1.1 −0.76 ± 0.9 −0.23 (−0.7, 0.23) −1.12 ± 1.1 −1.02 ± 1.0 −0.98 (−0.59, 0.39) −0.13 ± 0.60 −0.27 ± 0.67 0.13 (−0–16, 0.43) WLZ 0.12 ± 0.84 0.76 ± 1.0 −0.63 (−1.1, −0.20)a −0.043 ± 0.9 0.49 ± 1.0 −0.54 (−0.96, −0.12)b −0.16 ± 0.76 −0.26 ± 0.66 0.09 (−0.23, 0.42) HCZ 0.08 ± 0.80 0.34 ± 0.87 −0.26 (−0.64, 0.12) 0.18 ± 0.91 0.33 ± 0.9 −0.15 (−0.57, 0.28) 0.11 ± 0.52 −0.006 ± 0.3 0.11 (−0.09, 0.31) MUACZ 0.22 ± 0.8 0.69 ± 0.9 −0.47 (−0.9, −0.06)a 0.55 ± 0.9 0.97 ± 0.9 −0.42 (−0.84, 0.00)a 0.34 ± 0.70 0.28 ± 0.71 0.059 (−0.26, 0.38) View Large
TABLE 4 6 mo of age 12 mo of age Change from 6 to 12 mo Variable NGG (n = 38) CG (n = 38) Difference2 NGG (n = 38) CG (n = 38) Difference2 NGG (n = 38) CG (n = 38) Difference2 WAZ −0.59 ± 0.93 0.06 ± 1–0 –0.64 (−1.0, −0.2)a −0.59 ± 0.9 −0.12 ± 1.0 −0.46 (−0.93, 0.00)a −0.00 ± 0.45 −0.19 ± 0.44 0.18 (−0.02, 0.39) LAZ −0.98 ± 1.1 −0.76 ± 0.9 −0.23 (−0.7, 0.23) −1.12 ± 1.1 −1.02 ± 1.0 −0.98 (−0.59, 0.39) −0.13 ± 0.60 −0.27 ± 0.67 0.13 (−0–16, 0.43) WLZ 0.12 ± 0.84 0.76 ± 1.0 −0.63 (−1.1, −0.20)a −0.043 ± 0.9 0.49 ± 1.0 −0.54 (−0.96, −0.12)b −0.16 ± 0.76 −0.26 ± 0.66 0.09 (−0.23, 0.42) HCZ 0.08 ± 0.80 0.34 ± 0.87 −0.26 (−0.64, 0.12) 0.18 ± 0.91 0.33 ± 0.9 −0.15 (−0.57, 0.28) 0.11 ± 0.52 −0.006 ± 0.3 0.11 (−0.09, 0.31) MUACZ 0.22 ± 0.8 0.69 ± 0.9 −0.47 (−0.9, −0.06)a 0.55 ± 0.9 0.97 ± 0.9 −0.42 (−0.84, 0.00)a 0.34 ± 0.70 0.28 ± 0.71 0.059 (−0.26, 0.38) 6 mo of age 12 mo of age Change from 6 to 12 mo Variable NGG (n = 38) CG (n = 38) Difference2 NGG (n = 38) CG (n = 38) Difference2 NGG (n = 38) CG (n = 38) Difference2 WAZ −0.59 ± 0.93 0.06 ± 1–0 –0.64 (−1.0, −0.2)a −0.59 ± 0.9 −0.12 ± 1.0 −0.46 (−0.93, 0.00)a −0.00 ± 0.45 −0.19 ± 0.44 0.18 (−0.02, 0.39) LAZ −0.98 ± 1.1 −0.76 ± 0.9 −0.23 (−0.7, 0.23) −1.12 ± 1.1 −1.02 ± 1.0 −0.98 (−0.59, 0.39) −0.13 ± 0.60 −0.27 ± 0.67 0.13 (−0–16, 0.43) WLZ 0.12 ± 0.84 0.76 ± 1.0 −0.63 (−1.1, −0.20)a −0.043 ± 0.9 0.49 ± 1.0 −0.54 (−0.96, −0.12)b −0.16 ± 0.76 −0.26 ± 0.66 0.09 (−0.23, 0.42) HCZ 0.08 ± 0.80 0.34 ± 0.87 −0.26 (−0.64, 0.12) 0.18 ± 0.91 0.33 ± 0.9 −0.15 (−0.57, 0.28) 0.11 ± 0.52 −0.006 ± 0.3 0.11 (−0.09, 0.31) MUACZ 0.22 ± 0.8 0.69 ± 0.9 −0.47 (−0.9, −0.06)a 0.55 ± 0.9 0.97 ± 0.9 −0.42 (−0.84, 0.00)a 0.34 ± 0.70 0.28 ± 0.71 0.059 (−0.26, 0.38) View Large
Iron status
Values of hemoglobin, hematocrit, MCV, and SF at 6 and 12 mo of age and the change between 6 and 12 mo of age for the NGG and CG are shown in Table 5. At 6 mo of age, there was no significant difference in these indicators between groups. Hemoglobin (P = 0.009) and hematocrit (P = 0.02) were significantly higher in the NGG than CG at 12 mo of age. These differences remained after adjustment for confounding factors such as sex, birth weight <3 or ≥3 kg, weight gain from 0 to 6 mo of age, and weight at 6 mo of age. SF at 12 mo of age was not significantly different between groups, and this finding was unchanged when 5 infants (2 infants in the NGG and 3 infants in the CG) with CRP >6 were excluded from the analysis.
TABLE 5 6 mo of age 12 mo of age Change from 6 to 12 mo Variable NGG (n = 38) CG (n = 38) Difference2 n NGG n CG Difference2 n NGG n CG Difference2 Hemoglobin (g/dL) 12.1 ± 0.73 12.1 ± 0.8 0.003 (−0.34, 0.34) 36 12.5 ± 0.7 37 11.9 ± 0.9 0.52 (0.13, 0.9)b 36 0.41 ± 0.8 37 −0.13 ± 1.0 0.5 (0.11, 0.9)b Hematocrit (%) 35.7 ± 1.9 35.6 ± 2.1 0.03 (−0.89, 0.95) 36 36.6 ± 1.9 37 35.5 ± 2.1 1.13 (0.19, 2.1)a 36 1.04 ± 2.2 37 −0.15 ± 2.4 1.2 (0.12, 2.3)a MCV (fL) 71.4 ± 3.8 71.4 ± 3.1 −0.06 (−1.66, 1.54) 36 72.4 ± 3.9 37 71.4 ± 4.8 0.97 (−1.08, 3.0) 36 1.07 ± 3.3 36 −0.20 ± 3.9 1.3 (−0.42, 3.0) Ferritin (μg/L) 38.7 ± 30.3 43.4 ± 40.5 −4.69 (−21.8, 12.4) 34 23.7 ± 22.3 35 17.3 ± 14.7 6.31 (−2.7, 15.4) 33 −13.6 ± 33.8 30 −27.2 ± 44.8 13.6 (−6.3, 33.5) Zinc (μg/dL) 92.4 ± 29.7 88.7 ± 19.3 3.65 (−8.8, 16.0) 34 110.6 ± 34.0 37 114.9 ± 23.1 −4.23 (−17.9, 9.4) 32 20.3 ± 37.3 30 31.0 ± 25.7 −10.7 (−27.0, 5.7) 6 mo of age 12 mo of age Change from 6 to 12 mo Variable NGG (n = 38) CG (n = 38) Difference2 n NGG n CG Difference2 n NGG n CG Difference2 Hemoglobin (g/dL) 12.1 ± 0.73 12.1 ± 0.8 0.003 (−0.34, 0.34) 36 12.5 ± 0.7 37 11.9 ± 0.9 0.52 (0.13, 0.9)b 36 0.41 ± 0.8 37 −0.13 ± 1.0 0.5 (0.11, 0.9)b Hematocrit (%) 35.7 ± 1.9 35.6 ± 2.1 0.03 (−0.89, 0.95) 36 36.6 ± 1.9 37 35.5 ± 2.1 1.13 (0.19, 2.1)a 36 1.04 ± 2.2 37 −0.15 ± 2.4 1.2 (0.12, 2.3)a MCV (fL) 71.4 ± 3.8 71.4 ± 3.1 −0.06 (−1.66, 1.54) 36 72.4 ± 3.9 37 71.4 ± 4.8 0.97 (−1.08, 3.0) 36 1.07 ± 3.3 36 −0.20 ± 3.9 1.3 (−0.42, 3.0) Ferritin (μg/L) 38.7 ± 30.3 43.4 ± 40.5 −4.69 (−21.8, 12.4) 34 23.7 ± 22.3 35 17.3 ± 14.7 6.31 (−2.7, 15.4) 33 −13.6 ± 33.8 30 −27.2 ± 44.8 13.6 (−6.3, 33.5) Zinc (μg/dL) 92.4 ± 29.7 88.7 ± 19.3 3.65 (−8.8, 16.0) 34 110.6 ± 34.0 37 114.9 ± 23.1 −4.23 (−17.9, 9.4) 32 20.3 ± 37.3 30 31.0 ± 25.7 −10.7 (−27.0, 5.7) View Large
TABLE 5 6 mo of age 12 mo of age Change from 6 to 12 mo Variable NGG (n = 38) CG (n = 38) Difference2 n NGG n CG Difference2 n NGG n CG Difference2 Hemoglobin (g/dL) 12.1 ± 0.73 12.1 ± 0.8 0.003 (−0.34, 0.34) 36 12.5 ± 0.7 37 11.9 ± 0.9 0.52 (0.13, 0.9)b 36 0.41 ± 0.8 37 −0.13 ± 1.0 0.5 (0.11, 0.9)b Hematocrit (%) 35.7 ± 1.9 35.6 ± 2.1 0.03 (−0.89, 0.95) 36 36.6 ± 1.9 37 35.5 ± 2.1 1.13 (0.19, 2.1)a 36 1.04 ± 2.2 37 −0.15 ± 2.4 1.2 (0.12, 2.3)a MCV (fL) 71.4 ± 3.8 71.4 ± 3.1 −0.06 (−1.66, 1.54) 36 72.4 ± 3.9 37 71.4 ± 4.8 0.97 (−1.08, 3.0) 36 1.07 ± 3.3 36 −0.20 ± 3.9 1.3 (−0.42, 3.0) Ferritin (μg/L) 38.7 ± 30.3 43.4 ± 40.5 −4.69 (−21.8, 12.4) 34 23.7 ± 22.3 35 17.3 ± 14.7 6.31 (−2.7, 15.4) 33 −13.6 ± 33.8 30 −27.2 ± 44.8 13.6 (−6.3, 33.5) Zinc (μg/dL) 92.4 ± 29.7 88.7 ± 19.3 3.65 (−8.8, 16.0) 34 110.6 ± 34.0 37 114.9 ± 23.1 −4.23 (−17.9, 9.4) 32 20.3 ± 37.3 30 31.0 ± 25.7 −10.7 (−27.0, 5.7) 6 mo of age 12 mo of age Change from 6 to 12 mo Variable NGG (n = 38) CG (n = 38) Difference2 n NGG n CG Difference2 n NGG n CG Difference2 Hemoglobin (g/dL) 12.1 ± 0.73 12.1 ± 0.8 0.003 (−0.34, 0.34) 36 12.5 ± 0.7 37 11.9 ± 0.9 0.52 (0.13, 0.9)b 36 0.41 ± 0.8 37 −0.13 ± 1.0 0.5 (0.11, 0.9)b Hematocrit (%) 35.7 ± 1.9 35.6 ± 2.1 0.03 (−0.89, 0.95) 36 36.6 ± 1.9 37 35.5 ± 2.1 1.13 (0.19, 2.1)a 36 1.04 ± 2.2 37 −0.15 ± 2.4 1.2 (0.12, 2.3)a MCV (fL) 71.4 ± 3.8 71.4 ± 3.1 −0.06 (−1.66, 1.54) 36 72.4 ± 3.9 37 71.4 ± 4.8 0.97 (−1.08, 3.0) 36 1.07 ± 3.3 36 −0.20 ± 3.9 1.3 (−0.42, 3.0) Ferritin (μg/L) 38.7 ± 30.3 43.4 ± 40.5 −4.69 (−21.8, 12.4) 34 23.7 ± 22.3 35 17.3 ± 14.7 6.31 (−2.7, 15.4) 33 −13.6 ± 33.8 30 −27.2 ± 44.8 13.6 (−6.3, 33.5) Zinc (μg/dL) 92.4 ± 29.7 88.7 ± 19.3 3.65 (−8.8, 16.0) 34 110.6 ± 34.0 37 114.9 ± 23.1 −4.23 (−17.9, 9.4) 32 20.3 ± 37.3 30 31.0 ± 25.7 −10.7 (−27.0, 5.7) View Large
Changes in hemoglobin and hematocrit from 6 to 12 mo of age were positive and were significantly higher in the NGG than CG [mean ± SD change in hemoglobin 0.41 ± 0.8 g/dL compared with −0.13 ± 1.0 (P = 0.01) and hematocrit 1.04 ± 2.2% compared with −0.15 ± 2.4) (P = 0.03)]. After adjustment for socioeconomic factors, the change in hemoglobin from 6 to 12 mo of age was negatively predicted by the hemoglobin at 6 mo of age (coefficient: −0.58; 95% CI: −0.82, −0.33; P ≤ 0.001), and there was a positive effect of the randomly assigned group (coefficient: 0.56; 95% CI: 0.19, 0.92; P = 0.003). There was no interaction between hemoglobin at 6 mo of age and the randomly assigned group on the change of hemoglobin from 6 to 12 mo of age (P = 0.42). The change in hematocrit from 6 to 12 mo of age was not related to baseline hematocrit after adjustment for socioeconomic factors, and there was no interaction between hematocrit at 6 mo of age and the randomly assigned group on the change in hematocrit from 6 to 12 mo of age (P = 0.73).
SF decreased from 6 to 12 mo of age in both groups with no significant difference between groups (−27.23 ± 44.8 μg/L in the CG compared with −13.62 ± 37.3 μg/L in the NGG; 95% CI for difference in decline: −0.63, 33.5; P = 0.2). After adjustment for socioeconomic factors, baseline SF was not associated with the change in SF from 6 to 12 mo of age, and there was no interaction between SF at 6 mo of age and the randomly assigned group on the change in SF from 6 to 12 mo of age (P = 0.64).
The proportion of infants who had a hemoglobin concentration <11 g/dL and hematocrit <33% at 12 mo of age was 4 infants (11%) in the CG and 0 infants (0%) in the NGG (P = 0.1). The proportion of infants with a SF concentration <12 μg/L at 6 mo of age was significantly higher [5 infants (12.2%)] in the NGG] than in the CG (0 infants; P = 0.03) and increased at 12 mo of age to 29% in the NGG and 37.1% in the CG (P = 0.9)
Zinc status
Serum zinc increased from 6 to 12 mo of age in both groups. The mean increase was higher in the CG than in the NGG, but there was no significant difference between groups [mean ± SD change: 31.01 ± 25.7 μg/dL in the CG compared with 20.33 ± 37.3 μg/dL in the NGG (Table 5)]. The proportion of infants with low zinc status by using a cutoff of <65 μg/dL decreased between 6 and 12 mo of age in both groups [3± 7.7% in the NGG at 6 mo of age compared with 1 ± 2.9% in the CG; and 1 ± 2.9% in the NGG compared with 0 ± 0% in the CG at 12 mo of age; NS].
Other anthropometric variables
The WAZ was significantly higher at baseline in CG than in NGG infants, and similar results were observed for the WLZ and MUACZ at both 6 and 12 mo of age. However, changes in the WAZ, WLZ, head circumference–for-age z score, and MUACZ from 6 to 12 mo of age were not significantly different between groups (Table 4). After adjustment for baseline differences, the WAZ at 12 mo of age was strongly related to the WAZ at 6 mo of age (coefficient: 0.946; 95% CI: 0.83, 1.057; P = 0.0001). When socioeconomic factors and sex were included in the model with randomly assigned groups by using stepwise regression models, the WAZ at 6 mo of age remained related to the WAZ at 12 mo of age, with no significant effect of the randomly assigned group. Similar results were shown for the WLZ and MUACZ at 12 mo of age.
After adjustment for socioeconomic factors, neither baseline values nor randomly assigned group were significant predictors of changes in the WAZ or WLZ from 6 to 12 mo of age, and there were no significant interactions between baseline measurements and randomly assigned groups. Similar results were shown for the change in MUACZ from 6 to 12 mo of age.
Meat intake and iron and zinc status
After adjustment for socioeconomic factors, the frequency (number of times per week) of red meat consumption from 8 to 10 mo of age was positively correlated with hemoglobin (r = 0.25, P = 0.03) and hematocrit (r = 0.27, P = 0.02) at 12 mo of age. The same positive correlation for this period was observed with changes in hemoglobin, hematocrit, and SF. The frequency of red meat consumption from 6 to 8 mo of age also showed a positive correlation with the change in hemoglobin from 6 to 12 mo of age (r = 0.24, P = 0.05; Table 6).
TABLE 6 Variable Change in hemoglobin from 6 to 12 mo of age Change in hematocrit from 6 to 12 mo of age Change in MCV from 6 to 12 mo of age Change in SF from 6 to 12 mo of age Frequency of red meat/wk from 6 to 8 mo of age n 70 70 69 61 r 0.24 0.16 0.12 0.07 P 0.05 0.20 0.34 0.56 Frequency of red meat/wk from 8 to 10 mo of age n 73 73 72 63 r 0.32 0.34 0.11 0.30 P 0.006 0.003 0.34 0.02 Frequency of red meat/wk from 10 to 12 of age n 72 72 71 62 r 0.21 0.18 0.063 0.14 P 0.07 0.13 0.60 0.29 Frequency of red meat/wk from 6 to 12 mo of age n 73 73 72 63 r 0.307 0.27 0.11 0.15 P 0.008 0.02 0.345 0.23 Variable Change in hemoglobin from 6 to 12 mo of age Change in hematocrit from 6 to 12 mo of age Change in MCV from 6 to 12 mo of age Change in SF from 6 to 12 mo of age Frequency of red meat/wk from 6 to 8 mo of age n 70 70 69 61 r 0.24 0.16 0.12 0.07 P 0.05 0.20 0.34 0.56 Frequency of red meat/wk from 8 to 10 mo of age n 73 73 72 63 r 0.32 0.34 0.11 0.30 P 0.006 0.003 0.34 0.02 Frequency of red meat/wk from 10 to 12 of age n 72 72 71 62 r 0.21 0.18 0.063 0.14 P 0.07 0.13 0.60 0.29 Frequency of red meat/wk from 6 to 12 mo of age n 73 73 72 63 r 0.307 0.27 0.11 0.15 P 0.008 0.02 0.345 0.23 View Large
TABLE 6 Variable Change in hemoglobin from 6 to 12 mo of age Change in hematocrit from 6 to 12 mo of age Change in MCV from 6 to 12 mo of age Change in SF from 6 to 12 mo of age Frequency of red meat/wk from 6 to 8 mo of age n 70 70 69 61 r 0.24 0.16 0.12 0.07 P 0.05 0.20 0.34 0.56 Frequency of red meat/wk from 8 to 10 mo of age n 73 73 72 63 r 0.32 0.34 0.11 0.30 P 0.006 0.003 0.34 0.02 Frequency of red meat/wk from 10 to 12 of age n 72 72 71 62 r 0.21 0.18 0.063 0.14 P 0.07 0.13 0.60 0.29 Frequency of red meat/wk from 6 to 12 mo of age n 73 73 72 63 r 0.307 0.27 0.11 0.15 P 0.008 0.02 0.345 0.23 Variable Change in hemoglobin from 6 to 12 mo of age Change in hematocrit from 6 to 12 mo of age Change in MCV from 6 to 12 mo of age Change in SF from 6 to 12 mo of age Frequency of red meat/wk from 6 to 8 mo of age n 70 70 69 61 r 0.24 0.16 0.12 0.07 P 0.05 0.20 0.34 0.56 Frequency of red meat/wk from 8 to 10 mo of age n 73 73 72 63 r 0.32 0.34 0.11 0.30 P 0.006 0.003 0.34 0.02 Frequency of red meat/wk from 10 to 12 of age n 72 72 71 62 r 0.21 0.18 0.063 0.14 P 0.07 0.13 0.60 0.29 Frequency of red meat/wk from 6 to 12 mo of age n 73 73 72 63 r 0.307 0.27 0.11 0.15 P 0.008 0.02 0.345 0.23 View Large
Infants with red meat consumption ≥3 times/wk from 6 to 8 mo of age had significantly higher MCV at 12 mo of age than did infants with red meat consumption <3 times/wk (72.5 ± 4.4 fL) compared with 69.6 ± 3.7; P = 0.02 ]and a greater increase in MCV from 6 to 12 mo of age (P < 0.05), whereas infants with red meat consumption ≥3 times/wk from 10 to 12 mo of age had higher hemoglobin concentrations (P = 0.016) and hematocrit (P = 0.03) at 12 mo of age and a significantly greater increase in hemoglobin from 6 to 12 mo of age (P < 0.01).
There was no correlation between the mean frequency of red meat consumption per week and serum zinc at 12 mo of age or the change in serum zinc between 6 and 12 mo of age. However, infants with red meat consumption <3 times/wk from 6 to 8 and 10 to 12 mo of age had significantly greater increase in zinc between 6 and 12 mo of age.
DISCUSSION
The new CF guidelines tested in this trial were designed to provide clear, specific, and practical advice for mothers living in poor socioeconomic conditions in Bogota. The guidelines were developed following WHO 2003 recommendations (12) but also by taking into account the findings from our earlier studies that described current CF practices in Bogota so that the guidelines would be acceptable in terms of culture and food availability. The 3 main messages, emphasized at each study visit, both verbally and in writing, emphasized the importance of 1) continuing breastfeeding alongside CF, 2) red meat as a source of iron and zinc, and 3) fruit and vegetables. Our preliminary results confirmed the feasibility of the intervention; the new guidelines were acceptable and affordable by the majority of mothers, despite living in conditions of socioeconomic constraint. Efficacy was also shown with improved consumption of red meat, fruit, and vegetables. The transition to CF was successfully attained by infants in the NGG who, compared with infants in the CG, had a better meal pattern and feeding practices including a lower consumption of cow milk and formula with less bottle-feeds and consumption of sweetened foods. The intervention had no adverse effect on breastfeeding, which was consistent with results from cluster randomized studies of interventions to improve CF practices in Malawi (21) and China (24).
The intervention was associated with evidence of improved iron status, with higher hemoglobin and hematocrit and positive changes in hemoglobin and hematocrit from 6 to 12 mo of age. Although there was no effect of the intervention on SF, the frequency of red meat consumption from 8 to 10 mo of age was positively associated with the change in SF from 6 to 12 mo of age. We could not directly compare our findings with those from other studies which have used supplementation or interventions with meat or a combination of nutrition education with recommendations to improve CF. We gave specific advice on the type, amount, and frequencies of foods to be given to the infant together with education on the importance of certain foods; however, foods were not provided because we considered that this approach would have a greater likelihood of a sustained impact on nutritional intakes and dietary habits. Previous randomized controlled trials (RCTs) (28, 29, 40) that investigated meat or red meat consumption were conducted in developed countries, and meat was provided during the period of intervention. One study reported an effect of higher meat intake on hemoglobin but not on SF, which was consistent with our findings, whereas a study in German infants showed that the consumption of commercial weaning foods with a low meat content increased risk of developing marginal iron status at 10 mo of age in infants who were exclusively breastfed for 4–6 compared with the consumption of weaning foods with a higher meat intake (40). A longitudinal cohort study in the United Kingdom (41) also reported that a higher meat intake during the first year was associated with a higher hemoglobin concentration. Some cluster randomized trials that used nutrition education combined with recommendations to improve CF (21–27) have reported significantly increased meat consumption but did not focus on the effect of meat consumption on iron and zinc status.
Other strategies such as iron supplementation and sprinkles have been used to improve iron status in infants with conflicting results, and RCTs that used sprinkles were generally testing the treatment rather than primary prevention (20, 42). In a blinded RCT in Honduras and Sweden, iron supplementation from 4 to 9 mo of age resulted in a significant increase in hemoglobin and reduced iron deficiency anemia in Honduras but not in Sweden (16), where impaired linear growth was observed (17). A study in Indian infants also reported a negative effect of iron supplementation on growth (43). In addition, compliance with iron supplementation is often very low (15, 44).
We showed no significant effect of the intervention on zinc status at 12 mo of age or a change in zinc status from 6 to 12 mo of age. Serum zinc concentrations increased in both groups and were not correlated with the frequency of red meat consumption per week, which were results similar those in a randomized trial of meat compared with micronutrient fortified cereals in US infants (28). However, we showed that those infants who ate red meat <3 times/wk had greater and more-positive changes in zinc status compared with those who ate red meat more frequently, which suggested potential negative effects of increased red meat consumption on zinc status. It is plausible that iron in red meat could interfere with zinc absorption. However, there is a need for additional research in this area to examine interactions between iron and zinc intakes during CF.
The intervention had no significant effect on anthropometric measures at 12 mo of age or on changes in z scores between 6 and 12 mo of age. A greater proportion of infants in the NGG had linear stunting at 6 mo of age, but because this proportion did not increase by 12 mo of age in the NGG, whereas it increased in the CG, suggested a possible protective effect of the intervention. Our findings were in agreement with those from 3 RCTs that investigated meat as a CF food, albeit by using different indicators (28, 29, 40), and with those from a cluster randomized study in Pelotas, Brazil (26). Conversely, studies in Pakistan (25), China (23), and Peru (22) reported positive effects of interventions on growth.
Although the approach used to deliver the messages recommended in the new CF guidelines was feasible and successful in the setting of this study, the implications in terms of staffing and resources need to be evaluated before the guidelines can be more widely used. The messages were delivered by researchers, and each session lasted ~45 min, which was longer than the time currently allocated for routine clinic visits. It would also be important to examine in more detail which parts of the guidelines and their delivery were most important for success because this might allow them to be implemented in a more-efficient way. This issue was not |
previous installments, with the character Lazlow's justification being that he's "fed up with the system." Lazlow also provides the ZiT! service, where listeners can request the artist and title of the song currently playing on the radio. Lazlow is also credited among others for creating the conversations of pedestrians in Liberty City. He has an in-game criminal record, as can be seen in the Liberty City Police Department database.
On 15 September 2013, Lazlow presented a special radio show alongside Pete Donaldson on Absolute Radio in the United Kingdom to celebrate the launch of Grand Theft Auto V. He confirmed that he had been working on the game for the last five years. He appears in the game as a co-host of the talk radio show called "Chattersphere" and the host of the TV talent competition Fame or Shame. He makes his first on-screen appearance in the series in the mission "Fame or Shame" in which he is chased and threatened by protagonists Michael De Santa and Trevor Philips. He also appears in person in other missions, including one in which Michael physically assaults him.
Other projects [ edit ]
He has written articles for Playboy magazine and the Long Island Press, and was an occasional guest on the Opie and Anthony and Ron and Fez shows on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. Lazlow is affiliated with 2600, having appeared on their Off the Hook radio show, in their movie Freedom Downtime, and as a panelist and staffer at several of the H.O.P.E. conferences. Lazlow has arranged voice cameos in the Grand Theft Auto games for several key figures from the magazine, including Emmanuel Goldstein, Bernie S., and Kevin Mitnick.
He has also collaborated with Rockstar Games on Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3, co-writing and directing pedestrian dialogue as well as co-writing in-game media for both games. Lazlow was also a writer and audio director on Red Dead Redemption 2.[2]CHILDREN have a lot to contend with these days, not least a tendency for their pushy parents to force-feed them omega-3 oils at every opportunity. These are supposed to make children brainier, so they are being added to everything from bread, milk and pasta to baby formula and vitamin tablets. But omega-3 is just the tip of the nutritional iceberg; many nutrients have proven cognitive effects, and do so throughout a person's life, not merely when he is a child.
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Fernando Gómez-Pinilla, a fish-loving professor of neurosurgery and physiological science at the University of California, Los Angeles, believes that appropriate changes to a person's diet can enhance his cognitive abilities, protect his brain from damage and counteract the effects of ageing. Dr Gómez-Pinilla has been studying the effects of food on the brain for years, and has now completed a review, just published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, that has analysed more than 160 studies of food's effect on the brain. Some foods, he concludes, are like pharmaceutical compounds; their effects are so profound that the mental health of entire countries may be linked to them.
Last year, for example, the Lancet published research showing that folic-acid supplements—sometimes taken by pregnant women—can help those between 50 and 70 years old ward off the cognitive decline that accompanies ageing. In a study lasting three years, Jane Durga, of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and her colleagues found that people taking such supplements did better on measures of memory, information-processing speed and verbal fluency. That, plus evidence that folate deficiency is associated with clinical depression, suggests eating spinach, orange juice and Marmite, which are all rich in folic acid.
Another suggestion from Dr Gómez-Pinilla's review is that people should eat more antioxidants. That idea is not new. Antioxidants are reckoned by many to protect against the general effects of ageing. Vitamin E, for example, which is found in vegetable oils, nuts and green leafy vegetables, has been linked (in mice) with the retention of memory into old age, and also with longer life.
Dr Gómez-Pinilla, however, gives the antioxidant story a particular twist. The brain, he observes, is peculiarly susceptible to oxidative damage. It consumes a lot of energy, and the reactions that release this energy also generate oxidising chemicals. Moreover, brain tissue contains a great deal of oxidisable material, particularly in the fatty membranes surrounding nerve cells.
That suggests, among other things, the value of a diet rich in berries. These have been shown to have strong antioxidant effects, though only a small number of their constituents have been evaluated in detail. One group that has been evaluated, the polyphenols, has been shown in rodents to reduce oxidative damage and to boost the ability to learn and retain memories. In particular, these chemicals affect changes in response to different types of stimulation in the hippocampus (a part of the brain that is crucial to the formation of long-term memories, and which is the region most affected by Alzheimer's disease). Another polyphenol, curcumin, has also been shown to have protective effects. It reduces memory deficits in animals with brain damage. It may be no coincidence that in India, where a lot of curcumin is consumed (it is the substance that makes turmeric yellow), Alzheimer's disease is rarer than elsewhere.
Peas of mind
Though the way antioxidants work in the brain is not well known, Dr Gómez-Pinilla says it is likely they protect the synaptic membranes. Synapses are the junctions between nerve cells, and their action is central to learning and memory. But they are also, he says, the most fragile parts of the brain. And many of the nutrients associated with brain function are known to affect transmission at the synapses.
An omega-3 fatty acid called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), for example, provides membranes at synaptic regions with “fluidity”—the capacity to transport signals. It also provides “plasticity”—a synapse's capacity to change. Such changes are the basis of memory. Since 30% of the fatty constituents of nerve-cell membranes are DHA molecules, keeping your DHA levels topped up is part of having a healthy brain. Indeed, according to the studies reviewed by Dr Gómez-Pinilla, the benefits of omega-3s include improved learning and memory, and resistance to depression and bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dementia, attention-deficit disorder and dyslexia.
Omega-3s are found in oily fish such as salmon, as well as in walnuts and kiwi fruit, and there is a strong negative correlation between the extent to which a country consumes fish and its levels of clinical depression. On the Japanese island of Okinawa, for example, people have a strikingly low rate of mental disorder—and Okinawans are notable fish eaters, even by the standards of a piscivorous country like Japan. In contrast, many studies suggest that diets which are rich in trans- and saturated fatty acids, such as those containing a lot of deep-fried foods and butter, have bad effects on cognition. Rodents put on such diets show declines in cognitive performance within weeks.
In the past few years, several studies have looked at the effect of adding omega-3s to people's diets—particularly those of children. One such, carried out in the British city of Durham, was controversial in that it was funded by a maker of children's omega-3 supplements and did not include a control group being given a placebo. Despite the publicity this study has received, Ben Goldacre, author of a book called “Bad Science” that includes an investigation of it, says the results will not be released.
Work by other researchers, however, has suggested such supplements do improve the performance and behaviour of school-age children with specific diagnoses such as dyslexia, attention-deficit disorder and developmental co-ordination disorder. Moreover, although more work is needed to elucidate the effects of omega-3s on healthy school-age children, Dr Gómez-Pinilla says that younger children whose mothers took fish-oil supplements (which contain omega-3s) when they were pregnant and while they were breast-feeding do show better cognitive performance than their unsupplemented contemporaries.
Eating well, then, is one key to a healthy brain. But a word of warning—do not overeat. This puts oxidative stress on the brain and risks undoing all the good work those antioxidants have been up to. For those who would like a little practical guidance, The Economist has some suggestions for dinner (see menu). So why not put the Nintendo brain trainer away tonight, and eat your way to intelligence instead?During a Nonstop Debate, if you hold down the button to fire a Truth Bullet, you can change it into a Lie Bullet instead.
By shooting a Lie Bullet at a weak point, you can tell a lie to refute statements that aren't actually inconsistent.
In the Mass Panic Debate, you must find the inconsistencies in the students' statements as they all shout over each other.
Though similar to the Nonstop Debate, because so many characters are speaking at once, the screen becomes cluttered with words and voices, making it more difficult to find inconsistencies.
A Rebuttal Showdown occurs when a student's argument clashes with the player's intuition.
As the student presents their argument, you must cut through each statement until an inconsistency appears.
Use the correct Truth Blade to slice through this inconsistency and completely refute the argument.
At times, questions will arise that can only be answered by clearing away all unnecessary clutter so that the truth may be revealed. In Mind Mine, colored blocks will cover images that represent the correct answer to a particular question. By selecting two or more blocks of the same color you can erase them in one fell swoop. As you erase blocks, adjacent blocks will also change color. Use the shifting colors to your advantage to clear away the blocks and reveal the answer. If only one block remains, you can mine it multiple times to force it to vanish, but you will incur a penalty for doing so.
Drive down a lonely stretch of road, picking up words and phrases, to spell out the questions posed by a particular case.
After successfully completing a question, you must then select the correct answer to progress further. Pick up the woman holding the correct answer to make her a passenger and continue driving.
Select the correct letters among those floating across the screen to spell out the answer to a particular question.
However, some of the letters are obscured by shadows. You will need to rely on a light that occasionally appears to reveal them. If you focus your energy you can illuminate the center of the screen, which will make it easier to identify the floating letters.
A Debate Scrum occurs when the participants in a class trial are split between
two opinions and cannot reach a consensus. Characters on both sides will each make
remarks that address a particular subject, but these remarks alone will not result in a consensus being reached. For each remark made by the opposing side, you must identify the key subject of that remark and match it to a similar remark made by your side. The goal of a Debate Scrum is to match all the remarks in a single round of debate.
During a Debate Scrum, the key subject that appears in both sides' remarks will be displayed at the bottom of the screen.
This key subject will always be visible when your side makes their remarks, but it will be hidden for the opposing side.
It's best to read each opponent's remarks first, then try to identify the key subject of each remark.Joseph Toth. Arrested on two complaints of shooting with intent to kill. 04/07/2016. (Tulsa County Jail)
TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) - Police arrested Joseph Toth on two complaints of shooting with intent to kill after an incident Wednesday at a south Tulsa apartment complex.
Officers said Toth entered the Cascade Apartments near 1818 E. 71st St. Wednesday morning to speak to a manager.
According to a statement, Toth was upset because he received a written violation from management. He was asked to leave but became upset and began arguing with one of the managers.
When maintenance workers tried to stop the fight, Toth reportedly pulled a gun and shot one of them. The victim was taken to the hospital.
The maintenance crew pinned Toth down until police arrived.
Toth is in jail on $150,000 bond.After Mohamed Atta led a diabolical attack on our country using civilian aircraft, striking our Pentagon, bringing down the Twin Towers, and murdering nearly 3,000 people on our soil, not too many of us were interested in his master’s thesis in urban planning. Maybe he had some great ideas for how to revitalize Aleppo, Syria, but in practice he left us a smoldering lower tip of Manhattan and a gruesome clean up job.
Atta did aspire to be an urban planner, though, before he discovered that his degree from the Hamburg University of Technology in Germany wasn’t going to lead to rewarding employment.
The only copy of Atta’s thesis is apparently kept under lock and key by Atta’s thesis adviser, professor Dittmar Machule, who frets that publication will result in a lawsuit from Atta’s father who still maintains his son’s innocence. Back in 2009, Slate‘s Daniel Brooks traveled to Hamburg to read the thesis and try to get a sense for how Atta saw the world. Here’s a sample of what he learned about Atta’s plans for Aleppo.
The subject of the thesis is a section of Aleppo, Syria’s second city. Atta describes decades of meddling by Western urban planners, who rammed highways through the neighborhood’s historic urban fabric and replaced many of its once ubiquitous courtyard houses with modernist high-rises. Atta calls for rebuilding the area along traditional lines, all tiny shops and odd-angled cul-de-sacs. The highways and high-rises are to be removed —in the meticulous color-coded maps, they are all slated for demolition. Traditional courtyard homes and market stalls are to be rebuilt. For Atta, the rebuilding of Aleppo’s traditional cityscape was part of a larger project to restore the Islamic culture of the neighborhood, a culture he sees as threatened by the West. “The traditional structures of the society in all areas should be re-erected,” Atta writes in the thesis, using architectural metaphors to describe his reactionary cultural project. In Atta’s Aleppo, women wouldn’t leave the house, and policies would be carefully crafted so as not to “engender emancipatory thoughts of any kind,” which he sees as “out of place in Islamic society.” The subtitle of the thesis is Neighborhood Development in an Islamic-Oriental City, and the use of that anachronistic term—Islamic-Oriental city—is telling. The term denotes a concept rooted in 19th-century European Orientalism, according to which Islamic civilization and Western civilization are entirely distinct and opposite: The dynamic, rational West gallops toward the future while the backward East remains cut off from foreign influence, exclusively defined by Islam, and frozen in time. In his academic work, Atta takes the Orientalist conceit of two distinct civilizations, one superior, the other inferior, and simply flips the chauvinism from pro-Western to pro-Muslim.
Of course, Atta’s terroristic attack initiated a furious American response, led by a neoconservative cabal that had preexisting designs on and plans for the Middle East. It’s pretty much a straight line from Atta’s decision to board a plane in Boston on September 11, 2001, to the condition of urban Aleppo today.
There’s some kind of grim irony in all of this. If 9/11 was in some sense blowback for meddling American policies in the Middle East, there’s no question that the Dresden-esque destruction of Aleppo is in some sense blowback for attacking the United States. Had the Bush administration decided to exact revenge on Atta rather than launching a global war on terror, they might have done to Aleppo what Syrians have done to it with no help from Americans. There’s no need to worry about modernist high-rises or intrusive neighborhood-disrupting highways in Aleppo anymore. That dream of constructing “odd-angled cul-de-sacs” has been pulverized into dust.
There’s also something grim about an American commentariat that glibly elides the straight line between 9/11 and the present condition of Syria and asks questions like, “What would you do if you are elected about Aleppo?”
That’s what revitalized plagiarist Mike Barnicle asked Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson on this morning’s edition of Morning Joe on MSNBC. And Gary Johnson’s response was also grim.
Barnicle: “What would you do if you are elected about Aleppo?” Johnson: “And what is Aleppo?” Barnicle: “You’re kidding.” Johnson: “No.”
I’m not sure if I actually find the answer more offensive than the question. The American commentariat could not have been more disinterested in questions like “what are you going to do about Aleppo?” when they embedded themselves in Bush and Cheney’s Excellent Adventure in Iraq. They didn’t have the slightest inkling that they ought to ask a question like that. “What are you going to do when the majority Shi’a take over Iraq and force a massive Sunni diaspora into Syria?” “What are you going to do when the Sunnis react to the loss of Iraq by trying to take over Syria?”
Did the oh-so-smart Mike Barnicle ask those questions prior to the invasion of Iraq?
Of course not.
The only people asking those kinds of questions were academicians and solid analysts with real Middle Eastern experience. And they were completely dismissed by not only the Cheneys and Libbys and Rumsfelds and Wolfowitzes, but by the flag-waving codpiece worshipping knuckleheads at MSNBC.
But then there is Gary Johnson. He wants to run for president and he doesn’t know whether Aleppo is an African hemorrhagic fever or a guy with a long-nosed puppet. He’s popular enough that he just might make it into the debates, and his mere presence on our ballots could easily change the results in a handful of states, possibly even giving us a different winner and a different future.
But Gary Johnson doesn’t take himself seriously enough to even care about what he might need to know if he became president. “What to do about Syria?” That’s got nothing to do with smoking pot or throwing potshots at the two-party system, so Johnson hasn’t read an article about the country in any of the sixty-three years that he’s been alive.
But he wants your vote!
I swear, it’s at times like this that I understand the impulse to pour gasoline on everything and just burn it to the ground.In today’s indie spotlight, we take a look at Cherry Star Asteroid Smasher, a sidescrolling action game from Mexican developer Mars Studios. This mobile title takes inspiration from old-school video games and combines it with aesthetic of anime from the end of the twentieth century to create a look and feel all its own. Within this nostalgic world, players then take the role of psychic spacewomen Cherry Star and must use her psychic powers to defeat the evil entity ZEA and save the universe.
For a closer look, gander down below at a list of the game’s features straight from Mars Studios:
• An epic story narrated as comic.
• Fight against hundreds of alien invaders through different space stages.
• Make quick touches on the screen to destroy with ZEA all your enemies and move Cherry to strategic places so she’s not hurt by the enemy attacks.
• Use the energy field of Cherry to protect her, use it wisely.
• Use Cherry’s superpower, an attack certain to succeed and defeat all the enemies on your way.
• Fight against robots and enemy ships, Dodge comets and asteroid fragments so to confront the final boss at the end of each level.
• But be careful! Avoid the long distance attacks of the final boss.
• Enjoy the quick and dynamic strategic gameplay.
• Awesome music and SFX.
• Discover the unbelievable pixel art graphics, textures, particle system, enemies and AI.
We’ll have a proper review of this intriguing title sometime in the future, but you can form a verdict of your own right now by downloading Cherry Star on the Google Play now.
[signoff predefined=”APGN Call to Action”][/signoff]WASHINGTON — An airspace closure notice published by the Federal Aviation Administration Dec. 9 suggests Blue Origin is preparing to resume test flights of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle after a hiatus of more than a year.
The Notice to Airman, or NOTAM, published by the FAA on its website Dec. 9 closes airspace above Blue Origin’s test site between Dec. 11 and 14, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern each day. The closure is to “provide a safe environment for rocket launch and recovery.”
The NOTAM does not give additional details about the planned activities, but does identify Blue Origin as the point of contact regarding the airspace closure.
“Blue Origin has filed a NOTAM for spaceflight operations this week. It will be taken down when our activity is complete,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to SpaceNews. The company declined to provide additional details about those spaceflight operations.
Blue Origin has filed similar NOTAMs in the past in advance of New Shepard test flights. Such notices were originally the only advance notice of those flights, which the company disclosed only after they took place. The company later became more open about New Shepard test flights, proving advance notice of them and even offering live webcasts.
Blue Origin completed a series of suborbital test flights of New Shepard in October 2016. On that last flight, it successfully performed a test of the vehicle’s in-flight abort system, with the crew capsule rocketing away from the propulsion module and making a parachute landing. Despite expectations that the propulsion module would be damaged or destroyed by the abort motor’s plume, it was able to make a powered vertical landing, similar to four other test flights dating back to November 2015.
Blue Origin subsequently retired that test vehicle, putting the propulsion module on display at events such as the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs and the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture air show in Wisconsin. Along with it, the company displayed a model of the crew capsule, its interior outfitted with six seats to carry space tourists on the suborbital spaceflights the company plans to offer. New Shepard will also be able to fly research payloads, with some experiments flying on the earlier series of test flights.
The company said it was building a new set of propulsion modules and crew capsules. In recent months, company officials said that test flights using the new vehicles would resume before the end of this year.
“We’re looking forward to flying the next tail number of New Shepard by the end of the year,” Ariane Cornell of Blue Origin said in a Sept. 26 panel discussion at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia.
Those future test flights, she said then, would also use a version of the crew capsule that includes the large windows the company has promoted as the largest ever to be flown on a spacecraft. The capsule on the earlier test flights had only the locations of the windows painted on its exterior. “It’s a really important next step,” she said.
Unlike Virgin Galactic, another company that is planning to offer suborbital spaceflights for tourism, Blue Origin has not started selling tickets for New Shepard flights. Company founder Jeff Bezos said at Space Symposium in April that selling tickets, or even setting a price for those tickets, was not a priority at the time.
“We’ll probably start taking down payments and selling tickets when we’re closer to commercial operations,” Bezos said then. “We have a whole test program ahead of us.”Blaine Pedersen, still a PC cabinet member after Pallister’s shuffle, recently engaged a lawyer to carry a message to family farmers dispossessed by Hydro’s BiPole lll expropriation. It suggested better terms were on offer. The only takers of that offer appear to be Pedersen’s own brothers. Ironically this came after a private member’s bill tabled by Steven Fletcher, which would have tightened up conflict of interest rules for MLAs, died on the order table.
Did Brian Pallister know Pedersen would give his brothers an opportunity to better their deal on the expropriation of their farmland? Did Pedersen oppose Fletcher’s bill when the PC caucus discussed an upgrade of conflict of interest law to cover MLAs’ families? Was Fletcher’s pursuit of tougher conflict of interest rules a factor in his turfing from the government party?
Pedersen, who is no more the Infrastructure minister, promoted a lawyer representing Manitoba’s largest power users at PUB hearings to suggest a better deal could be arranged for the farmers. Before the election, Pedersen opposed Hydro expropriating land to build Bipole III through the Red River Valley. After the election, the new government — with a seemingly mute Pedersen — allowed Hydro to plow through the prime farmland.
Pre-election, Pedersen promoted a landowners group to fight Selinger’s BiPole expropriation, but in power he now seeks to undermine it with his handpicked lawyer.
Was bullying Fletcher out of PC caucus, without even allowing him to go to bat for the group, done to gag him? To close the books on changing a weak conflict of interest law? Surely, Fletcher in caucus would have rung the alarm before Pedersen made his conflicted pitch.
Fletcher’s proposed bill, entitled The Conflict of Interest Act, never made it to second reading and a review by Legislative committee. Fletcher’s discarded Act provides much more protection from insider deals than the current Act. His bill would extend the prohibition to family members of MLAs gaining through MLA “insider” actions. Now, there is nothing to prevent gains by family members brought about by a MLA.
Avoiding perceived and actual conflicts of interest are of significant importance to ensuring the assurance of fair, workable and corruption-free provincial government. The provincial government is a major component of our Manitoba society. Not only do those who sit in cabinet and in the Legislature establish laws and manage a budget of $14 billion, but also control the policies and major actions of monopoly Crown enterprises. Accordingly, those who sit in the cabinet of the government should act in the public interest, and never for the financial gain of themselves or their extended family.
Pedersen’s questionable gambit follows four years of Hydro refusing financial fairness for BiPole afflicted family farmers. His brothers stand to gain if Hydro’s offer jumps. And why wouldn’t it — otherwise why bring in a new bargaining agent, one well known to government? An ugly spectre of conflict of interest yells out. But without Fletcher’s upgraded conflict of interest law. Why not?
The whole affair, from throwing farmers under the bus to handpicking legal help, potentially to benefit family, and thwarting enhanced conflict of interest legislation, suggests Pallister’s regime needs watching.
— Graham Lane leads Manitoba Forward (manitobaforward.ca).by Trevor Fisher
Last Monday, 22nd May, my inbox was full of messages about the election – the big news being the Tory manifesto or rather the May manifesto, building on the lead May has in the opinion polls with her running ahead of her party – while Corbyn runs behind his. The latest polling before the manifesto row the previous week showed Tories 47%, Labour 32%, LD 8% and UKIP 5%, but on the leaders May was 24 points ahead, with just 23% believing Corbyn would make a good Prime Minister.
However the 22nd was an inbox of reminders that the deadline for registration, with some 7m people not registered. On the day in fact some 2m registered, leaving 5 million out of the system. This is bad news for Labur as 30% of under 24s and 28% of people who moved in the last year were unregistered. The old, pensioners without jobs but with no plans for moving are the stable basis of the Tory vote, with much more likelihood to cast a ballot. Indeed, the news prompted a brief flurry in the Independent which deserves to be more than an eve of deadline chatter fest. Corbyn will go at some point. But the problems of a Tory bias in voting will remain. And the individual voter registration system may be the most serious of all New Labour mistakes, and another you can’t blame Corbyn for. Not that he understands the problem.
The fact that 30% of under 24s don’t register led to speculation in the Indie on the 22nd whether getting them registered would stop May. An interesting article by James Tilley argued not, stating that while the young don’t vote – he said in 2015 47% voted against 73% of over 24s, broadly correctly – thus as in the 2011 census they made up less than 12% of the electorate, an increase of 30% of 12% being c3.6%, getting them to vote would make little difference – around 1% overall. Ben Bowman agreed, stating that the most marginalised school leavers – 25% – many BAME – have fallen away since the rules were changed again in 2014, by the coalition, and that a reversal would need “a groundbreaking social movement, but it would bring along older voters as well” and thus was not worth doing.
The focus is however too narrow. Important though school leavers and 18-24s are, the problem is actually 18- 40 year olds- a much bigger group. 40% of this group are certain to vote, 64% of the older cohort, and this was the pic in the EU referendum. There never was a majority of the UK voting for Leave, and the wafer thin majority of those voting has now been decimated by the grim reaper. Remainers are in the majority at this point in time, and we Remainers must start to take demography seriously. Unpleasant though it is to say it, the older age cohort are a wasting asset for the Tories. Not that we should rely on the grim reaper, silence from Labour on pensions is disastrous.
But the crucial issue is the young. There has been a big shift since Thatchers’ time, when in 1979 42% of 18-24s backed her, according to Ipsos Mori at the time. Then they saw what she produced. On the current picture, house ownership is the biggest factor in Tory voting. And the young cannot buy houses. The YouGov poll which produced these results, 2-20 April involved 12,746 adults deliberately to increase accuracy. It is of course only a snapshot, but it shows the importance of seeing voter registration and aiming at the 16-40 year olds as key. And they stay around longer. The future is young voters, and a relentless focus on them is now the key to the future.
It’s not going to be easy. The young are social media oriented, personally I never do it. And they are ghettoised through their phones. Did I ever tell you I may have taught Jony Ive? If only I had known what he was going to do….. But we are where we are. When Jezza spoke to a rock concert recently the kids cheered him so much they could not hear what he was saying. Whatever, it’s too late to affect this election and get the young voting, though we do what we can. But for the future, the bias in the system has to be tackled. For the future, it’s voter registration, Stupid.
Trevor Fisher was a member of the Labour Coordinating Committee executive 1987-90 and secretary of the Labour Reform Group 1995- 2007. He was a member of the Compass Executive 2007-2009
Tags: EU referendum, General election 2017, Jeremy Corbyn, Trevor Fisher, voter registrationPoliZette FBI Dump Suggests Marc Rich Won Bill Clinton Pardon with Cash Newly released investigative file details the Clintons' history of bending the law for donors
Former President Bill Clinton bent the rules and the law for donors in a questionable quest to get a fugitive billionaire pardoned.
That was the chief takeaway from an FBI investigative document released Tuesday by the law enforcement agency.
The FBI also noted that Eric Holder … was the only Justice Department attorney contacted about the coming pardon when Rich’s attorney, Jack Quinn, called him.
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On Tuesday, the FBI released a heavily redacted 129-page document it began compiling in 2001 after former President Bill Clinton pardoned the late Marc Rich, an American citizen and Swiss resident who fled to Europe after a 1983 investigation into his finances.
Rich was accused of mail fraud, wire fraud, tax evasion, and racketeering. Rich and businessman Pincus Green were also indicted for doing business with Iran after the Shiite regime took 52 hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979.
Over the years, someone associated with Rich — reportedly his ex-wife, Denise Rich — gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democratic National Committee in soft money contributions.
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Denise Rich also gave money to the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, which was tasked with building his Arkansas library.
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Those donations caught the attention of the FBI, ethics watchdogs, and Clinton critics when Clinton pardoned Marc Rich and Green on Jan. 20, 2001 — the last day of his presidency.
The pardon caused an uproar, as Rich had fled justice. Media and critics immediately linked the pardons to Denise Rich’s donations. Congressional hearings were soon held, and the FBI showed up to take notes, according to the document.
While there was little Congress could do to reverse the full and unconditional pardon that Rich got, the FBI pursued Clinton on questions of taking money for pardons. Perhaps most damning in discovery is the finding that none of the usual procedures for a pardon were followed.
The admission was made by Roger Adams, the former U.S. pardon attorney, before Congress.
The FBI also noted that Eric Holder, President Obama’s former attorney general from 2009 to 2015, was the only Justice Department attorney contacted about the coming pardon when Rich’s attorney, Jack Quinn, called him.
The FBI appears to have gone further than expected with the investigation than many thought.
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A grand jury was convened in March 2001, likely by the former U.S. attorney for Southern New York.
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Calls and visits were made to London and Bern, Switzerland.
The FBI’s Public Corruption Unit handled the case.
Nothing ever came of the investigation and the FBI dropped the issue. And the documents are reportedly just a portion of the investigation.
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But Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who did not apparently factor into the investigation, now has to explain the issue anew. As of Tuesday afternoon, the Clinton campaign was already attacking the FBI for releasing the documents on its website.
It is not known if the FBI was reacting to a court order or a Freedom of Information Act request to post the documents on its public “vault” site.
Rich died in Switzerland in 2013.YPG accuses Turkey of handing over six Kurdish fighters to Nusra Front
ARA News
Qamishli, Syria – Clashes erupted between Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and militants of the Islamic State (IS/ISIS) in the vicinity of Qamishli city in northeastern Syria, Kurdish sources reported on Sunday.
IS militants tried to advance towards villages in the countryside of Qamishli, which led to the outbreak of clashes between the radical group and the Kurdish forces.
The clashes centered on the outskirts of Tel Brak and Tel Hamis south of Qamishli.
The group targeted Kurdish headquarters with mortar fire in several villages in the area, including Abu Hamal and Ghazalla.
Leadership of the YPG forces told ARA News that their units repelled an attempt by IS extremists to storm villages in the southern countryside of Qamishli.
“The terrorists of Daesh (IS) shelled our (YPG) security centers with mortar shells and tried to storm the southern countryside of Qamishli, but we were able to repel their attack and forced them to retreat,” a spokesman for the Kurdish forces said.
The source added that at least nine IS militants were killed during the clashes, while three YPG fighters were hardly injured.
YPG forces reportedly destroyed two IS vehicles and seized a large deal of weapons and ammunition following the clashes.
Reporting by: Ahmed Shiwesh
Source: ARA NewsActivist Post
In another disturbing case of the school-to-prison pipeline, the Associated Press is reporting that a 13-year-old middle school student in Albuquerque, New Mexico was handcuffed and hauled off to juvenile detention for “burping audibly” in class.
According to a lawsuit filed by civil rights attorney Shannon Kennedy, only days before this incident, the same student was forced to be strip searched for suspicion of marijuana possession. After five adults inspected the boy in his underwear, nothing was found and he was never charged.
To make matters worse, the parents of the burping bandit were not even notified by the school when he was taken into custody, leaving them to worry for his safety when he didn’t return home from school.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident for the Albuquerque school system where in the previous year Kennedy won a settlement against the district when they arrested a girl who “didn’t want to sit by the stinky boy in class.”
Kennedy reports that “200 school kids have been handcuffed and arrested in the last three years for non-violent misdemeanors,” and that she has several cases she is preparing for the mistreatment of students by Albuquerque school officials and law enforcement enablers.
ACLU describes the school-to-prison pipeline as:
a disturbing national trend wherein children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Many of these children have learning disabilities or histories of poverty, abuse or neglect, and would benefit from additional educational and counseling services. Instead, they are isolated, punished and pushed out. ‘Zero-tolerance’ policies criminalize minor infractions of school rules.
The American Bar Association has condemned these zero-tolerance policies as inherently unjust:
zero tolerance has become a one-size-fits-all solution to all the problems that schools confront. It has redefined students as criminals, with unfortunate consequences …Unfortunately, most current [zero-tolerance] policies eliminate the common sense that comes with discretion and, at great cost to society and to children and families, do little to improve school safety.
This lack of common sense when dealing with children seems to be just another symptom of the growing police state mentality in America. According to many polls, parents and teachers overwhelmingly support zero-tolerance policies for weapons, drugs, and violence in schools, but few studies have been done on non-violent infractions — like burping in class or requesting not to be seated next to a stinky classmate.
According to the Albuquerque Student Behavior Handbook, “The principal has the responsibility to take discretionary action any time the educational process is threatened with disruption.” Apparently, burping is enough of a disruption to warrant an arrest according to school officials.
Ultimately, Kennedy will likely win all of her cases at great cost to the local taxpayers who should be outraged at the behavior of their public school and law enforcement officials. |
odevilla via Getty Images The campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has been pushing the narrative that Rubio is picking up momentum in New Hampshire from voters who want to back an eventual winner.
DERRY, N.H. -- Admittedly, a Jeb Bush town hall and a Chris Christie restaurant visit are bad places to look for Marco Rubio voters.
And yet there I was, practically begging New Hampshire voters to tell me they had been leaning toward one of those GOP establishment candidates, but were now lining up behind Rubio to take down Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
“What do you make of the argument that establishment Republicans need to get behind Rubio because he’s the only one who can beat Trump?” I asked, over and over, in some form or another, feeling as if the Rubio campaign should probably start paying me.
But in spite of my most flawed interview techniques, I was getting an interesting answer.
Sorry, New Hampshire voters would say, knowing they were stepping all over my tidy little narrative.
Rubio’s too inexperienced.
He’s too immature.
I want someone who’s been a governor.
Maybe in four years.
They just didn’t seem to like him. The narrative that said they were supposed to peel off their Christie or John Kasich bumper stickers, turn in their Jeb! lawn signs, and get on the Rubio bandwagon hadn’t reached them.
Had they missed the tweets? Didn’t they see Marco’s (third-place) victory speech in Iowa? Could they have actually missed "Hardball"?
I don’t mean to suggest Rubio is less popular than the polls here say. This isn’t an #unskew argument. A new Suffolk poll released Friday has Rubio surging, gaining on Trump. And I eventually found some Rubio supporters. I even found people who perfectly fit my narrative -- that they liked the Christies and the Kasichs, but Rubio was their guy. I only had to go to a Marco Rubio rally to find them.
What I want to suggest, however, is this: There are still a lot of New Hampshire voters who are going to support the candidate they feel strongest about, despite a seemingly hopeless position in the polls.
If you believe the polls -- and I see no compelling reason not to -- Rubio is going to come out of New Hampshire ordained as the establishment candidate. I’m just not sure the bandwagon effect is as strong as Rubio’s campaign is making it out to be.
On Friday, the campaign moved an event from a middle school cafeteria to the gymnasium, citing “Marcomentum.”
And at that rally, I heard plenty of voters tell me they want to pick a winner, someone who is viable, someone who can beat Trump and Hillary Clinton.Over the past decade (or three)–and, actually, since the days of Romantic literature—the fear of technology getting out of hand has long been an awareness but maybe never a reality. Well, we are not quite there yet, but maybe in another few decades.
Or, at least, the days of relatively full automation may soon be upon us. According to a new report from consultancy firm PwC, something like 40 percent of US jobs could soon be taken by robots. More importantly, though, it looks like the United States is going to be affected by this more than any other country (where automation is a concern): In the United Kingdom, automation could replace about 30 percent of jobs; in Germany, automation could replace 35 percent of jobs; and in Japan, automation could replace 21 percent of jobs.
It puts things into better perspective when you consider that the United States and the United Kingdom have similar economies, and that the financial services sector in the United States is more vulnerable to this transition than their trans-Atlantic counterparts.
Researchers involved with the PwC report say, “The jobs of these US retail financial workers are assessed by our methodology as being significantly more routine, and so more automatable than the average finance sector job in the UK, with its greater weight on international finance and investment banking.”
The jobs that are most likely to be replace by robotics and automation include those within the transportation and storage sectors (56 percent), manufacturing (46 percent), and retail (44 percent).
As a matter of fact, PwC contends that jobs in the retail and wholesale sector could be drastically at risk. This is an industry which employs 15 percent of the workforce (in the UK). That could mean that nearly half of all retail jobs (in the UK) are at risk; the equivalent of roughly 2.3 million jobs.
Of course, the report also argues that robots in the workplace could improve top salaries.
The researchers go on to say: “Average pre-tax incomes should rise due to the productivity gains, but these benefits may not be evenly spread across income groups.”
Weighing the risks and benefits, of course, will be a major discussion over the next few decades as we continue to move closer and closer to automation.I have always been happy in libraries, though without ever being entirely at ease there. A scene that seems to crop up regularly in plays that I have written has a character, often a young man, standing in front of a bookcase feeling baffled. He – and occasionally she – is overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that has been written and the ground to be covered. ‘All these books. I’ll never catch up,’ wails the young Joe Orton in the film script of Prick Up Your Ears, and in The Old Country another young man reacts more dramatically, by hurling half the books to the floor. In Me, I’m Afraid of Virginia Woolf someone else gives vent to their frustration with literature by drawing breasts on a photograph of Virginia Woolf and kitting out E.M. Forster with a big cigar. Orton himself notoriously defaced library books before starting to write books himself. This resentment, which was, I suppose, somewhere mine, had to do with feeling shut out. A library, I used to feel, was like a cocktail party with everybody standing with their back to me; I could not find a way in.
The first library I did find my way into was the Armley Public Library in Leeds where a reader’s ticket cost tuppence in 1940; not tuppence a time or even tuppence a year but just tuppence; that was all you ever had to pay. It was rather a distinguished building, put up in 1901, the architect Percy Robinson, and amazingly for Leeds, which is and always has been demolition crazy, it survives and is still used as a library, though whether it will survive the present troubles I don’t like to think.
We would be there as a family, my mother and father, my brother and me, and it would be one of our regular weekly visits. I had learned to read quite early when I was five or six by dint, it seemed to me then, of watching my brother read. We both of us read comics but whereas I was still on picture-based comics like the Dandy and the Beano, my brother, who was three years older, had graduated to the more text-based Hotspur and Wizard. Having finished my Dandy I would lie down on the carpet beside him and gaze at what he was reading, asking him questions about it and generally making a nuisance of myself. Then – and it seemed as instantaneous as this – one day his comic made sense and I could read. I’m sure it must have been more painstaking than this but not much more.
Having learned to read, other than comics, there was nothing in the house on which to practise my newly acquired skill. My parents were both readers and Dad took the periodical John Bull, the books they generally favoured literature of escape, tales of ordinary folk like themselves who had thrown it all up for a life of mild adventure, a smallholding on the Wolds, say, or an island sanctuary, with both of them fans of the naturalist R.M. Lockley. There were a few volumes of self-help in the house but the only non-library book of autobiography was I Haven’t Unpacked by William Holt, who had got away from the dark, satanic mills by buying a horse and riding through England.
The Armley library was at the bottom of Wesley Road, the entrance up a flight of marble steps under open arches, through brass-railed swing doors panelled in stained glass which by 1941 was just beginning to buckle. Ahead was the Adults’ Library, lofty, airy and inviting; to the right was the Junior Library, a low dark room made darker by the books which, regardless of their contents, had been bound in heavy boards of black, brown or maroon embossed with the stamp of Leeds Public Libraries. This grim packaging was discouraging to a small boy who had just begun to read, though more discouraging still was the huge and ill-tempered, walrus-moustached British Legion commissionaire who was permanently installed there. The image of General Hindenburg, who was pictured on the stamps in my brother’s album, he had lost one or other of his limbs in the trenches, but since he seldom moved from his chair and just shouted it was difficult to tell which.
Such veterans of the First War were much in evidence well into the 1950s. As a child one encountered them in parks, sitting on benches and in shelters playing dominoes, generally grumpy and with reason to be, the war having robbed them of their youth and often their health. The luckier and less disabled ones manned lifts or were posted at the doors of public buildings, a uniformed and bemedalled conciergerie who were more often than not unhelpful, making the most of whatever petty authority they were invested with. And so it was here, the commissionaire’s only concern to maintain absolute silence, and not at all the companion and friend novice readers needed on this, the threshold of literature.
Of the books themselves I remember little. Henty was well represented and Captain Marryat, books which whenever I did manage to get into them only brought home to me that I was not an entirely satisfactory version of the genus boy. I suppose there must somewhere have been Enid Blyton, but since she too would have been backed in the same funereal but immensely serviceable boards she passed me by. As it was, the books I best remember reading there were the Dr Dolittle stories of Hugh Lofting, which were well represented and (an important consideration) of which there were always more. I think I knew even at six years old that a doctor who could talk to animals was fiction but at the same time I thought the setting of the stories, Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, was a real place set in historical time with the doctor (and Lofting’s own illustrations of the doctor) having some foundation in fact. Shreds of this belief clung on because when, years later, having recorded some of Lofting’s stories for the BBC, I met his son, I found I still had the feeling that his father had been not quite an ordinary mortal.
Other mysteries persisted. What, for instance, was a cat’s meat man? I had never come across one. Was the meat of cats or for cats? We didn’t have a cat and even if we had with Dad being a Co-op butcher it would have been well catered for. And again it was when I was reading the stories on the radio and happened to mention this mysterious personage in my diary in the LRB that the small mystery was solved. A cat’s meat man toured the streets (though not our street) with strips of meat suspended from a stick to be sold as pet food. One correspondent, her mother being out, remembered the stick of meat being put through the letterbox where she retrieved it from the doormat and, it being wartime, scoffed the lot.
In 1944, believing, as people in Leeds tended to do, that flying bombs or no flying bombs, things were better Down South, Dad threw up his job with the Co-op and we migrated to Guildford. It was a short-lived experiment and I don’t remember ever finding the public library, but this was because a few doors down from the butcher’s shop where Dad worked there was a little private library, costing 6d a week, which in the children’s section had a whole run of Richmal Crompton’s William books. I devoured them, reading practically one a day, happy in the knowledge that there would always be more. Years later when I first read Evelyn Waugh I had the same sense of discovery: here was a trove of books that was going to last. I wish I could say I felt the same about Dickens or Trollope or Proust even, but they seemed more of a labour than a prospect of delight.
The butcher for whom my dad worked also ran a horsemeat business, the meat strictly for non-human consumption and accordingly painted bright green. In his cattle truck Mr Banks would go out into the Surrey countryside to collect carcasses and sometimes, by dint of hanging around the lorry, I got to go with him. I would watch as the bloated cow or horse was winched on board and then we would drive to the slaughterhouse in Walnut Tree Close just by Guildford Station. While the carcass was dismembered I would sit in the corner absorbed in my latest William book. Richmal Crompton can seldom have been read in such grisly and uncongenial circumstances.
It wasn’t long, though, before we ended up going back to Leeds where we now lived in Headingley, with the local public library on North Lane, a visit to which could be combined with seeing the film at the Lounge cinema opposite. I went to Leeds Modern School, a state school at Lawnswood (and now called Lawnswood). I spoke there a few months ago and, unlike Ofsted, was much impressed by it, its current disfavour a presumed punishment for its admirable headmistress, who is still managing to resist the siren charms of academy status and the wiles of Mr Gove. In those circumstances I am happy to boast that the school library has been named after me.
When I was in the sixth form at the Modern School I used to do my homework in the Leeds Central Library in the Headrow. At that time the municipal buildings housed not only the lending library and the reference library but also the education offices and the police department, which I suppose was handy for the courts, still functioning across the road in the town hall with the whole complex – town hall, library, courts – an expression of the confidence of the city and its belief in the value of reading and education, and where you might end up if they were neglected. It’s a High Victorian building done throughout in polished Burmantofts brick, extravagantly tiled, the staircases of polished marble topped with brass rails, and carved at the head of each stair a slavering dog looking as if it’s trying to stop itself sliding backwards down the banister.
The reference library itself proclaimed the substance of the city with its solid elbow chairs and long mahogany tables, grooved along the edge to hold a pen, and in the centre of each table a massive pewter inkwell. Arched and galleried and lined from floor to ceiling with books the reference library was grand yet unintimidating. Half the tables were filled with sixth-formers like myself, just doing their homework or studying for a scholarship; but there would also be university students home for the vacation, the Leeds students tending to work up the road in their own Brotherton Library. There were, too, the usual quota of eccentrics that haunt any reading room that is warm and handy and has somewhere to sit down. Old men would doze for hours over a magazine taken from the rack, though if they were caught nodding off an assistant would trip over from the counter and hiss, ‘No sleeping!’
One regular, always with a pile of art books at his elbow, was the painter Jacob Kramer, some of whose paintings, with their Vorticist slant, hung in the art gallery next door. Dirty and half-tight there wasn’t much to distinguish him from the other tramps whiling away their time before trailing along Victoria Street to spend the night in the refuge in the basement of St George’s Church, where occasionally I would do night duty myself, sleeping on a camp bed in a room full of these sad, defeated, utterly unthreatening creatures.
With its mixture of readers and its excellent facilities (it was a first-rate library) and the knowledge that there would always be someone working there whom I knew and who would come out for coffee, I found some of the pleasure going to the reference library that, had I been less studious, I could have found in a pub. Over the next ten years while I still thought I might turn into a medieval historian I became something of a connoisseur of libraries, but the reference library in Leeds always seemed to me one of the most congenial. It was there, on leave from the army, that I discovered they held a run of Horizon, the literary magazine started by Cyril Connolly in 1940, and that I eventually did get a scholarship to Oxford I put down to the smattering of culture I gleaned from its pages.
In my day, it was a predominantly male institution with the main tables dividing themselves almost on religious or ethnic lines. There was a Catholic table, patronised by boys from St Michael’s College, the leading Catholic school, with blazers in bright Mary blue; there was a Jewish table where the boys came from Roundhay or the Grammar School, the Jewish boys even when they were not at the same school often knowing each other from the synagogue or other extra-curricular activities. If, like me, you were at the Modern School – and there were about half a dozen of us who were there regularly – you had no particular religious or racial affinities and indeed were not thought perhaps quite as clever, the school certainly not as good as Roundhay or the Grammar School. The few girls who braved this male citadel disrupted the formal division, leavened it, I’m sure for the better. And they worked harder than the boys and were seldom to be found on the landing outside where one adjourned for a smoke.
It had glamour, too, for me and getting in first at nine one morning I felt, opening my books, as I had when a small boy at Armley Baths and I had been first in there, the one to whom it fell to break the immaculate stillness of the water, shatter the straight lines tiled on the bottom of the bath and set the day on its way.
Of the boys who worked in the reference library a surprising number must have turned out to be lawyers, and I can count at least eight of my contemporaries who sat at those tables in the 1950s who became judges. A school – and certainly a state or provincial school – would consider that something to boast about, but libraries are facilities; a library has no honours board and takes no credit for what its readers go on to do but, remembering myself at 19, on leave from the army and calling up the copies of Horizon to get me through the general paper in the Oxford scholarship, I feel as much a debt to that library as I do to my school. It was a good library and though like everywhere else busier now than it was in my day, remains, unlike so much of Leeds, largely unaltered.
The library closed at nine and coming down in the lift (bevelled mirrors, mahogany panelling, little bench) the attendant, another British Legion figure, would stop and draw the gates at the floor below and in would get a covey of policemen and even the occasional miscreant en route for the cells. One of the policemen might be my cousin Arnold, who belonged to what my mother always felt was the slightly common wing of the Bennett family. Loud, burly and wonderfully genial, Arnold was a police photographer and he would regale me with the details of the latest murder he had been called on to snap: ‘By, Alan, I’ve seen some stuff.’ The stuff he’d seen included the corpse of the stripper Mary Millington, who had committed suicide. ‘I can’t understand why she committed suicide. She had a lovely body.’
To someone as prone to embarrassment as I was, these encounters, particularly in the presence of my schoolfriends, ought to have been shaming. That they never were was, I suppose, because Cousin Arnold was looked on as a creature from the real world, the world of prostitutes found dead on waste ground, corpses in copses and cars burned out down Lovers’ Lane. This was Life where I knew even then that I was not likely to be headed or ever to have much to do with.
There is no shortage of libraries in Oxford, some of them, of course, of great grandeur and beauty. The Radcliffe Camera seems to me one of the handsomest buildings in England and the square in which it stands a superb combination of styles. Crossing it on a moonlit winter’s night lifted the heart, though that was often the trouble with Oxford – the architecture out-soared one’s feelings, the sublime not always easy to match. There are in that one square three libraries, the Bodleian on the north side, on the east the Codrington, part of Hawksmoor’s All Souls, and James Gibbs’s Camera in the middle. There is actually another more modest library, neo-Gothic in style, and built by George Gilbert Scott in 1856. It’s over Exeter’s garden wall in the north-west corner of Radcliffe Square, but you can’t quite see that. This was where I worked, though it was possible if one was so inclined to get to study in the much more exclusive and architecturally splendid surroundings of the Codrington, and a few undergraduates did so. They tended, though, to set less store on what they were writing than on where they were writing it and I, with my narrow sympathies but who was just as foolish, despised them for it.
Staying on at Oxford after I’d taken my degree I did research in medieval history, the subject of my research Richard II’s retinue in the last ten years of his reign. This took me twice a week to the Public Record Office then still in Chancery Lane and in particular to the Round Room, galleried, lined with books, a humbler version of the much grander Round Room in the British Museum. Presiding over the BM Round Room in his early days was Angus Wilson whereas at the PRO it was Noel Blakiston, friend of Cyril Connolly, hair as white as Wilson’s and possibly the most distinguished-looking man I’ve ever seen.
Though I made copious notes on the manuscripts I studied (which were chiefly records of the medieval exchequer) I would have found it hard to say what it was I was looking for – imagining, I think, that having amassed sufficient material it would all suddenly fall into place and become clear. Failing that, I hoped to come upon some startling and unexpected fact, a very silly notion. Had it been Richard III I was researching rather than Richard II, it might have been something as relatively unambiguous as a note in the monarch’s own hand saying: ‘It was me that killed ye Princes in ye Tower, hee hee.’ Historical research nowadays is a dull business: had I any sense I would have been collating the tax returns of the knights I was studying or the amount they borrowed or were owed, or sifting through material other historians had ignored or discarded; it is seldom at the frontier that discoveries are made but more often in the dustbin.
The Memoranda Rolls on which I spent much of my time were long thin swatches of parchment about five feet long and one foot wide and written on both sides. Thus to turn the page required the co-operation and forbearance of most of the other readers at the table, and what would sometimes look like the cast of the Mad Hatter’s tea party struggling to put wallpaper up was just me trying to turn over. A side effect of reading these unwieldy documents was that one was straightaway propelled into quite an intimate relationship with readers alongside and among those I got to know in this way was the historian Cecil Woodham-Smith.
The author of The Great Hunger, an account of the Irish Famine, and The Reason Why, about the events leading up to the Charge of the Light Brigade, Cecil was a frail woman with a tiny bird-like skull, looking more like Elizabeth I (in later life) than Edith Sitwell ever did (and minus her sheet metal earrings). Irish, she had a Firbankian wit and a lovely turn of phrase. ‘Do you know the Atlantic at all?’ she once asked me and I put the line into Habeas Corpus and got a big laugh on it. From a grand Irish family she was quite snobbish; talking of someone she said: ‘Then he married a Mitford … but that’s a stage everybody goes through.’ Even the most ordinary remark would be given her own particular twist and she could be quite camp. Conversation had once turned, as conversations will, to fork-lift trucks. Feeling that industrial machinery might be remote from Cecil’s sphere of interest I said: ‘Do you know what a fork-lift truck is?’ She looked at me in her best Annie Walker manner. ‘I do. To my cost.’
Books and bookcases cropping up in stuff that I’ve written means that they have to be reproduced on stage or on film. This isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. A designer will either present you with shelves lined with gilt-tooled library sets, the sort of clubland books one can rent by the yard as decor, or he or she will send out for some junk books from the nearest second-hand bookshop and think that those will do. Another short cut is to order in a cargo of remaindered books so that you end up with a shelf so garish and lacking in character it bears about as much of a relationship to literature as a caravan site does to architecture. A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.
That someone’s working library has a particular tone, with some shelves more heterogeneous than others, for example, or (in the case of an art historian) filled with offprints and monographs or (with an old-fashioned literary figure for instance) lined with the faded covers and jackets of distinctive Faber or Cape editions, does not seem to occur to a designer. On several occasions I’ve had to bring my own books down to the theatre to give the right worn tone to the shelves.
In The Old Country (1977) the books (Auden, Spender, MacNeice) are of central importance to the plot. I wanted their faded buffs and blues and yellows bleached into a unity of tone that suggested long sunlit Cambridge afternoons, the kind of books you might find lining Dadie Rylands’s rooms, for instance. Anthony Blunt’s bookshelves were crucial in Single Spies, the look of an art historian’s bookshelves significantly different from those of a literary critic say. All this tends to pass the designer by. One knows that designers seldom read, but they don’t have much knowledge of Inca civilisation either or the Puritan settlement of New England and yet they seem to cope perfectly well reproducing them. An agglomeration of books as illustrating the character of their owner seems to defeat them.
When I first bought books for myself in the late 1940s they were still thought to be quite precious and in poor homes books might often be backed in brown paper. Paper itself was in short supply and such new books as there were often bore the imprint ‘Produced in conformity with the Authorised Economy Standard’. The paper was mealy, slightly freckled and looked not unlike the texture of the ice cream of the period. It was, though, a notable period in book design and perhaps because they were among the first books I ever bought (one was C.V. Wedgwood’s William the Silent) the books of that time have always seemed to me all that was necessary or desirable – simple, unfussy, wholesome and well designed.
They were not, though, to be left about at home. ‘Books Do Furnish a Room’, wrote Anthony Powell, but my mother never thought so and she’d always put them out of the way in the sideboard when you weren’t looking. Books untidy, books upset, more her view. Though once a keen reader herself, particularly when she was younger, she always thought of library books as grubby and with a potential for infection – not intellectual infection either. Lurking among the municipally owned pages might be the germs of TB or scarlet fever, so one must never be seen to peer at a library book too closely or lick your finger before turning over still less read such a book in bed.
There were other perils to reading, but it was only when I hit middle age that I became aware of them. Me, I’m Afraid of Virginia Woolf was a television play written in 1978 and though it doesn’t contain my usual scene of someone baffled at a bookcase the sense of being outfaced by books is a good description of what the play is about. ‘Hopkins,’ I wrote of the middle-aged lecturer who is the hero, ‘Hopkins was never without a book. It wasn’t that he was particularly fond of reading; he just liked to have somewhere to look. A book makes you safe. Shows you’re not out to pick anybody up. Try it on. With a book you’re harmless. Though Hopkins was harmless without a book.’ Books as badges, books as shields; one doesn’t think of libraries as perilous places where you can come to harm. Still, they do carry their own risks.
I have been discussing libraries as places and in the current struggle to preserve public libraries not enough stress has been laid on the library as a place not just a facility. To a child living in high flats, say, where space is at a premium and peace and quiet not always easy to find, a library is a haven. But, saying that, a library needs to be handy and local; it shouldn’t require an expedition. Municipal authorities of all parties point to splendid new and scheduled central libraries as if this discharges them of their obligations. It doesn’t. For a child a library needs to be round the corner. And if we lose local libraries it is children who will suffer. Of the libraries I have mentioned the most important for me was that first one, the dark and unprepossessing Armley Junior Library. I had just learned to read. I needed books. Add computers to that requirement maybe but a child from a poor family is today in exactly the same boat.
The business of closing libraries isn’t a straightforward political fight. The local authorities shelter behind the demands of central government which in its turn pretends that local councils have a choice. It’s shaming that, regardless of the party’s proud tradition of popular education, Labour municipalities are not making more of a stand. For the Tories privatising the libraries has been on the agenda for far longer than they would currently like to admit. This is an extract from my diary:
22 February Switch on Newsnight to find some bright spark from, guess where, the Adam Smith Institute, proposing the privatisation of the public libraries. His name is Eamonn Butler and it’s to be hoped he’s no relation of the 1944 Education Act Butler. Smirking and pleased with himself as they generally are from that stable, he’s pitted against a well-meaning but flustered woman who’s an authority on children’s books. Paxman looks on undissenting as this odious figure dismisses any defence of the tradition of free public libraries as ‘the usual bleating of the middle classes’. I go to bed depressed only to wake and find Madsen Pirie, also from the Adam Smith Institute for the Criminally Insane, banging the same drum in the Independent. Not long ago John Bird and John Fortune did a sketch about the privatisation of air. These days it scarcely seems unthinkable.
That was written in 1996. It’s hard not to think that like other Tory policies privatising the libraries has been lying dormant for 15 years, just waiting for a convenient crisis to smuggle it through. Libraries are, after all, as another think tank clown opined a few weeks ago, ‘a valuable retail outlet’.Serial rabbit killer uses Google maps to find victims
Posted on July 15, 2008
Serial rabbit killer uses Google maps to find victims
(you have to admit, even though the killings are horrifying, the end of this video is adorable)…
The roll call of victims is growing longer by the day. They have names like Rocco, Fussel, Marianne and Fluffy — and a five-man police unit has a file on each and every one. The so-called “bunny murders” — 40 domestic rabbits killed at night in their hutches, heads and sometimes paws sliced off, their bodies drained of blood — is stunning communities across western Germany.
“Nobody knows where the killer will strike next,” said Inspector Volker Schütte. One theory is that a group of Satanists is behind the wave of killings, because there is an almost ritualistic pattern. Amputated paws have been placed on doorsteps; the blood may have been drained into phials for use in an initiation ceremony. So far, inquiries in Satanist and cultist groups have turned up little — but a child’s coffin and a red velvet cloth were found recently near the scene of the rabbit killings. The coffin was empty but there was rabbit hair on the cloth.
CommentsFirefighter Jobs May 2016
Hello again everyone. Hope all of you having a great day so far. I’m here again with the monthly installment of Firefighter jobs for the month of May. I think I have a good amount of jobs for you guys.
I have been noticing that a good amount of you guys have been clicking on these job postings and hopefully applying to the positions. Good Luck and I hope you guys get that job!!!
If you are new to this site… Welcome, glad you came on over and I sure hope you find what you are looking for.
The layout will be like always and is pretty self-explanatory. Enjoy!
Please remember that the links will not be available/work once that job announcement closes. You can click on the name of the city to go to the job opening.
Firefighter jobs :
Arizona:
Sierra Vista
Firefighter
$40,192 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: Unknown
Bulkhead City
Firefighter Paramedic
Unknown Salary
Start Date: Now
End Date: 06/17/2016
California:
Los Angeles
Firefighter
$55,875 – $81,680 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: Unknown
Newport Beach
Firefighter
$4,945 Monthly
Start Date: 05/10/2016
End Date: 05/17/2016
Long Beach
Firefighter
$4,945 Monthly
Start Date: Now
End Date: 07/01/2016
San Marcos
Firefighter Paramedic
$63,660 – $83,062 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: 06/08/2016
Borrego Springs
Firefighter Paramedic
$45,851 – $53,738 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: 05/20/2016
Murrieta
Firefighter Paramedic
$5,585 to $6,789 Monthly
Start Date: Now
End Date: Unknown
San Marino, San Gabriel and South Pasadena Fire Dept.
Firefighter Paramedic
Salary Varies by Agency
Start Date: Now
End Date: Unknown
Colorado:
Loveland
Apprentice Part-time Firefighter
$12.43 Hourly
Start Date: Now
End Date: 05/27/2016
Fort Collins
Firefighter
$50,882 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: 06/17/2016
Colorado Springs
Firefighter
Unknown Salary
Start Date: Now
End Date: 09/31/2016
Florida:
Madeira Beach
Firefighter Paramedic
$44,777 – 65,757 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: 05/31/2016
Temple Terrace
Firefighter Paramedic
$47,657 – $69,819 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: Unknown
Kissimmee
Firefighter Paramedic
$42,893 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: 05/25/2016
Charlotte County
Firefighter Paramedic
$49,953 – $82.434 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: Unknown
Longwood
Firefighter Paramedic
$34,000 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: Unknown
Seminole
Firefighter/ Firefighter Paramedic
$36,312 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: Unknown
Lake Mary
Firefighter Paramedic
$37,069 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: 05/26/2016
Georgia:
Augusta
Firefighter
$30,000 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: Continuos
Statenville
Wildland Firefighter
$27,345 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: 05/18/2016
Idaho:
Star
Firefighter
$36,000 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: 05/18/2016
Caldwell
Firefighter
$41,263 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: Unknown
Illinois:
Lake In The Hills
Part-Time Firefighter
$15.00 Hourly
Start Date: Now
End Date: Unknown
Blackshear
Wildland Firefighter
$27,345 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: 05/22/2016
Louisiana:
Alexandria
Firefighter
$35,329 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: Unknown
New Mexico:
Albuquerque
Firefighter
$12.60 Hourly
Start Date: Now
End Date: 5/19/2016
Nevada:
Las Vegas
Firefighter
$42,914.30 Annually
Start Date: 5/23/2016
End Date: 6/02/2016
Oregon:
Grants Pass
Firefighter
$52,656 – $67,200 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: 05/16/2016
Lebanon
Firefighter
$4,739 – $5,960 Monthly
Start Date: Now
End Date: 05/20/2016
Tennessee:
Franklin
Firefighter
$ 34,983 Annually
Start Date: Now
End Date: 05/27/2016
Texas:
Leon Valley
Firefighter
$43,625 Annually
Start Date: 05/03/2016
End Date: 05/27/2016
Washington |
... I actually came to a different conclusion. I think we're living in a series of 'House of Cards,' " she said.There was a lot of news on the Raiders injury front today. Here is the most current status of several injured players as of today:
Derek Carr returned to practice today. He left in the fourth quarter against the Lions of an apparent rib injury. Dennis Allen said following the game that Carr suffered a concussion. Well, he's back after missing just one practice and is wearing extra padding around his ribs according to Vic Tafur of the San Francisco Chronicle. Can't be too careful with those concussions.
Justin Ellis is still not practicing with the concussion he suffered in the team's first preseason game. That was ten days ago.
DJ Hayden was seen working out on the side, doing lateral movements as Tafur tweeted:
Hayden doing some cutting on far field. #Raiders pic.twitter.com/Bv6HPS7eXV — Vic Tafur (@VicTafur) August 18, 2014
Dennis Allen said with certainty this weekend that Hayden would not return this week. Even with his working on the side, there's no telling when he'll be ready to return to action. Keep in mind that Usama Young and Neiko Thorpe were among those working on the side at camp as of two weeks ago and Young just returned yesterday while Thorpe remains out.
Usama Young officially came off the PUP list yesterday. Hayden and Lucas Nix are the only players remaining on PUP.
Marcel Reece couldn't finish Sunday's practice. He was seen today wearing a walking boot. Hopefully Dennis Allen will be able to add some clarification on his injury after practice today.
UPDATE: Dennis Allen said following practice that Reece has a foot injury. He will have an MRI on the foot and his timetable for return is uncertain.
Also leaving practice early yesterday with an injury was Brice Butler. He was not practicing today either.
UPDATE: Dennis Allen said after practice that Butler suffered a concussion which is why he is not practicing.
Others still not practicing are Chimdi Chekwa (knee), Juron Criner, David Ausberry (knee), and Nick Kasa (ACL).
Follow @LeviDamienThis article is from the archive of our partner.
The U.S. now has the highest adult obesity rate in the developed world, 34 percent, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. The report compares adult obesity rates across 33 of the world's wealthiest countries. The U.S. is ranked second behind Mexico, with 68 and 70 percent, in the proportion of adults who are overweight. The rapidly increasing U.S. obesity rates have long been cause for concern, especially as health care costs skyrocket. Here's what people have to say about the report. Scientific American also presents A Graphical View of U.S. Obesity.
Bad and Getting Worse The OECD report warns, "Since the 1980s, obesity has spread at an alarming rate. Changes in food supply and eating habits, combined with a dramatic fall in physical activity, have made obesity a global epidemic. Across OECD countries, one in 2 adults is currently overweight and 1 in 6 is obese. The rate of overweight people is projected to increase by a further 1% per year for the next 10 years in some countries. Rates are highest in the United States and Mexico and lowest in Japan and Korea, but have been growing virtually everywhere. Children have not been spared, with up to 1 in 3 currently overweight."
U.S. Child Obesity Tied With Scotland The New York Times' Catherine Rampell finds, "The United States does, however, hold the dubious honor of fattest population of children, tied with Scotland. (Note that the rates for children are not exactly comparable, though, as different countries report obesity and overweight rates for different age ranges of children)."
In Every Country, Upwards Trend Think Progress's Matthew Yglesias worries, "I think the real story here is that the trends are universally upwards.... What you'd like to see in international data is some example of a prosperous country where obesity isn't just at a lower level than in the United States, but where there's no rate of increase. But we don't have one. And the mechanism isn't necessarily all that mysterious." He says that despite "different food cultures" across the developed world, there are "underlying forces" that are hurting everyone.
What's Causing Increase The Associated Press's Greg Keller reports, "Franco Sassi, the OECD senior health economist who authored the report, blamed the usual suspects for the increase. 'Food is much cheaper than in the past, in particular food that is not particularly healthy, and people are changing their lifestyles, they have less time to prepare meals and are eating out more in restaurants,' said Sassi, a former London School of Economics lecturer who worked on the report for three years. That plus the fact that people are much less physically active than in the past means that the ranks of the overweight have swelled to nearly 70 percent in the U.S. this year from well under 50 percent in 1980, according to the OECD."
Poor Response From Governments USA Today's Nanci Hellmich writes, "Neville Rigby, director of the European Obesity Forum, says the OECD report 'is important because it provides clear evidence that the way most countries have been approaching obesity has been doomed to failure.... Obesity must be tackled by a multi-pronged approach that involves a combination of strong policy measures at the same time as individual management issues are addressed by physicians and their teams.... [The report] makes the case for a much more robust set of government and societal actions,' Rigby says. If society waits for business and individuals to do what is really needed, 'the obesity epidemic will simply get much, much worse.'"
What U.S. Can Learn from Colorado Slate's Juliet Lapidos writes, "Colorado is the least obese state, according to the 'increasing girth rate' graphic in Tuesday's Washington Post. Just 19.1% of its population had a body mass index of 30 or more in 2009, making it the only state in the union with an obesity rate of less than 20 percent. Why are Coloradans skinnier than everyone else?" Lapidos ventures, "It could be their outdoor culture.... [Or,] Demographically, the state had a lot going for it. We know that poverty and obesity are strongly correlated, and that people with more education are less likely to be obese." However, "While Colorado remains the skinniest state, its obesity rate has nearly doubled in just a decade and a half. Furthermore, as of 2007, Colorado ranked near the middle on childhood obesity rates, so the nation's girth map may soon be changing."
This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.Stage One: Pre-season optimism
It doesn’t matter how many people are entering this league, no one watches as much soccer as you. And no one hates their boss even half as much. So all you have to do is pick the 11 best players 100 million fantasy pounds can buy and, by next May, you’ll be collecting that cash money prize and quitting your day job.
Stage Two: Picking a team name
While pretending to fill out the TPS reports at work, you actually put your 50 best fantasy Premier League team names into a Google doc, revisiting to update each day. In the end, you go with the first name on your list: an obscure Lord of the Rings reference that everyone will definitely get, provided they’ve read the appendix of The Silmarillion.
Stage Three: £100 million is a lot less than it sounds
You can’t NOT have Unbeatable Goalkeeper, Clean-Sheet Defender, Assist-Machine Midfielder and Expensive Goalscorer in your team now, can you? These are the guys guaranteed to win you all that money so you can quit your job. But, for some reason, even with the calculator app on your iPhone working overtime, you can’t figure out how to afford them all. It’s almost as if the game is rigged to prevent you picking the very best team. Fascists. It’s OK though, you’ll just spend big on the must-have guys and cut corners with a couple of defenders. That’s why they invented the “sort by price, cheapest first” option, right?
Stage Four: This could actually work …
This team is gold. If Expensive Goalscorer delivers, you can write the first draft of that resignation letter. Even better, you gave Expensive Goalscorer the captain’s armband. There was a small ceremony and now all his points will be worth double. You’ve also got a special feeling about Unpronounceable Winger. This may be his first season in the Premier League and £8.5m might sound like a lot of fantasy money, but you found a YouTube of him playing in Turkey which seems to guarantee he’ll score every time he gets the ball.
Stage Five: Reality check
Good news: Expensive Goalscorer scored a hat-trick. Bad news: Seems everyone else also selected Expensive Goalscorer and everyone else also made him captain. Bonus Bad News: Sort by Price Defender’s newly promoted team conceded five. And why oh why did Asshole Manager leave Unpronounceable Winger on the bench? Does Asshole Manager not know about YouTube? This week one disaster seems more like his fault than yours. Does he not know what’s at stake here?
Stage Six: Rethink and reload
Changes have been made. You noticed that Unheralded Everton Midfielder scored twice in week one, and the teams at the top of the league all have him. So you’ve changed formations—3-4-3, it works for van Gaal!—and paid the five-point penalty to make extra transfers and get Unheralded on your team. Worth it. Even better, you somehow came out of it with £0.1m of your transfer budget to spare. You are the Sir Harry Redknapp of fantasy Premier League, wheeling and dealing your way to luxury living.
Stage Seven: What is even the point?
Unheralded Everton Midfielder did NOTHING in week two and was subbed out at halftime. Now nobody at the top of the league has him in their team. How did they know? Expensive Goalscorer scored again but doesn’t matter because now everybody—literally everybody—has him as their captain. Unpronounceable Winger and his umlauts played 10 minutes and accomplished nothing, while Sort by Price Defender got himself sent off. Well done guys, we’re in 525,357th place. And you call yourselves professionals.
Stage Eight: The universe is definitely against you
You watched live in week three as Unpronounceable Winger dribbled past five, FIVE!, defenders and then played a perfect reverse pass to Teammate#1 in the six-yard-box. Magic. Teammate#1’s weak-ass shot was saved, and Teammate#2 buried the rebound. So in what universe does Teammate#1 get the assist, while the dots-over-his-vowels genius that is Unpronounceable Winger gets nothing? This one, is the answer.
Stage Nine: Dammit, slipped my mind!
You forgot to pick your team. For five weeks straight. You were on vacation, then there was Steve’s bachelor party (good times), then you finally finished the deck like you promised. Meanwhile, Sort by Price Defender has been loaned to a Championship team but has somehow still been in your starting XI every week. Unheralded Everton Midfielder is in the England squad, but on your bench. And turns out Unpronounceable Winger was actually a different Unpronounceable Winger to the one you saw on YouTube. Either that or he’s had a rapid growth spurt and dyed his hair black.
Stage Ten: Surrender
You read on BBC Football that Expensive Goalscorer has a hamstring strain and will be out for three weeks. You know you should sell him and spend that money to reinvigorate your team, but you don’t want to log in because you don’t want to see your score or your league position. And you should probably go into work early on Monday anyway and get caught up on those TPS reports.It is tradition, following the election of the president of the United States, that his official portrait, that of the Vice President, and those of cabinet members in various agencies are installed, replacing the portraits of the outgoing administration.
But at the State Department and at embassies around the world that apparently has yet to take place, more than four months after President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were inaugurated.
Although it is unknown why this is the case, officials at the State Department have confirmed to Breitbart News that the walls are bare for now — including no portrait in place of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
A spokesperson told Breitbart News on Tuesday:
The State Department has not yet received the official portraits for the President and Vice President. As soon as the White House official portraits of the President and Vice President are available, the State Department Bureau of Administration will distribute the White House portraits and the official portrait of the Secretary of State to all offices as well as all posts abroad.
But a report from Fox News in March reveals some of the bureaucratic issues that could be stalling portrait installations.
“A dispute at a Florida VA medical facility could foretell the coming of widespread bureaucratic battles when thousands of copies of President Trump’s official portrait are sent out to be displayed in federal facilities around the nation,” Fox reported.
“The portraits, in addition to ones of Vice President Mike Pence and various cabinet officials, will replace those of their predecessors, as dictated by tradition,” Fox reported. “But to some in the politically polarized bureaucracy, the prospect of President Trump’s likeness watching over them is already causing problems.”
Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) hung unofficial portraits of Trump and VA Administrator Dr. David Shulkin in a VA medical center in his West Palm Beach district and they were almost instantly taken down.
“I insisted that I would like to see them hung,” Mast told Fox News in an email. “The information desk called for a maintenance person who was seen helping me hang it.”
Fox reported that it is up to the General Services Administration’s publishing office to pass around the portraits and the agency had not said when the official portraits would go out — back in March.
“Mast, a U.S. Army veteran who lost both legs to an IED in Afghanistan, felt strongly that the frames already emptied of portraits of President Obama and former VA Secretary Robert McDonald should be occupied immediately and brought his own photos of Trump and VA Administrator Shulkin,” Fox reported.Kevin: I do too, but that's a very polarizing rum I've found. In fact, that's why I think I made a drink the other day, like a swizzle with Wray & Nephew, I don't remember what I called it, but there was a reference to it being "an acquired taste." That's what it was. Just because some people are like "too much" and don't really care for it. I'm perfectly happy, on a hot day, with some Wray & Nephew and Ting soda. Sublime.
Brian: Maybe on the edge of "not enough."
Neil: Sometimes I run out of aged agricole rum to make my 1944 Trader Vic's Mai Tai and I'll use a Jamaican blend with Wray & Nephew. I know it's a little bit too funky, and a little overproof, but it provides a certain element that other rums wouldn't.
Kevin: I think it brings some character to it, because if you're going to pour in like... When I did the Mai TaIPA with the El Dorado 3, it was fine. The El Dorado 3 is not contributing a whole lot. It's not making it worse, but it's not really bringing anything to the party, other than maybe a little bit of ABV. Other than that it's [not present]. That’s an interesting experiment. I haven't really done a lot of Wray & Nephew in a Mai Tai. I've found that ever since Denizen Merchant’s Reserve came out, I've dialed way back on the agricole Mai Tai's. I still like them a lot, but the Denizen Mai Tai has kind of just taken over as the house standard.
Neil: I was going to ask about domestic rums. You made an episode recently about Santeria. You've given us a glimpse of domestic rums, even though a lot of products aren't distributed in California. How would see domestic rums fitting into the world of tiki drinks?
Kevin: I think based on the way that some of them are made, they fit in very well. My only concern with, what do we want to call them, "local rums?", is distribution, because this becomes the challenge, right? I kind of have two minds of this. One is I think that some distillers' rum is just a way for them to get value out of the distilling equipment until they can start.
Brian: Along with gin and vodkas.
Kevin: Yeah, because you can't sit on capital for seven years. I understand why they do it, but there's other folks that are making rum, I feel, just for the sake of making rum. I like what they're doing, because there's some roots in the US's rum past. I think a lot of people don't know that pre-Prohibition, if you think about colonial America, rum was very important and very heavily drunk. Privateer Rum, I think they were based in Massachusetts, they make probably what would be considered a pretty close approximation to some of that old New England style rum, so I think it's great. I think you can absolutely mix that in, because there wouldn't be tiki drinks [without that history]. There is sort of a foundation that tiki drinks are sort of built upon, having sort of that punch element to them, like old colonial flips, aside from having like egg in them or something like that, there's spice, there's beer. It's a pretty hardy drink.
Actually, I would like to find more smaller distribution U.S.-based rums that we can talk about on the show. The other advantage of those rums, aside from using the product and finding ways to popularize themselves, I find they're much more willing to talk about their process. They're very proud of what they're producing. They're very open about how they're doing things, by and large, the ones that I spoke to the before. Which is super helpful because some of the big brands, I may like, but it's next to impossible to find information because all they want to do is market. They don't actually want to talk about how they make their rum, for better or worse.
Neil: It's interesting. I think we could talk about this a lot longer, but you're right. Rum has its history in the Americas and unlike a lot of spirits that have high regulation and even stringent geographic definitions... rum is very American in its free nature. I like that. I'm always reminded of this song from a musical called 1776, about the founding of the United States. There's a dark song called "Molasses to Rum" about the early economic system of the [American] colonies.
Kevin: If you talk about rum, you end up talking about the history of the sugar trade and becomes a very touchy subject for reasons...
Brian: You're [discussing] one of the legs on the most dubious triangles in history.
Kevin: For sure. You want to be cognizant to how it got its start, but it is inexorably tied to American history. I just think sometimes, people don't understand it, because sometimes people don't realize how many distillers there were in Colonial America before it all sort of imploded.
Brian: And punch.
Kevin: Yeah.
Brian: Punch was king. Tiki drinks are all generally some version of punch.
Kevin: Absolutely.
Brian: You have called out a fair number of sites, like A Mountain of Crushed Ice, the Ministry of Rum. You've even mentioned more esoteric sites, like Chemistry of the Cocktail. As a nerd, would you share any other highly detailed obscure research sites?
Kevin: Obscure is kind of a funny term. My usual go-to for anything is to start with the Ministry of Rum, just because that's kind of like a database. They're a good starter point. Somebody who wants to get really geeky and really technical, a gentlemen by a name of Matt Pietrek, and he runs the site Cocktail Wonk. He really nerds on rum, as evinced by his name. He doesn't have a wide repertoire, but he writes very detailed. You know if see something on his site, you're going to get a lot of good information on it. Other than that, I kind of just Google around and see what comes to mind. My normal go to is Ministry of Rum, then I branch out from there. What would be another good one? I'm going to slight somebody without intending. He doesn't publish as many reviews now as he used to but, Inu a Kena. He does rum reviews, his site is a pretty good resource.
Then somebody else who also doesn't write as much anymore, but was a very good resource was Rumdood. He was very well versed, and I think he just recently had a child as well. I think his blogging sort of tailed off before that, but I don't think that's going to help his blogging efforts at all. He wrote extensively kind of in the late 2000s and early 2010s, if I could use that period. His site is still a really good resource for a lot of tiki and rum recipes.
Brain: One of the great things about 5 Minutes of Rum are all the little details that are between the lines. In Episode 30, Denizen Merchant’s Reserve, you describe the background banana aspects that you reminded you of a Panamanian rum. I had never had a Panamanian rum, but that made me think that I was missing something for the cocktails that I like to make. It's the little moments that take the show beyond a dry review. How does each episode come together?
Kevin: That's a whole Pandora's Box.
Brian: Are they really scripted? Do you have an outline and notes or...
Kevin: I start with what rum I want to talk to, and what cocktail I can fit to it. Generally speaking, I'll get some sort of middle thing that goes along with it. Once I know what I want to talk about and I do the research, I do work from the outline. I try to not script everything. I may script the intro, I may script some parts of it, but for better or worse, I want those mistakes to be in there. I was really self conscious about how it sounded the first couple of episodes I did, but some of them really truly are asides that I think of while I'm talking about the recipe or rum. Just some offhanded comment. It's a mixture. I always work from an outline, and one of the things that I don't know if it's observable or not, is that, as I work my way through, because I record in order I don't record the recipe and then go back. It's not a movie.
Brian: It's almost like one take.
Kevin: Yeah. I'll break it in between sometimes because I want to make the cocktail before I talk about the cocktail. If I make a blatant misstep, where I just sort of lose the whole plot completely, I'll pause it and re-record. I try to leave the little stuff in there, because I think that's where -
Brian: And it's character so.
Kevin: That's the way I talk.
Brian: I think it adds to handmade aspect of it as well. It's a hobby. It makes it much more approachable as well.
Kevin: There is an outline that I follow per show.
Kevin: I don't really have a dog in this hunt when it comes to added sugar. I agree with some of the big guns in the industry like Richard Seale from Foursquare. I agree with him that there should be some disclosure, and that's one of the things that you mentioned, Plantation, that I like about is that they are very specifically adding sugar as a reference to dosage, which is a style that they use for making cognac. I think that's great. I don't really like it as much, although I know it happens. When somebody wants to blend and round out a spirit. I don't mind when they do it, I would just like there to be some sort of disclosure. I don't think it ruins the rum necessarily, so I'm not that dogmatic about it. I wouldn't say I'm ambivalent about it, but I just wish there were a little more truth in advertising. I certainly don't mind when it's done for a purpose, as long as that purpose as long as that purpose isn't to mix something just sweet.
Kevin: This would be considered a bit of re-education on my part, but one of the things that is in the new Smuggler's Cove book, one of the things that again, Richard Seale is advocating for, is sort of a change in rum palatalizations from more traditional island based or base based - Spanish, English, or French, and a move towards production methods and the level of aging. What I would think about is not so much, this is something I'm trying to get my head around as well, but not thinking so much as this is a Spanish style rum, but what is it that I'm going to do with this rum and what are it's particular strengths. How do I want to combine this with something else? A lot of time when I think of dry rums or column still rums is that they're not going to be noticeable in a very layered, complex cocktail.
I want to think of something maybe with a little more nuance. Something that has a little bit more subtle flavors, and maybe build around that. I don't know if that addresses the question. Your question was more around how do I approach it.
Kevin: Right, you want to find a recipe where you going to pick up something more subtle. You don't want to bombard it with strong flavors, and that might be a way in. A lot of times, frankly, when a recipe calls gold Puerto Rican rum or silver Puerto Rican Rum, what they're calling for is to add some more fuel to this fire. Your flavor is coming from the other. I find if you find something like a Cãna Brava Anejo, which is a column still lightly... well, not so lightly, because I think it's aged up to seven years, but you want to find something relatively straightforward that's going to play to that rum's strengths. I'm not going to put that in a rum barrel, because that's a waste of that rum. That rum is good on its own, and another thing I would say is if you find a good column, just do a drier rum. They're not as frequently a good sipping rum, but when you find one that is, they are really really flavorful, and you can. They just take a little bit more work.The first handful of Madden 18's features have been revealed and God, I hope this isn't too good to be true. My decades of experience playing sports video games and years of covering the genre tells me not to get my hopes up too high, but I must admit I'm trending toward an elevated excitement level.
Tom Brady is the most accomplished and decorated quarterback in the history of the league, and he's on the cover of this year's game. I'm not disrespecting "The G.O.A.T. but, that means absolutely nothing to me. It has nothing to do with gameplay, visuals or features, so it's inconsequential to a hardcore gamer.
For all I care, Cody Whitehair could be on the cover. If the game is good, I'm sold. Make no mistake about it, from what I've read and seen, Madden 18 doesn't just sound good, it sounds great.
Frostbite Engine
It all starts with the new game engine. Frostbite worked well for FIFA 17, but I don't know that I'd say it did wonders for it. However, in the second year of usage for EA Sports, I'm expecting to see even more visual and gameplay improvements.
Play Now Live
For whatever reason, the ability to play a game from the real-life schedule with the appropriate depth chart adjustments is something that has escaped Madden. There were two different bullet-pointed features that could mean fans will have this option in Madden 18.
Here's how the feature descriptions read: "Play Now Live" and "Play the best real world NFL matchups each week." Those sound like features that mimic MLB The Show's daily roster exhibition mode. Hopefully, this feature is what it appears to be because it could work even better for a football game where teams play just once per week.
If the rosters are updated to reflect the current depth chart, it could make those weekly Madden simulations a lot easier to set up.
Story Mode
The first trailer for the game reveals a new story mode and if it's anything like FIFA 17's The Journey, it could be the best single-player campaign mode in sports video games. EA Sports has always done a good job with these modes. Think back as far as Fight Night Champion's Champion Mode all the way up to the aforementioned Journey, EA has rarely–if ever–struck out with this kind of mode.
Let's hope Madden 18's story mode isn't the exception.
Continued Commitment to Franchise Mode
As an avid fan of franchise modes in sports games, I applaud the continued commitment to the feature. The short description says:
Favorite Ways To Play MUT and Franchise
Madden 17's franchise mode was good, but there were multiple areas of opportunity. Fans would love more customization, relocation and more. The description was broad, but there's at least hope we'll see the needed improvements.
Online Multiplayer
This should be encouraging to those hoping for Online Team Play in Madden NFL 18. pic.twitter.com/uuecUfCLWq — Bryan Wiedey (@pastapadre) May 12, 2017
This is almost certainly a feature for a niche audience, but online multiplayer team-up is something I've seen requested on a number of forums over the years. We may never see full 11-on-11 action in Madden, but 3-on-3 could be interesting. A QB, RB and WR/TE with CPU-controlled teammates taking on a D-Lineman, linebacker, defensive back and CPU teammates could be cool.
Target Passing
Someone at EA is reading my mind and my wishlists. I broke down the concept of a revamped passing game in Madden a few months back and the new Target Passing sounds a lot like what I wanted:
" For the first time ever, no longer are you tied to throwing at your open wide receiver. Throw to who you want, in the exact spot on the field with all-new Target Passing, giving you, ultimate control over where the ball is thrown."
That's football. It may be difficult to master, but let's hope gamers give it a chance before dismissing it as too hard.
Different Play Styles
The option to have an arcade or simulation experience should be available in every sports game. It's good to see this coming to Madden. I am a little confused about the description of the competitive game style.
Brief description of game styles. Much more info to come. pic.twitter.com/zwr78pM5gD — Rex Dickson (@RexDEAFootball) May 12, 2017
Simulation says it is based on player stats, etc. Does this mean that the competitive style isn't and it's just about the gamer's stick skills?
If so, I won't be a fan of it. A blend between stick skills and player stats/attributes would be ideal.
Coverage Assignments
More Madden NFL 18 Features Revealed https://t.co/6ZIKtQQ0Ey pic.twitter.com/94dwx4q7P1 — Steve Noah (@Steve_OS) May 12, 2017
It's been a long time coming, but in Madden 18 you'll finally be able to match your best corner with your opponent's top receiver whenever you want.
Coaching Adjustments
This is another broad feature description, but it could be another major gameplay enhancer. "Customize the AI to fit your game plan and make situational changes to your strategy on the fly as the game demands it." Could this mean situational formation packages that you don't have to manually adjust every time? Let's hope so.
Continued Commitment to Ultimate Team
Let's face it, MUT is a crazy money maker, so EA Sports will continue to cultivate it. There are millions of fans and it has the most longevity of any of the modes offered in the game. I'm hopeful we'll be able to customize our Ultimate Team's uniforms and even stadiums, but we'll have to wait and see.
Stay tuned for more Madden coverage as information becomes available. EA Play in June will deliver more details.Advertisement
Area 51 is one of the most secretive locations in the world.
The Nevada-based military testing facility has been a focal point of many conspiracy theorists and UFOlogists since the late 1970s, who claim that the base houses secretive alien technology.
Now, a Google timelapse has revealed how the mysterious base has developed over the past 32 years.
This animation reveals how Area 51 has evolved since 1984 using Google Earth's timelapse feature. The Nevada-based military testing facility has been a focal point of many conspiracy theorists and UFOlogists since the late 1970s
‹ Slide me › The sprawling military complex sits between a dry lake bed to the North East, and a small mountain to the West. It has long been fenced off from the prying eyes of the public, with armed guards swarming the surrounding area. This image shows a sliding comparison of how the base looked in 1984 and in 2016
GOOGLE TIMELAPSE The images were captured using Google's timelapse feature. Timelapse is a global, zoomable video that lets users see how the Earth has changed over the past 32 years. It is made from 33 cloud-free annual mosaics, one for each year from 1984 to 2016. Users can simply type in the name of a place in the search bar, and then move the timeline along the bottom to choose a year
The sprawling military complex sits between a dry lake bed to the North East, and a small mountain to the West.
It has long been fenced off from the prying eyes of the public, with armed guards swarming the surrounding area.
The timelapse reveals that the base has been gradually expanded and improved by the US military since the first photo, taken in 1984.
The original runway is now far wider and longer, with a large second runway now built further to the East.
The images suggest that the US government has dedicated a lot of construction to the North end of the base in particular.
And military engineers have steadily been digging into the mountain to the West of the base.
An excavation site clearly expands over the decades, though what it is being used for is unknown.
'Area 51 has always been a magnet for those who believe the US Government knows a lot more about UFOs than they are prepared to reveal to the public,' Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual, told MailOnline.
'People like the late Boyd Bushman, a senior scientist who worked for Lockheed Martin, have declared that Area 51 is a base where extraterrestrial spacecraft and technology is stored and examined.'
Claims of alien conspiracies around Area 51 have largely been debunked.
But the site has been confirmed as an historic test site for military aircraft.
Famous machines developed there include the U-2 spy plane, SR-71 Blackbird, and the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter.
In this image, the base is shown in a small yellow square within the massive Air Force base at Nevada's Groom Lake
The U-2 spy plane is photographed as it is tested at Area 51 in 1955. Early missions involving the plane were used throughout the Cold War for surveillance over Cuba, the Soviet Union and China
Images of the base are extremely rare, with any photographers brave enough to travel there kept far back from the perimeter by the base's many armed guards.
Area 51 is blanketed by a strict 23 by 25-mile (37 by 40km) no-fly zone for civilian aircraft.
Nearby viewpoints Freedom Ridge and White Sides Peak, which offer vantage points looking down on the base, are off-limits to the public.
But the US government cannot block satellite photos being taken from space.
The photographs come from Google's timelapse feature, which received a big update last week.
The extraterrestrial Highway is between Highway 6 and Highway 93 in Nevada, and is the closest main road to Area 51
After a series of declassifications, official details of Area 51 only came to light in 2011. This image shows a suspended, upside-down titanium A-12 spy-plane prototype as it is 'prepped' for radar testing
The timelapse reveals that the base has been gradually expanded and improved by the US military since the first photo, taken in 1984. Image: Area 51 is located in a remote section of the Nevada desert
The interactive timelapse experience enables people to explore changes to the Earth's surface like never before.
The update added four additional years of imagery, with huge amounts of new data, and a sharper view of the Earth over the last 32 years.
As the tool is global, users can type in the name of any location to see how it has transformed.
Google first released its Timelapse visualisation of Earth in 2013, providing a comprehensive picture of our changing planet.
The images were originally collected as part the Landsat initiative - an ongoing joint mission between the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and Nasa.
The U.S. Air Force's SR-71 (double cockpit training version pictured) was in many ways a product of Area 51 testing and an evolution of the A-12, which was decommissioned in 1968
The unique design of the A-12 made at Area 51. A mock-up of the aircraft is seen here upside down as it is tested. Ironically, this is is also how test pilot Collins had to eject in 1963
The company combined the 2,068,467 images - a total of 909 terabytes of data - with its Google |
ar” attack, which takes down enemies at a considerable range, but with several hits. As you clear rooms, you’ll get a random drop of bombs, health, items, and coins(which are used to purchase items at shops) to increase your chances of succeeding. The item drops and rooms are all randomly generated, and the variety of items included in the game causes each playthrough to be significantly different. The items in the game include equippables, pills, tarot cards, and rare demon items that require you to sacrifice some of your health. There are so many items in the game, that you’ll have some difficulty remembering what some items do what, as the pills are only marked by their color, and some items are indistinguishable from others. Eventually you’ll play this game enough that it won’t be as big of a deal, but it would have been helpful to include some form of item description.Bike2 has built a chainless electric bike motor that it hopes will become a major part of bicycle manufacturing moving forward. The chainless e-drive system will allow manufacturers (at whom it's targeted) to outfit standard bicycles with an electric motor that can be recharged as the user pedals.
What Bike2 hasn't discussed is what happens when your bike runs out of juice. It's fully electric, so there's no way to manually pedal like you would with a chain-drive bike. Does it turn into a stationary bike until you manually recharge it by pedaling? Do you need to carry a portable battery charger just in case? Are you going to end up in a Starbucks looking for an outlet to charge your bike like everyone I know who has an electric skateboard does?
There are a lot of questions here, but the idea is nonetheless intriguing. And no more issues with broken chains should make everyone excited for the future.Based on secret evidence, a New Jersey court is allowing Gov. Chris Christie to hide American Express bills that show how his state police security team charged more than $1 million to pay for out-of-state travel.
Judge Mary C. Jacobson dismissed a public-records suit by New Jersey Watchdog on Friday, ruling that details of past expenses for food, lodging, and transportation could create a potential security risk for the governor in the future.
“The court finds the general interest of the public to have a breakdown pales in comparison,” said Jacobson during a hearing in Mercer County Superior Court. As a result, state taxpayers may never learn how the money was spent.
The Executive Protection Unit’s travel expenses increased with the frequency of Christie’s out-of-state trips to pursue his political ambitions, including his run for the White House. Last year, costs totaled $494,420 as the governor traveled outside New Jersey for more than 100 days. That sum is 22 times more than the $21,704 spent in 2009, former Gov. Jon Corzine’s last year in office.
Jacobson based her decision on a confidential sworn statement provided by Capt. Kevin Cowan, head of the EPU. “He unequivocally swears in that certification that release of the information would increase the risk of harm to the governor,” said the judge.
New Jersey Watchdog’s lawyer was not allowed to view or question that evidence, which makes any appeal difficult. Christie almost blew his own defense by his comments to a Cub Scout at an April town hall meeting in Hasbrouck Heights.
“How many bodyguards do you have?” 7-year-old Charles Tartaglia asked Christie in a video posted on YouTube by the governor’s office.
“I count about six,” responded the governor, scanning a crowded VFW hall. “I’m not telling you which ones they are, but a subtle hint would be -- the guys with the wires in their ears.”
Christie told the audience that 30 state police troopers are assigned to the EPU. He said he is routinely accompanied by three officers. The around-the-clock protection also includes troopers stationed at his home.
But in court filings, his office had claimed that same information must be kept secret to avoid endangering the governor.
“I had a lot of concerns that the position raised by the state was really undercut by the governor’s own comments,” said Jacobson. Yet she gave the state another chance to win the case by allowing Cowan to submit a certification under court seal.
Cowan asserted that even if Christie disclosed details about his level of security in New Jersey, the protection he receives when travelling outside the state is “different,” according to Jacobson. The AmEx charges were “almost entirely” for out-of-state trips, so the judge concluded releasing credit-card statements could reveal new secrets.
“He explained in detail how they are fundamentally different -- and that is something that is confidential,” said Jacobson.
The decision rescues the governor from danger that EPU expense details could be revealed in the midst of his campaign for the Republican nomination.
Christie has a reputation as a big spender when someone else picks up the tab. He was embarrassed by a New Jersey Watchdog report documenting that he spent $82,000 from a state expense account on food and alcohol concessions at MetLife Stadium during the 2010 and 2011 NFL seasons.
The EPU has racked up $1.3 million in expenses -- not including the troopers’ salaries and overtime -- since Christie took office in 2010. Of that total, more than $1.1 million was spent on the governor’s out-of-state travel.
The rate of EPU expenses skyrocketed by 66 percent -- to $184,659 during the first three months of this year, according to the most recent totals released by the governor’s office.
Those costs will continue to rise as Christie spends less time in Trenton and more time on the road in search of votes and political contributions. He has journeyed outside New Jersey for 29 of the first 40 days since he officially declared his candidacy.
While Christie’s campaign may pay for his travel expenses, taxpayers are stuck with the costs of the state police officers assigned to follow him wherever he goes.
Christie said he won’t ask America Leads, his super PAC that has raised $11 million, to pay for extra public expenses created by his political ventures. He refused to follow the lead of Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, a fellow governor and rival GOP candidate.
“We’re going to continue to conduct this in the same way I’ve always conducted it,” Christie told reporters in New Hampshire last month.
New Jersey voters overwhelmingly oppose Christie’s practice of sticking taxpayers with the travel bills of the state-police escorts who follow him on the political trail, according to a recent Monmouth University poll.
Only one percent of the voters polled thought the state should pay, while 82 percent said Christie’s campaign should take responsibility for the out-of-state security costs. The same poll found 58 percent of New Jerseyans judged their governor as not honest or trustworthy.
A version of this story is available on NJ Watchdog.Stephen Colbert can't hide his disgust: "I thought the government might do its job and pass any kind of gun control" The "Late Show" host took the Senate to task for caving to "8 percent of the population" who balk at gun control
"Late Show" host Stephen Colbert last night refused to self-censor his disappointment with another round of Senate gridlock on gun control.
"After the attacks in Orlando, I thought the government might do its job and pass any kind of gun control — even a fig leaf to justify their existence," Colbert said. "Well, for thinking that, I owe myself an apology."
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Despite 92% constituent approval for some degree of gun control, the Senate failed Monday to reach a consensus on two measures that would prevent people on the terror watch list from purchasing a gun and instate universal background checks.
"Since when does eight percent of the population get to have total control of an issue?" he continued. "That's like taking your entire family on a cross-country car trip and letting grandma choose all the music."
Watch the full segment below:Stone 6th Anniversary Porter has officially joined the brewery’s 20th Anniversary Encore Series.
Back in 2002, the Stone celebrated their 6th anniversary, not with an India pale ale, but with a porter. In this case, Stone Smoked Porter the brewery kicked up “three notches” with the addition of more hops and more malt. The beer was then aged on French and American oak. The result was a big, bold beer, that was rather scare at the time. In 2016, there will be a little more to go around.
There’s a point in even our brewing lives when we came to realize that no matter how much we wanted to, we couldn’t realistically add anymore hops to our recipe. While our hop threshold is greater than most, it happened on the onset of our 6th Anniversary. Up until then, all of our anniversary beers had been increasingly amped up versions of our 1st Anniversary IPA. Which all of you know as simply Stone IPA. Instead of completely abandoning our set-in-stone stance on making big bold beers, we continued with this theme of making Increasingly more intense versions of our existing line of beers. This time we turned our attention to Stone Smoked Porter -a beer we had in our lineup since our first year. When it came to modifying our recipe. we went against the “less is more” approach and cranked it up three notches. This entailed adding more malt and more hops and conditioning it on French and American oak to add notes of toffee, cherries, dried berries and vanilla. Such noble yet gutsy experimentation doesn’t go without some mishap and at one point this smoky dark·as·night wonder was shooting out of the fermenter like a fire hose because of an unsuccessful attempt to clear a valve jammed with oak chips. Luckily the beer’s fate didn’t entirely empty down the drain, because the Stone 6th Anniversary Porter proved to fans, with its distinctive smokiness and chocolaty, coffee·like complexity, that we can brew a remarkable amount more than just awesome IPAs.
Stone 6th Anniversary Porter is a 22 ounce bottle and draft offering. Recent releases in the Encore Series include 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout, and Vertical Epic 08.08.08.
Style: Smoked Porter (Oak Aged)
Hops: Tomahawk
Availability: 22oz Bottles, Draft.
Distribution: AK, AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, VT, WA and Puerto Rico
International Distribution: Australia; Alberta and British Columbia, Canada; Germany; Hong Kong; Japan; Korea; Mexico; Panama; the Philippines; Singapore; Sweden; Thailand; United Kingdom
Release: Mid-April, 2016
8% ABVCOLUMBIA | A bill that would require babies and small children to be secured to a motorcycle with seat belts is meeting fierce resistance with South Carolina lawmakers.
South Carolina state Rep. Joseph Daning recently filed legislation that would require a standard, rear-facing child safety seat to be used for motorcycle passengers from birth up to 1 year of age.
For riders younger than 7 weighing 40-80 pounds, Daning's proposal calls for a belt-positioning booster seat with both lap and shoulder belts.
The bill, Daning said, was prompted by constituents asking for it.
"They were concerned about an ex-spouse taking their children on motorcycles. I got to looking into it and I said, 'You know, it makes a lot of sense,'" said the lawmaker.
"We take care of our children (in cars), but they're so unprotected on the back of motorcycles."
This week, Rep. Bill Taylor, called Daning's proposal "government overreach" and said motorcyclists are a safety-conscious community.
"The question is why do we need a law?" said Taylor. "Who in their right mind would take a 1- or 2-year-old on a motorcycle and risk the safety of that child?"
He said he's been riding for decades and has never seen an infant placed on a motorcycle.
Taylor said that when the issue was first raised, he suggested the constituent concerns would be better handled by a family court judge instead of through legislation.
However, child-safety advocates support Daning's efforts.
Jeff Allen, who is on the board of directors of the Children's Trust of South Carolina, said his agency "wholeheartedly" supports the bill.
"There should be a law in the state that sets a minimum age for riding on a motorcycle, mopeds as well," said Allen.
In South Carolina, 25 children required emergency medical attention due to motorcycle injuries, according to state data from 2007 through 2009, which does not indicate whether any of the children died.Home » forums » LtU Forum Peter Van Roy: Programming Paradigms for Dummies Roy, Peter van (2009). Programming Paradigms for Dummies: What Every Programmer Should Know. In G. Assayag and A. Gerzso (eds.) New Computational Paradigms for Computer Music, IRCAM/Delatour, France. This chapter gives an introduction to all the main programming paradigms, their underlying concepts, and the relationships between them. We give a broad view to help programmers choose the right concepts they need to solve the problems at hand. We give a taxonomy of almost 30 useful programming paradigms and how they are related. Most of them differ only in one or a few concepts, but this can make a world of difference in programming. We explain briefly how programming paradigms influence language design, and we show two sweet spots: dual-paradigm languages and a definitive language. We introduce the main concepts of programming languages: records, closures, independence (concurrency), and named state. We explain the main principles of data abstraction and how it lets us organize large programs. Finally, we conclude by focusing on concurrency, which is widely considered the hardest concept to program with. We present four little-known but important paradigms that greatly simplify concurrent programming with respect to mainstream languages: declarative concurrency (both eager and lazy), functional reactive programming, discrete synchronous programming, and constraint programming. These paradigms have no race conditions and can be used in cases where no other paradigm works. We explain why for multi-core processors and we give several examples from computer music, which often uses these paradigms. I have not found this paper in the LTU archives, but I though it is likely of interest to this community. Of course, the author is well know here (e.g., his book Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming). I like the bird's eye view of this paper. Comment viewing options Flat list - collapsed Flat list - expanded Threaded list - collapsed Threaded list - expanded Date - newest first Date - oldest first Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.At first glance, concept coins designed this differently from the historical coinage we’re accustomed to carrying are bound to look more like fake ‘funny money’ than real currency — but think of the simplified usefulness of breaking out of the (circular) box of standard coin shapes around the world. In short: these cents just make more sense. Plus, they’re a cool example of coin art taken in a graphic modern direction, as opposed to (equally awesome) hand-carved “hobo nickels.”
Simple visual cues tell anyone who can or cannot readily understand the local language what the relative value of each ‘pie piece’ coin is. While other security features would clearly be needed, the simplification of overall style also increases legibility and ease of comprehension, not to mention contributing to more accessibility for travelers. Now that’s change we can all believe in.
These so-called ‘infographic coins’ by Mac Funamizu have obvious benefits to the blind, much like the Euro, as sizes, shapes and textures all play a role in the legibility of coins. Impaired or not, anyone reaching into their wallet or purse would likewise be able to more easily identify each coin denomination by touch. Are we likely to give up on our standard circles? Perhaps not, but at least rethinking our (United States) hodge-podge system with inconsistent sizes, colors and weights might be worth doing after so much time with so little design change.
“The round shaped coins must have a lot of benefits that other figures such as a triangle or a square don’t,” says Funamizu. “Also, non-rounded coins may have many demerits. Aside from those, travelers and other people who are not accustomed to the currency would be able to easily remember how much each of these coins is (as long as she knows how to read pie charts).”Share. The space-traveling Lombax finally hits the big screen. The space-traveling Lombax finally hits the big screen.
Ratchet & Clank: The Movie will be shown next month at Cannes.
According to Cinema Management Group, 3D showings of the film will be held during the event at 4pm on May 15 and 16.
Exit Theatre Mode
For those who aren't familiar with Sony's PlayStation platforming duo, Ratchet is a space-traveling lombax who's accompanied by a witty robot named Clank. Over the years, the pair have gone on various adventures, saving the galaxy from various alien threats.
The series got it start back on PlayStation 2 and has since seen installments on PSP, PlayStation 3, and PS Vita. Sony and Insomniac are currently developing a remake of the original game for release on PlayStation 4 later this year.
Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @alexcosborn.Image caption The protesters want the army off the streets
More than 1,000 people have joined a protest in Mexico City against the government's strategy in the fight against drug gangs.
Carrying banners and pictures of dead relatives, the activists marched in silence to the presidential palace to demand peace.
The protest was led by the poet turned activist Javier Sicilia, whose son was killed earlier this year.
He wants President Felipe Calderon to pull the army off the streets.
The activists are also demanding changes to a national security law reform being considered by Mexico's Congress, to give citizens more protection from the security forces.
'Failed state'
More than 35,000 Mexicans have been killed in drug related violence since President Calderon began deploying troops to fight the drugs cartels in December 2006.
But Mr Calderon insists there is no viable alternative to his strategy of using the military to confront the gangs.
At the start of the protest, Mr Sicilia declared that Mexico was a failed state.
"We have to renew it, it has been turned into an authoritarian state, instead of a tolerant and democratic state," he said.
He also condemned the proposed reforms to the national security law, saying it was aimed at legitimising the use of the army for internal security.
Critics of Mr Sicilia's Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity say it is wrongly focusing its anger on the government instead of on the criminal gangs responsible for the violence.Pakistan troops arrive at the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda town, some 35 kilometers (21 miles) outside the city of Peshawar in Pakistan on Wednesday, January 20, 2016.
Former Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik has blamed India for the terror attack on Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province today. The Pakistani Taliban first took the responsibility for the attack in which 25 people were killed but later denied its involvement.
"We should not take the threat of India's defense ministry lightly. Indian agency R&AW is behind the attack on Bacha Khan University. They have reached at an understanding with Tehrik-e-Taliban," Malik told a news channel.
"Jo Indian defence minister ne kaha...How dare he talk about us...hum kahte hain ki Bacha University unhone karwaya hai," Malik said.
"Jaish-e-Mohammad is not involved in attack on Pathankot air base and these attacks have been carried out by people from India. Indian intelligence agency R&AW does not want that relations are improved between Pakistan and India. Whenever the Modi government has tried to hold talks, R&AW has thwarted such moves," he added.
Last week, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had said that the country has run out of its capacity to tolerate acts of terror and that he, too, as the Defence Minister, can't tolerate it anymore.
"The nation has run out of its capacity to tolerate acts of terror and as a Defence Minister, I, too, have run out of it. So we will do something about it, you'll see," Parrikar had said in Jaipur.
Responding to a question about a Pakistani probe team's visit to Pathankot air base, Parrikar said, "I don't know. Without my permission, no one can come, I can guarantee."
ALSO READ | Bacha Khan University terror attack: Operation ends, 25 dead, 50 injuredWhat the hell is going on? (Picture: MARVEL – Myles Goode)
Are you looking for a new TV show to watch?
If so, look no further than Legion, the new Marvel TV show that’s going to flip the superhero paradigm on its head.
Alex Jones 'all fine' after going to hospital when she couldn't feel her baby move
Even if you’re put off by the idea of committing to yet another comic book programme, or you’ve never really gotten into one before, it’s worth giving Legion a chance.
After all, it’s going to be quite unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
The show is set to air on Thursday nights at 9pm on the FOX Channel from February 9, but meanwhile, here’s everything you need to know about it.
What is it?
Drawing inspiration from the X-Men comics of the same name, Legion is the story of a powerful mutant and schizophrenic, David Haller.
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Marvel’s official press release states:
David has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals for years. But after a strange encounter with a fellow patient, he’s confronted with the possibility that the voices he hears and the visions he sees might be real.
Legion is being adapted for television by Noah Hawley, who’s best known for his work on Fargo.
The hit crime anthology series was created by Hawley, who also serves as executive producer and head writer on the show.
With a string of 133 award nominations to its name, Fargo is something special – and Hawley is undoubtedly going to bring some of that same magic to the Marvel world in Legion.
MORE: 8 exciting new TV shows to look forward to in 2017
Who’s in it?
(Picture: Chris Large/FX)
David Haller is set to be played by Dan Stevens, AKA Matthew Crawley from Downton Abbey, who is also going to star as the Beast in Emma Watson’s upcoming Beauty and the Beast adaptation.
He’s going to be joined by a whole host of other talented actors.
Rachel Keller, who previously worked with Hawley on Fargo season 2, is set to play Syd Barrett, Haller’s love interest in the series.
Hawley described the character as ‘withdrawn’ and we know Syd is another mutant, with the ability to swap minds with someone if they touch.
Also in a key role is Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Rec), who will play Lenny Busker, a friend of Haller’s and an eternal optimist despite her history of drug abuse.
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Jean Smart, Jeremie Harris, Amber Midthunder, Katie Aselton, and Bill Irwin also star.
Does it have anything to do with the films?
Not exactly.
Bryan Singer, executive producer on Legion and director of various X-Men films, commented that Legion was written to function as a standalone piece, but also with the potential to tie into the X-Men films in the future.
Interestingly, within the comics, David Haller is the son of Professor X.
Hawley and the other executive producers have teased that they’ll touch on this connection somewhat, but it remains to be seen to what extent this will play a part in the series.
For now, though, don’t expect to see Wolverine or any of your other favourite X-Men to turn up in Legion. (Nor, for that matter, any of the Avengers.)
When’s it on? How can I watch it in the UK?
Legion is going to air on Thursday nights at 9pm on the FOX Channel from February 9.
The series is set to be eight episodes long.
In the UK, FOX is Sky channel 124, Virgin channel 157 and TalkTalk 422. It will also be available on NOW TV.
In the US, it will start a day earlier on February 8 at 10pm on FX.
Why should I watch it?
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Legion is aiming to offer something different – in a media landscape with a deluge of superhero shows and comic book content, sometimes telling your Arrow from your Agents of SHIELD can get a little too much.
It’s why people keep on talking about ‘superhero fatigue’ – after a while, everything starts to feel a little same-y.
Here is a programme quite unlike one we’ve ever seen before – from a visionary director and writer, who’s more than proved his chops on Fargo.
When you’re offered the chance to watch something like this, something that’s set to flip the whole superhero paradigm on its head – well, why wouldn’t you give it a go?
Alex Moreland is a freelance writer and student based in London. You can read more of his work here.
MORE: What you need to watch on Netflix this February – 10 of the best TV shows you just can’t miss
MORE: These 10 actors would be perfect as the next Doctor Who
MORE: With Peter Capaldi leaving Doctor Who, it’s finally time for a female DoctorA video has appeared on VK.com, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, of a gang of five men brutally attacking a trans woman in a park in the middle of the day.
The video was posted by the group Straights for Equality, which purports to advocate for LGBT rights. According to PinkNews, the intention of the video was to highlight the persecution of LGBT people in Russia.
The unidentified trans woman is referred to as a “homosexual” in the video’s title and she is subsequently kicked about the head and body, thrown around the park and stripped of her clothes while one of the thugs films it. She manages to escape but not before her attackers tear her underwear.
You can watch the video here, but please be warned it’s incredibly sickening and disturbing.
The woman may have been another victim of Russian skinheads who have been luring mostly gay male teens through VK.com for alleged hookups, only to kidnap, bully, humiliate and harass them. Some victims have reportedly died or committed suicide as a result of their attacks.
Meanwhile, Russian authorities turn a blind eye to this sort of abuse, which is why the attack on the trans woman was in such a public place in the middle of the day. To the police, these skinheads are doing a service to the community by targeting “pedophiles.”
Reports of this sort of violence only add fuel to the fire of outrage focused on Russia with the Winter Olympics in Sochi next year, where the safety of athletes and spectators attending the Games has come under increased scrutiny.
Though Russian lawmakers have tried to reassure the international community that its odious anti-gay law will not affect anyone as long as they follow the rules — no propaganda of “non-traditional sexual relations” around children — this kind of systematic homophobic and transphobic violence speaks to the climate of intolerance in Russia better than any statement or press release ever could.Eat. Sleep. Play. Repeat. That’s the life of a professional soccer player, and 23-year-old Cara Walls, a forward for the Chicago Red Stars, is no exception.
The Red Stars are a part of the National Women’s Soccer League, which was founded in 2012. It’s a young organization, and the women who play for it are some of the first to enjoy its successes.
“Growing up I didn’t really know playing soccer professionally in America was possible,” Walls says. She found out about the league just before the draft began and signed up for tryouts almost on a whim. After Walls was drafted in 2015, she wasn’t sure what to expect beyond a high-level, competitive environment. What she found was a cohesive team and coaching staff that primed the organization for success on—and off—the field.
“There’s a great team dynamic,” Walls says. “And the coaching staff does a really good job. They recruit amazing players, and we already have good players who come in and train, so they do a really good job of setting us up for success.”
We know how to be a team. We know how to get the energy right and be positive.
Bonnie Young, an assistant coach for the Red Stars, describes the organization as if it were a well-oiled machine would, with different cogs, pulleys and parts working in tandem.
“We work together, we get along, and everyone has their own role,” she says. “It’s a pleasant environment—and it’s not always like that—but these guys found a way to manage their real lives, pro careers and friendships at the same time.”
For players like Walls, who have spent the majority of their lives playing the game, navigating a new team dynamic is almost second nature. Courtney Raetzman, a fellow forward for the Red Stars who just completed her rookie season, says Walls was incredibly friendly and inviting during her first year with the team, and made the transition to playing on for a professional organization a little easier for her.
“I love the girls [on the team],” Walls says. “I love hanging out with them. We’re all girls that have played soccer our whole lives, so we know how to be a team. We know how to get the energy right and be positive.”
Between games and practices, Walls is on the field with her teammates at least five days a week, honing her skills and keeping her body well tuned for the fast-paced, high-pressure games the women play every weekend. Raetzman says the team prides themselves on working day in and day out to be better, and that Walls contributes to that mindset with her own work ethic.
“It’s something you have to be really serious about,” Walls says. “[As an athlete], your body is your vehicle to make money. Your focus has to be on your body and the team.”
Of course, it takes a lot more than a rigorous workout program to keep in shape. Walls says even on her days off, she makes constant decisions to take care of her body, often opting to give her body some much needed R&R instead of hitting the beach with friends or spending the day downtown.
“They have to spend a lot of time taking care of themselves,” Young says. “You see people working 8 hours a day at normal jobs, and that’s the same amount of time these women have to put in for their jobs.”
Young explains that having a regimented workout routine is only effective if athletes are also focused on getting proper nutrition and allotting enough time for their bodies to recover after a demanding week of training and gameplay.
Walls had to do all this and more last season after coming back from a painful ankle injury that proved to be only a temporary setback. It took weeks of grueling effort for Walls to get back to the level she had been at before the injury. But her transformation with the team was more than just physical.
Your focus has to be on your body and the team.
Walls says there is a maturity that comes with playing professionally, a certain self-awareness that players might not have in college.
“You become more aware of yourself as a player,” she says. “There’s already people who can do what you did in college. Now I’m very aware of myself and what I bring to the team.”
After her injury, Walls worked and waited—accepting the role she was dealt until she slowly earned the playing time her teammates insisted she deserved.
“She showed up to practice and worked her butt off,” Raetzman says. “She proved she could be a starter and play and contribute to the [the team’s success] big time.”
Thanks to her work ethic, Walls has the respect of her teammates, which allowed her to grow more as a player, and, eventually, as a leader.
“To be injured, then recovering, and earning her way into the starting lineup, it’s a big growing process for someone who might have been a starter her whole life,” Young says. She truly believes this process was vital to Walls’ growth as a player and as a leader to the team.
“Cara is a leader by example,” Young says. “She shows up, does her job, and works really hard. And she’s still growing.”
The Red Stars team is comprised of women who have played soccer all their lives and dreamed of playing soccer professionally for years. As the organization grows and expands, Walls wants to be there to ride it out alongside her teammates.
“I want to do this as long as I can,” Walls says. “It’s what I love to do, and I don’t think there’s an expiration date on that.”A little on Manquillo for those interested - have followed him since he was 16 and watched many times for Atleti, Atleti B, youth teams and at youth level for Spain.
First of all, I've seen a lot of people for whatever reason comparing him to Arbeloa/Azpilicueta which is pretty wide of the mark. For me, Manqui is more of an attacking full-back than a defensive one although is more than comfortable doing both.
His best attribute in my opinion is his athleticism, has great strength, pace and power and uses all to good affect. I'd recommend watching games from the U20 World Cup last year where he and Deulofeu played on the right for Spain, Manquillo was bombing forward at every opportunity and was one of the most impressive defenders at the tournament. Always available for one-twos, offering the overlap, running at players and even getting in to the box.
He reads the game well and is strong in the tackle, and having been involved with Atleti's first team since 2011 I've really noticed how far he's benefited and progressed from being coached alongside the best defence in Spain. He stepped in seamlessly in most games he played last season, although got a bad neck injury against Real Madrid in February and hasn't played since (now fully fit).
Weaknesses, as with many young players would include decision making. He's a good crosser in terms of technique but doesn't always make the right choice, although will put in some fantastic balls from time to time. In defence you do get the odd rash challenge as well, I think he gave away two penalties in first team matches last year which is perhaps why Simeone didn't trust him more, but it all comes with experience and I don't see any of this hindering him.
The other thing I've noticed is he often seems keen to release the ball quickly when in possession, not 100% sure if this is due to a lack of confidence in possession or his direct style of play though.
Definitely not the finished article but for me that is what makes him such an exciting prospect, he has the highest ceiling of any young right-back and I can think of and all the ingredients to become a massive player, sooner rather than later. Really see his style suiting the Premier League and he has the hunger to force his way into the team and make an impression. If the buy-out clause of €6m is true then it's an absolute steal, I'd pay that for him now.
Reply · Report PostCoffee is a scary and exciting thing for recent ex-Mormons. When will it start tasting good? How the crap do I make this stuff? Why am I paying $6 for a grande at Starbucks? These are all very valid questions that we, as your self-appointed friendly neighborhood ex-Mormon advisors, want to answer.
Naturally, we enlisted the help of the most ex-mo friendly coffee company we could find — Celestial Blend in Salt Lake City. Not only does it have blasphemous product names, complete with hilarious limericks on the back of its packaging, it also donates 10 percent of its proceeds to LGBT charities, which has recently proven to be more important than ever. (And way more worth it than tithing.)
In the spirit of Celestial Blend and apostasy, here’s a guide to choosing your coffee, with the help of a few historical friends.
Cup O’ Joe
Roast: Light. As in, “I saw a pillar of.”
Sin intensity: Levity, or boyish treasure hunting.
Flavor: Smooth like a cult leader. Light like the skin of a Nephite. An endearing nuttiness, like Martin Harris. Earthy, but not of the earth. Hints of herb to jive with the Word of Wisdom.
Father, Son & the Holy Roast
Roast: Medium. See also, “oracle,” “witch,” or “necromancer”
Sin intensity: Polyandry
Flavor: Smooth as a bishop’s shave and sweet like an underage wife, for an experience so divine, you’ll think you’re in the sacred grove.
Brigham’s Buzz
Roast: So dark it couldn’t get the priesthood.
Sin intensity: Blood Atonement.
Flavor: Rich as a mission president. Full-bodied as Nephi. The smoky tone comes from the souls of apostates burning in hell. As nutty as the Adam-God doctrine and as spicy as Eliza R. Snow’s love life.
Simple, right? You can also order a bundle of all three on Celestial Blend’s site, to determine for yourself what you’re into.
If you’ve reached this point and still don’t know what the heck to DO with coffee beans, have no fear! Here’s what’s up:
STEP ONE: Grind like Brigham at a multi-wife bedroom dance party.
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STEP TWO: Get filters. It’s important to have a filter. Otherwise you might accidentally reveal the temple death oaths.
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STEP THREE: Drink damnation to your soul!
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STEP FOUR: REPENT FOR SUPPORTING THE GAYS.
This post was brought to you by irreverence, our #TakingBackTithing mission, and a desire to help out our readers. Now don’t forget to use the promo code, “ZELPH” to get 10% off Celestial Blend Coffee!Buy Photo The Bavarian Brewing Co. building in Covington dates to the 19th century. Its owner, Columbia Sussex, says the building won’t work for redevelopment. (Photo: The Enquirer/Patrick Reddy)Buy Photo
COVINGTON – Once again the owner of the Bavarian Brewery in Covington asked to be allowed to demolish the historic |
the north-eastern city of Haicheng, and that the subsequent evacuation of the city avoided many injuries and deaths.
Caught up in the fervour of the Cultural Revolution, with its emphasis on mass participation in science (one popular slogan: “the lowliest are the smartest and the most elite are the most foolish”), the Communist Party declared the Haicheng prediction a victory for Maoist ideology and mobilised about 100,000 amateur seismologists and volunteers to work as earthquake forecasters. One sympathetic account from the time describes a volunteer brigade in Shenyang, north-east China, which had someone stationed around the clock to listen for unnatural rumblings in a speaker wired to a microphone placed in an underground tunnel. However, an official Chinese publication 13 years after the quake stated that there were 1,328 deaths and 16,980 injuries from the Haicheng quake (scientists had previously said that “very few” were killed). The main quake was also preceded by an intense series of foreshocks for around 24 hours, likely causing many people to flee spontaneously.
The practice led to many false alarms, continuing up until the 1990s: some 30 inaccurate predictions brought Chinese cities to a standstill between 1996 and 1999 (although the Xinjiang Seismological Bureau claimed a success in predicting an earthquake in Jiashi county in 1997). More memorably, scientists failed to predict the hugely destructive Tangshan earthquake in 1976, which resulted in more than 240,000 deaths. But rather than dampening the fervour for earthquake prediction, the tragedy of the Tangshan quake was instead blamed on the inadequacies of China’s earthquake administration. Officials were singled out for having ignored purported natural indicators of disaster: these apparently included the migration of yellow weasels and unusually large catches of fish. Aftershock, Feng Xiaogang’s recent blockbuster film about the disaster, opens with a huge swarm of dragonflies, presented as a natural omen of the quake. It is clear that such speculations distract from the real deficiencies in disaster prevention and response. For example, it appears likely – although full investigations have been prevented and activists pursuing the case, like Tan Zuoren, have been jailed – that many schools in Sichuan province were built to extremely low standards and that there were many avoidable deaths of children during the May 2008 earthquake.
Whether the issue at hand concerns earthquakes or nutrition or medicine, what we witness in today’s China is the way in which science – upheld since the early 20th century as the cornerstone of Chinese development – is repeatedly stymied by ideology, superstition, bureaucratic thinking and fear of dissent. This is a frightening situation.
As China enters a new phase of economic and geopolitical might – and its model of authoritarian capitalism gains an increasing number of admirers, from developing-world leaders to op-ed writers in the rich world – the country’s attitude towards honest, rational inquiry becomes of crucial importance. China’s approach to critical thinking will help define the country’s response to global scientific challenges, from pandemics to climate change and the environmental crisis. We can only hope that the courageous voices of debunkers like Fang Zhouzi and Fang Xuanchang will continue to be heard.
Editor's update - since this piece went to press, Fang Zhouzi has also been attacked in Beijing, sustaining minor injuries. More information on this on the New Humanist blog.The US coal industry is dying — but not with any dignity. As the end approaches, its sense of aggrieved entitlement is increasingly naked, its demands for government handouts increasingly frantic. As dread builds, shame has left the building.
The story of coal’s decline has been told many times now (see this post for more), but at root, it’s not complicated: The industry’s product is outmoded.
Natural gas and wind power are cheaper than coal power in most places, and solar power is heading the same direction. What’s more, wind and solar (variable renewable energy, or VRE) and natural gas complement each other. VRE is completely clean but variable. Natural gas is moderately clean but flexible. Variable and flexible work well together; they are the basis for the modern grid. (Whether we can find equally flexible but entirely clean alternatives to natural gas in the coming decades is the most pressing issue facing the grid.)
Giant, slow, inflexible, dirty coal plants simply don’t fit in that picture. Coal still represents 30 percent of the US electricity mix, but as natural gas and renewables grow and the grid evolves toward a flexible, distributed model, its role will inevitably shrink.
There’s no big conspiracy, no “war on coal,” just the creative destruction of capitalism at work, as technological advances and evolving social preferences transform industries. Without creative destruction, capitalism doesn’t work — productivity and wages don’t grow. But there is no creative destruction without pain for the workers and communities on the losing end. That’s why capitalist societies need a foundation of public services (upon Matt Bruenig’s sage advice, I’m no longer using the term “safety net”). It cushions the turbulence of creative destruction.
Many members of the US business community, particularly those of a more conservative bent, like to talk about the virtues of meritocratic free markets. So do their allies in elected office.
But just as there are alleged to be no atheists in foxholes, there are no free marketeers in dying industries.
Which brings us back to the US coal industry. It is instructive, as coal mining companies go bankrupt and coal plants shut down, to watch as industry leaders vigorously shed their purported free market principles in support of public assistance. Let’s look at two recent examples.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice says national security depends on his state’s coal
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice recently made news by becoming a Republican at a Donald Trump rally. There are many reasons for the switch, but one of them was clearly to get in good with Trump, who has repeatedly expressed fealty to coal. (Coal miners were early supporters, and Trump loves those who love him.)
In subsequent meetings with Trump, Justice pushed a rather brazen proposal: a federal subsidy of $15 for every ton of Eastern coal burned in a US coal plant. (To his constituents, he called this request for $4.5 billion in taxpayer handouts a “new, bold idea to put coal miners back to work.”)
Sit with that for a minute. The power sector is abandoning Appalachian coal because Western coal (from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming) is cheap and natural gas and renewables are even cheaper. So Justice wants federal taxpayers to pay coal plants to keep burning it. He wants a negative carbon tax. A pollution subsidy.
It’s as though Nokia petitioned the government to pay people to keep buying its flip phones after the iPhone came out — you know, if Nokia phones were spewing millions of tons of pollutants into the air and water.
The mind, it boggles. What is the conceivable justification for such a policy? For a request this ridiculous, it could only be one thing: national security.
This bit from Tim Loh at Bloomberg is priceless:
Justice rejects the notion that his plan amounts to a "bailout" or "subsidy" for Appalachian coal. Rather, it’s a matter of national security, he said, because terrorists could easily blow up important gas pipelines or derail freight trains shipping coal to the east, leaving large swaths of the country lacking power-plant fuel. “Can you imagine what would happen if we lost the power in the east for a month, or two months, or three months?” Justice said. “It would be like a nuclear blast went off. You would lose hundreds of thousands of people. It would be just absolute chaos beyond belief.’’
Every day of the Trump era, reality and satire become more difficult to distinguish.
The best thing is that according to Justice, Trump was “really interested. He likes the idea.” Of course he does.
“Naturally,” Justice added, “he’s trying to vet the whole process. It’s a complicated idea.”
“Give my state’s industries a giant pile of money” is not really that complicated, at least on an intellectual level. But it is politically fraught. It’s not that there will be any pushback from a free market constituency. As the 2016 GOP primary showed, there isn’t much of one left. The Cato Institute guy and the Reason guy have expressed their requisite outrage, but by all accounts, what’s complicating the idea is opposition from Western coal states, which object to, ahem, “picking winners and losers.” And they’re Trump supporters too.
Whether to abandon conservative economic principles is an easy question for Trump. But how to settle a rent-seeking dispute between two supporters? That’s tough!
Coal magnate Bob Murray says the decline in his business is a national emergency
Justice’s request, ballsy as it was, pales next to Bob Murray’s.
The CEO of the coal mining company Murray Energy was an early and enthusiastic Trump supporter, donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to both the campaign and the inauguration. He is arguably responsible for Trump’s allegiance to the coal mining cause (and helped persuade him to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement).
It seems that Murray had several meetings with Trump and various advisers over the summer in which he made the following proposal: He wants Trump to use emergency powers under the Federal Power Act section 202(c) to impose a two-year moratorium on the closing of coal-fired power plants.
Seriously. He wants Trump to make it temporarily illegal to close a coal plant. That’s beyond a subsidy. It’s practically Soviet!
Naturally, Trump was all for it.
A series of letters from Murray to various Trump officials has been made public by the Associated Press. They make for remarkable reading, for two reasons.
First, they perfectly capture Trump’s pathological need for approval, which leads him to say yes to whatever supporters put to him. It’s reflexive. This is from an August 4 letter from Murray to John McEntee III, “Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the President,” about his request for an emergency moratorium:
Last evening in Huntington, West Virginia, after President Donald Trump met briefly with Mr. Charles E. Jones, Chief Executive Officer of FirstEnergy Corporation, and the undersigned, he turned to you and said, “tell Cohn to do whatever these two want him to do.” In Youngstown, Ohio nine days ago, after my personally speaking with President Trump, he turned to Energy Secretary Rick Perry and said three (3) times “I want this done”.
Three (3) times!
Trump can’t say no to people in person for the same reason he couldn’t fire Reince Priebus in person: Despite all his macho bluster, he is terrified of anyone being angry at him or disapproving of him.
The second remarkable aspect of the letters is that, though they get increasingly agitated and longer as time passes, Murray barely bothers to pretend that there are real national security issues involved. He scarcely mentions it. What he returns to, over and over, is that his company and his friend’s companies are going to go out of business and their employees will lose jobs. That’s the emergency.
In one letter, he notes that “White House lawyers have some concern” about the proposal, but stresses that “our lawyers who are experts on the particular law do not share that concern — quite the opposite. They feel there is a 95% success rate that this will not be overturned by the courts.”
“We can understand why lawyers don’t want to risk losing,” he says. “The question is — are these jobs worth fighting for; are these jobs worth taking a risk.” (In one letter he says 5,000 jobs are at risk; later, it’s 6,500; later still, “tens of thousands of coal miners” face “disastrous consequences.”)
Again, you really have to sit with this for a minute. Murray is literally asking the US president to use federal emergency powers to take control of an economic sector in order to save his business. And Trump is into it! Like I said: Soviet.
Suffice it to say, somewhere along the line, lawyers at the Department of Energy got ahold of this loopy proposal and put the kibosh on it. Naturally, the industry is outraged.
FPA 202(c) has typically been used in the case of natural disasters or blackouts. It is designed to cover emergencies related to “a sudden increase in the demand for electric energy, or a shortage of electric energy, or of facilities for the generation or transmission of electric energy, or of the fuel or water for generating facilities, or other causes.”
The grid faces none of those problems. There’s plenty of electricity, plenty of generators, plenty of fuel. There’s no emergency.
Murray just wants a quid pro quo for his support of Trump. But this is one favor he can’t grant, not while there are still sane career staffers at the agencies.
I bet anything he didn’t tell Murray to his face.
Reviving coal is just another campaign promise Trump can’t keep
Trump can roll back pollution regulations. He can scrap the use of carbon in federal decision-making, cancel health studies of mountaintop removal mining, and make sure the words “energy dominance” appear on every document. But unless he’s willing to invoke those emergency powers, he can’t stop the market from gradually turning away from coal.
All he’s doing is extending the decline, ensuring that a few executives profit a little more before it’s all over. And he is not alone in this. It’s a pattern in US politics that extends back into the Obama administration and earlier.
As Carl Pope says in a post on “the secret coal bail-out,” “even as King Coal inescapably rushes towards bankruptcy, the companies are being showered by regulators and judges with extraordinary largesse.”
Pope tallies up the favors: allowing companies to dodge their pension and health care obligations to retirees; allowing them to “self-bond” and avoid paying to reclaim strip-mined land; allowing them to lease public land at beneath-market rates. By his back-of-the-napkin calculation, there’s something like $25 billion in largesse involved.
Most of that value is going to executives, as miners, retirees, and Appalachian coal communities bear the brunt. Democrats (including Hillary Clinton) have put forward plans to help those beleaguered communities, but they’ve been blocked in the Senate by Kentucky’s own Mitch McConnell. The GOP mostly likes miners as campaign props.
But the cases of Justice and Murray show that, at least for now, there is still some limit on coal’s crony capitalism, some lines that can’t be crossed.
For now. This won’t be the end of it, though. The coal industry, despite its modest and shrinking size, still carries enormous mythocultural weight in America. It is practically synonymous with the sort of rugged, blue-collar white guys everyone (wrongly) imagines as the prototypical Trump supporter. The industry will use that cultural weight to leverage every bit of public subsidy it can, for as long as it can.
After all, “picking winners and losers” doesn’t look so awful when you’re one of the losers.PHOENIX -- Detroit general manager Dave Dombrowski says the Tigers' top priority is re-signing Victor Martinez now that the slugger is a free agent after declining the team's qualifying offer.
"We like Victor. We hope he remains with us," Dombrowski said Tuesday at baseball's general managers meetings. "We'll see what happens."
He was less optimistic about retaining right-hander Max Scherzer, who also declined a qualifying offer.
"People are aware that we like Max. He did a great job for us," Dombrowski said. "We made a real strong effort to sign him this past year, and now we're really more in a whole waiting mode. From their perspective, I'm sure they're going to check with the situation on the market."
Martinez and Scherzer were among 12 major leaguers who declined the $15.3 million qualifying offer by Monday's deadline, the third straight year all of those eligible had done so, opting instead to try for long-term deals.
The 35-year-old Martinez batted.335 as the Tigers' designated hitter, with 32 home runs and 103 RBIs.
Scherzer went 18-5 with a 3.15 ERA in 33 starts last season.
The four-day meetings in Arizona are the traditional kickoff to offseason trade and free agent talks.
The action began on Monday's opening day of the sessions, with the announcement that Michael Cuddyer was leaving Colorado, signing a two-year, $21 million contract with the New York Mets.
The Chicago Cubs have been pegged as a potential big player in the free-agent market, but general manager Jed Hoyer downplayed such speculation.
"We have some financial flexibility. We have some needs," he said. "So I think people are connecting us to a lot of different players. We certainly want to improve our team and we'll probably use free agency to do it but I do think the reports of kind of a supercharged offseason are a little bit overstated."
Hoyer declined to comment on a New York Post report that major league baseball was investigating possible tampering in the Cubs' hiring of manager Joe Madden away from the Tampa Bay Rays. He referred instead to comments made Monday by Cubs president Theo Eptstein, who said he welcomed any investigation.
"There was no tampering whatsoever," Epstein told reporters. "I'd rather they investigate so we can clear our name and move on from this quickly. We're giving our full cooperation and we welcome it."
The Boston Red Sox, who tumbled from first place to last in the AL East, are looking to find some sustained success, general manager Ben Cherington said.
"I think we have the resources to do that," he said.
Cherington said the Red Sox are looking for help in the rotation.
"We'd like to find a left-handed hitter to add to the mix somewhere," he said. "I think there's some different ways to do that, (and add) a catcher of some variety."
Like most teams, the Red Sox would like to add some left-handed help in the bullpen.
The Los Angeles Dodgers, meanwhile, reportedly are trying to reduce their overpopulated outfield, possibly by moving Andre Ethier or Carl Crawford. Matt Kemp also might be in the mix, although he returned to his old powerful form in the last half of the season.
New Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi had little to say on that subject, or anything else. The team is thought to be looking to slice at least a little off its record $256 million payroll.
"All 30 clubs are trying to do the same thing, build the best team possible mindful of the marginal value of the dollar and maintaining long-term flexibility," he said. "We may be operating at a different scale, but definitely our motivations are the same. I know it's a generic answer, but it's a true one."
New Arizona general manager Dave Stewart is looking for a starting pitcher. He also would like to be in the mix for Cuban outfielder Yasmani Tomas, although he knows the cost might be too steep.
"He's a guy that could come in and have some pretty good impact on our team and in our lineup," Stewart said. "We have to consider being a part of it."
The meetings continue on Wednesday and conclude Thursday morning.Explosive great taste! Ceramic cereal bowl from Fallout
Holds 14 ounces of sugary goodness
For the most important meal of the day
Sugar Bombs Cereal Bowl
Officially-licensed Fallout merchandise
Capacity: 14 oz.
Materials: Ceramic
Dimensions: 6" top diameter x 2 1/2" tall
Not microwave safe
Not dishwasher safe
Ages 14+
We all have fond memories of sugary cereals from our youth. Cookie Crisp. With the little burglar guy. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cereal (which they missed the boat on by not making it pizza-flavored). French Toast Crunch, which shared only a shape with its namesake. And citizens of the Wasteland have fond memories of Sugar Bombs, with its free Captain Cosmos decoder ring (which we have yet to find).Get this Sugar Bombs Cereal Bowl for the most important meal of the day. (Or, in the Wasteland, often the only meal of the day.) It holds 14 ounces of sugary goodness, all the way down to the sludge at the end (it's the best). And don't forget: Sugar Bombs are now also available in Irradiated! (Note: the packaging is identical, so the radiation is like a special prize in the package!)This site has moved to:
Sample Selections for the October ipsy Glam Bag are up!
You can choose which of these five you’d like by emailing customer service at support@ipsy.com and asking them to include the sample of your choice. Be sure to email by September 30th to ensure your selection is included in your bag.
ipsy October 2017 Sample Selections:
BLAQ Blaq Mask
CONTEXT Skin Vitamin C All Day Eye Cream
IT Cosmetics Bye Bye Pores Pressed Powder
Meech and Mia Loose Eyeshadow in Beige
Meech and Mia Loose Eyeshadow in Purple
Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil in Perversion
If you’re unfamiliar ipsy Glam Bag is a monthly beauty subscription service that sends you 5 beauty products for $10/month. If you’d like to give them a try: ipsy Glam Bag Sign-up.
What are you going to get? Let me know below in the comments!Whoa. What exactly did the aide say?
U.S. official to New York Times: “If he drops sarin on his own people, what’s that got to do with us?” — Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) May 5, 2013
Foul. As we reported, the White House is now playing off Obama’s “red line” comments about Syria as an “off-the-cuff” remark. It was totally just a gaffe, people! That article also mentioned the despicable sarin remark made by an Obama aide.
“@DRUDGE_REPORT: 'If Assad Drops Sarin On His Own People, What's That Got Do Do With Us?' http://t.co/0ddGxFEbKO” what?! — Rosie (@ladymac_rosie) May 5, 2013
The unnamed White House official said, according to the New York Times, “How can we attack another country unless it’s in self-defense and with no Security Council resolution? If he drops sarin on his own people, what’s that got to do with us?”
who's surprised? MT @AntDeRosa: Obama advisor “If he drops sarin on his own people, what’s that got to do with us?” http://t.co/Rsb6a2RUqS — Danielle Tcholakian (@danielleiat) May 5, 2013
Perhaps not surprising, but outrageous nonetheless. Sarin is a nerve agent used in chemical warfare. More from the CDC:
Nerve agents are the most toxic and rapidly acting of the known chemical warfare agents. They are similar to certain kinds of pesticides (insect killers) called organophosphates in terms of how they work and what kind of harmful effects they cause. However, nerve agents are much more potent than organophosphate pesticides.
That sarin quote is really, really bad…I'm on the fence about military intervention in Syria, but shouldn't be cavalier abt sarin's use… — Liz Mair (@LizMair) May 5, 2013
RT @morningmoneyben Terrible quote MT @CarlCannon Obama aide tells NYT "If he drops sarin on his own people, what’s that got to do with us?" — Rory Cooper (@rorycooper) May 5, 2013
Obama aide: “If Assad drops sarin on own people, what’s that got to do with us?” Vilest thing I've heard in long time http://t.co/7Bae4OVjO6 — Julie Lenarz (@MsIntervention) May 5, 2013
@GlennK1962HD2 @robfit #Obama aide tells NYT: “If he drops sarin on his own people, what’s that got to do with us?" –> Credibility RIP — Edisa (@EdisWorldView) May 5, 2013
So use of sarin has nothing to do with us…unless there's a Security Council resolution? http://t.co/edX2Q5DYlC — John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) May 5, 2013
Telling.
Somebody should enroll Obama foreign policy advisers in remedial quote school–the sarin line is as damaging as "leading from behind" — John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) May 5, 2013
Obama adviser: “If Assad drops sarin on his own people, what’s that got to do with us?” Humanity RIP. http://t.co/7Bae4OVjO6 — Julie Lenarz (@MsIntervention) May 5, 2013
#Obama aide tells NYT: “If he drops sarin on his own people, what’s that got to do with us?" WTF??? Moral Bankruptcy of Obama admin complete — Edisa (@EdisWorldView) May 5, 2013
"If Assad drops sarin on his own people, what’s that got to do with us?" is the new Obama admin version of "what difference does it make?". — Julie Lenarz (@MsIntervention) May 5, 2013
Unreal.
Related:
Paper Tiger POTUS: Obama’s ‘red line’ on Syria totally just a gaffe, guys!
Jake Tapper to David Gregory: ‘I just don’t see any’ pressure on Obama to act on Syria
Obama hawks anniversary for sweet email addresses after Turkey launches retaliatory strike against Syria
Out: Netanyahu’s #BibiBomb; In: Hillary Clinton’s red line for Syria on chemical weaponsLawyers confirm that women seeking exemption from two-child limit due to rape, may risk legal action if they did not report sex crime to police
Women in Northern Ireland who seek exemption from the government’s new two-child benefits limit on grounds of rape could face prosecution, along with social workers and medical staff, prosecutors have confirmed.
Changes to child tax credits and universal credit place a limit on claims to a maximum of two children, with a handful of exceptions. One of the exemptions is where a woman can show an additional child was conceived through non-consensual sex.
This exemption, known by opponents as the rape clause, has prompted huge controversy, but has a particular repercussion in Northern Ireland where it is an offence to not report a crime to the police. The offence carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison.
Tax credit 'rape rule' puts Northern Irish women in legal peril, charities say Read more
The issue was first highlighted in July, prompting Owen Smith, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, to write to Barra McGrory, Northern Ireland’s director of public prosecutions, to seek advice on whether the law might apply if someone claimed the exemption, having not previously reported the rape to police.
McGrory replied that it was “a potential offence to withhold information regarding an act of rape” and that this could apply for the woman concerned and to those helping with the application, for example social workers and health professionals.
“The legislation does not distinguish between a victim and third parties to whom a disclosure is made; each is potentially liable to prosecution,” McGrory said. “This is not to say, however, that a prosecution would necessarily follow in respect of either a claimant making a disclosure for the first time or a third party becoming aware of such information.”
While the decision on prosecution would depend on circumstances, McGrory added no had been action taken to date against someone for not reporting a rape.
Smith said the letter confirmed his worst fears about the risk of prosecution. “Northern Ireland is already set to be the hardest hit nation of the UK under this policy because of the number of large families and it is unforgivable of the government to criminalise women and impoverish their children.”
During an update to the Commons on Thursday by the Northern Ireland secretary, James Brokenshire, Smith cited a study from the Institute for Fiscal Studies saying the two-child limit, and the rollout of universal credit, would affect families in Northern Ireland more than anywhere else in the UK.
Responding, Brokenshire said the government was “looking very carefully” at how it was implemented in Northern Ireland. “Universal credit is about making work pay. It is about how we get people back into work, seeing those pathways, and seeing that things are supported.”
The two-child limit was introduced this April in England, Scotland and Wales as well as Northern Ireland. Labour has argued that it would be wrong for ministers to introduce the policy in Northern Ireland while the deadlock in the suspended assembly remains.
While welfare policy in Northern Ireland is set in Westminster under the 2015 Fresh Start agreement, Smith has argued that the power-sharing executive has the ability to mitigate the impact of policies and did so in the case of the bedroom tax.The hippocampal formation, which includes the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex, contains a diverse array of cell types that support spatial navigation and memory. A key component of this system is the hippocampal place cell1,2, which encodes the animal's presence at a particular spatial location to support navigation and encoding of spatial memories. Place cells have been identified in various species, including rats1, mice3, bats4 and humans2. Much research has focused on how place-cell representations are formed5 and how place cells represent the current location without the animal receiving sensory input6. The discovery of entorhinal cortex grid and grid-by-direction cells7,8,9,10 offers a possible answer to these questions by providing the hippocampus with a robust location signal that is encoded using characteristic triangular coordinates and updated with the animal's movements.
In humans, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provides indirect support for the existence of grid cells. fMRI recordings from subjects performing a spatial object-placement task has shown that hemodynamic activity in a network of regions, including entorhinal cortex, is modulated by the direction of movement11. Notably, this directional activity exhibits sixfold rotational symmetry and therefore conforms to the 60° periodicity of the firing patterns of grid cells7. We used invasive brain recordings to provide direct electrophysiological evidence for grid-like representations in navigating primates.
To directly identify human neurons exhibiting grid-like spatial firing, we recorded single-neuron spiking activity from electrodes that were surgically implanted in 14 patients undergoing treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy. Owing to the clinical recording equipment used for epilepsy monitoring, patients were constrained to their beds and unable to physically navigate. Instead, patients performed a virtual navigation task on a bedside laptop computer12. The task required that they navigate between four objects that were hidden at different locations in a virtual environment (Fig. 1a). Unlike some previous studies2,13, this environment was a large open square, analogous to the sizable arenas often used to record grid cells from rodents7. On each trial of the task the participant navigated to the location of a randomly selected object. Because objects were invisible, the participants were likely to use an allocentric navigation strategy based on path integration, which relies on the hippocampal formation14. Participants were successful in learning the locations of the four objects, as there was a significant decrease in their mean delivery time from 14 to 8 s over the course of each session (P < 0.005, t test; Fig. 1b).
Figure 1: Virtual navigation task. (a) Participant's view of the experiment. (b) Mean duration of successive deliveries in the task, averaged across consecutive pairs of deliveries. (c) Mean excess path length. VRU is a measure of virtual distance. Error shading denotes 95% confidence intervals. Full size image
We identified grid-like spatial firing by measuring the firing rate of each cell across the virtual environment and testing whether the locations where individual cells activated were arranged in a sixfold-symmetric triangular grid. We measured neuronal firing according to the participant's location by dividing the square environment into a 28 × 28 array and computing the mean firing rate of each neuron for every virtual position. A number of cells exhibited increased spiking activity at multiple locations. Thus, these cells appeared to be fundamentally different from hippocampal place cells, which usually activate only at one location5.
Next, we tested whether the multiple locations at which each neuron activated were arranged in the triangular lattice structure that is characteristic of grid cells7. This allowed us to distinguish cells with grid-like firing from other cells that activate at multiple spatial locations, such as multipeaked place cells5. To measure the spatial arrangement between the locations represented by each cell's firing, we computed the two-dimensional spatial autocorrelation function for each cell's firing rate map. We found that the autocorrelation functions of many cells exhibited multiple distinct peaks that were arranged symmetrically (Fig. 2 and Supplementary Fig. 1). In many cases, these patterns exhibited sixfold (60°) symmetry, indicating that the locations at which these cells activated were arranged in a triangular grid, similar to patterns observed in rodents7,10.
Figure 2: Examples of grid-like spatial firing. (a) The activity of a cell from participant 6's left entorhinal cortex. Left, overhead view of the environment, with color representing the firing rate (in Hz) at each virtual location. Middle, two-dimensional autocorrelation of the cell's activity. Peaks in the autocorrelation function determined the spacing and angle of the fitted grid, which was then used to plot the estimated grid peaks (white ×) across the entire environment. Right, cell spike waveform; red denotes mean. This cell had a gridness score of 0.51. (b) The firing of a cell from participant 10's right entorhinal cortex (gridness score = 0.63). (c,d) The firing of a different cell from participant 10's right entorhinal cortex in two consecutive sessions (gridness scores = 0.60 and 0.74). (e) The activity of a different cell from participant 10's right entorhinal cortex (gridness score = 0.63). (f) The activity of a cell from participant 11's right cingulate cortex (gridness score = 0.67). (g) The activity of a cell from participant 7's right cingulate cortex (gridness score = 0.51). (h) The activity of a different cell from participant 7's right cingulate cortex (gridness score = 0.8). (i) The activity of a cell from participant 10's right hippocampus (gridness score = 0.46). (j) The activity of a cell from participant 10's right parahippocampal gyrus (gridness score = 0.72). Full size image
To identify cells with significant grid-like spatial firing, we computed each cell's gridness score, which quantifies the 60° periodicity in the cell's spatial autocorrelation function7. The gridness score was computed as the mean difference in the autocorrelation at the angles at which peaks would be expected in true grid cells (60° and 120°) compared with the angles at which troughs would be expected (30°, 90° and 150°). A neuron was designated as exhibiting grid-like spatial firing if its gridness score was significantly greater than would be expected by chance (P < 0.05; Online Methods).
We applied this grid identification procedure to each of the 893 cells in our data set, including cells from entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, parahippocampal gyrus and cingulate cortex (Fig. 3a). Many cells exhibited significant grid-like activity. These cells were not uniformly distributed across brain areas (P < 0.001, χ2 test). The most grid-like cells were found in the entorhinal cortex and cingulate cortex, which consisted of 14% and 12% grid-like cells, respectively (P values < 0.0005, binomial tests; Fig. 3b). This peak proportion of grid-like cells in the entorhinal cortex is generally consistent with findings from human and animal studies7,9,11. There were also significant numbers of grid-like cells in the hippocampus (8%, P = 0.05). There was no significant difference in the prevalence of grid-like cells between the right and left hemispheres (P > 0.5, χ2 test).
Figure 3: Population measurements of cells exhibiting significant grid-like spatial firing. (a) The distribution of gridness scores from each region. Black bars indicate the gridness scores of cells that exhibited significant grid-like activity (P < 0.05) and gray bars indicate other cells. A, amygdala; CC, cingulate cortex; Cx, frontal cortex; EC, entorhinal cortex; H, hippocampus; PHG, parahippocampal gyrus. (b) The proportion of significant grid-like cells across regions. Dashed line indicates the type 1 error rate (5%). Asterisks denote regions in which the observed number of cells exceeded the type 1 error rate at P < 0.01 (binomial test). (c) The significance of cells exhibiting four-, six-, eight- and tenfold symmetric activity (binomial test). Full size image
To verify that the sixfold rotational symmetry of grid-like cells is a distinctive feature of human neuronal coding, we tested for cells whose spatial firing exhibited four-, eight- or tenfold rotational symmetry. The eight- and tenfold symmetry analyses served as statistical control analyses, as grids with these angles do not tesselate. These analyses did not reveal significant numbers of cells exhibiting any symmetry type (P values > 0.01; Fig. 3c) other than the six-way symmetry associated with grid cells. In particular, because we did not observe significant four-way rotational symmetry, we ruled out the possibility that the firing patterns could be driven by the square-like arrangement of the four objects.
Prior studies revealed detailed features of grid cells related to the spacing and direction-sensitivity of their representations7,10,11. Technical reasons precluded us from examining the relation between grid spacing and anatomical location of the recording electrode in the entorhinal cortex7,9. Comparing anterior and posterior cingulate, we found similar numbers of grid-like cells in each area (12% and 11% of cells in each respective region) and observed a trend in which cells in anterior cingulate had more widely spaced grids than cells in posterior cingulate (P = 0.1). Of the cells exhibiting grid-like spatial firing, 18% exhibited an additional direction-related modulation |
internal organs of gutted murder victims "rolling" down their legs. However, once Craven was secured as director, he was able to bring much of the excised content back.[12] Williamson was going to remove a scene in the school bathroom featuring Sidney, as he felt it was awkward and out of place in the film. Craven insisted the scene should remain, as he felt it developed the character and her relationship with her deceased mother. Williamson later confirmed that he was glad that Craven proved him wrong about the scene.
Dimension Films head Bob Weinstein realized while reviewing the script that there were thirty pages (approximately thirty on-screen minutes) without a murder, so he instructed Williamson to have another character killed. Williamson included the death of the character Principal Himbry (Winkler) based on this input and in doing so inadvertently resolved a problem in the script's finale. Williamson had struggled to find a reason for several extraneous characters to leave a party scene so that the killer could attack, finally determining that the announcement of the discovery of Himbry's corpse would serve to remove the non-essential characters who are so upset that they leave the party before (and enabling) the start of the murders. Concerning the killers' motives, Williamson felt it was essential for the audience to learn why the antagonists had become killers, but he also felt it was potentially scarier if they had no motivation. Opinions at the studio were split between those who believed a motive was needed for resolution and those who felt the action was scarier without one. As there were two killers, Williamson decided to do both: Billy Loomis had the motive of maternal abandonment, while the second killer, Stu Macher, jokingly suggests "peer pressure" as his motive when prompted.
Development [ edit ]
The script for what was then known as Scary Movie went on sale on a Friday in June 1995, but received no bids.[7] By the following Monday, the script had become the subject of a significant bidding war among a host of established studios, including Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Morgan Creek Productions.[14] Producer Cathy Konrad read the script and felt it was exactly what the Weinstein brothers of the fledgling Dimension Films — then a part of Miramax — were looking for. Dimension had previously released several horror films and intended to focus on that genre. Konrad brought the script to Bob Weinstein's assistant, Richard Potter. Believing it had potential, he brought it to Weinstein's attention.[8] Studios began to drop out of the bidding as the price of the script increased, and the final two bidders were Oliver Stone, who was at the time working under Cinergi Pictures, and the Weinsteins of Dimension Films.[9] Williamson agreed to a bid of $400,000 from Miramax, plus a contract for two sequels and a possible fourth unrelated film. Williamson said he chose Dimension because he believed they would produce Scary Movie immediately and without significantly censoring the violence in the script.[9][12] Craven read the script before he became involved in the production, and considered convincing a studio to buy it for him to direct. However, by the time Craven read the script, it had already been sold.[7]
Bob Weinstein approached Craven early in the planning stages, because he felt Craven's previous work in the genre that combined horror and comedy would make him the perfect person to bring Williamson's script to screen. Craven was already busy developing a remake of The Haunting and was considering distancing himself from the horror genre. He was growing weary of what he felt was an inherent misogyny and violence in it.[8] Weinstein approached other directors, including Robert Rodriguez, Danny Boyle,[15] George A. Romero, and Sam Raimi.[8] Williamson said that they "didn't get it"; he was concerned that having read the script, many of the directors believed the film to be purely a comedy.[15] Craven was approached again but continued to pass in spite of repeated requests. When production of The Haunting collapsed, Craven was freed from that commitment and found himself in need of a project.[12] Meanwhile, Drew Barrymore had signed on to the film at her own request. When he heard an established actress wanted to be involved, Craven reasoned that Scary Movie might be different from other films of the genre he had previously undertaken, and he contacted Weinstein to accept the job.[8]
As the film neared completion, the Weinstein brothers changed the film's title from Scary Movie to Scream.[9] They were inspired by the Michael Jackson song of the same name. Bob Weinstein considered Scary Movie to be an unsuitable title as, in addition to the horror and violence, the film contained elements of satire and comedy; Weinstein wished for that to be better conveyed by the title. The change was effected so late into production that congratulatory gifts bore the original name.[8] Williamson and Craven immediately disliked the new title, and considered it "stupid". Both later remarked that the change turned out to be positive, and that Weinstein had been wise to pick the new title. Following a screening of the film in front of a test audience and Miramax executives, Craven was offered a two-picture contract for sequels to Scream.[12]
Sony Pictures filed a lawsuit against Dimension Films and Miramax, claiming that the title "Scream" infringed on the copyright of Sony's own Screamers (1995), released the previous year. After the case was settled out of court—the details remain confidential—Scream 2 producer Marianne Maddalena considered that the case was a result of other issues between the two companies and did not truly pertain to the film's moniker. Maddalena confirmed that the studio was free to use the Scream brand for future films.[10]
Casting [ edit ]
Scream was a turning point in terms of casting for the horror genre, which normally involved relatively unknown actors. The genre was considered unsuitable for bigger names as the films had lower budgets and often attained negative critical response.[10] Drew Barrymore read the script and was interested in being involved. She approached the production team herself to request a role. Barrymore, a member of the Barrymore family of actors and granddaughter of actor John Barrymore, had become a star in her own right following her appearance in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). The producers were quick to take advantage of her unexpected interest, and signed her to play the lead role of Sidney Prescott.[7][9] Her involvement was believed to be instrumental in attracting other popular actors to the film in spite of its smaller budget, and in causing Craven to reconsider his decision to direct the film.[7] Before filming began, Barrymore was faced with unexpected commitments that meant she would no longer be available to play the demanding lead role. She instead played the smaller role of Casey Becker, which allowed her to remain involved and still gave the production the advantage of her stature.[9] Killing off one of their biggest stars early in the film was considered a calculated risk, but it was believed that it would be so shocking and unexpected that the audience would then believe that any character could die. Actresses including Alicia Witt and Brittany Murphy auditioned for the lead role of Sidney; the producers also approached Reese Witherspoon, though she never auditioned.[8] Craven had seen Neve Campbell in the TV show Party of Five and asked her to audition for the part. He believed she could portray a character who was "innocent", but who could also realistically handle herself while dealing with the physical conflict and emotions required by the role.[7] Campbell was initially reluctant to perform in another horror film so soon after her supporting role in The Craft.[7] After a successful audition, Campbell accepted an offer to play the lead character. She accepted because Scream would be her first leading role, and because she adored the character, saying "She's a fantastic character for any kind of movie."[15]
Scream. From left to right: Ulrich, Campbell, Lillard, McGowan, and Kennedy. The central young cast of. From left to right: Ulrich, Campbell, Lillard, McGowan, and Kennedy.
For the character of news reporter Gale Weathers, the studio wanted a recognizable actress. They auditioned Brooke Shields and Janeane Garofalo.[8] Courteney Cox, who was starring in the sitcom Friends at the time, approached the production herself to pursue the role. She was interested in playing a "bitch" character to offset her "nice" Friends image. This image was the main reason why the producers initially refused to consider Cox for the part. Cox continued to lobby the studio as she felt she could believably play the character; her efforts ultimately succeeded.[7] Actresses Melinda Clarke and Rebecca Gayheart auditioned for the role of Tatum Riley, before Rose McGowan was cast. The casting director believed she best embodied the "spunky", "cynical" but "innocent" nature of the character.[8] The studio felt the strong female cast of Campbell, Barrymore, Cox, and McGowan would help draw a significant female audience to the film. Gayheart would later land a role in Scream 2.[7]
Kevin Patrick Walls and Justin Whalin were among the final candidates for the key role of Sidney's boyfriend Billy Loomis. Whalin took part in auditions with Campbell.[8][16] Skeet Ulrich ultimately secured the role. The producers viewed him as "perfect" for the part and noted his resemblance to a young Johnny Depp as he appeared in A Nightmare on Elm Street, one of the many films Scream references.[8] Ulrich and Campbell had worked together on The Craft shortly before Scream. They believed the experience helped them be more comfortable with each other, which allowed a more natural portrayal of the relationship between their characters.[15] Though he failed to win the Loomis role, Walls remained in the film in the minor role of Steve Orth, boyfriend of Barrymore's Casey Becker. David Arquette was also approached for the role of Billy Loomis but he asked to read for the part of Dewey Riley after reading the script. The role, described as "hunky", was considered ill-fitting for Arquette's lean, slender appearance and approach but Arquette was still allowed to audition for the part. Craven appreciated his softer, funnier approach to the character, and gave him the role.[7] Matthew Lillard was cast as Billy's equally sadistic friend Stu Macher by chance after accompanying his then-girlfriend to an unrelated audition taking place elsewhere in the same building. Casting director Lisa Beach saw Lillard in the hallway and asked him to audition for the part.[8] He got into the role with "incredible ferocity".[12] The role of Randy Meeks was contested between Jamie Kennedy and Breckin Meyer. The producers favored Kennedy, believing him to best embody the role.[8] As he had no major roles prior to Scream, the studio wanted a more prominent actor than Kennedy to play the character. The producers were adamant that he was the best choice and successfully fought to keep him.[9] Roger L. Jackson, voice of the character Ghostface, was picked at the end of several weeks of local casting in Santa Rosa, where parts of Scream were filmed.[17] The producers had originally intended to use his voice only as a placeholder, dubbing over it during post-production. They decided that Jackson's contribution was perfect and kept it. Craven described it as an "intelligent" and "evil" voice that would become irreplaceable to the series.[19] To aid their performance, Jackson was never allowed to meet the other actors, preventing them from associating a face with the menacing voice. Jackson was present on the set and spoke to actors by phone to help aid their performance.
The cast was rounded out by W. Earl Brown, who played Gale Weather's cameraman Kenny; Joseph Whipp, who portrayed Sheriff Burke; Lawrence Hecht as Neil Prescott (Sidney's father); and C.W. Morgan as Hank Loomis (Billy's father). Liev Schreiber appeared in a minor role as Cotton Weary, the framed killer of Sidney's mother and Linda Blair made a brief cameo as a TV reporter outside the school. Henry Winkler appeared as Principal Himbry, an aggressive school principal. He remained uncredited so as to not draw attention away from the young main cast.
Filming [ edit ]
Stu Macher's house, the location of the 40-minute finale of the film. Filming took place at the house over 21 nights. s house, the location of the 40-minute finale of the film. Filming took place at the house over 21 nights.
Principal photography for Scream took place over eight weeks between April 15 and June 8, 1996, on a budget of $15 million.[20] The Weinsteins wanted to film in Vancouver as it was estimated that they could save $1 million in costs compared to shooting in the United States.[8] Craven was adamant about filming in the United States, and making a film that looked "truly American". The argument over where to film almost led to Craven being removed from the project, but the Weinsteins eventually agreed to keep the production in America.[8] Location scouts looked at North Carolina as a possibility, but found that sites that seemed appropriate for the film's requirements would have required extensive building, repairs, or modification, which would have inflated costs.[7]
Attention was next turned towards California; scouts discovered Sonoma County and the cities of Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, and the nearby Tomales Bay. The house of Barrymore's character is situated southeast of Santa Rosa on Sonoma Mountain Road, directly facing the house used in the horror film Cujo (1983). The home of Sidney Prescott is located near Calistoga, north of Santa Rosa.[17] Tatum's home is situated on McDonald Avenue in Santa Rosa, next to the houses used in Pollyanna (1960) and Shadow of a Doubt (1943).[21] The home of Lillard's character, which is the location for the entire third act, is a house on Tomales Road east of Tomales Bay that had only recently become available after the death of its owners. The Woodsboro town square, including the fountain where many of the cast sit in an early scene, is represented by the Healdsburg town square.[17] For the Woodsboro high school, Craven desired a building that looked "American",[8] and the producers approached Santa Rosa High School. The school board insisted on seeing the script and immediately objected to the violence against teenage children and the cynical, dark dialogue, including that of the fictional school principal.[9] Local newspapers criticized the project, and irate parents objected to such a film taking place at their children's school. Comparisons were made between film violence and the kidnap and murder of Polly Klaas three years prior, which had left the area sensitized toward violence.[8] The producers received support from the school's students and some local residents, who recognized that economic benefits would be generated by the film's presence. Others argued for the film's First Amendment rights. The dispute resulted in a three-hour debate scheduled for April 16, one day after filming was to begin. Unwilling to be delayed, Craven began filming as scheduled on the 15th. He started with the opening scene of the film, which features Barrymore;[9] the scene took five days to complete.[14] The result of the Santa Rosa debate was that permission would be denied. The production was forced to find another location for the school, and ended up filming at the Sonoma Community Center, southeast of Santa Rosa.[9]
The progress of filming was criticized early on. Bob Weinstein disliked the Ghostface mask, believing it was not "scary". Upon reviewing the dailies footage of the opening scene, the studio was concerned that the film was progressing in an unwanted direction. They considered replacing Craven.[8] To assuage their concerns, Craven and editor Patrick Lussier, developed a rough, workprint version of the opening 13 minutes of the film to demonstrate how the completed film might turn out. After viewing the new footage, the studio was content to let Craven continue as director. Weinstein, having seen the mask in action, was satisfied that it could be scary.[8] The third and final act of the film, over forty minutes long, is set at a house party where Ghostface strikes. It was shot at a vacant property in Tomales over 21 nights.[8] The scene, labelled "Scene 118", was considered the most difficult to shoot as it took place entirely in one location yet featured the individual stories and deaths of multiple characters. Actors spent weeks undertaking intense emotional and physical scenes while coated in fake blood and wounds. As the scene was set during the evening, production had no choice but to halt at dawn.[8]
Director of photography Mark Irwin was fired during filming of Scream's finale, a week before principal photography was to be completed. Upon review of the dailies, Craven found the footage was out of focus and unusable.[8] Irwin was initially ordered to fire his camera crew. He retorted that if his crew were to be fired, they would also have to fire him. The producers fired him and replaced him with Peter Deming, who finished the film.[8]
Special effects and design [ edit ]
Barrymore's replica model and the chair used to display Steve Orth's death. Note the actor kneeling behind it.
To produce the many grisly effects for the film, the producers recruited KNB Effects team Howard Berger, Robert Kurtzman, and Gregory Nicotero. One of their first tasks was the production of a mask for the film's killer. In his script, Williamson had only described the antagonist as a "masked killer", which gave Craven no specific information on what type of mask to use or how to conceal the body. While location scouting, Maddalena discovered the Ghostface mask hanging from a post inside the house previously used for the film Shadow of a Doubt.[8] Craven wanted to use it, but the mask design was owned by Fun World, a costume company. He was told to create one that the production could own.[8] KNB developed multiple design sketches varying from deformed faces to monstrous visages riddled with fangs. Craven found nothing like the Ghostface design, so he had KNB develop a mask that was based on it, with enough differences to avoid any claim of copyright. The team developed several molds based on the Ghostface design, but Craven found none were as suitable as the mask he wanted to use.[8] Desperate to use the design, Craven finally convinced the studio to approach Fun World and gained permission to use the mask. While negotiations were in progress, he had KNB make a mask that was very similar to the original mask, but was appropriate for use in filming. The mask they produced, made of a thin foam, was used in two scenes of the film: the opening scene with Barrymore's character and the murder of Principal Himbry. Craven disliked the mask due to its slight differences from the original, and thus used the Fun World design for the rest of filming.
KNB Effects created over 50 gallons of fake blood, normally composed of corn syrup and food dye, to create the special effect of severe wounds.[9] For the penetrating effect of knives, the production used collapsible blades to prevent injury. An umbrella with a retractable tip is used as a stabbing weapon in the finale. Ulrich wore a protective vest beneath his shirt to help prevent harm while a stuntwoman attacked him with it. The second thrust missed the vest and stabbed Ulrich on his chest, impacting a wound from an open heart surgery operation. Ulrich's genuine pain was captured on film and used in the release version of Scream.
Two of the most complex special effects in the film were the corpses of Barrymore's and Walls' characters, Casey Becker and Steve Orth.[9] Their deaths involved the character being gutted from ribcage to pelvis, essentially hollowing out the torso of internal organs,[22] with the guts "rolling" from the wound.[12] To allow Walls to continue to move and feign death while displaying the wound, KNB designed a chair with no back. The actor would kneel behind it while his upper body, head, and arms were positioned within the chair's seating area.[9] An anatomical model representing the character's torso and legs was positioned in the chair and disguised so that the actor's upper body and the model appeared to be one piece. The fake abdomen was filled with rubber, latex, and gelatin pieces smeared in fake blood—the "internal organs" — which could then fall free.[9] The other effect involved Barrymore's character being gutted and hung by the neck from a tree. The team utilized a similar approach, but replicated Barrymore's entire body, as it would be impossible to conceal her real body and display the special effect of her character having been gutted.[9]
Post production [ edit ]
After filming was completed in June 1996, Craven spent two months editing the final product. He encountered repeated conflicts with the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system (MPAA) concerning the content of scenes. He was forced to tone down or obscure the more intense scenes and overall violence to avoid an NC-17 rating, which is considered "box office suicide"—cinemas and retail chains often refused to stock NC-17 titles.[23] Though Dimension had previously released NC-17-rated films, the rating made those films difficult to market and attract an audience. Dimension was desperate for a less-restrictive R rating, but the producers felt the demanded cuts would remove key elements from the film and reduce its quality.[9] The opening scene featuring Barrymore was one of the most difficult parts to process through the MPAA, who required cuts based on its "intensity". Craven lied to the MPAA, claiming he had only one take of the scene and could not replace it with something less intense; the MPAA allowed the scene.
I'm a director who can do something very well but am not allowed to put it on screen. And they ultimately get you, as they did on this one, on intensity. They say, "it's not a specific shot, it's not blood, it's just too intense". —Director Wes Craven on his conflict with MPAA censorship during production of Scream[12]
Craven sent eight different cuts of the film to deal with complaints. Problematic scenes included the gutting death of Steve Orth (Walls), where he was required to remove any movement of the character's internal organs; the throat-cutting of Kenny, where he had to trim the end of the scene, as the MPAA felt the actor's pained expression was too "disturbing"; and they had to shorten the length of time spent viewing the crushed head of Tatum Riley.[12] The MPAA still held issue with a scene from the finale, where the killers (Ulrich and Lillard) stab each other, creating large amounts of visible blood. The MPAA required that the blood could not be seen in motion—falling to the floor from the body. It seemed unlikely that the film would be able to achieve an R rating without further significant cuts.[12] With the film's release date drawing closer, Bob Weinstein intervened and personally contacted the MPAA. He believed they misunderstood the film and to which genre Scream really belonged, and were focusing too much on the horror elements.[8] Weinstein explained that although he agreed with their assessment that the film was "intense", the film also had comedic elements and satire; it was not just a horror film glorifying violence.[8] The MPAA reviewed their decision; shortly thereafter the film was granted an R rating.[9]
Music [ edit ]
Marco Beltrami – Sidney's Lament The theme for the main character of Sidney Prescott by Marco Beltrami is used throughout the series. Problems playing this file? See media help.
The Scream score was provided by fledgling composer Marco Beltrami, his first time scoring a feature film. Craven's assistant Julie Plec had requested input on composers who were "new", "fresh", and "wonderful", and was given Beltrami's name by several people. Beltrami was contacted for samples of his work. Craven, impressed by what he heard, requested Beltrami come to the set to view the opening thirteen minutes of the film containing the introduction and the death of Barrymore's character. Beltrami was tasked with scoring a piece of music for this scene, which would be reviewed by the producers and the Weinstein brothers. Beltrami was hired to score the entire film on the basis of this sample.[24] Beltrami had no prior experience scoring a work of horror. Craven and editor Patrick Lussier advised him on how to deliver music that would raise the tension and how to use stings to punctuate the more intense moments.[24][25] Craven wanted the music to intentionally raise tension during scenes where audience expectations were already raised by their experience of previous horror films. The volume would be raised to indicate that the killer is hiding behind a door, but nothing would be present upon its opening.
Beltrami decided to intentionally disregard conventional horror score styles. He approached the film as a western, taking influence from Ennio Morricone, a prolific composer for many westerns.[26] When scoring a theme for the character of Dewey (Arquette), Beltrami approached him as a "quirky" wild west sheriff, using a Morricone-style guitar accompaniment.[27] Sidney Prescott's theme, titled "Sidney's Lament", features a female choral arrangement expressing "sorrow" concerning the character's situation. Beltrami states that the voice "spoke" for the character, "lamenting" the loss of her mother.[25] Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks called the "haunting" vocals of the track the "voice of the franchise". The song was used throughout the film's sequels.[6]
Release [ edit ]
Scream held its premiere on December 18, 1996 at the AMC Avco theater in Westwood, Los Angeles, California.[28] Bob Weinstein ordered that the film be released on December 20, 1996, a date others were critical of as it was the Christmas period where seasonal and family films were more prevalent.[8] Weinstein argued this fact was in the film's favor as it meant that horror fans and teenagers had nothing interesting to watch during the December period.[8] When Scream's first weekend takings amounted to only $6 million, it was considered that this release date gamble had failed, but the following week, takings did not drop but increased and continued to increase in the following weeks leading to a total U.S. gross of over $100 million and high critical praise.[8]
Box office [ edit ]
The film opened in 1,413 theaters, taking $6,354,586 in its opening weekend, opening in second against Beavis and Butt-head Do America,[29] and almost $87 million in its initial release. It was re-released to theatres on April 11, 1997, and accrued a further $16.2 million,[30] for a total domestic gross of $103,046,663,[29] and a worldwide lifetime gross of $173,046,663.[29] Scream remains the most successful of the Scream film series, receiving a largely positive critical reception. Scream 2 generated a worldwide gross of $172,363,301, less than $1 million below that of the first film and $11 million more than Scream 3. As of 2013, Scream is currently the 577th highest-grossing movie worldwide.[31] In the United States, without adjusting for inflation, the film is the twentieth highest-grossing horror film,[32] and remained the highest-grossing slasher genre film until it got beaten by Halloween (2018), directly followed by Scream 2 and Scream 3.[33] Adjusted for inflation it would have doubled it gross up to $346 million.[34]
Despite competition from other box office fare such as Tom Cruise's Jerry Maguire and Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!, its release during the Christmas season, and Variety labeling it "D.O.A." before it was even released,[7] Scream became the fifteenth highest-grossing film of 1996, well placed amongst big-budget blockbusters released that year such as Independence Day and Mission: Impossible. It was shown in cinemas for nearly eight months after its release.[8][35]
Release date
(United States) Budget
(estimated) Box office revenue Box office ranking United States Other territories Worldwide Release year All time U.S. All time worldwide December 20, 1996 $15,000,000[20] $103,046,663[29] $70,000,000[29] $173,046,663[29] #15[29] #481[29] #576[31] Note(s) Box office ranking accurate as of October 2012.
Critical reception [ edit ]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 80% based on 69 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Horror icon Wes Craven's subversive deconstruction of the genre is sly, witty, and surprisingly effective as a slasher film itself, even if it's a little too cheeky for some."[36] On review aggregator Metacritic, the film holds a score of 65 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[37]
Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle appreciated the shift from the teen slasher films of the 1980s and their "endless series of laborious, half-baked sequels".[38] Kevin Thomas of The Los Angeles Times called Scream "a bravura, provocative sendup of horror pictures" and complimented the film for being "scary and gruesome" while avoiding a sense of "morbidity".[35] Empire's Adam Smith called it "Clever, quick and bloody funny".[39] Williamson's script was praised as containing a "fiendishly clever, complicated plot" which "deftly mixes irony, self-reference and wry social commentary with chills and blood spills".[40] Time Out London lauded the film's intelligence and scares, while praising the casting, saying "at last, a horror movie to shout about!"[41] Film4 cited Craven's own Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) and its cast of self-aware characters as inspiration for Scream, but declared that while New Nightmare was a "noble failure – pretty smart, but crucially not very scary" that Scream was "not merely clever... it is, from its breathtaking opening sequence (with Barrymore as the woman in peril) onwards, simply terrifying".[42]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a positive review of 3 out of 4 stars, appreciating "the in-jokes and the self-aware characters", but was confused over whether the level of violence was "defused by the ironic way the film uses it and comments on it".[43] The New York Times' Janet Maslin was not as appreciative, saying "not much of 'Scream' is that gruesome". She wrote that Craven "wants things both ways, capitalizing on lurid material while undermining it with mocking humor. Not even horror fans who can answer all this film's knowing trivia questions may be fully comfortable with such an exploitative mix."[44] Despite being critical of the film itself, calling it "one experiment that needed more lab time", Variety complimented the "strong" ensemble cast, singling out the performances of Campbell and Ulrich as "charismatic".[45] The BBC claimed that the film had promise, saying "It appeared to be clever, dangerous, witty, and fresh" but went on to label it as derivative of the films it satirized: "Scream runs out of humour, and in turn robs itself of the chance to get the audience to take the thrills and gut-spills it offers seriously."[46]
Awards [ edit ]
Scream received several awards and award nominations following its release, including the Saturn Award for Best Actress for Campbell, Best Writing for Kevin Williamson, and Best Horror Film; it received Saturn nominations for Best Director for Wes Craven and Best Supporting Actor for Ulrich and Barrymore.[47] Craven was awarded the Grand Prize at the Gérardmer Film Festival.[48][49] The film was awarded the 1997 Best Movie by the MTV Movie Awards, while Campbell received a nomination for Best Female Performance.[50]
Home media [ edit ]
Scream was released in the United States on AC3 LaserDisc (uncut) on July 2, 1997,[54] VHS on June 24, 1997 and a special release with the Scream 2 trailer December 2, 1997,[55] and on DVD on December 3, 1997.[56] A DTS Laserdisc (uncut) was released on August 26, 1998[57] followed by a Collector's Edition DVD of the film on December 8, 1998,[58] containing the film, the theatrical trailer, cast interviews, a director's commentary, and behind the scenes information.[59] These releases were all undertaken by Buena Vista Home Entertainment. Following the release of Scream 3, Scream and its first two sequels were collected in "The Ultimate Scream Collection" by Dimension Films on September 26, 2000, a boxset containing the three films[60] and a bonus disc containing "Behind the Scream", a 30-minute documentary about the production of the three films, and additional material, including screentests and outtakes.
Scream was also released on LaserDisc in France, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United Kingdom in 1997; Germany and a Japanese Special Edition in 1998.[61]
Scream remained unreleased on DVD in some foreign territories, including Europe, until 2001.[citation needed] The Japanese DVD released in 1998[62] contained both the R-rated version of the film, plus the original "Director's Cut", which restored the gore/violence removed by the MPAA.[63] Scream was released in Europe with Scream 2 and Scream 3 on February 26 by Buena Vista Home Entertainment. Each package contained additional content found in the Collector's Edition version of the US release, including deleted scenes, outtakes, theatrical trailers, music videos, and crew commentary.[64][65][66] The three films were also sold as a collection called the "Scream Trilogy", released on February 26, 2001.[67]
On March 29, 2011, two weeks prior to the release of Scream 4, Scream was released in US territories on Blu-ray by Lionsgate Home Entertainment. The Blu-ray present the films in 1080p high definition. The releases contain all the additional materials found on the Collector's Edition DVD, including outtakes and deleted scenes.[68]
Albums [ edit ]
Soundtrack [ edit ]
The Scream original soundtrack was released on December 17, 1996, by TVT Records. The soundtrack features 11 songs—most of which appeared in various scenes in the film—plus a piece from the film's score, "Trouble In Woodsboro"/"Sidney's Lament", by Beltrami. The Alice Cooper version of "School's Out" appeared in the film following the closure of Woodsboro high school, but it was replaced with a cover version of the song by The Last Hard Men on the album. An acoustic cover of Blue Öyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper", performed by Gus Black, plays softly in the background while Sidney and Billy discuss their relationship. Analyst Jeff Smith describes the musical choice as:
An ironic comment on the brutality we have just seen in the opening sequence. More importantly, however, the allusion to the Blue Öyster Cult classic recasts the song's title by literalizing its meaning. While the title itself invokes the Reaper as a popular symbol for death, the film presents us with an actual person, who not only dresses as the Grim Reaper but also unleashes homicidal vengeance on the other characters of the film. The irony here, of course, is that Billy himself proves to be one of the film's dual slashers and is, in fact, the "Reaper" to be feared.[70]
The song "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, heard in the first film, is also used in Scream 2 and Scream 3. Nick Cave performs a version of the track written specifically for Scream 3 in that film. An alternate version of the music video "Drop Dead Gorgeous" by Republica, featuring clips from the film, was shown on music networks such as MTV. Although the song can be heard in the film, it is not included on the soundtrack album. The song was also used in one of the film's television commercials. The soundtrack album was not considered a success, failing to chart on the US Billboard 200.[71] AllMusic awarded the album 3 stars out of 5.[72]
Score [ edit ]
The Scream score by Marco Beltrami was released by Varèse Sarabande on July 14, 1998, on a CD titled "Scream/Scream 2", which also contained tracks from the score of Scream 2.[5] The release consisted of only six tracks—"Sidney's Lament", "Altered Ego", "A Cruel World", "Trouble in Woodsboro", "Chasing Sidney", and "NC-17"[6]—with a runtime of only 12 minutes, compared to over an hour of music made for the film and the more common 30–45 minutes of music found in other original scores.[5] Some reviewers felt the restricted runtime was a result of the high cost of releasing a composer's music commercially, combined with Varèse Sarabande's unwillingness to pay.[73]
The score to Scream received generally positive reviews, with Mikael Carlsson labeling it as "some of the most intriguing horror scores composed in years".[5] Filmtracks.com claimed the scores had "cult status", awarding it 3 stars out of 5.[6] AllMusic said that the score "perfectly captured the post-modern, hip scare-ride of the Scream movies", also giving it 3 stars out of 5.[74]
Sequels [ edit ]
Scream and went on to reprise her character in all three sequels. Campbell starred inand went on to reprise her character in all three sequels.
Williamson had attached five-page proposals for potential sequels to Scream when he originally sold the script, hoping to entice prospective buyers into buying a film and a franchise. When Dimension Films bought the script, they secured Williamson for two future Scream films, should the original prove successful.[9][12] After |
in the same direction, except when passing that vehicle or turning right at an intersection.
- Not ride abreast of another cyclist proceeding in the same direction (pictured above), except when
passing that cyclist.
- Not ride while wearing a headset, headphones or any listening device other than a hearing aid; or while carrying another person, unless the cycle is specifically equipped to carry more than one person.
A FEW CRASHES HAVEN’T DAUNTED THIS RIDER
Cycling to and from work for 20-odd years, Bertram Windvogel says he is not as scared of reckless drivers as he once was, but would be happier if there were more cycling lanes.
Windvogel, 47, who lives in Primrose Park, Athlone, cycles to work in Paarden Eiland daily.
He supports the 1m passing law imposed by the Western Cape government and said it was more practical than the earlier proposed 1.5m gap.
“I don’t know how they will enforce this rule but 1.5m was a bit big and I don’t think our roads have enough space for the 1.5m space between cyclists and the motorists. I just think as long as you are visible and the drivers can see you then it’s a bit better.”
Windvogel said cycling was one of his passions but the petrol price as well as avoiding traffic encouraged him to cycle instead of drive the almost 15km from home to work.
“I would be happy to see more cycle lanes, but like in my area, I don’t think there is enough space for that. Like the one between Milnerton and Table View, it is dedicated to buses and cyclists, I would like to see more of those.”
Windvogel said he had been in a couple of collisions but that had not deterred him from cycling on a daily basis.
“I was once hit by a bus about four years ago, it just nudged me. The bus and taxi drivers are the most reckless. Also one time I was hit by a car door when a person opened it and in a another incident I hit a woman, who was not looking.”
Besides saving on petrol and time, Windvogel said some of his co-workers admire him for cycling to work which also helps him to prepare for the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour.
“I have done the Argus since I was in matric. I think I have done something like 26 cycle tours and my cycle to and from work forms a part of my training.” -Yolisa Tswanya, Cape ArgusThe Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania has a special opportunity this coming April, but we can't make it happen without your support!Liberty Link Media Group has offered to produce a high-quality video promoting the liberty movement in Pennsylvania, at a significantly reduced rate. (Thanks Liberty Link!) The video will feature interviews with the high-profile speakers and guests that are coming to our state convention from around the country.This is a real opportunity for you to help promote the liberty movement and the LPPA, by having our message spread via a professionally produced video. If you are not aware of Liberty Link Media Group, please check out their viral video "Choose Freedom" below.
Please consider donating $5, $10, $50 or more.
Any contribution you can afford will help enable the production of this video. This is an important opportunity as we continue to grow and get our message out!
#LPPA #LibertyRising #LiveFreeSeptember 26, 2014 at 10:12 AM
A Seattle man who spent 10 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of robbery and burglary was awarded $496,712 during a hearing Friday morning in King County Superior Court.
“My plan is to just take it one step at a time,” said Brandon Olebar, the first person freed through the work of the Innocence Project Northwest (IPNW) to be awarded wrongful conviction compensation under a law passed last year.
Olebar, who appeared in court with his wife, Melissa, and their newborn daughter, Creation Redmoonhawk Olebar, said he wanted to concentrate on being a “family man.”
Olebar, 31, said he will use the money to get an apartment, buy his first car, pay bills and go back to school.
“I’m excited,” he said after the court hearing as he and his supporters basked in the special moment.
A total of $546,690 was awarded in Olebar’s case, with $49,671 going to attorney fees. Olebar’s share is tax free.
After approving the award, Superior Court Judge Laura Middaugh told Olebar to “just have a good life.”
After Olebar’s case came to the attention of the IPNW, based out of the clinical-law program at the University of Washington Law School, two students “developed a body of evidence” that showed Olebar was not among the people who in February 2003 broke into the home of his sister’s boyfriend and pistol-whipped and beat the man unconscious.
The victim said as many as eight attackers beat him for more than 10 minutes, during which time he recognized Olebar’s sister as one of them. He told police the attackers had “feather” facial tattoos. Two days after the beating, the victim identified Olebar from a photo montage. Despite the fact that he did not have a facial tattoo and had an alibi, Olebar was charged with burglary and robbery.
A King County jury convicted him solely on the basis of eyewitness testimony and he was sentenced to 16½ years in prison, according to the IPNW.
IPNW Director Jacqueline McMurtrie said two law students, Nikki Carsley and Kathleen Kline, tracked down and interviewed three of the assailants, who signed sworn statements admitting their involvement and denying that Olebar was present during the attack.
Working with IPNW attorney Fernanda Torres, they presented the new evidence to Mark Larson, the chief criminal deputy prosecutor to King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg.
McMurtrie said that over the next several months, Torres and Larson reviewed the case in light of the new evidence developed by IPNW and conducted independent interviews of new witnesses.
In December, Satterberg’s office moved to vacate the conviction and dismissed the charges.
Torres said that one of the men tracked down by the students has since been arrested, charged and convicted of a crime.
The law passed in 2013 allows people who were wrongfully convicted to file a claim in superior court for damages against the state. Under the law, a wrongly convicted person could receive $50,000 for each year of imprisonment, including time spent awaiting trial.
Olebar spent 3,626 days in prison.
Before the law’s passage, the only option for the wrongly convicted was to sue, but the individual had to sue on some basis other than the fact of being wrongfully convicted, such as police or prosecutorial misconduct.Local Guides in Google Maps, Google’s gamified program for getting its users to update data in Google Maps and upload photos of local venues, is getting a bit of an overhaul today. Most importantly, Google is changing how it rewards points and how its leveling system works.
Until today, Local Guides users we able to scale the ladder up to the fifth level. Once you hit 500 points, there really wasn’t much motivation to continue given that you had already made it to the top. With this update, Google is adding five levels that take quite a few more points to reach. To make it to Level 10, you need to get 100,000 points. Even getting to Level 7 takes 5,000 points. That’s a lot of photos of Kmarts.
Google is also changing the points system. Some information that has a higher impact for Google Maps users like being the first to add a new place to the map or writing reviews, will now earn you more points. As the company also announced today, guides who get to level four will now get three months of free access to Google Play Music and 75 percent off rentals in the Google Play Movie store.Buy Photo Several of the 18 people who climbed the steps of The Penobscot Building to the observation desk on Friday afternoon, (Photo: Todd McInturf / The Detroit News)Buy Photo
Sweat and physical activity was the price of admission Friday to enjoy one of Detroit's iconic breathtaking views.
About 20 members of the Anytime Fitness downtown welcomed the first day of spring by climbing 50 flights of stairs to the open, partly sunny observation deck atop the historic Penobscot Building.
"I work down the street and I walk 20 flights of steps every day at my job," said Natalie Clemons, who works at the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. "For someone that will be 56 in May, climbing 50 stairs is a pretty big accomplishment."
The staff of the workout center down the street from the Penobscot said the goal of the event is to help get people moving. Participants can reach the top of the building in under an hour, making it a quick workout during the workday.
"Most people work at places where they sit at a desk all day," said Naomi Lerman, personal trainer at Anytime Fitness. "We wanted to have a fun activity where people can get involved in community fitness."
Besides the health benefits walking a flight of stairs may have, for some this is an opportunity to get a sneak peek atop the historic landmark.
"It looks like the observation deck hasn't been open since the 1940s," said Kim Farmer, vice president of operations and leasing for Triple Properties, which owns the Penobscot. "The goal is to have it open by summer 2016 and to charge a fee for the view like some of the big cities do at iconic buildings around the U.S."
Phil Eagleson, a tennis coach from Detroit, was the first to reach the top.
"I run the stairs a lot, but nothing like this," he said. "Not everyone has the opportunity to see Detroit from the top."
Anytime Fitness hopes to make the climb a regular event during the spring and summer, as well as offering stair climbing at Joe Louis Arena.
Don Pacholski drove from Westland to take part in the climb. "This was quite a workout, but the awesome view was well worth it."
Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/1HbjDZBJoe Camel First appearance 1987 Last appearance 1997 Company Camel cigarettes Information Species Camel Gender Male
Joe Camel (officially Old Joe) was the advertising mascot for Camel cigarettes from late 1987 to July 12, 1997, appearing in magazine advertisements, billboards, and other print media.
History [ edit ]
The U.S. marketing team of R. J. Reynolds (RJR), looking for an idea to promote Camel's 75th anniversary, re-discovered Joe in the company's archives in the late 1980s.
Quoted from The New York Times:
Joe Camel was actually born in Europe. The caricatured camel was created in 1974 by a British artist, Nicholas Price, for a French advertising campaign that subsequently ran in other countries in the 1970s. Indeed, [advertising executive John E.] O'Toole recalled a visit to France many years ago during which he glimpsed Joe Camel wearing a Foreign Legion cap. The inspiration behind Mr. Price's cartoon was the camel, named Old Joe, that has appeared on all Camel packages since the brand's initial appearance in 1913.[1]
Joe Camel first appeared in the U.S in 1988, in materials created for the 75th anniversary of the Camel brand by Trone Advertising. Trone is a mid-size agency in Greensboro, N.C., that Reynolds used on various advertising and promotional projects.
Physical appearance [ edit ]
The character lacked many typical camel traits, essentially appearing as a muscular humanoid with a camel's head. Feet were always to be covered, in footwear consistent with the rest of the outfit. The character also lacked a tail or hump.[2] Advertising presented Joe Camel in a variety of "fun and entertaining, contemporary and fresh" situations, wearing "bold and bright" colors, blue and yellow where appropriate. His face remained the same in different advertising pieces, and images of his hands only used when necessary.[2]
Controversy [ edit ]
In 1991, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study showing that by age six nearly as many children could correctly respond that "Joe Camel" was associated with cigarettes as could respond that the Disney Channel logo was associated with Mickey Mouse, and alleged that the "Joe Camel" campaign was targeting children,[3] despite R. J. Reynolds' contention that the campaign had been researched only among adults and was directed only at the smokers of other brands. At that time it was also estimated that 32.8% of all cigarettes sold illegally to underage buyers were Camels, up from less than one percent.[4] Subsequently, the American Medical Association asked R. J. Reynolds Nabisco to pull the campaign. R. J. Reynolds refused, and the Joe Camel Campaign continued. In 1991, Janet Mangini, a San Francisco-based attorney, brought a suit against R. J. Reynolds, challenging the company for targeting minors with its "Joe Camel" advertising campaign. In her complaint, Mangini alleged that teenage smokers accounted for US$476 million of Camel cigarette sales in 1992. When the Joe Camel advertisements started in 1988, that figure was only at US$6 million, "implicitly suggesting such advertisements have harmed a great many teenagers by luring them into extended use of and addiction to tobacco products."[5]
R. J. Reynolds has denied Joe Camel was intended to be directed at children; the company maintains that Joe Camel's target audience was 25–49-year-old males and current Marlboro smokers. In response to the criticism, R. J. Reynolds instituted "Let's Clear the Air on Smoking", a campaign of full-page magazine advertisements consisting entirely of text, typically set in large type, denying those charges, and declaring that smoking is "an adult custom".
Internal documents produced to the court in Mangini v. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, San Francisco County Superior Court No. 959516, demonstrated the industry's interest in targeting children as future smokers.[6] The importance of the youth market was illustrated in a 1974 presentation by RJR's Vice-President of Marketing who explained that the "young adult market... represent[s] tomorrow's cigarette business. As this 14-24 age group matures, they will account for a key share of the total cigarette volume - for at least the next 25 years."[7] A 1974 memo by the R. J. Reynolds Research Department points out that capturing the young adult market is vital because "virtually all [smokers] start by the age of 25" and "most smokers begin smoking regularly and select a usual brand at or before the age of 18."[8]
In July 1997, under pressure from the impending Mangini trial, Congress, and various public-interest groups, RJR announced it would settle out of court and voluntarily end its Joe Camel campaign. A new campaign with a more adult theme debuted: instead of Joe Camel, it had a plain image of a quadrupedal, non-anthropomorphic camel. This image is still used in advertisements for Camel today. As part of the agreement, RJR also paid $10 million to San Francisco and the other California cities and counties who intervened in the Mangini litigation. This money was earmarked primarily to fund anti-smoking efforts targeted at youth.[6]
Pop culture and legacy [ edit ]
Joe Camel’s legacy was referenced in Season 1, Episode 21 (1996) of The Drew Carey Show in which Drew launches an ad campaign for his employer featuring a camel and a bull. When he first sees the camel he says, “I’m suddenly in the mood for...a cigarette.” Later he jokingly says to the camel, “I’m sick of you offering cigarettes to our nation’s youth.”
See also [ edit ]
Marlboro Man
Willie, the Kool penguinFor the Turkish think tank, see Foreign Policy Institute
The Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) was an American think tank that operated from 2009 to 2017.[1][2] According to its website, the FPI was "committed to robust support for democratic allies",[3] human rights,[4] a strong American military equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and strengthening America's global economic competitiveness. The organization was founded in 2009 and was led by Executive Christopher J. Griffin.[5] FPI was a non-profit, tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. The Foreign Policy Initiative publishes numerous bulletins, fact sheets, and analysis on a variety of foreign policy related issues.[6]
Academic scholars describe FPI as part of a "loose coalition of individuals that seeks to influence American foreign policy in ways that will benefit Israel."[7]
FPI's Board of Directors consists of former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric S. Edelman, Dan Senor, Editor of The Weekly Standard William Kristol and Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Robert Kagan. The latter two were project directors of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century.
Background and history [ edit ]
The Foreign Policy Initiative was founded in 2009 by Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, Dan Senor, and Robert Kagan.
It describes itself as having formed in response to foreign policy challenges facing the U.S., such as "rising and resurgent powers, including China and Russia",[8] "other autocracies that violate the rights of their citizens", "rogue states that work with each other in ways inimical to our interests and principles, and that sponsor terrorism and pursue weapons of mass destruction", "Al Qaeda and its affiliates who continue to plot attacks against the United States and our allies", and "failed states that serve as havens for terrorists and criminals and spread instability to their neighbors."[9]
Since its foundation, the Foreign Policy Initiative has advocated for the troop surge in the Afghanistan War[10][11] and "direct military strikes" in Syria.[12]
Chris Griffin, a former Legislative Director of Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, was hired as Executive Director in early 2013. He replaced Jamie Fly, who served as Director for the organization's first four years and left to become an adviser for Florida Senator Marco Rubio.[13]
Issues [ edit ]
Democracy and human rights [ edit ]
In response to what has become known as "Arab Spring", FPI has emphasized to U.S. policymakers that long-standing authoritarian rule in the Middle East and North Africa have created stagnant political and economic systems that are corrupt, oppress political dissidents, create unemployment and fuel anti-American sentiment. FPI's policy solution was the long-term success of democratic and economic reform, specifically the promotion of human rights and democracy.[14]
Foreign affairs [ edit ]
In an interview with Foreign Policy In Focus, Robert Kagan iterated FPI's position toward Iran, saying, "It is time to take military action against the Iranian government elements that support terrorism and its nuclear program. More diplomacy is not an adequate response."[15]
On Fox News, Griffin described what would be a "good deal" for the U.S., with regards to Iran. Iran would comply with longstanding demands from the United States, IAEA, and UN Security Council, freeze its nuclear program, and ratify the additional protocol to IAEA safeguards agreement. Griffin also said that Iran has 7,000 kg of 3.5% "low-enriched uranium," which amounts to 70 percent progress toward having a nuclear weapon. He also called out Iran to stop building and disable the heavy water nuclear reactor at Arak, which is a basis for building a plutonium-based nuclear weapon.[16]
According to Executive Director Christopher Griffin, Russia's intervention in the Crimean Peninsula is part of a trend that has resulted "in an absence of American leadership"[17] and that "'global pressure' against the American-led international order is intensifying."[18] On NBC Nightly News on April 10, 2013, Griffin noted, "What North Korea teaches us is that once a rogue regime has a nuclear weapon, we have not figured out how to reliably contain it, how to protect Americans, or how to protect our allies."[19] FPI has also called for the U.S. Department of Defense to cancel a $572 million contract with Rosoboronexport, Russia's government-owned arms exporter.[20]
FPI proposed an active U.S. role in Syria. In 2012, Slate Magazine wrote, "The most forward-looking part of the FPI's conference came when the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy chatted with Sen. John McCain (a PNAC signatory and contributing writer). They quickly agreed that America needed to intervene in Syria, setting up a partial no-fly zone and arming rebels."[21] FPI advocated using Patriot missile-defense batteries, with Executive Director Griffin noting, "The United States and our allies could use the Patriot missile-defence batteries now deployed in southern Turkey to establish a credible threat against Assad's air power over parts of Aleppo and Idlib provinces [in northern Syria]."[22]
National security [ edit ]
In 2013, FPI has publicly circulated an open letter, signed by former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and former Sen. Joe Lieberman, opposing automatic cuts in defense spending.[23] FPI cited the findings of a bipartisan panel on U.S. military readiness, which has opposed automatic defense cuts. FPI advocated for a full missile defense system and elimination of automatic defense cuts.[24]
Personnel [ edit ]
Board of Directors [ edit ]
Bibliography of works on Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]Sockpuppetry—using false identities for deception—is centuries old, but the advent of the web has made creating sockpuppets, and falling for their tricks, easier than ever before.
We can’t physically meet most of the people we interact with on the internet. So we create avatars who represent us in the online world, personae that are designed—on some level, conscious or subconscious—to shape others’ ideas about who we really are. Indeed, it’s natural for us to create avatars that represent what we want to be rather than what we are. And it’s only a short step from there to manipulating others’ perceptions of us to give ourselves an advantage of some sort, to deceive. To become puppet masters.
The Daring Political Rebel Who Was Not What She Seemed
Take Amina Arraf. She was a 35-year-old Syrian American who had become a prominent blogger. Her blog, Gay Girl in Damascus, described life in Syria during the beginning of the uprising against Bashar al-Assad. Liberal and lesbian, she was in a precarious position as a protester in a conservative and unstable society. She kept writing, and in May, The Guardian dubbed her “an unlikely hero of revolt in a conservative country.”
Excerpted from Virtual Unreality: Just Because the Internet Told You, How Do You Know It’s True?
But in the early evening of Monday, June 6, 2011, she was walking to meet a friend in downtown Damascus when three young men wrestled her into a red minivan, which screeched off into the dusk. Arraf’s cousin posted details to Amina’s blog. The outcry was immediate. The Guardian reported the kidnapping, and so did the New York Times, Fox News, Gawker, CNN, and several other news organizations. The International Business Times asked how the United States should respond to the abduction, and “Free Amina” websites and posters began to spring up.
Within a few hours, though, Andy Carvin, an NPR journalist, noted on Twitter that none of the people who had ever interviewed Arraf had met her or even spoken to her over the phone. Once someone began to question Arraf’s identity, the illusion shattered. By the morning of June 8, the Wall Street Journal had discovered that photos purportedly of Arraf were, in fact, snapshots of a woman living in London. Shortly thereafter, a website in communication with Arraf was able to show that her computer was in Scotland. Soon it became clear that Arraf wasn’t a “she” at all. She was the creation of Tom MacMaster, a Ph.D. student at the University of Edinburgh.
Everything about Arraf was completely made up—MacMaster had created Arraf’s Facebook page, her Twitter account, her email address—and had conducted interviews with numerous journalists in her name. Why? It was a matter of authority. MacMaster had some very strong views on Middle Eastern affairs, so he created Amina Arraf to give his ideas credibility.
Tom MacMaster’s Amina Arraf is fairly typical of one kind of false persona: what I call “Type 1” sockpuppetry. In Type 1 sockpuppetry, the puppet master fabricates a phony persona who has a specific attribute or experience that the puppet master himself lacks—an attribute or experience that gives the puppet master extra authority in a conversation or extra ability to generate a reaction from others. In all cases, the point seems to be to seek either authority, attention, or profit.
A Wonderland for Pathological Liars and Attention Whores
Debbie Swenson was after attention when she created a Type 1 sockpuppet, a fictitious teenage girl named Kaycee Nicole, in 1999. In a blog she called Living Colours, Kaycee described in detail the ups and downs of her battle with leukemia, which attracted a great deal of attention and sympathy.
When Kaycee finally died on May 14, 2001, the outpouring of grief from her online fans was real and palpable. Denizen after denizen of the popular website MetaFilter expressed heartbreak.
>As sleuths started picking apart the story, some believers suffered genuine anguish because of the cynicism.
Then, on May 19, the user “acridrabbit” posted a simple question: “Is it possible that Kaycee did not exist?” Not only were there some inconsistencies in Kaycee’s story—some odd-sounding descriptions of how the doctors talked about leukemia, the difficulty people were having in finding an address for flowers and cards—but it also appeared that nobody had ever met Kaycee in person.
Immediately, some MetaFilter sleuths started picking apart the story, even as Kaycee believers, like “bwg,” appeared to suffer genuine anguish because of the cynicism: "STOP! STOP!! STOP!!! this is deplorable. it’s making me sick to my stomach! i have spoken to kaycee on the phone, as well as her mother, numerous times. i can assure you kaycee was quite real." But the truth was that Kaycee simply didn’t exist. Debbie Swenson admitted the next day that Kaycee had been a fabrication.
Stories like Kaycee’s are surprisingly common, to the point that psychiatrists and psychologists have started noticing a pattern—a syndrome that’s now called “virtual factitious disorder” or, more snappily, “Munchausen by internet.” In the syndrome someone creates an online persona who suffers some kind of tragedy and milks the resulting outpouring of sympathy and concern. It’s almost guaranteed to cause a big stir, so it becomes irresistible to the extreme attention seeker. Any sufficiently large online community will encounter one of these sooner or later.
How to Destroy Your Enemies and Look Good Doing It
More common than Type 1 sockpuppetry is Type 2 sockpuppetry, in which the only one thing that matters is that the the fictional personality must be someone other than the puppet master. Type 2 sockpuppets are often deployed as reinforcements in an online feud.
Because these sockpuppets are meant to seem independent of the puppet master, these false personae give the impression of a group of online people who agree with and bolster the puppet master’s position—or attack his enemies.
John Lott, a gun researcher, created a fake student who defended his writing online and gave him positive reviews on Amazon.com. (Bing Liu, a computer scientist who studied Amazon reviews, told The New York Times that approximately a third of reviews on the internet were likely fake. These are either created by sockpuppets or purchased wholesale.)
>The internet has become a battlefield for virtual personalities—all attempting to gather information to help their causes and hurt their enemies.
Mystery writer R. J. Ellory used a brigade of sockpuppets not only to give his own books glowing reviews, but also to depress his rivals’ ratings. Professor Orlando Figes, an esteemed British historian, lost much of that esteem by doing precisely the same thing, and in a legal settlement Figes apologized and agreed to pay his rivals’ legal bills.
The Type 2 sockpuppet is an easy weapon for an online skirmisher with a fragile ego. It’s also a great sales booster for a company that wants to tinker with its online reviews. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that these are the only people who deploy sockpuppets. In fact, sockpuppets are now being used for intelligence and for defense.
We're All Caught Up in a Sockpuppet Cyberwar
Social media sites often reveal more information about you to your friends or followers than they do to the general public. This means that people who have an interest in knowing something about you have a vested interest in trying to get you to invite them into your inner circle.
In 2012, Raymond Kelly, commissioner of the New York City Police Department, declared that officers could create false identities to hang out on social media sites in hopes of spotting crime. Police have been using similar tricks for years—impersonating underage children on the internet, for example, in hopes of catching pedophiles—but the ease of creating a large number of sockpuppets for the express purpose of infiltrating social media sites is making civil libertarians nervous.
>China has acquired a reputation for gathering information on its enemies and rivals through sockpuppeteering. But it’s not the only state in the sockpuppet game.
Some sockpuppets have even bigger targets. In March 2012, unknown parties repeatedly tried to get sensitive information about NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, by impersonating him on Facebook and insinuating themselves into his circle of friends and colleagues. NATO sources said they didn’t know who was responsible, but other experts suggested that the culprit may have been China.
China has acquired a reputation—probably justly—for gathering information on its enemies and rivals through sockpuppeteering and other underhanded internet tricks. But it’s not the only state in the sockpuppet game. The U.S. is in it, too.
In late 2010 or early 2011, the United States Central Command (Centcom)—the branch of the military responsible for operations in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Middle East—signed a $2.76 million contract with Ntrepid, a California company, to provide the ultimate sockpuppeteering software. According to the original proposal, Centcom was looking for a software suite that would allow 50 users to create 10 sockpuppets each, “replete with background, history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly [sic] consistent. Individual applications will enable an operator to exercise a number of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries.”
The internet has become a battlefield for virtual personalities—sockpuppets all attempting to gather information and using that information to help their causes and hurt their enemies. It’s a war without bystanders, for we’re all caught up in the fighting, whether we’re aware of it or not.
Excerpted from Virtual Unreality: Just Because the Internet Told You, How Do You Know It’s True? by Charles Seife. Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC. Copyright © 2014 by Charles Seife.
Editor: Samantha Oltman (@samoltman)Mr. Obama said he planned to do some of that. He would use his free time “to do some writing. I want to be quiet a little bit and not hear myself talk so darn much. I want to spend precious time with my girls. So those are my priorities this year.”
But other presidents have taken a different route. Harry S. Truman, for example, spent several years in semiretirement, writing a two-volume defense of his almost eight years in the White House. But in 1960 he returned to politics. He despised Vice President Richard M. Nixon, but he detested John F. Kennedy’s father, Joseph, even more. The elder Kennedy was a strident critic of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Truman joined Eleanor Roosevelt in raising questions about the younger Kennedy’s youth and inexperience. Though Roosevelt eventually warmed to Kennedy, Truman never did.
Then there’s Theodore Roosevelt, who already had his share and more of hobbies and adventures to tend to in 1909, but nevertheless spent his early post-White House years lambasting his successor, William Howard Taft. Roosevelt was so incensed by Taft’s coziness with big business and his apparent lack of interest in his predecessor’s progressive agenda that he ran for the presidency in 1912 as a third-party candidate.
All of these ex-presidents made their choices under fairly conventional circumstances — what Mr. Obama called “normal back-and-forth, ebb-and-flow of policy.” Taft didn’t come into office promising to erase Roosevelt’s legacy.
But these are not conventional circumstances, which is why it’s not surprising that Mr. Obama has no intention of entirely retreating from the political ramparts. He sees some of his achievements — on health care, on the climate accord, on voting rights — as not just policy successes, but as expressive of what he sees as fundamental American values outside the usual political give and take.Controversy erupted in Saudi Arabia after a female student died of a heart attack in Riyadh's King Saud University. The local paper Okaz reported on Thursday that the university took an hour to allow male paramedics to enter the building due to the university's strict rules against allowing men on the female-only campus.
The university's rector, Badran Al-Omar, vigorously denied the accusations, saying that paramedics were allowed in immediately, and that the university did everything they could to save the student, identified as postgraduate student Amna Bawazeer.
Students reported the incident to Okaz and expressed their displeasure at the narrow-minded attitude of the university officials. One student commented, "We do not see any necessity that is more pressing than rescuing the life of a human being from imminent death."
Al-Omar claimed that there was no delay in admitting the paramedics. He told AP reporters, "They called the ambulance at 12:35 p.m. and ambulance staff was there by 12:45 p.m. and entered immediately. There was no barring them at all. They entered from a side door." He did admit, however, that it took 25 minutes for the ambulance to be called.
Another staff member, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the paramedics had not been admitted immediately, and that the university staff had panicked.
The girl's death has sparked a social media storm. Twitter users in Saudi Arabia have condemned the Kingdom's strict segregation of men and women and called for reform.
For some, this incident was eerily reminiscent of one in 2002 in which 15 schoolgirls burned to death in Mecca, allegedly because the religious police would not allow them to exit their dormitory while immodestly dressed. The girls had fled from the fire without their headscarves and abayas (the full-length, loose coat that women must wear in public in Saudi Arabia).Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
A 'Big Fat Gael Wedding' is set to take place in West Belfast.
The event on Thursday has been organised by Irish language activist group, An Dream Dearg, alongside the Love Equality campaign, The Rainbow Project and Feile an Phobail.
The group said that they are highlighting both campaigns for an Irish Language Act and Marriage Equality.
‘My Big Fat Gael Wedding’ will take place on Thursday August 3 in the Culturlann on the Falls Road at 6.15pm.
Conall Mac Corraidh and Chris Mac Phaidin will be the two involved while Donall Mac Giolla Choill will be officiating.
Naoise O Caireallain, from An Dream Dearg, said: “The Big Fat Gael Wedding is a brilliant opportunity for An Dream Dearg to show support for the campaign for marriage equality in the north.
"Much like LGBT people, Irish speakers are looking for rights and equality. We will stand together and demand our human rights!”
Connall Mac Corraidh of Féile an Phobail added: “I am honoured to be taking up this duty. The LGBT and Irish language community has always been a place where I felt I truly belong. I am proud to be giving back to this wonderful cause.”
The wedding after-party will then take place on Saturday August 5 at the Diosco Dearg in The Devenish, starting at 8pm with live music from Emma Ni Fhioruisce, Tonnta, Breag and Polca 4.Unless you're a Broadway theatre historian, you might now know that July 12th, 2017 marks a very important date. On that day in 1947 the play, Life with Father, closed on Broadway. The show had opened in late 1939 and ran for 7 1/2 years, racking up 3,224 performances during that time. Since it's closing, the play had become the longest running non-musical in Broadway history. While I fully expect that Phantom of the Opera will be surpassed as the longest running musical, I don't think Life with Father's record will ever come close to being broken, and that's because today's business of Broadway would never allow it to happen. Because a long running play is something that is becoming rarer and rarer these days.
Last week, there was a lot of news about the fact that A Doll's House Part 2 was going to be extended beyond its original 16-week engagement through January 7th, 2018. While the current cast is only contracted until the end of July, producer Scott Rudin has said that he hopes that they will extend. Although he is prepared to recast if necessary, especially given star Tony-Winner Laurie Metcalf's role with the Rosanne reboot.
But not all plays this season are going to enjoy a post -Tony run. Just a couple of days ago both Indecent and Sweat announced their closing later this month. While it's unfortunate that these great plays are closing so soon, it's not surprising when you consider how short of runs plays usually have on today's Broadway. So why is that?
Well in many cases, plays are a part of fixed runs within seasons with theatre companies such as Roundabout, Lincoln Center and the Manhattan Theatre Club, so a |
his penchant for taking and neglecting corporate jobs to pay the bills while he brokered big-dollar side deals.
Fender’s previous boss told Ginnie Mae’s background checkers that Fender “did not sell to meet quota nor was he accountable to his whereabouts. Travel often not approved or not reported. We had a suspicion that he was working for another company while employed by us.” He was not recommended “for a government security clearance or employment.”
On his Ginnie Mae application, he checked a box saying he had not been removed from his previous job. Not long after being hired at Ginnie Mae, Fender was advertising that Cold Energy Systems was based at 550 12th St SW, the same address as Ginnie Mae’s headquarters.
The IG suggested Fender used the address to “give the impression that Cold Energy Systems regularly did business with the federal government.”
Cold Energy Systems is registered with the federal System for Award Management as seeking government contracts. “Government” comes first on the company’s website list of industries it says it serves.
Investigators also found that Fender used his HUD email address “to gain favorable consideration” for money-making ventures, going out of his way to note his government connection in unrelated matters.
When an ethics official asked Fender to clarify why he had left Cold Energy Systems revenue off of his government ethics disclosure even though any income of more than $5,000 must be listed, he “got huffy” and said “Fine. $5,000.” When she observed that he was obviously just saying that to placate her, he said, “Fine. $5,100,” the figure ultimately listed.
Fender, who did not respond to TheDCNF’s requests for comment, was paid $179,000 annually by the government, based on his claim of making $170,000 in his previous job.
Fender’s LinkedIn profile claims he has run Cold Energy Systems continuously from 2012 to the present and “Achieved US$ 1 mil in sales and over US$ 250,000 in after-tax profits in Year 1.”
He later said he didn’t list the income on ethics disclosures because the company wasn’t profitable. Public records show he had a series of federal tax debts, including an outstanding federal tax lien for $128,000 in 2014. He signed government forms saying he had no tax debts.
Fender told government investigators he “honestly didn’t know” about his $128,000 tax delinquency, despite serving in a high position in finance. Government auditors looking into why Ginnie Mae’s books were so messy easily determined he was not CPA, a fact that hadn’t been caught by hiring managers.
When it was pointed out to him that falsely claiming to be a CPA is punishable with jail time, Fender claimed he didn’t know he wasn’t a CPA.
A separate January, 2015, HUD IG report found that “Due to deficiencies in Ginnie Mae’s control environment, accounting practices used, and financial systems deployed,” there were “$6.6 billion in total assets that we were unable to audit.”
The IG said Fender “should also be recognized as the underlying causes of problems facing Ginnie Mae” and observed that Ginnie Mae officials seemed hardly to care whether it had anyone keeping an eye on its money.
The IG noted even if Fender’s qualifications as presented were taken at face value, his “resume indicated no federal financial management experience. The Deputy Chief Financial Officer position has remained vacant as of January 2015, more than a year after the former Deputy Chief Financial Officer left; and the announcement for the Controller position was not posted until January 2015, nine months after the former Controller left.
“Ginnie Mae indicated that backfilling the vacancies was deferred temporarily to allow the new Chief Financial Officer an opportunity to assess the organization and overall staffing needs. We question how this could be that executive management would not have already known its staffing skills and needs in such an important office.”
In April, 2015, Fender’s supervisor “said he intended to terminate Fender and that the action had been ‘in the hopper since before Christmas.” Prosecutors “declined to prosecute Fender due to [redacted] and the fact that HUD has initiated the process to terminate.”
Fender’s LinkedIn profile says he left Ginnie Mae in April, 2015, but officials there declined to say whether he was given severance pay or provide other settlement details. Ginnie Mae spokeswoman Gina Screen declined to comment on her agency’s apathy about its financial management or say how taxpayers could be assured such a debacle won’t happen again.
Part 1: Feds Put Fake-CPA Tax Cheat In Charge Of $1.5 Trillion In Mortgages
Part 2: Meet The Serial Con Artist The Feds Hired To Manage Nation’s Mortgage Portfolio
Part 3: HUD Looks The Other Way At Criminals On Its Payroll
Part 4: Gov’t Fires Serial Con Man AGAIN After His History Of Fraud Is Exposed
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.Dry run on Cold Lake before Sunday's long run. Dry run on Cold Lake before Sunday's long run. The far side of the lake can be seen on the horizon. Dry run on Cold Lake before Sunday's long run.
Winter running adventures don’t get much more Canadian than traversing a frozen lake.
For those living in northeastern Alberta where new run routes are hard to come by, sometimes creativity is the name of the game. Running on water may not be the first option to come to mind.
On Jan. 15, the Setlacks embarked on a long run that would take them across Cold Lake, which is divided between Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Matt, an aerospace engineer with the Royal Canadian Air Force and national team member at the 2016 World Mountain Running Championships, scouted out a potential route on Saturday with his wife Emily, Canadian half-marathon champion and primary school teacher, and a friend before the big run Sunday. Cold Lake is approximately 25K across, one-way.
The Setlacks have skied across the lake in the past but this time around there was little snow and ice conditions were smooth. Matt, who wore Salomon Snowcross CS as his footwear of choice on the Sunday run, also cross-country skied 28K on Cold Lake on Jan. 12 in preparation. Temperatures were 0 C on Sunday, much warmer than the -35 C conditions the area experienced in the previous days and weeks. (He run commutes and has experienced lows as cold as -45 C.)
Beautiful day to run on water with Dominic and @MattSetlack https://t.co/PWv2xpDGyJ It's a big lake… pic.twitter.com/6D6p6RvWUn — Emily Setlack (@emily_setlack) January 15, 2017
“There is potential for this to be a very dangerous journey and it definitely is not something to take lightly,” he says. To be safe, Matt brought a second kit of gear, polarized glacier glasses, food, a cellphone, and sharpened tent stakes tied together with a string and draped over his neck in the event that he fell in. All of the gear was carried in a backpack. “You must respect the distance and be prepared to turn around if the conditions get bad,” he adds.
Matt told a number of people his departure time (approximately 9:15 a.m. local time from the Cold Lake Marina) and his expected whereabouts. He had his friend Josh fly overhead and a ski patrol friend on speed dial in case of emergency. Matt and Emily completed the run together as it “would be safer that way.”
RELATED: Nine shoes that will outrun winter.
Because of the complete flatness of the route, one is able to see the other side of the lake. There are no markers on the ice or any sort of mid-point landmarks that a runner can gauge off.
So, how do they run in a straight line? “Before I leave, I determine the bearing to follow to get me to the other side of the lake,” he says. “When I’m at the start, I put this in my compass and then find an object on the horizon that lines up with that bearing. Sometimes this is a cell phone tower or a notch in the trees. I also regularly look back as I’m running away from shore to get a mental image of what I’ll be looking for on the way back.”
Check out the route below as, on first impression, it appears that they were running on water.
He recommends running with a friend and to not deviate from your original path. “Don’t rely on someone else to get you out of a bad situation; be prepared to get yourself out of it,” he says. Note that the return route in the above map is almost identical to the first-half of the run.
RELATED: Winter running gloves for 2017.
The Setlacks made it 3-4K from the northeast shore of Cold Lake and were forced to turn back because of poor ice conditions. By that point, daylight was limited. In total, the two ran 43.1K in 4:29:16, according to Matt’s GPS data on Strava.
“The ice for the entire journey was quite thick (12 inches on average),” he says. “I could see right through the ice like a window and could tell how thick it was. The ice was completely cracked near the point where we turned back. There was a large gash in the ice that appeared to go on for miles. The pressure ridge was formed by one sheet of ice sliding under another sheet of ice. It was certainly not safe to cross.”
Matt would like to make a complete crossing of Cold Lake in the next two months, either via running or cross-country skiing, depending on the ice conditions. Matt chronicled the entire Jan. 15 journey on his (and Emily’s) blog.Remember how disappointed everyone was back in October when Apple announced an iPhone 4S and not an iPhone 5?
Everyone had been led to believe by scores of reports that there would be a revolutionary new iPhone with a bigger screen and a new slimmer look.
Well, it turns out the "iPhone 5" - or at least, a fully redesigned iPhone - was real and it was scrapped only months before the iPhone 4S was announced.
We've been told this by an industry source who has been right about future Apple products in the past.
We have not been able to verify what he told us with a second source. So we're still treating these details as rumors. You should probably still read this post with a nice fat dose of salt.
The story our source told us does, however, fit into a broader narrative that is currently being passed around the industry. Because of that we thought you'd like to hear what we heard and make a judgment for yourself.
So, here's what we were told.
Our source said that Apple engineers he knows thought until about three months before the iPhone 4S was released, that a new fully re-designed iPhone was going to be Apple's next big announcement.
This source said that he spent about two weeks with one prototype version of this phone.At a time when many of us are unhappy with many of the rest of us for supporting an evil socialist/selfish plutocrat (choose 1), I have a public service message: This country is full of great people.
I ran into one today while bicycling. I had stopped after a long climb to take a picture of one of my favorite vistas. Another bicyclist stopped, clearly winded from her climb up the other side of the hill. I was feeling quite superior until I noticed that she had four fully loaded packs on her bike. She told me that she’d ridden about 3,580 miles farther than I did to get to that point, having started her trip in San Francisco two months ago. Her bike and packs weighed 90 pounds. Mine totals about 25. She's a strong woman.
More impressive is the cause that has propelled her all these miles through heat and rain and over mountains. Her dad and a close family friend were both victims of aggressive brain tumors that slowly disabled them and ultimately took their lives. Kate decided to turn her grief into something positive. Her long, hard bike ride is a fundraiser for the National Brain Tumor Society, which is funding research and awareness to try to find a cure for this terrible disease, and help patients, family, and friends cope with it in the meantime.
Meeting Kate also reminded me that Americans are among the most generous people in the world, at least when it comes to private philanthropy. When my son Paul and I biked across country to raise money for Partners In Health, 300 people contributed an average of $360 (or 10 cents a mile) for a total of $108,000. My fundraiser achieved the kind of bipartisan support that is only a wistful memory in the corridors of power in Washington. I learned that my friends were engaged in amazing philanthropic activities themselves. And they were so supportive. It made our cross-country bike ride a truly amazing experience.
At 25, Kate's a lot younger than I was and has few friends able to pony up 10 cents a mile, which in her case would be about $400 since she's taken a longer route. But a self-supported ride across country is way harder than what Paul and I did (we went with a company that carried our clothing and provided on-road support). And she is a great person who you would like instantly. I did.
So why not take a break from the angst and rancor of the election season and help Kate honor her father's memory by contributing to the National Brain Tumor Society. You can find a link on Kate's website (www.pedalingforacure.com). And pass this on to your friends.
Imagine if something like this went viral. Really. It is why Al Gore invented the internet.
Follow me on twitter.
PS, Yes, I did steal that line from Jon Stewart.Having torn Formula One’s form book up for the last five seasons, taking four consecutive driver’s and constructor’s world titles (the former all with Sebastian Vettel), Red Bull Racing appear to be starting 2014 on the back foot.
Following a disaster in winter testing which saw the team manage just 1,706 kilometres in testing, compared to main rivals McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari who all managed well over 4,000km, the team have not had nearly as much time as they would have liked on the track. The car however appears quick when it is working.
“I’m sure they’ve got a pretty quick car,”Lewis Hamilton told BBC Sport.
One major issue Red Bull has had is completing a race distance. They are yet to complete 300 consecutive kilometres on track without having an issue, which will make finishing in Melbourne and then in hotter climates like Malaysia and Bahrain incredibly tricky.
The main issue appears to be the new Renault powertrain. It appears not to use fuel as much as Ferrari and maybe Mercedes (as it did with the V8s) but it seems to overheat very easily. The only Renault-powered team to get some serious mileage in testing was Caterham and their car has visibly larger areas for cooling. Red Bull will probably get on top of this before the end of the season but it’s a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. If it is too late and the likes of Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Williams are too far ahead already, they may divert attention to their 2015 car like some teams did last season. Otherwise, they will possibly develop the RB10 through to the end of the season.
Technically, a few team members have gone elsewhere, notably to McLaren, but the key members like team principal Christian Horner and chief designer Adrian Newey remain at the team. Newey usually builds a quick car, which can sometimes be fragile in the first few rounds. There is a slight change in the driver line-up as well.
1 – Sebastian Vettel
Going for his 10th consecutive victory, Vettel is surely the driver on form going into the new season. However, just finishing will surely be the main priority for the German going to Australia. If he can pick up as many points as possible early on in the season and hope the car improves its reliability once the European rounds start, he can mount a title challenge once again. (Note: Vettel has selected the number 5 as his career number, but as reigning champion, is using number 1.)
3 – Daniel Ricciardo
For the sixth season in succession Vettel has an Australian teammate. However, it is not Mark Webber. Instead he has former HRT and Toro Rosso driver Daniel Ricciardo. Ricciardo impressed in qualifying last season, but was often anonymous in the races. To avoid becoming a number two driver like Webber was for the majority of the last 5 years, the young Aussie will certainly have to up his race pace. Vettel will be tough to beat over the season, as you would expect for a four-times champion.
TBC – Sebastien Buemi
In addition to his role as Red Bull’s long-term test and reserve driver, Buemi will continue racing in the World Endurance Championship for Toyota.
TBC – Antonio Felix da Costa
Having been denied the second Toro Rosso seat last season, Portugal’s future star will race in German Touring Cars (DTM) against the likes of former F1 stars Paul di Resta, Timo Glock and Vitaly Petrov and Force India reserve Daniel Juncadella, as well as being a test driver for Red Bull and Toro Rosso.
You could say that developing last year’s car so late into the season when they had a clear performance advantage has cost them this season. Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Williams all diverted attention to 2014 very early on, whereas Red Bull and Lotus didn’t focus until much later in the season.
Wins early on will be incredibly tough for Red Bull. In fact, podiums and perhaps even points may be out of the question. Once they get on top of their reliability issues however, they’ll be right at the front once again.
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Main Photo:In recent years, Reddit has banned a bevy of far-right troll havens, including its board for the white supremacist “alt-right” and others used for the harassment of women, minorities and other people. The bans were a reversal of Reddit’s prior policy to not ban “questionable” content—and drew predictable outrage, given that its policy of non-intervention had fostered an explosion of very active fringe communities, many of them far to the right or openly racist.
Members of the banned communities portrayed themselves as martyrs, while a slew of other Redditors argued either a free speech ethos requires tolerating hate speech or that the ban wouldn’t work. But a new study from Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University and University of Michigan researchers suggests there’s little ambiguity: Banning horrible communities from taking root on Reddit worked.
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The researchers pulled over 100 million Reddit posts from before and after administrators banned the fat-shaming r/fatpeoplehate and white supremacist r/CoonTown board in 2015. They then developed a metric to quantify the level of hate speech in each of them.
Of the thousands of active members of those boards, the team found, a significant percentage gave up and discontinued their accounts compared to the control group. Those that stayed were not whipped up into a greater fury, but instead decreased their level of hate speech “by at least 80 percent” in subsequent posts:
For the banned community users that remained active, the ban drastically reduced the amount of hate speech they used across Reddit by a large and significant amount. Following the ban, Reddit saw a 90.63% decrease in the usage of manually filtered hate words by r/fatpeoplehate users, and a 81.08% decrease in the usage of manually filtered hate words by r/CoonTown users (relative to their respective control groups). The observed changes in hate speech usage were verified to be caused by the ban and not random chance, via permutation tests.
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According to the researchers, banning the two subreddits did not appear to “spread the infection” to others in some kind of rolling migration. Instead, r/CoonTown users tended to move to other forums where “racist behavior has either been noted or is prevalent,” including r/The_Donald, r/homeland and r/BlackCrimeMatters. Former r/fatpeoplehate users migrated to “qualitatively different” subreddits like r/RoastMe, or those dedicated to video games or TV shows.
As the researchers explained:
We observed no change in the hate speech usage of migrants in the invaded subreddits postban (p-value≥ 0.122; the lower-bound in Table 6), nor did we see any significant change in the hate speech usage of preexisting users in these subreddits (p-value≥ 0.136). In simpler terms, the migrants did not bring hate speech with them to their new communities, nor did the longtime residents pick it up from them.
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In short, the team concluded, the ban worked. They theorized that although hordes of people in the banned communities flooded through other parts of the site, administrators were successful in shutting down duplicate subreddits and moderators were able to maintain control of the other places they ended up.
Beyond the initial bursts of anger, the site did not enter some kind of permanent rage spiral. By removing the communities driving the worst behavior on the site, Reddit purged part of the problem.
The team did find evidence the bans sent racist, fat-shaming Redditors searching for other sites—making them “someone else’s problem.” But the places they ended up tended to be “darker corners of the internet” like “Voat, Snapzu, and Empeopled.”
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Shifting the buck doesn’t end the underlying problem, you say? That’s not the point of a moderation policy. From Reddit’s perspective, it doesn’t matter where Nazis are if they’re not ruining the site—and it probably doesn’t matter to other Redditors, either. Weeding your garden has a negligible impact on the worldwide population of weeds, but without weeding you don’t have a garden at all. You just got weeds.
Moreover, there’s only so many places to shift the buck to. After an alleged neo-Nazi terror attack at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville last month, tech companies have raced to enforce policies against hate speech, driving prominent neo-Nazi sites like Stormfront and the Daily Stormer off the public face of the web entirely. At some point, like when crowdfunding services like Patreon decided racists were no longer welcome, this has an impact on the far right’s ability to recruit and organize.
Unfortunately, as Gizmodo reported last year, if the strategy worked in 2015, Reddit has not been consistent in its application—especially in the era of Donald Trump, when subreddits like r/The_Donald have seemingly become untouchable due to fears of another uprising or attacks Reddit is politically biased.
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There’s always the omnipresent and uncomfortable feeling that a number of web giants increasingly control access to the public sphere and could abuse that power, of course. But on the other hand, as has become repeatedly apparent with sites like Facebook, the powers that be are often disinterested in policing what goes on at all or set up bare-bones moderation that doesn’t protect users from harassment. This report is just a little more evidence that if they cared, they could try a little harder.
[TechCrunch]While the official 2017 calendar will not be ratified until 30 November, rumours about the shape the calendar will take are flying thick and fast in the Abu Dhabi paddock.
Germany is out for the year, and that has been confirmed by the race promoter and by F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, so no surprises are expected on the German front next week. But in previous races there were whispers that, in the event Hockenheim was not on the final calendar, another European venue was waiting in the wings, circuit and money ready to step in should the need arise. That venue? Imola.
It remains to be seen whether the World Motor Sport Council will present the waiting world with a 20- or a 21-round calendar for the next F1 season, but if the Imola rumours are true it would be a pleasant way to mark an end to the summer season, leaving the travelling circus to start the summer shutdown with bellies replete with carbohydrates and wine.
Should the San Marino Grand Prix not make a reappearance in 2017, there will be some adjustments made to the calendar as it currently stands, with Hungary expected to take the place currently occupied by Germany, robbing the paddock of a potential four-week summer break.
Further on, there are also expected to be changes to the version of the calendar published in Q3, with Singapore and Malaysia moving around to leave the F1 night race as a standalone event rather than the former (insane) schedule that saw the travelling circus heading out to Asia and sitting on Asian time for a week before returning to European time for Singapore and then back on to Asian time for Suzuka.
At last, a decision that made sense.
And there may still be further tweaks to come. In a round-table interview at Yas Marina, Baku race promoter Arif Rahimov told F1 journalists that -- in addition to ongoing negotiations regarding renaming the event the Grand Prix of Azerbaijan -- discussions regarding the repositioning of the race on the calendar were also under way.
While the first race in Baku was certainly damaged -- in both media coverage and TV viewership -- by its positioning on this year's calendar, which saw the grand prix competing with the 24 Heures du Mans endurance race, the practicalities were also a challenge, Rahimov acknowledged.
"The time difference works against us," he said. "To be honest we haven't discussed changing the date with Canada, but we want to move it forwards a little bit. It is a logistical nightmare for ourselves as well -- we have six jumbo jets to unload on the Tuesday. That is 900 tonnes of cargo in 24 hours to bring to the circuit. We did it, and F1 cargo was happy with what we did, but it is a tough job."
Keith Sutton/Sutton Images
But for a race determined to have a long-term future in F1 -- Azerbaijan has a 10-year contract to host the race, with a break clause after five years -- media exposure and increased turnout are key, and to achieve those aims a date shift is vital.
"My personal position is that we are not entirely happy with this date," Rahimov said. "We missed a lot of press coverage due to Le Mans. I still think in the motorsport world we were on top of the priority and watch list this year in June, but obviously we want to have more. If we manage to change the date, so not clashing with the [Le Mans] date, it will be more exposure."
Further on in the calendar, there have been suggestions of date changes in the Austin-Mexico-Brazil window, irrespective of whether or not Interlagos manages to salvage its place on the calendar. While there is an awful lot of goodwill around the Brazilian Grand Prix, with the track beloved by most despite the condition of the facilities and surrounding area, the race itself appears to be a patient on the final hours of life support.
The retirement of Felipe Massa followed by this week's announcement that Banco do Brasil had withdrawn their financial backing for Felipe Nasr means that it is unlikely that we will see a Brazilian driver in Formula One in 2017 -- the first time since 1969 that the sport has not had a single entrant from South America's geographical behemoth.
No driver means diminished local interest and diminished funding. Add to that the ongoing problems surrounding former title sponsor Petrobras and the nose-diving value of the Real, and it looks as though a 2017 Brazilian Grand Prix is little more than a nice idea with no real support.
From where I'm standing, at the tail-end of a 21-race season and with the stamped passport to prove it, a 19-round calendar sounds like manna from heaven. Potentially losing two historic rounds -- including one on a still legendary track (Hockenheim was sadly neutered) -- is a crying shame. But change is inevitable, and these changes are not just "as good as a rest": they represent the potential for real R&R.
Looking to the future, another rumour doing the rounds in recent months takes in potential replacements for those races soon to fall. While the F1 fanbase has (understandably) moaned about endless Tilkedromes in unheard of countries looking to boost their global profile, the rumour is that a popular and current race promoter is currently hard at work on a second US race in the area around Palm Springs.— After two double-overtime thrillers in recent days — and some well-deserved celebrating — Islanders hero John Tavares said he was catching up on some rest Monday.
Tavares’ wraparound Sunday night lifted the Islanders over the Florida Panthers, giving the franchise its first playoff series win in 23 years.
MORE: Capellini: Islanders’ Tavares Has Become A Truly Unstoppable Force
“It was obviously a long time coming, and we know how much our fans have been wanting that one and how much they deserve it,” the Islanders’ captain told WFAN’s Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts on Monday. “It’s been obviously a lot of tough times and ups and down, and we were finally able to overcome that hurdle. Obviously want to enjoy it, but I think now, even already today, you start looking ahead, and we want to keep this thing going as long as we can, obviously get the ultimate goal.”
Tavares played Game 6 with noticeable determination, scoring a goal in the final minute of regulation to force overtime and then coming up with the game-winner.
“Obviously I play a big role on the team, big responsibility,” he said after noting that his teammates also pulled their weight. “Being the captain, you just want to go up there and play as hard as you can, play the right way and obviously try to do what I do best and create opportunities. You want to play right up to the end. You never quit. You never give up. It wasn’t our best game yesterday — and it certainly wasn’t mine for good stretches of that game. You just have to, especially in playoff hockey, you have to stay with it. You never know when it’s going to come.”
MORE: Schwartz: Isle See You In Round 2 … Finally
The Islanders advance to face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Game dates and times have not yet been announced.
To listen to the full interview with Tavares, click on the audio player above.President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday criticized the election recount request of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.
“The people have spoken and the election is over, and as Hillary Clinton herself said on election night, in addition to her conceding by congratulating me, ‘We must accept this result and then look to the future,'” Trump said, referring to Clinton’s concession speech on the day after the election.
Stein announced on Wednesday that she would file for recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, three swing states won by Trump. She filed for a recount in Wisconsin on Friday. Hillary Clinton’s campaign on Saturday said she would participate in the Wisconsin recount in order to “ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides,” though they don’t expect the outcome to change.
“This recount is just a way for Jill Stein, who received less than one percent of the vote overall and wasn’t even on the ballot in many states, to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount,” Trump said.
Stein launched a fundraising page to pay for filing and legal fees, estimating that the total cost of recounts in all three states would be $6 to $7 million. Stein pledged to use any surplus money toward “election integrity efforts” and “voting system reform.” The fundraising page had raised more than $5.8 million as of Saturday afternoon.
“This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded, and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what Jill Stein is doing,” Trump said in his statement.Trump Was Right: Cold-Hearted Obama Never Called General Kelly When His Son Was Killed in Afghanistan
President Trump today reiterated his claim that Barack Obama did not call families of fallen soldiers.
In fact Barack Obama did not even call General John Kelly when his son died in Afghanistan.
General Kelly was the highest-ranking military officer to lose a child in Iraq or Afghanistan.
FOX News reported:
President Trump doubled down Tuesday on his controversial claim that past presidents didn’t properly console the families of fallen servicemembers, raising the point that Barack Obama apparently did not call now-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly after his son was killed in Afghanistan in 2010. “You could ask General Kelly, did you get a call from Obama? You could ask other people. I don’t know what Obama’s policy was,” Trump told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on his radio show on Tuesday. An administration official confirmed that Obama did not make a condolence call to Kelly, who was the highest-ranking military officer to lose a child in Iraq or Afghanistan.
And Navy SEAL mother Karen Vaughn accused Barack Obama of honoring fallen SEALS by sending their parents a form letter signed by an auto-pen.
On August 6, 2011, 30 US service members were killed when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter they were being transported in crashed in Wardak province, Afghanistan. It was the deadliest single loss for U.S. forces in the decade-long war in Afghanistan. 17 members of the elite Navy SEALs were killed in the crash.
In 2012, Karen and Billy Vaughn, parents of Aaron Carson Vaughn, spoke at the Defending the Defenders forum sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots outside the RNC Convention in Tampa. Karen brought a copy of the form letter they were sent following their son’s death.
It’s a form letter.
It was signed by an electric pen.
That’s not all.
Karen Vaughn reached out to the parents of the other SEALs killed in that crash.
Their letters were all the same.
Form letters – signed by an electric pen.
Here’s a closer look at the letter sent to the parents of Chief Petty Officer Nicholas H. Null.
It’s the same form letter.
This was an Obama campaign photo op.
Featured image by Bizpac ReviewIn April 2010, Karen McPeters filed a federal class action complaint against Montgomery County, Texas, and LexisNexis seeking to enjoin the county from requiring litigants to file all documents with the court through LexisNexis File & Serve. In the complaint, she alleged that the fees amounted to a poll tax and a denial of due process and equal protection. The Court dismissed her federal claims and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction to hear her state claims, suggesting that they are more properly heard by the state courts. We have pulled the filings for the federal case and posted them to Justia Dockets & Filings. (For free! The irony.) McPeters filed in state court on January 25, 2011, according to Courthouse News.
Courthouse News and 3 Geeks and Law Blog (see also their April post) posted about this case this week, and they have done a great job covering the details and legal analysis—so I’ll leave that to them. I decided to post on about this anyway because I think it’s important that this issue get as much coverage as possible. It highlights the current problems with our pay-to-play legal system in a way that everyone—lawyers and consumers—can understand.
Based on the allegations in the complaint, McPeters tried to file a civil rights complaint in the County court and the Clerk refused to accept a paper filing presented to her. She also returned a mailed complaint back to the Plaintiff marked “VOID,” based on the Judge’s 2003 ruling requiring that all civil filings (with some exceptions) be filed through the LexisNexis product. The federal court found that she did have two alternatives to e-filing on her own: (1) seek leave of the Court to file a hard copy and (2) use the public access terminal at the Courthouse. However, they expressed concerns about the e-filing system, in general:
“Although no federal statutory or constitutional claim is available in this case, the Court is indeed troubled by certain aspects of the e-filing system at issue. It is not clear that the e-filing system, and the accompanying fees, were properly adopted within the bounds of applicable Texas law.” (at 19) …. “It is a bedrock principle of federal and state courts that they should be accessible to persons seeking remedies for their grievances. Charging litigants more than is necessary to subsidize the operation of the courts and other vital government functions is contradictory to the basic idea of access to courts. To give to a private company the authority to profit by setting rates and charging litigants for each court filing seriously endangers that principle and sets forth on a dangerous path. That is particularly so where it is not clear under state law that the district clerk has the power to delegate authority in such a way. Still, the right of access to courts is not absolute, and no federal remedy is available under the facts presented in this case. Plaintiffs claims under the constitution and laws of Texas may or may not have merit, but as no federal question remains in this case, they are properly decided by a state court.” (at 20)
I don’t know the judge’s motivation for issuing the original e-filing order. Plaintiff McPeters asserts that the County is benefitting financially from this deal with Lexis, but I’m going to give Judge Edward the benefit of the doubt and assume that he wanted to save trees and streamline the process to improve court efficiency, which helps all litigants and is a worthy ideal. But turning litigants away when they show up with a paper filing? Allowing a private company to charge $444 for e-filing services, in addition to the court fees? In its dismissal, the Court discusses the fees charged under the contract between Lexis and the County:
“LexisNexis charges $7.00 for filing fees, $8.00 for services charges for any document filed online, and a charge of at least $10.00 for providing a paper invoice. Plaintiff alleges that LexisNexis pays $1.00 of each filing and service charge to Montgomery County |
This is also the same time period when records of the shroud begin to appear, suggesting a forgery.
Critics have charged that the researchers who dated the shroud accidentally chose a sample of fabric added to the shroud during repairs in the medieval era, skewing the results. That controversy still rages, but de Wesselow is convinced of the shroud's authenticity from an art history approach.
"It's nothing like any other medieval work of art," de Wesselow said. "There's just nothing like it." [Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus]
Among the anachronisms, de Wesselow said, is the realistic nature of the body outline. No one was painting that realistically in the 14th century, he said. Similarly, the body image is in negative (light areas are dark and vice versa), a style not seen until the advent of photography centuries later, he said.
"From an art historian's point of view, it's completely inexplicable as a work of art of this period," de Wesselow said.
Resurrection: spiritual or physical?
If de Wesselow's belief in the shroud's legitimacy is likely to rub skeptics the wrong way, his mundane explanation of how the image of Jesus came to be is likely to ruffle religious feathers. According to de Wesselow, there's no need to invoke a miracle when simple chemistry could explain the imprint. It's likely, he says, that Jesus' female followers returned to his tomb to finish anointing his body for burial three days after his death. When they lifted the shroud to complete their work, they would have seen the outline of the body and interpreted it as a sign of Jesus' spiritual revival.
From there, de Wesselow suspects, the shroud went on tour around the Holy Land, providing physical proof of the resurrection to Jesus' followers. When the Bible talks about people meeting Jesus post-resurrection, de Wesselow said, what it really means is that they saw the shroud. He cites the early writings of Saint Paul, which focus on a spiritual resurrection, over the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, which were written later and invoke physical resurrection.
"The original conception of the resurrection was that Jesus was resurrected in a spiritual body, not in his physical body," de Wesselow said.
These ideas are already receiving pushback, though de Wesselow says he's yet to get responses from people who have read his entire book. Noted skeptic Joe Nickell told MSNBC's Alan Boyle that de Wesselow's ideas were "breathtakingly astonishing," and not in a good way; Nickell has argued on multiple occasions that the shroud's spotty historical record and too-perfect image strongly suggest a counterfeit.
On the other end of the religious spectrum, former high-school teacher and Catholic religious speaker David Roemer believes in Jesus' resurrection, but not the shroud's authenticity. The image is too clear and the markings said to be blood aren't smeared as they would be if the cloth had covered a corpse, Roemer told LiveScience.
"When you get an image this detailed, it means it was done by some kind of a human being," Roemer said.
Unlike many "shroudies," as believers are deprecatingly called, Roemer suspects the shroud was deliberately created by Gnostic sects in the first or second century. A common religious explanation for the markings is that a flash of energy or radiation accompanied Christ's resurrection, "burning" his image onto the cloth. [Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena]
If anything is certain about de Wesselow's hypothesis, it's that it is not likely to settle the shroud controversy. Scientific examinations of the delicate cloth are few and far between — and so are disinterested parties. Roemer, for example, recently arrived at a scheduled talk at a Catholic church in New York only to find the talk had been canceled when the priest learned of Roemer's shroud skepticism. (The Catholic Church has no official position on the shroud's authenticity.)
Meanwhile, de Wesselow said, people who aren't driven by faith to accept the cloth as real generally don't care about the shroud at all.
"The intellectual establishment, if you like, is not interested in shroud science," he said. "It regards it as fringe and it's not interested."
You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.A Class Of Misfit Students Must Save Mankind From A Destructive Alien Invader Who May Also Be The Best Teacher They Ever Had; New Action Series To Launch In Print And Digitally
San Francisco, CA, December 2, 2014 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), the largest publisher, distributor and licensor of manga and anime in North America, delivers to domestic readers today one of the most popular new manga (graphic novel) series currently sweeping Japan – ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM.
This high school alien-teacher in the classroom action comedy by creator Yusei Matsui is rated ‘T+’ for Older Teens and debuts in print under the Shonen Jump Advanced imprint. ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM Vol. 1 will carry an MSRP of $9.99 U.S. / $12.99 CAN. Subsequent volumes for the continuing series are scheduled for print release on a bi-monthly basis.
The digital edition of ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM will also debut on December 2nd for $6.99 (U.S./CAN), across all platforms serviced by VIZManga.com and the VIZ Manga App. The free VIZ Manga App continues to be the top application for reading digital manga and features a massive library of the most popular series in the world. The digital edition will be similarly available on digital storefronts for the Kindle, iBooks, GooglePlay, Kobo, ComiXology, and Nook.
A humorous and action-packed story about a class of misfits who are trying to kill their new teacher – an alien octopus with bizarre powers and super strength! The teacher has just destroyed the moon and is threatening to destroy the earth – unless his students can destroy him first. What makes things more complicated is that he's the best teacher they've ever had!
“ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM is an over-the-top, action thrill ride that readers will definitely want to put on their manga hit lists,” says Annette Roman, Editor. “The series has drawn widespread acclaim in Japan where it is one of the top titles featured in Shonen Jump magazine. We invite readers to spend their winter semester at a high school unlike any other with a zany class of misfit students upon whom rests the future of humanity!”
Manga creator Yusei Matsui was born in Saitama Prefecture, Japan and has been drawing since elementary school. Some of his favorite manga series are BOBOBO-BO BO-BOBO, JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE, and ULTIMATE MUSCLE (all published in North America by VIZ Media). Matsui honed his talents working as an assistant to manga artist Yoshio Sawai, creator of BOBOBO-BO BO-BOBO. In 2005, he debuted his original series, Neuro: Supernatural Detective, in Weekly Shonen Jump. In 2007, Neuro was adapted into an anime series. ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM began serialization in Weekly Shonen Jump in Japan in 2012. An anime adaptation based on the manga series is set to debut in early 2015.
For more information on ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM and other manga titles from VIZ Media, please visit www.VIZ.com.
About VIZ Media, LLC
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, VIZ Media distributes, markets and licenses the best anime and manga titles direct from Japan. Owned by three of Japan's largest manga and animation companies, Shueisha Inc., Shogakukan Inc., and Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions, Co., Ltd., VIZ Media has the most extensive library of anime and manga for English speaking audiences in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland and South Africa. With its popular digital manga anthology WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP and blockbuster properties like NARUTO, BLEACH and ONE PIECE, VIZ Media offers cutting-edge action, romance and family friendly properties for anime, manga, science fiction and fantasy fans of all ages. VIZ Media properties are available as graphic novels, DVDs, animated television series, feature films, downloadable and streaming video and a variety of consumer products. Learn more about VIZ Media, anime and manga at www.VIZ.com.Even though he retired from professional competition several years ago, Randy Couture is still interested in a match-up against Fedor Emelianenko.
While both the former champions have stepped away from the sport of MMA, Couture revealed he would be very interested in a potential grappling contest against "The Last Emperor" in Metamoris.
"That would be interesting and certainly given the time to prepare and get back up into good, solid grappling and wrestling shape, that would be a lot of fun and I think, you know," Couture told Submission Radio. "I'm not sure how active Fedor is at this stage, you know him being retired as well, but I'm certainly no opposed to an idea like that."
Couture also mentioned that he was considered as a tentative replacement for Chael Sonnen at the last Metamoris event, but doubted he would have ever accepted the match on such short notice.
"Well I certainly considered it. Chael called me up, obviously Chael and I have been personal friends for a long, long time and he thought I might be a viable candidate to step up if he decided to opt out, because of the pressure and the commission in Nevada, but I had to be honest with him and that's a very high caliber match. I have a lot of respect for his opponent (Andre Galvao). To take that on a week's notice, not having any time to prepare wouldn't have been the wisest of decisions to do that. "
Apart from his general lack of preparation for a high-level opponent such as Andre Galvao, Couture was aware that press duties for both Metamoris and his new show "Gym Rescue" would have made it impossible for him be ready in time for the event.
"As well as having all the press junkets and the premier coming up last Monday anyway, there just would have been no way to really pull that off and be effective. So you know, I don't know, it just didn't make sense to me to do it as much as I liked to have helped."(CNN) It is unusual for militant Islamists to condemn terror attacks against "non-believers," but so grotesque was last Friday's onslaught in Egypt that several extremist groups have threatened revenge against its perpetrators.
While no one has yet claimed the attack, its location and method point to the Islamic State in Northern Sinai (ISNS), a group that has proved both ruthless and resilient in the face of the Egyptian military's attempts to crush it over the last four years.
More than 300 people were killed -- among them nearly 30 children -- as they attended prayers at the al Rawdah mosque near the Sinai town of Bir al-Abed. The mosque was associated with the Sufi tradition within Islam, which is regarded as apostasy by ISIS and by some in al Qaeda.
The Islamic State in Northern Sinai is an affiliate of ISIS and the most powerful jihadist group in Egypt -- but not the only one. Smaller militant factions closer to al Qaeda quickly distanced themselves from the mosque attack.
Jund al-Islam, which is regarded as pro-al Qaeda, declared that it was "a great sin and transgression to violate the sanctities of Muslims." It claims to have carried out an attack last month against ISNS, which it regards as "Khawarij" -- a term from the 8th century used to describe those who go against Islamic leaders and institutions.
Another militant group -- Ansar al-Islam -- offered condolences to the families of the victims of the massacre and said that God promised torment for anyone who killed a Muslim unjustly. In a statement issued on Saturday, it pledged to take revenge against the "transgressors who spilled the blood of the worshipers in a house of Allah."
Ansar al-Islam is well-organized and regarded as more aligned with al Qaeda than ISIS. It claimed responsibility for a devastating ambush of Egyptian troops in the western desert last month
The group is led by Hisham Ashmawy, a former captain in the Egyptian special forces. Ashmawy belonged to the group in Sinai that preceded ISNS -- known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis -- but he appears to have left when it became an affiliate of ISIS. Counter-terrorism analysts have said the split was both ideological and to do with personal rivalries.
The condemnation of the ISNS attack is evidence of the ever-widening enmity between ISIS affiliates and al Qaeda-inspired groups, and raises the question of whether the latter will begin to confront ISNS militarily as well as ideologically.
True believers
ISIS is doctrinaire about its definition of true Muslims, and has often warned that it would target the Sufi community. "Our focus lies in the war against polytheism and apostasy, and among those Sufism, sorcery and divination," said a spokesman in ISIS' online publication al-Naba a year ago. The article even mentioned al Rawdah, yet the mosque appears to have had little protection.
ISIS is not alone among jihadi groups in targeting other Muslim denominations, and especially Sufis. Adherents of Boko Haram in Nigeria also see Sufism as apostasy. In Pakistan, Sufi shrines have come under frequent attack, most recently in February this year, when a suicide bombing claimed by ISIS killed at least 70 people. And when Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda briefly seized the city of Timbuktu in Mali in 2012, they demolished centuries-old Sufi mausoleums and libraries, several of which were UNESCO world heritage sites.
People gather at the site of the mosque attack on Friday.
Unlike ISIS, the core leadership of al Qaeda has not singled out Sufi communities for attack. It has also distanced itself from overtly sectarian campaigns of violence against the Shia, most notably by Abu Musab al Zarqawi during the Iraqi insurgency between 2004 and 2006. Zarqawi's attacks, such as the attempt to destroy the al Askari mosque in Samarra, drew criticism from al Qaeda's leaders -- even though he was affiliated to al Qaeda at the time.
But the rhetoric of al Qaeda and its affiliates against the Shia has hardened in recent years -- especially in Syria and Yemen, amid what some observers call a multidimensional civil war within Islam.
ISNS: Resilient, capable, vicious
ISNS has frequently shown its audacity in Sinai, even sometimes erecting roadblocks around al-Arish, the Mediterranean town at the heart of the violence and some 40 kilometers from al Rawdah.
The group is well-armed and well-trained. On one occasion it used a missile to hit an Egyptian patrol boat off the coast. It has expertise in building IEDs, which have taken a heavy toll on Egyptian security patrols. And in 2015 it claimed to have smuggled a bomb inside a soda can on board a Russian airliner which exploded shortly after leaving Sharm el-Sheikh in southern Sinai.
The nature of Friday's assault, a complex operation involving both a bomb attack and subsequent ambush of worshipers and ambulances by dozens of fighters, is typical of ISNS. But it is different in one crucial respect: most of the group's attacks until now have targeted Egyptian security forces in Sinai -- whether by IED or assassination.
Not for the first time, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi threatened to crush the militants, saying in a short statement that "the armed forces and police will avenge our martyrs and restore security and stability with the utmost force."
It is a familiar pledge, but the impunity with which the attackers struck demonstrates the inability of the Egyptian security forces to stamp out ISNS, despite a massive deployment of the army and strikes by F-15 fighter jets.
Omar Ashour, visiting professor at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Qatar and a longtime observer of the Sinai insurgency, says the mix of guerrilla warfare and urban terror tactics has "undermined both the morale and the capacities of the regular forces, a historically incompetent one with limited success in conventional warfare and counter-insurgency campaigns."
The government has been able to recruit some tribes against ISNS, but the group has still been able to find recruits among the marginalized Bedouin youth of Sinai, long a neglected backwater of Egypt where the writ of central government means little. It is helped by the fact is that Sinai is huge -- almost the size of Texas -- and sparsely populated.
Sinai also has a long history of smuggling -- of people, drugs and weapons -- and counter-terrorism analysts say ISNS has been able to obtain weapons by sea from Libya and elsewhere.
Relatives of the victims of the mosque attack sit outside a hospital Saturday in the eastern port city of Ismailia.
The staying power of ISNS and its growing capabilities also concern Israel. The group has attempted several border incursions, and several ISIS operatives have been detained by Hamas in Gaza, after apparently crossing from the Sinai.
Amos Harel -- writing in Haaretz -- was critical of the Egyptian military's response, saying "quicker action is needed, combining precise intelligence and commando forces."
But Ashour says the Egyptian state's over-reliance on force in Sinai, coupled with the neglect of the region and a polarized political situation in Egypt as a whole, suggest the government is a long way from bringing peace to the area.This Friday night, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla will be running another sold-out event at the American Legion Post 308 in Reseda, CA. September will mark the 10th anniversary of PWG using the venue, which has now become a place that is seen by many fans as the modern-day equivalent of the world-famous Viking Hall in Philadelphia, PA during the 90’s when it was known as the ECW Arena. Some could also say that if you looked at the surface, Reseda could be considered a historic wrestling city here in Southern California.
Not only does the American Legion itself have a history of holding events even before Pro Wrestling Guerrilla began running there, there were also wrestling events taking place right down the street on the corner of Canby Ave. and Sherman Way years before at what is now the site of a Spanish-language Christian church. Before the conversion, the church was the originally the site of a Sav-On Drug store in the 1950s that later became a nightclub and music venue known as the Reseda Country Club after club owner Chuck Landis purchased the site in 1979. When it opened in 1980, the club held concerts and music video shoots with musicians such as Mick Jagger, B.B. King, Iggy Pop, Slayer, U2, Guns N’ Roses, Joan Jett, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bon Jovi, The Beach Boys, Huey Lewis and the News, Bad Religion, Social Distortion, Motorhead, Nirvana, James Brown, Tom Petty, Megadeth, & Metallica to name a few. The venue is also featured heavily in the movie “Boogie Nights.”
The venue would also host Herb Abrams’ Universal Wrestling Federation and Xtreme Pro Wrestling events.
Abram’s UWF was founded in 1990 and held their first series of tapings at the Reseda Country Club from September through December of that year. These shows would air on a weekly program called the “Fury Hour” that was broadcast on SportsChannel America, was later repackaged as a half-hour program on ESPN 2 in 1995, and later re-aired on ESPN Classic in 2008. These events would feature stars such as a young Cactus Jack, “Dr. Death” Steve Williams, Billy Jack Haynes, Paul Orndorff, Don Muraco, Captain Lou Albano, Ivan Koloff, Ken Patera, Larry Zbyszko, Bob Orton Jr., and Louie Spicolli. They would eventually move on from Reseda going to New York, Florida, South Carolina, North Dakota, and Las Vegas. The promotion never returned to Reseda and folded after Abrams passed away in 1996.
The Reseda Country Club would once again play host to another debuting promotion nine years later as Xtreme Pro Wrestling would hold their debut event at the venue on July 31, 1999 with Big Dick Dudley taking on Damien Steele in the main event. On September 24, 1999, Christopher Daniels made his only appearance in XPW when he took on Donovan Morgan. Damien Steele became the first ever XPW World Heavyweight Champion when he won a Battle Royal on October 29th, 1999 at the Reseda Country Club. XPW would run several shows at the Reseda Country Club until December 21 of that year when the venue had been sold. XPW would eventually begin to hold shows at The Palace in Hollywood and the Los Angeles Sports Arena after running at the Reseda Country Club.
In a 2003 interview conducted by Steve Bryant here on SoCalUncensored.com, Kevin Kleinrock, who at the time was the Vince President of XPW, talked about the efforts to find a place to build their own arena at and the problems surrounding that idea. One potential spot was located a block away from the former site of the Reseda Country Club and down the street from the American Legion Post 308.
“We were in negotiations for buildings numerous times, and that’s what happened with this one, where we had a building all picked out. It is the movie theatre that is on almost the corner of Sherman Way and Reseda. If anyone’s ever been to that Reseda American Legion Hall where there have been some wrestling shows, there is a movie theatre right there that says, I think Reseda on it in lights,” Kleinrock told Bryant, “and the building has been abandoned ever since the Northridge earthquake.
“Well we were in negotiations to take that building over and turn it into what we were going to call Club X. It was going to be a nightclub, it was going to have wrestling every Friday or Saturday night, and it was going to be our own little entertainment complex.”
However, zoning issues would get in the way of that happening.
“The city of Los Angeles, and not just Los Angeles, I guess just government bureaucracy in general, prevented that from happening. We would find a building that was too small to put the number of people that we needed to put in there, in there. I mean if we are going to pay the lease on a building, we have to be able to put at least 1,000 people into the building to bring in the ticket revenue to pay the lease. So we’d find a building that was too big, we’d find a building that was too small. We finally found a building that we thought we could build it up great. There was a stage up front where we could have built a Monday Night Raw type entrance and everything. The problem is, the city of Los Angeles requires that when you have theatre style seating you need one parking space for every five people in attendance. So for a thousand people you need two hundred parking spaces. That was always the hard part. We found over the time we were looking probably twenty different buildings that would have worked but they just didn’t have the parking spaces.”
XPW would return to the San Fernando Valley for the first part of 2001 running shows at what is now known at Birmingham Community Charter High School, which is near the border of Reseda and about three miles away from where the Reseda Country Club was located. A few short years later in 2003, XPW would hold their final Los Angeles area events as an active promotion in North Hills, about four miles away from where they held their first events at the Reseda Country Club. One of the promotions that was consider a predecessor to XPW, Slammers Wrestling Federation, ran events at the Sherman Oaks Center For Enriched Studies during the mid-1990’s. While the address of the high school comes up as a Tarzana address, it edges the border separating Reseda and Tarzana on Victory Blvd. The events were even mentioned in a few LA Times articles.
In 2000, Reseda would again see a new promotion open up as producer, director, and screenwriter of low-budget movies and B-List celebrity Fred Olen Ray, who wrestled under the name Freddie Valentine, would be the first promoter to hold events at the now famous American Legion Post 308 when he ran his All-Star Championship Wrestling events there.. His shows would have crazy main event gimmick matches such as Alligator Death Matches, Barbwire Rope Matches, and Exploding Ring Matches with Fred in the main event. Other B-list celebrities and martial artists such as Cynthia Rothrock and Don “The Dragon” Wilson attended ACW events.
At the time, the majority of promotions in Southern California relied on students and trainers from schools and training centers they were associated with. Fred Olen Ray however used talent from many different promotions to go along with his crazy main events. Olen Ray would rely on the crazy match stipulations to cover for his lack of in-ring talent. Olen Ray would also book himself in matches with wrestlers such as Mando Guererro and Terry Funk, and also featured many SoCal regulars such as Cincinnati Red, Crayz, Eddie Williams, Logan X, Los Cubanitos (later known as the Havana Pitbulls, Ricky Reyes & Rocky Romero), Samoa Joe, Frankie Kazarian, B-Boy, the Ballard Brothers, and Cheerleader Melissa to name a few.
One wrestler who competed on these events was Jason “Primetime” Peterson.
“I worked a tag with Jason Alllgood and myself against B-Boy and Frankie Kazarian, and the last show I worked, I believe, was myself and Allgood against Samoa Joe and B-Boy,” Peterson would say in a conversation we had about his experience working on ACW events at the Legion. “It was just a small building in a little area, and I thought it was a pretty nice building because [the fans] were all on top of you, and they sold liquor, which is always nice.”
When discussing the crowds and atmosphere of the building, Peterson would describe the crowds and atmosphere in ways similar to how a lot of people would describe the crowds at Pro Wrestling Guerrilla events that take place at the American Legion now. He would also talk about how the crowds were the complete opposite of other local nearby crowds he had worked in front of.
“That’s what I remember most about those shows. They were fun,” Peterson said. “I remember towards the end I worked a UIWA show and it was at that place where they use to run in Woodland Hills (the Bernard Milken Jewish Community Center) and I remember one time I was working with Tech 9 and it was just, the crowd was like, they were assholes. And I was like “this sucks” you know? They weren’t cheering, they weren’t booing. It was more like people trying to be part of the shows and being assholes.
“Really, at the end of it (his career) I was like ‘fuck this,’ I was done.”
When going back to the subject of the fans at the ACW events in Reseda, Peterson had nothing but positive things to say about the crowds there.
“They would buy like, anything. They weren’t jerks, they weren’t smart, they weren’t disrespectful. That’s what I remember. Those shows were fun, and they were just along for the ride.”
ACW would end up releasing a nationally distributed DVD called “ACW: Wrestling’s Wildest Matches!” that advertised fire, barbwire, light bulbs, and rattlesnakes on the cover. Every single match also features Fred Olen Ray. The DVD is available for purchase on Amazon for $2.99.
Shortly after ACW stopped running shows, another fledgling company would run at the American Legion in Reseda. This time, Gary Yap’s EPIC Pro Wrestling would promote two events in the building during the summer of 2002. EPIC ran their debut event at the El Rey Theatre in the Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles. After this event, Gary Yap would begin to look for a new home for the promotion and wound up in Reseda after a long search for a venue. “I wouldn’t say we CHOSE the Reseda Legion Hall as much as it was simply one of the best options that remained after we carpet bombed Los Angeles county looking for a place to call home” Yap explained when asked about using the venue. “Personally, I love the venue. Although we ran there only twice, both were great experiences. For me, at least.”
EPIC’s second event would be one of two shows held at the American Legion in Reseda. The event, called Pain And Suffering, and featured a main event Deathmatch between The Messiah and Nick Mondo, along with matches featuring wrestlers such as Sabu, Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, Brian Kendrick, Super Dragon, B-Boy, Vampiro, and Nozawa to name a few.
“Of the two crowds we had, both were solid. The ‘Pain & Suffering’ event had fewer folks there than we had anticipated, especially off the heels of something like ‘International Collision’. I remember that was kinda a letdown. They were loud, though, and that card – from top to bottom – was probably the best overall card that year.”
Following an incident where longtime Southern California wrestler The Messiah was attacked in his home, EPIC held a benefit show at the American Legion in Reseda that saw Sabu take on Super Dragon. “The ‘For the Messiah’ event was [standing room only], which was nice” Yap said. “I think we even had to seat folks on the stage. Loved the vibe, overall.”
When asked to share any specific memories of the Legion, Gary shared this story about the late Trent Acid. “[Trent] had sex with a porn star in those bushes in front of the venue. I’m kinda bothered that I can’t remember what her name was now.”
An hour later, Gary would message me after he remembered her name.
“The porn chick’s name was Cassidey.”
After running two events at the American Legion, EPIC would once again move after Dave Marquez joined the promotion in an effort to help EPIC secure a television deal. Gary explained that it wasn’t a move he wanted to make. “We left begrudgingly. At the time, we were trying to settle in a venue where we could shoot TV, which Dave Marquez – who came on board after ‘For the Messiah’ – convinced me to give a shot. He wasn’t feeling Reseda and I relented to him.”
EPIC would run one more event in Glendale, CA at Glendale Studios for a television taping, and would later fold after a series of what can only be described as a series of awful business decisions.
After EPIC, there’s no known or documented results of events taking place in the Reseda area up until the summer of 2006, when wrestling returned to the American Legion in Reseda when a small Lucha promotion held an event in conjunction with a Psychobilly dance. After that, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla would hold the 2006 Battle Of Los Angeles at the Legion after the owners of the venue PWG had been running at (the Hollywood-Los Felix JCC) leased their building out to a gymnastics program for children, forcing PWG to look for a new home.
The American Legion Post 308 would be packed three nights in a row from September 1st through the 3rd. PWG brought in stars from Dragon Gate in Japan along with many top stars form the North American scene. From that point on, PWG would run a few more events in Reseda before spending most of 2007 running events at local National Guard armories in nearby Van Nuys and Burbank. Pro Wrestling Guerrilla would begin to run at the American Legion in Reseda regularly again in 2008, with an occasional show taking place outside of Reseda between 2008 and 2012. Aside from those events, the American Legion Post 308 would end up becoming the home of Pro Wrestling Guerrilla with the company selling out shows at the building for years now, with another sell-out show set to take place this Friday night.
While the names and faces have changed throughout the years, one person has been around to see all these events at the American Legion was the man who runs the building. Legion Larry, as he is called by PWG fans and wrestlers alike, has been a fixture of events at the American Legion Post 308 and would never be shy about making his presence known during shows. He’s most famous for his obsession with Joey Ryan, even giving him back massages during matches and tons of heat for years. Many people have different stories about Larry. The guy is a character. I myself remember seeing him yelling at a woman in a wheelchair to stand up, as well as convincing an overweight woman to show her breasts after an event at the Legion.
“I was watching a lot of old stuff from the 80’s,” said Primetime Peterson, telling a story about an incident he had with Larry during a show at the Legion. “I saw something where Macho Man had come out on [Tuesday Night Titans] and he had a bunch of paper with him and he cut them up in a million pieces, and when they announced his name, he opened the curtain and he throw them up in the air and went ‘Yeah!’ And I thought that was funny and so I decide to duplicate that!”
“I came out against, I think it was Shane 54, and I did the same thing. I walked out, and I threw [the paper] up in the air and he’s like ‘Ah! Who’s going to clean to clean that up?!’ I just thought it was so funny, I was like ‘what the hell, what are you so angry about?’ He kinda killed my buzz, I thought it was funny! This guy’s yelling at me from behind! I was like ‘man, I’m coming out for my entrance right now!’’
Gary Yap also shared some interesting tidbits about Legion Larry, as he used an EPIC event to promote a brand of beer he was selling at his establishment.”Some folks might remember him trying to push that Otra Beer on us to advertise during the ‘Pain & Suffering’ event. Ugh.”
Gary also mentioned Larry’s obsession with thumb-wrestling, and the time Larry faced Sabu. “He also had a thing for thumb-wrestling. He thumb-wrestled Sabu once and Sabu sold his thumb as ‘broken’ after their contest.”
Reseda, California has hosted tons of wrestling events over the years and people from all around the world have flocked to this small San Fernando Valley community to watch professional wrestling for years now. From the Country Club hosting UWF and XPW events, to the American Legion hosting Pro Wrestling Guerrilla shows now, Reseda has seen lots of legends and some of the biggest names in the wrestling industry perform in the area with names like Terry Funk, Cactus Jack, Sabu, Bryan Danielson, Samoa Joe, and many more passing through the area. While this article doesn’t have the complete history of pro wrestling in Reseda, there is still enough evidence on the surface that supports the idea that this suburb in Los Angeles is a historic wrestling town with lots of history behind it that’s still being made today.
Note: While it’s possible more wrestling has taken place aside from what’s mentioned in this article, it was hard to come across information about events taking place before the 90’s, and no records or results of wrestling in the Reseda area before the UWF events at the Reseda Country Club in 1990.
Special thanks to Jason “Primetime” Peterson, Gary Yap, and Steve Bryant for their help with this article.
Most information about dates and results were found at www.cagematch.net, one of the best online resources for professional wrestling. Check them out.During an emotional news conference at Yankee Stadium, Teixeira battled back tears as he announced his intention to retire at the conclusion of this season. He often touted the consistency on the back of his bubble-gum cards, tallying eight straight seasons of at least 30 home runs and 100 RBIs, but it has become too difficult for him to continue producing those round numbers.
NEW YORK -- The final out of the 2009 World Series landed safely in Mark Teixeira's glove at first base, helping the Yankees christen their new ballpark with a championship. It would be just one of many memorable moments for a player who hopes to be remembered for his 14 Major League seasons as a slick-fielding switch-hitter with power.
NEW YORK -- The final out of the 2009 World Series landed safely in Mark Teixeira's glove at first base, helping the Yankees christen their new ballpark with a championship. It would be just one of many memorable moments for a player who hopes to be remembered for his 14 Major League seasons as a slick-fielding switch-hitter with power.
During an emotional news conference at Yankee Stadium, Teixeira battled back tears as he announced his intention to retire at the conclusion of this season. He often touted the consistency on the back of his bubble-gum cards, tallying eight straight seasons of at least 30 home runs and 100 RBIs, but it has become too difficult for him to continue producing those round numbers.
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"I gave you everything I had," Teixeira said, pausing to compose himself. "It wasn't always enough, but I tried my best, and I'm proud to have a World Series ring with the Yankees. It's something I'll never forget."
As recently as this spring, Teixeira had been optimistic about his chances of playing another five seasons, but he has been limited by persistent neck spasms and an articular cartilage tear in his right knee that will require surgery. Teixeira entered Friday hitting.198 with 10 home runs and 27 RBIs in 77 games, and said he has tired of spending his days receiving treatment.
Teixeira to retire after 2016 season
"As the season went on, I just realized that my body couldn't do it anymore," Teixeira said. "If I'm going to grind through seasons not being healthy, I'd rather be home with my family. I'd rather do something else. I miss my kids way too much to be in a training room in Detroit rather than being at their dance recital or their school play."
Teixeira said that he came to his decision shortly after hitting career homer No. 400 on July 3 at San Diego's Petco Park, when he joined Mickey Mantle (536), Eddie Murray |
izarre Foods America at Amazon.com!
9. Ox Penis
In Western countries, Ox Penis is usually dried and sold as dog treats, but in many Oriental nations, they are commonly eaten by humans. The penis is generally cooked by steaming or deep frying, and can also be eaten raw. Some westerners compare the tastes of some penises with overcooked squid.
8. Bird Spit
The nests in question here are produced by a variety of Swifts, specifically Cave Swifts who produce the nest by spitting a chemical compound that hardens in the air. The nests are considered a delicacy in China and are one of the most expensive animal products consumed by humans. It is generally served as a soup but can also be used as a sweet. When combined with water, the hard nests take on a gelatinous texture. This is one that I have eaten myself, on a trip to Hong Kong and I included it on the list of Top 10 Luxury Foods. My experience of the nest was that it tasted slightly musty and had the texture of snot. It is probably the only pudding in my life that I could not finish!
7. Caterpilla Fungus
Image from Weirdmeat.com
Caterpilla Fungus is a species of parasitic fungus that grows on insect larvae. The fungus invades the body of the Thitarodes caterpillars, eventually killing and mummifying it. The dark brown to black fruiting body (or mushroom) emerges from the ground in spring or early summer, always growing out of the forehead of the caterpillar. The fungus is commonly used as a Chinese or Tibetan medicine where it is used as an aphrodisiac and as a treatment for a variety of ailments, from fatigue to cancer. It is also served in soup (as you can see in the image above).
6. Rats
Rats are surprisingly common food in some parts of the world. In North Korea they are eaten because there is often little else to eat in the villages. They are generally field rats rather than the city rats that most of us are familiar with. They are described as being tough and stringly with a taste like chicken (surprise!) Recently Reuters had this to say:
Live rats are being trucked from central China, suffering a plague of a reported 2 billion rodents displaced by a flooded lake, to the south to end up in restaurant dishes, Chinese media reported.
You can read the full article here.
Get free shipping, thousands of movies, and millions of streaming songs with a FREE trial of Amazon Prime at Amazon.com!
5. Monkeys Brains
This is disgusting primarily because of the very high risk of contracting fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and other similar brain diseases. In parts of China, the monkey’s brain is eaten raw. While it is most likely an urban legend1, some people claim that monkeys’ brains are, or were, eaten from the head of a live monkey. Here is a common description:
The monkey’s head was supported by its neck in a bracket, two pieces of wood with a semicircular hole on each side such that when you put them together, they form a complete circle around the animal’s neck, allowing the head to be exposed above the plank. The hair around the head is shaven with a shaving razor. A small chisel and a hammer is used to quickly chisel a circle around the crown, and the top part of the skull is removed. A teaspoon is used to scoop up the brain, which is immediately eaten. This has to be done before the monkey dies.
And here is an article from The Straight Dope talking about this alleged practice.
4. Spiders
Image from Weirdmeat.com
These spiders from Skuon in Cambodia are similar to North American Tarantulas. They are bred in holes in the ground especially for eating and are deep fried. The texture is described as crispy-chewy and some say it tastes similar to crab. Like Tarantulas, these spiders can bite. They were a regular survival food of the Khmer Rouge. The photograph above is an actual photo of one of the spiders ready to be eaten. Here is a rather unfortunate description by Michael on Weirdmeat:
The taste itself is not strong, it’s the cripsy-chewy texture that is most appealing. Make sure you have some paper napkins, as the black juice from these is greasy and it doesn’t look good on your goatee.
(I had to write this item with my eyes closed.)
3. Bee Larvae
Image from Weirdmeat.com
Bee Larvae is eaten in China and Japan (where it is called hachinoko). Hachinoko became popular years ago when country people, deprived of fish and meats, turned to other wildlife in search of protein. The larvae are cooked in soy sauce and sugar and taste mildly sweet with a crumbly texture. These days, it is mainly a nostalgia item at parties. It makes a grand entrance in the festivities, and the older folks grin with expectation. The actual task of eating hachinoko, however, is not nearly so exciting.
2. Balut – Duck Fetus
Balut is a fertilized duck egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell. They are considered delicacies of Asia and especially the Philippines, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Popularly believed to be an aphrodisiac and considered a high-protein, hearty snack, balut are mostly sold by street vendors at night in the regions where they are available. They are often served with beer. Michael, from WeirdMeat, describes the experience thus:
After you choose what kind you want, the vendor grabs them piping hot from the basket and passes you a little stool, salt, and a vinegar-onion sauce. You hold the hot egg and flick carefully but forcefully at the top of it with your middle finger. It cracks a bit and you gently remove a small hole from the top, so you can sip the savory broth before removing the whole shell. I agree that the 18-day one is better than the younger ones. You might come across some small chunkies but it’s usually just eaten all the way through, in about 3 mouthful bites. You can see feathers, head, wings, and skeleton forming, but it’s basically an extra-chewy easter egg.
Fertilized duck eggs are kept warm in the sun and stored in baskets to retain warmth. After nine days, the eggs are held to a light to reveal the embryo inside. Approximately eight days later the balut are ready to be cooked, sold, and eaten.
1. Snake Blood and Bile
This is less a food than a medicine, but it is so disgusting that it warrants a place on the list. In Central Jakarta, a man who calls himself the Cobra man specializes in preparing blood and bile for medicinal uses. Typically, he cuts off the head and drains the blood into a glass of arrack. He adds the bile and serves the drink as a treatment for respiratory ailments, skin problems, aches or indigestion. It is also said to improve a man’s stamina and sex life. Drinking the blood straight from a snake can also be done as an act of bravery or manliness. In defense of the blood eaters, I should remind everyone that pigs blood is very commonly eaten in most European nations in the form of black pudding or blood sausage.
Sources: WeirdMeat, Wikipedia
1. In bold so the skim readers won’t yell at me in the comments for referring to an urban legend as fact.
Follow us on Facebook or subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter so you don't miss out on our latest lists.HOLLYWOOD, CA - FEBRUARY 26: Actor Patrick Stewart arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of 'Jack The Giant Slayer' at TCL Chinese Theatre on February 26, 2013 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)
We all know Sir Patrick Stewart as an incredibly talented Shakespearean and Star Trek-ian actor with perhaps the coolest voice on the planet and a heart of gold, but he's also on Twitter and has one of our favorite feeds out there: @SirPatStew. Without further ado, here are 13 reasons you must follow him right now.
1. He rides a horse wearing an awesome cowboy hat.
End of year camera clean out, #2. pic.twitter.com/p27184Sa — Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) December 31, 2012
2. He poses in a toga and looks fantastic.
3. He isn't afraid to be silly.
Self portrait with candy floss pic.twitter.com/x9mSURFOln — Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) May 9, 2013
4. He rescued a baby bird.
Help. Found a tiny baby bird in my garden and brought it in. What can I do? pic.twitter.com/ZupAYjDatI — Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) May 19, 2013
And sparked a conversation about what people should do when they find baby birds.
5. He eats his first ever "slice" of pizza...
My first ever pizza "slice". Please note: the authentic NY fold. pic.twitter.com/X7nWRbftyh — Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) May 29, 2013
When the Twitterverse thinks he's never had pizza before, he clarifies.
To clarify: 1) I've never had a "slice" 2) I've been a Habs fan all of 4 weeks 3) I'm also a fan of Bloomberg's soda legislation. — Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) May 29, 2013
And then Brent Spiner (aka Data) weighs in.
I saw @SirPatStew eat a slice of pizza 22 years ago. But, to give him his due, he thought it was a hamburger. — Brent Spiner (@BrentSpiner) May 30, 2013
And a few days later, he's eating deep dish.
Continuing Ed: Deep Dish. Must admit - at home with a knife and fork. pic.twitter.com/k7LoFKitbn — Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) June 2, 2013
6. This.
Who doesn't love winter citrus season? pic.twitter.com/QgZ9LhFJ — Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) February 11, 2013
7. He takes naps with cats.
Another gruelingly busy boxing day. pic.twitter.com/aN5wKcis — Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) December 26, 2012
8. Of course he knows how to operate a snow blower.
Bespoke driveway clearing. Special holiday rates available. pic.twitter.com/6A1HGmUi — Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) December 28, 2012
9. He buys a Christmas tree...
And struggles with a tangled mass of Christmas lights...
Et voila!
10. He shows us what a "Belgium Dip" is with his foamy cappuccino.
"It's how we do it in Belgium...it's called a Belgium Dip." pic.twitter.com/R4cRjz6Z — Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) December 2, 2012
Foamy nose!
11. He notices signs on the street and takes pictures of them, just like us! (Totally scary, we agree!)
12. He looks noble on a ski lift.There are folders full of Dianne Feinstein photo ops in The Chronicle archive; she was on a cable car with Mick Jagger, in a bathing suit at Pier 39 and, as a 16-year-old, posing with a calf at the Cow Palace. (The future U.S. senator once ran for livestock queen, and did not win. A story for another day …)
But nothing was so bizarre and unexpected and Byzantinely political as the time in 1982 that Feinstein hung out with Pac-Man.
Some background:
“Pac-Man” was a hugely popular arcade game in 1982, hoping to break out even bigger in the home video game console market. But at the same time, San Francisco city leaders had been considering legislation that would ban arcades in residential areas, which then-Mayor Feinstein supported.
Meanwhile, Feinstein was mounting a high-profile $10 million campaign to save the cable car system, in a race against time, with an additional $50 million for the project from the U.S. Department of Transportation on the line.
A $1 million pledge by Atari was enough to persuade the mayor to appear in public with a 7-foot-tall Pac-Man mascot and pretend that she liked video games for 15 minutes.
“This is a Bay Area company of which we are very proud,” Feinstein told a crowd of about 100 gathered at the foot of California Street at noon. “Everybody should go and buy a Pac-Man cassette, because Pac-Man made this possible.”
The photos of the event, taken by Chronicle photographer Steve Ringman, look … awkward.
At a time when smoking was still allowed at some Bay Area high schools, city and county legislators throughout the state were banning arcades, claiming they were a danger to children.
The Chronicle had been printing a stream of articles demonizing games as directly leading to zombified children and a spike in crime. (“Youths Steal to Support Video Game Playing,” read one March 1982 Chronicle headline. “New York Study Links Drugs to Video Game Parlors,” read another.)
At the same time, the future of the cable car line was threatened, with some citizens unbelievably suggesting they were a poor long-term investment and that the city should get rid of them. So when Feinstein’s crusade for cable cars came in conflict with her position against neighborhood arcades, she chose … to hang out with Pac-Man.
Atari executive Raymond E. Kasser pressed a few buttons on an Atari computer and the money was transferred. There was an Atari 2600 video game console set up on the cable car, which Feinstein appeared to avoid.
But the mayor seemed genuinely charmed by the giant Pac-Man mascot, which was oddly covered in thick fur.
“As a token of gratitude to the Sunnyvale-based computer firm, Feinstein unveiled a plaque on Cable Car No. 59 that declares that the car has been adopted by Atari,” The Chronicle reported the next day.
When asked about the brewing neighborhood arcade controversy, Feinstein sidestepped the question.
“I don’t think we’ll discuss that right now,” she said.
The cable cars were saved and continue to prove to be an incredible investment. Later that summer, video game arcades were indeed banned in residential areas, with Feinstein’s backing. That law stayed on the books until 2014.
Meanwhile, the “Pac-Man” cartridge (it wasn’t a cassette, Sen. Feinstein) was a massive failure, and the beginning of the end for Atari, which cratered financially the following year.
But the onetime video game giant will never die, in our collective memories, and on the streets of San Francisco. After The Chronicle posted a query on Twitter, reader Jeremy Whiteman produced photo proof that in 2017 the plaque remains on Car No. 3.
“This cable car has been adopted by Atari,” it still reads, with the Atari corporate symbol underneath.
Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle pop culture critic. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaubComing Soon
Budapest
Two best friends put their careers and marriages on the line when they launch a business hosting outrageous, anything-goes bachelor parties in Hungary.
Nowhere Man
A strange encounter causes a man awaiting execution to experience alternate timelines, leading to his escape from prison to protect his family.
Rilakkuma and Kaoru
Kaoru's unexpected new roommate is Rilakkuma, a bear with a zipper on its back that spends each day just lazing around -- but is impossible to hate.
Mixtape
This romantic musical drama follows the love stories connecting an eclectic group of people in modern-day Los Angeles.
Tall Girl
Standing 6-foot-3, 16-year-old "tall girl" Jodi has never had a boyfriend. But that could change when a tall exchange student enrolls at her school.
The Highwaymen
The untold story of the detectives who brought down Bonnie and Clyde comes to life in this crime drama starring Woody Harrelson and Kevin Costner.
Tales of the City
Middle-aged Mary Ann returns to San Francisco and the eccentric friends she left behind. Based on Armistead Maupin's books and starring Laura Linney.
The Ghost Bride
In 1890s Malacca, a young woman finds herself in the afterlife and becomes mired in a murder mystery connected to the deceased son of a wealthy family.Interesting research: Douglas W. Allen and Peter T. Leeson, "Institutionally Constrained Technology Adoption: Resolving the Longbow Puzzle," Journal of Law and Economics, v. 58, Aug 2015.
Abstract: For over a century the longbow reigned as undisputed king of medieval European missile weapons. Yet only England used the longbow as a mainstay in its military arsenal; France and Scotland clung to the technologically inferior crossbow. This longbow puzzle has perplexed historians for decades. We resolve it by developing a theory of institutionally constrained technology adoption. Unlike the crossbow, the longbow was cheap and easy to make and required rulers who adopted the weapon to train large numbers of citizens in its use. These features enabled usurping nobles whose rulers adopted the longbow to potentially organize effective rebellions against them. Rulers choosing between missile technologies thus confronted a trade-off with respect to internal and external security. England alone in late medieval Europe was sufficiently politically stable to allow its rulers the first-best technology option. In France and Scotland political instability prevailed, constraining rulers in these nations to the crossbow.When it comes to losing fat without losing muscle to get that lean, healthy body you want, eating less calories then you burn while controlling insulin levels is critical. So how can you eat less calories than you burn without resorting to calorie counting? How do you know what foods spike insulin levels? What about making sure you’re eating enough protein?
While I’ve pointed out the benefits of the Harvard Healthy Eating Pyramid: Best Nutrition Guide You Don’t Know About, which I think is a solid framework for the general public, I wanted to take things a step further for you more advanced fitness devotees by introducing you to a conceptual framework I personally use and many natural bodybuilders, fitness models, and some sports nutritionists use as well, but it’s not mainstream at all.
This conceptual framework is based on 5 food groups, but they are different from the five food groups you probably know.
The Old Five Food Groups: USDA MyPyramid
The traditional food pyramid separates out food groups based on their basic properties:
1) Grains
Any food made from wheat, rice, oats, cornmeal, barley or another cereal grain is a grain product. Grains are divided into 2 subgroups, whole grains and refined grains. Whole grains contain the entire grain kernel — the bran, germ, and endosperm whereas refined grains have been milled, a process that removes the bran and germ.
Unrefined
Whole-wheat flour
Bulgur (cracked wheat)
Oatmeal
Whole cornmeal
Brown rice Refined
White flour
Degermed cornmeal
White bread
White rice
2) Vegetables
The meaning a vegetable is largely based on culinary and cultural tradition, but usually it means an edible plant, or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit, or seed. Vegetables are further divided into 4 sub-groups:
Dark Green Vegetables
Broccoli
Collard greens
Dark green leafy lettuce Orange Vegetables
Dry Beans and Peas
Kidney beans
Lentils
Lima beans Starchy vegetables
Corn
Green peas
Lima beans (green)
Potatoes Other Vegetables
Artichokes
Asparagus
Bean sprouts
3) Fruits
The non-technical meaning is a structure of a plant that contains seeds and is sweet and edible in its raw state.
• Apples
• Apricots
• Avocado
• Grapes
4) Milk (aka Dairy)
Milk is an “opaque white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals”. Now that sounds appetizing. Milk contains all essential amino acids.
• Whole milk
• Yogurt
• Cheese
• Eggs
5) Meat & Beans
Wait, didn’t we just say beans are a vegetable? Well, according to the USDA, they are in the Meat & Beans group too because they contain some protein. I don’t know about you, but I’m already starting to get confused. Meats include fish, beef, chicken, pork and other wildlife.
Finally, there is “Fat”, or oils, which are technically considered a separate food group, but few people acknowledge this.
The (New) Five Food Groups
The (new) five food groups separate food groups by their macronutrient profile, not just based on whether they are a plant, or animal, fruit, or vegetable. What I mean by “macronutrient profile” is that there are 3 macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fat) that provide calories to your body AND affect your body in different ways.
For example, protein (4 calories per gram) helps repair body tissue such as muscle, ligaments, organs. Carbohydrates (4 calories per gram) provide energy for your body and effect your insulin levels, which in turn directly affects your ability to lose fat. Because eating the right amount and type of carbohydrates is so important for losing fat, carbs are split into three sub-categories, fibrous, starchy, and simple. And finally you have fat, which contains 9 calories per gram, more than double protein and carbs! Dietary fat provides energy, helps maintain proper hormone function, and helps carry vitamins to a name a few of its benefits.
So now, wouldn’t it make sense to group foods based on their macronutrient profile, or roughly how much protein, carbs, or fat they contain? I think so!
Here are the “new” five food groups, which have been used by natural bodybuilders, fitness models, and sports nutritionists for years:
1) Lean Protein
Lean proteins includes any type of protein that has all 8 essential amino acids and is low in fat such as lean meats (fish, chicken, turkey etc.) and low fat dairy.
2) Fibrous Carbs
These are vegetables that are high in fiber, low in sugar and total carbs. From the USDA pyramid, all dark green vegetables are fibrous carbs. Orange vegetables and “beans”, however are NOT considered fibrous carbs, even though they are vegetables because they are much higher in total carbohydrates.
3) Starchy Carbs
Any food that has a relatively high amount of carbs, lower in protein, fat, and sugar is considered a “starchy” carb. Foods include cereals, bread, potatoes, legumes (beans), pasta, rice, and orange veggies like squash. This is similar to the grains category in the USDA pyramid, but with orange veggies and beans thrown in.
Notice how beans are not considered a lean protein, based on their macronutrient profile. Most starchy carbs are rated medium to high on the glycemic index, which rates carbs according to their effect on blood-glucose levels. Starchy carbs are sometimes referred to as “fattening” carbs, but this is a stretch in my opinion. People who follow the Paleo diet (caveman diet), or Atkins diet eat almost no starches. As I’ve said before, I eat a moderate amount (40%-50% of my calories) of natural carbs.
4) Simple Carbs
Fruits, soft drinks like Coke, or sugary foods like a Snickers Bar are considered simple carbs. Of course, fruit is healthier than a candy bar because of the vitamins they contain AND because they typically have a lower insulin effect (fructose vs. sucrose), but all sugary substances go in this category. The molecular structure of “simple” carbs food is less complex than that of starches for example, which is why they typically spike insulin to a greater degree. Of course, I don’t recommend eating anything other than fruits as your source of simple carbs.
5) Fats
If a food derives most of its calories from fat, you can definitely put it in the “fat” category. Avocado, even though it’s technically a fruit, is not a simple carb at all, because it’s mostly fat (75% of calories!).
Fatty meats like bacon and deep fried chicken go in the “fat” category, not the protein category. Did you know a 6 ounce 80/20 hamburger, marked as 80% lean, 20% fat, really has 30 grams of fat, which is almost 60% of calories coming from fat? Other fats include butter, oils, nuts, and hummus, which contains about 40% of its calories from fat.
The limitation to this framework is that these five food groups do not necessarily provide the right nutrients to your body if you don’t eat at least some variety in each category, and some of the foods can be arguably be in 2 groups, like hummus, which can be a starch, but still has 40% of calories from fat.
I do believe, however, that eating foods using the new five food groups conceptual framework, it’s MUCH easier to control total calories and insulin levels, which is what fat loss nutrition is all about. It’s easier to control calories because now you will know what foods are high in fat and you should eat sparingly, you can control carb intake because you will know what foods are high in carbs (manage insulin levels), and finally you can consume ample, high value protein.
I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you think these 5 food groups make more sense to you than the USDA five food groups? Is this even more confusing?MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — It’s been three months since sheriff’s deputies recovered the body of Danielle Jelinek.
She had been missing since Dec. 8 and was last seen at the home of Aaron Schnagl in Chisago Lake Township.
On May 10, Jelinek’s remains were found about 300 yards from Schnagl’s home. Schnagl remains in jail on drug-related charges and has not been cooperating with investigators.
As Danielle’s family waits for answers, they are remembering her in a fitting way. Inside the Cottage Grove home where Danielle grew up, there is now a race to put on a race.
Her family is busy organizing Saturday’s first annual “5K for Dani J.” It will take place at Colby Lake in Woodbury, a place she knew well.
“Danielle was an avid runner, very into fitness. And she had run there numerous times,” said Danielle’s cousin, Amanda Kruse.
So far 196 runners have signed up, and all the proceeds will go towards the Domestic Abuse Project, a nonprofit that works to end the cycle of domestic violence.
“She was always the sweetest girl, loved everybody, nice to everybody. Everywhere we went people knew her and loved her. That’s your cousin? She’s the sweetest girl,” Kruse said.
Kruse said the idea for the race came while her family was still searching for her. It helped them focus on the things that made Danielle happy. And in a lot of ways, Saturday’s race will help the Jelinek’s move forward, while keeping Danielle’s spirit alive.
“Life will never be the same for any of us,” Kruse said. “I guess the one caveat is just thank God we aren’t still searching for her, because the not knowing was far worse than what the reality was I think.”
Danielle’s family did not want to comment on the investigation that is still on-going. The results of the autopsy to determine how she died have not been released.
There is plenty of room for Saturday’s 5K run-walk, and family members of Kira Trevino-Steger and Mandy Matula will also be there.
Kira Steger-Trevino’s body was found the day before Danielle’s body was found. Her husband Jeffery Trevino has been charged with killing her.
Mandy Matula, despite many searches, remains missing.This is my story of why I had a go and why I keep going back again and again.
It was nearly two years ago when I nervously went along to my first Sparks session. I had missed the first one and I was jointly terrified that the Harlots wouldn’t take me and that they would.
Let me start from even further back and tell you about where I was two years ago; I hadn’t done any kind of regular exercise for at least a decade. Except for clubbing at university, I had done nothing since I was 15. I hated my body, suffered from excruciatingly low self confidence and was pretty depressed with life. I had moved to Nottingham in a bid to radically change my life for the better and was determined that I wouldn’t give up this time. I had a vague awareness of roller derby from a friend of a friend who did it and it occurred to me that I was pretty good at falling over and getting in the way so this might actually suit me. I’d also done a tiny bit of roller blading back when I was a teenager and I thought ‘how hard can it be?’
The answer to that question is that it isn’t hard at all, but it is also simultaneously one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life.
Going back to my first session – it flew past in a blur. What I do remember is being held up by a constantly chirpy and encouraging Bunnie Suicide while being told that I was doing really well by May K. Fist. At the end, May came up to me (a sweaty, bright pink mess) and asked me genuinely “Will you be coming back next week?” with a hopeful look on her face. This is when I fell in love with roller derby. I had monopolised the time of one of the trainers for two hours, had to sit down for a breather every 5 minutes and was quite obviously the worst skater in the hall. But here was one of the team excitedly asking me to come back. So I did.
I’m not going to lie – it hurt. I think I managed to pull almost every muscle in my body. The third week was the worst – when I had learnt not to fall over and I was doing much more skating, then my underused muscles were not happy at all. I would hobble round the office for two or three days after practice and I’d be just about recovered before going back. But every time it hurt, it reminded me that I was in fact doing something to improve my health, every time I went I felt like part of a team and every time I came away I would be asked to come back.
I had never once felt like this before. I was always the podgy kid at school who was rubbish at sports. Yeah I was rubbish here, but they wanted me to improve and encouraged me to keep fighting to get better. It was the complete opposite to what I expected from a typical sports team. The thing you learn very quickly is that roller derby is by no way a ‘typical’ sport. The sports women and men who play and ref roller derby do not fit into any ‘typical’ build, size, level of fitness, background or belief system. We are all unique and the things that bind us are determination and passion. How good you happen to be when you first start becomes irrelevant. Roller derby is truly a labour of love and no matter how good you are naturally, those who are great get there through sheer force of will. Which means anyone can be great in time with enough belief and desire to do it.
So in a round about way what I am saying is that the Hellfire Harlots made me feel important. They taught me the value of every team member – that we all had something to offer. Over the months and now years I have become healthier and even lost some weight (although that has never mattered to me as much as getting healthy). I soon began to love my bigger figure; my ‘derby bum’ is harder for jammers to get round and my weight means I’m pretty sturdy in the pack and harder to hit out of bounds. Although I thought I would get healthier if I stuck at it, I never thought I would gain what I have; increased self confidence, more energy, awesome friends and a sense of purpose.
I can’t imagine my life without roller derby in it now and I keep going back week after week even though it still hurts because with motivations like that, why wouldn’t you?
By Kay BlammityMILWAUKEE – Buddy Hield had to figure he had the angles. The New Orleans rookie curled toward the key, saw 7-footer Omer Asik rolling to the rim and, off the dribble, lobbed a pass toward the Pelicans center.
Bucks play-by-play man Jim Paschke already was in mid-observation about Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo as the play unfolded.
“One of the advantages when you’re 6-11 and you’re handling the ball,” Paschke said, “you see the court and the game from the top down.”
No kidding. In that instant, Antetokounmpo flashed in front of Asik to turn the alley into an oops. Three dribbles, two giant steps, a veer between scrambling New Orleans defenders and the Bucks’ “Greek Freak” was dropping in a layup. No need for extended commentary on this one from Paschke, who simply said, “Oh my goodness.”
This has been an oh-my-goodness season so far for Antetokounmpo, his fourth since the Bucks grabbed him with the No. 15 pick in the 2013 Draft. Each year, his game has taken strides nearly as great as his own, from points per 36 minutes (10.0 as a rookie, then 14.6, 17.2 and 23.0) to player-efficiency rating (10.8, 14.8, 18.8 and now 26.5). Through the Bucks’ first nine games, he was averaging 21.3 points, 8.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists while shooting 52.1 percent.
“He has the potential to be one of the greatest to play this game,” veteran teammate Jason Terry said of Antetokounmpo. “I say that because he’s multi-faceted. He’s a great facilitator. He can make every pass on the floor. He has the ability to be a two-way player and lock down the other team’s star, whether he’s a one, two, three or four man.
“And then this other thing which he’s developing is his offensive skill set. His jump shot is getting better – it will get there. But when he gets in the paint and finishes, he’s already one of the best. He’s 6-11, coming at you full speed, and there’s nothing you can do.”
Antetokounmpo was the choice in NBA.com’s annual survey of general managers as the league’s best international player and ranked second only to LeBron James in “versatility.” Plays of the sort described above are among the most exciting you’ll see on any given night in the Association, he’s good for one, two or more almost every time Milwaukee plays, and the native of Athens with the suspension-bridge wingspan still won’t turn 22 until Dec. 6.
Antetokounmpo charmed a group of international reporters from 14 countries Monday on a teleconference call set up by the NBA. But he already had taken time to talk with NBA.com over the weekend:The BBC has released the trailer for the next Doctor Who special, "The Waters Of Mars," which showed at Comic Con yesterday. On second viewing, there's a lot more to this episode than just wet scabby death. Spoilers below.
Could we finally be about to get Russell T. Davies' theory of time travel? We've always had hints that there's a web of time, and certain events can't be changed or the whole universe comes apart. And maybe now we're about to get a bit more elaboration on that theme, which will make our nerdy little brains pulsate. For my money, the third best episode of Doctor Who season four was "The Fires Of Pompeii," and I'm hoping for a bit of a thematic sequel: Once again, the Doctor knows that history can't change, or it's all over. Of course, if his opposite number, the Master, turns up, he might just possibly have a slightly different agenda.
Rather than just being the throwaway adventure on our way to the final two-parter, it's beginning to seem like "Waters Of Mars" may be a corker in its own right. Here's hoping. Thanks to Jeremie for the heads up!I've yet to see this reported anywhere else (yet!) but, according to the CBA, voluntary offseason workouts begin today for teams with returning coaching staffs (which includes the San Diego Chargers).
The Bolts will get a 10-week window for their nine-week offseason programs. Programs cannot exceed four workouts per player in a week and they are limited to weekdays. These initial practices are entirely voluntary, with mandatory minicamps not starting until June.
There will be three phases to the workouts, all spelled out in the CBA. Phase one will cover the first two weeks, with players limited to strength and conditioning or injury rehab. This phase will only allow full-time or part-time strength and condition coaches onto the field that otherwise have no other coaching responsibilities. No footballs can be used, except that quarterbacks may elect to throw to receivers provided they are not covered by any other player. The players cannot wear helmets during phase one.
This means that Norv Turner and John Pagano (and other coaches) cannot be on the field giving instruction for the next three weeks. This is basically time for the strength and conditioning coaches to work the players into shape.
Phase two covers the next three weeks of the offseason workout program. All coaches are allowed onto the field and on-field workouts can include individual player instruction and drills. However, there can be no live contact or team offense versus team defense drills and players cannot wear helmets during this phase.
That will basically serve as three full weeks of walk-throughs, so that new players can catch up and old players can get re-acclimated.
Phase three covers the next four weeks of the workout program, which can include up to ten days of organized team activities. This provides a chance for more instruction and helmets, but players cannot wear any pads, including shells.
This is where the team will go from walk-throughs to run-throughs, with helmets on so that they get accustomed to what they'll see during a game.
If we're able to find any information or pictures from these voluntary workouts, which is doubtful, we'll pass them along.
UPDATE: No |
at best).
But again, maybe the health of the organization overall is in better shape if you’re less dependent on those three buckets so local programming isn’t a great bet for the future. How that delivers on a public media mission and less on a capitalistic one will be for them to figure out.
On the whole, it was a damn awful week for people who believed in the value of quality local news. Discussing it this way gives me no thrill. I want vibrancy in local media.
Now, back to that Knight Foundation report and a quote from the release about it:
“The report highlights that young adults care about their cities and have many concerns that local government can address, but these potential voters lack the information, habits, and social cues that would prompt them to engage and participate in local elections,” said David Mermin, partner at Lake Research Partners.
Chicago recently had a mayoral runoff election. It was historic. Never in the history of Chicago elections did something like this ever happen. The two candidates could not have been more different. Stakes, financial and otherwise, were real. Both candidates cranked up their get out the vote efforts…
Turnout averaged 40%.
I’m generally an optimist, even about the state of journalism and media. This week put me back on my heels a bit. In large part because I work in media so this is a direct concern of mine. But it’s one thing for me to be worried about the future of my friends. At this point, I’m worried about the future of democracy.
UPDATE: My friend Mike Fourcher has a response to the above. I don’t see my argument as “If only someone would provide good local news, people would care” so much as it is “Your audience says they need something and you’re choosing not to provide it.” And if you give an audience what they’re asking for they’ll probably see you as valuable and your chances of survival are better.
“Winter apocalypse” image by Quinn Dombrowski. Used through Creative Commons license.Since I am doing this for the community, I figured I would get some community input. Also, before you take the quiz, you should read this announcement:
If you have an idea for a video or a series, you can send me the script, pictures, and/or any other associated materials and I will piece it together and/or narrate it and post it on the channel. I have already had /u/BullshitSlayer approach me with an idea, and he plans to send me the pictures and script by the end of the week so I can narrate it and post it. You can post the link to the video if you want, and you will be credited for everything you contribute to the video. Hopefully we can get so many videos on the channel that you can sit down and binge-watch CBR all-year long!
Now, all you need to do is take the survey!Danielle Smith is the former leader of the Official Opposition in Alberta, the former leader of the Wildrose Party and the former PC MLA for Highwood.
The beating heart of the Canadian economy is now firmly in the hands of the NDP. Surprised? Don't be.
While it may seem sudden, the rise of Alberta's New Democratic Party has been in the making for the last decade. Slowly but surely the province has been tilting left.
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Ed Stelmach convinced Albertans that royalties were too low and that we shouldn't be shipping raw bitumen in pipelines. He centralized health care and gave generous settlements to unions. Alison Redford convinced Albertans that we needed to take on debt to build infrastructure. Jim Prentice convinced Albertans that we needed to raise taxes. A decade post-Klein, Alberta is the most fiscally and socially progressive province in Confederation. It already was an NDP province – the election of 2015 simply affirmed it.
The movement toward a progressive government began in the latter years of Ralph Klein's leadership. Once Alberta had returned to balanced budgets, reduced taxes and set aside enough money to pay off the debt it didn't have a plan for what came next. The politics of expedience took over.
To win over conservatives, personal and corporate income taxes were slashed, health care premiums were eliminated and all other forms of taxes were frozen.
To win over progressives, labour peace was bought with large settlements to teachers, nurses, doctors and other public service employees – now the most highly paid in the country. A provincial workers' paradise indeed.
As long as resource revenues kept rolling in, the public continued to merrily vote PC with benign disinterest. All was well.
But all was not well. With the crash in the global economy and natural gas prices in 2008, Alberta began to run budget deficits, dipping into savings to mask the shortfall. When savings ran out, the government racked up debt. Then oil prices crashed and the 2015 budget blew the progressive conservative coalition apart: Progressives were furious that corporations were exempted from sharing the pain of tax increases; conservatives were furious that the governing party found 59 ways to increase taxes on middle class taxpayers while doing nothing to cut spending.
Through all this, progressives were winning major victories on LGBTQ rights. The public was already highly sensitized to equality issues because of intolerant comments by a Wildrose candidate in 2012 who stated gays would burn in a "lake of fire." In 2014, the more extreme social conservative views of a few Progressive Conservative cabinet ministers also came to light. Both conservative parties needed to prove they weren't going turn back the clock on issues of morality. With the Liberals and NDP leading the way, Alberta was brought into the 21st century by revising nearly 30 pieces of legislation including the Marriage Act, the Vital Statistics act, the Human Rights Act and the School Act to make Alberta a leader on LGBTQ issues.
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But this is only part of the story. In 2010, the citizens of Calgary elected Mayor Naheed Nenshi in the legendary purple wave. In 2013, the citizens of Edmonton elected Mayor Don Iveson in a similar upset. Both mayors are young, urban and decidedly progressive. Both mayors routed popular rivals backed by the establishment. Both mayors electrified young urban voters with a populist message of pride in community, compassion for one's fellow citizens and the assertion that government can make our lives better. With two-thirds of Alberta citizens living in these cities, it was inevitable that this re-energized progressive vision would spill over into provincial politics.
When Jim Prentice emerged to save the PCs, his return blocked the Wildrose chance to form government. I, and 10 of my Wildrose colleagues, joined the PC caucus because we believed the vote split among conservatives would inevitably allow one of the progressive parties to come up the middle. And now it has.
Not all Albertans are happy with the outcome of the 2015 vote. The majority of Albertans voted for one of the two conservative parties. But the tables have been turned. For decades the PCs enjoyed a vote split on the left that guaranteed their victory. Today, the progressive vote has united behind Rachel Notley's NDP and neither conservative party can win a majority on its own.
The good news about the NDP having a four year majority mandate is it gives the conservative movement time to reunite and reinvent itself to become relevant to a new generation of voters. If they don't, we may just have witnessed the start of a new political dynasty in Alberta.David Zalubowski/Associated Press
Colorado State offensive lineman Nicho Garcia was arrested this week for an alleged assault that took place in October.
Per Kelly Lyell of the Coloradoan, Garcia has been charged with misdemeanor harassment and assault stemming from an altercation with a neighbor.
Garcia turned himself in to authorities on January 24 after an arrest warrant was issued for him last week, and he was released after posting bond.
Colorado State head coach Mike Bobo issued a statement through a university spokesman about Garcia's arrest, which is included in Lyell's report.
"We have been aware of the legal matter involving Nicho Garcia and have been in communication with the university and local authorities throughout the process," Bobo said. "As with all pending legal matters, we do not have further comment at this time."
The alleged victim in the case said Garcia showed up outside of their apartment complex last October and was punched repeatedly "just west of campus by a man he asked to stop urinating next to him."
Garcia was later interviewed by police in December at Colorado State. He's due to appear in court on February 8.
After playing two years at Highland Community College, Garcia committed to play football at Colorado State prior to the 2016 season. He did not play in a game with the Rams last season.This report is for media and the general public.
The SMM monitored the implementation of the “Package of measures for the implementation of the Minsk agreements”. The SMM, based on its monitoring – which was restricted by third parties and by security considerations* – observed that fighting continued in areas around the Donetsk airport and Shyrokyne, east of Mariupol.
Between 10:10 and 11:30hrs on 21 March, while stationary* on Artemovskaya Street (“Donetsk People’s Republic” (“DPR”)-controlled, eight kilometres north-east of Donetsk city centre), the SMM heard sounds of intermittent heavy machine gun fire and 15 explosions, five-six kilometres west of the SMM’s location, in the area of Pisky (government-controlled, 12km north-west of Donetsk). The SMM could not ascertain the type of weaponry or if the fire was incoming or outgoing. At the same location, the SMM heard three outgoing mortar rounds of undetermined calibre, originating approximately 1.5km north-north-west of its location. On 22 March, the SMM had to leave an observation point in Donetsk city* due to two outgoing artillery rounds, whose calibre the SMM could not ascertain, 300m east of its position.
On 22 March, at the Donetsk railway station*, the SMM was told by the deputy head of the station that a projectile had hit a railway administrative building at 8:40hrs on 22 March. The “emergency services” were at the site dealing with the incident. The SMM found a hole in the metal roof in the centre of the building and in the concrete ceiling of the third floor below. Further, the SMM saw pieces of metal (some covered with rust), allegedly part of a rocket. The SMM was not able to conduct a crater analysis, since the exact location of the explosion could not be determined. No eyewitness was available.
While in the area of the Donetsk airport*, between 9:50 and 10:40hrs on 22 March, the SMM heard a continuous exchange of fire, which consisted of heavy machine gun, small arms and light weapons (SALW) fire, automatic grenade launcher, and mortar of undetermined calibre and firing direction (over 40 explosions). The SMM assessed that the small arms fire came from the direction of Spartak (“DPR”-controlled, 11km north-west of Donetsk) and Opytne (government-controlled, 13km north-west of Donetsk). Between 10:05 and 10:38hrs, at the same location the SMM heard 14 explosions five-six kilometres west of its position. The SMM could not ascertain the type of ammunition that caused the explosions or whether the fire was incoming or outgoing. Between 13:45 and 13:55hrs the SMM heard the sounds of eight explosions north-west of the airport area. The SMM could not ascertain the distance or the type of ammunition that caused the explosions, or if the fire was incoming or outgoing.
On 21 March, while positioned* 8km north-east of Donetsk city centre, the SMM observed an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at an altitude of approximately three kilometres, flying in a loop pattern in the area of Donetsk airport and Spartak (“DPR”-controlled, 11km north-west of Donetsk). The SMM could not confirm the identity of the UAV.
On 22 March, in Bezimenne* (“DPR”-controlled, 100km south of Donetsk, 30km east of Mariupol), starting at 11:20hrs and for the duration of one hour, the SMM heard multiple explosions assessed to be tank, artillery and undetermined mortar fire west of its position, possibly Shyrokyne (“DPR”-controlled, 97km south of Donetsk, 20km east of Mariupol). The SMM could not ascertain whether the fire was incoming or outgoing. The SMM also heard SALW fire.
On 22 March, the police chief of Avdiivka (government-controlled, 14km north-west of Donetsk) told the SMM that on 20 and 21 March, the town had come under shelling. The SMM saw damage to several buildings. Through crater analysis, the SMM estimated the bearing of the incoming projectiles as east and south-east. Residents told the SMM that the damage had been caused on 20 and 21 March, respectively. Based on shrapnel fragments found on site, the SMM assessed that the damage had been caused by tank projectiles (125mm HE-FRAG). On 20 March, a 35-year-old man was killed after a direct hit to his house, the SMM was told by the police chief and the deceased’s neighbour.
On 22 March, in government-controlled Pisky (12km north-west of Donetsk), whilst at a position held by a Ukrainian volunteer battalion of the Right Sector, between 11:55 and 12:07hrs, the SMM heard a short burst of outgoing SALW fire, estimated to be around 50m from its position, and several rounds of return SALW fire, hitting the location of the outgoing fire. There were also three rounds of automatic grenade launched fire incoming to other areas around Pisky. At 12:17hrs, one mortar round (82mm) impacted approximately 10m from the SMM’s parked vehicles. All SMM members were in a basement of the Right Sector position, where they moved after the start of the SALW fire, and sustained no injuries. Four members of the volunteer battalion sustained minor injuries and one received non-lethal shrapnel wounds.
On 21 March, the SMM attempted to facilitate a temporary local ceasefire on 22 March in Shyrokyne (97km south of Donetsk, 20km east of Mariupol) in order to allow humanitarian relief for civilians remaining there. The SMM asked a local “DPR” “commander”, who said he was not willing to discuss the issue until the SMM had results of an investigation into an alleged incident in which a “DPR” truck had been hit with an anti-tank missile in the vicinity of Zaichenko (“DPR”-controlled, 88km south of Donetsk), killing two “DPR” members. (See Daily Report 18 March.) The “DPR” “commander” also demanded that SMM unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) stop flights over “DPR” positions, adding that the SMM could not enter the area without his permission.* He said further that he saw a new Ukrainian Armed Forces checkpoint west of Kominternove (government-controlled, 88km south of Donetsk, 22km east of Mariupol) as a provocation and against the spirit of the Minsk Memorandum, adding that consequently he maintained the right to fire at this new position.
In Kominternove, local residents asked for SMM assistance in organizing another effort to remove what they said was unexploded ordnance (UXO) in their village. (See Spot Report 9 March.) The SMM saw two military backpacks each containing three shoulder-held unfired rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), behind the kindergarten wall. Approximately 1.5km west of Kominternove, on the southern side of the road, the SMM observed 17 fresh craters caused by 82mm mortar, estimated as having been fired from an east-north-easterly direction, 2.5km west of the new Ukrainian Armed Forces checkpoint.
On 21 March, upon arrival at an observation point near Sopyne (government-controlled, 99km south of Donetsk, 15km east of Mariupol), the SMM observed black smoke estimated to come from Shyrokyne, possibly a result of shelling earlier in the morning. Between 6:20 and 7:36hrs, the SMM heard two outgoing mortar rounds. The SMM could not ascertain the calibre or the direction. Impacts were heard south-east of the observation point, consistent with the Shyrokyne area. At 9:55hrs the SMM heard seven impacts; some of the sounds were consistent with heavy artillery impacts in or around the Shyrokyne area. At 10:04hrs the SMM heard intense exchanges of SALW fire, also from the general direction of Shyrokyne. Between 10:30 and 10:40hrs the SMM heard SALW fire and four or five outgoing mortar rounds (calibre unidentified) fired west of the SMM’s position, in an easterly direction, towards Shyrokyne. The SMM could not determine the distance or direction from where these were fired due to strong wind. Between 10:55 and 11:10hrs the SMM heard more than 10 heavy explosions from the west. Heavy smoke was seen rising from the area just north of Shyrokyne. The SMM observed an unidentified UAV, helicopter model, appearing from the Azov Sea and making circles east of the observation point, over Ukrainian Armed Forces positions, west of Shyrokyne.
On 22 March, between 5:55 and 6:58hrs, the SMM heard 26 outgoing mortar rounds (undetermined calibre), fired from 500 metres south-east of the SMM’s observation point near Sopyne, in an easterly direction, impacting in an area four kilometres east of its position, in or around Shyrokyne. Between 16:26 and 17:36hrs, the SMM witnessed ceasefire violations as follows: observed 45 outgoing mortar rounds (82mm) fired from approximately 900 metres east of its position, based on the sound, at targets further east; heard heavy automatic machine gun fire originating approximately one kilometre east-south-east of its position; heard SALW fire four kilometres east of its position; observed 21 82mm mortar impacts approximately two kilometres east-north-east of its position; heard two outgoing 82mm mortar rounds from two kilometres south-east of its position; observed 10 outgoing 82mm mortar rounds fired from approximately one kilometre east of its position, based on the sound, at targets further east.
In Berdianske (government-controlled, 98km south of Donetsk, 19km east of Mariupol), between 9:30 and 12:30hrs, the SMM heard over 70 shell impact, probably mortar (undetermined calibre). This included an intense period of shelling with 40 incoming rounds between 10:45 and 10:52hrs, impacting approximately one kilometre north-north-east of the SMM’s position. This intense barrage occurred minutes after two sports utility vehicles were seen moving towards the contact line on the main highway from Mariupol to Novoazovsk (the main road leading to Shyrokyne). The SMM witnessed 62 outgoing 82mm mortar rounds fired from two Ukrainian Armed Forces positions, 300 and 500m north-west of its position. At 14:20hrs, the SMM observed nine 82mm mortar rounds incoming from “DPR”-controlled territory and impacting 150-200m north of its position, following which the SMM left.
On 22 March, the SMM unarmed/unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) conducted two flights on both sides of the contact line east of Mariupol. In Shyrokyne, the UAV observed several buildings on fire, as well as live firing, including two impacts by artillery or mortar fire, and defensive positions in the western side of the village. On one occasion, during the flight over Shyrokyne, the UAV was jammed. In other locations around both sides of the contact line east of Mariupol, the UAV observed several armoured vehicles (tanks, armoured personnel carriers, crew transport vehicles), artillery systems (towed howitzers and Akatsiya-type self-propelled artillery), multi launch rocket systems (Grad), military support vehicles, and military installations.
On 22 March, at a Ukrainian Armed Forces checkpoint in Trokhizbenka (government-controlled, 33km north-west of Luhansk), the SMM observed two fresh craters in the area. The checkpoint personnel told the SMM that at 22:00hrs on 21 March the checkpoint had been hit by four 120mm artillery shells, with no casualties. Checkpoint personnel said they have a list of local people who are authorized to cross without a permit.
On 21 March, whilst at a position three kilometres from Smile (“Lugansk People’s Republic” (“LPR”)-controlled, 32km north-west of Luhansk), the SMM heard seven artillery rounds fired from approximately 10km north of its position. The SMM was not able to ascertain whether it was outgoing or incoming fire.
On 21 March, whilst in Sabivka (“LPR”-controlled, 12km west of Luhansk), the SMM heard 10 outgoing shots coming from an “LPR” tank training centre located near Oleksandrivsk (“LPR”-controlled, nine kilometres west of Luhansk, less than 15km from the contact line agreed in Minsk on 19 September 2014). The SMM visited the said centre and observed 15 to 20 main battle tanks engaged in a firing exercise.
On 22 March, at the bridge between Krasnyi Lyman (“LPR”-controlled, 30km north-west of Luhansk) and Trokhizbenka (government-controlled, 33km north-west of Luhansk) the SMM saw that the checkpoint in the government-controlled area was operating while there was no “LPR” checkpoint on the other side. People crossing told the SMM that the bridge serves as an alternative to the damaged bridge in Stanytsia Luhanska (government-controlled, 16km north-east of Luhansk).
On 21 and 22 March the SMM revisited five Ukrainian Armed Forces heavy weapons holding areas, all of which comply with the respective withdrawal lines. All the weapons previously recorded were in situ except for two mortars in one of the places. In another of the mentioned sites, additional weapons had been stored.
On 21 and 22 March, the SMM visited* three “DPR”-controlled holding areas to verify the presence of heavy weaponry. In one of them, the SMM saw only ammunition. The three areas comply with the respective withdrawal lines.
On 20 March, in Dnepropetrovsk, the SMM monitored a “March for Social Justice”, organized, among others, by trade unions representing workers of Yuzhmash industrial plant, Svoboda Party, the All-Ukrainian Union of Veterans, Euromaidan Dnipro, and the “Committee to Fight Corruption, Organized Crime and Violations of Citizens’ Rights”. The march began at the railway station at 10:30hrs and concluded at the city hall at 11:30hrs. Some 300-400 men and women of different ages took part. Participants protested against unpaid salaries of Yuzhmash workers, rising transport costs, and what they saw as corruption in local and central government and inadequate taxation of oligarchs. Around 50 uniformed police were visible throughout the event, facilitating the march by stopping traffic where necessary. The event concluded peacefully.
The SMM continued to monitor the situation in Kherson, Odessa, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Lviv and Kyiv.
* Restrictions on SMM access and freedom of movement:
The SMM is restrained in fulfilling its monitoring functions by restrictions imposed by third parties and security considerations including the lack of information on whereabouts of landmines.
The security situation in Donbas is fluid and unpredictable and the ceasefire does not hold everywhere. For this reason, the SMM requires security guarantees from “DPR” and “LPR” which are not always provided. Where such guarantees are limited to escorted movements, and escorts are not provided for all planned patrols or are delayed, this also represents a restriction of SMM freedom of movement.
In particular during the reporting period:
- At a “DPR” checkpoint in Michurine (61km south of Donetsk), SMM monitors were requested to disembark from their vehicles. The “DPR” members performed a thorough search of the vehicles. One SMM member was asked to reveal his nationality. The SMM was allowed to proceed after 25 minutes.
- At a checkpoint on the southern entrance to Horlivka (“DPR”-controlled, 39km north-east of Donetsk), the “DPR” escort advised the SMM not to visit the western part of the city or use the direct highway from Horlivka to Donetsk, citing security concerns.
- Near a Ukrainian Armed Forces heavy weapons storage site, four self-propelled 122mm howitzers were brought out and made ready for inspection by the SMM, but then the unit’s press attaché demanded that SMM monitors reveal their citizenship and said that he believed that SMM monitors were passing information about Ukrainian Armed Forces weapons storage to the “DPR”, whilst not checking weapons of the “DPR” side.
- On 21 March, at Lebedynske (government-controlled, 83km south of Donetsk, 16km east of Mariupol) the SMM was stopped at a checkpoint comprised of members of a volunteer battalion and was asked to proceed to their base in the centre of the village to explain the purpose of its visit to the commander. After 20 minutes the SMM was allowed to proceed.
- On 21 March, the SMM was unable to proceed to Shyrokyne on the E58 due to an unmanned roadblock just west of Shyrokyne (on the left flank of Ukrainian Armed Forces stationed there) made up with ammunition boxes and felled trees.
- On 21 March, on its way to Pavlopil (80km south of Donetsk, 25km north-east of Mariupol), the SMM was stopped at a government checkpoint and was requested to show patrol members’ passports. The SMM was allowed to pass after ten minutes.
- On 21 March, the SMM accessed a “DPR”-controlled site to verify the presence of heavy weaponry. A man who identified himself as the “DPR” “field commander” insisted on escorting the SMM to a warehouse, where the SMM saw a stock of ammunition.
- On 21 March, the SMM attempted to observe the damaged bridge in Stanytsia Luhanska (between “LPR”-controlled and government-controlled areas, 16km north-east of Luhansk) and saw in the area a Ukrainian TV crew, escorted by a Ukrainian Armed Forces vehicle. As both vehicles started to approach the SMM, the SMM turned back. The SMM tried to approach the bridge later the same day but was denied passage through the last government checkpoint before the bridge by the deputy commander of “Tornado” volunteer battalion, citing recent sniper activity in the area.
- On 22 March, at a checkpoint near Muratove (government-controlled, 50km north-west of Luhansk), SMM vehicles were inspected by Ukrainian military officers. After the SMM identified themselves with OSCE ID cards and OSCE red books, a Ukrainian military officer asked the SMM to show their national passports. The officer stated that any Russian members of the SMM coming to the area would be killed.
- On 22 March, the SMM attempted to visit the border town of Diakove (“LPR”-controlled 70km south of Luhansk). When approaching the town, the SMM was stopped at a checkpoint by the “commander” who informed that the road to Diakove was closed due to de-mining activity. According to him, 12 farm vehicles had been damaged while trying to cultivate fields in the area and a vehicle of checkpoint guards had been damaged when it ran over an anti-personnel mine while travelling along the road near Diakove. Regardless of these activities, the SMM would not be permitted to patrol in the border area without authorization from the responsible “LPR” structure. When the checkpoint commander was shown the two “freedom of movement letters” one signed by the “LPR” “prime minister”, the second signed by the “commandant” of the “Lugansk People’s Militia”), the “commander” said that neither of these letters mentioned the border zone (areas within 15km of the border).
- On 22 March, the SMM was escorted into the Chervonopartyzansk mine (“LPR”-controlled, 64km south east of Luhansk) after a short delay, during which the Cossack escorts obtained permission to enter.Updated Monday, 10:08: a.m.:
The online petition to save ABC’s “Forever” has almost doubled over the last 24 hours. It now has more than 12,600 signatures.
Original Story:
Despite a loyal following and a promising premise, ABC’s “Forever” didn’t exactly live up to its name. The crime/science-fiction drama, centering on a New York medical examiner who happens to be immortal, expired Friday after only one season -- the victim of spring cleaning as ABC makes room for its fall slate.
Now fans are rallying to save the high-concept drama from total oblivion. Under the hashtag #SaveForever Sunday, viewers beseeched the Alphabet Network with Facebook and Twitter appeals to keep the show on the air. A number of fans are saying the show suffered not because it was of poor quality but because ABC failed to give it the marketing push it deserves.
“There is a great lack of excellent television these days,” one Facebook user wrote. “‘Forever’ is one that deserves another chance and better marketing to bring in more viewers. It is a gem of a show, and I would hate to see it discarded just because not enough people know of its existence.”
Some fans are saying another network -- or perhaps Netflix Inc. -- should pick up the series where ABC left off. Such a move would not be unprecedented. For instance, Hulu is rumored to be in talks to revive Fox’s “The Mindy Project” after the ax fell on that series.
An online petition targeting Warner Bros. Television, the distributor of “Forever,” is calling on the company to explore other options and keep the show alive. The petition attracted more than 6,500 signatures in less than two days.
Campaigns to save canceled series are pretty common, but, unfortunately for viewers, rarely successful. Last year, fans of the “Dallas” reboot took to social media and demanded mercy for the Ewing clan after TNT axed the series. The effort was ultimately abandoned.
Still, the rapid outreach for “Forever” speaks to a growing chasm between broadcast television’s business model -- which relies on attracting massive audiences to win over advertisers -- and the sometimes small but passionate audiences that gravitate toward certain series. “Forever” averaged almost 5 million viewers an episode, which is far larger than the audience for cable-TV hits such as “Mad Men” on AMC.
“Forever” stars the Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd, who admitted the cancellation took him by surprise in an Instagram post Friday. “Tonight, as you all now know, I received a phone call that I was hoping not to receive, and to be honest I really wasn’t expecting it,” Gruffudd wrote. “I knew the numbers hadn’t been great, but I also knew the studio and the network both loved the show, and of course that it had an incredible fan base... so I thought we were in with a pretty good chance.”
Christopher Zara is a senior writer who covers media and culture. News tips? Email me here. Follow me on Twitter @christopherzara.Dr. John Dee, the Necronomicon & the Cleansing of the World -
A Gnostic Trail
© Colin Low 1996, revised 2000
The Necronomicon is the rarest and most terrible of the magical grimoires. According to New England horror writer Howard Philip Lovecraft, the Necronomicon was
"Composed by Abdul Al-Hazred, a mad poet of Sanaa, in Yemen, who is said to have flourished during the period of the Ommiade caliphs, circa 700 A.D. He visited the ruins of Babylon and the subterranean secrets of Memphis and spent ten years alone in the great southern desert of Arabia - the Roba al Khaliyeh, or "Empty Space" of the ancients and "Dahma" or "Crimson" desert of the modern Arabs, which is held to be inhabited by protective evil spirits and monsters of death. Of this desert many strange and unbelievable marvels are told by those who pretend to have penetrated it. In his last years, Al-Hazred dwelt in Damascus, where the Necronomicon (Al Azif) was written, and of his final death or disappearance (738 A.D.) many terrible and conflicting things are told." (Lovecraft)
In his history of the Necronomicon, Lovecraft adds that it was translated into English by Dr. John Dee. This manuscript was never published and survives only in rare and often incomplete copies. The fabulous Necronomicon (in freehand copies of the vernacular Dee translation) features in a number of Lovecrafts better tales, such as The Dunwich Horror. Despite many attempts to show that the Necronomicon is nothing more than Lovecrafts literary invention, a group of prominent authors and occultists claimed to provide confirmation of part of Lovecrafts claim. In 1978 a book researched by David Langford and Robert Turner claimed that Alhazreds Necronomicon had been preserved by Alkindi in his treatise The Book of the Essence of the Soul. In his introduction to Turner and Langfords book, Colin Wilson, the occult writer and author of the classic study of intellectual alienation The Outsider, details Lovecrafts family history. He notes that Dr. Stanislaus Hinterstoisser, president of the Salzburg Institute for the Study of Magic and Occult Phenomena, claimed that Lovecraft's father was an Egyptian Freemason and that Lovecrafts father had had access to the Necronomicon. (In point of fact, Lovecrafts father was a travelling salesman who died a siphilitic while Lovecraft was young, and is almost certainly being confused with Lovecrafts bibliophile maternal grandfather). Co-author Robert Turner, after extensive work on John Dees manuscripts held in the Bristish Museum, showed that Alkindis lost work had been preserved by John Dee in an enciphered form called the Liber Logaeth. This is not an implausible suggestion. Dee was a passionate collector of books, and owned one of the largest libraries in Europe. He was familiar with ciphers and travelled widely on the continent of Europe, to the extent that at least one biographer has suggested he was a 16th. century James Bond acting on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I and her ministers. It is known that one of the foremost works on occultism and encipherment of the period, the Steganographia of the Abbot Trithemius, was copied by Dee in longhand over a period of days in an intense burst of activity. An engraved portrait of Edward Kelly, Dees partner and scryer in the angelic revelations, is shown holding a open volume with the name "Trithemius" on the page. The Liber Logaeth does exist (Sloane 3189????), and is a combination of an incomprehensible angelic language (which Kelly understood only while in trance) and a series of letters composed into a series of 49 by 49 squares.
As if this was not enough, another mysterious cipher manuscript has also been connected with Dee, the baffling Voynich manuscript. Despite many attempts to decipher this manuscript, it still remains unbroken. This enigmatic text has also been linked with Lovecrafts Necronomicon. On the basis of its diagrams all we know is that it might be a herbal. It could be a cipher manuscript that Dee records as having purchased in Prague. All else is conjecture. The claim that Lovecrafts relatives were Masonic initiates is not substantiated by what we know of his family. An alternative explanation (promoted by the author in an extended moment of wickedness), that Lovecrafts wife Sonia Greene associated with the notorious occultist and poet Aleister Crowley during his residence in New York in 1918 is completely plausible and consistent with both their characters, but entirely untrue. One of the participants in the Langford-Turner spoof (Colin Wilson) has admitted in print that it is a spoof. It is a good spoof however. The best spoofs work because they are founded on truth, and the untruths are so deeply embedded one needs be an expert to winkle them out. It was a technique H. P. Lovecraft understood well, and he used it extensively to add versimilitude to his fiction. Dr. John Dee is a pivotal figure in renaissance theurgical magic, and the system he developed not only survives to this day, it is one of the most active areas of modern magic. Using Dee as a link in the history of the Necronomicon was an inspired move by Lovecraft. There is a second connection between Dee and Lovecraft's mythos, and it is much more subtle - and in some ways more bizarre - than any spoof. This second link between Dee and the Necronomicon has grown out of a 20th. century, quasi-gnostic myth surrounding the entity Chrononzon (using Aleister Crowleys spelling). Choronzon is a demonic entity that occurs in the transcript of a lost book that John Dee received through the mediumship of a scryer called Edward Kelley, from non-human entities who claimed to be angels. Fragments from this book, The Book of Enoch, are scattered throughout his angelic conversations and recorded in Dee's diaries of the angelic communications.
Choronzon is mentioned only once in John Dees diaries, during a communication from the angels concerning the expulsion of Adam from the garden of Eden:
"But Coronzon (for so is the name of that mighty devil), envying mans felicity, and perceiving that the substance of mans lesser part was frail and unperfect in respect to his purer essence, began to assail man and so prevailed |
meaning that microbial decay should primarily affect the surface of the keratin. The greatest degradation occurred in moderately matured decayed feathers. It must be kept in mind, that with regards to taphonomy, an organism or integumentary structure will likely first be exposed to microbial decay (on the surface and in the sediment) long before it is buried deep enough for maturation. Filament Distortion via Moderate Maturation Among filamentous structures (i.e., feathers, hair, and bristles), differences in moderate maturation patterns may relate to keratin type: hair (α-keratin) helically curled and kinked, juvenile turkey bristles curled while adult bristles wrinkled and creased (feather-type and avian scutate scale-type φ-keratin, keeping in mind the dried nature of the adult bristles), and feather barbules kinked (feather-type φ-keratin). If such distortions of filament shape were recorded in the remaining melanosome or calcium phosphate positioning (or as an impression in the surrounding matrix) after keratin was lost, such information could survive into the fossil record. However, it seems unlikely that such maturation would occur prior to significant keratin protein loss from microbial decay, and even if microbial decay were to be limited by conditions such as anoxia, then chemical degradation and loss of the keratin protein via reactions like hydrolysis might precede thermally-induced filament distortions during diagenesis. It is also uncertain whether such filament distortions would occur when tightly surrounded in a sediment matrix during diagenesis. Scales Both predominantly black and white moderately matured crocodile scales had a cracked outer layer, splitting between sublayers of the outer layer, and retention of rippled ultrastructural texture. The predominantly white sample was slightly discolored and the predominantly black sample retained the original color range. Internal scale layers became pliable. Moderately matured avian reticulate scales also had brittle and pliable remnants like the moderately matured crocodile scales (see detailed discussion of degraded dermis in following section). The moderately matured avian scutate scale had brittle and pliable portions as did other moderately matured scales. However, those in the moderately matured avian scutate scale were more difficult to distinguish than in the other moderately matured scale samples and had less ultrastructural features. Therefore, brittle and pliable remnants of scales deriving from outer corneous and inner dermis layers, respectively, after moderate maturation were more recognizable in non-featherlike β-keratin scales than avian scale-type φ-keratin. Rippled ultrastructural surfaces on the outer layer of fresh and moderately matured crocodile and fresh avian reticulate scales (both of which are non-featherlike β-keratin) were not seen on the surfaces of feathers or avian scutate scales (both of which have smooth surfaces and are φ-keratin). If ultrastructure is an accurate indicator of keratin type, and the rippled texture survives moderate maturation, it does not necessarily mean that it can survive higher maturation during diagenesis or that the keratin texture can survive microbial decay or chemical degradation via reactions like hydrolysis prior to deep burial. It is uncertain whether or not a mineral matrix could produce a mold of such ultrastructural textures that would persist or be detectable in the fossil record. Sediment-based maturation experiments would be required to test this, and no fossils have yet been reported with this texture preserved. Similar ultrastructure might provide further evidence that avian scutate scales derived from feathers ( Zheng et al. 2013 ). Self-Organizing Structures and Taphonomic Artifacts in Keratin The dermis of the moderately matured avian reticulate scales displays many pits, folds, and bulges ( Fig. 4 A). The extreme morphology, a concave bulge, superficially resembles the appearance of mammalian erythrocytes. Many intermediate structures were produced between the extreme morphology and simple folding or pitting. Some bulges are irregularly shaped or spherical. These structures likely represent taphonomic artifacts where degraded organic material becomes pliable and folds outward (or gasses escape from the interior) during moderate maturation or evacuation of the sample chamber for SEM. Fig. 4. Very similar organic features interpreted by Bertazzo et al. (2015) as fossil erythrocytes (with internal structures interpreted as nuclei) in Mesozoic dinosaur bones ( Fig. 4 B) also vary morphologically. Most are folds protruding from and connected to a continuous organic material similar to the extreme morphology observed in the scales, although simpler, smaller pits and bulges are present. Proposed nuclei revealed through focused ion beam sectioning are likely just pockets of varying density within folds. Supplementary material of Bertazzo et al. (2015, movie 1) suggests that each ‘erythrocyte-like' structure contains several of these dense areas, contradicting their identification as nuclei. These proposed erythrocytes show more superficial similarity in shape to mammalian erythrocytes than to those of birds or crocodilians, which are oval rather than circular ( Claver and Quaglia 2009 ). Bertazzo et al. (2015) described the structures as ∼ 2 μm in diameter. Bird erythrocytes are ∼ 4.5–7.5 times larger. The largest structures observed in our experiments are an order of magnitude larger (∼ 20 μm). However, our experimental sample shows a range of morphologies and sizes—the smallest being pits or blebs ∼ 1–2 μm in diameter. Variation in the structures' size, either within a sample or between the scales and the dinosaur fossil, is potentially a result of differing viscosity of the organic material, affecting folding periodicity and, therefore, size. Differing pliability of the original organic material might explain differing viscosity of the degraded material. Our structures were produced from dermal tissue while structures in the fossil might derive from relatively recent biofilms infiltrating the bone rather than recalcitrant endogenous molecules (e.g., lipids from cell walls, which may not preserve original cell morphology). Variation in diagenetic (fossil) or maturation (scales) conditions might affect the material's pliability or structures' size. If diagenesis/maturation alone cannot produce the folds, maybe diagenesis/maturation produces degraded organics that are shaped through vacuum during SEM/sample coating via gas escape. The degree to which the chamber is evacuated might affect the size of the structures. Shared ‘erythrocyte-like' morphology and organic nature of the experimental and fossil structures suggests correlation. The variation exhibited is consistent with abiotic formation. Self-organizing structures (SOS) can form abiotically and are characterized not by a lack of complexity compared to biotic structures, but by a wider range of morphologies ( Brasier et al. 2006 ). The structures in the fossil and scales vary from ∼ 2–20 μm, while bird erythrocytes vary interspecifically from 9–15 μm in diameter ( Sturkie 1986 ; Gregory 2001 ). The size and morphology ranges suggest that they are SOS formed from abiotic taphonomic processes on degraded organic material. Disparate tissues (i.e., dermis vs. unknown organics in the fossil) can produce the similar ultrastructures, suggesting that they are a common product of physical alteration of degraded organics rather than unique endogenous bone tissue. Given the open system dynamics of bone, the degraded organics in the fossils may be relatively recent microbial contamination (the fossils were museum specimens that had not been sterilely collected or stored). Other proposed ‘intravascular microstructures' have wide size ranges ( Pawlicki and Nowogrodzka-Zagórska 1998 ; Schweitzer et al. 2007 ; Schweitzer 2010 ) ( Fig. 4 C; also see “Early Discovery” panel in Schweitzer 2010, p. 64). The requirement that the same taphonomic conditions would lead one of two adjacent erythrocytes to shrink, but not the other, raises doubts that they represent endogenous cells. Such previously described structures compositionally differ from the organic folds of Bertazzo et al. (2015) and have been alternatively described as iron oxide or pyrite framboids ( Martill and Unwin 1997 ; Kaye et al. 2008 ). Erythrocytes in human bone are histologically unidentifiable after a week, indicating rapid cell morphology loss. Erythrocyte breakdown products are undetectable immunohistochemically more than a few years post-mortem or in archaeological bones ( Cappella et al. 2015 ), suggesting protein breakdown and antigen binding site loss. Rapid decay in archaeological settings bodes poorly for Mesozoic erythrocytes persisting through diagenesis. Time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) of a blood-engorged mosquito found in middle Eocene oil shales ( Greenwalt et al. 2013 ) detected highly stable porphyrins ( Falk and Wolkenstein 2017 ) derived from the heme cofactor of haemoglobin, although the protein and phospholipids had decomposed. In contrast, Bertazzo et al. (2015) used energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy to reveal that their structures are carbon-enriched, neither specifying their precise nature nor proving endogenecity. Similar TOF-SIMS spectra to fresh emu blood likely only verifies the organic nature of these structures. Quantitative analysis of the spectra, e.g., through principal component analysis, using further organic controls, e.g., humic acids or biofilms, is needed to demonstrate similar chemistries between the structures and emu blood since the partial least square-discriminant analysis by Bertazzo et al. (2015) lacks such controls. Putative folic acid and lipid peaks could easily come from bacteria. Highly Matured Feathers Detailed discussion of the chemical composition of highly matured feather samples are reported in Saitta et al. (2017). Structurally, these samples completely degraded to become a thick fluid. Melanosomes were not visible when examining the surface of the fluid but could have been present and not visible within the fluid, but such an investigation was not carried out due to time and resource constraints. Isolated melanosomes are known to survive these autoclave conditions ( Colleary et al. 2015 ). The complete loss of structural information in these samples is worrying as it suggests that such information like texture will be lost in fossils that undergo full diagenesis. Only calcium phosphate or pigmentation (e.g., melanin/melanosomes) of the integumentary structure can persist in the fossil record and reports of keratin's ability to persist in fossils and through diagenesis likely represent false positives ( Saitta et al. 2017 ). An excellent example of a fossil whose integumentary structures are preserved as phosphates and melanin is the exceptional Psittacosaurus specimen, SMF R 4970 ( Mayr et al. 2016 ; Vinther et al. 2016 ). At the moment, it is in unclear whether filament distortion could be recorded in calcium phosphate or melanosome position or if scales with ultrastructural ripples can result in a mineral mold on the adjacent matrix to preserve such a texture. CONCLUSION The results of this study suggest that melanization may not be the main factor in conferring decay resistance to feathers but may play a role in retarding feather degradation as a result of maturation. We also find further support for the existence of rachis subunits very similar in appearance to plumulaceous barbules. Structures produced through maturation suggest that dinosaur ‘erythrocytes' ( Bertazzo et al. 2015 ) are degraded organics folded via diagenesis or SEM/sample coating vacuum, not cells. Given the open-system of bones ( Bada et al. 1999 ), extreme amount of time this system has been allowed to flux, and geologic instability of nucleic acids, phospholipids, and proteins ( Briggs and Summons 2014 ), they may not be endogenous organics, but instead microbial contamination. The ability to distinguish keratin types based upon distortion of integumentary filaments or the survivability of keratin-specific ultrastructural textures in scales during moderate maturation could lead some to conclude that an indication of the original chemistry of an integumentary appendage might persist in the fossil record. Given the low fossilization potential of proteins, the only possible avenues for these patterns to fossilize are in the components of keratinous structures known to persist over geologic time, such as calcium phosphate or pigmentation (e.g., Mayr et al. 2016 ), or in a mold produced by the adjacent matrix (if it is even possible for such fine ultrastructural details to produce a mold). However, none of these textures have been observed or reported in fossils and three main problems are made apparent with regards to recovering such information. First, the effect of the sediment and environment during diagenesis was not tested here, so whether, for example, filaments matured within a sediment matrix will show the same distortions is questionable ( Briggs and Williams 1981 ). Second, microbial decay or chemical degradation is expected to occur much earlier in taphonomy than maturation as it takes a long time for an organism or integumentary appendage to be buried to diagenetic depth. Thus, any differences in maturation between keratin types might be a moot point if the keratin decays prior to diagenesis. This is likely the case for many keratinous fossils given the prevalence of specimens with shrunken melanosomes residing inside sediment molds, indicating keratin decay and subsequent sediment infilling prior to diagenetic maturation significant enough to alter the melanosomes. And third, highly matured feather samples show complete structural breakdown, suggesting that even if keratin were to survive long enough to be deeply buried, the most extreme diagenetic conditions will likely destroy all structural information with regards to textural features that might provide information about the keratin protein itself. Thus, much of the taphonomic patterns observed here are potentially more applicable to the archaeological (e.g., when examining corrosion casts) rather than paleontological record, unless it can be shown that such textures or distortions are recognizable in either the surviving, non-protein components of keratinous tissues or in impressions such tissues leave behind in the adjacent matrix. For example, given amber's ability to preserve fine, three-dimensional morphological details, such an environment may warrant investigation for these textures whose preservation would likely be a function of the rate of keratin degradation relative to the rate of resin hardening and polymerization. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many thanks to Antoine Soler (La Ferme aux Crocodiles) for dissecting and shipping the crocodile skin, Stuart Kearns and Ben Buse for assistance with the SEM, and T.A. Dececchi and an anonymous reviewer of the manuscript. 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The British-German co-production will be directed by Gabriel Range, best-known for his movie about an imaginary assassination of George W Bush.
"[This] is not a traditional rock biopic [because] no one dies at the end," producer Egoli Tossell said. Tentatively titled Lust for Life, Range's film will explore the period when Pop and Bowie had relocated to Germany, collaborating on 1977's Low and the Stooges leader's first two solo albums. It's an era that Bowie himself has recently returned to, paying tribute to Potsdamer Platz and Nürnberger Strasse in his new single.
"Berlin was the first time in years that I had felt a joy of life and a great feeling of release and healing," Bowie told Uncut in 2001. "Some days the three of us would jump into the car and drive like crazy through East Germany and head down to the Black Forest … Or we'd take long, all-afternoon lunches at the Wannsee on winter days … At night we'd hang with the intellectuals and beats at the Exile restaurant in Kreuzberg."
Lust for Life's screenplay was written by Robin French, according to the Hollywood Reporter, based in large part on Paul Trynka's books Starman and Open Up and Bleed, which look at the lives of Bowie and Pop respectively. French is the co-creator of BBC3's sitcom Cuckoo.
Tossell is producing Lust for Life with the British production company Altered Image. They have development funding from Creative England and the German national film board.When Poland joined the EU in 2004, a new wave of immigrants arrived. Now in cities like Southampton they are a major factor in the European elections
Ten years after Tomasz Dyl left his small home town near Krakow as a 13-year-old to start a new life in Southampton, his personal trajectory has become emblematic of the story of Polish migration to the UK.
While his parents earned a living picking fruit and packing flowers, Dyl learned English in the playground, launched a marketing business at 17, went on to university, and last year was named Southampton's young entrepreneur of the year. Now 23, he employs six people, is about to collect the keys to a house he has bought on a 25-year mortgage, and cannot imagine ever returning to live and work in his native Poland.
"There is a better standard of life here, and the UK gives you more chances. It's fantastic to see the number of Poles starting their own businesses," he says.
Ten years ago this week, on 1 May 2004, Poland joined the European Union along with seven other eastern European countries. The UK was one of just three member states that allowed the new EU citizens immediately to work without restriction within its borders, with the then Labour government estimating that around 13,000 Poles would move to the UK.
Actual numbers wildly outstripped forecasts. The 2001 census recorded 58,000 Poles in the UK; by 2011, the figure had risen to 579,000. Since the beginning of this year, migrants from Romania and Bulgaria have swollen Britain's eastern European population, although as yet there is no reliable data on numbers.
This influx, and the issues that arise from it, form a central plank in Ukip's campaign for the European elections on 22 May. A poster unveiled on hundreds of billboards across the country last week shows a British builder (who turned out to be an Irish actor) begging for small change. It declares: "British workers are hit hard by unlimited cheap labour". Another says: "26m people in Europe are looking for work. And whose jobs are they after?"
Ukip leader Nigel Farage said the campaign was a "reflection of reality as it is experienced by millions of British people struggling to earn a living". A poll last weekend forecast Ukip to win 27% of the vote in next month's European parliamentary elections, three points behind Labour and five ahead of the Tories.
Ukip's focus on eastern European immigration has put mainstream parties on the defensive. Labour has acknowledged its 2004 forecast was wrong. "We should have looked more at the impact on low-skilled jobs and pay," shadow immigration minister David Hanson wrote on the LabourList blog earlier this year. He said immigration must be managed and controlled, adding: "We have listened and learned."
But, says Jonathan Portes, director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and a former government economist, "overall, the experience [of Polish immigration] has been very positive. Poles mostly came to work, they got jobs, they contributed to the economy, they are less likely to claim benefits. We know from several studies that the impact on employment for native workers was small to zero. There has been some impact on wages at the lower end, but it doesn't seem to have been very large."
Not so, says John Denham, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen, who wants a more active political response to issues around immigration. Day rates in the local construction industry fell by up to 50% initially following the "arrival of a large group prepared to work casually for relatively low wages" in 2004, and fuelled a boom in labour agencies, some geared exclusively to eastern European migrants. "The sense that migration is associated with downward shift in wages is quite widespread," he says. More generally, the addition of around 15,000 people to a city of 200,000 following 2004 "meant a very big and visible change to its fabric and nature".
Along Shirley High Street, an area with a relatively large Polish community, the adverts crowding the window of Malinka Delikatesy Polskie are testament to the changing nature of the locality – as well as to the entrepreneurial instincts and self-reliance of the incomers. Polish accountants, travel agents, beauty therapists, dressmakers, computer technicians and car mechanics are among those promoting their small businesses. Inside the shop, shelves are lined with Polish grocery imports; chill-cabinets are packed with sausages and cheese; Polish radio muffles the noise of traffic outside.
Marcin Piotrowski, 38, is shopping for his family before heading to work as a housekeeper at Lymington hospital. "My bosses ask me if I have any Polish friends needing jobs," he says. "They want us because we work hard. Not many English people want to do this job, working nights and weekends." Piotrowski came to Southampton eight years ago, and has no intention of returning. "I've bought a house, I have two children at school. I'm happy here. I don't even go back to Poland for holidays."
At SOS Polonia, an advice centre established 10 years ago by Barbara Storey, a Pole who has lived in the UK for more than 20 years, migrants were initially "mainly male, fairly young, and single – those old enough to be disillusioned with Poland but young enough to try something new. Then their wives or girlfriends came, babies were born. Now we see grannies coming to look after the children while the mothers work."
Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future thinktank, says most Poles come with the intention of staying two or three years, to save money from higher wages than they could earn at home. "But life happens |
,
and Reich, who has in the past sometimes made sense, was talking about
how Americans’ incomes had fallen over the last eight years of the
Bush/Cheney administration and that it was necessary to get their
incomes back on an upward trend, so that they could “start shopping
again.”
Now I understand Reich was trying to make the case that the bailout
so far has been focused on the banks and the insurance industry, and
that none of this will help unless ordinary people start getting some
relief, but still, there’s something completely twisted and out of
whack when the best we can come up with is that we need to get
Americans back into the malls.
In fact, that is a good part of what’s wrong with the US economy: Fully 75 percent of GDP in America is consumer spending.
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The problem facing America, and to a great extent the broader world economy, is that we’ve pretty much met basic human needs long ago, and now it’s about creating human wants and then convincing people that they need to buy more stuff and more services.
This is wrong in so many ways and on so many levels.
First of all, we don’t need all this stuff. Is my life any better
if I go from a 18-inch TV screen to a 60-inch TV screen? Is it, for
that matter, any better if I go from an old cathode-ray tube to a flat
screen digital display, or from no TV to a TV?
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Is my life any better if I buy a high-performance $50,000 BMW than
if I drive a $20,000 Honda Civic, or even a $5000 used Toyota Corolla
with extended warranty?
Is my life any better if I live with my wife and my teenage son in
a 4000-square-foot house than if I live in a 1800-square-foot or a
1200-square-foot house?
The answer is no. The benefits, if there are any at all, are minuscule, and usually short-lived.
The costs of these trying to satisfy these wants, however, are
enormous. When I buy the large flat screen TV, I am contributing to the
production of gases, used in the flat screen, that are hundreds of
times more potent greenhouse factors than carbon dioxide, and of
course, from a balance-of-trade perspective, I’m sending dollars
overseas to wherever the product is made (none are made in America). If
I buy the $50,000 BMW, I contribute to massive waste of resources in
building the vehicle and having it shipped from Germany, as well as
driving it, not to mention to balance-of-trade issue again. If I buy
the Honda, it may at least be made in America, but again there is all
the energy waste and pollution that goes into its construction. The
used car, on the other hand, gets good mileage and already exists. As
for the house, no family, except perhaps one that eschews family
planning and has a baby every year and a half, needs a 4000-square-foot
house, and any family with 12 kids that might occupy such a palace
would never be able to afford one.
So all this buying doesn’t make us happier. In fact, by saddling us
with massive amounts of debt, it simply enslaves us to jobs that polls
tell us most people are simply desperate to get away from. Why,
otherwise, do polls show that so many people want to retire early in an
era when life expectancies are extending, and when people are staying
healthy much longer into old age? Why, otherwise, do polls consistently
show that over 60 percent of Americans say they would like to have a
labor union represent them at work if they could get one? The reality
is that most jobs, where we spend the majority of our waking hours five
or six days a week, simply suck, and in many ways they suck because
people are so desperate to hang on to them so they can pay their bills
that they don’t dare speak up or, god forbid, sign a union card.
Secondly, these artificial wants which so dominate our daily lives
and that are instilled in us via slick marketing campaigns, are a
disaster for the environment and for the chances of human survival. The
earth is a finite resource, while humanity, growing at a prodigious
rate, is gobbling up those resources—water, oil, trees, the oceans, and
the very atmosphere itself--much faster than even the renewable
resources can replace themselves. This situation cannot go on, and yet
we’re told that the goal is to get us back on that rapacious and
self-destructive path as quickly as possible. Economic growth, we are
always told, is an unambiguous good and is the primary goal of economic
policy, though clearly it cannot go on.
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Finally, thinking of ourselves as consumers, instead of as citizens
and as people, is destructive of our social nature. Instead of learning
to build community, and to relate to one another as neighbors and
fellow citizens and human beings, as mere “consumers,” we compete to
have more or better stuff, compete to get the best deals on the things
we buy, and compete to get jobs that will help us buy those things. The
one thing we do not do in a consumer-based model of society is
cooperate.
This is not condition we need to go back to.
Nor can we.
Next Page 1 | 2poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201605/158/1155968404_4913431238001_4913237611001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Hillary Clinton has repeatedly claimed that her exclusive use of a personal email account was authorized. Why Clinton’s email problems are here to stay A new audit doesn't land a knockout punch but leaves lingering questions that could dog the Democratic front-runner.
A newly issued report on Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server flatly rejects one of her core defenses in the controversy — that she was playing by the rules.
And while the findings of the State Department Inspector General probe don't land any devastating blows against the Democratic front-runner, they provide ample grist to keep questions about her handling of the situation alive as the general election campaign gears up.
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On the trail, Clinton has repeatedly claimed that her exclusive use of a personal email account during her four years as secretary of state was authorized by the rules in effect at the time, but investigators from the State Department's Office of Inspector General reached just the opposite conclusion.
"It was not prohibited. It was not in any way disallowed," Clinton said in a debate in March.
"Throughout Secretary Clinton's tenure, the [regulations] stated that normal day-to-day operations should be conducted on an authorized" email system, the report declared. And the inspector general found no evidence that anyone had ever authorized or approved Clinton's email setup.
The official watchdog's finding was hardly a shock, since federal records experts and Clinton critics have been saying for more than a year that her actions were at odds with the policies and best practices State issued to its personnel at the time.
Clinton's campaign claimed the report punctured several conspiracy theories about the email arrangement.
"We think there's a lot in this report that corroborates what we’ve been saying all along," spokesman Brian Fallon said on MSNBC on Wednesday.
However, details in the report stoke some lingering mysteries about the email imbroglio. The decision by Clinton and many of her senior aides not to cooperate with the inspector general investigation seems certain to compound those concerns and may have made it more difficult for investigators to get to the bottom of some of the unresolved issues, including whether concerns about Clinton's system were bottled up by top officials.
It's the kind of uncertainty that Clinton's political enemies are sure to try and exploit, including likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, who's already pilloried her over the email saga and will likely find new ammunition in this report. "Not good," was his only comment on Wednesday, but his attacks are likely to intensify as the summer settles in.
She'll face the same from Republicans in Congress. "When she won't sit down with the inspector general, it's very hard to understand what she did and did not do," said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).
For her part, Clinton has pledged to cooperate with the ongoing FBI investigation into her email setup. Some of her aides have already spoke with FBI agents, who may be better positioned to clear up the remaining ambiguities.
Here are some key questions left unanswered and arguably fueled by the new report:
Did anyone approve Clinton’s email setup? Did someone falsely claim it was approved?
The inspector general report finds no documents or other proof that Clinton or anyone acting on her behalf sought or received approval from State Department legal or security officials for her private server setup. However, two computer support staffers in Clinton's office said they raised concerns about the arrangement, including that it might violate federal recordkeeping requirements.
One of those staffers said his boss, not named in the report but identified by sources and other records as Information Resources Management chief John Bentel, said the set-up had been approved by State's legal division. Both the staffers said they raised the issue separately with Bentel and he told them never to mention it again.
Fallon said he wasn't sure who the supervisor involved was but he appeared to be a career State official, not a political appointee. The spokesman also noted that numerous officials around the department knew Clinton's address.
"There were certainly no instructions given that this was something that should at all be kept secret," Fallon told MSNBC.
Bentel declined to be interviewed by the inspector general. POLITICO reported in March that he told House Benghazi Committee investigators he could not recall any discussion of Clinton's email server. Clinton's top aides also declined to be interviewed by the inspector general, so it's unclear if any of them were involved in discussions about legal approval for Clinton's server. Clinton's former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, did tell the Benghazi panel that she was not aware of any approval request.
The report concludes that Clinton was obligated under department policies to seek approval for routine use of outside email. The investigators also note that top security and computer system managers said they would not have approved such a request.
The IG findings leave unresolved the question of why at least one staffer says he was told of legal approval for Clinton's system, whether such approval may have been informally granted or whether some misinformation on that point was accidentally — or deliberately — spread in the department.
Why did Clinton fail to turn over some work-related emails to State?
The watchdog report reveals a previously undisclosed email exchange between Clinton and deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin in which Clinton expressed concern that integrating her email into the State system could compromise her privacy.
"We should talk about putting you on state email or releasing your email to the department so you are not going to spam," Abedin wrote to Clinton in November 2010, nearly two years after she began using the Clintonemail.com address.
"Let's get separate address or device but I don't want any risk of the personal being accessible," Clinton replied.
The back-and-forth seems highly germane to the issue of whether Clinton's use of the private email setup was simply for "convenience," as she has claimed. But it was never released in the roughly 30,000 messages State made public after receiving them from Clinton in December 2014 at the agency's request. The inspector general report is vague about how State got the message, but it seems possible it arrived in batches of thousands of emails turned over by Abedin and other Clinton aides.
"We have found... that there are additional emails out there," State spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on Wednesday asking about the discrepancy.
Toner said the email cited in the report is not the only one Clinton failed to turn over that turned up elsewhere, but he downplayed the situation.
"I don't think we have an estimate and I don't think it's a large number. I just think there are stray examples," he said. "It's not like there's some huge cache."
Republican lawmakers have long expressed doubts about the process Clinton used to separate her work-related emails from 32,000 allegedly personal ones that were erased. It's unclear whether her process failed to pick up the November 2010 message or whether she didn't have it in her archive because she erased it or due to some technical failure.
Clinton aides have acknowledged that they didn't have archives from the first few months of her tenure, but the message disclosed Wednesday was more than a year after that issue was believed to have been resolved.
Was her system hacked?
While Clinton has repeatedly said she had no indication that hackers managed to get into her email account, the new report provides fresh evidence that on separate occasions she and a close aide to President Bill Clinton involved in setting up the server became concerned that hacking attempts were underway.
In January 2011, President Clinton's aide Justin Cooper told Abedin via email that he'd shut down the server, which hosted accounts for the former president, the then-secretary of state, Abedin and others. "Someone was trying to hack us and while they did not get in i didnt [sic] want to let them have the chance to."
Cooper added later that same day: "We were attacked again so I shut [the server] down for a few min."
The next day, Abedin warned Mills and deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan not to send Secretary Clinton "anything sensitive."
Four months later, two of Clinton's aides corresponded via email about Clinton's concern that someone was "hacking into her email," the report says.
The inspector general's office noted that none of the incidents were reported to State Department security officials, despite the fact that official policies call for reporting improper cybersecurity practices.
The Clinton campaign said Wednesday that the alarm bells sounded in 2011 still don't amount to proof that hackers got into her email account.
"There's no evidence that a successful hack was performed on the server," Fallon said on MSNBC.
Press reports have said that server logs show no successful intrusions, but since it's essentially impossible to prove that the server was not hacked, whether the server was breached is a question that may never be definitively resolved.Last month we reported on a planned $20M, 126-unit, five-story mixed-use apartment project in Soulard at 1302-24 Russell Boulevard. Sited within a local historic district, the project will go before the city’s Preservation Review Board next week. The St. Louis Cultural Resources Office is recommending preliminary approval for demolition and new construction.
Designed by Trivers Associates, the building was previously described as a “cascade from five stories to three” with the aim being to match the historic character of the neighborhood. The now available renderings shows five stories at the western end adjacent to Interstate 55. A recessed four-story section extends east, with the eastern end at 13th Street being three stories. Parking would be located to the south of the building.
As is required for construction in a local historic district, a model example is presented as the nearby Mexican Hat Factory building at 1201 Russell. That historic warehouse spans a city block from 13th to 12th Streets. A McCormack Baron project, the Allen Market Lane Apartments provide affordable apartments for seniors aged 62 and older.
{1302-24 Russell Boulevard at right, Allen Market Lane Apartments at left}
{the model example at 1301 Allen Market Lane}
{existing buildings at 1302-24 Russell Boulevard would be demolished}
According to the Preservation Board agenda, the Russell and 13th Street facades would be brick, with a brick return on a “significant portion of the west elevation” facing Gravois. The remainder of the facade would be covered in cement lap siding. The Cultural Resources Office is recommending that a different material “with a more industrial precedent” be used in lieu of the cement siding.
The project appears to be headed toward Preservation Board approval. Some design elements have yet to be finalized, including any changes required by the city. If all goes according to plan, demolition of existing buildings would occur this year, with project completion as soon as fall 2017. Brothers Brett and David Apted are developing the project for Propper Construction Services.A former FBI interpreter reportedly ran away to marry an Isis terror leader before realising her mistake and coming back to the US to turn herself in.
Daniela Greene travelled to Syria where she was wed to German national Denis Cuspert, who rapped under the moniker Deso Dog in his homeland, before changing his name to Abu Talha al-Almani in Syria.
Videos featuring the one time musician — whose primary role is to attract Germans to the terror group — show him on bloody battle fields and threatening former President Barack Obama.
Just a month after her departure, Greene realised her mistake and headed back into the US, according to CNN.
Read more
350 civilians have died in US-led strikes against Isis, say Pentagon
Greene used online tools like Skype to get close to Cuspert before she lied to her FBI employers to travel to Syria, according to Federal Court documents seen by the broadcaster, which also said that she tipped him off to the fact that he was under investigation.
On her return to the US she admitted what she had done and was sentenced to two years imprisonment.
“It's a stunning embarrassment for the FBI, no doubt about it,” John Kirby, a former State Department official told CNN.
Most westerners trying to go to an Isis region in Syria risk “getting their heads cut off," he added. "So for her to be able to get in as an American, as a woman, as an FBI employee and to be able to take up residence with a known ISIS leader, that all had to be coordinated.”
Greene’s story was kept secret when she first returned from Syria. Looking to avoid contaminating the investigation through allowing the case to go public with major media organisations, a federal court sealed most of the documents pertaining to her case.
Once prosecutors determined that Greene’s cooperation with them had finished they asked that the judge unseal some of the documents.
People familiar with Greene said that they hadn’t seen anything that would lead them to think she would defect from the FBI. She had undergone an extensive vetting period for her job with the agency, after completing a Master’s degree in history.
At the time of her departure, she had an American husband who she told that she was going to visit her parents in Munich, Germany. Instead went to Istanbul where she contacted Cuspert.
But after joinng him in Syria, she quickly determined she had made a mistake.
Greene reportedly quickly began sending messages to someone she knew back home discussing the option to return to the US and cooperate with any investigation into her actions. She returned in August 2014 and was promptly arrested.
Greene was ultimately given two years in prison but she has since been released.
She now fears that if her location and identity were known her life would be in danger but she is known to currently work as a hostess in a hotel lounge.
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For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.Over the past century, our cities have been shaped — literally — for the benefit of the automobile and oil industries. Today, with global oil reserves headed toward irreversible decline, we need to face the challenges of the imminent post-oil reality. Seizing foreign oil fields (then “spinning” the story to make a prophet of Orwell) will not solve our environmental problems. Building Green Cities for people, not cars, will.
In their controversial essay, “The Death of Environmentalism,” Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus claim that the environmental movement has worked its way into historical irrelevance. These writers suggest that “the greatest tragedy of the 1990s is that, in the end, the environmental community had still not come up with an inspiring vision, much less a legislative proposal, that the majority of Americans could get excited about.”
I disagree, not only with these two green movement morticians but also with some of their critics. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, has rightly scolded Shellenberger and Nordhaus for “failing to offer their own ideas,” a lapse that “rendered their report nihilistic – able to destroy but not create.” But what does Pope offer? The environmental movement, he says, “needs deeper, more robust, more sustained collaborations” and “a new economic order.” His action plan is focused on renewable energy. Does he see any alternative to tacking solar panels onto the past century’s exoskeleton of freeways, automobiles and sprawl? Not in his response. “As early as the Carter Administration,” Pope writes, “the Sierra Club sought an alliance with the United Auto Workers… to preserve and enhance the U.S. auto industry.” In their desire to deliver “what Mainstream America wants,” environmentalists discovered that people wanted cars. So the Sierra Club’s response has been to try and convince the auto industry that the environmental situation could be improved if Detroit simply built a “better” automobile. This won’t work and here’s why.
The ‘Green Car’ Myth
Consider the energy required to move a 130-pound human body by foot as compared to moving that same body the same distance seated behind the wheel of a 4,000-pound SUV. The average human can hit about 5 miles-per-hour in a brisk walk while the typical car averages 40 mph (city and freeway). While it is true that you can move eight times faster inside a two-ton vehicle, accomplishing this feat requires burning around 1,900 times as much energy (and that’s not factoring in friction, which increases with speed). This should tell you something about the fundamental insanity of depending on gas-fueled cars in an oil-starved future.
And, it’s not just the oil. Even if powered by biodiesel, hydrogen or sunbeams, the private automobile is still part of an unsustainable urban system that requires massive networks of streets, freeways, and parking structures to serve congested cities and far-flung suburbs. Driving a Prius hybrid simply makes it easier for people to live farther from the rest of their lives (while seducing them into thinking that they are “doing something for the environment”). We don’t want to face this truth because it implies too much change. Autoworkers want to keep their jobs and Sierra Clubers want to be free to drive 40 miles to experience nature whenever they feel like it.
Raised in a car-worshiping culture, we tend to assume that everyone lives in a world of breezy trips through city streets and top-down forays deep into the country. It’s hard to believe there are worlds without cars. But the startling fact is that, far from being a majority, only one of thirteen people on Earth actually owns a car. Consider this: 92 percent of the world’s people do not own cars — and the 8 percent who do are directly responsible for climate change and the alarming collapse of biodiversity on planet Earth.
If the auto industry is to have any future in a post-oil world, it may have to retrain its workers to build the efficient mass-transit systems that will serve the new ecologically healthy Green Cities, towns and villages of the 21st century. Environmentalists and autoworkers should begin thinking hard about how to rebuild low-energy, car-free cities. Autoworkers should be studying renewable energy systems and lobbying for massive federal investments in those technologies. We need to rebuild our entire civilization (towns and villages, too) on this basis. A proper accounting of the auto-urban paradigm would include the energy needed to draw the oil, cook the asphalt, erect the freeways, mine and mill the steel used to manufacture the cars and, of course, deploy the troops and weaponry to secure America’s access to foreign oil. Add it all up and you begin to get a sense of the enormity of the problem.
Of course, it’s a hard assignment. How could solving a problem as large as preventing the collapse of planetary biodiversity and inventing a new civilization in balance with nature be an easy task?
How Cars Shape Cities
The oil-burning, fume-spewing private automobile is only part of a larger environmentally damaging system — the energy-intensive spawling infrastructure of our cities. When small buildings are scattered over large areas, more energy is required for heating and cooling as well as for transportation. Pedestrian-friendly Green Cities — built for people, bicycles, mass transit and renewable energy — would not only cut air pollution, they also would promote the rebuilding of essential soil and water resources while increasing plant and animal biodiversity.
Knowledgeable environmentalists extol the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards for buildings, but they seldom apply similar standards to cities. Last summer, I was a speaker at a Sustainable Communities Conference in Vermont. The organizers took two busloads of participants to admire a beautiful new LEED platinum-rated factory that produces towers for wind electric generators. Hard to get greener that that.
But there was a problem: it took us 20 minutes on the highway to get there. And, when we arrived, there was no other building in sight on the rolling landscape of broad agricultural fields.
“Wouldn’t it be more fun,” I asked the company tour guide, “if instead of driving way out to this splendid isolation and back every day, you could just walk out the factory door and bike over to a class or back to your residence?” Here was a beautifully designed solar building with state-of-the-art natural lighting and insulation, constructed so the residents would consume almost no energy — except for the hundreds of gallons of gasoline they burned in their cars every day to get there!
The Eco-City Vision
“No wonder the public doesn’t want to hear the truth about global warming,” former Sierra Club President Adam Werbach laments, “Nobody’s offering them a vision for the future that matches the magnitude of the problem.”
Excuse me? Dozens of environmental thinkers have been offering such a vision for 30 years. I’ve co-produced five international Eco-City conferences on five continents, written three books and been invited to speak on every continent.
Like Pope, Werbach calls for renewable energy. Good idea, but not enough. The renewable energy regime needs a physical infrastructure in which to operate — i.e., a city to match. If you install a fleet of clean, solar-powered buses in a typical sprawling low-density city, those “eco-buses” are still going to run practically empty. Rebuilding cities for pedestrians will reverse sprawl by bringing departure points and destinations closer together. City planners call this “mixed use” and “balanced development.” Freeways could slowly be torn down as pedestrian-friendly cities are efficiently — and affordably — connected by train. That’s a vision worth adopting. But, in order for this to happen, environmentalists and developers need to work together.
How to Build Eco-Cities
The first step toward turning today’s Gridlocked Cities into Green Cities is to identify the major commercial and neighborhood centers and map them for higher density. Re-zoning to facilitate higher-density pedestrian transit centers will promote “access by proximity — instead of transportation.” As these centralized pedestrian/transit centers grow in density and diversity, outlying areas would be replaced by natural areas, open spaces, and small farms.
Metropolitan areas now spread over (hundreds of) thousands of acres need to break up into discrete communities — forming archipelagos of smaller, compact Green Cities around what are today’s downtowns. Ecovillages would arise where today’s neighborhood centers now exist. In his classic book, Ecotopia, Berkeley author Ernest Callenbach envisioned the Bay Area metropolis (which includes Oakland, San Jose, Berkeley, Palo Alto and Richmond) transforming into a necklace of separate towns linked by high-speed public transportation — each with its own particular economy, products and character (and all surrounded by resurgent green and edged by the shimmering waters of San Francisco Bay).
A Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) offers one promising tool for facilitating the transitions required by ecological city design. A developer can use a TDR to purchase and remove a building whose crumbling foundation sits atop a buried creek. In return, the developer wins the privilege of erecting a larger building in a pedestrian/transit center. The developer gets a “density bonus” and the city gains new open space for a community garden, public park, or sports field and more housing in transit/pedestrian centers.
But won’t it be oppressive to live in more densely settled core cities? Not if you build them with lots of sun pouring into the interiors, heating and refreshing the air without the use of fossil fuels or nuclear fission. Build rooftop gardens, cafes, promenades, mini-parks, entertainment enclaves and recreation outposts high in the buildings to provide spectacular views overlooking the city’s reviving bioregion. Solar collectors and windmills would glint in the sun. The ecological Green City would be alive with bicycles, solar greenhouses, creeks, plants, animals, and people.
Builders of the new housing units in these evolving Green Cities would recruit renters and condo owners who wished to free themselves from cars. Contrary to legend, there are many such people out there. Businesses would grant hiring preference to people living nearby. Given sufficient diversity, you don’t need to travel far for life’s basics: shelter, job, school, food. Green City buildings could be interlinked by high bridges so that clusters of structures become easily available to pedestrians on many levels. Terraces with communal gardens would provide fresh produce and rooftop parks would provide recreation — all accessible by glass elevators gliding over the outsides of buildings offering stunning views of the new vertical Green City environment.
Facilities needing little natural light (theaters, photolabs, warehouses) would be located in the lower stories, lifting other downtown activities higher into the sun. Covered streets would have the grandeur of cathedrals (, with beams of light falling into quiet interiors bustling with pedestrians). Downtown buildings would provide workplaces for residents. The hundreds of thousands who once poured into the city over miles of freeways, would now quietly zip to work on foot or bicycle leaving a minority of outside workers to arrive by bus and rail.
First we’d create car-free streets, then larger, car-free zones. As any tourist returning from a European vacation can testify, car-free streets and plazas are extremely pleasant community enclaves that bristle with life and are economically self-sustaining.
Eco Cities would promote the restoration of ancient creeks buried under pavement and concrete. Living streams, shorefronts, wetlands, and ridgelines would once again become signature landmarks for Green City residents. Restored urban creeks and wooded groves would provide natural habitat for birds and animals and become beautiful and educational local resources for Green City children who would no longer need to climb into a car and drive 40 miles to “experience nature.” With sufficient care, restored creeks magically reawaken with populations of dragonflies, butterflies, hummingbirds, fish, and crawdads. In California, native salmon and large wading birds like egrets and herons have already returned to some of these reborn watersheds.
Rebuilding our cities to serve people, not cars, will take decades, but the transformation offers lasting solutions for most of our most pressing environmental problems. These solutions will start to appear immediately. They will multiply rapidly as the transformation proceeds.
Richard Register is President of Ecocity Builders in Oakland, California. He is author of Ecocities: Building Cities in Balance with Nature and Ecocity Berkeley. Ecocity Builders hosted the Green Cities Conference in Oakland on May 31 as part of the World Environment Day activities hosted by San Francisco. www.ecocitybuilders.org.The Maine Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol has announced today that a lawsuit has been filed urging the state to recognize the intent of voters who want an opportunity to have their say on ending cannabis prohibition this November. As we previously noted, the Maine Secretary of State decided to trample the will and intent of thousands of voters by unnecessarily disqualifying thousands of signatures, without doing any due diligence to ascertain that signatures were filed directly.
It certainly seems that the Maine Secretary of State may have acted with prejudice either against the CRMLA campaign or against the individual notary that had thousands of signatures disqualified. It has been reported that Secretary Matt Dunlap’s office contacted notaries and followed up on perceived irregularities to ensure that voter intent was acknowledged.
Secretary Dunlap had admitted that more than 17,000 signatures were disqualified without his office doing anything to follow-up on the issue, after first erroneously stating that his office did attempt to contact the notary. While it is commendable that Secretary Dunlap has acknowledged that he is at fault for creating confusion and that he is mad at himself, it is more important that the will and intent of voters be recognized.
The lawsuit argues that the the Secretary of State’s decision to invalidate signatures was flawed because the disputed signatures match those on file with the state and that the Secretary of State acted outside of his authority in invalidating the petitions. Attorney Scott Anderson, of the Portland law firm Verrill Dana, is representing a group of Maine voters who signed the petition in support of the initiative, including CRMLA director David Boyer, Maine State Senator Eric Brakey, and Maine State Representative Diane Russell.
“We are confident that this appeal will result in the initiative appearing on the November ballot,” Boyer stated in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “Each of the petitions in question was properly signed by both the circulators and the notaries. There is simply no reason for the Secretary of State to reject more than 17,000 signatures from registered voters in the state.
“The Secretary of State’s Office did not follow procedures commonly used to ensure, in their words, the ‘integrity’ of the process,” Boyer added. “The law dictates that these 17,000-plus signatures be counted.”
A strong majority of Maine citizens support putting an end to the failed and harmful policy of cannabis prohibition. Hopefully, Maine courts will correct this temporary injustice and voters can have their say at the ballot box this November.AHMEDABAD: Chief minister Narendra Modi’s supporters may feel that he has served Gujarat enough and now wants to repay the debt to ‘Bharat Mata’, but Gujarat’s actual debt has mounted from Rs 45,301 crore in 2001-02, when he first came to power, and is projected to touch Rs 1.76 lakh crore by 2013-14, when he plans his flight to New Delhi.
As on 31-03-12, the revised estimates of total debt stood at Rs 1,38,978 crore. While two other states - West Bengal (Rs 1,92,100 crore) and Uttar Pradesh (Rs 1,58,400 crore) - have a higher debt, they aren’t claiming they are a “model state”. Besides, if Modi leaves for Delhi after “settling his debt” with Gujarat, he is leaving behind the highest ever per capita debt of Rs 23,163 - if the population is taken at exactly six crore.The Gujarat government is paying a mind-boggling interest of Rs. 34.50 crore every day. By 2015-16, the debt would mount to Rs 2,07,695 crore as per the state government’s budget estimates. A large chunk of the state’s revenues go towards debt servicing. The state’s total debt was less than Rs 10,000 crore when the BJP first came to power in Gujarat in 1995.Critics have pointed out that much of the spending is on show-piece infrastructure projects, while overall spending on key areas like health and infrastructure remains low. The debt has mounted despite Gujarat having one of the highest VAT on petrol and also being the one of the few states to have VAT on fertilizers.The latest CAG report tabled in the assembly last week stated, “As of 31 March 2012, the government had invested Rs 39179 crore in areas where the average return on investment was just 0.27 per cent in last five years while the government paid an interest of 7.75 on its borrowings during the same period.” It said continued use of borrowed funds to fund investment which do not have sufficient returns will lead to an unsustainable financial position.Child-resistant packaging is a pillar of Colorado’s rules for recreational pot shops, approved as a requirement months ago to reduce the risk of accidental ingestion by young children.
But several business owners say they are struggling to find vendors that manufacture the proper bags or can supply enough to meet demand in time for the opening of the first stores Jan. 1.
All retail pot products leaving shops — from buds to brownies — must be placed in opaque and child-resistant packaging.
“A number of our members are having an incredibly difficult time,” said Mike Elliott, director of the Medical Marijuana Industry Group, the state’s largest marijuana business group. “We’re all looking for ways to comply with this rule, and everyone is worried we’re not going to be able to, basically.”
State regulators are not sympathetic. The packaging requirements were the subject of high-profile debate, were approved Sept. 9 and put into effect Oct. 15, said Julie Postlethwait, spokeswoman for the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division. She said it is disappointing if store owners waited until the last minute.
“This is not a surprise that came and hit them over the heads,” Postlethwait said. “The main point here, the focus the industry tends to forget, is we exist in order to ensure public safety. You don’t want a child ingesting high-potency infused products. The risk is a child’s health.”
Industry representatives say they are committed to following the rules and keeping pot away from children. But they say they also are juggling a number of regulatory demands as they rush to prepare for what they hope will be a historic day.
Some prospective pot-shop owners — most are awaiting licensing and inspection approval that will allow them to open — say they’ve just recently found solutions to avert a packaging crisis.
Ean Seeb, co-owner of the medical-marijuana dispensary Denver Relief, said he has been talking since October with a New York company that sells a product called Stink Sack.
The company’s owner, Ross Kirsh, landed in Denver this week and is visiting dispensaries with prototypes of his smell-proof bag with a double-locking mechanism that comes in three pot-friendly sizes.
The state defines child-resistant packaging as “significantly difficult for children under 5 years of age to open and not difficult for normal adults to use properly” based on an international standards organization.
Kirsh said a half million of his opaque bags are in production and will be ready for delivery by Jan. 1.
Other companies are pitching packaging, but business owners remain skeptical there will be enough to go around.
Ryan Cook, a co-owner of The Clinic in Denver, a chain of medical marijuana dispensaries branching into retail sales, said he ordered packaging from China before the final state rules were issued because the turnaround for delivery is about three months.
Now, he is sitting on $40,000 worth of bags that don’t pass muster because they are opaque on one side and clear on the other.
“For us, it was an unfortunate situation,” Cook said. “But now I think the whole industry is faced with, ‘Can everyone get the packaging they need in the time frame they need it?’ That might be |
to Illinois (in just two and a half years between his stints at the White House and his election to the House, Emanuel made $16.2m as a banker in Chicago, according to congressional records - don't ask me how).
It was Obama, lest we forget, who eagerly allowed himself to be Axelrod's "project" - that was the word used by the small bunch of wealthy Chicagoans who championed him. He was the one who flashed his charming smile, peered at the autocue, and made countless soaring promises that he would never be able to fulfil. Yet practically all the world fell for it.
I believe Obama has six months, at most, to turn things around. History teaches us lessons, and we should not forget that the White House was in disarray after Ronald Reagan's first year in office - yet, however unjustifiably, he went on to become one of the most popular US presidents in history. The same could yet happen with Obama. But with people such as Emanuel and Axelrod at his side, alas, the odds of history repeating itself are looking increasingly slim.You’ve heard the hype: “Fast, Furious, and Fun.” If there were any more alliteration you might die.
Savage Mommy and Savage Bull tell you exactly why the hype is real. We break down the Savage Worlds game mechanics, style, and philosophy that deliver on the promise of an RPG session that is easy to prep for, quick to run, creates an exciting atmosphere of heroism and anticipation and consistently delivers a quality cooperative roleplaying experience.
We talk card initiative, target numbers, opposed die rolls, mooks, bennies, traits, prep, character creation, exploding dice, edges, setting rules, jokers, raises, properties, themes, and more.
We also try and kill you with even more alliteration all over the place. And random wedding stories that just demand to be told.
Here’s an awesome new property that you should give a listen to and the original Deadlands adventure it’s based on:
Audio Avatar‘s audio drama Tombstone Tales: The Taxidermist’s Tale. The One Sheet.
Here’s the newest and best Savage Worlds stuff we think you should drop some money on:
Hellfrost – Atlas of the Frozen North
GRAmel has a new adventure for their Tropicana setting: Die Fast!
Fainting Goat Games: Miscreants, Malefactors and Megalomaniacs Volume 2 has more than a dozen new bad guys, thugs, and super-villains for your next SUPERS game.
And in case you missed it the first time: the original Miscreants, Malefactors and Megalomaniacs
Kick in some Kold Khard Kash on these Kickstarters:
The Rifts Kickstarter is going now. It met its funding goal in under 3 Minutes!!! If you haven’t checked it out yet, what are you waiting for?!
Noisy Person Cards is a party game designed to help you develop new character voices for role playing games from the folks behind The One Shot and Campaign podcasts.
The guys behind the Wild Die Podcast are launching Conclave Gaming Convention in Modesto, CA
Queen City Conquest, in Buffalo NY, is the local con for Friend-of-Podcast Chris Sneizak
Appearing: Chris Fuchs, Christopher Landauer
Intro: Derek Johnson
Music: Jib
Editing: Landauer and FuchsThis story has been corrected since it was originally published.
Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor, indicated on Wednesday that he will not take any action against Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, the Chicago Tribune reported. Walker said that while he has the authority to remove Clarke, he did not believe it was just job to do so.
"I'm not in a position to say," Walker reportedly said, adding that it was up to voters to determine Clark's fate.
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The conservative governor admitted that the surge of inmates' deaths were concerning. Terrill Thomas, a 38-year-old inmate who died in April, was the fourth inmate to die in Milwaukee County in the past six months.
"I've read some of the stories," Walker said. "I don't make decisions based on what I see in the stories. I want to look at a scientific report and I haven't analyzed that yet."
Walker claimed Wednesday that the only time a Wisconsin governor had considered removing an official from office — that he could remember — was related to a sexting case, "so it was a much different situation," he said.
An immigrant rights group petitioned Walker on Wednesday to use a law that would authorize him to remove negligent county officials from office, the Tribune reported.
In response to the petition, a Clarke spokesman released a statement denigrating the group, the Tribune reported.
"They couldn't beat at the ballot box so they are resorting to asking the governor to undo an election that was will of the people. This is what scummy people and organizations do," the statement said.
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Clarke chalks up the deaths to the high number of incarcerated individuals in his county.
"I have nearly 1000 inmates. I don't know all their names but is this the guy who was in custody for shooting up the Potawatomi Casino causing one man to be hit by gunfire while in possession of a firearm by a career convicted felon?" Clarke said in a statement to the Tribune in March. "The media never reports that in stories about him. If that is him, then at least I know who you are talking about."Feel free to get lost in the weeds with one of these lines of tangled logic if you’re looking to avoid facing uncomfortable truths about anti-gay bigotry in our country.
1. Although the gunman specifically attacked a gay nightclub during Pride Month, this is really just an attack on the American way of life of going out on the weekends: There’s no need to defend the rights of gay people when you could instead just talk about how we’re not going to be scared away from fun nightlife activities. You could even consider using a completely beside-the-point hashtag like #NoToFearYesToWeekends when you post your labyrinthine arguments online.
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2. There weren’t enough exits in the nightclub: Should you wish to make the convoluted argument that this is a club safety issue, and not an anti-gay hate crime, we’ve got you covered. Just posit that the Pulse nightclub didn’t have enough exits for evacuation, and that if a fire were to have happened in the club, just as many people would have died. Would a nightclub fire in a gay nightclub have been an anti-gay hate crime? This is precisely the kind of completely warped logic you can bring up when you talk about this issue.
3. The Pulse nightclub attack is solely about gun control or Islamic terrorism or mental health or some combination of just those things: Look, you have enough to discuss already without also bringing up the safety of the LGBTQ community. By the time you’ve exhausted every line of thinking here, you may find that you have successfully dodged a debate on systemic homophobia and violence in America!
4. This tragedy is a grim reminder of the dangers of alcohol consumption: If you’re totally unwilling to acknowledge the deeply entrenched homophobia at the core of the Orlando shooter’s decision to massacre a largely LGBTQ-identifying population, here’s a super-tenuous conclusion you can draw from the whole event: Intoxication is a serious threat to safety. The logical moves are a little all over the place, but you can get to this reasoning by focusing exclusively on the idea that alcohol inhibits your senses, which would technically make it more difficult to escape in the event of an emergency like an active shooter. That’s totally a way you can think of this situation if you’re willing to do the legwork!
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5. The gunman knew it was a gay nightclub, but forgot: Okay, so if you’ve gotten to number five on this list, you’re truly committed to finding an incredibly roundabout rationale to explain away this terror attack without having to think about the very real hatred toward the gay community that seethes just under the surface of our society. And here’s some truly cloudy logic to match: While it may be clear from his Facebook activity that he was disgusted by homosexuality, no one can say for certain that Omar Mateen didn’t randomly forget that Pulse was a gay nightclub moments before opening fire. And because it can’t technically be proven incorrect, this may be the one for you.
6. Focus on how all the victims are “just people”: If you’d really, really like to totally sidestep this tragedy as being in any way connected to identity or sexuality, might as well just say this.Publish an Android library
In order to publish your Android library on JitPack you just need a working build file in your Git repository.
Android SDK is available in the build environment and ANDROID_HOME variable is already set when the build starts. Builds are run with Java 8 by default but can be configured using a jitpack.yml file.
Gradle
To enable building on JitPack you need to add the android-maven plugin.
If using Gradle 4.6 or later:
1) In your root build.gradle:
buildscript { dependencies { classpath 'com.github.dcendents:android-maven-gradle-plugin:2.1' // Add this line
2) In your library/build.gradle add:
apply plugin: 'com.github.dcendents.android-maven' group='com.github.YourUsername'
3) Create a GitHub release or add a git tag.
Checks
Check that you have the Gradle wrapper in your Git repository. If you don’t then create it using the command gradle wrapper and commit it. Also check that the generated gradle-wrapper.jar is not ignored with.gitignore rules.
Test. After these changes go to the root of your project and run the Gradle wrapper with:
./gradlew install
It will install your library in your local maven repository ($HOME/.m2/repository). If install works and you have added a GitHub release it should work jitpack.io
Important: Please check here which version of android-maven plugin is required for your Gradle version. Your Gradle version is specified in gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties file.
Examples
Installing
Users of your library will need add the jitpack.io repository:
allprojects { repositories { jcenter() maven { url "https://jitpack.io" } } }
and:
dependencies { compile 'com.github.jitpack:android-example:1.0.1' }
Note: do not add the jitpack.io repository under buildscript
Adding a sample app
If you add a sample app to the same repo then your app needs to depend on the library. To do this in your app/build.gradle add a dependency in the form:
dependencies { compile project(':library') }
where ‘library’ is the name of your library module.
Jar file
By default the android-maven plugin generates an ‘aar’ file from your library. If you want to have a ‘jar’ instead take a look at the Example project’s library/build.gradle.
TutorialsThe Mexican state of Chiapas is located in the nation’s south, bordering Guatemala and the Pacific ocean. Among the many indigenous people of the area are the Tzotzil, about 300,000 strong who live primarily in an area known as Chamula. When it comes to religious rituals, the Tzotzil’s start by resembling those of many other cultures — with one unique addition. In 2008, a New York Times writer traveled to Chiapas and reported on the customs:
Inside the church of San Juan de Chamula, a fine cloud of smoke filled the air. It rose in wisps from hundreds of thin, white candles, perched delicately on the floor in ranks of 5, 10, 20, 40. Scattered around them lay a loose carpet of pine needles, the green arcs overlapping in dizzying patterns. The scents of pine resin, melted wax and burning wick mingled in my nose, and the chanted prayers of the indigenous Chamulans [who are of Tzotzilan ethnicity] — who knelt before the candles, with bottles of Coca-Cola and pox, a homemade sugar-cane liquor pronounced posh, at their sides — made me feel as if I’d entered another, more mysterious universe.
Candles, pine needles, homemade libations, and — wait, Coca-Cola?
Yes, Coca-Cola — it’s there for the burps. The Tzotzil people believe that when you burp, you release the Devil from inside you — and, therefore, one should burp heartily and often. And as a result, the Tzotzil have become a battleground in the multinational soda wars between Coke and Pepsi.
Because of the burping beliefs, the Tzotzil have adopted colas as part of their religious practices and part of their daily lives — often to an extreme result. In 2006, In These Times reported that “beverages sell for 50 U.S. cents a can, exactly the average daily income” and observed that “purchasing a soda often means not purchasing food, and Chiapas has one of the highest rates of both malnutrition and Coke consumption in Mexico.”
With such demand, though, the cola companies can’t help themselves. A travel writer for the Independent visited the region in 1997 and noticed that the Coke/Pepsi battle for market supremacy was unavoidable:
Adverts bombard visitors in the fight for brand loyalty from the moment you enter the village. A painted Coca-Cola bottle on a whitewashed wall promises siempre mejor [“always the best”]. Immediately behind it, a Pepsi-sponsored billboard advises us not to take photographs during religious rituals. Stories still circulate about two American tourists who were supposedly killed after taking photographs inside Chamula’s church during a ritualistic ceremony. [That double murder probably didn’t happen; it’s widely believed among Chamulans to be fiction.]
And the battle for soda supremacy probably does not stop at advertisements. With local shamans controlling a lot of consumption choices — especially for the carbonated cola choice for religious rituals — there’s an obvious produce placement opportunity to be had. And, as one may have feared, there are some reports that the the Coca-Cola company paid some of these shamans to make Coke their brand of choice — and that Pepsi responded in kind, with offers of payments of their own.
And to make matters worse, the soft drinks are often used to procure political support. The “local elites who wield economic and political power and control the soft drink concession” or “caciques,” in the words of In These Times, have used the religiously-driven appeal of Coke (or Pepsi) to ensure politics success:
A few months before each election, caciques begin providing store owners with all their cola products free of charge. In exchange, each store owner will support his cacique-sponsor’s preferred candidate in the local election, which is invariably a choice between two politicians from the Institutionalized Revolutionary Party (PRI). In turn, the customers of each store get all the cola they want for free, provided they vote for the owner’s candidate. This arrangement helps both the caciques and the PRI to retain their hold on power.
The good news? According to a 2004 report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (republished here), when children in the Tzotzilan communities fall ill, parents may use the cola to get the kids to burping, “expelling the sickness,” but they don’t do so as a substitute for medical advice — they also go to the doctor.
Bonus Fact : Coca-Cola was the first soft drink in space, with trips on three different Space Shuttles and to Mir. But drinking soda in space? It’s a bad idea. According to NASA’s K-12 website, NASA Quest, the burps are a problem: “Because there is no gravity, the contents of your stomach float and tend to stay at the top of your stomach, under the rib cage and close to the valve at the top of your stomach. Because this valve isn’t a complete closure (just a muscle that works with gravity), if you burp, it becomes a wet burp from the contents in your stomach.” Yuck.
From the Archives : Vodka and Cola: Crystal Pepsi and White Coke — and a Cold War work-around.
Take the Quiz : Coke versus Pepsi: Name Their ProductsIt’s a Bank Holiday, the sun’s out, the air is sweet (sort of). So what better time for one of the dankest, fiercest FACT mixes that you or we have ever encountered?
Dankness and fierceness aside, Kryptic Minds’ FACT mix 241 is every bit as nuanced as their own productions, with a strong, confident narrative and a spacious sound design that conspire together give it a near-cinematic quality. Listening to it, you can readily infer the kind of drum n’ bass influences that are central to Brett Bigden and Simon Shreeve’s dubstep vision: the lustrously darkside landscaping of Source Direct, Omni Trio, Photek, early Metalheadz and Reinforced. Urban music in the truest sense: inspired by, and made for, life in the city.
Kryptic Minds are perhaps best known as standard-bearers for halfstep, their 2009 debut album One Of Us (released on Loefah’s Swamp81 label) sparking renewed interest in dubstep’s rhythmic founding principles, precisely at a time when many in the London scene were opening up to the emergent sounds of funky and recombinant UK garage. It’s not that the KMs were, or are, deliberately going against the grain; they just know where their allegiances and affections lie, have little time for fashion, and have established the parameters within which their creativity best thrives.
Since 2009, Swamp81 – originally conceived to push the halfstep sound which Loefah himself spearheaded earlier in the century – has increasingly become an outlet for 808-heavy house, juke and electro-influenced music from Ramadanman, Addison Groove, Boddika et al. Kryptic Minds’ new album, Can’t Sleep, comes courtesy of Black Box, a label home to formidable 12″s from RSD, DJ Madd, Hatcha, N-Type and Cyrus. It finds them adhering steadfastly to that rhythmic tradition, but refining it down yet further to its minimalist, raz0r-sharp essence, and at the same time developing the textural and harmonic side of what they do, with a couple of ventures into out-and-out song-form.
FACT mix 241 shows you exactly where they’re at, comprised as it is almost entirely of their own productions. No less than six tracks from the new LP feature, includling Youngsta collaboration ‘Arcane’, plus seven previously unreleased dubs. The producers’ producers, Kryptic Minds are really very special, and deserving of the highest respect. Plug into their immersive, transporting FACT mix and you’ll see why.
Tracklist:
Kryptic Minds – Untitled Dub
Kryptic Minds – Untitled Dub
Kryptic Minds – Untitled Dub
Kryptic Minds – Time Flies
DJ Madd – Dub Marine – Kryptic Minds Remix
DJ Madd – Pitch Black – Forthcoming – Osiris Music uk
Matt U – Empty Inside – Forthcoming – Osiris Music uk
Kryptic Minds – Can’t Sleep
Kryptic Minds – The Fifth
Kryptic Minds – No More No Less
DJ Madd – New Reality – Forthcoming Osiris Music uk
Freeze & LX ONE – Foreseen – Osiris Music uk
Kryptic Minds – Untitled Dub
Kryptic Minds – The Things They Left behind
Kryptic Minds – Untitled Dub
Kryptic Minds – Just After Sunset
Kryptic Minds & Youngsta – Arcane
Kryptic Minds – Untitled Dub
Matt U – Unforgiven – Forthcoming – Osiris Music uk
Kryptic Minds – Untitled Dub
Kryptic Minds – Wasteland – Osiris Music ukWilliam Stewart Halsted
Born: 23-Sep-1852
Birthplace: New York City
Died: 7-Sep-1922
Location of death: Baltimore, MD
Cause of death: Pneumonia
Remains: Cremated, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY
Gender: Male
Religion: Agnostic
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Doctor
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Pioneer of sterile surgical technique
Through intuition, study, and what now seems like simple common sense, Dr William Stewart Halsted was an early advocate and practitioner of sanitary surgical practice. Nineteenth century surgery was inherently dangerous, undertaken in only the most dire situations, because most surgical patients promptly developed infections and never recovered. Halsted's patients fared markedly better, because he insisted on meticulous cleanliness in the operating room and pioneered antiseptic procedures including the sterilization of all medical equipment.
He was born into a wealthy family, and had all the advantages of an elite private education before attending Yale. He earned his medical degree at Columbia University, spent two years studying in Europe, and established a respected practice in New York. His father, William Mills Halsted, Jr., was a principal of Halsted, Haines & Company, a leading dry goods supplier in New York, and evidence strongly suggests that the elder Halsted augmented his income by embezzling from the firm, which ensured the younger Halsted's education, overseas study, and personal fortune, and hastened the 1884 collapse into insolvency of Halsted, Haines & Company.
In 1877, while working at Bellevue Hospital in New York, he tried to convince hospital administrators to construct a sterile operating room. The hospital refused, as the proposal was wildly innovative and seriously expensive, so Halsted used $10,000 of his own funds to erect a tent on hospital grounds, equipped with maple floors, gas lights, and sterilization facilities — the first sterile operating environment in medical history.
In 1881, while visiting the family home in Albany, New York, he performed the first emergency blood transfusion, drawing his own blood and injecting it into his sister's bloodstream when he found her passed out from a postpartum hemorrhage. The next year he performed emergency gall bladder surgery on his mother, performing the operation on her kitchen table — administering ether to knock her out, sanitizing his hands and equipment by dipping them in carbolic acid, then slicing into her abdomen and gall bladder, draining vast amounts of pus and removing seven stones — the first recorded surgery to remove gallstones.
In 1882 he introduced the radical mastectomy as a surgical treatment for breast cancer. In 1884 he became the first surgeon to use cocaine as an injected anesthetic in the trunk of a sensory nerve, but in the course of developing this technique he became addicted to cocaine himself. In a subsequent but failed attempt to wean himself from cocaine he became addicted to morphine as well, and remained a regular user of both drugs for the rest of his life.
In 1886 he came to Baltimore at the invitation of Dr William H. Welch, and there he spent several years experimenting on dogs to improve surgical technique for intestinal suture and wound healing. In 1889 he was appointed chief of surgery at the newly established Johns Hopkins Hospital. In the same year, when his nurse complained that the antiseptic mercuric bichloride had caused dermatitis on her hands, he contracted with a rubber manufacturer to make the first surgical gloves. Within a few years he had introduced surgical gowns and hats. In 1892 he became professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University, and performed the first successful subclavian artery ligation.
In his long career at Hopkins, Halsted introduced improved surgical techniques for aneurysms, goiters, hernia repair, intestinal sutures, thyroid surgery, and treatment of tuberculosis, and established the residency training system, as well an increased emphasis on limiting blood loss and minimizing tissue damage. He was also renowned as a teacher, and as his fame and success grew, virtually all of the next generation of American surgeons were taught either by Halsted, by his students, or by his methodology. Perhaps most remarkably, Halsted accomplished all this while maintaining a dark, delicate balance between his drug addictions and the pressures of academia and surgery.
His character was described as abrupt, eccentric, and introverted. He insisted on wearing only shoes and boots made by a particular leather craftsman in Europe, his suits were all tailored in London, and all his shirts came from a single tailor in Paris. He did not trust American laundries, and had his clothes shipped to Europe for cleaning. He married the head nurse at Johns Hopkins — the same woman whose skin problems inspired surgical gloves, she was a niece of Confederate General Wade Hampton. For decades Dr and Mrs Halsted lived on separate floors of a Baltimore mansion. They had no children but did own several dachshunds. Though raised a Presbyterian, by adulthood he proclaimed agnosticism. He died in 1922, of pneumonia ironically aggravated by complications from surgery for obstructive jaundice.
Father: William Mills Halsted, Jr. (retailing magnate)
Mother: Mary Louisa Haines
Wife: Caroline Hampton (nurse, m. 4-Jun-1890)
Mistress: Elizabeth Blanchard Randall ("Bessie", b. 1892, affair 1918-22)
High School: Phillips Academy Andover (1869)
University: BA, Yale University (1874)
University: MD, Columbia University (1877)
Scholar: University of Vienna (1878-79)
Scholar: University of Leipzig (1879)
Scholar: University of Würzburg (1879-80)
Lecturer: Anatomy, Columbia University (1880-85)
Professor: Surgery, Johns Hopkins University (1892-1922)
Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore Chief of Surgery (1889-1922)
Roosevelt Hospital, New York (1881-87)
New York Hospital, New York (1878)
Bellevue Hospital, New York (1876-78)
Gold Medal of the American Dental Association (1922)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Surgical Association
Royal Chemical Society of England Foreign Member
Surgery Obstructive jaundice (26-Aug-1922)
English Ancestry
Risk Factors: Cocaine, Morphine, Smoking
Author of books:
Surgical Papers ( 1924, two volumes)
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Submit a correction or make a comment about this profileIn the wake of the lengthy drama surrounding the shut down of multiple subreddits promoting online harrassment, Reddit is now facing a far bigger crisis. Earlier this week, the company fired Victoria Taylor, who had been the company’s point person for organizing celebrity “Ask me Anything” events in which famous people respond to user-submitted questions. President Obama’s AMA was so big that it crashed the site.
No explanation has been given yet for Taylor’s dismissal — Taylor has said she knows as much as we do as to why she was let go. In any case, the site is quickly learning that they may have made a huge mistake. Taylor was seen as one of the few reliable lines of communication between the site’s formal employees and its user base, and hundreds of subreddits — including its largest subreddit, r/funny — have shut down in protest, sending the company into full panic mode. The situation is informally nicknamed “Victoria’s Secret” or “the Darkening” (a play on “the Fappening” and “the Fattening”, Reddit drama based on the mass leak of nude celebrity photos and the aforementioned banning of subreddits bullying fat people respectively).
She is credited with making the subreddit /r/IAMA as successful as it was. She was responsible for verifying the identities of celebrities answering user questions — a function that the subreddit’s moderators have said other admins are not nearly as committed to. She acted as a crucial communication point between redditors, the company itself and prospective interviewees. However, with her being fired abruptly with no reason given, redditors and interviewees have been left in the lurch.
Victoria allegedly offered to continue working for free to get to the end of the scheduled AMAs, but her offer was declined. This means that moderators have no way of communicating with the people who were scheduled to be interviewed. As a much loved staple to the Reddit community, her dismissal hit hard, and anger over the decision was immediately seen in the way that hundreds of subreddits went private (so no-one can access them) in protest, including some of the biggest default ones – /r/science has 8.5 million subscribers, /r/askreddit has 8.9 subscribers and /r/todayilearned has 8.7 million subscribers, to name a few. A full list of subreddits that have closed their doors in response can be found here.
There are many alleged reasons as to why she was fired. Initial speculation was that it could have had something to do with the recent, disastrous AMA that Jesse Jackson participated in. A more likely reason is that she had been receiving pressure from the company to do more to commercialize AMAs. A now-deleted Quora post reads:
A hasty non-apology from the company this morning didn’t add any explanation, either.
However, the protest isn’t entirely about Victoria’s departure — that served as the catalyst for a far deeper issue. As one redditor wrote:
As much as Victoria is loved, this reaction is not all a result of her departure: there is a feeling among many of the moderators of reddit that the admins do not respect the work that is put in by the thousands of unpaid volunteers who maintain the communities of the 9,656 active subreddits, which they feel is expressed by, among other things, the lack of communication between them and the admins, and their disregard of the thousands of mods who keep reddit’s communities going.
The chaos on the site has led many users to leave Reddit in favor of voat.co, a reddit lookalike website that boasts of having far less censorship. Many subreddits are debating whether or not to show solidarity, with mods keeping their subscribers updated on the unfolding state of their decision, until one is finally made. Some subreddits like /r/ASOIAF (about the Game of Thrones book series) have threads in which subscribers themselves can add in their opinion as to whether that specific community should go dark (in this case with a majority leaning towards yes, with many comments calling for the subreddit to “take the black!”). A list stream of subreddits deciding to stay up or go private can be found here.
Some popular subreddits made the controversial move to stay open, and have received backlash from their subscribers — /r/pcmasterrace has seen thousands of users unsubscribe, with the amount lost increasing by the minute, due to their “business as usual” approach to the drama.
Many subreddits have come back online in response to the admin’s response, having felt their message was heard. However, there is a counter-movement demanding that the resistance stay strong for at least 24 hours, lest their solidarity fall apart too early.
For being one of the largest online communities in the world, Reddit has consistently proven to be a remarkably poorly-managed company. It relies heavily on the free labor supplied by its nearly ten thousand volunteer moderators, and has demonstrated a complete lack of regard for its relationship with them.
It remains to be seen if the site will weather this storm.Two StarCraft 2 streams, showcasing the world’s best talent. Halo: Reach and Call of Duty: Black Ops, coming into their own. The Pro Circuit debut of League of Legends. There’s going to be a lot to watch in Raleigh.
Make sure you can see it all the way it was meant to be seen. Get yourself a League Membership for full, ad-free HQ streams and immediate access to Tournament VoD!
Here are the full broadcast schedules for all games in Raleigh, including the results of our community’s choice polls. There’s so much going on that it will be impossible to watch everything live; take notes and make sure you know when your favorites will be on the streams! (All times listed are in ET.)
StarCraft 2
All streamed StarCraft 2 matches will feature commentary by Tasteless and Artosis (on the Red stream) and Day[9], Husky and JP McDaniel (on the Blue stream.)
League of Legends
LoL’s Pro Circuit debut will feature two of the best casters in the business.
Rivington : An eight-year veteran on the competitive gaming scene who began with Counter-Strike 1.6 and is currently a Commentator at Riot Games.
: An eight-year veteran on the competitive gaming scene who began with Counter-Strike 1.6 and is currently a Commentator at Riot Games. FourCourtJester: Has been casting for over a year, and is now gaining a reputation for MOBA- style games. He has worked with GameReplays.org, Cyber Sports Net, Borderland Gaming and NationalESL.
Saturday
9:30 AM – 10:00 AM Pregame Show
10:00 AM – 12:30 PM Pool Play – Counter Logic Gaming vs. Curse Gaming
12:30 PM – 3:00 PM Pool Play – Epik Gaming vs. Solo Mid
3:00 PM – 5:30 PM Pool Play – Counter Logic Gaming vs. Epik Gaming
5:30 PM – 8:00 PM Pool Play – Counter Logic Gaming vs. Solo Mid
Sunday
9:30 AM – 10:00 AM Pregame Show
10:00 AM – 1:45 PM Finals
Halo: Reach
All streamed games will feature commentary by MLG's very own Chris Puckett, Shockwave and Gandhi.
Friday
3:00 PM – 3:15 PM Stride Championship Series Match
5:00 PM – 5:10 PM Welcome
5:10 PM – 5:20 PM All Stream Pregame Show
5:20 PM – 5:30 PM Halo: Reach Pregame Show
5:30 PM – 6:45 PM Pool Play – Status Quo vs. Fnatic Classic
6:45 PM – 8:00 PM Pool Play – eon Instinct vs. Turning Point
9:15 PM – 10:30 PM Pool Play – UoR Dynasty vs. apex Warriors
10:30 PM – 11:45 PM Pool Play – Str8 Rippin vs. Turning Point
11:45 PM – 12:00 AM Day Wrap
Saturday
10:00 AM – 6:00 PM Pool Play
6:15 PM – 7:30 PM Championship Losers Round 2
7:30 PM – 8:45 PM Championship Winners Semifinals A
8:45 PM – 10:00 PM Championship Winners Semifinals B
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM BIC® Flex4® FFA Finals & Awards Ceremony
Sunday
10:00 AM – 11:15 AM Championship Losers Round 5
11:15 AM – 12:30 PM Championship Losers Round 6
12:30 PM – 1:45 PM Championship Losers Round 7
1:45 PM – 3:00 PM Championship Losers Round 8
3:15 PM – 4:30 PM Championship Winners Finals
4:30 PM – 6:00 PM Championship Losers Finals
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM Championship Finals
7:30 PM – 7:45 PM Awards Ceremony
Call of Duty: Black Ops
All streamed matches will feature commentary by Corey Dunn and Holiday Doc, whose expertise has been enlivening the Black Ops stream since its debut on the Pro Circuit.
Friday
5:00 PM – 5:10 PM Welcome
5:10 PM – 5:20 PM All Stream Pregame Show
5:20 PM – 5:30 PM Black Ops Pregame Show
5:30 PM – 6:45 PM Pool Play – FeaR vs. yunGunZ
6:45 PM – 8:00 PM Pool Play – Quantic LeveraGe vs. Collapse
8:00 PM – 9:15 PM Pool Play – eon OpTic Gaming vs. Influence
9:15 PM – 10:30 PM Pool Play – eon EnVy vs. Quantic Nex-TT-hreat
10:30 PM – 11:45 PM *Pool Play – Quantic LeveraGe vs. oB Pro*
11:45 PM – 12:00 AM Day Wrap
*Community’s Choice Poll Winner
Saturday
7:00 PM – 7:30 PM Pregame Show
7:30 PM – 8:45 PM Championship Winners Semifinals A
8:45 PM – 10:00 PM Championship Winners Semifinals B
10:00 PM – 11:15 PM Championship Losers Round 5
11:15 PM – 11:30 PM Day Wrap
Sunday
1:30 PM – 2:00 PM Pregame Show & Path to Honor
2:00 PM – 3:15 PM Championship Winners Finals
3:15 PM – 4:30 PM Championship Losers Finals
4:30 PM – 6:00 PM Championship Finals
6:00 PM – 6:15 PM Awards Ceremony
Don't miss out on a second of the action. Get yourself a League Membership and clear your calendar; MLG Raleigh kicks off at 5pm on August 26!Citing upcoming elections, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has cancelled a joint summit with Israeli officials scheduled for May, but elements within Berlin and Jerusalem are claiming that Israel’s recent vote to expand its settlements in the West Bank is the real cause for the cancellation.
German national security adviser Kristof Heusgen informed the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the postponed meeting just days after the Knesset passed the "Regularization Law", according to Haaretz, even though the German elections won’t be held until four and a half months after the summit in September.
One Israeli spokesman told Deutsche Welle that the summit was canceled due to a "variety of international appointments within the context of the German presidency of the G20."
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin also denounced the decision, saying that Israel could be "seen as an apartheid state" as a result of the vote.
"Sovereignty over the states needs to happen collectively, for all its citizens…It can't be that in one area of land these are separate codes of law for Israelis and non-Israelis." he said.
The controversial bill was passed in early February and retroactively legalizes the homes of nearly 4,000 settlers. Soon after the vote members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) decried the decision as a way to "legalize theft", pointing out that "Israeli settlement enterprise negates peace and the possibility of the two-state solution," and that "the Israeli government's will to destroy any chances for a political solution."
© REUTERS / Ronen Zvulun/File Photo |
time to do ugly stuff like mining digital currencies while abusing of users CPUs. Also, IE has its popUp blocker is completely broken and nobody seem to care. Fine, but I think these things should be patched or at least set a big red warning to IE users when they open it, something like “We do not support this browser anymore, use Microsoft Edge“.
In my opinion, Microsoft is trying to get rid of IE without saying it. It would be easier, more honest to simply tell users that their older browser is not being serviced like Edge. Current browser stats, according to Netmarketshare show that IE is still more popular than Edge: 17% vs 6%.
I firmly believe that IE should be treated like Edge in terms of security, otherwise get rid of it completely. Either way, let’s explore another bug on IE that allows attackers to know the address where the user is going. Mind reading? Nope, we know mind reading does not exist, but take a look and see how IE allows us attackers to do what appears to be magic.
Abstract
When a script is executed inside an object-html tag, the location object will get confused and return the main location instead of its own. To be precise, it will return the text written in the address bar so whatever the user types there will be accessible by the attacker. In a hurry? Take a look at the video and watch how we read what the user types inside IE address-bar!
Objects and Document Modes
Object tags behave differently depending on the documentMode where they are being rendered. For example, if we add the compatibility meta tag at the beginning of a page it will look and behave like an iframe but it will think it is the top window.
<head> <!-- COMPATIBILITY META TAG --> <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" /> </head> <object data="obj.html" type="text/html"></object> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 <head> <!-- COMPATIBILITY META TAG --> <meta http-equiv = "X-UA-Compatible" content = "IE=8" /> </head> <object data = "obj.html" type = "text/html" > </object>
In the code above, “obj.html” is rendered inside the object and the contents are wrapped inside a block similar to an iframe, however, comparing its window object with the top one returns true, when it shouldn’t: it is not the top window. Take a look at the code executed inside the object tag: it thinks window == top, which isn’t really true.
Our object believes it’s the top window, to the point that other members like frameElement return always null, a behavior that only happens on top windows (on IE).
Let’s try the same code without the compatibility tag. It seems that the object now understands its place in the universe and behaves like an iframe.
<!-- COMPATIBILITY META TAG REMOVED --> <object data="obj.html" type="text/html"></object> 1 2 3 4 <!-- COMPATIBILITY META TAG REMOVED --> <object data = "obj.html" type = "text/html" > </object>
Essentially, the object is being rendered as an independent entity in older document modes but as an iframe in newer ones. Regardless of that, internally both are WebBrowser controls, Trident engines exposing the same members.
Inherited window members
Let’s set back an older documentMode and find a way to exploit this confusion-bug which does not seem to be that bad because cross-domain restrictions are still in place, and the X-FRAME-OPTIONS header works perfectly well. There are members like window.name which are inherited by the object (the object inherits the name of its parent) but that’s not super-bad except for specific advertising technologies which insecurely use the window.name to pass information across iframes.
Having said that, there’s at least one inherited object that really causes trouble: location. Inside an object tag, location.href will return the location of the main (top) window. The code below renders the object with its source pointing to object_location.html, but when we retrieve its location it returns the top instead.
Again, this confusion-bug is not useful because we are still on the same domain. Even if we can retrieve -thanks to the confusion- the location of the top, as long as we are on the same domain things are not exciting. By the way bug hunter, I tried for a few minutes to change the location of the object, but no success. If you want to research on this area I would suggest going deeper because I believe it should be possible. Regardless of that, while trying to achieve a UXSS (persistence is key for everything in life) an interesting bug stumbled upon me: when the object is injected onbeforeunload what we get is not the top location anymore, but the location that the browser is going to or, what’s currently written into the address bar.
In other words, if we retrieve the location.href of the object while the user is leaving the main page, we will be able to know what was typed into the address-bar, or, if the user clicked on a link we will know the address of the link that the browser is going to.
For our testing purposes, we will just interrupt the loading of the new site and show the URL to the user. Of course, an attacker would simply post-back the address and load the site anyway making this transparent to the user. Let’s do a simple document.write of the object while the user is leaving.
window.onbeforeunload = function() { document.write('<object data="loc.html" type="text/html" width="800" height="300"></object>'); document.close(); } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 window. onbeforeunload = function ( ) { document. write ( '<object data="loc.html" type="text/html" width="800" height="300"></object>' ) ; document. close ( ) ; }
And read the location at that precise moment (onbeforeunload).
document.write("Let me read your mind. You wanted to go here: " + location.href +); 1 2 3 document. write ( "Let me read your mind. You wanted to go here: " + location. href + ) ;
That’s it! Now we will retrieve the object location when the user is leaving and know exactly what she typed into the address bar. It does not have to be a full URL, for example, if the user types words into the address bar, it will automatically be converted to a search query URL (Bing by default on IE) which can of course be completely read!
Have a nice day, and keep pushing into this object! I’m sure there are tons of things to be discovered.
Manuel.Of all the small towns in Emilia-Romagna that I’ve seen so far, none have taken my breath away as thoroughly as Brisighella. The colors of the city, rich with influences from nearby Tuscany, pop in the sun with warm hues. The buildings were constructed higher to accommodate for larger families, making the homes here stretch further up than those of many other Italian cities. Even more intriguing is the indoor public street, created as a defense against invaders. Markets and donkey stalls were once held in these elevated walkways, creating a bustling but hidden-from-view social center.
But perhaps the most glorious attraction of Brisighella is its clock tower, the Torre dell’Orologio, from where those who make it up the steps can witness brilliant views of the town’s hilltop fortress, its timeless palazzi and the rolling mountains that surround it all.
Photos of Brisighella, including a video of the view of the city from the Torre dell’Orologio and the chiming of the bells.
If you like what you see, please subscribe to my YouTube channel.The beginning of the project was the book "Anarchie! Idee, Geschichte, Perspektiven" (Anarchy! Idea, History, Perspectives) by Horst Stowasser. With him we began drafting the movie, which should be an introduction into the broad topic of anarchism. Thereby we wanted to address especially people who had yet no or just limited knowledge about the anarchist idea. A film for a broad audience.
A short part of the film outlines the basic ideas of anarchism. Our main focus, however, is on people who take the first steps in the direction of an anarchist society. It is us and our project where you can turn to, to learn about and expose yourself to the idea of an anarchist society - beyond the common clichés of anarchists as either hooded vandalists or anarchy as a state of civil unrest - as an alternative to be taken serious.
In the last couple of years we were on the road in Spain, Greece, Switzerland and Germany.
Shooting locations, projects and people appearing in the film:
→ International Anarchist Meeting 2012 - Saint-Imier, Switzerland The biggest anarchist meeting in recent history with about 3,000 participants.
→ Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) - Barcelona, Spain
Anarcho-syndicalist union with about 60,000 members.
→ Parko Navarinou - Athens, Greece
Occupied in 2009, this parking lot was converted into a public park by residents and anarchists.
→ Hanna Poddig, Germany
Anti-nuclear activist, who blockaded the transport of radioactive materials by chaining herself to the tracks.
→ Enric Duran, Spain
Anti-capitalist activist, who parted 39 banks from their cash (about half a million euros) and now lives in the underground.
→ Cooperativa Integral Catalana (CIC) - Barcelona, Spain
A cooperative, co-initiated by Enric Duran, with more than two thousand members, which tries to cause societal transformation through alternative currency models, own production and bartering.
→ Kartoffelkombinat - Munich, Germany
Solidary agriculture, which, after only two years, already provides for 450 households - and counting.
(The Kartoffelkombinat, by self-definition of the associates, is not an anarchist project. In the context of the film however it is of great interest to us.)Scott Lowe takes the early preview version of PowerShell 3.0 for a spin and likes what he sees. Here are some of the best-looking new features from his test run.
Okay, I might be exaggerating when I say that the upcoming version of PowerShell, Microsoft's robust and ubiquitous scripting language, will bring scripting to 2015, but PowerShell 3.0 will certainly bring a whole lot to the table for both hardcore programmers as well as casual scripters. Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle and I'm pretty excited about what I see coming.
First of all, PowerShell 3.0 is included in the Windows Management Framework 3.0 CTP2, which is available for download and installation on Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 machines. Now that you know where to get it, make sure you understand that "CTP" stands for Community Technology Preview. This is pre-alpha stuff. It's from beta. It's intended to be exactly what it says... a preview. Don't expect a finished product and certainly don't expect something that is free of potential problems. You shouldn't install the CTP version to a machine that you depend on for critical, time-sensitive PowerShell scripting. I installed the CTP2 to a test virtual machine. In order to do so, I needed to make sure that the machine was running Windows 7 SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. Further, CTP2 requires the installation of the.NET Framework 4.0.
Figure A
Once you have the prerequisites in place, you can install the package. To make sure everything has gone as planned, open PowerShell after installation and run the command $host.version. You will get a result like the one shown in, which shows you that PowerShell 3.0 is installed.
PowerShell 3.0 is installed
Before I show you a couple of pretty cool capabilities in PowerShell 3.0, let's take a look at what Microsoft is saying they're including in this newest version. From the Windows Management Framework 3.0 - Community Technology Preview (CTP) #2 page, here are some of the new features in Windows PowerShell 3.0:
Workflows: Workflows that run long-running activities (in sequence or in parallel) to perform complex, larger management tasks, such as multi-machine application provisioning. Using the Windows Workflow Foundation at the command line, Windows PowerShell workflows are repeatable, parallelizable, interruptible, and recoverable.
Robust Sessions: Robust sessions that automatically recover from network failures and interruptions and allow you to disconnect from the session, shut down the computer, and reconnect from a different computer without interrupting the task.
Scheduled Jobs: Scheduled jobs that run regularly or in response to an event.
Delegated Administration: Commands that can be executed with a delegated set of credentials so users with limited permissions can run critical jobs
Simplified Language Syntax: Simplified language syntax that make commands and scripts look a lot less like code and a lot more like natural language.
Cmdlet Discovery: Improved cmdlet discovery and automatic module loading that make it easier to find and run any of the cmdlets installed on your computer.
Show-Command: Show-Command, a cmdlet and ISE Add-On that helps users find the right cmdlet, view its parameters in a dialog box, and run it.
I'm not going to focus here on the behind-the-scenes stuff; I'll instead focus on a couple of features that will make life easier for both new and experienced PowerShell scripters.
Some features require the use of the PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE), which can be installed as a feature from Server Manager as shown below in Figure B.
Figure B
Install the PowerShell ISE tool from Server Manager
Figure C
Perhaps one of the most useful features added to PowerShell 3.0 is a great new Show-Command cmdlet, which leverages the aforementioned ISE tool in a way that makes it much, much easier to locate commands and understand required and optional parameters. Shown in, note that you can search for a command, select it, and be shown all of the parameters that are necessary and optional. The required parameters have an asterisk next to them. You can also make use of PowerShell's Confirm and WhatIf capabilities right from this window.
The Show-Command window
Figure D
The next feature isn't really new, but has been made even better in PowerShell 3. The out-gridview parameter is shown in. With this, you can overcome PowerShell's text-based limitations and display tabular results in a graphical grid-based view, which allow you to adjust column size, add parameters and more. In Figure D, note that I've added two parameters at the top of the window. I can use these to narrow the displayed results. When necessary, I can then just click the X next to a parameter to remove it from the grid. The command that I used in Figure D is get-process | out-gridview.
PowerShell's grid view feature
Summary
These two user-facing features are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to new ways that PowerShell can be used to ease administrative burden. Between these and the behind the scenes features, such as workflows and robust sessions, Microsoft has really taken PowerShell to a whole new level.What’s more is that in these hypermasculine settings, when women rise up the ranks, men can feel that their dominance is being threatened. In fact, the most common form of harassment is not the solicitation of sex, but rather what’s called gender harassment—sexist comments, obscene gestures, publicly displayed pornography—which serve as tools for putting women “in their place.” Women who violate feminine ideals by having a “man’s job” or behaving in “masculine” ways such as expressing strong opinions, being assertive, and having supervisory roles are more likely to experience such harassment.
Another general principle is that hierarchy seems to increase the odds of harassment occurring. Of course, most organizations are hierarchical to some extent, but what matters is the degree of the power imbalances among different people in the system. Studies have found that having power enables people to do as they please, often at the expense of taking other people’s perspectives into consideration. Research has also shown that in the minds of men with a high proclivity to harass, power and sex are closely linked. Moreover, their power shields them from scrutiny, criticism, and punishment. As a result, having power over others is often corruptive, in that it can lead people to behave badly, lack empathy, and even to engage in socially inappropriate or sexualized behavior. In contrast, powerlessness is associated with fear and embarrassment and a heightened sensitivity to threat. In contexts with greater hierarchy, higher-ups may be more inclined to behave badly, while at the same time subordinates are less able to push back.
A type of hierarchical situation that is rife for sexual harassment is one in which powerful individuals have a lot of discretion and a singular capacity to make or break an underling’s career. The Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who has been accused of sexual assault and harassment, was for decades able to launch an unknown actress into stardom. (Holly Baird, a spokesperson for Weinstein, told The Atlantic that Weinstein “unequivocally denie[s]” any allegations of nonconsensual sex.) The venture capitalist Justin Caldbeck, who has been accused of unwanted and inappropriate advances, was in a position to provide badly needed funding to women entrepreneurs. (Caldbeck has denied the allegations and threatened to sue his accusers. He has also apologized and is now seeking to educate young men about “bro” culture. He declined to speak on the record for this article.) The U.C. Berkeley astronomy professor Geoff Marcy, who has been accused of behaving in an inappropriate and sexualized manner with students, had the power to write letters of recommendation to help women undergraduates get into graduate school. (Marcy disputes these accusations. A lawyer representing him referred The Atlantic to Marcy’s earlier public statements about the matter.) The story often follows similar lines: A harasser’s high status provides cover for their actions because victims and bystanders are leery of what will happen to them if they speak up. If the perpetrator holds the keys to your future, it can be hard to come forward or fight back. Time and again, harassers get away with it because there is a low probability of both discovery and punishment.In July, 2013, a video entitled “Is this paranormal activity caught on CCTV in a Whitstable shop?” appeared on YouTube. This contains footage from a security camera in the Whitstable Nutrition Centre, a health food store in southeast England. A man browses an aisle in the store, oblivious to a box of tea that floats off the shelf behind him and then appears to “levitate” mid-air. A few seconds later a second box flies off the opposite shelf and drops to the ground. The startled man bends over to pick up the tea at which point the box suspended in the air drops to the floor suddenly.
The video has been steeped in mystery and some people are convinced that this is the handiwork of a very British ghost who likes a nice cuppa tea. Is this an example of paranormal active-tea or just a prank?
Shop manager Michelle Newbold discovered the activity when she was reviewing footage from the store’s CCTV. In an interview with the Huffington Post she said, “I was perplexed I suppose. I just couldn’t believe it. I have no idea about how it has happened. It is just a complete mystery. I have never seen anything like it since I’ve been running the shop.” Newbold adds that she doesn’t believe in ghosts. The video has received over 800,000 hits and counting and the story has been good for business.
There are some clues that the video could be a hoax including the fact that the original footage has not been offered for analysis. The video quality is poor; it shows a clip from a CCTV recording that was filmed with a camera phone. The film is also edited; it only focuses on one camera on a quad screen, so we can’t see what’s happening in the rest of the store. Also, there are two people visible at each end of the aisle who may have been in position to pull a prank. There are many simple tricks that could be used to make the boxes appear to float or fall to the floor. For example, the box on the left-hand side of the aisle may have been simply pushed from behind.
A few of my friends and I decided to make several reenactments of the events in the video to demonstrate that this phenomena can be faked, and that the paranormal can be a matter of perception.
The first of these recreations was filmed in a restaurant. Two men are chatting at a table when a box of tea sitting on the tabletop flies off and falls onto the floor. It is picked up and put back in place although a few seconds later it flies off the table again. Behind them on a second table, another box of tea slides off the surface and floats for a few seconds before it darts to the ground. Just like a magician’s illusions, the tricks behind these events were simple and mundane. This movement was achieved using fine thread stuck to the boxes. I sat off-camera holding a thread attached to a box of tea. I simply pulled the thread each time, causing the box to fall off the table, as though a poltergeist was at work. Two assistants sat facing each other on opposite sides of the room as they controlled the movements of the second box using string.
The second recreation takes place in a kitchen. With no one in sight, a box of tea glides across a table and hovers in the air for a few seconds before dropping to the ground. To create this illusion an empty box of tea was placed on a knife with a long blade that is used as a platform. Given the lighting in the room and the poor quality of the filming, the knife isn’t visible. The knife was then slowly pushed across the table, giving the appearance that the box floats through the air and then levitates. With one good puff of breath, the box falls to the ground. This was a better approach than the original video, where the box tips forward, looking as though it was sitting on a platform that was tipped slightly. In the third recreation two men are chatting in front of a fireplace. They’re absorbed in their conversation and don’t notice a box of tea that floats off the mantelpiece and hovers for a few seconds before falling to the ground. This final clip was created using computer-generated graphics.
These recreations show just a few of the possible ways that the phenomena in the original video could have been hoaxed. We have a tendency to want to believe in the supernatural while at the same time we have a dislike of being fooled. Before we jump to paranormal conclusions we should explore the possible natural explanations first.
With thanks to Hayley Stevens, Bryan Bonner, Matthew Baxter, Stu Hayes, Rick Duffy, Joe Anderson, and Michael Samarzia for their assistance with this project.More than just the funny guy on with Schopp & Bulldog, outgoing Greg Bauch is the heart & soul of WGR.
When you turn on your radio Monday afternoon, you’ll barely—if at all—notice the difference. That’s how they get away with it. An era, however, will have ended in Buffalo radio.
Greg Bauch’s last day at WGR is Friday. Listeners to Schopp and The Bulldog might recognize Greg as the guy who plays funny sound effects or through his radio alter ego, Greg Buck.
While Greg is among the best at finding (and playing at the right moment) silly or interesting sound bites, and Greg Buck is the funniest bit ever on Buffalo radio, others will come along and play sound effects and be funny. That’s just what one does on the radio.
The real story is, after 15 years there, Bauch is, without question, the heart and soul of WGR.
He’s the type of guy who becomes the heart and soul wherever he goes, but in a business where heart and soul don’t often last much longer than the time the “ON AIR” light is lit, Greg has managed to strap that station to his back, allowing an institutional continuity and his goodness to permeate the product for a decade and a half.
I first heard Greg Bauch when he started the way everyone started at WGR a generation ago: as the man at the controls of the late night John Otto show. The astute listener could hear that the brilliant Otto was often frustrated with the fact that his show was a training ground for “the new guy,” especially when that new guy “cared not a FIG!” about Otto or his show.
Broadcasting Hall of Famer Otto loved Greg. You could hear the smile through the radio as John, John, your operator on referred to him as my humble man servant Gregor.
John Otto was the first in a very long line of wonderfully talented hosts who was able to find something special in Greg, which is someone who was happy with being, and supremely talented at being, a radio producer.
A good producer is someone who lives for the good of the show (not someone who lives for the opportunity to inject himself on the air.)
A good producer does whatever it takes to forge a relationship with the talent on the show he’s producing, and builds an unbreakable trust with that person, allowing the talent to freely host the show with the knowledge that whatever is happening “on the other side of the glass” is being dealt with the proper amount of care.
With all this, a good producer is an equal part of the success of the show which he produces, although any recognition of that fact is almost always an afterthought. He is also accepting of the fact that he might command a quarter of the pay of the talent, while often working at least twice as hard.
Speak to Chris Parker or Mike Schopp or Chuck Dickerson or Tom Bauerle or the late Clip Smith or the late John Otto. They will tell you, invariably, that their shows were better because they had Bauch at the controls.
A thankless, lunch bucket kind of job in the midst of the glitz, glamour and fame of radio. Greg excels at it because that’s who he is.
But, as Van Miller used to say, that’s only the half of it.
To use a hokey hockey analogy, Greg has worn the “C” in the WGR dressing room for at least a decade as the quiet, stay at home defenseman, who not only moves easily among the superstar goal scorers, but always takes the new guys under his wing and shows them what they need to know.
Name anyone you’ve heard do a sports update on WGR in the last decade, and they were trained by Greg Bauch. Or trained by someone who went to the Greg Bauch College of WGR Knowledge.
To use another stupid sports analogy, Greg is the quarterback who stands back and sees everything at the station, from all perspectives- the talk show hosts, the update guys, the producers, even promotions and engineering, and successfully has them all working together.
It’s ironic and rare in this day and age, that he has been able to force all that’s good out of that radio station, and the people working there, by his gentle touch, and the fact that you aren’t likely to meet a better human being. Unless you know Howard Simon. But Greg has hair, so Greg > Howard.
This isn’t just the end of an era because Greg won’t be there anymore. It’s the end of an era, because it’s almost certain there’ll never be another like Greg Bauch in radio in Buffalo ever again.
Like in many fields, the corporatization of radio has eliminated the middle ground where good producers once stood. Radio is ever increasingly becoming a place where there are a few reasonably well-paid on-air talents, and everyone else makes minimum wage without benefits.
Even if someone had the drive, personality, voice, comedic timing, leadership skills and hot wife that Greg Bauch has, it’s nearly impossible that the person could remain in a job that is no longer valued in the corporate structure of radio the way Greg has been able.
So, talk show callers… Your time to harass a legend is running out. Post game coming up.
Greg Bauch will continue to write for Trending Buffalo.
Buffalo Journalist and Historian Steve Cichon brings us along as he explores the nooks and crannies of Buffalo’s past present and future, which can mean just about anything– twice a week on Trending Buffalo. He also apparently has an unnatural love for some of his former radio colleagues.
As he collects WNY’s pop culture history, Steve looks for Buffalo’s good stories and creative ways to tell them as the President and founder of Buffalo Stories LLC. He’d love to help your business tell its story. For a decade, he’s also collected and shared Buffalo’s pop culture history at staffannouncer.com.Of all the stories to tell in Europe this split, I've settled on the tragedy that is SK Gaming. I refer not to the broader use of tragedy as something deeply sad, but to dramatic tragedy, in which a hero is often lead to his downfall by an inherent flaw. SK's flaw was visible early on in the split, and viewers could feel their impending fall even as they ended the regular season with an impressive 15-3 record. Even so, we wanted them to succeed.
We wanted what looked like the best team in Europe to actually be the best. We wanted them to head to international competition and prove themselves the best possible champion of the EU LCS by far.
At the same time, we could watch their games, we could see their flaws, and we knew the end was coming. The question was — who would take them down. The tragic hero of the 2015 LCS Spring split would ultimately be their own undoing, but we liked to image a true champion would stand at the end: someone every inch a king.
Week Patch Most contested champions Rising teams Falling teams 1 5.1 Jarvan IV; Rek'Sai; Graves; Lee Sin; Janna; Kassadin; Leblanc FNC; GIA; SK H2k; MYM 2 5.1 Gnar; Rek'Sai; Lissandra; Jarvan IV; Kassadin; Zed FNC; SK; EL; H2k GIA; CW; ROC; GMB 3 5.2 Ahri; Kassadin; Gnar; Leona; Graves; Jarvan IV; Zed SK; CW; ROC H2k; GIA; MYM 4 5.2 Ahri; Jarvan IV; Kassadin; Gnar; Lissandra; Nidalee SK; UOL; H2k; GMB EL; ROC; GIA; MYM 5 5.3 Ahri; Kassadin; Rek'Sai; Corki CW; H2k; GMB; GIA SK; UOL; EL; MYM 6 5.3 Kassadin; Rek'Sai; Morgana; Annie; Zed FNC; H2k; GMB CW; GIA; ROC 7 5.4 Nidalee; Rek'Sai; Ahri; Zed; Corki; Morgana SK; H2k EL; GIA 8 5.5 Maokai; Leblanc; Rek'Sai; Sejuani; Zed SK; UOL CW; GIA 9 5.5 Maokai; Ahri; Lulu; Sejuani SK; FNC UOL; ROC
Most contested champions refers to those picked or banned in at least eight games in a given week (except Week 9, where only those picked or banned in nine or more games are listed). Rising teams refer to those with a 2-0 score for the week, while Falling teams refer to those with an 0-2 score for the week.
Team Weeks rising Weeks falling SK 7 1 FNC 3 1 H2k 5 2 GMB 3 2 UOL 2 2 CW 2 3 EL 1 3 ROC 1 4 GIA 2 6 MYM 0 4
Outside of SK Gaming, playoff teams in the European LCS were riddled with consistency issues. Fnatic and the Unicorns of Love would only go 2-0 in three and two of their weeks respectively this season. Part of the issue was that they, like Gambit Gaming, relied on heavy skirmishing.
The heavy skirmishing style isn't inherently flawed; it just requires a certain amount of finesse and setup to execute consistently. You have to know where your opponents are to enter into a fight. This typically wasn't the type of skirmishing we saw from UoL and Gambit. Sometimes Fnatic would pull it off with clever champion select and securing vision in the area.
In a sense, there were two rivalries of the European LCS: the rivalry of the scrappy teams that made the finals, Fnatic and Unicorns (Fnatic was 0-2 against the Unicorns in the regular season), and the rivalry of the teams with more consistency and finesse, SK Gaming and H2k (1-1 in the regular season), the only two teams to go undefeated for the majority of their split weeks.
Perhaps the problem with SK and H2k was that they were almost too consistent in what they did. It was easy to unravel their win conditions and stump them. In fact, the first time we saw SK falter was at the hands of H2k. SK didn't lose their match against H2k in Week 3, but poor vision in the early game granted H2k an early dragon and a lead over Svenskeren's reckless Nidalee. That's when we were first exposed to our hero's flaws — or at least when we realized they mattered.
Early on in the split, nRated informed the broadcasting crew at Riot that you could save money on wards by predicting the location of your opponent. You could then spend that gold on combat items to snowball a lead. That was SK's fundamental flaw: the need for snowball, the importance of winning lanes and taking the outer ring of turrets first for a gold lead. As tragic flaws go, it's a common and relateable one, a near Macbethian impatience and ambitiousness to find a lead, to establish dominance as soon as possible — it made us love them more.
Ultimately, Fnatic would abuse a lack of vision in SK's playstyle, while H2k and the Unicorns of Love would ban Graves to expose the fact that SK couldn't play well without lane dominating AD Carry picks. These three losses occurred halfway through the split, and they should have spelled the end of SK's run. SK didn't fix their problems; teams conveniently left them intact to be taken to task in the playoffs, where SK fell in a five game series to the Unicorns of Love, and then again to H2k in the third place match.
H2k had their own fundamental flaws. H2k should have been the pure champion to rise at the end of LCS. Instead of starting the split dominant, they went 0-2 in the first week. Then, after two wins against Giants and Meet Your Makers in Week 2, H2k dropped their next two games in Week 3. H2k only found their footing when Ryu settled in, and they acquired kaSing.
The two worked in tandem to set up and destroy wayward targets in the fog of war to allow their team to get a strong rotation for an objective. In a way, they were the perfect, rotation-based antithesis of the headstrong, turret taking SK. They could thrive in a land without their first ring of structures and make comebacks.
But they suffered in the head-on 5v5s. That would prove their undoing when the patch change on 5.5 rolled out, and team fighting became the predominant style.
In reality, outside H2k and SK Gaming this year, the European LCS lacked stylistic diversity. Almost every other team thrived in taking earlier fights, skirmishing around their strong mid laners, and eventually acquiring enough gold to brute force the base.
There were variations of the strategy. Fnatic had the best use of vision to prep areas for fights. Gambit Gaming relied on two-person roam squads. The Unicorns decided their best bet was choosing unexpected strategies like Cassiopeia and Yorick. The Wolves relied on Freeze and Soren to scale in the late game when their dive attempts went terribly wrong early. They all had their rising weeks. Each team had a moment where they forced fans to ask "are they the real deal?"
But what about the bottom four teams, the one who didn't make playoffs? Meet Your Makers had an extremely rough start, but would start finding wins toward the end of the split, mainly on skirmishes and plays initiated by their new support. They fell in with the Unicorns, the Fnatics, the Wolves, and the Gambits.
The fault lies in Giants, ROCCAT, and Elements. Patient, lane-holding game play has often been the answer to more reckless skirmishes. ROCCAT and Elements failed to bring those strategies to the limelight. It isn't that those styles don't work in the EU LCS' new climate, but more that ROCCAT and Elements executed them terribly.
It came to an obvious head the week before Krepo joined Elements. Elements and ROCCAT faced off on the rift, and ROCCAT were able to play a more aggressive style and three man dive Kev1n repeatedly. Elements showed that their biggest problem was that they just lacked the one fundamental element of team play. Almost all of them remained farming stagnant lanes while Kev1n suffered. No calls were made to react and move pressure or come to his aid.
ROCCAT had their own problems. An over-extending AD carry who should have served as the backbone, a top laner transitioning from mid lane who seemed too stuck on strange picks to become consistent, and a mid laner who seemed to stop caring some time around Week 4 when his team couldn't work around the few champions he could play when he got target banned. Vander and Jankos also failed to live up to their previous season's performance, but it's hard to blame them all other things considered.
That left Giants. While ROCCAT and Elements could have or should have been good, few had high hopes for Europe's all-Spanish team. The one guiding light for the Giants, though, was that they did have some variety to offer the pool. The one pick consistently banned against them was Werlyb's Jax, and Giants would otherwise devolve into the PePiiNeRo show. In both cases, the split pushing threat was a boon for Giants. They led would-be skirmishing teams on chases across the map. With a better concept of how to execute these strategies, Giants could have gotten a lot of free objectives. They just didn't.
With consistent and readable flaws |
The national carrier has flown an average of 8000 people out of Christchurch International Airport daily with more than 45,000 having left as of Monday.
That figure was expected to have passed 50,000 by yesterday and reach as high as 70,000 by week's end, Air New Zealand spokesman Mark Street.
The extra seats equated to around 20 additional Boeing 737 services per day on top of existing services.
''We have used every jet aircraft type in our fleet to find the additional capacity,'' he said.
- MARTIN VAN BEYNEN and GLENN CONWAY/The Press, with MARTIN KAY/Stuff and NZPADean Young, a member of former Alabama Chief Justice and U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore's campaign, speaks at a news conference, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala. Associated Press/Brynn Anderson
Representatives for Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore held a bizarre, fiery press conference Tuesday afternoon in which they sought to discredit allegations against Moore and raged against his political opponents, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic opponent Doug Jones, and the "fake-news people" in the media.
Moore's campaign has been beset by sexual-misconduct allegations in recent weeks after a number of women said publicly that Moore had pursued relationships or initiated sexual encounters with them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. Moore has denied the allegations and blamed the media and his enemies in the Republican establishment for the backlash against his campaign.
Dean Young, a strategist for Moore's campaign, said in an animated speech on Tuesday that the special election on December 12 will affect the course of the not only the country but the world. He added that he believed Alabama voters had been put there by God to make the decision.
"The question is, can you be tricked? Can you be tricked? Because all hell is coming to Alabama against Judge Roy Moore," Young said. "Anything they can do, any lie they can make up, any person they can drag up and put in front of a TV camera to say negative things against Judge Moore is coming."
Young went on to urge Alabama voters to contemplate the election over the Thanksgiving holiday.
"I want y'all to talk about it Sunday night after church, and I want y'all to think in your brain — Judge Moore that we've known for 25 years. Are we going to be sold a bill of goods by Mitch McConnell? And the fake news? Are we? Are we that gullible? And the answer's going to be no," Young said.
'Fake polls' from Fox News?
Stan Cooke, center, a member of former Alabama Chief Justice and US Senate candidate Roy Moore's campaign, speaks at a news conference, November 21, 2017, in Montgomery. Associated Press/Brynn Young
He also lambasted a poll conducted last week by Fox News that showed Jones leading Moore by 8 percentage points.
"Fox News can put out their fake polls and everyone else can too, but he's still winning and he's never been losing. Because the people of Alabama don't go for what you're trying to sell," Young said.
He then turned his ire toward Jones, whom he accused of supporting "partial-birth abortion" and "transgenders going into little girls' bathrooms." Young appeared to be referring to statements Jones made last month, saying he would not support legislation that would ban abortion after the 20th week of a woman's pregnancy and criticizing the Trump administration for rescinding Obama-era guidance on transgender students' access to bathrooms and locker rooms in public schools.
"Alabamians, if you've got a teenager that's in the locker room that's a girl and one of these transgender people decides they want to be a girl for the day, well Doug Jones thinks they should be able to go take a shower with them," Young said. "So here's what's going to happen. Judge Moore is going to win."
Another Moore surrogate, Stan Cooke, sought during the press conference to cast doubt on some of the accusations against Moore, including that of Beverly Young Nelson, who has said Moore sexually assaulted her when she was 16 in the parking lot of the restaurant where she worked. Cooke repeated the Moore campaign's critiques of Nelson's account, implying that the yearbook message she says Moore wrote for her in 1977 may have been forged.
Cooke also pushed back on a number of reports that have said Moore was banned from a shopping mall in his hometown of Gadsden, Alabama, for harassing teenage girls. Cooke quoted a former operations manager at the Gadsden Mall, who said he was unaware of any ban against Moore.
"Allegations are words; they are not facts. Allegations are words; they are not indictments and they are not charges," Cooke said. "This is an effort by these people — the liberal media, the Republican establishment — to malign the good name of Judge Moore."The classic WE vs. IG, Monkey King Mid, and OMG's challenge
Perhaps the most famous Chinese rivlarly would once again commence today with World Elite vs. Invictus Gaming. Not without mention were the other awesome games closing out this weekend in LPL.
Coming off from a rather painful performance yesterday, Livemore finds no better way to kickstart their day than to Facecheck and fall trap to the excellent positioning of Royal Club in the first game of the night. However, by some miracle, nothing more than a few summoners and 2 flashes get burned out of the encounter by blue side ancient golem. "Lucky" from Royal Club proved to be on a roll tonight, being part of all 4 kills before taking a 13 minute dragon with his team, and leaving LiveMore little opportunity to acquire kills of their own. Despite the wave clearing potential of LiveMore, they were not able to hold off the siege from Royal Club on multiple occasions.
A less than ideal start to a new day for Team LM.
It wouldn't be long until Royal Club rained hell upon LiveMore and gave them yet another day of looking hopeless. The tower siege was strong for Royal Club on all ends and the score was up 9-1 even before the 20 minute mark, with Royal Club proxying behind turrets and shoving every lane. Though LM found a brief period of redemption, RC was already too far ahead at this point for any strategy they could surmount to adequately hold off the shoving and pushing. RC continued to aggressive and push in for the easy victory over LM. VOD
Following up with their victory yesterday, it would be time to see if Wayi Spider could take down Wings of Aurora, a team not to be taken lightly after their crushing victory over World Elite a couple weeks back. The game would start out passive in the jungle this time, giving a clean slate for both teams. From here, most teams would play it safe and rely on small advantages such as poking and having jungle come clear the minions to provide bits of map control. It wasn't until Wings of Aurora micro'd perfectly in unison with their support and AD to take down Spider's duo for a 2-0 start.
Spider is a little over-confident in their endeavors and fall to youmeng.
Spider wasn't ready to let them slow that down though, and even after a somewhat slow start, action would soon erupt with 13 kills going down before the 10 minute marker. With WoA bringing multiple people to clear the wave at the middle outer turret, Spider takes a fast advantage, reaping the benefits of the first dragon of the game. The dragon and shoving allowed for many advantages, including Leaf on Wukong to roam that map and mercilessly destroy any target he engaged one on one. However, youmeng on Varus would utilize his early advantage and harness even more power to kite away and poke at the front line of Spider, which proved too much for a team with such a bright looking game ahead of them. VOD
The legacy and story between the teams in the third match of the day would no doubt be the sandwiched-in most anticipated fan favorite spectacle between the recently slipping but still steady World Elite and the heavily excelling and dominant Invictus Gaming. Clearly, iG was feeling brave by once again allowing Misaya to grab Twisted Fate. World Elite would begin the game with aggression, looking to find a flash gold card, but don't manage to secure a kill as Pdd backs them off quickly with an excellent rupture. Despite the standings of the LPL, World Elite were looking strong and seeking revenge, being the first to lay the siege down and secure an early lead.
Who pulls ahead in this crazy teamfight over dragon control?
iG would find trouble dealing with the aggression of World Elite and would quickly regret allowing Misaya to get TF this time around as 15 minutes in, he was still part of every kill. However, iG were not giving up without a fight and still showed presence in this game despite the deficit. Some sneaky jungle traps laid in place by iG would allow them to sneak some advantages vs. World Elite, but sadly for them, WE seemed to be in tip top shape. Would Invictus Gaming use their genius to hold off World Elite from rolling them over and proving themselves to their long time rivals? Watch the VOD and find out! VOD
The LPL weekend would come to a close with Positive Energy trying to take down the current throne-holder of China, OMG. An aggressive Positive Energy looked to find an advantage early by going straight to the red buff in an attempt to counteract early aggression from Hecarim. PE would not be the one to find the advantage though, as Kha'Zix stalked his prey on Vayne to get a first blood followed shortly by a beautiful hook to secure a second kill on the jungler of PE, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, seizing advantages and showing why they are the #1 team in China.
Jing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
From there, the advantage would only continue rolling in for OMG, as their jungler was on a roll despite the attempts to slow him down early on in the game. Jing did find an engagement that would close the gap significantly between the two teams after a Cataclysm brings the team two kills. The score would even up after a brave and early baron attempt which OMG would actually acquire at the expense of evening up the gold lead quite a lot. With the baron advantage, OMG found themselves surprised to be at the mercy of Positive Energy, swinging back ahead. Both sides would wait for ideal opportunities to engage, but another beautiful cataclysm grasps another small lead for Positive Energy. VODCOLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson says he will keep fighting to uphold the state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Wilson issued a statement Monday hours after the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal of a ruling allowing same-sex marriage by a federal appeals court with jurisdiction over South Carolina.
Wilson says no ruling has been made in a lawsuit by a same-sex couple legally married in Washington, D.C., who live in South Carolina. They are asking to overturn the state’s gay marriage ban. Wilson says he will keep fighting until there is a ruling in that case.
A lawyer for the same-sex couple, Carrie Warner, says she’ll be filing paperwork soon asking for an immediate ruling in their favor.
Experts say they don’t think any appeals will work.
© 2014, Associated Press, All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
This Story Filed UnderDianne Bentley, the ex-wife of former Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, right. AP/Business Insider
When a former Alabama governor started sending suggestive texts to a member of his staff, he probably didn't expect them to sync with the state-issued iPad he had given his wife.
Robert Bentley resigned on Monday after an ethics report concluded he used state resources to conceal an affair with his adviser, Rebekah Caldwell Mason.
But the scandal began in 2013, when his wife, Dianne Bentley, became suspicious of the budding relationship.
In March 2014, according to the report, Dianne placed a recorder inside her purse and discovered that her husband had called Mason and declared his love for her — a minute after Dianne left the room.
Robert's efforts to dispose of the recordings led to many of the accusations that he misused funds. He later pleaded guilty to them.
On the night of his reelection in the 2014 gubernatorial race, Robert was convinced that his opponent had a copy of the recording and told Alabama Law Enforcement Secretary Spencer Collier to travel to Greenville to retrieve it, according to the report.
Dianne's chief of staff, Heather Hannah, claimed Robert told her she would "never work in the state of Alabama again" if she told anyone about the affair, the report says.
After finding Robert's inappropriate text messages, Dianne filed for divorce from her husband of 50 years in 2015.
Some of the text messages Robert sent Mason included:
"You look beautiful and feel so soft."
"Bless our hearts. And other parts."
"I love you, Rebekah 😍😍 "A Transportation Security Administration sign at Los Angeles’ main rail terminal, Union Station, urges that suspicious activities be reported to authorities. It declares, “If You See Something Say Something.” (AP / Damian Dovarganes)
A totalitarian state is only as strong as its informants. And the United States has a lot of them. They read our emails. They listen to, download and store our phone calls. They photograph us on street corners, on subway platforms, in stores, on highways and in public and private buildings. They track us through our electronic devices. They infiltrate our organizations. They entice and facilitate “acts of terrorism” by Muslims, radical environmentalists, activists and Black Bloc anarchists, framing these hapless dissidents and sending them off to prison for years. They have amassed detailed profiles of our habits, our tastes, our peculiar proclivities, our medical and financial records, our sexual orientations, our employment histories, our shopping habits and our criminal records. They store this information in government computers. It sits there, waiting like a time bomb, for the moment when the state decides to criminalize us.
Totalitarian states record even the most banal of our activities so that when it comes time to lock us up they can invest these activities with subversive or criminal intent. And citizens who know, because of the courage of Edward Snowden, that they are being watched but naively believe they “have done nothing wrong” do not grasp this dark and terrifying logic.
Tyranny is always welded together by subterranean networks of informants. These informants keep a populace in a state of fear. They perpetuate constant anxiety and enforce isolation through distrust. The state uses wholesale surveillance and spying to break down trust and deny us the privacy to think and speak freely.
A state security and surveillance apparatus, at the same time, conditions all citizens to become informants. In airports and train, subway and bus stations the recruitment campaign is relentless. We are fed lurid government videos and other messages warning us to be vigilant and report anything suspicious. The videos, on endless loops broadcast through mounted television screens, have the prerequisite ominous music, the shady-looking criminal types, the alert citizen calling the authorities and in some cases the apprehended evildoer being led away in handcuffs. The message to be hypervigilant and help the state ferret out dangerous internal enemies is at the same time disseminated throughout government agencies, the mass media, the press and the entertainment industry.
“If you see something say something,” goes the chorus.
In any Amtrak station, waiting passengers are told to tell authorities — some of whom often can be found walking among us with dogs — about anyone who “looks like they are in an unauthorized area,” who is “loitering, staring or watching employees and customers,” who is “expressing an unusual level of interest in operations, equipment, and personnel,” who is “dressed inappropriately for the weather conditions, such as a bulky coat in summer,” who “is acting extremely nervous or anxious,” who is “restricting an individual’s freedom of movement” or who is “being coached on what to say to law enforcement or immigration officials.”
What is especially disturbing about this constant call to become a citizen informant is that it directs our eyes away from what we should see — the death of our democracy, the growing presence and omnipotence of the police state, and the evisceration, in the name of our security, of our most basic civil liberties.
Manufactured fear engenders self-doubt. It makes us, often unconsciously, conform in our outward and inward behavior. It conditions us to relate to those around us with suspicion. It destroys the possibility of organizing, community and dissent. We have built what Robert Gellately calls a “culture of denunciation.”
Snitches in prisons, the quintessential totalitarian system, are the glue that allows prison authorities to maintain control and keep prisoners divided and weak. Snitches also populate the courts, where the police make secret deals to drop or mitigate charges against them in exchange for their selling out individuals targeted by the state. Our prisons are filled with people serving long sentences based on false statements that informants provided in exchange for leniency. There are no rules in this dirty game. Police, like prison officials, can offer snitches deals that lack judicial oversight or control. (Deals sometimes involve something as trivial as allowing a prisoner access to food like cheeseburgers.) Snitches allow the state to skirt what is left of our legal protections. Snitches can obtain information for the authorities and do not have to give their targets a Miranda warning. And because of the desperation of most who are recruited to snitch, informants will do almost anything asked of them by authorities.
Just as infected as the prisons and the courts are poor neighborhoods, which abound with snitches, many of them low-level drug dealers allowed to sell on the streets in exchange for information. And from there our culture of snitches spirals upward into the headquarters of the National Security Agency, Homeland Security and the FBI.
Systems of police and military authority are ruthless when their own, such as Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning, become informants on behalf of the common good. The power structure imposes walls of silence and harsh forms of retribution within its ranks in an effort to make sure no one speaks. Power understands that once it is divided, once those inside its walls become snitches, it becomes as weak and vulnerable as those it subjugates.
We will not be able to reclaim our democracy and free ourselves from tyranny until the informants and the vast networks that sustain them are banished. As long as we are watched 24 hours a day we cannot use the word “liberty.” This is the relationship of a master and a slave. Any prisoner understands this.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his masterpiece “The Gulag Archipelago,” which chronicles his time in Josef Stalin’s gulags and is a brilliant reflection of the nature of oppression and tyranny, describes a moment when an influx of western Ukrainians who had been soldiers during World War II arrived at his camp, at Ekibastuz. The Ukrainians, he wrote, “were horrified by the apathy and slavery they saw, and reached for their knives.” They began to murder the informants.
Solzhenitsyn continued:
“Kill the stoolie!” That was it, the vital link! A knife in the heart of the stoolie! Make knives and cut the stoolie’s throats — that was it! Now as I write this chapter, rows of humane books frown down at me from the walls, the tarnished gilt on their well-worn spines glinting reproachfully like stars through the cloud. Nothing in the world should be sought through violence! By taking up the sword, the knife, the rifle, we quickly put ourselves on the level of tormentors and persecutors. And there will be no end to it. … There will be no end. … Here, at my desk, in a warm place, I agree completely. If you ever get twenty-five years for nothing, if you find yourself wearing four number patches on your clothes, holding your hands permanently behind your back, submitting to searches morning and evening, working until you are utterly exhausted, dragged into the cooler whenever someone denounces you, trodden deeper and deeper into the ground — from the hole you’re in, the fine words of the great humanists will sound like the chatter of the well-fed and free. There will be no end of it! … But will there be a beginning? Will there be a ray of hope in our lives or not? The oppressed at least concluded that evil cannot be cast out by good.
The eradication of some snitches and intimidation of others transformed the camp. It was, Solzhenitsyn admits, an imperfect justice since there was no “documentary confirmation that a man was an informer.” But, he noted, even this “improperly constituted, illegal, and invisible court was much more acute in its judgments, much less often mistaken, than any of the tribunals, panels of three, courts-martial, or Special Boards with which we are familiar.”“Of the five thousand men about a dozen were killed, but with every stroke of the knife more and more of the clinging, twining tentacles fell away,” he wrote. “A remarkable fresh breeze was blowing! On the surface we were prisoners living in a camp just as before, but in reality we had become free — free because for the very first time in our lives we had started saying openly and aloud all that we thought! No one who has not experienced this transition can imagine what it is like!
And the informers … stopped informing.”
The camp bosses, he wrote “were suddenly blind and deaf. To all appearances, the tubby major, his equally tubby second in command, Captain Prokofiev, and all the wardens walked freely about the camp, where nothing threatened them; moved among us, watched us — and yet saw nothing! Because a man in uniform sees and hears nothing without stoolies.”
The system of internal control in the camp broke down. Prisoners no longer would serve as foremen on work details. Prisoners organized their own self-governing council. Guards began to move about the camp in fear and no longer treated prisoners like cattle. Pilfering and theft among prisoners stopped. “The old camp mentality — you die first, I’ll wait a bit; there is no justice so forget it; that’s the way it was, and that’s the way it will be — also began to disappear.”
Solzhenitsyn concluded this chapter, “Behind the Wire the Ground Is Burning,” in Volume 3 of his book, with this reflection.
Purged of human filth, delivered from spies and eavesdroppers we looked about and saw, wide-eyed that … we were thousands! That we were … politicals! That we could resist! We had chosen well; the chain would snap if we tugged at this link — the stoolies, the talebearers and traitors! Our own kind had made our lives impossible. As on some ancient sacrificial altar, their blood had been shed that we might be freed from the curse that hung over us. The revolution was gathering strength. The wind that seemed to have subsided had sprung up again in a hurricane to fill our eager lungs.
Later in the book Solzhenitsyn would write, “Our little island had experienced an earthquake — and ceased to belong to the Archipelago.”
Freedom demands the destruction of the security and surveillance organs and the disempowering of the millions of informants who work for the state. This is not a call to murder our own stoolies — although some of the 2.3 million prisoners in cages in America’s own gulags would perhaps rightly accuse me of writing this from a position of privilege and comfort and not understanding the brutal dynamics of oppression – but instead to accept that unless these informants on the streets, in the prisons and manning our massive, government data-collection centers are disarmed we will never achieve liberty. I do not have quick and simple suggestions for how this is to be accomplished. But I know it must.They are the unsung heroes of the hundreds of successful events held at the San Diego Convention Center. Somedays, you see them. Most times, you don't. And that's just how they like it.
On Thursday, September 14, close to 40 first responders from a variety of agencies including federal and local partners, were invited to the San Diego Convention Center – not for work or security needs – but for an appreciation breakfast. The 1st Annual First Responders' Appreciation Breakfast was organized by the San Diego Convention Center's Director of Public Safety and Technology Josh Layne.
"The importance of our relationship with our first responders is one that we never take for granted," said Layne. "When we need something, the first responders come running. This gathering was our chance for the convention center team to welcome them into the building, give them a big thank you for everything they do for us, as well as have face-to-face time with our partners."
Among those in attendance were San Diego Police Department Chief Shelley Zimmerman and members of the SDPD, the FBI, Naval Criminal Investigative Services, Department of Homeland Security, Harbor Police as well as emergency dispatchers, San Diego Fire Services and special events teams.
The San Diego Convention Center has always placed a high value on security and safety. And safety is among the top reasons customers choose the San Diego Convention Center.
"San Diego as a destination sells itself quite often. The beauty of the region mixed with the attractions, walkability and abundance of hotel rooms is a main reason customers want to bring their business to the region," said President & CEO Clifford "Rip" Rippetoe. "But our clients also tell us they feel safe here and we owe that to the relationship our team has built with our first responders."
SDPD Chief Zimmerman and Harbor Police Chief John Bolduc both thanked the convention center staff for always working together, especially during "mega-events" like the MLB All-Star Game and FanFest as well as Comic-Con International.
"It's all about collaboration, communication and information sharing," said Layne. "We work together on any intelligence that comes in on either the convention center staff side or from local and federal authorities. Every single day, our job is to keep this building safe and we can't do it without our partners in law enforcement."
Regionally, the San Diego Convention Center is considered critical infrastructure by the Department of Homeland Security. And they provide resources when needed for big events, and have offered advice and best practices as needed.
The success of our close relationship with first responders in San Diego is a model being used nationwide.
Layne was selected to serve on the International Association of Venue Managers Industry Security Council, whose goal is to establish recognized guidelines and smart practices through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Safety Act.
The initiative, co-created by the International Association of Venue Managers, Exhibition Services Contractor Association and the International Association of Exhibitions and Events, will ultimately provide enhanced security for venue employees and attendees nationwide.
Layne is the sole sitting convention center security professional selected out of 14 North American members.
"Here at the San Diego Convention Center, it comes down to relationship and information sharing while incorporating law enforcement into our events," said Layne. "Our daily practices will help set up other cities - that may not have the same resources – with guidelines for success. It also helps adopt guidelines that will work for convention centers nationwide."You’ve likely heard of the terrible water crisis currently afflicting the city of Flint, Michigan, in the United States. The city’s water supply contains very high levels of lead, which is well-known to cause serious health issues. This lead is coming from the pipes that bring water to the city from the Flint River, but how is it getting into the water that the residents are drinking? Here’s a few quick explanations to some of the chemistry-related questions surrounding the story.
Why is lead leaching into the water?
Flint made the switch to getting its water from the Flint River back in April 2014, as a money-saving exercise. Previously it got its water from Detroit, which cost the city millions of dollars. The issue is that the water from the Flint River is naturally quite corrosive; it contains relatively high levels of dissolved chloride ions (about 8 times more than the Detroit water) which can cause metals such as iron and lead to leach into the water. The high chloride levels are largely due to road salt which runs into the river.
The problem was exacerbated not long after the switch to the Flint River water supply. In the August following the switch, E. coli was found in the water, and to combat this extra chlorine was added as a disinfectant to remove it. However, this higher level of chlorine generated unsafe levels of trihalomethanes, compounds which are byproducts of the chlorine reacting with organic matter in the water. To combat this, ferric chloride was added.
Ferric chloride, FeCl 3, acts a coagulant, allowing for the removal of organic matter from the water. However, it also helps to increase the chloride concentration still further, making the water even more corrosive, and causing the concentration of lead in the water to increase. The corrosiveness of the Detroit water can be compared to that of the Flint River using their chloride to sulfate mass ratios (CSMR). For the Detroit water before the switch, this had a value of 0.45, indicating low corrosion. After the switch to Flint River water, this increased to 1.60, a value denoting very high corrosion.
Why isn’t this a problem in other cities where lead pipes are used?
This isn’t usually an issue because in areas where lead pipes are present, corrosion inhibitors can be used to prevent the lead getting into the water. A common corrosion inhibitor is orthophosphate; this is simply phosphoric acid, or salts of phosphoric acid. Orthophosphates form low-solubility complexes with the lead in the pipes, forming a layer inside the pipe and preventing lead getting into the water. These compounds were used in the Detroit water supply before the switch, even though the water had a comparatively low corrosiveness.
In Flint, orthophosphates weren’t used; nor were any other corrosion inhibitors. This meant that there was nothing preventing the lead getting into the water supply. It also led to the unpleasant discolouration present in the Flint River water coming out of residents’ taps, as iron in the pipes was also corroded by the water.
Where can I read more about the problems in Flint?
For the whole back story, there’s an excellent Mashable summary here. If you want to read the EPA preliminary report on the water in Flint, from June 2015, then that can be reached here. More general links are also provided below.
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TumblrHam and Potato Soup is a cool weather staple around here and it’s easy to make in the crock pot and perfect for any leftover baked ham! A simple and delicious soup loaded with potatoes, sweet carrots and tender ham cooks in the slow cooker all day so dinner is ready when you are.
This easy slow cooker ham and potato soup is perfect served alongside our favorite 30 Minute Dinner Rolls with a fresh Kale Salad!
Slow Cooker Potato Soup
Few things are as comforting as a delicious and creamy soup on a cold winter day! Even better is coming home to dinner after a busy day of work or errands!
I truly love potato soup, it’s so comforting! One of my very best friends made this delicious Ham and Potato soup for me for lunch one day! It was a chilly day and this warmed me from the inside out! (Thanks Dee, you’re the best)!
Since then, I’ve made this soup so many times. It’s always delicious and never lasts long around here! This is one of those soups that is fabulous the first day just as amazing leftover… (and any time I can cook once, eat twice is a good thing around here)!
Technically you could consider this delicious soup a potato chowder as it is a thick creamy soup that is generally chunky. Regardless of what you call it, it’s absolutely delicious! While chowders often contain fish (like seafood chowder), they can contain a variety of vegetables or meat and still be considered a chowder (like Slow Cooker Corn Chowder)!
How To Thicken Potato Soup
One thing I particularly love about this soup is that it uses potatoes to thicken it without adding in a lot of heavy cream and butter. While the flavor and texture are rich and creamy, it’s not loaded up with fat and calories!
If you are trying to curb your dairy or fat intake, you can thicken this ham potato soup recipe (or other potato soup recipes) with mashed up potatoes and carrots right before it is served. This will make it slightly creamy but with just enough rustic chunkiness and not too rich. Simply scoop out a couple cups of potatoes and carrots and gently mash, then return to the Crock Pot. Adjust for flavor with salt and pepper and let everyone dig in!
If you’d like it even thicker, you can also add in a few potato flakes to reach desired thickness. If you’d prefer, you can also create a cornstarch slurry (equal parts cornstarch and water), stir it in and let it simmer in the crock pot 15 minutes on high.
I most often use leftovers from my fave Crock Pot Ham or a ham bone to make this soup but if you don’t have leftovers, it works perfectly with diced ham steaks from the grocery store too! If you’d like to make this into a cheesy ham and potato soup, stir in a handful of cheddar cheese and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese just before serving. Remember that dairy can curdle at high temperatures so when you don’t want to cook it too long in the slow cooker. Once you add the milk and sour cream (and cheeses if you add any), you just want to make sure everything is heated through.
Can You Freeze Potato Soup with Ham?
Most creamy soups and chowders can be easily frozen, including this ham and potato soup recipe. All you have to do is put leftover soup in the fridge overnight to make sure it is completely cooled. Then, pour into a plastic freezer bag and lay flat on a cookie sheet in the freezer. Once they are frozen solid, simply stack them up and you have a grab-and-go meal for another busy day!
More Slow Cooker Soups You’ll Love
4.86 from 7 votes Review Recipe Easy Ham and Potato Soup in the Crock Pot Prep Time 20 minutes Cook Time 7 hours Total Time 7 hours 20 minutes Servings 12 servings Author Holly Course Soup Cuisine American Ham and Potato soup is a simple and delicious soup loaded with potatoes, sweet carrots and tender ham. It cooks in the slow cooker all day so dinner is ready when you are! Print Pin Ingredients 7 cups potatoes, diced
1 medium onion diced
1 large carrot, chopped
2-3 cups ham, diced
2 teaspoons parsley
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
pepper to taste
5 cups Ready to Serve Chicken Broth (I use low sodium)
1 cup 2% milk
1/2 cup sour cream
Pepper to taste Follow Spend with Pennies on Pinterest Instructions Add diced potatoes, onion, carrot, ham, thyme, parsley, pepper & broth to a crock pot. Cook on low 7 hours, or high 3 hours. Remove 2-3 cups of the potatoes/carrots and mash, then return the mashed mixture to the crock pot. Add milk and sour cream. Stir and cook an additional 15 minutes. Add pepper to taste. Makes twelve 1-cup servings. Nutrition Information Calories: 177, Fat: 6g, Saturated Fat: 2g, Cholesterol: 21mg, Sodium: 339mg, Potassium: 727mg, Carbohydrates: 19g, Fiber: 3g, Sugar: 2g, Protein: 11g, Vitamin A: 18.7%, Vitamin C: 18.5%, Calcium: 8%, Iron: 24.8% Calories:, Fat:, Saturated Fat:, Cholesterol:, Sodium:, Potassium:, Carbohydrates:, Fiber:, Sugar:, Protein:, Vitamin A:, Vitamin C:, Calcium:, Iron: (Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.) Keyword ham and potato soup © SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here
REPIN this Easy Soup RecipeBut I’m not here to rant about the stupid standard committee and the completely bloated and unusable standard library, like some do. Instead, this discussion got me thinking: What should be part of a language’s standard library?
Now, there is some controversy about the proposal — especially by those who do serious graphics stuff. Does the C++ standard library need 2D graphics? Shouldn’t the committee focus on real issues instead of some toy library that is never going to be used for serious applications?
At Meeting C++ 2017 — which was great, BTW — I attended a talk by Guy Davidson about the C++ graphics 2D proposal, wording here.
BTW: I have Patreon now. If you like my blog posts, please consider supporting me. I only charge per “productive week”, so you don’t have to pay if I am not working on anything, and you can set monthly caps. One dollar a month would really help!
Imagine a perfect world
If you ask a C++ programmer to imagine a perfect world, chances are he or she thinks of a world where installing C++ dependencies is completely trivial. A world where it is absolutely no problem to get high-quality, well documented external libraries.
Am I weird that I dream of that?
In such a world, do we need a standard library at all? Couldn’t we just use this great external library code for everything?
The answer is no, and there are a couple of reasons.
1. Compiler-magic
Some standard library facilities cannot be implemented by a normal programmer. Think of std::initializer_list. It is a magic type somehow summoned by compiler magic when you write a braced initializer. You can’t implement it yourself.
Well, technically you can. However, you can’t add the compiler magic if it doesn’t exist already.
Another example would be the placement new operator that invokes a constructor. You can’t invoke a constructor yourself.
Now, you might not like such magic. And I don’t like it either.
But there are also things that are possible to implement, just difficult - especially if you want to have it portable. Think of std::abort(). Or std::memcpy(). The latter you could do yourself but it is |
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A B C D E F G HI JK L M NO PQ R S TUV W XYZ HomeI suspect that when my life is over I will have had two opportunities to vote in a presidential election for a black man, and I intend to take both of them.
That’s not to say that we’re done progressing, but I don’t think in 1960 my Polish-American grandmother realized Jack Kennedy was going to be the last Catholic she saw in the White House and I’m not taking anything for granted.
In 30 years I think we will look back and marvel at how strange it was that a country with this many bigots, both closeted and overt, once elected a man with a Muslim name to fight two wars in that part of the world.
By that time, global warming will have turned New York’s subway system into an underwater attraction. New Yorkers will pay their rent with bundled mortgages or, as is common today, plasma.
I’ve been daydreaming a lot lately. It’s how I’m coping with the red-faced circus clowns who have come to replace everyone in our political process, from Ron Paul to the commenters on websites.
People don’t seem to speak or argue anymore. They just rage. And no one uses complete sentences. “President Obama extended the Bush tax cuts!” That’s actually a fragment. The full sentence is: “President Obama extended the Bush tax cuts as part of a deal to keep unemployment benefits and food stamps going through Christmas, thus keeping millions of poor people alive!” What an asshole.
You can tell that Obama secretly hates poor people because of his national health insurance plan, which forces everyone to buy insurance. Actually, that’s another fragment. It forces everyone who can afford to buy insurance, and declines, to buy insurance. It gives insurance to millions of previously uncovered poor people and it subsidizes the rest. Those of us who already have insurance may pay a little more, but we get nifty new regulations on the health care industry.
I should admit here that I have a bias. I had brain surgery. It involved a dozen doctors, half as many MRIs and a few bills that resembled the defense budget. I didn’t have to pay for most of that because my insurance company wasn’t allowed to drop me and my pre-existing condition. They still can’t. Unless Mitt Romney gets himself elected, I suppose.
Obamacare is such a giveaway to the insurance companies that mine had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for my brain surgery. It will make it up off some healthy young thing’s premiums. What’s left of my brain and I are fine with that.
Another confession: My brain medication makes me irritable. That makes it especially difficult for me not to mouth off every time I think about the president’s hawkish tendencies, from his expanded use of drones to his escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Yes, he told us many times as a candidate in 2008 that he intended to refocus the military on Afghanistan and hunt down and kill terrorists (real and imagined) across the globe, but at the time I thought he was just trying to trick the moderate Republicans who were also volunteering in the campaign.
I was thinking about Obama’s drone policy while watching an episode of Oliver Stone’s astonishing “Untold History of the United States.” According to the filmmaker and his acclaimed historians, Adolf Hitler himself admitted that he would have been beaten back had the Western powers shown just a little more backbone earlier on. There were a half-dozen opportunities for the United States, Britain and France to contain the Nazi state and save as many as 70 million people. President Franklin Roosevelt wanted desperately to oblige, but more than 90 percent of the American public was against the idea. So he did nothing. What an asshole.
I bring this up because a large majority of Americans supports the use of drone strikes, and I suspect that has something to do with Obama using them. This doesn’t excuse such immoral and illegal behavior, but my point is, even FDR fucked up when the polls got to him.
Presidents are strange creatures. I think Chris Hedges is right when he says “those who hunger for power are psychopathic bastards.” I wouldn’t want the job. Imagine presiding over an empire in decline, with a trillion-dollar-a-year war machine, an economy built on funny money and an oligarchy climbing up your ass. Then throw in a do-nothing, obstructionist Congress populated by opportunists, sadists and goofballs.
Why the hell does Jill Stein, running on the Green Party ticket, want to be president? She must know she can’t win. Otherwise, she’s crazy to desire a piece of that action. I wonder if she ever wakes up in a cold sweat, having had a nightmare that she won and has to go to work with John Boehner in the morning.
My friend Alex is in Youngstown, Ohio, trying to get people who literally can’t afford front doors on their houses to vote for Obama. Alex has lived in all sorts of hellholes while campaigning for Obama, both in 2008 and this time around. His specialty in the previous election was registering African-American voters in communities long abandoned by all levels of government. Alex is a Jew from the Pacific Palisades, so it’s a bit of a mystery how this came to be. Regardless, he was good at it and it’s thanks to him as much as anybody that the first time any of us got to vote in a general election for a black candidate for president, the black man won.
Alex worked for the labor movement between the Obama campaigns, and he told me why the unions stood by the president even after the demise of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill no one has ever heard of that might have ultimately restored the power of the middle class in America. Unions, he explained, spend most of their leverage with employers fighting over health care. Beginning Jan. 1, 2014, as a result of the Affordable Care Act, businesses that employ more than 50 workers will have to provide health care or pay a $2,000 per worker penalty. So here’s another fragment: Obama failed the unions. Full sentence: Obama failed the unions, except that he got them health care and freed up their resources to focus on more important issues, like growing again.
In the year 2000, I voted for Ralph Nader, because I was 19, Al Gore’s gay marriage position was offensive, and Ralph promised a new age of political idealism. He got less than 3 percent of the vote and I got four years of George W. Bush. After that I voted for John Kerry, and I didn’t give a shit what position he took on gay marriage. Four years later, it seemed like we would never emerge from the darkness, and then we got a black president with a Muslim name and the first thing he did was sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
Power seekers are psychos, and Obama has sins to answer for, but how crazy do you have to be to let another George W. Bush happen? I think some of us prefer misery, so long as the villains are obvious.
On the left we talk a lot about the lesser of evils. But health care is not evil. Fair pay, two women on the Supreme Court, a FEMA that functions and food for the hungry — these things are not evil. They’re progress.
My friend Eric spent two years surviving on Obama’s unemployment checks, student loans and his own ingenuity. Now he’s a taxpayer. That’s not evil. That’s an America that works.
I may have a hole in my head, but on Tuesday I’m going to take that second opportunity to vote for America’s first black president. And on Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday, I’m going to do my best to keep him honest.LAKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz. — Aaron Martens, who has previously won bass tournaments on a dragonfly pattern at Lake Havasu, took it to another level here last week. Yes, the big story was how Martens looked to blackbirds for clues on how to win the Bassmaster Elite at Lake Havasu presented by Dick Cepek Tires and Wheels.
The way Martens' mind flits like a bird, especially when he's on the weigh-in stage with emcee Dave Mercer, the blackbird pattern may have seemed like some sort of joke. Martens hopes everyone continues to think of it that way.
"It's for real," said the 42-year-old two-time Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year. "I shouldn't even be talking about it. I've known that for 25 years, that (bass) eat birds. I've caught 'em in California, and they've spit up full-grown blackbirds in my livewell.
"They eat birds. It's part of their diet. They're river bass. They're real mean."
This was obviously no joke. Martens went on to explain the details of how he exploited the blackbird pattern. First, of course, you have to have that basic awareness that wherever birds are nesting in the thick, tall tules of Lake Havasu, there might be some big bass cruising underneath, looking for an easy meal.
"I pay attention to everything," Martens said, "if there's anything around that can possibly give me a clue. (Saturday) I noticed the birds back in there nesting and buzzing back and forth to feed their babies. That got me excited. That's how I caught 'em (Saturday). I'm like, they're eating birds!"
Then, when you find blackbird feathers in your livewell the next morning, like Martens did Sunday at Lake Havasu, you can feel confident you're on to something.
Finally, let Martens tell you the subtleties of exploiting that pattern. He had three 4-pounders in his winning bag of 19-5 Sunday: a 4-14, which was the big bass of the day, a 4-10 and a 4-8. This was a tournament where the average bass weighed-in was 2 3/4 pounds, so a 4 1/2-pounder, or better, was a difference maker.
"You don't want to go back in there too early," Martens said. "They can't see real good. It's like a jungle. There's almost no holes. You make a 50-foot pitch back in there. If you hear it hit the water, you're good."
Martens, who some still consider Mr. Finesse even thought he does everything well, was using a 7-foot, 6-inch extra heavy Enigma rod, which he designed, with an 8.5 to 1 gear ratio reel. No finesse.
"That reel was real important because once you got 'em, you had to keep 'em coming," he said.
A 3/4-ounce weight anchored with two bobber stoppers to a 4/0 Heavy Cover Gamakatsu hook was the structure for his lure. Martens added a green-pumpkin punch skirt and either a Strike King Rage Craw or a Zoom Speed Craw tied to 30-pound test Sunline SX-1 braided line.
"It would have been nice to go to a one-ounce weight," he said. "A half-ounce was too light. Three-quarters was about right."
Martens noticed fish occasionally bit, then dropped the 3/4-ounce weight, which ruled out going to anything heavier. It's another example of Martens' uncanny attention to detail.
Martens said that he and Edwin Evers, who finished third and led on Day 1 with a 20-pound bag, shared water all four days. They were in the thick vegetation just up the Colorado River from the main lake.
In reference to Martens' blackbird pattern, Evers smiled and said the bass he caught were eating crawfish and he was dyeing the tails of his baits to match the crawfish colors. But Evers did catch a smallmouth bass on a topwater frog during the tournament, which is rare. Most likely Martens and Evers were sharing "mean, river bass" that were eating anything that moved, whether it had pincers, fins, feathers or frog legs.
And what about those dragonflies? The topic got started with Martens after David Walker told a story about several failed attempts to catch a bass with a jig. Walker could see the fish in Lake Havasu's clear water, but the fish appeared particularly uninterested in Walker's half-ounce jig. It swam away and stopped under an overhanging tree limb.
So Walker made one more cast and was shocked by what he saw. The fish came out of the water about a foot and engulfed Walker's jig in the air.
"I've never seen that before," Walker said. "It was a good fish too. It was one I weighed-in."
Martens, of course, had an explanation. It's a little early for the dragonfly pattern on Lake Havasu, but it's a productive summer pattern here.
"When it gets a little hotter, the bigger dragonflies start thumping the water and bass will actually chase 'em and blast 'em," Martens said. "If you can get a buzzbait in there at the same time, it works good. I've actually won tournaments here on dragonfly patterns.
"You just look in the backs of the little shallow bays. You'll see multiple boils on a dragonfly."
Aaron Martens naturally comes by his awareness of everything in nature.
"I got fortunate growing up," he said. "I was around a lot of the outdoors. My nickname in the neighborhood was 'Nature Boy.'"
Martens said he'd pick up everything from rattlesnakes to bugs, when he was running barefoot through his neighborhood. He probably prefers his newest nickname, "Hawg Snatcher," over "Nature Boy."
Both fit. He's Aaron Martens – the most interesting man in bass fishing.A long-forgotten radio interview has been uncovered where David Bowie tells how his first American tour bombed after he got the wrong visa - and immigration officials banned him from performing.
The landmark visit to the States was planned to be a coast-to-coast publicity drive to promote Bowie's third album, The Man Who Sold the World.
But, despite organising a variety of gigs at colleges and universities following the album's U.S. release in 1970, he was left high and dry when border officials refused him permission to work.
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Mistake: David Bowie was prevented from performing in America in 1970 to plug his album because he did not have the right visa, it has been revealed
'The Man Who Sold The World' (left) is seen by many as the genesis of glam rock. Right, Bowie poses for a portrait dressed as 'Ziggy Stardust' in a hotel room in 1973 in New York
It was later revealed the singer had failed to apply for an H1 employment visa, making it legal for him to perform.
The oversight meant Bowie was forced to plug the album - hailed as the birth of glam rock - through secret gigs for 'whoever we could get in'.
He was also restricted to simply talking about the album on U.S. radio shows, instead of performing any of its songs to live audiences.
Bowie described the tour as 'awful', adding: 'I was sent [to America] to plug the LP, but I couldn't get an HI.
Bowie with Guitarist Mick Ronson in 1972. He described the botched U.S. tour of two years earlier as 'awful'
'So I landed there and I found out all I could do was radio shows and talking about the album.'
He met students 'and people who'd heard my material', and performed at 'the odd private house where I would play for whoever we could get in. We did it that way.'
The 'lost' recording came to light for the first time in more than 40 years after Strawbs frontman Dave Cousins discovered the radio interview he did with Bowie in the back of a drawer.
Discovery: Dave Cousins, of The Strawbs, found the long-forgotten interview on tape in his attic
Cousins interviewed the young Bowie in March 1971 during a five-year spell as a producer for the Danish broadcaster, Danmarks Radio.
But the recording, which has never been played to a British audience, lay forgotten in his attic for more than four decades until he stumbled across it.
Cousins claims the historical importance of Bowie's disclosure was 'completely overlooked' by the music media at the time.
Cousins, whose band is best known for 1973 hits 'Part of the Union' and 'Lay Down', said: 'David Bowie rarely gives interviews, so it was a major coup for me and Danmarks Radio at the time.
'But David was not a megastar like he is today, which meant that this throwaway comment about his American tour fell on deaf ears.
The Man Who Stole the World reached number 26 in the UK album charts following its release in 1970.
In January and February of the following year, Mercury Records financed a publicity drive in order to promote it heavily in America.
But upon arrival at an American airport, Bowie was told that the necessary working Visa had not been obtained in advance.
He told the Danish station: 'Next time I hope I'll be able to work over there. So I really can't give you an honest opinion what I thought of American audiences because I didn't see any.'
Cousins then asks: 'But in general, where the stuff's been played on the air, what sort of reaction has it had?
'Are people over there more interested in music than perhaps people over here, or is it the other way round?'
'When [Americans] really believe in something, they really go to town on it,' Bowie answers.
'And they believe in lifestyles. So everyone's got to have a lifestyle out there, and records are very much a part of younger people's lifestyle.'A Houston company is spreading extra joy among its workers this holiday season - by giving each of them a $100,000 bonus.
All of the 1,381 employees at Hilcorp, from the receptionist to the CEO, will be receiving a little extra on their check this Christmas after they surpassed their targets.
Many are using the windfall to retire early, remodel homes, take vacations or pay their children's college tuition.
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All of the 1,381 employees at Hilcorp, from the receptionist to the CEO, will be receiving a little extra on their check this Christmas after they surpassed their targets
Hilcorp is one of the largest privately held oil and natural gas exploration and production companies in the United States and made the 2015 FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For list for the third year in a row.
The goal was for the company to double in size in five years - something it recently achieved.
Amanda Thompson, who has worked at the firm for 10 years as a receptionist, told FOX 26 Houston the bonus is a good reason for the workers 'not to give any less than one-hundred percent each day'.
'It’s just a true gift,' she added.
Video courtesy: Fox 26 Houston
'It was a surreal day it was a dream come true. It was likely a day that many people won't experience in their lifetime and we all did it together
'Mr. Jeff Hilldebrand (CEO), and our president Greg Lalicker, they are such amazing motivators.
'Somedays I just kind of look down the hall and say I cant believe these are my bosses and they’re the best.'
In 2010, Thompson said they received a huge bonus for reaching that same goal. That year they could choose between a $50,000 car and a $35,000 cash check.
Amanda Thompson (pictured), who has worked at the firm for 10 years as a receptionist, said some are using the windfall to retire early, remodel homes, take vacations and pay their children's college tuitionA pregnant 17-year-old girl is fighting for her life and the life of her baby after being given three to nine months to live due to a rare and incurable brain tumor.
Dana Scatton was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (or, DIPG) last week and is due to give birth to a baby girl in February.
Doctors are pressing to deliver the baby within three weeks so Dana can begin radiation therapy immediately, which could prolong her life to nine months and decrease the baby's risk of complications. Without treatment, doctors have given her two to three months to live.
DIPG only affects about 300 children each year and is most commonly found in children under 10 years old, making Dana's case extremely rare.
The disease has a less than one percent chance of survival and 90 percent of patients die within 18 months of diagnosis. No one has ever been cured.
Dana told Daily Mail Online that she and her family are still consulting with doctors to determine the best treatment in order to extend her life and save the baby - something that the teen from Pennsylvania said would be a Christmas miracle.
Dana Scatton, 17, was diagnosed with DIPG, an aggressive brain tumor, last week and has been given three to nine months to live. The Pennsylvania teen is in her first semester of college
Dana, pictured with her boyfriend Tyler, 21, is seven months pregnant and due to give birth in February but doctors are planning to induce labor in three weeks due to her condition
WHAT IS DIFFUSE INTRINSIC PONTINE GLIOMA (DIPG)? A diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is a rare an inoperable type of brain tumor. It mostly affects children, with most diagnoses occurring between five and 10 years of age. More than 90 percent of its victims will die within 18 months of diagnosis. Each year, there are around 100 to 150 new diagnoses in the United States. The cause of the tumor remains unknown. Symptoms include lack of facial control, double vision, headaches, vomiting, weakness, seizures and balance problems. One of the early indicators of the cancer is a child falling, tripping or losing balance.
Dana told Daily Mail Online that at the end of November she started to experience difficulty speaking, which had become strenuous.
'I noticed that it took me a little to swallow, then walking got harder and it was even hard to speak,' Dana said.
She said things got worse in the beginning of December when she went to catch the bus to take her to school and her legs began to feel limp, leaving her unable to walk properly.
At first the college student thought it could just be stress from the pregnancy and school.
'I thought it could be the way the baby was sitting on nerves,' she added.
Less than two weeks after her initial symptoms, Dana told her doctor what she was experiencing during a routine visit to check on the baby.
She was in the emergency room the next day where she underwent a cat scan and MRI that found a large tumor on the base of her brain.
Within hours of the MRI doctors delivered the diagnosis and prognosis.
Dana said the first thing that went through her mind when she heard the diagnosis was: 'Is my baby going to be okay?'
Her mother Lenore, 51, had a similar thought: 'Am I going to lose my baby?'
The prognosis is grim.
Because Dana is pregnant, there has been hesitation to begin radiation that could prolong her life to nine months if started immediately. Without treatment doctors have given her two to three months to live.
Cancer itself rarely affects a growing baby directly but having cancer while pregnant can be complicated for both the mother and child due to aggressive treatments.
Radiation can harm the fetus in all trimesters so doctors generally avoid using this treatment during pregnancy.
The therapy uses high-energy x-rays to destroy cancer cells. The risks to the baby depend on the radiation dose and the area of the body being treated.
A fetus is most at risk for birth defects such as stunted growth, deformities and abnormal brain function from radiation exposure within the first trimester.
However, since the treatment would be on Dana's head and away from her pregnant belly, doctors predict a low-risk of the radiation affecting the fetus.
In this last week since the diagnosis, the family has been consulting doctors from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and St Jude's Children's Hospital.
They are contemplating waiting another three weeks for the fetus to reach 34 weeks gestation before having a c-section to insure the health of the baby.
With Dana's symptoms worsening each day, the doctors do not recommend waiting any longer.
The teen who danced for 13 years and played soccer and basketball is now having difficulties with everyday tasks.
'I can't do as much for myself anymore, like not being able to put my pants on without probably falling,' Dana said.
While the prognosis is devastating, she remains hopeful. 'I'm not going to go by what they say, I'm expecting a miracle,' she added.
Her mother Lenore, 51, (right) told Daily Mail Online that her daughter's diagnosis has been devastating to the family and they are praying for a Christmas miracle
DIPG is a cancerous tumor that starts in the brain stem, the part of the brain just above the back of the neck and connected to the spine.
The tumor is inoperable and surgery to obtain a biopsy is unsafe due to its location.
The brain stem controls breathing, heart rate and the nerves and muscles that allow us to see, hear, walk, talk and eat.
Most diagnoses occur in patients between five and 10 years old.
It is unknown what causes the tumor and doctors do not believe the pregnancy had an impact on the diagnosis.
Symptoms of the tumor include lack of facial control, headaches, weakness, seizures, balance problems and ultimately death.
Dana, pictured with her older sister Lydia, is the youngest of nine children and said she just wants to be a wonderful mother
'Sometimes it gets harder to walk and it is strenuous because my muscles are always working,' Dana said.
Radiation is the most common form of treatment to kill cancer cells and stop the tumors from growing.
The treatment provides a temporary cure to extend life, but does not fully rid the body of the disease.
The news of Dana's diagnosis has been devastating to her and the family, according to Lenore.
She said: 'We're in kind of a daze. Your mind is going a mile a minute and it's hard to absorb the things they tell you at the hospital.'
Both Lenore and Dana's father Robert have taken time off of their jobs at Amazon and a YMCA to take care of their daughter full-time.
Dana is the youngest of nine children between her mother and father.
The support from family and friends has been overwhelming and Lenore said that since Dana's brother JJ took to Facebook and made a GoFundMe for medical expenses, people from around the world including Ukraine and Germany have reached out to send their prayers and support.
Dana and her boyfriend Tyler, 21, chose the name Aries for their daughter who will stay in Lenore's care while Dana undergoes treatment.
Dana said: 'I just want to be a wonderful mother.'
Lenore said she believes a miracle is in store for her daughter because her birth was already a miracle.
While Lenore was pregnant with twins she suffered a miscarriage of one of them and doctors told her Dana would be soon to follow.
But to everyone's surprise she beat the odds.
Now the family is hoping that Dana can beat the odds once more.A note from the editor: Jelly Deals is a deals site launched by our parent company, Gamer Network, with a mission to find the best bargains out there. Look out for the Jelly Deals roundup of reduced-price games and kit every Saturday on Eurogamer.
Update 3:50 pm: There's a new contender in the best value PS4 Pro bundles. Currys PC World is currently a PS4 Pro 1Tb console with Call of Duty WW2, Gran Turismo Sport and Fallout 4, all for £299.99 put together.
PS4 Pro 1TB with Call of Duty WW2, Gran Turismo Sport and Fallout 4 for £299.99 from Currys PC World
Original story: Fresh off the release of Microsoft's new baby, the Xbox One X, Black Friday 2017 has brought around some predictably tempting deals on PS4 Pro consoles.
We've been keeping track of all sorts of Black Friday deals, and will continue to until the whole thing is done with for another year. You can find our guides to the best PS4 Black Friday offers, Xbox Black Friday deals, Nintendo Black Friday |
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SaleWhite Sox 2015 New Food Menu View Full Caption
CHICAGO — White Sox fans will have an assortment of new treats to feast on at U.S. Cellular Field this season.
The new foods range from 35th Street Tacos, pork carnitas and beef barbacoa to gluten-free Caesar wraps in addition to traditional ballpark food.
"The street-style pork carnitas and beef barbacoa come in response to fan feedback," said Joe Nigro of Delaware North SportService, the concession operator at Sox park. “We really took into account the fans' requests and think this will make a good addition to the menu."
"The freshly grilled chicken breast with Caesar salad wrapped in a gluten-free spinach tortilla gives our guests looking for gluten-free food options something more substantial," Nigro added.
The popular bacon-on-a-stick will return, with the addition of a maple glaze.
“It's coming back with some improvements,” Nigro said. "It's difficult to improve upon something that's already great, but I think the maple glaze does the trick."
Other new additions include fried pickles, garlic fries, a bacon grilled cheese and tomato basil bisque.
Folks enjoying the game in premium seating can expect to see a pizza burger, rib bucket and bacon flight on this year's menu.
“We wanted to make the menu more kid friendly and move away from fork-and-knife style dishes,” said Sonia Respeto, head chef of the Levy Restaurants inside the stadium.
Respeto said her personal favorite is the bacon flight, which has an assortment of bacon with four distinctive flavors — BBQ spice, brown sugar glazed, black pepper and jalapeno.
The pizza burger is a seasoned handmade patty filled with fresh mozzarella cheese and pizza spices, topped with marinara sauce, while the rib bucket is a rib dinner served in a souvenir batting helmet with fries, coleslaw and cornbread.
Other premium food options include buffalo chicken, Cuban and pot roast sandwiches.
For fans looks to satisfy that sweet tooth, Comiskey’s Confections will offer premium gluten-free dessert options including crème brulee cheesecake, brown butter and sea salt marshmallow squares and soft-serve ice cream.
Fans won't be the only ones enjoying some changes. Players will enjoy an upgraded clubhouse when they enter the facility next week. The $2.5 million clubhouse renovations are the first in 25 years, said Terry Savarise, senior vice president of stadium operations.
The renovated 14,000-square-foot clubhouse will help train and condition players throughout the season.
The White Sox's first home game is April 10 against the Minnesota Twins.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:Trouble getting a physical copy of The Hobbit Extended Edition? You’re not alone.
at 8:09 am by - November 8, 20138:09 am by Demosthenes
Pages: 1 2
Physical (i.e.: Blu-ray 3D and DVD) copies of the Extended Edition of the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey were supposed to go on sale in stores in the USA on November 5, with the UK follow on November 11.
But the journey from screen to store to the hands of fans has proved to be as challenging as Bilbo’s own adventure. Over the past couple of days, TORn has received numerous reports from perturbed fans via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter.
Fans report that the Extended Edition is unavailable at Target in all forms, difficult to find at Best Buy and Barnes & Noble (where you might grab a Blu-ray copy, but are unlikely to find the DVD), and that Amazon is temporarily out of stock of the DVD and shipments are being delayed by one to three days.
What’s going on? Well, we have reached out to Warner Bros. to find out what’s happening, and provide some firm answers. In the meantime, read our complete report on the issues that fans have been experiencing trying to get their hands on a copy of the EE — and a couple of things you need to be wary of lest you end up with a version that contains less than you expected!
Few copies of the Extended Edition available
Fans in cities large and small have spent all day driving to nearby Best Buys and Targets only to come up empty handed. (Is Target boycotting the product because Walmart got it first?). Even in places such as Chicago and Los Angeles, stock availability is low (only a handful of copies) when it’s available at all.
Here’s one fan’s experience:
This actually happened in the Twin Cities, and it really was a dark and snow-stormy night.
After determining Best Buy probably had the best retail price of $24.99,
I looked on internet for any midnight sales, including specifically Best Buy stores. Nothing.
So I went to Best Buy after work Tu 11/5. Nothing!??? The guy said they sold most of them at midnight and were all sold out!
So I checked the nearby Target, nothing.
So I checked the nearby Barnes and Noble. They had a table with Hobbit stuff in their multimedia area but the lady said no Blu rays!
So I checked another not-so-near Best Buy. Nothing. The guy said they and still another store each received only two copies!
Finally went to the Wal-Mart nearby. They had a tonne of Blu-Rays for only $19.96.
Walmart’s two-disc (half)-Extended Edition causes confusion
Walmart doesn’t seem to be carrying the 5-disc DVD version of the Extended Edition with all of the appendices. Instead, they have a cheaper “Walmart Exclusive” 2-disc version of the film with only two features titled “New Zealand: Home of Middle-earth” and “Durin’s Folk: Creating the Dwarves.” I didn’t check their Blu-ray versions.
Walmart appears to be the bright spot of availability, but this comes with a catch. Walmart is apparently also selling an exclusive two-disc Extended Edition on DVD that lacks much of the additional commentary and appendices of the full five-disc versions. Instead, this two-disc version has only two of the additional features: “New Zealand: Home of Middle-earth” and “Durin’s Folk: Creating the Dwarves.”
At least one reader has been caught out by the difference, and states that it was incorrectly marketed by Walmart:
Walmart only has a two disc on Long Island depsite theyre [sic] website claiming it’s an exclusive 5 disc. I called multiple stores. Will have to get it from Amazon and return the other Walmart copy or give it away.
TheOneRing.net checked out Walmart’s online marketing for the Extended Edition. There’s the Blu-ray + Ultraviolet. There’s the five-disc DVD + Ultraviolet (note: currently out-of-stock).
And then there’s this, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition) (DVD + UltraViolet) (Walmart Exclusive) (Widescreen). The product photo (see the screencapture at above-right) shows a five-disc set, and the description is matches that of the five-disc set. Except (as one who bought and reviewed the product tells) it’s apparently the two-disc set:
NOT ITEM IN PICTURE | 11/06/2013
the picture next to the item shows a 5 disc set when i went to pic it up i was given the 2 disc if i wanted the 2 disc i could of just went in to the store and bought it there was a ton on the shelf so i drove all the way over there for nothing….never ordering agian [sic] on wallmart.com
Another reader tell us their EE DVD does not contain some of the advertised features:
I bought the extended edition of the Hobbit today at walmart, (very cool)
Except that two of the special features it says to be included are not on the dvds…”The Company of Thorin” and “Durin’s folk: creating the dwarves” are both missing completely from the dvds…Just wondering if you’ve heard this from anyone else or if it’s a defective dvd?
It’s not just Walmart, and it’s not just the DVD. Another reader encountered a similar issue with Best Buy, this time purchasing a Blue-ray 3D version.
… there’s some trickery going on with some offers for the Hobbit EE Blu Ray in the USA. People need to be careful. Best Buy was offering a 4 disc steelbook edition of the Hobbit Blu-Ray 3D for $29.99. A great bargain! You get the whole 3D extended cut plus the two appendices for a great price in a great collectable cover. The downside… it’s Blu-Ray 3D only with ultraviolet copy…meaning….no regular blu-ray included….which means…..no audio commentary included with this set….at all…..I am extremely disappointed and feel cheated. I expected the commentary to be on the 3D discs, otherwise I would have found the 5 disc edition somewhere. People need to be careful out there…
So, what’s going on?
The sheer scale of the Extended Edition ought to make it the biggest home video release of the year. Five discs, multiple formats, nine hours of commentary and extras in thirteen different parts. We know that Jackson and his team put thousands of hours into making it. We know that Jackson considers it a key part of his Middle-earth experience — his instinct is always to show viewers more, not less.
That’s why these movies are long. As he has said himself: “We’re not very good at making short movies, unfortunately.”
That’s why we had the 3D screening at CinemaCon in April 2012. Yes, they got a bit singed over that, but there’s no doubt that Jackson wanted people to see and share his excitement about 3D 48fps.
That’s why we have the production blogs. Yes, it’s been a bit spotty this year, but there are more coming on the heels of the one that debuted at the Fan Event the other day.
And that’s why a small group of fans got to see 20 minutes of previously unscreened footage the other day. In fact, Jackson told the audience in Wellington that Warner Bros. didn’t want to show nearly so much. And if the running time for Desolation of Smaug is approximately 160 minutes, some of us have seen 12.5 per cent of the film.Will Santa stuff children’s stockings with smartwatches this holiday season? That’s the hope for Filip Technologies which is today launching its FiLIP 2 smartwatch for kids at AT&T stores and online at ATT.com for the discounted launch price of $99.99. The watch, which is essentially a small smartphone strapped to the wrist, is one of the first “wearables” aimed at kids to hit mass production. The company previously offered an earlier version of this same device, just called the FiLIP.
The watch is enormous, which, though I don’t have one yet to test with my own child, looks like it could become uncomfortable to wear after some time on little wrists. But strapping something onto a child makes more sense than asking them to remember to carry around a phone – kids often forget and lose things, so a wearable item at least addresses that problem.
That said, though clunky it’s also sort of cute with its slip-on style enclosure, two big buttons, and an array of bright colors to choose from. In emergencies, kids can press and hold one button to trigger an automatic location beacon, kick on ambient sound recording, and call and SMS the primary number associated with the account stored on the FiLIP 2. If that person, likely mom or dad, doesn’t answer, the watch immediately begins calling the remaining contacts one at a time until someone does.
Parents can also set up “SafeZones” (geo-fences) around places like home, school, the playground or neighborhood, and be alerted when the child enters or leaves the area. A “smart locator” function also continually tracks the child’s location and plots it on a map using a combination of GPS, GSM and Wi-Fi.
Beyond the safety features, the everyday usefulness of the device is that the FiLIP 2 smartwatch functions as a phone. Parents can pre-program in five numbers that the child can call and receive calls from. The child can scroll through the contacts and then pushes the button to phone them, as needed.
Meanwhile, the device can be configured and controlled through the accompanying mobile app that works with the FiLIP and FiLIP 2, the later model launching today. This newer watch has improved durability, a redesigned, closeable wristband and comes in new colors, the company explains.
The iOS app that works with the FiLIP watches has been updated, but the new Android app won’t arrive until later this year.
The watch is on sale for $99.99, but will eventually retail for $149.99 when the promotion ends after the holidays. Meanwhile, the monthly AT&T data plan for the watch is an extra $10/month. Customers can add the FiLIP 2 to an AT&T Mobile Share Value Plan (minimum plan starts at $20/month) for additional $10/month, or activate on a Data Connect Plan for $10/month.
The FiLIP 2 is meant to fill that gap in between the time when a child is too small to sent out to play by themselves, and yet still too young for their first smartphone. It’s aimed at kids under 11, the company has said.
The decision to electronically leash up your child like this can be a bit controversial, too. After all, many of today’s parents remember a childhood with a lot more freedom and much less supervision. But thanks to the web and 24/7 news channels and sensational reporting on violent crime and sexual predators, the world seems scarier today than in the past – even if the reality is that violent crime has been dropping in the U.S. over the years.
Parents today are overwhelmingly concerned with the safety of their kids, but outside of those whose children have special needs, it may be right to at least question if the convenience of devices like this outweigh the downsides of a world where children never get to experiment with true independence – if only for a 20-minute bike ride around the block. It’s the choice each parent has to make for themselves, and neither side should judge.The collapse of the Delaware-size Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica has begun. Caused by warming and similar to the demise of the Larsen B and Larsen A in 2003 and 1995, the Larsen ice shelves hold back upland ice on the Antarctic Peninsula. The Larsen B disintegrated in 40 days. Next in line to collapse are the Ross and Ronne Ice Shelves. These California-sized ice shelves hold back the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet. (NASA photograph by John Sonntag)
Independent media will be an essential lifeline next year. Make sure we’re there to bring you the truth about 2017: Make a tax-deductible donation to Truthout today!
Our planet’s systems have a tremendous capacity to absorb punishment before they begin to show signs of degradation. Earth’s ecology self-heals like a cut on a finger. It assimilates pollution by chemical, physical and biological means — it changes pollutants into non-hazardous materials and proceeds upon its merry way as if there had been no pollution at all. Up to a point.
Acid rain is an excellent example of how our planet can self-heal. By the late 1960s, the United States was emitting so many sulfate and nitrate pollutants (smog) from burning fossil fuels, that sulfuric acid washed from the sky was killing forests and lakes. President Richard Nixon’s Clean Air Act stopped about half of the sulfur from going into our atmosphere. This was enough to allow nature to take over again and our forests and lakes began to heal.
Global warming didn’t really get started in a big way until the 1950s. Today, the warming rate is seven times greater than it was in the 1950s and the carbon emission rate is four times greater than in the ’50s.
That same sulfur pollution that caused all the acid rain in the ’60s and ’70s is a global cooling pollutant that hides warming. With grossly increasing smog in Asia since about the turn of the century, the results have been that 30 percent of warming that should have occurred has been masked or covered up by global cooling sulfate smog.
It’s also a very common misconception that some of the warming is natural. However, until about 100 years ago, our climate was cooling. The planet cooled about 5 degrees F in polar regions near Greenland (half or less globally) over the last 6,000 years. This research comes from mini-icecaps on Baffin Island where easily dateable rooted plants were revealed from melt. In the last 100 years, the temperature on Baffin has warmed about 7 degrees Fahrenheit; 2 degrees warmer than at any time in the last 120,000 years. Most of this warming has occurred since the 1950s.
The extremes we are experiencing now (temperature, rainfall, drought, etc.) will not increase at the same rate as the average temperature. The physics of thermodynamics say extremes will increase nonlinearly. Earth has lost its ability to buffer the warming. As we replace coal with non-fossil fuel alternatives, masking of warming by global cooling pollutants will also disappear, compounding the nonlinear rate of increasing extremes.
We live on a very complicated and dangerous planet that is worthy of great respect and awe. The past year’s advances in climate science should urge us to put that respect and awe into practice, taking definitive action against global warming.
Extremes
The American Meteorological Society’s latest report on weather extremes tells us: “Without exception, all the heat-related events studied in this year’s report were found to have been made more intense or likely due to human-induced climate change, and this was discernible even for those events strongly influenced by the 2015 El Niño.”
Human-caused “anthropogenic” influence was documented in 23 of 28 major global geographic regions. The events included increasing average temperature, warming of winter extremes, decreasing humidity due to warming, increasing dryness, increasing heavy precipitation, increased sunshine, more extreme drought, more extreme tropical cyclones, increased wildfire burn area and intensity, decreased arctic sea ice, more high tide flooding and decreased snowpack.
Attempts at Climate Reform
President Obama’s Clean Power Plan (CPP), which is the first policy to set a national limit on power plant-generated CO2 pollution, was one of the major developments of 2015. The CPP is almost identical to the US Kyoto Protocol commitment (created in the mid-1990s) of reducing CO2 emissions but the CPP is 18 years behind Kyoto. In other words, the new regulations are no different than they were a generation ago, and we have emitted almost as much additional carbon dioxide during the delay. Implementation of the CPP began in June 2015, six years after carbon dioxide was successfully declared a pollutant by the EPA. In February 2016 however, the US Supreme Court ordered the CCP back to Federal Appeals Court to determine if it is legal or not. This is the first time that the US Supreme Court has ever blocked an EPA rule.
The US climate commitment at Paris, 80 percent CO2 emissions reductions by 2050, is 30 percent less than and 30 years behind Kyoto Phase 2, which was supposed to be implemented by 2020. President-elect Trump has threatened to back out of the Paris Agreement and he will also have final say over the CPP when it returns from court. After over 20 years of trying, we remain without meaningful climate pollution regulations, even though the US is the single country that has unarguably emitted a third of all CO2 ever emitted — three times more than China. It is also very important to note that the US is the only country in the world that did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
Increasing Wildfires Across Western North America
Work from the Sierra Nevada Research Institute by Anthony Westerling reveals the western US wildfire season has increased by over 60 percent since the 1970s, from 138 days to 222 days, because of earlier onset of spring. The average burn time has increased nearly 800 percent, from six days to 52 days, because of deeper drying from early snowmelt. Burned area increased an astonishing 12 times (1,271 percent). Human-caused ignition has played a very small role in increasing wildfire trends. Westerling also notes: “Given projections for further drying within the region due to human-induced warming, this study underlines the potential for further increases in wildfire activity.”
Work from the University of Idaho and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory led by John Abatzoglou revealed that most of the increase in wildfire across the American West has happened since about 2000, and beetle killed trees are not factored into the trends (40 million acres across the US West has been killed by native beetles since 2000). Abatzoglou says that in 20 to 30 years, so much of the forest will have burned that the annual burn rate will begin to fall even with continued warming, because there will be too little forest left to burn.
The Amazon Continues to Emit More Carbon Than it Absorbs
It began in 2005 with a 100-year drought. Then in 2010, there was another, more extreme drought. Billions of trees were killed. As a result, the Amazon is no longer absorbing CO2. Instead, it is emitting it to the tune of 257 megatons annually — more than half of Brazil’s annual emissions. The most recent and extensive study of this topic, from 56 researchers at the University of Exeter in the UK, led by Ted Feldpausch, showed the decreasing sequestration was not from drought kill alone, but drought stress induced by higher temperatures was also responsible.
In 2010, I spoke with Leeds University researcher Simon Lewis who performed some of the first work on Amazonia after the 2010 drought. He said billions of trees were killed in the two droughts, and that for all of the trees to decay will take a relatively short 29 years in the rain forest. Lewis continued, “Two droughts like this in one decade will not completely offset the sink within that decade, but three in a decade may.” Considering the newer work by Feldpausch shows the flip has already occurred, it’s clear that — as so often happens with climate science — the deeper we look, the more extensive the damage really is.
A Large Increase in Methane Emissions
Methane is over 100 times more powerful of a greenhouse gas than CO2 in the 20-year short term time frame where abrupt changes pose the most risk. Research from Harvard and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs reports that US methane emissions have increased by more than 30 percent over the 2002–2014 period. The increase is greatest in the central part of the country, but no individual source was as yet discernable and was not readily attributable to any specific source type. These researchers say the emissions could account for 30-60 percent of the global growth of atmospheric methane during this period. While fracked gas is obviously the source, attribution in these atmospheric studies is more complicated.
Global Warming Psychology
Work from Yale, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, continues a trend of defining the culpability of the so-called Climate Change Counter Movement (CCCM) in obfuscating climate science. This work looked at 164 organizations identified in other academic literature as being involved in the CCCM between 1993-2013 and included 40,785 pieces of textual content and more than 39 million words. Two main findings emerged: organizations with corporate funding were more likely to have distributed content meant to polarize the climate change issue; and corporate funding influences the actual thematic content of these polarization efforts, confirming previous work showing the CCCM to be at the root of climate change politics and discourse.
NOAA Ice-Sheet Collapse Warning
NOAA says it takes 10 years or more for new science to go from conception to acceptance by the consensus. This “warning” implies the Antarctic, and particularly the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), is likely the most important part of climate change as sea level rise greater than three feet per century is beyond the rate at which our civilization can adapt. NOAA’s ostensible warning suggests that in the very near future, we will see new modeling that shows 10 feet of abrupt sea level rise by 2050 to 2060 from collapse of the WAIS. This means coastal infrastructure that represents a disproportionate piece of the global economy will be submerged or degenerated to the point of dysfunction, with plausible global economic breakdown.
Extremely salient to this ostensible “warning”: prehistoric evidence of such ice-sheet collapse, not represented by modeling, is common, and at its most extreme is represented by 6.5 to 10 feet of sea level rise in 12 to 24 years at Xcaret Reef on the Yucatan Peninsula 121,000 years ago, from research out of the Autonomous University of Mexico and the German Science Institute in 2009 by Paul Blanchon, et al.
Antarctic Ice Shelves Deteriorating Rapidly
Early this year, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California, San Diego showed Antarctic ice shelf volume decline from zero to 300 cubic kilometers in about the last 20 years. The loss is caused by thinning, mostly from melt below the surface. Ice loss was led by the WAIS, which increased by 70 percent in the last 10 years of the study. At its greatest, the under-ice melt rate is up to 100 meters per year (328 feet).
Ocean Heat Content Doubles in Recent Decades
The above research from Scripps Institute is proven through data collection that dates back as far as the extraordinary 18th century (1872-76) circumpolar ocean science expedition of the HMS Challenger led by Captain George Nares. Work from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Princeton, NOAA and Penn State shows that nearly half of the industrial-era increase in global ocean heat content has occurred in recent decades, with over a third of the accumulated heat occurring below 700 meters.
First Tipping Point Timeline for Collapse of the WAIS
Research out of the German National Science Institute first described a very distinct tipping point with the WAIS where collapse becomes irreversible in about 2050 to 2060. The very important take-away from this work is that to prevent ice-sheet collapse, we must return ocean temperature to its preindustrial stable temperature by 2050. The challenge here is that it is much more difficult to cool the oceans than it is the atmosphere. See here for an in-depth article in Truthout about the WAIS and the ability of current policy to prevent what would be the largest and most impactful climate change reality of our time.
Dynamical Ice-Sheet Collapse Modeling Arrives
Consensus climate projections have not, up to now, included abrupt sea level rise, because it has not yet been modeled. But this is changing. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Penn State (DeConto and Pollard) have for the first time modeled marine ice sheet collapse physics with results that begin to show what ice-sheet collapse might have looked like in the distant past. These physics include hydrofracturing of buttressing ice shelves (melt water heavier than ice that forces crevasses open) and structural collapse of marine-terminating ice cliffs where 200 to 300 feet is as tall as an ice cliff can get before it collapses under its own weight. This has very important implications for the WAIS — which rises 6,000 feet above sea level and whose bed rests on the ocean floor 3,000 feet below sea level — where crushed ice debris from collapse can be rapidly washed away from the collapsing ice face by ocean waters.
Larsen C Ice Shelf Collapsing
The Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica is collapsing. Preceding the Larsen C, the Larsen B went in 2002; preceding that, the Larsen A went in 1995. Both A and B were about the size of Rhode Island. B went in 40 days. It disintegrated into a pile of crushed ice three times the size of Rhode Island and washed out to sea. In early 2016, a crack across the back of the Larsen C Ice Shelf was discovered. By December, it was 70 miles long and 300 feet wide, and extended 1,000 feet — all the way through the 1,000 feet-thick ice shelf. It is only a matter of time before a Delaware-size iceberg breaks off, or the ice shelf disintegrates into crushed ice like the Larsen B.
The important thing here is that each of these three ice shelves was closer to the South Pole than the one that melted before it, meaning that warming is progressing. Moving even closer to the pole, the next ice shelves are the Ross and Ronne, on either side of the WAIS, both bigger than California. The great difference between the Larsen Ice Shelves and the Ross and Ronne is that the Larsen’s buttressing only held back a small amount of mountain ice along the Antarctic Peninsula. The Ross and Ronne will release the 9,000 feet-thick WAIS with enough ice to raise the sea level 16 to 20 feet.
Alternatives and Renewable Energy
For the first time, green energy implementation was greater than increasing energy demand — meaning, more green energy was made available than the total energy that was needed in the world. China leads the world with clean energy installation, triple that of the US and Europe. China has also announced that it would not be building new coal-fired power generation, and 200 coal facilities already permitted or in the planning stages will not be built. India said it had enough generation already built to last three to five years.
In 2016, the cost of solar dropped to 2.7 cents per kWh, less than the 3 cents per kWh for fracked gas. Solar costs have fallen more than 80 percent since 2008, onshore wind is down 40 percent, and grid-scale batteries cost 70 percent less. Total world solar and wind generation is now over 3 percent of the total.
Stratospheric Geoengineering With Limestone, Not Sulfates
Geoengineering to cool the Earth with global cooling sulfates has a bad reputation and is widely believed to make acid rain and ocean acidity much worse. This is a good guess as lower atmospheric sulfate emissions have historically created serious problems with acid rain and ocean acidity. The geoengineering technology, however, uses 100 times less sulfate than we are emitting today, and injects it into the stratosphere above 50,000 feet where it works literally 100 times better than in the lower atmosphere. However, sulfate eats ozone and so far, we are pretty sure that this relationship would not be a good thing.
Earlier this month, a team from Harvard led by David Keith published a study about using calcite (calcium carbonate or limestone) to cool the Earth. This class of alkaline metal salts results in similar cooling to sulfates — with a big difference. The minute amount of stratospheric injection of calcite not only cooled our atmosphere markedly, it increased stratospheric ozone (instead of depleting it). Costs for an operation that uses calcite for cooling are fantastically low compared to direct atmospheric removal of carbon dioxide, which itself is dramatically less expensive than the cost of emissions reductions. Calcite dust in our atmosphere is deposited naturally across the globe at a rate that is 10 to 1,000 times greater than the amount of calcite that would be needed to cool the Earth.
It’s also very important to note that geoengineering is not a substitute for evolving global energy generation to alternatives other than fossil fuels. The fossil fuel era was an extraordinary time that allowed our civilization to mature. Now that we have discovered much cleaner, cheaper and less impactful ways to generate our energy, the sooner we ditch fossil fuels the better.
Sequestration Through Mineralization: Faster Than Previously Understood
A field demonstration, published by a cast of 18 scientists in Iceland, the US, Denmark, Australia and the Netherlands, has shown rapid CO2 storage (sequestration) through permanent mineralization at the CarbFix site in Iceland. The project injected CO2 into basaltic rocks at a depth of 1800 feet and observed mineralization — the chemical conversion of CO2 into stable metal salts like calcium carbonate. This process has been known for quite some time but now a field evaluation has shown it to happen in less than two years, instead of the hundreds of thousands of years previously projected. This short duration mineralization vastly reduces the risk to atmospheric leakage and compromise of aquifers.
Carbon Capture Using Fuel Cells Generates More Net Energy
This one is particularly astonishing: carbon dioxide removal from coal generation flue gas can be accomplished with the addition of existing fuel cell technology to the coal electricity generation process. This private technology, partnering with Exxon Mobile (white paper) showed removal of 90 percent of CO2 and 70 percent of smog-producing pollutants. Most surprisingly, the process generates excess energy and water as byproducts instead of requiring additional energy. The total generation with the combined processes is 180 percent of the generation that would come from the coal alone.
Direct Air Capture Work Continues
Throughout the year, many climate scientists continued to advocate for both dramatic reductions in emissions and an engagement with CO2 capture technologies. Work in advancing our climate culture towards negative emissions continued with private organizations completing field scale production units (Global Thermostat and Carbon Engineering) with costs far less |
and now covers the southern border counties in Michigan. Here's the timeline. Light snow will start in just the southwest corner of Lower Michigan around 1 a.m. Sunday. By 4 a.m. Sunday the light snow should be falling at Jackson, Ann Arbor and south Detroit. At 7 a.m. Sunday light snow will be going at Muskegon, Grand Rapids, Lansing and Flint. It will take until 10 a.m. Sunday for Saginaw, Bay City, and Midland to see light snow. The heaviest snow will fall between 1 p.m. and 11 p.m. Sunday. The heaviest snow, which I would call "moderate" snow, will fall from I-94 southward. North of I-94 I think most Michiganders would call it steady light snow. The snow will hang on as moderate snow in southeast Michigan until 4 a.m. Monday morning. Moderate snow brings one-half mile visibility and one-half inch per hour snow rates. The snow will be over in the western half of Lower Michigan by 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. In southeast Michigan. So how much is expected? Far southern Lower, including Jackson should easily get 6"-8" of snow. Kalamazoo, Ann Arbor and Detroit can expect 5"-7" total. Lansing, Grand Rapids and Flint should be able to get 3"-5". Saginaw and Muskegon can broom off 1"-3" of snow, with Bay City and Midland getting under 2". These are the low end forecasts from the various models, so these amounts should be doable. One thing to note is this will be a very cold, dry, fluffy snow. Winds up to 25 mph will produce a lot of blowing and drifting. In fact, that may be the worst part of the storm. I'll check in often today to answer questions. Watch for an update later today.Press Release No. 25/2016
22 February 2016
Heidelberg researchers determine age of rock glasses from various parts of the world
Photo: Institut für Geowissenschaften, Universität Heidelberg Tektite from Australia with flanged edge. The force of the impact blew the glass body thousands of kilometres and out of the earth's atmosphere. The bulging edge formed when the partially molten tektite re-entered the atmosphere.
Approximately 790,000 years ago there were multiple cosmic impacts on earth with global consequences. Geoscientists from Heidelberg University reached this conclusion after dating so-called tektites from various parts of the world. The research group under the direction of Prof. Dr. Mario Trieloff studied several of such rock glasses, which originated during impacts of asteroids or comets. The Heidelberg scientists employed a dating method based on naturally occurring isotopes that allowed them to date the tektites more accurately than ever. Their studies show that the samples from Asia, Australia, Canada and Central America are virtually identical in age, although in some cases their chemistry differs markedly. This points to separate impacts that must have occurred around the same time. The results of their research funded by the Klaus Tschira Foundation were published in the journal “Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta”.
The research group at the Institute of Earth Sciences and the Klaus Tschira Laboratory for Cosmochemistry uses isotope measurements to determine the age of craters caused by the impact of extraterrestrial rocks. “That's how we know when, where and how often projectiles struck the earth, and how big they were,” says Mario Trieloff. There have long been signs that a major event of this type took place on earth about a million years ago, according to Prof. Trieloff. This is evidenced by tektites, so-called rock glasses that arise during impact, whereby terrestrial material melts, is hurled up to several hundred kilometres and then hardens into glass.
“We have known about such tektites for some time from the Australasian region,” explains Dr. Winfried Schwarz, the study's primary author. These rock glasses form a strewn field that stretches from Indochina to the southernmost tip of Australia. Smaller tektites, known as microtektites, were also discovered in deep-sea drill cores off the coast of Madagascar and in the Antarctic. The rock glasses had been strewn over 10,000 kilometres, with some of them even leaving the earth's atmosphere. Using the 40Ar-39Ar dating method, which analyses the decay of the naturally occurring 40K isotope, the Heidelberg researchers succeeded in dating these tektites more accurately than ever before.
“Our data analysis indicates that there must have been a cosmic impact about 793,000 years ago, give or take 8,000 years,” explains Winfried Schwarz. The Heidelberg scientists also studied samples from Canada and Central America. The Canadian rock glasses had the same chemical composition and age as the Australasian tektites and could have covered similar “flight routes” as objects found in southern Australia or the Antarctic. Other finds must first confirm whether the recovery sites are really where the tektites originally landed or whether they for example were carried there by people, according to Dr. Schwarz.
The rock glasses from Central America are also tektites – the first specimens were found at Mayan sites of worship. In the meantime, hundreds of other finds have been made in Central America. “These tektites are clearly different in their chemical composition, and their geographical distribution also shows that they come from separate impacts,” explains Dr. Schwarz. “Surprisingly our age estimates prove that they originated 777,000 years ago with a deviation of 16,000 years. Within the error margin, this matches the age of the Australasian tektites.”
These findings led the Heidelberg researchers to conclude that there were multiple cosmic impacts approximately 790,000 years ago. In addition to the events in the Australasian and Central American regions, a smaller collision at around the same time created the Darwin crater in Tasmania. “The distribution of the tektites and the size of the strewn field indicate that the earth-striking body was at least a kilometre in size and released an impressive one million megatons of TNT energy within seconds of impact,” explains Dr. Schwarz.
According to the scientists, the consequences were dire. At the local level, there was fire and earthquakes for hundreds of kilometres surrounding the impact site; an ocean impact would have caused tsunamis hundreds of metres high. At the global level, dust and gases were ejected into the upper levels of the atmosphere, blocking sunlight and lowering surface temperatures. Biomass production was also affected, although according to the scientists it did not result in global mass extinction as in the case of the dinosaurs approximately 65 million years ago.So the votes are in, and UNESCO has voted to accept Palestine as a full member. I have procured the full voting results, which to my knowledge, have not been made public yet. There were 14 “no” votes, 52 abstentions and 107 “yes” votes (there were also 20 21 Member States absent):
No: Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Palau, Panama, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Sweden, United States of America, Vanuatu.
Abstentions: Albania, Andorra, Bahamas, Barbados, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cook Islands, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Fiji, Georgia, Haiti, Hungary, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kiribati, Latvia, Liberia, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Switzerland, Thailand, Macedonia, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Zambia.
Yes: Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, China, Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Russian Federation, Sant Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zimbabwe.
Absent: Antigua and Barbuda, Central African Republic, Comoros, Dominica, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Madagascar, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Con Federated States of Micronesia, Mongolia, Niue, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Turkmenistan.
Most of these are no surprise, although it is worth noting the division in Europe, with Spain, France, Ireland, Austria, Finland and Greece voting “yes,” Germany, Czech Republic and Sweden voting “no,” and the UK, Italy and Denmark abstaining. It’s also probably worth noting that the US didn’t manage to get a “no” vote from such solid supporters as countries like Latvia (which voted “no” to bringing the motion to the General Assembly earlier this month but abstained today) and Tuvalu, Nauru and other island states that almost always support the US in international forums. Another formerly stalwart US supporter who voted for Palestine is Iceland. I remember chatting with an Icelandic diplomat during the Bush administration who had told me that after one particularly egregious instance of Washington dictating terms on what should have been a bilateral decision between Reykjavik and DC the US could no longer count on their automatic support in international forums.
Note: I’ve transcribed these from documentation, so there may be some typos, but I think the numbers add up. Let me know in the comments if I’ve made a mistake.
Update: I’ve added the Member States that were absent. I don’t know if they were present for the General Assembly and just skipped this vote, but even if no one from the Member State came, to the best of my knowledge, with the exception of South Sudan, each has a permanent delegation at UNESCO, so that’s relevant information as well. As a friend just pointed out to me, being absent is “also a means of abstaining.”
Update II: I’ve just been told that if a Member State hasn’t paid its dues, it loses the right to vote, which might explain some (or all?) of the absent countries.
AdvertisementsBack in November, I posted some highlights from Merrill Reese’s radio call of Washington’s demolition of the Eagles.
Reese, of course, is the radio play-by-play voice of the Eagles, and he seemed especially anguished that Philadelphia was getting smacked around by Washington, of all teams, on that day. His anguish came to mind on Friday, when I heard this exchange between Reese and WIP’s Angelo Cataldi.
Cataldi: Do you hate the Dallas Cowboys?
Reese: Not as much as I hate the Washington Redskins. Once upon a time I did, but now, it’s the Redskins.
Cataldi: Really? Really? Why?
Reese: Daniel Snyder, he makes us sit in the end zone where we can’t see the game. You know, do I hate the Dallas Cowboys? They’re a great rivalry. There’s no doubt about the rivalry. But I just like the Redskins less than the Cowboys.
Before you mock Reese, bear in mind that D.C. sports fans mostly sided with Steve Buckhantz and Phil Chenier when their broadcast perch at Wizards games was moved to a significantly less advantageous location.Ireland has been called on to have the ‘internet enshrined as a human right’ under its laws, following a decision this week by one of Europe’s highest-ranking judges to decide against ISPs using content-filtering technology.
Pedro Cruz Villalón, Advocate General to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), this week found against a verdict that said Belgian ISP Scarlet should filter out copyright-infringing content from its network.
The decision came in the same week that the outgoing government in New Zealand pushed through a ‘three strikes law’ aimed at punishing copyright theft. The move means judges could impose injunctions against telcos and internet service providers, requiring them to filter their networks.
Ireland narrowly escaped a similar fate in recent months as it emerged Statutory Instruments were being tabled and could have been signed by the outgoing Government.
ALTO, the organisation representing licensed telecoms operators in Ireland, welcomed the advocate-general’s decision and called for Ireland to transpose internet access as a human right into Irish law.
“The Advocate General’s opinion is very encouraging in the context of his finding that internet filtering infringes fundamental rights. We await the final ruling from the European Court of Justice on the matter.
“In a week where we have seen the outgoing administration in New Zealand push through ‘three strikes’ law in its dying days, which ALTO believes is wrong, and indicative of a massive democratic deficit, we restate precisely what we have said all along, that ‘three strikes’ law and private filtering deals infringe users’ fundamental rights. This view has been deemed correct by Europe’s most senior jurist."
The internet as a fundamental human right in Ireland
ALTO’s chairman Ronan Lupton said ALTO respects the rights of intellectual property holders.
“However, communications companies should not be held accountable in circumstances where intellectual property rights holders have blatantly failed to move with the times and protect their own business models.
“Internet access is now a fundamental right and has been enshrined in EU law. The new Telecoms Reform Package containing this fundamental right is to be transposed into Irish law on 25 May.”
“It is incumbent on all stakeholders to endeavour to strike a reasonable and lawful balance between users, communications companies and intellectual property producers’ rights.
“This balance may well be struck through collaborative engagement rather than expensive and mostly pointless litigation,” Lupton said.Supported devices
samsung/klteuc
samsung/kltevl
samsung/kltespr
samsung/kltetmo
samsung/klteusc
samsung/kltevzw
samsung/klteub
samsung/kltedv
samsung/kltexx
FAQ
this is a UEFI port, can we port Windows?
no, trust me.
no, trust me. Can I still use fastboot after installing this?
If you flash to the boot/recovery partitions, UEFI will be overwritten.(dd in android/recovery instead). all other partitions work as usual.
If you flash to the boot/recovery partitions, UEFI will be overwritten.(dd in android/recovery instead). all other partitions work as usual. I FOUND A BUG
Report it on Github. If there already is an issue for your bug and you don't have anything useful to add, just hit the thumbs-up button. This way I know how many people are affected and can adjust my priority list. I will not keep track of all bugs reported in posts of this thread. If you want a bug to get fixed, report it on github
Installation
Just download the attached EFIDroidManager App, the EFIDroid Manager app from the Play Store won't work.
Open the menu (at the top left), and click "Install/Update".
Click the big orange Install button.
Multibooting
Open the EFIDroid Manager app. Press the plus button at the bottom right side of the screen to start adding a multiboot slot.
Under "Location", there should be a couple paths. Select the one containing "/data/media/0".
You can give the slot a name/description by using the appropriate fields.
Press the checkmark at the top right side of the screen to create the multiboot slot.
Reboot. When EFIDroid comes up, select TWRP, then select the newly created slot.
Go to the "Wipe > Advanced Wipe" menu. Select "System", then swipe to wipe.
Install all the zips you want on that slot.
NOTE: To prevent accidentall data loss when booting in recovery the real /sdcard gets mocked so you are not going to find your.zips as usual under TWRP's /sdcard. To acces the "real" /sdcard go to /multiboot/data/media/0
Reboot, and when EFIDroid comes up, your new slot should automatically be selected. Press the power button to boot, and enjoy!
IMPORTANT:your main ROM should boot without changing any configuration on EFIDroid but secondary ROM's are used to fail because of selinux denials. I strongly reccomend you to enable Force SELinux to permissive under EFIDroid options (the Gear icon in the main screen placed at the top right) - Once you kwon your secondary ROM is working you can try to boot without this option disabled - If you end up in a bootloop logcat and dmesg are welcome.
Source Code
EFIDroid is a easy to use, powerful 2ndstage-bootloader based on EDKII(UEFI).It can be installed one-click with the EFIDroidManager app. You can add/remove/edit multiboot ROM's.There's no special support needed by ROM's or RecoveryTools(no kexec etc).EFIDroid official/generic thread here Note: Tested on SM-G900V/kltevzw other variant are untested, but should work.You can use EFIDroid as a multiboot manager. To add a multiboot ROM, do the following:This will be my sources untill the official releaseAll credit goes to @ m11kkaa abraha2d for multirom guideHUDS employees and union members gather at the contract announcement at First Parish Church Wednesday afternoon.
UPDATED: October 26, 2016, 9:00 p.m.
After months of tense contract negotiations, Harvard will pay its full-time dining services employees at least $35,000 a year and cover increased copayments until 2021—a settlement that union leaders say satisfy their demands.
The agreement was ratified 573-1 by dining services employees at a vote Wednesday afternoon, marking the conclusion of a 22-day strike that has rocked Harvard’s campus and led to the closing of several dining halls and campus cafes. HUDS employees will return to work Thursday morning, though “normal operations” will not resume immediately, according to University spokesperson Tania deLuzuriaga.
A press release sent Wednesday from UNITE HERE LOCAL 26—the union that represents HUDS—said employees would not see any increases to their out-of-pocket healthcare costs with the contract, which will last five years.The settlement also includes the creation of a Diversity and Equality Committee to “address concerns regarding diversity and equal treatment of Harvard dining hall employees” and retroactive wage increases of 2.5 percent per year—just slightly below the wage increases Harvard’s largest union, the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical workers settled last winter.
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Over the course of the tense, nearly five-month-long negotiations, the University and the union clashed over wages and health benefits for the HUDS workers. The union demanded a minimum salary of $35,000 a year for employees willing to work year-round. Harvard has said that the HUDS workers made an average of $34,000 a year before the negotiations, while the union put that estimate closer to $31,000.
Local 26 also asked Harvard not change health plan offerings for HUDS employees. Eleventh hour negotiations between the two parties Tuesday eventually did lead to a compromise. In the end, the University agreed to cover copayments, while the union accepted a more modest pay raise for dining employees, and both parties agreed to the summer compensation model.
“Throughout this negotiation, the University has sought a resolution that maintains superior compensation for our dining workers, acknowledging their role as integral members of the Harvard community,” deLuzuriaga wrote in a statement.
DeLuzuriaga wrote that the union agreed to changes in retiree health benefits that “will make their insurance plan consistent with all of Harvard’s exempt employees and 5,000 members of other unions on campus.”
Copayments for employees will increase in 2019, according to Local 26 President Brian Lang, though Harvard will field the cost for the copayments with a “flexible savings account.”
“Harvard will protect lower-wage workers from burdensome cost increases by seeding flexible savings accounts and out-of-pocket reimbursement funds through 2021,” deLuzuriaga wrote.
In addition, Harvard will create a new premium contribution tier for employees who make less than $55,000 per year, in which Harvard will contribute 87 percent of the cost of the lowest-cost plan; the University extended this offer earlier in negotiations. DeLuzuriaga said the premium contribution tier will also be implemented in 2019.
According to deLuzuriaga, HUDS employees who work full-time and are available to work during the summer recess will receive a $3,000 summer stipend beginning in 2020. Until then, the University will pay eligible employees $2,400 during summer months, when dining halls close and many dining services employees are without work. The stipends will be disbursed over three payments throughout the summer, according to Lang.
The stipend mirrors a proposal the University put forward in early October in response to demand for summertime compensation.
For employees who work fewer hours during the academic year, that stipend will be “prorated,” meaning it will be adjusted incrementally in relation to the number of hours an employee works, deLuzuriaga wrote.
The agreement also stipulates that the University reimburse dining services employees medical costs, insurance costs, and transportation costs incurred during the strike.
Lang announced some of the details of the new contract Wednesday afternoon to a crowd of roughly 100 HUDS employees and supporters gathered outside the First Parish Church.
“I can report, coming out of our contract ratification meeting, that we achieved every goal without exception,” Lang said to cheers. “It’s a testament to when working-class people make a decision to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘Enough is enough, and we’re not gonna take it anymore.’”
—Staff writer Brandon J. Dixon can be reached at brandon.dixon@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrandonJoDixon.
—Staff writer Andrew M. Duehren can be reached at andy.duehren@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @aduehren.Juan Thompson, former Intercept writer, arrested in connection with bomb threats
Juan Thompson, who was fired from The Intercept last year for fabricating quotes, has been arrested on suspicion of making bomb threats against Jewish community centers.
Thompson, who joined The Intercept at the end of 2014, stands accused of one count of cyberstalking in addition to making eight threats against Jewish community centers, according to NBC News.
An anonymous threat emailed to a JCC in Manhattan earlier in February included Thompson’s own name. It said he ‘put two bombs in the office of the Jewish center today. He wants to create Jewish Newtown tomorrow,’ the complaint said. ‘Newtown’ apparently refers to the December 2012 massacre at a Connecticut school that claimed the lives of 26 people, including 20 children.
The staff of The Intercept was “horrified” to hear about the charges, according to a statement from Editor-in-Chief Betsy Reed.
“We were horrified to learn this morning that Juan Thompson, a former employee of The Intercept, has been arrested in connection with bomb threats against the ADL and multiple Jewish Community Centers in addition to cyberstalking,” the statement reads. “These actions are heinous and should be fully investigated and prosecuted. We have no information about the charges against Thompson other than what is included in the criminal complaint.”
Among the most egregious of Thompson’s fabrications was a bogus claim that he spoke with Scott Roof, ostensibly Dylann Roof’s cousin but actually a fictional source.
Last February, Reed published the results of an investigation that revealed “a pattern of deception” by Thomson, which included made-up quotes and fake email accounts used to impersonate people.
An investigation into Thompson’s reporting turned up three instances in which quotes were attributed to people who said they had not been interviewed. In other instances, quotes were attributed to individuals we could not reach, who could not remember speaking with him, or whose identities could not be confirmed.
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PrintLIVE: Infowars reporter Joe Biggs touches down in Chicago to investigate the secret domestic torture facility being used to illegally detain, beat and even kill US citizens.
Human Rights Worker Protests ‘Black Sites’:
Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream
Chemtrail Whistleblower Speaks Out Against Police Tyranny:
Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream
Chicago Citizens Speak Out Against ‘Black Sites’:
Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream
Protesters Beat The Drums of Freedom:
Try Ustream Pro!
Torture Site Full of Masonic Symbolism:
Try Ustream Pro!
A Torture Site From Central Casting:
Try Ustream Pro!
The Hidden Truth of America’s Black Site Epidemic Exposed:
As soon as Infowars arrives, they are immediately swarmed by police, told to leave public property and bizarrely threatened by an undercover officer.
Check out the rest of Infowars’ Chicago ‘black site’ coverage below.
Reporters Harassed at Secret Torture Site in Chicago:
Police Caught Issuing Illegal Orders:
Reporters Harassed For Exposing Domestic Torture Site:Seventy-two hours after this year’s Academy Award nominations were announced, we convened eight nominees to discuss what was on their minds. And there was a lot! From an upstart ingenue like Alicia Vikander, tapped for Best Supporting Actress for The Danish Girl, to a veteran producer like Steve Golin, who has two films (Spotlight and The Revenant) competing for Best Picture; from a writer like Andrea Berloff, who co-scripted the unexpected blockbuster Straight Outta Compton, to documentary director Liz Garbus, nominated for her defiant and heartbreaking What Happened, Miss Simone?, all the assembled were equally eager to share their insights about the craziness (and necessity) of Oscar campaigning, the omnipresent diversity issue, recent changes to the movie business, and — according to Bryan Cranston — why you have to be ready to win.
Participants:
Alicia Vikander, supporting actress, The Danish Girl
Andrea Berloff, co-writer, Straight Outta Compton
Bryan Cranston, lead actor, Trumbo
Diane Warren, songwriter, “‘Til It Happens to You,” from The Hunting Ground
Liz Garbus, director, What Happened, Miss Simone?
Pete Docter, writer/director, Inside Out
Phyllis Nagy, writer, Carol
Steve Golin, producer, The Revenant and Spotlight
What does this nomination mean to you at this point in your career?
Bryan Cranston Photo: Art Streiber/AUGUST
Bryan Cranston: It means a great deal. It’s the first moniker you hear about when you grow up: “Oscar nominee.” I’m just trying to take it all and really be in the moment and see what it feels like, and then accept the ephemeral nature of it. We can celebrate and meet all these really interesting, creative people, and then it goes away — and it should go away — and we go back to work.
How do you compare the culture of the Oscars versus the Emmys?
Cranston: There’s a certain sense of self-congratulatory presence to it. I don’t think anyone pats themselves on the back better than our industry. There is an award for just about everything.
Pete Docter: “The award for the Best Awards Show goes to …” [Laughs.]
Is there now increased pressure on talent and films to win awards?
Steve Golin: Yeah, for sure. There are a lot of elements to this. Obviously, the studios want to win awards. There’s box-office pressure, since if a movie wins certain awards, it becomes more important down the line. And as actors will testify, awards-season publicists will send them to supermarket openings if they let them. There’s no question it’s gotten kind of out of hand.
Docter: Is that true of all films?
Liz Garbus: I can speak to that. I was nominated for an Oscar in 1998 [for The Farm: Angola, USA], and the difference between being there then and being here now is a world apart. Part of it is that there’s more commercial support for documentaries — they are seen as viable movies, as opposed to spinach we are fed. But also, the pressure on me as the director. It was a totally different experience [this year, compared to] 18 years ago.
Diane, you have some perspective on this. You’ve been nominated several times, and your first nod came almost 30 years ago.
Diane Warren: Yeah, I’m a seven-time loser! [Laughs.] I put pressure on myself. I don’t want to be an eight-time loser. It sounds really pathetic!
Andrea Berloff: But it’s not “eight-time loser,” it’s “eight-time nominee”!
Warren: Thursday morning was just as exciting as the first time it ever happened. I mean, think about all the songs that come out, and all the movies. But it’d be nice to win.
Alicia, what does this nomination mean to you? You’ve had a breakthrough year, with a lot of terrific performances in big movies. Does this feel like the culmination of all that?
Alicia Vikander Photo: Art Streiber/AUGUST
Alicia Vikander: It’s interesting, first of all, to hear about the culture of this. I grew up in Sweden, and I had heard of the Oscar nominations — every year I was up at 3 a.m. by the TV. But the rest of it? I actually came here with A Royal Affair three years ago, a Danish film, and me and the director were running around like, “What is this?” We went to these parties, and we were always the people in the corner. I remember the first time I heard someone in a discussion say the words awards season. I thought it was a joke! Now it’s so interesting to sit here and answer questions about it.
Garbus: One important thing about awards season — and they are two funny words together — is that it does shed a light on what’s happening in the industry. We’ve all heard about the hashtags #OscarsSoWhite and #OscarsSoMale. It’s a reflection of who’s getting jobs in Hollywood, and what they are — what opportunities female directors and actors of color are getting. And so it sheds light on a discussion that shouldn’t just be happening once a year, when awards season happens, but every day — because it’s structural, it’s institutional, and it’s not about the Academy. The Academy is just reflecting a larger truth about what film studios are choosing to promote for awards season. We can all look at Creed as an example of that.
Andrea, why do you think it is that Straight Outta Comptondidn’t make it into the Best Picture field after doing so well at the precursors?
Andrea Berloff Photo: Art Streiber/AUGUST
Berloff: I don’t want to attribute it to any one thing because, ultimately, I don’t know why each individual put down on their ballot what they put down. There are a few positives I’d like point out. 2015 was a remarkable year in terms of this conversation. You can’t imagine the amount of diversity events I attended, and that was not happening even five years ago, so the fact that people are even talking about it now is a start. My hope is that this can be used as part of that conversation to see what happens this year and the year after about hiring. That is where it starts. People have to get hired in order for their movies to get made, and in order for their movies to get pushed.
Have people been surprised to learn that the writers of your film are both white? Have you felt that backlash personally?
Berloff: [Pauses.] It’s been … uh, yeah.
Warren: Which is really unfair.
Berloff: It’s been an interesting couple days.
Warren: I mean, who hired you?
Berloff: [Compton producer] Ice Cube hired me. It wasn’t like they were looking for a white woman. And if I may say, 11 percent of movies last year were written by women. So the fact that there are four nominees this year in the writing categories who are women is amazing!
Warren: And the fact that you have to talk about “women writers” and “women directors” — what is that?
Cranston: It’s ridiculous.
Berloff: The fact there are four of us nominated is worth celebrating. And nobody is talking about how awesome that is.
Phyllis, do you feel like people pigeonhole you as a woman writer, and does that affect the sorts of projects they ask you to write?
Phyllis Nagy Photo: Art Streiber
Phyllis Nagy: Not since Thursday. I’m not exaggerating. My phone has been ringing with the kinds of big studio jobs that I wasn’t getting before the nomination. I understand that this is a business, and it operates both artistically and on the financial level, and it is incumbent upon people like me and Andrea to walk into rooms and say, “No, I don’t want to write the movie about the woman giving birth. I want to write the movie about the Mafia.”
There was an outcry, too, that Carol wasn’t nominated for Best Picture and Todd Haynes didn’t make the final five for Best Director. What do you make of that?
Nagy: If there’s a passionate response, I put that down to absolute love for the movie, and that’s great. On the other hand, Carol is nominated for six Oscars, and all of us represent the film in a particular way. It could have swung the other way, and that’s a testament to probably the whimsical nature of ticking boxes off on a ballot. Do I think Todd and the producers deserve to be there? Of course. But we also have to be very proud of what has happened with it. We made a great movie.
Speaking of films that weren’t nominated for Best Picture, Pete, what’s your take on Inside Out missing the cut? While it still got a nomination for Best Animated Film, do you wonder why the Academy didn’t nominate one of Pixar’s most acclaimed films of all time for Best Picture?
Docter: Yeah. A lot of times people talk about that, so, yeah, you do wonder. I think there’s a mind-shift for people when they watch something animated. They think of it in a different category. But most people would be shocked how similar the process is. It’s just stretched out over five years.
Steve, you produced two Best Picture nominees, The Revenantand Spotlight.
Warren: Which are you hoping for? … Don’t answer.
Steve Golin Photo: Art Streiber
Golin: I have two children, and I love them both. [Laughs.] What can you say about it? Both movies were supposed to happen years ago and didn’t — and now they happen in the same year.
Is it hard to get smaller, more intimate dramas like Spotlightfinanced, especially now that prestige television does that sort of thing so well?
Golin: They were both very difficult to get financed. But irrespective of that, what’s interesting is that in motion pictures right now, drama is a dirty word. If you’re going in and pitching a drama to a studio, it’s a real uphill battle. The problem with these small movies is that the marketing cost is so astronomical.
Cranston: The same cost as doing a larger film.
Golin: That’s right. Sometimes the marketing cost can be three times the budget of the movie. It’s completely upside-down. So you don’t always want that pressure. It was like when [Steven] Soderbergh did Beyond the Candelabra and decided to take that to HBO. With that casting, clearly, he could have gotten it released theatrically. But he decided not to do that, to take the pressure off and to make the movie that he wanted to make. There’s nobody that won’t do cable now. Martin Scorsese’s doing it, Ridley [Scott] did it, [David] Fincher did it. Ironically, we have taken some movies that we’ve developed in the past and turned them into TV shows now, and they’re better. We’re doing The Alienist for cable, as ten hours. Paramount tried to make that as a two-hour movie for about 15 years, and spent God knows how much money. It’s about figuring out what belongs where.
Alicia, you said recently how rare it is that you get to share a scene with another actress, and at this point, you’re being sent a lot of top scripts. Do you keep finding that these big movies have only one notable part for a woman?
Vikander: Yes. I was almost a bit embarrassed when I found myself in Tulip Fever, with Holliday Grainger, and realized while making the scene with her that, in my previous three films where I had a leading role, I had not one line with another woman. I had been so focused and happy with the fact that I had one of those good female roles — they were interesting parts, with complex characters — that I hadn’t even thought about it. I think about the good things, I guess, and then I kind of go, “Oh shit, I need to really look at this, too, because it’s strange.”
Nagy: Yeah, what you say is a real problem.
Vikander: But I read your script [for Carol] two years ago and I thought, Brilliant script. I was like, “Finally.”
Cranston: She’s a little upset she wasn’t cast.
Nagy: For the only time in my life, I’m going to enjoy saying, “I’m just the writer.” [Laughs.] I |
prepare myself for my talk so I am not able to say much here. Sorry Predrag, nothing personal!
Last but hopefully not least, was my talk about Laravel4. As I am still a novice talker, till that moment I only talked few times and at best in front of 30 people, going on stage in front of such a large crowd was a nerve-wracking moment. Crowd seemed already tired due to almost tropical temperature and humidity inside, as my talk was highly interactive this scared me. Fortunately after only few minutes audience proved me wrong and I was able to comfortably continue my talk (thank you all for that!). As Laravel4 is still in beta, I based my talk on what it has to offer and a list of pros and cons as I see them. I would be too subjective to write about quality of my talk, so if you were in Belgrade on this occasion feel free to leave comments here. Any feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me get better.
After talks have finished audience moved into foyer, enjoying pizzas and beer provided by meetup's organizers and sponsors, giving us opportunity to discuss & talk in more leisure atmosphere. Though my Q&A part of session was unexpectedly long, a lot of people at that time approached me to ask more direct questions. I must admit I was a bit overwhelmed, positively overwhelmed! Since I had laravel4 talk in Zagreb two weeks prior, I haven't anticipated so much interest as we continued to talk for an hour (maybe even more, really not sure). As Dom Omladine had to close (it was rather late) we moved into one of local pubs and continued drinking & talking some more (until early morning hours).
I would take this opportunity to thank whole PHP Srbija organization committee for inviting us & once again congratulate them on bringing such a large community together.Sevilla fought their way into the UEFA Champions League by winning the Europa League (once again) but this season they’ll want one step more in LaLiga as well.
[table id=85 /]
Manager – Jorge Sampaoli
Jorge Luis Sampaoli Moya (56), is an Argentine football manager currently managing Sevilla as he replaced Unai Emery who departed for PSG. Sampaoli started out as a youth player and eventually switched to management due to a severe injury. Sampaoli started with an impressive managerial period at Coronel Bolognesi in 2006, and then again with a brief but successful period at O’Higgins and Emelec.
Sampaoli definitively proved his worth with Universidad de Chile where he won league title and the Copa Sudamericana championship. This success led him to coach the Chilean men’s national team in 2013 and he led the Chilean national football team to their first Copa América title, after defeating Argentina in the final in the 2015 edition in Chile. He is well known for his attacking tactics, similar to those of Marcelo Bielsa according to the press and fans alike.
Stadium – Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán
The Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán stadium is the home of Sevilla Fútbol Club. The stadium holds 42,500 and was built in 1957. It replaced the Estadio de Nervión.
It was the venue for the 1986 European Cup Final between Steaua București and Barcelona and the 1982 World Cup semi-final game between Germany and France.
This stadium contains a singular legend: the Spanish national team has never lost a game against an international team in this stadium. In European competition, Sevilla has lost only three times at home; to AZ in the 2006–07 UEFA Cup group stage, to CSKA Moskva in the 2009–10 UEFA Champions League and to Real Betis in the 2013–14 UEFA Europa League.
Squad
Squad as of 15 Aug 2016:
[table id=86 /]
Notable transfers
Players in:
Franco Vázquez (Palermo) – €15M
Joaquín Correa (Sampdoria) – €13M
Ganso (FC Sao Paulo) – €9,5M
Wissam Ben Yedder (Toulouse) – €9M
Hiroshi Kiyotake (Hannover 96) – €6,5M
Gabriel Mercado (River Plate) – €2,2M
Pablo Sarabia (Getafe) – €1M
Luciano Vietto (Atlético) – loan
Matías Kranevitter (Atlético) – loan
Players out:
Grzegorz Krychowiak (PSG) – €33,6M
Kévin Gameiro (Atlético) – €32M
Coke (Schalke) – €4M
Ever Banega (Inter Milan) – free
Rumours
According to Sevilla insiders, Jorge Sampaoli is still on a hunt for another goalkeeper (David Soria suffered a heavy injury) and central midfielder. Diego Alves of Valencia is high on a priority list for Los Nervionenses but seeing that Valencia are unlikely to sell players to the club they see as a direct rival, maybe some other solution will help as well. Nastic’s Fabrice Ondoa could be in.
As for the midfielder, Dani Parejo (also of Valencia CF) was a hot-topic for a long time but he now looks to stay. Roque Mesa of Las Palmas is also in the mix.
How will they play?
Well, Sevilla already played two competitive matches this term against very strong opponents – UEFA Super Cup against Real Madrid and the Spanish Super Cup first leg against Barcelona. They’ve lost both but looked mostly solid and somehow different than what they played under Unai Emery. Sampaoli will probably insist on his 4-3-3 that can shift to 4-2-3-1 if needed.
Sergio Rico is the first goalkeeper while at the moment it looks like Mariano and Escudero are chosen full-backs – however, Escudero was injured yesterday in the Spanish Super Cup and Sevilla’s defence looks depressingly empty at the moment with Carrico, Kolodziejczak (suspensions) and Tremoulinas (injury) unavailable. Mercado and Rami played as centre-backs and looked solid and they could be expected to continue for at least a while.
Kranevitter, N’Zonzi and Franco Vázquez were the middle three of somewhat asymmetrical formation that can easily switch with Vázquez roaming further forward to allow Kranevitter and N’Zonzi to play as holders – what’s more, if Sevilla bring another central midfield to play here they can look towards more solutions.
Kiyotake, Vitolo and Vietto served as an attacking force against both Real Madrid and Barcelona but we can expect Yevgen Konoplyanka and Krohn-Dehli to be in the mix as well.
Sampaoli’s principles were pretty clear in Sevilla’s matches so far – they’ve looked for possession, longed to play with ball at all times and practice a football with high pressing. That’s completely new style for Sevilla and they’ve struggled with a ‘final pass‘ and suffered damage from the counter-attacks (both against Real Madrid and Barcelona).
Sevilla dominated pitch with a clear idea to completely flood the midfield and close down their opponents looking to get the ball as soon as possible.
However, they’ll have to practice more – transition from the meaningless possession towards clear-cut chances was the trouble as Sevilla were left without a shot on target against Barcelona although they looked as a better team on the pitch. Execution of Sampaoli’s ideas is crucial and we’ll see how long team takes to adapt.
Key man stats and attributes – Yevgen Konoplyanka
Expected finish – Continental race
Sevilla definitely have the quality to beat anybody. Two problems they’ll face in the season are the UEFA Champions League where they’ll want to make amends and try to go past the Group Stage and time they’ll require to change the philosophy and employ Sampaoli’s ideas – and, of course – if these ideas prove successful.
Our prediction – 4th place. With some key opponents also focused on the European competitions Sevilla will get enough time to get nose ahead and win that precious 4th place. First three are still out of question this season. Starting fixtures haven’t been keen and they’ll have to start strong in order to achieve their goals.
Read more:
SofaScore LaLiga Teams:Posted on Jul 29, 2009 in Glenn Beck
To follow up on the Donny Deutsch boycott of the Glenn Beck advertisers, I’ve added the contact information on the Fox News Sponsors List and will also list them here:
General Motors
Chairman: Edward E. (Ed) Whitacre Jr.
President, CEO, and Director: Frederick A. (Fritz) Henderson
EVP and CFO: Ray G. Young
300 Renaissance Center
Detroit, MI 48265-3000
Contact Media Relations at 888-436-6687 (h/t sueroegge)
MI Tel. 313-556-5000
http://www.gm.com/utilities/contact_us/contact.jsp?deep=form&advertising
Campbell Soup
Chairman: Harvey Golub
President, CEO, and Director: Douglas R. Conant
SVP, CFO, and Chief Administrative Officer: B. Craig Owens
Campbell Soup Company
1 Campbell Place
Camden, NJ 08103-1799
NJ Tel. 856-342-4800
Toll Free 800-257-8443
Fax 856-342-3878
http://www.campbellsoupcompany.com
Chrysler
Chairman: C. Robert (Bob) Kidder
CEO and Director: Sergio Marchionne
SVP and CFO: Ronald E. Kolka
P.O. Box 21-8004
Auburn Hills, MI 48321-8004
1000 Chrysler Dr.
Auburn Hills, MI 48326-2766
MI Tel. 248-576-5741
1-800-992-1997
http://www-5.chrysler.com/webselfservice/chrysler/index.jsp?screenName=customer&country=us&emailUrl=goToEmailForm(%27R%27)
The Procter & Gamble Company
Chairman: Alan G. (A.G.) Lafley
President, CEO, and Director: Robert A. (Bob) McDonald
CFO: Jon R. Moeller
1 Procter & Gamble Plaza
Cincinnati, OH 45202
OH Tel. 513-983-1100
Fax 513-983-9369
http://pg.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/pg.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php
Pfizer Inc.
Chairman and CEO: Jeffrey B. (Jeff) Kindler
Chairman Emeritus: William C. Steere Jr.
Chairman Emeritus: M. Anthony Burns
235 E. 42nd St.
New York, NY 10017-5755
NY Tel. 212-573-2323
http://www.pfizer.com/contact/mail_general.jsp
Kellogg Company
Chairman: James M. (Jim) Jenness
President, CEO, and Director: A. D. David Mackay
EVP, COO, and CFO: John A. Bryant
1 Kellogg Sq.
Battle Creek, MI 49016-3599
Contact media at 800-323-0768 (h/t sueroegge)
MI Tel. 269-961-2000
Toll Free 800-962-1413
Fax 269-961-2871
http://www.kelloggcompany.com/contactus.aspx
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Chairman: S. Robson (Rob) Walton
President, CEO, and Director: Michael T. (Mike) Duke
EVP and COO: William S. (Bill) Simon
702 SW 8th St.
Bentonville, AR 72716
AR Tel. 479-273-4000
Fax 479-277-1830
http://www.walmartstores.com/wmstore/wmstores/Container.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0178295015.1105923457@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccjadddijheeehcfkfcfkjdgoodglh.0&template=OnlineForm.jsp
Kraft Foods Inc.
Chairman and CEO: Irene B. Rosenfeld
EVP Operations and Business Services: David A. (Dave) Brearton
EVP and CFO: Timothy R. (Tim) McLevish
3 Lakes Dr.
Northfield, IL 60093
IL Tel. 847-646-2000
Fax 847-646-6005
http://www.kraftfoodscompany.com/Contacts/contact-us.aspx
Nestlé USA, Inc.
Chairman and CEO: Brad Alford
SVP and CFO: Dan Stroud
GLOBE Executive and CIO: Kimberly (Kim) Lund
800 N. Brand Blvd.
Glendale, CA 91203
CA Tel. 818-549-6000
Toll Free 800-225-2270
Fax 818-549-6952
http://www.nestleusa.com/Public/ContactUs.aspx
Share this articleImage copyright Getty Images Image caption There are environmental concerns about noise, air pollution and climate change
Significant questions about the environmental impacts of Heathrow's new runway remain unanswered in the wake of the government's announcement.
Opponents say that the expansion will make air quality and noise pollution much worse.
It makes a complete mockery of the government's commitments on cutting carbon emissions, they say.
But supporters of the airport say that developments in technology will mitigate many negative consequences.
Third runway at Heathrow cleared for takeoff
What happens next?
Why expansion is taking so long
Is new runway more important post-Brexit?
The green price of Heathrow expansion
Death sentence for Heathrow villages
In its final report on Heathrow last year, the Airports Commission was clear that an extra runway at the UK's biggest flight centre would be an opportunity to right some of the environmental wrongs that have developed through ad hoc expansion over the years.
These include increased levels of noise for local residents, consistent breaches of air pollution safety levels and increasing amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Perhaps the easiest of these issues to tackle is noise.
The Airports Commission suggested that a "noise envelope" should be agreed and Heathrow would be legally bound to stay within these limits.
There should also be an increased noise levy to benefit local communities - and an independent aviation noise committee should be established with a statutory right to be consulted on operating procedures.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Campaigners say they will attempt to mount legal challenges against the expansion
In their statement announcing the airport's expansion, the government gave some clear indications of how it will tackle this question.
It will propose a six-and-a-half hour ban on scheduled night flights for the first time. It will also propose new legally binding noise targets that will encourage the use of quieter planes - and there will be a pot of cash, some £700m, to pay for noise insulation for local residents.
On the other two key environmental impacts the government is on far trickier ground.
When it comes to dirty air, the UK has been breaching EU limits for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) since 2010 in a number of different regions and cities. This pollutant is produced from diesel engines and is linked to a range of respiratory illnesses.
Heathrow has long been a hot spot for this type of air pollution due to heavy traffic in the vicinity - so much so that the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) projected that even without expansion, the A4 running north of the airport would still exceed EU safety limits for nitrogen dioxide in 2030.
The airport points to recent independent research that says the expansion would only lead to a "marginal" increase in NO2 from Heathrow as there would be significant reductions elsewhere thanks to changes in diesel engines and greater use of electric vehicles.
Campaigners are not impressed with this conclusion.
"The measures that people have put forward seem fairly far fetched in terms of implementation," said Tim Johnson, from the Aviation Environment Federation.
"Ideas like taking diesel cars off the road are indeed potential solutions, but how do you get consumer change that makes that happen in the time scale?"
Perhaps the biggest environmental challenge of the expansion is the impact on climate change goals.
Existing UK legislation commits the government to cut CO2 levels by 80% of 1990 levels in 2050.
Image copyright CLEANAIRLONDON Image caption In 2010 this image shows both central London and the area around Heathrow exceeding EU safe levels for nitrogen dioxide
Aviation right now accounts for around 6% of UK emissions. To meet the legal target, emissions from this sector would would have to stay below the 2005 mark.
This could be partly achieved with improvements in fuel and aircraft operational efficiency and the wider use of biofuels, says the independent Committee on Climate Change (CCC).
They are calling on the government to publish a strategic policy framework for UK aviation emissions to limit them to 2005 levels.
To keep below the target, the CCC says that "this could imply limiting the growth in demand to around 60% above 2005 levels by 2050 (45% above current levels)."
That could mean the government having to cut airport capacity in regional airports or have other sectors of the economy make deeper emissions cuts.
"You only have so much carbon to go round," said Tim Johnson.
"The government will have to decide how best to distribute that, if they decide to use that for a new runway then there will have to be a hit elsewhere."
But speaking in the House of Commons, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling refuted the suggestion that the expansion of Heathrow was bad for the climate.
"We take the issue of climate change very seriously and this government has a whole raft of measures in place to address the issue, but we also have to make sure that we have the prosperity in this country to do things like funding our NHS and funding our old age pensions, and having a thriving modern economy with strong links around the world is an important part of that."
Other campaigning groups believe the lack of a clear plan on how to mitigate increases in CO2 make the third runway a very bad idea.
"With the government poised to sign the Paris climate agreement, it's decision to expand Heathrow - shortly after forcing fracking on the people of Lancashire - looks deeply cynical," said Andrew Pendleton, from Friends of the Earth.
"However this is only the first step on a long journey that will see communities, councils and climate campaigners continue the battle to reverse this misjudged and damaging decision."
One area in which there is a little dispute over the benefits of Heathrow's expansion is in regard to wildlife. The airport has committed to a £105m plan to transform a green area near the airport, into a haven four times the size of Hyde Park.
Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathBBC and on Facebook.There is a popular health-culture that circulates mistaken ideas about nutrition, and coffee drinking has been a perennial target of this culture. It is commonly said that coffee is a drug, not a food, and that its drug action is harmful, and that this harm is not compensated by any nutritional benefit. Most physicians subscribe to most of these common sense ideas about coffee, and form an authoritative barrier against the assimilation of scientific information about coffee.
I think it would be good to reconsider coffees place in the diet and in health care.
Coffee drinkers have a lower incidence of thyroid disease, including cancer, thannon-drinkers.
Caffeine protects the liver from alcohol and acetaminophen (Tylenol) and other toxins, and coffee drinkers are less likely than people who dont use coffee to have elevated serum enzymes and other indications of liver damage.
Caffeine protects against cancer caused by radiation, chemical carcinogens, viruses, and estrogens.
Caffeine synergizes with progesterone, and increases its concentration in blood and tissues.
Cystic breast disease is not caused by caffeine, in fact caffeines effects are likely to be protective; a variety of studies show that coffee, tea, and caffeine are protective against breast cancer.
Coffee provides very significant quantities of magnesium, as well as other nutrients including vitamin B1.
Caffeine improves efficiency of fuel use and performance: JC Wagner 1989.
Coffee drinkers have a low incidence of suicide.
Caffeine supports serotonin uptake in nerves, and inhibits blood platelet aggregation.
Coffee drinkers have been found to have lower cadmium in tissues; coffee making removes heavy metals from water.
Coffee inhibits iron absorption if taken with meals, helping to prevent iron overload.
Caffeine, like niacin, inhibits apoptosis, protecting against stress-induced cell death, without interfering with normal cell turnover.
Caffeine can prevent nerve cell death.
Coffee (or caffeine) prevents Parkinsons Disease (Ross, et al., 2000).
The prenatal growth retardation that can be caused by feeding large amounts of caffeine is prevented by supplementing the diet with sugar.
Caffeine stops production of free radicals by inhibiting xanthine oxidase, an important factor in tissue stress.
Caffeine lowers serum potassium following exercise; stabilizes platelets, reducing thromboxane production.
One definition of a vitamin is that it is an organic chemical found in foods, the lack of which causes a specific disease, or group of diseases. A variety of substances that have been proposed to be vitamins havent been recognized as being essential, and some substances that arent essential are sometimes called vitamins. Sometimes these issues havent had enough scientific investigation, but often nonscientific forces regulate nutritional ideas.
The definition of a disease isnt as clear as text-book writers have implied, and causality in biology is always more complex than we like to believe.
Nutrition is one of the most important sciences, and should certainly be as prestigious and well financed as astrophysics and nuclear physics, but while people say it doesnt take a brain surgeon to figure that out, no one says it doesnt take a nutritionist to understand that. Partly, thats because medicine treated scientific nutrition as an illegitimate step-child, and refused throughout the 20th century to recognize that it is a central part of scientific health care. In the 1970s, physicians and dietitians were still ridiculing the idea that vitamin E could prevent or cure diseases of the circulatory system, and babies as well as older people were given total intravenous nutrition which lacked nutrients that are essential to life, growth, immunity, and healing. Medicine and science are powerfully institutionalized, but no institution or profession has existed for the purpose of encouraging people to act reasonably.
In this environment, most people have felt that subtleties of definition, logic and evidence werent important for nutrition, and a great amount of energy has gone into deciding whether there were four food groups or seven food groups or a nutritional pyramid. The motives behind governmental and quasi-governmental nutrition policies usually represent something besides a simple scientific concern for good health, as when health care institutions say that Mexican babies should begin eating beans when they reach the age of six months, or that non-whites dont need milk after they are weaned. In a culture that discourages prolonged breast feeding, the effects of these doctrines can be serious.
After a century of scientific nutrition, public nutritional policies are doing approximately as much harm as good, and they are getting worse faster than they are getting better..
In this culture, what we desperately need is a recognition of the complexity of life, and of the political-ecological situation we find ourselves in. Any thinking which isnt system thinking should be treated with caution, and most contemporary thinking about health neglects to consider relevant parts of the problem-system. Official recommendations about salt, cholesterol, iron, unsaturated and saturated fats, and soybeans have generally been inappropriate, unscientific, and strongly motivated by business interests rather than by biological knowledge.
Definitions have rarely distinguished clearly between nutrients and drugs, and new commercial motives are helping to further blur the distinctions.
Essential nutrients, defensive (detoxifying, antistress) nutrients, hormone-modulating nutrients, self-actualization nutrients, growth regulating nutrients, structure modifiers, life extension agents, transgenerationally active (imprinting) nutrients--the line between nutrients and biological modifiers often depends on the situation. Vitamins D and A clearly have hormone-like properties, and vitamin Es effects, and those of many terpenoids and steroids and bioflavonoids found in foods, include hormone-like actions as well as antioxidant and pro-oxidant functions. The concept of adaptogen can include things that act like both drugs and nutrients.
Some studies have suggested that trace amounts of nutrients could be passed on for a few generations, but the evidence now indicates that these transgenerational effects are caused by phenomena such as imprinting. But the hereditary effects of nutrients are so complex that their recognition would force nutrition to be recognized as one of the most complex sciences, interwoven with the complexities of growth and development.
The idea that poor nutrition stunts growth has led to the idea that good nutrition can be defined in terms of the rate of growth and the size ultimately reached. In medicine, it is common to refer to an obese specimen as well nourished, as if quantity of food and quantity of tissue were necessarily good things. But poisons can stimulate growth (hormes is), and food restriction can extend longevity. We still have to determine basic things such as the optimal rate of growth, and the optimal size.
Nutrition textbooks flatly describe caffeine as a drug, not a nutrient, as if it were obvious that nutrients cant be drugs. Any of the essential nutrients, if used in isolation, can be used as a drug, for a specific effect on the organism that it wouldnt normally have when eaten as a component of ordinary food. And natural foods contain thousands of chemicals, other than the essential nutrients. Many of these are called nonessential nutrients, but their importance is being recognized increasingly. The truth is that we arent sure what they arent essential for. Until we have more definite knowledge about the organism I dont think we should categorize things so absolutely as drugs or nutrients.
The bad effects ascribed to coffee usually involve administering large doses in a short period of time. While caffeine is commonly said to raise blood pressure, this effect is slight, and may not occur during the normal use of coffee. Experimenters typically ignore essential factors. Drinking plain water can cause an extreme rise in blood pressure, especially in old people, and eating a meal (containing carbohydrate) lowers blood pressure. The increased metabolic rate caffeine produces increases the cellular consumption of glucose, so experiments that study the effects of coffee taken on an empty stomach are measuring the effects of increased temperature and metabolic rate, combined with increased adrenaline (resulting from the decrease of glucose), and so confuse the issue of caffeines intrinsic effects.
In one study (Krasilnikov, 1975), the drugs were introduced directly into the carotid artery to study the effects on the blood vessels in the brain. Caffeine increased the blood volume in the brain, while decreasing the resistance of the vessels, and this effect is what would be expected from its stimulation of brain metabolism and the consequent increase in carbon dioxide, which dilates blood vessels.
In the whole body, increased carbon dioxide also decreases vascular resistance, and this allows circulation to increase, while the hearts work is decreased, relative to the amount of blood pumped. But when the whole bodys metabolism is increased, adequate nutrition is crucial.
In animal experiments that have been used to argue that pregnant women shouldnt drink coffee, large doses of caffeine given to pregnant animals retarded the growth of the fetuses. But simply giving more sucrose prevented the growth retardation. Since caffeine tends to correct some of the metabolic problems that could interfere with pregnancy, it is possible that rationally constructed experiments could show benefits to the fetus from the mothers use of coffee, for example by lowering bilirubin and serotonin, preventing hypoglycemia, increasing uterine perfusion and progesterone synthesis, synergizing with thyroid and cortisol to promote lung maturation, and providing additional nutrients.
One of the most popular misconceptions about caffeine is that it causes fibrocystic breast disease. Several groups demonstrated pretty clearly that it doesnt, but there was no reason that they should have had to bother, except for an amazingly incompetent, but highly publicized, series of articles--classics of their kind--by J. P. Minton, of Ohio State University. Minton neglected to notice that the healthy breast contains a high percentage of fat, and that the inflamed and diseased breast has an increased proportion of glandular material Fat cells have a low level of cyclic AMP, a regulatory substance that is associated with normal cellular differentiation and function, and is involved in mediating caffeines ability to inhibit cancer cell multiplication. Minton argued that cAMP increases progressively with the degree of breast disease, up to cancer, and that cAMP is increased by caffeine. A variety of substances other than caffeine that inhibit the growth of cancer cells (as well as normal breast cells) act by increasing the amount of cyclic AMP, while estrogen lowers the amount of cAMP and increases cell growth. Mintons argument should have been to use more caffeine, in proportion to the degree of breast disease, if he were arguing logically from his evidence. Caffeines effect on the breast resembles that of progesterone, opposing estrogens effects.
Many studies over the last 30 years have shown caffeine to be highly protective against all kinds of carcinogenesis, including estrogens carcinogenic effects on the breast. Caffeine is now being used along with some of the standard cancer treatments, to improve their effects or to reduce their side effects. There are substances in the coffee berry besides caffeine that protect against mutations and cancer, and that have shown strong therapeutic effects against cancer. Although many plant substances are protective against mutations and cancer, I dont know of any that is as free of side effects as coffee.
To talk about caffeine, its necessary to talk about uric acid. Uric acid, synthesized in the body, is both a stimulant and a very important antioxidant, and its structure is very similar to that of caffeine. A deficiency of uric acid is a serious problem. Caffeine and uric acid are in the group of chemicals called purines.
Purines (along with pyrimidines) are components of the nucleic acids, DNA and RNA, but they have many other functions. In general, substances related to purines are stimulants, and substances related to pyrimidines are sedatives.
When the basic purine structure is oxidized, it becomes in turn hypoxanthine, xanthine, and uric acid, by the addition of oxygen atoms. When methyl groups (CH 3 ) are added to nitrogens in the purine ring, the molecule becomes less water soluble. Xanthine (an intermediate in purine metabolism) has two oxygen atoms, and when three methyl groups are added, it becomes trimethyl xanthine, or caffeine. With two methyl groups, it is theophylline, which is named for its presence in tea. We have enzyme systems which can add and subtract methyl groups; for example, when babies are given theophylline, they can convert it into caffeine.
We have enzymes that can modify all of the methyl groups and oxygen atoms of caffeine and the other purine derivatives. Caffeine is usually excreted in a modified form, for example as a methylated uric acid.
One of the ways in which uric acid functions as an antioxidant is by modifying the activity of the enzyme xanthine oxidase, which in stress can become a dangerous source of free radicals. Caffeine also restrains this enzyme. There are several other ways in which uric acid and caffeine (and a variety of intermediate xanthines) protect against oxidative damage. Coffee drinkers, for example, have been found to have lower levels of cadmium in their kidneys than people who dont use coffee, and coffee is known to inhibit the absorption of iron by the intestine, helping to prevent iron overload.
Toxins and stressors often kill cells, for example in the brain, liver, and immune system, by causing the cells to expend energy faster than it can be replaced. There is an enzyme system that repairs genetic damage, called PARP. The activation of this enzyme is a major energy drain, and substances that inhibit it can prevent the death of the cell. Niacin and caffeine can inhibit this enzyme sufficiently to prevent this characteristic kind of cell death, without preventing the normal cellular turnover; that is, they dont produce tumors by preventing the death of cells that arent needed.
The purines are important in a great variety of regulatory processes, and caffeine fits into this complex system in other ways that are often protective against stress. For example, it has been proposed that tea can protect against circulatory disease by preventing abnormal clotting, and the mechanism seems to be that caffeine (or theophylline) tends to restrain stress-induced platelet aggregaton.
When platelets clump, they release various factors that contribute to the development of a clot. Serotonin is one of these, and is released by other kinds of cell, including mast cells and basophils and nerve cells. Serotonin produces vascular spasms and increased blood pressure, blood vessel leakiness and inflammation, and the release of many other stress mediators. Caffeine, besides inhibiting the platelet aggregation, also tends to inhibit the release of serotonin, or to promote its uptake and binding.
J. W. Davis, et al., 1996, found that high uric acid levels seem to protect against the development of Parkinsons disease. They ascribed this effect to uric acids antioxidant function. Coffee drinking, which lowers uric acid levels, nevertheless appeared to be much more strongly protective against Parkinsons disease than uric acid.
Possibly more important than coffees ability to protect the health is the way it does it. The studies that have tried to gather evidence to show that coffee is harmful, and found the opposite, have provided insight into several diseases. For example, coffees effects on serotonin are very similar to carbon dioxides, and the thyroid hormones. Noticing that coffee drinking is associated with a low incidence of Parkinsons disease could focus attention on the ways that thyroid and carbon dioxide and serotonin, estrogen, mast cells, histamine and blood clotting interact to produce nerve cell death.
Thinking about how caffeine can be beneficial across such a broad spectrum of problems can give us a perspective on the similarities of their underlying physiology and biochemistry, expanding the implications of stress, biological energy, and adaptability.
The observation that coffee drinkers have a low incidence of suicide, for example, might be physiologically related to the large increase in suicide rate among people who use the newer antidepressants called serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Serotonin excess causes several of the features of depression, such as learned helplessness and reduced metabolic rate, while coffee stimulates the uptake (inactivation or storage) of serotonin, increases metabolic energy, and tends to improve mood. In animal studies, it reverses the state of helplessness or despair, often more effectively than so-called antidepressants.
The research on caffeines effects on blood pressure, and on the use of fuel by the more actively metabolizing cells, hasnt clarified its effects on respiration and nutrition, but some of these experiments confirm things that coffee drinkers usually learn for themselves.
Often, a woman who thinks that she has symptoms of hypoglycemia says that drinking even the smallest amount of coffee makes her anxious and shaky. Sometimes, I have suggested that they try drinking about two ounces of coffee with cream or milk along with a meal. Its common for them to find that this reduces their symptoms of hypoglycemia, and allows them to be symptom-free between meals. Although we dont know exactly why caffeine improves an athletes endurance, I think the same processes are involved when coffee increases a persons endurance in ordinary activities.
Caffeine has remarkable parallels to thyroid and progesterone, and the use of coffee or tea can help to maintain their production, or compensate for their deficiency. Women spontaneously drink more coffee premenstrually, and since caffeine is known to increase the concentration of progesterone in the blood and in the brain, this is obviously a spontaneous and rational form of self-medication, though medical editors like to see things causally reversed, and blame the coffee drinking for the symptoms it is actually alleviating. Some women have noticed that the effect of a progesterone supplement is stronger when they take it with coffee. This is similar to the synergy between thyroid and progesterone, which is probably involved, since caffeine tends to locally activate thyroid secretion by a variety of mechanisms, increasing cyclic AMP and decreasing serotonin in thyroid cells, for example, and also by lowering the systemic stress mediators.
Medical editors like to publish articles that reinforce important prejudices, even if, scientifically, they are trash. The momentum of a bad idea can probably be measured by the tons of glossy paper that have gone into its development. Just for the sake of the environment, it would be nice if editors would try to think in terms of evidence and biological mechanisms, rather than stereotypes.
REFERENCES
Fiziol Zh SSSR Im I M Sechenova 1975 Oct;61(10):1531-8. [Changes in the resistance and capacity of the cerebral vascular bed under the influence of vasoactive substances]. [Article in Russian] Krasil'nikov, V.G. Effects of intracarotid injections of vasoactive agents on cerebrovascular resistance (CVR) and cerebral blood volume (CBV) were studied in hemodynamically isolated brain of cats. Perfusion pressure shifts at a constant blood volume perfusion reflected CVR changes, and changes of venous outflow - CBV alterations. Administration of adrenaline, serotonin, and angiotensine was followed mainly by an increase of CVR and a decrease of CBV. The CVR could be reduced by isopropilnoradrenaline, acetylcholine, histamine, and caffeine. CBV was decreased after isopropilnoradrenaline, acetycholine, histamine injections and increased by caffeine. The possible role of the active changes of cerebral capacitance vessels in the transcapillary fluid exchange is discussed. Capacitance vessels active responses are supposed to entail wrong results when using certain techniques for measurement of cerebral blood flow and metabolism.
Proc Soc Exp Biol Med |
’t occur.
Using standard cross-cultural methods, the study found that fewer than half of all cultures surveyed -- 46 percent -- engage in romantic/sexual kissing. Romantic kissing was defined as lip-to-lip contact that may or may not be prolonged.
“We hypothesized that some cultures would either not engage in romantic/sexual kissing, or find it to be a strange display of intimacy, but we were surprised to find that it was a majority of cultures that fell into this category,” said Garcia, assistant professor of gender studies in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences. “This is a real reminder of how Western ethnocentrism can bias the way we think about human behavior.”
Romantic kissing was most prevalent in the Middle East, where all 10 of the cultures studied engaged in it. In North America, 55 percent of cultures engaged in romantic kissing, along with 70 percent in Europe and 73 percent in Asia.
But there was no evidence of romantic kissing in Central America, and no ethnographer working with Sub-Saharan African, New Guinean or Amazonian foragers or horticulturalists reported any evidence of romantic kissing in the populations they studied, according to the research.
The research conducted by Garcia and colleagues also found a relationship between social complexity and kissing: The more socially complex and stratified a society is, the higher the frequency of romantic kissing.
Interest in the study stemmed from renewed attention in the role of close touch and kissing in people’s romantic and sexual lives, Garcia said. Recent work on the issue, he said, has made claims about the universality of erotic kissing, some even claiming 90 percent of societies engage in the act.
“However, we realized no one had used standard cross-cultural methods to assess how frequently kissing actually occurs in different societies, but by doing so, we could begin to understand why it might occur in some places and not others,” he said.
It is not clear where romantic/sexual kissing evolved from, Garcia said. Some animals engage in similar behaviors; chimpanzees, for example, are known to engage in open-mouth kissing.
When it comes to humans kissing, Garcia pointed out that it does serve as a way to learn more about a partner, “whether one feels there is any ‘chemistry,’ or possibly to assess health via taste and smell, and in some ways to assess compatibility with each other.”
“There is likely a biological underpinning to kissing, as it can often involve exchange of pheromones and saliva, and also pathogens -- which might be particularly dangerous in societies without oral hygiene, where kissing may lead to spread of respiratory or other illness,” he said. “But this is only in societies that have come to see the erotic kiss as part of their larger romantic and sexual repertoires. How that shift occurs is still an open question for research.”
Study co-authors are William Jankowiak, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, and Shelly Volsche, graduate research assistant in anthropology, both at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.Lionel Messi and Neymar helped Barcelona to La Liga title last season, while Nottingham Forest finished 16th in England second tier
Unless Lionel Messi or Neymar are prepared to swap Barcelona for Nottingham Forest, the Championship club will stay patient in the transfer market, says boss Philippe Montanier.
He has signed Apostolos Vellios and Thomas Lam since taking charge.
When asked about other potential targets, the Frenchman said: "I look, and Messi and Neymar are not ready to come to Nottingham.
"It is a joke, we of course have targets."
Talking to BBC Radio Nottingham, the 51-year-old continued: "The market is not easy, I know we have to be patient to recruit good players for the squad."
Forest are reportedly interested in bringing in Argentine midfielder Tino Costa, but Montanier would only confirm he hopes to able to announce a new arrival in the next week.
Following Tuesday's 2-0 pre-season friendly win at Port Vale, Montanier also said he will take time to assess his existing squad.
"I want to observe my squad more," he added. "The end of the market is the end of August, so we have a lot of time."CRISPR/Cas9 is an experimental approach for treating cystic fibrosis (CF). The therapy features a novel protein-RNA complex that is designed to address the genetic mutations that cause the disease by editing a patient’s genetics, correcting the mutations themselves.
How the CRISPR/Cas9 approach works
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is a double helix molecule that contains four bases (adenine, cytosine, thymine, guanine) and is located in the cell nucleus of all living organisms, including viruses. The sequence in which the four bases are arranged contains all the biological information that makes each of us unique, and is passed from one generation to another. Since DNA cannot move outside the nucleus, all the instructions to create proteins are transcribed or copied into RNA. One of DNA’s particularities is that it can replicate itself during cell division. This is a critical process, since each new cell needs to have the same DNA as the old one. If a mutation occurs at the DNA level, the error is transmitted to RNA and to the protein.
CF is a genetic disease caused by a mutation that occurs in the gene that encodes the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein. Normal CFTR proteins serve as channels to allow the transport of water and charged ions (e.g., chloride) in and out of cells, creating a thin mucus that protects and lubricates internal organs (like the lungs and pancreas). The defective CFTR protein leads to an imbalance of water and ion flow in and out of cells, resulting in thick mucus that obstructs airways and traps bacteria. Chronic inflammations and infections are common in people with CF for this reason. CF therapies can target DNA, RNA, or proteins, but only at the DNA level can the mutated CFTR gene be replaced and CFTR function be restored.
Editas Medicine’s approach relies on gene editing, in which the wrong DNA sequence of the defective CFTR gene is replaced by the correct one using the CRISP/Cas-9 technology. CRISPR/Cas9 uses a protein-RNA complex composed of an enzyme (or protein) — Cas9 — bound to a guide RNA (gRNA) molecule that recognizes the wrong DNA sequence and cuts it out. The cell can then fill the excised portion with the correct gene sequence. The delivery mode is expected to be by adeno-associated virus (AAV) or lipid nanoparticle (LNP).
CRISPR/Cas9 research & development
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Therapeutics — the nonprofit affiliate of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation — announced a three-year agreement with Editas Medicine in May 2016. The company is being given up to $5 million to develop CRISPR/Cas9-based medicines for the treatment of cystic fibrosis (CF), targeting not only the most common mutations but also those not addressed by current approaches (there are some 1,800 known mutations in the CFTR gene). As part of the agreement, Editas will also gain access to a network of CF specialists.
Editas’ research in this CF treatment is still in the early stages. However, the recent study “Functional Repair of CFTR by CRISPR/Cas9 in intestinal Organoids of Cystic Fibrosis Patients” demonstrated the use of CRISPR/Cas9 technology in a model of intestinal stem cell organoids from CF patients. The defective CFTR gene was replaced and CFTR function restored, demonstrating the potential use of this technology to correct mutated CFTR genes.
Application of CRISPR/Cas9 technology is also being investigated for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, and cancer.
Cystic Fibrosis News Today is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.EUGENE -- A man from Wales who pleaded guilty to sex crimes against a 10-year-old Eugene girl has been sentenced to 50 years in prison.
The Register-Guard reports that 22-year-old Gareth Vincent Hall was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to rape, sodomy and online sexual corruption of a child.
Gareth V. Hall
Hall met the girl through an online chat program then traveled to Oregon in April 2015 to meet her. Prosecutors say Hall, who was working as a lifeguard at the time, took her to a motel and had sex with her during his five-day visit.
A parent reported the incident to police after conversations with the girl revealed a small amount of information, Detective Jed McGuire said at the time of Hall's arrest.
"I don't think they quite understood the full scope of everything until we became involved," McGuire said.
The Lane County district attorney's office issued an arrest warrant for Hall on April 30, 2015, and he was arrested less than a week later at Chicago O'Hare International Airport.
Hall apologized in court Tuesday through an interpreter and said he wouldn't have gone to Eugene if he had known the girl was only 10.
-- The Associated PressJudge Michael Martinez has ruled that former UFC champ Jon Jones will be able to fight at UFC 197 in Las Vegas on April 23. Jones spent a night in jail for probation violation after being pulled over and accused of drag racing.
The Bernalillo County District Attorney had sought "to have Jones' probation revoked and then reinstated with three new conditions: Jones completes a driver improvement course; he agrees to a curfew; and he enrolls in and completes an anger management counseling course" according to MMA Fighting.
The judge declined to impose a curfew after his defense argued it would impede his ability to travel to Las Vegas for the title fight. However Jones is not permitted to drive without the permission of his probation officer, and Martinez warned Jones that another court appearance "won't end well" for him.
Jon has been released following a night in jail.
Jones is on probation after a conviction for a hit-and-run last year that resulted in injuries to a pregnant woman and Jones being stripped of his UFC title. UFC 197 will mark his return to the Octagon.“How good are you at calculus?”
This was the opening sentence of Greg Kuperberg’s Facebook status on July 4th, 2016.
“I have a joint paper (on isoperimetric inequalities in differential geometry) in which we need to know that
is non-negative for x and y non-negative and between and. Also, the minimum only occurs for.”
Let’s take a moment to appreciate the complexity of the mathematical statement above. It is a non-linear inequality in three variables, mixing trigonometry with algebra and throwing in some arc-tangents for good measure. Greg, continued:
“We proved it, but only with the aid of symbolic algebra to factor an algebraic variety into irreducible components. The human part of our proof is also not really a cake walk.
A simpler proof would be way cool.”
I was hooked. The cubic terms looked a little intimidating, but if I converted x and y into and, respectively, as one of the comments on Facebook promptly suggested, I could at least get rid of the annoying arc-tangents and then calculus and trigonometry would take me the rest of the way. Greg replied to my initial comment outlining a quick route to the proof: “Let me just caution that we found the problem unyielding.” Hmm… Then, Greg revealed that the paper containing the original proof was over three years old (had he been thinking about this since then? that’s what true love must be like.) Titled “The Cartan-Hadamard Conjecture and The Little Prince“, the above inequality makes its appearance as Lemma 7.1 on page 45 (of 63). To quote the paper: “Although the lemma is evident from contour plots, the authors found it surprisingly tricky to prove rigorously.”
As I filled pages of calculations and memorized every trigonometric identity known to man, I realized that Greg was right: the problem was highly intractable. The quick solution that was supposed to take me two to three days turned into two weeks of hell, until I decided to drop the original approach and stick to doing calculus with the known unknowns, x and y. The next week led me to a set of three non-linear equations mixing trigonometric functions with fourth powers of x and y, at which point I thought of giving up. I knew what I needed to do to finish the proof, but it looked freaking insane. Still, like the masochist that I am, I continued calculating away until my brain was mush. And then, yesterday, during a moment of clarity, I decided to go back to one of the three equations and rewrite it in a different way. That is when I noticed the error. I had solved for in terms of x and y, but I had made a mistake that had cost me 10 days of intense work with no end in sight. Once I found the mistake, the whole proof came together within about an hour. At that moment, I felt a mix of happiness (duh), but also sadness, as if someone I had grown fond of no longer had a reason to spend time with me and, at the same time, I had ran out of made-up reasons to hang out with them. But, yeah, I mostly felt happiness.
Before I present the proof below, I want to take a moment to say a few words about Greg, whom I consider to be the John Preskill of mathematics: a lodestar of sanity in a sea of hyperbole (to paraphrase Scott Aaronson). When I started grad school at UC Davis back in 2003, quantum information theory and quantum computing were becoming “a thing” among some of the top universities around the US. So, I went to several of the mathematics faculty in the department asking if there was a course on quantum information theory I could take. The answer was to “read Nielsen and Chuang and then go talk to Professor Kuperberg”. Being a foolish young man, I skipped the first part and went straight to Greg to ask him to teach me (and four other brave souls) quantum “stuff”. Greg obliged with a course on… quantum probability and quantum groups. Not what I had in mind. This guy was hardcore. Needless to say, the five brave souls taking the class (mostly fourth year graduate students and me, the noob) quickly became three, then two gluttons for punishment (the other masochist became one of my best friends in grad school). I could not drop the class, not because I had asked Greg to do this as a favor to me, but because I knew that I was in the presence of greatness (or maybe it was Stockholm syndrome). My goal then, as an aspiring mathematician, became to one day have a conversation with Greg where, for some brief moment, I would not sound stupid. A man of incredible intelligence, Greg is that rare individual whose character matches his intellect. Much like the anti-heroes portrayed by Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca and the Maltese Falcon, Greg keeps a low-profile, seems almost cynical at times, but in the end, he works harder than everyone else to help those in need. For example, on MathOverflow, a question and answer website for professional mathematicians around the world, Greg is listed as one of the top contributors of all time.
But, back to the problem. The past four weeks thinking about it have oscillated between phases of “this is the most fun I’ve had in years!” to “this is Greg’s way of telling me I should drop math and become a go-go dancer”. Now that the ordeal is over, I can confidently say that the problem is anything but “dull” (which is how Greg felt others on MathOverflow would perceive it, so he never posted it there). In fact, if I ever have to teach Calculus, I will subject my students to the step-by-step proof of this problem. OK, here is the proof. This one is for you Greg. Thanks for being such a great role model. Sorry I didn’t get to tell you until now. And you are right not to offer a “bounty” for the solution. The journey (more like, a trip to Mordor and back) was all the money.
The proof: The first thing to note (and if I had read Greg’s paper earlier than today, I would have known as much weeks ago) is that the following equality holds (which can be verified quickly by differentiating both sides):
.
Using the above equality (and the equivalent one for y), we get:
Now comes the fun part. We differentiate with respect to, x and y, and set to zero to find all the maxima and minima of (though we are only interested in the global minimum, which is supposed to be at. Some high-school level calculus yields:
At this point, the most well-known trigonometric identity of all time,, can be used to show that the right-hand-side can be re-written as:
where I used (my now favorite) trigonometric identity: (note to the reader: ). Putting it all together, we now have the very suggestive condition:
noting that, despite appearances, is not a solution (as can be checked from the original form of this equality, unless and are infinite, in which case the expression is clearly non-negative, as we show towards the end of this post). This leaves us with and
as candidates for where the minimum may be. A quick check shows that:
since x and y are non-negative. The following obvious substitution becomes our greatest ally for the rest of the proof:
Substituting the above in the remaining condition for, and using again that, we get:
which can be further simplified to (if you are paying attention to minus signs and don’t waste a week on a wild-goose chase like I did):
.
As Greg loves to say, we are finally cooking with gas. Note that the expression is symmetric in and, which should be obvious from the symmetry of in x and y. That observation will come in handy when we take derivatives with respect to x and y now. Factoring, we get:
Substituting x and y with, respectively and using the identities and the above expression simplifies significantly to the following expression:
Using, which we derived earlier by looking at the extrema of with respect to, and noting that the global minimum would have to be an extremum with respect to all three variables, we get:
where we used and
We may assume, without loss of generality, that. If, then, which leads to the contradiction, unless the other condition,, holds, which leads to. Dividing through by and re-writing, yields:
which can be further modified to:
and, similarly for (due to symmetry):
Subtracting the two equations from each other, we get:
,
which implies that and/or. The first leads to which immediately implies (since the left and right side of the equality have opposite signs otherwise). The second one implies that either, or, which follows from the earlier equation. If and, it is easy to see that is the only solution by expanding. If, on the other hand,, then looking at the original form of, we see that, since.
And that concludes the proof, since the only cases for which all three conditions are met lead to and, hence,. The minimum of at these values is always zero. That’s right, all this work to end up with “nothing”. But, at least, the last four weeks have been anything but dull.
Update: Greg offered Lemma 7.4 from the same paper as another challenge (the sines, cosines and tangents are now transformed into hyperbolic trigonometric functions, with a few other changes, mostly in signs, thrown in there). This is a more hardcore-looking inequality, but the proof turns out to follow the steps of Lemma 7.1 almost identically. In particular, all the conditions for extrema are exactly the same, with the only difference being that cosine becomes hyperbolic cosine. It is an awesome exercise in calculus to check this for yourself. Do it. Unless you have something better to do.Contemporary accounts played the story as a Man vs. Machine battle, the quick wits of a human versus the brute computing power of a supercomputer. But Tinsley and Schaeffer both agreed: This was a battle between two men, each having prepared and tuned a unique instrument to defeat the other. Having been so dominant against humans for so long, Tinsley seemed to thrill at finally having some entity that could give him a real game. He had volunteered to play friendly matches against the computer in the run-up to their two world championship matches. And Schaeffer, though he was a bull-headed young man, had become the most effective promoter of Tinsley’s prowess and legacy.
But there, in that hall, a quirk of human development was troubling Tinsley. His stomach hurt. The pain was keeping him up all night. After six games—all draws—he needed to see a doctor. Schaeffer took him to the hospital. He left with Maalox. But the next day, an X-ray revealed there was a lump on his pancreas. Tinsley understood his fate.
He withdrew. Chinook became the first computer program in history to win a human world championship. But Schaeffer was crushed. He’d devoted years of his life to creating a program that could beat the best checkers player ever, and just as he was about to realize this dream, Tinsley quit. Seven months later, Tinsley died, never having truly lost a match to Chinook.
And that would lead Schaeffer to undertake a 13-year computational odyssey to exorcise the man’s ghost. With Tinsley gone, the only way to prove that Chinook could have beaten the man was to beat the game itself. The results would be published July 19, 2007, in Science with the headline: Checkers Is Solved.
“From the end of the Tinsley saga in ’94–’95 until 2007, I worked obsessively on building a perfect checkers program,” Schaeffer told me. “The reason was simple: I wanted to get rid of the ghost of Marion Tinsley. People said to me, ‘You could never have beaten Tinsley because he was perfect.’ Well, yes, we would have beaten Tinsley because he was only almost perfect. But my computer program is perfect.”
* * *
Jonathan Schaeffer did not begin his career intending to solve checkers. He was a chess player, first. Good, not great. But he also loved computers—and had done a Ph.D. in computer science, so he decided to build a chess-playing program. He called it Phoenix and it was one of the better chess programs of many that were created in the 1980s. In 1989, he “crashed and burned” at the World Computer Chess Championships, however. At the same time, the team that would form DeepBlue, the chess software that would eventually defeat Kasparov, was coming together. Schaefer realized he would never build the world computer champion.
A colleague suggested that perhaps he should try checkers, and thrillingly, with just a few months of work, his software was good enough to bring to the Computer Olympiad in London to compete against other checkers-playing bots. And it was there that he began to hear about Marion Tinsley, the great.Despite the shitstorm stirred up by a mistaken writer at Harpers, the RNC delegates did not boo Zori Fonalledas. They did not boo her accent (they were already chanting before she began speaking.) They did not boo Puerto Rico. Their chant of "Kick them out" was not referring to Puerto Ricans.
It's a shame that the story of the undemocratic process the Republicans used to squash dissent has been overshadowed by the 100% bogus claim that the RNC delegates booed Puerto Rico.
The fracas had nothing to do with Puerto Rico. The next speaker would have been disrupted and delayed no matter who she was. She just happened to be from Puerto Rico.
Got it?
Obviously this topic hits a nerve. In order to get the context of this diary, it's best to read the Harpers article first, then the buzzfeed article.
What I don't mean to suggest is that there is no racism in the GOP. The incident was portrayed on Daily Kos and in other outlets as "GOP boos Puerto Rico at convention", which is not what happened. A speaker from Puerto Rico was interrupted (it appears to me she never really began) by delegates upset that their requests for a point of order were being ignored as they expressed displeasure at an underhanded vote that had just taken place.
I cannot say one way or the other whether any of the delegates harbor any racist attitudes toward Puerto Ricans, or whether any of them decided the best way to delay the proceedings was to attack the speaker using racist language or implied slurs. I just haven't seen that in the videos. There is speculation that one person was yelling something about "foreigners." If so, it's reprehensible, but that is not "The GOP" booing Puerto Rico.
We have plenty of material to write about regarding the racist and sexist policies and behavior of many Republicans. It hurts our credibility to make a video into something it isn't.
Thank you to Armando and others for making me really take another look at this. I respect their opinions but I don't feel my diary is inaccurate.Starting Monday, a team of parking cops will “reluctantly” roam the city with specific instructions to ticket illegally parked police vehicles and officers’ personal cars.
The initiative ordered last month by Mayor de Blasio will consist of eight sergeants, eight officers and a rotating cast of traffic agents.
Their job will be to ticket parking placard-abusing employees of all city agencies.
They’ll focus on illegally parked NYPD vehicles, and on private cars with department-issued parking placards.
Ticket-worthy offenses will include double parking and parking on a sidewalk or at a fire hydrant, crosswalk or bus stop. Police cars on official business will get some leeway, a law-enforcement source said.
But team members are chafing at having to ticket fellow officers, who, for as long as anyone can remember, have been able to put a city parking placard in their civilian-car windshield and park pretty much anywhere with impunity.
“These guys are not liking that they have to go out and write summonses on department vehicles,” a source told The Post. “All this is going to do is cause bad blood and issues with morale.”This is going to be long! I promise it is worth the read. I have been thinking of writing this for a while because the consultants of LuLaRoe need a voice, along with straight out warning anyone contemplating joining this company so they can make an informed decision for their family and friends. This LuLa journey affects a consultant’s inner circle financially, emotionally, and socially.
What you need to know: yes, I am an ex-consultant and the details highlighted here have been experienced by your very own consultants at LuLaRoe. I made money with LuLaRoe, and I am sad because of the way they treat their money makers — their consultants, both their leaders/top earners down to someone waiting to onboard/join. When I opened the door for consultants’ viewpoints, more than 65 current and past consultants poured out their LuLa journeys with me within a couple hours. I had to stop collecting their comments for time’s sake!! If I gave them longer, I can only imagine the responses. Some have been with the company for only a few months, and some have been with the company for years. All of their stories are shockingly similar to mine.
The best way to share it? In bullets because there is so much that needs to be shared! Feel free to comment, but please remember that if the responses sound too good to be true, it probably is. LuLaRoe will do ANYTHING to protect its so-called culture and positive image. Negativity and valid questions are not allowed within LuLaRoe. If it looks like a LuLaRoe duck, well…
Questions and comments are allowed here because we are adults with our own intelligent brains.
LuLaRoe has claimed for years that it had faster than anticipated growth and that everyone needs to be patient with them, regardless of their mistakes. Don’t worry, they love you! When will they stop using the excuse that they are a new company? They are almost 4 years in. A four-year old is not a baby and knows many, many things….maybe more than LuLaRoe?
There was dishonesty and lack of transparency with charging sales tax when LuLaRoe outright knew it was wrong. It was not a glitch in the system as they are using as a cover-up now. They tell their consultants to stitch up damages and sell them. Or, how about being told by numerous LuLaRoe leaders to pretend that there is new inventory and post a shop the box event? How about the “part-time work for full-time pay” when consultants regularly work around the clock? What about the consultants that are trying to truly run their businesses part-time and not round the clock? Where are the resources to help them?
Consultants are told to check their own inventory for damages. There is no quality control before the clothing leaves the warehouse in CA.
Greed and condescending nature for consultants to buy, buy, buy so more sells, sells, sells. If someone has a question or concern? Don’t have a “tantrum!” Consultants go to the people being compensated to help them, their sponsors, and these sponsors delete comments if a question is asked on a team page because it looks negative. Help is usually offered from other consultants, not from the leaders making money off their team.
Consultants are told that they are retailers and can run their businesses how they like. Hmmmm, does never being able to choose specific patterns or colors in an order and having to buy at least 33 items (50 items minimum in a holiday release) for an average of $500 each order, being told where they can and cannot sell the clothing that they own, being told what prices they can sell at and do not hold sales although all other retailers hold sales to move inventory, needing to have any business cards or signs approved by home office, being sent heavy Nicole dresses in the middle of summer, needing to use only LuLaRoe processing system for sales so company can collect the additional fees and pay those bonuses too, and being told by “the LuLa sisterhood” that they are not working hard enough if they do not sell enough to qualify for the LuLaRoe incentive cruise, sound like running one’s own “business?” LuLaRoe is micromanaged, and it is more like a franchise situation versus owning one’s own business.
There is a lack of leadership. New consultants teach the higher-ups new technology and ways to sell.
Rumor says that family and friends are in on the LuLaRoe business and are posing as top sellers with bigger teams in the company. They didn’t need to buy their own inventory. History shows that the family has been involved in many get-rich quick businesses. LuLaRoe is the current one. Are they jumping ship soon?
Consultants that joined a year or more ago are able to make money. The ones that joined recently or are joining now, they are most likely to be in LuLa debt.
250 to 500 consultants are onboarded a day. That is 250 to 500 new people selling LuLaRoe a day. LuLaRoe will say that it cannot be an oversaturated market. Check your favorite consultants’ pages and notice many sites are dead — no sales. Who makes money when people onboard? It’s a whooping $5,000 to $7,000 approximate investment that LuLaRoe gets right then and there from each of those onboarded consultants. About a year ago, there were about 5,000 consultants. Now, there are approximately 77,000. Do the math. That’s a lot of money a day, and it does not matter to LuLaRoe if the consultants ever buy a stitch of clothing again or if they are successful.
The high earners/coaches are promised big bonuses, so they keep recruiting to make more. Big bonuses and favoritism are given to the top sellers. They get items in their order when other consultants are not able to, and they get the best prints. They get “elite customer services.” The rest of the consultants? They wait on hold for hours, deal with LuLaRoe tech issues, and get 10 Cassie skirts in the same poop print. Yep, some prints literally look like dog shit. Are there only a few thousand of each print out there? Cannot be true if one consultant has 10 dog shit print Cassie skirts. It’s likely that the top sellers never had a poop print.
While we’re talking about the prints, let’s talk fabrics. They may be soft, but they are THIN. See-through dresses for $45 and up for sale!! Brand new $25 leggings that tear when delicately put on like pantyhose? Don’t miss out on holey leggings straight from the package! Don’t forget that the lines and prints probably don’t match up and there are sizing inconsistencies from when they were hand stitched in another country. LuLaRoe was made in the U.S.A. for a millisecond.
LuLaRoe technology sucks. When ordering, the system never knows how many items are in stock. It breaks down when trying to process invoices, and don’t forget the security breach of the fantastic Audrey system last April. Why was there never a technology that could include pictures of the consultants’ clothing items and easily create an invoice on the spot similar to Amazon or any other online shopping experience? Yes, technology roll-outs take time and testing, but LuLaRoe simply has excuses about its technology over the years. It costs money, money that LuLaRoe doesn’t feel like spending.
There is a new processing system now. LuLaRoe sold all consultants’ private information for this new processing system, even if the consultants did not sign the agreement. If LuLaRoe had the person’s information, they sold it to the merchant company. Consultants were promised that there wouldn’t be a credit check. Oops, there was a credit check. Oops, it was a hard check. That affected people’s credit scores. Get an iPhone or iPad because that is the only way the new system will work. Don’t worry, says Home Office, it’s a business expense and there are refurbished ones for a value.
Consultants used to be marked as “inactive” if they didn’t buy a certain amount of items in a given amount of time. On the same day, right before the selling of all the consultants’ information to that outside merchant company, all consultants were marked as “active” in the LuLaRoe system. Was this to show a larger number for retention of consultants or to sell everyone’s private information?
Training? LuLaRoe training is a bunch of ladies wearing 3 to 5 pieces of LuLaRoe each, pattern matched to look like they are trying out for Ringling Brothers. Brainwashing occurs, courtesy of the top sellers with huge bonus checks & big teams, and no one is taught anything about making their “businesses” better.
Consultants are not heard or helped. When they call home office, they wait on hold for 2 to 3 hours and sometimes the phone disconnects. When they get someone on the other end of the phone line, they are given a different answer than other consultants or they are told that “a ticket will be submitted” about this. That ticket will go no where. Call or email again about the same issue? If someone gets a response, it will be different than any other responses. It’s easy to run one’s own LuLaRoe “business.”
“Everything sells!” Ugly duplicates in one’s inventory that aren’t selling? Consultants are told, “You must not be marketing them right.”
The policies change with the drop of a hat. Someone breaks a “rule,” even though everyone is a business owner, and another consultant rats the person out. “Compliance” emails within two hours to follow-up on the “rule breaking,” but send an email about any other topic and one may drop dead before there is a response.
Home Office takes no responsibility for mistakes. They pin it on their consultants or technology. Home Office says that consultants should be refunding damaged items. Well, Home Office does not pay its consultants back for those damages. Many times, Home Office states that the item can and should be sold and to “think like a retailer.” If they are paid back for the damages, it sits in a credit in the consultant’s account until they place their next order; it is not credited back immediately to the consultant’s credit card as it should be. The unlawful charging of sales tax was a “glitch in the system,” although consultants were outright told to charge the tax. Problems like the small arms in Irmas and see-through Perfects were not fixed; instead, Patricks were launched. Instead of fixing problems, more people are recruited and more items are sold.
Webinars are on Tuesdays, smack in the middle of the day when many consultants are working other jobs. Remember, “part-time work?” No vital information is given during the webinars, and there is a pep rally berating, pompous attitude. You don’t want it badly enough. You don’t like it, kick rocks. And, don’t wear jeans!! They have too many shoes and oh, the private jets! Consultants are treated like crybabies when legitimate questions are asked – Don’t have a tantrum! Feed your kids spaghettios or cereal, hire a house cleaner, so one can hustle “the business” instead. The leaders of an organization are the role models of its philosophy and beliefs. Is the puzzle starting to fall together? Take a moment to reflect on the style sense of its leaders, too.
Consultants wait on back orders for months and need to follow-up to get items they already paid for, although technology said that the items were available when they ordered them. Consultants also receive many shipments with missing items that were already paid for. Lacking quality control here also. Time to be patient – again -and wait for those items for months or for a credit to sit in the consultant’s account.
Yes, I’m going here… The clothing is overpriced for what you get. The clothing is not worth it.
Yes, I’m going here also….this one is a doozy that needs to be said because LuLaRoe’s culture created this monster. The customers buy a lot of items and the consultants make a good deal of money, myself included. LuLaRoe customers were trained to expect giveaways because consultants are told to “bless” others with |
suffered an acute asthma attack during a race at the Boise Invitational. http://www.trackfocus.com/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=45597&do=news&news_id=213325 He pulled out of the race with a ¼ mile left while he was leading by 50 meters. His doctors immediately prescribed prednisone (40 mg/day) to treat him.
January 23, 2011: Galen’s doctors increased his prednisone dosage to 60 mg.
Magness emailed me the USADA and IAAF forms for filing a TUE for Galen. I forwarded the forms to Galen’s doctor for him to complete. See Exhibit 1.
January 24, 2011: After a thorough examination, Galen’s doctors prescribed that complete full course of prednisone through January 28, 2011.
Galen and his doctors submitted an Emergency TUE request to USADA to submit to the IAAF to allow Galen to participate in the Millrose Games on January 28, 2011.
January 25, 2011: Galen notified USATF that he is withdrawing from Millrose Games because IAAF has not acted on his Emergency TUE request yet.
January 27, 2011: IAAF denied the Emergency TUE for the January 28, 2011 competition and advised that Galen file a complete TUE request if he desired to compete at future IAAF events while on prednisone.
I email Amy Eichner at USADA to see how long it will take prednisone to clear Galen’s system to determine if a TUE will be necessary for his next competition on Saturday, February 5, 2011. See Exhibit 2.
Amy responds that it is tricky to predict how quickly prednisone will clear his system and it is impossible to determine whether 5-7 days will be enough time. See Exhibit 2.
January 28, 2011: I emailed Amy Eichner to ask if USADA would test Galen, at Galen’s expense, on Tuesday or Wednesday the next week to see if the prednisone had cleared. Tuesday would be 5 days after he last took prednisone. See Exhibit 2.
Amy responded that USADA is not permitted to perform tests requested by athletes. See Exhibit 2.
Galen withdrew from the February 5, 2011 race.
February 2, 2011: Magness determined that the Mayo Clinic could perform prednisone test. See Exhibit 3.
I emailed Amy Eichner to see if the Mayo Clinic glucocorticoid test is equal to the WADA/IAAF test. Galen is scheduled to compete in Dusseldorf on February 11, 2011, which would be 15 days after he last took prednisone. See Exhibit 3.
Amy emailed back that she would ask around to see if she could find a way forward and noted that Galen was “lucky to have someone working so hard in his interest.” See Exhibit 3.
I then forwarded my email exchange with Amy Eichner about the Mayo Clinic test to Melissa Beasley at USATF.
February 3, 2011: Amy Eichner advised me to contact Daniel Eichner, USADA’s Science Director for advice on the Mayo Clinic’s testing sensitivity. See Exhibit 4. The Mayo Clinic’s test is more sensitive than the test used by WADA and IAAF.
February 6, 2011: Galen’s urine sample is collected.
February 7, 2011: Magness delivered Galen’s sample to the Mayo Clinic.
February 10, 2011: Mayo Clinic faxed me results of test. I emailed test results to Amy Eichner and John Frothingham at USADA. See Exhibit 5.
Magness advised me that Galen had developed a cough. See Exhibit 6.
February 11, 2011: Galen completed Dusseldorf 5k in 13:21.
This timeline and exhibits demonstrate that Galen took prednisone in January 2011 for 5 days to treat a medical emergency upon the advice and supervision of his doctors. I did not “want” Galen to take prednisone for any competitive purpose. In fact, I wanted the exact opposite and went to great lengths and expense to be absolutely certain that Galen did not have prednisone in his system when he competed. It is also clear that I made sure that USADA was fully informed at all times throughout this process. The USATF and the IAAF were also advised of the situation.
Sending Azithromycin-Pak and Nasonex
All medications and treatments fully complied with the WADA Code and IAAF anti-doping rules.
UK Athletics and the race organizers were kept informed.
Magness’ claims that he did not know are contradicted.
Magness next alleges that he was “confused” by medicine that I sent Galen in Birmingham and that Magness “never asked” what the medicine was. While it makes for a better story, those allegations are also untrue. Galen was sick, and I sent Galen his prescription medicines: Azithromycin-Pak and Nasonex – neither of which is a banned substance. There are emails between myself and Magness that contradict what he is now saying.. Here is what happened:
February 11, 2011: Galen’s cough and congestion worsen. Galen’s doctor prescribes Azithromycin-Pak 250mg tablets and Nasonex 50mcg/inhaler. I picked up Galen’s prescription from the pharmacy and overnighted it to his hotel in Birmingham, UK.
February 12, 2011: Galen emailed that his cough had gotten worse and sounded quite “juicy” but he believed the Z-Pak would be able to knock it out. See Exhibit 7.
I notified Ian Stewart at UK Athletics that I have overnighted Galen his Z-Pak (Azithromycin-Pak 250mg tablets) but was concerned that it would get caught up in customs. To avoid that, I noted that I placed the pills in a magazine. I asked Ian to have Dr. Thing prescribe the same medicine for Galen in the UK in case his prescription that I had sent does not arrive. See Exhibit 7.
February 13, 2011: Magness emailed that Galen’s cough was worse after running and he has modified his workout to allow time for the “cough and such to settle down.” He further advised that Galen was on cough medicine and paracetamol. See Exhibit 7.
Galen emailed me the name of his cough medicine and that he and Magness did a USADA drug search to make sure it was ok. See Exhibit 8.
I emailed Galen that the FedEx package with the Z-Pak had cleared customs and he should receive it by noon the next day. I advised him to confirm that the front desk had both Galen’s name and Magness’ name on file so they would accept the package. See Exhibit 9.
February 14, 2011: Galen emailed that he received the Z-Pak and took the first dose at about noon. See Exhibit 9.
Magness emailed: “Got the medicine. No problems.” See Exhibit 10.
I sent Galen his Nasonex prescription. I put it inside a paperback book.
I emailed Ian Stewart to advise him that Galen had received his antibiotics and that I would be sending his Nasonex prescription by FedEx but asked if he would have a UK doctor to prescribe the same medicine for Galen in case the package I sent did not clear customs. See Exhibit 11. I forwarded the email message to Spencer Barden at UK Athletics. See Exhibit 11
February 15, 2011: I emailed Spencer Barden that Galen’s nasal spray prescription had cleared customs and Galen would receive it by noon. See Exhibit 11.
February 16, 2011: Galen emailed that he had received the Nasonex. Noting my peculiar packaging, he wrote: “You went all Shawshank Redemption on that book and nasal spray. I loved it!!!” See Exhibit 12.
These documents demonstrate that throughout this process we took great care to insure that all medications and treatments fully complied with the WADA Code and IAAF anti-doping rules. I also kept UK Athletics, the race organizers, fully informed.
These documents also show that Magness must have known that I was sending Galen his prescription medicine to treat his illness. Magness’ claims that he did not know are contradicted by the documents. The suggestion the Z-Pak was something other than Galen’s antibiotics is duplicitous. While it probably wasn’t the best way to send these lawfully prescribed medications, I fully disclosed these actions to Galen, Magness and UK Athletics as they were happening.
The Mistaken Notation from 2002
Galen has clearly stated that he did not take testosterone in December 2002 or at any other time.
Galen has not taken prednisone continuously.
Galen also has stated that at that time in 2002, he did take legal supplements that claimed to naturally increase testosterone production.
Oregon Project athletes are permitted to only use legal supplements from a limited number of suppliers
The notation is an error that cannot be explained as Dr. Myhre is no longer alive.
In the BBC/ProPublica stories, Magness makes numerous allegations about a mistaken notation in a log-book charting athletes’ hemoglobin levels. The specific notation related to a December 2002 notation for Galen Rupp that states: “presently on prednisone and testosterone medication.”
I specifically recall the incident and Magness bringing it to my attention. Magness’ description of what I said is inaccurate. I did not disparage Dr. Myhre, for whom I had great respect. My clear recollection is that when he showed it to me, I stated that the entry was “crazy” as Galen had never taken testosterone. I then stated that Galen, as a 16-year old kid, must have misspoken about the supplements he was taking. Like many legal supplements, the labels make a number of claims about boosting one’s testosterone, improving performance and other such marketing statements. Galen likely made some comment about taking something related to a testosterone supplement. I told Magness to take it back to the lab and have them straighten things out. I didn’t think much of it afterwards since I knew it was a mistake and because Magness never mentioned it again.
Magness’new allegations and suggestions about what occurred are not true. Additionally, the notation related to an event in 2002 – 9 years before Magness joined the Oregon Project when he and Galen were both still in high school.
I could only speculate about why Magness would inappropriately photograph and retain the medical records of an athlete without authorization and then wait 3 years to share it with the press. However, unlike Magness, I won’t do that here. What I do know is that when Magness had a prime opportunity to discuss his concerns publicly (in his Runner’s World interview), he failed to do so. Note the July 31, 2011 Runner’s World interview which was only a few short months after Magness saw the mistaken entry. Magness’ own words in 2011 are quite telling. His actions also speak volumes. After reading Galen’s chart, he did not leave the Oregon Project. Rather he stayed for another 18 months. Magness didn’t leave until I terminated his contract in June 2012. As I noted above, Magness’ actions in 2011 and 2012 are directly contrary to his alleged alarm and concern described by the BBC and ProPublica.
There is another important point to remember about 2011: Dr. Myhre—who made the notation in Galen’s records—was still alive. Had Magness raised the issue publicly then, Dr. Myhre would have easily been able to correct any misstatements by Magness. It is unfortunate that this piece of paper only became public now that Dr. Myhre is no longer here to explain.
The facts further show that this entry was a mistake. I searched all available documents to determine as best as possible how this mistaken notation came to be made. These events occurred nearly 13 years ago so some records no longer exist and Dr. Myhre has passed away. I tried to find as many source documents as I could. I have looked at the log-book, checked my records, spoken with Galen and his parents and have reviewed Galen’s medical records. Here is what I found.
First, the prednisone. The BBC/ProPublica stories have used this notation to allege that Galen has been taking prednisone continuously for years. That is completely false. Galen has not taken prednisone continuously. Galen has taken prednisone only as directed by his doctors for short periods of time. As to the December 2002 notation, Galen’s doctors had prescribed Augmentin to treat a sinus infection a few days earlier. Subsequently he developed airway inflammation and was prescribed Prednisone to calm down the airways.
None of Galen’s medical records indicate him ever being prescribed testosterone. And when asked, Galen has clearly stated that he did not take testosterone in December 2002 or at any other time. Galen also has stated that at that time in 2002, he did take legal supplements that claimed to naturally increase testosterone production. He only took supplements that the Oregon Project had tested and knew were not contaminated.
Galen does not recall exactly which supplement he took in 2002. It could have been Testoboost, Alpha Male, Tribex or ZMA. All are legal supplements that make essentially the same claims. Galen does not recall exactly what he said to Dr. Myhre in December of 2002. He believes that he referred to his supplements as his testosterone supplements, stuff, pills or medication. He does not recall the precise language he would have used. He is absolutely certain, however, that he did not and would not have taken any banned substance.
Galen’s mother has also confirmed that Galen did not take any banned substances. In 2002, Galen was still in high school and living at home. She made certain that she learned everything she could to protect her son. According to her, she read and researched every product before Galen would be permitted to take it. See Exhibit 13.
Galen’s performance record further demonstrates that he has never used testosterone. Many people have commented that Galen’s lifetime improvement curve has been long and gradual. For example, Amby Burfoot’s questions to Steve Magness state it. Long and gradual improvement is the antithesis of doping and testosterone use. There is no basis for these false accusations against Galen.
Oregon Project Athletes and Supplements
Oregon Project athletes are only to use legal supplements from a limited number of suppliers. I insist that all supplement batches be tested before any Oregon Project athlete takes one.
Also, all Oregon Project athletes are instructed to declare any and all supplements that they are currently taking on their USADA or IAAF Doping Control Official Record forms whenever they are tested. Neither USADA nor the IAAF has ever raised an issue with any of the supplements listed on an Oregon Project athlete’s declaration form.
In addition to speaking with Galen and his parents, I have researched my records regarding supplements and have found the following supplements that have been tested and used by Oregon Project athletes.
Testoboost: Testoboost is a legal supplement that was used at various times by Oregon Project athletes. The label stated: “Testosterone Hormone Enhancer V30.” Aegis Analytical Laboratories tests confirmed that the supplement did not contain any steroids, precursors or stimulants. See Exhibit 14. Galen has disclosed Testoboost on his USADA Doping Control Official Record forms. Oregon Project athletes appear to have stopped using Testoboost in or about 2006.
Alpha Male: Alpha Male is a legal supplement that has been used at various times by Oregon Project athletes. The label stated: “Maximum Strength Pro-Testosterone Formula.” Aegis Analytical Laboratories tests confirmed that the supplement did not contain any steroids, precursors or stimulants. See Exhibit 15. Galen has disclosed Alpha Male on his USADA Doping Control Official Record forms.
Tribex: Tribex is a legal supplement that has been used at various times by Oregon Project athletes. The label stated: “Chromadex, Tribex, Tribulus terrestris.” Aegis Analytical Laboratories tests confirmed that the supplement did not contain any steroids, precursors or stimulants. See Exhibit 16.
I recall one additional supplement, ZMA being used in the early days of the Oregon Project. I have not found the old documentation for ZMA. It is well known and completely legal. It clearly did not contain any banned substances, as none of the Oregon Project athletes taking it tested positive for any banned substance.
These records demonstrate my commitment to insure that Oregon Project athletes do not consume any banned substances, even inadvertently. The use of these legal supplements also underscores that Galen was not using testosterone.
Lastly, since the BBC/ProPublica stories were published, there has been a Runner’s World article in which doctors have attempted to interpret what the ambiguous notation “testosterone medication” means. In that article, Magness makes further comments about what he wants people to believe those documents say. He claims that it “blows his mind” that Dr. Myhre could have made a “grade-school-like error” in the notations. Yet Magness did not afford Dr. Myhre the opportunity to publicly explain and correct the notation in 2011 when he had an opportunity to do so. Mistakes and imprecise notations happen.
But here is the truth: Oregon Project athletes, including Galen Rupp, were not micro-dosing testosterone as Magness seems to suggest. It is unfortunate that Dr. Myhre is not here to put this to rest.
The Sabotage Test
Our testing was conducted to ensure our post-race protocol was structured to eliminate the risk of sabotage.
There was never intent to do anything illegal.
Magness has disregarded the facts and circumstances of what actually occurred.
Magness also makes baseless attacks about a test that I conducted on testosterone years before he joined the Oregon Project. Magness did not participate in the test and did not see the test parameters or the test results. He had a brief conversation about the test. Now, years later, he claims in the BBC/ProPublica stories that the purpose of the test was “ludicrious” and then alleges an alternative motive directly contrary to why the test was run and how it was designed. Here is what really happened.
In 2006, Justin Gatlin tested positive for exogenous testosterone. Gatlin asserted that he had not knowingly taken testosterone and claimed that he had been sabotaged by his massage therapist, Chris Whetstine. The Gatlin story was extremely well known throughout the track world. Rumors about whether athletes could test positive by having something rubbed on them after a race and before going to doping control were rampant. See http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/sports/othersports/06gatlin.html?_r=1&
On May 9, 2009, Galen Rupp’s University of Oregon 4x1 mile relay team set a new NCAA record. Shortly after the race while talking to the press, Galen felt someone rubbing his shoulders. He turned around and it was Chris Whetstine. Galen had heard the stories. He was extremely concerned and called me. I called the USADA hotline to report it. USADA may still have the tapes or notes of my call. Nothing came of it but it caused us grave concern.
Having experienced this scare, we decided to conduct an experiment to determine if it was possible for someone to rub something on an athlete after a race that would cause that athlete to test positive. If it was possible, we wanted to make sure our post-race protocol was structured to eliminate this risk. I was a bit naive and let my paranoia get the best of me here but there was never intent to do anything illegal.
The Gatlin case involved testosterone so we decided to see if rubbing Androgel on an athlete after a race could cause a positive test. Dr. Jeffery Brown set up the experiment. Existing medical literature indicated that eight squirts of Androgel would cause a marked increase in male hormones within 15 minutes of being placed on the skin. Eight squirts, however, is a lot of Androgel and would be clearly noticed by the person on which it was being rubbed. The experiment was designed to see if lower amounts, which the athlete may not notice being applied could trigger a positive test. The subjects for the experiment were my sons, who are the same approximate age as typical elite athletes and are in good physical condition. But are not elite athletes subject to USADA or any other elite testing pool.
In early July 2009, the parameters of the experiment were set and the first part of the test conducted. The initial protocol was to take a urine sample at the beginning as a control. The subjects then ran for 20 minutes on a treadmill at a brisk pace at an ambient temperature of 85ºF to create an aggressive sweat to simulate having run a 5k race or longer. One squirt (1.25 grams) was applied to one subject and two squirts (2.5 grams) was applied to the other sweaty subject. Another urine sample was then taken an hour later. The urine samples were then sent to the Aegis Sciences Corporation for testing. The T/E ratios for the subjects were in the normal range.
After receiving the test results, we re-ran the experiment in late July using the same protocols except this time four squirts (5 grams) of Androgel were applied to the subjects after they had played one-hour of full court basketball at a high level. Again the urine samples were tested by Aegis. This time one of the subjects had a T/E ratio of 2.8:1, which approaches the threshold of 4:1 that could trigger a positive doping violation. See Exhibit 17.
On July 31, 2009, after reviewing the second test results, Dr. Brown emailed me to see if we wanted to run the test a third time using six squirts. I responded that I did not think it was worth it as “The four squirts was an enormous amount that was easily noticed and had to be applied carefully to keep it from falling off.” See Exhibit 17. Dr. Brown agreed and noted that published data indicated “that eight squirts would throw the 4/1 ratio. I responded: “I’ll sleep better now after drug tests at big meets knowing someone didn’t sabotage us!” See Exhibit 17.
On August 5, 2009, Dr Brown noted that while the experiment had demonstrated that it was unlikely that a male athlete could be sabotaged by secretly rubbing Androgel on him after a race, it could take far less Androgel to cause a woman to test positive. We did not test this hypothesis. Instead, Dr. Brown recommended that to avoid the possibility of sabotage, female athletes should not have any physical contact with anybody until after drug testing had been completed.
The above-described evidence makes it abundantly clear that the focus of this experiment was to determine whether or not an athlete could be sabotaged by someone rubbing testosterone gel on the athlete after an event before the athlete reports to doping control. These documents and the experiment’s protocol also make it abundantly clear that this test did not in any way contemplate micro-dosing as alleged by the BBC/ProPublica stories and Magness. If one was testing for micro-dosing as they imply, the protocol would be different and an athlete would be given the gel before exercising.
Bottom line, Magness appears to have imagined a scenario to fit his narrative about the Oregon Project and me without regard for the facts and circumstances of what actually occurred.
Steve Magness –Dream Job Contract Terminated
Magness’ contract was terminated, he did not leave by choice.
Magness lacked the ability to coach elite athletes.
In the BBC/ProPublica stories, Magness claims he left the Oregon Project because his “anxiety was rising” and he was disillusioned about what we were doing. That is not correct. Magness’ contract was terminated.
It had nothing to do with seeing the mistake in Dr. Myhre’s log-book, nothing to do with supplements, nothing to do with TUEs, but rather because in my opinion Magness proved to be a poor coach who had difficulty building rapport with world class athletes.
Magness was young and inexperienced when I hired him. He had been an accomplished high school runner and was knowledgeable about the science of running. I thought I could develop him into a quality coach. I was proved wrong. In my view, Magness lacked the personality, inter-personal skills and drive to be able to coach elite athletes. He appeared to be intimidated by them and he retreated. He could not run a practice session by himself. He appeared to be unable to motivate the athletes as they ran or observe them. Ultimately, my top runners refused to work with him. It is important to note that as a coach today, in 3 years of coaching the middle and long distance, men’s and women’s programs at a Division 1 school, Magness has not qualified a single runner for the NCAA Track Championships, Indoor or Outdoor.
I assigned Magness to work with a few of the other runners. Eventually, that didn’t work either. Magness appeared to be focused on one female runner, to the detriment of the others. Some Oregon Project runners and staff reported to me that they believed Magness may be having a physical relationship with this runner. I confronted Magness about it and he denied it. I don’t know whether he was telling the truth or not. Nevertheless, I told Magness that whatever was happening had to stop; he had to make it clear to everyone by his actions that he was not having a physical relationship with an Oregon Project athlete. In my opinion, he didn’t. Things only got worse.
His focus on the one female athlete was harmful to the team. He doted on her, and some of his other athletes complained to me about his conduct. In my view, Steve’s behavior became more and more unprofessional and counterproductive.
By early May 2012, I told Magness that I would not be renewing his contract for 2013.
I did not disclose Magness’ contract termination at the time. I wanted him to have an opportunity to learn from his mistakes. I recognized that not everything works out in every position, and you should have a chance to move on. I hoped Magness would be able to do so.
Unfortunately, it is now apparent that Magness has not moved on and seems is willing to make these false statements, say anything, regardless of the truth, and hurt innocent people in order to hurt me.
Click Here to Continue to Part 2If you’re a fan of bad movies, then you’ll probably know The Cannon Group. Throughout the 1980s, they brought us cinema classics like Death Wish 3, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, The Apple, Masters of the Universe, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, American Ninja, Missing in Action, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and Delta Force. They also once bought the rights to Spider-Man thinking he was a human spider before realising he was a comic book character and promptly sold the rights back.
The Israeli cousins Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan joined Cannon Films in 1979 and brought their business culture to Hollywood. Whereas most studios would release 8 movies in one year, Cannon would release 40 and used names like Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stallone and Jean-Claude Van Damme to sell their movies.
They went out of business in 1994 after a string of unsuccessful movies left them bankrupt, but now they’re back with a new studio head who looks to replicate the same business formula of Golan and Globus. You can see a lot about them in the documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films.
Here’s what their official website has to say:
Today, the company is proud to enforce the ideals of Menahem Golan, putting the artist first and enabling them to have the freedom to create their vision, their way; a unique approach that is not found anywhere else in the industry today. Cannon Films Ltd has developed successful working relationships worldwide with companies operating in over fifteen countries. Together their mission is to produce new and original motion pictures for a 21st century audience. A new slate of movies is on the horizon including America Ninja Apprentice, Return of The Delta Force, U.S. Sniper and more…
Update: We’ve had a tweet from the official Cannon Films Twitter account to let us know that they’re not ‘back’, and have been established since 2014. They also go into more details about their upcoming line-up of movies:(CNN) The drowning death of a sailor during a Navy SEAL training exercise in May has been ruled a homicide.
An autopsy report by the San Diego County medical examiner's office faulted Navy instructors and others for taking "excessive" actions that "directly contributed to the death" of Seaman James Derek Lovelace, 21.
Homicide refers to a death at the hands of another, and the term is not inherently a crime.
Investigators from the medical examiner's office and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) watched a surveillance video of the May 6 rigorous training exercise in which Lovelace was seen struggling in the swimming pool. Rather than being helped, Lovelace was repeatedly dunked in the water by an instructor and others, according to the medical examiner's report.
NCIS has yet to release its report regarding the death.
In the training exercise, Lovelace and other trainees had to tread water while wearing their fatigues, boots and masks filled with water. This is part of the rigorous Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) program. The pool exercise is used to determine the new students' competency and confidence in the water, according to the Navy.
During the exercise, the instructors usually create adverse conditions for the trainees by splashing water on them and making waves, but they are reportedly advised not to dunk or pull students underwater.
In the surveillance video of the training, an instructor spotted the struggling Lovelace and appeared to dunk him underwater.
Lovelace is referred to as the decedent in the following investigative narrative from the medical examiner's office:
"Over the course of the next approximately five minutes, the instructor follows the decedent around the pool, continually splashing him with water. The decedent is also splashed by other instructors in the water. Throughout the time period, the decedent is observed to go under the water multiple times. At one point, another student approaches the decedent and appears to attempt to assist the decedent in keeping his head above water. The instructor appears to again dunk the decedent and continues to follow him around the water. The instructor also appears to pull the decedent partially up and out of the water and then push him back."
Lovelace was "reported to not be a strong swimmer," according to the medical report. Witnesses said that Lovelace's face was purple and his lips turned blue.
About 25 minutes after the exercise began, Lovelace was pulled from the pool. Discolored water came out of his mouth and he was mumbling. Lovelace was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died about an hour later.
The NCIS investigation into Lovelace's death is ongoing, said Lt. Trevor Davids, spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Center.
"We respect the integrity of the investigative process and await their final report," he said. Davids also noted that the Navy had taken "immediate actions" to assess its safety, training, instructors and procedures following Lovelace's death.
One training instructor of Navy SEALs was temporarily reassigned following the death, a Navy spokesperson confirmed to CNN in May. That instructor has not been identified. No reason for the reassignment was given, nor was it clear whether the instructor was still involved with SEAL units.
"Although the manner of death could be considered by some as an accident... it is our opinion that the actions, and inactions, of the instructors and other individuals involved were excessive and directly contributed to the death, and the manner of death is best classified as homicide." a San Diego County pathologist wrote in the autopsy report.Jacob deGrom is here to teach you how to scare your friends like a true Major Leaguer
Halloween is coming up, so it's time to take stock of your best scare tactics. Fake spiders are great, peeling grapes and pretending they're eyes is cool, but if you really want to freak out your friends, listen to Jacob deGrom. You trust him when it comes to pitching and by now, you should trust him when it comes to pranks. Just try his paper cup trick.
Well, as deGrom explains to MLB Network's Sam Ryan above, it's actually Bartolo Colon's trick. He likes to sneak up on people, and then stomp on a paper cup right behind them. Let deGrom demonstrate:
You really need to watch the video to get the full effect, because the GIF can't quite convey the duck-and-cover firecracker sound crushing the cup makes.
Try it out yourself -- just start hiding paper cups around your home and office and scaring the life out of all your friends and coworkers. If they get upset, just tell them it was all Bartolo's idea. Then, make this face:
We're sure they'll forgive you.
Gemma Kaneko has been a writer for Cut4 since the end of her term as Witch President in 2014. She is the proudest Tigers fan in New York City.Couples who want to use the "file-and-suspend" strategy to maximize their Social Security benefits will have to rethink their plan.
Thanks to a recent budget bill, the door is closing on two rules that allowed spouses to coordinate benefits, so they could increase the overall amount of money they receive from Social Security. In addition, people older than age 66 who filed for benefits, and then suspended them in order to get a higher payout rate later, will no longer have the option to receive a retroactive lump sum payment if they change their mind and lift the suspension.
According to experts, the changes are geared toward saving money and closing perceived loopholes in the Social Security program. "As much as I hate to admit it, I don't think Social Security ever meant for these rules to [be used] that way," says Mike Piershale, president of Piershale Financial Group in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
How the government intended them to be used may be up for debate, but in practice, the file-and-suspend strategy allowed couples the opportunity to maximize their combined benefits. Once one spouse reached full retirement age (currently 66), that person could file for Social Security and then immediately suspend the benefits. Then, their husband or wife could claim a spousal benefit while their deferred Social Security grew 8 percent per year until age 70.
"This is essentially a 'have your cake and eat it too' strategy," says Andrew Moss, senior vice president of investments at Merrill Lynch in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Now, the government is taking that cake and removing the frosting of coordinated benefits.
3 Disappearing Social Security Options
While the loss of the file-and-suspend strategy is getting the most attention right now, retirees are actually losing three separate Social Security options. Here's a look at each piece of the puzzle.
File-and-Suspend
The file-and-suspend strategy, as outlined above, will no longer work after May 1, 2016. At that time, a person must file for Social Security and actually receive benefits in order for a husband or wife to get a spousal benefit.
However, for those who are at least 66 or who will turn 66 by April 30, 2016, there is still an opportunity to get in under the old file-and-suspend system. Moss says he's in the process of identifying clients who are in that "sweet spot" of reaching their full retirement age before May 1 to ensure they don't miss out on the opportunity.
Those who do squeak in under the deadline will be grandfathered in under the old file-and-suspend rules.
Restricted Applications
The second rule being eliminated relates to restricted applications. Currently, those who are between their full retirement age and age 70 can file a restricted application to claim spousal benefits, but defer their own benefits until age 70. Once they hit 70, they can change from receiving spousal benefits to their own, greater benefits. It's something Piershale calls the "gravy between age 66 and 70."
Except, like the frosting on the cake, the gravy is being taken away.
In the future, when a spouse files anytime after age 62, he or she will fall under the "deemed filing" rule, which already applies to people who are not at their full retirement age. "If you're under your full retirement age [and file], Social Security says you are deemed to have taken your own benefit," says Ian Kutner, a certified financial planner with San Diego Wealth Management, explaining the origin of the name.
With the elimination of restricted applications and the introduction of deemed filing for all ages, a spouse can only receive the larger of either their spousal benefit or their own benefit. They can't change their choice either, which means no deferring benefits until age 70 and then switching options for a larger monthly check.
However, those who will turn 62 by the end of the year will be grandfathered in under the old rules for restricted applications.
Retroactive Lump Sum Payments
The final change applies to suspended benefits. Currently, those with suspended benefits can elect at any time to request payments retroactive back to their filing date.
For example, if a man filed for Social Security at age 66 and then suspended his payments, his benefits would grow at a rate of 8 percent per year. However, if the man came down with a life-threatening illness at age 68, he could retroactively unsuspend his benefits. He would lose the 16 percent bump in pay he should have received from deferring payments, but Social Security will send a lump sum payment for the past two years. Future monthly payments would be made at the same rate the man would have received had he started benefits at age 66.
Story continuesStop the presses! Stop the presses!
It appears that even HBO’s Bill Maher is starting to question Barack Obama’s abilities as president, for on Friday’s Real Time, the host said, “He doesn't even know what the IRS and the Justice Department are doing” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL MAHER: In other white powder political news, someone again sent deadly, the deadly poison ricin to President Obama through the mail. These dumb asses. Do they really think Obama |
Laser Test Bed.
Previously, the flying raygun had been under development as a potential part of a layered U.S. ballistic missile shield against weapons that could be fired by countries such as Iran and North Korea. Pentagon planners initially envisaged using the aircraft to shoot down ballistic missiles near their launch pads.
“The reality is that you would need a laser something like 20 to 30 times more powerful than the chemical laser in the plane right now to be able to get any (safe) distance from the launch site to fire,” Gates told the House of Representatives Appropriations Defense subcommittee last year after scaling it back.
The technology is now being tested for other potential missile-defense applications.
The United States has been spending about $10 billion a year to build a bulwark against missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.
The MDA said in a statement on its website that officials would investigate the cause of the Airborne Laser system’s “transition failure” in the test that took place late Wednesday off the Southern California coast.
“The intermittent performance of a valve within the laser system is being examined,” the statement said. A spokeswoman for Boeing’s directed energy program, Elizabeth Merida, referred calls to the MDA.
The Airborne Laser system successfully shot down a target ballistic missile in February in the first such test of a flying directed-energy weapon.
The initial success demonstrated the potential use of directed energy against enemy ballistic missiles shortly after they are launched, Pentagon and Boeing officials have said.
The system’s second shoot-down test, also at the Point Mugu military test range off California, failed on September 1.
That test was designed to double the distance between the 747-400F aircraft and the target to about 100 miles. But it ended early when corrupted beam control software steered the high-energy laser slightly off center, apparently because of a communications software error, the MDA said.
Lehner said the range of the latest test was “the same as the successful February experiment” — that is about 50 miles, although the exact range remains classified.
The MDA still considers directed energy “in some form,” possibly a solid-state laser, to have a lot of potential for missile defense, he said.
The system carried a price tag of $1 billion to $1.5 billion per aircraft before Gates canceled a possible second aircraft in June 2009.500 feet beneath the ocean's surface, the U.S. ballistic missile submarine Colorado receive their orders. Over a radio channel, designed only to be used if their homeland has been wiped out, they're told to fire nuclear weapons at Pakistan. Captain Marcus Chaplin demands confirmation of the orders only to be unceremoniously relieved of duty by the White House. XO Sam Kendal finds himself suddenly in charge of the submarine and facing the same difficult decision. When he also refuses to fire without confirmation of the orders, the Colorado is targeted, fired upon, and hit. The submarine and its crew find themselves crippled on the ocean floor, declared rogue enemies of their own country. Now, with nowhere left to turn, Chaplin and Kendal take the sub on the run and bring the men and women of the Colorado to an exotic island. Here they will find refuge, romance and a chance at a new life, even as they try to clear their names and get home. Written by ahmetkozanWe are pleased to announce the availability of UCS 4.1-4 for download, the forth point release of Univention Corporate Server (UCS) 4.1. It includes all errata updates issued for UCS 4.1-3 and provides various improvements and bugfixes especially in the following areas:
[ul]
[li] The installation wizard and the UCS management system are now also available in French.[/li]
[li] Samba has been updated to version 4.5.1. This includes various improvements, among other things the DRS replication, the Active Directory compatibility, the file services and the printer handling.[/li]
[li] The Linux kernel has been updated to the latest stable version of the 4.1 long term kernel. This includes several security updates, improvements in the stability, as well as newer and updated drivers for a better hardware support.[/li]
[li] Dockerized apps can now use the database on the UCS system using a simple configuration setting, which simplifies the migration to dockerize apps.[/li][/ul]
A detailed list about the changes can be found in the changelog in the Release Notes. Questions can be asked in the Univention Forum in the section UCS.Dear Nomads,
Due to unforeseen circumstances, Mysteryland USA will no longer take place in 2017.
Since 2014, we have strived to produce the best possible experience for our festival attendees, and are truly humbled by all of the love and support that you, the artists, the beautiful venue of Bethel Woods Center for the Arts and the Town of Bethel have shown us as we celebrated life through music, culture and art.
Paylogic has started the refund process. Full refunds will be issued automatically to the account used to pay for the order within the next 3-5 business days. You will receive a second email from Paylogic with the details of the refund process. The refunds will be processed automatically. No further action is required from your side.
If you purchased tickets with a Payment Plan, your installments paid up until this point will be refunded in full, and your payments owed will be cancelled.
If you have any questions about the status of your refund, please contact Paylogic.
If you purchased your ticket through another sales channel, please contact them directly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do I need to do in order to obtain my refund?
Paylogic will automatically execute the refunds. No further action is required from your side.
What will be refunded?
A full refund; meaning the total ticket price, service fee, payment fee and shipping & handling fees.
When can I expect to receive the full refund?
The refund process has started. The refund will be issued to the account used to pay for the order. Please note that in case you paid with debit or credit card it may take up to 7 working days for the refund amount to be visible in your account, depending on your bank or credit card company. In case you ordered with Paypal, the refund will be visible on your PayPal account before April 22nd.
How will the refund appear on my bank account?
The refund will be shown under the descriptor ‘Paylogic USA INC.’
I bought my ticket(s) through a reseller / unofficial sales channel, how will I get my refund?
Please note that Paylogic will ONLY issue refunds to the original buyers of the tickets that were sold directly through the Paylogic ticketing system. In case you ordered ticket(s) through a reseller or unofficial sales channel, you will have to contact this party directly.
Could you refund the amount to another person?
No, we are only authorized and able to refund the money to the original buyer, also referred to as the main buyer.
I ordered tickets with a payment plan. How does the refund procedure work?
If you purchased tickets with a Payment Plan, your installments paid until this point will be refunded in full, unfinished installments will be cancelled automatically. Please note that each installment paid will be refunded separately to the account used to pay for the installment. This means that in case you used three different accounts to pay for three different installments, each account will receive the exact amount paid from that account.
What if I have not received my refund before May 31st?
In case you have not received your refund, please first check all different accounts and contact your bank. The refund can be found under the name ‘Paylogic USA INC’. If you are sure no refund was credited to your account, please contact Paylogic from the email address used to place the order. Mention your order number. You can contact us by filling out this contact form.
What if the bank account I made my payment(s) with is blocked, does not exist anymore or was changed?
If for any reason you are unable to receive your refund on the account used to pay for the order, please contact us as soon as possible. We can look into your case and provide you with an alternative. You can contact us by filling out this contact form.
I bought a combo ticket for Mysteryland and Electric Zoo. What will happen with my Electric Zoo ticket?
Your Electric Zoo ticket(s) will remain valid and will be sent to you in a separate e-mail as soon as your payment for the Electric Zoo ticket has been received in full. If you purchased tickets with a Payment Plan, your will receive a refund for any payments made towards your Mysteryland ticket. In case you have not received any ticket(s) before the 31st of May, you can contact us by filling out this contact form.Ubuntu is debating whether to include the file preview utility Sushi as part of Ubuntu 17.10.
Various discussions on the precise packages, apps and utilities that will make up the next stable release of Ubuntu are ongoing, but Sushi has already been proposed for inclusion in Ubuntu 17.10.
Not familiar with it? Sushi is a spacebar file previewer. You select a file, hit space, and you can preview the contents of the file without opening a specific app.
Why is that useful? Well, sometimes file mime types and 40×40 photo thumbnails don’t tell you enough about the you want to know about a file. You may need to look closer at an image, double-check a script, or find the right audio recording amidst similarly named files.
And it’s situations like that where GNOME Sushi comes in handy.
GNOME Sushi adds a preview action to the GNOME file manager. You just highlight a file in Nautilus and then hit the spacebar to see a larger, more immersive preview.
By using the GStreamer framework Sushi can display images, play music and display video files. It also supports file previews for most plaintext documents, including scripts with syntax highlighting, PDFs and HTML files.
If Sushi sounds like the sort of wet, finless feature you’d never make use of just don’t hit space!
Install GNOME Sushi on Ubuntu
Sushi’s preview prowess is very addictive. After a few days use you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it!
If you’re running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or later and want to try Sushi out, you can install it from the Ubuntu Software store.
Click to install GNOME Sushi
Once installed the feature is automatically enabled in Nautilus. Just select a compatible file and tap the space bar.*Conditions Apply. Excl VIC, NSW, SA & WA. Gamble Responsibly
Arrogate who is currently rated the Worlds Best Racehorse is set for retirement after his next start in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar.
Arrogate who heads Winx on ratings by 2 points (134 vs 132) will have his last run on November 4th in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar before heading to stud.
It was announced today that the Bob Baffert trained galloper will stand at Juddmonte stud after the race in which no stuf fee has been announced.
Arrogate will retire to stud at Juddmonte following the Breeders' Cup. In other news, the sun rose in the east and set in the west today. — Alysse Jacobs (@alyssejacobs) October 11, 2017
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*Conditions Apply. Excl VIC, NSW, SA & WA. Gamble ResponsiblyThe weather is supposed to cool down at night, providing some relief during this blistering heat wave. Not so for the residents of Wichita, Kan.
At 12:22 a.m. CDT yesterday (June 9), the temperature was 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius) at a local airport as a thunderstorm hit the area. Twenty minutes later, the temperature rocketed to 102 degrees F (39 degrees C), reported the local NBC affiliate.
The weird weather is what's known as a "heat burst" and it was accompanied by wind gusts of up to 60 mph (97 kph). The heat burst was short-lived, however, as the winds and temperatures rapidly spread across surrounding areas.
Heat bursts are created when rain hits very dry air high off the ground, around 3,000 feet (900 meters) up in the atmosphere, causing the rain to evaporate. The evaporated rain rapidly cools the dry air, compressing it and making this patch of air heavier than the air around it. The heavy air mass then falls toward the ground, heating as it compresses, eventually hitting the ground as a hot ball of air.
A few other recent heat bursts include:
Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Aug. 3, 2008: The temperature rose from the lower 70s F (20s C) to 101 degrees F (38.3 degrees C) in minutes.
Midland, Texas, June 16, 2008: At 11:25 pm CDT the temperature rose from 71 degrees F (21.7 degrees C) to 97 degrees F (36.1 degrees C) in minutes.
Emporia, Kansas, May 25, 2008: The temperature rose from 71 degrees F (21.7 degrees C) to 91 degrees F (32.8 degrees C) between 4:44 am and 5:11 am CDT.
IN PICTURES: Extreme heatProtesters shut down I-93 Northbound at East Milton Square and I-93 Southbound in the Medford-Somerville area during the Thursday morning commute causing major traffic backups, according to Massachusetts State police.
Police reported that 29 people from the protest were arrested while MassDOT said all lanes at the Milton scene were again open to traffic by 10:00 a.m.
The protest was organized by the Boston contingent of the group Black Lives Matter, according to an Associated Press report. In a statement posted Thursday morning on the group’s Facebook page, the protest was held “to ‘disrupt business as usual’ and protest police and state violence against Black people.’’
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Massachusetts State Police said this morning that the protest blocked an ambulance traveling to a Boston hospital from Easton, diverting it to a smaller hospital in southeastern Mass. The ambulance was carrying a car crash victim with life-threatening injuries.
State Police Colonel Tim Alben called the incident “immature and irresponsible’’ according to WBZ. “We clearly understand first amendment rights and we respect those,’’ he said. “If you go onto an interstate highway you endanger lives.’’
Here are photos from the scene in Milton, where State police reported that protesters attached themselves to 1,200-pound barrels:
Police used a saw to cut into one of the barrels. —Scott Eisen for The Boston Globe
Protestors with arms chained together inside barrel on Rte 83 Milton pic.twitter.com/ORaUqQ7les — Tim Alben (@TimAlben) January 15, 2015
Hmm. MT @OnlyInBOS: ALERT: I-93 NB in Milton protesters are sitting on the highway. pic.twitter.com/oMN4U8Mnae — Dustin Fitch (@DustinGFitch) January 15, 2015
Here is a photo from the scene earlier at Exit 30 in Medford, where protesters’ arms were attached as they blocked traffic (photo via Anne Ruthmann):The camera department has never been a very strong point of Xiaomi phones, but with the latest devices launched by the Chinese giant, things are seeming to change. Look at the Mi Note 3 for example, which has been the first phone to enter the top 10 best camera phones by DxOMark. Now, thanks to our Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus Camera samples, you can check if the quality has improved even on the affordable phones, besides high-end and flagship ones.
On the rear side, for photography, Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus sports a single camera with a resolution of 12 MP and a f/2.2 aperture. It supports phase detection autofocus and HDR, and below the sensor, there is a dual LED dual-tone flash. It can record video at a max resolution of 1080p at 30 fps. The front camera has a 5 MP resolution and it can record videos in 1080p too. Photos shot in good light conditions show a pretty nice level of detail and also with a nice color accuracy. However, when it comes to low light conditions (indoor and at night), the level of noise increases in a noticeable way and there is a consistent loss of detail. Its not something that’s unacceptable for a phone on its price range, but we are definitely far from top camera phones.
Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus can shoot acceptable photos, but it is not a phone which is mainly focused on the camera. So if your main concern is the camera department, you’d better go for the Xiaomi Mi A1 which can be found at a similar price. Regarding other specs, the handset sports a near-borderless display with an 18:9 aspect ratio, a size of 5.99 inches, and a Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2160 pixels. Under the hood, there is an octa-core Snapdragon 625 processor by Qualcomm, which can run at a max frequency of 2 GHz.
The SoC is paired with 3 or 4 GB of RAM depending on the variant that you choose to buy, and 32 or 64 GB of internal storage which you can expand with a micro SD. The battery has a capacity of 4000 mAh, which is way more than Xiaomi Mi A1 (3080 mAh). The body is entirely made of metal and it has been announced in four different hues: Gold, Rose Gold, Blue, and Black. In China, the device has been launched with a price tag of about 151 dollars for the base variant and 196 dollars for the 4 GB RAM version.
More Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus camera samples below:There is a famous saying in Jewish culture that neatly summarises the history of the Jewish people and the rituals associated with our tradition: “They tried to kill us, we survived, now let’s eat.”
As an Orthodox Jew in Australia, I feel less safe | Fergal Davis Read more
Easily misunderstood and misinterpreted, one of the defining characteristics of Jewish culture and identity is the awareness of historical (and modern) antisemitism. The festival of Purim, held a fortnight ago, tells the story of Haman’s attempted genocide of the Persian Jewish community. Somewhat more well-known in popular culture are the festivals of Passover and Hanukkah, which celebrate the liberation of Jews from the Egyptian and Greek empires.
Since the 1950s, we have commemorated Yom Hashoa, the Jewish day of remembrance for the Holocaust. Unlike the more historical festivals of liberation and survival, there is no great overriding sense of joy; nor is there a celebratory meal attached to it.
In light of this history, it is little surprise that many Jews had a significant relationship with the left for many years. An oppressed and marginalised people for so long, Jews have a natural political affinity with values like freedom of expression, equality, multiculturalism and, certainly, anti-racism. The concept of Jewish self-determination, Zionism, saw itself as a fundamentally left-wing movement in its inception.
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, antisemitism was impossible to ignore and became a central concern of the global left, but Julian Burnside encapsulated the contemporary shift in thinking when he wrote in the Guardian that “Islamophobia is the new antisemitism”, implying, as many often do, that the old antisemitism has been superseded.
It hasn’t. Last Wednesday, a lecture at the University of Sydney by retired British Colonel Richard Kemp became the scene of a heated protest. Kemp was accused of supporting genocide, and, during the fracas, noted Australian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions advocate Professor Jake Lynch was filmed waving money in the faces of an elderly Jewish women and the Jewish student trying to prevent the two from coming to blows.
The Guardian view on Gaza and the rise of antisemitism | Editorial Read more
Lynch explained his actions as a response to having been kicked, saying it was a warning that he would sue, and described his restraint as “almost heroic”, though his account has been disputed by witnesses, with Kemp claiming that the woman was attempting to push Lynch away, who initiated the contact.
Irrespective of who struck first, the image of a leftwing academic brandishing money in the faces of Jewish people clearly evokes the crude antisemitic falsehood that Jews are obsessed with money and perhaps neatly encapsulates the shift of the left away from Jews.
Whatever Lynch’s excuses or reasoning, and the elderly woman’s behaviour, it was clearly an offensive and provocative gesture, reasonably likely to offend the Jewish community. In the past, a leftwing professor would surely have anticipated this, but the reality is that antisemitism today is not as pressing an issue to progressives as it once was.
Instead we have a new set of attitudes towards antisemitism: that it is of lesser importance in the west than other forms of racism, like Islamophobia; that it is no longer a serious threat to diaspora Jews; and that the gravity of its existence is diminished because of the existence and behaviour of Israel.
The attacks in Paris and Copenhagen are ample proof that antisemitism still poses a threat to Jews in the west, especially in light of new recordings from Paris confirming definitively that the gunman targeted Jews. In France, Jews make up 1% of the population yet suffer half of all racist attacks. In Australia, 2014 saw a massive increase in reported antisemitism, including physical attacks in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
But Jews should not be required to parade our suffering, historical or contemporary, in a competition for attention with other forms of racism. Nor should we be expected to tolerate the constant appearance of antisemitic language and imagery at prominent anti-Israel rallies, which does seem to show that the use of antisemitic symbols and language in the west is seen as less threatening, or perhaps “understandable”, when connected with Israel.
That attitude was shown by leftwing Jewish actress Miriam Margolyes’ astonishing performance on a recent episode of the ABC’s Q&A programme. Answering a straightforward question on whether antisemitism garners as much sympathy as Islamophobia, Margolyes’ response was to bring up Israel’s “evil” actions in Gaza as a likely cause of antisemitism. Her solution was for Australians to see that “not all Jews behave in the way Israelis are doing” – suggesting all the Jew has to do is denounce Israel loudly enough, or perhaps wear a sign, that indicates that we aren’t all “evil” like Israelis are, to avoid being victimised.
A proud Zionist Jew can just as easily be targeted at a kosher supermarket as an anti-Zionist one.
Ironically, it sounds remarkably like a demand so often made of Muslims. As Australian prime minister Tony Abbott said a week earlier, “I wish more Muslim leaders would say [they are a religion of peace] more often and mean it.” Abbott’s comments were widely denounced by the left and rightfully so, but Margolyes’ comments were not objected to, they were applauded by many in the audience and online.
It is surely obvious that mitigating bigotry or racism with victim-blaming is wrong regardless of the victim’s ethnic or religious background. Yet it persists in some left-wing circles that Jews are the exception to this rule – our communal connection to Israel makes us somehow more legitimate targets, unless we denounce the Jewish state.
The problem with this notion is twofold – firstly, because Jews do not wear signs declaring our position on Israel. A proud Zionist Jew can just as easily be targeted at a kosher supermarket as an anti-Zionist one. More than that though, why should we have a duty to detach ourselves from a vital aspect of our cultural identity to avoid victimisation?
The reality is that we are human beings with complex identities, defined by a wide range of societal, communal and ethnic influences. Must we carry the burden of answering for all of Israel’s actions because we were born Jewish? And are we so unlike other ethnic cultures that care for the safety and security of our relatives abroad, that we can be painted as immoral for not abstracting ourselves from their threatened existence?
In a political climate where fear is a weapon as much as a state of mind, where innocence isn’t automatically assumed, and where wars and foreign affairs can fuel prejudice at home, it is natural that many take great steps to defend embattled Muslim communities from the risk of dangerous incitement. In doing so, they recognise that Muslims deserve to have their rights – freedom of association, of safety, of speech – protected, if necessary by the state.
They also recognise that self-determination of cultural and national identity is not something we can impose on other people. Those rights and understandings must be equally extended to Jews without the expectation that we must first denounce Israel, fight it, answer for it, or be ashamed by it.
Even before the Kemp lecture, the student protesters Lynch became involved with declared that they were there to defend Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the extremist group which has been exposed as having spread antisemitic propaganda and incitement against Jews on the streets of Sydney. Hizb-ut-Tahrir, whatever their legal status, cannot be defended by any genuine anti-racist. If the radical left with which Lynch and his fellow protesters are affiliated are prepared to defend their civil rights, they must not excuse their anti-Jewish racism – a duty of which they have thus far failed.
Anti-Jewish hatred is rising – we must see it for what it is | Owen Jones Read more
When progressives downplay or diminish the threat of antisemitism in the diaspora because of Israel – or, worse, fuel it – they do not extend to us those equal rights they purport to stand for. Progressives do more than dishonouring their values in this case, they diminish the unique history of Jews in Australian (and western) society, failing to acknowledge and defend us as equal, regardless of our relationship with or opinions about Israel.
The left must act to repair its straining relationship with Jews and once again take up opposition to antisemitism as its cause. Antisemitism is, like all forms of racism, to be abhorred and condemned unequivocally, not reduced and marginalised by games of comparison and mitigation. It is not a partisan issue and it cannot be up to the right to own the unqualified outrage it deservedly generates. The left, and the values it holds, are far too proud and dear to our hearts for that.
• Editor’s note: Jake Lynch denies any motive of antisemitism and says that it is inaccurate to describe him as a “fellow protester” of those who disrupted the Kemp lecture. Lynch says he was trying to protect himself and his wife and, in an effort to deter a woman from assaulting him, he waved money at her to signal the potential expense to her of legal action. Guardian Australia is aware that the events, footage of them and their interpretation are the subject of an inquiry by the University of Sydney, and intends to report the outcome of the inquiry.Use govendor to implement vendoring
The meaning of vendoring in Go is squeezing a project's all dependencies into its vendor directory. Since Go 1.6, if there is a vendor directory in current package or its parent's directory, the dependency will be searched in vendor directory first. Govendor is such a tool to help you make use of the vendor feature. In the following example, I will demonstrate how to use govendor step by step:
(1) To be more clear, I clean $GOPATH folder first:
# tree. 0 directories, 0 files
(2) I still use playstack project to do a demo, download it:
# go get github.com/NanXiao/playstack/play # tree. ├── bin │ └── play ├── pkg │ └── linux_amd64 │ └── github.com │ └── NanXiao │ └── stack.a └── src └── github.com └── NanXiao ├── playstack │ ├── LICENSE │ └── play │ └── main.go └── stack ├── LICENSE ├── README.md ├── stack.go └── stack_test.go 11 directories, 8 files
The playstack depends on another 3rd-party package: stack.
(3) Install govendor :
# go get -u github.com/kardianos/govendor
(4) Change to playstack directory, and run " govendor init " command:
# cd src/github.com/NanXiao/playstack/ # govendor init # tree. ├── LICENSE ├── play │ └── main.go └── vendor └── vendor.json 2 directories, 3 files
You can see there is an additional vendor folder which contains vendor.json file:
# cat vendor/vendor.json { "comment": "", "ignore": "test", "package": [], "rootPath": "github.com/NanXiao/playstack" }
(5) Execute " govendor add +external " command:
# govendor add +external # tree. ├── LICENSE ├── play │ └── main.go └── vendor ├── github.com │ └── NanXiao │ └── stack │ ├── LICENSE │ ├── README.md │ └── stack.go └── vendor.json
Yeah, the stack project is copied to vendor directory now. Look at vendor/vendor.json file again:
# cat vendor/vendor.json { "comment": "", "ignore": "test", "package": [ { "checksumSHA1": "3v5ClsvqF5lU/3E3c+1gf/zVeK0=", "path": "github.com/NanXiao/stack", "revision": "bfb214dbdb387d1c561b3b6f305ee0d8444c864b", "revisionTime": "2016-04-01T05:28:44Z" } ], "rootPath": "github.com/NanXiao/playstack" }
The stack package info has been updated in vendor/vendor.json file.
Notice: " govendor add " copies packages from $GOPATH, and you can use " govendor fetch " to download packages from network. You can verify it through removing stack package in $GOPATH, and execute " govendor fetch github.com/NanXiao/stack " command.
(6) Update playstack in github :
This time, clean $GOPATH folder and run " go get github.com/NanXiao/playstack/play " again:
# go get github.com/NanXiao/playstack/play # tree. ├── bin │ └── play ├── pkg │ └── linux_amd64 │ └── github.com │ └── NanXiao │ └── playstack │ └── vendor │ └── github.com │ └── NanXiao │ └── stack.a └── src └── github.com └── NanXiao └── playstack ├── LICENSE ├── play │ └── main.go └── vendor ├── github.com │ └── NanXiao │ └── stack │ ├── LICENSE │ ├── README.md │ └── stack.go └── vendor.json 18 directories, 8 files
Compared to previous case, it is no need to store stack in $GOPATH/src/github.com/NanXiao directory, since playstack has embedded it in its vendor folder.
This is just a simple intro of govendor, for more commands' usages, you should visit its project home page.
Reference:
What does the term “vendoring” or “to vendor” mean for Ruby on Rails?;
Understanding and using the vendor folder;
Go Vendoring Beginner Tutorial.“Positive energy” Lao Wai’s story wanted
Have you heard of Lei Feng? He’s the man who’s known for helping everyone around him, always having a positive attitude towards life, wearing a passionate smile everyday and seen as a role model in every Chinese household. Do you know any “Laowai” who has similar characteristics as Lei Feng? Please don’t hesitate to share their stories with us! We at chinadaily.com.cn invite you to have the experience of a real reporter and share your stories with our global readers.
2016-3-10 11:15:04 Upload Download attachment (49.25 KB)
Who is invited?
As long as you know any foreign friend who lives in China and has the similar characteristics listed above (warm-hearted, willing to help people around him, positive attitude towards life), you're welcome to join our activity!
What to submit? 1. An article around 600 words on why chose them as your role model. Two photos of the person you recommend (please confirm with them if they are willing to share their photos with readers.).
2. The article should contain at least one example of their act that inspired or moved you. Also, please summarize your points at the end of the article.
3. All the articles, stories, and pictures must be original.
When
Starts from: March 3, 2016
Submission deadline: April 30, 2016
How
You can send your stories and photos to our Email address: readers@chinadaily.com.cn
Awards and Prizes
2016-3-3 13:26:52 Upload Download attachment (145.54 KB)
First prize: Kindle reader or payment of the same value. Second prize: 4G smartphone or payment of the same value. Third prize: Chinese cultural gift (book, special bookmark, table cloth)
寻找你身边的“雷（zheng）锋(neng)式(liang)老外 一次给CD当记者的体验！
你身边有没有像雷锋一样积极，阳光，正能量的老外？总是用乐观的态度对待生活，总是力所能及地帮助身边的每一个人？如果他/她的故事曾感动过你，就别犹豫啦，快来把它分享给我们全球的读者吧！想不想自己体验一把记者的feel，写出一篇感人肺腑的采访稿呢？融融春意里，因你真诚的分享，平添一份暖意！
2016-3-10 11:15:31 Upload Download attachment (49.03 KB)
谁来参加？ 对于参加活动中国小伙伴来说，文章的主人公就是生活在中国的外国朋友！ 对于参加活动的外国小伙伴来说，你可以写写同在中国的外国朋友，当然也能毛遂自荐哦！
写什么内容？ 1，首先请发来两张雷锋老外的照片！（当然得先和他/她本人确认能否使用）。以及一篇600词左右的文章（当然是用英文写啦！）内容是你曾亲历的，或发生在你们之间的，任何曾经感动或激励过你的，正能量老外的故事！
2，文章的内容应该是叙事与议论相结合，至少有一个完整的例子和故事，文章的末尾如果能有一些精要的总结就更棒了！
3，文章的内容，包括故事和图片，都必须是原创且真实的。
征集时间
2016年3月3日至2016年4月30日
投递方式
将故事和图片用邮件的形式发送至：readers@chinadaily.com.cn
奖励 一等奖： Kindle 或同等价值的金额 二等奖：4G手机或同等价值的金额 三等奖：中国风纪念小礼品
期待你们的参与！！I suspect that there is growing dismay, not to say anger, among our population as they watch on television the daily slaughter and destruction in Gaza, at the mealy-mouthed statements from both our Government and the American’s in response.
Spokesmen for the Israelis regularly recount the huge number of rockets fired from Gaza into Israeli territory, but fail to tell us that the vast majority of these have been successfully intercepted without casualties. In fact, over the entire last decade they have killed two dozen Israeli citizens. Unacceptably dreadful though these were there is absolutely neither political nor moral equivalence with the 1,600 civilians killed in Gaza currently and the 1,400 killed in the previous Operation Cast Lead in 2009. So those “on the one hand and on the other” balanced utterances are made in shameful disregard of the facts.
I write as one who has visited Ashkelon and Siderot – two of the most regularly hit towns in the south of Israel – and talked with their people and their Members of Knesset. So I fully understand their mixture of fear and justified rage at these continuing attacks. Yet as the 2009 operation amply demonstrated, bombing and blasting Gaza does not stop the rocket attacks. I visited Gaza shortly after that and saw for myself the mayhem caused – the destruction not just of lives, but of homes, water and power supplies, schools, hospitals and businesses. The same appalling communal punishment is happening again, with – I predict – the same lack of success in stopping the rockets.
I have only met Benjamin Netanyahu once, and that was in Israel just before he became Prime Minister. He struck me then as an intelligent, articulate and dangerous man, who would need to be watched and reined in by Israel’s allies. Sadly that has never happened – on the contrary after the Cast Lead enquiry by the excellent Judge Goldstone from South Africa, we washed our hands of any condemnation and in Europe we blithely continue our helpful trade agreement with his government, and fail to back the judgments of the International Court regarding the illegal settlements.
I am a member of the ‘Friends of Israel’ because I always seek to draw a clear distinction between the State of Israel and the current Israeli government. It is becoming sadly increasingly difficult to maintain that distinction in today’s world. The damage done to Israel’s standing is incalculable. In my student days, in the late 1950s, many spent their vacations working in kibbutz, fired by the idealism of Israel – that has stopped. Instead we see a revival of vicious anti-semitic incidents all over the world in response to what is seen to be mass murder perpetrated inexplicably in the name of a people who themselves had suffered appalling atrocities and loss during the second world war.
That contagion threatens to spread to terrorist groups fired by distorted views of Islam all over the Middle East and Africa, where our Zionist/Christian axis is characterized as united in uncaring response to the slaughter in Gaza. Our ministers have rightly expressed concern about radicalised extremists returning to our shores and undermining our security. They should wake up to the fact that Mr Netanyahu is their strongest recruiting agent.
The only way to stop |
said in remarks before the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday.
Israel largely barred foreign reporters from Gaza during the fighting, though some eventually entered through Egypt. Israel permitted entry late last week.
A Place of Strategic Value
Israeli soldiers rumbled into Zaytoun before midnight Jan. 3 in armored vehicles and descended by rope onto rooftops from helicopters. Israeli military and Red Cross officials said there were heavy clashes in the area. Local residents denied that any Palestinian fighters were present but described hearing constant shooting and having to dodge "crossfire" as they moved from house to house seeking shelter.
At a slight elevation, the neighborhood offered a vantage point over the breadth of the Gaza Strip.
"It was a place with strategic value," said Arafat al-Samuni, who lives in Zaytoun. "There is no other reason to come here. None of us is Hamas."
On the morning of Jan. 4, after clearing out Almaz Samuni's house, Israeli troops moved to the next home and used their rifle butts to break down the door of her cousin, Moussa al-Samuni, 19, he recalled. They forced Moussa's family to leave, and the troops set up a command post inside the home, he said. Then they set about clearing remaining families from the neighborhood.
While his younger brother Waleed, 17, sneaked out the back door into tall grass, Moussa and 13 other members of his family quickly fled out the front door. As the family exited, Moussa said, soldiers lifted the men's shirts and pulled down their trousers, ostensibly to check for explosives.
The family ended up next door in Talal al-Samuni's home. After a few hours, with bullets occasionally smacking the stone walls, the group, now numbering more than 40, moved again, this time across the street to the larger home of Wael Samuni. Soon nearly the entire family had congregated there.
"We were so nervous because we knew something bad could happen at any minute, but we had nowhere else to go," said Moussa, who is slender, with short, wavy hair. "We wanted to be together."
For the Wounded, No Aid
Down the street, Arafat Samuni, 36, was having coffee with his cousin Nadal, 30. When shooting erupted and grew closer, Nadal decided to return to his house, about 20 yards away, to make sure his family was safe. He never made it.
"Fifteen minutes after he left, I got a call saying Nadal was wounded. I ran out and found him near his front door," Arafat said. "He was bleeding from his abdomen and told me to go home. I pulled him inside his house. I called friends and begged them to get any car, any vehicle, any ambulance."
Nadal died six hours later, about 3 p.m., Arafat said.
Meanwhile, for more than 24 hours, the people gathered in Wael Samuni's house waited for a lull in the fighting that did not come. They called relatives and for ambulances to evacuate them. Salah al-Samuni, 30, received a text message around midnight saying, "Ambulances are on the way." They never came.
Finally, when things seemed a bit quieter, Moussa and two cousins crept outside to gather wood and trash to make a fire, for warmth and to bake some bread. It was before 6 a.m. on Jan. 5, he said.
"I heard an Israeli drone overhead, and about a second later something crashed into the doorway of the house," Moussa said. "I could see that my nephew Mohammad was dead -- his body was torn in pieces. My cousin Rashed was bleeding from his arm, so I ripped his shirt into a bandage and tried to tie it around." Then another shell hit the roof, he said.
Several Samuni family members who were inside said that they never heard the impact of the second shell but that suddenly the ceiling of the one-story building came crashing down on top of them.
"You couldn't see or hear anything. The air was filled with smoke and pressure and my ears felt like they were shaking," said Salah Samuni. Part of the roof collapsed on his head, leaving a bloody gash. His 2-year-old daughter, Azza, died instantly, as did his grandmother. His 6-month-old daughter, Shifa, was unscathed.
"Out of the tragedy, that is a miracle," he said.
Survivors began to panic.
"I screamed at everyone who could move to get out of there," said Salah, who has a slight build and a wispy, graying beard. "I could see across the room that my father was still breathing, but by the time I got to him, he was gone. We grabbed whoever we could carry and ran."
Just after 6 a.m., the sun was rising as dozens of Samunis poured out of the shattered house and made their way up Salahaddin Road, the nearest main route to the hospitals of Gaza City. All around them, the shooting continued.
"We had walked about a kilometer when I saw some Israeli soldiers and an ambulance driver," Salah said. The ambulance driver apologized profusely, he said, but told him: "It is too dangerous. I can't go in until the fighting stops."
Salah recalled telling the soldiers, "We need first aid, and there are many dead back in Zaytoun. You hit us, and we need help."
"Go back to your death," the soldier replied, according to Salah. "You can't go up this road."
Moussa also tried to make it up the street and was intercepted by Israeli soldiers. "I told them there were wounded people, but they told me to shut up," he said. They detained him in a nearby house for the rest of the day before releasing him, he said.
The Red Cross report also said that Israeli troops "must have been aware" that there were wounded civilians in need of medical care. Salah and others said some Israeli soldiers shot at the fleeing Samuni family members, to try to direct them back to Zaytoun.
"All the time they were shooting at the road or above our heads," said Sobhi Mahmoud Samuni, 55. "But we kept running toward the hospitals."
That day, Jan. 5, the logbook at Shifa Hospital recorded that at least 39 Samunis came to the emergency room with various injuries.
"It was shocking to see so many from one family," said Ramiz Ziyara, 33, a general-surgery resident who said he treated a young girl with shrapnel lodged in her brain. "She was okay. She was lucky."
Fifteen wounded people remained inside Wael's house, along with at least 16 bodies.
"I couldn't walk," said Ahmad al-Samuni, 16. "My feet and legs hurt too much, so I just tried to lie still to escape the pain." His two brothers, Ismail, 14, and Isaac, 13, lay bleeding beside him, in far worse condition.
For hours, he said, he held Ismail's hand while the boy faded in and out of consciousness from a large head wound. At the urging of his grandmother, who also remained in the house with a broken leg, they prayed, reciting over and over, "I bear witness that there is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet." By nightfall, Ismail had died.
The next morning, still unable to walk, Ahmad said, he gathered bits of a shattered door frame and with a lighter managed to make a small fire in one room. He found a pot and the only food left in the house, uncooked spaghetti and tomatoes, and heated it for his brothers.
"We were so thirsty, we were cutting open a hose and sucking as hard as we could to get water out," he said, frequently losing his concentration, and once, briefly, his temper, as he recounted the story. "It only wet our lips."
That evening, Isaac, who had shrapnel in his abdomen, died, too. "He was bleeding for two days, and no one came to help," said Ahmad. At least four others, his uncle Tawfik and aunt Rabab and two of their children, Rashad and Waleed, also died within 48 hours of the shell striking the roof, he said.
"I sat in there for four days, and all we could do was pray," said Ahmad, whose head was later shaved in the hospital so a wound could be cleaned. "I was sure I was going to die."
Frustration for Rescuers
Two days before the shell struck Wael Samuni's house, the Red Cross had begun negotiating with the Israeli army to get ambulances into Zaytoun to evacuate civilians. "For the first two days, people were calling and literally begging us to come get them,' " said Antoine Grand, head of the Red Cross in Gaza, who declined to allow the ambulance teams working those days to be interviewed.
"We said: 'We're doing our best. Hang on,' " Grand said. "Then their mobile phone batteries died."
"We normally have good coordination about these things," he added. "But for days we asked for a green light to get in there, and it wasn't granted. I don't know why. It is extremely frustrating."
Leibovich, the Israeli army spokeswoman, declined to comment on why the army had not allowed the Red Cross into Zaytoun. Grand corroborated Leibovich's assertion that there were clashes in the neighborhood but said that should not have prevented emergency workers from being given access.
"Look, on the one hand, we don't want to go in while the fighting is going on. But they weren't fighting 24 hours a day for all those days," Grand said, adding that there was an Israeli army post 100 yards from where the Samuni house was struck. "Permission could have been granted earlier."
On Jan. 7, the Red Cross was finally permitted to enter Zaytoun, during a three-hour pause in combat operations to allow for humanitarian relief. The wounded had to be evacuated by donkey cart, because the Israeli army would not move earthen barricades it had placed in the road, according to the Red Cross's report. There was not enough time to retrieve the dead until Jan. 18, when at least 21 bodies were removed from the site, Grand said. The Red Cross's investigation of the events will be completed in the next few months, he added, and will be "shared privately" with the Israeli government.
Residents said there were 22 bodies in and around the Samuni home, and Shifa Hospital logged the arrival that day of 22 dead. The explanation for the discrepancy with the Red Cross figure is unclear. The Red Cross said the bodies were found in at least two houses, while survivors said all of the dead had been killed in Wael's home. Again, the variation in accounts remains unexplained.
Six other people, including Nadal and some of those who escaped from Wael's house, died elsewhere, Samuni family members said.
Moussa Samuni found a final body Jan. 19, in a field just north of the neighborhood. It was his younger brother Waleed, who had run out the back when the soldiers appeared. He had been shot in the head, leg and stomach. He was unarmed and not a fighter, his brother said.
'No Fighters Here'
For three days after the last of the bodies were recovered and buried, the Samunis mourned in a large tent erected amid the wreckage of their neighborhood by the Fatah movement, the political party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Large posters displayed color photographs and names of the dead, as well as a few snapshots of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004. Aid groups brought chicken and rice for lunch every day around noon. Dozens of dead birds were scattered about the property, filling the air with a sweet, acrid smell when the wind changed.
"There were no fighters here. That is why I do not understand why this happened," Arafat Samuni said, disputing the Israeli military's statement about combat in the area. "We are farmers. We are not political. We are not resistance."
All but three of the houses on the street were demolished. The remnants of the various families that make up the Samuni clan sat all day, each day, on the rubble of their destroyed homes and met with well-wishers, aid workers and journalists. Most answered questions politely but without emotion.
Some broke down when telling their story. On Friday, the tent was rolled up and trucked away, but the Samunis stayed behind.
"I am supposed to be back in school," said Moussa, an accounting student, staring at the ground. "But my father is gone. My mother is gone. My brother is gone. All I have left is my 2-year-old sister, and now I am the head of the family."
Staff researcher Robert E. Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.BOCA RATON, FL—During tonight’s presidential debate on international issues, Republican candidate Mitt Romney vowed to halt all of the Obama administration’s foreign policy measures and replace them with new jobs for American workers. “You see, we have all these diplomatic relationships with countries in Europe and Asia; my plan is to take all of that and convert it into more than 500,000 manufacturing jobs for out-of-work folks right here in Florida and across the nation,” said Romney, adding that eliminating high-level talks with China and Iran alone could help more than 3 million unemployed workers get the education they need to thrive in America’s new, foreign-policy-free economy. “Meanwhile, President Obama plans to keep foreign policy. He doesn’t understand that you can get rid of the diplomatic philosophy of a nation—all these doctrines that guide its interactions with state and nonstate actors—and reinvest it in America’s small businesses. That’s what grows the economy—not foreign policy.” When asked by moderator Bob Schieffer if the U.S. should intervene in the ongoing conflict in Syria, Romney promised to lower taxes and close loopholes in deductions.
AdvertisementA politician who just days ago left German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party over her refugee policies told RT that she was acting counter to people’s interests and had lost contact with the real world.
Maximilian Krah made headlines in German media on September 19 after leaving the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) led by Chancellor Merkel, citing her failures in the refugee crisis as a key reason.
Read more
Krah, who was a CDU member for 10 years, even launched a website calling on other fellow members to turn their backs on the party.
Speaking to RT, he said that while handling the refugee influx, Merkel had neglected people’s concerns and interests.
“People are upset with the policy that is not looking to the population, to the interests of the people in the country,” Krah said. He stressed that instead Merkel had focused on "some” opinions while “having lost contact with real world-problems.”
Krah stated that it should have been clear to the German government and Merkel herself that the so-called “open door” policy was a step in the wrong direction.
“You can’t have an open door policy when you have a good social security system.”
“It’s simply a crazy policy and it’s dangerous,” he went on to say.
The ex-CDU politician noted that it was obvious to him that although Merkel’s refugee policies were not able to solve the issue, there could be no change while she remains the country’s leader.
Read more
“I had to accept that there will be no change under this chancellor, she stuck to her wrong plan,” Krah said.
In recent polls, the CDU has suffered major setbacks, which are believed to have been caused by the refugee policies of the chancellor.
The worst blow for Merkel came on September 4 during the local polls in her home state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
The anti-immigrant Alliance for Germany (AfD) placed second, beating the CDU into third place.
The AfD made a breakthrough in the Berlin elections last Sunday as well, while the CDU put in one of its worst results, placing third, though ahead of the AfD.
Following the results, Merkel said she was “taking responsibility” for the outcome and admitted her government was “unprepared” for the refugee influx, which partly “went out of control.”New Delhi: Plucking and feasting on fresh, delectable jamuns is a favourite childhood pastime during summer months, but scientists at IIT Roorkee have found a novel use for the juicy Indian fruit—making inexpensive solar cells.
Researchers used naturally occurring pigment found in jamun as an inexpensive photosensitiser for Dye Sensitised Solar Cells (DSSCs) or Gratzel cells.
Gratzel cells are thin film solar cells composed of a porous layer of titanium dioxide (TiO2) coated photoanode, a layer of dye molecules that absorbs sunlight, an electrolyte for regenerating the dye, and a cathode.
These components form a sandwich-like structure with the dye molecule or photosensitizer playing a pivotal role through its ability to absorb visible light.
“The dark colour of jamun and abundance of jamun trees in IIT campus clicked the idea that it might be useful as a dye in the typical Dye Sensitised Solar Cells (DSSC)," lead researcher Soumitra Satapathi, assistant professor at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee in Uttarakhand, said.
Researchers extracted dyes from jamun using ethanol. They also used fresh plums and black currant, along with mixed berry juices which contain pigments that give characteristic colour to jamun.
The mixture was then centrifuged and decanted. The extracted coloured pigment called anthocyanin was used as a sensitiser.
“Natural pigments are way economical in comparison to regular Ruthenium-based pigments and scientists are optimising to improve the efficiency," said Satapathi, who is also a visiting professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in the US.
“The increasing pressure on fossil fuels and concern of global warming has inspired continuous search for alternate energy," said Satapathi Uncertainty over the pace at which new large dams or nuclear plants can be built means strong reliance on solar power - an area where India has high potential and equally high ambition - to deliver on the country’s pledge to build up a 40 per cent share of non-fossil fuel capacity in the power sector by 2030, researchers said.
“In principle, we have a large social need for renewable energy especially solar energy. For quite sometime, our lab is actively engaged in low cost high efficiency solar cells production," said Satapathi.
The research team, which includes Nipun Sawhney and Anubhav Raghav, is very optimistic that the process can easily be replicated for mass production of solar cells.
The simplicity and cost effectiveness of the overall fabrication process, widespread availability of fruits and juices, and ease of extraction of anthocyanin dyes render them novel and inexpensive candidates for solar cells application, researchers said. The research was published in the Journal of Photovoltaics.A federal judge in Virginia has sided with President Trump, ruling that his revised temporary travel ban appears lawful. Judge Anthony Trenga concluded Trump’s past statements about the ban were no longer sufficient evidence that the revised ban’s intent was religious discrimination. From CNN:
“This court is no longer faced with a facially discriminatory order coupled with contemporaneous statements suggesting discriminatory intent,” Trenga explained. “And while the President and his advisers have continued to make statements following the issuance of EO-1 (the first executive order) that have characterized or anticipated the nature of EO-2 (the revised ban) the court cannot conclude for the purposes of the motion that these statements, together with the President’s past statements, have effectively disqualified him from exercising his lawful presidential authority.”… “The substantive revisions reflected in EO-2 have reduced the probative value of the President’s statements to the point that it is no longer likely that plaintiffs can succeed on their claim that the predominate purpose of EO-2 is to discriminate against Muslims based on their religion and that EO-2 is a pretext or a sham for that purpose,” Trenga added.
The Associated Press describes the ruling as a “major victory” for the Trump administration and cites the reasoning of Judge Trenga that the decision is within Trump’s authority:
The legal issue, Trenga wrote, is not to determine whether the executive order “is wise, necessary, under- or over-inclusive, or even fair.” The judge, a George W. Bush appointee, said his job is simply to determine whether the order “falls within the bounds of the President’s statutory authority or whether the President has exercised that authority in violation of constitutional restraints.” At this stage of the lawsuit, Trenga concluded, the plaintiffs have not demonstrated a likelihood to succeed on the merits.
Two other judges, in Hawaii and Maryland, put a restraining order in place which prevents the executive order from going into effect while the underlying claim is being adjudicated. This ruling does not change that.
Nevertheless, a spokesman for the Department of Justice released a statement to the Hill saying, “As the Court correctly explains, the President’s Executive Order falls well within his authority to safeguard the nation’s security.”The art of propaganda is subtly at work in Ukraine. Of course there have been angry speeches from politicians, diatribes from talking heads, and the usual written invectives from journalists. But all this is quite obvious, and none of it truly propaganda. More insidiously, political agendas have become embedded in the vocabulary of Ukraine’s chaos.
Choice of words alters the truth, making the abuse of language an invaluable technique for politicians and journalists. The near anarchy of Ukraine’s east has stimulated this kind of linguistic propaganda–where facts are confusing, any interpretation can be made superficially plausible. Through the shifting language of crisis, great political forces have manipulated public opinion about Ukraine by choosing how that opinion can be expressed.
One example is eastern Ukraine’s separatists, a motley group likely of local Russian nationalists, citizens’ groups, Russian special forces, Chechen militants, and possibly organized crime. How to make sense of this rebellious medley? In Moscow, the insurgents are labeled “pro-federalist peoples’ militias,” in Washington, “Russian-backed separatists,” and in Kyiv, simply “terrorists.” National biases simplify and obscure the facts of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, even at a linguistic level.
Russia’s sudden acquisition of the Crimea earlier this year followed a similar logic: To Americans and Europeans, Crimea was annexed. To Ukrainians, Crimea was invaded. To Russians, Crimea was reunited. No one is truly wrong, nor is anyone right—that’s the perverted beauty of it.
Instead, the secrecy and complexity of Russia’s actions actually promote divergent interpretations. Russian commandos covertly, then overtly, invaded Crimea. With largely supportive locals, Russian forces booted out Ukrainian troops, holding a referendum on joining Russia while still occupying it. Annexation, invasion, and reunification do not describe this series of events because no single word can. Rather, these words burnish the facts, accentuating the desired meaning while rubbing out anything contradictory. Whether in Crimea or the rest of eastern Ukraine, confusion helps officials and experts sell political fiction.
Russians also argue about their language and imperial history, and the neo-imperialists are winning. When talking about countries or regions, Russian has two prepositions to describe action within them: “in” or “on.” The rules for using them are varied, often contextual, but sovereign nations usually take the preposition “in,” while Russia’s former and current territories take “on,” so actions take place “on Alaska,” “on the Caucasus,” or “on Ukraine.”
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, many Russians argued that Ukraine deserved the preposition “in,” it was after all, a newly sovereign country. Russian politicians and journalists of the 1990s largely agreed, replacing “on Ukraine” with “in Ukraine” in official statements and newspapers. However, since Putin’s ascendency to the Russian presidency in 2000, the use of “on Ukraine” has come back in vogue. Often, even the liberal critics of Putin’s Ukraine policy use “on Ukraine,” allowing into their writing the very neo-imperialism they argue against.
Such biases can even be implied through spelling. While seemingly innocuous, the spelling of Ukraine’s capital has caused friction between Ukrainian, Russian, and Western reporters. The capital is most often written as “Kiev” in Western papers, yet that spelling is taken from Russian, not Ukrainian. Ukraine’s journalists have lobbied Western papers to write instead “Kyiv,” the transliteration from Ukrainian, to show respect for Ukrainian sovereignty after centuries of Russian dominance. Despite the pro-Ukrainian stance of most European and American papers, most still use the Russian spelling.
And this propaganda hidden in language is not just abstract, but woven into international politics. How people interpret the truth will determine their response to it. For instance, Ukraine’s military strike against eastern separatists is officially called an “anti-terrorist operation,” a title tailored to attract Western support that has so far been scant.
Russians have their own labeling problems thanks to the pro-Russian Chechen fighters entering eastern Ukraine from Russia. They are causing a lexical nightmare for Russian state media since Russia does not support terrorists, it has declared that Ukraine’s eastern separatists are not terrorists, and yet many of the Chechens entering Ukraine are by most definitions, terrorists.
Confronted by unhelpful facts, Russia’s media have resorted to using vague terms like “Chechen volunteers,” “foreign fighters,” or simply “Chechens.” Putin ally and leader of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov (also a suspect in crimes that would make ISIS blush) argued that anything sinister would be impossible. “Chechens have never been terrorists or extremists!” End of story.
Without critical thought, all language is propaganda. Ugly, biased language has a deadening effect on the mind, suffocating new ideas. Ukraine, and relations between the West and Russia generally, need radical new strategies, yet ideologues are making these strategies harder to create or describe. As the language of the West and Russia drifts farther apart, so too does their understanding of reality, making the chances of cooperation, or even negotiation, slimmer with each passing week.
Addendum
Most of the ideas here are ruthlessly stolen from George Orwell’s genius essay, “Politics and the English Language,” and writing this piece was like having him sit on my shoulder, yelling about the dangers of authoritarianism and my own slovenly writing. For anyone interested in language, politics, or what genius essay-writing looks like, definitely read it (it’s relatively short too). Here’s a link.
After writing this essay, I was convinced that I too should start spelling Ukraine’s capital as Kyiv, not Kiev. Neither is truly right nor wrong, but while reading a freakishly comprehensive guide to the debate over Russian prepositions and Ukraine I found a nice argument. The rules of language are based more on tradition than consistency, so when choosing a word to use, you are also choosing a tradition to align yourself with. Given the hundreds dead in eastern Ukraine and Russia’s seizure of Crimea, Ukrainians have a right to demand that their sovereignty is respected. Spelling their capital as the preferred “Kyiv” is a small effort toward that end.
AdvertisementsIn a letter sent to members of Congress Sunday afternoon, FBI Director James Comey said the FBI was not changing the conclusion into their criminal probe of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and her use of private email server while at the State Department.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Calif.), who heads up the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, broke the news shortly before 3:30 p.m. EST.
Comey wrote in his brief letter:
I write to supplement my October 28, 2016 letter that notified you of the FBI would be taking additional investigative steps with respect to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. Since my letter, the FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails from a device obtained in connection with an unrelated criminal investigation,” Comey said in the letter. “During that process we reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State. Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton. I am very grateful to the professionals at the FBI for doing an extraordinary amount of high-quality work in a short period of time.
Comey last wrote to Congress nine days ago informing them that FBI investigators had uncovered potential new evidence against Clinton and was re-opening their case against her.
The FBI director announced in July that the FBI would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton, despite admitting that she had classified documents on her unsecured email server.The union has upped the ante.
An Oct. 19 strike date was set Friday morning by the union representing faculty and coaches at the 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, which includes East Stroudsburg University.
The Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties members have worked under their old contract for more 450 days and talks between the union and state system have hit more roadblocks than open roadway during that time.
In a press conference Friday morning, APSCUF president Kenneth Mash was disappointed in the state system's rejection of a binding arbitration this week.
“We would have no idea what the outcome would be, but we were willing to live with that outcome because we thought that we need resolution,” Mash said.
The arbitration would have called for a three-person panel — two representatives picked from either side, one individual picked by both — to meet with a state Labor Relations Board arbitrator to fact-find the negotiations and come to a conclusion.
APSCUF first authorized a strike with a statewide union member vote earlier this month. In the following week, the two parties met four times, and Mash said little progress was made.
“APSCUF put a healthcare concession on the table, and still the state system stuck to its offer, which was terrible,” Mash said.
Mash struck an issue with the implementation of graduate students as standalone professors, saying it’s “not a practice accepted anywhere in academia.” He also spoke against the increased use of adjunct faculty.
The state system “urged” the union board to remain at the negotiating table, but APSCUF declined to continue talks until October, according to a PASSHE press release.
"“We should be able to find a resolution through meaningful discussion, continued dialogue and reason,” PASSHE spokesperson Kenn Marshall said. "We can’t afford to stop meeting. This is too important to our students. We need to continue talking.”
The union did not refuse to continue meeting, Mash said.
“The state system, in whatever game they’re playing, gave us dates that included this week — when we told them months ago we were not going to be available to meet,” Mash said.
Marshall said there is $159 million in raises on the table available for the faculty if the union is able to help find a way to partially offset costs.
"We are committed to providing our faculty raises, but some cost savings are necessary to ensure the financial sustainability of the system,” Marshall said.
APSCUF has no intention of shying away from further negotiations, Mash said. He said that a strike is their "last resort."
"But if the state system believes that it could just push its faculty around and that we won’t react, then they are nothing more than bullies,” Mash said. “And we won’t stand for that.”
In two previous contract negotiations, a strike was authorized by the union, but each time the two parties agreed on a contract before a strike was called.
Pocono Record Writer Kevin Kunzmann contributed to this report.Bobby Jindal launched a presidential exploratory committee today, because hey, that’s what you do. Presumably he’ll be exploring outside the state he governs, because as much as Louisianans hate Democrats and Obummer, they hate Bobby more, a new poll shows.
The poll of 600 likely voters, taken last week by Southern Media & Opinion Research and highlighted by The Advocate, shows that Louisiana is one of the reddest states in the union:
Republicans in Louisiana must be the most anti-democrat voters in all fifty states. Less than one percent of maleand female republican voters would pick a democrat for governor. Almost seventy percent of all white maleswould not pick a democrat for governor. Only twenty three percent of white voters would pick a democrat asour next governor.
But anything’s gotta be better than the stringy Oxford-educated NBC page that’s run their state lo these many years:
Governor Bobby Jindal’s job performance rating is at an all time low. Hereceives a 31.8% positive job performance rating from Louisiana voters. The Southern Media & OpinionResearch Survey in December 2014 had Governor Jindal with a 40.9% positive job rating. Jindal’s negative jobrating was 57.6% in December 2014 and today stands at 64.7%.
In fact, it looks as if even Barack Hussein Obama would win a head-to-head competition with Jindal in the redboned Bayou State:
President Barack Obama remains unpopular in Louisiana, but not as unpopular as Governor Jindal. 42.1% ratehis job performance as positive and 57.3% negative. Only 22.6% of white voters give President Barack Obama apositive job rating. Twenty three percent appears to be the upper end of white support for democrats at thestatewide level in Louisiana.
Fortunately for white Louisianans, neither Jindal nor Obama will be on their ballot in 2016. Unless... martial law?!
[Photo credit: AP Images]The only good thing to emerge from the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Manchester is that we in the United States have perhaps the most unambiguous picture yet of what surrender looks like. From useful idiots like Katy Perry to George Stephanopoulos, we have witnessed the same consistent refrain: The problem isn’t mass murder, the problem is that people have a problem with mass murder. The real crime isn’t a bomb exploding at an Ariana Grande concert, the real crime is that anyone would have the temerity to highlight the root cause of the problem. The real problem is Western Civilization, a problem which must be eradicated.
Mean spirited words aren’t always inappropriate but in our day and age of appeasement and craven kowtowing to the enemy of civilization – Islam – mean spirited words are worse than mass murder and those who speak them deserve to be horribly murdered. The subtext of the Leftist narrative behind this attack and all those which preceded it and all those to come is that this is normal, that we must get used to it. Criticism of the attacks, of the perpetrators, and of the underlying ideology that motivated it, are the outliers. This is normal, calling it otherwise is not.
More than normal, this is what we deserve. More than what we deserve, this is praiseworthy. If the Left and their useful idiots are unwilling to condemn the attack, they must be tacitly approving of it. If this is the new normal, indeed, if it has always been normal as according to Sadiq Khan, the charlatan traitor mayor of London, then it must be acceptable and as such, it must be condoned.
This is what surrender looks like. And this is exactly what the Left and the globalist cabal want and, as such, as the culmination of their demented designs, it is worthy of applause.
This is what the Left calls cultural enrichment. It is a permanent state of fear and carnage and excuse making for the bloodthirsty lunatics who bring invasion and barbarism to our backyards. The enemy is no longer at the gates, they live and thrive among us, empowered by political correctness and the soft-headed compassion of those who live in guarded, gated communities, those who will never experience the traumatic consequences of the suicidal policies they endorse.
The suicidal intent and actualization of cultural enrichment is for the little people, the mothers and fathers and children of the victims of wanton terror and violence.
This is a policy of literally adding insult to injury. If you question, if you criticize, if you condemn this bloodshed you’re a racist and a xenophobe, even if your daughter’s pulverized corpse is still warm and filled with shrapnel. In the sick, twisted worldview of the Left, the victims are the aggressors and the aggressors are the victims. The Islamist monster who committed this crime against humanity was, according to the Left, within his rights and justified. The grieving parents and children are out of line to consider even in their thoughts that there’s something very wrong with how this particular table has been turned.
This is Orwellian thought crime and doublethink and doublespeak happening right before our very eyes. It’s difficult to know who the worse villain is, the unwashed Muslim horde that hides behind religion as it rapes and murders Western Civilization, or the maniacal demons of the EU and the American left who cheer on and enable the invasion.
Winston Churchill said in his famous speech, “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
Long gone are the days of rulers who proudly stood and marched in lockstep with their people. The Churchills of the world have been replaced by elitists who despise the lands they rule and the citizens populating them. Long gone are the days of refusing surrender. Long gone are the days when failure was not an option.
Islam is the new Third Reich. Their supporters are no longer confined to a domestic propaganda machine, they have their homes in news media and governments around the world, they find their livelihood in the politics of the Left in the US and Europe. And their deranged politics dictate a hatred of Western Civilization, for America, for Europe and Europeans, a hatred so intense they would see our countries destroyed and replaced with repressive caliphates. The Left wants the new Nazis to win, they want Western Civilization to fail, even if it means replacing it with something much worse, even if it means destroying themselves in the process.
This is worse than psychopathy. Psychopaths are at least self-serving and wish to extend their lives and comfort. We aren’t dealing with psychopaths who seek out self-preservation. Instead, we’re dealing with a gleeful self-extinction on the part of those who exult in the notion that savage suicide is fine for themselves so long as their political rivals suffer the same fate simultaneously.
We cannot let this happen. We must not only fight against Islam, we must fight against their benefactors in the media, the halls of power, and everywhere else in the liberal hierarchy. We must fight them on the beaches, |
a onesie on a 5 year old!?!?!) Needless to say they are always really cheap at the end of the year. So, stock up because I am going to teach you how to turn that onesie in to a t-shirt for your toddler.Start the clock because this took me all of 5 minutes:)So here is the glorious outfit she picked today. Every outfit HAS to have pink.I just made a straight line across the front and back and marked it with chalk.Cut straight across and cut right on the edge of the "bias tape".Cut off the snaps.With RST (Right sides together) sew the 2 ends of the bias tape together. Then sew bottom of the shirt to the bias tape.Flip right side out and right in the trough of the seam you just made, top stitch. This will prevent the shirt bottom from flipping over.Put the shirt back on the toddler.Worked like a charm. Now mommy and daughter are happy. Now if only I could teach her how to match:)How badly does cable news network CNBC want to deny the existence of global warming?
For a network with an embarrassing history of fudging the science around climate change, one CNBC booker apears to have made a big mistake.
Responding to the groundbreaking report “Risky Business,” a bipartisan project that compiled the many ways global warming will harm the United States economy over the next cenutry, a CNBC staffer sent an e-mail to a website that she apparently thought was connected to economist and climate contrarian Alan Carlin. In the e-mail, which has been shared with Republic Report, the booker asked Carlin to respond to the report and write an op-ed on “global warming being a hoax.” See below:
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Hi there. Given this new report on the cost of climate change, wanted to extend an invitation to Alan Carlin to write an op-ed for CNBC.com. Can be on the new report or just his general thoughts on global warming being a hoax. If he’s interested, please email me directly
The e-mail was sent to DeSmogBlog, the hard-hitting climate investigative blog, which has a profile on Carlin. To be clear, DeSmogBlog has no relation to Carlin other than reporting on his many misdeeds and his appearance on the Glenn Beck program.
When a tragedy hits, for example a fire or an industrial accident that kills many innocent people, reporters do not generally solicit op-eds for folks to spin the incident as a “hoax.” Why, then, do reporters obsessively seek to promote climate deniers, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence and the mounting evidence that the phenomenon will cause havoc on human civilization? Perhaps because fossil fuel interests are among the largest buyers of cable news advertising. In any case, we reached out to the CNBC booker who wrote the e-mail. She would not comment on the solicitation.It did not take Senator John McCain long to call for a strong response to the tragic crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Along with sending military aid to the Ukrainian army and moving missile defense systems into the Czech Republic and Poland, he wants to “impose the harshest possible sanctions on Vladimir Putin and Russia.” But despite McCain’s rhetoric, the U.S. has limited ability to cripple the Kremlin through economic sanctions—and stronger ones from Europe could lead to an economic disaster.
While McCain understandably wants to punish Russia for its support for the separatists that are allegedly behind the crash, the U.S. and Russia do not trade much with each other—less than $40 billion in 2013. Cutting off Russian firms from the U.S. financial system would be a more effective method of hurting the Russian economy, but it would become much stronger if done in conjunction with Europe.
European nations, on the other hand, are major trading partners with Russia. Steep sanctions from them could do real damage to the fragile Russian economy. But doing so is a double-edged sword since Europe depends on Russia for energy supplies. If they refuse to buy oil and natural gas from the state-run giants Rosneft and Gazprom respectively, it could cripple European economies, potentially sending the Eurozone into a recession.
“Since Europe is very dependent on Gazprom-exported gas for their heating and other basic energy needs, it’s going to be very hard, if not outright impossible, to see a sanction that directly impacts the export of natural gas from Russia into Europe,” says Doug Rediker, a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “When the president had his press conference with [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel several weeks ago, he specifically at that time noted that even at the height of the Cold War, we still allowed the export of energy from Russia—then the Soviet Union—to Europe.”5 Easy Steps to Create Free Facebook Profile Frame Overlay
Facebook just launched their Facebook Profile Frame Overlay Maker giving access to anyone to create their own custom overly frames. This is assuming you have some design skill as you will need to design the overlay. In this article I am going to show you how you can do this for free.
Step 1) Go to Facebook Camera Effects Page to start creating your profile overlay frame.
Step 2) Click on create frame in the top right corner.
Step 3) Click get started and begin the process of creating your custom Facebook frame. This will give you a popup window that you just need to follow the prompts.
Step 4) You must have designed a png graphic for your frame and you will need to upload it during this step. For the Facebook Profile Frame Overlay design, Facebook would like the ideal size to be 600 X 600 pixels. A great software for creating your own design is called YouZign we use it all the time. It is like a cloud based photoshop of sorts. Once you have created your design, upload it by clicking on the upload art button then size it accordingly.
Step 5) Finish the process by selecting where you want your frame to be shown. We recommend letting everyone use it unless you are looking for local users or users in a specific country. Now click submit and wait on Facebook’s approval. This normally takes between 1 and 3 days for approval or disapproval.
Want a little more detail. Below is a short exact How to Create a Free Facebook Profile Frame Overlay video.
We hope you enjoyed this blog and that your Facebook overlay frame is super successful.By Duncan Kennedy
BBC News, Mexico City
Most Jeep Cherokees do not boast police-defying smoke machines
The car was abandoned by the gang members after a shoot-out.
The police and army sent to fight Mexico's drug cartels have seen most things - sophisticated rocket launchers, powerful assault rifles and gold-plated pistols.
But in the northern state of Tamaulipas even they were shocked to come across a Jeep Grande Cherokee kitted out with its own anti-police gadgets.
Spikes
Inside was a smoke machine and a device to spray spikes onto the road behind - the purpose to make a getaway easier and stop the car from being followed.
Mexico is plagued by drug-related gang violence
It is not known if the gadgets were ever used. The vehicle was abandoned after being rammed into a military truck.
Those in the Jeep threw a hand grenade before making their escape.
The episode may have its lighter side, but the reality of fighting the cartels is much deadlier.
So far this year more than 300 people have died in violence related to the cartels. That follows more than 2,500 deaths last year.
Billion-dollar business
The cartels are not short of money to buy the equipment they use.
It is estimated they control an industry smuggling cocaine into the United States worth around $13bn (£6.5bn) a year.
The authorities have had some success in arresting the leaders of these gangs.
Last week a man thought to be at or near the head of the Tijuana cartel, Gustavo Rivera Martinez, was arrested.
Those setbacks may be leading to violent infighting among the gangs, which may account for the rising death toll.
It may also be the reason why some gang members are equipping themselves with more and more sophisticated weapons and vehicles as they fight to stay ahead of the police, the army and their rivals.The Massachusetts Nurses Association has threatened a one-day strike at Brigham and Women's Hospital on June 27 if the hospital and the union can't come to an agreement on a new contract. It would be the first strike in 30 years by nurses in a Boston hospital.
The nursing union is asking for larger wage raises than the hospital has proposed, better insurance options for new nurses and a better staff-patient ratio. In a statement, Brigham and Women's Chief Operating Officer Dr. Ron Walls said the hospital has worked hard to develop a "generous wage and benefit package for every one of our nurses, despite the tremendous financial pressure in healthcare."
If the strike takes place, the hospital says it has already contracted with an outside agency to supply about 700 replacement nurses for five days to ensure continuity of care.
We hear from both sides about why this fight is so contentious.
Guests
Jim McCarthy, recovery unit nurse at Brigham and Women's Hospital, member of the bargaining committee.
Ron Walls, professor of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School and executive vice president and chief operating officer at Brigham and Women's Health Care, which tweets @BrighamWomens.[On July 5, 2010, in the aftermath of the largest mass arrests in Canadian history at the Toronto G20 summit, about 250 rank-and-file labour activists sent an open letter to the President of the Canadian Labour Congress. The union members critiqued Georgetti's public attacks against protesters paired with inaction on sweeping police brutality and repression, and called for a change of course toward solidarity with prisoners and enhanced cooperation with diverse community movements - the basic idea of social unionism.
The same day, Georgetti responded to the letter's organizers, dismissing the union members statement as a "piece of fiction".
The open letter and Georgetti's response are both reproduced below.]
_____
[Rank-and-file union activists' open letter to CLC President]
From: CLC G20 Open Letter <clcopenletterg20@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jul 5, 2010 at 12:33 PM
Subject: Open Letter regarding the G20
To: kgeorgetti@clc-ctc.ca, hyussuff@clc-ctc.ca, bbyers@clc-ctc.ca, mcwalker@clc-ctc.ca
Cc: sryan@ofl.ca, tdowney@ofl.ca, mkelly@ofl.ca
Open Letter to Ken Georgetti and the Canadian Labour Congress:
We are labour activists, many of whom were involved in organizing against the G20 Summit in Toronto and solidarity actions across the country. After the “Peoples First” march, many of us remained on the streets throughout the weekend contesting the unprecedented militarization of our city and the G20 neoliberal agenda.
We are disturbed and concerned to read the statement by Ken Georgetti, President of the Canadian Labour Congress, issued during the G20 summit. The CLC issued a statement condemning ‘vandalism’ and declaring their commitment to working with the police throughout the summit; however, the CLC’s statement is shockingly silent about the violence perpetrated by the state and police, aimed at rendering the right of people to assemble, organize and resist obsolete, brutalizing our sisters, brothers and children.
Union members and our allies in the community were victims of the organized confusion that led to the massive violations of our basic civil liberties including house raids without warrants, indiscriminate searches, and the warehousing of activists, innocent bystanders and others for hours without charges in a dehumanizing detention centre.
Thousands of union members and others gathered on the streets and in the state and police-sanctioned “free speech zone”, otherwise known as Queen’s Park. As the mainstream media was glued to unattended burning police cars, protesters were being charged and trampled by police horses, subject to indiscriminate arrests, rubber bullets, tear gas and various forms of police brutality.
The focus on vandalism and attacks on private property espoused by the CLC statement and some mainstream media outlets, expels from the debate the legitimate concerns and lived injustices of many within the labour movement who turned out to protest the G8/G20. By commission or omission this limited focus legitimizes the suspension of rights and liberties in this city, including the right to assembly and the right to political protest.
Thousands mobilized in front of police headquarters on June 28th in solidarity with the hundreds of activists still being detained and our unions and union flags were absent. We believe union solidarity should have been present. While we are encouraged to see the CLC's recent decision to join the call for a public inquiry, we feel that the CLC and Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) must support our allies, call for the release of all prisoners in the detention centres and jails, and resist the attack on our human rights in all its forms.
We as a labour movement must commit to organize social movements along with our allies in social justice, environmental justice, grass-roots, anti-poverty, anti-racist, feminist, non-status, Indigenous, Queer and international movements to challenge and resist neoliberal capitalist governments’ ruthless assaults on the working people in Canada and globally. We will not and cannot win the struggle we face against the violent onslaught of neoliberalism by abandoning our allies and our communities in the wake of a massive crackdown on dissent.
Signatories:
Katherine Nastovski, CUPE Local 3903
Kelly O’Sullivan, President CUPE Local 4803
Adrian Smith, Justicia for Migrant Workers, Workers’ Assembly
Ilian Bubrano, Chair CUPE Ontario International Solidarity Committee, CUPE Local 3393
Dave Bleakney, National Union Representative – Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Tracy Supruniuk, CUPE Local 3903
Chris Ramsaroop, Justicia for Migrant Workers, CUPE Local 1281
Farid Chaharlangi, President CUPE Local 4772
Rachel Rosen, OSSTF District 12
Herman Rosenfeld, Retired CAW Staffperson, Workers’ Assembly
Lynda Lemberg, OSSTF District 12, Active Retired Member
Mohan Mishra, CUPE Local 1281
Giti Iranpoor, OPSEU Local 512
Alison Fischer, OSSTF District 12
Ken Luckhardt, Retired CAW Staffperson
Ryan Toews, CUPE Local 3903
Jude Welburn, CUPE Local 3902
Jim Reid, CAW Local 27, London Ontario
Nicole Wall, Justicia for Migrant Workers
David McNally, York University Faculty Association
Ali Mallah, CLC Alternate VP – Workers’ of Colour, Steward CUPE Local 79
Christina Rousseau, CUPE Local 3903
Gary Lawrence, 1st Vice-President, OPSEU Local 504
Caitlin Hewitt-White, Workers' Assembly, OSSTF District 12
Kaushalya Bannerji, York University CUPE Local 3903
Victor Saliba, OPSEU Local 526
Robert Allison, Member of OPSEU
Sean Starrs, CUPE Local 3903
Richard Roman, Retired University of Toronto Professor and Trade Union Scholar
Laura Parsons, CUPE Local 1281
Vic Natola, Steward at the Federation of Metro Tenants Association, CUPE Local 1281
Elizabeth Byce, Retired Member of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Donald Burke, CUPE Local 3903
James Campbell, OSSTF District 34
Amina Ally, OSSTF District 12
Ali Mallah, CLC Alternate VP. Workers of colour; Steward, CUPE local 79
Wendy Glauser, CUPE Local 3903
Ingrid Vander Kloet, ONA Local 97
Heather Dorries, CUPE Local 3902
Bruce Allan, CAW Local 199
Alex Levant, CUPE Local 3903
Peter Brogan, Workers’ Assembly and CUPE Local 3903
Sam Gindin, Retired Staff CAW
Denise Hammond, President CUPE Local 1281
Sarah Hornstein, CUPE Local 1281
Ian Weniger, member of Vancouver Secondary Teachers Association, local 392 of the BC Teachers Federation. (VSTA/BCTF)
Ajamu Nangwaya, Anarchist - Common Cause, Chair External - CUPE Local 3907, Divisional Steward - CUPE Local 3902
Malissa Phung, Equity Officer @ CUPE 3906
Jacobo Vargas Foronda, Academic Researcher
Ali Ghorbani, CUPE local 3798
Dr. Michael C.K. Ma, The Kwantlen Faculty Association (KFA) of Kwantlen Polytechnic University in BC. A member of Asian Canadian Labour Alliance
Jonah Gindin, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty and CUPE 1979
Taodhg Burns, Industrial Workers of the World - Toronto-General Members Branch
Elizabeth Ha, OPSEU Workers of Colour & OFL VP Workers of Colour
Katie Wolk, CUPE 1281
Annu Saini, writer and activist
Douglas Hayes, Retired CAW local 200, The Council of Canadians, Windsor Essex Chapter
Kurban Versi, an active and concerned Canadian Citizen and resident of Toronto.
Dan Sawyer, CUPE 1281
Sabrina 'Butterfly' Gopaul, LIFE Movement, Head News Correspondent of Jane-Finch.com and News Now host for CHRY 105.5FM, CUPE Local 4772
Hayley Goodchild, CUPE 3906
John Hollingsworth, COPE Local 225
Paul Richard Erato, CUPE Local 416
Nick Bonokoski, CUPE 3761
Ronda Brook, Member, CUPE 1281
Clarice Kuhling, WLUFA and soon to be CUPE Local 3904
Sharyn Sigurdur (MfD) UFCW Local 1518
David Rennie, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Stefan Kipfer, YUFA, York University
Eve Roa, activist for the Mexican Migrant Workers, Health Care Worker
Kate Parizeau, CUPE Local 3902
Roger Langen, Teacher OSSTF
Baolinh Dang, CUPE Local 1281
Rodney Doody, York MA Student, CUPE Local 3903
Megan Cotton-Kinch, CUPE Local 3903
Simon Granovsky-Larsen, York University CUPE Local 3903
Robert Morden, York University – Student
Wayne Dealy, Secretary Treasurer CUPE Local 3902 and CAW 385
Paul Bocking, Executive Officer Occasional Teachers Bargaining Unit. OSSTF District 12
Ian Hussey, CUPE Local 3903
David Camfield, Member of UMFA/NUCAUT
Patrick Vitale, Liaison Officer – CUPE Local 3902
Katie Mazer, CUPE Local 3902
Jacqueline Bergen, CUPE Local 3903
Tom Young, CUPE Local 3902 University of Toronto
Barry Weisleder, Member of OSSTF District 12
Tim McCaskell, OSSTF
Chris Vance, CUPE Local 3903
David Lavin, CUPE Local 3903
Parastou Saberi, CUPE Local 3903
Noaman Ali, CUPE Local 3902
Rene Guerra Salazar, CUPE Local 3902
Jordy Cummings, CUPE Local 3903
Tom Keefer, CUPE Local 3903, Co-Chair of the 3903 First Nations Solidarity Working Group
Evelyn Encalada Grez, Justicia for Migrant Workers
Richard Fung
Megan Dombrowski, CUPE Local 3903
Gail McCabe, CUPE Local 3903
Jean McDonald, CUPE 3903
Helen Luu, UFCW Local 175
David DePoe, Elementary Teachers of Toronto Political Action Committee, and Workers' Assembly;
Joshua Moufawad-Paul, CUPE Local 3903
Erika Del Carmen Fuchs, Justicia for Migrant Workers, Organizing Centre for Social and Economic
Justice, CUPE Local 1936
B. Ross Ashley, Retired militant, SEIU Local 1 Canada
Wendy Naava Smolash, Teaching Support Staff Union, Simon Fraser University
Salah Irandoust, SEIU
Ferreshteh Bahmani, OPSEU
Jilvan Irandoust, OSSTF
Gary Romanuk, CUPE Local 3903, Workers' Assembly
Datejie Green, CUPE 3903, ACTRA Toronto, Past National Director of Human Rights and Equity-
Canadian Media Guild
Michael Hurley, First Vice-President, CUPE Ontario
Irina Ceric, CUPE Local 3903
Julia Barnett, CUPE Local 79
Logan Sellathurai, International Solidarity Committee, CUPE Ontario
Jean Claude Parrot, Retired Trade Unionist, Lifetime member of CUPW
Ritika Shrimali, CUPE local 3903
Shahzad Javanmardi, CUPE Local 79
Robert Ballingall, Political Science, University of Toronto
Clare O'Connor, CUPE 1281
Hayssam Hulays, OSSTF District 12
Punam Khosla, member CUPE 3903
Paul Jackson, CUPE 3902 member
Tyler Shipley, CUPE 3903
David Heap, UWO Faculty Association / People for Peace, London
Michelle (Shell) Sweeney, PSAC
Natalie Polonsky LaRoche, Retired member, CUPE 79, PSAC, Founder, Gay and Lesbian Pride
March 1981, Member, Independent Jewish Voices, ACJC
Paul Kellogg, Athabasca University Faculty Association (in a personal capacity)
Wendy Forrest, ONA Local 054
Terry Moore, Retired OPSEU Staffperson
Mahmood Ahmadi, OPSEU Local 540
Donna Ramsaroop, CUPE Local 1281
Greg Fletcher, CUPE Local 3903
John Simoulidis, CUPE Local 3903
Marion Mueller, St. Catharines, ON
Gita Hashemi, Artist, Educator, Formerly CUPE 3903, no longer unionized due to neoliberalization of universities
Karen Walker, CUPE Local 3903
Michael Hirsch, New Politics magazine, New York City;
Giuliana Fumagalli, STTP - CUPW, local de Montréal ؛
Mark Brill, Retired CUPW member now on ODSP, Toronto
Jon Short, CUPE 3903
Mostafa Henaway, Organizer for the Immigrant Worker Centre in Montreal
Mazen Masri, CUPE 3903
Chris Cormier, OPSEU VP Local 456
Marco Luciano, Migrante and Staff CUPE Local 1281
Richard McKergow, Justicia for Migrant Workers, CUPE 1281
Anita Krajnc, rabble.ca
Sarah Kardash, CUPE Local 3433
Fereshteh Bozorgani, CUPE
Paul Chislett, Windsor social activist; former president, CEP Local 37
Mary Ellen Campbell, President, CUPE 3906
Kelly Fritsch, CUPE 3903
Ron Drouillard, President: Windsor Workers' Action Centre
Maria Wallis, CUPE 3903
Cynthia Wright, CUPE 3903
Rhonda Sussman, USW Local 1998, Workers' Assembly
June Ross, Retired CUPE National Representative
Rolf Gerstenberger, President, Local 1005 USW;
Federico Carvajal, Vice-president, CUPE 1281
Anna Willats, OPSECAAT (part-time college workers in OPSEU)
Merlin Moss
Bonnie Bain, BCNU
Mireille Coral, OECTA member
Jessica Ponting, Justicia for Migrant Workers
Michael Truscello, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Departments of English and General Education
Alex Diceanu, member of anarchist organization Common Cause and CUPE 3906
Gary Jarvis, CUPE 391 Executive Member at Large and delegate to the Vancouver & District Labour Council
Philip Diceanu, Common Cause Member
Carmen Sanchez, York University, CUPE 3903 member
James Taylor, CUPE 3906
Gary Kinsman, Laurentian University Faculty Association (LUFA), Sudbury
Todd Gordon, CUPE 3903
Eve Haque, YUFA
Carlos Bucio Borja, CUPE Local 2191
Jason Kunin, OSSTF District 12
Matthew Hayter, CUPE Local 3903
Walter Whiteley, York University Faculty Association
Nick Probst, OSSTF District 12
Andrew Brett, CUPE Local 3697
Stuart Duncan, Canadian Media Guild
Derek Blackadder, Canadian Staff Union
Madeleine Boyer, CUPE Local 3903
Niki Thorne, CUPE Local 3903
Harry Smaller, YUFA
Faith Nolan
Pamela Dogra, ETT
Sarah Rogers, CUPE 3903 and CAW 414
Cathy Beth, CUPW Scarborough Local 602
Jackie Crawford, Ontario Public Service Staff Union
Michelle Hill, COPE Local 491
Christopher Webb, Communications Officer SEIU Local 1
Andrew Mindszenthy, OPSEU Local 548 and 509
Alan Lennon, Senior Union Representative –CEIU-PSAC
Phil Little, TSU-OECTA (Retired)
Alex Wilson, CUPE Local 3903
Brendan Bruce, PSAC Local 610 and Common Cause
Gordon Doctorow, OSSTF District 12 (Retired)
Roslyn Doctorow, ETF North York (Retired)
Douglass St. Christian, Associate Professor, University of Western Ontario, UWOFA
Eileen Roth, Laurentian University – Student
Xavier Lafrance, York University, Member of CUPE 3903
Cheryl Cowdy Crawford, CUPE 3903
Evert Hoogers, Lifetime Member of CUPW (retired)
Shawna Nelles, Independent Photographer
Jamie M.A. Smith, CUPE 3903
Duncan Clegg, York University CUPE 3903
Adwoa Onuara, CUPE Local 3907 and 3902
Sonja Killoran-McKibban, CUPE Local 3903
Amy Gottlieb, OSSTF District 12
Derek Maisonville, York University CUPE 3903
Patricia Molloy, WLUFA
Jerome Messier, PSAC
Malcolm Blincow, YUFA
Jennifer Gibbs, CUPE Local 3903
Jake Javanshir, Concerned Citizen
Janice Patterson, OSSTF District 12
Jill Lennox, CUPE Local 3903
Sue Stroud, BCGEU
Susan Kasurak, OSSTF District 12
Khaled Mouammar, President of the Canadian Arab Federation
Susan Hudson, OSSTF District 12
Colleen Bell, University College Union, Birkbeck, University of London
Brian Burch, LIUNA member
Ilona Molnar, CUPE 3903
Staz Mandziuk, Toronto
David Rankine, active responsible and free citizen
Pance Stojkovski, Toronto Workers' Assembly
Toby Moorsom, PSAC Local 901, Queen’s University
Hans-Peter Kohnke, Canadian union of postal workers, Toronto local
Murray Bush, CEP 2040
Jordy Cummings, Worker's Assembly, CUPE Local 3903
Asgar Hanarah, CUPE 3798
Evelyn Mitchell, CUPE 3798
Geoff Martin, member, Mount Allison Faculty Association (National Union of CAUT)
Angela Mooney, CUPE 1281
Elizabeth Pickett, Retired Professor of Law – Carleton University
Gail Drever, USW
Joanne Wadden, former CUPE member
Bruce Becker
Alex Latta, WILUFA
Michelle Dubiel, CAW and CAW Local 707 Discussion Leader
Trish Salah, Concordia University Part-Time Faculty Association
Vanessa Lehan-Streisel, CUPE Local 3903
Jasmine Rault, Assistant Professor – Women’s Studies, McMaster University
Graham Engel, Student and member of CSSDP
Helen Kennedy, President of the CUPE Toronto District Council and a member of CUPE Local 79
Murray Bush, CEP Local 2040
Patricia E. Perkins, York University Faculty Association
Brian Burch
For follow up or to contact the organizers of this letter please email clcopenletterg20@gmail.com
_____
[CLC President Ken Georgetti's response]
From: Ken Georgetti <kgeorgetti@clc-ctc.ca>
Date: Mon, Jul 5, 2010 at 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: Open Letter regarding the G20
To: CLC G20 Open Letter <clcopenletterg20@gmail.com>
I presume that you, whoever you are, are the author of this piece of fiction that some activists, retirees, and other parties have signed. As a courtesy to those who signed on to your misleading and slanted "open letter" I will set the record straight for them. I would hope you would have the courtesy to share it with them.
First, I report to a board made up of unions affiliated to the Canadian Labour Congress. You should note that none of them signed your letter.
Second, if any members of a CLC-affilated union feel "disturbed and concerned" with statements that I or the Congress make, they should take up their concerns with the heads of their respective unions.
Third, let's get the facts and chronology corrected. Weeks before the G8 and G20 happened, the Canadian Labour Congress was making public statements, speaking at Union and public forums, and appearing in the media about the unprecedented police presence and the chilling effect it would have on the public's right to express themselves at these events. We went further and joined with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and went to court where we challenged the police use of sonic cannons at the G20. We were successful in having their use limited.
We expended the lion's share of staff and financial resources for the huge civil,peaceful protest on Saturday involving an estimated crowd of 40,000 people. Most all of them were there to demand the world's leaders focus on the issues of jobs, maternal health, peace, the environment, the list goes on. Unfortunately, all of that attention was stolen by a small group of thugs who instead wanted to destroy street cars and public property and vandalise and steal from small store owners on Queen and Young Streets. We issued our statement, you refer to, at 5:00 PM that day. The CLC does not and will not condone that kind of behaviour or tactics perpetrated by a few and must disassociate itself from it when it appears to be part of our action. People and groups who loot and steal and vandalise are not those whom we want as allies. Many other labour organizations and national unions issued similar statements,and I note you did not send your open letter to them.
For the record, as soon as the Civil Liberties Association was satisfied that a public inquiry was necessary, they informed us and we were the first labour organization to publically support the call.
I find your letter slanted and predicated on misleading and incorrect information, and I hope my correction of the facts gives you and the signatories some comfort to know that the CLC is always in the lead on the important issues.Fallout 4 is finally out, and gamers everywhere are putting the rest of their lives on hold while they race through its sprawling campaign, exploring the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Bethesda's Boston and searching for loot.
So far, the reviews have been pretty much universally stellar, with only a few detractors. Outside of a handful of critics giving the game a 6/10, the most negative commentary you can read on the game comes in the form of Metacritic's user reviews, where the game is currently scoring a measly 4.9/10.
It's always a bit strange to see such huge disparities between the positive and negative reviews and reactions. Interestingly, however, many of the positive and negative reviews seem to agree on many points. The game has some very big problems. Where they ultimately differ is that for some gamers and critics, these problems don't detract much from the overall experience. For others, issues ranging from technical to intentional game design choices have left a sour taste in many gamers' mouths.
Here are the five biggest problems with Fallout 4.
1. There's really no excuse for these graphics.
But that wouldn't be the truth. Graphics do matter, especially on PC. When The Witcher 3 came out looking, in my humblest of opinions, worse than The Witcher 2, that mattered to me. I felt less immersed in the world than before. I felt less inspired. And the same is true here in Bethesda's latest. We're well into the current console generation, and there's already been a bunch of really incredible looking games, from Batman: Arkham Knight to the latest Tomb Raider. There's just no reason Fallout 4 should look as low-rent as this.I'm not a graphics purist. With Fallout 4, I remained pretty hopeful that the game would look better than early screenshots indicated. Even still, I'm almost inclined to agree with my colleague Jason Evangelho when he writes that the game's graphics "don't matter."
When it comes to lip-syncing and animations, it's even worse. The dated character models, antiquated engine---the entire presentation is just mediocre at best. And that's a huge shame in my book, because a big game like this that's bound to make buckets and buckets of cash really ought to look prettier.
As a PC gamer in particular I've got an ongoing bone to pick with Bethesda and its graphics. Modders regularly prove just how fantastic games like Skyrim can look with just a little love and tender care. Why can't Bethesda get it right out of the gates?
2. Bugs, and not the radioactive kind.
It's interesting to see so many really glowing reviews even while critic after critic points out that Fallout 4 is a buggy mess at launch. I swear, we've all been trained to just accept buggy messes at launch and wait obediently for a patch. Of course, while Fallout 4 may be a buggy mess, plenty of other games come out nicely polished. I don't really understand why Bethesda gets a pass here.
Giant Bomb's Jeff Gerstman points out that "the glitchy technical issues appear across the board in every version of the game."
He notes that the game is "occasionally kind of broken, from performance issues specific to the console versions to scripting glitches that might just prevent you from progressing to the same sort of "physics gone wild" moments that make for killer animated gifs and such."
Once again, there's really no excuse for this kind of stuff. Buggy, laggy with an unreliable framerate and potentially game-breaking crashes. It's not the state a game (or any other product) should be released in, and it's not okay to simply shrug it off as "Oh well, it's a Bethesda game..."
AI also leaves much to be desired, with companions routinely getting in the way or causing various other issues for the player.
3. Conversations are lousy.
Two big things are wrong with conversations in Fallout 4. First off, they're basically a Charisma-based random numbers game. As plenty of RPG fans will tell you, it's no fun to play RNG when you're supposed to be role-playing. Second, you don't know what your dialogue choices will necessarily end up saying since the choices you're given don't precisely mirror your character's actual utterance. This transforms conversations and their outcomes into a game of guesswork rather than playing a role and making tough choices.
"In a game so focused on player choice, it often relies too much on blind luck as to how situations play out," writes our own Paul Tassi in his review of the game. "I didn’t like it in Mass Effect when these options were tied into my paragon/renegade level, and I don’t like it here where I have to win five coin flips in a row to trigger a love story or talk my way through a hostage crisis."
It's a shame, too, because the voice-acting is pretty good---a huge step up from Skyrim, at least.
In a sense, this ties into the larger problem with Fallout 4---that as an RPG it often simply falls flat.
4. Combat needs to be better, even if this isn't a traditional shooter.
Yes, gunplay is better than it was in Fallout 3, but the entire system---this time a slowed-down VATS mode rather than pause-and-play---leaves a great deal to be desired.
I'm all for turn-based combat, and I think you could make a compelling turn-based combat game out of the Fallout universe, with actual turns and squares to move across and a top-down camera and the rest. That's the origin of the franchise, in any case.
But Fallout 4 isn't that sort of game, and VATS feels more like a crutch than smart game design. This isn't a game that needs to be all about combat all the time, but when it is about combat the shooting mechanics should be a lot more fun and a lot more polished.
5. In the end, it's more of the same.
Even with all the changes---some for the better, some for the worse---Fallout 4 feels far too much like its predecessor. Maybe it's the bugs or the graphics. Or maybe it's the sense that open-world games have moved beyond what Fallout 4 is offering, and that Bethesda desperately needs to catch up rather than just tread water.
The new base-building mechanic isn't nearly as fun or rewarding as it should be, either, so one of the game's most unique additions---its one great example of innovation---falls flat.
Time's review of the game notes that it feels more like Season Two of Fallout 3 than a new game in and of itself---a game fueled less by innovative game design and storytelling and more by nostalgia.
Nostalgia isn't necessarily a bad thing, of course, and nor is innovation necessarily good, but I |
not Muslims, is going extremely smoothly. “It really is a massive success story in terms of implementation on every single level,” explained a senior administration official. And yet news has depicted scenes of chaos, confusion, and inhumane treatment of innocent people. The administration has thus been forced to supply a series of defenses:
1. President Obama did the same thing. “My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months,” insists Trump. Multiple fact-checkers have examined this claim and found it wanting. In response to intelligence linking two refugees from Iraq to a bomb attack on American forces there, the Obama administration slowed, but did not stop, its refugee-admission process in order to tighten its screening. A tightening of vetting procedures in response to specific intelligence about a single country is not the same thing as a sweeping halt in the absence of a reported breach.
2. Only 109 people were detained. It’s not clear where Trump got this figure, but the Department of Homeland Security announced that in the first 23 hours alone, 375 people were detained.
3. There were some big problems, but it was caused by Delta’s computer system.
Only 109 people out of 325,000 were detained and held for questioning. Big problems at airports were caused by Delta computer outage,..... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2017
In fact, problems began Friday night, and Delta’s system went down Sunday night, and was fixed after a few hours.
4. The premier president loves surprises. Possibly the most interesting defense is that the administration was unable to use the normal interagency review process because it would have tipped off the terrorists. “What we couldn’t do was telegraph our position ahead of time to ensure that people flooded in before that happened, before it went into place,” said White House spokesman Sean Spicer. “If we had telegraphed that ahead of time, then that would have been a massive security problem.” President Trump, as usual, put the argument in pithier terms:
If the ban were announced with a one week notice, the "bad" would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad "dudes" out there! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2017
This defense suffers from two enormous flaws. First, it assumes that allowing agencies tasked with security to have input on a policy would be tantamount to publicizing the policy. The president is supposed to be able to discuss plans in confidence without assuming they will be leaked immediately. That is how the federal government works. If the only way to announce a foreign-policy move was to keep new policies a closely guarded secret within the administration, then this kind of amateurism would be standard. There is a long record of American presidents announcing surprise foreign policy decisions that were planned in advance by officials other than a speechwriter in his early 30s and a Breitbart lunatic.
The second problem with this defense is that it assumes terrorists were sitting around the world, planning to enter the United States to launch an attack, and able to enter at any time, but lacking any special urgency. (Perhaps they were waiting for the fares to drop.) An announcement of one week’s notice would have given them just the motivation they needed to hop on a plane.
This bears no relation to reality. People from the countries banned by Trump already face an extensive, 20-step vetting process that can take up to two years. None of them could have legally made it through within a week, or anything close.
And once you realize this, it becomes clear that Trump’s policy was not only bungled in its implementation but conceptually flawed. Trump originally proposed a “Muslim ban.” But he had to back away from this policy given that it is both unconstitutional and transparently unenforceable (how do you prevent a terrorist from lying about his religion?). This forced Trump to relabel his policy “extreme vetting.” But the reality is that vetting is already extreme. Trump has not identified any weak points in the vetting procedure. Indeed, there is no connection whatsoever between his policy and any terror incidents in the United States. Radicalized domestic American terrorists have all come from countries not on Trump’s list. His policy grows out of a need to take some kind of action.
In a way, it makes perfect sense that he would skip the normal interagency review — input from security experts would only reveal that Trump’s plan has no relationship to any security objective. The purpose of this policy is to retroactively justify Trump’s campaign fearmongering.Unlike most of the NBA, DeMarcus Cousins said he wasn’t surprised to see Hassan Whiteside make his rise from the D-League to earning himself a $98 million contract this past summer with the Miami Heat.
“At one point I thought Hassan was a better player than me,” said Cousins, who was Sacramento’s first round pick in 2010, the same season the Kings drafted Whiteside with its second round pick, 33rd overall.
“I mean, I remember days where it would just be me and him working out 1-on-1 and he would kill me. His talent was always there. Everything he’s doing now, I thought he was capable of doing then. I’m happy for him, happy for the situation he’s in now. He’s proved a lot of people wrong.”
Tuesday night’s main attraction at AmericanAirlines Arena was supposed be the head-to-head battle between Cousins and Whiteside. Instead, it turned out to be a night Whiteside couldn’t stay on the court because of foul trouble and Miami’s guards provided a huge lift, leading the Heat to a 108-96 overtime victory.
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SHARE COPY LINK Dragic had 25 points, eight rebounds and eight assists in 41 minutes to lead the Heat to a 108-96 overtime victory over the Kings. Nov. 1, 2016.
Goran Dragic led the charge with 25 points, eight rebounds and eight assists in 41 minutes. Dragic hit a three-pointer to score the first points of overtime for Miami and then another to score the last points of overtime.
Dion Waiters, who entered Tuesday’s game shooting only 31.8 percent from the field and with as many turnovers (10) as he had assists, had 20 points, four rebounds and four assists in a team-leading 43 minutes. He also hit the game-tying shot, a 20-foot step-back jumper with 34.5 seconds left in regulation to send the game to overtime.
And Tyler Johnson scored seven of the Heat’s 17 points in overtime, hitting a runner with 2:55 left and then a three on the Heat’s next possession to stretch what was a two-point lead to seven. Then, Johnson, who finished with 22 points in 32 minutes off the bench, drew a flagrant foul on Arron Afflalo, getting smacked in the jaw before going to the other end of the court to hit the game-clinching free throws.
All of it added up to an important for the Heat, who were still smarting over how they blew a 19-point second half lead to Charlotte on Friday and then missing out on opportunity to beat the unbeaten San Antonio Spurs, who were playing on the second night of a back-to-back on Sunday.
SHARE COPY LINK Johnson came off the bench and scored 22 points including seven in overtime to lead the Heat to the 108-96 win over Sacramento on Tues., Nov. 1, 2016.
“I think it was good for us to go through another emotional game in the second half,” said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who celebrated his 46th birthday with his 401st career victory. “Emotions are running high — a lot of frustration, a lot of elation, a lot of everything in between. But it was good to see us just find a way to grind it through all that.
“For one night, that’s a positive step forward from the last two games, to be able to find a way to finish it out and find some stability going down the stretch.”
Playing on the second night of a back-to-back, the Kings (2-3) got 30 points from Cousins, 30 from Rudy Gay and another 18 from Afflalo, but shot 38.2 percent and couldn’t put the Heat (2-2) away after overcoming a 12-point second half deficit.
“Our turnovers were devastating for us and they shot better than we did,” Kings coach Dave Joerger said. “At the end, it kind of came down to that.”
The Heat made seven of its first 12 three-point shots and led 54-50 at the half thanks in large part to its starting backcourt, which combined for 29 points and nine assists.
SHARE COPY LINK Haslem saw his first action of the season, grabbing four rebounds in 16 minutes as he helped fill-in with Hassan Whiteside in foul trouble on Tues., Nov. 1, 2016.
But in the second half, after the Heat stretched its lead to 12 on a Whiteside dunk, a familiar problem arose when he picked up his fourth foul with 8:06 to play in the third quarter. Much like Friday’s loss to the Hornets, Miami’s lead quickly began to dissipate.
Whiteside, who matched a career-high with 27 points in Sunday’s loss to the Spurs, ended the night with 14 points, 11 rebounds and two blocks in 28 minutes.
Veteran Udonis Haslem saw his first action of the season, filling in admirably for Whiteside with four rebounds in 16 minutes. Haslem got physical with Cousins in the paint and frustrated him.
Cousins, a two-time All-Star and gold medal winner this past summer with Team USA in Brazil, fouled out with 30.6 seconds left in regulation after he drove toward the basket against Whiteside and was called for a controversial charge. Cousins picked up all six of his fouls in the fourth quarter.
“He had my arm,” said Whiteside, who played grief-stricken following the death of his uncle Monday night. “That’s why I really couldn’t block a lot of his shots. He had my elbow. He was holding it. I don’t really know. He did it a couple times. I’m like Dude, I can’t move while somebody is holding your arm running past you. They finally called it.”
Once Cousins was out, the Heat took over and dominated down the stretch.
“Tyler really stepped up and made some big shots and made a couple big plays where it was something out of nothing,” Spoelstra said. “A lot of times that’s what you need going down the stretch the defense steps up and you just have to make plays. He found a couple open gaps and stepped up into a big three to really help us down the stretch.”Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Police discovered a "mini" shabu (crystal methamphetamine) laboratory in a house along Tamarind Drive, Ayala Alabang Village in Muntinlupa City during a buy-bust operation past 1 a.m. Wednesday (May 4).
Officers of the National Capital Region (NCR) Police - Regional Anti-Illegal Drugs unit also managed to confiscate 55 kilos of illegal drugs worth approximately P275 million in street value.
"Meron buy-bust [operation] tayo ginawa sa harap ng bahay… after that nakita natin yung mini shabu laboratory," said NCR Police Regional Director Joel Pagdilao.
[Translation: "We conducted a buy-bust [operation] in front of the house… after that we saw the mini shabu laboratory."]
Of the 55 kilos of illegal drugs recovered, 25 kilos were from the police operative's purchase while 30 kilos were made in the mini shabu laboratory.
Authorities also found chemicals used to make shabu. "More or less, nakagawa to ng two to five kilos [ng shabu] yung isang freezer dun sa drier, o maaring five to 10 kilos a day," Pagdilao explained.
[Translation: "More or less, one freezer in the drier can make two to five kilos [of shabu], or about five to 10 kilos a day."]
Three Taiwanese nationals were arrested: 19 year-old Pong Jun, 27 year-old Chen Hu Min, and 24 year-old Eugene Chong.
Pagdilao said the mini shabu laboratory is possibly one of the biggest sources of illegal drugs spreading in Metro Manila.
He advised homeowner officials in exclusive villages to be vigilant, as there could be similar shabu laboratories operating in their respective areas.Facebook has lost the right to offer its free mobile internet service in India after the country’s telecoms regulator ruled in favour of net neutrality, marking the end of an intense and very public 11-month national debate.
The new regulations published by India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) ban differential pricing for data services, and make it easier for smaller firms to compete with established companies including Facebook.
“This is great news,” said Kiran Jonnalagadda, a member of the Save The Internet campaign in favour of net neutrality. “It is what this country needed and it took a lot of effort pushing for it. It took a lot moral fibre for TRAI to stand up to the telcos.”
How people power took on big business in the fight for net neutrality in India Read more
India’s net neutrality movement has campaigned hard to stop Facebook controlling free access to a selected number of web services through its “Free Basics” service. TRAI has said that operators cannot “charge discriminatory tariffs on the basis of content”, or sign contracts with anyone that result in such discriminatory data tariffs with immediate effect, and will impose fines of 50,000 rupees a day ($735) if the regulations are broken.
While it acknowledged some “positive effects” of differential pricing, TRAI said that “differential tariffs arguably disadvantage small content providers who may not be able to participate in such schemes.
“This may thus, create entry barriers and non-level playing field for these players, stifling innovation. In addition, TSPs may start promoting their own web sites/apps/services platforms by giving lower rates for accessing them.”
Renata Avila, programme manager for the Web We Want campaign at the World Wide Web Foundation said the decision by India - the world’s second largest internet population - followed a precedent set in the US and Chile which have adopted similar principles.
“The message is clear: We can’t create a two-tier internet – one for the haves, and one for the have-nots. We must connect everyone to the full potential of the open web. We call on companies and the government of India to work with citizens and civil society to explore new approaches to connect everyone as active users, whether through free data allowances, public access schemes or other innovative approaches.”
Facebook said in a statement: “Our goal with Free Basics is to bring more people online with an open, non-exclusive and free platform. While disappointed with the outcome, we will continue our efforts to eliminate barriers and give the unconnected an easier path to the internet and the opportunities it brings.”
Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India, also said the industry was disappointed with the ruling. “COAI had approached the regulator with the reasons to allow price differentiation as the move would have taken us closer to connecting the one billion unconnected citizens of India. By opting to turn away from this opportunity, TRAI has ignored all the benefits of price differentiation... including improving economic efficiency, increase in broadband penetration, reduction in customer costs and provision of essential services.”
Victory for Save the Internet
TRAI’s verdict is the culmination of an 11-month-long process that began in March 2015 with a 118-page, jargon-filled “consultation paper”. It recommended that telecom operators be allowed to charge extra for using WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and other third-party internet-based apps and services.
TRAI asked the public to respond to 20 questions from the public, giving rise to a spirited, pro-net-neutrality campaign called Save The Internet, supported by lawyers, technologists, journalists and policy experts. They created a list of responses that users could copy, paste and email in just three clicks. The movement was boosted by the popular standup comedy group All India Bakchod (AIB), who made John Oliver-style 13-minute YouTube videos explaining the adverse effects of differential pricing and zero-rating plans on the Indian internet.
By 24 April, the last date on which people could send in responses, 1.1 million Indians had emailed TRAI, urging it to stop telecom companies from indulging in differential pricing.
In August 2015, India’s Department of Telecom (DOT) moved the discussion to MyGov.in, a website designed to improve communications between citizens and India’s Union government. Campaigners suspected the move was designed to discourage people from participating in the debate because the site made it harder to leave comments. AIB consequently put out another video, urging people to post comments on the new consultation site.
By December, Facebook had stepped up its public relations and lobbying in India, changing the project’s name from Internet.org to Free Basics, and taking full-page color advertisements in India’s newspapers that talked about “digital equality” and connecting people from rural areas.
The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, met the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in Menlo Park in September 2015, and a month later Zuckerberg flew to India to do his own town hall meeting in New Delhi.
Facebook’s argument was that it supported net neutrality because anybody could use Free Basics. Yet the company reserved the right to reject partners and disallowed voice-over-internet-protocol (VOIP) calls, high-resolution videos and photos that interfered with telco services – in direct contradiction to TRAI’s recommendation that people in rural areas should have access to more video content. It also tweaked the notifications tab on users’ homepages to notify them about friends who, apparently, supported free basics – which, as it turned out, wasn’t entirely true.
Meanwhile, TRAI asked Reliance Communications, a major telecoms operator, to put its Free Basics partnership with Facebook on hold until the ruling by the regulatory body. By 20 December, the regulator had received 600,000 comments.
TRAI rebuked Facebook in January, complaining that the company hadn’t communicated the authority’s message to its users. In a letter to Ankhi Das, Facebook’s public policy director in India, TRAI said that the company “remained silent” on the specific questions of whether or not telcos should be allowed to indulge in differential pricing, alternative revenue models and measures to ensure transparency if differential pricing were to be adopted.
In response, Facebook sent what TRAI described as a “templated response” which didn’t address the questions. The twin purposes of public consultations were to get “valuable inputs from all stakeholders” and to “foster a transparent regulatory environment”, said TRAI. “However, your urging has the flavor of reducing this meaningful consultation exercise designed to produce informed decisions in a transparent manner into a crudely majoritarian and orchestrated opinion poll.”
TRAI also expressed its concern over Facebook’s “self-appointed spokesmanship” on behalf of its users, who had not authorised the company to do so.
Not the last word
On 21 January, the regulator held a final open meeting (listen to the audio here) in New Delhi where it invited people to submit their views on zero-rating plans and differential pricing ahead of the ruling.
During the event, major telecom firms including Airtel, Reliance Communications and Idea Cellular maintained that differential pricing of telecom services is necessary to fuel innovation. Star India claimed that telcos are using this as an opportunity to “abandon” their traditional roles as provider of basic services, and playing “intermediary” between consumers and content creators. They will then “extract maximum valuation with utter disregard of not only the content industry, but also consumers, civil society and lakhs of millions of entrepreneurs in this particular space”.
TRAI’s 8 February ruling won’t be the last word on the net-neutrality debate in India. Jonnalagadda said that he expects Facebook and telecom operators to challenge the ruling in a higher court of law or before the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT).33 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
Republicans have had a good run tormenting Americans who are not wealthy by actively seeking new and improved means of increasing the number of Americans living in poverty. It is irrelevant whether it is deliberately killing decent paying jobs, slashing anti-poverty programs, or passing legislation to eliminate what few pathetic worker protection programs still exist, Republicans are never at a loss for finding ways to increase the number of Americans in poverty, especially children. Where any decent human being would do everything in their power to protect children from living in dire poverty, Republicans appear to specifically target America’s young who had the misfortune of leaving their mother’s womb, breathing air, and become a living being.
It seems that every year there is another report by an international human rights organization ranking the richest nation on Earth, America, as an exceptional nation with an inordinately high percentage of children living in poverty. It is that time of year again and according to a report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in 2014 “1 in 3 children in the U.S. lives in poverty as measured by living in a household whose income is below 60% of the national median income.” That works out to annual earnings below $26,4000 for a family of four; what any humane person in America would consider as poverty.
One of the factors contributing to the number of children in poverty is, besides slave wages, the persistent social safety net cuts at the hands of Republican savages. Republicans desperately want to completely abolish safety net programs such as food stamps, TANF (welfare), and any program created to combat poverty. They often refer back to their featured legislation in the “Contract With America” (1996), the hideous welfare reform act as a good jumping off point to fight poverty. They regularly tout its raging success at helping Americans claw their way out of poverty and promise that more “reform” (cuts) will end poverty in America. Of course, they would want to “reform” welfare in a big way again because since the brutal TANF program replaced the AFDC, the number of Americans living on $2 a day, or less in most cases, has more than doubled. Subsequently, that so-called “success” has contributed greatly to the number of Americans, including their children, who live in what every organization on Earth considers “extreme poverty.”
The Republican “special plan” to combat poverty as promoted by Ayn Rand and Koch devotee Paul Ryan is slashing more anti-poverty programs to death. Apparently, even though only about one-quarter of families living in poverty receive TANF benefits, that is still far too many for Republicans who refuse to create decent-paying jobs or raise the minimum wage to a level families could survive on. Conservatives believe that safety net funding belongs to the rich in the form of tax cuts and they bitterly resent the fact that families, and their children, living in poverty receive assistance for basic sustenance and shelter.
Republicans now claim that eliminating assistance entirely is necessary to teach lazy poor people the value and culture of work, but according to the Economic Policy Institute, the great majority of Americans living in poverty and receiving assistance do work; at poverty wage jobs Republicans still think are too generous. So generous, in fact, that they passed legislation eliminating overtime pay and pant to eliminate the minimum wage; two measures they and their Koch masters claim will instantly end income inequality, create millions of jobs and completely eliminate poverty in America. However, the statistics prove that keeping wages at poverty levels and cutting safety net funding is, and has been, sending more children into dire poverty with no end in sight.
Even though the economy is growing for the extremely wealthy, Wall Street, and corporations, according to the 2013 annual Kids Count Data Report that ranks states based on the well-being of their children, there were 3 million more children living in extreme poverty in 2013 than in 2008. In fact, in a report from two years ago, 8.3 million children in America were adversely affected by the economic crash; particularly from the financial industry’s deregulation that drove the foreclosure crisis since the Great Recession. Those figures, as horrible as they are, do not account for the total number of children from families that struggle day-to-day just to make ends meet. The National Center for Children in Poverty reported in January that 44 percent of children in the U.S. — about 31.8 million children — come from low-income poverty-level families. Those numbers of American children in the richest nation on Earth who live in poverty represent a 3 percent increase since the Recession, and all the while the economy was recovering and Americans were going back to work for poverty wages, all the wealth went directly to the rich. It is true job creation has been on a record-setting run over 5 years, but wages have remained stagnant while living expenses increased and safety nets were slashed.
It is interesting that while Republicans are attacking minority groups because their skin is not white, reporting from The Associated Press and Al-Jazeera show that poverty rates have nearly doubled among minority groups since the Republican recession. It should surprise no American that the hardship to children is most severe in the South and Southwest where the overwhelming majority of states are under Republican governors and legislatures. It is also noteworthy that those Republicans have worked tirelessly to increase, or at least maintain, the inordinately high poverty rates by passing right to work laws, refusing to raise the minimum wage, and cutting social programs created specifically to combat poverty; particularly among children.
Most Americans who are not barbaric teabaggers and Republicans, as well as evangelical fanatics, comprehend that none of the people, particularly the working class and children, had any part whatsoever in causing the Republican Great Recession. But they have been most seriously affected while the rich have increased their wealth substantially. The sad truth is that what has been occurring during the Obama Recovery, with all the wealth flowing to the top is exactly what Republicans have fought tooth and nail to keep in place.
Throughout this recovery, President Obama has promoted an agenda to raise the ever-increasing number of Americans suffering Republican economics out of poverty, and Republicans have opposed every single measure. There is a lot of attention, and praise, being heaped on Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for his ‘populist’ appeal at calling for a reversal to the flow of money straight to the rich, and it is praiseworthy. However, it is not new and it is not anything President Obama has not called for throughout his tenure in the Oval Office. But it is encouraging that finally there is beginning to be real national exposure of the need for a monumental shift in how the American economy should work for the entire population and not just the uber-rich. Even though more Americans are aware that there are Democrats, and one popular socialist in name only, who are proposing real solutions to benefit all the people, there is precious little reporting that in the richest nation on the planet, about a third of children live below the poverty line and a solid 23.4 percent of that 33 percent live in dire extreme poverty.
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:New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas has decided to change how his agency reviews the red-light tickets issued to New Orleans drivers after WDSU-TV began making inquiries into how cops are "cashing in on the process."
The station uncovered records that show a Kenner-based company partially run by Police Commander Edwin Hosli has been paid about $10,000 every two weeks to review the tickets. The WDSU story says that many other high-ranking cops work at Hosli's firm, but it did not name them.
The NOPD began reviewing the tickets late last year after the courts ruled that tickets are not valid unless they're reviewed by a law enforcement officer. Hosli's company was formed around that time, records show.
"We can have officers NOT doing their work in the field they do everyday in our neighborhoods and move them to do the tickets, or we can find another alternative, and that's what our predecessors did and that's what we inherited," Serpas said. "It's still a value judgment we have to make."
The television station later printed a statement by Serpas saying that he will change the system for reviewing the tickets, requireing NOPD's motorcycle officers and supervisors to take on the task.60 SHARES Facebook Twitter Linkedin Reddit
The virtual pet craze that started with the Tamagotchi is entering a new era with virtual reality, and leading the charge is a new project that aims to give you very own virtual cat, it’s called Konrad the Kitten and it uses SteamVR’s lighthouse technology to track a plush toy for a fairly unique, if somewhat amusing, VR experience.
Most Vive games don’t ask you to strap your controller to a stuffed animal, but this is part of what makes Konrad the Kitten so unique. Konrad the Kitten is a pet simulator for the HTC Vive that attaches a virtual model of an adorable kitten on your controllerm mapping it’s position to the SteamVR controller. To interact with the kitten, you move it around a handful of virtual environments and set it down next to interactive objects like scratching posts and balls of yarn.
See Also: VR Pet Tracking with the HTC Vive and Bandit the Dog
The title uses one Vive controller and because that controller is attached to the real-world plush toy, there isn’t anything that tracks your hands. This wasn’t as problematic as I thought it would be because, thanks to Proprioception (the sense of innate awareness the mind has of your arms, legs and hands etc.), the body does a pretty good job of tracking hand positions by itself. As an added bonus this means your hands and fingers are completely free to hold your cat stand-in just like a real one. While this unusual setup works for what the game is trying to achieve, it’s still one more reason for Valve to make good on its promise to open up its Lighthouse tracking system for third-parties.
Despite the comedy inherent in this type of project (a plush toy with a big SteamVR controller strapped to its back is just funny), it is yet another interesting divergent arena for VR. That said, I can’t help feel it’s augmented reality where virtual pets will come into their own. Imagine donning your Magic Leap visor and being greeted warmly by your collection of exotic pets, mapped convincingly to your real world environment – that would be quite something.
Konrad the Kitten popped up on Steam Greenlight in May, and is still far from a finished product, but developer at KK-Soft, Konrad Kunze, hopes to have it available on Steam Early Access in a couple of months.GPU text rendering with vector textures
This post presents a new method for high quality text rendering using the GPU. Unlike existing methods it provides antialiased pixel accurate results at all scales with no runtime CPU cost.
Click here to see the WebGL demo
Font atlases
The standard way of rendering text with the GPU is to use a font atlas. Each glyph is rendered on the CPU and packed into a texture. Here’s an example from freetype-gl:
Packed font atlas. Source: freetype-gl.
The drawback with atlases is that you can’t store every glyph at every possible size or you’ll run out of memory. As you zoom in the glyphs will start to get blurry due to interpolation.
Signed distance fields
One solution to this is to store the glyphs as a signed distance field. This became popular after a 2007 paper by Chris Green of Valve Software. Using this technique you can get fonts with crisp edges no matter how far you zoom in. The drawback is that sharp corners become rounded. To prevent this you’ll need to keep storing higher resolution signed distance fields for each glyph, the same problem we had before.
Artifacts from low resolution signed distance field. Source: Wolfire Games Blog.
Vector textures
The previous two techniques were based on taking the original glyph description, which is a list of bezier curves, and using the CPU to produce an image of it that can be consumed by the GPU. What if we let the GPU render from the original vector data?
32 bezier curves forming the letter H.
GPUs like to calculate lots of pixels in parallel and we want to reduce the amount of work required for each pixel. We can chop up each glyph into a grid and in each cell store just the bezier curves that intersect it. If we do that for all the glyphs used in a sample pdf we get an atlas that looks like this:
Vector atlas for 377 glyphs.
Despite looking like a download error, this image is an atlas where the top part has a bunch of tiny grids, one for each glyph. To avoid repetition, each grid cell stores just the indices of the bezier curves that intersect it. Bezier curves are described by three control points each: a start point, an end point and an off-curve point. The bottom half of the image stores the control points for all beziers in all glyphs. All we need to do now is write a shader that reads the bezier curve control points from the atlas and determines what color the pixel should be.
A bezier curve shader
Our shader will run for every pixel we need to output. Its goal is to figure out what fraction of the pixel is covered by the glyph and assign this to the pixel alpha value. If the glyph only partially covers the pixel we will output an alpha value somewhere between 0 and 1 — this is what gives us smooth antialiasing.
We can treat each pixel as a circular window over some part of the glyph. We want to calculate the area of the part of the circle that is covered by the glyph.
The desired result at 16 by 16 pixels.
Treating the pixel window as a circle, our task is to compute the area of the shape formed by the circle boundary and any bezier curves passing through it. It’s possible to compute this exactly using Green’s theorem, but we’d need to clip our curves to the window and make sure we have a closed loop. It all gets a bit tricky to implement in a shader, especially if we want to use an arbitrary window function for better quality. However if we reduce the problem to one dimension it becomes a lot more tractable.
Two curves passing through a pixel window. The area of the shaded region can be approximated by looking at its intersections with a ray passing from left to right. Source: MS Paint.
The idea is to take a ray passing from left to right. We can find all the intersections of this ray with all the bezier curves. Each time the ray enters the glyph we add the distance between the intersection and the right side of the window. Each time the ray exits the glyph we subtract the distance to the right side of the window. This gives us the total length of the line that is inside the glyph, and will work for any number of intersections or bezier curves.
More samples for more accuracy
The result may be inaccurate if our horizontal ray intersects the bezier curves at a glancing angle. We can compensate for this by sampling several angles and averaging the results. This gives a robust approximation of the 2D integral.
Underestimation of covered area due to a curve intersecting the horizontal ray at a glancing angle. The shaded area is close to half the pixel but the estimate from this horizontal ray is much lower.
Increasing accuracy by sampling at several angles.
In practice only a few samples gives a high quality result. To see why supersampling helps we can make the pixel window very large:
Why supersampling is needed. Clockwise from top left: 2, 4, 8, 16 samples. The integration window here is larger than it should be to make the errors more visible. The error is less noticeable when the window is only one pixel — the demo uses four samples.
Demo
If you have a device that supports WebGL you can see a proof of concept demo here.
This technique is harder on the GPU than atlas textures but avoids the need to use the CPU to render at runtime when a required glyph size is missing. It can also deliver higher image quality: atlas textures have the drawback that when text is scaled, rotated or shifted by a subpixel amount there is no longer a 1:1 correspondence between screen pixels and atlas texels.
See here for some implementation notes on the demo.Actor/interpreter Wendy Taylor of King William, Va., holds hands with David Cantanese of Williamsburg, Va., during a performance commemorating the marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe on April 5 in Jamestown, Va. (Jay Westcott for The Washington Post)
The folks busy building the $925 million MGM National Harbor casino resort along the Potomac have largely kept quiet while some of their would-be rivals to the north have been howling about too much competition. The operators of MGM National Harbor may have less cause for concern, thanks to their location in the populous and prosperous Washington metropolitan area, and, more important, next door to casino-less Virginia. But they have been vocal about one thing: the efforts of a Virginia tribe to be the first in the state to win federal recognition.
First, some context: The Old Dominion is famously allergic to legalized commercial gambling, and, for the moment, the only entity that could open a slots parlor within its borders is a federally recognized Native American tribe with tribal land.
The Pamunkeys are tantalizingly close to fitting that bill, even though they have not shown the least bit of interest in opening a casino. The tribe of about 200 with a 1,200-acre reservation about 40 miles from historic Jamestown is more interested in protecting its fishing rights and has applied for federal recognition. The state of Virginia has recognized the tribe, and on Wednesday, while accepting an annual tribute of deer meat and handmade jewelry from Virginia tribes, Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) urged the feds follow suit. The Interior Department, which has said the tribe deserves recognition, is expected to issue a decision by the end of March.
But recently, some members of the Congressional Black Caucus asked the agency to hold off on that so the Justice Department can investigate the tribe for any discriminatory practices, the Associated Press reported Friday.
The request stems from a now-repealed tribal ban on intermarriage with African Americans that was an attempt by the tribe to work around Jim Crow laws, and to hold on to its Indian status and reservation.
It all started with Pocahontas, savior of Capt. John Smith and Disney icon. Since her 1614 marriage to farmer John Rolfe, many white Virginians have been proud to trace their heritage to her. And that, it turns out, is a problem, as Laurie Gwen Shapiro explained earlier this year in a Slate piece:
In 1924 an astonishing law was passed called the Racial Integrity Act that restricted who could marry based on race. Anyone with a hint of black ancestry was considered black and prohibited from marrying a white person. But according to a subsection of the law known as the Pocahontas Exception, since the oldest Virginia |
signatures than they thought would be necessary, but due to a higher than expected number of invalid signatures the Secretary of State’s office concluded the campaign came up just under 3,000 signature short. In accordance with state law the campaign was given an opportunity to collect more signatures to make up the short fall, and they successfully did so.
This is now the second state marijuana legalization initiative to qualify for the November ballot this year. In addition to Colorado, last month I-502, a marijuana legalization initiative in Washington State was certified as having sufficient signatures for it to qualify for the ballot. So 2012 could potentially be an historic year for the marijuana reform movement.Happy Draft Day! Over the last 24 hours, even more news has come out, turning the tides of this exciting draft. Some have fallen, some have risen. This is my final mock draft before the big day, so let’s get into it!
Pick 1 – Minnesota Twins
C – /u/TwinkiePower
There is a big chance that the Twins will not have the first pick come 7 o’clock tonight with some of the news that has been coming out. Despite this, Minnesota has recently expressed discontent with highly-sought pitcher /u/sardinka due to his European background. Their love affair with high-class memer and catcher /u/TwinkiePower seems unblocked now, and this will likely be their pick.
Pick 2 – Toronto Blue Jays
3B – /u/mongster03
Versatility is key. 3B is a treasured position due to its abundance of volatile pieces. It puts /u/mongster03 at the top of his class, and with rumors that he can pitch, it definitely raises him to a coveted position. Some have raised questions on his abilities to dish to the plate, though others have said he throws upwards of 90. If this is true, he is a sudden commodity in this pitcher-starved draft.
Pick 3 – Houston Astros
SS – /u/jp1704
/u/jp1704 continues to be active alongside his strong resume. The power shortstop has been on the radars of every GM looking to sign a good bat. Likely the best bat in the draft, /u/jp1704 is likely to go early, and the Astros may have a chance to take him with recent developments.
Pick 4 – Baltimore Orioles
P – /u/sardinka
/u/sardinka is the most coveted pitcher in this draft. This is fact. He, however, has been receiving doubts due to his timezone and his ability to pitch effectively given his sleep schedule. Nevertheless, he is an active user with unmistakable talent. He is likely to fall, but not far, and even though the Orioles have made buddy/buddy with /u/ClipDodgeCharge, this may be too big to pass up.
Pick 5 – Kansas City Royals
1B – /u/cvanvacter77
Despite what has happened with the Draft scene, /u/cvanvacter77 still makes too much sense for Kansas City to pass on. The power 1B is a hometown player that will likely play his heart out for the ballclub, making him an intriguing 1st-round player with superstar potential for the Royals.
Pick 6 – Detroit Tigers
P – /u/darthvader1521
Another pick that looks like it could, or should, stay is that of pitcher /u/darthvader1521. Seen as a high pick for pitcher, he has risen to activity and has the talent to be great. A hard throwing Strikeout pitcher, he fits their makeup and is the best power pitcher in the draft.
Pick 7 – Arizona Diamondbacks
P – /u/jaybedia
/u/jaybedia has climbed slowly onto peoples’ radars after once being considered a late-second round pick at best. The pitcher has increased his activity and could prove great. If /u/darthvader1521 is taken, he could be an easy substitute for Arizona, who is looking to pick an arm early in the race.
Pick 8 – New York Mets
C – /u/inocain
/u/inocain still seems like a good choice for the Mets, a respectable player both on and off the field. Widely seen as one of the best catchers in the draft, he could do wonders for them on the field. His Union work is lauded as well, and could be beloved by any fanbase that is lucky to get him.
Pick 9 – Pittsburgh Pirates
C – /u/GareDR333
The Pirates’ decision will likely shift if they are able to get the first overall pick, but for now, /u/GareDR333 has not left their sights. Seen as a better catcher than /u/inocain by some, he is likely to be picked by Pittsburgh if their deal with Minnesota falls through.
Pick 10 – Philadelphia Phillies
SS – /u/grahm03
The Phillies seem to covet the shortstop /u/grahm03, once seen as a pick worthy of the top of the first round. The power shortstop is a rare commodity on many radars, though the introduction of new players into the mix has not done well for his draft chances. Still, the Phillies could look to grab him, or perhaps take a gamble and leave him for their 15th pick?
Pick 11 – Atlanta Braves
2B – /u/kylemac22
/u/kylemac22 has seen a lot of eyes lately, especially with the rapid decline of players like fellow 2B /u/metssuck and 1B /u/HashCoinShitstorm. Seen as an active and valuable player, he was likely to go in the 1st round long before this if it weren’t for fellow 2B /u/AdmiralJones42.
Pick 12 – Washington Nationals
1B – /u/Toli820
With the fall of /u/HashcoinShitstorm, /u/Toli820 suddenly saw himself as the likely second best 1B in the draft. Being right handed, he is not likely to have any 1-ups on /u/cvanvacter77, but he could prove a good substitute for a team likely to pick /u/AdmiralJones42 with their subsequent 13th pick. /u/Toli820 could see a swap with the previously-mentioned shortstop /u/recoveringhipster, who hasn’t seen much good news on mocks as of late.
AdvertisementsBy Liam Fox
This week, I will be visiting Delhi and Mumbai on my first visit to India since being appointed as Britain’s Secretary of State for International Trade. I hope that my visit here so early into my new role will show how important I and Britain’s new government view our trade partnership, a partnership that lies at the very heart of the strategic relationship between our two nations. This relationship, built on centuries of shared history and common values, has never been more important than it is today.
India stands to be the third-biggest economy by 2030. It has over 500 million confident young people ready to take on the world and is the world’s largest democracy located at one of the most important geopolitical points on the globe. It is safe to say that India’s future will be all our futures.
Our trading relationship has strong foundations. But, more importantly, it has serious future potential. India is the third-largest investor in Britain and our largest manufacturing employer. The Tata-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) employs 35,000 people in Britain and is a living testament to the fact that we are a vibrant manufacturing nation that is not solely reliant on the prowess of London’s mighty financial services.
And the investment relationship works both ways. British firms currently employ nearly 7,00,000 people in India and, as the largest G20 investor, we contribute around 8 per cent of India’s foreign direct investment (FDI). The two-way nature of this FDI process allows us to see the full benefits of overseas investment.
That is why I am delighted that India is currently pushing through much-needed economic reforms to realise its potential. I welcome the government’s ambition to ensure greater collaboration between the Centre and the 29 states, as well as the unravelling of decades-old red tape that has long stifled foreign investment.
India fuelling car exports
A more open economy means a greater two-way flow of investment, both fuelling an increased capacity in the industrial base and opening the way to greater export potential. Britain is the third-biggest car exporter in Europe because of Indian investment. Our car industry benefits, and so do Indian investors. The great joy about an open trading relationship is that it can be genuinely win-win.
I want India to continue looking to London to finance its ambitious infrastructure plans. Even over the last few months, masala bonds have raised over £1 billion worth of investment. In technology, Britain is sharing its world-leading smart cities expertise to help fulfil the Indian government’s ambition to develop 100 smart cities by 2022. And from aerospace to defence, Britain has world-beating capabilities to contribute even more to India’s Make in India programme.
I arrive in India during an unprecedented time in British politics. On June 23, 2016, the British people made a brave and historic decision to take control of our own destiny and leave the European Union. As Prime Minister Theresa May has said, Brexit means Brexit. But I want to reassure you that I am confident and optimistic about the future. We will now be able to forge a trading future that is right for Britain without having to compromise our own ambitions and potential to satisfy 27 other diverse member states.
Britain has always been a confident and outward-looking nation, always refusing to be constrained by our size or island status and, in the era of globalisation, we need to be open to trading with any market that is functionally similar to our own even if it is not geographically proximate.
We have a system of law, including commercial law, which is admired across the whole world and underpins confidence in investments in Britain. We have a skilled workforce, low levels of industrial disruption, low regulation, low taxation, some of the best universities in the world, we speak English, and we are in the right time zone for global trading. All of this will ensure Britain continues to be an attractive place with which to trade and in which to invest.
For the first time, trade has taken its rightful place at the heart of government and, as the first secretary of state for the new department for international trade, my role is to ensure that it underpins all policymaking. We will help British businesses to take advantage of the growing demand for British products and services in markets like India. And with UK Export Finance, the government’s export credit agency, we will ensure no viable export to India fails because of lack of finance or insurance.
Bound by a bond
I want Britain and India to draw on our unique bonds and shared experience to ensure that we work together across all spheres and are able to grasp the opportunities and face the challenges of our increasingly globalised and interdependent world.
Our strong ties are embodied in the 1.5 million British Indians, whose heritage is India but whose home is Britain. It is fundamental that these are strengthened and deepened so that we can continue to grow and prosper together.
The writer is British Secretary of State for International TradeIt is expected to bring with it heavy rain and gale force winds, raising fears of flooding.
CAPE TOWN - Cape Town authorities say they are putting measures in place ahead of a strong cold front which is expected to lash the city from Tuesday evening.
It is expected to bring with it heavy rain and gale force winds, raising fears of flooding.
Snowfall can also be expected in surrounding regions.
Local Government and Environmental Affairs spokesperson James-Brent Styan says: “The department is very happy about the rain expected to fall over the next few days. However, we are concerned about the adverse weather conditions that go with that. We call on people to exercise caution and to avoid flooded areas.”
Watch: 7 June 2017: Heavy rain possible in Cape Metro, Cape Winelands, Overberg District of WC Wednesday into Thursday morning. — SA Weather Service (@SAWeatherServic) June 5, 2017
HIGH ALERT
The Western Cape Environmental Affairs Department says the air force has been placed on standby as a strong cold front builds up.
Styan says disaster management measures are in place.
“We are proactively activating the disaster management centre at 10pm. We have contacted the South African Air Force. They are on standby. Other emergency rescue units are all on high alert.”
DROUGHT
The Western Cape is in the grips of the worst drought in decades, with several regions being declared disaster areas.
Agri Western Cape's Carl Opperman says the situation for farmers is dire.
“Wheat farmers need water to start germination. It is very, very dry.”
Meanwhile, the City of Cape Town has implemented Level 4 water restrictions to save water.
Level 4 restrictions include the following:
• No irrigation/watering with municipal drinking water is allowed.
• Private swimming pools may not be topped up or filled with municipal drinking water, even if they have a cover.
• No washing of vehicles and boats with municipal water is allowed (commercial car washes may apply for an exemption, which will only be granted if wash water is recycled or waterless products are used).
• Water features may not use municipal drinking water.
• No hosing down of paved surfaces with municipal drinking water is allowed.
Use of portable play pools is prohibited. Residents have also been urged to keep their water consumption to under 100 litres per person per day.
(Edited by Shimoney Regter)culture The Model Railroad Club of Toronto Prepares to Leave Liberty Village
The logistics of moving a model railroad decades in the making.
SHOW CAPTION ✉ Share on: 235883 Miniature men hard at work at the warehouses. 20130204-Toronto Model Railroad Club-65- Photo_by_Corbin_Smith https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/20130204-Toronto-Model-Railroad-Club-65-Photo_by_Corbin_Smith-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/20130204-Toronto-Model-Railroad-Club-65-Photo_by_Corbin_Smith.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/20130204-Toronto-Model-Railroad-Club-65-Photo_by_Corbin_Smith.jpg 1024 683 https://torontoist.com/2013/02/the-model-railroad-club-of-toronto-prepares-to-leave-liberty-village/slide/20130204-toronto-model-railroad-club-65-photo_by_corbin_smith/ 20130204-toronto-model-railroad-club-65-photo_by_corbin_smith 0 0 235884 A group of workers laying down track for a new railway line. 20130204-Toronto Model Railroad Club-55- Photo_by_Corbin_Smith https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/20130204-Toronto-Model-Railroad-Club-55-Photo_by_Corbin_Smith-100x100.jpg 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and tunnels, the model railway emulates real life. 20130204-Toronto Model Railroad Club-26- Photo_by_Corbin_Smith https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/20130204-Toronto-Model-Railroad-Club-26-Photo_by_Corbin_Smith-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/20130204-Toronto-Model-Railroad-Club-26-Photo_by_Corbin_Smith.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/20130204-Toronto-Model-Railroad-Club-26-Photo_by_Corbin_Smith.jpg 1024 683 https://torontoist.com/2013/02/the-model-railroad-club-of-toronto-prepares-to-leave-liberty-village/slide/20130204-toronto-model-railroad-club-26-photo_by_corbin_smith/ 20130204-toronto-model-railroad-club-26-photo_by_corbin_smith 0 0 235888 Chugging down the tracks, a freight train rolls into a tunnel. 20130204-Toronto Model Railroad Club-12- Photo_by_Corbin_Smith https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/20130204-Toronto-Model-Railroad-Club-12-Photo_by_Corbin_Smith-100x100.jpg 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Since 1946 the Model Railroad Club of Toronto has built and maintained a massive and intricate model railway in a Liberty Village basement, in what was once a wartime munitions factory and below what is now a Castlelife Furniture store. The Central Ontario Railway is an enormous, intricately detailed microcosm of the 1950s transition-era railways of Ontario, crafted over the years by the club members. “Microcosm” may give you the wrong impression about the scale, however: the railway spans a room that is 120-feet by 40-feet. (It’s an O-scale model, which means that each quarter-inch on the model equals one foot in real life.)
Soon though, the club and its model railway will be leaving 171 East Liberty Street and moving to new digs near St. Clair and O’Connor. The new site will only have two-thirds as much space as the old one, but the incoming 12-fold rent increase at the current location (which will bring the property up to market value) left the club with no choice.
The process of how they’ll go about managing it is a massive and intricate project all its own.
Dismantling and transporting the Central Ontario Railway to its new home at 11 Curity Avenue will be long and difficult. The railroad club will be able to move in as of March 1, but it’ll hardly be a one day, box-and-go operation.
There’s a whole world contained in the railway, inhabited by a whole population of tiny plastic figurines. Trees made of sponges on sticks painted green dot the landscape. Train tracks run through mountain tunnels and over bridges. Replicas of the Steamwhistle Brewery roundhouse and Summerhill Station before it became the LCBO flagship store stand among the tracks. On one side of the railway, a large portion of the surface is painted blue and a 10 foot-long shipping freighter sits close to the dock as though coming in to port. Next to that is a talc mine with trucks and mining equipment digging out a section of forest, and a miniature ground crew overseeing the operation. Preserving these details in the course of the move is the club’s main challenge—and they already know that not everything will survive intact.
Of the 22 present day club members, no one has more experience working on it than Brian Bentley: he’s been with the Model Railroad Club for 52 years. “On February 19 those of us who aren’t working will be down here removing as much of the rolling stock as we can,” Bentley explains. “February 20 is our last official night as a model railway and we’re going to have a banquet here with all our wives and families and our close friends. Then on the Thursday morning, which will be the 21st, we’ll carry on removing the structures and remaining rolling stock we haven’t got off.”
“We’ll progress around the room, so we’re going to start in one area dismantling the railway. The first thing we’ll do is take off all this skirting so we’ve got total access underneath,” he goes on, pointing to the wooden sheeting around the edge of the railway. “The first area we’re going to dismantle is just beyond the mountain and we’re going to use that big area there for rubble storage. After we’ve got all the salvageable things off the layout we’ll just go at it with [saws] removing the scenery, bagging it in heavy duty bags.”
They won’t be able to save the plaster cast rock formations and mountains—those will crumble and shatter upon removal, and have to be thrown out.
Bentley took us to the control booth overlooking the length of the room, to activate one of the trains. It too is detailed, with many switches, buttons, and toggles allowing users to send power to various tracks. Track six wasn’t cooperating, so he tried track seven instead. Little 7s popped up in the digital numerical displays next to each toggle switch and he flipped them over with a click. After a few minutes jimmying the controls, a freight train came down the track with its headlight beaming at us. It chugged down the track, across a suspension bridge, through a tunnel, along the wall, and around the room.
Rebuilding the model in its new home will take at least two years. There is one upside, however: the current railway has some wiring problems, so the club will take this opportunity to install ground wiring on all the tracks, to prevent the electrical shorts that can slow down or stop a train. Some of the bridges might also be strengthened, and the whole display could be designed with easier access for club members working on it.
Moving and rebuilding the railway is a daunting task, but the club is ready for the challenge. “It’s like a big family,” says Bentley. “We have our squabbles from time to time on little things, but we patch them up and carry on.”
The first steps of packing are already underway. While we were talking to him Bentley placed a tanker car into a wooden box and tucked a sheet of foam around it. “This is actually a wine box,” he said, “but it gets the job done.”
The Model Railroad Club of Toronto is always accepting new members with a passion for trains. Their final open houses before the move take place this upcoming weekend, Saturday February 16 through Monday February 18 (Family Day), from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. Admission is $10 for adults and $6 for children.'Winning, Winning, Winning': Trump Gives Victory Speech After Dominant NV Caucus Win
Fox News Entrance Polls Show Trump Leading With 'Angry' Voters
Nevada’s GOP caucuses experienced record-high voter turnout last night, with a staggering 75,000 showing up to cast their ballots.
But the overwhelming number of people who showed up also caused problems across the state, Alicia Acuna reported.
Several people uploaded photos of campaign volunteers wearing gear with their candidates’ names on them, arguing that it could have brought voter intimidation and possibly even misconduct.
lol not illegal in NV. Caucus workers wearing #Trump shirts! pic.twitter.com/hGVGd5RJCR — TX4Trump (@repmom2) February 24, 2016
One man tweeted: “just wrong that the guy collecting votes wears Trump shirt/hat! Did he change my vote?”
Trump supporter working the precinct in Sun Valley. #nvgopcaucus pic.twitter.com/xM4OPkGjZr — Anjeanette Damon (@AnjeanetteDamon) February 24, 2016
Caucus officials, however, say there are no rules prohibiting volunteers from wearing candidates’ memorabilia.
It's not against the rules for volunteers to wear candidate gear. Volunteers went through extensive training & are doing a great job — Nevada GOP (@NVGOP) February 24, 2016
Other problems reported included confusion on whom to cast their ballots with, and remarkably long lines, Acuna reported.
Officials say the long wait time is a good thing, as it points out to high voter turnout.
Carson: Media Ran With Obama 'Raised White' Comment
Crowley: If Trump or Cruz Wins WH Bid, the GOP Establishment 'Is Done'
Rubio: Obama Closing Gitmo 'Leaves America More Vulnerable'Niklas Arvidsson, one of the researchers at KTH behind the study, believes the prediction is possible.
"It's going very fast just now. For the banks handling cash is just a cost, so cash will only be available as long as people and stores request it," Arvidsson told newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD).
According to the Swedish Trade Federation, 80 percent of all transactions in the retail trade in Sweden today are already made with cards.
As long as a store has clear information stating they do not accept cash they may so no to a customer who wants to pay with that method. State-owned institutions however must accept cash, SVD explains.
The KTH report took in responses from more than 740 traders in industries that traditionally handle a high volume of cash like consumer stores.
In 2016 a study by Visa suggested that Swedes use their debit cards three times as frequently as most Europeans. The popularity of smartphone payment apps like Swish meanwhile has seen fruit and veg traders to buskers ditching cash in favour of other payment methods.
READ ALSO: Swedes among world's biggest card usersHi Professor Cowen, I am a loyal MR reader and I wondered if you could comment on the following situation: I am a 3rd year medical student, and for the purposes of this question, let’s assume I have equal interest and ability in the various medical specialties. In order to create the greatest good for the greatest number of people through my work in medicine (i.e., the highest return to society), what specialty should I pursue? I should add that, although I intend to practice in the U.S., I am open to devoting as much of my free time/vacation as possible to pro bono medical activities, and further, that I wish to do the interventions myself (instead, for example, or just making lots of money and then donating the proceeds to some other charitable activity). In attempting to answer this question, I’ve been looking at DALYs and QALYs associated with various medical interventions (e.g., cataract surgery). Am I going about answering this question the right way? Any thoughts? An interesting corollary would be asking what job, in any field, has the highest return to society. Is there any literature on this?
The fundamental institutional failure to overcome is that many lives “out there” are pretty happy, and very much worth living, but those individuals do not have enough money to afford reasonable doctors. If you are seeking to maximize social welfare, look to step into some of these gaps.
But which gap in particular?
The second binding constraint, in my view, is that most people won’t in fact go through with their plan to do a lot of social good. That means you too. So you wish to seek out a form of do-gooding which is incentive-compatible over the long run, or in other words which is fun for you or rewarding in some other way. This second consideration is likely to prove decisive.
For instance you might decide the fight against dengue (just an example to make a point, not an actual net assessment) is the way to go, based on a narrow cost-benefit analysis. But it is hard as a field worker to really, fully protect yourself against dengue. And getting dengue can be very bad indeed. As you age, the pressures not to go into the field will mount. You might do more good by pledging your efforts to fight a malady which you can help fix without so much direct risk or exposure to yourself, let’s say infant mortality.
You will note a difference here between pledges of individual effort and pledges of money. A money pledger, thinking in game-theoretic Nash terms, will realize that effort pledgers will resist the fight against dengue. That is all the more reason why throwing money at the fight against dengue may bring high returns, namely that at the margin not enough is being done from the side of volunteer and quasi-volunteer labor. (In general this distinction creates a problem with talking up one kind of cause over another, namely that labor and money face differing incentives and should hear different messages of encouragement.)
You will note also that in a second best optimum, field workers will appear to be “consuming too many perks.” At the same time, donated funds should be trying to push field workers out of their comfort zones, at least on the margin.
I would add two final points. First, if you have a reasonable chance of being a research superstar, that may be the path to follow.
Second, if you are not already attached, spent time cultivating social circles (aid work, World Bank, vegetarians, etc.) where you are likely to meet a partner or spouse who will support a similar vision to help the world.
Addendum: David Henderson adds comment.A computer virus is a type of malicious software that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code.[1] When this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a computer virus.[2][3]
Virus writers use social engineering deceptions and exploit detailed knowledge of security vulnerabilities to initially infect systems and to spread the virus. The vast majority of viruses target systems running Microsoft Windows,[4][5][6] employing a variety of mechanisms to infect new hosts,[7] and often using complex anti-detection/stealth strategies to evade antivirus software.[8][9][10][11] Motives for creating viruses can include seeking profit (e.g., with ransomware), desire to send a political message, personal amusement, to demonstrate that a vulnerability exists in software, for sabotage and denial of service, or simply because they wish to explore cybersecurity issues, artificial life and evolutionary algorithms.[12]
Computer viruses currently cause billions of dollars' worth of economic damage each year,[13] due to causing system failure, wasting computer resources, corrupting data, increasing maintenance costs, etc. In response, free, open-source antivirus tools have been developed, and an industry of antivirus software has cropped up, selling or freely distributing virus protection to users of various operating systems.[14] As of 2005, even though no currently existing antivirus software was able to uncover all computer viruses (especially new ones), computer security researchers are actively searching for new ways to enable antivirus solutions to more effectively detect emerging viruses, before they have already become widely distributed.[15]
The term "virus" is also commonly, but erroneously, used to refer to other types of malware. "Malware" encompasses computer viruses along with many other forms of malicious software, such as computer "worms", ransomware, spyware, adware, trojan horses, keyloggers, rootkits, bootkits, malicious Browser Helper Object (BHOs), and other malicious software. The majority of active malware threats are actually trojan horse programs or computer worms rather than computer viruses. The term computer virus, coined by Fred Cohen in 1985, is a misnomer.[16] Viruses often perform some type of harmful activity on infected host computers, such as acquisition of hard disk space or central processing unit (CPU) time, accessing private information (e.g., credit card numbers), corrupting data, displaying political or humorous messages on the user's screen, spamming their e-mail contacts, logging their keystrokes, or even rendering the computer useless. However, not all viruses carry a destructive "payload" and attempt to hide themselves—the defining characteristic of viruses is that they are self-replicating computer programs which modify other software without user consent.
Historical development [ edit ]
Early academic work on self-replicating programs [ edit ]
The first academic work on the theory of self-replicating computer programs[17] was done in 1949 by John von Neumann who gave lectures at the University of Illinois about the "Theory and Organization of Complicated Automata". The work of von Neumann was later published as the "Theory of self-reproducing automata". In his essay von Neumann described how a computer program could be designed to reproduce itself.[18] Von Neumann's design for a self-reproducing computer program is considered the world's first computer virus, and he is considered to be the theoretical "father" of computer virology.[19] In 1972, Veith Risak directly building on von Neumann's work on self-replication, published his article "Selbstreproduzierende Automaten mit minimaler Informationsübertragung" (Self-reproducing automata with minimal information exchange).[20] The article describes a fully functional virus written in assembler programming language for a SIEMENS 4004/35 computer system. In 1980 Jürgen Kraus wrote his diplom thesis "Selbstreproduktion bei Programmen" (Self-reproduction of programs) at the University of Dortmund.[21] In his work Kraus postulated that computer programs can behave in a way similar to biological viruses.
Science fiction [ edit ]
The first known description of a self-reproducing program in a short story occurs in a 1970 story by Gregory Benford[22] which describes a computer program called VIRUS which, when installed on a computer with telephone modem dialling capability, randomly dials phone numbers until it hit a modem that is answered by another computer. It then attempts to program the answering computer with its own program, so that the second computer will also begin dialling random numbers, in search of yet another computer to program. The program rapidly spreads exponentially through susceptible computers and can only be countered by a second program called VACCINE.
The idea was explored further in two 1972 novels, When HARLIE Was One by David Gerrold and The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton, and became a major theme of the 1975 novel The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner[23]
Although the word "virus" isn't mentioned, in the movie Westworld, the android entertainers in a futuristic holiday park develop violent behavior that spreads among them like an infection.
First examples [ edit ]
The MacMag virus 'Universal Peace', as displayed |
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Hey friends!
I hope you are all having an awesome week! I am here today to share my DIY Hot Glue Gun Holder! This baby is something every girl needs!
My Meme gave me a glue gun holder years ago. I loved the idea, but there were things about it that didn’t work so well either. So… I came up with a ‘Shanty’ version we can all make together!
This is such an easy project, and would make a great ‘make & take’ for a girl’s craft night!
So… Let’s get started!
For those of you that don’t own a saw, this is a perfect one for you!
This is actually the saw that I started with before getting my ‘big daddy’ saw, and I still put this to use. You just mark your cut line with a pencil, and saw the board on your line! Easy and NOT scary… Promise!
See… Told you this was simple! I LOVE mine! I use it every time I pull my hot glue gun out. It keeps it standing up and when the glue piles up on the tile, you can just peel it off easily after it dries. The bomb.
Here are a few more shots of mine in action ;-)!
Hope you like it! If you purchase the materials needed to make this, you can easily make 8 or so for right around $1 a piece… Woohoo!!
Thanks SO much for stopping by! I would LOVE for you to PIN and share this baby below! Have an awesome Wednesday!
~WhitneyLondon, England (CNN) -- A new study has suggested that cell phone radiation may be contributing to declines in bee populations in some areas of the world.
Bee populations dropped 17 percent in the UK last year, according to the British Bee Association, and nearly 30 percent in the United States says the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Parasitic mites called varroa, agricultural pesticides and the effects of climate change have all been implicated in what has been dubbed "colony collapse disorder" (CCD).
But researchers in India believe cell phones could also be to blame for some of the losses.
In a study at Panjab University in Chandigarh, northern India, researchers fitted cell phones to a hive and powered them up for two fifteen-minute periods each day.
After three months, they found the bees stopped producing honey, egg production by the queen bee halved, and the size of the hive dramatically reduced.
It's not just the honey that will be lost if populations plummet further. Bees are estimated to pollinate 90 commercial crops worldwide. Their economic value in the UK is estimated to be $290 million per year and around $12 billion in the U.S.
Andrew Goldsworthy, a biologist from the UK's Imperial College, London, has studied the biological effects of electromagnetic fields. He thinks it's possible bees could be affected by cell phone radiation.
The reason, Goldsworthy says, could hinge on a pigment in bees called cryptochrome.
"Animals, including insects, use cryptochrome for navigation," Goldsworthy told CNN.
"They use it to sense the direction of the earth's magnetic field and their ability to do this is compromised by radiation from [cell] phones and their base stations. So basically bees do not find their way back to the hive."
Goldsworthy has written to the UK communications regulator OFCOM suggesting a change of phone frequencies would stop the bees being confused.
"It's possible to modify the signal coming from the [cell] phones and the base station in such a way that it doesn't produce the frequencies that disturb the cryptochrome molecules," Goldsworthy said.
"So they could do this without the signal losing its ability to transmit information."
But the UK's Mobile Operators Association -- which represents the UK's five mobile network operators -- told CNN: "Research scientists have already considered possible factors involved in CCD and have identified the areas for research into the causes of CCD which do not include exposure to radio waves."
Norman Carreck, Scientific director of the International Bee research Association at the UK's University of Sussex says it's still not clear how much radio waves affect bees.
"We know they are sensitive to magnetic fields. What we don't know is what use they actually make of them. And no one has yet demonstrated that honey bees use the earth's magnetic field when navigating," Carreck said.In the Welsh folkloric tradition of Mari Lwyd, a horse skull visits your home around Christmas, and you must best it in poetry or allow it inside.
There’s a skeletal horse singing rhymes outside your door, and it wants to come inside. Can you beat the dead mare in a battle of poetic wits? This is the Welsh tradition of the Mari Lwyd, a mid-winter custom wherein the skull of a horse, decked out with bells and ribbons, is paraded on a stick by a reveler beneath a sackcloth, who challenges neighbors in exchange for drink and food.
It probably goes without saying that although Mari Lwyd now manifests around Christmas and New Year’s, this is a pre-Christian practice, one of those pagan rituals that’s endured on the British Isles over the centuries. The rather terrifying spectacle of Mari Lwyd did nearly disappear from Wales at one point, yet it’s had a resurgence recently, with Christmas ornaments being used for eyes occasionally instead of old glass bottle bottoms. The insults in the “pwnco” battles, as they’re called, are milder these days, and the drinking a little less heavy, but the sardonic grin of the horse skull, sometimes with a spring-loaded jaw, remains to haunt your Yuletides. In the 1966 video from the BBC Wales below, the Mari Lwyd dialogue plays out in matching rhymes until the undead mare is let in.
Exactly why anyone, at any point in history, thought this was good fun is lost to the ages. Music Traditions Wales (which offers a flat-pack Mari Lwyd for schools to assemble) points to the deep visual culture of the white horse in Britain, such as the late prehistoric Uffington White Horse carved into the hills of Oxfordshire, England. And there is a wider, worldwide heritage of ritual animal disguise, including the similar practice of hoodening in Kent, England, which features a hobbyhorse on a pole held by a person under a sheet.
Welsh poet Vernon Watkins paid tribute to his nation’s custom in his 1941 “The Ballad of the Mari Lwyd” (you can see his manuscript annotated by T. S. Eliot at the British Library). It begins:
Mari Lwyd, Horse of Frost, Star-horse, and White Horse of the Sea, is carried to us.
The Dead return.
Those Exiles carry her, they who seem holy and have put on corruption, they who seem corrupt and have put on holiness.
They strain against the door.
They strain towards the fire which fosters and warms the Living.
The tradition has also had its influence on visual art. In 1998, the late painter William Brown portrayed Mari Lwyd as an animated creature with human feet, while Clive Hicks-Jenkins has explored the character in a series of narrative illustrations; there’s even a mural tribute in Cardiff by the street artist Phlegm. The day on which Mari Lwyd roams varies from town to town, so keep an eye out and a sharp wit for when the mare comes around.The Federal Reserve's Pension Program: Not Invested in U.S. Government Bonds
Feb. 7, 2011
The Federal Reserve System has a very nice retirement program for its employees. The assets are not in non-marketable Treasury IOUs, unlike Social Security's so-called Trust Fund. According to the audit for 2009, here is the breakdown of the FED's portfolio. It is listed here: The System Plan's policy and actual asset allocations at December 31, by asset category, are as follows:
This, of course, received little publicity.
The folks at the FED are not going to see their futures sink because: (1) the FED inflates the dollar to zero, or (2) the Treasury is forced to default because the FED ceases buying T-bills, in order to avoid hyperinflation.
The FED will take care of its own if it can. It will act on behalf of its own employees. That is the lesson of Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations That is the lesson of public choice theory in economics.
The FED manipulates supply and demand. Its decision-makers will manipulate the economy to their own advantage if they can.
Because FED employees have a vested pension fund that is invested in free market assets, this keeps the system's pension fund managers alert to the destructive power of hyperinflation. This is why they will stop short of hyperinflation if Congress lets them.Dwyer’s view: a desperate need for polish
Sure we lost, but if we were to improve as much between this Test and the next Test as we did in the last week, we’re in with a show. It was a big step forward in a short space of time.
Certainly one of the major components that is needed for a quality display is to have numbers of players at the tackle contest with commitment, body height and leg drive. The Wallabies achieved this to a large extent.
The biggest problem for me is our lack of finesse in most things we do. I said last week that the Wallabies’ attack wasn’t as good as the All Black defence and once again that was the case. Indeed commentators and casual observers will say “we can’t break their defence”.
What do I think of the All Black defence? Hard to say, because I’ve yet to see some quality Wallaby attack.
A wise man once said “You have to risk defeat in order to achieve success.” You have to push your performance to its failure point if you’re going to break down this NZ defence, which only happened in the last 15 minutes – when we achieved the level of ball movement and support that’s required.
People often say of an average team performance “we took some poor options”. I actually think that’s more a reflection of the team mates not giving the ball carrier enough alternatives so that he could choose one of them. If good options aren’t available, often players take a poor choice by default – which pretty much sums up our attack. There are not enough choices available to the ball carrier, which in turn aren’t asking enough questions of the defender. If when the attacker approaches the defender with a number of options, the defender senses this subconsciously and confusion can arise. Poor defensive decisions are then made.
A perfect example happened in the 51st minute when Ben Mowen ran from the back of the scrum and offloaded the ball to Michael Hooper, who had Will Genia in support. They made good yardage and at the tackle contest, seven carried the ball, eight had been tackled, six and nine entered the contest to clear out – but there was no-one else. The ball therefore just sat out the back of the ruck, awaiting an All Blacks pick up.
How can that happen? When the two locks broke from the scrum, where did they go? They broke soon after the flankers leave, but they didn’t chase the ball. Had they arrived then they could immediately have picked up the ball and keep the play going.
This to me is a sure indication that we’re thinking of the “next thing” that’s supposed to happen. There is no next thing, only the current thing. I talked last week how defence coaches say the threat is the ball. Well here is a case where the opportunity was where the ball was, and we weren’t there!
In the 56th minute Israel Folau made a break down the right wing, but there was no support anywhere near him. Genia picked and ran and again there was no close support, so he threw a looping pass to Scott Fardy who got hammered by Julian Savea.
In each of these cases it looked to me that we were playing a structure and the locks were playing step two of that structure, when we were in step one.
In the 66th minute, Christian Leali’ifano made a break and passed to Tevita Kuridrani who couldn’t hold on to the ball. What Tevita didn’t understand was that he needed to be closer to Christian. His role wasn’t to continue a wide line, but to be closer in terms of width so that Leali’ifano could find him with the ball.
The accuracy of the Wallabies technique in these subtle areas really needs to be addressed.
We run across the field a lot – losing the ball into touch or running out of room. Sometimes running across the field can work – see what Ma’a Nonu does. But what our players don’t understand is what the man outside the ball carrier, and the man outside him needs to do in support and it happened several times in this Test.
There are simple adjustments that need to be made. The man outside needs to keep his line but slow his pace so he stays behind the ball carrier. The man two outside the ball carrier then becomes the prime support player.
One of the options to that first man is then to drive in on the ball carrier and help him stay out of touch. He also has the option to come inside, but only come inside on the pass as the ball carrier pivots. He can’t run inside the ball carrier and then expect the player to find him (even in that famous Campo over the shoulder pass, Tim ran late so that Campo knew where he was).
These tiny subtleties make enormous differences, and it’s what our coaches need to help our players execute. Our performance improved because we were urgent, aggressive and committed – we got off the line in defence, used leg drive, more numbers to the tackle contest.
The next level we need is the polish, which at the moment is pretty much missing.
As positives, Scott Fardy showed he is definitely up to standard by being our best player and Matt Toomua played better by attacking the line more.
On the minus side our scrum got dusted. Can Ben Alexander stay at tighthead? The problem is who’s his replacement would be. The scrum didn’t really improve with Sekope Kepu, who doesn’t offer the same amount of work around the park.
Our lineout wasn’t up to standard, especially when Mowen came off – at that point it fell apart completely.
Genia was marginally better, but still not up to standard in terms of his clearance. There are very few occasions when the scrum half should delay action at the tackle: they have to pass, run or kick, but it needs to happen immediately. A delay in decision making on the part of the halfback can only serve to help the defence.
If the halfback thinks he needs to wait for the players to be ready, then this is a failure of the attack. It’s almost like the Wallabies run out of urgency.
This is what Fardy did so well – he just kept offering himself.
Yet again we sped up when Nic White came on. Genia can be the right man, but we need to fix his game.
Sadly (because I really thought he deserved selection), we surely can’t continue to select Jesse Mogg at fullback. The ball in the air was a lottery that it looked like we hadn’t even bought a ticket in! Most of Mogg’s kicking was woeful – too short or too long, and his defence is diabolical.
Sooner rather than later we need to pick another winger and get Folau at fullback. He’s at least as good a kicker, great under the high ball and on the counter-attack.
I can understand why Ewen’s given him a shot, but that’s three bad games in a row, and three in a row is enough.
It would seem though that some things never change, including the performance of the ref.
Do yellow cards not exist anymore? In the 23rd minute Aaron Smith should definitely have had one. The ref said to McCaw that “we’re getting close to a situation where I’ll need to take action”. What other situation do you need than the blatant spoiling of a try on the tryline?
As for the Moore no try – refs go upstairs for any reason these days – why wouldn’t you go upstairs for that? In the 20th minute, how did he miss Nonu’s shoulder charge when it was near the ball? At least it’s a penalty, probably a yellow.
I had to go with the commentary team who remarked on how much he’d missed, yet he pinged Mowen for holding onto Brodie Retallick’s leg for too long in a ruck and Hooper for running a blocking line. Has he not seen any of Richie McCaw’s game?
Surely we can expect more from a ref than this. He also seems totally incapable of figuring out what’s happening at the scrum.
The good news for the ref is that the team that played better and deserved the win got the right result. Having said that a yellow card to Aaron Smith would definitely have made things more interesting.
In summary, this was a big step forward for Australia. The attitude of the team was right, but it needs to stay like this from all the players and the staff, all the time. On top of that we need the polish, and we need it urgently.SPECIAL REPORT | The Gebeng Bypass, which links Jabur in Terengganu with Gebeng near Kuantan Port, has always been a mundane drive, with kilometre after kilometre of greenery since it opened in 2006.
But beginning 2013, a section of the highway in Gebeng, a small town 25km north of Kuantan, has seen an explosion of activity, with 1,219 acres of land cleared and large-scale construction in full swing.
A new ramp diverges from the Gebeng Bypass to the cleared land, which is now known as the first phase of the Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park (MCKIP).
A huge four-storey building under construction sits adjacent to the circular ramp, which is protected by an eight feet tall wall. Satellite images show the wall spanning around the entire project site, with an estimated length of at least nine kilometres.
For the local folk, the dull grey wall topped with steel hooks, with the exception of certain sections which are brick red for aesthetic purposes, has come to be referred to as Kuantan's "Great Wall of China".
The wall is not exceptional, but its apparent purpose of keeping those inside separate from the outside world has fuelled speculations among the local community.
The regular folk of Kuantan are not allowed within the walls without the approval of the site's administrator. The small number of locals who are allowed in are those who have business dealings inside.
The main entrance, which is the only entry point for the time being, is strictly manned by guards in white uniforms from a local private security firm, as well as by guards from China, who don black uniforms.
The best glimpse people outside can get of what's inside are the buildings under construction that tower over the wall, with many Chinese motivational slogans being hung over the green safety nets that are typical of construction sites of companies from China.
These observations have given rise to talk among the local community that a China enclave has been carved beyond the wall.
Assemblyperson denied entry
Teruntum assemblyperson Sim Chon Siang had applied to MCKIP to enter the site, in an attempt to dispel the speculations, but he was rejected. Instead, MCKIP sent two representatives to meet Sim outside the industrial park.
Officially launched on Feb 5, 2013, MCKIP is 49 percent owned by Guangxi Beibu Gulf International Port Group Co Ltd, a China company owned by the Guangxi Autonomous Region government, and the remaining 51 percent is owned by a Malaysian consortium - Kuantan Pahang Holding Sdn Bhd.
Kuantan Pahang Holding Sdn Bhd is a public-private partnership comprising IJM Land Bhd (40 percent), Sime Darby Property Bhd (30 percent) and the Pahang government through Perbadanan Setiausaha Kerajaan Pahang and Pahang State Development Corporation (30 percent).
The grand opening was graced by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and the then chairperson of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Jia Qinglin.
Divided into three phases, the current 1,219-acre development will be followed by another 1,000 acres and 800 acres in Phase Two and Phase Three, respectively.
A large part of the first phase, or 710 acres, has been sold to Alliance Steel (M) Sdn Bhd, a joint-venture between two China entities - Guangxi Beibu Gulf Port International Group Co Ltd and Guangxi ShengLong Metallurgical Co Ltd - according to a Pahang state assembly written reply dated Sept 14.
The written reply said Alliance Steel, the first China company to invest in MCKIP, is building a modern integrated steel plant, which is already 50 percent completed and is expected to commence operations by the year-end.
The Pahang government also revealed that a China company specialising in car batteries has promised to invest in Phase Three of MCKIP. Media reports also say another China company will be investing in the industrial park to construct an aluminium factory.
MCKIP was the first project to be granted "National Industrial Park" status and has been touted as a booster for local economic growth that will create thousands of new jobs for the Kuantan folk.
But more than four years on, the local community is starting to grumble that this promise has yet to be met.
As the assemblyperson of the constituency where the MCKIP is located, Sim (photo) has been following the issue closely because of the many inquiries and complaints he has received.
The city beyond the wall
Describing MCKIP as a "closed city", Sim said it was nothing like the other industrial parks in greater Kuantan, such as the Gebeng Industrial Park and Semambu Industrial Park, where people are free to enter and the walls or fences are only confined to the individual factories or company buildings.
"We were looking forward to the first phase of MCKIP at the beginning, but now the construction is almost done and we have yet to see any major changes in Kuantan.
"The most important is to increase local employment opportunities so that young people can stay in Kuantan.
"We hope MCKIP can grow the Kuantan economy instead of walling themselves inside - like a Federal Territory - and we know nothing about what is happening inside," Sim told Malaysiakini when met in Kuantan.
Having failed to secure permission to visit MCKIP, Sim turned to the Pahang state assembly, where he questioned the state government on the composition of the workers on site.
The Pahang government, in a written reply on Sept 14, said during peak periods, a total of 6,000 construction workers were employed at a ratio of three foreign workers to two local workers.
This puts the number at 3,600 foreign workers and 2,400 local workers working on Phase One of the MCKIP. The state government did not specify whether the foreign workers were from China or other countries.
The state government said the composition was necessary to ensure the factories can be completed and commence operations on time for the benefit of the local community.
It added that the materials used for the construction were 50 percent local and 50 percent from China.
Beyond the official responses from the state government, the happenings beyond the wall remain a mystery, both to the elected representatives and to the people of Kuantan.
During an impromptu visit to the MCKIP, Malaysiakini journalists were also denied access.
Malaysiakini has written to MCKIP and the East Coast Economic Region (ECER) to apply for a formal visit and has yet to receive a response at the time of writing this article. MCKIP and ECER have also not responded to requests for comment.
However, Malaysiakini managed to speak to several people, local and Chinese citizens, who work or live within the walls of the MCKIP site.Masters no more? Men-only membership at Augusta golf club under threat from IBM's new blonde CEO Virginia Rometty
Last four male chiefs have all been members
Former chairman said club will accept females 'at the point of a bayonet'
Blonde ambition: Virginia Rometty
The appointment of a new chief executive at IBM has revived the debate over Augusta National's all-male membership just as preparations swing into full gear for this weekend's Masters.
IBM hired Virginia Rometty as its CEO this year, which could mean a break in recent tradition if Augusta sticks to its history of never having a woman as one of its roughly 300 members.
The last four CEOs of IBM all belonged to the club. However, a woman has never worn an Augusta green jacket since it opened in 1933.
Former Chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations Martha Burk led an unsuccessful campaign ten years ago for Augusta to admit a female member, demanding that four companies drop their television sponsorship because of the discrimination.
Hootie Johnson, club chairman at the time, said Augusta would not be pressured to take a female member 'at the point of a bayonet.'
'I think they're both in a bind,' Martha Burk said yesterday from Washington.
'IBM is in a bigger bind than the club,' she added. 'The club trashed their image years ago. IBM is a corporation.
'They ought to care about the brand, and they ought to care about what people think. And if they're not careful, they might undermine their new CEO.'
Men at work: Phil Mickelson presents Charl Schwartzel of South Africa with the famous Augusta blazer for winning last year's Masters
Blonde ambition: Could Virginia Rometty become first woman member at immaculate Augusta?
Augusta National declined comment, keeping with its policy of not discussing membership. Billy Payne, who ran the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, took over as club chairman in 2006.
He said that day the home of the Masters 'has no specific timetable' for admitting women. The club accepted its first black member in 1990.
The question was raised at the 2007 and 2010 Masters, and both times, he said membership issues were private.
Rometty succeeds Sam Palmissano at IBM, which runs the Masters' website from the bottom floor of the media center.
According to a list published by USA Today in 2002, the previous three CEOs also were members - Louis Gertsner, John Akers and John Open.
Johnson wound up doing away with television sponsorship for two years to keep the Masters' corporate partners out of the fray - but Burk doesn't believe it should be that simple this time.
'What IBM needs to do is draw a line in the sand by saying "We're either going to pull our sponsorship and membership and any ancillary activities we support with the tournament, or the club is going to have to honor our CEO the way they have in the past",' Burk said.
'There's no papering over it. They just need to step up and do the right thing.
'They need to not pull that argument that they support the tournament and not the club,' she added.
'That does not fool anybody, and they could undermine their new CEO.'
Green, green grass of home: Work to get fairways in shape for upcoming Masters
Burk said she would not be surprised if IBM pressured Rometty to say she doesn't want to be a member.
IBM has not so far commented publicly on the matter.
'Really, I don't think it's her responsibility,' Burk said.
'It's the board of directors'. They need to take action here. They don't need to put that on her.
'They need to say, "This is wrong. We thought the club was on the verge of making changes several years ago, and we regretfully end our sponsorship to maintain her credibility and the company brand".'
The debate returns just in time for one of the most anticipated Masters in years.
Tiger Woods finally returned to winning last week at Bay Hill and is considered one of the favorites, along with US Open champion, Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy.
Eight of the top 20 players in the world ranking have won heading into the first major of the year, a list that includes world No.1, England's Luke Donald, and Phil Mickelson.
Now, however, a sensitive issue that dogged the tournament a decade ago has returned - and might not go away easily.
Augusta National does not ban women. They can play the golf course, but no woman has worn an Augusta green jacket, a status symbol in business and golf.
Rometty is said to play golf sparingly. Her greater passion is scuba diving.
The new CEO has been named in Fortune magazine's '50 Most Powerful Women in Business' for the last seven years, and was at No. 7 a year ago. She started with IBM in 1981.Hurry up.
Sadly, we won't even get an Independence Day-like cool explosion to bid adieu to some of our greatest landmarks, which may disappear because of climate change. Most of them will just be slowly swallowed by the sea, including but not limited to: The Statue Of Liberty, Fortress Of Cartagena, Easter Island Moai, and, tragically, Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument. And it's not just landmarks, either. The disturbing ascension of sea levels is even endangering whole cities, like Alexandria, Venice, and Vancouver. National Parks will take their share of the damage, too. Mesa Verde National Park will probably die in a fire, while Joshua Tree is experiencing a slow collapse of its ecological system. An honorable mention goes to Glacier National Park in Montana, which isn't in danger of disappearing, but scientists predict it will be "glacier-free by 2030" and therefore utterly pointless.
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And we won't even have a great U2 album to remember it by.
But the most creative way pollution is dismantling human history is happening at Stonehenge. The soil beneath this famous enigma is slowly being eroded by flash floods and freaking moles, who are multiplying like crazy thanks to the warmer summers. The moles are expanding their underground tunnels, which means it's only a matter of time until Stonehenge collapses into the earth like a Jenga tower in a sinkhole.
OK, so much of the world will be stricken by the curse of Atlantis, and our new beach fronts will be a bunch of arid parking lots in the middle of flooded suburbs, but think of how great these new ecological phenomena will be for epic nature walks! Sure, those will be great, but only if you like dead forests and malaria. At the current rate of global warming, several forests, including the Amazon, are experiencing "massive tree mortality." If that rise ever were to double, it could easily trigger "massive extinctions and widespread ecosystem collapse." But it's not all death and decay with global warming. Thanks to the combo of longer warm weather seasons and unpredictable weather patterns, certain insects populations will not only explode, but will also be blasted across the world like history's most disgusting shotgun. A few of these baby booming bugs are also neat little vectors of misery, carrying nastiness like West Nile virus, dengue fever and Lyme disease. So no need to leave your house, really. Soon enough everyone will be able to catch an exotic debilitating illness while lounging at their backyard pool.
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"Sorry, guys. Someone pooped and there's malaria.
We get it, fixing climate change will be tough. We've got a long road ahead of us, and too many people making out with the asphalt. But just in case this all goes tits up, remember this guide to surviving climate change: Don't go outside, don't stay indoors, don't rely on electrical devices, try to stay fit without nutrition or exercise, try not to die from random dengue fever outbreak, forget the past, abandon the future, and go see the Statue Of Liberty before it sinks into the ocean or air travel becomes impossible. Shouldn't be too hard.
Think Nana and Pop-Pop's loving 60-year monogamous relationship is quaint and old-fashioned? First off, sorry for that disturbing image, but we've got some news for you: the monogamous sexual relationship is actually brand new relative to how long humans have been around. Secondly, it's about to get worse from here: monkey sex.
On this month's live podcast, Jack O'Brien and the Cracked staff welcome Dr. Christopher Ryan, podcaster and author of 'Sex at Dawn', onto the show for a lively Valentine's Day discussion about love, sex, why our genitals are where they are, and why we're more like chimps and bonobos than you think.
Get your tickets here.
Also check out 6 Global Warming Side Effects That Are Sort Of Awesome and 6 Facts About The Environment (That Just Aren't True).
Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out 6 Horrifying Videos That Prove Nature Is Trying To Kill Us, and other videos you won't see on the site!
Follow us on Facebook, and let's be best friends forever.The official website for the Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet anime updated with new character information for its Suisei no Gargantia: Meguru Kōro, Haruka OAV project.
The OAV will introduce Reema, a novice messenger transferring from the Kugel ship. She is 13-years-old and working under Amy.
Ledo is still working on Gargantia as a Yunboro pilot for Bellows' salvage shop.
To celebrate the new work, the site is holding a promotional video contest. Entrants are asked to make an original promotional video set to the series' opening theme song and upload it to Nico Nico Douga with the tag "Suisei no Gargantia PV Contest" before June 30. A winner will be selected on July 27 and win a prize of 300,000 yen (about US$3,000). The materials for entries will be available for download from April 1 to 30.
Viz Media licensed the original series and plans to release it on home video in North America this year.
Thanks to Rachel S. for the news tip
Images © Oceanus, Suisei no Gargantia Production Committee
[Via Tokyo Anime News]Instead of trying to cram for the SAT or ACT, diagnose your academic strengths and weaknesses to maximize your prep. (iStockphoto)
Some high school students begin their summers with the intent of fully preparing for standardized college admissions tests. They understand that their time to study for the ACT or SAT will be limited once they return to school in the fall and wish to complete as much exam preparation as possible while their schedules permit.
If you hoped to do the same, but have not yet done so as the calendar turns to August, it is important to avoid panicking. Following this shortened summer test prep timeline will help you efficiently prepare in the time you have left before your busy school schedule starts.
[Check out these five tips for test prep procrastinators.]
Daily: Read some challenging material, such as newspapers and nonfiction books, every day. Reading can strengthen your vocabulary and comprehension, which will help you work through problems more quickly, understand them better the first time around and retain information more easily.
Week one: A worried student’s first thought might be to cram for the ACT or SAT, but this is as counterproductive as it is improbable. If you have already lost a great deal of time, you will more than likely be unable to study each topic as thoroughly as you would like.
Before you start studying, determine your strengths and weaknesses by completing short sections of practice tests to decide where you feel most comfortable or where you score best. Then, plan your prep accordingly, mapping out a study schedule that concentrates on the sections where you struggled the most. Do not waste time on areas that you do not need to review.
[Learn how to use reading to enhance SAT and ACT prep.]
Week two: Begin by focusing on your weakest area. Aim to spend at least three days a week devoted to working through practice problems and learning test-taking tips and tricks for your lowest-scoring section. Because you’re working with a shortened timeline, try to spend one to two hours each study day.
Take the time to review your answers to understand why they were correct or incorrect. At the end of the week, take a practice test for the section you’ve been working on to assess your progress.
Week three: Once you get a handle on your weakest area, shift your focus to your second and third weakest areas, spending about half your time on each. Learn the components of the sections, including time allotted on exam day, types of questions and strategies for solving problems.
Work through several practice problems and solutions for at least three days a week. Again, make sure you’ve made improvements before moving on to review other sections.
Week four: Complete as many full-length mock exams, under test conditions, as you can this last week in August. Mock exams are the most important component of any test prep routine, and it is extremely unwise to sacrifice sitting for several practice tests in favor of solely reviewing content.
[Take a look at eight sample questions from the new SAT.]
Once the school year starts, these mock tests will be the hardest prep items to make time for. It is far more difficult to set aside several hours on a school day for a full mock exam than it is an hour for math or vocabulary review.What follows is my attempt to tell that story of The Dock as clearly as I can… It was written because Nate, when he was filming the DOCKumentary, couldn’t get me to tell the story in anything less than 13 minutes (he was hoping for 3!). This script helped me keep to time…
The Dock exists to build Life in the Titanic Quarter – heart and soul amidst the concrete and steel of this fantastic new development in Belfast’s historic shipyard.
The project began at the end of 2009, when I was appointed to the new post of Chaplain to the Titanic Quarter. At that point the area was still mostly scaffolding, but the hope started to grow amongst the developers and early residents that with this new part of Belfast the city had been given a blank page, a fresh start.
Belfast is famous for separating into its different communities and (especially) churches. We sought to provide something different – a shared gathering point – a boat on neutral waters, in which all our traditions could share the excitement of building community together. In the early days, this squiggle represented our vision:
So we went looking for a boat. A succession of beautiful, inspiring but utterly impractical old craft were visited, fallen-for, surveyed and then discounted as the truth began to dawn – buying and restoring a rusty old boat was just way beyond our resources. We had to start with what we had: a few deckchairs, a kettle, and a desire to meet the neighbours.
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and the system failed miserably - being totally incapable of distinguishing those with tanks. The system actually discriminated cloudy from sunny days. It happened that all the training photos with tanks were taken on cloudy days, while those without were on clear days. 44 What does this show? That neural net training is mindless. The system had no idea of the intent of the enterprise, and did what it was programmed to do without any concept of its purpose. As with Dawkins’ evolution simulation (p. 66), the goals of computer neural nets are imposed by human programmers.
I remember this kind of thing from the 1980s: the US Army was testing image recognition seekers for missiles and was getting excellent results on Northern German tests with NATO tanks. Then they tested the same systems in other environment and there results were suddenly shockingly bad. Turns out the image recognition was keying off the trees with tank-like minor features rather than the tank itself. Putting other vehicles in the same forests got similar high hits but tanks by themselves (in desert test ranges) didn’t register. Luckily a sceptic somewhere decided to “do one more test to make sure”.
However, in his source, “‘Why Should I Trust You?’ Explaining the Predictions of Any Classifier [LIME]”, Ribeiro et al 2016, they specify of their dog/wolf snow-detector NN that they “trained this bad classifier intentionally, to evaluate whether subjects are able to detect it [the bad performance]” using LIME for insight into how the classifier was making its classification, concluding that “After examining the explanations, however, almost all of the subjects identified the correct insight, with much more certainty that it was a determining factor. Further, the trust in the classifier also dropped substantially.” So Nikolaychuk appears to have misremembered. (Perhaps in another 25 years students will be told in their classes of how a NN was once trained by ecologists to count wolves…)
Neural networks are designed to learn like the human brain, but we have to be careful. This is not because I’m scared of machines taking over the planet. Rather, we must make sure machines learn correctly. One example that always pops into my head is how one neural network learned to differentiate between dogs and wolves. It didn’t learn the differences between dogs and wolves, but instead learned that wolves were on snow in their picture and dogs were on grass. It learned to differentiate the two animals by looking at snow and grass. Obviously, the network learned incorrectly. What if the dog was on snow and the wolf was on grass? Then, it would be wrong.
You might think that this is rather like one of the classic optical illusions, but it’s worse than that. If you notice that you look at something this way, and then that way, and it looks different, you’ll notice something is odd. This is not something our deep learner will do. Nor is it able to identify any bias that might exist in the corpus of data it was trained on…or maybe it is. If there is any property of the training data set that is strongly predictive of the training criterion, it will zero in on that property with the ferocious clarity of Darwinism. In the 1980s, an early backpropagating neural network was set to find Soviet tanks in a pile of reconnaissance photographs. It worked, until someone noticed that the Red Army usually trained when the weather was good, and in any case the satellite could only see them when the sky was clear. The medical school at St Thomas’ Hospital in London found theirs had learned that their successful students were usually white.
So What Did the Machines See? Dr. Kosinski and Mr. Wang say that the algorithm is responding to fixed facial features, like nose shape, along with “grooming choices,” such as eye makeup. But it’s also possible that the algorithm is seeing something totally unknown. “The more data it has, the better it is at picking up patterns,” said Sarah Jamie Lewis, an independent privacy researcher who Tweeted a critique of the study. “But the patterns aren’t necessarily the ones you think that they are.” Tomaso Poggio, the director of M.I.T.’s Center for Brains, Minds and Machines, offered a classic parable used to illustrate this disconnect. The Army trained a program to differentiate American tanks from Russian tanks with 100% accuracy. Only later did analysts realized that the American tanks had been photographed on a sunny day and the Russian tanks had been photographed on a cloudy day. The computer had learned to detect brightness. Dr. Cox has spotted a version of this in his own studies of dating profiles. Gay people, he has found, tend to post higher-quality photos. Dr. Kosinski said that they went to great lengths to guarantee that such confounders did not influence their results. Still, he agreed that it’s easier to teach a machine to see than to understand what it has seen.
Eliezer Yudkowsky, 24 August 2008 (similarly quoted in “Artificial Intelligence as a Negative and Positive Factor in Global Risk”, “Artificial Intelligence in global risk” in Global Catastrophic Risks 2011, & “Friendly Artificial Intelligence” in Singularity Hypotheses 2013):
Once upon a time - I’ve seen this story in several versions and several places, sometimes cited as fact, but I’ve never tracked down an original source - once upon a time, I say, the US Army wanted to use neural networks to automatically detect camouflaged enemy tanks. The researchers trained a neural net on 50 photos of camouflaged tanks amid trees, and 50 photos of trees without tanks. Using standard techniques for supervised learning, the researchers trained the neural network to a weighting that correctly loaded the training set - output “yes” for the 50 photos of camouflaged tanks, and output “no” for the 50 photos of forest. Now this did not prove, or even imply, that new examples would be classified correctly. The neural network might have “learned” 100 special cases that wouldn’t generalize to new problems. Not, “camouflaged tanks versus forest”, but just, “photo-1 positive, photo-2 negative, photo-3 negative, photo-4 positive…” But wisely, the researchers had originally taken 200 photos, 100 photos of tanks and 100 photos of trees, and had used only half in the training set. The researchers ran the neural network on the remaining 100 photos, and without further training the neural network classified all remaining photos correctly. Success confirmed! The researchers handed the finished work to the Pentagon, which soon handed it back, complaining that in their own tests the neural network did no better than chance at discriminating photos. It turned out that in the researchers’ data set, photos of camouflaged tanks had been taken on cloudy days, while photos of plain forest had been taken on sunny days. The neural network had learned to distinguish cloudy days from sunny days, instead of distinguishing camouflaged tanks from empty forest. This parable - which might or might not be fact - illustrates one of the most fundamental problems in the field of supervised learning and in fact the whole field of Artificial Intelligence…
Gordon Rugg, Using Statistics: A Gentle Introduction, 1 October 2007 (pg114-115):
Neural nets and genetic algorithms (including the story of the Russian tanks): Neural nets (or artificial neural networks, to give them their full name) are pieces of software inspired by the way the human brain works. In brief, you can train a neural net to do tasks like classifying images by giving it lots of examples, and telling it which examples fit into which categories; the neural net works out for itself what the defining characteristics are for each category. Alternatively, you can give it a large set of data and leave it to work out connections by itself, without giving it any feedback. There’s a story, which is probably an urban legend, which illustrates how the approach works and what can go wrong with it. According to the story, some NATO researchers trained a neural net to distinguish between photos of NATO and Warsaw Pact tanks. After a while, the neural net could get it right every time, even with photos it had never seen before. The researchers had gleeful visions of installing neural nets with miniature cameras in missiles, which could then be fired at a battlefield and left to choose their own targets. To demonstrate the method, and secure funding for the next stage, they organised a viewing by the military. On the day, they set up the system and fed it a new batch of photos. The neural net responded with apparently random decisions, sometimes identifying NATO tanks correctly, sometimes identifying them mistakenly as Warsaw Pact tanks. This did not inspire the powers that be, and the whole scheme was abandoned on the spot. It was only afterwards that the researchers realised that all their training photos of NATO tanks had been taken on sunny days in Arizona, whereas the Warsaw Pact tanks had been photographed on grey, miserable winter days on the steppes, so the neural net had flawlessly learned the unintended lesson that if you saw a tank on a gloomy day, then you made its day even gloomier by marking it for destruction.
N. Katherine Hayles, “Computing the Human” (Inventive Life: Approaches to the New Vitalism, Fraser et al 2006; pg424):
While humans have for millennia used what Cariani calls ‘active sensing’ - ‘poking, pushing, bending’ - to extend their sensory range and for hundreds of years have used prostheses to create new sensory experiences (for example, microscopes and telescopes), only recently has it been possible to construct evolving sensors and what Cariani (1998: 718) calls ‘internalized sensing’, that is, “bringing the world into the device” by creating internal, analog representations of the world out of which internal sensors extract newly-relevant properties’. …Another conclusion emerges from Cariani’s call (1998) for research in sensors that can adapt and evolve independently of the epistemic categories of the humans who create them. The well-known and perhaps apocryphal story of the neural net trained to recognize army tanks will illustrate the point. For obvious reasons, the army wanted to develop an intelligent machine that could discriminate between real and pretend tanks. A neural net was constructed and trained using two sets of data, one consisting of photographs showing plywood cutouts of tanks and the other actual tanks. After some training, the net was able to discriminate flawlessly between the situations. As is customary, the net was then tested against a third data set showing pretend and real tanks in the same landscape; it failed miserably. Further investigation revealed that the original two data sets had been filmed on different days. One of the days was overcast with lots of clouds, and the other day was clear. The net, it turned out, was discriminating between the presence and absence of clouds. The anecdote shows the ambiguous potential of epistemically autonomous devices for categorizing the world in entirely different ways from the humans with whom they interact. While this autonomy might be used to enrich the human perception of the world by revealing novel kinds of constructions, it also can create a breed of autonomous devices that parse the world in radically different ways from their human trainers. A counter-narrative, also perhaps apocryphal, emerged from the 1991 Gulf War. US soldiers firing at tanks had been trained on simulators that imaged flames shooting out from the tank to indicate a kill. When army investigators examined Iraqi tanks that were defeated in battles, they found that for some tanks the soldiers had fired four to five times the amount of munitions necessary to disable the tanks. They hypothesized that the overuse of firepower happened because no flames shot out, so the soldiers continued firing. If the hypothesis is correct, human perceptions were altered in accord with the idiosyncrasies of intelligent machines, providing an example of what can happen when human-machine perceptions are caught in a feedback loop with one another.
Linda Null & Julie Lobur, The Essentials of Computer Organization and Architecture (third edition), 2003/2014 (pg439-440 in 1st edition, pg658 in 3rd edition):
Correct training requires thousands of steps. The training time itself depends on the size of the network. As the number of perceptrons increases, the number of possible “states” also increases. Let’s consider a more sophisticated example, that of determining whether a tank is hiding in a photograph. A neural net can be configured so that each output value correlates to exactly one pixel. If the pixel is part of the image of a tank, the net should output a one; otherwise, the net should output a zero. The input information would most likely consist of the color of the pixel. The network would be trained by feeding it many pictures with and without tanks. The training would continue until the network correctly identified whether the photos included tanks. The U.S. military conducted a research project exactly like the one we just described. One hundred photographs were taken of tanks hiding behind trees and in bushes, and another 100 photographs were taken of ordinary landscape with no tanks. Fifty photos from each group were kept “secret,” and the rest were used to train the neural network. The network was initialized with random weights before being fed one picture at a time. When the network was incorrect, it adjusted its input weights until the correct output was reached. Following the training period, the 50 “secret” pictures from each group of photos were fed into the network. The neural network correctly identified the presence or absence of a tank in each photo. The real question at this point has to do with the training - had the neural net actually learned to recognize tanks? The Pentagon’s natural suspicion led to more testing. Additional photos were taken and fed into the network, and to the researchers’ dismay, the results were quite random. The neural net could not correctly identify tanks within photos. After some investigation, the researchers determined that in the original set of 200 photos, all photos with tanks had been taken on a cloudy day, whereas the photos with no tanks had been taken on a sunny day. The neural net had properly separated the two groups of pictures, but had done so using the color of the sky to do this rather than the existence of a hidden tank. The government was now the proud owner of a very expensive neural net that could accurately distinguish between sunny and cloudy days! This is a great example of what many consider the biggest issue with neural networks. If there are more than 10 to 20 neurons, it is impossible to understand how the network is arriving at its results. One cannot tell if the net is making decisions based on correct information, or, as in the above example, something totally irrelevant. Neural networks have a remarkable ability to derive meaning and extract patterns from data that are too complex to be analyzed by human beings. However, some people trust neural networks to be experts in their area of training. Neural nets are used in such areas as sales forecasting, risk management, customer research, undersea mine detection, facial recognition, and data validation. Although neural networks are promising, and the progress made in the past several years has led to significant funding for neural net research, many people are hesitant to put confidence in something that no human being can completely understand.
David Gerhard, “Pitch Extraction and Fundamental Frequency: History and Current Techniques”, Technical Report TR-CS 2003-06, November 2003:
The choice of the dimensionality and domain of the input set is crucial to the success of any connectionist model. A common example of a poor choice of input set and test data is the Pentagon’s foray into the field of object recognition. This story is probably apocryphal and many different versions exist on-line, but the story describes a true difficulty with neural nets. As the story goes, a network was set up with the input being the pixels in a picture, and the output was a single bit, yes or no, for the existence of an enemy tank hidden somewhere in the picture. When the training was complete, the network performed beautifully, but when applied to new data, it failed miserably. The problem was that in the test data, all of the pictures that had tanks in them were taken on cloudy days, and all of the pictures without tanks were taken on sunny days. The neural net was identifying the existence or non-existence of sunshine, not tanks.
Rice lecture #24, “COMP 200: Elements of Computer Science”, 18 March 2002:
Tanks in Desert Storm Sometimes you have to be careful what you train on... The problem with neural nets is that you never know what features they’re actually training on. For example: The US military tried to use neural nets in Desert Storm for tank recognition, so unmanned tanks could identify enemy tanks and destroy them. They trained the neural net on multiple images of “friendly” and enemy tanks, and eventually had a decent program that seemed to correctly identify friendly and enemy tanks. Then, when they actually used the program in a real-world test phase with actual tanks, they found that the tanks would either shoot at nothing or shoot at everything. They certainly seemed to be incapable of distinguishing friendly or enemy tanks. Why was this? It turns out that the images they were training on always had glamour-shot type photos of friendly tanks, with an immaculate blue sky, etc. The enemy tank photos, on the other hand, were all spy photos, not very clear, sometimes fuzzy, etc. And it was these characteristics that the neural net was training on, not the tanks at all. On a bright sunny day, the tanks would do nothing. On an overcast, hazy day, they’d start firing like crazy...
Andrew Ilachinski, Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe, 2001 (pg547):
There is an telling story about how the Army recently went about teaching a backpropagating net to identify tanks set against a variety of environmental backdrops. The programmers correctly fed their multi-layer net photograph after photograph of tanks in grasslands, tanks in swamps, no tanks on concrete, and so on. After many trials and many thousands of iterations, their net finally learned all of the images in their database. The problem was that when the presumably “trained” net was tested with other images that were not part of the original training set, it failed to do any better than what would be expected by chance. What had happened was that the input/training fact set was statistically corrupt. The database consisted mostly of images that showed a tank only if there were heavy clouds, the tank itself was immersed in shadow or there was no sun at all. The Army’s neural net had indeed identified a latent pattern, but it unfortunately had nothing to do with tanks: it had effectively learned to identify the time of day! The obvious lesson to be taken away from this amusing example is that how well a net “learns” the desired associations depends almost entirely on how well the database of facts is defined. Just as Monte Carlo simulations in statistical mechanics may fall short of intended results if they are forced to rely upon poorly coded random number generators, so do backpropagating nets typically fail to achieve expected results if the facts they are trained on are statistically corrupt.
Intelligent Data Analysis In Science, Hugh M. Cartwright 2000, pg126, writes (according to Google Books’s snippet view; Cartwright’s version appears to be a direct quote or close paraphrase of an earlier 1994 chemistry paper, Goodacre et al 1994):
…television programme Horizon; a neural network was trained to attempt to distinguish tanks from trees. Pictures were taken of forest scenes lacking military hardware and of similar but perhaps less bucolic landscapes which also contained more-or-less camouflaged battle tanks. A neural network was trained with these input data and found to differentiate successfully between tanks and trees. However, when a new set of pictures was analysed by the network, it failed to detect the tanks. After further investigation, it was found…
Daniel Robert Franklin & Philippe Crochat, libneural tutorial, 23 March 2000:Pros: Design: First off the design is just down right flawless. Its like holding a macbook but in windows form. I love how it feels thin and premium it feels just by holding it. This is not plastic designed to look like aluminium but it actually is aluminum! Ok maybe I'm a little excited about that but you have to understand I have been out of the loop with Dell for years and I have had no idea that their quality have been pushed to this level. You will not be disappointed as you hold this beast of a laptop in the hand. What strikes me is that its light, I have an iPad Pro 12.9 in a 3rd party keyboard case that brings the iPad to 2 pounds and this FULL laptop is nearly the same size as carrying that around. Lets just say I will not be using the iPad or any Android tablets anymore. There is no fan on this machine at all so you can place this on the lap all day. The bottom of the laptop gets somewhat warm but its nothing alarming. There are 4 modes of position you can place the laptop into since this is a 2 in 1. Laptop mode, Tablet mode, Tent mode, and Presentation mode. Brace yourself there is much to go over here and I will try my best to explain my experience with these modes. Laptop Mode: Standard mode you and most likely other people will use. Nothing special here, This mode makes it look like a basic laptop and the mode Dell clearly designed this machine to be. Tablet Mode: This is a mix bag, There are things to love about tablet mode as you can use the device as a tablet for the tons of apps on the Windows store. Some people found it strange to hold in tablet mode and I'm here to report that it is depending on what you do. If you browsing around on the edge browser or using it to play Pandora then its very good to use. Basic task is great for the tablet mode but gaming is a different story. If you don't think so just go download a game like Gangstar: New Orleans and play it for 10 mins. You will quickly realize that the tablet mode is not very ergonomically designed to hold. The onscreen keys are placed so strangely that you would be digging the edges of the laptop into the palms of your hands no matter what position you hold it in. This is not comfortable at all but I most people wouldn't play games on this anyway and you can just use a USB controller which solves everything. The keys on the keyboard deactivate in this mode. Tent Mode: This makes the laptop pop up into tent mode so you can watch or play your Media, Music, or even play some old school games in a "Nintendo Switch" fashion. I use this mode more then I thought I would, Its nice to just pop it up and watch Hulu like a HDTV. Even used it for PS4 remote play to this PC in this mode and it felt great. I haven't fully set up Kodi but I'm just excited to try it in this mode. The webcam would also probably be better in this postion since its at the top instead of the bottom looking up your nose. Thumbs up to Dell for making this mode work flawless. Presentation Mode: Same like tent mode this pretty much make your screen more accessible. Allows easy touch for the screen and showcasing what you have on screen to friends / family / co-workers. Also might be the mode you would use to draw on screen if you have the optional Dell stylus (which I don't have.) I like this mode as well but there are some draw backs with sound which I will get to later. InfinityEdge Touch display: These modes are accompany by the very bright, vibrant, colorful screen! If there is one thing to droll over this ultrabook about is the screen. I am at an awe at the infinity edge display. Its something you must see to truly enjoy it. While this laptop is only 1080p, the screen is a head-turner. This is one of the best 1080p screen I ever encountered on a laptop period. The touch screen is responsive and fast. The thin bezels are so thin that I can't even imagine how they put something like this together. I have no dead pixels or issues with it at all. With iot being coated in Gorilla glass you have no worry about scratches. Wow, Again I'm impressed with Dell. Battery life: Dell 2 in 1 Ultrabook last with my task about 6-8 hours doing just day to day task such as checking Emails, News, Youtube, Netflix, Apple Music, Hulu, and Pandora. I love the battery life especially if you turn down the brightness a little you can made it a whole day but your task my very. There is a battery indicator bottom on the side of the laptop so you can always check without opening up the laptop. All in All I'm pleased with battery life and well some Android tablets I had in the past didn't last this long. On standby the battery drains so keep that in mind. Carbon fiber keyboard / Trackpad: The feel of the keyboard is nice and smooth. Easy to touch and type. In fact I'm typing this review on the machine its very comfortable. Carbon fiber feels nice on the palms of your hands and there is a backlight keyboard so you can see in the dark. The Trackpad is definitely one of the better feeling ones I ever tried on a windows device. Alot of people didn't like the keyboard but I have no issues with it. I like it. Speakers: Speakers are good and loud when in laptop mode. It's so loud that sometimes you have to turn it down if on 100% because it can fill a room but the speakers start to fall short in any other mode. Tent, Presentation, and Tablet mode all have not great sound. This device would have just benefited from having 4 speakers instead of 2. Performance: Fast. Here let me say it again FAST! The ultrabook is fast and speedy. The amount of RAM makes this device hums along without every having issues. like I never used a Windows PC that just eats though task without an issue grained I don't do 4K editing. Day to day taks just open up with ease and its not a headache to wait for things. Long gone are the days waiting for the PC to boot-up killing your battery. I love it and while yes it has a "weaker processor" then the normal XPS, This thing is just fast even with Intel i7y. I have no complaints about performance at all. Windows 10 / Windows Hello: Windows 10 helps this laptop to feel even more premium. One of the most productive and versatile electronics I have ever used. as for Windows Hello the IR camera update is inbound for the summer but the fingerprint scanner is flawless and works as good as any modern fingerprint unlocker on cell phones. No Issues when signing in but wish it had a backlight so can rest your finger on it at night. Very hard to see in the dark. Dell Pen: This also works with Dell's very on stylus / pen but have yet to try it. There is a little note taking app called windows ink workspace which seems really useful with the pen. Cons: No lip gap to lift the laptop lid: Yep one of the biggest issues is actually trying to open the laptop up. There is no resting finger lip in front of the laptop to open and this can get very annoying after a while. Something so little makes a big difference and I wish Dell would have put this into the design. They nearly had a very perfect design and all they had to do was add something like that. Maybe it had something to do with the design of Tent mode I'm not sure but it should have been on something like this. No full size ports: NOT. ENOUGH. PORTS. Look I get it its suppose to be thin, light, portable but sometimes you need a little bit more. There is nothing wrong with atlease one full sized USB port Dell, it would have been ok to make it a little bit thicker. This is something you have to get use to if you are not on the USB-C bandwagon yet. There is nothing but 2 USB-C ports, MicroSD slot, Power button / Sleep, Battery indicator and headphone jack (which I'm actually they put in here at all.) I've think I seen more ports on android phones before. I have no issues with the MicroSD card slot but really it should have been a full SD slot one for professional photographers. Though you have to remind yourself that you are going for portability here and these maybe some of the trade offs is the ones you have to dell with. No stars lost from the lack of ports. Wifi is spotty: Wifi is very spotty even for this machine. Sometimes the Wifi just gets disconnected for no reason. Sometimes it stay off when I turn the laptop back on from having it closed. Hopefully its just a firmware issue that can be fixed. This happen twice since I had it. Power button: The button is hard to press and sometimes you have to hit it again to make sure your finger touches it. If you have an microSD card in the slot sometimes you will mistake of the power button and popping out the SD card. This is dude to the fact that the power button and SD card nearly feels the same and being so close together. Something you will encounter in tablet mode. Just a mild annoyance in my opinion. No dedicated volume button: This would have came in handy for tablet mode. Fn keys with brightness isn't responsive: It's strange. The brightness Fn keys isn't responsive. It also lags the brightness many times after you press the keys. Out of everything this seems to be the most confusing because if you use the touchscreen to change the brightness its smooth and responsive. Maybe its Dell or maybe its Windows? Arrow keys need space from PgUP / PgDn: They are way too close to the arrow keys to the PgUP/PgDn. You may end up hitting these way more then expected. This should not be this close to the arrow keys at all. All in all with some of the shortcomings I still love this thing. I love using it, I love this display, and I love the portability of it. Its extremely versatile and a phenomenal productivity tool. Dell's 2 in 1 is a little bit on the pricey side but for something like this I can see why. You don't get anymore premium then this in a windows ultrabook. I would certainly recommend this to co-workers / family / and friends. Dell is bringing in a new era for themselves and pushing there limits of design.
Read moreCalifornia School Success and Opportunity Act allows trans teens access to facilities of their choice and opportunity to play on sports teams
A group trying to repeal a new California law that seeks to protect and provide equal opportunity to transgender students has officially failed to qualify their referendum for the ballot.
California’s Secretary of State reported Monday that the repeal effort – led by the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM) group – did not have the 504,760 valid signatures that were needed to qualify for the November 2014 ballot.
‘I’m certain this won’t be the last attempt by anti-LGBT extremists to roll back advances in equality for LGBT people, but I’m relieved this attempt has clearly failed,’ Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center CEO Lorri L. Jean (pictured) said in a statement.
The California School Success and Opportunity Act, which went info effect on 1 January, allows transgender teens access to the facilities of their choice and to play on the sports teams of their choice.
NOM and its allies had claimed the law was part of a wider conspiracy to end traditional gender roles in the United States and has claimed that allowing transgender students to use showers and bathrooms according to their gender identity is damaging to children.
NOM is the same group that put same-sex marriage on the ballot in California in 2008.
Jean pointed out that that for the past eight years, the LA Unified School District has been offering the same protections to transgender students that are in the new state law.
‘All kids deserve the opportunity to do well in school, including transgender kids,’ she said. ‘ … There have been no registered complaints by students or adults.’Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is standing firmly on a sinking ship – current ratings show that the current president is less popular among Ukrainians than his predecessor Viktor Yanukovych was before his government was overthrown, according to Ukrainian TV Channel Novin 24.
After more than a year in office, Poroshenko's current ratings stand at 17 percent. In contrast, in May 2014, almost half of Ukrainians approved of his leadership (47 percent), the Armenian News Agency Armenpress reported, citing data published by Gallup International.
Right before Yanukovych was ousted his rating was 20 percent, the Ukrainian channel said.
In 2013-2014, Kiev's central Independence Square, known as Maidan, witnessed months of pro-European protests sparked by Yanukovych's decision to reject the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement.
A number of prominent figures from the Maidan protests later formed the new Kiev government after Yanukovych was ousted by parliament in February 2014 and had to flee, fearing for his life.
Poroshenko's failure to deliver what Maidan protesters demanded when they took to the streets two years ago resulted in the low ratings, the channel explained. Furthermore, his government's war in Donbass, as well as the horrible state of the Ukrainian economy also reflected people's views.
© AP Photo / Efrem Lukatsky Epic Fail: IMF Tricks Did Not Save Ukraine From Economic Collapse – German Newspaper
Ukraine may face complete economic failure as inflation progresses and foreign loans are unable to save the country's economy
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has done a lot to contribute to the rehabilitation of Ukraine, but the threat of hyperinflation is still urgent, while the country itself is close to bankruptcy, the newspaper wrote.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine, inflation in the country reached 44 percent this year compared to 24.9 percent last year. Chaotic economic policies, corruption and civil war in the eastern regions of the country have put Ukraine on the brink of national bankruptcy.In Yes Minister co-creator Jonathan Lynn’s new weekly column, two ministers on either side of the referendum are overheard debating ‘different kinds of democracy’
Brexit means Brexit: the problem of the people’s will
Overheard in the men’s loo outside the cabinet room.
Business minister Why does the PM keep insisting that there will be no backsliding? I thought she was for remain.
Brexit minister It’s because she believes in democracy. The people have spoken.
Business minister Why can’t they speak again?
Brexit means Brexit: the prime minister tells it straight (to camera) Read more
Brexit minister We can’t challenge the result of a vote just because we don’t like it. That’s obviously undemocratic.
Business minister Why is it undemocratic to give the public a chance to change their minds? That’s what happens every time we have an election. Every five years, in fact.
Brexit minister We don’t hold elections on constitutional issues. That’s not the British tradition. Once we’re in power we say: “We have a mandate,” and we just go ahead and change the constitution if we feel like it. Like Blair did. Lords reform. Or devolution. But this was a referendum on a specific issue. This is different. We have to stick to it.
Business minister We said it wasn’t binding. Only advisory.
Brexit minister We said that when we thought we would lose. Now we’ve won, it’s binding.
Business minister A referendum isn’t even in our constitution. Parliament is supposed to be sovereign. I thought that’s why we wanted to leave Europe. So we don’t lose our sovereignty.
Brexit minister Right. We’re getting our sovereignty back. So, we can’t have an election about it later, the people might change their minds. Then where would we be? Chaos.
Business minister There’s no chaos now?
Brexit minister If we lost a second referendum and stayed in the EU, we would lose our sovereignty all over again.
Business minister How could we lose our sovereignty if our sovereignty depends on a sovereign parliament and the sovereign parliament votes to remain?
Brexit minister You’re confusing things.
Business minister That’s what we’ve always called democracy. Till now.
Brexit minister That’s a different kind of democracy. That’s a parliamentary democracy. We’ve moved on from that. We’re cutting out the middle man. Now, it’s just the people and us.
Business minister We should be asking parliament if we can trigger article 50.
Brexit minister We can’t put triggering article 50 to parliament because parliament might refuse until they know the terms we’ve negotiated. And the lawyers say that triggering article 50 is the royal prerogative, nothing to do with parliament.
Business minister That sounds really democratic.
Brexit minister I just don’t understand your problem.
Business minister My problem is that I don’t think the people understood what they were voting for.
Brexit minister I agree – we handled that really well, don’t you think?
Jonathan Lynn is the co-creator of Yes Minister. @mrjonathanlynnThis post provides online resources for fans of evolution for kids, parents, and educators.
Books, Games, and Web Sites
When I was working on Grandmother Fish, I naturally looked around for other evolution resources that were already available.
Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be, by Daniel Loxton. Ages 8–13.
Great book on the science of evolution. Loxton did the art as well as the text, so it all works together beautifully. Covers answers to common misconceptions and arguments against evolution.
Evolution: The Story of Life, by Douglas Palmer. High school to adult.
The sheer scope of this book makes it a must-have. Spread after spread is a full-color scene from prehistory, from the earliest suggestions of life to prehistoric humans. Page after page, you see the history of life on earth play out. It gave me a greater appreciation for the vast diversity of living things over the last billion years. The art isn’t flashy, but it’s effective, and there’s an insane amount of it. The writing is dense, and there’s nothing kiddie about the book, but it’s filled with illustrations and photos that kids would love to pore over. Best yet, in the US you can buy this $48 book used for under $10, including shipping.
Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story, by Lisa Westberg Peters. Ages 4–7.
This sweet picture book is a lot like Grandmother Fish, but for older kids and with more detail. It recounts our lineage starting with the origin of life itself. Science notes in the back provide a context for the lyrical story. It’s high on folks’ lists of good evolution books.
How How the Dormacks Evolved Longer Backs,
How the Piloses Evolved Skinny Noses,
Evolving Minds Project.
These fictional books explain natural selection and are free to elementary teachers in the US. Click here to learn more. Funded by the National Science Foundation
Great Adaptations, by Tiffany Taylor. Ages 8–12.
Illustrated poems describe ten evolutionary findings or concepts. After each poem is a description of the scientific work that it’s based on and the evolutionary scientist involved in that work. The one about the emotional connections among early humans is |
again, as if working out conflicting memories of a highway accident or reading a kaleidoscopic Tim O’Brien short story about combat, to try to make sense of who we are and what’s happening to us in a time when tribe and identity are getting scrambled and realigned explosively.
This is the source of so much of the discomfort Sherman stirred up. We have seen something we recognize in his 15-second clip: us.
It so happens that in his freshman year at Stanford Richard Sherman was named an all-American. So let’s think of this—the period that began when Erin Andrews asked Sherman, “Who was talking about you?”—as our own freshman re-orientation. In less than a fortnight, he’ll either shine or shut up. He’ll be a champion or a humbled loser. Then he’ll go away. We, the people watching the action on our screens, will have to keep talking our way through this game of being all-American.TEACH FOR AMERICA (TFA), a not-for-profit organisation founded in 1990, places its young “corps members” at schools in poor areas to teach for two years. Most come fresh from college, and they learn mainly on the job. On September 10th a report for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the research arm of America's education department, suggested that TFA’s members excel at teaching maths (although older studies suggest they do no better than ordinary teachers at instructing children how to read). The report, which examined TFA members teaching maths in middle and high schools, found that the improved test scores of pupils were equivalent, on average, to an extra 2.6 months of school. Despite this seeming proof of TFA’s impact in classrooms, and its larger social mission, the organisation has many critics. Why?
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The IES study’s methodology means its findings cannot be taken as representative of the not-for-profit’s work in general. Firstly, it looked at TFA members teaching secondary maths, when actually most of the organisation’s members work in primary schools. For example, in the Houston school district, with roughly 10,000 teachers, there were only 13 TFA high school teachers in 2010. Secondly, although TFA recruits were better in maths classrooms than other teachers, they were also more likely to be white, male and to have attended “more selective” colleges than those teachers with whom they were compared. That said, TFA is actually more diverse than the study suggests: 39% of its latest recruits come from minority backgrounds.
TFA’s approach to teacher preparation, and provision of only five weeks' training before placing recruits in front of students, attracts criticism from those who think the recruits aren’t ready for the challenges that await them. Ryan Vernoush, a member of Minnesota’s Board of Teaching and a former teacher of the year in the state, believes placing inexperienced young people in front of “marginalised students” only serves “to perpetuate the status quo of inequity”. Denise Specht, president of Education Minnesota, the state’s largest teaching union, says that career teachers “value experience” whereas TFA “equates enthusiasm with experience”. Her members have to compete for with TFA recruits for teaching posts, despite having lengthier training. In the eyes of the union that means that the TFA undermines professional teaching qualifications. Another interpretation of the fuss is that bright young graduates are taking the jobs of career teachers (and sometimes showing them up).
Two-thirds of TFA’s 32,000 alumni have remained in the field of education. Despite controversies, the organisation is an increasingly significant voice in debates about school reform and privatisation, partly as a result of the lofty positions many of its former members now hold. One, Cami Anderson, is the superintendent for Newark’s schools; another, Mike Johnston, is a state senator in Colorado. Some celebrities and philanthropists are also behind it: John Legend, a popular singer, serves on TFA’s national board and the Walton Foundation, funded by members of the family behind Walmart, has given it more than $100m. TFA’s approach to teacher training is likely to influence educational policy in America as the number of its influencial alumni grows.Planetary scientists have identified Jupiter's icy moon of Europa as one of their top targets for exploration, believing that its warm interior oceans may well harbor life. A new study published just this week, authored by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, found that conditions in the oceans on Europa may indeed be Earth-like and capable of harboring life.
Despite the wishes of the planetary science community to further investigate Europa, NASA has been wary of mounting such a mission because of the high cost—well above $1 billion. Additionally, planetary science hasn't been a priority in President Obama's NASA budgets, and the space agency has preferred to focus most of its robotic solar system exploration on Mars. The red planet is easier to reach, and NASA says it wants to explore Mars further to enable future human missions.
Congress has been more interested in planetary science, however. And in particular, the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over NASA's budget, John Culberson (R-Texas), has fancied Europa. Even when NASA wasn't asking for Europa funds, the congressman was funneling money to the scientists at the California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Between the 2013 and 2016 fiscal years, NASA requested just $45 million in Europa funding, but Congress appropriated $395 million. For fiscal year 2017, NASA requested $49.6 million in Europa funding, but a House appropriations bill released this week by Culberson's committee proposes $260 million for mission planning and development.
As part of the mission to Europa, Culberson would also like to send a lander to the surface of the heaving, ice-encrusted world. This would allow scientists to better characterize the oceans below and, if the lander touches down near a fissure, possibly even sample the ocean. However, there has been some concern that having both an orbital spacecraft and a lander in a single mission would prove too challenging for a single rocket to deliver.
So as part of the new House bill, the Europa mission is broken into two parts: an orbiter and, two years later, a lander. The plan would be for the orbiter spacecraft to swoop down into the harsh radiation environment near Europa (because of the moon's proximity to Jupiter) and out again to relay data back to Earth. The nominal mission would perform at least 45 flybys of Europa at altitudes varying from 2,700km all the way down to 25km above the surface. By assessing this data, scientists on Earth could determine where best to set their lander down on the surface two years later.
"We have increased funding for planetary programs and made sure we are going to complete the incredibly important mission to Europa that the planetary decadal survey mapped out because of the very high likelihood that life will be discovered in those oceans," Culberson said during a hearing Tuesday. "This will be a transformative moment in the history of humanity and the country."
In its documents about the Europa mission, NASA has not formally approved a lander, and it says only that the flyby mission will launch "sometime in the 2020s." The House bill is much more specific, calling for an orbiter launch no later than 2022 and a lander launch no later than 2024. Senior officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have told Culberson that those dates are attainable. Additionally, the bill specifies that NASA's next budget, for fiscal year 2018, includes a five-year funding profile to support those two launches.
NASA last visited the Jupiter system in the 1990s and early 2000s with the Galileo spacecraft. Galileo snapped images of Europa during 11 flybys, but the best of those pictures had a resolution of only about 10 meters per pixel. The spacecraft stored those images on a tape recorder with a capacity of 114 megabytes, but a flawed rewind mode hampered even that modest device. Yet this limited data was enough to tantalize scientists, and Europa has been a target of high interest for planetary scientists ever since.-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Apache Commons Team is pleased to announce the release of Apache Commons Compress 1.15. The Apache Commons Compress Library defines an API for working with compression and archive formats. These include: bzip2, gzip, pack200, lzma, xz, Snappy, traditional Unix Compress, DEFLATE, LZ4, Brotli and ar, cpio, jar, tar, zip, dump, 7z, arj. Compress 1.15 contains big fixes and small improvements for the tar and zip formats. In addition the jar's manifest file now contains an Automatic-Module-Name entry that ensures the name will be org.apache.commons.compress when the jar is used as an automatic module in Java9. TarArchiveOutputStream now ensures record size is 512 and block size is a multiple of 512 as any other value would create invalid tar archives. This may break compatibility for code that deliberately wanted to create such files. Source and binary distributions are available for download from the Apache Commons download site: http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-compress/download_compress.cgi When downloading, please verify signatures using the KEYS file available at the above location when downloading the release. Changes in this version include: New features: o Added magic MANIFEST entry Automatic-Module-Name so the module name will be org.apache.commons.compress when the jar is used as an automatic module in Java9. Issue: COMPRESS-397. o Added a new utility class FixedLengthBlockOutputStream that can be used to ensure writing always happens in blocks of a given size. Issue: COMPRESS-405. Thanks to Simon Spero. o It is now possible to specify/read custom PAX headers when writing/reading tar archives. Issue: COMPRESS-400. Thanks to Simon Spero. Fixed Bugs: o Make sure "version needed to extract" in local file header and central directory of a ZIP archive agree with each other. Also ensure the version is set to 2.0 if DEFLATE is used. Issue: COMPRESS-394. o Don't use a data descriptor in ZIP archives when copying a raw entry that already knows its size and CRC information. Issue: COMPRESS-395. o Travis build redundantly repeats compilation and tests redundantly GitHub Pull Request #43. Thanks to Simon Spero. Issue: COMPRESS-413 o The MANIFEST of 1.14 lacks an OSGi Import-Package for XZ for Java. Issue: COMPRESS-396. o BUILDING.md now passes the RAT check. Issue: COMPRESS-406. Thanks to Simon Spero. o Made sure ChecksumCalculatingInputStream receives valid checksum and input stream instances via the constructor. Issue: COMPRESS-412. Thanks to Michael Hausegger. o TarArchiveOutputStream now verifies the block and record sizes specified at construction time are compatible with the tar specification. In particular 512 is the only record size accepted and the block size must be a multiple of 512. Issue: COMPRESS-407. Thanks to Simon Spero. o Fixed class names of CpioArchiveEntry and CpioArchiveInputStream in various Javadocs. Issue: COMPRESS-415. o The code of the extended timestamp zip extra field incorrectly assumed the time was stored as unsigned 32-bit int and thus created incorrect results for years after 2037. Issue: COMPRESS-416. Thanks to Simon Spero. o Removed ZipEncoding code that became obsolete when we started to require Java 5 as baseline long ago. Issue: COMPRESS-410. Thanks to Simon Spero. o The tar package will no longer try to parse the major and minor device numbers unless the entry represents a character or block special file. Issue: COMPRESS-417. o When reading tar headers with name fields containing embedded NULs, the name will now be terminated at the first NUL byte. Issue: COMPRESS-421. Thanks to Roel Spilker. o Simplified TarArchiveOutputStream by replacing the internal buffering with new class FixedLengthBlockOutputStream. Issue: COMPRESS-409. For complete information on Commons Compress, including instructions on how to submit bug reports, patches, or suggestions for improvement, see the Apache Commons Compress website: http://commons.apache.org/compress/ Stefan Bodewig, on behalf of the Apache Commons community -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iEYEARECAAYFAlnmRAkACgkQohFa4V9ri3L2cwCeLqFLHNuxK2YUuqzbJjXl8mZR JF8AoNO7DXUdIbL3nMs74+kkuVb46T4C =iZYS -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@commons.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@commons.apache.orgTo say that Facebook's Android app has been... less than exciting... would be the understatement of the past year or so. Hopefully tonight's update is a sign of greater things to come, as Version 1.7 brings some UI tweaks and features that frankly should have been added by now. Here's the rundown:
Made it easier to share with who you want
Improved the sharing tool to add privacy controls on posts and match your settings on the web site
Added the ability to tag friends and places in photos posts
Added new design for Profile and Group Walls
Improved photo browsing with swiping
Added the ability to tag your friends in photos
Improved Messages and Notifications
Fixed a number of crashes and performance issues
Not mentioned in the bullet points -- these are the official changes mentioned in the Android Market -- is that you can also now pull to refresh. It's about time. And while the app's now installable on Android 3.x devices, let's see about maybe getting a proper tablet layout, shall we?
Snag the updated version in the Android Market now. We've got download links after the break.Altpress.com is happy to exclusively reveal some details surrounding the Lawrence Arms bassist/vocalist Brendan Kelly's latest project, Brendan Kelly and the Wandering Birds. The group has wrapped work on a full-length, which will be released in February via Red Scare. A three-song digital EP, A Man With The Passion Of Tennessee Williams, will precede it on December 27.
When we asked Kelly for a statement on the project, he wrote an essay, as he is wont to do. Check out the details below!
“The impetus for this project was brought about in no small part because I felt like after the last two Lawrence Arms records (2006's Oh! Calcutta! and 2009' Buttsweat And Tears) I had done that particular iteration of punk rock about as well as I’d ever be able to do it. I’m not suggesting that those albums are perfect or even mind-blowing, but they’re the best of that style that I could personally do. I felt pretty satisfied with them, and that satisfaction in turn really stymied my creativity.
After Buttsweat And Tears came out I didn’t really feel like I had any ideas for any new songs, or at least nothing that seemed interesting to me. I also didn’t have a lot of time because I was suddenly a dad. After a while, I started to get really antsy to create something new and different, but I had no direction. I remembered an old interview with Billie Joe Armstrong that I read in like ’99 where he said something to the effect of, “When a song’s lyrics make me nervous, when I’m kind of apprehensive to show people, those usually end up being the songs that turn out the best, the ones that are the result of me stepping out of my comfort zone.” This resonated with me at the time because I had felt so in my comfort zone with the last two Lawrence Arms records that I couldn’t figure out where else to go, creatively.
SO, I decided to start writing songs that made me nervous. I wrote words that came from a much darker place than before, and songs about things that are usually not the subjects of punk rock songs. This record isn’t an autobiographical one, it’s more of an exploration of some fucked up situations and mental states. Lots of these songs are about feeling pretty trapped and caged and the way that the human brain twists and warps when it can’t do what it wants. That’s where all sorts of fucked up crime and deviance comes from and that’s kind of what this record is exploring, content-wise.
As far as the music, I tried to do stuff that was still familiar enough to me that I’d be adept at putting it together, but different enough that I’d still be nervous about the sound. I play most of the instruments on this thing, but I got some really spectacular musicians and producers from non-punk rock backgrounds to help me flesh out the ideas and take it to places I couldn’t have conceptualized myself. The main core of the Wandering Birds is myself, my oldest collaborative partner in the world, Nick Martin (we made our first demo when we were eleven) playing almost everything else, and producers Eric Halborg and Shawn Astrom who are a classic rock/hippy/Smiths fan and a Euro dance music producer respectively. The results, I think, are different enough that there’s no question that it’s not the Lawrence Arms, but my personality and style are still undoubtedly in there. I have a feeling it’s gonna be pretty polarizing. There will definitely be people who hate it or don’t get the lyrics and either find it to be offensively childish or who just don’t get what I’m trying to do.The music also gets pretty weird here and there. Fuck, maybe I totally misstepped with this shit. Who knows? All I know is I’m a little nervous about it and that excites me.
Oh, the first single (“A Man With The Passion Of Tennessee Williams”) is loosely based on the cult surrounding Tommy Wiseau’s The Room and the general post-ironic culture drain that I feel like everyone is wallowing in right now. Erm…that’s all. Enjoy.”An Apple software engineer recently revealed that Apple is now rolling out its use of differential privacy to cover both web browsing and health data, as it now uses the technique to process millions of pieces of daily information from device users.
Differential privacy has so far flown largely under the radar, so we thought it would be a good time to look at what it does and how it works – and to ask how comfortable you feel about its wider use by Apple …
NordVPN
Prior to the development of the technique, tech companies with access to large volumes of data faced a fundamental dilemma. If you collect and analyse that data, it can be of tremendous value in helping you understand what your customers do and what they want – and allow you to provide a better service as a result. If you take data analysis right down to the level of individual users, you can offer a highly personalized service – but at a potential cost to their privacy.
This is the approach that Google has taken, and is why it is some way ahead of Apple when it comes to things like identifying travel plans from emailed etickets and proactively letting you know when it’s time to leave for the airport.
If, on the other hand, you decide that user privacy is more important than data-mining, then your customers will feel comforted by the fact that you’re not mining all their data – but the downside may be less intelligent services.
This is the approach that Apple has historically taken.
What is differential privacy?
Differential privacy is a potential solution to this dilemma. It’s a method of collecting and analyzing large volumes of data from individuals, but processing it in a way that ensures that nothing can be tied back to any one individual. You can’t use it to deliver fully-personalized services the way Google does, but you can use aggregated learning to deliver an all-round better service to your customers.
The WSJ gave an example of how the technique could be used in a survey about illegal drug use. If you anonymously ask 100 people whether they use marijuana, and you also ask them a bunch of other questions, then there’s the risk that a combination of answers could identify individuals.
For example, if you also asked those people what color car they drive, then there may be only one person in that survey who drives a blue car. If someone answered yes to smoking marijuana and also said that their car is blue, then we can work out who they are even though the data is theoretically anonymous.
Real-life examples would obviously be more complex – involving millions of people and many more than two data items – but the same principle applies. For example, Netflix uses anonymous IDs to log our TV and movie preferences, but an analysis by the University of Texas showed that having just a little bit of knowledge about an individual can allow us to de-anonymize the data.
What differential privacy does is to add a certain amount of mathematical ‘noise’ to the data you collect so that you can no longer know with certainty anything about any specific individual.
In the drug survey example, question 1 for 90 of the people would be whether they smoked marijuana. For the other 10 people, Q1 would be ‘Flip a coin and answer Yes if it comes up heads.’ Then if we see that our blue car driver answered Yes to question 1, we can no longer state that he’s a drug user – he may be one of the people who got the coin-flipping version of the survey.
The dummy questions need to be ones with known response rates (50/50 in the case of a coin flip), and there’s some clever mathematics involved in ensuring that your data analysis is accurate, but the net result is that you can still, within a margin of error, determine what percentage of people smoke pot without identifying any of them.
In the case of health data, Apple would know, for example, how many iPhone owners have a particular body mass index, but it wouldn’t know who any of them are.
How comfortable are you with Apple’s approach?
Apple started using differential privacy with the launch of iOS 10. When you opt in to sending Diagnostic and Usage Data, Apple applies differential privacy to that data.
The move wasn’t without controversy. My colleague Greg Barbosa wrote a piece about Apple not making it clear to users how the data was being used, and a cryptography professor from John Hopkins questioned whether Apple’s approach was truly safe.
The problem, he says, is that there’s an inevitable trade-off between the accuracy of the data you collect and the privacy of individuals. In other words, the more mathematical noise you introduce in order to protect privacy, the less accurate your data.
But all the signs point to Apple erring on the side of caution, coming down firmly on the privacy side of this trade-off. Apple is, it says, looking only for ‘general patterns.’
To obscure an individual’s identity, Differential Privacy adds mathematical noise to a small sample of the individual’s usage pattern. As more people share the same pattern, general patterns begin to emerge, which can inform and enhance the user experience.
It has so far used the data to improve things like auto-correct suggestions.
While one academic without specific knowledge of Apple’s approach has questioned it, another who has had at least a ‘quick peek’ at the technology believes the company’s approach is sound.
Aaron Roth, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Pennsylvania, […] said that it ‘positions Apple as the clear privacy leader among technology companies today’ and that his examination of the bits he saw suggested the company was ‘doing it right.’
However, it’s fair to say that the company is now moving into more sensitive areas by analyzing web browsing habits and – in particular – health data. It’s likely that this kind of use will put pressure on Apple to share more details of its approach more widely than it has done to date.
How comfortable do you feel about Apple expanding data analysis using differential privacy to collect web browsing and health data? Please take our poll, and share your thoughts in the comments.
Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news!Lenovo has unveiled a new ThinkStation model, the P320 Tiny, based on a Kaby Lake / Q270 platform with NVIDIA's Quadro P600 GPU. The unique aspect is the dimensions - At 1.4" x 7.1" x 7.2" (1L in volume), it is one of the smallest systems we have see that includes a discrete GPU. In order to achieve this compact size, the 135W power adapter is external to the system.
The P320 Tiny supports Kaby Lake CPUs with TDP of up to 35W (such as the Intel Core i7-7700T). NVIDIA's Quadro P600 is a GP107-based GPU with a 40W TDP. The system comes with two DDR4 SODIMM slots and two M.2 NVMe SSD slots. There is a rich variety of I/O ports - audio jacks in the front, a total of six USB 3.0 ports spread across the front and the rear, a RJ-45 GbE port, and six display outputs (4x mini-DP + 2x DP). Thanks to the Quadro GPU, the P320 Tiny is able to come with ISV certifications for various applications such as AutoCAD etc.
Lenovo ThinkStation P320 Tiny: General Specifications CPU Intel Kaby Lake (up to Core i7)
(35W TDP max.) Chipset Intel Q270 RAM Up to 32 GB DDR4-2400 (2x SODIMM) GPU NVIDIA Quadro P600 Storage 2x M.2 PCIe: up to 1 TB NVMe SSD each
ODD: optional with add-on Networking Gigabit Ethernet
Intel 802.11 ac, 2 x 2, 2.4 GHz/5GHz + Bluetooth 4.0 - I/O 6x USB 3.0
Serial - optional Dimensions 1.4" x 7.1" x 7.2" Weight 2.9 lbs
The board used in the system seems to be a custom one - it is larger than a mini-STX board, but, smaller than an ITX one. It is perfect for space-constrained setups, and comes with extensibility options such as add-ons for extra USB ports and a COM port, or, for an optical drive, as shown in the gallery below.
As for operating systems, the new Lenovo ThinkStation P320 Tiny workstation supports both Windows and Linux. The P320 Tiny starts at $799 and is available now.
As companies grow and management receives less and less training on how humans behave and perceive things, I have noticed that the impact of their decisions about employees tends to go unnoticed. This has significantly affected a company’s engagement with their employees, as well as significantly lowering overall productivity of the workforce.
“would you punish someone who has done nothing wrong?"
I heard a long time ago a question posed “would you punish someone who has done nothing wrong?" The normal person would say absolutely not! Then why would we reward someone who has done nothing right?
To have an outstanding and exemplary team there must be a team that is not. In other words, one can not exist without the other
Now let us think about this for a minute and bring it into the business world. First, we must accept and understand that by rewarding someone you are inherently punishing another. For someone to win, there has to be a loser. For someone to be a high performer, there must be a lower performer. To have an outstanding and exemplary team, there must be one that is not. In other words, one can not exist without the other.
Now take a deep thought and identify in your mind how many people work in your department / company who people know underperform, yet they are still employed and receive no “punishment” for underperformance. Considering that one cannot exist without the other, this would then mean that those who are performing are being punished as we reward those who underperform. I don’t know if you worked with someone who did half the work you did and got paid the same while receiving the same bonus you did. If you have been in that situation, you know exactly what I am talking about. By that person receiving the rewards equal to you and having a drastically lower output, it is natural that you felt like you were being punished.
While we must have empathy and trust with individuals, we also must have empathy and trust for the full team.
Many companies and managers do not take this into consideration or lack the understanding of how deeply this impacts the culture within an organization. Often times they do not want to “write up” or council the person underperforming. Many managers would never actually FIRE someone for underperforming because of a false sense of empathy. I have heard and seen it many times; “he has a family”, “they are going through a rough time” etc. While we must have empathy and trust with individuals, we also must have empathy and trust for the full team.
I have seen managers struggle with empathy and trust within the team and not understand how rewarding those who underperform is a disservice, and frankly insulting for those that have excellent performance. This makes the performers question why they try and why they put in the extra effort. Slowly, it establishes a culture where people simply stop caring.
To bring in a personal story, I was once one of those employees who were “punished” due to the reward system. Performance evaluations were due so they gave me the typical self-evaluation form. I completed it as objectively as someone can evaluate themselves (I marked one notch below what I felt on every single question to be safe!). When I went to meet with my boss he explained how I was average and my performance was “average”. I was a bit confused and showed him that I had lead 80% of the projects in the department, all of which were successful. The closest person in the department to issue resolution resolved 30% less than I had in the past year. He maintained that I was average at the job so I said ok and went about my business. As all employees generally talk, there was a discussion about this within the team (away from the boss as usual) and they all got the SAME average rating. They asked me what I got and one of them joked that I must have gotten a big raise and a great performance review, as they knew what I had done. In my immature disgust, I told them that I was rated average as well. The look of shock on my co-workers faces was of some consolation to me.
That manager in a single performance review changed the culture of work within that department.
It took about 3 months before I quit and moved on to a different job and the team that was puzzled by my review. There was conversation for some time where they said “why bust our butts, look at what happened with him." That manager in a single performance review changed the culture of work within that department.
understand that equals in pay and treatment with differences in output means you are punishing those with higher output.
Overvaluing average or poor performance is the same as punishing high performance. You must always keep this in mind in regards to your treatment of employees, salary ranges, bonuses, reviews etc. Allowing poor performance to remain on a team is rewarding it which will pull down the overall performance of your department. Always try to help them improve their performance and everybody doesn’t have to be a rock star. However, you must ensure you are rewarding the correct type of performance. Understanding that equals in pay and treatment with differences in output, means you are punishing those with higher output.Pakistani boxer Mohammad Waseem on Sunday maintained his position as World Boxing Council's (WBC) number one and undefeated Silver Flyweight champion by defeating Panama's Carlos Melo.
Quetta-born Waseem knocked out his rival Melo in the first round after throwing punches relentlessly, marking the eighth consecutive victory of his professional career.
Following his win, Waseem, also known as Falcon Khan, thanked the nation for its support in a video message, vowing to continue the journey of his success and to bring honour to Pakistan.
Sunday's fight was his third in Panama. With this fight, he achieved the honour of culminating six out of his total eight contests on a knockout.
Falcon Khan is going to fight for the world title in January 2018.
Earlier this year, he was invited to General Headquarters by the Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa when he had successfully defended his WBC Silver Flyweight title after defeating Giemel Megramo of the Philippines in November.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had also approved a Rs30 million grant for the country's top pugilist.It’s called a “wrongful birth” bill and it’s all about preventing women from having an abortion, even if it kills them. The Arizona Senate passed a bill this week that gives doctors a free pass to not inform pregnant women of prenatal problems because such information could lead to an abortion.
In other words, doctors can intentionally keep critical health information from pregnant women and can’t be sued for it. According to the Arizona Capitol Times, “the bill’s sponsor is Republican Nancy Barto of Phoenix. She says allowing the medical malpractice lawsuits endorses the idea that if a child is born with a disability, someone is to blame.” So Republicans are banning lawsuits against doctors who keep information from pregnant women so as to prevent them from choosing to have an abortion.
This bill is actually more disturbing than the Republicans seem to realize. Giving doctors such a free pass risks the lives of both the expectant mother and the fetus she carries. Prenatal care isn’t just for discovering birth defects and disabilities. It is also for discovering life threatening issues such as an ectopic pregnancy which often requires an abortion to save the life of the mother. With rare exceptions, ectopic pregnancies are not viable anyway, but Republicans are allowing anti-abortion doctors to keep life threatening information from pregnant women all because they are obsessed with stopping any and all abortions. Women may not know they have a life threatening condition until they die on the emergency room table. And the doctor couldn’t be sued.
This is an egregious bill that will lead to higher mortality rates for infants and mothers. Doctors should be held accountable for not disclosing information learned from prenatal examinations. Pregnant women have the right to know if their future child is going to have a disability or if the pregnancy may require an induced abortion to save their lives. Any decision that is made as a result of the information is the mothers own. Doctors should not be allowed to make decisions for pregnant women as a way to prevent abortions. Women have the right to make their own health decisions and hiding critical information is irresponsible, unconscionable, and risks lives. In the end, Republicans are only putting more lives in jeopardy. They might as well call this the ‘let women die’ bill.Architect Michael Ezban spent a few months as a visiting scholar in Rome and became interested in a centuries-old landfill, Monte Testaccio, and his article tours through its history and, most interestingly, its current state as a living part of the city. Now towering as one of the eight hills in the city, Monte Testaccio grew to a height of more than 100 feet as a dumping ground for millions of clay vessels used over the centuries to transport olive oil into the city. Unlike modern-day dumps, this now-inactive landfill has become an active and useful part of the urban landscape.
That may be fine for most; garbage dumps are full of stuff we wanted to get rid of, after all. But as this recent article from Places shows, simply leaving these landfills to rot quietly out of our sight ignores the potential they carry – both on top and within.
There were about 8,000 active municipal solid waste landfills in the U.S. in 1980. In 2009 that number was down to just about 1,900. So, assuming there hasn't been some miraculous evaporation of decades worth of municipal waste, more than 6,000 landfills across the country are now sitting inactive.
As landfills in the U.S. meet and exceed their capacity and fall out of use, they face a fairly uniform future of being capped with clay and left alone to slowly decompose from the inside. Ezban argues that Monte Testaccio is a good example of a way we might be able to rethink these sealed landfills.
Monte Testaccio has hosted a range of marginalized populations for most of its existence, but now the constituency is evolving as socio-economic changes bring a greater diversity of activity to the area. The new annex of MACRO, Rome’s museum of contemporary art, is located in the slaughterhouse just yards away from the horse stalls and carriage storage. Adventurous foodies trek to Testaccio for traditional cuisine. Auto mechanics rebuild old Fiats at the base of the landfill as archaeologists piece together amphorae at the top. Ravers dance in the 17th-century caves until early Sunday morning, followed by Catholics attending mass in the chapel next door. Can waste management agencies, municipal parks departments, landscape architects and urban designers work to enable this kind of cultural mosaic on the slopes of contemporary landfills?
Ezban points to a few modern-day examples where this idea is starting to take shape. Freshkills Park in Staten Island, New York, is re-animating more than 2,200 acres of what at one time was the largest landfill in the world. The park will feature a number of activities, as well as an intricate system for sequestering and capturing the gaseous results of 150 million decaying tons of New York City garbage. Another dump makeover is underway in Tel Aviv, Israel, where the Hiriya Garbage Mound has been re-engineered and renamed as Ariel Sharon Eco Park. Closed after more than 40 years in 1998, the dump is being turned into a 2,000-acre park space and will feature a lake and a 50,000-seat amphitheater. Another dump-to-park conversion is Byxbee Park in Palo Alto, California, where more than 60 vertical feet of garbage have been capped with a bayside regional park. The Trust for Public Lands estimates that about 4,500 acres of landfill in U.S. cities have been converted into similar public spaces.
Freshkills Park, with the Manhattan skyline in the distance. (Flickr/Kristine Paulus)
But landfills don't only have to serve as mounded earth for park space. Ezban argues that too many of these projects choose to ignore what's beneath the cap. He says the composition of the landfill itself, as in Monte Testaccio, may offer its own benefits. Due to its unique composition of ancient clay, Monte Testaccio has proven to be an incredibly cool place in the city. Wine cellars have been dug into its sides and restaurants use their adjoining edges as a huge air conditioner.
Not all landfills – especially modern ones filled with unspeakable amounts of toxic and hazardous materials – can |
it ceased as soon as the bird had successfully removed the mark (see Video S5). This is unlike chimpanzees, which, after discovering that the mark is inconsequential, rapidly lose interest [23]. The reason for the difference could be that bird's feathers are of considerably higher importance for survival than a patch of hair in chimps. This interpretation is supported by data showing that birds spend about one quarter of their resting time with preening and are often seen to interrupt sleeping in complete darkness only to preen [24].
Two of the other three birds reacted to the mirror with excited behavior characterized by frequent jumping and running within the cage, and the last bird showed a high number of attacks towards the mirror in one trial (see Video S9), but not in the other. The subject Schatzi, which had shown spontaneous mark-directed behavior during an earlier exposure, showed no significant mark-directed behavior in this series of tests, although there were two instances of mark-directed behavior in the mirror and color condition and no mark-directed behavior in the other conditions.
Interestingly, the behavior in the mark tests corresponded to interest in the mirror in the standardized mirror exploration test. Those individuals that showed at least one instance of mark-directed behavior were the same that had shown a high interest in the mirror in the preference test, and the individual strongly avoiding the mirror in the choice test (Harvey) showed a high amount of attack-like behavior in the mark test.
One might ask why rather clear evidence was observed in two individuals and weaker evidence in another one, but not in all of the five birds. The proportion of positive findings is, however, well in the range of what has been found in apes. In chimpanzees, the species best studied and showing the clearest evidence of mirror-induced self-directed behavior, a considerable number of individuals typically produce negative findings [8,25]. Of 92 individuals tested by Povinelli et al. [8], only 21 demonstrated clear and nine weak evidence of self-exploration, with about 75% prevalence in young adults of 8 to 15 y. Only half among those with clear evidence of self-exploration passed the mark test. Thus, our data do not only qualitatively, but also quantitatively, match the findings in chimpanzees. As a note of caution, we would like, however, to emphasize that the number of birds we tested is too small for a definitive estimate of the distribution within the population. Thus, further studies must assess whether the typical frequency of mirror-induced self-directed behavior in magpies is comparable to that in chimpanzees.
Altogether, results show that magpies are capable of understanding that a mirror image belongs to their own body. We do not claim that the findings demonstrate a level of self-consciousness or self-reflection typical of humans. The findings do however show that magpies respond in the mirror and mark test in a manner so far only clearly found in apes, and, at least suggestively, in dolphins and elephants. This is a remarkable capability that is at least a prerequisite of self-recognition and might play a role in perspective taking. It thus could be essential for the ability of using own experience to predict the behavior of conspecifics [11]. Magpies are corvids, which belong to the order of Passeriformes, a phylogenetic group characterized by large brains relative to body weight [26]. The relative brain size of passeriform birds is similar to primates in allometric analyses, and within the Passeriformes, corvids stand out with particular high relative brain size [27]. Thus, magpies belong to a group of animals with very high relative brain size (see also Table 4).
We used a small number of tests as it was crucial to ensure that possible self-directed behavior of the birds represented a spontaneous response to seeing the own body in the mirror. Epstein et al. [28] reported that prolonged operant conditioning of isolated components of the mark test in pigeons could produce a behavioral pattern that superficially looks like mirror-induced mark-directed behavior. This study could, however, not be replicated [29], and these authors also found reduction of self-directed behavior in pigeons in the conditions with a mirror, which strikingly contrasts with our findings in magpies. Additionally, extremely long periods of exposure to mirrors without specific training of self-related actions did not produce any kinds of behavior that was centered on the mark in monkeys [30,31]. Lastly, the mark test is only one piece of evidence of mirror-induced self-recognition in animals. Of equal importance are previous inspections of the mirror, such as during looks at the back side of the mirror, and exploration of mirror properties, such as during contingent behavior [1,8,10,32]. Our magpies showed self-related behavior in front of the mirror after a rather short cumulative exposure time and without being specifically trained to do so. In addition, when confronted with mirrors the first time, they displayed similar sequences of behavior as described in apes [1,2,3,8,32]. Although the mark test has been criticized [33,34], the main objections have been ruled out [23], and it remains one of the most useful tests for self-recognition in comparative studies [35]. When magpies are judged by the same criteria as primates, they show self-recognition and are on our side of the “cognitive Rubicon.” One should keep in mind that though mirror self-recognition reflects a crucial step in the emergence of self-recognition, the fully fledged capacity is complex, and comparative [36,37], clinical [38], and developmental studies [39] suggest an overall gradual development of this capacity.
Cognitive and neurobiological studies of the last decade have shown that birds and mammals faced a similar selection pressure for complex cognitive abilities, resulting in the evolution of a comparable neural architecture of their forebrain association areas [40] as well as their cognitive operations [17,41–43]. This high degree of evolutionary convergence is especially visible for the cognitive abilities of corvids and apes [17]. By demonstrating self-recognition in the mirror by magpies, the present study shows that even the neural capacity for distinguishing self and others has evolved independently in the two vertebrate classes and that a laminated cortex is not a prerequisite for self-recognition.(Photo: World Watch Monitor) Boko Haram has carried out a wave of deadly attacks on Christian and civic buildings across northern Nigeria in recent years
More than 5,000 Catholics have been killed by Boko Haram in a single Nigerian diocese, a new report has revealed.
According to the 'Situation Report on the activities of Boko Haram in the Catholic Diocese of Maiduguri', up to 85 per cent of the diocese, in the north-east of Nigeria, is currently controlled by Boko Haram. The Islamist group began its insurgency in 2009, and has been largely active in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, all of which fall within the Maiduguri constituency.
The report states that at least 100,000 Catholics in the area have been displaced, and more than 350 churches have been attacked. Some 7,000 women in the diocese are now widowed, and nearly 10,000 children orphaned by the violence, which has spread to neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger.
Obtained by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the report also reveals that over half of the diocese's 40 parish centres and chaplaincy centres have been abandoned by the faithful, and several are now occupied by Boko Haram militants. Four of five convents have also been closed.
"People are very scared and those who are able to return home find there is nothing left," Father Gideon Obasogie, director of social communications in the diocese, told ACN.
"A life lived with much fear is terrible."
However, the Catholic priest said his faith was being strengthened in the midst of adversity. "The good Lord has always been on our side. He has seen us through thick and thin. Our faith has been purified through persecution."
National security became the central talking point of Nigeria's presidential election in March, after the date was postponed by six weeks while the government tried to curb Boko Haram's insurgency. President-elect Muhammadu Buhari is due to take office later this month and has promised to tackle the ongoing problem.
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Boko Haram would "soon know the strength of our collective will," Buhari vowed in a televised speech.
"In tackling the insurgency, we have a tough and urgent job to do. Boko Haram will soon know the strength of our collective will. We should spare no effort until we defeat terrorism."
On Monday, Buhari met Chadian President Idriss Deby to discuss a combined effort to restore stability to the region.
"If we want to continue the fight we'll have to make sure that our two armies work together. This is the only way that we can get results," Deby said, according to the BBC.
"We discussed issues of common interest which we will pursue together and to have a joint action to handle the issue of Boko Haram and will overcome it and by the grace of God, peace and security will prevail in the sub-region."About
*******************************************************************************************This project was postponed after 2 days due to some of the rewards being too complicated and not enough samples being available to see. We will relaunch in July 2014, so please come and support our new and improved kickstarter project soon. More information will be available on our facebook page: www.facebook.com/sockstoryuk/
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The Sock Story... Story
Hi and thanks for supporting this project. I'm Jonathan, a 30 year old former English teacher from London. I recently spent several years teaching elementary school kids in South Korea, where I came across these amazing socks. They were really unique, fun and affordable and a lot of kids collected them and mixed and matched every day. The bold designs over the whole foot and intricate stitching really set them apart from most other socks. When I saw how much friends and family enjoyed them, I decided to try to start a business. The main problem however was the sizing - they had nothing for under age 6 and those that would appeal to kids in the west were made for teens. They also had nothing for men either and the labels were entirely in Korean, which was a big problem. So I set out to start from scratch - taking the same idea, but creating an entirely new brand.
And so Sock Story was born - a character sock brand with characters, stories and fun at it's core. I got websites set up and came up with several product ranges - one would be a character socks world called Super Oddsocks, with cute, silly and odd characters living together and shaping the world in their style. Not just buildings but even the environment would be fun, so in the town of Sockstoria you might see a flower tower, a slime-ing pool and a ghost train for example. Kids could choose their favourite styles and characters that represent who they are and how they'd like the world to be and our regular comics and artwork will help expand the world on social media.
Then there would be Sock Invaders - a geeky, pop culture range for adults, featuring alternative, web inspired characters. And not only would it be able to promote new web comics and character brands, but it would also help those brands to order their own merchandise in smaller quantities. No longer would socks be reserved for The Simpsons and Moshi Monsters.
But in order to fund these products, i first created a London design for British souvenir shops, thinking it would be a sure seller. The production and design went smoothly and feedback was great - but as it turned out, the souvenir market isn't very welcoming of new products, no matter the price or quality. It left the whole thing in some doubt. That's when I discovered Kickstarter! I got back to work on Sock Invaders and signed up some big name web comics to be part of the project. Their support has been invaluable. We now have a wide range of products, sizes and styles and some quite unique rewards. It's a big, big project but this is it! With your support, Sock Story can become a reality. And if we ever become a household name, it will be thanks to people like you who took the time to read this and believed in our cause. Thank you for your time and support and have a great day.
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Our sizes are a bit unusual and many overlap, so use this chart to see which sizes will fit your feet
Some styles only come in certain sizes, so use this guide to see which styles you can get in your size.
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http://kickingitforward.orgThat heavy drive, that melodic bassline, was like the skeleton of the music and everything else fizzled around it. That was definitely the prototype for System.
Vivek Sharda’s journey from adolescent bedroom DJing to worldwide touring is one of perseverance fuelled by an unwavering passion for sound system culture. While music falling under the ‘dubstep’ umbrella term has adopted various guises since he first began releasing in the mid-00s, his sound remains as relevant as ever. From the hypnotic percussive layers of “Motherland” to the weird and wonderful bassline of “Slippin”, Sharda’s tunes explore the lowest frequencies with unpredictable, and unparalleled genius. Now undoubtedly one of the scene’s pinnacle figures, V.I.V.E.K (“I put the dots in there to confuse people”) is known as a mentor to a crop of fresh talents as well as a celebrated producer in his own right. Since 2012, he has run the System dances with friends and family; System Sound, one of the scene’s most revered labels, was born shortly after. The label’s trajectory hasn’t been a typical one. Although Versa’s 014 is the label’s most recent release, fans have been left baffled as to the whereabouts of Vivek’s own 005 and 010, which were postponed for reasons discussed in this interview. With the release of the elusive SYSTM005 (two years after it was announced) and the EP launch party just around the corner, I was fortunate enough to meet Vivek for an exclusive chat and an afternoon of crate-digging at one of the producer’s childhood haunts in Notting Hill.
I’m going to jump straight to SYSTM005 – why is it only coming out now after all this time and after so many other System releases?
When I started 005, the idea was for it to be a lot of stuff no-one had ever heard, but also new stuff. Unfortunately, I had a catastrophe with my hard drive where I lost loads of music, including a lot of my stuff I made from a long time ago, and I was left in a predicament because I wanted to do something big with it, and I was like, “what do I do now?”. Also, I’m my own worst enemy. I’m overly critical in what I do, and I went through many years of holding back, ‘cos I was making something that I didn’t like, then I’d change it, then I’d go back to it. It can really take it out of you because it’s difficult to let go. I want it to be good, I want people to feel it, but the first thing is I have to please myself. As I was releasing the music, 005 became a project whereby I wanted to give an idea of what we’re trying to do. Half of it is dub, half of it is step, which is very much what the label and parties are. The artwork by Ben Donoghue from all the nights is on every sleeve. If you come to the events, then you’ll get it; you’ll understand the music, what it is and how it starts. The concept behind System was to cross-pollinate different genres and show them in one format. I wanted to draw in a couple of artists whose music I was into, and I also wanted to make some dub music. I’m really happy with how it’s turned out – it’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done.
Which of your own releases are you most proud of?
“Asteroids” – that was the first release on System, and it was a tune that I didn’t think people would really get. But people got it. For me, that was great, because it’s not a banger, it’s a deep tune. I’ve never done anything like that. It was a new track, different from everything else I’d done, so it was like a new chapter.
Is there anything on SYSTM005 that’s similar to “Asteroids”?
I don’t think so. When you look at it, “Asteroids” doesn’t really fit with the label now. It’s quite a broad track in how it sounds, and is very different from every other release that’s come out. I think there’s more of a concept between all the other stuff, there are a lot more dub influences. I don’t think there’s anything like “Asteroids”, but I’m very happy with the way the label has gone and how it’s progressed.
There’s a similar idea behind the System releases, but I find that there’s also quite a difference between two producers such as Karma and Foamplate. What kind of vibe or sound do you look for when you sign someone?
Goth-Trad introduced me to Corin (Karma) at FWD>>, then he sent me this whole bunch of tunes. Everything anyone sends me, I always listen to, but it’s only when I get that feeling… I know people say this, but it really is that feeling where the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. When I heard “How Ya Feel”, I was thinking, “someone must have signed this, this is such a sick tune”. It was the same feeling with Foamplate. When he gave me a dub of “Fuzz”, and I was like, “who the hell is this guy?”. Anyone who owns a label is putting out music they like, unless it’s a real multi-national label that is out to make money. I want to put out stuff that I’m feeling. I never look at it like, “that’s dubby, that’ll work”. I’ll put out something I like, and even if it has no relevance to anything else, I’ll still put it out. Everything has kind of been dub and dubstep, there’s a coherence with all of that, but I’ll look at anything. The label is following sound system culture, so anything that falls in that bracket – and that’s quite a varied bracket to be in.
What advice do you give to the artists signed to System?
Ultimately, this is a business, so one of the first things I do whenever I meet these guys is I make sure everyone sees what the costs are and what they are to be paid. I also encourage the artists to start their own label. Like Foamplate, he’s just started his own label, so it’s great to see his progression. No-one can do more for you than yourself. If I’m putting your music out, it’s because your music is good; I’m feeling it, and it’s good for my label. But I don’t want to own you or your career. You are free to do what you want to do. If you’re good enough, you’re good enough. Your talent will shine through. Get the music out – the music is the most important, because it’s what separates you from everyone else.
What are the best and hardest parts about running a label?
The best part is definitely that the label is an expression of me, because I’m releasing music that I like. One of the other things is to see young artists start when they’re unknown and then just blow up. Like with Karma, he’s a great producer and it’s great to see him now working with the Innamind guys. To see guys who have come through me to then do other things is fantastic. Ital Mick, Versa… they weren’t unknown, but they needed a bit more limelight, and I hope that the label helped them to do that. The downside is when things go pear-shaped, things get pressed wrong or there’s an issue. With 005, I had to recut so many tracks because I wasn’t happy with the test presses, which is another reason why it took so long. There aren’t a lot of downsides to running a label, but I guess I’m always taking a calculated risk because I don’t have a deal with distribution, I pay for everything myself, so I’m limited in funds in what I do. Generally, it’s all positive – vinyl sales are in a great position, and the way I do it via our website means there’s no middle man and the artists get paid more money.
Are you allowed to talk about any of the upcoming System releases?
So obviously 005 is happening. LAS… we’re working on that album. LAS has too much music, so it’s difficult. Karma, we’re gonna be doing a double pack, and we’re gonna be doing a double pack with Cessman, who we just signed. He’s amazing, he’s been around from day, and he’s a sick producer. Foamplate, we’re gonna be doing something with. Again, Versa, we’re hoping to do something else. It’s basically just finalising. At the moment, it’s gonna be 005, and then 010, I’m doing a double pack. That’s my tunes. Next year, I think Karma will be first, so we’re just in the process of getting that together.
You’re the face of System, but there seems to also be a lot of family involvement. Is it just the nights or the label? Who is part of System Roots?
That’s always the way with sound system; there’s one guy who everyone knows, but the back room guys, they’re even more important. Anyone can buy speakers, anyone can build a sound, but not everyone can run a sound. It’s a labour of love, but ultimately you need people there, you need reliability and you need people that are willing to come 5 hours before the dance, and are willing to leave 3 hours after the dance. How many people are willing to do that? Not a lot. When we do any of the dances, cousins, brothers, friends – they’re all there, but with the label it’s easy for me to deal with it. If you look at sound systems – Abi Shanti, Jah Shaka, Channel One – it’s family. You can only do it with family and very good friends, because things can heated, and if you’re not willing to take that side of it, you can’t be part of it. System Roots is my brother and my best friend Googs, who is also the main sound guy for System. Googs is the unsung hero in a lot of this; when we started the sound, it was me and him sitting in the pub, and someone phoned up and said “I’m having a kid and I’ve got these speakers for sale”. Googs said, “nah, we ain’t got the money for that”, then I asked, “oh, who was that?”, and he said “oh it was… he’s selling these scoops”. I was like, “are they any good?” and he said, “for sure man”, and I was like, “let’s do this thing!”. And that’s how this thing started; without Googs, there is no System, simple as that. Sachin’s my brother, so for him to be part of it is great, and from a music perspective, his knowledge of dub is amazing, his selection is sick. He and Googs play a fundamental role. They don’t do warm-up – I know they play first, but they’re not doing a warm-up, they’re setting the vibe. I think that they’re not given the credit that they deserve, because they set up the dances, especially when we were at the Dome, people were specifically coming to hear them first, because they play amazing music.
System dances were originally held at Tufnell Park Dome, but have since moved between various venues in London including Shapes and Koko. What’s been the reason behind all these changes?
What happened was we lost Tufnell Park due to the council, and so went to Shapes [in Hackney]. Originally, we were told we could go up to 110 dB, but a week before the event, we were told “you can only go up to 100 db”. They had to put in these licenses where you’re only allowed to have 400 or so people, which I wasn’t told. There were 800 people in there and a massive queue outside. They got worried that the council were going to see that there were too many people, so they then made the sound go down to 90dB. Koko was brilliant! It was ridiculous in there – but you know, Shapes was a learning curve. Dingwalls is a great venue, that’s not going anywhere.
Speaking of sound systems, what’s your favourite one to play on other than your own?
I think the Void is probably the best one I’ve played on. Also the Neuron [Pro Audio] that Youngsta had at Contact in Leeds – that’s a very, very good sound system. I recently played on one in France with Young Warrior called Dubatriation and that was ridiculous. That was scarily weighty, really heavy B-line. But one thing I’ve learned from all sound systems, which isn’t taken into consideration a lot, is the acoustics of the room. That plays a fundamental role in how it sounds. Sometimes it’s difficult to say what the best one you played on was, because a lot of the time it depends on how it’s set up and the acoustics of the room. I would say that at the moment the room we’ve got at Dingwalls for System is the best we’ve had acoustically. I’m not saying it’s one of the best sound systems, but the way we’ve set it up, it sounds really good.
You used to go to Aba Shanti-I’s dances a lot in your youth in Southall. What was it like going to those dances, and did they in any way influence System nights?
Absolutely, that’s the benchmark. I was 13 years old when I went to my first dance. I remember walking into the community centre and seeing these massive speakers, and looking down and everything was vibrating. It was just the most surreal experience, and once you go to a proper dance, music is not the same again. I was totally gripped by that. It just became the norm for me, and that’s how I wanted to hear music. That heavy drive, that melodic bassline, was like the skeleton of the music and everything else fizzled around it. That was definitely the prototype for System.
I must admit that when I first started going to System, I used to get annoyed about the lack of line-up, because everyone’s used to seeing set lists, but now I appreciate that when you go to a dance, it doesn’t matter who’s playing as long as the music is good. Tell me more about your decision to run System like that.
What I’ve found beforehand was that the whole line-up thing is hierarchical. The main guy at the top, the new guy at the bottom, main guy’s got big text, new guy’s got little text. I’m not feeling that, because that guy at the bottom is doing just as much of a job as the guy at the top. I want people to come, firstly to hear good music, secondly so they hear it on a good sound system. Why should it matter who’s playing? Why do I have to sell it to them? I don’t want to sell an artist to the crowd; I want people to come because they know they’re going to hear great music. It’s been four or five years, so I think fans trust me to make sure that we’ve got good people. But if you want I can give you the line-up for the next one: Commodo, Egoless, Versa and myself, System Roots, Crazy D and Dego Ranking.
How did you come to work with Dego Ranking?
We met him about 3 years ago in Bristol when we were doing Tokyo Dub and he was with Mad Professor. He was smashing it up! He was spitting over drum and bass, he was doing dub. So Googs got his number, and then said, “come to System”. Dego is an old school person; he’s in his fifties and he’s just an amazing guy, he’s got such a personality. He actually had a release a long time ago, it went to number 3 in the charts. I got to know him, and said to Dego, “look man, why don’t we start building a couple tunes together”. Initially, when we started, it wasn’t really working. Then I said, “I’ve got a couple riddims, come and spit on them”, so I gave him “Road To Righteousness” and “One Heart”, and he did that all in one sitting. We spoke about how I think it would work, and what I love about Dego is that he just takes it on board. He’s easy to work with and he’s a friend, so we work really well together now. It’s been very organic professionally for both of us.
How long have you been working with him?
This year was probably our first year. Being able to go with someone on trips has changed everything for me, because sometimes it can be a bit lonely and I don’t always enjoy it. But to have someone there is is so much better.
There’s this “sound system” dubplate floating around online which isn’t on SYSTM005, but the instrumental appears three times – twice with vocalists and once on its own. Why did you choose not to release the original dubplate?
First of all, that one won’t get released because its a dubplate, it’s staying how it is. Also those vocals are from another release. The reasoning behind the three versions of that riddim was I wanted one of the vinyls to be similar to a reggae / dub vinyl. You get the main tune and different versions, so that was my nod towards the dub side of things.
What’s the original dub or track called?
It’s just called “Sound System Riddim” because that’s how everyone knows it. “Version” is always the instrumental, that’s how you label it. “Crucial Dub” is named because that’s what the vocalist is saying in it, and “Zindagi” is the hook of the other one.
How did you choose the other vocalists on SYSTM005?
I met Delhi Sultanate and Begum X in Delhi when I was doing a tour. I’ve got to say a big shout to Delhi Sultanate who’s doing massive things in India. He’s just built a sound system, and is probably the only guy that I know of properly pushing dub and reggae in India. He is also a very interesting guy because he’s an activist helping the plight of minorities in India. I met Singing Cologne a while back. He had written a whole song for “Crucial Dub”, but I preferred the dub version. I went through the list of what I’d done in the mixes and I felt those two tracks worked.
Since your first release “Natural Mystic” back in 2007, your sound has changed from being quite tech-y or drum and bass inspired to warmer analogue sounds. Has that been a conscious decision or something that naturally happened?
It’s been a mixture of both. My skills in making music have improved. I also use hardware now, when initially I didn’t, and that’s had a massive influence on my music. I think when the first tunes came out I was still into dub, but more into the tech side of things. It’s hard, because you’ve got a sound in your head, and it’s difficult to get that idea down on paper. It only happened after some time that I could start hearing something and putting it down. I also think my music’s changed because I’ve changed. Back then I was spending a lot more time with music, and now I can’t, I physically don’t have time. As I’ve got older, I’ve reverted to being younger musically. I’ve kind of gone round in a circle, back to my original love of dub. It’s a weird combo of my changing as a person, but at the same becoming more of who I was a long time ago.
Would you say it’s like forgetting about trends and going back to what you originally love?
Definitely. I’ve never followed trends anyway, but what originally drew me into dubstep originally was the openness. The fact that my music is diverse is a testament to dubstep because it’s an open music, it can be anything you want it to be. But I think now, when I listen to 005, I’m really happy with how it sounds. And generally I’m happy with what I do, but I’m always a bit like, “could’ve done this, could’ve done that”. But with this release, I’m like, “yeah, that’s cool. It all sounds good”. It takes a lot for me to say that.
A track…
by your favourite new artist: Causa – Monkey Dub
that you always rewind: Kromestar – Mere Sher
that you’d like to remix: Loefah – Mud
that you wish you had signed to System: Kahn – Way Mi Defend
System Sound EP [SYSTM005] is released end of August via wearesystem.co.uk. SYSTEM Carnival Special is August 27th at Dingwalls, London. Pick up tickets here.
Photos courtesy of Isa Jaward and Ben Donoghue.Summary: Shake can predict you how long your build will take. The prediction makes use of stateful applicative streams.
The Shake build system can predict how long your build will take. As an example, on Windows 7 I see:
The progress message is displayed in the titlebar of the console window (on Windows, Linux and Mac), for example 3m12s (82%) to indicate that the build is 82% complete and is predicted to take a further 3 minutes and 12 seconds. If you are running Windows 7 or higher and place the shake-progress utility somewhere on your %PATH% then the progress will also be displayed in the taskbar progress indicator.
Progress reporting is great for end users of Shake based build systems. They may not care that Shake is fast (since they probably have no frame of comparison for your particular build), or that it is robust, or that it is fully featured etc. But everyone wants to know if they should grab a coffee or just engage in some quick sword-fighting.
Limitations
Predicting the future is tricky. Shake is a very dynamic build system, so unlike Make, while running it can both discover new things to do, and decide that things it previously intended to do are unnecessary. It also runs rules in parallel, and each rule takes a different amount of time. All these factors make the progress a "best guess", rather than a statement of fact. In particular:
The first run (or after deleting the Shake database) will have worse predictions, as Shake has no idea how long each rule takes to execute.
In the first few seconds of a build, the predicted progress may vary more dramatically, as Shake is still determining how much is left to do and how fast things are going.
If you have a small number of long executing rules (e.g. taking minutes) then progress changes will be very granular, as no attempt is made at predicting in-progress rules.
These limitations aside, the feature has changed the way I work, and is valuable to many people. One user remarked that "showing the estimated build time remaining in the terminal window's title is genius".
Turning the feature on
Using Shake 0.10.2 or above (from March 2012), you can pass the command line flag --progress or the set the ShakeOptions field shakeProgress to progressSimple. Using the shakeProgress field you can customise how the progress messages are calculated and displayed, for example you can generate annotations for the Team City continuous-integration tool.
Collecting the data
The primary goal for this feature was to have zero overhead for people not using it, and to not complicate the internals of the build system. I achieved that goal by making progress generation take the internal Shake state every 5 seconds (configurable, using shakeProgress ) and generate summary statistics from the state. The result is the Progress data type (to follow the rest of this post, you do not need to understand the actual fields below):
data Progress = Progress {isFailure :: Maybe String -- ^ Starts out 'Nothing', becomes 'Just' a target name if a rule fails.,countSkipped :: Int -- ^ Number of rules which were required, but were already in a valid state.,countBuilt :: Int -- ^ Number of rules which were have been built in this run.,countUnknown :: Int -- ^ Number of rules which have been built previously, but are not yet known to be required.,countTodo :: Int -- ^ Number of rules which are currently required (ignoring dependencies that do not change), but not built.,timeSkipped :: Double -- ^ Time spent building 'countSkipped' rules in previous runs.,timeBuilt :: Double -- ^ Time spent building 'countBuilt' rules.,timeUnknown :: Double -- ^ Time spent building 'countUnknown' rules in previous runs.,timeTodo :: (Double,Int) -- ^ Time spent building 'countTodo' rules in previous runs, plus the number which have no known time (have never been built before). }
This structure counts the number of rules in each state, and where available, provides execution times. It reflects the information easily computable by the internals of Shake.
Computing the progress
To compute the progress I first spent a long time measuring real builds, and the Progress values, and trying to detect some correlation. The results were disappointing, and I got nowhere - the progress jumps around too much (I tried Kalman filters etc, but they didn't help). I then thought hard and decided that the best predictor of completion time is:
(number-of-rules-to-build * time-to-build-each-rule) / work-rate
So you take:
The number of things you have to do.
The time you expect each one to take.
How fast you are running rules, which you would expect to be roughly the -j parallelism argument.
This measure does not attempt to predict if rules are skipped or discovered, but these are unpredictable events, so ignoring them is sensible (and likely why the data-driven approach fell down). These measures can be computed by:
number-of-rules-to-build is known, and stored as countTodo.
is known, and stored as. time-to-build-each-rule is influenced by timeTodo, comprising the time to build some of the rules, and the number of rules that have never been built before. We can therefore compute the time-to-build-each-rule from the times we have, and predicted-time-to-build for the times we are missing.
is influenced by, comprising the time to build some of the rules |
bury’s Crysalis. Whether you’re a writer or just love to read, you’ll find insight and entertainment in AISFP. In addition to our podcasts, visit our website for book reviews, editorials, features, videos, news, and listener generated content.
[web] [feed] [itunes]
Not always about genre books, but the features about them are excellent.
Paper Cuts is a blog about books and other forms of printed matter, written by the editors of the Book Review. Look here for book news and opinion, interviews with writers, regular raids on the Book Review’s archives, and other special features. Each week, Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of the Book Review, talks to authors, editors and critics about new books, the literary scene and current best sellers.
Clark’s World Magazine
[web] [feed] [itunes]
Clarkesworld is a monthly science fiction and fantasy magazine first published in October 2006. Each issue contains at least two pieces of original fiction from new and established authors. Our fiction is also collected by issue in signed chapbooks and annually in our print anthology, Realms.
Drabblecast, the
[web] [feed] [itunes]
I liked What Fluffy Knew by Kristine Kathryn Rusch in the last episode immensely. Great story, impressive characterization of a cat by Kristine.
Audio Fiction Podcast Short Stories At the Far Side of Weird Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Everything In-Between Narrated and Produced by Norm Sherman
Dragon Page Cover to Cover
(Farpoint Media)
[web] [feed] [itunes]
“The Dragon Page Cover to Cover”, was started in Feb of 2002 by Michael R. Mennenga. The show’s first episode aired on the internet radio station “Book Crazy Radio” and then quickly moved into syndication on AM/FM radio stations throughout the US. In June 2003. “Cover to Cover” had made the jump to broadcast, finding an additional home on XM Satellite Radio, Channel 163 (Sonic Theater), and opening up a whole new fan base at the same time. “The Dragon Page” was also one of a handful of shows that began Podcasting in late 2004, almost at the same time the word was spoken. “The Dragon Page” has brought the best in sci-fi and fantasy literature, interviews with great authors, and important industry information, all wrapped up in weekly fun-filled episodes. “The Dragon Page” is now one of the oldest running programs online, lasting over 7 years and boasting over 400 episodes. The show continues it’s rich tradition of great content with New Hosts Michael R. Mennenga and New York Times Best Selling Author Michael A. Stackpole. Together they offer up news and information on books, writing, and the industry. Gleaning sage knowledge from a great writer, and humor and commentary from a seasoned professional Podcaster, Dragon Page is a show that any reader or writer should add to their listening list. Listen to the shows, and check out the news magazine at http://www.dragonpage.com/
Dunesteef, the
[web] [feed] [itunes]
Just checked out one episode so far, it was great. The welfare job story I liked.
Rish Outfield and Big Anklevich bring you short stories focusing on the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror genres. Other genres will also be included, because The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine simply want to bring you the best stories. So tune in and enjoy as these wonderful stories come flowing into your ears to fill your mind with wonder, joy, or dread.
Escape Pod
[web] [feed] [itunes]
That was awesome, thanks for the tip.
Escape Pod is the premier science fiction podcast magazine. Every week we bring you short stories from some of today’s best science fiction stories, in convenient audio format for your computer or MP3 player.
Science Fiction Book Review Podcast
[web] [feed] [itunes]
His reviews are quite good if somewhat lengthy and very funny.
The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast is a project by Luke Burrage. Luke is an avid reader of all kinds of science fiction, and is also an avid podcaster, his other main project being the Juggling Podcast. So Luke reads a science fiction book, makes some notes, thinks about the book for a few days, then records a review and puts it up on the feed. Then he reads another book. There is no set schedule, just whenever Luke finishes the book he happens to be reading. The podcasts last between 20 and 45 minutes each, depending on how much Luke has to talk about. Book selection is whatever takes Luke’s fancy at the time, or if he feels like re-reading a book he enjoyed in the past, or if a listener emails a suggestion, or if he gets into a theme.
SFFaudio
[web] [feed] [itunes]
News, Reviews, and Commentary on all forms of science fiction, fantasy, and horror audio. Audiobooks, audio drama, podcasts; we discuss all of it here. Mystery, crime, and noir audio are also fair game. Hey look! We’ve got our own podcast. This is the very first one, which includes SFFaudio founders Scott D. Danielson and Jesse Willis talking about audiobooks, audio drama, and cease and desist orders. We won’t desist podcasting if you won’t cease downloading them – whatever that means. This week we talked about the most recent of Recent Arrivals, the newest of the New Releases, and the breaking news about the attempt to break Broken Sea Audio Productions’ productions. Topics under discussion include: Ubik, Philip K. Dick, Joss Whedon, Dollhouse, Babylon Babies, Audible.com, audio drama, The Grist Mill, F. Paul Wilson, Charles de Lint, Robert A. Heinlein, Starman Jones, Mort Castle, Dr. Bloodmoney, Frederik Pohl, Lester del Rey, Arthur C. Clarke, 2000x, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Star Trek, Audible Frontiers, Wonder Audio, The Last Theorem, Preferred Risk, Alfred Bester, Fondly Fahrenheit, The Stars My Destination, Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, Audio Realms, Conan and Mickey Mouse.
Slice of SciFi (Farpoint Media)
[web] [feed] [itunes]
Slice of SciFi and its companion Voicemail Show are fan favorites, and appeal to SF media geeks of all ages. The funny, irreverent but always relevent discussion from show hosts Michael R. Mennenga, Summer Brooks, Brian Brown, and Sam Roberts always make for lively entertainment. Interviews with today’s top stars and genre production professionals, such as Ira Steven Behr, Walter Koenig, Jim Butcher, Samuel L. Jackson, Katee Sackhoff and an array of other top names in show business, are always on the cutting edge and timely. The Slice of SciFi website doubles as an online news magazine (ezine). Michael Hickerson manages a team of reporters dedicated to bringing fans the latest news and developments in SF television and film, in science, technology, space exploration, and more. The shows themselves focus on featured news from that week, plus interviews with actors, producers, directors and others who create the shows we love to watch and the technology that we marvel at. Slice of SciFi made the jump to broadcast, with a home on XM Satellite Radio, Channel 163 (Sonic Theater) in 2005, bringing the show to a broad new fan base. With the merger of XM with Sirius Satellite Radio in 2007, Slice of SciFi is beam to millions of listeners each week. Listen to the shows, and check out the news magazine at http://www.sliceofscifi.com/
Sofanaouts, the
[web] [feed] [itunes]
It’s a pleasure to listen to Tony and his interesting guests.
Its getting kick started in a month (that would be April 2010). It was on hold but soon to start again in a slightly different form according to StarShipSofa.
Each week, Tony C Smith will be joined by a variety of guests from the world of science fiction literature, SF blogs and publishing to bring you the latest news and gossip from the world of SF. This is just a couple of mins intro from host of StarShipSofa, Tony C Smith as he lays down his manifesto to what is and what will be: The Sofanauts!
StarShipSofa
[web] [feed] [itunes]
Take a voyage on the Science Fiction podcast StarShipSofa if you dare? Travel into the deepest realms of the classic Sci-fi and science fiction world. Calling at such science fiction destinations as Philip K Dick, Alfred Bester, John Brunner and all the other great Sci Fi writers out there. Then, from science fiction and Sci Fi we travel anywhere our imagination and our podcast take us. All wrapped up and inspired by the great Ronnie Corbett. Intrigued? Want to find out more about our science fiction podcast?. Then travel on the greatest science fiction and Sci Fi ride of your life, the StarShipSofa podcast…. If it’s classic science fiction… or sci fi trivia listen no further – science fiction never listened so good!
Tor podcast[web] [feed] [itunes]
Tor presents news, comments and insight on the world of Science Fiction literature. Get the inside story from authors, editors and artists. From the name that has become synonymous with Science Fiction, Tor
Story podcast: [web] [feed] [itunes]
Welcome to Tor.com, a site for news and discussion of science fiction, fantasy, and all the things that interest SF and fantasy readers.
The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy [web] [feed] [itunes]
Geeks have always loved what’s smart and fun—from fantasy literature, video games, and graphic novels, to science, technology, and gadgets. It’s never been a better time to be a geek, with Lord of the Rings sweeping the Oscars, iPods and iPhones in every pocket, and tales of wizards, vampires, and zombies dominating the bestseller lists. And now being a geek is about to get even better, with the launch of THE GEEK’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY podcast, the indispensable news and talk show for geeks everywhere. Hosts John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley are two geeks who also happen to be rising young stars in the world of publishing. John, the editor of the bestselling anthologies WASTELANDS and THE LIVING DEAD and the new science fiction magazine LIGHTSPEED, has been called “the reigning king of the anthology world” and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award. David, who has been named “one of the newest and freshest voices in sf,” has published fiction in books such as FANTASY: THE BEST OF THE YEAR and NEW VOICES IN SCIENCE FICTION.
Turning in to SciFi TV
(Farpoint Media)
[web] [feed] [itunes]
Tuning in to SciFi TV (TIST) is where you will find Wendy, Kevin and Brent talking about many of the SciFi and genre shows on TV. Think of us as the viewer’s digest, tour guides or sherpas for the genre rather than critics. We’ll always share our honest opinions, but we plan to keep things fun. Since everyone has a different viewing pace we’ll structure our episodes into segments. The Water Cooler segment is where we have general non-spoilery discussions about different things going on in the genre TV world and other topics that we think you’ll find interesting. The Back Porch is where we kick back and go into detail about certain shows or topics. This segment could be about any show, any episode or any plot line. We’ll be sure to tell you which shows we discuss in the show notes on our blog and also in the comments on the MP3 file. You can choose to skip that segment in case you’re not caught up on that TV show quite yet. We also release a Tuner Minute every week where one member of the crew comments on whatever is on their mind. We invite you to share your thoughts on the subject in the forum or by dropping us a voicemail. And, finally, we also have occasional Blast From The Past segments where we look at good shows that may no longer be running on TV but you can find on DVD, NetFlix, iTunes or other sources.
I like the audio stories and the voice so far. This one is pretty new for me.
[web] [feed] [itunes]
We feature stories selected from the pages of the TTA Press magazines Interzone (science fiction & fantasy), Black Static (horror), and Crimewave (crime & mystery). New stories appear every other MondayExploring Tadoba Tiger Reserve in India... Once you have booked the permits you can plan the stay. As a wise move choose the best accommodation nearest to the gate of entry. In case you choose a preferred hotel or resort at a distance then be prepared for a longer drive to the gate. This may be the case with people having preference for a particular hotel accommodation. There are many accommodations available in the buffer of the tiger reserve hence finding one close to the entry gate is not a difficult proposition. Another good aspect of this reserve is a.. (Travel and Leisure/Destination Tips) by: Uday Patel... Once you have booked the permits you can plan the stay. As a wise move choose the best accommodation nearest to the gate of entry. In case you choose a preferred hotel or resort at a distance then be prepared for a longer drive to the gate. This may be the case with people having preference for a particular hotel accommodation. There are many accommodations available in the buffer of the tiger reserve hence finding one close to the entry gate is not a difficult proposition. Another good aspect of this reserve is a..
Increase in Prevalence of Lung Disorders to Drive the Breathing Exercise Devices Market... and region. In terms of product, the breathing exercise device market is split into three flow breathing exercise devices, two flow breathing exercise devices, single flow breathing exercise devices, and disposable incentive spirometers. Of these, the report expects the single flow breathing exercise devices segment to account for a dominant market share owing to the rise in prevalence of asthma and other respiratory disorders. Based.. (News/Business) by: Harshal Deshmukh... and region. In terms of product, the breathing exercise device market is split into three flow breathing exercise devices, two flow breathing exercise devices, single flow breathing exercise devices, and disposable incentive spirometers. Of these, the report expects the single flow breathing exercise devices segment to account for a dominant market share owing to the rise in prevalence of asthma and other respiratory disorders. Based..
Preferences Of Juttis Over Sandals For Stunning Getup... girliest colors and prints on it. Printed types and Indo-western wear also have huge demand that can be easily availed to the people who buy footwear online. Some of the most used types are Tassel: - When it comes to the sandals, tassels are the first and foremost pick from all other designs in the market. They are of lower cost but look modern and expensive enhancing the elegance as well as providing utmost comfort throughout the day. Punjabi style: - Although these.. (Shopping and Product Reviews/Fashion Style) by: Shailendra Sharma... girliest colors and prints on it. Printed types and Indo-western wear also have huge demand that can be easily availed to the people who buy footwear online. Some of the most used types are Tassel: - When it comes to the sandals, tassels are the first and foremost pick from all other designs in the market. They are of lower cost but look modern and expensive enhancing the elegance as well as providing utmost comfort throughout the day. Punjabi style: - Although these..
Global Breathing Circuits Market Report... hospitals and the availability of technologically advanced products. In terms of region, the TMR report has categorized the global breathing circuit market into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America was a significant region of the global breathing circuit market in 2017, and TMR expects this trend to continue during the forecast period. The dominance of North America is ascribed to technological advancements, new product launches, increasing.. (News/Business) by: Harshal Deshmukh... hospitals and the availability of technologically advanced products. In terms of region, the TMR report has categorized the global breathing circuit market into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America was a significant region of the global breathing circuit market in 2017, and TMR expects this trend to continue during the forecast period. The dominance of North America is ascribed to technological advancements, new product launches, increasing..
Global Bone Stabilization System Market Report... research, and advisory services for Fortune 500 companies, scores of high potential startups, and financial institutions. Our success stories have proven why we are a preeminent provider of cutting-edge syndicated and customized research services. Leverage the best of our seasoned research analysts who hold a keen interest and enviable expertise of almost 4 million hours in global, regional,.. (News/Business) by: Harshal Deshmukh... research, and advisory services for Fortune 500 companies, scores of high potential startups, and financial institutions. Our success stories have proven why we are a preeminent provider of cutting-edge syndicated and customized research services. Leverage the best of our seasoned research analysts who hold a keen interest and enviable expertise of almost 4 million hours in global, regional,..
Bioanalytical Testing Services Market Report... India and rise in adoption of advanced technologies such as single-use technologies by bioanalytical testing services organization have contributed the expansion of the market. The leading players in the global bioanalytical testing services market are included in this report to give a better competitive analysis and these are Particle Sciences, Sartorius Stedim BioOutsource Limited., Toxikon, Inc., Lotus Labs Pvt. Ltd., Charles River Laboratories International, Inc., PPD, ICON plc,.. (News/Business) by: Harshal Deshmukh... India and rise in adoption of advanced technologies such as single-use technologies by bioanalytical testing services organization have contributed the expansion of the market. The leading players in the global bioanalytical testing services market are included in this report to give a better competitive analysis and these are Particle Sciences, Sartorius Stedim BioOutsource Limited., Toxikon, Inc., Lotus Labs Pvt. Ltd., Charles River Laboratories International, Inc., PPD, ICON plc,..
Is Accommodation Difficult To Find in Bandhavgarh... the Project Tiger program of Indian Government. The main purpose of the program is to conserve the ecosystems as whole albeit the emphasis is on the big cats. A portion of the park is open for tourism and is visited by a large number of tourists every year. The visitors arrive to see the big cats other enchanting animals and birds. In order to facilitate tourism an infrastructure should be in place which at.. (Travel and Leisure/Destination Tips) by: Uday Patel... the Project Tiger program of Indian Government. The main purpose of the program is to conserve the ecosystems as whole albeit the emphasis is on the big cats. A portion of the park is open for tourism and is visited by a large number of tourists every year. The visitors arrive to see the big cats other enchanting animals and birds. In order to facilitate tourism an infrastructure should be in place which at..
Surge in Government Initiatives Favorable Reimbursement to Drive the Behavioral Health Market... level, over 300 million people are estimated to suffer from depression, equivalent to 4.4% of the world’s population. In terms of end-user, the global behavioral health market is categorized into psychiatric hospitals, mental health & substance abuse clinics, home care, and others. The psychiatric hospitals segment is expected to account for significant market share due to rise in number of mental hospitals and increase in initiatives and support by government and private organizations. Based on.. (News/Business) by: Harshal Deshmukh... level, over 300 million people are estimated to suffer from depression, equivalent to 4.4% of the world’s population. In terms of end-user, the global behavioral health market is categorized into psychiatric hospitals, mental health & substance abuse clinics, home care, and others. The psychiatric hospitals segment is expected to account for significant market share due to rise in number of mental hospitals and increase in initiatives and support by government and private organizations. Based on..
Automatic Slide Staining System Market... analytics, research, and advisory services for Fortune 500 companies, scores of high potential startups, and financial institutions. Our success stories have proven why we are a preeminent provider of cutting-edge syndicated and customized research services. Leverage the best of our seasoned research analysts who hold a keen interest and enviable expertise of almost 4 million hours in global, regional, and local market intelligence. TMR believes that unison of solutions.. (News/Business) by: Harshal Deshmukh... analytics, research, and advisory services for Fortune 500 companies, scores of high potential startups, and financial institutions. Our success stories have proven why we are a preeminent provider of cutting-edge syndicated and customized research services. Leverage the best of our seasoned research analysts who hold a keen interest and enviable expertise of almost 4 million hours in global, regional, and local market intelligence. TMR believes that unison of solutions..
Increasing Number of Patients with the Syndrome to Affect the Asperger Syndrome Market Positively... end-user, the global Asperger syndrome market is divided into clinics, hospitals, drug stores, pharmacies, diagnostic centers, and others. Hospitals is expected to be a highly lucrative segment owing to preference for treatment in these settings. Geographically, the global Asperger syndrome market is segmented into Asia Pacific, North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. Among these, North America is expected to dominate the.. (News/Business) by: Harshal Deshmukh... end-user, the global Asperger syndrome market is divided into clinics, hospitals, drug stores, pharmacies, diagnostic centers, and others. Hospitals is expected to be a highly lucrative segment owing to preference for treatment in these settings. Geographically, the global Asperger syndrome market is segmented into Asia Pacific, North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. Among these, North America is expected to dominate the..
Automotive Transmission Control Unit Market... the growth of the automotive transmission control unit market during the forecast period i. e, 2018-2026. According to the report, continuous development in the field of automatic transmission such as continuous variable transmission, dual clutch transmission, and increasing demand for pure electric vehicles across developing regions are likely to drive the market for transmission control unit during the forecast period. However, the report also discusses the market restraints such as high cost associated with.. (News/Business) by: Harshal Deshmukh... the growth of the automotive transmission control unit market during the forecast period i. e, 2018-2026. According to the report, continuous development in the field of automatic transmission such as continuous variable transmission, dual clutch transmission, and increasing demand for pure electric vehicles across developing regions are likely to drive the market for transmission control unit during the forecast period. However, the report also discusses the market restraints such as high cost associated with..
Old Fort And The Tiger... Park a diversity that is striking and a reminder of ancient times. Humans made their last stand a century back whence a continuous conquests over the tribal land left their marks as structures made of igneous rocks. They found security and succor in the depth of pristine impregnable forests at that time. The last ruling dynasty the Baghels of Rewa moved their capital from here erasing the footsteps of humans forever. Well not exactly in order to conserve the tiger forest department of Madhya Pradesh now governs this.. (Travel and Leisure/Destination Tips) by: Uday Patel... Park a diversity that is striking and a reminder of ancient times. Humans made their last stand a century back whence a continuous conquests over the tribal land left their marks as structures made of igneous rocks. They found security and succor in the depth of pristine impregnable forests at that time. The last ruling dynasty the Baghels of Rewa moved their capital from here erasing the footsteps of humans forever. Well not exactly in order to conserve the tiger forest department of Madhya Pradesh now governs this..
Augmenting Need for Artificial Intelligence to Boost the Artificial Intelligence Chipsets Market... advisory services for Fortune 500 companies, scores of high potential startups, and financial institutions. Our success stories have proven why we are a preeminent provider of cutting-edge syndicated and customized research services. Leverage the best of our seasoned research analysts who hold a keen interest and enviable expertise of almost 4 million hours in global, regional, and local market intelligence. TMR believes that unison of solutions for clients-specific problems with.. (News/Business) by: Harshal Deshmukh... advisory services for Fortune 500 companies, scores of high potential startups, and financial institutions. Our success stories have proven why we are a preeminent provider of cutting-edge syndicated and customized research services. Leverage the best of our seasoned research analysts who hold a keen interest and enviable expertise of almost 4 million hours in global, regional, and local market intelligence. TMR believes that unison of solutions for clients-specific problems with..
Increasing Adoption and Demand for Minimally Invasive Surgery to Propel the Ambulatory Care Market... gastroenterology surgery, ophthalmology surgery, orthopedic surgery, spinal surgery, plastic surgery, and others. The general practice segment is likely to account for significant market share due to increase in number of ambulatory and emergency care centers, technological advancements, and high quality, cost-effective, and time saving approach. On the basis of geographical perspective, the TMR report has split the.. (News/Business) by: Harshal Deshmukh... gastroenterology surgery, ophthalmology surgery, orthopedic surgery, spinal surgery, plastic surgery, and others. The general practice segment is likely to account for significant market share due to increase in number of ambulatory and emergency care centers, technological advancements, and high quality, cost-effective, and time saving approach. On the basis of geographical perspective, the TMR report has split the..
Getting a Good Bargain in Ranthambhore... the best room but not necessarily the suites which are costlier. If you are planning to take safaris book them online yourself. This way you will be assured of saving services charges if any. Also choose to go for excursions on a canter which is cheaper and offer good sightings. You can travel by rail from New Delhi to Jaipur which is some distance away from Sawai Madhopur. Most of the heritage hotels in Ranthambore.. (Travel and Leisure/Destination Tips) by: Uday Patel... the best room but not necessarily the suites which are costlier. If you are planning to take safaris book them online yourself. This way you will be assured of saving services charges if any. Also choose to go for excursions on a canter which is cheaper and offer good sightings. You can travel by rail from New Delhi to Jaipur which is some distance away from Sawai Madhopur. Most of the heritage hotels in Ranthambore..
Demand for Commercial Vehicles to Propel the Automotive Pneumatic Disc Brakes Market... the TMR report, there has been an increase in demand for commercial vehicles across the globe. Countries in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific witness stable economic conditions, high percentage of urbanization, increase in per capita income, and expansion of construction and logistics industries. These factor are anticipated to drive the commercial vehicle market across the globe. In terms of components, the report has.. (Business/Accounting) by: Harshal Deshmukh... the TMR report, there has been an increase in demand for commercial vehicles across the globe. Countries in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific witness stable economic conditions, high percentage of urbanization, increase in per capita income, and expansion of construction and logistics industries. These factor are anticipated to drive the commercial vehicle market across the globe. In terms of components, the report has..
Advanced Visualization Solution System for Neurology Market... are expected to augment the advanced visualization solution system for neurology market during the forecast period. Also, the treatment and diagnosis rate of the neurological abnormalities, rise in demand for digitizing patient data, and improving health care infrastructure are some of the factors affecting growth of the advanced visualization solution system for neurology market. Merger and acquisition activities, and R&D investments will provide advanced.. (News/Business) by: Harshal Deshmukh... are expected to augment the advanced visualization solution system for neurology market during the forecast period. Also, the treatment and diagnosis rate of the neurological abnormalities, rise in demand for digitizing patient data, and improving health care infrastructure are some of the factors affecting growth of the advanced visualization solution system for neurology market. Merger and acquisition activities, and R&D investments will provide advanced..
Things to Consider Before Hiring Junk Pick Up Austin... the quote you choose whether to go ahead with the sale. If you want a quote on your previous junk vehicle or truck, please don't hesitate to give a call. The amount we’ll be in a position to cover your junk pick up Austin will fluctuate depending on many factors. So you wish to junk a car for the money. When you are working to sell flooded auto, please try to open your windows or doors to permit air circulation in your motor vehicle. The majority of the time your previous car becomes a completely new car or.. (Home Improvement/Cleaning Tips and Tools) by: Shovon Joarder... the quote you choose whether to go ahead with the sale. If you want a quote on your previous junk vehicle or truck, please don't hesitate to give a call. The amount we’ll be in a position to cover your junk pick up Austin will fluctuate depending on many factors. So you wish to junk a car for the money. When you are working to sell flooded auto, please try to open your windows or doors to permit air circulation in your motor vehicle. The majority of the time your previous car becomes a completely new car or..
Meditation A Beginners Guide for Everyone (Yoga Teacher Training in Rishikesh)... in and around one without adding to or subtracting from it in any way. " Meditation has many health benefits. Interestingly, an increased ability to focus allows those who suffer from chronic pain to ease their pain by choosing not to focus on it. It can also help with various other health problems, including anxiety, depression, stress, insomnia, HIV/AIDS and cancer. It can also enhance the body's immune system, making us less likely to get sick. Studies have also shown that meditation can help to reverse.. (Health and Fitness/Yoga) by: Pramod Sahoo... in and around one without adding to or subtracting from it in any way. " Meditation has many health benefits. Interestingly, an increased ability to focus allows those who suffer from chronic pain to ease their pain by choosing not to focus on it. It can also help with various other health problems, including anxiety, depression, stress, insomnia, HIV/AIDS and cancer. It can also enhance the body's immune system, making us less likely to get sick. Studies have also shown that meditation can help to reverse..
Reasons for Opting in to The Event Catering Solution... to schedule meetings and other events with potential clients. Therefore, the hosts can rest assured of how such catering service will involve something special for each guest that improves the general appeal of the approaching wedding. The host of configuration options allow it to be effortless to tweak catering software depending on your needs. Some vendors allow more than one free of charge user, while others might assess another monthly charge for each.. (News/Business) by: Shovon Joarder... to schedule meetings and other events with potential clients. Therefore, the hosts can rest assured of how such catering service will involve something special for each guest that improves the general appeal of the approaching wedding. The host of configuration options allow it to be effortless to tweak catering software depending on your needs. Some vendors allow more than one free of charge user, while others might assess another monthly charge for each..
What Is The Importance Of Footwear In Casual And Occasional Purposes... South India, these chappals are worn accompanied with lungi or dhoti that feels incredibly free. Preference of occasional footwears Apart from the casual or regular wears special occasion like wedding and parties requires designer high-quality shoes to complement the expensive outfit worn. Most teenagers and college students prefer mules and oxfords that have heels and also look modern according to the new.. (Shopping and Product Reviews/Fashion Style) by: Shailendra Sharma... South India, these chappals are worn accompanied with lungi or dhoti that feels incredibly free. Preference of occasional footwears Apart from the casual or regular wears special occasion like wedding and parties requires designer high-quality shoes to complement the expensive outfit worn. Most teenagers and college students prefer mules and oxfords that have heels and also look modern according to the new..
Rising Need to Generate More Yield to Augment the Demand for the Agricultural Tires Market... China and India are experiencing high sales of agriculture tractors and this factor is predicted to drive the agriculture tires market in APAC during the forecast period. Erratic weather conditions have prompted the need to speed up agricultural processes and this factor is fueling the agriculture tires market. Awareness among farmers in developing countries is estimated to fuel the demand of agriculture tires in these countries... (News/Business) by: Harshal Deshmukh... China and India are experiencing high sales of agriculture tractors and this factor is predicted to drive the agriculture tires market in APAC during the forecast period. Erratic weather conditions have prompted the need to speed up agricultural processes and this factor is fueling the agriculture tires market. Awareness among farmers in developing countries is estimated to fuel the demand of agriculture tires in these countries...
What You Need to Understand Before Opting in for The NBN Deals... mobile devices. Virgin Media broadband is an ideal instance of so said. New 4G wireless is already available in a number of cities across the nation. Steps to Setup a Hotspot There are plenty of measures to think about when creating an online Wi-Fi or Hotspot. Each provider offers its very own promotions and solutions. All things considered, with so many NBN providers out there, it can be challenging to disseminate which provider is best for home phone.. (Communications/Mobile Cell Phone) by: Shovon Joarder... mobile devices. Virgin Media broadband is an ideal instance of so said. New 4G wireless is already available in a number of cities across the nation. Steps to Setup a Hotspot There are plenty of measures to think about when creating an online Wi-Fi or Hotspot. Each provider offers its very own promotions and solutions. All things considered, with so many NBN providers out there, it can be challenging to disseminate which provider is best for home phone..
Keys to Acing Certification Examinations... are nervous ahead of test day. And you are even more nervous during the exam. Maybe you see a couple questions you cannot answer and you start to panic. You must avoid this panic, as it will only lead to you making more mistakes. The key is to ensure that you are calm, even in a situation where you cannot answer some questions or time is running out. These tests are always multiple choice. Remain calm, answer the questions that.. (Reference and Education/Online Education) by: Edmund Brunetti... are nervous ahead of test day. And you are even more nervous during the exam. Maybe you see a couple questions you cannot answer and you start to panic. You must avoid this panic, as it will only lead to you making more mistakes. The key is to ensure that you are calm, even in a situation where you cannot answer some questions or time is running out. These tests are always multiple choice. Remain calm, answer the questions that..
Why Are Certification Tests So Important in IT... that you can do the job. But it is not as though you have to go to school for another few years just so you can get the job. It is a much quicker turnaround, compared to some other industries. Easy to Pass Tests Many of the IT certification exams that you see are not so difficult to pass. The topics are readily available, you can find resources online that will help you understand the material, and you can find real 70-761 exam questions online. For instance, you will be able to use exam.. (Reference and Education/Online Education) by: Edmund Brunetti... that you can do the job. But it is not as though you have to go to school for another few years just so you can get the job. It is a much quicker turnaround, compared to some other industries. Easy to Pass Tests Many of the IT certification exams that you see are not so difficult to pass. The topics are readily available, you can find resources online that will help you understand the material, and you can find real 70-761 exam questions online. For instance, you will be able to use exam..
Agricultural Sector to Propel the Demand for Agricultural Harvester Market... fuel economy and improved features, which in turn have attracted the farmers of the region. This has led to the region to become a prominent market for agricultural harvester, the report says. The report has included some of the prominent players operating in the global agricultural harvester market to give a better competitive landscape and these include Deere & Company, MASSEY FERGUSON, CLAAS KGaA mbH, PREET GROUP, Ploeger Machines bv, and Bernard Krone.. (News/Business) by: Harshal Deshmukh... fuel economy and improved features, which in turn have attracted the farmers of the region. This has led to the region to become a prominent market for agricultural harvester, the report says. The report has included some of the prominent players operating in the global agricultural harvester market to give a better competitive landscape and these include Deere & Company, MASSEY FERGUSON, CLAAS KGaA mbH, PREET GROUP, Ploeger Machines bv, and Bernard Krone..
Reasons to Buy the Snowboard Bags That Are for Sale... aspects when choosing a ski bag must be the padding your skis will receive. In general, a tough ski or snowboard travel case is likely to provide more protection. How much you pack will be different on the length of time you intend to vacation. There isn't anything like taking a particular visit to a far-off destination and riding the slopes in a totally new environment. If you're arranging a destination ski trip, it is a great idea.. (Recreation and Sports/Snowboarding) by: Shovon Joarder... aspects when choosing a ski bag must be the padding your skis will receive. In general, a tough ski or snowboard travel case is likely to provide more protection. How much you pack will be different |
the team’s six defenders on the 2015 MLS roster.
RSL is expected to sign its ninth Homegrown Player in franchise history with the addition of former Highland High School and Clemson University defender Phanuel Kavita. Clemson made the announcement Monday on its school website.
The Salt Lake club is finalizing the deal, and Kavita is likely to bolster the first team's depth while being able to see additional time with the third-division Real Monarchs.
Kavita, a 22-year-old central defender who played in all 22 games with two goals for the Tigers in 2014, would be the club’s first signing since re-acquiring Jamison Olave from New York amid a sea of roster changes. RSL has lost defenders Nat Borchers, Chris Wingert and Carlos Salcedo to Portland, New York City FC and Liga MX’s Chivas de Guadalajara, respectively, in the past month.
The Clemson product also confirmed the news on his Twitter account.
It's been a blessing all through the way. Can't wait for my new journey. http://t.co/nCmDZO1PM8#RSL— Phanuel Kavita (@phanuel313) January 11, 2015
Now, the team will add some youth and fresh legs to the defense — along with a local player to the Wasatch Front.
Kavita was a four-year starter at Clemson, tying for fourth all-time at the school with 81 career starts. He helped the Tigers to 0.95 goals-against average as a senior team captain. The Salt Lake City native, who helped Clemson to a 12-7-3 record in 2014, played for RSL’s Arizona Academy and earned all-region and all-state honors at Highland.
The 6-foot-1 Kavita made his mark with the Tigers right away, scoring the game-winning goal against then-No. 1 Maryland in an ACC match during his freshman season. He was the only player to start every game of the past four seasons at Clemson, and he helped the Tigers to a remarkable 0.91 goals-against average with only 20 goals allowed as a junior in 2013.
Kavita becomes the fourth Clemson product to sign with an active MLS team, joining New York City FC's Thomas McNamara, Toronto FC's Joe Bendik and the Houston Dynamo's Nate Sturgis.
Kavita played for Monarchs head coach Freddy Juarez alongside University of Virginia standout Riggs Lennon at RSL’s Casa Grande, Arizona academy. Juarez became the first Monarchs coach in franchise history Dec. 23.
USL Pro added 12 teams for its 2015 season to the 14-team league won by Sacramento Republic FC last year. Orlando City SC will move to MLS for the upcoming season, bringing the total number of teams to 25 — with more MLS clubs considering fielding a third-division team. The Monarchs will play the 2015 season at Rio Tinto Stadium and are expected to move into the team’s own venue at the Utah State Fairpark by 2016.
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Related StoriesIt was one thing when it appeared that the Giants’ merely brainfarted 40 extra seconds to the Cowboys for a game-winning drive that needed 33 of them. Now as players discuss the calls in the huddle and from the sideline, it’s so, so much worse: the Giants a) did not realize how many timeouts the Cowboys had, and b) told RB Rashad Jennings not to score a touchdown that would have put the game out of reach.
The confusion started a few plays earlier. The Cowboys attempted to call their second timeout with 2:17 remaining, but because of an unnecessary roughness call on Jeremy Mincey, the clock stopped and the Cowboys were given their timeout back.
Three plays later, Eli Manning completed a first-down pass to Odell Beckham Jr. There was a defensive offside call on Dallas DE DeMarcus Lawrence, a penalty that was declined, but resulted in a stopped clock anyway, sparing the Cowboys from having to call time.
It appears, from Manning’s comments today, that the Giants understood the Cowboys had two timeouts remaining after the flag on Mincey—but got thrown off by the stopped clock after the declined penalty on Lawrence.
“I thought they had used their last timeout on that play to Odell when we got the first down,” Manning said. “I thought that they only had one timeout left after that. I guess since there was a penalty, even though we declined it, for some reason that stops the clock.”
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(The NFL’s rules on stopping the clock after penalties and declined penalties late in the half are confusing and not entirely logical, but the officials on the field last night applied them correctly.)
So the Giants, with the ball on the four, first down, and a three point lead, assumed the Cowboys had one timeout remaining; Dallas had two. The discrepancy resulted in a fatal instruction from the sideline.
“They told me not to score,” running back Rashad Jennings said.
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On first down, believing all he had to do was not fumble but also not make it into the end zone, Jennings ran for two yards. The Cowboys called their second timeout; what the Giants thought was their third and final.
On second down, Jennings ran for one yard. To the Giants’ surprise, the referee announced that the Cowboys called their third and final timeout.
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That’s when the Giants braintrust apparently panicked, realizing they wouldn’t be able to run the clock down to about 15 seconds by fourth down. So offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo called the fateful pass play, and neither he, nor Tom Coughlin, nor Eli Manning realized that if a receiver didn’t materialize, Manning should have taken the sack to keep the clock running. They had the full 40 seconds to figure this out and convey it to the QB; but no one thought of it.
This puts the Giants’ late-game follies in a new light. Perhaps things go very differently, perhaps it doesn’t come down to leaving too much time for Tony Romo, if the Giants merely tried to score from first-and-goal from the four.
We had a really good drive,” center Weston Richburg said after the contest. “We could have easily put it in. I don’t make any of those decisions.”
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This is a pretty unforgivable mental meltdown from a team headed by a coach who’s supposed to specialize in discipline (and the importance of time management; if you’re not 15 minutes early to a Tom Coughlin meeting, you’re fined for being late), and a very bad start for a coach who might finally be on the hot seat.Nintendo is moving towards a slim profit for its current financial year. The Japanese games giant just went public with its Q3 2014 numbers: total revenue came in at ¥271,521 billion ($2.3 billion), of which ¥45.2 billion ($383 million) was net profit.
The festive quarter saw 1.91 million Wii U consoles shifted, with 4.99 million 3DS devices sold. That’s an Christmas-fueled increase on the 2.09 million Nintendo 3DSes and 610,000 Wii Us that were sold in the previous quarter, although Nintendo admitted that sales of its newer 3DS devices “did not grow sufficiently” in Europe or the U.S. A worryingy precedent indeed.
In line with that concern, the company slashed its forecast for the end of the financial year. Nintendo now expects total annual sales to come in at ¥20 billion ($170 million). That’s half of its previous target and — based on its financial performance in the past three quarters — it implies an overall loss of ¥10 billion ($85 million) in its final quarter.
On the software side of things, sales of ‘Super Smash Bros.’ — which generated “extremely strong initial sales” following its debut — grew to 6.19 million from 3.22 million in the third quarter. Sales of ‘Pokémon Omega Ruby/Pokémon Alpha Sapphire’ for 3DS totaled 9.35 million, while Nintendo said other titles “showed steady sales”.
Over on the Wii U, ‘Mario Kart 8’ and ‘Super Smash Bros.’ clocked 4.77 million and 3.39 million sales respectively.
Hat tip Verge[br][center][url=http://www1.flightrising.com/forums/ann/1921779][img]http://flightrising.com/dropbox/communityupdate.png[/img][/url][/center] [br] [b]Table of Contents[/b] [list][*][b]Volunteer Moderators Updates[/b] [list][*]Farewell, Alphaeon! [*]Welcome, EmiT and ToxieToxie! [*]Misc Moderation Notes[/list] [*][b]Community[/b] [list][*]Reporting: Harassment, Scamming [*]Offsite Content Policies [*]Item Caption Contest[/list] [*][b]Employment Opportunities: Art Team[/b][/list] [url=http://www1.flightrising.com/forums/ann/1921779][b]Click here to read more![/b][/url] [more] [br][br] ----- [br][br] [center][b][size=6]Volunteer Moderator Updates[/size][/b][/center] [br] [b][size=4]Farewell, Alphaeon![/size][/b] [br] [center][user=13578][/center] This past June, @Alphaeon stepped down from the volunteer moderator group to pursue a fantastic opportunity. Thank you for generously donating your time and commitment to the [i]Flight Rising[/i] community, especially in the Bug Reports forum! We will miss you but we are also [i]very[/i] excited for you! [br][br] [b][size=4]Welcome, EmiT and ToxieToxie![/size] [/b] [br] [center][user=159961] [user=135538][/center] [br] Two new pairs of purple wings have joined us! Give @EmiT and @ToxieToxie a warm welcome! [br] [b][size=4]Misc Moderation Notes[/size][/b] We would like to take a moment to stress something we mentioned in May's [b][url=http://www1.flightrising.com/forums/ann/1861078]Community Update[/url][/b]: [b]Forum moderation does not immediately equal account or forum penalties. [/b] Moderation happens when a thread or post needs to be edited, moved, or removed. This is common across various communities online, especially in a community as large and passionate as [i]Flight Rising[/i]. The likelihood of someone losing their account over an incorrectly placed thread or all-caps title is smaller than a fae's egg! If you are interested in applying to be a volunteer moderator, [b][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=wiki&article=73]we have a support article in our Encyclopedia[/url][/b]. Once you've sent your application, it will be documented for future review. [br][br] ----- [br][br] [center][b][size=6]Community[/size][/b][/center] [br] [b][size=4]Account Penalties Article[/size][/b] We have updated our [b][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=wiki&article=53]Account Penalties article[/url][/b] to include information about both account and forum penalties.[br] [b][size=4]Reporting: Harassment, Scamming[/size][/b] Harassment and scamming reports can be made through customer support. In order for us to best help you, we need to address some of the recent reporting trends we've observed. [br] [list][*][b]Reports on behalf of another player:[/b] We think it's great and supportive to send a message to help a friend, but [b]we need the player(s) directly involved with an issue to file a report[/b]. [br] [*][b]Reports without details:[/b] In order for us to investigate a report, we need the reporting player to [b]include:[/b] dragon, player ID numbers, the approximate date and time, as well as any relevant links located on the [i]Flight Rising[/i] website.[br] [*][b]Generalized scamming reports:[/b] Frequently we receive "[player] is scamming" without additional information. [b]For us to investigate potential scamming, we need the players who feel they were scammed to each submit a report with a clear description of the situation.[/b][/list] When the above information is included and reported by the impacted player, we are able to more efficiently investigate and resolve such reports. [b]Without the above information, vague reports or reports without content posted on [i]Flight Rising[/i] are effectively hearsay.[/b] [b]We will not penalize accounts based on hearsay.[/b] If we did so, we would be closing several accounts per week based on nothing other than someone else's word. We don't think that's okay and why we will only take action on reports we can verify with our own tools and data. Before we move on, we also need to note: [b]We do not discuss account penalties or details with third parties.[/b] We do not follow up after receiving a report nor do we disclose who initiated the report for the privacy and protection of all players involved. [br] [size=4][b]Offsite Content Policies[/b][/size] The [i]Flight Rising[/i] [b][url=http://www1.flightrising.com/site/terms-use]Terms of Use[/url][/b], [b][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=wiki&article=50]Rules & Guidelines[/url][/b], and [b][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=wiki&article=66]Code of Conduct[/url][/b] are the rules by which all players must abide while playing our game. As a reminder regarding our offsite content policy: [br][LIST] [*][b]It has remained our policy that links posted on the[i] Flight Rising[/i] website to off-site content that violates our rules are not allowed.[/b] (Example: Exploits, hate speech, harassment, blacklists, player callouts, adult imagery, excessive violent imagery, and items listed in our [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=wiki&article=50]Rules and Guidelines[/url]) If we receive a report on a link on [i]Flight Rising[/i] with violations to our Rules or Terms of Use, we will investigate, pull the offending content from our site, and apply account penalties to the account for posting a link to prohibited content on our website.[br] [*]We do not moderate activity that takes place on other websites, chatrooms, and platforms that are beyond our control. If you or someone you know has encountered inappropriate behavior or content on another community, [b]please contact the customer support for that platform[/b] to notify them of the inappropriate behavior or content. [/LIST] [br][br] ----- [br][br] [center][b][size=6][url=http://www1.flightrising.com/forums/frd/1914392]Item Caption Contest[/url][/size][/b][/center] [b]Writers[/b], if you've ever wanted your blurb to grace an item tooltip, your time has come! Dust off that keyboard and look upon these poor blurb-less items and consider the possibilities! What's this item's story? The premise of[url=http://www1.flightrising.com/forums/frd/1914392] this contest[/url] it to take these icons and create a unique caption for their tooltip. The caption must be under 160 characters. If desired, players may rename the item in question along with their caption. Captions can provide facts, short anecdotes, or jokes. [indent][b]Premise: [/b] Write a tooltip for any of the items provided in this contest. [b]Deadline: [/b] Tuesday, July 26th, 23:59 server time [b]Length: [/b] Less than 160 characters (caption). Less than 30 characters in name if renamed. [b]Prizes: [/b]Winners will be credited in the tooltip of the item, will receive a copy of the item they wrote for, a writer vista applied to their account + 1000 gems [b][url=http://www1.flightrising.com/forums/frd/1914392]Click here to submit an entry![/url][/b] [/indent] [br] [center][item=Banded Rattlesnake][item=Bluebite Rattler][item=Blue Spot Pygmy Wrasse][item=Pygmy Wrasse] [item=Broadback Pleco][item=Pleco][item=Polar Wooly][item=Wooly Bear] [item=Cheerful Chime][item=Dancer's Bell][item=Emerald Brooch][item=Ruby Brooch][/center] [br][br] ----- [br][br] [center][b][size=6]Employment Opportunities: Art Team[/size][/b][/center] [br] [b][size=4]Join the [i]Flight Rising[/i] art team![/size][/b] Would you like to work for [i]Flight Rising[/i]? We are now hiring full time employees and part time freelancers to create colorful artwork for our world. These positions are available to all qualified applicants. Being a [i]Flight Rising[/i] player is a bonus, not a requirement. Current players are welcome to share these opportunities to artist friends. [br][br] [indent][b]2d Illustrator: Apparel[/b]: We are looking for a skilled 2d artist to update and expand existing apparel to future breed releases. This is a full time position. We are looking for a good understanding of fabrics, textiles, and how clothing drapes and is worn on a 3-dimensional form in portfolios of applicants. [b]Note:[/b] Your portfolio [b]does not[/b] need to contain [i]dragon clothing[/i]! A solid foundation of how clothing works on humans is applicable and will carry over.[br] [LIST][*]Must be 18 years or older. [*]Full-time position with benefits. [*]US residents only. [*]Work from home. [/LIST] [b]2d Illustrator: Environments[/b]: We are looking for a skilled 2d artist to create a variety of landscapes and environments to help expand the world of Sornieth. We are looking examples of natural and man-made environments and an understanding of perspective in portfolios of applicants.[br] [LIST][*]Must be 18 years or older. [*]Part-time freelance position. [/LIST] [b]2d Illustrator: Genes & Patterns[/b]: We are looking for a skilled 2d artist to create new genes and expand existing genes to future breeds. We are looking for a love of patterning and ability to bend and adapt patterns around 3-dimensional forms in the portfolios of applicants. [i]Note: Your portfolio does not need to contain [b]dragon[/b] patterning! Examples of patterns across any type of species, so long as it shows an understanding of form will be applicable.[/i][br] [LIST][*]Must be 18 years or older. [*]Part-time freelance position. [/LIST][/indent] [br]If you would like to apply for a position, please tell us what position(s) you are applying for, send us a link to your portfolio(s), a resume if you have one, and your availability. [url=http://www1.flightrising.com/site/contact-us]Send applications with the subject line "[b]Artist Application[/b]" through our contact form here.[/url]
Aequorin Community
Manager 440 74 157 5447
Table of Contents
Volunteer Moderators Updates Farewell, Alphaeon! Welcome, EmiT and ToxieToxie! Misc Moderation Notes
Community Reporting: Harassment, Scamming Offsite Content Policies Item Caption Contest
Employment Opportunities: Art Team
Click here to read more!
Volunteer Moderator Updates
Farewell, Alphaeon!
This past June, @Flight Rising community, especially in the Bug Reports forum! We will miss you but we are also very excited for you!
Welcome, EmiT and ToxieToxie!
Two new pairs of purple wings have joined us! Give @
Misc Moderation Notes
We would like to take a moment to stress something we mentioned in May's Community Update: Forum moderation does not immediately equal account or forum penalties.
Moderation happens when a thread or post needs to be edited, moved, or removed. This is common across various communities online, especially in a community as large and passionate as Flight Rising. The likelihood of someone losing their account over an incorrectly placed thread or all-caps title is smaller than a fae's egg!
If you are interested in applying to be a volunteer moderator, we have a support article in our Encyclopedia. Once you've sent your application, it will be documented for future review.
Community
Account Penalties Article
We have updated our Account Penalties article to include information about both account and forum penalties.
Reporting: Harassment, Scamming
Harassment and scamming reports can be made through customer support. In order for us to best help you, we need to address some of the recent reporting trends we've observed.
Reports on behalf of another player: We think it's great and supportive to send a message to help a friend, but we need the player(s) directly involved with an issue to file a report.
We think it's great and supportive to send a message to help a friend, but. Reports without details: In order for us to investigate a report, we need the reporting player to include: dragon, player ID numbers, the approximate date and time, as well as any relevant links located on the Flight Rising website.
In order for us to investigate a report, we need the reporting player to dragon, player ID numbers, the approximate date and time, as well as any relevant links located on the website. Generalized scamming reports: Frequently we receive "[player] is scamming" without additional information. For us to investigate potential scamming, we need the players who feel they were scammed to each submit a report with a clear description of the situation.
When the above information is included and reported by the impacted player, we are able to more efficiently investigate and resolve such reports.
Without the above information, vague reports or reports without content posted on Flight Rising are effectively hearsay.
We will not penalize accounts based on hearsay. If we did so, we would be closing several accounts per week based on nothing other than someone else's word. We don't think that's okay and why we will only take action on reports we can verify with our own tools and data.
Before we move on, we also need to note: We do not discuss account penalties or details with third parties. We do not follow up after receiving a report nor do we disclose who initiated the report for the privacy and protection of all players involved.
Offsite Content Policies
The Flight Rising Terms of Use, Rules & Guidelines, and Code of Conduct are the rules by which all players must abide while playing our game. As a reminder regarding our offsite content policy:
It has remained our policy that links posted on the Flight Rising website to off-site content that violates our rules are not allowed. (Example: Exploits, hate speech, harassment, blacklists, player callouts, adult imagery, excessive violent imagery, and items listed in our Rules and Guidelines) If we receive a report on a link on Flight Rising with violations to our Rules or Terms of Use, we will investigate, pull the offending content from our site, and apply account penalties to the account for posting a link to prohibited content on our website.
(Example: Exploits, hate speech, harassment, blacklists, player callouts, adult imagery, excessive violent imagery, and items listed in our Rules and Guidelines) If we receive a report on a link on with violations to our Rules or Terms of Use, we will investigate, pull the offending content from our site, and apply account penalties to the account for posting a link to prohibited content on our website. We do not moderate activity that takes place on other websites, chatrooms, and platforms that are beyond our control. If you or someone you know has encountered inappropriate behavior or content on another community, please contact the customer support for that platform to notify them of the inappropriate behavior or content.
Item Caption Contest
Writers, if you've ever wanted your blurb to grace an item tooltip, your time has come! Dust off that keyboard and look upon these poor blurb-less items and consider the possibilities! What's this item's story?
The premise of
Premise: Write a tooltip for any of the items provided in this contest.
Deadline: Tuesday, July 26th, 23:59 server time
Length: Less than 160 characters (caption). Less than 30 characters in name if renamed.
Prizes: Winners will be credited in the tooltip of the item, will receive a copy of the item they wrote for, a writer vista applied to their account + 1000 gems
Click here to submit an entry! Write a tooltip for any of the items provided in this contest.Tuesday, July 26th, 23:59 server timeLess than 160 characters (caption). Less than 30 characters in name if renamed.Winners will be credited in the tooltip of the item, will receive a copy of the item they wrote for, a writer vista applied to their account + 1000 gems
Banded Rattlesnake Meat The Banded Rattlesnake is known for congregating in ruins and temples, hoping to scare the pants off of well-known explorers that may walk by. (Special thanks to confusedPaladin!) Sell Value: 24 Food Points: 2 Bluebite Rattler Meat Despite warnings from their elders, rebellious dragons who chew these snakes turn an odd shade of violet before swelling up like a blueberry. Stop, don't... (Special thanks to Trickilicky!) Sell Value: 24 Food Points: 2 Blue Spot Pygmy Wrasse Seafood Rather than trying to hide, its gorgeous scales often fascinate fishing dragons, making them forget they wanted to eat it in the first place. (Special thanks to Spiral!) Sell Value: 17 Food Points: 2 Pygmy Wrasse Seafood Throwing this fish at someone will get you arrested for hawrassement. (Special thanks to Windhover!) Sell Value: 14 Food Points: 2
Broadback Pleco Seafood Wildly aggressive, catching one is considered a mark of great fishing skill. Unfortunately, it also tastes disgusting. All that effort for nothing! (Special thanks to eternity1!) Sell Value: 24 Food Points: 2 Pleco Seafood Pleco root themselves into the silty sediment of streams. Even the heaviest of wading Snappers can not crack the hard scales that cover the Pleco's back. (Special thanks to Jackaloped!) Sell Value: 24 Food Points: 2 Polar Wooly Insect That Polar Wooly there is almost like the wooly Wooly Bear, except the Wooly Bear doesn't have as wooly hair as does the very wooly Polar Wooly over there. (Special thanks to renlav!) Sell Value: 38 Food Points: 4 Wooly Bear Insect Find another and you too can have a fantastic set of eyebrows. (Special thanks to Razzles!) Sell Value: 38 Food Points: 4
Cheerful Chime Trinkets These bells are often hung around lairs at festival time. Their loud chiming has become something of a holiday tradition. (Special thanks to ViridianSylph!) Sell Value: 26 Dancer's Bell Trinkets The dancer may be no more, but this eerie ornamentation still carries on ringing. You feel compelled to twirl... (Special thanks to BallpointTattoos!) Sell Value: 26 Emerald Brooch Trinkets Easy to pin to clothing, hard to pin to scales. (Special thanks to Amehime!) Sell Value: 20 Ruby Brooch Trinkets Metalworkers from the Ashfall Waste use cold lava and rubies from Dragonhome to make brooches like this one. Merchants like to wear these to show their wealth. (Special thanks to Duveteux!) Sell Value: 20
Employment Opportunities: Art Team
Join the Flight Rising art team!
Would you like to work for Flight Rising? We are now hiring full time employees and part time freelancers to create colorful artwork for our world. These positions are available to all qualified applicants. Being a Flight Rising player is a bonus, not a requirement. Current players are welcome to share these opportunities to artist friends.
2d Illustrator: Apparel:
We are looking for a skilled 2d artist to update and expand existing apparel to future breed releases. This is a full time position. We are looking for a good understanding of fabrics, textiles, and how clothing drapes and is worn on a 3-dimensional form in portfolios of applicants. Note: Your portfolio does not need to contain dragon clothing! A solid foundation of how clothing works on humans is applicable and will carry over.
Must be 18 years or older.
Full-time position with benefits.
US residents only.
Work from home.
2d Illustrator: Environments:
We are looking for a skilled 2d artist to create a variety of landscapes and environments to help expand the world of Sornieth. We are looking examples of natural and man-made environments and an understanding of perspective in portfolios of applicants.
Must be 18 years or older.
Part-time freelance position.
2d Illustrator: Genes & Patterns:
We are looking for a skilled 2d artist to create new genes and expand existing genes to future breeds. We are looking for a love of patterning and ability to bend and adapt patterns around 3-dimensional forms in the portfolios of applicants. Note: Your portfolio does not need to contain dragon patterning! Examples of patterns across any type of species, so long as it shows an understanding of form will be applicable.
Must be 18 years or older.
Part-time freelance position. We are looking for a skilled 2d artist to update and expand existing apparel to future breed releases. This is a full time position. We are looking for a good understanding of fabrics, textiles, and how clothing drapes and is worn on a 3-dimensional form in portfolios of applicants.Your portfolioneed to contain! A solid foundation of how clothing works on humans is applicable and will carry over.We are looking for a skilled 2d artist to create a variety of landscapes and environments to help expand the world of Sornieth. We are looking examples of natural and man-made environments and an understanding of perspective in portfolios of applicants.We are looking for a skilled 2d artist to create new genes and expand existing genes to future breeds. We are looking for a love of patterning and ability to bend and adapt patterns around 3-dimensional forms in the portfolios of applicants.
If you would like to apply for a position, please tell us what position(s) you are applying for, send us a link to your portfolio(s), a resume if you have one, and your availability.
This past June, @ Alphaeon stepped down from the volunteer moderator group to pursue a fantastic opportunity. Thank you for generously donating your time and commitment to thecommunity, especially in the Bug Reports forum! We will miss you but we are alsoexcited for you!Two new pairs of purple wings have joined us! Give @ EmiT and @ ToxieToxie a warm welcome!We would like to take a moment to stress something we mentioned in May'sModeration happens when a thread or post needs to be edited, moved, or removed. This is common across various communities online, especially in a community as large and passionate as. The likelihood of someone losing their account over an incorrectly placed thread or all-caps title is smaller than a fae's egg!If you are interested in applying to be a volunteer moderator,. Once you've sent your application, it will be documented for future review.We have updated ourto include information about both account and forum penalties.Harassment and scamming reports can be made through customer support. In order for us to best help you, we need to address some of the recent reporting trends we've observed.When the above information is included and reported by the impacted player, we are able to more efficiently investigate and resolve such reports.If we did so, we would be closing several accounts per week based on nothing other than someone else's word. We don't think that's okay and why we will only take action on reports we can verify with our own tools and data.Before we move on, we also need to note:We do not follow up after receiving a report nor do we disclose who initiated the report for the privacy and protection of all players involved.The, andare the rules by which all players must abide while playing our game. As a reminder regarding our offsite content policy:, if you've ever wanted your blurb to grace an item tooltip, your time has come! Dust off that keyboard and look upon these poor blurb-less items and consider the possibilities! What's this item's story?The premise of this contest it to take these icons and create a unique caption for their tooltip. The caption must be under 160 characters. If desired, players may rename the item in question along with their caption. Captions can provide facts, short anecdotes, or jokes.Would you like to work for? We are now hiring full time employees and part time freelancers to create colorful artwork for our world. These positions are available to all qualified applicants. Being aplayer is a bonus, not a requirement. Current players are welcome to share these opportunities to artist friends.If you would like to apply for a position, please tell us what position(s) you are applying for, send us a link to your portfolio(s), a resume if you have one, and your availability. Send applications with the subject line "Artist Application" through our contact form here. Community Manager
Twitter Tumblr She/Her
Terms of Use | Rules & Policies | Account & SupportThe Negev comprises two thirds of Israel’s territory, but only 10 percent of citizens lives there. It is thus no coincidence that the Jewish settlement of Hiran is being planned directly atop the ruins of the Bedouin village Umm al-Hiran. This is a test for all Israelis, and I really hope we do not fail.
By Michal Rotem
On January 17, Israel’s Supreme Court judges decided not to hold an additional hearing on the future of the Bedouin villages Atir and Umm al-Hiran. Legally speaking, this means that the court’s May decision, according to which there is no barrier to evacuating the residents to the town of Hura and destroying their villages, remained in tact. As far as the reality in the Negev, it means that there is nothing stopping the government from destroying one Bedouin village in order to build a Jewish town in its place, and there is nothing stopping the government from destroying a second Bedouin village in order to expand the Yatir forest on its ruins.
We can get into a deep legal discussion on the matter, but I don’t think it’s that interesting. The fact that the court ruled this way doesn’t mean we should accept it. Rather, this is a breaking point that should be seized in order to launch a public struggle that refuses to accept the ruling.
Before we go off the rails
It is in fact most critical for people who don’t live in Atir and Umm al Hiran to join the struggle and push it forward. For its Bedouin residents, this is a battle over their homes, their land and future. But for all other citizens of Israel, this is the final step before this place goes off the rails completely. As far as Israel’s Jewish citizens, this is a struggle against the state’s ability to stomp all over Palestinian citizens of Israel, to humiliate them and destroy their homes in order to build Jewish ones in their stead.
And just to refute a few counter claims that some readers may be thinking: Yes, Hiran is a town designated for “the general population.” But there aren’t actually any towns in the Negev that serve the “general population.” The reality on the ground is, the more separation between Bedouin and Jews, the better. Moreover, the core group of founders of Hiran are a national-religious community from the Eli settlement in the West Bank, and the goal of their relocation, in their own words is to “build a faithful community dedicated to strengthening the northern Negev, and contributing meaningfully to the demographic balance, out of a Zionist vision of settlement.” (Taken directly from official government website, in Hebrew). “Contributing meaningfully to the demographic balance?” So maybe they this place isn’t actually catering to the general population after all.
You may also be thinking: But the Bedouin are the ones who refuse to live among Jews. Wrong. Big time. The residents of Umm al-Hiran want to stay where they are, as part of the new Hiran town. As far as they are concerned, they can exist as an independent neighborhood or an integral part of the new town. If you visited the village, you probably heard Ra’ad Abu al-Qi’an, one of the leaders of the village’s struggle, expressing his longing for Rani and Roni, Mussa and Moshe to all grow up together in a cooperative Arab-Jewish town. So who is sabotaging this possibility? The Israeli government and its various local bodies.
What can be done
So how are the settlers from Eli connected to all this? The truth is I don’t know, but there are some settler groups who have begun “settling” the Negev. What I do know is that the Negev comprises two thirds of Israel’s territory, and less than 10 percent of the country’s citizens live there. This means there is a lot of space in the Negev, or in the words of Dr. Thabet Abu Rass, formerly the director of Adalah’s Negev office: “There is room for everyone in the Negev.” It is therefore no coincidence that a Jewish town is being planned directly on top of the ruins of a Bedouin village. This is a test for all of us, and I really hope we do not fail.
If you feel that the Negev in particular |
online, because few people are willing to publicly admit that they “stole” a photo—by accident or otherwise. Few agencies are willing to go on record and say that they made a mistake while working on a client’s account, and few bloggers want to risk their reputations by publicizing such a rookie error.
We want to help spread the word about copyright infringement laws and their potential impact on small businesses and bloggers, because we want the fewest number of people to be victimized by these legal practices. Until we can change the laws, or the way the laws are applied, we all have to be in cover-your-butt mode. Roni Loren did a really great job explaining how to avoid the trap that she fell in, and WikiHow’s page on avoiding copyright infringement will help bring you up to speed on image copyright laws. Kari DePhillips is co-founder of The Content Factory. A version of this post originally appeared on agency’s blog.A minor league baseball organization has formally apologized to its fans over a performance last night by Corey Feldman’s band, Truth Movement.
Feldman performed at Medlar Field, home of the Class A-level State College Spikes, and the appearance was “so far below expectations,” the organization today tried to make amends with those who were there to witness it.
“While the nature of the appearance was not what we had anticipated for the evening, we would like to apologize to all fans who may have been offended by its content,” the Spikes tweeted this afternoon. “We would also like to apologize to our fans for the appearance being so far below expectations.”
According to the Center Daily Times of Pennsylvania, Feldman’s appearance at the ballgame was supposed to center around meet-and-greets and interactions with fans, similar to a successful “retro night” held last year with Alfonso Ribeiro, the actor who played Carlton on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. But Feldman, known for his roles in ’80s flicks like the Goonies, License To Drive, and the Lost Boys, was apparently more interested in playing live with Truth Movement. In video below, he can be seen dressed as Michael Jackson while his “Angels” sing alongside him; the team described his singers as “not exactly family friendly.”
Tell that to the adult up front wearing a Goonies shirt.
Feldman feels that the reaction from the State College Spikes, an affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals, is unjust, and today lashed out at the organization, tweeting that “it was like working w The 3 Stooges! Everything was done wrong, and we get the blame?!? Lol!”
Here’s some video:
Corey Feldman and his Angels at the Spikes game. Feel free to give this performance an honest review. 😉 Posted by Froggy 101 on Sunday, July 19, 2015
And here is the Spikes’ full apology:
Statement from the Spikes on last night's Corey Feldman appearance pic.twitter.com/mvU8yJBoAE — State College Spikes (@SCSpikes) July 20, 2015
[h/t Yahoo]
UPDATE: Here’s better video. The sound guy doesn’t seem pleased.At the Federal Communications Commission's meeting on Thursday, taking the first step towards controversial new Open Internet rules, it seemed no one on either side of the political spectrum — inside or outside of the building — was entirely satisfied by the proposal. Nevertheless, the FCC voted to advance the process of adopting new rules that may drastically reshape the way the Internet works.
The FCC has been the subject of intense criticism in proposing new Open Internet rules to replace the 2010 net neutrality-friendly Open Internet regulatory structure that was struck down by a federal appeals court in January of this year. The new proposal, now in its second draft after several high profile critiques from IT companies and advocacy groups in the past few weeks, is different from the 2010 rules in an important way: it allows paid arrangements between companies and internet service providers for better quality of service as long as those deals are not "commercially unreasonable."
The idea of ISPs being allowed to give preferential treatment to any data — much less for pay — is antithetical to net neutrality's central idea that "all data should be treated equally." Critics have worried that discarding this principal would allow ISPs to create a "fast lane" for sites and services that can afford it, putting the democratic nature of the Internet at risk, which is why the FCC has been flooded with phone calls and emails recently, why demonstrators have been camped outside the FCC for days, and why Thursday's meeting began with a protester shouting and being escorted out of the room.
FCC Open Internet Meeting: Interrupted by Protests, No One Fully Agreed
It's also why none of the five commissioners seemed to support the new Open Internet proposal without reservations during the initial meeting on Thursday.
Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who was the first to speak about the proposal and perhaps the most positive of the group, clarified that the FCC's vote on Thursday was not the final vote for approval but just the first in a process that will continue through the summer, ending in September. But in clarifying the issue at hand, Clyburn also raised a point of skepticism, though vicariously, stating, "When my mother calls with public policy concerns, I know that there is a problem."
Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who previously expressed concerns with the process for reinstating a new version of the Open Internet rules, again said that she believed the FCC "moved too fast" and "would have preferred a delay."
"I support an open Internet.... But I would have done this differently," Rosenworcel said. "I would have taken the time to consider the future." But Rosenworcel and Clyburn both ended up voting with Chairman Tom Wheeler to proceed, winning the motion 3 to 1 with the two Republican-appointed commissioners dissenting.
Neither Republican-appointed commissioner agreed with the proposal, though not because it could hand ISPs too much power. Both Commissioners Ajit Paik and Michael O'Rielly argued variously that the new Open Internet rules were too vague, untested, expansive and would stifle innovation without providing any benefits to consumers.
Chairman Wheeler spoke last after another brief interruption from a protester calling for a "free and open" internet while being escorted out of the room.
Wheeler attempted to clarify what the new measure was and was not, speaking forcefully at times to emphasize that he, too, supports an open internet.
"There is one Internet. It must be fast, it must be robust, and it must be open," Wheeler said. Reiterating what he had previously stated publically, Wheeler added, "The prospect of a gatekeeper choosing winners and losers on the Internet is unacceptable."
Wheeler defended the new measures, saying it would not create a "fast lane" or "slow lane" for consumers. He said consumers who paid for a certain speed of service from ISPs should always get the Internet delivered at that speed, and allowing for deals between some services and ISPs would be highly scrutinized, transparent, and would not be allowed to degrade the speeds customers were promised. He conspicuously did not address the question of whether some services being provided at what appears to be faster "bonus" speeds — imagine Netflix always working flawlessly on an otherwise cheap, so-so connection — would provide those services an unfair competitive advantage over others, like a startup video service, that couldn't afford to pay.
Wheeler also played up other only week-old parts of the proposal, added after the public outcry began to pick up momentum, like the public ombudsman that would be appointed to represent public grievances to the commission and his reiterated willingness to take a more sweeping regulatory route — reclassifying ISPs as essentially public utilities, which is an option under "Title II" of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 — if ISPs take advantage of the new system.
The Time to Speak on Record Is Now
As mentioned before, Thursday's FCC meeting did not put the new Open Internet rules in place. It just began the official process of considering them, along with alternatives like reclassification, as well as beginning a 120-day period to accept and reply to public comments on the record. The FCC will also soon release an official draft of the new Open Internet proposal to the public on its website, FCC.gov
"When the chairman hits the gavel, it will signal a start of 120 days of unique opportunity that each of you have in shaping," Commissioner Clyburn said. "One of the world's unique platforms... the real call to action occurs after this happens."
The meeting is over; Chairman Wheeler has now banged the gavel. Whether you support or oppose the new Open Internet rules — or have a completely different idea of how to proceed — now is the time to let the FCC know on the record. Furthermore, you've got until July 15 to submit original comments and until Sept. 10 for "reply comments."
Email the FCC at openinternet@fcc.gov or call 1-888-225-5322 (CALL FCC) or submit your comment online here to make your opinion on the Open Internet and net neutrality part of the public record.
You can also email each FCC member directly though not part of the on-record public comment system:
Chairman Tom Wheeler: Tom.Wheeler@fcc.gov
Commissioner Mignon Clyburn: Mignon.Clyburn@fcc.gov
Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel: Jessica.Rosenworcel@fcc.gov
Commissioner Ajit Pai: Ajit.Pai@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael O'Rielly: Mike.O'Rielly@fcc.gov
Check out FCC.gov/leadership for each Commissioner's social media address -- if that's your thing.
And/or send physical mail to this address:
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW Washington, DC 20554
Whatever your take on the situation, make this a priority because you've only got 120 days to be heard.
For more stories like this, follow us on Twitter!LAKE CITY, Fla. - The inmate who attacked two Columbia Correctional Institution officers in February was unhappy with the amount of cheese he got on his tray while going through the breakfast line, according to documents released Monday by the State Attorney's Office.
Investigators said convicted killer Willie Watts became belligerent. They said Officer Jesus Camacho told him to settle down and took his tray, telling him to submit to hand restraints.
Watts attacked him and then Officer Terry Neil, punching both in the head, investigators said.
Two other officers jumped in, one of them deploying a chemical agent, and Watts was subdued.
Watts is charged with several counts of aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer.
Watts is already serving a life sentence for second-degree murder of a fellow inmate in 1986.
He was originally convicted for a 1979 murder in Escambia County. While at Florida State Prison, he murdered fellow inmate John Wiseman. He also assaulted corrections Officer E.E. Adams at Union Correctional Institution.
Watts has a long history of incarceration, including sentences for transmitting contraband in prison, attempted murder, attempted armed robbery, grand theft and escape.
Copyright 2014 by Graham Media Group. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributedOriginally published on April 29th, 2014:
This morning we take a look at some of the Star Wars concept illustrations of Ralph McQuarrie who designed the original trilogy as well as Battlestar Galactica, E.T. and Cocoon. "Ralph McQuarrie was the first person I hired to help me envision Star Wars. His genial contribution, in the form of unequaled production paintings, propelled and inspired all of the cast and crew of the original Star Wars trilogy. When words could not convey my ideas, I could always point to one of Ralph's fabulous illustrations and say, 'Do it like this.'
"Beyond the movies, his artwork has inspired at least two generations of younger artists—all of whom learned through Ralph that movies are designed. Like me, they were thrilled by his keen eye and creative imagination, which always brought concepts to their most ideal plateau. In many ways, he was a generous father to a conceptual art revolution that was born of his artwork, and which seized the imaginations of thousands and propelled them into the film industry. In that way, we will all be benefiting from his oeuvre for generations to come. Beyond that, I will always remember him as a kind and patient, and wonderfully talented, friend and collaborator." —George LucasAs my children and I sit down to eat dinner every night, we take turns saying grace. One line has always resonated with me: "Thank you, Lord, for this food, and bless the hands that prepared it. Amen." As a single dad and immigrant to the United States from the Republic of Congo, I have taught my children that nothing in life comes easily. They thank me for our modest dinner and the oldest ones wash the dishes. They know how hard these hands work to provide for them.
My family's appreciation makes me feel truly blessed to cook for them. I do not, however, feel the same gratitude or respect at work. I spend 60 hours a week in the Senate cafeteria cooking for some of the most powerful people in the world. When I tell my family in Congo that I am living paycheck to paycheck, they do not understand. How can I work in such a prestigious building and still be so broke? I explain to them that I am only making $12 an hour. Even living an hour outside of Washington D.C., making rent is near-impossible. I have to rely on public assistance to support my family.
When I moved to America, I thought I would be able to achieve the American Dream. I went to college to get my business degree, so that I could get ahead. $89,000 in debt later, I ended up being even further worse off. Student loan payments, rent, and school supplies for my kids continue to add up. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I use public assistance to put food on the table.
My coworkers and I have been on strike numerous times because we cannot survive on less than $15 an hour, and our efforts are starting to pay off. Earlier this week, our employer reached an agreement with the Architect of the Capitol to give us an average of a $3 raise, fair scheduling, and a 2% annual raise going forward. This would not have happened if we did not raise our voices and shine a light on some of the consequences of such low pay right under the Capitol dome. We have been fighting for $15 and a union. With a new average wage of $14.50 per hour, It's a good step in the right direction and we are half way there.
The contract workers at the U.S. Capitol are united in our message -- $15 and a union. We will continue fighting until we get what we are asking for. We have the support of 34 Democratic Senators, other workers across the country involved in the Fight for $15 and a union and Americans of every stripe that believe that no one who works full time should have to live in poverty. I was recently honored to receive the first "Hammer and Chisel" award on behalf of all contract workers who have been fighting for positive change in this country. Michael Moore helps give a voice to those who, like my co-workers and I, are fighting for the American ideals that make this country great.
The Bible says, "If anyone knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin." (James 4:17). We will continue fighting for a union at the U.S. Senate cafeteria. If anything, we have learned that through organizing and perseverance, we can make positive change in our workplace a reality. We just need to stick together and support each other to make it happen.
As Senators and their families go on vacation for the holidays and see their kids' smiles as they unwrap the shiniest toys, I hope they remember low-wage workers like me. We also want to give our children a magical holiday. And by forming a union and having a voice on the job, we can get closer to giving that to them.Richard Murphy says we can afford to give public sector workers a pay rise. I think I agree, for a reason he doesn’t mention.
It’s trivially obvious that Theresa May was wrong to claim that there’s no magic money tree. In fact, in theory, there are several.
One, as Richard says, is the multiplier effect: higher public spending brings in higher tax revenues, both directly as public sector workers pay more tax and indirectly as their extra spending generates more economic activity.
Another is that governments can print money to pay for extra borrowing. The Bank of England has done £435bn of this.
A third is that government borrowing costs are negative in real terms. Despite a slight rise recently, 20 year index-linked gilts yield minus 1.6 per cent. This means that for every £100 the government borrows, it will have to pay back only £72. This fact, combined with even moderate economic growth, means the government could borrow more and still see government debt shrink over time relative to GDP. It is just plain wrong, therefore, to claim that paying public sector workers more will impose a burden upon future generations.
There are, therefore, magic money trees. The fact that Ms May could claim otherwise is yet more evidence of the stupidity of her government. And the fact she wasn't sufficiently corrected for her error is evidence of the inadequacy of the media.
Just because you’ve got a magic money tree, however, doesn’t mean you must shake it. There’s a simple reason why governments have been loath to use these trees: inflation. Higher government spending means increased aggregate demand, which – it has been thought – leads to higher inflation.
It’s inflation, and not the lack of a magic money tree, which has traditionally been the obstacle to higher public spending.
Which brings me to why I agree with Richard. This danger isn’t especially great.
I don’t say this because I believe a little more inflation will be a good thing. I suspect that higher inflation might actually be a contractionary force as it might encourage households to save more – a danger which is especially great given that the savings ratio is at a record low now. I share Eric’s concern that lower real rates now might actually be a bad thing.
Instead, I’ve another reason not to worry much about inflation. It’s that additional economic activity doesn’t seem to be as inflationary as previously thought. We know this because wage inflation has stayed low despite unemployment falling to a 42-year low. The UK’s rising inflation now seems to be just the effect of sterling’s devaluation, which should be one-off. (This isn’t a quirk of the UK economy: much the same is true in the US too).
This might be because there’s hidden unemployment: the Resolution Foundation estimates that underemployment is greater now than in the mid-00s. Or it might be because, as Andy Haldane has said (pdf), changing working practices have led to a flatter Phillips curve. As Simon says, the Nairu has fallen. Or it might just be that in an open economy the trade-off between growth and inflation isn’t as great as people think.
Whatever the reason, the inference is the same. The government might be able to borrow more to pay public sector workers more simply because the inflation constraint on it doing so is weak.
Of course, I might be wrong here. Maybe there will come a point when stronger economic activity is inflationary. Or maybe higher public sector wages will lead to general inflation if it triggers higher private sector wages. This is an especial risk because wage rises won’t be offset by productivity gains.
If I am wrong, though, there’s a simple solution: higher interest rates. A mix of these plus looser fiscal policy would have some advantages. They’d take us away from the zero bound and so give the Bank of England more room to loosen policy in the next downturn. And they’d tend to dampen down house prices and financial speculation.
I suspect, then, that the risk of giving public sector workers a pay rise is small. Not only is there a magic money tree, therefore, but we should shake it.Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Even the strongest artificial glues are completely useless when you try to apply them underwater, but somehow shellfish are able to hold fast to rocks to deter predators from trying to carry them away. Clearly, nature has already figured out how to make glues that work underwater, and now researchers may have discovered the secret.
In a paper recently published in the journal Applied Materials and Interfaces, researchers at Purdue University detail a new ‘biomimetic’ glue, inspired by the observation that shellfish like mussels stick incredibly well to rocks, despite the crashing ocean constantly trying to undo their efforts.
It turns out that mussels are able to stick to surfaces, even while under water, using tiny hairs covered in a natural glue containing proteins rich in the amino acid DOPA. While most adhesives interact with water, compounds in DOPA, called catechols, don’t. Instead, they work right through it to bind to the surface of other materials. When the researchers added these amino acids, along with other mussel proteins, to an artificial polymer they’d made, it became one of the strongest underwater glues ever created.
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Surprisingly, bond tests showed the new adhesive, known chemically as poly(catechol-styrene), to be about 17 times stronger than the natural glues used by the mussels. However, the researchers didn’t pat themselves on the back for totally one-upping Mother Nature. They believe that mussels naturally limit the strength of their adhesives so that it’s easier for them to break free when it’s time to relocate.
Once perfected, mussel-inspired glue could lead to new ways to manufacture vehicles, or structures, that are subjected to water all the time. It could also make performing underwater repairs, either temporary or permanent, considerably easier, given how complicated processes like welding underwater can be. And just maybe, it’ll lead to easy repair kits that don’t require you to drain an entire swimming pool just to deal with a small crack.
[ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces via Engadget]VANCOUVER — As expected, checking centre Sammy Pahlsson won't be back with the Vancouver Canucks for the 2012-13 National Hockey League season after he signed a contract Monday to play for Modo of the Swedish Elite League.
Pahlsson, 34, was a trade deadline acquisition by the Canucks on Feb. 27 from the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Canucks surrendered a pair of fourth-round picks for Pahlsson plus minor-leaguer Taylor Ellington, their 2007 second-round pick who had tumbled down their depth chart. Pahlsson's contract had expired and he was an unrestircted free agent.
"It's both inspiring and exciting to come home to Modo Hockey," Pahlsson said in a release translated from Swedish to English. "It is a big step to decide to move back from the NHL but now that I made the decision, it feels good. What I can promise is that I will always give my best and play hard all the time."
Pahlsson appeared in 24 games for the Canucks, including five in the playoffs, and collected three goals and four assists. All told, he spent 11 seasons in the NHL with Boston, Anaheim, Chicago, Columbus and the Canucks. He won a Stanley Cup with the Ducks in 2007.
He had 199 points in 798 regular-season games and 29 points in 86 post-season games. Pahlsson played for Modo prior to coming to the NHL in 2000-01.
He said he enjoyed his brief stint with the Canucks.
"It was really fun to have the opportunity to come to Vancouver," Pahlsson continued. "It was also the first time that I represented a Canadian team, and it is special. We had high expectations for the playoffs but, unfortunately, it was a big disappointment. It was tough to go out in the first round against the L.A. Kings, but in retrospect one can see that it was a good team we faced."
Modo general manager Markus Naslund, the former Canuck captain, was happy to lock up the experienced centre for their hometown Ornskoldsvik club.
"He was matched against the best in the world for many years and has done well," Naslund said. "He comes with his routine, attitude and talent to become a key player for us."
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vancouversun.comHizballah should withdraw from Syria, Turkey's foreign minister said on Thursday, as he confirmed reports suggesting Ankara and Moscow could soon establish a ceasefire in war-torn Syria.
The Lebanese group, which has sent thousands of fighters to support President Bashar al-Assad during the five-year conflict, should vacate the fight, Mevlut Cavusoglu suggested.
Cavusoglu also said Turkey and Russia are close to reaching an agreement on a nationwide Syrian ceasefire that would come into effect by the end of the year, according to comments made on an interview with Turkey’s A Haber news channel.
The minister added that Iran has previously stated during talks in Moscow earlier this month, that it will act as a guarantor for the Syrian government as well as allied Shia groups, including Hizballah.
"We are planning to secure this before the beginning of the New Year," he said, adding it was the "will of the leaders" for this to happen.
On Wednesday, Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu said that Turkey and Russia had agreed a nationwide truce plan for Syria but none of the key players in the conflict offered an immediate confirmation.
Cavusoglu said that if the ceasefire was successful, political negotiations between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and the opposition would take place in the Kazakh capital Astana.
But he insisted the Astana talks, overseen by Turkey and Russia, were not a rival to UN-backed talks that have been taking place on-and-off in Geneva in recent years.
"This is not an alternative to Geneva. It is a complementary step," said Cavusoglu.
"The talks in Astana will be under our supervision," he said, adding which groups will take part remains under discussion.
He said Ankara and Moscow continued intensive efforts to secure the ceasefire.
Russia would act as the regime's "guarantor" in any deal while Turkey would also perform a similar role.
Although Moscow and Ankara are on opposite sides in the civil war with Russia supporting Assad and Turkey calling for him to go, they have begun in the last few months to work closely on Syria.
Relations between Ankara and Moscow were normalised in June after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on the Syrian border in November 2015.
Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from Aleppo after a ceasefire earlier this month brokered by Ankara and Moscow.
Meanwhile, Turkey stood conspicuously quiet as the regime, supported by Russia, took control last week of Aleppo, dealing the biggest defeat for the rebels in the civil war so far.
But Cavusoglu said it was "out of the question" for Turkey to hold any talks with Assad.LONDON (Reuters) - New York has knocked London from its position as the world’s leading global financial center after seven years, according to the Global Financial Centres Index compiled by London-based consultancy Z/Yen.
Ferry boats navigate through flowing ice on the Hudson River past the New York City skyline as seen from Jersey City, New Jersey January 10, 2014. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
London slipped from the top of the global rankings, scoring 784 against 786 for New York, because a series of own goals had tarnished its reputation, the report said.
“London sees the largest fall in the top 50 centres,” said Mark Yeandle, report author and associate director of Z/Yen, in a statement on the group’s website.
“This seems to be based on a number of factors including... uncertainty over Europe, the perception that London might be becoming less welcoming to foreigners and perceived levels of market manipulation.”
Hong Kong and Singapore took third and fourth spots respectively, the same as a year ago, the survey showed.
But the gap between the “Big Four” and the chasing pack, led by Zurich, Tokyo and Seoul, was narrowing, it said.
Middle East centres, such as Qatar, Dubai and Riyadh, which took places 26, 29 and 31 respectively, continued to rise in the index, while 23 of the 27 European centres declined in rank.
TheCityUK, a lobby group for British financial and professional services, said London slipping from the top spot should be a wake-up call for Europe’s policymakers.
“London is Europe’s financial center and is hugely important to the continent’s ability to finance growth and create jobs by attracting global investors,” said Chris Cummings, chief executive of TheCityUK.
The Global Financial Centres Index is compiled from assessments completed by 3,246 financial services professionals, Z/Yen said.The Oscar-winning actress spoke out about her experience at Elle's Women in Hollywood event Monday night.
Reese Witherspoon opened up about her own experiences with sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood during a speech at Elle's Women in Hollywood event Monday night.
The actress, who's been starring in movies since 1991, revealed she was sexually assaulted by a director when she was just 16 and said this wasn't the only time she'd experienced inappropriate behavior in her career, adding that she felt ashamed for staying silent.
“[I feel] true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment,” Witherspoon said. “And I wish I could tell you that was an isolated incident in my career, but sadly it wasn’t. I’ve had multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault and I don’t speak about them very often.”
Earlier she reflected on the past week, in which multiple women in Hollywood have come forward about experiences of sexual harassment and assault, including some allegedly by disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
“This has been a really hard week for women in Hollywood, for women all over the world and a lot of situations and a lot of industries that are forced to remember and relive a lot of ugly truths,” Witherspoon said. “I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly and I find it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate a lot of the feelings that I’ve been having about anxiety, about being honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier, for not taking action."
She added, "After hearing all the stories these past few days and hearing these brave women speak up tonight about things that we’re kind of told to sweep under the rug and not to talk about, it’s made me want to speak up and speak up loudly because actually I felt less alone this week than I have felt in my entire career. I have just spoken to so many actresses and writers, particularly women, who have had similar experiences and many of them have bravely gone public with their stories. That truth is very encouraging to me and to everyone out there in the world because you can only heal by telling the truth.”
Witherspoon, however, said she hoped that things would get better for the next generation.
“I feel really, really encouraged that there will be a new normal. For the young women in this room, life is going to be different because we have your back and it makes me feel better because, gosh, it's about time.… I'm so sad that I have to talk about these issues, but I would be remiss not to,” she said.
The 24th annual Elle Women in Hollywood celebration was held at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. The evening, hosted by Elle Editor-in-Chief Nina Garcia and publisher Kevin O'Malley, along with presenting sponsors L'Oreal Paris and "Real Is Rare. Real Is a Diamond," and supporting sponsor Calvin Klein, featured serious moments in which Witherspoon and other women, including Jennifer Lawrence and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, spoke about the sexual harassment and assault stories that have dominated the news over the past week, in the wake of explosive exposés about Weinstein's alleged behavior.
Kennedy, who delivered the keynote address, proposed the establishment of a commission by the institutions that constitute the film industry — studios, unions, guilds and talent agencies — to change the culture in Hollywood that has allowed sexually inappropriate behavior to continue.
Kennedy called for the above businesses to develop industry-wide protections against sexual harassment and abuse, including "zero tolerance policies for abusive behavior, and a secure, reliable, unimpeachable system in which victims of abuse can report what’s happened to them with a confident expectation that action will be taken, without placing their employment, reputations and careers at risk."
Later in the evening, fellow honoree Lawrence pledged her support for such a commission. The 27-year-old star also opened up about her own experiences of sexism and harassment in Hollywood, including how she was forced to do a "humiliating" nude lineup in front of a producer.
Kennedy and Lawrence star on two of the eight Elle November issue covers celebrating women in the entertainment industry. Laura Dern, who Witherspoon was on hand to honor, also graces the cover of one of the issues as do Tessa Thompson, Jessica Chastain, Cicely Tyson, Margot Robbie and Riley Keough.
Witherspoon is just the latest Hollywood star to claim she was sexually assaulted or harassed during her career, joining such high-profile figures as Ashley Judd, Rose McGowan, Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Asia Argento, Riverdale star Lili Reinhart and Cara Delevingne, who've all revealed those experiences over the past week.
In addition to her work as an actress, Witherspoon is a powerful producer, who has said that she started working in this capacity to bring female-centric stories to the screen. Her production credits include Gone Girl, Wild and the HBO limited series Big Little Lies, on which she served as an executive producer.
And Witherspoon shared some suggestions for a "course of action" that people in the industry can take.
"There's a lot of people here who negotiate quite frequently with direct companies and heads of companies," she said. "I think maybe at your next negotiation this is a really prudent time to ask important questions like, 'Who are your top female executives? Do those women have green light power? How many women are on the board of your company? How many women are in a key position of decision-making at your company?' It seems so obvious but people don't ask those questions, and if we can raise consciousness and really create change, that's what's going to change in this industry and change society."Lithuania’s parliament voted on Thursday to ban the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to minors, as companies like Red Bull and Monster face increased scrutiny in the European Union.
The small Baltic country’s legislation prohibits drinks that contain 150 milligrams of caffeine per liter to be sold to minors, reports the Wall Street Journal. Monster Energy and Red Bull have 338 milligrams and 319 milligrams of caffeine per liter, respectively, according to caffeineinformer.com.
Lithuania’s law could have a large impact on industry sales: a European Food Safety Authority study found in 2013 that adolescents are far more likely to consume energy drinks than adults, with 68 percent of Europeans aged 10 to 18 years old drinking them.
Other countries are cracking down, too: the U.K. will require companies to label drinks with more than 150 milligrams per liter of caffeine, and German regulators have called for tighter energy drink controls.
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And in the United States, legislators in Chicago, Maryland sought to introduce restricting sales to minors, but both efforts failed to take hold. Red Bull and Monster were questioned in Senate hearing last summer over allegations they were targeting youth.
The energy drink market has boomed over the past 10 years, with global energy-drink sales more than quadrupled to $27.54 billion in 2013, according to research firm Euromonitor. Red Bull, based in Austria, has a 31.5 percent global share, and California’s Monster has 14 percent.
[WSJ]
Contact us at editors@time.com.Let Your Friends Hear About It Too...
We all know that when they ask us what our dog means to us, we always say that he is a part of the family and that we would do everything for him and to protect them. However, a man called BigDaws from the YouTube channel BigDawsTv put it to the test.
On the streets of Chicago, he dressed himself as a real gentleman and carried a briefcase where he said that he had $ 100,000 that he was willing to give if dog owners just handed him the leash and walk away. Basically they would sell their dogs for briefcase full of money on the spot.
However reactions could surprise you, but the real question is what would you do if someone with a large sum of money came in and offered you that money for your pet? Watch the whole video to see if this gentleman succeeded in his intentions and ask yourself what you would do to find yourself in this situation.Defiant George Osborne refuses to admit he failed in commitment to protect AAA credit rating
Leading credit agency Moody's downgraded Britain to AA1 yesterday
It is the first time since 1978 that the Britain has seen its rating dropped
Country placed on 'negative watch' by all three main rating agencies
Osborne remains said it only reinforces Britain's need to improve
The UK is now at the same rating level as France
Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls labels move a 'humiliating blow' to Osborne
Bitter blow: But George Osborne insists that the Government cannot reverse its austerity programme
Chancellor George Osborne today refused to admit he had failed in his commitment to protect Britain's credit rating, despite seeing it downgraded by leading agency Moody's yesterday afternoon.
In the wake of Moody's reducing Britain one notch to AA1, Mr Osborne claimed the country's credibility was intact hit back at calls for him to resign
Asked if he had broken his commitment to protect Britain's credit rating, he said: 'I've consistently argued that Britain has a debt and deficit problem, that we've got to tackle that head on, that we've got to take tough measures to do that, and I think people understand that.
'In the end, the test of our credibility as a country is there every day in the markets when we borrow money on behalf of this country from investors all around the world.
'At the moment we can do that very cheaply with very low interest rates precisely because people have confidence that we have got a plan. We've got to stick to that plan and we are going to deliver that plan.'
When pushed further on whether he had broken a Conservative manifesto pledge from the 2010 general election, the Chancellor said the Government had held firm on its commitment to take unpopular but economically necessary measures.
'We made it very clear that |
become a star, but he hasn’t really gotten any better since he got to the big leagues, and he needs to start making strides in the right direction. The team still doesn’t really know what they have in Drew Stubbs. Devin Mesoraco looks like he could become a top-tier catcher, but he’ll need to show more plate discipline than he did in his debut last year. And the rotation behind Latos is a full of question marks, even though each question mark comes with some upside – how far will Johnny Cueto regress? How good can Mike Leake be? Is Aroldis Chapman a starter or a reliever long term? Will Homer Bailey ever figure it out?
The farm system took a real hit with the off-season trades -and Marc Hulet rated them just 18th in the game this winter – and they’re graduating their top prospect to the big leagues, so there’s not a lot of obvious near-term help coming behind Mesoraco. There’s talent here, but it’s high-risk talent, and the pieces in place need to continue developing to supplement the productive guys already on hand.
Financial Resources: 44 (21st)
The Reds are a classic middle-market franchise, drawing enough fans and generating enough revenues from their new ballpark to sustain just high enough payrolls, but they’ll never be a financial juggernaut in the sport. The market just isn’t large enough for the Reds to explore having their own network, and they are reportedly only receiving $10 million per year in revenues from their current television contract. However, that deal is set to expire in 2016, and the current rate adjustments in that business look like they should trickle down across the board, so the Reds should see a nice bump in money from their TV deal in four or five years.
In the near term, however, this is a team that’s going to have to get by with $80-$90 million payrolls. Winning a World Series might excite the fan base enough to push that over $100 million, but Cincinnati is just not a large metropolitan area, and the rust belt has been hit harder by the economic slowdown of the past few years than many coastal cities. The Reds aren’t in bad financial shape, but their revenue potential is limited, and this will always be a franchise that needs to be efficient with their spending in order to compete.
Baseball Operations: 47 (t-19th)
Walt Jocketty has a strong record of acquiring undervalued big leaguers and building a winning team through shrewd veteran pickups, but his reliance on older players also comes with a downside – trusting guys like Bronson Arroyo with shiny new contracts, for instance. That said, he has more hits than misses in his ledger, and for a guy who has been doing this for so long, that’s a pretty rare occurrence.
Somewhat like the Braves, the Reds are more old-school than most front offices, and haven’t brought in a legion of Harvard kids, but they’re not ignorant of how to build a winning baseball team. There are some chinks in the analytical armor, but they generally value players properly, and understand which guys to target for upgrades. They make mistakes too, but Reds fans should feel comfortable with Walt Jocketty and his staff at the helm. They’re not going to lead you into a ditch, and they might just make enough savvy moves to get the team to a World Series.
Overall: 50 (15th)
The Reds are legitimate contenders in 2012 that have some long term question marks, especially surrounding whether or not they’ll be able to keep their franchise first baseman in the fold. If they re-sign Votto, you’d probably move them up a couple of notches, but their limited financial upside and mediocre farm system probably still make them more of a good franchise than a great one. Their window is win is now, though, and a deep playoff run could unlock future revenues that could be reinvested into the franchise, so it’s not entirely a what-you-see-is-what-you-get situation.
Overall, there are definitely worse spots to be than Cincinnati right now. They’re going to put a good team on the field this year, and if they can figure out how to keep Votto in town, they could be perennial contenders for the remainder of his prime. With Theo Epstein and the Cubs looming as formidable contender down the road, the Reds need to take advantage of this opportunity, and they certainly seem to be intent on trying to do just that.Snickers and Milky Way bars are all well and good, but what other candies are deserving of some Halloween love? From Lion Bars and Whoppers to Airheads and Nerds, we've got our eyes on quite a few. Here's what we've been hoarding for October 31.
Whatchamacallit
Inside its chocolate coating, Watchamacallit houses what can ONLY be described as a shattered constellation of peanut butter shards and crisp rice puffs, drifting on an oozing river of caramel in a delicate chocolate embrace.
Chewy, chocolatey, crunchy, crunchy is right! What you'll find is a nice, crisp texture that takes the melt-in-your-mouth route—none of that glom-onto-your-teeth business. It's just Rice Cripsyish enough to give good crunch; just Butterfingery enough to deliver that flaky, faintly peanut butter-tinged nutty, salty-sweetness; just caramel-y enough to reassure you that it's not healthy. And yeah, it's coated in that weird Hershey's fake-chocolate chocolate, which we maybe shouldn't like, but totally love.
Goldenberg's Peanut Chews
The Peanut Chew is old-timey done right: roasted peanuts are suspended in thick, chewy caramel, then coated in surprisingly good, crisp dark chocolate. Consider it, if you will, a grownup Snickers: all the essentials with none of that nougat mishegas to get in the way. The flavor is darker, roastier, more intensely caramel, and yes, we'll say it, plain better than a Snickers (if less salty). Send your lynch mobs if you must.
Toblerone Crunchy Salted Almond
Toblerone may have finally outdone Symphony, an old favorite, with their new variant, which includes not only chunks of almonds, but chunks of salted caramelized almonds. They're not quite as salted as we'd like them to be—eat through the chocolate quickly and you may even completely miss the salt—but if you let the creamy milk chocolate slowly melt on your tongue, you'll be rewarded with chunks of salty almond and nuggets of nougat (It's really fun to say "nuggets of nougat"). It ain't world-class chocolate by any means, but it's got enough of that sweet-salty-creamy thing going on to hit you in just the right way.
Peanut Butter M&Ms
Peanut M&M's tend to be too savory and dry, nut-filled in a way that doesn't really feel like candy. But Peanut Butter M&M's are as sweet as can be, filled with buttery, creamy peanut-butter that's almost more icing than nut paste. These aren't anemic Reeses Pieces; they're chubby little guys with a generous amount of stuffing. It's most fun to see how long the outer coating takes to dissolve on your tongue, resisting biting in as the candy fades from smooth to sandpapery to smooth again, and the creamy peanut butter interior is a better reward for your patience than plain old waxy chocolate.
Sour Patch Kids
Put Sour Patch Kids in front of us, and we'll eat them until they're all gone (or we've passed out—whichever comes first). But suck off the sour sandy coating and you may find that they taste remarkably similar to Swedish Fish. Guess what: they're the exact same candy, simply pumped into a different mold and finished with a sour coating. If somebody were to sell bags of the sour coating that collects on the bottom of a pack of Sour Patch kids, we'd buy it. Just think of how many foods and candies could be improved by a sprinkling of it!
Junior Mints
The most endearing part of a Junior Mint may just be the little divots on the back of each candy. They balance so perfectly on the tip of your finger. And the chocolate shell isn't too stiff, so it melds and collapses into the creamy mint center. Sure, the chocolate's nothing fancy, but it's just an accent, really. And a challenge...
Try slowly shaving the chocolate off the circumference of each mint with your teeth, then attempting to remove just the top and bottom layers of the chocolate shell. Anyone else ever do that? It's one way to make an overpriced box of Junior Mints last through an entire movie. Or, well, at least half a movie.
Time Out
Time Out is manufactured by Cadbury Ireland, which means it may be trickier to find in the US. But that definitely doesn't mean you shouldn't try! One package usually includes two narrow bars consisting of a milk chocolate ripple sandwiched between two wafers, all covered in Dairy Milk chocolate, or as its original slogan states, "the wafer break with a layer of Flake." Basically, it's one of Cadbury's best products covered in another. What's not to love?
Sure enough, it's a solid candy bar—you might think of it as an improved take on a Kit Kat. And for a chocolate bar that's ostensibly supposed to be an indulgence, it's also incredibly light; we could easily eat several in one sitting and may or may not have done so.
Airheads
Airheads are a severely underrated candy in our opinion. There's the texture, for one, delightfully chewy but not jaw-breaking. More pliable than Now & Laters but still too thick to just chomp down, they have some longevity (but wouldn't pull off your braces back in the day). They're weirdly slick but end up a little bit grainy as you chew them, in a way we actually find really appealing. Despite being mostly sugar, they don't taste like it; most of the flavors are at least a little bit tart. They're in great flavors like cherry and blue raspberry--and then, of course, there's the White Mystery. What flavor is it? Are they all the same? Is it one of the existing flavors or something else altogether? (We don't have the answers, but if you do, PLEASE TELL US!)
Chunky
The key to Chunky lies in the name—the chunk. The height and heft of the bar creates a satisfying feeling when you sink your teeth into it. The milk chocolate sort of crumbles, offering the occasional surprise of salty peanuts and raisins, which adds a pleasant texture. Rock on, you crazy little chunk of goodness.
Whoppers
Ah, the malty miracles that are Whoppers. Their perfect balance between malty-crisp center and subtle milk chocolate shell wins us over every time. Their adorable, miniature size holds promises of more candy per box, and the exhilarating consequences of a major sugar overload. But we've never really been swayed by the various iterations of Whoppers that have cropped up since, from unnaturally pink strawberry milkshake flavored, to the disappointing highly anticipated Reese's peanut butter version. We want classic malt all the way.
Swedish Fish
The first question that comes up when discussing Swedish Fish is: Large or small? Followed by: Assorted or reds? The answer: Reds.
Variety is great, but there's something so satisfying about having all the ones you would have picked out already wrangled together in one package. The I-can't-quite-put-my-finger-on-it flavor of the red fish (we've heard rumors that it's lingonberry) is so elusively delicious. Why bother with the more predictable greens, yellows, and oranges?
In the gummy candy class, Swedish Fish are some of the quickest to dissolve. Large fish can become a little unmanageable when they get to the chewy phase, leaving behind lots of tooth cling-ons, but small ones make a smooth transformation from slightly rigid to a soft and pliable satisfyingly gummy chew without too much jaw work. The trick is to use some friction to catch and work the fish between the roof of the mouth and tongue, smoothing the rigged detail of the embossed candy to a flat, stretchy, and sticky diminished version of itself.
Sno Caps
It's tough to explain why Sno-Caps are so mind-bogglingly delicious. What's so special about semi-sweet chocolate chips covered in little white round sprinkles? As it turns out, it's all about the texture. Chocolate chips can definitely hold their own, but there's something magical that happens when tiny crunchy sprinkles are added to the mix. And just when the fun is over, you discover the fallen soldiers hiding in wait at the bottom of the box.
Sour Skittles
The best thing about Sour Skittles is that they aren't even that sour! Nowhere near the pucker-level of Sour Patch Kids or Warheads, unless you decide to suck the sugar off the outside and not eat the candy. But who wants to do that? Weirdo.
Instead, if you bite into a handful of these candies you'll get a nice fizzy, sparkly feeling and flavor, in addition to the fruitiness. Which fruits exactly? It's not so easy to pick a favorite flavor—it's our understanding that you have to taste the whole rainbow.
Atomic Fireballs
Did anyone else feel especially proud of themselves for surviving the inferno-mouth that came with Atomic Fireballs? Or maybe you're so tough, these were nothing. Ha, you call that hot? Well, yes. Admittedly, these made some of us cry circa fifth grade, when the goal was to keep 'em in your mouth until it dissolved, without your face melting off.
Eventually that happened. It took practice; dedication. Now we can pop one, no problem. No water cool-off breaks, even. (Did anyone else dip them in water to dilute the spiciness?)
Crunch
As far as modern chocolate bars go, Nestlé Crunch is rather plain. Have you ever seen someone at a store choose a Crunch bar over a chocolate hybrid, like Twix, or something with a cutesy presentation, like Hershey's Kisses?
Yet there they are, in every bag of Halloween minis. And as long as we're talking about what we haven't seen, it's someone being disappointed to eat a mini Crunch. They're not Sweetarts for God's sake.
Nestlé Crunch bars have a delightful crisp rice pop in every bite of creamy milk chocolate. There's a lot to be said for what texture can add to a dish, and crispy chocolate is simply fun to eat. It could be our imagination, but the crisped rice even seems to add a subtle toasty flavor and a welcome depth to the otherwise straightforward, sugary chocolate.
See's Lollypops
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a See's Lollypop? Answer us that, Mr. Owl. Because it's not a one.. a two-hoo.. a tha-three.. in this case. Unlike other lollypops, the See's version is pretty un-bite-able, and it'll take more like two hundred licks to get anywhere near the center stick.
The lolly blocks are so dense with sweet, lickable flavor, most people need a break before finishing a whole one. Just be sure to never throw away the shiny wrapper—it's essential to rest on during the lolly intermissions, when the overworked salivary glands need some downtime.
Lifesavers
Life Savers don't necessarily taste better than other fruit-flavored hard candies, but they're more fun because they have a hole in the middle. Toroidal shape = INSTANT FUN FOR YOUR MOUTH (or for your tongue, at least). We also like peeling away the foil roll packaging little by little to reveal each piece. Life Savers also come in individually wrapped packaging, but where's the fun in that? No fun. No fun at all.
Lion Bar
Rarely does packaging look as fierce (pun fully intended) as the Lion wrapper, which boasts a roaring lion and aggressively large, boldly colored font. But looks alone do not a great candy bar make! We're also drawn to Lion's contents: a caramel-filled wafer covered with a layer of crisp cereal and coated with milk chocolate. The inner layer of cereal around the wafer does slightly resemble a lion's mane.
Taste-wise, Lion is reminiscent of a Twix bar covered in cereal. There's a lot going on in this bar—plenty of varied texture and flavor so you don't get bored eating it. The cereal's ultra-crispy, which makes crunching down fun and noisy, always a plus in our book. Also, the packaging is still some of the best we've ever seen.
Nerds
Why are Nerds more fun than most other candies? Because there are two flavors in a box! It's like getting twice the candy! And since each piece is tiny, it's like getting twice the amount of a lot of candy. Few other candies match the satisfaction that comes with pouring a pile of brightly colored nubbly pellets into your palm and shoving it all in your mouth at once for a wallop of sweet, sour, crunchy goodness (that's how we eat them, at least).
Reese's Sticks
Let's talk about Reese's Cups, the most iconic of chocolate/peanut butter combos. We love them with a desperate passion and it seems fair to say they're one of the most beloved candy bars of all time. Now let's talk about Kit Kats. Everyone loves those crispy, irresistible little bars that you eat layer by layer or crunch away at all at once. And now let's talk about a combination of the two. Add in the enviable 2-bar format of Twix and you have Reese's Sticks, the perfect candy bar.
Bold claim, you say? You take one bite of that crispy wafer covered in velvety milk chocolate and layered with the oh-so-distinctive taste of Reese's peanut butter and get back to us.
Warheads
Just thinking about these super-tart candies can still make our mouths pucker—the googly-eyed, disoriented-looking cartoon guy on the wrapper pretty much sums it up. They're powerfully, intensely sour on first taste, scrunching your face up instantly, and making your eyes water if you try to fight the face-scrunch. Apparently, they're coated in malic acid, within which there's a totally unremarkable hard candy. As for flavor? Like 18-year-olds with alcohol, it's nothing to do with taste and everything to do with sensation (and proving your mettle).
It's sort of like eating good Sichuan food—the sheer rush of heat, then the calming numbness that convinces you that you want the heat again. Warheads give you that sour hit and then a candy that's dull enough that you find yourself going back for another fix.
What's hiding in your Halloween cupboard?
This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Serious Eats. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.Spoiler: TLDR (click to show/hide) Doesn't look like an approximated integral (using trapezoid rule) doesn't yield me any difference in results than from an initial minmax transform.
DT uses a slight variant from a minmax transform, and puts the mean at 50% by doing a minmax transform around the mean for 0 to 50% and 50% to 100%.
Then a similar transform is done again to recenter on the median.
Resulting in [more or less] a nicely distributed set of values.
I was hoping that by approximating "integral's" I would be able to find a better "curve". It appears that the concept of using the trapezoid rule to approximate integrals produces %'s that are exactly the same as a minmax transform. I was struggling with why my integral's 50% point did not represent the mean, but rather the midrange: (max - min) /2.
However, I know why [now], because that's what a minmax transform is, and an approximated integral based on the trapezoid rule produces the same #'s.
but has a perfect even average of 0.
Since we end up doing a final transform on the outputted data, and it seems that the #'s on the backend never really add up to 0 or 100% (hence why the new drawing method is used). We can still work with these #'s, albeit in a slightly better mean adjusted approach.
So turns out all my work on s transform and integral's has lead me full circle.So I just wasted a whole lot of time going full circle.However, what I would like to focus on. Is how to deal with datasets whose overall average doesn't = 50%.I fear that combining them together will slightly skew the overall weighted average of values.The data is already normalized <>50% on a 50/50 split. (except for extremely skewed datasets that contain a lot of null values: skills/preferences, but there mean is ~.5)So I was thinking, since the drawing method has been updated to draw from min/max of weighted average outputs, and 50% = median.Why not do something similar, but instead of adding up the %'s as if they are 0 to 100%.Subtract.5 from each %and get a set of values that are~-50% to ~+50%you know what, I don't think that would do anything. One would have to subtract from the datasets mean, and that would have a different issueAUSTIN — Transportation funding could take a hit under new revenue projections by State Comptroller Glenn Hegar, who on Tuesday lowered his forecast of state tax collections by $4.6 billion in the face of a volatile oil and gas industry.
Hegar’s new forecast still leaves more than enough money to pay for the overall spending plan approved by lawmakers for the two-year budget period that began Sept. 1. Legislators left funds on the table and ended up with a bigger-than-expected balance when the state closed out the last fiscal year.
The new projection, however, affects the funding expected to be available for the high priority of addressing Texas’ congested roads. It lowers the oil and gas revenues anticipated to be funneled into transportation by $685 million.
“The reality is oil prices have continued to stay lower than what they were projected back in January,” Hegar said in an interview, adding that volatility in the industry makes forecasting difficult.
“We’ve sat down with different major companies and we’ve said, ‘OK, what’s the oil price?’ And boy, they are like a bunch of crawfish,” Hegar said. “It’s impossible to truly predict what the future holds, especially in this volatile commodity.”
In January, Hegar had anticipated the price per barrel of oil would be $64.52 in the 2016 fiscal year that started Sept. 1 and $69.27 in 2017. His Tuesday estimate lowers that to $49.48 and $56.52, respectively.
Hegar has the job of predicting revenue at the beginning of the legislative session to set the parameters for leaders and lawmakers crafting a spending plan for state government.
The comptroller does a second revenue estimate after the budget is completed to show how the spending is certified. The updated estimate also takes into account new laws, changing economic conditions and the closing of the books on the previous budget period.
His most recent forecast predicts that the oil price slump will have a negative impact on the amount of money generated by Proposition 1, a constitutional amendment approved in November that will add some severance tax revenue to the State Highway Fund each year for the next decade. That fund received a $1.74 billion boost from Prop. 1 in the 2015 fiscal year.
Hegar predicted Prop. 1 will add about $1.1 billion to the state highway fund during the 2016 fiscal year, an amount roughly in line with past estimates. But in the next fiscal year, he predicted that amount will drop to about $600 million, about half as much as initially expected.
State Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, who chairs the House Transportation Committee, said the fiscal year 2017 estimate was lower than he anticipated. But this year’s Prop. 1 revenue — more than twice the amount the committee expected — could cushion the effects of a lower payout two years from now, he said.
“It still averages out to just a little more than what we anticipated,” he said.
Prop. 1 has already boosted local transportation funding. Last week, the Texas Department of Transportation broke ground on building direct connectors between Loop 410 and Texas 151 on the San Antonio’s Northwest Side. The $82 million project was funded entirely with Prop. 1 revenue, which generated about $147 million for San Antonio this year.
But the revised projections could mean less money for local projects. Earlier estimates predicted Prop. 1 would generate nearly $210 million for San Antonio in the next two years, an amount that will decrease if the most recent forecasts hold true.
San Antonio City Councilman Ray Lopez, who chairs the Alamo Area Metropolitan Organization, said he thinks any reduction in the amount of Prop. 1 funding available through 2017 won’t affect the number of projects the organization will be able to complete over a longer period of time.
“There will be a negative impact, but it won’t really destroy the plan,” he said. “What will wind up happening, I think, is perhaps some projects planned for years two and three will get pushed into years three and four. It will be just a delay.”
And the unpredictability of oil prices could mean more money for the highway fund in later years, said Vic Boyer, president and CEO of the San Antonio Mobility Coalition.
“I would say that these kinds of swings are expected in the oil industry,” he said. “Prices are going to vacillate way up and down, and folks are aware of that.”
To prepare for lower-than-expected revenue projections in the short term, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the Senate “worked diligently to prepare for this circumstance by passing a conservative budget while leaving substantial money in reserve.” He said he is “in close communications” with TxDOT officials “to address the revised revenue estimate announced today.”
“Texas voters will have an opportunity to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future by voting on Nov. 3,” said Patrick referring to a ballot proposition that would dedicate a portion of sales tax revenue to transportation.
The budget approved by lawmakers this year totals about $209.4 billion in state and federal funds, of which more than $106 billion is state general-purpose spending.
In January, Hegar predicted that lawmakers would have $113 billion in state revenue available for general-purpose spending for the 2016-2017 budget period that began Sept. 1, and that tax collections would total about $97.8 billion.
On Tuesday, Hegar lowered his forecast of the revenue available for general spending to $110.4 billion and projected that tax collections would total about $93.1 billion.
The reduced projection of tax collections is separate from lawmakers’ decision to slash the state business tax, Hegar said.
House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, said the Legislature’s budget approach prepared the state for such changing projections.
“The Legislature wrote a conservative budget this year so that Texas would be prepared for changing economic conditions and forecasts. Because we kept spending in check, we remain on sound fiscal footing, and we will continue to exercise prudence as the next legislative session nears,” Straus said.
Hegar had projected that oil production and regulation tax revenues would dip by 14.3 percent, but his new forecast anticipates a 42.1 percent drop.
He had forecast that natural gas production tax revenue would fall by 8 percent but his new prediction is that it will plummet by 39.8 percent.
The “subdued spending” in the energy sector has a broad effect, dampening projected sales tax collections as well, according to the report from Hegar’s office to state leaders and lawmakers.
Hegar scaled back projected growth in the sales tax by $1.5 billion, to $59.7 billion for 6.5 percent growth rather than 8.9 percent.
The rainy day fund, which is fueled by oil and gas revenues, also is expected to get less money than earlier projected. The balance of the state savings account is projected to be $10.4 billion at the end of the current budget period rather than $11.1 billion as initially projected.
The report on the certification revenue estimate from Hegar’s office said that “the recent fall in oil and natural gas prices and the absence of significant recovery in those prices is expected to result in reduced economic activity that will slow the rate of growth of the Texas economy during the next two years.”
Employment growth is expected to slow in the budget period, rising by 1.7 percent in 2016 and 1.8 percent in 2017, the report said. In January, Hegar had projected nonfarm employment would grow by 2.2 percent in 2016 and 2.3 percent in 2017.
Hegar projected that the gross state product would increase by 2.4 percent in fiscal year 2016 and 2.3 percent in 2017. In January, he had predicted that economic growth as measured by the real gross state product would average 3.7 percent.
At the same time, Hegar found good news in the projections Tuesday, saying it’s “amazing that this economy has absorbed that contraction in oil and gas … I think that’s just how diverse this economy has become.”
As for the swing in his projection, Hegar said he is keeping on top of the numbers and that they could change again. He said Texas’ economy “is the 12th largest economy in the world, and it’s a lot of numbers and a lot of assumptions.”
“This is the best data we have today, and we’re going to keep looking at it every single week,” he said.
Katherine Blunt reported from San Antonio.One time, in an interview, I was asked, "What's the connection between all the styles of crafts and projects you feature on ManMade? What makes them of a kind?" After thinking for a second, it occurred to me that most of the things I'm interested in involve a similar process: take some materials, cut them up into different shapes and sizes, and then put them together in a more interesting way. Sometimes we do that with joinery, or hardware, or a sauce, but often, that work involves the magical power of.... adhesives.
When you're working with a single medium, the decision (more or less) made for you. Working wood? Use wood glue. Attaching leather? Opt for contact cement designed for just that task. But what happens when you start to mix your media?
Our friends at Makezine have come up with this exhaustive and super handy chart that will help you adhere almost anything to anything. James Burke says,
For years I wondered why all my beautiful small-scale models kept falling apart. I underestimated the most important factor: adhesive. You can glue almost everything with super glue — but some materials just won’t stay together. Is it possible to glue rubber to glass? Will plastic stick to wood? Once you mix several different materials, it can get really confusing. For those moments it’s convenient to have a handy table that gives a quick overview.
Handy and quick, indeed. Print it out and hang it over your bench and get back to making.
Get the full resolution version at Makezine. And don't forget this DIY classic, which I'm happy to see is still up and totally unchanged since I first discovered it more than ten years ago: ThistoThat.com
Tagged:3
This is an incredibly annoying and effective booby trap. All you’ll need is string, nails, and flypaper from a home improvement store. Cut five feet of string and tie one end of the string to the doorknob. Now put two nails in the ceiling. Put the first one approximately a foot from the door and the other approximately five feet away. After you've done that, loop your string through the first nail and start attaching flypaper to the rest of the spring. Don’t wrap the flypaper around the string; just stick it on there so that there is plenty of sticky surface area still available. Loosely loop the end of the string around the final nail. When the door opens, the string will be pulled off of this last nail, the flypaper will swing down from the first nail, and stick to the person who opened the door.Another heartwarming story of America’s public education system comes to us from Washington Heights in New York. First grade teacher Ann Legra ran into a few performance issues while carrying out her duties in caring for and educating the city’s youngest students. Well, perhaps more than a few.
Ann Legra, 44, a first-grade teacher at PS 173 in Washington Heights, racked up “six years of failing her students,” the city argued in a 16-day termination hearing. Hearing officer Eugene Ginsberg upheld charges of Legra’s “inability to supervise students,” excessive lateness and absence and poor lesson planning in the 2012-2013 school year… “Students up out of their seats, at least one was running, another was demonstrating karate moves on the closet door and the majority of the students were not involved in anything instructional — an issue that has repeatedly plagued your tenure as a classroom teacher,” he wrote at the time. Three of her 6-year-olds were injured in a classroom melee that day, he added. Amid the “mayhem,” Goodman wrote, Legra was “buried in a corner at a computer table” where she could not monitor all the kids.
The good news is that Ms. Legra was immediately let go and her replacement has been raising standards and bringing a quality education to the children under her charge.
Naw… I’m just kidding. She’s still on the payroll.
But Ginsberg dismissed evidence that Legra was a lousy instructor, saying she didn’t get enough coaching. He imposed only a 45-day suspension without pay. Legra keeps her $84,500-a-year salary, but is now assigned to a pool of 1,400 teachers who serve as substitutes.
This woman is still collecting a taxpayer funded salary in excess of well more than half of the country and being sent out on temporary teaching assignments. But at least she’s grateful for that and will be giving back to the community.
Nope. Just kidding again. She’s suing the government which provides her with this permanent payday.
Legra later claimed she was harassed and targeted because of her high salary. “They really want to get rid of workers who are there for a long time,” she said. She also complained she had no help with some special-needs kids. Legal has since filed a federal lawsuit against the DOE, charging discrimination based on her race, gender, national origin and medical disability.
Someone who doesn’t show up for work (or is late when they do so) and let’s the kids run wild while providing no discipline or instruction was apparently the victim of discrimination based on race, gender, national origin and medical disability. She’s still drawing an $84,500 salary and is suing the city on top of all that. And they can’t fire her.
Stop and think about that. I know we get readers here from all walks of life, ranging from lawyers and doctors to cab drivers and construction workers. How many of you could get away with even failing to show up (or be late for) work for over one month out of nine, to say nothing of completely failing to perform your designated duties and not be on the unemployment line? Do any of you work in fields where there is some mystical “pool” of standby workers where you still get your full pay on the off chance that another work assignment will open which needs somebody that has totally failed to perform at their last job?
This is the tenure system and the example above is what it has wrought. And the icing on this tasty cupcake is that the taxpayers get to foot the bill. Enjoy, folks! And don’t worry about reforming our educational system or offering school choice for parents. The old system is working just fine.Amid the blaring of pop tunes, the humming of power tools and the grinding of saws, Jay Ranaweera, masked by protective goggles, is at work on his latest project at the Station North Tool Library on a Sunday afternoon.
The 29-year-old designer and intern architect at Rohrer Studio is finishing up a credenza, which he will top with an ironing board in hopes of saving space in the Charles Village home he's renting. He has spent the past 2 1/2 weeks on the credenza — just one of the many creations he has built since stumbling upon the tool library a year ago.
The bustling facility — located in an unassuming building on Oliver Street — is home to nearly 2,000 tools, a wood shop and a metal shop. Here, Ranaweera has rented tools to fix his parents' windows, built a table for his home, and created a custom wooden handle for a saucepan.
Such projects are just what the Station North Tool Library is meant to facilitate. The library, which opened nearly three years ago, aims to offer affordable access to tools and the knowledge of how to use them. Members can check out tools for free as a way to decrease the high costs of home improvement projects. The tool library also offers classes, workshop space and more.
For those looking to get creative or renovate their homes, Ranaweera said, the library is a saving grace.
"It's a luxury for people to have access to tools needed for high-end woodworking, and even for a hobbyist — it's not very often that they have access to tools like that," said Ranaweera.
Tool rentals are free for members.* Classes at the library, costing between $25 and $250, teach skills ranging from woodworking to skateboard-making. And members, who can choose to pay a yearly fee based on their income or a fixed monthly rate from $9 to $39, also can use the open workshop hours after they've completed a safety course.
It's set up to help people help themselves..... And I think that's the draw. — Chris Lavoie, Station North Tool Library
Buying tools from a home improvement store or hiring a contractor can cost in the thousands, said Chris Lavoie, director of the tool library's public workshop. Offering low-cost tools and the sliding-scale membership prices "makes sure that these services are accessible to anyone," Lavoie said.
An online inventory shows which tools are available for checkout. The miter saw is the most popular, Lavoie said, but inventory depends on the season.
"Snow shovels have been very popular this month," Lavoie said. "We counted that we |
the expense of taxpayers.
"Airports, like ports, are strategic assets and it's very important that if the government is considering selling these, that there be complete transparency around the sale, who is buying it and for what reason," she said.
Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose says privatizing Canadian airports could be costly for travellers and taxpayers. (CBC)
"The for-what reason is very important, because if it is in fact BlackRock investment firm or one of these large investment firms the prime minister has been meeting with, what are the terms and conditions? What is the profit margin they are looking for to justify this purchase to their shareholders?"
A partnership of major international airports, Ottawa, Vancouver and Calgary, have created a website warning that customer service would decline and fees would increase under privatization. But others are remaining neutral until there is more information.
Daniel-Robert Gooch, President of the Canadian Airports Council, said he isn't taking a position until there are more "solid details."
"We agree with [Transport] Minister [Marc] Garneau that the work shouldn't be rushed and that it take into consideration the interests of air travellers and the communities our airports serve," he said in an email.
Government 'cash cow'
The Air Transport Association of Canada is opposed to any privatization, saying it would use the aviation sector as a government "cash cow." President John McKenna said the already steep landing, rental, ramp, gate and desk fees would increase significantly.
He pointed to a report released by the C.D. Howe Institute last month called A Better Flight Path: How Ottawa can Cash In on Airports and Benefit Travellers, which estimated that selling equity in airports could net the government between $7.2 and $16.6 billion for infrastructure.
"They're just selling off assets with complete disregard for the long-term consequences of doing so," McKenna told CBC News.CHICAGO (Reuters) - Scientists at U.S. biotechnology company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals researching a rare genetic disease that traps sufferers in a second skeleton have discovered a treatment that shuts down excessive bone growth in mice engineered to develop the illness.
Company scientists said on Wednesday the protein Activin-A, which normally blocks bone growth, triggers hyperactive bone growth in patients with a genetic mutation that causes the disease. The disease is known as Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva, or FOP.
The researchers showed that an antibody that blocks Activin-A helped shut down the growth signal in genetically modified mice. The effect lasted as long as six weeks, according to the study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Aris Economides, executive director of skeletal diseases and co-founder of the Regeneron Genetics Center, said the findings could eventually lead to a treatment for the disease. FOP is a lethal genetic disorder in which muscle and soft tissue gradually are replaced by bone, forming an extra skeleton that immobilizes and eventually suffocates patients.
The condition currently affects 800 people globally, including 200 in the United States.
FOP is caused by mutations in the gene ACVR1 which makes a receptor that controls bone growth in cells. Regeneron discovered that this mutated receptor has an abnormal response in the presence of Activin-A, a growth factor often secreted by the immune system in response to injury and inflammation.
Normally, Activin-A blocks the receptor, putting the brakes on bone growth. In individuals with the FOP mutation, Activin-A has the opposite effect. "It's as if the brakes are hot-wired to the gas pedal," Economides told Reuters.
The finding explains how abnormal bone forms in FOP patients, often in response to injuries or illness that cause tissue swelling or inflammation, he said.
To test their finding, researchers developed a therapeutic antibody designed to block Activin-A. When injected in mice that developed a form of the disease, the drug blocked the formation of excess bone.
Economides said the antibody works in a similar way to Regeneron and Sanofi's newly approved antibody drug Praluent, a cholesterol-lowering drug which blocks a receptor called PSCK9 on liver cells that controls the removal of "bad" LDL cholesterol.
Betsy Bogard, director of global research development for the International FOP Association and the sister of an FOP patient, called Regeneron's findings "incredibly exciting," as they help explain some of science behind FOP and also raise hope for a new treatment approach.
But Bogard, who is a former executive of the drug company Genzyme, a unit of Sanofi, remained cautious.
"The road of developing drugs is long and difficult. There is still much to learn," she said.
Although the company would not disclose details or timing of its development approach, Regeneron spokeswoman Alexandra Bowie said preclinical testing is ongoing, and the company hopes to move the treatment into human trials.
Clementia Pharmaceuticals Inc, a private Montreal-based company, is also studying FOP and is testing a compound called palovarotene. The drug is a repurposed compound acquired from Roche that aims to interrupt the process of bone formation during disease flare-ups. It is now being tested in a phase 2 trial in FOP patients.
Last month, Clementia expanded the trial to include children as young as 6, and said it expects to start phase 3 testing in the second half of next year.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Frances Kerry)Wisconsin beef jerky king Links Snacks Inc., best known for its Jack Link's meat snacks, is expanding in downtown Minneapolis.
The Minong, Wis.-based firm will expand its office space in the Butler North Building by about 20,000 square feet, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. The company has about 36 existing marketing, sales, accounting, information technology and product development employees in Minneapolis, but the idea is to make space for 20 new workers.
Jeff LeFever, spokesman for Jack Link’s Beef Jerky, said, “As demand for Jack Link’s products increase, we can continue to support all of the communities we work in by adding new jobs.”
DEED Commissioner Katie Clark Sieben said in a statement, "In today's globally competitive environment, we are grateful for Jack Link's committement to Minnesota and for choosing to add their new high-salarioed positions here, where our workforce is our greatest asset."
The state, in its news release, did not quantify the salary levels or the amount the firm is investing in the new space.
Link Snacks was founded by the Link family in northern Wisconsin in the 1880s, and is now the largest meat snack brand in the country. The company employs more than 500 at its headquarters in Minong, and sells over 100 different meat snack products in more than 40 countries.0° Prime Meridian
Nations that touch the Equator (red) and the Prime Meridian (blue)
The IERS Reference Meridian (IRM), also called the International Reference Meridian, is the prime meridian (0° longitude) maintained by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS). It passes about 5.3 arcseconds east of George Biddell Airy's 1851 transit circle or 102 metres (335 ft) at the latitude of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.[1][2][3] It is also the reference meridian of the Global Positioning System (GPS) operated by the United States Department of Defense, and of WGS84 and its two formal versions, the ideal International Terrestrial Reference System (ITRS) and its realization, the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF).
Location [ edit ]
The reason for the 5.3 arcsecond offset between the IERS Reference Meridian and the Airy transit circle is that the observations with the transit circle were based on the local vertical, while the IERS Reference is a geodetic longitude, that is, the plane of the meridian contains the center of mass of the Earth.[1]
The International Hydrographic Organization adopted an early version of the IRM in 1983 for all nautical charts.[4] The IRM was adopted for air navigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization on 3 March 1989.[5] Tectonic plates slowly move over the surface of Earth, so most countries have adopted for their maps an IRM version fixed relative to their own tectonic plate as it existed at the beginning of a specific year. Examples include the North American Datum 1983 (NAD83), the European Terrestrial Reference Frame 1989 (ETRF89), and the Geocentric Datum of Australia 1994 (GDA94). Versions fixed to a tectonic plate differ from the global version by at most a few centimetres.
However, the IRM is not fixed to any point on Earth. Instead, all points on the European portion of the Eurasian plate, including the Royal Observatory, are slowly moving northeast about 2.5 cm per year relative to it. Thus this IRM is the weighted average (in the least squares sense) of the reference meridians of the hundreds of ground stations contributing to the IERS network. The network includes GPS stations, Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) stations, Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) stations, and the highly accurate Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) stations.[6] All stations' coordinates are adjusted annually to remove net rotation relative to the major tectonic plates. If Earth had only two hemispherical plates moving relative to each other around any axis which intersects their centres or their junction, then the longitudes (around any other rotation axis) of any two, diametrically opposite, stations must move in opposite directions by the same amount. The 180th meridian is opposite the IERS Reference Meridian and forms a great circle with it dividing the earth into Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere.
Universal Time is notionally based on the WGS84 meridian. Because of changes in the rate of Earth's rotation, standard international time UTC can differ from the mean observed solar time at noon on the prime meridian by up to 0.9 second. Leap seconds are inserted periodically to keep UTC close to Earth's angular position relative to the Sun; see mean solar time.
List of places [ edit ]
Map all coordinates using: OpenStreetMap Download coordinates as: KML · GPX
Starting at the North Pole and heading south to the South Pole, the IERS Reference Meridian passes through 8 countries:
See also [ edit ]Julianne Harnish, whose original painting was stolen from a Flipburger restaurant in Halifax in March, says the missing artwork was returned in person — so she forgives the culprits.
This painting, which stands more than a metre tall, was stolen on St. Patrick's Day. "That spoke to their character," Harnish said, while standing next to the metre-plus psychedelic rendering of a chameleon who is apparently slurping from a bottle. "We're completely square now. I have absolutely no hard feelings at all to the person who dropped it off."
Harnish's painting was stolen from the wall of the Argyle Street restaurant on St. Patrick's Day. When Harnish noticed it was missing, she took to social media to help solve the mystery of a theft she said felt like a "violation." The painting was worth about $600, and had sentimental value because she had painted it in front of a crowd at a bar in 2014.
Harnish said her social postings garnered more than 100 shares, and then a message from somebody saying they thought they knew who had it.
Next came an email from someone who said they had the painting.
"They apologized profusely for taking it," she said. "It was a group of people who were drinking on St. Patrick's Day, and they didn't realize it was an actual painting. I think that they thought because of the thinner canvas perhaps that it was a print or something like that.
"So they didn't really know the value of the painting, but regardless they shouldn't have taken it and they were really apologetic about it."
'They're pretty brave'
Harnish said she gave the young stranger — who she went out of her way not to identify — the option to drop it off at Flipburger, but instead he or she chose to drop it off to her in person.
"They're pretty brave, I guess, because not everybody would do that."
Harnish had originally wondered how they got it out of the restaurant without anyone noticing. But it turns out it was simply a matter of the day it happened: March 17.
Julianne Harnish works on a different piece as the chameleon looks on. (Robert Guertin/CBC)
"They just picked it up off the wall and walked right out, I guess," she said. "I don't think it was very stealthy."
The chameleon ended up in a cab and then in several different apartments. Though multiple thieves were involved, only one person returned the painting.
Harnish said she would have pressed charges if the painting hadn't been returned voluntarily, but now that it's been returned she doesn't want the crime to follow the people involved around.
They just need to learn one lesson.
"Don't steal things, I guess," Harnish said. "Even if you're drunk."In the latest episode of Humboldt Last Week: An interview with Eureka High School graduate and Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Rey Maualuga, who is currently playing in his eighth NFL season.
During the conversation the 29 year old athlete discusses how he spends his time when he returns to Eureka, life as an NFL player, and acting alongside Jon Hamm in “Million Dollar Arm.” He also provides a little motivation for locals wanting to achieve big things.
“I had a lot of doubters, a lot of naysayers saying that… I wasn’t going to become anything,” Maualuga said. “If you sit around and do nothing and listen to what everyone is saying, you’re obviously proving them right. Unless you do something — then you control what the next step is gonna be.”
Also covered: The grown adult men who were arrested for stealing toys from needy kids, the man shot by Eureka police pleads not guilty, HSU’s banned band, a national award for a local hospital, the Humboldt strain that took home the top prize at the “Oscars of the marijuana industry,” and a fun giveaway.
Listen below.Princess Anna said it herself: "This is amaaaaaaaaaazing!"
There is talk of Kristen Bell bringing her Frozen role to Once Upon a Time, and for the record, we are so not gonna let this one go!
Once Upon a Time producers Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz told us they're talking about bringing the Frozen princess characters to their ABC show—and would love Kristen Bell to guest star. So would the beloved Veronica Mars starlet actually do it?
Just click on the video above to see what Kristen Bell herself has to say about guest starring!
We think you'll adore her response. Almost as much as you Pushing Daisies fans will appreciate the latest development from creator Bryan Fuller and star Kristin Chenoweth on the Pushing Daisies revival. It looks like it's happening, people!
We also have the latest exclusive scoop on American Horror Story's end date, some nasty-ass Bachelor action and The Mindy Project's squeal-worthy Danny and Mindy moment.
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Watch With Kristin—E! Online's just-(re-)launched TV scoop show—is new every Thursday morning. To be a part of the show, send your burning TV questions via Twitter or Instagram using #AskKristin.I had brought the only ‘dumb’ phone on the expedition and while all the batteries on everyone else’s state of the art mobiles ran out of power one by one, I was still able to get weather updates for our location from my girlfriend back home in Innsbruck. This proved to be a great way to plan the next day’s activities, where we could estimate how far to travel around the glacier before bad weather brought in fresh snow dumps. Still, it was a good hour’s walk back up from the glacier each time to the safe camp close to the station, and the promising warmth and escape that retreat offered incase the weather turned truly malicious. Thankfully before our time on the glacier came to an end, our luck changed and we were blessed with two great weather days. In order to maximize the short time now left to us, we decided to embrace this opportunity and rise from our sleeping bags at first light and be away from tents no later than 8:00am; a normal workday awakening like any other, except we were trading the usual office destination for the unknown of the ice below us.
On the glacier itself many more moulins had opened up since last years expedition. Our team decided to split into two smaller groups and descend down the friendliest looking opening first. I flitted between both parties, desperately trying to capture as many images of this wonderful environment, one that I had never witnessed before. A short abseils from the surface – rope belayed around giant erratic rocks or ice screws carefully placed in hard ice sheltered away from the hot searing sunshine – and we were truly beneath the surface of the glacier.
Heavily sculptured walls, carved into magnificent shapes throughout the ice, reminded me of shapes I had seen before in cylindrical shaped caves formed in limestone, a more familiar environment for me. And I couldn’t help notice rocks and pebbles of varying sizes wedged in the roof of the moulins, some over ten meters up, partly exposed and partly trapped in the ice. I wondered how long it would be before they dropped out and come crashing to the ground. But we didn’t hang around to find out. Some members of each team set about surveying the caves as far as the depths took them, while other members explored the ways on rigging rope traverse around frozen pools of water or small drops down to other levels of the system. Team member Sam Doyle, a Glaciologist from the University of Aberystwyth who spends most of his time in Greenland studying the rate in which the ice sheet is moving, drew many comparisons with his previous studies and the moulins on the Gorner Glacier. Moving at 15m a year the Gorner glacier picks up speed due to meltwater falling through these moulins and acting like a lubricant along the base of the glacier helping it along its way.
Within the small two day weather window up on the Gorner Glacier we discovered, surveyed and photographed three giant systems, which will no doubt be in totally different places next time round. However, seeing how vast and extensive these moulins can be just goes to show how much water they take during the summer months and thus leading to rapid increase in the rate in which these glaciers move and shrink in size. Sadly, it seems, it won’t be long before we are without glaciers in Europe.EXCLUSIVE: Sir Geoff Hurst is excited by the Tottenham striker, who is expected to make is Three Lions debut in Friday's Euro 2016 qualifier against Lithuania
By Greg Stobart England hero Sir Geoff Hurst believes Roy Hodgson may have found the Three Lions' answer to Thomas Muller if Harry Kane can reproduce his club form for the national team.The Tottenham striker is expected to make his England debut in the Euro 2016 qualifier against Lithuania at Wembley on Friday on the back of a breakthrough season in which he has scored 29 goals in all competitions.Kane, 21, is joint-top scorer in the Premier League with 19 to his name and England legend Sir Geoff sees similarities with Bayern Munich and Germany star Muller.“The player I really liken him to is Thomas Muller,” Hurst told. “When you first see Muller or Kane play, they look like the most unlikely footballer you have seen but they are so effective. Muller may look a bit clumsy but he is one of the best players in the world.“Bill Shankly once said ‘Peter Osgood is very deceptive, he’s much slower than you think’. I feel the same when I watch Harry Kane. He’s much better than you think.“In the first 10 minutes of a match, he doesn’t look like the kind of player who is going to cause you all sorts of problems but, for whatever reason, it works. He is a brilliant team player and that is the starting point because he works so hard.“He has good technique and intelligence and, most importantly for a striker, he comes alive in the penalty box and he is a finisher. He scores goals from all sorts of angles and situations.“In England I would also liken him to Teddy Sheringham in that he has that football intelligence. He may not have the pace but he is a yard ahead of the game with his thoughts.”Kane is the latest young player to be called up to the squad by Hodgson and Hurst - England’s hat-trick hero in the 1966 World Cup final - has been impressed by the team’s progress since last summer’s World Cup.The Three Lions were eliminated from the tournament in the group stage but have bounced back with six victories in six matches since Brazil, with their qualification for Euro 2016 in France almost certain.“I think the progress has been very good since the World Cup,” Hurst added. “Kane is just the latest of a number of young and hungry English players now playing for their clubs regularly.“In some ways it reminds me of the young squad we had in 1966 and so much of it comes down to attitude.“We are some way off producing the quantity and quality of players as Germany but it’s getting better and I think we can expect more progress. We should be looking at at least a quarter-final or semi-final place at the Euros.”Sir Geoff Hurst is encouraging communities to nominate a local #GrassrootsHero for the FA & McDonald’s Community Awards. Nominations in England close Friday 27th March, to nominate visit www.mcdonalds.co.uk/awards[Image courtesy of Lisa Riddock]
Thousands of workers at McDonald’s and other fast food outlets across the United States went on strike Thursday in a growing movement for higher wages in the industry.
Workers in 50 cities joined the strike to fight for $15 an hour wages — double what most currently earn — and the right to form a union without retaliation, organizers said.
In a statement organizers said it would be the largest-ever strike to hit the $200 billion fast-food industry.
The protest movement first began in New York last November with a strike by 200 workers but quickly spread across the country with strikes in July taking place in Chicago, Detroit, Flint, Kansas City, Milwaukee and St Louis.
On Thursday organizers said the strike will hit some 1,000 major fast-food restaurants, including Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC.
“Hold the burgers, hold the fries, make worker wages supersize!” read a tweet from Fight for 15, a workers organizing committee.
Shaniqua Davis, 20, mother of a toddler, joined in a protest outside a McDonald’s on posh 5th avenue in Manhattan.
She works at a branch of the restaurant in the Bronx where she earns $7.25 an hour.
“They make millions that come from our feet. They can afford to pay us better,” she told AFP.
“I have bills to pay. I need to buy diapers. I can hardly buy food. I am treated good but we need more money.”
She said if it wasn’t for food stamps and help she received to pay her rent “I would already be on the street.”
Many of the three million fast-food workers in America don’t work full-time and cannot count on tips like those who staff bars and restaurants.
“Many of these workers have children and are trying to support a family,” said Mary Kay Henry of the Service Employees International Union, which is supporting the strike.
She highlighted that fast-food workers are no longer only teenagers.
“The median wage (including managerial staff) of $9.08 an hour still falls far below the federal poverty line for a worker lucky enough to get 40 hours a week and never have to take a sick day.”
During the previous strike in July, McDonald’s said workers’ individual contracts were a matter for the franchisees who operate more than 80 percent of the company’s outlets around the world.
“Employees are paid competitive wages and have access to a range of benefits to meet their individual needs,” the company said.
[NYC Fast Food Workers Protest image courtesy of Lisa Riddock]Director Joseph Kahn, left, and recording artist Taylor Swift accept the Best Female Video award for "Blank Space" onstage during the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images For MTV)
Joseph Kahn believes he’s contributing to the endangerment of Koreans.
Research has shown that South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world, at less than 1.1 births per woman. But Kahn isn’t married, and he doesn’t plan to have kids. He jokes that Koreans will soon be extinct.
“We’re literally the pandas of the human race,” he says. “You’re very lucky to be talking to me, because I’m a beautiful panda.”
The comparison isn’t totally frivolous, as Kahn is unique in Hollywood. He’s the rare director who has achieved minor celebrity status not for his feature films, but for his persona and his short-form work, such as four music videos for Taylor Swift, including the action-packed, star-studded “Bad Blood,” which won the 2015 Video Music Award for Video of the Year. And in an industry that has been repeatedly called out for its lack of diversity, he’s a successful Korean American immigrant.
But most important to him is that, unlike many calculating, ultra-PR-conscious stars of modern Hollywood, Kahn, 43, keeps it real. His Twitter feed is a bastion of brutal honesty and shade that Hollywood blogs occasionally pick up on for one-off stories. Recently, for instance, his comments calling Kim Kardashian “one of the most untalented women in the world” throughout the controversy over whether Swift consented to her appearance in Kanye West’s “Famous” made headlines, and he ridiculed Kim’s dad’s support of O.J. Simpson during his murder trial.
The Kanye and Taylor Swift camps are sniping at each other once again over social media. So what's it all about? (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)
If you look at Kahn’s Twitter account during the now-canonical Swift-centric firestorms (her feud with Nicki Minaj over VMA nominations; the backlash against the Kahn-directed “Wildest Dreams” video; the ongoing disagreement with Kim Kardashian and West), you might wonder if he’s a secret member of Taylor’s squad, given his unabashed defensiveness and admiration of her. In an interview, he says of their collaboration: “It was literally one of the first times I felt that someone actually spoke the language of filmmaking that I’ve been doing over the last 25 years.”
But more importantly to Kahn, he’s fed up with how the media covers celebrity news. “Our world is equating gossip with world news. That’s the world we live in now,” he says. Few outlets are focused on artistry, and Kahn can’t stand it — so he takes to Twitter to try to set the record straight.
For Kahn, it isn’t enough just to create films. He believes part of his art involves pointing out inconsistencies, half-truths and hypocrisies.
Race is one thorny topic Kahn loves to probe. His tweets on the topic of his Asian identity range from oddly empowering (“Of course I take criticism. I have Asian parents. Take your best shot. I’m Asian proofed.”) to potentially offensive (“I love my cast on #BODIED. Every single beautiful person. I would adopt all of them. Except Asians eat their pets. No bueno.”).
Taylor Swift performs during the 58th Annual Grammy music Awards in Los Angeles. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)
And yet, when writers criticized the video for Swift’s “Wildest Dreams” for romanticizing the colonization of Africa and not including many performers of color, Kahn wrote in a statement that the “key creatives” who made the video were people of color. Further, since the video follows an American film crew shooting in Africa during the early 20th century, Kahn and his team “collectively decided it would have been historically inaccurate to load the crew with more black actors as the video would have been accused of rewriting history.”
As a child, Kahn was painfully aware of his minority identity and how it would make him an outsider or, at best, an outlier for the rest of his life. After spending time in both Italy and Korea, where he was born, Kahn and his family moved to a white neighborhood near Houston.
“Now, people think Asians are smart,” Kahn says. “In the ’80s, we were a third-world country. No one thought we were smart.”
He recalls being bullied by white kids, black kids and Hispanic kids alike. He spent most of his younger years alone, watching television and music videos.
The exclusion persisted even a decade later, as Kahn was trying to break into directing music videos. He remembers being rejected time and again by producers and artists because he wasn’t “cool” enough.
In the early ’90s, before hip-hop became more mainstream, he worked mostly with such up-and-coming artists as Geto Boys and Ahmad who couldn’t afford a more expensive director. Later, he was recruited to help transform a then-unknown band of five into a “white Jodeci.” That group became the Backstreet Boys, and Kahn directed the video for “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).”
Director Joseph Kahn on set of a video in 2011. (Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection)
Now, Kahn says that whenever he can, he tries to integrate performers of all colors and backgrounds into his videos (although“Wildest Dreams” is a notable exception). It isn’t so much a political act, he stipulates, as his instinct to bring together all types. “There’s nothing that makes me happier,” he says.
His third feature film, “Bodied,” which wrapped up at the end of July, exemplifies Kahn’s racial vision. Described as a “racial satire,” it’s about battle rap, a subculture that involves rappers hurling insults, many of which are race-based. But screenwriter Alex Larsen — also a battle rapper known as Kid Twist — believes that the genre is a positive force because it brings together a diverse array of rappers, including Larsen, a white guy from Toronto, where white liberals tend to congregate only among themselves.
“When these guys stop battling, we’re all actually friends with each other,” he says.
Unsurprisingly, Kahn says he prefers the honest — if occasionally offensive — rhetoric of battle rap over “casual racism” that pervades popular culture — and that he’s faced throughout his life.
Another of his contentious Twitter barrages noted that the reporting on the Orlando shooting was quick to blame gun culture (and, if it matters, Kahn says he supports gun control). But Kahn saw little discussion about homophobia within Islam and the communities that it touches.
“If that’s politically incorrect to say, then so be it,” he says.A book is a book, except when it comes to eBook royalties
Simon & Schuster engaged in a "pattern and practice of paying Plaintiff and others similarly situated royalty payments for the distribution of licenses for electronic books, or "e-books," at a rate for book "sales," or some other lower rate than that required for "license" transactions."
In the wake of the Eminem decision, most publishers amended their contracts, so the sale or license of an "eBook" is unambiguously treated as a sale.
The lawsuit, therefore, challenges the publisher's interpretation of their legacy or backlist contracts.
A book is a book, except when it comes to eBook royalties. That's the premise of a class action lawsuit filed on Thursday, May 19, 2016, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York by class representative Sheldon Blau, MD.The lawsuit alleges Simon & Schuster has been cheating its authors by improperly categorizing eBook transactions as "sales" rather than "licenses."The distinction is significant, because the royalty rate for sales is much lower than the rate for the license of rights. If categorized as a license the author receives 50% of net receipts, rather than 25% of net typically paid to authors for the "sale" of an eBook.According to a report in Law360, an unnamed spokesman for Simon & Schuster told Law360 that the division that published Dr. Blau's book, was sold (or was it licensed?) to another company in 1998, and that the publisher never published a digital edition of the book.The eBook royalty class action looks back approximately six years, the statute of limitations on contract actions in New York State. It allegesThis issue arose, in a different context, ina 2007 federal lawsuit brought by Eminem's management company against his record label over digital royalty rate splits. Like the music industry, book publishers have taken the position that digital downloads should be accounted for as sales not licenses.In its 2010 decision, thecourt held that digital downloads should not be treated as auditable physical units for royalty accounting purposes. The Ninth Circuit ruling was important for the recording industry, because recording artists (like book authors) receive 50% of the record company’s net receipts from rights licensed to third parties -- as opposed to 12% to 20% of the retail price when a recording is "sold."The bombing of Bahrain in World War II was part of an effort by the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) to strike at the British interests wherever possible in the Middle East.[1] While the mission caused little damage, it was successful in forcing the diversion of already-limited Allied resources to an obscure theater originally thought to be safe.
Background [ edit ]
On 10 June 1940, the Kingdom of Italy declared war on the French Republic and the United Kingdom. The Italian invasion of France was short-lived and the French signed an armistice with the Italians on 25 June, three days after France's armistice with Germany. This left the British and the forces of the Commonwealth of Nations for the Italians to contend with in the Middle East.
In summer 1940, the Italian leader and Prime Minister Benito Mussolini received a plan to destroy the oil fields in Bahrain in order to disrupt the oil supplies to the British Navy. The plan was suggested by the Italian test pilot, Air Force Captain Paolo Moci.[2]
Bahrain (and Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) [ edit ]
Early on October 19, 1940, four Italian SM.82s bombers attacked American-operated oil refineries in the British Protectorate of Bahrain, damaging the local refineries.[3] The raid also struck Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, but causing only some minor damage.[3]
Indeed, in order to strike the British-controlled oil refineries at Manama in the Persian Gulf, these SM82s bombers undertook a flight of 4,200 km (2,610 mi), lasting 15 hours at 270 km/h (170 mph), that was for the time arguably a record for a bombing mission. Each aircraft carried a load of 1,500 kg (3,310 lb).[4] This long-range action was successful, taking the target totally by surprise, and the SM.82s landed without problems at Zula, Eritrea. The Italian airplanes started their flight from Europe, attacked refineries in Asia and landed back in Africa (Italian Eritrea).
During the attack were dropped 132 bombs of 15 kg, that heavily damaged 2 refineries [5]
The raid caused the Allies some concerns, forcing them to upgrade their defences. This, more than the limited amount of damage caused, further stretched Allied military resources.
The Italian Command intended to employ the special SM82s to bomb the English oil plants of Manama, in the Persian Gulf, in order to show the potential ability of the Italian air force. It was a long and difficult mission involving a 4,000 kilometre flight. Ettore Muti and his comrades spent four days working on a complete revision of the plans and established a complex flight plan....On December 18, at 5.10 pm, after filling both the normal and the supplementary tanks, they loaded three out of four SM82s with 1.5 tons of incendiary and explosive bombs weighing 15, 20 or 50 kilograms. Then the four three-engine bombers took off.In command of the first aircraft, which gained height with difficulty from the Rhodes- Gadurrà runway because it was overloaded with 19,500 kilograms, was Lieutenant Colonel Muti. He was assisted by Major Giovanni Raina and by Captain Paolo Moci, who had previous experience in flying planes overloaded up to 21 tons.....The SM82s, after gaining height (a manoeuvre which took remarkable efforts because of the enormous weight of the aircraft) headed east, flying over Cyprus, Lebanon and Syria, bending to the southeast as they went past Jordan and Iraq until they reached the Persian Gulf. During the very long outward flight, the role of Muti's SM82 pathfinder proved its essential function in leading the squadron..... At 2.20 am, just before reaching the Bahrain Islands, Lieutenant Colonel Federici's aircraft suddenly lost sight contact with Muti's SM82 and had to drop its bombs on different targets in the vicinity of Manama, while the other planes hit the fixed target. As bombardier Raina later told "the operation of spotting the target was easy thanks to the total illumination of the extractive and refinery plants" which were partially damaged by the bombs (half a dozen wells and some oil deposits were set on fire). As soon as they perceived the glares of the first explosions, the Italian planes made off along the escape route landing to the Zula runway (Eritrea) at 8 8:40.The whole Italian formation had flown 2,400 kilometres in 15.30 hours. At the Eritrean airport, along with a small crowd of Italian aviators, the brave pilots found the fourth SM82 squadron which, in the meantime, had come from Rhodes as a support plane on the way back, should one of the crafts make an emergency landing in the desert. Alberto Rosselli [6]
Rome declared that their bombers had set a new distance record, covering 3,000 miles on the outgoing trip from bases located in the island of Rhodes. American Magazine "Time" wrote that the Italians insisted that the planes had been refueled from submarine tankers[7] though in actuality, the planes had simply been loaded with fuel.[3]
Ettore Muti, Party Secretary of the National Fascist Party, took part in the Bahrain raid and in at least one of the bombings of Haifa.[8]
In the early days of the war....one major success that went a long way to allowing the Italians to make a major fight in north Africa was the long-range bombing missions launched by Lt. Colonel Ettore Muti on Palestine and Bahrain which did severe damage to British port facilities and oil refineries. This caused the British considerable logistical problems but also forced them to divert resources to |
sender and a message recipient affects expressions of verbal deference in organizational e-mail communication. Verbal deference refers to linguistic markers that convey a willingness to yield to another’s preferences or opinions as a sign of respect or reverence. Although prior research has focused on upward deference in an organizational hierarchy, from lower-ranked senders to higher-ranked recipients, we predict and find that the greatest amount of deference is expressed laterally, between peers of equal or similar rank. Further, lateral deference is most frequently displayed by those individuals most concerned with preserving their status and rank, confirming that lateral deference may be used as a status-saving strategy designed to protect individuals from status loss associated with “overstepping one’s place.”
Keywords deference, status, hierarchy, communication
References Section: Choose Top of page Abstract Deference In Organization... Study 1 Study 2 General Discussion References << CITING ARTICLES
Authors’ Biographies
Alison R. Fragale is the Mary Farley Ames Lee Scholar and associate professor of organizational behavior at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, 4728 McColl CB# 3490, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3490 (e-mail: afragale@unc. edu). Her research focuses on the determinants and consequences of power, status, and hierarchy in organizations, with a specific interest in verbal and nonverbal communication within hierarchies. She received her doctorate in organizational behavior from Stanford University.
John J. Sumanth is an assistant professor of management and organizational behavior at the Edwin L. Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University, 6212 Bishop Blvd., Dallas, TX 75275-0333 (e-mail: jsumanth@cox. smu. edu). His broad areas of research interest and expertise are in upward communication, leadership, trust, and the role of power and status in organizational hierarchies. He received his doctorate in organizational behavior from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Larissa Z. Tiedens is the Jonathan B. Lovelace Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, 655 Knight Way, Stanford, CA 94305-5015 (e-mail: tiedens_larissa@gsb. Stanford. edu). Her research focuses on the social context of emotion and the psychology of social hierarchies, with a specific interest in the psychological processes involved in the creation and maintenance of hierarchical relationships. She received her doctorate in social psychology from the University of Michigan.
Gregory Northcraft is the Harry J. Gray Professor of Executive Leadership in the Department of Business Administration and associate dean of faculty in the College of Business at the University of Illinois, 420 Wohlers Hall, 1206 South Sixth Street, Champaign, IL 61820 (e-mail: northcra@illinois. edu). His major research interests include conflict management and negotiation, collaboration in teams, managerial decision making, and employee motivation and job design, particularly in high-technology manufacturing settings. He received his doctorate in social psychology from Stanford University.The trailer for Reel FX’s new 3D animated film The Book of Life debuts tomorrow, but today USA Today got a sneak peak at some screenshots. And boy, we must say: this film looks gorgeous.
We also got a bit more information about the film’s plot, which features a love triangle between three childhood friends: strong-jawed Manolo (Diego Luna), mustachioed Joaquin (Channing Tatum), and Maria (Zoe Saldana). But things get shaken up after “the unpredictable gods wager on which man will win Maria’s heart.”
The story focuses on the romantic Manolo, whose family has a long lineage of bull fighters. He has a lifetime of fierce competition with his friend Joaquin, but also has another struggle: he wants to be a guitarist, not a bullfighter. Unfortunately, this news doesn’t go over too well with his father, the world’s greatest matador (Hector Elizondo) and super-macho grandfather (Danny Trejo). So Manolo goes on a magic journey to discover himself, which leads him “from the Land of the Living to the Land of the Remembered, where people who have lived complete lives, and are remembered among the living, go after they die. A final, daunting destination is The Land of the Forgotten, where those who have died with unfulfilled lives dwell.”
Along the way, he encounters his bullfighter great-grandfather (Placido Domingo), who, like Manolo, had other life ambitions: he always wanted to be an opera singer. We also are introduced to other characters, such as a Candle Maker (played by rapper Ice Cube), who is an ancient god with a beard made of clouds and a wax body.
We’ve been anxiously waiting for months for our first look at The Book of Life‘s final design and it definitely impresses. The stylized, angular, colorful look of the world and characters is refreshing. The characters look as if they were carved out of wood, which is visually interesting and appealing. Honestly, we can’t stop looking at these screenshots because they are so intricate and beautiful. It makes us even more anxious to see what the final animation looks like in the trailer tomorrow.
Check out the other stills below:
The article also featured an interview with the filmmakers and actors.
Talking about the story, Tatum said: “It goes to a place of sour grapes and deep hurt to the point of losing their friendship. But friendship always wins. That’s the message of this story: love and friendship and what you’re willing to sacrifice for these ideas.”
The Book of Life is directed by Jorge Gutierrez and produced by Guillermo del Toro. With the help of Del Toro, Gutierrez was finally able to get the film made after 14 years of pitching it. Reel FX, the maker of last year’s holiday film Free Birds, is animating the film. Most people weren’t blown away by that film, but there’s no question that The Book of Life is extraordinarily beautiful. Hopefully it will help launch the studio, giving it more recognition.
The Book of Life hits theatres on October 17, 2014.
Photos: Twentieth Century Fox & Reel FX
What do you think about the visuals and look of ‘The Book of Life’?For decades, the GOP has claimed to uniquely represent American military personnel. With that in mind, the newly anointed GOP presidential nominee, Donald Trump, has wasted no time in criticizing the foreign policy legacies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
While service members aren’t allowed to become publicly involved in partisan politics, they do speak indirectly via polls and campaign contributions. And it turns out this year they favor neither Democrats nor Republicans. Rather, they lean libertarian. A plurality this campaign season is supporting the least militaristic of the candidates: Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson.
The Libertarian Party is a perennial and distant third-place contender, but this election might be different. Johnson has been polling in double digits and could sway the balance of power, especially with the help of military personnel.
A July poll found Johnson well ahead of the two major-party candidates among military voters, with almost 39 percent of active duty members backing him. Just 31 percent supported Donald Trump, and only 14 percent were for Hillary Clinton. Johnson carried every service except the Navy.
RELATED: A new poll finds Gary Johnson recording his highest numbers yet
He enjoyed the biggest margin in the Marine Corps, 44 percent to 27 percent for Trump. Second was the Air Force, which supported him 39 percent to 30 percent. Johnson also carried former members of the military and came close among retirees. Clinton typically lagged behind Johnson and Trump, sometimes receiving barely a third of Johnson’s share.
This isn’t the first time a libertarian has led the presidential race among military personnel. In 2012, Republican Ron Paul had “more financial support from active duty members of the service than any other politician,” according to Timothy Egan in the New York Times. Paul is a consistent outlier on foreign policy, highlighting the problems of “blowback” — terrorism as a response to Washington’s persistent willingness to bomb, invade and occupy other nations and drone and bomb other peoples — while the other candidates mostly stumped for more war.
At one point, Paul had collected 87 percent of the military contributions for GOP candidates. As of March 2012, Paul had received more than twice the amount for Obama, almost 10 times the amount for Romney, more than 10 times as much as Gingrich and about 32 times the amount for Rick Santorum, a former senator. The latter three were inveterate war hawks who themselves never served in the military. In contrast, Obama presented himself as a critic of unnecessary war.
After Mitt Romney effectively wrapped up the GOP race, military personnel shifted their financial support, but they supported Obama, not Romney. It turns out that when GOP candidates beat the war drums, they ended up competing for votes from the ivory tower rather than the armed services. In March 2012, Obama collected about twice as much cash as Paul, who in turn received twice as much as Romney.
RELATED: Gary Johnson salutes Black Lives Matter, says we’ve “had our heads in the sand” over this
While service personnel are willing to serve in combat, most do not want to do so absent compelling justifications. And few of the interests involved in Washington’s recent conflicts can be considered serious, let alone vital. A Marine Corps veteran told Egan that service members “realize they’re being utilized for other purposes — nation building and being world’s policeman — and it’s not what they signed up for.”
Who can keep Americans safe? That obviously is one of the most important questions of this election, and uniformed military personnel are giving a clear, but surprising, answer.The clock is ticking. If Congress doesn’t act now, the government will soon be able to use a search warrant to hack an untold number of computers located around the world.
Lawmakers are rightfully pushing to postpone the new hacking powers, arguing that Congress has not had sufficient time to debate these new powers and their privacy and security implications. We’ve supported previous delay efforts, and more than 35,000 of your spoke out against global warrants. Now we’re asking Congress to pass the Stalling Mass Damaging Hacking Act (the SMDH Act), which gives Congress until April 1 to consider these new hacking powers.
Earlier this year, the Justice Department proposed a change to the rules governing search warrants—Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure—that would let law enforcement obtain warrants to search computers regardless of where they’re located in cases where the computers are part of a bot-net or investigators can’t pinpoint the location of the computer.
That rule change is set to go into effect on December 1 despite the fact that Congress has not yet weighed in or even held a single hearing. The fight will continue after December 1, since Congress has the ability to roll back the rule change once it goes into effect. It's crucial that Congress pass the SMDH Act as soon as possible and delay the rule change and take the time to hold hearings about a change that would significantly open up the government's hacking authority.
Despite lawmakers’ questions—and some less than helpful answers from the Justice Department—we still don’t know enough about how the government plans to use these new hacking powers, whether there are any privacy or security protections in place, and how government hacking can open up Internet users’ devices and networks to attacks from non-government hackers.
These are crucial questions about the basic the privacy and security concerns of Americans and the members of Congress who represent them. Congress needs more time to consider these questions and get more information in hearings before the new hacking powers go into effect. Call your senator today and tell them to support the Stalling Mass Damaging Hacking Act to give Congress that time.Anderson Silva has already outclassed former light-heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin © Getty Images Enlarge
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Anderson Silva is prepared to fight Georges St-Pierre at a catchweight, according to the Brazilian's manager Jorge Guimaraes.
Doubts have recently surfaced over a potential superfight between Silva and St-Pierre, with welterweight champion St-Pierre expressing doubts over the size difference between the two men. Silva is the current middleweight king, and he has twice stepped up to light-heavyweight for easy victories over James Irvin and Forrest Griffin.
St-Pierre insists he is not afraid of Silva, but claims he would need a serious amount of time to prepare his body for the leap to 185lbs.
However, Silva's manager Guimaraes revealed there is no need for GSP to make the full step up, revealing The Spider would happily weigh in at a catchweight of around 178lbs, knowing that he would load the weight back on during the 24 hours prior to the fight.
"Anderson has proven he's the best fighter and he handles it quite good. It's a complicated fight for GSP… it's a pretty bad fight for him", Guimaraes told Tatame.
"Anderson has this biotype, he loses weight easily, he can make any weight, so I believe a catchweight [bout] would be perfect for GSP, and Anderson wouldn't have problems with that.
"Who'd have a problem would be GSP, because Anderson can lose that weight easily and, at the day of the fight, he'd be on his usual weight, so I believe it's complicated for Georges St-Pierre."
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.A few days before Passover in 1986, Rabbi Eliyahu Shuman of the Star-K kosher certification agency noticed some suspicious jars of Acme Chopped Herring in the Passover section of Shapiro’s supermarket in Pikesville, Maryland. They were certified kosher by Kof-K, another agency, but they did not bear a kosher-for-Passover label. Some of the herring had already been sold.
Shuman and his colleagues at Star-K worried about what kind of vinegar had been used to flavor the herring. Vinegar contains alcohol, which, if derived from wheat or corn, renders it impermissible for Passover. Before issuing a consumer alert or ordering a product recall, however, Star-K officials decided to launch an investigation. If the vinegar turned out to be made with synthetic alcohol, it would be kosher for Passover, as would the herring, and no harm would come to consumers who had already purchased it.
The herring company sent Shuman to the vinegar supplier, who, in turn, sent him to the alcohol manufacturer, a French company called Sofecia. When Shuman asked whether the alcohol was derived from wheat or corn, Sofecia shocked him with the news that, in fact, it was derived from grapes. Under Jewish dietary laws, special restrictions apply to grape juice and its derivatives, such as wine and vinegar. In order to be kosher, these products must be produced exclusively by Jews. (The origin of this rule lies in an ancient rabbinic prohibition against benefitting from items used in pagan worship and a concern that wine produced by non-Jews might have been so used.) Sofecia produced marc alcohol, which is extracted from the solid remains of grapes that have been pressed in winemaking. These solid remains, which consist of skins, pulp, seeds, and stems, are known as pomace, or marc in French, and they are, under Jewish law, technically a form of wine. What all this meant was that the vinegar was not kosher for Passover or any other time of the year—it was simply not kosher.
Sofecia’s marc alcohol had been erroneously certified as kosher by the OK kosher certification agency, under the direction of Rabbi Berel Levy, who prided himself on his meticulousness in verifying the kosher status of ingredients. “My father was a pioneer in kashrus in that he was the first one who insisted on going back to the source of any ingredient,” recalls his son, Rabbi Don Yoel Levy, who today directs OK. Berel Levy occasionally discovered problems that other agencies had missed, and when he did, he was frequently very public about it.
Upon discovering that vinegar produced with Sofecia’s marc alcohol was not kosher, Star-K officials wondered what other kosher-certified products, beyond Acme Chopped Herring, might contain it. They immediately contacted Levy and alerted the other major certification agencies that might have relied on his certification. Star-K, Kof-K, and the Orthodox Union (OU)—the nation’s largest certification agency—published consumer alerts, issued a ban on the use of OK-certified vinegar, and ordered their food company clients to recall products containing vinegar. The list of suspect products was extraordinarily long because the agencies had no way of determining which particular batches of vinegar or consumer products contained the erroneously certified marc alcohol. To be safe, the agencies ordered the destruction of products even suspected of containing it. “Millions and millions of dollars of product was thrown out,” recalls Rabbi Zushe Blech, who worked for the OU at the time.
We’re talking about pickles, we’re talking about ketchup, we’re talking about mustard—look at a list of products that contain vinegar and your head will spin.... Companies such as Heinz... their whole factories had to be kashered [ritually cleaned] because they were using treyf alcohol, which they bought in good faith. They didn’t do anything wrong. The OU thought it was kosher, and it turns out that it wasn’t.
In his own defense, Levy claimed that Sofecia had misled him about the production of its alcohol. He denounced the other certification agencies as hypocrites, alleging that under their supervision, “vinegar companies had been buying alcohol from Sofecia since 1980 when it had no supervision at all. But no one was concerned with wine alcohol then. Who knew of such a thing?” The alcohol in question—ethyl alcohol—was normally made from grain or synthetically, and the general practice among kosher certification agencies was to assume that all ethyl alcohol was kosher. Due to a European wine glut in the 1970s, however, companies such as Sofecia began to distill ethyl alcohol from grapes. Moreover, Levy argued there were good halakhic grounds to argue that the products affected were not in fact rendered unkosher by the small amounts of marc alcohol involved.
His rivals accused Levy of lax supervision and of not understanding the production process. Sofecia published an open letter explaining that it was unaware that ethyl alcohol distilled from grapes posed a problem, that Levy had never raised the issue, and that no one from OK ever inspected the production facilities (a charge that Levy vigorously denied). When the other certification agencies suggested to OK clients that they switch certification agencies, Levy accused them of exploiting the scandal for economic gain. A year after the scandal broke, Berel Levy died. “He had so much aggravation from it,” recalled Don Yoel Levy, “that he passed away.”
The vinegar scandal threatened to erode consumer confidence in the reliability of kosher certification that had taken decades to build. The traditional means of regulating kosher trade in the Old World had been centralized communal control backed by government power, but this proved impossible in America, with its religious voluntarism and free markets. In the absence of the Old World system, fraud, racketeering, and violence were rampant in the American kosher food industry of the early part of the 20th century. The problem of kosher fraud proved too big for even government regulators. In the 1930s, New York City’s Department of Markets employed six full-time kosher inspectors in addition to the ten inspectors from the State Kosher Enforcement Bureau, but they couldn’t possibly police the 18,000 kosher food establishments operating in the city. Government investigators and industry insiders estimated that somewhere between forty and sixty percent of the meat sold as kosher at the time was treyf. Meanwhile, food companies signaled kosher certification by placing a generic “K” on food packages. The identity and integrity of the supervising rabbi was unknown to consumers, and, in many cases, there was, in fact, no rabbinic supervision whatsoever.
All of this changed with the rise of a new regulatory institution: the private kosher certification agency. These agencies created individual brands based on reliability. Each agency placed a distinctive symbol on products that it certified, symbols that kosher consumers learned to recognize and came to trust. (The Orthodox Union’s O-U is the oldest and most widely recognized.) The agencies backed their brands with concrete measures that helped them avoid mistakes and prevent misconduct. They instituted multiple levels of management oversight to supervise kosher inspectors and provided professional training in Jewish dietary laws, food technology, and ethics.
By the 1980s, thanks to the rise of brand competition among the OU, OK, Kof-K, and Star-K—known collectively as the “Big Four”—kosher certification had become much more reliable, or so it seemed until the vinegar scandal. Giving voice to widespread concern among consumers, the president of the National Council of Young Israel, Harold Jacobs, denounced not merely OK but all the agencies:
The slow and incomplete release of information concerning the wine vinegar incident [is] typical of the delaying and stonewalling tactics used by many of the kashruth supervisory agencies, adding to the confusion and distrust of the consuming public. Seven weeks after the incident was discovered... the kosher consumer has not been given a complete list of those products affected or unaffected, nor an adequate explanation of how the mistake happened in the first place.
He warned that “rumors of other serious lapses in kashruth supervision continue to spread” and that “unless the kashruth agencies accept their responsibility, kosher consumers will be compelled to repudiate the reliability of these national supervisions and be forced to go back to an earlier standard, when we relied exclusively on the judgment of our individual rabbis.”
In a fit of hyperbole, Jacobs compared the vinegar scandal to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Although the contamination of pickles and mustard hardly seems comparable to the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl, the juxtaposition highlights an important feature of the kosher certification industry. Political scientist Joseph Rees describes nuclear utilities as “hostages of each other” because “a single catastrophic accident... at any one U.S. nuclear plant would have ruinous consequences for the entire industry.” According to Rees, the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island demonstrated to nuclear utilities that “the insufficiency and failure of one of them has a potential for destroying the credibility of all the others.”
Similarly, the vinegar scandal showed that industrial food production makes kosher certification agencies highly interdependent. A mistake by one agency has potentially widespread and serious implications for agencies that rely on it later in the production process, and any resulting public scandal can damage the credibility of the kosher certification industry as a whole. As Jacobs pointed out “in a highly centralized and technologically sophisticated kosher food industry, there is, in fact, only one kashruth standard, regardless of the symbol on the package, and that standard will be determined by the lowest common denominator of supervision and reliability.” He called on certifiers to “assume mutual responsibility to maintain those standards regardless of the specific kashruth symbol on the offending product.” This is precisely what the Big Four proceeded to do.
Shortly before the scandal, the director of the Chicago Rabbinical Council (CRC) kosher certification agency, Rabbi Benjamin Shandalov, had convened a meeting of the heads of kosher certification agencies, which resulted in the founding of the Association of KashrusOrganizations (AKO). As the scandal unfolded, the need for such an umbrella organization became obvious. Since its founding, AKO’s semiannual meetings have featured presentations and discussions that have helped shape shared standards, sometimes referred to collectively as the “American Standard of Kashrus.” Topics have included methods of cleaning industrial food-processing equipment, the kosher status of different enzymes employed in industrial food production, the use of non-kosher oils to coat steel barrels used for ingredient storage in order to prevent corrosion, and securing storage areas to prevent the introduction of non-kosher ingredients.
In the wake of the vinegar scandal, AKO also established an information-sharing system to rapidly alert agencies about kosher certification problems, and it developed guidelines to deter agencies from actively soliciting companies currently under the supervision of another agency. Although AKO has no enforcement powers—the biggest agencies insist on maintaining their autonomy—it has provided a forum for the development of voluntary standards that are widely accepted. Equally important, AKO meetings, as well as informal conversations among agency personnel, have helped to temper the brand competition that characterizes the kosher certification industry and keep it from descending into acrimony. According to Star-K president Dr. Avrom Pollak, “relationships amongst the largest organizations have gotten better simply because people are more familiar with one another. It’s easier to meet face to face and to talk to people. And inevitably when you do that, you find that a lot of your preconceptions about somebody else probably were not even true in the first place.”
The vinegar scandal also convinced agencies of the need to computerize recordkeeping in order to track ingredients and control the fallout from future mistakes. By the late 1980s, the leading agencies had all developed computer systems. There was, however, initial skepticism about whether the OU, which had an especially large and unwieldy amount of paper files, could successfully transition into the computer age. Rabbi Zushe Blech recalls an AKO meeting shortly after the vinegar scandal at which an OU rabbi addressed the group.
So he got up and he started explaining how the OU is going to computerize itself. An older fellow from the va’ad [kosher agency] of Queens got up, and he said, “I’ve known the OU for years, and I know how it works, and if you think that the OU will ever get a computer—hair will grow on my palms before the OU gets a computer!” At that point, Rabbi Moshe Heinemann [of the Star-K] got up and said, “I’m standing up for the kovod [honor] of the OU, and if it will take hair to grow on your palms before the OU gets a computer—then hair will grow on your palms!”
Today, the OU maintains a database that tracks more than 1.5 million ingredients used in the foods it certifies.
Kosher food is now a very big business. More than twelve million American consumers purchase kosher food because it is kosher, only eight percent of whom are religious Jews (the rest choose it for reasons of health, food safety, taste, vegetarianism, lactose intolerance, or to satisfy non-Jewish religious requirements such as halal). The U.S. kosher market generates more than $12 billion in annual retail sales, and more products are labeled kosher than are labeled organic, natural, or premium.
None of this would be possible without a reliable system of kosher certification. This system depends on brand competition between private agencies that keep close tabs on each other and are quick to publicize mistakes. At the same time, appreciation of their interdependence engenders cooperation, which has produced shared standards and collective efforts to improve the quality of inspections by all agencies. This balance of competition and cooperation has made kosher supervision in America a model of private third-party certification. The success of kosher certification holds many valuable lessons for emerging private certification systems in other areas, such as food safety and ecolabeling. Many of these lessons can be traced back to Rabbi Shuman’s startling discovery when he picked up a jar of chopped herring in Pikesville just before Passover.This article is from the archive of our partner.
James Robert Bostwick is a Gulf of Mexico charter captain. He is also one of the very few people (we know of) to ever ride a shark. In early June, Bostwick came across a 30-foot whale shark off the coast of Florida and decided to hitch a ride. He swam up to the shark and grabbed onto its dorsal fin. Then he hung on for dear life as the shark swam. A friend took a video (below) and it was posted to Facebook.
After the video began to spread, people began questioning whether his behavior could be illegal. Riding a manatee is illegal in Florida, and several people have actually been arrested for doing this.
Though whale sharks are a protected species, technically it is legal to ride them. Or rather, there's no law on the books preventing it, probably because no legislator imagined someone would actually try to ride a whale shark. Bostwick was pretty relieved to learn it was legal, posting on his Facebook, "Redemption for all the nay sayers that said I was illegal" after the determination was made.
While it wasn't against the law, it is a pretty terrible idea. Sharks have a protective mucus layer on their skin, and when it is disturbed (as it can be when a human tries to ride one) it can hurt the shark's overall health. Also, whale sharks are gigantic. They are about the length of a bus and generally weigh about 20 tons. They can do some damage, even if they can't eat you.Saints Ponder Getting Rid of Swine, Instead Unveil "Alternative Fats" As New Ball Pig For 2017 ST. PAUL, MN May 17, 2017
For the 25th season of St. Paul Saints Baseball the club searched far and wide for the perfect four-legged swine. After choosing between over a million pigs (or two) the Saints found one that could run like a gazelle (or waddle like a duck) and eats three small meals a day (or gorges on anything within smelling distance of its snout). No matter what you believe, the name for the Silver Anniversary pig will leave fans on both sides of the ballpark screaming his name: Alternative Fats.
When you’re a franchise like the Saints sometimes you need to SPICE it up, but this name is no CON and we’re doing it our WAY. Alternative Fats will enter the field each game like no other pig before him, with a white ground covering draped from his mansion-style pigpen to home plate for the billions of Saints fans to shower him with love and admiration. Alternative Fats will be so HUUUUGE it will make all other pigs jealous. Alternative Fats will go down in the pantheon of the greatest mascot names in the history of sports and we know a thing or two about great sports mascots. Welcome to the Saints Orwellian version of Animal Farm.
The Saints revealed the name on their Facebook Live stream at StPaulSaints after the World’s Largest Game of Catch was canceled due to rain. The name was selected out of a record 4,124,862 entries in the Name the Pig Contest presented by the Star Tribune at startribune.com. Many of the names submitted took a political undertone like Boar’d of Trump, Ham Jong Un and Pigimir Putin. Others played on the 25-year history of the franchise and harkened back to 1993 with such names as Snoop Hoggy Hog and Saint XXV. Many Minnesotans wanted to show off their state pride with Mary Tyler Boar and Super Boar LII. But in the end “two plus two equals four, partly cloudy, partly sunny, and a pig is a boar.” That’s Alternative Fats.
The winning entry was submitted by Daniel Jones of Northfield, MN. Daniel will receive a $50 Saints gift card, VIP Saints tickets, a photo with the pig and will escort the pig at a game.
During the previous 24 seasons the Saints have had a pig mascot and each has had a unique name. Many of the names play on hot topics of the year, current events or local celebrities. Last season the Saints honored one of the most iconic artists with Little Red Porkette. During the first season at CHS Field to honor the Lowertown artists they went with Pablo Pigasso. In 2014 the Saints received the Colboar bump with Stephen Colboar. The 2012 season saw two mascots for the first time: Kim Lardashian and Kris Hamphries. Past names have included Mackleboar (2014), Brat Favre (2010), Slumhog Millionaire (2009), Boarack Ohama (2008), Notorious P.I.G. – Piggy Smalls (2003) and Kevin Bacon (2001).
When the Saints moved to town in 1992, their sister team in Fort Myers was having great success with a live Golden Retriever mascot and the Saints wanted to capitalize on that success. Libby Veeck, the wife of Saints owner and President Mike Veeck, came across an interesting tidbit in a book she was reading and discovered St. Paul was known as “Pig’s Eye” after Pierre “Pig’s Eye” Parrant. Thus, the pig mascot was born.
Since 1993 the Saints have received the pig from Dennis and Marilyn Hauth who handle, train, design costumes and house the pigs.
Saints tickets continue to be a tremendous value. Tickets begin at $5 for the Treasure Island berm seating (available only on day of game in person at the box office), $6 for bleacher seats, $14 for outfield reserved, $16 for the drink rail and $18 for infield reserved and home plate reserved. Friday Home Games with Post-Game Fireworks are an additional $2 per ticket. Post-Game Fireworks Supershows (May 28, July 2 and August 31) are an additional $3 per ticket. Tickets purchased on the day of the game are an additional $2 per ticket. Children under the age of 12 and seniors 65 and older receive $1 off the admission price. Children under 2 that don't require a seat are free.
On game days, the Box Office will open at 9 a.m., Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. Saturday and 12:00 p.m. on Sunday and will remain open until 15 minutes following each game. Tickets are always available at saintsbaseball.com.
The Saints open the 2017 season on Thursday, May 18 with a 7:05 p.m. game against the Gary SouthShore Railcats. For more information contact the Saints at 651-644-6659 or visit saintsbaseball.com.You know me as the only lawyer ever to have had a court of law rule that a sitting president committed a crime. That ruling was made by federal judge Royce C. Lamberth, and it concerned a woman who then-President Bill Clinton had sexually harassed in the Oval Office. Her name is Kathleen Willey.
“Slick Willy,” no relation, in his usual classless and disgusting way, committed this act of sexual aggression just days after Kathleen’s husband had died. Of course, we now know that Kathleen was not the only victim of the former president.
During the Clinton administration, I also represented many other women who this degenerate had sexually harassed, or with the aid of his criminal wife, Hillary Clinton, threatened if they did not keep their mouth shut. They include Juanita Broaddrick, who was raped; Paula Jones, who was sexually assaulted; and Gennifer Flowers and Dolly Kyle Browning, who were threatened to be quiet about their affairs with Bill.
Of course, the real power behind Slick Willy and his sexually depraved ways was none other than his “lovely” wife, the Wicked Witch of the Left. Hillary assembled a so-called war room, run with the help of little George Stephanopoulos, the Clintons’ communications director and now disgracefully a host of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” as well as that vile political consultant James Carville, who called my female clients all kinds of names.
In the case of Gennifer, it was “trailer trash!” In the case of Paula Jones, Carville, with the loving approval of Stephanopoulos and Hillary herself, said Paula could be lured away from her slut lifestyle by simply dragging a dollar through a trailer park. The Clintons’ lawless and disrespectful outrages go on to this day, as the white light of sexual harassment has reached molten proportions in our society.
And why is the sexual misconduct of Bill Clinton still a matter of public discourse? This is because Hillary Clinton – that failed loser of the last presidential election, that immoral, heartless and hardened criminal – still covets winning the White House. Like the witch that she is, Hillary cannot put down her broom and simply retire to the post-political “Land of Oz” of post-witchdom.
Hillary is pinning her hopes for the presidency in 2020 on one man, someone whom the Washington, D.C., establishment calls a “man of integrity.” His name is Robert Mueller, and he is not only the former corrupt director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but also the newly minted special counsel who was appointed by Obama Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to investigate and undoubtedly try to prosecute President Donald Trump and his associates over so called Russian collusion leading up to last year’s fall elections.
What do YOU think? Will Hillary Clinton run for president in 2020? Sound off in today’s WND poll.
Let me tell you about Mueller, as I have had my own experience with him.
First, after Sept. 11, 2001, I tried to take two clients, FBI special anti-terrorist agents, to see him. The clients, whose names I will not divulge for fear of retaliation, warned the bureau that this terrorist tragedy was imminent. Instead, they were shown the cold shoulder by their supervisors, who were likely trying to protect the Bush family, who has close ties with the family of Osama bin Laden. Daddy Bush, the first failed Bush president, was then sitting on the board of the Carlyle Group, an investment firm that had infused into its coffers over a billion U.S. dollars of funds from the Bin Laden Saudi royalty. My clients were investigating Saudi money-terrorist laundering. Get the picture? But rather than listening to what my clients had to say as FBI special anti-terrorism agents, Mueller turned a blind eye and instead tried to drum them out of the agency and remove their security clearances so they couldn’t get jobs in the private defense and intelligence industry sectors!
Then, of course, there is the Uranium One scandal, where the Clintons and their foundation took hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes while Hillary Clinton was Obama’s secretary of state, to grease the sale of about 20 percent of the nation’s strategic uranium assets to the Russians. Mueller, then the FBI director, was charged to investigate this Clinton caper and criminal racketeering enterprise, but predictably, not again wanting the gore the ox of the political establishment that got him his job, he took a dive.
Mueller, like his corrupt buddy, former FBI Director James Comey after him – who also took a dive on the Uranium One scandal and buried an investigation of another of my clients, Dennis Montgomery, a NSA/CIA whistleblower concerning illegal mass government surveillance (see FreedomWatchUSA.org) – not only defiled the fine tradition of the FBI and obstructed justice, he is now at the center of the leftist attempt to remove President Donald Trump from office. He is in effect again doing the bidding of the political establishment. I don’t just mean the Clintons and their slimy |
on Iran military sites, but they aren’t immediate or even guaranteed. Any inspections at those sites would need to be approved by a joint commission composed of one member from each of the negotiating parties. The process for approving those inspections could take as many as 24 days.”
There have been a lot of depressing lies from this administration and its friends — “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” “I didn’t call the Islamic State a ‘JV’ team“; “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman,” – but the fact that the administration and its allies will lie to the public about an issue as important as Iran’s nuclear program is thoroughly dispiriting.
It’s almost as dispiriting as the administration’s blind faith that this deal, which allows Iranian nuclear research to continue, won’t set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and make a future nuclear conflict much, much more likely.
The Middle East, within a few years.
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Get Free Exclusive NR ContentIf you’re an old-school gaming nerd, then you might remember a little game released by Atari called Breakout. The idea was simple: just hit a ball around and break things. Don’t let the ball get past you, or you lose. It was heavily influenced by Pong.
The game’s introduction was 37 years ago, in 1976. Whether it was in April or May of that year, Google has decided to commemorate the occasion with a little easter egg in image search that will suck all of your free time from you. It’s good to see Google doing these kinds of things away from their normal doodle, especially since a lot of their users might not remember Breakout.
Go to Google image search and type in “atari breakout.” You won’t get to click through images though…instead the experience gets turned into a fully interactive and playable Breakout game, using the search results as blocks:
Kick some butt and then share your score on Google+:
Of course, if you’re really looking for images of Atari’s Breakout game, then you can simply click on “return to image search.” But that’s no fun. Happy Breakoutting.Iran has summoned the Swiss ambassador to Tehran, who looks after US interests, over comments by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson backing "peaceful transition" in the Islamic republic.
Bahram Ghassemi, the ministry spokesman, informed Iranian media on Tuesday about the diplomatic protest and said Tillerson's comments were "contrary to international law and the UN charter".
Iran also sent a protest letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, according to the ISNA news agency.
READ MORE: CIA's 'Dark Prince' tapped to lead charge against Iran
Tillerson accused Iran of seeking "hegemony" in the Middle East at the expense of US allies such as Saudi Arabia in last Wednesday's testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"Our policy towards Iran is to push back on this hegemony... and to work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government," Tillerson said.
"Those elements are there certainly, as we know," he said, without elaborating on the groups he was referring to.
Revolutionary Guards
In his testimony, Tillerson also raised the possibility of imposing sanctions on the whole of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's main military force and a major player in the country's economy.
Currently, Washington has only blacklisted the Guards' foreign operations arm - the Quds Force - and some individual commanders.
"We continually review the merits, both from the standpoint of diplomatic but also international consequences, of designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in its entirety as a terrorist organisation," Tillerson said.
The Guards have played a major role in training Shia fighters in Iraq that are a significant force in the fightback against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, and have also trained thousands of "volunteers" to battle alongside President Bashar al-Assad's forces in Syria.
The United States has had no diplomatic relations with Iran since the aftermath of the Islamic revolution of 1979 and its interests are looked after by Switzerland.An AGL Energy trial that allows Adelaide households to share their rooftop solar power with friends and relations – rather than sell it back to the grid – is set to be expanded, as the gen-tailer continues to mine its growing fleet of behind the meter resources like solar and battery storage.
The head of AGL’s New Energy division, Elisabeth Brinton, said a 20-customer peer-to-peer trading trial had kicked off in July this year in Adelaide, in an effort to explore the value – both to customers and to the utility – of excess distributed solar generation.
In Melbourne, the gen-tailer is piloting a similar program – using a mix of rooftop solar, batteries and “smart” air conditioning – to discover where the value is in energy sharing and, more specifically, how blockchain technology can be used in the process.
Brinton says the Adelaide trial was also about testing the value to customers of sharing solar energy for financial and social gain by connecting them with their peers, making efficient use of their solar and batteries, and contributing to the decarbonisation of their community.
The trial uses a prototype web application which enables customers to set their trading goals and connections, and to understand their household energy usage and trading activity with peers.
It is also a way for the millions of Australians locked out of the rooftop solar market – because they rent or live in apartment buildings, for example – to gain access to the same advantages their friends and neighbours can enjoy.
“As more of our customers install solar and batteries, they are playing an increasingly important role in the electricity system, and we are finding new ways to enable them to actively participate in that system and engage with each other and their community,” Brinton said in a statement on Monday.
“Under the right conditions, a buyer could get energy at a lower price than from the grid, while a generator could sell excess energy at a higher price than the solar feed-in tariff,” she said.
“In the coming months, we will expand the scope of the peer-to-peer pilot to more customers to test a new range of exciting features in the prototype app.”
For one participant in the original trial, Adelaide resident Christine Odgers, the app has allowed her to share with relatives the more than 50 per cent of excess solar energy produced each day by her 3kW rooftop PV system.
“My motivation was to support family members who don’t have solar panels by sharing energy with them and helping them offset their power bills,” she said.
“I strongly recommend it to others. The more these programs are spread throughout the community, the more we can rely on local consumption of green power. It’s a very satisfying thing to do.”
The good news for consumers is that there is an increasing number of these sort of trials going on in the Australian market.
Among them is a a pilot project with Perth-based blockchain energy market provider, Power Ledger, that was launched by another big gen-tailer, Origin Energy, in September.
The three-month technical trial will use “anonymised and historical” data from Origin customers to explore the benefits and challenges of peer-to-peer energy trading across the regulated network.
In particular, the trial aims to prove the accuracy and security of an energy trading platform based on “cryptocurrency.”
This is a specialty of Power Ledger, whose P2P solar trading platform was launched at the White Gum Valley housing development in Fremantle last year, allowing residents to trade rooftop solar energy with one another, without the addition of market costs and commercial margins.
Results of another WA trial, involving 10 households and about 20 people at the Busselton Lifestyle Village, on the Western Power network, is said to have showed that households could save $A600 a year on their electricity bills using Power Ledger’s peer-to-peer trading.
Another cutting edge program, which is being conducted in collaboration with a broad range of energy market players, is GreenSync’s deX: an open decentralised energy exchange where energy capacity can be transacted between businesses, households, communities and utilities.Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz. At first he thinks he's hit the jackpot-fame and fortune are his for the taking. That all changes, however, when he meets three witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz), and Glinda (Michelle Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone's been expecting. Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity-and even a bit of wizardry-Oscar transforms himself not only into the great and powerful Wizard of Oz but into a better man as well. Written by Walt Disney Studios Motion PicturesA novel initiative launched by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) called Let’s Encrypt has just signed its first free certificate, signifying a milestone and marking the start of the project’s beta program.
As a project that aims to bring awareness and the increase of the implementation of encryption, Let’s Encrypt has achieved a significant milestone – the free release of its first certificate.
Let’s Encrypt is an automated and free open-source certificate authority (CA) that encourages the transit of shifting to encryption entirely from the plaintext web. The initiative is backed by big hitters such as Mozilla, Cisco, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Akamai Technologies, among others.
Embracing Encryption
Encryption, in general, has strong backers from industry behemoths such as Google, Facebook, Apple and other companies who wrote an impassioned plea to President Obama, asking for encryption to be supported.
Essentially, Let’s Encrypt facilitates any website on the Internet to protect and safeguard its visitors with free SSL/TLS (Secure Socket Layer/ Transport Layer Security) certificates. SSL certificates encrypt all streams of data communicated back and forth between the website and the user accessing the website.
Related Article: Apple CEO Tim Cook Advocates for Privacy and Encryption
The initiative is also geared to make the HTTPS implementation onto any website to be a seamless experience for website owners.
“Forget about hours (or sometimes days) of muddling through complicated programming to set up encryption on a website, or yearly fees,” explains a gushing Rainey Reitman, the EFF’s activism director.
“Let’s Encrypt puts security in the hands of site owners.”
SSL/TLS certificates count for significant costs as they don’t come cheap, and they expire over a period of time. These costs usually keep away website owners from implementing encryption on their websites. However, changes are afoot.
“(Let’s Encrypt aims to) revolutionize encryption on websites, making HTTPS implementation a seamless, no-cost option for anyone with a domain,” added Reitman.
Related article: Reddit Is Switching to Total HTTPS Encryption
The first-ever free certificate was issued for helloworld.letsencrypt.org, a domain owned by the EFF and presumably one to showcase the feasibility of the certificate besides proving that it actually works.
In a blog post, Josh Aas, ISRG’s executive director explained that more certificates will be issued to domains participating in its beta program before a wider roll-out to more websites in the next few months.Are you wondering about the best places to invest in real estate in 2017? We’ve laid out the top 5 that show the most potential for investment in 2017.
Best Places to Invest in Real Estate: Denver
One of the best places to invest in real estate is Denver. Denver doesn’t usually receive a lot of attention, but the city is actually a hidden gem. Home values in Denver have appreciated by 10% over the past year. The year-over-year home value appreciation is 10.7% which makes it the 4th highest in the US, according to Zillow. Plus, the city does not suffer from a sever supply problem, meaning demand does not exceed supply by a great deal. And while there is a lack of inventory, Denver is seeing some construction of new property.
Denver’s economy is growing and so is the population. Denver’s population is a highly educated one, consisting of mainly young entrepreneurs and Millennials who are moving to the city in search of job opportunities. There’s been a recent boom in the tech and energy industries, which has created jobs for a large number of people. Why does this matter? Because the more jobs there are, the more people are moving to an area, and the more they can afford to rent property and pay on time! The tech and energy industries still have room for growth. The latest job growth is occurring in healthcare and universities which are the new source of employment for the Denver population.
Denver’s tourism and Airbnb industry are also doing very well. Recently, Denver passed a new law which legalized renting out short-term rentals (including Airbnb) for less than 30 days. This new legislation is making Airbnb investment even more appealing to Denver investors – yet another reason Denver is one of the best places to invest in real estate!
Median Home Price: $558,975
CoC Return Airbnb: 4.66% Traditional: 2.77%
Average Rental Income/month Airbnb: $3,472 Traditional: $2,539
Best Places to Invest in Real Estate: Chicago
Next on our list is Chicago real estate. Chicago has seen evident increase in home sales in 2016. Sales haven’t been as high as 2015, but the city has had a few strong months showing potential for 2017. And while there is a shortage of inventory in Chicago, the city has seen over $5.9 billion invested in construction of real estate properties in the past year, an increase of 72%.
Chicago’s also witnessed a slight shift in income and therefore demand. Recently, there has been increased demand for apartments as opposed to single-family homes. Property prices are rather high compared to income, so more people are moving towards renting because they cannot afford to buy. This is your window. Chicago’s young demographic, majority of whom are Millennials, are your prospect tenants.
We must also not forget to mention Chicago’s tourist significance. The Windy City is one of the most popular places to visit in the US, which makes it a top Airbnb city. Chicago is currently rater number three of cities with highest Airbnb revenue, and highest ROI. This is reflected by the increasing number of investors moving towards investing in Chicago Airbnb rentals.
Median Home Price: $699,900
CoC Return Airbnb: 5.8% Traditional: 2.59%
Average Rental Income/month Airbnb: $2,577 Traditional: $1,790
Best Places to Invest in Real Estate: Seattle
For one, Seattle’s got a booming economy. The city is home to many of the country’s huge companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, Costco, MSNBC, Nordstrom, T-Mobile, among many others. The high tech industry in specific is taking off. So you’ve got a city that’s creating jobs, and paying its employees high salaries. The effect on Seattle real estate? More people moving in who can afford to rent and buy property, and an opportunity for you as an investor. With unemployment at 4.0%, Seattle’s economy is expected further grow – a fact that is driving more investors into the city and making it one of the best places to invest in real estate. Additionally, property prices in Seattle are on the rise, and they expected to further increase in the next few years. So if you’re considering Seattle as your next investment, go for it now!
Furthermore, Seattle is a very popular tourist destination, which makes it one of the best places to invest in real estate, Airbnb specifically. From the iconic Seattle Space Needle, to the Museum of Flight, to Lake Union, the Pike Place Market, and the array of outdoor activities, Seattle’s got so much to offer to tourists and locals alike. Seattle’s tourism industry has grown and is expected to see further growth in home-sharing services specifically. In fact, Mashvisor data shows that Seattle is among the top cities in terms of Airbnb occupancy rates. Moreover, Seattle is a rather flexible city in terms of Airbnb regulations and legislations – not many have been put into place – which puts Airbnb Chicago on top of an investors list.
Median Home Price: $700,100
CoC Return Airbnb: 0.09% Traditional: 1.4%
Average Rental Income/month Airbnb: $1,409 Traditional: $2,308
If you’re planning on investing in investing in Seattle real estate, or if you already have, make sure you acquaint yourself with the new Seattle tenant law.
Don’t let it intimidate you, but make sure you’ve done your research and see how much the law will affect you as an investor.
Related: What’s Up With Seattle Real Estate Investing
Best Places to Invest in Real Estate: Dallas
Dallas is the fourth largest city in the US by population, and one that is growing at twice the US average. Dallas is a great investment opportunity for several reasons. To begin with, as all cities on our list, its economy is doing great. From the telecommunications industry, to healthcare, to energy, and the recent focus on business services and finance industry has made Dallas very diverse economy – a factor that has made Dallas a popular destination for young entrepreneurs and Millennials alike.
Speaking of, Millennials make up the most of Dallas’ population, where the median age is 33. They are surging the Dallas market as they look for employment opportunities and renting and/or buying property. In fact, out of the 1200 people move to Texas every day, half go to Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex – the biggest inland metropolitan area in the US. Because of this, prices are increasing in Dallas and are expected to continue to rise. Moreover, Rents are high compared to home prices, so it’s in your advantage to invest in a rental property.
These are just a few reasons Dallas is one of the best places to invest in real estate in 2017.
Related: The Millennial Effect on the Real Estate Market
Median Home Price: $630,848
CoC Return Airbnb: 2.48% Traditional: 0.88%
Average Rental Income/month Airbnb: $2,607 Traditional: $1,860
Best Places to Invest in Real Estate: San Diego
It is well known that San Diego is an excellent location for both traditional and Airbnb investment. It is no secret that San Diego real estate is an expensive, competitive, well-positioned, and growing market – all reasons why it pays off in the long run. So if you have the financial ability to make the investment, what’s holding you back?
The current trend in San Diego real estate is a high demand for rental property, increasing rents and property appreciation. Furthermore, the rise in property values in San Diego gives you, as an investor, the opportunity to receive high rental returns and cash flow. The above trends for San Diego real estate are expected to continue well into 2017, and even further ahead. And while the city does have limited inventory, 2016 has seen a rise in construction, with emphasis on single-family homes, of property in San Diego.
Additionally, the tourist industry in San Diego is among the most successful in the nation. The city hosts 34.3 million visitors annually and is the fastest growing Airbnb rental market in the US. San Diego is definitely among the best places to invest in real estate. But we cannot stress this enough: Timing is key when it comes to San Diego real investment, and now is the optimal time to invest.
Median Home Price: $2,195,000
CoC Return Airbnb: 4.96% Traditional: 2.33%
Average Rental Income/month Airbnb: $3,422 Traditional: $2,520
Related: Top 4 Benefits of Investing in San Diego Real Estate
For more information on specific neighborhoods and properties in these cities, use Mashvisor’s investment analytical tools to view information on CoC return, cap rate, occupancy rate, rental income, and much more. Our interactive investment property calculator will help you decide in which city you will achieve the most returns.Overnight train whistle blasts have become a fact of life for homeowners in Dartmouth ever since the construction of the residential units at the King's Wharf Landing.
But new safety measures could eliminate the whistles by the end of the summer.
The loud whistles have been keeping some in Dartmouth up at night.
"It's a good, long, healthy blast for five to 10 seconds — it wakes me up every night," said Steve Kimball, the chairman of the board for the Downtown Dartmouth Business Commission.
He lives on Newcastle Street.
Kimball said the impact of the overnight train whistle isn't limited to the buildings right next to the tracks.
"Even as far away as Slayter Street and Crichton Park — I don't know why it travels so far — but it certainly does," he said.
The CN train whistles started because the construction of the King's Wharf project put pedestrians and cars close enough to the crossing that the whistle became necessary.
To have them stopped, extra safety measures are needed, including more signage and better lighting.
There's a list of 14 measures in a report going to council. Some of those measures have to be done by the city, others by CN Rail, and a couple by King's Wharf.
"It's been done in other places, so I don't see any reason why it can't be done there," said Kimball.
Once the list is complete, and CN Rail signs off, then the city can apply to have the whistles stopped.
"The safety study indicated that there was a concern with the angling of the signals not being as visible for the people exiting the parkade and the gravel parking lot that's still here at King's Wharf," said Gord Gamble, the general manager with Fares Inc., the company behind the development.
"They made a request that two additional signal lights be added — there's a cost of about $7,000 for those additional signals which Francis Fares has agreed to pay for. They've now been ordered and once CN installs those that should be the completion of that component."
Kimball said he is hoping for a full night's sleep by the end of the summer.Updated with link to Bank of America statement below.
When I spoke with WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange earlier this month, he told me that in early 2011, the whistleblower site would release a "megaleak" regarding a major U.S. bank. That release, Assange said, would include tens of thousands of its documents that reveal some sort of unethical behavior. No details on the name or what sort of bad behavior would be exposed.
Now an eagle-eyed reader has sent me a link to a quote from a Computer World interview with Assange from October of 2009, which, if true, may contain a clue to that bank's identity:
"At the moment, for example, we are sitting on five gigabytes from Bank of America, one of the executive's hard drives," he said. "Now how do we present that? It's a difficult problem. We could just dump it all into one giant Zip file, but we know for a fact that has limited impact. To have impact, it needs to be easy for people to dive in and search it and get something out of it."
I've contacted WikiLeaks for confirmation but haven't immediately received a response--its staff is likely tied up by the fallout of its release of a quarter million diplomatic cables, and by the second of two cyberattacks to strike its website in the last few days. Bank Of America didn't respond to a request for comment either.
If Assange does plan to release the five gigabytes of data he referenced in the Computer World interview, it's very plausible that he's been sitting on it for more than a year. As he's quoted saying at the time, a full five gigabyte of documents was likely beyond the scope of WikiLeaks' resources at the time to filter, organize, and publish. Today, compared with the 392,000 Iraq war documents the site dumped in October and the millions of diplomatic documents that WikiLeaks has promised to eventually release, it would be fairly standard.
There's no telling what might be revealed in any Bank of America documents--if Assange does indeed have them--but it could be old news. By the time of publication, the documents would be more than 14 months old. And, as much as any bank on Wall Street, BoA has been scrutinized in recent years by everyone from plaintiffs' attorneys in class-action investor suits to the New York Attorney General's office.
And why would Assange hold onto the documents for so long before publishing them? He's said he simply has too much material.
Here's a key excerpt of our interview:
Assange: If you think about it, we have a publishing pipeline that’s increasing linearly, and an exponential number of leaks, so we’re in a position where we have to prioritize our resources so that the biggest impact stuff gets released first. Me: So do you have very high impact corporate stuff to release then? Assange: Yes, but maybe not as high impact…I mean, it could take down a bank or two. Me: That sounds like high impact. Assange: But not as big an impact as the history of a whole war. But it depends on how you measure these things.
To be clear, there's no clear confirmation that the upcoming release will focus on Bank of America. Assange told me that he had unpublished, potentially damaging documents on multiple finance firms, beyond the bank "megaleak" that we discussed. I'll provide an update if I can learn more.
Update: Scott Silvestri, a Bank of America spokesman, told the New York Times Dealbook blog in a statement: “More than a year ago WikiLeaks claimed to have the computer hard drive of a Bank of America executive. Aside from the claims themselves we have no evidence that supports this assertion. We are unaware of any new claims by WikiLeaks that pertain specifically to Bank of America.”With Chris Paul going down with an injury, the Houston Rockets had a void to fill in the backcourt, which they have now addressed with the signing of Isaiah Canaan.
The Houston Rockets are banged up. Despite their 3-1 record on the season, the team is currently dealing with injuries to Chris Paul, Trevor Ariza and Nene.
The Paul injury is the most concerning because A) he is the team’s second best player and B) he is expected to miss anywhere from 2-4 weeks.
Because their backcourt was already thin, the Paul injury has put tremendous pressure on James Harden and Eric Gordon. Mike D’Antoni has tried to have at least one of them on the floor at all times, but that has led to some offensive struggles.
Gordon is a capable ball-handler, but is best suited as the secondary creator and spot-up shooter in a lineup. With Paul out, Gordon has been playing point guard when Harden goes to the bench, and surrounding him with inconsistent shooters in P.J. Tucker and Luc Mbah a Moute has led to some offensive stagnation.
That’s where Isaiah Canaan comes in to play. As ESPN‘s Chris Haynes reported, Canaan is expected to sign with Houston. Most Rockets fans will remember Canaan from his brief stint with the team during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons.
Canaan is best known for his shooting, averaging 1.7 3-pointers made per game during the course of his career. Although he has been a league-average shooter (35.2 percent) for his career, he has the ability to get hot from beyond the arc at any time.
Canaan’s best season came with the Philadelphia 76ers in the 2015-16 season in which he averaged 11 points per game while hitting 36.3 percent of his 3-pointers.
One of, if not the best game of his NBA career came in the aforementioned season, when he put up 31 points (while hitting eight 3-pointers) against the Oklahoma City Thunder:
With Paul out and Houston lacking any other reliable guards besides Harden and Gordon, Canaan should be able to carve out a 10-15 minute role on a nightly basis over the next month. Canaan’s shooting and offensive prowess will help the second unit, as he can play alongside Gordon or Harden when necessary.
This signing indicates that the Rockets know they couldn’t proceed with a guard rotation of Harden, Gordon and Demetrius Jackson. Canaan is an inconsistent player (and shooter), but is NBA-tested and has experience being a key cog in an offense. Now the Rockets hope he can contribute in a smaller role over the next month while Chris Paul recovers from his injury.A Radio Disney station in Ohio recently teamed up with the state’s oil and gas industry on an “educational program” promoting resource extraction — from Never Land to Gasland, you might say. The partnership made many parents and environmentalists unhappy.
From Al Jazeera:
The program, called Rocking in Ohio, went on a 26-stop tour of elementary schools and science centers across the state last month. It involves interactive demonstrations of how oil and gas pipelines work, and is led by three staffers from Radio Disney’s Cleveland branch. It is entirely funded by the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP), which gets its money from oil and gas companies.
The Wooster Daily Record described the tour’s stop at the Wayne County fairgrounds last year:
Radio Disney of Cleveland and its road crew promoted the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program, with games pitting all ages of children vs. their peers and even families vs. families and dads trying to beat other dads in a variety of challenges. All the challenges, except perhaps the dads’ dance competition, related back to the science behind oil and gas production and their value as natural resources. … One of the challenges was “literally creating our own pipeline,” [said Jag, the Radio Disney master of ceremonies], using balls and tubing to demonstrate “how we get oil and gas to your home.” As contestants shot balls through the “pipeline” to end up in colored pails at the other end, Jag encouraged the audience, “Cheer these guys on like crazy.”
“I don’t think it’s doing the children or the state of Ohio any good,” Robert Shields of the Sierra Club’s Ohio chapter told Al Jazeera. “Kids’ ability to reason is not yet quite established, so it feels to me that they’re getting some kind of propaganda.”
After concerned citizens started protesting and circulating petitions, Disney backed out. Here’s the latest from the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
The Cleveland-based Radio Disney station will no longer participate in an educational program sponsored by Ohio’s oil and gas industry, after protests by environmental activists snowballed in recent weeks. The Rocking in Ohio program raised eyebrows and outrage among parents and environmental advocates who say the program activities constituted propaganda. A Disney spokesman provided the following statement to Northeast Ohio Media Group: “The sole intent of the collaboration between Radio Disney and the nonprofit Rocking in Ohio educational initiative was to foster kids’ interest in science and technology. Having been inadvertently drawn into a debate that has no connection with this goal, Radio Disney has decided to withdraw from the few remaining installments of the program.”
But that’s not the end of the roadshow. Rhonda Reda, director of the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program, said the controversy was “blown out of proportion” and the program will continue without Radio Disney.The HTML Content Template ( <template> ) element is a mechanism for holding client-side content that is not to be rendered when a page is loaded but may subsequently be instantiated during runtime using JavaScript.
Think of a template as a content fragment that is being stored for subsequent use in the document. While the parser does process the contents of the <template> element while loading the page, it does so only to ensure that those contents are valid; the element's contents are not rendered, however.
Attributes
This element only includes the global attributes.
Example
First we start with the HTML portion of the example.
<table id="producttable"> <thead> <tr> <td>UPC_Code</td> <td>Product_Name</td> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <!-- existing data could optionally be included here --> </tbody> </table> <template id="productrow"> <tr> <td class="record"></td> <td></td> </tr> </template>
First, we have a table into which we will later insert content using JavaScript code. Then comes the template, which describes the structure of an HTML fragment representing a single table row.
Now that the table has been created and the template defined, we use JavaScript to insert rows into the table, with each row being constructed using the template as its basis.
// Test to see if the browser supports the HTML template element by checking // for the presence of the template element's content attribute. if ('content' in document.createElement('template')) { // Instantiate the table with the existing HTML tbody // and the row with the template var t = document.querySelector('#productrow'); // Clone the new row and insert it into the table var tb = document.querySelector("tbody"); var clone = document.importNode(t.content, true); td = clone.querySelectorAll("td"); td[0].textContent = "1235646565"; td[1].textContent = "Stuff"; tb.appendChild(clone); // Clone the new row and insert it into the table var clone2 = document.importNode(t.content, true); td = clone2.querySelectorAll("td"); td[0].textContent = "0384928528"; td[1].textContent = "Acme Kidney Beans 2"; tb.appendChild(clone2); } else { // Find another way to add the rows to the table because // the HTML template element is not supported. }
The result is the original HTML table, with two new rows appended to it via JavaScript:
table { background: #000; } table td { background: #fff; }
Specifications
Browser compatibility
The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.
Update compatibility data on GitHub Desktop Mobile Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari Android webview Chrome for Android Edge Mobile Firefox for Android Opera for Android Safari on iOS Samsung Internet Basic support Chrome Full support 26 Edge Full support 13 Firefox Full support 22 IE No support No Opera Full support 15 Safari Full support 8 WebView Android Full support Yes Chrome Android Full support 26 Edge Mobile Full support Yes Firefox Android Full support 22 Opera Android? Safari iOS Full support 8 Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes Legend Full support Full support No support No support Compatibility unknown Compatibility unknown
See alsoBy By Andrew Moran Sep 7, 2010 in World Suva - Another strong earthquake has been reported in the South Pacific. This time the Fiji region was rocked by a 6.2-magnitude earthquake. There have yet been any immediate reports of a tsunami alert. According to the The earthquake was located 90 miles (145 km) northeast of Lambasa, Vanua Levu and 210 miles (340 km) northeast of Suva, Viti Levu. The temblor’s depth was measured at 6.2 miles (10 km). There have been no immediate reports of injuries, deaths or significant damages. There have also been no reports of a tsunami alert from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. It has been a week since New Zealand was devastated by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake. However, several hundred miles to its northeast, an earthquake rocked the nation of Fiji.According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), a 6.2-magnitude earthquake has rocked the nation of Fiji on Tuesday. This is the second strong earthquake in the Pacific Ocean region.The earthquake was located 90 miles (145 km) northeast of Lambasa, Vanua Levu and 210 miles (340 km) northeast of Suva, Viti Levu. The temblor’s depth was measured at 6.2 miles (10 km).There have been no immediate reports of injuries, deaths or significant damages. There have also been no reports of a tsunami alert from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. More about Fiji, Earthquake, USGS More news from fiji earthquake usgsWould you like to live permanently in Canada? It is easy to see why people from all over the world make the decision to call Canada their permanent home. With Canada's high standard of living, world-class education and strong economy, immigrating to Canada is an exciting opportunity. It may seem like a simple choice but if you want to Immigrate to Canada there are many different ways to apply. There are many options to permanent residence and some times choosing the right path may not be that simple. That is where Canada Welcomes You can help you make the best choices and lead you to the right path in your quest for permanent residency in Canada. There are several different Immigration Programs and ways to apply for Permanent Residence and Canada Welcomes You will help you choose the Program that will work best for you and your family. We will ensure that you qualify under the Program of choice and will advise and eliminate any element of confusion which so often arises with the array of rules to be followed and criteria that must be met to be successful. We have outlined the various categories that may lead to permanent residence below and throughout our website. After reading about your options, please contact us with any questions you may have; or, to make your life even easier, fill out one of our free assessment forms and we will contact you with the information you need to make an informed decision on your quest to live in Canada. Permanent Immigration Visa Categories Federal Skilled Workers: are assessed upon their likelihood of becoming economically established in Canada and includes qualifying under a point system. IMPORTANT: This category has recently changed and New Instructions have been issued. Canada Welcomes You can quickly assess you under the New Instructions and provide you with alternative options if you do not qualify under this category. Provincial Nomination Program (PNP): Provinces select applicants who are interested in living in their province and will contribute to its economic development by either investing or working in that province. Please look at the different criteria under the individual province and fill out our PNP form for further information and to see if you qualify. Canadian Experience Class (CEC): is for foreign workers and international graduates who are in Canada on a temporary basis and wish to become Permanent Residents. Canadian education and work experience are key selection factors. Family Sponsorship: Canada Welcomes You specializes in re-uniting families. If you are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident who wishes to sponsor a close relative from abroad such as your spouse, partner, parent or dependent child, we can help! Contact us and we will represent and advise you from start to finish. Business Class: To attract investors, entrepreneurs and self-employed individuals from outside Canada who have substantial net-worth and strong business skills to develop new commercial opportunities and to venture into foreign markets by encouraging immigrants who are familiar with foreign markets. All Categories of Immigrants: Please note that all applicants for permanent residency must pass security/criminal checks, and meet medical requirements before they can become permanent residents of Canada. In certain cases applicants who are inadmissible on criminality or medical grounds may be granted a Temporary Resident Permit (TRP). If you believe you may be inadmissible to Canada on either ground and wish to apply for a permanent visa, please contact us |
judgment permanently enjoining its enforcement; prohibiting the official defendants from applying or enforcing Proposition 8 and directing the official defendants that all persons under their control or supervision shall not apply or enforce Proposition 8.”
Read the ruling below. We'll have further analysis soon…
FF_&_CL_FINALUsually the daily noon Mass on campus is attended by the familiar dozen or so faculty and staff and students and neighbors; but today, to my amazement, there are 4-year-old twin boys in front of me, complete with parents, the father immensely tall and the mother adamantly not.
The noon Mass is legendary for starting on the button and never going more than 25 minutes because afternoon classes start at 12:30 p.m. and you want to give students a chance to make their flip-flopped sprint across campus. For the first five minutes the twins sit quietly and respectfully and perhaps even reverently, each in his seat between mom and dad. This does not last. At 12:07 p.m. I see the first flurry of fists and elbows as they jockey and joust. At 12:11 p.m. one of them, incredibly, pulls a bunch of grapes from his pocket and begins to eat some and to lose the rest on the floor. At 12:13 p.m. there are easily a dozen grapes and both boys under the chairs. At 12:15 p.m. the mom, clearly a veteran of these sorts of things, pulls two cookies from her pockets for the boys. At 12:20 p.m. the dad finally bends down from his great height and tersely reads his sons the riot act, a moment I have been waiting for with high fraternal glee, for I have been in his shoes. I have been at Mass in this very chapel with my small twin sons, who have dropped Cheerios from the balcony onto the bald spots of congregants below and stuck their arms into the baptistry just to see what it would feel like (it’s cold and wet, one son said, indignantly) and made barnyard noises at exactly the wrong moments and ran all around the chapel shaking sticky hands with startled, bemused congregants at the Sign of Peace.
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"If there are no little kids at Mass, pretty soon there won’t be any Masses."
After Mass I say to the celebrant with a smile that it is not every day we are graced by rambunctious ruffians who scatter grapes and crumbs on the floor and giggle and yawn and shimmy and snicker and lose their shoes and drop hymnals on the floor with a terrific bang and pay no attention whatsoever to the Gospel readings and the homily and the miracle of the Eucharist but rather gaze raptly at the life-size cedar crucifix and try to blow out a candle on the altar as their parents carry them up for a blessing and say Hi! to the grinning priest as he lays his hand upon their innocent brows and spend the last five minutes of Mass sitting in the same single seat trying to shove the other guy off but only using your butt and not your hands; and the priest, unforgettably, says this to me:
I love having little kids at Mass. I love it when they are bored and pay no attention and squirm. I love it when they get distracted by a moth and spend five minutes following the moth’s precarious voyage among the lights. It’s all good. They are being soaked in the Mass. They hear the words and feel the reverence and maybe they even sense the food of the experience, you know? Sometimes people complain and make veiled remarks about behavior and discipline and decorum and the rapid dissolution of morals today and stuff like that but I have no patience for it. For one thing they were little kids at Mass once, and for another if there are no little kids at Mass, pretty soon there won’t be any Masses. You have to let kids be kids.
I love having little kids at Mass. If you are distracted by a little kid being a little kid you are not focused on what’s holy. Little kids are holy. Let it be. My only rule is no extended fistfights. Other than that I don’t care about grapes and yawning. I think the cadence and the rhythm and the custom and the peace of the Mass soak into kids without them knowing it. That’s why a lot of the students here come back to Mass, I think—it sparks some emotional memory in them, and once they are back at Mass then they pay attention in new ways and find new food in it. It’s all good. The more the merrier. I don’t mind dogs when I celebrate Mass, either. For one thing they are generally better behaved than little kids, but for another I figure the Mass soaks into them too, and how could that be bad? You know what I mean?
If you are distracted by a little kid being a little kid you are not focused on what’s holy. Little kids are holy. Let it be.
I say I do know very well what he means and we shake hands and he heads to the sacristy to disrobe and I head back to work. But about halfway back to my office I feel awfully sad that I do not have grapes and cookies in my jacket pockets. I don’t even have remains of ancient Cheerios anymore, and there were years there when my pockets were so filled with brittle crumbs that birds followed me in rotation, sparrows in the morning and crows in the afternoon. For a minute I want to shuffle back to the chapel and catch that tiny mom and ask her for a cookie, just because, but then I realize that she will think I am a nut and I remember that I had my run as the dad of little kids squirming at Mass. It was a sweet glorious unforgettable run, too, and now it’s someone else’s turn, and how good and holy that is, that there are still little kids under the seats, paying no attention whatsoever.
But they will.Trailer for Land of the Lost.
Space-time vortexes suck!
Will Ferrell stars as has-been scientist Dr. Rick Marshall, sucked into one and spat back through time. Way back. Now, Marshall has no weapons, few skills and questionable smarts to survive in an alternate universe full of marauding dinosaurs and fantastic creatures from beyond our world - a place of spectacular sights and super-scaled comedy known as the Land of the Lost.
Sucked alongside him for the adventure are crack-smart research assistant Holly (Anna Friel) and a redneck survivalist (Danny McBride) named Will. Chased by T-Rex and stalked by painfully slow reptiles known as Sleestaks, Marshall, Will and Holly must rely on their only ally - a primate called Chaka (Jorma Taccone) to navigate out of the hybrid dimension. Escape from this routine expedition gone awry and they’re heroes. Get stuck, and they'll be permanent refugees in the Land of the Lost.
Based on the classic television series created by Sid & Marty Krofft, Land of the Lost is directed by Brad Silberling and produced by Jimmy Miller and Sid & Marty Krofft.
Duration
2 min 27 sec
Views
448,225
Posted On
February 05, 2009 Director
Brad Silberling
Writer
Chris Henchy
Studio
Universal Pictures
Release
June 5, 2009 Cast
Will Ferrell
Danny R. McBride
Anna Friel
Jorma Taccone Trailer Tracks
No Music Available Universal Pictures
Comedy
Adventure
Will Ferrell
Danny R. McBride
Anna FrielThis is the most innovative headphone I've ever seen, and it sounds great. Its low-frequency reproduction is especially impressive — better than any headphone in my collection. But before we delve futher into the sound, let's start by describing the Mo-Fi's stand-out features.
First, there's an onboard 240 mW Class AB amplifier that's been carefully matched to the custom-built 50 mm drivers. If you're listening to music on a mobile device, you'll be very impressed with both the volume and the sound quality this amplification stage adds to the experience. The amp runs off an internal Li-ion battery that is rechargeable with a bog-standard micro USB cable. (A charging cable is included, as is a tiny 1.0 A output USB charger.) The amp will last for about 12 hours of listening, and after that, the Mo-Fi simply becomes a passive headphone. A rotary switch that surrounds the port for the removable headphone cable turns the amp on and off, and it also allows you to put the amp into a bass-boost mode (4.5 dB bump at 60 Hz), which uses a good ol' analog filter — no DSP wizardry here. This boost is nowhere near as obnoxious as the B.S. bass on "DJ" headphones; it's more like turning up a subwoofer a wee bit. Personally, I would have traded away the bass-boost feature for an analog attenuator instead, because the amp adds way too much volume, forcing you to turn down the output of your source too far; if your source is a mobile phone, you're turning down the pre-DAC level, reducing the bit-depth of your signal. Smartly, the amp turns off when the headphone is taken off your head and the earcups are allowed to close in on each other, which means that the headphone doesn't leak any sound if the amp switch is turned on but the headphone is off your head. This feature not only extends battery life, but it also facilitates A/B'ing a mix between headphone and speakers without having to turn up/down the headphone level as you go back and forth.
Second, the earcup cushions are shaped like upside-down teardrops. Most of us have earlobes which are bigger up top than down bottom, and the Mo-Fi's cushions mimic this shape. The result is a much better seal behind and below the ears, where the skull and jaw transition to the neck. The cushions, which are user-replaceable, are made of dense memory foam and are covered in a very supple, premium vinyl that doesn't absorb sweat or skin oil and is easy to clean. Importantly, the earcups offer the best seal I've ever experienced — even with my eyeglasses on.
Third, there's a multi-articulating headband with various joints and arms to precisely position the earcups over the ears. The center of the headband is padded with the same vinyl and memory foam as the earcups, and there's a tension knob there that varies how much squeeze is put on your head. Leading to each earcup is a near-parallel, 4-bar linkage, which was inspired by the double-arm suspension designs of Formula One racecars. Between each linkage and earcup is a pivoting secondary arm with a ball joint for independently tilting and automatically adjusting the camber of each earcup to the ear. On a car, the suspension works to optimize the contact patch of the tires as the car turns, leans, and reacts to the changes in road surface. Similarly, the "suspension" on the Mo-Fi keeps the earcups in line with your ears, no matter the size and shape of your head. Every moving part and joint moves smoothly in a well-damped manner, and Blue took great care to make sure there is no mechanical resonance. My son commented that I looked like I had an alien insect on my head when he first saw me wearing my Mo-Fi headphone. I agree that it looks like some crazy alien tech, but apparently, these aliens are experts in luxury materials and finishes. In reality, the Mo-Fi is a result of a 3-year development partnership with AWOL.
Now that we've covered the major innovations, let's talk about sound. I've owned my Mo-Fi for many months, and on top of all the casual listening I've done on it, I've also used it on many critical listening sessions, as well as spent some time playing test tones through it.
The Mo-Fi is not at all a "lifestyle" headphone for the street and subway crowd, and therefore, it's not stupid bassy. Bass from 200 Hz down is what I would call "emphasized" — like going through a 5 dB linear-phase shelf EQ — but, it's the clearest of any headphone in my collection. Driven with a good headphone amp, I can hear the fundamental tone of bass notes with less harmonic distortion than I hear from my other headphones, even at 20 Hz. When the Mo-Fi is driven from an anemic headphone output (like on a mobile device), the harmonic distortion easily swamps the fundamental for low bass notes — until you turn on the headphone's built-in amp, and then, the harmonic distortion drops away. With music, the bass is articulate and punchy, a testament to the superb drivers and electronics, as well as to the perfect earcup seal.
The midrange sits back slightly from the bass, but it's there and represented with clarity. Harmonic distortion in the critical 300 Hz to 1 kHz region is exceptionally low, which explains why the midrange, despite playing backseat to the bass, sounds so clear and doesn't get lost.
The treble has a bump in energy at 4-6 kHz, and then from 7 kHz on up, it's essentially shelved down a few dB. The response then starts to slope off further at 14 kHz. Crucially, phase response is near linear from 20 Hz all the way to 16 kHz, which is the upper limit of my hearing anyway.
Keep in mind that we all have differently shaped heads and ears, and therefore, your experience with this or any other model of over-the-ear headphone may differ from mine. Therefore, I think it's prudent to listen to any headphone before making a purchase. With that said, here's my recommendation.
If you need a headphone that will force you to work hard to rid your mixes of sibilance, the Mo-Fi is not it. On the other hand, if you prefer a headphone that sounds big and full, without the midrange getting lost, the Mo-Fi should be on your short list, especially if you appreciate all of the innovative engineering invested in its design. Also, the Mo-Fi is a perfect complement to nearfield monitors, since its bass response is pretty much as good as it gets. Even if your monitoring setup includes a subwoofer, unless your room was purposefully designed with perfectly effective bass-trapping, room resonances will reduce the accuracy of the low-end reproduction in the room — not a problem if you're listening on the Mo-Fi.
Included with the headphone are two straight cables. The shorter one is perfect for use with an in-pocket mobile device, and a three-button iOS-compatible remote is mounted in-line. Both cables terminate in a skinny, case-compatible 1/8'' connector. A 1/4'' adapter is included, as is a two-prong airline adapter just in case you want to go back in time and fly on an outdated jet. If you do, make sure your time machine has extra room, because the Mo-Fi doesn't fold up for travel. The headphone fits into a large carry pouch, inside which is a pocket for holding the cables and accessories.Explore the scene at Nationals Park
The Nationals played the Miami Marlins in their season opener on Monday, April 1. Explore this interactive gigapixel panorama of Nationals Park on opening day, and tag yourself and others in the photograph.
This GigaPan image was made by stitching together 360 high-resolution photographs taken over a 23 minute, 24 second period during the top of the second inning of the Nationals vs. Marlins game on April 1, 2013. Because of the time required to capture all of the images, conditions changed often and people moved into and out of the frames. This is the reason third baseman Ryan Zimmerman does not appear in the mosaic, why others appear only partially (the batter approaching the plate) and others (the third base umpire, for example) appear in multiple places.
Tagged by The Washington Post Tagged by Facebook users*Racer progress has been a bit slow of late, mainly because the implementation is at a crossroads and I wasn’t sure how things would pan out with the IDE tools RFC. Racer 1.1.0 was released yesterday, so I thought it was time for an update
A bunch of Racer-related things happened in the last few months:
Nick Cameron authored an rfc exploring some ideas about adding Rust support for IDEs I wrote some code to explore using Rustc for type inference and completions. @jwilm started work on a YCM backend for rust using Racer. As part of this he created ‘Racerd’, a Racer daemon. The Racer emacs plugin and vim plugin got split into their own github projects Some awesome people contributed bugfixes, performance improvements and features to Racer
Contributors
Thanks to everybody that contributed code and patches since the v1.0 version:
Antoine Kalmbach, Bjørnar Grip Fjær, bluss, Chris Tetreault, Christopher Serr, David Harks, Fredrik Bergroth, Georg Brandl, Ivan Fraixedes, Ivo Wetzel, Jake Goulding, Jakko Sikkar, Jędrzej, João Felipe Santos, Joe Wilm, Kevin K, LFalch, Loïc Damien, Marcell Pardavi, Matt Wismer, Shougo Matsushita, Syohei YOSHIDA, Jonesey13, Vadim Chugunov, Wilfred Hughes, Yamakaky
@jwilm and @birkenfeld deserve a special mention: @birkenfeld for overhauling the source loading/caching and making things considerably faster, and @jwilm for putting in a bunch of work to get Racer working as part of a long running process/daemon.
The gyst of the ide tools rfc proposal was to create a daemon that would manage the resolution and type information generated by the compiler. It would then present an interface for IDEs to perform queries about the code being written, similar in style to Go’s ‘oracle’ tool.
The idea was that the compiler would generate this information as a separate step, and then the oracle would load, cache and serve this information. The approach is well suited to finished crates, where Rustc can generate a complete static model of the code. It is less straightforward to see how this model should tackle unfinished code in the midst of being written. The idea was that there would be a separate ‘quick-check’ compilation phase, which would generate incremental (partial) information for the oracle to load.
The challenge with a Rustc quick-check compilation is that it would need to be invoked frequently (maybe on each keypress), and be fast enough to provide information required for completions at ide-speeds (in the 100-200ms ballpark). In addition it would also need to be able to cope with unfinished and incomplete code. Rustc isn’t currently designed with these requirements in mind.
I spent some of my spare time prototyping a Rustc typechecker to figure out if we could maybe make Rustc fast enough for quick-check to be feasible. Over this period I learned a bunch about the compiler and I feel I am quite close to having something workable. Initially I was planning to replace Racer’s internal type checking machinery with this code, but unfortunately there are a number of things that make this difficult to roll out.
Basically, despite its flaws, Racer has the following desirable properties that a Rustc based completer would lack:
Racer doesn’t share internal binary data with Rustc, and so doesn’t need to target a specific version of the compiler Racer has low expectations about its input, and happily attempts to complete broken and unfinished code Racer works across crates and on sourcecode that hasn’t been compiled.
Replacing Racer’s internal inference machinery with a Rustc based engine would degrade Racer’s current capability in a number of areas and make it much more brittle wrt source code input:
There would need to a be a Racer version targeted at each version of Rustc (stable, beta, nightlies). Users would need to be savvy enough to download the version that matched their compiler and would need to upgrade their Rustc version if they wanted to pick up new Racer features.
Users would need to run a precompile step on every crate they wanted to navigate through, to generate the appropriate dependency compile artifacts (rlibs). They’d need to re-run this step whenever they upgraded rust + Racer.
Racer would fail whenever there was an error that Rustc couldn’t handle. Over time I hope we could get better at this, but at least initially we’d need to come up with ways to educate users on how to keep their code in a shape that could be analysed.
Despite this I still remain convinced that a Rustc Racer is the way to go. (The alternative would be to build out Racer’s type inference to mirror Rustc’s. No small effort!)
I think the best approach in the short term is to use Rustc to augment Racer’s existing functionality and type inference machinery rather than replace it. My plan is to build a separate Rustc based typeck daemon that Racer could invoke to perform additional type checking when its own machinery fails.
This daemon will need to be an optional plugin for Racer since compiling it will be onerous, at least initially while we figure out the best way to package Rustc targeted code. Hopefully this will help us gain experience packaging and using Rustc’s internals in an interactive environment.Frank Lampard has announced that he is leaving Chelsea for a new challenge this summer.
The midfielder is the club's all-time top scorer with 211 goals and has played 648 games at Stamford Bridge. However, Lampard's contract runs out this summer and he has decided to continue his future elsewhere -- with New York City FC interested having already snapped up Spain forward David Villa.
Lampard won the Premier League three times, alongside four FA Cups, two League Cups, a Champions League title and one Europa League during his time in South West London.
In a statement, Lampard said: "When I arrived at this fantastic club 13 years ago I would never have believed that I would be fortunate enough to play so many games and enjoy sharing in so much success.
"This club has become part of my life and I have so many people to thank for the opportunity. Firstly, Ken Bates, who put his neck on the line to sign me as a young player and without him I would not have even begun this experience.
"Roman Abramovich, the man who saved our Club and took us all to new levels. His desire to push the Club to the top of the football world has rubbed off on everyone.
"All the managers and coaches who have helped me develop my game during the time I have been here. I have learnt from every one of them.
"All the brilliant team mates who I have been lucky enough to train and play alongside for so long. Not just their football qualities but also the friendships I have gained along the way.
"I'd also like to give a special mention to all the staff and people behind the scenes at the club who do not receive the glory but without them the Club would simply not function.
"The club will move forward, and as a Chelsea man I have no doubt that with the quality of the players that are there, they will continue with the success that we have all enjoyed over the past seasons.
"Finally and most importantly, I would like to thank the Chelsea fans. I believe they are the greatest fans in world football. You have supported me from the moment I arrived. Not only on the pitch, but in difficult moments in my personal life off the pitch. I will never forget.
"I feel honoured to have shared so many special times with you. Bolton, Amsterdam, Munich, the list goes on and on. I, and we as a team, could not have achieved those moments without your support.
"Whatever the next challenge is for me I will always be amongst you and have Chelsea in my home and in my heart. Hopefully I will get to see you all soon to say goodbye properly. In the meantime thank you for the memories and keep making history!"Check out the AfghanistanCrossroads blog for the latest developments in the war-torn country.
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The Afghan government on Wednesday blamed an al Qaeda-linked militant group based in Pakistan for the siege on a Kabul hotel that left 12 victims and all nine attackers dead.
The attackers, all of whom were prepared to carry out suicide bombings, were with the Haqqani network, a group of terrorists loyal to the warlord Siraq Haqqani, a spokesman for the Afghanistan Interior Ministry said.
A Kabul-based official with direct access to security information also told CNN it is believed the attack was orchestrated by the Haqqani network.
Falak Merzahi, a spokesman for the Afghanistan Interior Ministry, said the attackers came into Afghanistan from Pakistan. They entered the Hotel Inter-Continental late Tuesday night by avoiding the main entrance and attacking a smaller one on the other side of the hotel, which was guarded by two Afghan police. The attackers killed the two officers and stormed the hotel, Merzahi said.
Six of the attackers ended up detonating their explosives; three were shot and killed on the roof of the hotel, Afghan officials said.
Although a NATO helicopter carrying International Security Assistance Force snipers flew to the scene and fired at the attackers, Merzahi said it was Afghan National Army soldiers who ultimately killed the three gunmen on the roof.
An ISAF official said ISAF forces stopped firing on the roof when Afghan soldiers arrived.
The 12 others killed included the two police officers, nine Afghan civilians, and one foreign national, Merzahi said.
Spain's news agency EFE reported it was a Spanish citizen, 48-year-old Antonio Planas, who was killed. Citing a family source, EFE said Planas, a pilot, leaves behind a wife and a daughter.
Two Special Operations Forces from New Zealand "received moderate injuries" in responding to the attack, the New Zealand military said.
A Taliban spokesman claimed the Taliban was behind the attack. "One of the suicide attackers told us on the phone that they are in the lobby and chasing guests into their rooms by smashing the doors of the rooms," Zabiullah Mujahid told CNN in an e-mail, as the incident was unfolding.
The Haqqani network, based in Pakistan's North Waziristan frontier, is believed to be closely allied to the Taliban.
The network has staged many spectacular attacks in Kabul in recent years and has the longstanding goal of trying to destabilize the Karzai government. "Confidence is high" in the information that the Haqqanis were behind the attack, the Kabul-based official said.
The attackers wore suicide belts, the official said.
While NATO helped Afghan police and military end the attack, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said it will not interrupt the planned handover of power from international forces to Afghan troops.
ISAF sent a similar message, praising "the rapid response by Afghan security forces who cleared the building and secured the situation."
"This attack will do nothing to prevent the security transition process from moving forward," said Rear Adm. Vic Beck, ISAF spokesman. U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has said U.S. troops will start withdrawing from Afghanistan in July, and that a military handover should be completed in 2014.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the dead and injured," Beck said in a statement. He added, "Even though insurgents have declared their intention to avoid civilian casualties, this attack put Afghan lives at risk and demonstrates their complete disregard for the Afghan people."
Karzai condemned the "terrorists" who "have no mercy on killings of civilians."
The attack came on the eve of a news conference that was scheduled to take place at the hotel Wednesday to discuss the planned transition of security from international to Afghan forces that U.S. President Barack Obama announced last week.
The news conference was canceled, and the hotel remained closed Wednesday.
Afghan authorities said they believe the attackers crept up through woods near the hotel to evade police checkpoints on the main road.
One attacker detonated a suicide vest in the lobby, causing chaos, officials said. At least five accomplices then stormed upstairs, ultimately making it to the roof.
Afghan commandos were among those who arrived shortly after, officials said.
About five hours later, a NATO helicopter carrying snipers fired on the roof. A U.S. Blackhawk helicopter carried the ISAF snipers, two coalition military officials told CNN. While ISAF has not given the nationality of the snipers, two coalition military officials told CNN they were not from the United States. Afghan troops also made it to the roof, officials said.
Erin Cunningham, a journalist for The Daily in Kabul, said that during the siege, rocket-propelled grenades were launched from the roof of the hotel toward the first vice president's house. A few moments later, the hotel was rocked by three explosions, one of which knocked her off her feet, Cunningham said. U.S. forces were on the scene, she added.
At about 3 a.m., ISAF said, Afghan security forces had cleared the roof and were clearing the rest of the hotel.
"The last suicide attacker was killed at around 7 a.m. during the search operation," Interior Ministry spokesman Siddiq Siddiqi said.
There were no indications that U.S. military or diplomatic personnel were staying at the hotel, U.S. officials told CNN.
While members of the Afghan National Security Forces were on the scene, the city police took the lead, ISAF Maj. Jason Waggoner said in a statement. Waggoner said ISAF forces provided "some limited assistance."
The United States condemned the attack, with State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland saying it "once again demonstrates the terrorists' complete disregard for human life."
The hotel was developed by the InterContinental Hotels Group and opened in 1969. But the hotel has had no association with the group since the Soviet invasion in 1979. It continues to use the name and logo without connection to the parent company.
The attack came a day after representatives from more than 50 counties attended a two-day International Contact Group conference in Kabul, according to Janan Mosazai, spokesman for the minister of Foreign Affairs.
He said "the role of neighboring countries in Afghan peace efforts, security handover, peace talks and strategic partnership between Afghanistan and the international community beyond 2014 were discussed in this conference."
The incident also came on the same day that Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell announced that NATO and other members of the international community involved in Afghanistan have decided to increase the number of security forces in the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police to 352,000.
The current number of Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police is about 300,000, the commander of the NATO training mission in Afghanistan and commanding general of the Combined Security Transition Command told the Atlanta Press Club.
The increased number will be sufficient to give the Afghans security without coalition forces having to do it, he said.
Tuesday's attack stirred memories of the January 2008 attack at the Serena Hotel in Kabul, which killed seven people. The Taliban also claimed responsibility for that attack.
CNN's Reza Sayah in Islamabad, Pakistan; Matiullah Mati in Kabul; Barbara Starr, Larry Shaughnessy and Elise Labott in Washington; and journalists Jerome Starkey, Fazel Reshad and Jonathan Boone in Kabul contributed to this report.Whether you've decided to go Paleo (2.0), get into an exercise habit, or do anything else that involves changing your life for the better, "crabs" are bound to rear their ugly little heads.
And I don't mean "those" crabs.
I mean the "crabs" who act like your friend when everybody's miserable, but when push comes to shove, they would rather see you fail than succeed, wither rather than thrive, and settle for mediocrity rather than brilliance.
So, in the tradition of Aesop, I'd like to share with you the story of "The Crab Bucket".
THE STORY OF THE CRAB BUCKET
One time a man was walking along the beach and say another man fishing in the surf with a bait bucket beside him. As he drew closer, he saw that the bait bucket had no lid and had live crabs inside.
"Why don't you cover your bait bucket so the crabs won't escape?", he said.
"You don't understand.", the man replied, "If there is one crab in the bucket it would surely crawl out very quickly. However, when there are many crabs in the bucket, if one tries to crawl up the side, the others grab hold of it and pull it back down so that it will share the same fate as the rest of them."
-Anon
Moral of the story: Don't let "crabs" drag you down. Be your best self, face the fear, and climb out of the bucket.
FED is a community supported effort and you can help by making your Amazon.com purchases of Paleo/Primal books, Vibram Five Fingers, grass-fed meat, and other items through the official LIVECAVEMAN! store. There is no extra cost to you and you'll be doing your part to keep this blog free and full of recipes, fun foods, information, pictures, and much much more!
Moral of the story: Don't let "crabs" drag you down. Be your best self, face the fear, and climb out of the bucket.
About Tony Fed Tony is the host of the Paleo Magazine Radio podcast, author of "Paleo Grilling: A Modern Caveman's Guide to Cooking with Fire", and Cofounder of Powerful PT, an innovative information resource for Fitness Professionals. He has appeared on numerous local and national television and radio broadcasts and regularly hosts healthy cooking workshops and informational lectures. He is also a full-time Personal Trainer and Wellness Consultant who lives in Jacksonville Florida with his wife Jamie.[Stats] Data from 8.25 - 8.29
# How to read the graphs
- Orange indicates victory rate; black indicates 2nd placement rate; and light gray indicates 3rd to 5th placement rate.
- “Played” shows who emerges as the victor the most often. Hyunwoo is the most frequent victor among all ranks.
- “Win Rates” shows who performed well the most consistently. Jenny has the highest victory rate among all ranks.
- Among all ranks, Jenny is the most reliable option for gaining rank points as indicated by her gray bar (which shows how often she places above the 5th place).
- Above Lion, Jenny is the most reliable option for gaining rank points as indicated by his black bar (which shows how often he places above the 2nd place).
# All Ranked Matches
# Ranked Matches from Lion to above
# Aptitudes
With the Aptitudes rework, it might be worth sharing this data as well. Bread Seeking is the most popular Aptitude, but Accelerate might help you win more often.WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- American International Group is set to pay $450 million of bonuses to employees of the unit that was largely responsible for the New York insurer's near collapse last fall.
The decision to pay bonuses elicited howls of protest in Washington, which has prevented the failure of AIG by providing the insurer with more than $173 billion in aid. The federal government now owns 80% of AIG AIG, +0.07%
Larry Summers, one of President Barack Obama's top economic advisers, called the payments "outrageous," and a key House lawmaker, Barney Frank, D.-Mass., told Fox News that the government should examine whether the bonuses are "legally recoverable."
Another Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D.-Md., renewed his call for AIG Chief Executive Edward Liddy to resign.
Liddy, in a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner dated Saturday, said AIG had committed to paying the bonuses to employees of the financial-products unit and that they were "binding obligations" the company cannot legally rescind. The first payments are due March 15.
"I do not like these arrangements and find it distasteful and difficult to recommend to you that we must proceed with them," wrote Liddy, citing the recommendation from the insurer's legal counsel.
The payments to 400 employees of the financial-services unit -- some of whom no longer work at the insurer -- were promised last year before the federal government bailout. Bonuses range from as little as $1,000 to as much as $6.5 million.
Summers said the government would examine its options, but he acknowledged it might not be able to terminate prior bonus agreements.
"We are a country of law. There are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts," he said in an interview Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
AIG is already scheduled to pay $121.5 million in incentive payments for 2008 to senior executives and 6,400 of its employees. And AIG is laying out another $619 million for 2009 in retention payments to more than 4,000 employees.
Total expected payments amount to almost $1.2 billion.
Regarding future incentive payments Liddy told Geithner the company cannot retain its best employees if their compensation is subject to "continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury." If AIG loses its best employees, he indicated, it would make it harder for the company to recover and help the government recoup its investment.
Liddy also pointed out he won't receive a bonus and that the company cut bonus payments for it senior executives. The top 25 executives in the financial-product unit, moreover, have agreed to accept a salary of just $1 for the rest of 2009, his letter said.
AIG nearly collapsed under the weight of contracts that the financial-products units sold to protect other institutions against losses from securities backed by subprime mortgages.
Since so many financial firms around the world were insured by AIG, the failure of the firm could deal a devastating blow to the global financial system, Treasury and Federal Reserve officials say in justifying the most expensive bailout ever.Nahom ()[1] is a place referenced in the Book of Mormon ( ) as one of the stops on the Old World segment of Lehi's journey. This location is referred to as the place where Ishmael is laid to rest. It was also at this location that the path of Lehi's journey changed from a southern to an eastern direction before continuing toward the coast and the land ( ) Bountiful. (See Archaeology and the Book of Mormon.)
Some LDS archaeologists believe that they have located the site of Nahom as a settlement and tribal area known anciently and still today as "NHM" (see below). Critics doubt the link between Nahom and NHM, as well as having other criticisms.
Nahom in the Book of Mormon [ edit ]
In, Lehi receives the Liahona and his group departs from the Valley of Lemuel. After traveling for four days in "nearly a south-southeast direction" they make camp in a place they name "Shazer." They continue to travel in the "same direction" for "many days" with the Liahona as a guide ( ). Verses 34 and 35 |
hospital after my surgery. I got pneumonia in the hospital and was in the hospital for over 3 weeks. I was on a ventilator for a week. Got kidney failure which required two rounds of dialysis. My kidneys were normal before this. It was the scariest time of my life, but I came through.
Having RNY/Gastric Bypass saved my life. Now I feel incredible! I feel younger, no pains and can do the littlest tasks with ease, like tying my shoes. If I had to, I would do it all again just to feel this amazing!
Thanks BariMelts for letting me share my story!
Join the #WeAreBariMelts Challenge and get a FREE sample pack plus a chance to win a 90-Day supply of vitamins from BariMelts! Click here for more details.
Share your WLS story with us on Instagram @BariMelts #WeAreBariMelts
Save this article for later by pinning the article below!(Ed. Note - Please give CSR’s newest contributor Billy Marshall a warm welcome. He’s going to be doing some film review pieces for us for now, and later this year he will join forces with durst to form our NFL Draft Coverage Tag Team Champions. You can follow him on Twitter at @BillyM_91)
Former Panthers general manager Dave Gettleman was criticized during his tenure for rarely investing in the offensive line. So it was satisfying to see him draft Taylor Moton in the 2nd round of the 2017 draft. I was a big fan of his game at Western Michigan.
Moton’s first performance in the black and blue did not disappoint. He transitioned between left guard and right tackle.
Trai Turner’s recent contract extension has led many to assume that this will be Andrew Norwell’s final season. Don’t tell him that. He handled J.J Watt in one of his few reps.
Moton replaced Norwell at left guard when the starters came out. He showed off his athleticism on an outside zone run. Despite initially missing on the defensive tackle, Moton does well to recover and seal the backside.
Nice reach block and recovery by Moton on this stretch pic.twitter.com/3PpDHzlnmq — Billy (@BillyM_91) August 10, 2017
Moton’s length allows him to execute this reach block on another outside zone.
McCaffrey can beat you in space. Good run blocking on the outside zone pic.twitter.com/QPPksYiDbK — Billy (@BillyM_91) August 10, 2017
In addition to his work on zone runs, Moton exhibits his strengths on power run concepts too. He does a fine job pulling across the formation to pancake the defensive tackle.
LG Moton pancakes the Texans DT on the pull pic.twitter.com/IA4RM8GK1R — Billy (@BillyM_91) August 10, 2017
Finally, Moton did well enough in pass protection at left guard. He fires off the snap to push the tackle away from the pocket.
Pretty dumb throw by Webb. Never lead your WR into contact like this pic.twitter.com/2Z6HsJ8Xll — Billy (@BillyM_91) August 10, 2017
Moton played exclusively at right tackle during his final season at Western Michigan. It’s no shock that he looked like a natural last night, even though he was facing 2nd and 3rd team defenders.
Moton understands leverage and hand placement. He kick slides into his stance, but digs into the ground. This allows him to limit the edge rusher’s path to the quarterback.
More solid pass pro by Moton. This time at RT pic.twitter.com/1zDzi7VBF6 — Billy (@BillyM_91) August 10, 2017
An area where Moton could improve at right tackle are reach blocks on outside zone runs. His lateral movement is fine, but he needs to locate a target to block.
Needs to find a target and hit it more cleanly on this outside zone pic.twitter.com/6WJIKfCu1M — Billy (@BillyM_91) August 10, 2017
Moton had an encouraging debut. Let’s hope he continues to progress.
- Footage courtesy of NFL.comJust when you thought you’d heard it all in the debt ceiling debate.
Friday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee gave her assessment of the debate. The reason Republicans aren’t negotiating and aren’t willing to compromise on the debt ceiling, she said, is because of Obama’s race. (Congressional bosses from Hell: Sheila Jackson Lee)
“I am particularly sensitive to the fact that only this president, only this president, only this one has received the kind attacks and disagreements and inability to work,” she said. “Only this one.”
Jackson Lee acknowledged that Republicans have a majority in the House, and that it means sometimes Democrats will lose fights in the Congress. “It’s all right to agree or disagree on the balanced budget amendment. It’s all right to talk about how we’re going to appropriate … It’s all right to have that disagreement, that’s the give and take of democracy.”
But it wasn’t long before she pulled the race card back out. “I do not understand what I think is the maligning and maliciousness [directed at] this president. Why is he different? And in my community, that is the question that we raise. In the minority community, that is the question that is being raised. Why is this president being treated so disrespectfully?”
The representative then took a swipe at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), implying that his talk about making sure President Obama is a one-term president has to do with race: “Why does the leader of the Senate continually talk about [how] his job is to bring the president down, to make sure he’s unelected? It’s 2011, it’s not 2012, you need to play those politics in 2012, not now.”
RealClearPolitics.com has video of Jackson Lee’s floor speech here.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Aug. 16, 2017, 7:57 PM GMT / Updated Aug. 16, 2017, 8:24 PM GMT By Dartunorro Clark
A federal court nullified two of Texas’ 36 congressional districts Tuesday, unanimously ruling that they were drawn with the intent to weaken minority voting power in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.
Hispanic voters in one county in the state's 27th Congressional District, which includes Corpus Christi, “were intentionally deprived of their opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice,” the three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas wrote in a 107-page ruling.
The court also called the 35th Congressional District, which includes parts of San Antonio and Austin, an “impermissible racial gerrymander.”
However, the court sided with the state with regard to other districts, ruling there was no evidence of “intentional discrimination/dilution” in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Houston or the 23rd Congressional District.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, left, with his chief of staff Bernie McNamee, right, waits to testify during a Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearing on Planned Parenthood videos covertly recorded that target the abortion provider, on July 29, in Austin, Texas. Eric Gay / AP
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the ruling “puzzling” because “the legislature adopted the congressional map the same court itself adopted in 2012, and the Obama-era Department of Justice did not bring any claims against the map.”
“We appreciate that the panel ruled in favor of Texas on many issues in the case,” Paxton said in a statement Tuesday. “We look forward to asking the Supreme Court to decide whether Texas had discriminatory intent when relying on the district court.”
The suit was brought in 2011 by several Texas voters, Democratic and minority lawmakers along with several advocacy groups, including the NAACP, the Mexican American Legislative Caucus and the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Related: Supreme Court to Consider Case on Partisan Gerrymandering
The plaintiffs claimed the Texas state legislature created a gerrymandered map in 2011, which diluted minority representation following the 2010 U.S. Census.
The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and the legislature scrapped its re-drawing plans. The court, at that time, then scrambled to create interim maps ahead of the 2012 elections amid the legal battle over redistricting.
The state legislature then formally adopted the court-drawn map in 2013, which has been used in the past three election cycles.
But, the court argued, the maps were “enacted without a full review of the facts or the law” and carry over “the racially discriminatory intent and effects” of the 2011 legislative map plan.
“The discriminatory taint was not removed by the legislature’s enactment of the court’s interim plans, because the legislature engaged in no deliberative process to remove any such taint,” the judges said in the ruling. “Defendants knew that most plaintiffs would maintain claims against the interim plans if adopted, despite the changes, and that such challenges might indicate that further changes to the maps were required.”
“The court clearly warned that its preliminary conclusions…were not based on a full examination of the record or the governing law and were subject to revision,” the judges added.
Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa looks out from the stage after speaking at the Texas Democratic Convention in Dallas on June 27, 2014. LM Otero / AP file
Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa celebrated the ruling in a statement Tuesday, saying that before the decision, state Republicans “politically profited from discrimination.”
“Republicans initiated a deceitful legal strategy to deliberately silence Texans from having a voice in their own government,” he said.
Paxton, the attorney general, has three business days from Tuesday to file an advisory stating whether the state legislature will redraw the maps.
If the state legislature does address the court's issues, there will be a hearing September 5 and both parties will have to consult with experts and map-drawers to fix the "violations" found in the two districts, the judges said, but must also “minimize the effect on adjoining districts.”Israel could become an apartheid state without the creation of a Palestinian state, former South African leader F.W. de Klerk said on Israeli television.
De Klerk, the last president in his country under apartheid, said in an interview on Israel’s Channel 2 this week that it was “unfair” to call Israel an apartheid state now.
In Israel to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Haifa, de Klerk said Israel may have to contend with one state for two peoples.
“The test will be does everybody living then in such a unitary state, will everybody have full political rights?” he said. “Will everybody enjoy their full human rights? If they will, it’s not an apartheid state.
De Klerk added, “There will come in Israel a turning point where if the main obstacles at the moment which exist to a successful two-state solution are not removed, the two-state solution will become impossible.”
Critics of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians have increasingly called Israel an apartheid state, comparing it to South Africa’s apartheid regime. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry invoked the term in a conversation made public in April.
De Klerk, who won the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with South Africa’s first black president, Nelson Mandela, urged Israeli leaders, “See the window of opportunity. Jump through it. It might close.”
Israel is different than apartheid South Africa, de Klerk stressed, since “you have Palestinians living in Israel with full political rights.” He also said, “You don’t have discriminatory laws against them, I mean not letting them swim on certain beaches or anything like that. I think it’s unfair to call Israel an apartheid state. If Kerry did so, I think he made a mistake.”
This story "South African Leader F.W. De Klerk Warns Israel on 'Apartheid' Danger" was written by JTA.There’s been a lot of crying out there over how this summer was the worst in 11 years, logging an estimated $3.78 billion. But there is a positive takeaway from this mess: Moviegoing habits aren’t broken. That’s right.
The lack of an August marquee title in the spirit of last year’s Suicide Squad has slowed the annual box office by 6%, with $7.6B compared to the same eight-month period in 2016. But many say if we were down in the double-digits annually, it would greatly indicate that audiences have abandoned moviegoing. Another promising sign, and more telling about the strength of moviegoing, is that the foreign B.O. is +3% over 2016 with $18.1 billion, according to ComScore. Even with the currency exchanges hurting us, and the fact that we’re getting fewer dollars out of Asia and Europe for the same ticket price, Hollywood films are still beating last year’s running international B.O., and that’s very good.
Also, realize the following: before summer started, the 2017 domestic B.O. was up close to 4% over 2016 with a running B.O. of $3.8 billion. By the start of May, we had one March release approaching $500M (Beauty and the Beast), two titles at (or nearing) $200M-plus (Logan, Fate of the Furious); and a total 12 titles that cracked past $100M, 13 if you include the $123.9M residual that Disney’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story generated in the calendar year.
New Line
To think that people went in droves to the movies for the first four months of this year and then changed their moviegoing habits immediately just doesn’t make sense. Couple this with the realization that New Line/Warner Bros.’ It is coming out next weekend, and all the moviegoers who’ve been gone since Dunkirk opened ($50.5M) are expected to return and spend even more on the Stephen King title, an estimated $60M-$66M.
Exhibitors, who’ve seen their share prices drop over the summer, can take hope in the fact that the last quarter of this year can feasibly make up for any deficit of this summer, with premium titles like Justice League, Thor: Ragnarok, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi in the mix.
With It, Warner Bros.’ Lego’s Ninjago and Kingsman: The Golden Circle, this September could see three titles open to $40M+, a feat that the month has never delivered before in any given year. Schools in session an obstacle? Audiences distracted with fall-time activities? Feh! The theatrical business hasn’t lost to in-home streaming services and 70″ 4K televisions just yet.
It’s an age-old excuse, but, yes, blame this summer’s box office depression on too many tired tentpoles that underperformed. That’s what happens in a product-driven business. But here are some other lessons to be learned from the last four months:
1) Know when your franchise is tapped out, and when to reboot. We’ve overwritten about franchise fatigue ever since Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales opened below industry expectations, but what really weighed down the summer box office was the crowd of franchises delivering their Nth series titles, and using the same tricks, i.e. Alien: Covenant, Pirates 5 and Transformers: The Last Knight. Sources cite China and burgeoning cinematic markets like Brazil as reasons why the majors could get away in delivering lazy, hacky sequels.
Sony
Even though The Amazing Spider-Man 2 churned a $70M-plus profit off a $708M global take, Sony and former studio chief-turned producer Amy Pascal were smart enough to realize that they needed to resuscitate the brand to keep it going; the 2014 sequel earned a low B+ CinemaScore and 52% Rotten Tomatoes score. Partnering with the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe was a win-win situation and the B.O. figures speak for themselves: Spider-Man: Homecoming was the studio’s second highest opening at the domestic B.O. ($117M), its fourth highest grossing title stateside (with close to $324M). Spidey can look forward to another life generation-wise, but the hill is that much steeper for Pirates, Transformers, and Alien. If studios are to reboot a franchise, think Logan: Keep it cheap, and take chances.
Paramount
Unlike Sony, Paramount couldn’t see the forest for the trees, which is why they went ahead with another Transformers movie after the 2014 film grossed $1.1 billion worldwide with an estimated $250M+ profit. To the Melrose Lot, Michael Bay’s sense of Transformers was still very much alive, even with a leading man reset in Mark Wahlberg. Not until a film hits the ground does a studio realize a fix is needed, and finance sources inform us that with Last Knight‘s reported production cost of $217M and a global take of $604M, it’s generating a small loss.
Still, no writers’ room could solve the CGI crash-bang-boom ennui of The Last Knight. Paramount hopes that the Transformers spinoff Bumblebee rejuvenates the series, but good luck with that, as the film is up against Warner Bros./DC/James Wan’s Aquaman on Dec. 21, 2018. Various reasons plagued old and even potential franchises this summer: The Mummy (novice director), Alien: Covenant (Prometheus sequel? It’s another monster chase scene), and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (Warner Bros. ham-fisting a movie together with a helmer known for flash over substance).
Warner Bros.
2) Program a four-quad movie during the first weekend of August. An unwritten rule among the majors moving forward is that nothing less than a four-quad movie should occupy the first slot in August. We’ve known for some time prior to Guardians of the Galaxy that the weekend works, so put a big movie there, just like Marvel owns the first weekend in May. Following the July 21 opening of Dunkirk, no other title during the last six weekends of summer opened to more than $50.5M. After Alien: Covenant departed that date, many think Luc Besson’s Valerian should have moved in. The Luc Besson film was broken goods no matter what spot it took on the calendar. And fresh IP like The Dark Tower ($19.1M) isn’t the answer for the first weekend of August. Disney is sitting on the date next year with an untitled live-action fairy tale, and they’re confident they have the goods.
Warner Bros.
3) The Director is the Star. Moviegoers can sniff out good directors who can spin a yarn. Period films outside of awards season are a challenge, and no one could predict months in advance that Dunkirk (current B.O. $179.2M, a 3.5x multiple) would do better than War for the Planet of the Apes ($144.6M), Pirates 5 ($172M) or for that matter The Mummy ($80M). A lot of Dunkirk‘s success can be attributed to Christopher Nolan’s name-getting fans in seats, not to mention his pics leg out. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 helmer James Gunn is continually engaging fans on social, and Patty Jenkins is a name that many female moviegoers will never forget as they made Wonder Woman the highest grossing title of the summer ($810M) and the record-holder for the top grossing live action title directed by a woman. Meanwhile, the masses after Baby Driver ($105.8M) have discovered something that fanboys always knew: How brilliantly entertaining and avant garde Edgar Wright is.
4) The R-Rated comedy is broken. Universal’s R-rated female party hardy film Girls Trip is the only comedy to work this year ($112M), hooking African American females. Action comedies like The Hitman’s Bodyguard is a different hybrid as the genre appeals to a broad swatch of demos. But there are several star-studded R-rated corpses: Scarlett Johansson and Kate McKinnon in Rough Night, Amy Poehler and Will Ferrell in The House, Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron in Baywatch, and Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn in Snatched. Says ComScore Senior Media Analyst Paul Dergarabedian, “R-rated Comedies aren’t the antidote. Not any more, until they killed the golden goose with a bunch of terrible films. They were derivative and exploitative. Doing a poor imitation of The Hangover, Superbad, Bridesmaids or Neighbors, that’s a genre killer. It’s time to get more creative. Audiences don’t want to pay for the same R-rated film over and over again, they’re tired of it.” Meanwhile, studio executives aren’t sweating the downturn: Those who’ve made comedies relentless believe that we’re just in a lull with the genre; a great one will rise again.
5) Watch for signs of a disconnect between critics & audiences.
20th Century Fox
Yes, continue to blame sour Rotten Tomato scores for curbing ticket sales: Genres and action popcorn films that were once reviewer resistant, no longer are. The Mummy ($80M) — a Tom Cruise film — may not have been hurt as much back in the 1990s when it was harder to keep a pulse on which way the critical winds were blowing.
“People are choosing their movies the way they choose a toaster – how many stars did it get or what percentage score did it earn as a barometer of quality. For better or worse it’s a way of assessing the value of a work of art by using basically the same shorthand method of assessment,” adds Dergarabedian.
Some might argue that certain poorly reviewed movies beat their Rotten Tomatoes score, i.e. Emoji Movie, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, and The Dark Tower. A response to that is: Imagine how much better the box office would have been had those RT scores been higher.
Sony
Some studios aimed to finesse their Rotten Tomatoes scores, taking their films to genre-and-fan specific festivals where they could rally. Read: Universal with Get Out at Sundance, Sony with Baby Driver at SXSW and New Line with Annabelle: Creation at the L.A. Film Festival. After earning a 100% RT score for Baby Driver, Sony leveraged its marketing to set a positive tenor in this pack rat era of critics. We’re seeing this now with New Line’s It: Warner Bros. served up early screenings, and the great word has been leaking out over Twitter. RelishMix reports that #ITmovie has been tracking on average 4,500 hashtags per day over the last 4 days ago, doubling from just 2,000 a week ago. Tuesday saw a very noticeable spike to 9,762. The generic #IT is also clocking 12,562 hashtags.
20th Century Fox
But there was a divide between critics and great B.O. ticket sales when it came to certified fresh wide releases, i.e. Logan Lucky (93%, $22M), War for the Planet of the Apes (93%), Atomic Blonde (75%, $49.5M) and Alien: Covenant (70%, $74.3M). Now, the thing about a Rotten Tomatoes score is that it organically favors auteurs. But when Matt Reeves’ War and Ridley Scott’s Alien respectively dropped 63% and 71% in weekend 2, it was clear audiences weren’t happy about what they were seeing.
“I got a suggestion for how to handle Hollywood’s problem with Rotten Tomatoes,” says one distribution chief firmly.
“Make better movies.”
Below are the top 12 movies of summer 2017 for the period of May 5-Sept. 4:Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world
We’ve all read the grisly stories of parents throwing their children out of their homes, disowning them simply for their sexuality or gender.
Some of you will have even experienced it.
But it’s not all bad – there are parents out there who don’t just tolerate LGBT pride, but celebrate it, replete in rainbows as they support their kids in the way all parents should.
They should be loved and treasured – so that’s exactly what we’re going to do here.
Just look at this proud dad
As if my dad could be a better parent, he marched with the "proud parents" at the #LGBT pride parade in Gothenburg in support of my sis?️? pic.twitter.com/laorxE6QdD — Joella Skoogh (@joellaskoogh) June 10, 2017
All parents should be like this
Went to SLC Pride today with my parents?️???️? pic.twitter.com/a9GK6Lofj5 — ✨Skeetzybug✨ (@Skeetzybug) June 5, 2017
*Cries*
My parents really had rainbow Pride flowers delivered to me I'm crying???? pic.twitter.com/Bje19uOtn9 — Anna Wiese (@AnnaWiese1) June 12, 2017
This is the same wonderful mother, first in the 70s…
And then with the same sign, three decades later.
This special photo was taken in 1974, just five years after the Stonewall riots
It’s all about support…
Because look how happy it makes the kids.
Seriously, though.
This is special.
Hell yes he is.
Look at the love!
The joy!
The unabashed celebration of your kid!
The more parents who accept and celebrate their kids for who they are, the better the world becomes.
Thanks, mum.
Thanks, dad.
And thank you to all the parents out there who would support their kid to the ends of the earth.Officially called the “NI-Tele Really BIG Clock,” four or five times a day this wacked-out symphonic mega-machine spins, dances, whirs and clanks. And as a side gig, it also tells the time.
The giant clock is in the Shiodome section of Tokyo, at the Nittele Tower (headquarters of Nippon Television). It was designed by Hayao Miyazaki, the renowned director and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, and while it’s not exactly drawn from his 2004 film Howl’s Moving Castle, it’s been likened to the aesthetic of the anime classic.
The clock is huge: over 20 tons of copper and steel, three stories high and 60 feet wide. Besides chiming out the time, there are over 30 mechanical vignettes at appointed hours, including cannons, a couple of blacksmiths, a wheel spinner, boiling teapot and two bell-headed piston crankers. They all move in a delicate and industrious ballet, some reminiscent of a cuckoo clock and others like 19th century tin toys.
The clock springs to life four times on Monday to Friday, with an extra show on Saturdays and Sundays. Each performance begins about four minutes ahead of the hour, and you can see it from many different spots around the Nippon TV tower. But get as close as you can so you can really see the detail. Anime fan or not, Miyazaki’s clock is crazy with detail.Obamacare in action…
A California couple contacted ABC News 10 after they received a voter registration card from Covered California marked for the Democratic Party.
ABC 10 News reported:
A local couple called 10News concerned after they received an envelope from the state’s Obamacare website, Covered California. Inside was a letter discussing voter registration and a registration card pre-marked with an “x” in the box next to Democratic Party.
The couple – who did not want their identity revealed – received the letter and voter registration card from their health insurance provider Covered California, the state-run agency that implements President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
They have lived in La Mesa for years and they have always been registered to vote Republican. Now, they are perplexed as to how the voter registration card pre-marked Democrat ended up in their mailbox.
“I’m an old guy and I never would have noticed it, except I have an accountant that notices every dot and dash on a piece of paper as a wife,” said the man who received the mailer.
Covered California began mailing out voter signup cards to nearly 4 million enrollees last week after being threatened with a lawsuit by voting rights groups. But that does not explain the pre-filled out voter registration card.Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter Bob Gale have teamed with Universal Stage Prods., producer Colin Ingram and Amblin Entertainment to turn 1985 time-travel comedy “Back to the Future” into a stage musical.
Zemeckis, who directed the pic, and original screenwriter Gale will collaborate with theater helmer Jamie Lloyd to pen the book to the tuner, which will have original music by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard augmenting songs from the movie by acts including Huey Lewis and the News and Chuck Berry. Lloyd, whose London stage credits include the musical version of “The Commitments” and the James McAvoy-toplined revival of “Macbeth,” will helm “Back to the Future,” aiming for a West End berth in 2015, the 30th anniversary of the movie’s release.
Universal Stage Prods. has a hand in theater-world blockbusters “Wicked” and “Billy Elliot,” while Ingram produced the musical version of “Ghost” (which had songs co-written by “Jagged Little Pill” co-writer and producer Ballard). Donovan Mannato and CJ E&M also produce.
Silvestri has composed music for all of Zemeckis’ films beginning with “Romancing the Stone” in 1984 and including the three “Back to the Future” pics.
Design team for the tuner includes Soutra Gilmour (sets and costumes), Paul Kieve (illusions) and Jon Clark (lights). Andrew Willis scores the rare legit title of skateboard consultant.
Familiar storyline of the movie follows 80s teen Marty McFly, played in the film by Michael J. Fox, as he accidentally sends himself into the past and must struggle to get his parents together in order to ensure his own existence.
Exact dates, West End venue and potential Broadway plans for “Back to the Future” remain to be set.Review: Field of Glory II: Immortal Fire DLC By Bill Gray
Matrix Games has just recently issued its first DLC (Downloadable Content) for its Field of Glory II computer game, reusing the previous name Immortal Fire and covering the Persian Wars, the age of Alexander the Great and his Successors. Simultaneously, the Field of Glory 3.0 hardcopy, miniatures wargaming version released its counterpart but at a much steeper price. Here the shekel transfer is $33.25 US (or 25 GBP) vs $14.95 US. However, the cost is not the only thing that has endeared this video game to a LOT of pewter pushers like me.
So that being the case I thought a good look at the series’ first digital add on might be just the thing to explain why.
DLC Data Dump
Like most DLC, Immortal Fire is not a stand-alone game but rather an extension of the original software. In other words, you will need the Field of Glory II computer game to play Immortal Fire or any other subsequent DLC expansions. What this DLC does is extend the gameplay of the original game by providing a greater level of variety as regards combatants, battles and campaigns. Using these three categories, here is what you can expect to find in Immortal Fire.
As regards armies to game with, the DLC provides an additional eight factions that break out into 30 additional army lists on top of the one’s provided in the Rise of Rome era depicted in the base software. This brings the grand total to 105 different armies for players to lead into combat. Please note that this does not translate into 105 different nationalities, but include the military forces of a country during different times of its existence when troop types of weaponry changed. For example, there are three Carthaginian army lists, from 490 to 411 BC, then until 341 BC and finally concluding in 281 BC. All in all there are five Achaemenid Persian, three Carthaginian, four Greek or Kyrenean Greek, two Roman, two Macedonian (one for Philip and another for some upstart named Alexander), two Seleucid, two Spartan, two Etruscan, plus Antigonid, Lysimachid, Lydian, Latin, Skythian, Gallic, Syracusan and Thessalian. To support these new lists another 10 troop types have been added, to include the expected Persian Immortals, heavy bow cavalry and so on, as well as more exotic units such Persian camelry and Carthaginian chariots. This also means for both Custom Battles and Sandbox Campaigns, you now have 105 choices from which to choose.
And speaking of campaigns, this DLC comes with five, four historical and one “what if.” In the former category we have the Seven Hills of Rome campaign, plus campaigns covering the careers of Philip of Macedon, Seleukos I and Xenophon. The latter covers Alexander the Great had he lived, and though I’ve not gotten into it yet, I can see such things as his experimental mixed bow and pike Phalanx, and maybe determining once and for all which was better, Phalanx or Legion. Like most campaigns included with games that use the Battle Academy engine, these are not complicated, nerve racking adventures as might be found in other games such as those by AGEOD. The campaigns are light, simple and designed to do one thing – produce battles. Like miniature campaign systems, the primary function is that of a battle generator, and that similarity is important as we shall see.
The main attraction to me, however, was the addition of several more Epic (translation – Historical) Battles. These are Thymbra 547 BC, Marathon 490 BC (which looks nothing like 300, Birth of an Empire BTW), Plataea 479 BC, Cunaxa 401 BC, Chaironeia 338 BC, Granikos 334 BC, Issos 333 BC, Gaugamela 331 BC, Hydaspes 326 BC and Raphia 217 BC. All are playable from both sides and five follow the exploits of Alexander the Great. If you want to learn all about the game play particulars here, please check out my previous review on the mothership game. Otherwise, the game works as advertised, with exceptional graphics and elegant gameplay as only the Battle Academy engine can digitate. I was able to knock out a couple of games on Gaugamela (because if you go, you might as well go big) over the weekend and aside from the fact that the AI seems to hold a personal grudge against me, I had a lot of fun being merciful to my electron endowed opponent (ahem). I’m betting you will as well.
Why it matters in Lead Land
Bottom line, if you like Field of Glory II - and a LOT of people like Field of Glory II - you will love this latest addition. Pricing is very reasonable, the graphics great and the historical battles absolutely top notch. OK, sure the game still has the Hobbit hovels and Groot sprigs for forests, but I got over it because of all the big-time positives this game provides.
But I also think my captivation is especially due to my status as primarily a miniatures wargamer, though this may take some explaining. In lead and pewter realms, 95% of all Ancient and Medieval gaming is tournament based. This means small armies on small tables, created by use of a point system using complicated rules even when they are looked at as simple. Even though many of the rules sets used proclaim they can be used for larger and even historical battles, a quick thumb thru shows the primary focus to be tournament play. This could very well mean play between armies that did not even exist at the same time, because after all, 1500 points is 1500 points, even if it is Aztecs vs Achaemenid Persians (the Mexican lads with the obsidian weapons are no slouches, so be warned). It also means gamers who spend an inordinate amount of time with Excel and calculator trying to figure up the absolute best mixture of point based troop types to be invincible for 2 ½ hours.
What it does not mean are miniature games recreating historical Ancient battles. Yes there are a few, but the operative term is “few.” One of the big reasons is that very few Ancient and Medieval rules support that kind of play. I know of only one, 1991’s Ancient Empires: a Simulation of the Wars of Antiquity based on the old Empire Napoleonic system. It did not do well, so for those of us who would love to get into the era outside of tournament play, there was nothing. Until now.
Field of Glory II and Immortal Fire fill this gap bigtime. The games are easy to play, realistic and have what tournaments do not, historical battles and campaigns. Game play actually mimics miniatures and there are no figures to paint or tables to set. And when compared to the previous version of this game and module for the computer, the differences are astounding. This game and DLC have grown up to where the ever important visuals are very close to museum quality painted miniatures, 28 mm yet. Not quite equal, but damn close. Under the old hex based computer game, troop sprites were very bland to almost juvenile, with little animation and every figure in a unit looking the same. One might even say “cartoonish.”
In today’s rendition one has 3D figures, anatomically correct with accurate and detailed attire, and exceptional animation. One can’t help but notice the care that went into making this game look good. Units have within them soldiers with different pattern helmets, tunics and shields. A cavalry unit has different colored horse flesh while some troopers carry spear and others a war hammer (a real one, not the 40K variety). Shield patterns are intricate, detailed and vary within formations. The figures even lower pikes and charge, or otherwise shuffle around in formation, smoking, joking and making the best of “hurry up and wait” time. Dust is kicked up when moving and there are even shadows which saunter along with their owners as well. It’s what minis were meant to be, if there were only rules to support it.
Fortunately, this is no longer a requirement. I’ve mentioned the game within miniature groups on Facebook and |
,’ your name, given as a divine blessing…” I knew God would make this a worldwide church.
Our uniforms make us a signal community. Who we are and our message are embedded in the clothing. The uniforms put us at the forefront in any ecumenical gathering.
I adopted a principle to help in this field of soul-seeking: “Catch them young.” This seeks to bring children and youth into the church. And in a bid to mobilize women more efficiently we began the Pastors’ Women Association. Members meet with women at a grassroots level. They rotate meetings from one congregation to another. Wives of pastors from other denominations are joining.
At the recent wedding of Lagos Pastor John Nyah, four people from the wife’s family decided to become members.
They are now receiving pre-baptismal lessons.
I feel God is calling us at the right time and in the right direction to spread the good news. Truly, we are a worldwide church.
AdvertisementsWhat are those fences that line American highways? What do they do? Ron Tabler
In this high summer edition of our quest to dispel the mysteries of the modern visual landscape, we’re heading out west. For previous columns, click here; to submit your own suggestions, email us.
If you’ve ever traveled to Wyoming, lucky you. Here you can dodge geysers in America’s first National Park, traipse around America’s first National Monument, or shoot the breeze (and the neighbors) with the Cheneys. You could visit Cody, the town that Buffalo Bill helped found (it’s also the birthplace of Jackson Pollock). Or you can simply bask in the radiance of the first state—and the first constitution in the world—to explicitly grant women the right to vote. (Official nickname: The “Equality State.”)
Still, you’re probably here for the scenery. Wyoming’s beauty is its mountains, and its (very) High Plains. The state’s mean elevation is second only to Colorado’s, and the lowest point in Wyoming is loftier than the highest points of 17 states.
Then there’s what I remember most about my drive there years ago: the stunning emptiness. This is America’s least populated state, and, aside from Alaska, the least densely populated. Amid that emptiness are the roads, which—like the state’s borders, all four of which are lines of latitude or longitude—at least appear beautifully straight. These are roads that every American can take particular pride in: The state receives more federal dollars per capita than any other, again aside from Alaska.
On the sides of some of these great American byways, you may notice fence-like structures, shown above. What are they for?
You might reasonably think it has something to do with livestock. Wyoming’s state seal features a cowboy; the state flag bears a bison. And what you’re looking at is indeed a fence—but it’s not for ungulates.
It’s for snow. And if you drove down Interstate 80 in the winter, you can thank fences like these for helping keep the highway as clear as it probably was.
The coolest thing about snow fences, though? They’re not designed to “catch” blowing snow—in fact, they’re not really a barrier at all in the traditional sense. Instead, the slats of the fence slow down the wind as it passes through. And the wind then drops some of the snow it’s carrying.
This means that most of the fence-conjured snowdrift accumulates downwind of the snow fence—i.e. after the wind and snow have passed through. Neat, huh? (The good people at Iowa State can tell you everything you wanted to know about how snow fences work.)
Conditions at Wyoming I-80 Mile 208.8 before the construction of snow fences, left, and conditions at the same location as they have appeared for 31 years after building snow fences. Courtesy of Government Engineering Journal
Snow fences have lots of uses in wintry, windy places. They can protect railway lines and airports (like Denver’s). Ski resorts can use them to gather snow, and ranchers can lock in a spring water supply. There are “natural” snow fences, of vegetation—and sand fences, too, that use the same principle to control blowing sand.
Snow fences have an ancient history; one of the earliest may have been at Stonehenge. But in America, the modern history of the snow fence is particularly tied to Wyoming, and to one road, I-80, and to one man: Ron Tabler. I’d be surprised if anyone has had a longer list of snow-related publications. Tabler died in 2010, but his son, Ed Tabler, filled me in on his father’s long quest to save the money, time, and lives of motorists.
Ron Tabler
When I-80 opened through Laramie, it was a treacherous stretch of road in the winter; accidents were common, as were fatalities…it often had to be closed. It became known as the Snow Chi Minh Trail. It was so infamous that state politicians were lobbying to have the highway permanently closed and relocated.
My dad became fixated on the science of blowing and drifting snow. He studied everything from particle physics to evaporation. He modeled how snow drifted behind bushes, concrete blocks, wooden posts, you name it. He built miniature snow fences with different heights, bottom gaps, porosities, and placements. He then developed equations that would predict the shape and size of snow drifts. Much like a storm chaser, whenever the weather turned ugly, he’d hop into his Suburban and drive into the storm, taking road temperature data and video.
How effective are snow fences? First of all, they reduce snow clearance costs by keeping snow off highways. According to data from 2005, traditional snow removal can cost about $3 per 2,200 pounds, while a 4-foot-high snow fence can catch 8,400 pounds of snow for each foot of length. Plowing, of course, needs to be repeated, while a snow fence, properly maintained, will keep on working. One early ’90s study put the cost of plowing snowdrifts in windy areas at around 100 times the cost of snow fences.
Snow fence Ron Tabler
Snow fences also reduce the need for sanding and salting. Blowing snow is a big cause of ice on roads, because it melts onto surfaces that have been cleared, stealing the solar heat such surfaces may have absorbed during the day. (Road surfaces protected by snow fences routinely stay about 15 degrees warmer than unprotected roads.) Snow fences also cut down on road maintenance: Snow damages roads by blocking drainage, and salt and plows damage roads further.
But the best reason to invest in snow fences is that they save lives. A lot of this comes down to improved visibility, because snow fences keep snow from blowing across roads. When snow fences were installed on sections of Interstate 80, the portion of accidents that occurred in blowing snow dropped from 25 percent to 11 percent. Snow fences also keep roads clear of snow, ice, and slush, which further reduces accidents. In fact, snow fences easily passed a cost-benefit analysis based solely on accident reduction, without even factoring in savings from snow clearance and road maintenance.
So there you go. Wherever you’re next going in Wyoming, whether to the Cheneys (careful!) for Thanksgiving, or for Yellowstone in the winter, keep an eye out for snow fences. They’re a monument, as Ed Tabler eloquently put it, “to good engineering and lives saved.” And, I’d add, to his father.
Until then, if you spy something mysterious out there looming through the sultry August haze, send a pic and description to whatisthat@markvr.com.
Another snow fence, minus the snow Ron Tabler
Previously in What’s That Thing?
Doorway Symbols
Tin Foil Secret
U-Shaped Toilet Seats
City Steam
Lump on a Wire
Convenience Store Strips
Wall Socket Buttons
Elevator S Button
Dashboard Arrow
Mysterious WiresImage: AT&T, via CNET
AT&T's bid to enter the European market may stumble if the networking giant cannot provide strict guarantees that European data will not leave the 28 member state bloc.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, citing European officials, the ongoing U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance scandal may put a dampener on any attempt for the American giant to enter the new market, given its past cooperation with the intelligence agency's data-collection program.
Read this PRISM: Here's how the NSA wiretapped the Internet The National Security Agency's "PRISM" program is able to collect, in realtime, intelligence not limited to social networks and email accounts. But the seven tech companies accused of opening 'back doors' to the spy agency could well be proven innocent. Read More
One of the major concerns is that AT&T may be a conduit to siphon off vast amounts of European citizens' data back to the U.S., where it can be inspected and analyzed by intelligence agencies.
In 2006, privacy groups sued the networking giant after a staff technician blew the whistle on Room 641A, a secret room in a San Francisco, California, that allegedly routed Internet traffic in order for the NSA to collect data.
The case was dismissed in 2009 by a federal judge.
While AT&T has yet to make a formal bid to expand its network across the Atlantic, recent reports have suggested the company may be mulling a bid to take over a European cellular network — either in the U.K. or in The Netherlands — as early as the first half of next year.
Europe is particularly aggrieved by the U.S. surveillance scandal. European politicians have already voted to suspend a data-sharing agreement with the U.S., which may hamper intelligence operations between the two continents, amid reports that the NSA spied on millions of European citizens, but also a number of heads of state and leaders.
However, the NSA surveillance scandal notwithstanding, any U.S. takeover of a European firm will not happen overnight, or easily for that matter. European antitrust regulators will need to scrutinize the deal to ensure competition isn't being squeezed.
In March 2011, after AT&T's acquisition with T-Mobile USA was shot down by the U.S. Justice Department on antitrust grounds. A proposed $39 billion takeover of the fourth largest wireless carrier raised eyebrows in Washington D.C., and the government was quick to kill off the deal.
Both the EU and U.S. authorities speak to each other on a regular basis in regards to antitrust concerns — even if the two don't always see eye to eye — the EU may take on board the Justice Department's notes from the AT&T-T-Mobile case and apply it on its side of the pond.Greece’s biggest problem isn't a heavy debt burden. It’s the love affair of its citizens with Soviet-Maoist communism, a system that wastes the country's resources and talent, killing sensible economic growth initiatives.
Greece never became a communist country. Officially that is. But some of the failed ideas of the Soviet-Maoist communism dominated its post war economy to this day. Like the idea that big government can be a better owner and manager of business enterprises than individual entrepreneurs.
And like the idea that big government can assure everyone a good and stable job, a generous pension, and free education and healthcare.
Soviet-Maoism was promoted in the streets of major cities by left-wing protesters and adopted by right wing governments to appease their own political clientele.
The rest is history. Governments of different colors rose and fell, and Greeks were able to live their communist dream as long as these governments could borrow money at home and abroad to finance it.
Sometimes, borrowing came not from private parties but from the different branches of the broad government sector, like pension funds and banks. This meant that the broad government sector became both a lender and a borrower at the same time—a practice that magnified credit risks.
Still, a large debt burden isn't Greece biggest problem. Japan's debt burden is much bigger than Greece’s, but Japan can still borrow at near zero interest rates to finance its needs.
Greece’s biggest problem is the ongoing love affair with communist ideas, as other countries in the region have abandoned them.
This means that the country continues to waste precious economic resources and talents at a time it cannot afford it.
Greece, for instance, continues to provide free education in government owned universities for everyone (and the nice package of social goods that goes along with it) -- even to students who never attend classes and never graduate.
Worse, it refuses to come up with a fee structure to charge foreign students and turn the country into an exporter of education services--Chinese and American universities are anxious to develop joint programs with Greek universities to tap into the talent of its Ph.D. graduates.
Is there any common sense left in the country that taught the world in so many different ways in the ancient times?Note: a pdf version of the Kybalion is also available from our e-books section
T HE
K YBALION
A STUDY OF THE HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY OF ANCIENT EGYPT AND GREECE
BY
THREE INITIATES
"THE LIPS OF WISDOM ARE CLOSED, EXCEPT TO THE EARS OF UNDERSTANDING"--THE KYBALION
THE YOGI PUBLICATION SOCIETY
MASONIC TEMPLE
CHICAGO, ILL.
COPYRIGHT
1912
TO HERMES TRISMEGISTUS
KNOWN BY THE ANCIENT
EGYPTIANS AS
"THE GREAT GREAT"
AND
"MASTER OF MASTERS"
THIS LITTLE VOLUME OF HERMETIC TEACHINGS IS REVERENTLY DEDICATED
We take great pleasure in presenting to the attention of students and investigator of the Secret Doctrines this little work based upon the world-old Hermetic Teachings. There has been so little written upon this subject, not withstanding the countless references to the Teachings in the many works upon occultism, that the many earnest searchers after the Arcane Truths will doubtless welcome the appearance of this present volume. The purpose of this work is not the enunciation of any special philosophy or doctrine, but rather is to give to the students a statement of the Truth that will serve to reconcile the many bits of occult knowledge that they may have acquired, but which are apparently opposed to each other and which often serve to discourage and disgust the beginner in the study. Our intent is not to erect a new Temple of Knowledge, but rather to place in the hands of the student a Master-Key with which he may open the many inner doors in the Temple of Mystery through the main portals he has already entered.
There is no portion of the occult teachings possessed by the world which have been so closely guarded as the fragments of the Hermetic Teachings which have come down to us over the tens of centuries which have elapsed since the lifetime of its great founder, Hermes Trismegistus, the "scribe of the gods," who dwelt in old Egypt in the days when the present race of men was in its infancy. Contemporary with Abraham, and, if the legends be true, an instructor of that venerable sage, Hermes was, and is, the Great Central Sun of Occultism, whose rays have served to illumine the countless teachings which have been promulgated since his time. All the fundamental and basic teachings embedded in the esoteric teachings of every race may be traced back to Hermes. Even the most ancient teachings of India undoubtedly have their roots in the original Hermetic Teachings.
From the land of the Ganges many advanced occultists wandered to the land of Egypt, and sat at the feet of the Master. From him they obtained the Master-Key which explained and reconciled their divergent views, and thus the Secret Doctrine was firmly established. From other lands also came the learned ones, all of whom regarded Hermes as the Master of Masters, and his influence was so great that in spite of the many wanderings from the path on the part of the centuries of teachers in these different lands, there may still be found a certain basic resemblance and correspondence which underlies the many and often quite divergent theories entertained and taught by the occultists of these different lands today. The student of Comparative Religions will be able to perceive the influence of the Hermetic Teachings in every religion worthy of the name, now known to man, whether it be a dead religion or one in full vigor in our own times. There is always certain correspondence in spite of the contradictory features, and the Hermetic Teachings act as the Great Reconciler.
The lifework of Hermes seems to have been in the direction of planting the great Seed-Truth which has grown and blossomed in so many strange forms, rather than to establish a school of philosophy which would dominate, the world's thought. But, nevertheless, the original truths taught by him have been kept intact in their original purity by a few men each age, who, refusing great numbers of half-developed students and followers, followed the Hermetic custom and reserved their truth for the few who were ready to comprehend and master it. From lip to ear the truth has been handed down among the few. There have always been a few Initiates in each generation, in the various lands of the earth, who kept alive the sacred flame of the Hermetic Teachings, and such have always been willing to use their lamps to re-light the lesser lamps of the outside world, when the light of truth grew dim, and clouded by reason of neglect, and when the wicks became clogged with foreign matter. There were always a few to tend faithfully the altar of the Truth, upon which was kept alight the Perpetual Lamp of Wisdom. These men devoted their lives to the labor of love which the poet has so well stated in his lines:
'O, let not the flame die out! Cherished age after age in its dark cavern--in its holy temples cherished. Fed by pure ministers of love--let not the flame die out!"
These men have never sought popular approval, nor numbers of followers. They are indifferent to these things, for they know how few there are in each generation who are ready for the truth, or who would recognize it if it were presented to them. They reserve the "strong meat for men," while others furnish the "milk for babes." They reserve their pearls of wisdom for the few elect, who recognize their value and who wear them in their crowns, instead of casting them before the materialistic vulgar swine, who would trample them in the mud and mix them with their disgusting mental food. But still these men have never forgotten or overlooked the original teachings of Hermes, regarding the passing on of the words of truth to those ready to receive it, which teaching is stated in The Kybalion as follows: "Where fall the footsteps of the Master, the ears of those ready for his Teaching open wide." And again: "When the ears of the student are ready to hear, then cometh the lips to fill them with wisdom." But their customary attitude has always been strictly in accordance with the other Hermetic aphorism, also in The Kybalion: "The lips of Wisdom are closed, except to the ears of Understanding."
There are those who have criticized this attitude of the Hermetists, and who have claimed that they did not manifest the proper spirit in their policy of seclusion and reticence. But a moment's glance back: over the pages of history will show the wisdom of the Masters, who knew the folly of attempting to teach to the world that which it was neither ready or willing to receive. The Hermetists have never sought to be martyrs, and have, instead, sat silently aside with a pitying smile on their closed lips, while the "heathen raged noisily about them" in their customary amusement of putting to death and torture the honest but misguided enthusiasts who imagined that they could force upon a race of barbarians the truth capable of being understood only by the elect who had advanced along The Path. And the spirit of persecution has not as yet died out in the land. There are certain Hermetic Teachings, which, if publicly promulgated, would bring down upon the teachers a great cry of scorn and revilement from the multitude, who would again raise the cry of "Crucify! Crucify." In this little work we have endeavored to give you an idea of the fundamental teachings of The Kybalion, striving to give you the working Principles, leaving you to apply them yourselves, rather than attempting to work out the teaching in detail. If you are a true student, you will be able to work out and apply these Principles--if not, then you must develop yourself into one, for otherwise the Hermetic Teachings will be as "words, words, words" to you.
THE THREE INITIATES.
Table Of Contents
CHAPTER I
THE HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY
In ancient Egypt dwelt the great Adepts and Masters who have never been surpassed, and who seldom have been equaled, during the centuries that have taken their processional flight since the days of the Great Hermes. In Egypt was located the Great Lodge of Lodges of the Mystics. At the doors of her Temples entered the Neophytes who afterward, as Hierophants, Adepts, and Masters, traveled to the four corners of the earth, carrying with them the precious knowledge which they were ready, anxious, and willing to pass on to those who were ready to receive the same. All students of the Occult recognize the debt that they owe to these venerable Masters of that ancient land.
But among these great Masters of Ancient Egypt there once dwelt one of whom Masters hailed as "The Master of Masters." This man, if "man" indeed he was, dwelt in Egypt in the earliest days. He was known as Hermes Trismegistus. He was the father of the Occult Wisdom; the founder of Astrology; the discoverer of Alchemy. The details of his life story are lost to history, owing to the lapse of the years, though several of the ancient countries disputed with each other in their claims to the honor of having furnished his birthplace-- and this thousands of years ago. The date of his sojourn in Egypt, in that his last incarnation on this planet, is not now known, but it has been fixed at the early days of the oldest dynasties of Egypt--long before the days of Moses. The best authorities regard him as a contemporary of Abraham, and some of the Jewish traditions go so far as to claim that Abraham acquired a portion of his mystic knowledge from Hermes himself.
As the years rolled by after his passing from this plane of life (tradition recording that he lived three hundred years in the flesh), the Egyptians deified Hermes, and made him one of their gods, under the name of Thoth. Years after, the people of Ancient Greece also made him one of their many gods--calling him "Hermes, the god of Wisdom." The Egyptians revered his memory for many centuries-yes, tens of centuries--calling him "the Scribe of the Gods,' and bestowing upon him, distinctively, his ancient title, "Trismegistus," which means "the thrice-great"; "the great-great"; "the greatest-great"; etc. In all the ancient lands, the name of Hermes Trismegistus was revered, the name being synonymous with the "Fount of Wisdom.
Even to this day, we use the term "hermetic" in the sense of "secret"; "sealed so that nothing can escape"; etc., and this by reason of the fact that the followers of Hermes always observed the principle of secrecy in their teachings. They did not believe in "casting pearls before swine," but rather held to the teaching "milk for babes"; "meat for strong men," both of which maxims are familiar to readers of the Christian scriptures, but both of which had been used by the Egyptians for centuries before the Christian era.
And this policy of careful dissemination of the truth has always characterized the Hermetics, even unto the present day. The Hermetic Teachings are to be found in all lands, among all religions, but never identified with any particular country, nor with any particular religious sect. This because of the warning of the ancient teachers against allowing the Secret Doctrine to become crystallized into a creed. The wisdom of this caution is apparent to all students of history. The ancient occultism of India and Persia degenerated, and was largely lost, owing to the fact that the teachers became priests, and so mixed theology with the philosophy, the result being that the occultism of India and Persia has been gradually lost amidst the mass of religious superstition, cults, creeds and "gods." So it was with Ancient Greece and Rome. So it was with the Hermetic Teachings of the Gnostics and Early Christians, which were lost at the time of Constantine, whose iron hand smothered philosophy with the blanket of theology, losing to the Christian Church that which was its very essence and spirit, and causing it to grope throughout several centuries before it found the way back to its ancient faith, the indications apparent to all careful observers in this Twentieth Century being that the Church is now struggling to get back to its ancient mystic teachings. But there were always a few faithful souls who kept alive the Flame, tending it carefully, and not allowing its light to become extinguished. And thanks to these staunch hearts, and fearless minds, we have the truth still with us.
But it is not found in books, to any great extent. It has been passed along from Master to Student; from Initiate to Hierophant; from lip to ear. When it was written down at all, its meaning was veiled in terms of alchemy and astrology so that only those possessing the key could read it aright. This was made necessary in order to avoid the persecutions of the theologians of the Middle Ages, who fought the Secret Doctrine with fire and sword; stake, gibbet and cross. Even to this day there will be found but few reliable books on the Hermetic Philosophy, although there are countless references to it in many books written on various phases of Occultism. And yet, the Hermetic Philosophy is the only Master Key which will open all the doors of the Occult Teachings!
In the early days, there was a compilation of certain Basic Hermetic Doctrines, passed on from teacher to student, which was known as "THE KYBALION," the exact significance and meaning of the term having been lost for several centuries. This teaching, however, is known to many to whom it has descended, from mouth to ear, on and on throughout the centuries. Its precepts have never been written down, or printed, so far as we know. It was merely a collection of maxims, axioms, and precepts, which were non-understandable to outsiders, but which were readily understood by students, after the axioms, maxims, and precepts had been explained and exemplified by the Hermetic Initiates to their Neophytes. These teachings really constituted the basic principles of "The Art of Hermetic Alchemy," which, contrary to the general belief, dealt in the mastery of Mental Forces, rather than Material Elements-the Transmutation of one kind of Mental Vibrations into others, instead of the changing of one kind of metal into another. The legends of the "Philosopher's Stone" which would turn base metal into Gold, was an allegory relating to Hermetic Philosophy, readily understood by all students of true Hermeticism.
In this little book, of which this is the First Lesson, we invite our students to examine into the Hermetic Teachings, as set forth in THE KYBALION, and as explained by ourselves, humble students of the Teachings, who, while bearing the title of Initiates, are still students at the feet of HERMES, the Master. We herein give you many of the maxims, axioms and precepts of THE KYBALION. accompanied by explanations and illustrations which we deem likely to render the teachings more easily comprehended by the modern student, particularly as the original text. is purposely veiled in obscure terms.
The original maxims, axioms, and precepts of THE KYBALION are printed herein, in italics, the proper credit being given. Our own work is printed in the regular way, in the body of the work. We trust that the many students to whom we now offer this little work will derive as much benefit from the study of its pages as have the many who have gone on before, treading the same Path to Mastery throughout the centuries that have passed since the times of HERMES TRISMEGISTUS-the Master of Masters-the Great-Great. In the words of "THE KYBALION" :
"Where fall the footsteps of the Master, the ears of those ready for his Teaching open wide." --THE KYBALION
"When the ears of the student are ready to hear, then cometh the lips to fill them with Wisdom." --THE KYBALION
So that according to the Teachings, the passage of this book to those ready for the instruction will attract the attention of such as are prepared to receive the Teaching. And, likewise, when the pupil is ready to receive the truth, then will this little book come to him, or her. Such is The Law. The Hermetic Principle of Cause and Effect, in its aspect of The Law of Attraction, will bring lips and ear together-pupil and book in company. So mote it be!
Table Of Contents
THE SEVEN HERMETIC PRINCIPLES
I. THE PRINCIPLE OF MENTALISM
II. THE PRINCIPLE OF CORRESPONDENCE
III. THE PRINCIPLE OF VIBRATION
IV. THE PRINCIPLE OF POLARITY
V. THE PRINCIPLE OF RHYTHM
VI. THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSE AND EFFECT
"Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is but a name for Law not recognized; there are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the Law."--The Kybalion
This Principle embodies the fact that there is a Cause for every Effect; an Effect from every Cause. It explains that: "Everything Happens according to Law"; that nothing ever "merely happens"; that there is no such thing as Chance; that while there are various planes of Cause and Effect, the higher dominating- the lower planes, still nothing ever entirely escapes the Law. The Hermetists understand the art and methods of rising above the ordinary plane of Cause and Effect, to a certain degree, and by mentally rising to a higher plane they become Causers instead of Effects. The masses of people are carried along, obedient to environment; the wills and desires of others stronger than themselves; heredity; suggestion; and other outward causes moving them about like pawns on the Chessboard of Life. But the Masters, rising to the plane above, dominate their moods, characters, qualities, and powers, as well as the environment surrounding them, and become Movers instead of pawns. They help to PLAY THE GAME OF LIFE, instead of being played and moved about by other wills and environment. They USE the Principle instead of being its tools. The Masters obey the Causation of the higher planes, but they help to RULE on their own plane. In this statement there is condensed a wealth of Hermetic knowledge-let him read who can.
VII. THE PRINCIPLE OF GENDER
Table Of Contents
MENTAL TRANSMUTATION
The truth is, that beneath the material chemistry, astronomy and psychology (that is, the psychology in its phase of "brain action") the ancients possessed a knowledge of transcendental astronomy, called astrology; of transcendental chemistry, called alchemy; of transcendental psychology, called mystic psychology. They possessed the Inner Knowledge as well as the Outer Knowledge, the latter alone being possessed by modern scientists. Among the many secret branches of knowledge possessed by the Hermetists, was that Transmutation, which known as Mental forms the subject matter of this lesson.
"Transmutation" is a term usually employed to designate the ancient art of the transmutation of metals--particularly of the base metals into gold. The word "Transmute" means "to change from one nature, form, or substance, into another to transform" (Webster). And accordingly, "Mental Transmutation" means the art of changing and transforming mental states, forms, and conditions, into others. So you may see that Mental Transmutation is the "Art of Mental Chemistry," if you like the term--a form of practical Mystic Psychology.
But this means far more than appears on the surface. Transmutation, Alchemy, or Chemistry on the Mental Plane is important enough in its effects, to be sure, and if the art stopped there it would still be one of the most important branches of study known to man. But this is only the beginning. Let us see why!
The first of the Seven Hermetic Principles is the Principle of Mentalism, the axiom of which is "THE ALL is Mind; the Universe is Mental," which means that the Underlying Reality of the Universe is Mind; and the Universe itself is Mental--that is, "existing in the Mind of THE ALL." We shall consider this Principle in succeeding lessons, but let us see the effect of the principle if it be assumed to be true.
If the Universal is Mental in its nature, then Mental Transmutation must be the art of CHANGING THE CONDITIONS OF THE UNIVERSE, along the lines of Matter, Force and mind. So you see,therefore, that Mental Transmutation is really the "Magic" of which the ancient; writers had so much to say in their mystical works, and about which they gave so few practical instructions. If All be Mental, then the art which enables one to transmute mental conditions must render the Master the controller of material conditions as well as those ordinally called "mental."
As a matter of fact, none but advanced Mental Alchemists have been able to attain the degree of power necessary to control the grosser physical conditions, such as the control of the elements of Nature; the production or cessation of tempests; the production and cessation of earthquakes and other great physical phenomena. But that such men have existed, and do exist today, is a matter of earnest belief to all advanced occultists of all schools. That the Masters exist, and have these powers, the best teachers assure their students, having had experiences which justify them in such belief and statements. These Masters do not make public exhibitions of their powers, but seek seclusion from the crowds of men, in order to better work their may along the Path of Attainment. We mention their existence, at this point, merely to call your attention to the fact that their power is entirely Mental, and operates along the lines of the higher Mental Transmutation, under the Hermetic Principle of Mentalism. "The Universe is Mental"--The Kybalion.
But students and Hermetists of lesser degree than Masters--the Initiates and Teachers--are able to freely work along the Mental Plane, in Mental Transmutation. In fact all that we call "psychic phenomena,"; "mental influence"; "mental science"; "new-thought phenomena," etc., operates along the same general lines, for there is but one principle involved, no matter by what name the phenomena be called.
The student and practitioner of Mental Transmutation works among the Mental Plane, transmuting mental conditions, states, etc., into others, according to various formulas, more or less efficacious. The various "treatments," "affirmations," "denials" etc., of the schools of mental science are but formulas, often quite imperfect and unscientific, of The Hermetic Art. The majority of modern practitioners are quite ignorant compared to the ancient masters, for they lack the fundamental knowledge upon which the work is based.
Not only may the mental states, etc., of one's self be changed or transmuted by Hermetic Methods; but also the states of others may be, and are, constantly transmuted in the same way, usually unconsciously, but often consciously by some understanding the laws and principles, in cases where the people affected are not informed of the principles of self-protection. And more than this, as many students and practitioners of modern mental science know, every material condition depending upon the minds of other people may be changed or transmuted in accordance with the earnest desire, will, and "treatments" of person desiring changed conditions of life. The public are so generally informed regarding these things at present, that we do not deem it necessary to mention the same at length, our purpose at this point being merely to show the Hermetic Principle and Art underlying all of these various forms of practice, good and evil, for the force can be used in opposite directions according to the Hermetic Principles of Polarity.
In this little book we shall state the basic principles of Mental Transmutation, that all who read may grasp the Underlying Principles, and thus possess the Master-Key that will unlock the many doors of the Principle of Polarity
We shall now proceed to a consideration of the first of the Hermetic Seven Principles--the Principle of Mentalism,in which is explained the truth that "THE ALL is Mind; the Universe is Mental," in the words of The Kybalion. We ask the close attention, and careful study of this great Principle, on the part of our students, for it is really the Basic Principle of the whole Hermetic Philosophy, and of the Hermetic Art of Mental Transmutation.
Table Of Contents
THE ALL
Under and behind all outward appearances or manifestations, there must always be a Substantial Reality. This is the Law. Man considering the Universe, of which he is a unit, sees nothing but change in matter, forces, and mental states. He sees that nothing really IS, but that everything is BECOMING and CHANGING. Nothing stands still-everything is being born, growing, dying-the very instant a thing reaches its height, it begins to decline-the law of rhythm is in constant operation -there is no reality, enduring quality, fixity, or substantiality in anything- nothing is permanent but Change. He sees all things evolving from other things, and resolving into other things-a constant action and reaction; inflow and outflow; building up and tearing down; creation and destruction; birth, growth and death. Nothing endures but Change. And if he be a thinking man, he realizes that all of these changing things must be but outward appearances or manifestations of some Underlying Power-some Substantial Reality.
All thinkers, in all lands and in all times, have assumed the necessity for postulating the existence of this Substantial Reality. All philosophies worthy of the name have been based upon this thought. Men have given to this Substantial Reality many names-some have called it by the term of Deity (under many titles). others have called it "The Infinite and Eternal Energy" others have tried to call it "Matter"-but all have acknowledged its existence. It is self-evident it needs no argument.
In these lessons we have followed the example of some of the world's greatest thinkers, both ancient and modern--the Hermetic. Masters--and have called this Underlying Power--this Substantial Reality-.by the Hermetic name of "THE ALL," |
take in that fashion and that sounds obnoxious, I guess, but people love it on set. You bring that level of enthusiasm to every shot, it bleeds in. I’m not much at directing, but I know I’m a very enthusiastic director and I’ve been told over the course of my career, “You just make me want to do it man, it’s crazy. I like this, but you make me like it even more.” That’s why I end up getting pretty good casts.
This is the first time I’ve ever done something where I’m moving into an episodic that’s been up and running. I directed a pilot, Reaper for CW, back in the day, but directing the first episode is like directing a movie; you set the tone and all that stuff. When you’re doing a show where they’ve been doing it for two seasons and you’re just coming into it in the middle of it, you basically have to do their show; you can’t do your show. Going into it I was like, “I’m not going to try to make this a Kevin Smith thing, I’m just going do the best episode of Flash that I possibly can do and the only way I know how do that is to this job the way I normally do, which is chatty, gregarious, like telling everyone how great this is, cheerleading.” My job as director comes down to opinion, suggestion, and cheerleading.
It’s fun. You’ve got to remind everyone, especially when you’re in series television, it can become like any other job where, “This is what I do.” Sometimes you forget, “Oh my god, what’s better than this? You know what’s worse than this? Almost every other job on the planet, because all we are doing here is making pretend and they pay us for this. We don’t even need to fund it out of our own pockets. It’s not a waste of time because this is how we spend our time.” For an outsider to jump in and be like, “You guys are so lucky, you make the f—ing Flash every week,” that rubs off on every person, every department, every level.
Sometimes it just helps to have an outsider come in and remind people like, “This rules and what you guys do is amazing, so much so that like I changed every aspect of my life, which is usually full of stupid sh–, to be here and see how you do it. I didn’t come up here to get no check and I didn’t come up here to fix your broken f—ing show. I came here to learn, because you guys are like Tibetan ninjas or wizards of turning a show about a guy who solves all of his problems simply running real fast and they turn it into something even better, something more artistic, something special, something emotional.”
People have seen the artwork, they’ve released pictures online, so I guess I can say it, Barry’s mom is in the episode and that’s like porn if you’re a Flash lover. All the Barry mom stuff is not only cannon, but it’s the heart of the show. It’s a show about a boy who lost his mom in this mystery f—ing crime in his childhood that destroyed his family. Season 1, they break through all that, he finds a little redemption, but he can’t bring his mom back from the dead. Whenever you deal with Nora Allen on this show, it’s big stakes, it’s wonderful and it gives you an opportunity to cut right to the heart and soul of what that show is. And Grant is always fantastic on the show, but he is absolutely at his best when he’s working with Michelle [Harrison], who plays his mom. I was delighted when I cracked open that script and I saw Barry’s mom. I literally lost my breath, gasped when I saw the act end break and he goes, “Mom.” And I was like, “Oh sh–, I got this son.”
There’s spectacle in the show, don’t get me wrong. We bring back Girder, and Greg Finley crushes it, so there’s monster-of-the-week aspect, as they always do, and there’s mythology and there’s special effects. There’s the required spectacle, as per every episode, but it is so deep on emotion. Every episode has heart, humor, and spectacle. There’s so much heart in this episode, it’s crazy nuts.
We had this moment where Barry is with his home in the speed force and they’re reading this book — you know, spoilers — that’s the title, “The Runaway Dinosaur” is about a kid’s book that she used to read to him all the time, and I get glassy eyed just saying it out loud, that’s how much I love the f—ing episode.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.Miracle Whip is a sauce condiment manufactured by Kraft Foods and sold throughout the United States and Canada. It is also sold by Mondelēz International (formerly also Kraft Foods) as Miracel Whip throughout Germany.[1]
History [ edit ]
In 1933, Kraft developed Miracle Whip as a less expensive alternative to mayonnaise.[2] Premiering at the Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago in 1933, Miracle Whip soon became a success as a condiment on fruits, vegetables, and salads.[3] Its success was bolstered by Kraft mounting a significant advertising campaign which included sponsorship of a two-hour radio program. At the end of its introductory period, Miracle Whip was outselling all mayonnaise brands.[2]
According to Kraft archivist Becky Haglund Tousey, Kraft developed the product in-house using a patented "emulsifying machine" invented by Charles Chapman to create a product that blended mayonnaise and less expensive salad dressing, sometimes called "boiled dressing"[4] or "salad dressing spread". The machine (dubbed "Miracle Whip" by Chapman) ensured that the ingredients (including more than 20 different spices) were thoroughly blended.[3]
However, another story claims that Miracle Whip was invented in Salem, Illinois, at Max Crosset's Cafe, where it was called "Max Crossett's X-tra Fine Salad Dressing". Crosset sold it to Kraft Foods in 1931 for $300[5] (approximately $4,669.72 in 2015).[6] While stating that Kraft did buy many salad dressings, Tousey disputes the claim that X-tra Fine was Miracle Whip.[3]
Since 1972, Miracle Whip has been sold as Miracel Whip in Germany.[1] It was formerly produced by Kraft Foods, and is currently produced by Mondelēz International in Bad Fallingbostel.
Ingredients [ edit ]
Miracle Whip spread on toast
Miracle Whip is made from water, soybean oil, high-fructose corn syrup, vinegar, modified corn starch, eggs, salt, natural flavor, mustard flour, potassium sorbate, spice, and dried garlic.[7]
Advertising [ edit ]
Six Flags announced a new partnership with the Miracle Whip brand in 2009.[8]
Kraft paid Lady Gaga to include Miracle Whip in the music video for her song "Telephone".[9]
Miracle Whip advertising features prominently in the Electronic Arts video game Skate 3, including a dedicated trick, contest, and an achievement called Don't Be So Mayo.[10]
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Miracle Whip attempted more "hip" advertising (much of it explained above), with footage of teenagers having fun while an announcer berated mayonnaise.[11] Criticism by Stephen Colbert led to Miracle Whip buying ad time on his show, The Colbert Report, and attacking Colbert for being a "mayo lover".[12] This also included publishing an open letter stating the attack was "raising hell, man" (though the whole debacle may have been staged by Kraft and Comedy Central).[13] Eventually, this advertising was dropped.
In 2018, the town of Mayo, Florida temporarily changed its name to Miracle Whip as a promotional stunt.[14]
See also [ edit ]
Salad cream, a British creamy yellow condimentI Got Berned but now I have the Chills for Hills
(But maybe we can agree that she rocks a pretty mean pantsuit?)
Liz Hanssen Blocked Unblock Follow Following Apr 19, 2016
Courtesy of unknown meme maker
Trigger warning: This commentary may include humor, positive HRC language, personal opinion, and substantiated observations with supporting links.
Because Vermont is not New York is not the United States.
Because an argument against Hillary does not equal an argument for Bernie.
Because no one suggests Sanders’ supporters are for voting for him because he is a man.
Because a great way to represent women and minorities is to build coalitions and strengthen alliances — and employ them in your campaign.
Because my vagina comes with me everywhere I go, including the voting booth presumably. Blame it on biology.
Because Bernie, not Hillary, solidly won the hearts of the wealthier voters in Wisconsin, garnering 54% of the votes in the 100k-200k income bracket to Clinton’s 46%.
Because “women’s rights are human rights.”
Because Hillary inserted abortion into the debate and is committed to overturning Hyde.
Because positions are easy to come by.
Because rolling up the pantsuit sleeves and getting the job done is what separates the women from the men.
Because I saw a bird land on a podium. A bird once pooped on my head. Birds do things like that. (Go ahead, call me a party pooper.)
Because I deeply respect the women of the mothers’ movement and support their choice of candidate — the one who reached out to them and listened to their pain and their concerns.
Because gun violence is an infringement on human rights (imho).
Because it is time for the status quo to be upended.
Because Hillary’s campaign is the “most feminist political campaign in history.”
Because Hillary isn’t sitting back, kicking off her pumps, watching Netflix and chilling while sipping a glass of chardonnay in hand; instead she chooses to work, hard, despite confronting hostility and sexism at every turn.
Because Bernie and Jane are not The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s Brad and Janet.
Because Hillary includes women in her jobs plan.
Because Senator Sanders’ Rebuild America Act would bolster the infrastructure with the reinforcement of male-dominated fields, such as construction.
Because Hillary’s strategy of supporting down ticket candidates in order to elect more Democrats to Congress has a greater shot at changing the system (yes, from within), than does Bernie’s “millions of people will demand it” proposal.
Because Hillary mentors other women and “is not a do-it-alone feminist,” having “consistently worked to promote and foster female leadership.
Because a Goldman Sachs video has been released and it communicates a message that is consistent with Hillary’s lifelong work of championing the rights and progress of of girls and women.
Because Bernie also attends and benefits from high dollar fundraisers.
Because the speaking fees from Goldman Sachs represent “.00002% of the company’s 2015 revenues.”
Because “Hillary made women’s oppression worldwide a State Department priority.”
Because during her tenure as Secretary of State, Hillary worked to protect and advance transgender rights.
Because Hillary has nailed the low-down on getting to yes, understanding that compromise and diplomacy are the pathways to meeting diverse needs.
Because if I didn’t believe we could create change within systems of oppression or dysfunctional political structures, I would have given up all hope on my life and on my children’s futures long ago.
Because anyone who supports Hillary is establishment…except that they’re not.
Because Vermont’s inability to adopt universal health care lowers Bernie’s country road cred.
Because Maya Angelou wrote these words in a poem for Hillary in ’08: “You may write me down in history, With your bitter, twisted lies, You may tread me in the very dirt, But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”
Because Hillary receives more negative press and has been the decades-long target of more hate-inspired propaganda than any other candidate. And still “she rises.”
Because the women who have had the greatest impact on my life, who have shaped who I am, and whom I most admire, support Hillary.
Because thousands of people assembling in the streets is not a revolution; it is a rally.
Because many of those leading Bernie’s revolution are white and middle class and can return to a comfortable home or head to the pub to toss back a micro brew and belch away their hard day on the front lines.
Because “The work of building a new American majority for more progressive policies runs through the long, hard work of organizing.”
Because a great time to start a revolution is at the mid-term elections, no?
Because I guess at heart I’m just a shill for Hill and a proud member of DemocraticWhores.com.Last week the Saudi government reported that traces of the MERS virus were found in camels tested in Saudi Arabia, but camel shepherds are not convinced there is a link. (Reuters)
MERS is very scary. This week, while avoiding the term global health emergency, the World Health Organization announced that the deadly viral infection was both serious and urgent. So far, there have been 571 confirmed cases of MERS; 171 of those people died from the disease.
There's one place, however, where the mood about MERS isn't scaring everyone. It's also the place where the infection was first reported in 2012 and where almost 500 recorded cases have been found so far: Saudi Arabia.
And the skepticism about the virus has taken a strange turn in Saudi Arabia, where people have begun kissing camels in response to MERS.
“Do sneeze in my face,” the farmer says in above video clip, according to a translation from Gulf News. “They claim camels carry the coronavirus," he continues in the video, which has been watched over 11,000 times.
On Twitter, photographs of men kissing and stroking their camels have been accompanied with comments disparaging MERS:
الله يستر من فيروس كورونا ولكن ما نقدر نصبر عن الابل لها محبة خاصة والصورة تغني عن الكلام. pic.twitter.com/urHIUzlr5J — نواف الحدباء (@nawaf4908) May 9, 2014
الزراعة تحذر ملاك الابل من #كورونا عملنا هذه التجربة قبل اسبوعين وننتظر النتائج! pic.twitter.com/8EhT0BGoV6 — مساعد الكثيري (@drrdob) May 13, 2014
It seems a strange protest, but there's something behind it. Earlier this week, the Saudi government began a campaign to stop people from eating raw camel meat and liver or drinking unpasteurized camel milk. Experts argue that Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS' full name) or traces of it have been found in a large proportion of the camels tested in Saudi Arabia, and antibodies from the virus have even been found in camel populations in Spain's Canary Islands, thousands of miles away. Camels may not be the main source of MERS (many experts point the finger at bats), but they certainly seem like one big possibility.
For some in Saudi Arabia, avoiding camels is not such an easy task. One study from 2008 found that there were almost 900,000 camels in Saudi Arabia alone, with almost 15 million across other Arab states. The animals are a source of income for a large number of people, and popular too. "Camels in the kingdom are like dairy cows, beef cows, racehorses, pulling horses, beloved Labradors, and living daily reminders of holy scripture, all in one," Cynthia Gorney wrote for the National Geographic this week, noting that camels are featured honorably in the Koran.
Partly due to this fondness for camels, and partly due to a perceived lack of transparency from the Saudi government about MERS, a lot of people aren't totally convinced by the warnings about camels. Reuters reported from a Saudi camel market on Sunday and noted that only one person was wearing a mask as recommended. Some farmers are pointing out they have worked with camels for decades with no ill health.
Whether it's transmitted via camel or not, MERS is still a worrying situation for Saudi Arabia. It's a coronavirus like SARS, which is believed to have infected 8,273 people and led to 775 deaths in 2002-2003, and while its hard to say for sure at present, MERS may well be deadlier than its predecessor. Given that millions of Muslims are expected to travel to Mecca this October for Hajj, even officials in Saudi Arabia are beginning to wonder if the country is doing enough.The game rolled along and we scored two more. I wasn't sure how exactly this was happening but somehow I kept stopping pucks and my team kept scoring. Now the clock ticked down to a minute left but I knew it wouldn't hold. Sure enough a turnover in the other zone led to an odd-man rush with a shot rocketing to my blocker side. I made the stop and my guys cleared the zone.
It was happening! A shut out after so many months and countless games. I let myself believe and with 5 seconds left, the other team dumped the puck over our blue line as both teams waited for the final horn.
Almost like a nightmare, a buddy and former team mate now playing on the opposing team decided to make a rush for the puck. With nobody on my team still skating, he came in on the right side and with just a couple of seconds left he wound up for a slapper that screamed low to my glove side and... I made the save.
Shut out recorded.
Last year when I had my mask wrapped by Skinfx, I decided I'd leave the backplate empty. I plan on recording my final shut out back there when I retire from playing net. Will it read, "Hockey Team 5 - MIB 0 12-19-18"? I really don't know but I know I'm writing that down now because for this Ancient Netminder, shut outs don't come along very often.
"Shut out" **&&**&!!$%@!@#!!Any game that I get through a period or two without letting a puck past, these two simple words pop into my head followed by silent cursing for once again jinxing myself because inevitably, usually sooner than later, a goal gets scored that wipes away the chance for a shut out.I titled this entry "11 months" but honestly it could be even longer since I've registered a shut out in beer league hockey across multiple teams, good and bad.This week I was between the pipes for a team that probably (I'm being kind here) is closer to the bad side of the scale and one that I've been lit up for as many as 7 goals in a game this season. As usual we needed to grab sub players from an earlier game which left half the team gassed before the puck dropped. We were playing one of the top teams in the division and although they were also short-benched, I gave us 10-1 odds of getting a win.The first puck I faced that night was a break away by one of the best players and after biting pretty hard on a deke, I stuck out my right leg as he cut across and the puck bounced harmlessly away. After that, it was the usual workload of shots and constant pressure in our zone.At some point in the second period we were up 2-0 and once again my brain does its thing... "Shut out" **&&**&!!$%@!@#!!. I tried to ignore my inner voice but I knew I was once again doomed.Active galactic nuclei, found at the center of some galaxies, are the brightest objects in the universe. But their origins remain mysterious. Now we know the poetic truth: They come from the cosmic rain from giant gas clouds.
Active galactic nuclei, or AGN, are thought to be the result of matter accumulating around super-massive black holes. However, only a relatively small number of galaxies have AGNs compared to the huge number of galaxies with such black holes at their center. So why do some galaxies have active nuclei while others don't?
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Barry McKernan, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, thinks he has the answer:
"For a while, people have known that gas clouds are falling onto galaxies, and they've also known that active galactic nuclei are powered by gas falling onto supermassive black holes. But no one put the two ideas together until now and said, 'Hey, maybe one is causing the other!'"
Wandering gas clouds, each millions of times the mass of the sun, travel throughout the universe, and sometimes they find galaxies in their way. When that does happen, McKernan and his colleagues believe these gas clouds provide the galactic centers they encounter the needed energy to create hundreds of stars. This process lights up the center and feeds the super-massive black hole, creating an AGN.
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This is explains why only some galaxies have these active nuclei, because only galaxies that recently (in cosmic terms, we're talking in the last ten million years) came into contact with these gas clouds would be lit up in this way. K. E. Saavik Ford, another astrophysicist at the museum, points out the delightful simplicity of this explanation:
"It's interesting that only some galaxies are active, even though we think every galaxy contains a supermassive black hole. The cloud bombardment idea provides an explanation: it's just random luck."
[Astrophysical Journal Letters]The migration that accompanied India’s independence and partition in 1947 was the largest movement of peoples in human history, but almost no one expected it to happen. When the new Muslim homeland of Pakistan split off from the former British Indian empire, it was accepted that people might shift across the new borders, but India’s religious communities were so intertwined that mass transfers of population seemed impossible. In the event, around 16 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were driven out by reciprocal pogroms, and became a modern phenomenon: migrants.
Surprisingly few photographs of this world-changing exodus survive, and some of the best were taken by Margaret Bourke-White for LIFE. The rediscovery of her contact sheets, together with the notes written by the reporter Lee Eitingon, give a powerful sense of how she did it. Having chronicled the liberation of Buchenwald and nearly every theatre of war in World War II, the celebrated and notoriously resourceful Bourke-White was not fazed by the chaos of a newly divided subcontinent. Eitingon, though in her mid-20s, was an experienced conflict reporter. A note in the archives reads: “Old India hands warned that the assignment was impossible for women – transportation would be difficult, native women were being abducted, even British army officers were being attacked.”
LIFE photographer Margaret Bourke-White (L) with LIFE edit reporter Lee Eitingon in India, 1947. Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Ingeniously, they obtained a Jeep and an escort of a few soldiers from the military authorities—including an English captain nicknamed ‘Snuggles’—and drove to Punjab. “We were dressed in khaki shirts and slacks,” Eitingon wrote, “and we carried bedrolls, a four-gallon thermos of purified water, camera equipment and typewriter.” Although they were certainly aided by Bourke-White privilege, the two women were constantly close to danger. Driving towards Lahore, they encountered a stalled truck packed with refugees, which was in the process of being surrounded “by about 30 men with ten-foot-long spears.” The soldiers in their escort intervened. “The captain shot one attacker, then leaped into the Jeep. A stray shot followed us as we drove off,” wrote Eitingon.
In the absence of a comprehensive visual record of the horrors of 1947 – in which at least one million people are estimated to have died – Bourke-White’s photographs have gained an iconic value. At Beas near Amritsar, she noted: “There were 17 corpses lying at the left of the railway tracks, the flies thick on the bloody stumps of arms.”
We ‘see’ the partition of India through her formalized, decolored, black-and-white images: kafilas or human caravans of refugees in Punjab, wooden bullock-carts piled with belongings, faces hovering between life and death, corpses in a river watched by fat vultures, an aerial shot of migrants sheltering in Qila-i-Kuhna mosque in Delhi, a cholera hospital in Kasur in the new Pakistan which, Bourke-White records here, was “pervaded with a sickening, sweetish smell.”
With the recovery of her notes from the LIFE archives, we are afforded, nearly 70 years later, little details that return some humanity to the nameless suffering figures. A famous photograph, of a shrouded corpse of a child who has died of starvation, comes back to life. We learn his name is Mansoor; he is 4 years old, and he is being buried near Lahore Cantonment railway station. The figures around him are his mother, father and grandfather. When their house in Delhi was looted, they had stayed at a refugee camp in Humayun’s Tomb. Then some good news came: because the father was a mechanic for the water and sewerage board in Delhi, the family would be able to board a ‘Pakistan Special’ train, bearing government employees. But in Punjab its passage was blocked, and for three days no food or water was allowed to the train. Mansoor died. Now he was being buried, and Margaret Bourke-White was a witness.
What of the stately image of a Sikh man bearing an ailing woman on his shoulders as they seek to walk to safety? From a biography of Bourke-White, we know this picture was to an extent staged. “We were there for hours,” Eitingon recalled years later. “She told them to go back again and again and again. They were too frightened to say no.” From the contact sheets, we can now see that an army vehicle was nearby, and the photograph was cropped. Bourke-White’s fierce determination to get just the pictures she wanted does not negate their quality, even if they were far from candid. From her scrupulously recorded notes, we learn this man was a farmer from Lyallpur district, now heading to India with his sick wife on his shoulders. Their kafila had been raided; 103 of its members were dead.
Across northern India and the nascent Pakistan, from Karachi to Bengal, many millions of people suffered in 1947 and the years that followed. Like all historical events, partition must be seen in the context of the time: politicians on all sides failed utterly to grasp the catastrophe they were creating. The British, bankrupt from World War II and exhausted by a dissolving empire, thought the solutions proposed by the Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, and endorsed by nationalist Indian and proto-Pakistani statesmen, provided a constitutional answer.
What they had not foreseen was that terrified populations, when spurred by a new kind of identity politics, would flee or be driven from the lands in which they had lived for centuries. In that respect, the events chronicled in LIFE in 1947 seem very similar to ones that can still be seen in the world today.
Patrick French is the author of India: A Portrait and Liberty or Death: India’s Journey to Independence and Division, and a winner of the National Books Critics Circle Award.
Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.The United States military is developing a mini-surveillance drone that would fit into soldiers’ pockets, with special features for dangerous combat zones.
The US Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC) in Massachusetts is behind the new technology research.
The mini-drone is called the 'Cargo Pocket ISR' and includes features such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
It looks like a toy palm-sized helicopter and weighs only 16 grams. But despite its miniature physical characteristics, the mini-drone will be capable of performing serious tasks.
The technology used by the Americans will borrow heavily from existing capabilities seen in pocket surveillance drones already in use by British troops in places like Afghanistan.
“Prox Dynamics' PD-100 Black Hornet, a palm-sized miniature helicopter weighing only 16 grams, has the ability to fly up to 20 minutes while providing real-time video via a digital data link from one of the three embedded cameras and operates remotely with GPS navigation,” the description of the British drone reads in the Army’s official press release published this week.
The best advantage is that due to its tiny propellers and motors, the device will be virtually undetectable to subjects under surveillance, the official press release said.
The goal is to provide soldiers with similar, but more short-distance reconnaissance capabilities that larger unmanned aerial vehicles have. After the work is done, the little machine will also be able to fly in low-light, as well as indoors.
Although combining the high-tech surveillance approach with a pocket-sized drone is a project still somewhat in its infancy for the US military, there are other squad-level surveillance devices already in use; the army tested hi-tech throwable cameras back in 2011.
Acting NSRDEC technical director Dr. Laurel Allender praised the new technology. “The Cargo Pocket ISR is a true example of an applied systems approach for developing new soldier capabilities. It provides an integrated capability for the soldier and small unit for increased situational awareness and understanding with negligible impact on soldier load and agility,” she said.
After the development stage is complete, the mini-drone will have to comply with the Army’s digital security standards.Last year, Marco Rubio raised a few eyebrows when he argued that if a woman is impregnated by a rapist, the government has the authority to force her to take the pregnancy to term, regardless of her wishes. This week, Ted Cruz made clear he has the same position.
During an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, the host sought clarification from the Texas senator about this controversial aspect of his platform. From the transcript via Lexis Nexis:
KELLY: [Y]ou don’t favor a rape or an incest exception to abortion and for people like me, this may be a problem in getting behind President Ted Cruz. They think you may be too far right on social issues. CRUZ: Well, listen, let’s talk – you know, when it comes to rape, I’ve spent a lot of years in law enforcement. I was the solicitor general in the state of Texas and I have handled cases with horrific cases of rape, of people who committed child rape, people – I went before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued in defense of state laws imposing capital punishment for the very worst child rapists. And when it comes to rape, rape is a horrific crime against the humanity of a person and needs to be punished and punished severely but at the same time, as horrible as that crime is, I don’t believe it’s the child’s fault. And we weep at the crime. We want to do everything we can to prevent the crime on the front end and to punish the criminal, but I don’t believe it makes sense to blame the child.
The host responded that people who support exceptions to an abortion ban will argue that Cruz’s policy would force women “to go through unspeakable trauma to carry her rapist’s baby for nine months.” The senator then changed the subject a bit, saying states should debate their own limits on reproductive rights.
When it comes to evaluating Cruz as a general-election contender, the senator is extremely far to the right on most of the major issues of the day, and this is no exception – some polling suggests 83% of Americans believe women impregnated by a rapist should be legally allowed to terminate that pregnancy.Genetically modified fish (GM fish) are organisms from the taxonomic clade which includes the classes Agnatha (jawless fish), Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish) and Osteichthyes (bony fish) whose genetic material (DNA) has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. In most cases, the aim is to introduce a new trait to the fish which does not occur naturally in the species, i.e. transgenesis.
GM fish are used in scientific research and kept as pets. They are being developed as environmental pollutant sentinels and for use in aquaculture food production. In 2015, the AquAdvantage salmon was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for commercial production, sale and consumption,[1] making it the first genetically modified animal to be approved for human consumption. Some GM fish that have been created have promoters driving an over-production of "all fish" growth hormone. This results in dramatic growth enhancement in several species, including salmonids,[2] carps[3] and tilapias.[4][5]
Critics have objected to GM fish on several grounds, including ecological concerns, animal welfare concerns and with respect to whether using them as food is safe and whether GM fish are needed to help address the world's food needs.
History and process [ edit ]
The first transgenic fish were produced in China in 1985.[6] As of 2013, approximately 50 species of fish have been subject to genetic modification. This has resulted in more than 400 fish/trait combinations. Most of the modifications have been conducted on food species, such as Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), tilapia (genus) and common carp (Cyprinus carpio).[7]
Generally, genetic modification entails manipulation of DNA. The process is known as cisgenesis when a gene is transferred between organisms that could be conventionally bred, or transgenesis when a gene from one species is added to a different species. Gene transfer into the genome of the desired organism, as for fish in this case, requires a vector like a lentivirus or mechanical/physical insertion of the altered genes into the nucleus of the host by means of a micro syringe or a gene gun.[8]
Uses [ edit ]
Research [ edit ]
A zebrafish genetically modified to have long fins
Transgenic fish are used in research covering five broad areas[6]
Enhancing the traits of commercially available fish
Their use as bioreactors for the development of bio-medically important proteins
Their use as indicators of aquatic pollutants
Developing new non-mammalian animal models
Functional genomics studies
Most GM fish are used in basic research in genetics and development. Two species of fish, zebrafish and medaka, are most commonly modified because they have optically clear chorions (shells), develop rapidly, the 1-cell embryo is easy to see and micro-inject with transgenic DNA, and zebrafish have the capability of regenerating their organ tissues.[9] They are also used in drug discovery.[10] GM zebrafish are being explored for benefits of unlocking human organ tissue diseases and failure mysteries. For instance, zebrafish are used to understand heart tissue repair and regeneration in efforts to study and discover cures for cardiovascular diseases.[11]
Transgenic rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) have been developed to study muscle development. The introduced transgene causes green fluorescence to appear in fast twitch muscle fibres early in development which persist throughout life. It has been suggested the fish might be used as indicators of aquatic pollutants or other factors which influence development.[12]
In intensive fish farming, the fish are kept at high stocking densities. This means they suffer from frequent transmission of contagious diseases, a problem which is being addressed by GM research. Grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) have been modified with a transgene coding for human lactoferrin, which doubles their survival rate relative to control fish after exposure to Aeromonas bacteria and Grass carp hemorrhage virus. Cecropin has been used in channel catfish to enhance their protection against several pathogenic bacteria by 2–4 times.[13]
Recreation [ edit ]
Pets [ edit ]
GloFish is a patented[14] technology which allows GM fish (tetra, barb, zebrafish) to express jellyfish and sea coral proteins[6][15] giving the fish bright red, green or orange fluorescent colors when viewed in ultraviolet light. Although the fish were originally created and patented for scientific research at the National University of Singapore, a Texas company, Yorktown Technologies, obtained rights to market the fish as pets.[15] They became the first genetically modified animal to become publicly available as a pet when introduced for sale in 2003.[16] They were quickly banned for sale in California, however they are now on shelves once again in this state.[17] As of 2013, Glofish are only sold in the US.[18]
Other transgenic lines of pet fish include Medaka which remain transparent throughout their lives and pink body color transgenic angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare) and lionhead fish expressing the Acropora coral (Acroporo millepora) red fluorescent protein.[19]
The ocean pout type III antifreeze protein transgene has been successfully micro-injected and expressed in goldfish. The transgenic goldfish showed higher cold tolerance compared with controls.[20]
Food [ edit ]
One area of intensive research with GM fish has aimed to increase food production by modifying the expression of growth hormone (GH). The relative increases in growth differ between species.[21](Figure 1)[22] They range from a doubling in weight, to some fish that are almost 100 times heavier than the wild-type at a comparable age.[13] This research area has resulted in dramatic growth enhancement in several species, including salmon,[23] trout[24] and tilapia.[25] Other sources indicate an 11-fold and 30-fold increase in growth of salmon and mud loach, respectively, compared to wild-type fish.[6][26] Transgenic fish development has reached the stage where several species are ready to be marketed in different countries, for example, GM tilapia in Cuba, GM carp in the People's Republic of China, and GM salmon in the US and Canada.[27] In 2014, it was reported that applications for the approval of transgenic fish as food had been made in Canada, China, Cuba and the United States.[6]
Over-production of GH from the pituitary gland increases growth rate mainly by an increase in food consumption by the fish, but also by a 10 to 15% increase in feed conversion efficiency.[28]
Another approach to increasing meat production in GM fish is "double muscling". This results in a phenotype similar to that of Belgian Blue cattle in rainbow trout. It is achieved by using transgenes expressing follistatin, which inhibits myostatin, and the development of two muscle layers.[13]
AquAdvantage salmon [ edit ]
In November 2015, the FDA of the USA approved the GM AquAdvantage salmon created by AquaBounty for commercial production, sale and consumption.[1][29] It is the first genetically modified animal |
Киев.
Но еще до освобождения Киева, 3 сентября 1943 года, генерал Монтгомери высаживается в Калабрии, уже непосредственно на носке Итальянского сапога. После этого 8 сентября 1943 года маршал Бадольо — новый главнокомандующий вооруженными силами Италии, назначенный королем Италии Виктором Эммануилом 25 июля 1943 года (25 июля 1943 года арестован Муссолини), — подписывает капитуляцию Италии.
Солдаты американской 143-й пехотной дивизии приветствуют безоговорочную капитуляцию Италии, 1943 год. Фото: East News
10 октября 1943 года проходит Московская конференция министров иностранных дел по открытию «Второго фронта». Принимается Декларация о всеобщей безопасности — фактически основа будущей Организации Объединенных Наций, создается Европейская консультативная комиссия по условиям капитуляции Германии и принимается Декларация об Австрии. Обсуждается вопрос, чем является Австрия — первой оккупированной Гитлером страной или первым союзником Германии. И, к счастью для Австрии, принимается решение, что она первая оккупированная Гитлером страна. Это не очень честно, на самом деле 95 % австрийцев (помните фильм «Звуки музыки») с восторгом встречали Гитлера. Но так политически было разумнее, потому что врага надо раскалывать на части, чтобы побеждать.
28 ноября — 1 декабря 1943 года проходит Тегеранская конференция, в которой впервые (и это подчеркивал Молотов) Советский Союз рассматривался как равноправный участник антигитлеровской коалиции. Впервые. До этого всегда считали СССР руконепожатной страной — не более чем врагом моего врага. Но победа под Сталинградом доказала силу русского оружия и к нему стали относиться вполне серьезно. Особенно Рузвельт. Черчилль, который отлично знал, кто такие большевики, больших иллюзий на их счет не питал и предлагал достаточно фантастические планы послевоенной нейтрализации СССР в Центральной Европе.
Идет еще вовсю война, гибнут сотни тысяч людей, союзники еще не перешли границ Германии, не открыли «Второй фронт» во Франции, хотя открыт «Второй фронт» в Италии, где идут кровопролитные бои между немцами и итальянскими фашистами, не признавшими капитуляции Бадольо, и союзниками. Около Монте-Кассино в районе Неаполя на «линии Густава» в четырех сражения января — мая 1944 года погибает до 70 тысяч человек с обеих сторон. Но для всех знающих и думающих людей уже ясно, что мир наступит. «Ось» дала трещины и скоро разрушится.
Тем ни менее американцы не перестают помогать Советскому Союзу, наоборот, они наращивают помощь. Поставки в СССР в 1941 году — $ 29,5 млн, в 1942 — $ 1 млрд 363 млн, в 1943 году — $ 2 млрд 965 млн и в 1944 году — $ 3 млрд 429 млн. При этом увеличивается доля мирных поставок (продовольствие, медикаменты, тракторы, автомобили), потому что сельское хозяйство полностью разорено — земли опустошены, множество мужчин погибло, искалечено или находится на фронте, женщины не могут все вытянуть. В этой ситуации без подпитки Соединенных Штатов и в 1944 году люди бы во множестве умирали от голода.
В тех городах, куда по тем или иным причинам поставки доходили в малой степени, голодная смертность была высока. Например, в Архангельске (кажется, в нем разгружались корабли, и тем не менее) в 1943 году 20 тысяч человек умерли от голодной смерти. Смертность в лагерях, смертность среди немецких военнопленных была вообще колоссальная. И практически не кормили заключенных в тюрьмах.
Поставки были важны, чтобы поддержать и военный потенциал. Если в 1942 году в основном поставлялась готовое вооружение и техника, а это неудобно, потому что к американскому оружию требуются американские патроны и американские запчасти, то с 1943 года основные поставки — это сырые материалы. Это порох, который потом уже здесь, на пороховых заводах, превращается в боеприпасы. Это лист стальной, о чем вспоминал Жуков, для танков, но танки советской конструкции. Значит, не надо уже поставлять к ним боеприпасы, свои были. Здесь был и плюс, и минус. Дело в том, что Советский Союз, как всегда, гнал вал. Надо было больше танков, больше самолетов: они мало жили, быстро погибали. Но беда в том, что этот вал в условиях преимущественно неквалифицированной рабочей силы приводил к очень низкому качеству нашей техники, особенно сложной. Ведь была трудовая мобилизация, мобилизованы были все мужчины от 14 до 65 лет на трудовой фронт и все женщины от 16 до 55 лет. Так же, как все мужчины от 17 до 50 лет были мобилизованы на боевой фронт. Американские детали (радиоприемники и радиопередатчики в самолетах) и американская сталь не спасли положение.
У нас количество самолетов, погибших в 1944 году от немецкого огня, в четыре раза меньше количества боевых самолетов, погибших по небоевым причинам. То есть они просто разваливались в воздухе, взрывались при взлете, плохо управлялись и погибали при посадке. 1750 самолетов было сбито противником и 6223 самолета погибли вне боя. Авиакатастроф в четыре раза больше, чем самолетов, сбитых врагом, именно потому, что все делалось на скорую и часто неумелую руку. И если полевую пушку сложно испортить, довольно грубая система, то самолет — это тонкая система, и его легко сделать некачественно. Наши летчики поэтому предпочитали летать на «Аэрокобрах».
Переход в ленд-лизе на поставки преимущественно сырых материалов открывал перед руководством СССР новые идеологические возможности. Дело в том, что «Аэрокобра», «Виллис», «Студебекер» или танк «Паттон» — это очевидное американское оружие. Тут ничего скрыть невозможно. А когда на Казанский пороховой завод поставляется американский порох, и там же есть советский, и все это смешивается для приготовления зарядов, то потом все списывается в советское производство. На Казанском заводе была такая формула: «Порох из внешних поставок». Это мог быть порох из Средней Азии и порох из Соединенных Штатов.
Такая скрытая статистика дала возможность председателю Госплана Николаю Вознесенскому в книге «Военная экономика в период Отечественной войны» (опубликована в 1948 г.), утверждать: «Если сравнить размеры поставок союзниками промышленных товаров в СССР с размерами производства промышленной продукции на социалистических предприятиях СССР за тот же период, то окажется, что удельный вес этих поставок по отношению к отечественному производству в период военной экономики составит всего лишь около 4 %». Понятно, что это ложь. Но чтобы эту ложь удачнее позиционировать, делался такой статистический обман.
Американский посол в Москве адмирал Стэнли 8 марта 1943 года официально выразил разочарование, что американская помощь СССР по ленд-лизу и через Американско-русский комитет (а помощь шла еще через Американско-русский комитет, ленд-лиз — это государственная помощь, а, кроме того, еще была помощь, которую собирали люди добровольно) не может быть по достоинству оценена русским народом, поскольку правительство СССР очень слабо освещает ее истинные масштабы. После этого стали освещать поставки больше, но с 1946 года советская пропаганда утверждала, что мы выиграли своими силами, а те жалкие крохи, которые давали нам союзники, были оплачены нашей кровью, и что вообще американские танки были совсем плохие по сравнению с нашими Т-34 и КВ, и американские самолеты и английские никуда не годились… Про «Студебекеры» очень сложно было говорить, потому что у нас вообще ничего не было, у нас практически не было собственных автомобилей, и пушки были на конной тяге. Мы перевели на машинную тягу нашу орудийную базу только за счет американских поставок. Поэтому тут уж было как-то сложно говорить, и просто молчали. Про американскую тушенку знали все, пенициллин знали все, но об этом старались лишний раз не упоминать.
Но пропаганда — это одно, а оплата аренды — иное. Как же обошлись с ленд-лизом после войны? Долг Великобритании по ленд-лизу Соединенным Штатам был выставлен в $ 4,33 млрд. Это то невоенное оборудование, которое не было повреждено или уничтожено во время войны. То, что было уничтожено, повреждено или использовано во время войны (как тушенка, пенициллин или военная техника), не подлежало никакой оплате вообще. Использованное — это вклад в дело победы над общим врагом. У нас часто забывают об этом важном аспекте ленд-лиза.
Долг Канады Соединенным Штатам — 1 млрд 190 млн долларов США. Великобритания и Канада выплатили этот долг к 2006 году. Конечно, доллар уже был не тот, что во время войны — он стал «легче» в 11 раз, но формально долг был выплачен полностью. США к Великобритании и Канаде больше в связи с ленд-лизом претензий не имели.
Советскому Союзу Соединенные Штаты выставили небольшой счет в сравнении с теми огромными поставками, которые они сделали, они выставили счет в 1 млрд 300 млн долларов. СССР был готов заплатить $ 170 млн. В 1948 году, после Берлинского кризиса, переговоры были остановлены. В 1951 году они были возобновлены. США снизили до $ 800 млн, СССР поднял до $ 300 млн, но договориться не удалось.
В 1972 году наконец было подписано соглашение с США о погашении долга по ленд-лизу до 2001 года. Соединенные Штаты согласились на сумму $ 722 млн, включая проценты по долгу. Советский Союз подписал это соглашение в 1972 году. Но в 1973 году была принята поправка Джексона — Вэника, и, заплатив всего до этого времени $ 48 млн, Советский Союз заявил, что больше он из-за этой поправки платить не будет.
Соединенные Штаты, хорошо рассчитывая военные операции, также аккуратны и в финансовых вопросах. Они не бросают деньги на ветер, они могут что-то «скостить», но они не говорят «забудем, дружба важнее», потому что они понимают, что каждый этот доллар заработан трудом американского человека — фермера, рабочего. Они не могут бросить, как Советский Союз, Асаду — миллионы, Каддафи — миллионы. США продолжают настаивать на погашении расходов по ленд-лизу.
В июне 1990 года Михаил Сергеевич Горбачев подписывает новое соглашение — до 2030 года уплатить $ 674 млн, включая проценты. 4 декабря 1991 года подписан между 8 республиками бывшего СССР договор о правопреемстве в выплате долга, при этом доля России — 61,34 %. Но подписало только 8 республик. Балтийские страны (которые объявили себя оккупированными), Азербайджан (непонятно почему), Молдова (тоже оккупированная), Туркменистан и Узбекистан (непонятно почему) объявили, что они не будут подписывать этот договор и ничего платить не будут.
2 апреля 1993 года Российская Федерация заключила со всеми бывшими республиками Советского Союза договор о том, что она является единственным должником в области советского государственного долга, но за это она получает все активы бывшего Советского Союза. Все на это согласились. Долги государствам (правительственные) погашались через Парижский клуб, долги частным банкам — через Лондонский клуб. Ленд-лиз — это, понятно, Парижский клуб.
К 2006 году долг по ленд-лизу был полностью выплачен Россией. Мы в этом смысле сейчас чисты. И мы выплатили долг в тот же год, что Великобритания и Канада.
7.
А теперь посмотрим, что бы было, если бы Советский Союз вышел из войны, заключил сепаратное (как в 1918 г. Брестский мир) соглашение с Гитлером. Гитлер собирался Сталина оставить, говорил: «Никто, кроме него, не умеет управлять этим сумасшедшим народом». Сталин бы остался управлять из Самары или из Екатеринбурга куском между Енисеем и Волгой (все, что к западу от Волги, было намечено непосредственно для германской колонизации).
Иногда говорят, что все равно бы союзники выиграли. Я так раньше и сам думал. Теперь думаю иначе — не выиграли бы. Скорее всего, было бы заключено какое-нибудь компромиссное соглашение, которое оставило Соединенные Штаты и Великобританию в покое, но с чем-то им пришлось бы расстаться... И тоталитарный режим, ужасный тоталитарный режим, скорее всего, воцарился бы в Евразии на многие десятилетия, гитлеровско-коммунистический, уж я не знаю, в каком соотношении, он был бы в нашей стране. Я думаю, что и в Великобритании, и в Соединенных Штатах, в этих оплотах демократии, пришли бы к власти соглашательские силы, типа того же Ллойд Джорджа, если не английского фашиста баронета Освальда Мосли. Такие же люди были и в Соединенных Штатах. Британская империя развалилась бы, поделенная между Японией и Германией. Мир бы стал совершенно другим. Я уж не говорю о той ужасной участи, которая постигла бы еврейский народ, но это — частное следствие ужасного общего.
Так что в 1942 году, когда настал «их звездный час», мир был на волоске от гибели демократической формы государственности. К 1943 году общими усилиями антигитлеровской коалиции победа была решена. Победа, но не освобождение от тоталитаризма. Британцы и американцы слишком тяжело пережили эту войну, чтобы мечтать еще об освобождении России от тоталитаризма. Это они предоставили делать нашему народу. В беседах между американскими и советскими военными в Германии в 1945 году американцы искренне удивлялись: «Ну если вам так не нравится ваш дядя Джо, переизберите его». Эта миссия остается для нас актуальной до сего дня.Disgraced former radio host Jian Ghomeshi today pleaded not guilty in a Toronto courtroom to all five charges against him.
The former host of CBC Radio's cultural affairs show q is facing five charges, including four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking.
Ghomeshi's trial begins Feb. 1, and will be by judge only.
The 48-year-old did not speak with reporters as he walked into the downtown courthouse, where he was arraigned during a court appearance.
Ghomeshi, wearing a dark suit and tie, said only "not guilty" when asked how he pleaded. He had to repeat that because he wasn't speaking into a microphone.
Judge William Horkins then cleared the public and media from the courtroom to deal with a motion.
Ghomeshi was originally charged with seven counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking, but the Crown withdrew two sexual assault charges in May because they said there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.
He is also facing one charge of sexual assault that is being tried separately.
The CBC fired Ghomeshi last October after executives saw what they described as graphic evidence that he had physically injured a woman.
The one-time radio star has admitted to engaging in rough sex but said it was consensual.
The alleged assaults he was originally charged with occurred between 2002 and 2008.
Ghomeshi's $100,000 bail conditions require him to remain in Ontario and live with his mother.The court heard the drugs raid occurred on August 27 2014 after police suspected another family member was supplying amphetamines.
Tim Brennand said: "Amphetamines were seized from a freezer in the outhouse and Joel Murray's attic bedroom was also searched. A black Nokia mobile phone was found and examined and text messages were found that were suggestive of the purchase and supply of illegal drugs. Poppy's iPhone 5 was also seized.
"Between the 22 and 26th of August, just the day before the search, text messages were sent regarding purchasing a large quantity of cocaine and offering it for sale. Another message was seen to be purchasing Benzphetamine, which can be used in the preparation and the cutting of cocaine.
"This significantly demonstrates the level of organisation and significant inference on Joel to use it. On the 22nd of August there was a text detailing the purchase of half an ounce of cocaine costing £750. Nine minutes later texts were sent to 16 different people to sell quantities of high purity cocaine.
"The texts read that there was 'raw' drugs for sale. Poppy said: 'do you want me to ask' and this introduced the supply of drugs to a party. It was decided how much Poppy wanted and a delivery was made to where Poppy was. There were texts also disputing how much money had been paid."
Police also found a set of electronic scales in Joel's bedroom alongside a notepad which at the top had a list called "snowers". There was also a list of drug buyers for cocaine and cannabis called "what we sniff".
Neither the brother nor the sister gave comment in interviews to police.
Joel also pleaded guilty to possessing 2,030 MDMA tablets worth £6,090 and 606g of cannabis worth £8,480 after the drugs were found hidden in a bucket inside his wardrobe during a different police search.
His lawyer Henry Blackshaw said: "The strongest mitigation for him is his age and his lack of maturity. The gravity of the offending perhaps did not give the correct connotations to him. Recreational use of of cocaine with young people is very prevalent in society now which could reduce the gravity of the situation.
"He could also have been excited by the illicit use of cocaine. Through me he displays a significant degree of guilt including the situation his sister finds herself in. He is very conscious of her being here in court no small part is due to him."
Passing sentence the judge Mr Recorder Eric Lamb told Poppy: "I have been persuaded that you were pooling resources together to pay for the drugs. It was a foolish decision which you have clearly thought better of since."NANAIMO — The Nanaimo Parkway was shut down to northbound traffic between Mostar and Aulds for nearly five hours after a pedestrian was hit by a semi-truck, according to the RCMP.
Const. Gary O'Brien says it happened on Wednesday at 4:10 p.m.
“The condition of the pedestrian is unknown, that person was transported to local hospital,” he said.
O'Brien said several officers were on scene and a traffic analyst was called in.
“The driver of the semi is cooperating and remained at the scene and has spoken to investigators," he said.
O'Brien says it was far too early in the investigation to comment on what might have caused the incident.
The pedestrian was hit about 400 metres south of the Aulds Rd. intersection.
O'Brien expects more information to be released Thursday.The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT or Ninja Turtles) are a team of four teenage anthropomorphic turtles, who are trained by their sensei, Master Splinter, to become skilled ninja warriors. From their home in the sewers of Manhattan, they battle petty criminals, evil megalomaniacs, and alien invaders, all while remaining isolated from society at large.
The TMNT originated in an American comic book published by Mirage Studios in 1984. The concept arose from a comical sketch by Kevin Eastman during a casual evening of brainstorming with his friend Peter Laird. Using money from a tax refund together with a loan from Eastman's uncle, the young artists self-published a single-issue comic intended to parody four of the most popular comics of the early 1980s: Marvel Comics' X-Men/The New Mutants, which featured teenage mutants, Daredevil, which featured ninja clans dueling for control of the New York City underworld, Cerebus, which featured anthropomorphic animals and Ronin.
Much of the Turtles' mainstream success is owed to Mark Freedman, a licensing agent who sought out Eastman and Laird to propose wider merchandising opportunities for the offbeat property. In January 1987, they visited the offices of Playmates Toys, a small California toy company who wished to expand into the action figure market. Accompanied by the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, the TMNT were soon catapulted into pop culture history. At the height of the frenzy, the Turtles' likenesses could be found on a wide range of children's merchandise, from PEZ dispensers to skateboards, breakfast cereal, and school supplies. By 1995, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise had earned $6 billion in revenues.[1]
Today, there is a resurgence in the Turtles' popularity with the success of the recent animated series, a new line of Playmates action figures, Konami video games, and a computer-animated feature film that came out in 2007.
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History
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles originated in an American comic book published by Mirage Studios in 1984 in New Hampshire. The concept arose from a humorous drawing sketched out by Kevin Eastman during a casual evening of brainstorming with his friend Peter Laird.[2] Using money from a tax refund together with a loan from Eastman's uncle, the young artists self-published a single issue comic intended to parody four of the most popular comics of the early 1980s: Marvel Comics' Daredevil and New Mutants, Dave Sim's Cerebus, and Frank Miller's Ronin.[3]
Much of the Turtles' mainstream success began when a licensing agent, Mark Freedman, sought out Eastman and Laird to propose wider merchandising opportunities for the offbeat property. In 1986, Dark Horse Miniatures produced a set of 15 mm lead figurines. In January 1988, they visited the offices of Playmates Toys Inc, a small California toy company who wished to expand into the action figure market. Development initiated with a creative team of companies and individuals: Jerry Sachs, ad man of Sachs-Finley Agency, brought together the animators at Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, headed by award-winning animator Fred Wolf. Wolf and his team combined concepts and ideas with Playmates marketing crew, headed by Karl Aaronian and then VP of Sales, Richard Sallis and VP of Playmates, Bill Carlson. Aaronian brought on several designers and concepteer and writer John Schulte and worked out the simple backstory that would live on toy packaging for the entire run of the product and show. Sachs called the high-concept pitch "Green Against Brick". The sense of humor was honed with the collaboration of MWS's writers. Playmates and their team essentially served as associate producers and contributing writers to the miniseries that was first launched to sell-in the toy action figures. Phrases like "Heroes in a Half Shell" and many of the comical catch phrases and battle slogans ("Turtle Power!") came from the writing and conceptualization of this creative team. As the series developed, veteran writer Jack Mendelsohn came on board as both a story editor and scriptwriter. David Wise, Michael Charles Hill, and Michael Reaves wrote most of the scripts, taking input via Mendelsohn and collaborating writer Schulte and marketing maven Aaronian.
The miniseries was repeated three times before it found an audience. Once the product started selling, the show got syndicated and picked up and backed by Group W, which funded the next round of animation. The show then went network, on CBS. Accompanied by the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987 TV series, and the subsequent action figure line, the TMNT were soon catapulted into pop culture history. At the height of the frenzy, in the early 1990s, the Turtles' likenesses could be found on a wide range of children's merchandise, from Pez dispensers to skateboards, breakfast cereal, video games, school supplies, linens, towels, cameras, and even toy shaving kits. The TV series would eventually reach it's end, only to be replaced by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 TV series a few years later, which would prove to become extremely popular, reaching an even broader fanbase than the previous series.
On October 21, 2009, it was announced that cable channel Nickelodeon (a subsidiary of Viacom) had purchased all of Mirage's rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property. Mirage retains the rights to publish 18 issues a year, though the future involvement of Mirage with the Turtles and the future of Mirage Studios itself is unknown.[4] Nickelodeon has developed a new CGI-animated TMNT television series and partnered with fellow Viacom company Paramount Pictures to bring a new TMNT movie to theaters. The TV show premiered on Nickelodeon on September 29, 2012.[5] The live action film, produced by Platinum Dunes, Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Pictures, directed by Jonathan Liebesman and produced by Michael Bay, was released on August 8, 2014.[6]
Main characters
Main article: List of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters
Powers and abilities
Each turtle posses enhanced mutant strength, thanks to the mutagen that mutated them. This explains why they are able to fight and overpower beings ten times their own size, such as being able to knock out Tricertons with simple jump kicks, as well as various other monsters, aliens, and giant creatures. It's obvious that the Turtles aren't on any human level. Each of them are on an almost superhuman level.
The 15 years of intense ninja training combined with their mutant powers makes each of them even stronger, faster, and much more skilled than normal humans. And as the years go by, they become more and more skilled in all forms of martial arts. In the episode, "Turtle Trek", Leonardo destroyed an alien tank by running around it at lightning-quick speed while slashing phenomenally quick at it, then as he stopped running, the tank shattered to pieces.
In the episode, "Enter the Shredder", the Turtles were able to smash through an army of giant mechanical robots using nothing but their weapons and their bodies. In the episode, "Turtle Trek", they defeated an entire invasion fleet of nearly-indestructible Rock Warriors through brute force.
Each of the Turtles have also shown to be outstanding warriors on their own.
Leonardo was able to battle entire armies of ninjas all at once, and win. He is usually the one who defeats the Shredder, and various other very powerful beings. Such as Tempestra, (a being with elemental powers), the Ultimate Ninja, Hun, etc. He, at one point, even destroyed an embodiment of the devil (from the episode; The Darkness Within. Leonardo, in a fit of uncontrollable rage, fought and injured his own master Splinter at one point, proving that he'd surpassed his own master. (The episode; The Ancient One)
Michelangelo has won the Battle Nexus Tournament (A dimensional arena where beings from across all the known universes come to duel to determine the most skilled and powerful warrior ever), can easily beat Raphael, and is the most agile and athletic of the four Turtles.
Donatello is the least violent turtle, often trying to solve issues without needing to resort to fighting. However, despite the fact that Donatello spends more time in his lab than he does training, he can surprisingly keep up with the other Turtles in terms of skill and power with little effort. In fact, in the classic series, he may just be the most skilled of the four. (In the episode, "Too Hot To Handle", he was able to defeat his fellow turtles in a training duel. However, it was just training so it's likely the others weren't fighting with the same intensity they fight with in an actual battle). He has saved the world on his own a lot of times, and can outsmart even the most intelligent beings (he has out smarted an evil duplicate of himself, who literally had ten times his own intelligence), and has also outsmarted various other super intelligent beings such as, Slash, Krang, Lord Dregg, etc.
Raphael is perhaps the most powerful and strongest, and definitely one of the quickest. Like the others, he can fight entire hordes and armies of ninjas by himself, and win. He's the most durable turtle, being able to take hits from the Shredder himself and still fight back, has been repedeatly smashed by Tripple Threat and still get back up, has been shot by lightning from the Sword Of Tengu and could still fight, and even had his entire body sliced into a bloody mess, and his own eye ripped apart, but he was still able to fight back with no less might (this was in the episode, "Same As It Never Was",). He can be just as deadly and powerful as any of the other Turtles, and can throw some serious punches. He's also shown the ability to defeat Leonardo.
Aside from their incredible skills and mutant strength, each Turtle also has a super mutant form that can be triggered when they each feel stressed enough. (this was only in seasons 9-10 of the classic series, though). They basically grow into giant hulks with shells. In this form, their strength and power increases a hundredfold. (being able to survive building explosions without a scratch, able to withstand devastating blasts, etc.). In the episode, "Return Of Dregg", Leonardo, in his mutant form, threw a giant 200 ton robot into space, showing just how powerful his mutant form is.
In the episode, "Cyber Turtles, each of the Turtles "borrowed" four extremely powerful cyber suits from the war like Glaxxons, which could transform each of them into giant, invincible super cyborgs with incredible fire power. The only thing capable of destroying a cyber suit would be another who posses a cyber suit, or a laser powered by the Firestar; a crystal with the power of a thousand suns. However, this was only used once, and it was never revealed if the Turtles ever returned the cyber suits to the Glaxxons after defeating them.
In Season 5 of the 2003 series, (also known as "The Lost Episodes" and "The Ninja Tribunal Season"), the Turtles were granted four magical amulets which gave each of them incredible mystic powers. (super speed, super strength, teleportation, etc.). It was also revealed that when focused hard enough, each of the Turtles could transform into giant mystical dragons, which increases their powers a thousandfold. In this form, each of them are on a near "god-like" level.
Each of the Turtles are extremely durable and can take some serious damage. They've survived explosions, buildings being dropped on them, being stabbed, superpowered punches, lightning bolts, laser shots, and even an intense cosmic blast from the Starchild (this was from the episode: The Starchild of Season 7 in the classic series).
However, their main power is their family bonded team work and cunning. The team work of the TMNT is unmatched, and when working together, there is nothing they cannot solve. Though it's mostly Donatello who comes up with the ideas and answers, it's Leonardo who plans out their next move, with help from Raphael and Michelangelo. It's almost as if the Turtles all think as one, for they almost always combine their skills to great effect, making use of their strengths and making strategies, even in the midst of battle, to make up for their weaknesses.
Comic books
Mirage Studios
The first issue of Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles premiered in May, 1984, at a comic book convention held at a local Sheraton Hotel in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was published by Mirage Studios in an oversized magazine-style format using black & white artwork on cheap newsprint, limited to a print run of only 3,000 copies. The small print runs made these early comics instant collector items, and within months they were trading for over fifty times their cover price. The name "Mirage Studios" was chosen because of Eastman and Laird's lack of a professional art studio at the start of their career, before their creation made them both multi-millionaires.
Mirage also published a bi-monthly companion book entitled Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, featuring art by Ryan Brown and Jim Lawson, which was designed to fill in the gaps of continuity in the TMNT universe. The title ran from 1987–1989, released in alternating months with the regular Eastman & Laird book.
As the TMNT phenomenon proliferated to other media, Eastman and Laird would find themselves administrating an international merchandising juggernaut. Unfortunately, this prevented the two creators from participating in the day-to-day work of writing and illustrating a monthly comic book. For this reason, many guest artists were invited to showcase their unique talents in the TMNT universe. The breadth of diversity found in the various short stories gave the series a disjointed, anthology-like feel. Fans stuck with the series, and what was originally intended as a one-shot parody became a continuing series that lasted for 76 issues spanning two separate volumes.
In June, 1996, Image Comics revived the title as a more action-oriented TMNT series. Although notable for inflicting major physical changes on the main characters, the events of Volume 3 have been dropped from continuity. Mirage Studios resumed publication of a fourth volume in December, 2001, under the simple title TMNT. After the publication of issue #28, writer Peter Laird put the series on an eight month hiatus to allow him more time to devote to the upcoming movie.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles |
heavy Wahhabite hand of Saudi Arabia and threatening Saudi domination over the Gulf States. Kuwait, Oman, as well as non-Gulf Turkey were coming closer to Qatar and even Pakistan now may think twice about joining a Saudi-led “Arab NATO”. Bin Salman has proven a disaster as a defense strategist, as proven in the Yemen debacle.
As to the future, it appears that Qatar is not about to rollover and surrender in face of Saudi actions. Already Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani is moving to establish closer ties with Iran, with Turkey that might include Turkish military support, and most recently with Russia. Kuwait and Oman are urgently trying to get Saudi to backdown on this, but that is unlikely as behind Saudi Arabia stands the US and promises of tens of billions of dollars in US arms. This foolish US move to use their proxy, in this case Riyadh, to discipline those not “behaving” according to Washington wishes, could well be the turning point, the point of collapse of US remaining influence in the entire Middle East in the next several years.
Q: Terrorism threatens the world. What in your view, according to what you wrote in your book, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics” and other writings about DAESH (IS) is the real story behind the recent so-called “clashes of civilizations between East and West and between the West and Islam?
WE: We must keep in mind that all serious terrorist organizations are state-sponsored. All. Whether DAESH or Al Nusra or Mujahideen in Afghanistan or Maute Group in Philippines. The relevant question is which states sponsor which terrorists. Today NATO is the one most complicit in sponsoring terrorism as a weapon of their geopolitical designs. And within NATO the United States is sponsor number one, often using Saudi money and until recently, ironically, Qatari funds.
My newest book, The Lost Hegemon: Whom the Gods Would Destroy, gives a far more detailed road-map of the use made by both British intelligence, by the Third Reich under Himmler, and since the 1950s, by the CIA, of especially the Muslim Brotherhood and its later “offspring” including Afghan Mujahideen of Osama bin Laden–a part of CIA’s Operation Cyclone to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s.
The CIA’s Mujahideen, trained by Pakistan’s ISI and recruited for the CIA by Osama bin Laden under the supervision of Prince Turki al-Faisal, the notorious head of Saudi Intelligence, were then brought by CIA private airlines after the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, into former Soviet Union republics to sow trouble. This included Azerbaijan, where the CIA used them to topple the government in favor of the Aliyev dictatorship that was amenable to giving oil rights to BP and American companies and to abandoning using the Soviet era oil pipeline through Russia’s Chechnya.
Then the CIA brought the Afghan Mujahideen veteran terrorists they had trained– including Osama bin Laden–they brought them into Chechnya to destabilize Russia’s oil pipeline route from Baku across Russia. That was to open the way for the Anglo-American Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. Control the oil.
In my book, The Lost Hegemon–the United States as Sole Superpower after 1990 is meant–I trace the evolution of these CIA mercenary terrorists who hide behind the facade of being “devout Muslim fundamentalists.” The CIA and Pentagon brought them into Iraq after 2003 where US military operations under General David Petraeus, in effect created Al Qaeda in Iraq. Then the US launched the Arab Spring in 2011 to force regime change across the entire Muslim world, in a move to militarily control all oil and gas resources there, long a dream of the CIA and what some call the US “Deep State.”
When the Washington Arab Spring could not bring down Libya’s Qaddafi by peaceful protests as in Tunisia or Egypt, Washington opted for a military solution using France and NATO bombs as the up front actor. However, when they then tried the same in Syria against Bashar Al Assad, who opposed the Washington agenda, they were unable to do so, mainly because of UN security council vetoes by Russia and China. After September 2015 when Russia answered Assad’s plea for help against foreign terrorists and Russia brilliantly and swiftly responded, it exposed for all the world to see that Washington had been lying about trying to defeat DAESH or the so-called Islamic State.
The real story behind the rise of so-called Islamic Terrorism is the increasingly desperate attempt of the Anglo-American Deep State to control the rise of Eurasia, especially of China in combination now with Russia, and increasingly with Iran and Central Asian republics as well as South Asian. Without understanding this, none of the recent events in the Middle East make sense.
Washington strategists today foolishly believe that if they get choke point control of all Middle East oil and gas, they can, as Henry Kissinger stated back in the 1970’s “control the oil and thus, control entire nations,” especially China and Russia and also Germany and Europe. Their strategy has failed but Washington and the Pentagon refuse to see the reasons for their repeated filed wars. The hidden reality of American global power is that the American “giant” today is a bankrupt superpower, much like Great Britain after their Great Depression of 1873 up to 1914. Britain triggered a world war in 1914 to desperately try to retain their global power. They failed, for reasons I discuss in my Century of War book.
Today for much the same reasons–allowing the power of US financial conglomerates supercede the interests of the national industrial economy– America’s debt, national, private, corporate, is out of control. Reagan and Cheney were dead wrong. Debt does matter.
Eight years after the greatest financial crisis in history, the US real estate crisis of 2008, the US Central Bank is unable to raise its interest rates above 1% without risking a new financial meltdown. That alone suggests the degree of the dollar system crisis. Private economists estimate that real US unemployment today is near 23% of the workforce not the mythical 4-5% cited by the US Government.
Q: How would you comment on the position of the United states regarding Arab-Arab and Islamic-Islamic conflicts?
WE: Washington wants conflict in order to divide and rule. As Dick Cheney said in a London speech in September 1999 to the London Institute of Petroleum when Cheney was CEO of the world’s largest oilfield services company, Halliburton, the oil-rich states of the Middle East is “where the prize ultimately lies.” US policy has been to break the control of Arab national monarchies and the threat from the rising wealth of oil-based Arab sovereign wealth funds which were threatening to go away from the dollar.
Case in point, in 2010 under initiative from LIbya’s Qaddafi, Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Mubarak and Libya were planning to issue an Arab Gold Dinar and to demand payment for their oil exports in gold dinar and not US dollars, the seed of a Pan-Arab Bank. That would have spelled the end of the dollar, the key pillar of US hegemony. The released emails of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to her private Libya adviser, Sid Blumenthal, confirm this as the reason for Washington urgency in removing those three–Bin Ali, Mubarak and Qaddafi in their so-called “Arab Spring.”
Q: In your opinion what is the new world order after the recent London IS attacks and Iran?
WE: I would not call it a new world order after the recent London and Teheran attacks. Rather we are in the midst of the disintegration of the old world order, an order dominated for the past two hundred years since the British victory at Waterloo, by first, a British Empire, and after 1945, by an Anglo-American syndicated empire based on soft power, control of NATO, control of the IMF and World Bank and supreme or nearly supreme military power.
That order today is bankrupt. The downfall of American power in my view began in August 1971 when President Nixon tore up the solemn Bretton Woods Treaty obligations of the United States and shut the Federal Reserve Gold Discount Window. Since then Wall Street money power has made a silent coup in transforming the United States that I knew as a yound man in the 1950s and 1960s, from a more-or-less functioning democratic republic into an Oligarchy where money controls all, from Presidents like Obama or Trump to Congressmen who make the laws. That is a very dangerous state of affairs for Americans and for the entire world.
We may never know who was behind the London or Teheran attacks but a strong finger of suspicion must point to Washington, or the Mossad or their Saudi proxy in the case of Teheran.
Resort to terrorism to advance national interests by any nation is a sign not of fundamental strength but of pathetic weakness. Today our world is in the midst of the most profound paradigm shift, a truly tectonic geopolitical shift away from a system where one nation dictates to the entire world, the US version of globalization and New World Order as the late David Rockefeller proudly called it.That system may well have died with him and his long-time adviser Brzezinski.
Now the nations of Eurasia are building up a new world with huge investment in economic growth, investment in infrastructure, high-speed rail links, new deep water ports, all connecting the peoples of all Eurasia from Beijing to Moscow to Bremen or Rotterdam, to Teheran, perhaps to Istanbul and beyond. For more than the past two decades all the USA has offered the world is a foreign policy of wars and destruction of any and all threats to her power, to her failing hegemony. Now the world has a chance for the first time in several centuries to build up and develop our civilization in truly positive ways. It’s our choice which alternative we take.
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”Wisconsin’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld two laws dear to the state’s conservative government: curbs on public sector labor unions, and requirements that voters bring ID cards to the polls. Both laws have been the subject of multiple lawsuits saying they violate protections guaranteed by the Constitution.
The court upheld the union-curbing law 5–2 under a challenge filed by the Madison teachers’ union and another representing Milwaukee public workers. They had argued that the law violated workers’ constitutional rights to free assembly and equal protection.
The court ruled that Wisconsin’s 2011 collective bargaining reforms do not violate the free speech and equal protection rights of public sector union workers, and that such union members do not have a constitutional right to negotiate with their employer for wages and on other matters.
Union advocates say collective bargaining drives down costs for health care. The reforms, passed by Republican lawmakers, severely limit the bargaining power of public sector unions while forcing most state workers to pay more for benefits such as health insurance and pensions. Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker has said what they pay is still less than workers in the private sector.
The court wrote in its opinion, “The plaintiffs remain free to advance any position, on any topic, either individually or in concert, through any channels that are open to the public.”
Federal courts have upheld the law in two cases, including a ruling by Federal Judge William Conley last September. Conley also ruled that the First Amendment grants public employees the right to free speech and association, but does not grant them collective bargaining rights.
The reforms, which do not apply to public safety workers, also made payment of union dues voluntary and forced unions to be recertified every year.
The law resulted in large demonstrations in Madison — and efforts to recall Walker and some Republican lawmakers who supported the legislation. Walker survived a recall election in 2012.
Walker called this week’s ruling “a victory” for “hard-working taxpayers” in a statement.
The court this week also upheld a law mandating that voters present identification in order to vote — but that statute had already been blocked by a federal court in Milwaukee in April.
Opponents say the voter law presents an unfair hurdle to people who lack identification — which costs money to get from the state — and would strip the poor of the right to vote, disproportionately affecting ethnic minorities.
Federal law, much of it passed during the social strife of the 1960s, attempts to ensure voting rights for all, but such legislation has recently faced significant reinterpretation by the U.S. Supreme Court. The federal laws were originally meant to prevent states from passing legislation that would prevent or discourage black people from voting.
The ruling of the federal judge in Wisconsin is under appeal, and a federal appeals court would have to overturn it for the law to take effect.
Four lawsuits have been filed over Wisconsin's voting rights law, which like the union-curbing law was passed in 2011.
The League of Women Voters brought one of the suits against the voting law. The other came from the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP and immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera.
Al Jazeera and wire servicesNBC will not be bringing back midseason comedy Crowded starring Carrie Preston and Patrick Warburton. After so-so ratings in the preview behind The Voice (1.8, 1.4) for two back-to-back episodes, the multi-camera comedy has had a quiet run on Sunday, most recently logging a 0.7 Live+Same Day adults 18-49 rating for the last two airings.
On Crowded, created by Suzanne Martin, Mike (Warburton) and Martina Moore (Preston) are finally reclaiming their wild side after 20 years of parenting. Their plans go awry when both of their two grown daughters — Shea (Miranda Cosgrove) and Stella (Mia Serafino) — and Mike’s parents, Bob (Stacy Keach) and Alice (Carlease Burke), unexpectedly move back in to the house.
Because of her commitment to Crowded, Preston was not able to reprise her Emmy-winning role on The Good Wife for a major arc in the last string of episodes of the CBS drama as its creators had envisioned.TransAlt, coalition of bike, street safety groups tell Mayor de Blasio Vision Zero is off course
With cyclist fatalities and hit-and-run crashes at unacceptable levels this year in New York City, street safety advocates from Transportation Alternatives and Families for Safe Streets will hold a mass bike ride with hundreds of cyclists on the evening of Thursday, September 15th to say: Enough. TransAlt mobilized a broad coalition of bike and street safety groups after 78-year-old Michael Schenkman was struck and killed by a driver in Bayside, Queens on August 24th, in what was the 16th cyclist fatality of 2016. This week brings news of a 17th fatality, after an unnamed cyclist was killed in East Elmhurst, Queens early Tuesday morning.
“We’re riding to send a send a message that the City is off course in its Vision Zero effort to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2024,” said Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. “15 people on bikes were killed in New York City in all of 2015; this year we surpassed that number before Labor Day. Hit-and-runs against cyclists and pedestrians have also already reached the same number as we saw during all of last year. These critical Vision Zero statistics are moving in the wrong direction, and we want to know what Mayor de Blasio is going to do about it.”
Riders will demand that the Mayor take immediate action to fund and fast-track protected bike lanes and safeguarded pedestrian crossings for all 446 Vision Zero Priority Corridors and Intersections. Nearly half of this year’s cycling fatalities have taken place in areas designated as "Priority" locations in the City’s Pedestrian Safety Action Plans.
When advocates ride together to demand safe passage for cyclists and pedestrians, they will be led by the most vulnerable users of the streets -- new cyclists, teens, older New Yorkers, and kids. 6-year-old Galit Gordon, who will be coming from Brooklyn to join the ride, said, "We need safer streets so that no one gets run over by cars and trucks and so kids can ride their bikes to school.”
WHAT: Mass Bike Ride to Demand Safe Passage for Cyclists and Pedestrians
WHERE: Riders gather at E. 59th St and Fifth Ave and finish at Washington Square Park
WHEN: Thursday, September 15, Riders meet at 6pm and depart at 6:30
WHO: Transportation Alternatives, Families For Safe Streets, Right of Way, Black Girls Do Bike, Kidical Mass BK, WE Bike NYC, Recycle-A-Bicycle, 5BBC, Bike New York, Time's Up, CHEKPEDS, the NYC Mechanical Gardens Bike Coop, Get Women Cycling, the New York Bicycle Messenger Foundation, the Century Road Club Association, the New York Cycle Club and Bicycle Habitat.Today, in addition to being the Feast of the Assumption, would have been martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero’s 97th birthday. It’s been a big eighteen months (or so) for Romero news. In April of last year his path to sainthood was unblocked, and although there hasn’t been any movement thus far, when Pope Francis met with the bishops of El Salvador in May of this year he reportedly “assured the bishops of El Salvador that the sainthood cause of slain Archbishop Oscar Romero was proceeding well.”
I was reminded of all this by my friends over at the Ignatian Solidarity Network this morning when I saw their piece “Man as God’s Microphone,” a collection of twelve of Romero’s most powerful quotes.
It was in that list that I found these words of Romero’s:
I don’t want to be an anti, against anybody. I simply want to be the builder of a great affirmation: the affirmation of God, who loves us and who wants to save us.
The builder of a great affirmation. Yes. That’s what I want as well. Or maybe just to be a worker alongside the master builder. Or to trust in that great affirmation that is the God of life. Yes, something like that is what I want: to lean so far in towards the God of life that my life teaches what Romero (and all the martyrs) teach, kenosis.
Let my blood be a seed of freedom
Let my blood be a seed
Let my blood be a seed of freedom
Let my blood be a seed
It’s the same desire that is evoked in a beautiful song I’ve been listening to today. It’s a song that is part of a compilation called The Martyrs Project, and is composed almost wholly using Archbishop Romero’s own words. It opens with these words: “A martyrs death is a / grace of God that I / do not believe I deserve,” and the refrain is a haunting petition:
Listen to it here:
***
When the news that Romero’s cause for sainthood had been unblocked came it came in a homily. The homilist was Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia.
In that same homily he said, using other words, what is sung above: “Martyrs help us live, help us understand there is more joy in giving than in receiving. This is why we need to preserve their memories.” It is because we take this to be true, because we believe that there actually is more joy in giving than receiving, that we ask you to pray for us today, Father Romero.
Please, ask the Father today to bring peace to this holy, broken, world. That the blood of all those dying these days, in Iraq and Palestine, Israel and Missouri, will also be seeds of freedom.At least Hillary Clinton is keeping busy, right? Here she is from a few moments ago at the dedication ceremony of the United States Postal Service stamp honoring fashion icon Oscar de la Renta:
.@HillaryClinton touching on Oscar de la Renta's immigrant spirit while speaking at his USPS stamp dedication ceremony #fashionandpolitics pic.twitter.com/ChI33kavDy — Tamara Gitt (@tamaragitt) February 16, 2017
You’ve come a long way, baby?
HFrom shattering the glass ceiling of presidential politics to dedicating a stamp for a fashion designer:
never would have guessed that the USPS and Oscar de la Renta would bring me to my next Hillary Clinton assignment #fashionandpolitics #nyfw pic.twitter.com/SY7FuD0ljv — Tamara Gitt (@tamaragitt) February 16, 2017
Here’s her sad speech that doesn’t get very political except for a quip about the Constitution and an applause line on how de la Renta was an immigrant:Hurstville Council facing suspension over 'numerous failures' of governance, legal compliance
Updated
An entire Sydney council is facing suspension after a New South Wales Government investigation identified numerous failures of the required standard of governance and legal compliance.
Local Government Minister Paul Toole issued a notice of intention to suspend Hurstville City councillors for three months.
Earlier this year, Mr Toole ordered an investigation into the council after a number of serious issues were raised.
He said he was concerned the public had lost faith in the council, adding that he would take whatever action that was necessary to restore that faith.
In May, then deputy mayor Michelle Stevens announced her resignation in protest after the mayor, Con Hindi, whose term recently came to an end, suspended general manager Victor Lampe.
Cr Stevens told the ABC she announced her resignation when Mr Lampe was suspended, but did not follow through with the formal process in the following days, after support from councillors and the community to stay in her position.
Cr Hindi stood down Mr Lampe after he wrote a report recommending that Cr Hindi be fined and possibly prosecuted over a property he owns at Mortdale in Sydney's south.
The St George community, I think, will now breathe a collective sigh of relief and the behaviours they've been seeing and reading about for months now are, hopefully, finally coming to an end. Labor councillor Brent Thomas
The property was the subject of a council inspection in April when a neighbour complained.
Officers visited the site and discovered asbestos.
Cr Hindi denied at the time that Mr Lampe's suspension had anything to do with recommendations made about the property misconduct at Mortdale.
Mr Toole said the summary dismissal of Mr Lampe and other serious issues raised concerns about the functioning of the council.
Councillors welcome Government's intervention
Labor councillor Brent Thomas said he was pleased that the State Government was stepping in and taking serious action.
"He's identified a range of legal and compliance issues and it looks like we're going to be suspended," he said.
"The St George community, I think, will now breathe a collective sigh of relief and the behaviours they've been seeing and reading about for months now are, hopefully, finally coming to an end.
"The Minister's announcement is unequivocally good news for the community."
Cr Stevens said she supported the State Government's intention to suspend the entire council.
"It will mean that due process has been followed and the Minister, I believe, had no choice," Cr Stevens said.
"It had to happen in order for the investigation to continue and for fairness for all parties."
Cr Stevens explained to the ABC that she announced her resignation in May because she was "very upset" with the way general manager Mr Lampe was suspended, but decided to stay on in the days following the meeting.
"Due process had not been followed and I resigned as a result of that frustration," Cr Stevens said.
"However, I did not put my resignation in writing and I had so many members of the public coming to me and other councillors and councillors from other councils saying 'Don't resign. Stand your ground and see this through.' And that's what I did."
The council has seven days to respond to the notice.
Vince Badalati was elected Mayor of Hurstville City Council at an extraordinary meeting on September 9.
Topics: local-government, urban-development-and-planning, hurstville-2220, mortdale-2223
First postedHitler had micropenis, historians claim
or more archival photos of Hitler, Nazi Germany and World War II, see the following slide show. less A Dec. 30 1938, file photo shows German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his personal representative Rudolf Hess, right, during a parade in Berlin, Germany, on Dec. 30, 1938. Minister of Propaganda Dr. Joseph Goebbels can be seen on the left side next to Hitler. F A Dec. 30 1938, file photo shows German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his personal representative Rudolf Hess, right, during a parade in Berlin, Germany, on Dec. 30, 1938. Minister of Propaganda Dr. Joseph... more Photo: AP Photo: AP Image 1 of / 63 Caption Close Hitler had micropenis, historians claim 1 / 63 Back to Gallery
The news under the jodhpurs keeps getting worse for Adolf Hitler.
Just two months after a medical report confirmed that Hitler actually did have only one testicle, confirming a 1939 ditty, a new book reveals that the leader of the Third Reich suffered from a condition that left him with a micropenis.
In the book "Hitler's Last Day: Minute by Minute," historians Jonathan Mayo and Emma Craigie say they researched medical records that they claim confirm that the German dictator had a rare genital deformity called penile hypospadias.
In the condition, the urethra opening is located on the under side of the penis.
Hitler had to urinate from a hole at the base of his abnormally small shaft, instead of the tip. It must have made using a urinal a challenge.
The embarrassing details of his genitalia may explain somewhat why Hitler was supposedly afraid of being seen naked. Certainly they will do nothing to curb speculation about his sex life.
Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw said Hitler's love life was "fairly nonexistent," but because he was afraid of catching an infection. But German biographer Heike Gortemaker argues that the fuhrer enjoyed healthy sexual relations with Eva Braun.
Some will say Hitler compensated for his underwhelming manhood by erupting into tantrums and invading Poland, but of course there's no proof that his mid-life crises had anything to do with his anatomy.
Still, he rode in a Mercedes and kept a Porsche (automotive pioneer Ferdinand Porsche) on the payroll.The Winnipeg Jets missed the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons since the move to Manitoba, and the 14th time over 16 seasons over franchise history. The season does not end for us though at Jets Nations.
Welcome to our series where we take an analytical approach, dissecting what went wrong with the Jets 2015-2016 season and how to improve the team for next year.
We introduce our series with comparing the Jets 2015-2016 season from the 2014-2015 season.
The 2014-2015 season was pretty exciting one for Jets’ fans. It marked the first time the Jets made it to the post-season and fans were hoping it to be a sign of the times to come.
The Jets after all had a pretty good showing. Despite barely scratching into the playoffs there was a lot of promise. The core of the team was mostly the same. The Jets were one of the better 5v5 shot and goal differential teams in the NHL. With a mediocre penalty kill, poor power play, and league worst penalty differential, there was still a lot of room to move up.
The next year started off promising with the team starting off with an 8-4-1 record… and then they crashed.
What happened? Where did the goals go?
Simply put hockey is a goal scoring contest. At it’s simplest level it is about how effectively one team outscores its opposition. The Jets goal differential fell by 43 goals, from a solid +19 to a -24. On average one would expect the average NHL team to lose 8.6 wins from this. Sure enough, the Jets picked up 8 fewer wins than the season prior.
I broke up the Jets performance into three situations (5v5, Power Play, and Penalty Kill) and then looked at multiple factors within those situations (shot volume, goal conversion, and TOI). I then looked to see how many goals the Jets’ 2014-2015 goal differential would have changed by if you changed only that particular statistic to the Jets’ 2015-2016 performance, and held all other variables constant.
Left is ordered by statistic to keep each situation similar, while right is ordered in terms of goal differential impact.
The sum of all these impacts works out to -37.1, which is only 5.9 goals off of the Jets true drop of of 43 goals. Not bad considering how many factors are missing.
There were some areas of improvement. The Jets improved their penalty differential substantially, with a reduction in short handed ice time being worth about 6 goals against less. The Jets also generated about 2 goals worth more in generating 5v5 shot volume per minute, and their power play allowed about one goal worth of shots against less.
After that though it looks a bit bleak. The short version is that the Jets could have done a lot better in quite a few areas.
The Jets’ defensive game on penalty kill and 5v5 combined for about 13 more goals against. Jets goaltending in all situations fell by about 22 goals, about half of the Jets’ total drop. The Jets shooting percentage on the power play and 5v5 hurt the team by about nine goals, while the Jets shot volume on the power play (that was bad to begin with) worsened by three goals.
All-in-all it was a tough fallout in performance leading to a tough year.
While an influx in talent, some hopeful rebound years, and better goaltending the Jets’ should improve next season, but will it be enough to push the team back into the playoff picture?This Kickstarter is to fund the production of the first volume of the exciting new adventure comic from Oklahoma artist Natasha Alterici. That's me. Hi there. Okay, enough about me...
The Story:
A young Viking woman is on a mission to end the tyrannical reign of god-king Odin during a time of warfare, slavery, and the subjugation of women. Heathen follows the story of Aydis and her quest to challenge the gods with the help of the legendary immortal, the Valkyrie Brynhild. With her loyal horse Saga by her side, Aydis will battle, befriend, and outwit the various gods, demons, and fantastic creatures of lore she encounters along the way.
Though set in times of old, the strong social justice themes presented in Heathen resonate in today’s world. It's a progressive story with brave and endearing characters, provocative artwork, and plenty of romance and adventure. Drawing from the rich veins of Norse mythos, Heathen will appeal to fans of Saga, Fables, and other stories rooted in universal themes of freedom, equality, and heroism.
What people are saying about Heathen:
"Stunning art and a compelling story. It deserves a wide readership." -Rebecca
"THIS IS SO WONDERFUL. Incredible. I'm all gushy-Fangirl about it." -Kristen
"F***ing awesome." -Dakota
"It's undermining traditional family values, corrupting the youth of America!" -someone's mom probably
The Project:
Issue one is finished, issue two is being drawn right now, and I've got material to fill about a dozen more! For now I want to complete the next three installments and collect the first four issues together in a trade paperback with lots of bonus art. This is where I need your help. Funds from this campaign will go to production of the issues, printing of the trade, postcards, art prints, and other rewards, for shipping costs, and for the copious amounts of coffee needed to get this thing done.
Potential stretch goals could include bonus art prints, sketch cards, (stickers???), but biggest of all, more comics! We could with enough funds do a five or six issue trade. But, we'll talk more about that, should we get there.
Art!!!
Rewards!!Bob Katter was visibly uncomfortable during a heated exchange last night with comedian Josh Thomas over the politician’s earlier claims that no homosexuals lived in his electorate.
Katter and Thomas appeared on last night’s mental health-themed episode of Q&A when an audience member asked Katter if it was appropriate for him to talk about mental health without acknowledging gay people.
The Katter's Australian Party leader said he had been "attributed with having some hostility" over the issue in the past but that criticism didn’t stack up today.
When quizzed over whether his reluctance to recognise gay people could be detrimental to their mental health, the politician said his priority was to help those struggling.
But comedian Josh Thomas cut in, frustrated with Katter’s reluctance to tackle the question.
“I think the problem is that you say it’s not a priority but you talk about it quite a bit and when you do talk about it, you say awful things,” he said. “So, that’s the problem.”
He ridiculed a claim made by Katter in 1989 that there were no homosexuals in his northern Queensland electorate.
"They exist," Thomas said, "There’s an app called Grindr, I’ll put it on your phone."
Katter said while he had been guilty of "cracking jokes" on the issue, he hadn’t made similar public comments in years.
But Thomas continued to press the politician.
"You've got an ad – you can still see it on YouTube – from The Katter Australia Party, about how homosexuals are evil. You said they don’t exist," he said.
"For you to turn around and say you haven’t said homophobic things is just ridiculous.
"All you need to do…She asked the question you say, 'You know what, I've said some stuff in the past, it was a mistake, I understand now; it's hurting people’s mental health; it's part of the problem, not part of the solution. I'm sorry. Hooray for gay people. Here's some glitter'."
But Katter remained defiant, saying, "If you'd listened to my answer to the question, I thought that was exactly what I said," to laughter from the audience.
In 2012, Bob Katter expressed public regret for the anti-gay marriage campaign ads referenced by Thomas, describing them as the "crowning glory of all mistakes".
Viewers were quick to react to the exchange on Twitter.
Let me answer that question about not acknowledging gay people by not acknowledging gay people #qanda — Drew Sheldrick (@drewsheldrick) October 6, 2014
Josh Thomas on a roll telling Bob Katter homosexuals exist in Queensland: "There's an app called Grindr, I'll put in on your phone." #qanda — Julia Baird (@bairdjulia) October 6, 2014
Sorry I'm just thinking about Bob Katter on Grindr now. — Rob Harris (@rharris334) October 6, 2014
"I'm not listening, I'm not listening." And a new Katter Party slogan is born. #qanda — Jill Stark (@jillastark) October 6, 2014A massive leak of Microsoft’s plans for the future of Windows 10 Design has surfaced a short while ago, but thanks to Windows Central’s podcast, more details have been revealed.
The Microsoft Design Language (MDL), also known as Metro was first used back in 2002, in the Windows XP Media Centre Edition. It has evolved a lot since that and its current implementation is called MDL2. It is used in Windows 10, Outlook, Xbox, Office and basically every piece of software that Microsoft still develops. The successor, or refinement, to this current language, is currently called NEON.
NEON will not be a huge UI/UX change, and will simply be a continuation of what the Microsoft Design Language 2 or MDL2 is right now which means that Redstone 3 will still look familiar but it will be much more polished and feature a more streamlined version of what we currently have.
The recently released Paint 3D preview is a sneak peek of what’s to come, as it isn’t really using NEON but some parts of it are definitely there. The app has been criticized for not following Microsoft’s already lacking guidelines, but it seems like it actually has a reason behind it.
Another thing that NEON will focus on is depth, but unlike Google that focused on shadows to mark depth, Microsoft is planning to give some UI elements real 3D depth, where they will be able to render outside the window. It’s still unknown how these UI’s would be handled in a 2D environment.
With NEON focusing on bringing Windows 10 Mobile/Desktop/Console and Windows 10 Holographic together, having these 3D elements will be highly handy in an augmented or virtual world you can see through a HoloLens or a VR headset, and if Microsoft’s handles this well, possibly on desktop too.
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Further reading: MDL2Australia’s most pre-eminent solar researcher, Dr Martin Green, says the cost of solar PV technology will fall substantially in coming years, and while bad for the country’s thermal coal industry it will spell good news for other Australian mineral and materials exports.
Green, the director of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics at UNSW, spoke at an Australian Renewable Energy Agency function in Canberra last week, and we caught up with him on Monday.
“Solar PV is the cheapest form of new power, and soon it will be even cheaper,” he says.
Solar PV, Green expects, will fall in price in some areas in the world to around $US20/MWh this year, but by the mid-2020s costs of just $US10/MWh will be obtained, and prices in the $US20/MWh range will be routine across the world.
But the underlying message of Green’s presentation in Canberra, and his later remarks to RenewEconomy, was that this would be good for the mining industry, rather than bad, as it is often portrayed by the mining lobby.
“It’s great for Australian resources,” he says. A global surge in solar capacity would lift demand for key Australian exports such as coking coal, iron ore, bauxite, alumina and copper, while the battery storage industry will be good news for miners of lithium, nickel and cobalt and other materials.
It’s ironic, because the biggest opponent of renewable energy in Australia has been the mining lobby, and its proxies in the Murdoch media. But Green says the export boost from other materials will offset the reduction in revenues from thermal coal exports by a factor of more than five.
One terawatt of solar PV – that is 1,000GW, or one million megawatts – would, by his estimates, be installed by the early 2020s, and possibly become the annual installation rate.
“Over the last 18 months, solar fields … have become the cheapest way of generating electricity – and they are quickly becoming cheaper,” Green says. “ |
in Austria for two hours as she pleaded “No, I don’t want this” after luring her from her friends on New Year’s Eve,'” by Allan Hall, MailOnline, February 22, 2017:
Nine asylum seekers from the same family have gone on trial in the Austrian capital Vienna accused of the New Year’s Eve 2015 gang rape of a 28-year-old German teacher.
Prosecutors charged the Iraqi men with ‘abuse of a defenceless person and rape in a very humiliating and agonising way for the victim.’
At the opening of the trial on Tuesday the court heard how the woman, identified only as Sabine K., was ‘blind drunk’ when she went with the men to an apartment.
Most of the men deny the charges but DNA from six of them was found in or on her body.
The court heard how the victim arrived in Vienna on December 28 2015 to spend the New Year with a female friend in the city.
Shortly before midnight on December 31 they wandered into the city centre to join milling crowds celebrating the arrival of 2016 and at 2am were seen drinking in a bar-restaurant called Cactus.
Shortly before 3am Sabine’s friend noticed she was no longer there and was told by another patron that the men she had been talking with had ‘taken her away.’
The defendants, aged between 22 and 45, all arrived in Austria between May and December 2015 via the Balkan route.
At the time of the attack, five of them had cemented their right to stay, the applications of the other four were still pending.
Judge Petra Poschalko heard how the woman was taken by four of them to an apartment in Vienna’s Rustenschacher Allee, where five other men were waiting.
Sabine later said she found herself naked on a double bed being assaulted by the men one after the other.
Her lawyer Karina Fehringer. told the court that she was assaulted in the dark so she could not identify the men.
After the attacks, which went on for several hours, the victim needed in-patient treatment at a trauma clinic and now is under psychiatric care for post traumatic stress disorder.
She had another breakdown at the weekend and was too fragile to be in court to face her attackers.
Only one man, Mohamed Al-A., 31, admitted his role in the rapes and he sobbed in court as he said he was ‘really drunk’ on vodka at the time.
His Muslim faith may forbid him to drink alcoholic beverages, but on New Year’s Eve he said he made an exception and drank vodka. ‘I was really drunk,’ he said, and he further admitted; ‘this act is a crime in Iraq.’
He was with co-defendants Nazar Al-J., Mohammed Al-T. und Alaa Al-J. in the Cactus bar, and the four men are alleged to have taken the victim back to the apartment.
The other defendants – Hader Al-A., Mustafa Al-J., Nael Al-J., Marwan Al-J. und Sabah Al-J. – lay in wait for her there, the court was told.
Medical experts testified she was raped multiple times and sodomised. The victim said she yelled at them, in German: ‘No, I don’t want this.’ Then in English: ‘Listen to me, just a little bit.’
Her attackers conversed only in Arabic. Alaa Al-J. was said to be the rape ringleader. After it was over Mohammed Al-. escorted her to a toilet in the flat where he took a selfie with her on his mobile phone.
Later he and Alaa Al-J. escorted her to a nearby tram stop where they tried to stem her sobbing by saying in English: ‘Don’t cry.’…One of the world's richest men says instead of the current model of a 40-hour workweek and retirement in the 60s, the world should adopt a system of working later in life with more time off.
Mexican magnate Carlos Slim Helu of telecom giant América Móvil told a business conference in Uruguay this weekend he thinks the world needs a "radical change" in the way we approach our working lives.
"This means that people do not retire at 50 or 60 years old," news agency Paraguay.com reported him as saying at the 20th Montevideo Circle meeting, an annual meeting of business leaders and politicians from across Latin America. "People will have to work longer, to 70 or 75 years old, and only work three days a week."
The catch is that sometimes, employees may need and want to work much longer and harder on days when they do work — possibly as much as 11 hours a day, he says.
Slim, a self-made billionaire who has cornered the Mexican telecom market, says the concept of retirement comes from the Industrial Revolution, when life expectancy was until 60 to 75 years old. Now, people in the developed world regularly live to 86, 90 or beyond.
As founder of Telmex, Slim is also putting his money where his mouth is. His telecom conglomerate recently offered a deal to employees whereby long-serving workers can sign up to work well past the traditional retirement age, but on a reduced workload of four days a week.
Slim also says the way we educate young, future workers also needs an overhaul. Education needs to be "not boring [and] memorized, but.. to train and educate. "
"We must train welders, nurses, health technicians, we need to train for jobs," he said, "giving greater importance than ever before towards educating for work."To take the listener survey for Paul’s potential advertisers go to www.podsurvey.com/mentalpod Your email will not be sold or exploited, only to contact you if you win the $100 Amazon Gift Card.
This episode is sponsored by Bulu Box. To learn more and get a MIHH listener discount go to www.bulubox.com click on the microphone in the upper left hand corner and use the offer code “happyhour”.
At 40, Jilll took up competitive boxing to work through the childhood PTSD caused by her mother’s physical abuse. She shares about living with depression, aiding other female fighters and making her documentary Fight Like a Girl.
Hello nice listener! I’m so sorry but MIHH episodes one year and older are only available at Stitcher Premium. Go to www.StitcherPremium.com/mentalpod and use offer code “MENTAL” to get a free month of listening when you signup. For $4.99/month you get access to ad-free versions of all our shows (older than one year) going back to episodes #1 from March 2011, as well as hundreds of hours of other podcasts’ back catalogs, original shows, exclusive bonus episodes, stand up comedy albums and more. Please remember to use the offer code “MENTAL” because it gives me credit for bringing a new subscriber to Stitcher Premium and that helps me financially and the podcast needs it. I wish I didn’t have to do this but there it is. Every little bit helps.
Episode notes:
This episode is sponsored by Bulu Box. To learn more and get a MIHH listener discount go to www.bulubox.com click on the microphone in the upper left hand corner and use the offer code "happyhour".
Check out the website for Jill's documentary Fight Like a Girl.
To take the listener survey for Paul's potential advertisers go to www.podsurvey.com/mentalpod Your email will not be sold or exploited, only to contact you if you win the $100 Amazon Gift Card.
Episode Transcript:
P: Welcome to Episode 180 with my guest Jill Morley. This episode is sponsored by the Midroll, who books the ads for my show and they have a survey that I would love you guys to take. It’s short, it’s anonymous, they don’t share or sell your email address to anybody and you can actually, by filling out this short survey, it helps advertisers get to know who you guys are so that they can better match this show to advertisers. And listeners who complete the survey will be entered in an ongoing monthly raffle to win $100 Amazon gift card. So go to dot—go to www.podsurvey.com/mentalpod. That’s podsurvey.com/mentalpod.
I’m Paul Gilmartin. This is The Mental Illness Happy Hour. Two hours of honesty about all the battles in our heads, from medically diagnosed conditions, past traumas, sexual dysfunction, to everyday compulsive negative thinking. This show’s not meant to be a substitute for profess—I always struggle with that word. Professional mental counselling. This is not a doctor's office, it's more like a waiting room that doesn't suck. The website for this show is mentalpod.com. Please go there. Fill out surveys—not to be confused with the survey I just mentioned—surveys that I read on the show. You can also see how other people filled out the surveys. You can join the forum. You can support the show financially. You can read blogs by me and other people. Yes, go do it. @mentalpod is also the Twitter name if you want to follow me on Twitter. Let's get to it.
This is...this is from the Body Shame survey. This is filled out by a woman who calls herself Vixen.
What do you like or dislike about your body?
"I have chronic insomnia and it has caused deep black circles under my eyes. Every time I look in the mirror, I'm reminded that I'm a fucking moron who can't stick to a normal sleep schedule because of my anxiety and sleep problems. I refuse to wear contacts because I feel like my glasses hide my dark circles, if only a little."
Boy, you know, I wanted to read this because you are blaming yourself for not being able to fall asleep. I hope you can hear how, how hard you're being on yourself. I mean, you're acting as if you want to have insomnia. You're acting as if you have control over your insomnia. People wouldn't have insomnia if they had control over it so, cut yourself a little bit of slack there.
This is from the Struggle in a Sentence filled out by a woman who calls herself Dandelion. About her anxiety, she writes:
"Be normal, be normal, be fucking normal." And about having Dissociative Identity Disorder: "It's like running the world's longest relay race with a group of dysfunctional people who have trouble getting along." Thank you for that.
This is filled out by Ama (sp?). Who is a teenager. And a snapshot from her life, she writes:
"Squeezing a friend's hand during a panic attack, seeing how much I am making her hand hurt and knowing there is so much pain left in me that I cannot crush into her hand." Again, I always say that teenage girls fucking knock it outta the park on the Struggle in a Sentence.
This filled out by a woman who calls herself Sea of Troubles and:
”Living with acne is like living with another kind of depression where every new pimple makes you feel more sad and worthless." She's in her 20's by the way.”
"Going out with friends—"
A snapshot from her life:
"Going out with friends and huddling in the dark because I feel so ugly compared to them. Wearing a full face of foundation feels like a lie and no guy will want to be with me when so often there's no ooze coming out of my cheek or chin. After living pain, humiliation and disappointment of a face full of cystic acne, for so long, it really starts to hurt your soul to the point to the point where you have no self-esteem left."
Well we're sending you some love. I can't imagine how difficult that, that must be.
This is filled out by a guy who calls himself Duke Lacross. He's in his 30's. About his alcoholism/drug addiction:
"Drink many beers every other night but not so much it has caused a problem."
Snapshot from your life:
"Three or four times a night I drink a six pack, often 16 oz. cans but sometimes 12 oz. cans of beer and I've been doing so for many years. I want to stop and have thought about getting help but don't want to be made fun of other alcoholics for not really having a problem."
Any comments to make the podcast better: "Free beer. Just kidding. But not really."
I don't think it would hurt to go get help and I...you know...I've been in recovery for ten years and I've never heard anybody ever be made fun of for not quote unquote drinking enough or doing enough drugs. So, that's just my thought and it certainly couldn't hurt to go check it out. And by the way the amount that you are drinking sounds like more than I was drinking and I'm an alcoholic. So. That's my two cents.
This is a Struggle in a Sentence filled out by a woman who calls herself L. Lake. About her co-dependency:
"If I show you how much you matter, maybe I will matter too."
That is deep.
And this is filled out by a guy who calls himself Widefoot. He's in 20's. About his dysthymia, which is low level depression:
"Nobody takes you seriously because you look just fine but looking fine doesn't make you happy. Nothing makes you happy."
Snapshot from his life:
"That's the problem with constant low level depression, shyness, and loneliness. They're constant. There is no snapshot moment which highlights my struggles. They're present every day all the time. It's one long grey story. Nobody wants to read that."
That is profound. That is so...that just cut right to the centre of me. And I think it's why I sometimes, when somebody asks me how I'm doing, I just don't even want to say. So, because it's like that. You feel like you're just telling them a boring story. I totally relate to that and sending you some love.
And then I want to read this email from a listener who calls herself Louise. And she writes:
"I wanted to give you my take on the swearing in your podcast. I'm in my late 30's and for the majority of my life, have not really sworn. This was in part for religious reasons until I was ex-communicated due to my sexuality. However, I am not from some backwater. I am British and a Londoner, born and bred and work in Central London, etc. This means there are a lot of people who I come into contact with who swear even if it's just overhearing conversations on my train journey. I've always found swearing jarring though because I felt it unnecessary for people to swear so much and that it was a lazy use of language and thought is showed a lack of awareness of who was around eg. children. However I've been listening to your podcast for about a year and I actually find the amount of swearing helpful. It has helped me not to find it so alien to hear swearing and it no longer bothers me anywhere near as much to hear people swear. Now I find that people swearing just washes over me. It's just the way some people communicate and it doesn't stand out for me anymore. While some people might think this show a drop in my standards, I think your podcast has helped to turn me into a more normal person. Best wishes, Louise."
I was really touched by that. And I want to thank her for, for being open minded. And you know, maybe there's some other person out there that hears that or thinks that and you know, maybe they'd think to themselves, you know, 'If that cunt can embrace that cocksucker, maybe I don't have to be such a fuckface."
[Taped Introduction Theme Music and Voiceover]
P: I'm here with Jill Morley who I corresponded with via email maybe a year and a half ago and you told me that you had this documentary about boxing, women and boxing and how they were using it to help heal. Talk about—where would be a good place to start because you—talk about your childhood, let's talk about that first.
Jill Morley (J): Okay. Well actually let me...the film is actually, it's about women who use boxing to fight their inner demons. It also incorporates trauma and abuse and using it as a healing tool. So, so childhood. So abuse. (laughing)
P: Yes, unless there's more you want to talk about, about the film but it seems more appropriate that we would talk about what you went through and then talk about the film.
J: Okay. Ya. Well actually it's interesting because you know I listen to your podcast and when you talk about your mother and the abuse you suffered, I—my mother was narcissist, borderline personality disorder. God bless her. And you know, when she would get, I mean she tried her best. She had me when she was about nineteen or twenty years old. She did do a good job except for the fact that she would really beat me up. (laughing) Whenever she would get, she would get angry at things. She'd just get very angry. Like if I—when I was like a little kid, I didn't want my photo taken at the Sears photo and I would get a beating for it, you know. And—
P: Would she beat you right there or wait until you got home?
J: Oh, she'd wait until I got home. You know, she was good like that.
P: Would she let you know that you were going to get a beating when you got home?
J: Ya. Ya.
P: I would imagine you probably picked up on the non-verbal cues even she didn't say something, or was that not the case?
J: True. But you know that's a skill that I feel like I have to this day with other people. Like I can kinda tell when something's gonna go down. Because I can feel the energy.
P: Isn't it a mind fuck too because you wind up ignoring it, what people are saying, in trying to read what you think they're saying because you don't...you're just, you feel like there's something below the surface with everybody and...I don't know. Am I putting words in your mouth?
J: No, I think you're right. Because I think it was a way to cope and a way to—for protection. Self-protection. Like if something's going to go down, I'm going to run away or I'm going to prepare myself for it in some way. And even as an adult, I find myself tip toeing, or I don't want any anger directed at me. I hate conflict. You know, I have to like really force myself to say what I want. You know?
P: Ya, I think those of us that were raised with a mercurial parent...and my mom was never physically abusive but you know, she would go on negative tirades that were just unpleasant. And you would feel trapped by it. She didn't scream much but it would just be this torrent of negativity that was just really...unpleasant, you just felt like you were being held down. You know, verbally. So you wind up doing whatever you can to avoid that. You know, coupled with the fact that when you feel like you're the only one that listens to her out of guilt, you know. I wound up doing that but I also feel like oh that's nothing compared to someone that got hit.
J: Ya, and I say that's nothing compared to somebody who someone burned cigarettes on their arm. You know—
P: It never ends, I guess.
J: No, I always think, I had it really—you know, and I was, I was in that way but I still suffered from the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder the way that someone who went through much worse did. I can't control that, I have those symptoms, you know, or I have had them. I've been working through them for, you know, especially the last ten years of my life.
P: Talk about some of the symptoms.
J: Extreme vigilance. I can't sleep very easily. I'm always kind of looking around. I know when I started boxing, I guess I'll get into this later, but whenever I would get hit a certain way I would have a flashback. One time I got hit in the jaw, my jaw was sore and I just had a flashback of the time my mom hit me in the jaw, you know. It's just weird pictures in my head that would happen. Being a little jumpy. And the thing is, I'm an athletic tough girl so when I go into a situation like boxing, I don't think I'm going to start shaking and crying ‘cause some little girl's punching me, you know. But that is what happened. I hate to admit it. (laughs)
P: How many times into boxing did that happen? The first time?
J: Not the first time. But after a few times. And then it happened, it went on for almost a year.
P: Why did you keep doing it? Did you have the feeling that this is something I'm going to work through?
J: I, for some reason, put this pressure on myself. I thought, you know, you either have to work through this or you shouldn't be alive at all. Because then you've lost your battle. And I know it doesn't make any sense but for me—
P: It makes perfect sense to me.
J: (laughter) I have to put all this pressure on myself. Plus I was making the film at the time. I mean, the film was actually an afterthought. I wanted to box, first of all. And the film was an afterthought but then once we'd gotten into it, I'm like, well, I'm making this film and I'm trying to box. What, am I going to quit? You know? Me? Quit? You know. So instead I'll drive myself close to the edge and almost go over it. Which is what happened.
P: Did you set out to include your story as part of the film?
J: You know, I really didn't. I thought...I'd make another feature doc where I could be, I was the through-line and the thread but that I could tell these other women's stories but use my storyline to structure it. That way, I could tell it and have a beginning, middle, end suite, you know. But this time, because of what happened, it fucked up my whole documentary. The timeline, everything. And I wound up taking, instead of one year, I thought it would take, oh, I'll just fight in the golden gloves. It took seven years.
P: Wow. And it's a great documentary. I've seen it. Remind me of the name of it again?
J: It's called Fight Like a Girl. We did win Best Documentary at Other Venice Film Festival. What I'm more proud of is, we were awarded a medal from the World Boxing Council for inspiration, education, and courage. And it's for some of, besides for the film, it's for some of the work we do now with young girls. We teach empowerment workshops and boxing to young girls. And I teach boys too, it's just, I find that when boys and girl are together, the boys kind of take over. So, I like to teach them separately.
P: Talk about what it felt like...talk about the positive feelings of boxing and give me some actual snapshots from where you began to feel like there was some type of healing or catharsis.
J: I think when I started to get over the shaking and crying in the ring and I started to be present. And that became my whole thing is that I'm not going to shake and cry, you know, in this moment because that's not really what I'm feeling. What I'm feeling happened to me when I was a child. So if I'm present, then I'm just getting hit. That I can handle. You know. But the past of being you know, beaten when you're a small child by someone who's raging at you, that will make you shudder in fear. You know. So I think it was just being present.
P: You know my feeling too is also the wound, whether you were raped or beaten or told that you were a piece of shit, the thing they all share in common is that you got the message that you didn't matter and I think that's where the real trauma comes from. The stuff that's really hard to heal because your body going to heal from that stuff but you need to find a counter argument to the fact that you don't matter and that is so hard in this world—
J: You don't think you deserve—
P: You think you're making it up—
J: And I'm so jealous of people sometimes who just seem like, 'Oh I deserve to have this and this and this.' And I'm like well, 'You do deserve...' But why don't I have that feeling too?
P: Ya.
J: Ah! (laughs)
P: But I interrupted. Go ahead. So being present...
J: Being present was probably the most, like, when all of a sudden I could get into somebody and all of a sudden, I'd see the punches coming. And I could make them miss. And I was calmer. I mean, it's still nerve-wracking. But I'm calmer, right now, I'm...I can get in there with a girl who's really really good and—not saying I would beat her by any means, but I could handle it. And that's...you know what I mean? I can handle it. I will punch back. I won't freeze and cry. You know.
P: The first time you froze and cried, was it the first time you put the gloves on?
J: No. It was a little bit after that. At the time too, my coach—I found out later my coach was telling these girls to try to make me quit. To beat the crap out of me.
P: Why?
J: Because he saw that I was like, a little nervous and I think he thought I shouldn't be boxing. Because of the PTSD reaction. And I think he wanted to make me quit and I just didn't.
P: For your own good or because he just was, thought you were a pain in the ass?
J: Probably both. I was probably a pain in the ass. I would've hated to have had to coach me. (laughing) Because I mean, what do you do? What do you do. You know.
P: Hold you between rounds? Rock you.
J: (laughing) Throw in a towel. I don't know.
P: So when you would shake and cry, would they give you a ten count that was, each second was a tissue from out of the box? (laughing)
J: (laughing) Each count was a tear.
(laughter)
P: So talk about the very first time you put the gloves on and then talk about that first time that you shook and cried.
J: Well the first time putting the gloves on, it was exciting. I was going in with a girl who had won a metro's championship and here I am, you know, also starting at a very late age—
P: How old were you when you started?
J: Forty.
P: Wow!
J: (laughing) So basically, so down the line I had to lie about my age. Because the cut-off was 34 years old for USA Boxing so I made myself 30 so I could fight in the amateurs, which I did for a while. And then I finally copped to my age and then, you know, I fight at my age now. Ya so I just went in there...Well, when you get the shot for the first time, you're like, 'Okay!'. (laughs) 'This is boxing!' You know. But I kept having that feeling that I could do better—
P: Did it hurt?
J: No. I don't think it hurts. It's just, it's more like a...adrenaline. And also, if you have a fighter in you, you're like 'Oh ya?' You know.
P: Bring it motherfucker.
J: Ya. Whereas, my husband is just like, 'Leave me alone'. He says, 'I have an MBA, I don't need to do that shit.' (laughter) He's like, 'Leave me alone. I want to go dance.' He does modern dance now. So...ya. I just have a fighter in me. So even if I didn't have the skill to do it, I wanted to do it. I just had that little—
P: Was there fear or did it just go right to, kind of...aggression?
J: The first time it went to aggression but it was uncontrolled aggression. Because I didn't have any skills and also it was just...
P: You just started flailing.
J: Oh, it was awful.
P: Burned yourself out in thirty seconds.
J: It was terrible. (laughs). And I love, you know, it's actually fun watching other people do that. (laughs) When they go in for the first time and they're just swinging from the fences, you know, it's like...It takes a while to get good. But as far as going in and I think the first time I started crying. The tears were involuntary when I'd get cornered, let's say. I didn't know how to get out at that time. The tears were involuntary. And then I would get stuck, I wouldn't know what to do. I would think, 'Move!' Like, I would think in my head but I couldn't do it with body. And it was really frustrating. You know. And then afterwards of course—
P: You couldn't will yourself to move.
J: I couldn't.
P: It wasn't that you were trapped. It's like you were trapped...
J: By my body.
P: Wow.
J: Like I couldn't like, now I'd just pivot out, push the girl, get out of the way, do whatever. But at the time, I was just frozen. And I guess that goes with, you know, it's fight, flight or freeze. Right? I was going into freeze. You know. I should've gone into flight. (laughs) It's better. But, no, not actually fight. Ya, that was an awful feeling because it was just embarrassing too. And I think I told you, Daniel Day Lewis used to work at our gym. (laughing) And he used to see me cry like that too almost every day.
P: Did he say anything to you?
J: (laughing) No, he would smile at me when I left. He was really friendly. And then I found out, like when I'd left, he's like, 'Where's that girl...who cries all the time?' (laughing) That little redhead crybaby.
P: (laughs) That's so funny. We both had encounters with Daniel Day Lewis.
J: (laughing) I know.
P: That's hilarious. So...the first time you froze. Did...were you shamed for it?
J: By other people? No.
P: Did they...did they mention it? Were you afraid they were going to mention it?
J: No. They would just say, 'You gotta move'. Like, they didn't understand. Like the coach was like, 'You gotta move. You can't just stand there.' And it's like, I'm thinking—it's like when you're depressed, it's like you gotta snap out of it. You can't just sit there depressed.
P: And I can't think of anything worse than tears running your face and you're stuck with boxing gloves. (laughter) So you can't wipe your tears away.
J: And, in the beginning I used to wear mascara. So that was a sight. That was a really good like— (laughs)
P: And was everybody lining up to fight the racoon?
J: (laughing) Ya, exactly.
(laughter)
P: So did you make, how many rounds did you make that first time? Did you make as many rounds as were planned?
J: Probably not, no. Because also when you get all, you know, tensed up and you can't go for as long so you go two rounds maybe.
P: Oh it burns you out, man, when your adrenaline surges too much. It just burns you out. The few fights that I've gotten in in hockey, I've never been as out of breath as I was and it lasted fifteen, twenty seconds. And I think it was the adrenaline. In fact, one time I remember, is I got kicked off out of the ice, escorted, and I was sitting there, I started to, I was so out of breath, I started to throw up.
J: (sigh) And it's, the thing is too, on the ice, like, we know we're going to fight. We know when we're going to fight. You don't! So that's gotta even bring your adrenaline levels up higher, to make you even breathless faster.
P: Ya. And I think feeling disrespected and afraid, it would usually be because somebody had done something to me where I could've seriously gotten hurt and so I get this shot of fear which then turns to rage. And then the rage is the thing that makes the adrenaline shoot up. Or I suppose the fear does too but...it's so exhausting. And I would just feel like, how can I skate sometimes for two or three hours and not be exhausted and throwing five punches, most of which miss...
J: Mm hmm. That's even more exhausting. When they miss, you're putting more energy into it and it swings around. It's less exhausting to hit him.
P: So...you made it through that, through that first time. Nobody—go ahead.
J: Oh no, I made it through it um, and it basically, it just kind of kept happening that I involuntarily would have these tears go down my, and I'd be embarrassed. And I was putting my nervous system through this, like four or five times a week. For a long time.
P: Would psychologists say that this was a healthy thing for you to do.
J: Well I finally went to one who, that's when she diagnosed me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—
P: Oh so you didn't know you had it?
J: No, I thought I was over it. I talked through all this stuff in talk therapy when I was in college.
P: What led you to want to get in the ring?
J: I just had like this feeling inside that I wanted to do it. It's like, what makes you want to be an actor, writer, tell jok—you know, who knows.
P: So it was emotional. It wasn't intellectual.
J: No, it just intuitive, and I just always like loved Muhammad Ali and it's a connection to my dad. My dad was a boxer in the Marine Corps, you know. And I, when I punch, I punch really hard for someone my size so I'm like, so I think I can be good at this. (laughs) Of course I didn't know everything involved. But...
P: Meaning...
J: Meaning...well, there's like movement and defense and offense and footwork and, you know, rounds and you know, there's other girls who are just as strong as you are or more or more athletic and can, you know, have been doing this longer and...you know, it's no joke.
P: And strategy—
J: Strategy...
P: Reading your opponent and...
J: Ya which actually, that's, now that's my best thing. And also, as like an older fighter, that's what I use is more strategy than you know, I'm not going to go in there in a brawl or...you know (laughs).
P: Ya. Have you ever pictured your mom as the person you're punching?
J: No. Because I really, I have compassion for her. And that's...I need to talk to about that as well. She was...
P: And you interview her in the film. And you're honest with how you felt about her having beat you as a child.
J: Ya, and she was good enough to be in the film, you know. I mean she's, you know...
P: I thought that was pretty...pretty cool.
J: Ya. I mean, I can imagine too, like what does it feel like to reg—have something that you did that you regret, which I regret doing some things, but then to have that grow up, you know, that person you did it to, grow up and be damaged by—you know what I mean? Like that must feel awful. Because she's not a bad person. She just...
P: She had feelings that overwhelmed her.
J: Ya.
P: Ya.
J: Ya. So I have compassion. Plus she was beaten terribly when she was young. You know. And you know, I don't have kids so...I have dogs.
P: Are you afraid that if you had had kids that you would have hit them before you got help?
J: No because I got help in college. I started getting help in college. Talk therapy. Although I was just afraid to have kids because I just didn't think I could do it. I didn't think I could raise them. And also with the depression I go through sometimes, where I can't get out of bed and like, what if you had a kid?
P: You shadow box on your side then, when you're in bed?
J: (laughing) Ya. Exactly. Still boxing.
P: Go ahead...I can't, I can't resist interjecting. (laughing)
J: (laughing) No. Good, good. You should. Basically, I guess, when it came down to it, with all the nerves and every day, my therapist told me that, you know, there's something called exposure therapy. For people who have fears or whatever. And that, let's say if you were afraid of flying, you'd get on, the first thing, you'd go and look at the plane. Then you'd go home. The next day you go, you get up on the stairs of the plane and you get up. Next day you go into the—it's like that right? And of course with boxing (laughing) there's not a whole lot I can do unless I found some people who were, who would be willing to help, which I eventually did. So...
P: How did you express to them what you needed?
J: I just told them, 'I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder'. (laughing) I mean, 'I know it sounds stupid but |
2 has given me time to be treated for liver cancer and Parkinson's Disease."
Image caption Jacobs presented Juke Box Jury from 1959-1967
Jacobs started his broadcasting career in the Royal Navy in 1944, where he was made an announcer on wartime radio station Radio SEAC.
After leaving the Navy, he began working at the BBC as an announcer and newsreader.
In 1964, he became one of the original Top of the Pops presenters and he also worked as the BBC's Eurovision Song Contest commentator before he was succeeded by Terry Wogan.
He also introduced all 53 episodes of radio sci-fi serial Journey Into Space, as well as playing 22 characters.
So very sad to hear the news about David Jacobs, my friend and mentor. He gave me my first ever mention on the radio on my 15th birthday Bob Harris
He won a Sony Gold Award for outstanding contribution to radio in 1984 and was admitted to the Sony Hall of Fame in 1995.
Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan paid tribute to "a true giant of the BBC".
"David was a legend in broadcasting, not only for the Radio 2 audience, but for the whole population," he added.
His broadcast hallmarks were "great taste, authority and warmth", he said.
"I am sure his audience will feel they have lost a friend, as we all do here at Radio 2."
Radio 2 colleague Bob Harris wrote on Twitter: "So very sad to hear the news about David Jacobs, my friend and mentor. He gave me my first ever mention on the radio on my 15th birthday."
And veteran radio DJ Tony Blackburn said on Twitter he had been to his friend's 85th birthday party "and he did the most brilliant speech which I'll never forget - he will be sadly missed by all of us".
Radio and TV presenter Zoe Ball tweeted: "Dear David Jacobs has passed away. One of my all time favourite broadcasters. ThankYouForTheMusic RIP dear chap."
Helen Boaden, controller of BBC Radio, said: "From Juke Box Jury to Melodies For You on Radio 2, David's effortless presenting style belied his consummate professionalism."
In a career retrospective broadcast on Radio 2 last year, broadcaster Chris Evans described Jacobs as "the gentleman's broadcaster".
"David Jacobs [is] one of the cornerstones of British broadcasting," he said. "A man who always has time for you, who always has something worth listening to."
The BBC said Radio 2 would be paying tribute to the broadcaster with a number of special programmes.Denied an Olympic bronze medal through a surreal disqualification process, Canada’s men’s relay team is getting a replacement that may be more valuable. That’s because this one comes from the heart.
Elijah Porter and the soccer medal he offered to the Canadian men's relay team. ( PHOTO COURTESY KIM PORTER ) Elijah Porter's letter to the Canadian 4x100 men's relay team. Jared Connaughton, front, Justyn Warner, right, and Oluseyi Smith react following the 4x100 metre relay. The team thought it had won bronze, only to be disqualified. ( Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS ) Sprinters Justyn Warner and Jared Connaughton celebrate a bronze medal that was denied the Canadian relay team after it was ruled that Connaughton had illegally stepped on a line. ( STEVE RUSSELL / TORONTO STAR )
After watching the devastating way the sprinters’ dreams were crushed in London, Elijah Porter felt compelled to lift their spirits. So the 10-year-old wrote a letter that he hoped would “touch their hearts.” He then added the only medal he has ever won as a token of his unwavering support. “When I heard what happened on Aug. 11, I knew it was wrong. The rules were not right. But at last I realized how good you were. We’re Canadians. We persevere,” wrote Porter.
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“We create better lives for each other. The cold didn’t stop us from living in the North. We didn’t lose the War of 1812. We adapt and survive.” And, “I hope you like the medal!” Leave it to a boy from Paradise, Nfld., to capture the essence of sacrifice, humanity and the Canadian spirit. Porter has Asperger’s syndrome and is home-schooled by his mom, Kim. He doesn’t write a lot of letters. But he composed this one himself, with an occasional spell check from mom. And that medal? Won as a four-year-old, when he played Timbits soccer. It used to hang proudly with dad Steve’s medal collection.
“It’s just a Tim Hortons’ medal but I thought it was better than making a medal out of paper,” said Porter. According to Athletics Canada, thousands of messages of support have been received by the relay team. Only one promised a replacement.
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“I saw all the people were crying and realized how much it meant to them. I thought it would make them feel better if they got something,” said Porter. Justyn Warner, the Canadian 100-metre champion, was last seen by most Canadians walking away from the Olympic track, tears cascading down his cheeks, being comforted by his fiancée, hurdler www.durhamregion.com%2Fsports%2Folympics%2Farticle%2F1457010--pickering-hurdler-nikkita-holder-sees-olympics-end-in-semifinals&ei=aOYqUKiYHYezyAHNu4DICg&usg=AFQjCNE71Bd7Oum4FQHeEb9Z-xAjfmCPUA" target="_blank">Nikkita Holder. For Canadians, it’s one of the lasting images from the Games: the men’s relay team disqualified after “seven minutes” of “the best feeling ever,” according to Warner. “From tears to tears.” Canada’s 4x100 relay team raced to third place, behind the powerhouse Jamaican and U.S. squads, but was disqualified minutes later when it was ruled that Jared Connaughton, running the third leg, had stepped on a lane line going around the bend of the track. Sitting at the airport in Dusseldorf, Germany, Warner saw the image of Porter’s letter posted on Twitter by Athletics Canada and re-tweeted it for the world to see. “We were all talking about how amazing it was what he wrote, handwritten,” said Warner. “It’s awesome that he felt that it’s not over, that we could still fight to get back in it.” Porter didn’t stop there. He also promised that if he becomes a biologist and gets rich, he’ll donate money to Canada’s Olympians in the future. As for the present, he just keeps asking his mom if she’s mailed the letter yet, which she promises to do as soon as she gets a chance. She did email the image to Athletics Canada and, through social media, captured the attention of Canada’s track team and thousands of newly inspired Canadian fans.Editor’s Note: We are pleased to bring you today’s special guest column from a friend of LWOS.com. His name is Lone Rogue, and he has his own blog at www.lonerogue.com where he writes about Sports, Music, TV, Movies, and other other current events. If you like this article, we recommend that you check him out.
Last year, the NHL proposed a brand new four division format that was well received by the NHL fans and media. It placed teams in eight or seven team divisions with the prospects of having two expansion teams in the future. The proposal was rejected by the NHLPA because it was actually a dirty PR tactic to leave the players out of a decision they have to agree on which the public was going to be receptive to, even without looking at the numbers. That rejection is why Winnipeg still plays in the Southeast division and any team that plays them in their own division is going to be jet lagged. Don’t blame the players on that one, folks.
So what would be the best system for realignment? You have to take several factors into consideration. I love realignment. Don’t ask me why, but the topic gets my brain pistons firing as I try to fit the NHL teams in their best places possible. With this, I bring you the LR NHL Realignment and will try to explain it the best of my ability.
The NHL will still include Two Conferences (East/West) but will now expand to Eight Divisions. What is new in the system is Division Pairings. These are two divisions that play each other more than the other divisions int he same conference. So why not just combine these divisions? Because some divisions work better for others. There are Four Pairings.
The games are broken down as such:
Inter Division Play: x6 (18 games)
Pairing Division Play: x4 (16 games)
Inter Conference Play: x3 (24 games)
Pairing Conference Play: x2 (16 games)
Distant Pairing Play: x1 (8 games)
Total: 82 Games
I will state right now to make the numbers a little interesting that you could play your inter division only five times to make it a 79 game season. This would allow for an open game called a Rival Game. The rival changes every season but would start focused on an inter division team before teams would consider other rivals. So for example, Colorado plays Dallas and St. Louis plays Nashville for one extra game, but the next season it’s Dallas playing Nashville and St. Louis playing Colorado.
The Western Conference
The biggest addition to the Western Conference is an expansion Seattle which for the purposes of this, I’ll be calling the Seattle Metropolitans.
West Coast Pairing
Northwest Division: Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Seattle Metropolitans
Pacific Division: San Jose Sharks, Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks, Arizona Coyotes
North American Midwest Pairing
North mid Division: Winnipeg Jets, Minnesota Wild, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings
Midwest Division: Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, St. Louis Blues, Columbus Bluejackets
The Eastern Conference
The biggest addition to the Eastern Conference is the expansion Quebec City which for the purposes of this, I’ll be calling the Quebec Nordiques.
South Atlantic Pairing
Southeast Division: Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes, Nashville Predators
Atlantic Division: Washington Capitals, Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers, New Jersey Devils
North American Northeast Pairing
Canadian East Division: Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Nordiques
American East Division: Buffalo Sabres, New York Rangers, Brooklyn Islanders, Boston Bruins
How are the Pairing (x2) and Distant Pairing (x1) decided?
North East Pair
Opposing Pair: West Coast Pair
Far Pair: North American Midwest Pair
South/Atlantic Pair
Opposing Pair: North American Midwest Pair
Far Pair: West Coast Pair
North American Midwest Pair
Opposing Pair: South/Atlantic Pair
Far Pair: North East Pair
West Coast Pair
Opposing Pair: North East Pair
Far Pair: South/Atlantic Pair
Now some of these don’t make sense geographically but they ensure certain things like Canadian games played. That’s a good thing. I’m not entirely opposed to these pairings switching every season but I’ll get more into that.
So how do playoffs work? The original concept with the four conferences were for the top four teams to get in. You can go a few ways. It doesn’t take much to notice that this resembles the NFL Conferences only keeping to geography. So you could have the top two teams of each division move onto the playoffs. I would personally rather see only the Division Leaders moving onto the playoffs as 1,2,3 and 4 while the final four spots are decided by the best record, similar to an MLB Wild Card.
So is it perfect? Well no. Can we identify some early problems? Sure!
Boston is no longer in the same division as Montreal: While we’re not separating two teams from playing each other ever again, Montreal and Boston will be playing each other less, which some could see as bad. With the addition of Quebec, however, Montreal has a new team to distract themselves in division. And in case you noticed, we now have three divisions sporting two Original Six teams, so there isn’t any feeling of imbalance. New York and Boston would be early powerhouses in the American East, which would be ripe for creating an Original Six rivalry that doesn’t have much history. Now, one option to play around with is Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa and Boston competing in a division while the Maple Leafs join the Sabres, Rangers and Islanders. Don’t think Leaf fans would look to that too fondly, even if it makes more proximity sense.
New York and Brooklyn separated from the Atlantic: This could be hard to swallow from lovers of New York vs. New Jersey or seeing the Rangers play the Flyers and Penguins with regularity. However, the Atlantic gains Washington back, which is actually closer for the Flyers than New York/Brooklyn.
Columbus seems odd in the Midwest Division: This one was pretty annoying for me. I have had an internal struggle when it comes to Columbus and Nashville. Nashville makes sense in the Southeast Division as it allows for Carolina, Florida and Tampa less travel time. However, Nashville has already made some of their roots in the Central and they are closer to St. Louis, Colorado and Dallas than Columbus. However, someone needs to lose out. You can make up your mind on whether you want Columbus in the Midwest or Nashville but in the end you run into the same issue. I felt the Southeast Division shouldn’t suffer as much.
Detroit and Columbus still playing teams far out in the West: This will probably be a problem for a very long time in the NHL. Putting Detroit or Columbus in the East just doesn’t really work. However, you need a little perspective. In Major League Baseball, Detroit and Cleveland play int he Central. In Basketball? Same deal. Only the NFL puts Detroit and Cleveland in AFC/NFC North. To be fair, these leagues all have their own troubles such as the Seattle Mariners playing in the same division as the Texas Rangers or the Kansas City Chiefs in the same division as the Oakland Raiders. I did consider flipping Columbus with Chicago but I like how the Northmid Division is pretty much three teams hugging the Great Lakes with Winnipeg near a lake of its own. You can almost call it the Lakers Division.
Northwest/Northmid and Pacific/Midwest: One might look at these pairings as making a little more sense. It allows the Western Canadian teams to stay in the same pairing, keeps the Vancouver/Minnesota rivalry together, ensures less travel for the Avalanche and Stars when playing their pairing and who wouldn’t want to see Vancouver vs. Detroit more often? However, there are two big problems with that: Vancouver vs. Detroit and California vs. Columbus (or Nashville) would be travel nightmares. With Northwest/Pacific you’re only dealing with Anaheim/Edmonton and Winnipeg/Dallas, which stays in the timezone and is about the same wear and tear the teams are used to already. Detroit is in an odd position already ignoring all of these teams in the Atlantic, no sense making it worse for them to have to travel to Vancouver twice in a season (or once in a home and home and deal with further jetlag).
Reliance on Quebec/Seattle: Some disagree on me that these will be the next expansion spots. That’s fine. I just feel this is the best course of action. If Quebec doesn’t get an expansion team, you would simply slide Boston into the Canadian East (no longer “radically” Canadian), New Jersey into the American East, Columbus into the Atlantic and this creates a hole for a city like Milwaukee or Kansas City to fill. No team in Seattle? Portland and Las Vegas are the next best bets and those keep things pretty tidy to how the divisions are broken down already. Imagine the great rivalries Seattle vs. Vancouver will create, or the return of the battle of Quebec.
Would Pairings Ever Change?: In the NFL, they rotate the inter-conference games. I’m not the biggest fan of doing this because it would ensure some teams would lose money some years and save money other years on travel. The NFL breaks their conference in North/South/East/West for both conferences, similar to the two leagues in the MLB. The NHL and NBA break their conferences by geography and that’s why this doesn’t make as much sense. However, it wouldn’t be a deal breaker to me.
And for those who just absolutely love maps, here’s the map with fun colours:
Comments? Suggestions? Go ahead and comment below, and follow the author @lonerogue
Main Photo credit: Nicolas Roberge via photopin cc
Be sure to join Max Vasilyev and Ben Kerr on Wednesday Nights at 11:00pm when they host the hockey radio show, “Puckheads”, on the Last Word Radio Network. You can listen in live or to our past podcasts by clicking here, or by searching for us on iTunes.Free admission to five museums this Saturday? Yes, we’re up for that. The only caveat is guests must print out a ticket in advance online. Sounds reasonable enough, right?
In fact, five Sacramento area museums are joining the Smithsonian magazine “Museum Day Live!” nationwide effort by offering free admission to advance registrants all day on Saturday, September 26, 2015.
Participating local museums of which ticket holders may to choose one to attend include: Aerospace Museum of California, California Automobile Museum, California Museum, Maidu Museum & Historic Site and State Indian Museum.
The mission of the annual effort is to provide an opportunity for consumers throughout the United States to enjoy and share in our dynamic heritage and cultural institutions for free.
To make “Museum Day Live!” even more special, the Maidu Museum & Historic Site in Roseville is offering guided tours at 10am & 1pm along with acorn grinding, bracelet making and a scavenger hunt — all complimentary for guests. Additionally, the State Indian Museum is offering a Native American Flute Workshop for beginners from 10 a.m. to noon that day. Workshop fees apply and pre-registration is required by calling 916-324-0971.
No purchase is necessary but advance registration and a valid email address are required to obtain an event ticket good for two guests. The special free admission offer is limited to one ticket per household and a printed ticket must be presented at the time of admission. An official “Museum Day Live!” ticket is valid for one entry (for two guests) to just one of the participating museums that must be identified when requesting a free ticket. If a museum reaches capacity, the participating museum has the right to limit the number of guests until space becomes available.
“Museum Day Live!” tickets are available for download at smithsonianmag.com/museumday.
On “Museum Day Live!” and all through the year, the Sacramento area is home to an amazing array of state-of-the-art museums and destinations that offer visitors the chance to explore California’s fine art, history, science, and wildlife treasures.via @jeffteague
Atlanta Hawks guard Jeff Teague posted 12 points and 12 assists in a 112-95 victory over the Detroit Pistons at The Palace of Auburn Hills on Saturday night, but not even that double-double was enough to earn him a spot on the team bus after the game.
The bus left him at the arena. Just completely forgot about him.
As a result, Teague was left looking for a way to get back to the squad—with a (perhaps Little Caesars) pizza in his hand.
If the 27-year-old had been planning on sharing with his teammates, he probably wasn't in the mood after he got left behind. That's their loss.
It does appear Teague's sister picked him up from the arena, so at least he wasn't stranded all night.
Update from Wednesday, April 6
The sad picture of Teague holding a pizza box in Detroit led to some fun while the Hawks player signed autographs for fans:
Now that's perfect.
--End of Update--
[Twitter]Max Hirschberg’s 1,200 mile bike odysseyto the Klondike Gold Rush in 1900.
If you think the weather is too cold for riding, here’s the first-hand account of a young guy who headed off to the Klondike on his bicycle in 1900. Max Hirschberg rode his bicycle 1,200 miles from Dawson to Nome. The odyssey took him roughly 10 weeks.
In the 1950s, at the request of his wife, Max wrote the story of his epic journey, so that his children and grandchildren would know the true story. He died in 1964 (probably in Seattle). Hirschberg’s granddaughter, Penni Busse, submitted his account of the ride to Nome to ALASKA magazine, which published the story in February 1978.
Excerpted From Wheels On Ice: Bicycling in Alaska 1898-1908 Alaska Northwest Publishing Company. Found on icebike.org website.
“In January 1900, I secured a dog team and an outfit to go over the ice, down the Yukon from Dawson to Nome. I sold my share in a roadhouse and my mining claims in Dawson. My partner, Hank West, however, did not believe the reports about the gold strike in Nome were authentic. I did, so we parted. In Dawson I got my outfit and dog team, and I stayed at the Green Tree Hotel. About midnight, I was awakened by the smell of smoke — the hotel was on fire. I jumped into my clothes and rushed outside. Hundreds of people had formed a bucket line from the Yukon River to the hotel. I joined the line, and we passed buckets of water to quench the fire and to wet blankets on adjoining buildings. The fire department was helpless because the fire hose froze in the extreme cold. Every available man joined the bucket line, but the building burned to the ground. Broken boards were scattered over the snow. It was pitch dark and I stumbled on a board that contained a rusty nail. I went to the hospital with blood poisoning. It was March before I was up and around again, too late to get to Nome by dog team. With the spring thaw under way, the Yukon would be unfit for travel on the ice. I knew the news of the gold strike at Nome would bring thousands of people from the States to Nome by boat, so I had to get there quickly. I decided to travel by bicycle. I had been an expert bicycle rider for years, and I figured I could reach Nome before the Yukon became unfit for travel. Many dog teams, driven in single file, had preceded me down the river, and had made a hard trail about 2 inches wide where the sled runners cut deep troughs in the snow. I rode this narrow road, stopping at Indian villages or roadhouses. The day I left Dawson, March 2, 1900 was clear and crisp, 30 degrees below zero. I was dressed in a flannel shirt, heavy fleece-lined overalls, a heavy mackinaw coat, a drill parka, two pairs of heavy woolen socks and felt high-top shoes, a fur cap that I pulled down over my ears, a fur nosepiece, plus fur gauntlet gloves. On the handlebars of the bicycle I strapped a large fur robe. Fastened to the springs, back of the seat, was a canvas sack containing a heavy shirt, socks, underwear, a diary in waterproof covering, pencils and several blocks of sulfur matches. In my pockets I carried a penknife and a watch. My poke held gold dust worth $1,500 and my purse contained silver and gold coins. Next to my skin around my waist I carried a belt with $20 gold pieces that had been stitched into it by my aunt in Youngstown, Ohio, before I had left to go to the Klondike. A number of friends, including my old partner, Hank West, waved good-by. The road out of Dawson was broad and well packed, the was cold and exhilarating, and the Sky was clear and calm. There were numerous dog teams headed for Forty Mile, Circle City and points farther down the Yukon. Whenever I approached a dog team, the driver would accommodatingly pull off the trail and restrain his howling, snapping dogs from nipping me. I passed many dog teams before reaching Forty Mile. At the combination bar, gambling room and roadhouse, I thawed out before a roaring wood fire in an oil-tank stove. Eight or ten whiskered men were sitting and smoking, talking about the rumor of a nearby gold strike. The Yukon River at Dawson, was about 1,500 feet wide. When the river froze, huge cakes of ice, some standing on edge, others slanting, formed a barrier to the opposite shore. As the final freeze occurred, cakes of ice from the lowered river caused the trail to resemble a sidehill slope. There were overflows covering the ice in places, some frozen over with newly formed ice, which broke when stepped on, leaving a few inches of water over the solid ice beneath. The trail led along this slanting ice, then along the bank of the river, across frozen cracks winding in and out from the tundra, and back to the sloping ice along the riverbank. Creek overflows were numerous, and by the time I reached Forty Mile, my socks were wet and ice covered my felt shoes. It took me quite a while to orient myself to my 2-inch trail and I had many spills on this early part of my journey.
A few miles below Forty Mile I crossed the boundary line between Canada and the United States. A thrill shot through me as I caught sight of Old Glory waving on U.S. soil. Eagle City was my next stop, about 100 miles from Dawson. Calico Bluff was about 10 miles farther and at the mouth of Seventymile River was the mushroom town of Star City. Bold, rugged mountains, conspicuous by their height, were visible for a considerable distance. About 180 miles from Eagle City is Circle City. There were many log cabins, saloons, a hospital and an Episcopal church. Adjoining Circle City was an Indian village.
Here the river widened into the Yukon Flats for about 250 miles down the river. Not even a hill was in sight, just scrubby, stunted spruce along the shore. Twenty miles or so below Circle City was Charley Creek, where I came to a Native village and a little farther on was a roadhouse. Some 10 miles farther was Charley River, where I saw hundreds of caribou.
The most dangerous and difficult parts of the flats were between Circle City and Fort Yukon. Save for a portage land trail of 18 or 20 miles out of Circle City, the trail was on the river, which split into many channels without landmarks. The current was so swift that I encountered stretches of open water and blow holes. Snow storms completely obliterated the trail. At last I made Fort Yukon, the most northerly point reached by the Yukon River, and about a mile north of the Arctic Circle. There were several saloons, Native cabins, a church and stores displaying marten, fox, wolf and bear skins. It is a site of the oldest English-speaking settlement on the Yukon River. The oldest’ white man’s graves in Alaska, with the exception of Nulato, are those in the little Hudson’s Bay cemetery near Fort Yukon; the headboards were dated 1850 and 1860. In 1862, the Church of England had a clergyman here, a Mr. McDonald, who married a Native girl and translated the Bible and prayer book into the Native tongue. Next, I reached Birch Creek, and the end of all mountains for the first time. Down the Yukon some 75 miles, I came to the upper Ramparts, where there was a trading post. Then I came to Rampart City and another Native village. Rampart City consisted of stores, log cabins and saloons. It furnished supplies for the placer gold mines on adjacent creeks. About 40 miles farther I came to the rapids, where the ice was free of snow, and for 20 miles my bicycle skidded on the slippery ice, causing me numerous falls. I arrived at the mouth of the Tanana River, where there was a trading post. I saw Mount McKinley far to the south, as the day was clear.
About five miles out of Tanana I skidded on the glare ice. When I picked myself up, I found I had broken a pedal. I returned to Tanana, and, with the help of the storekeeper, cut out wooden pedals and drilled a hole through the center of each. I also bought bolts, nuts and washers. The pedals wore out about every 75 miles. Two hundred and fifty miles farther on, I came to the Koyukuk River, and 20 miles beyond that I arrived at Nulato, where a Russian trading post had been established in 1822.
As I wheeled into Nulato, a Jesuit priest met me outside of his home and invited me to stay with him overnight. Next day he took me to his workshop and fashioned a new pedal for my bicycle out of galvanized sheet metal and riveted it together with copper rivets. Luckily, I had the extra bolts I had bought at Tanana, for he had none. This pedal lasted until I reached Nome. About fifty miles out of Nulato, I reached the Kaltag cutoff and headed overland to the Bering Sea, away from the Yukon, which wound its course to St. Michael. The days were warmer and the trail had begun to thaw and at times became indistinct. Water was flowing in the creeks and rivers. As I crossed the Shaktoolik River, I broke through the ice. Water was running under the surface ice, although there was still ice on the bottom of the river. I succeeded in breaking the surface ice and, hanging on to my bicycle, reached the opposite shore. As I neared the Bering Sea, I saw what appeared to be glare ice off the shore. I headed for this and before I could stop, I found I was in calm, open water. I succeeded in wading back to shore and, although wet, continued on toward Nome. Near Norton Bay was a roadhouse, where I dried off and had lunch before continuing. The boys at the roadhouse warned me that the ice would shift in Norton Sound but I started across it anyway. Just as I was nearing the opposite shore, the ice shifted, leaving about 8 to 10 feet of open water between the ice and the shore. I took a chance and leaped to the shore, where I picked up a piece of driftwood, jumped back on the ice floe and poled myself and my bicycle back to the shore, and went on my way. Just east of Nome, I skidded on glare ice. When I picked up my bicycle, I discovered the chain had snapped and broken. There was a fair wind blowing toward Nome, so I picked up a stick, put it on my back inside my mackinaw coat, and began sailing for Nome. At times the wind was so strong that I was forced to drive into some soft snow to stop my wild flight. Without my chain I could not control the speed of my bicycle. However, I finally arrived at Nome, May 19, 1900, without further incident. I had had my 20th birthday on the trip.”Top 5 Brand New Slack Apps You Should Install Right Now
Slack Apps Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 16, 2016
Slack is a messaging app for teams. It starts as a simple chat, but it becomes incredibly powerful through its hundreds of integrations. All the information critical to make you successful at work now converge to Slack and integrations can automate many of your workflows: less switching between apps, more focus, less busy.
We are going to review the best Slack apps we find, after trying them and making sure they can really improve your work-life. Today we start with the first 5 that truly got our attention.
Figma
Figma is a collaborative interface design tool. Our aim is to combine the power of legacy programs like Illustrator with the collaborative flexibility of web apps like Google Docs. You can do vector-based UI design, editing, commenting, sharing, and storing all in one place — in the browser. When you connect Figma to Slack, you are able to create a shared team space and maintain a directory of team files that is constantly up-to-date, with version history for every file.
Why we like Figma: It keeps designers, product managers and developers in sync and let them work as a team like never before. So worth it.
Read more about Figma here. Article by John LillyImage copyright AFP Image caption Chile's forestry agency said it could take more than 20 days to fully extinguish the fire
President Michelle Bachelet of Chile has promised her government will rebuild the areas destroyed by a deadly fire in the port city of Valparaiso.
The blaze has killed at least 15 people, left thousands more homeless and forced mass evacuations.
Ms Bachelet said they were putting "all available resources at the disposal to deal with this tragedy".
Earlier, Chilean forestry officials said it could take more than 20 days to fully extinguish the remaining fires.
Chile's forestry agency, Conaf, said firefighters were still battling residual wildfires, but it stressed that the situation was not "out of control".
The forest fire started on Saturday in the hills surrounding Valparaiso, 110km (70 miles) west of the capital Santiago.
Two phases
President Bachelet said she wanted to express her and her government's solidarity "to the people and family who've been affected".
"We are putting all available resources at the disposal to deal with this tragedy, beginning with the evacuation, and then, in a second phase, the reconstruction (of the city)," she announced, following a government meeting in Santiago.
On Sunday, Ms Bachelet declared the areas destroyed by the fire a disaster zone.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Aid has been flowing from all over Chile to help residents who have been left homeless
Image copyright AFP Image caption Firefighters are using helicopters to dump water on remaining hotspots
Image copyright AFP Image caption Residents tried to salvage what they could from what remained of their homes
More than 10,000 residents in Valparaiso have been evacuated since Saturday, and some 2,000 homes have been destroyed.
About 1,300 firefighters are battling the flames, using helicopters and planes to dump water on remaining hotspots.
'Help needed'
On Monday, a forecast of cooler temperatures and higher humidity was expected to slow the fire's advance.
Residents and volunteers worked to clear the debris left behind.
"The only thing we need is help, please, nothing else, because there's nothing left," a resident, Ana Maria Espinoza, told the Associated Press news agency.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Volunteers and soldiers are helping to distribute aid to those affected
Image copyright AFP Image caption The fire began in forested ravine and quickly spread to densely populated hills
The Chilean Red Cross has appealed for donations, such as food and other basic supplies, to help those who were left homeless.
Soldiers and volunteers have been helping to distribute aid, which has been flowing from all over Chile.
The government said it would send 500 million Chilean pesos ($0.9m, £0.5m) to help the clean-up effort in Valparaiso, but promised more help would be given.
This is the second emergency that President Bachelet has had to face in the first month of her second term in office, after an 8.2 magnitude earthquake hit the north of the country on 1 April.During a Thursday night show at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans, comedian Dave Chappelle reportedly told a crowd that he was once choked by a police officer while filming a movie in the city.
The act wasn't caught on tape, but Jarvis DeBerry of The Times-Picayune retold the story:
Chappelle said he was working on his "first movie" here in New Orleans. He was playing a mugger, he said. He was dressed for the part. The movie set was surrounded with police tape. He ducked under it. Then a police officer set upon him and immediately started choking him. According to the Internet Movie Database, Dave Chappelle played a mugger in the 1993 movie "Undercover Blues," part of which was filmed in New Orleans. The movie was shot in the summer of 1992. Filming ended the same month Chappelle celebrated his 19th birthday. One of the women working on the set saw what was happening to the actor and yelled to the police officer that he belonged on the set. After relaxing his hold on Chappelle's neck the police officer said, according to the comedian, "Well why didn't he say something?" The weirdest thing about being a black man being choked by the police, Chappelle said, is that you don't even wonder why it's happening. You just think, he said, "OK, here we go."
Racial disparities in the criminal justice system and police use of force have been in the news following a string of police killings of unarmed black men.
The use of chokeholds in particular received national media attention after New York City Police officer Daniel Pantaleo was caught on video putting unarmed Eric Garner into a chokehold that led to Garner's death — supposedly for resisting arrest after officers stopped him for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. A grand jury on December 3 decided not to indict Pantaleo for Garner's death.
Read more: NYPD officer who killed Eric Garner in chokehold won't face criminal charges.
More from vox.com:Window weblog 7Tutorials has done another round of their web browser battery usage tests, and the results are pretty much the same as usual: Internet Explorer keeps your computer running longer.
Which version of Internet Explorer (Touch or Desktop) depends on your hardware, but on each machine, Internet Explorer came out ahead. In some cases, by a pretty big margin—for example, Chrome lasted nearly two hours shorter on a Toshiba tablet, and about an hour shorter on the Surface Pro 2.
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Of course, that doesn’t mean you should always use Internet Explorer, but if you’re somewhere without an outlet, it may be worth a temporary switch. Check out 7Tutorial’s most recent round of tests at the link below.
Which Internet Browser Will Make Your Battery Last Longer? | 7TutorialsAn Apple customer demonstrates the voice assistant program on his newly purchased iPhone 4s outside of the Apple Store on Broadway and 67th Street on Oct. 14, 2011 in New York City. The new phone, which went on sale at 8 am local time in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Japan, Australia, France and Germany, features a faster dual-core A5 chip, an 8MP camera that shoots 1080p HD video, and a voice assistant program. Getty Images/Michael Nagle |
be confounded with BPD symptoms themselves so these results are difficult to interpret (10). Suicidal ideation, depression and substance abuse are common characteristics of borderline personality (1, 2). Studies have also found that higher level of R/S is associated with less suicidal ideation and attempts (30), less depression (13, 31) and better treatment outcome for addiction (32). These findings, along with results from the present study, suggest that religious involvement could be an important factor in the etiology, treatment, and prognosis of BPD. Evaluation of the role of R/S in longitudinal studies, and assessment of the attitude of BPD patients toward R/S before and after treatment, and implementing religion-based psychotherapies in the management of BPD could be a useful focus of future research on R/S and BPD (13). The limitations of this study are its cross-sectional nature, which limits the interpretation of the results in terms of causal relationships. Second, the self-report nature of this study conducted in a highly religious country makes the results subject to social desirability bias. Third, a major limitation of this study is its reliance on self-report. Personality disorder traits are best evaluated using structured interview techniques. Fourth, its failure to measure other personality traits for there is often an overlap and co-morbidity between personality disorders. Our study sample involved medical students, and these results should only be generalized with caution beyond this population.
Conclusion Religious involvement is negatively related to a number of the core symptoms of BPD. Further research is needed to understand how this relationship comes about and what it means for the etiology and treatment of BPD.After working at the CERN research center near Geneva for a decade, where he was part of efforts to understand the origins of the universe, 49-year-old physicist Niels Kjaer returned home to his native Copenhagen. There were no newspaper job listings for people with Ph.D.s in particle physics, and he had no contacts at local universities. Since Kjaer has difficulty interacting with others, he decided to take a job driving a taxi in Copenhagen. "Okay, fine," he told himself, "I'll just work the night shift." Within six months, he was suffering from depression.
After Thorkil Sonne, the technical director of the Danish communications company TDC, had heard one too many times about how poorly his young son was fitting in at kindergarten, he and his wife went to a psychologist for advice. Instead of tips on how to raise their child, they received a diagnosis. Their son had Asperger's syndrome, the psychologist said, a form of autism. Sonne and his wife were told that people with Asperger's usually have no problems concentrating and had very good memories, but that they have trouble when it comes to matters of the heart, making it difficult for them to laugh at funny things or comfort those who are sad. This inability to relate to others, the psychologist said, makes children with Asperger's syndrome outsiders.
After hearing words like autism and outsider, the father was flabbergasted. There wasn't much that could be done, the psychologist said.
Recognizing Oft-Hidden Talents
Today, Niels Kjaer, the particle physicist, no longer drives a taxi. And that has something to do with the fact that Thorkil Sonne didn't take the psychologist's advice. Instead, he decided that something could be done for people with Asperger's, after all.
In 2004, Sonne established a company in Copenhagen called Specialisterne, or "the Specialists." The company hires autistic people like Kjaer and places them in projects, primarily with IT companies, where they analyze software, manage data and write programs.
Sonne says that he didn't start the company for charitable reasons. He wants the work performed by his employees to matter, and he wants their talents to be recognized -- talents that are hard to convey in formal job interviews.
Sonne ensures that his employees are paid standard industry wages. His long-term goal is to create a million jobs worldwide for people with Asperger's and similar autistic disorders. Specialisterne already has offices in Iceland, Scotland and Switzerland, and it plans to open an office in Germany this year.
What Asperger's Means
Matthias Prössl walks into a café in Munich, having come straight from a job center, where an adviser explained to him how entrepreneurs can take advantage of government subsidies and grants. Prössl wants to bring Sonne's concept from Denmark to Germany. The 51-year-old once worked as an executive at IBM. His eldest son was diagnosed with Asperger's six years ago. Since then, Prössl's world has no longer revolved around his career.
An estimated one in 3,000 children has Asperger's syndrome, which affects more boys than girls. It is still unclear where the disorder comes from, although experts believe that it is caused by a combination of genetic factors, brain damage and biochemical changes. In contrast to other autistic individuals, intelligence and language ability develop normally in children with Asperger's. In fact, many start talking earlier than other children, sometimes even before they learn to walk. They quickly develop a favorite subject and sink into their own worlds, poring over maps, telephone books and train schedules. Later on, their interests turn to periodic tables, programming languages or, as in the case of Niels Kjaer, the formulas of high-energy physics.
Still, they have difficulty correctly interpreting social situations and are unable to properly assess the facial expressions, gestures and emotional states of other people. They often avoid direct eye contact. According to the textbook definition, they are characterized by a "lack of social and emotional reciprocity."
Asperger's cannot be cured, though treatment can help people with the condition to cope with the world somewhat more effectively. People with Asperger's or autism cannot empathize with the emotions of other people, but they can learn that a loud voice or a wrinkled brow signify anger and annoyance.
Irony, puns and metaphors are usually lost on people with Asperger's syndrome because they interpret them literally. The sentence "my head is about to explode" can send them into a panic.
People who take everything literally have trouble lying, and most people with Asperger's are brutally honest. When asked in an interview "What are your weaknesses?" they tend to respond with complete honesty. Indeed, they lack the ability to portray themselves in an advantageous light. As a result, some manage to complete university degrees in difficult subjects, only to fail miserably once they hit the job market.
Difficulties in School
Prössl's son is now 15. Since he suffers from a milder form of Asperger's, he attends a normal secondary school. When he started attending his current school, the Prössls told a few teachers about his condition so as to avoid misunderstandings when it became clear that their son had trouble interacting with others.
Many people with Asperger's attend special schools. "It isn't because they can't keep up intellectually," says Friedrich Nolte of the German Autism Society, "but because the groups are smaller there." In normal schools, social pressures are often too much for children with Asperger's. They end up being teased and bullied, leading many to eventually become depressed. "I don't want my son to be sent to occupational therapy instead of learning what he can do and what he enjoys," Prössl says. But what's the best way to give these children a good education and help them embark on a career?
Harnessing Special Abilities
Specialisterne's main office is in an industrial zone west of Copenhagen. The walls and doors are decorated with film posters and humorous postcards. A Rubik's Cube solved by one of the employees sits on a desk.
After his son was diagnosed with Asperger's, Sonne says he became active in the Danish Autism Association, where he and his wife gradually got to know other children with the condition. He met adolescents who were clever and competent yet failing in school. "These are the boys who answer the teacher's questions instead of fooling around with the kids sitting next to them," Sonne says. "Now that shouldn't be a reason to have to attend a school for children with special needs, should it?"
Sonne knew from personal experience how difficult it can be to find employees who are detail-oriented, persistent and precise -- just the skills he was observing in young men with Asperger's. And yet not one of them was able to apply his talents.
"I wanted to take advantage of the characteristics that autistic people have, not just for their sake, but also to benefit the economy," Sonne says. He founded the company in 2004 using money from a home equity loan. Specialisterne now has 33 employees.
Sonne has already won several international awards in recognition of his commitment. He receives inquiries from parents and people with Asperger's syndrome from around the world. All of this support has encouraged him to implement his concept in other countries.
Obvious Assets to Employers
When asked why an employer should hire an autistic person in the first place, Sonne says that their assets are obvious. "People with Asperger's can concentrate better. They are more precise," he says. These abilities, he adds, are an advantage in such fields as data control. "Other testers lose interest after the third attempt, and then errors start to creep in. My people are still wide awake after the 10th attempt."
They just need a little help with other things, he says. People with Asperger's have no sense of nuance, and yet they are often perfectionists. When they think something doesn't make sense, they usually criticize it directly. Since this approach can create friction in a working environment, Sonne's employees also receive training in office etiquette. They are taught skills such as how to exchange pleasantries with coworkers and how to phrase criticism diplomatically. With a little consideration, Sonne says, everyone gets along.
In Denmark, Specialisterne employees are now managing projects at Siemens, Nokia and TDC. When asked why so much involvement with computers and what makes people with autism so passionate about data and order, Sonne says: "They like to adhere to fixed rules and routines (and) computers are very reliable counterparts." What's more, computer language is logically structured and, in most cases, computers remain the same way they were when they were used last.
Besides, Sonne says, the people one encounters on the Internet are more predictable than people in real life. On the Web, most people write what they mean using clear and unmistakable terms. Reading between the lines is rarely necessary, and most people identify irony with a smiley face.
Finding a Suitable Niche
Niels Kjaer is sitting in an office at Specialisterne, working on a computer program designed to help improve quality-control checks on chicken eggs. The goal is to detect cracks in eggs with a scanning camera. Kjaer shows images of eggs that are blotchy, dented or cracked. He looks for the imperfect ones, which he wants to help filter out.
Kjaer has come a long way, from CERN to driving a taxi to finally programming. When asked if he is happy, Kjaer doesn't avert his gaze from the screen and answers that there is still a lot to be improved about the program. "Up here on the left," Kjaer says, pointing to an egg, "it should be possible to detect these hairline cracks soon."
Of course, he didn't answer the question. But perhaps it's just that he understood it in a completely different way.Mohsen Soleimani Rouzbahani, project director of Iran’s wetlands perseveration, said “at the moment, Hamun Lake is in dire conditions. But we are concentrating our efforts to find appropriate solutions to revive this international wetland.”
“During drought, if the ecosystem is not manipulated too much, one can hold high hopes for its restoration; otherwise, that would make its restoration very difficult,” he said.
While noting that Hamun Lake has great potential to be revived should planning and source allocation be provide, he said, “after a long dry period, water now is streaming through the lake bed, and we have seen the return of flora and aquatic animals.”
“We are strongly against any harmful measure to wetlands ecosystem,” he stressed, “we are making a lot of endeavor to systematize the exploitation of Hamun Lake and prevent any illegal interference.”
Soleimani expressed hope that with cooperation from people and organizations the revival of Hamun Lake would soon become a reality.
Hamun Lake is the seventh international wetlands into which Afghanistan’s longest river Helmand is emptied. But a long dispute between Kabul and Tehran has centered on Iran's claim to a portion of the Helmand's waters. Under an agreement between the two countries signed in 1973, Afghanistan is obliged to let at least 26 cubic meters of water per second flow from the dams into Iran. And while control over the flow has long proven a source of contention between the two countries, in 1999, the Taliban turned the taps off completely.
Earlier this year, torrential rains filled a small part of the lake, but high temperatures and strong wind storms are drying even this small portion of water.
Iran is calling on Afghanistan and international organizations to assist Iran in reviving this once vibrant area, known for its abundant wetlands, bio-diversity and natural productivity.
MS
MNA
ENDBy Helena Merriman
BBC News
Bodies of thousands of rabbits are reportedly fuelling a heating plant Residents in Stockholm are divided over reports that rabbits are being used to make biofuel. The bodies of thousands of rabbits are fuelling a heating plant in central Sweden, local newspapers say. The city of Stockholm has an annual cull of thousands of rabbits to protect the capital's parks and green spaces. The rabbits, not native to Sweden, are mainly the offspring of pets released by owners, and are said to be destroying parks in the capital. Since they have no natural predators, the city administration of Stockholm employs hunters to kill the rabbits. Tommy Tuvunger, one of the hunters, told Germany's Spiegel website that 6,000 rabbits were culled last year, and another 3,000 this year. "They are a very big problem," he said. "Once culled, the rabbits are frozen and when we have enough, a contractor comes and takes them away." The frozen rabbits are then taken to a heating plant in Karlskoga which incinerates them to heat homes. Bunny boilers Leo Virta, the Managing Director of Konvex - the plant's suppliers - told the BBC that Konvex has developed a new way of processing animal waste with funding from the EU as part of the Biomal project. FROM BBC WORLD SERVICE Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. More from BBC World Service He says that with this new method, raw animal material is crushed, ground and then pumped to a boiler where it is burned together with wood chips, peat or waste to produce renewable heat. "It is a good system as it solves the problem of dealing with animal waste and it provides heat," said Mr Virta. Reaction in Sweden has been divided, said James Savage, managing editor of The Local - an online news service covering Sweden. "In the town where they are burning them the reaction of the residents is quite relaxed," Mr Savage told the BBC World Service. "But in Stockholm there's the big city attitude of the rabbits being cute. "That's amongst some people, particularly among some animal rights activists who think this is not a good way to treat rabbits."
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionMad Bomber Brewing Company is a craft brewery on the verge of breaking into the up and coming brewing community in the Idaho Panhandle. Check out a much more professional video put together by Aaron Luna of KXLY 4 in Spokane, WA.
It's 120 degrees, you're wearing an 80lb suit, and you're surrounded by things waiting to kill you... Sounds like you're ready for a Mad Bomber Brew!
We have spent most of the last decade disarming explosive devices in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Northwestern United States, and in our back yards. We don't have the budget for fancy videos, or big shiny pieces of equipment. If you watched the video above, it was shot with a laptop. If you make it out to the brewery, you'll notice that 90% of everything inside was built, painted, engraved, designed, and probably broken by one of us.
The things we care most about are: making and sharing great beer, and remembering those fantastic individuals who we can no longer share those good times with.
Where we're at- (Coeur d'Alene Press article)
We've signed a lease (and starting paying), and are awaiting city approval to begin remodeling. Our federal and state permits are filed and probably lost in some giant stack of paperwork somewhere. We've ordered/paid for most of our equipment, and are in the process of building the rest. Check out the table built by a retired Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) soldier!
Tables made from reclaimed wood and old ammo crates
In an attempt to dress up our homemade fermenters, we've even found a bomb squad soldier to do some artwork on our plastic tanks!
Preliminary fermenter artwork
Where we got stuck-
It turns out that taking apart explosive devices is much simpler than starting a business, especially one that involves the production and sale of alcohol. We've encountered some budget devastating turns with sewer fees, building permits, mechanical permits, retail licenses, wholesale licenses, and a whole pile of things that we never expected could be so outrageous. The final straw came with the most recent quote for the final piece of the brewery puzzle: $26,000 for a walk-in cooler and draft system!
What we're asking for-
It doesn't matter how good the beer is if it never makes it to your glass. That's why we are asking for $26,000 to help defer the cost of the only thing that will keep us from opening.
The Partners-
Tom Applegate- General Partner / Head Brewer / Bartender / Plumber / and author of this kickstarter description page. After 8 years as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician with the United States Army and 1 tour in Afghanistan, I've decided to risk it all and pursue brewing as a profession. Being with my family is the most important thing to me, and brewing with them for the last few years has been amazing. I am all in, and will probably be broke and homeless if the venture fails.
Stephanie Applegate- General Partner / Office Manager / Accountant / Chief of Marketing / and some other stuff. She is my wife of 6 years, and probably the most amazing person I've had the privilege to know. She has suffered through deployments and many long lonely nights while I was out working on dangerous stuff. Most importantly, she has indulged my brewing passion.
Alan Longacre- Partner / Assistant Brewer / Active Duty EOD soldier. Alan has been with the project since the first time the grains met the water in the garage in 2011. Alan has served through two combat deployments to Afghanistan and will be spending the next year fulfilling the rest of his commitment to the United States Army.
John Taylor- Partner / Multi-media designer / Active Duty EOD Team Leader. John has served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and is an owner of the bomb squad based design company Explosive Ordnance Designs. John is currently serving as an active duty Bomb Squad Team Leader out of Joint Base Lewis-McCord in Washington.
The Beer-
We have designed the draft system to accommodate 8 taps, allowing for 6 flagships and 2 rotating seasonals:
St. Nicholas Pale Ale- The favorite beer of the original partner in the brewery, SSG Nicholas Reid (KIA December 2012). The St. Nicholas is a burst of citrus hop flavor in a small and drinkable package. Brewed to American Pale Ale standard, it is a light colored, refreshing brew featuring distinct citrus and floral hop overtones with a supporting but not overbearing dynamic malt character.Designed as the perfect session beer, focusing on drinkability that doesn’t compromise flavor integrity, the St. Nicholas will be 5.0% - 5.5% ABV.With a dry, crisp finish, this ale caters to all craft beer enthusiasts as well as those unfamiliar with flavorful beers.
SSG Nicholas Reid
Fatman IPA - Our second flagship will be an American India Pale Ale, showcasing the unique flavor and aromas of the Northwestern hop, Cascade. Bearing the team designation of SSG Kenneth Wade Bennett (KIA November 2012), the Fatman attempts to be as epic as it's namesake. With hop additions generously applied throughout the entirety of the brewing process, the Fatman IPA boasts style bending bitterness and a subtle but supportive malt backbone.Finishing at 6.5%-7% ABV, this Northwestern IPA targets the tried and true West Coast beer drinker
SSG Kenneth Wade Bennett
MK 84 Porter - To satisfy those with bolder palates, our third beer comes on as strong as the 2,000lb bomb that shares it's name. Brewed with dark coffee flavored malts, the MK 84 Porter, gives a solid punch of deep flavor while still maintaining the drinkability of a lighter ale.True to style, this porter will finish with a crisp 5.0%-5.5% ABV and allow its robust flavor to shine.
Lonely Walk Brown Ale - The fourth mainstay in our lineup is a dependable, consistent ale fit to embody the resolute first responder making the lonely walk into harms way. It is an American Brown Ale brewed outside of current style guidelines with a strong Northwestern identity.This brown ale showcases a complex grain bill with the hint of west coast hop bitterness and aroma that craft beer drinkers have come to expect.With a finishing ABV of 6%-6.5%, the Lonely Walk will be a favorite for lovers of all beer styles.
Powder Keg Cascadian Dark Ale- Combining the hop forward attitude of an American IPA and the malt complexity of an American Brown is Powder Keg, a Cascadian Dark Ale.True to its origins in the garages of home brewers, this unique beer showcases hops that are unique to the Northwest.The resulting IPA-like bitterness and aroma combines with a diverse grain bill to produce something that is truly inspiring.At 6.8%-7.3% ABV, the Powder Keg will push the limits of guidelines and raise the expectations of all craft beer enthusiasts.
Boobytrap Blonde Ale - Our most recent recipe, for the craft beer newcomer. Brewed with a simple grain bill to showcase hints of wheat and liberty hops, this blonde ale is a true lawnmower beer. Made for the days when you're hard at work and need something cool and refreshing without filling you up. Straying heavily from the standard blonde definition, Boobytrap comes in at almost 6% ABV. Work hard, play hard.
Where we're going-
The Mad Bomber Brewing Company is a living memorial of the brave men and women who selflessly place their lives in the balance to ensure the safety of others. We are grateful for the support we have received from everyone, and are incredibly excited to share our passion with the rest of the country. Our modest 1.5BBL brewing system will support only our taproom. The only way to sample our amazing brew, for now, is for us to pour it for you in Hayden, ID.
How to donate-
1. CREATE a Kickstarter account. It's simple; all it takes is an email and a password.
2. SIGN IN at Amazon.com - if you already have an account, you're all set. If not, no worries, it is easy to set-up as well.
3. PLEDGE at whatever level you like! Your card will only be charged if we reach our full goal.
4. SHARE this with your friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, and whoever else crosses your path! Let everyone know you are a backer for Mad Bomber Brewing Company. And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mad-Bomber-Brewing-Company/189210537902950
Whether or not you choose to pledge, please check out the EOD Memorial website and support those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. Thanks for checking in! Cheers!- Advertisement -
Windows 10 is finally out and I’m sure a lot of people, are wondering if The Sims 4 will run well on it? Well this is what I’m here to tell you about. I’m going to try to not get too technical with this and keep it as simple as possible. That being said I think you should know if there are any issues to be concerned with before upgrading and what steps you should take. First let’s cover the steps of what you should do before upgrading.
• Create a backup of your Save Files! Something might happen during the upgrade process that might delete your progress, it’s important to have a backup. (Nothing happened for me with my saves, everything was fine) To make a backup of your saves go to Documents >> Electronic Arts >> The Sims 4 >> Saves and move everything in that folder to safe location, like a USB or a External hard drive.
• Remove any and all mods! There is a chance EA will have to push out an update or two with the release to make things run well so it’s best to have no mods installed in your game.
• After the upgrade is done, make another backup of your saves just to be safe.
That’s all you should have to do before the upgrade. Now how well does it perform? The Sims 4 runs just as smooth on my computer as it did with Windows 8.1. I was able to boot the game up and the only thing that was changed was the video settings. You may need to re-adjust the settings to your liking.
But in the end, to keep this short, yes The Sims 4 (and older titles) should run on Windows 10 just as well as it runs on Windows 7 & 8.1 (if not even better!). If you have any questions it’s best to contact an EA Game Adviser and they will be able to assist you.
The Sims, The Sims 2, The Sims 3, and The Sims 4 are compatible with Windows 10.ROME (Reuters) - Hiding behind a culture of “omerta” — the Italian word for the Mafia’s code of silence — would be deadly for the Catholic Church, the Vatican’s top official for dealing with sexual abuse of minors by clergy said Wednesday.
Pope Benedict XVI looks at heavy snowfall in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican February 3, 2012. REUTERS/Osservatore Romano
Monsignor Charles Scicluna made the unusually forthright comment in his speech to a landmark symposium in Rome on the sexual abuse crisis that has rocked the Church in the past decade.
“The teaching... that truth is at the basis of justice explains why a deadly culture of silence, or ‘omerta,’ is in itself wrong and unjust,” Scicluna said in his address to the four-day symposium which brings together some 200 people including bishops, leaders of religious orders, victims of abuse and psychologists.
Rarely, if ever, has a Vatican official used the word “omerta” - a serious accusation in Italian — to compare the reluctance of some in the Church to come clean on the abuse scandal with the Mafia’s code of silence.
“Other enemies of the truth are the deliberate denial of known facts and the misplaced concern that the good name of the institution should somehow enjoy absolute priority to the detriment of disclosure,” Scicluna said.
Victims groups have for years accused some bishops in the Church of preferring silence and cover-up to coming clean on the scandal, which has sullied the image of the Church around the world, particularly in the United States.
“No strategy for the prevention of child abuse will ever work without commitment and accountability,” Scicluna told the symposium at the Jesuit Pontifical Gregorian University, called “Towards Healing and Renewal.”
Scicluna, a Maltese whose formal title is “justice promoter” in the Vatican’s doctrinal department, is the Vatican’s point man for dealing with cases of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy.
The symposium’s participants are discussing how the Church can become more aware of the problem, make a commitment to listen to victims and prevent future cases of abuse.
Groups representing abuse victims say the Church must do much more to own up to the past, when known pedophile priests were shuttled from parish to parish instead of being defrocked or turned over to authorities.
It must also make greater efforts to prevent future cases, they say, accusing the Church and the Vatican of a cover-up.
COOPERATE WITH AUTHORITIES, BISHOPS TOLD
The message from Scicluna and other Vatican officials who have addressed the symposium is that local Church officials must cooperate with civil authorities according to local law in cases of suspected pedophilia.
The scandals have led to costly legal action, are blamed for an exodus of believers in some European nations, including the pope’s native Germany, and have damaged the Church’s moral standing in hitherto staunchly Catholic states, such as Ireland.
An association for victims of abuse dismissed the conference as “window dressing” and said the Vatican should hand over documentation of abuse to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
“After years of promises, meetings and empty apologies, the Vatican cannot do the simplest, cheapest and most child-friendly action possible: make public decades of secret files on clergy sex offenders and enablers,” said Joelle Casteix from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
Tuesday, an Irish victim of clerical abuse bluntly told the symposium that guidelines on how to root out pedophile priests and protect children needed to be backed up by penalties for bishops who fail to implement them.
Marie Collins said rules without sanctions were too easily ignored and cases were often swept under the carpet, allowing pedophiles to carry on molesting children.
The Church in her native Ireland was one of the hardest hit by the sexual abuse scandal.
Last July, the Vatican took the highly unusual step of recalling its ambassador to Ireland after Prime Minister Enda Kenny accused the Holy See of obstructing investigations into sexual abuse by priests.
The Irish parliament passed a motion deploring the Vatican’s role in “undermining child protection frameworks” following publication of a damning report on the diocese of Cloyne.
The Cloyne report said Irish clerics concealed from the authorities the sexual abuse of children by priests as recently as 2009.
In November, Ireland closed its embassy to the Vatican, ostensibly for economic reasons.STATE COLLEGE -- Penn State lost in uninspiring fashion to Michigan, 28-16, at Beaver Stadium on Saturday.
That was the bad news. The good news came on the recruiting front.
James Franklin and his staff picked up a needed addition to their class of 2017 on Saturday morning when Virginia four-star linebacker Dylan Rivers, who was in town for an unofficial visit, verbally committed to the program over Virginia Tech, Clemson, and about 10 other schools. He joins Ohio four-star quarterback Sean Clifford as the program's two junior pledges.
The impact of Rivers' pledge is this:
Other programs were not exactly blowing Penn State out of the water when it came to earning commitments from prospects that can't sign until Feb. 2017, but the more the better for any program hoping to attract top talent in bulk. Penn State now has a foothold with prospects in Ohio and Virginia and is considered the favorite for a number of Pennsylvanisa and Mid-Atlantic prospects.
Franklin and his staff can now focus on those players and use the verbal commitments as peer-to-peer liaisons to help win those battles. That can only be counted as a positive.
Michigan recruiting impact
By all accounts, Rivers enjoyed his trip to campus. But what about the other prospects that made it?
Judging by a glance at the sideline and endzone before the game, the expected number of 100-plus prospects was accurate despite major traffic issues that kept fans and recruits alike from getting to State College as early as they wanted to.
http://www.pennlive.com/pennstatefootball/index.ssf/2015/11/penn_states_defense_missed_car.html#incart_river_index
First, a look at new offer news:
The Lions' jumped aboard for four-star 2017 linebacker Nathan Proctor. He is considered one of the top juniors at his position in the country.
Proud to say I received my 16th offer from Penn State Univ #107kStrong [?] [?] [?] pic.twitter.com/ACARfBNAAl -- Nathan Proctor Jr. (@Nate_la_gran_21) November 21, 2015
Penn State also offered 2018 linebacker Terjada Mitchell, from Virginia, according to 247Sports.
A large crop of the program's 2016 visitors made the trip, too. Check out the group below:
Pittsburgh Woodland Hills running back Miles Sanders, a four-star committed for over a year now, was also on hand but is not pictured.
The atmosphere from 107,418 fans was good throughout the day, so despite the loss, most prospects likely enjoyed their visit.
PennLive will have more on the recruiting impact on Monday.
What went wrong?
Try to boil Penn State's fourth loss of the year down to a simple, digestible reality, and one can come up with this:
With injuries at key positions, depth problems, questionable coaching decisions, and frequent lack of execution, Penn State will struggle in games like this one for the time being. Add in the fact that Michigan was very battle tested with two previous road wins, has experience on both lines, and playmakers at quarterback and receiver, and Saturday's Wolverines victory makes all the more sense.
It's clear after this setback that Penn State's offensive line hasn't progressed a ton this year and that many of its players still aren't making key plays when they need to.
Penn State can play spoiler and keep Michigan State out of the Big Ten title game next weekend in East Lansing. But can it?
Depends which Lions' team shows up.
Revisiting the keys to the game
Key to the game on offense: Saquon Barkley has to, at the very least, hit the 100 yards rushing mark
Barkley had a 56 yard burst up the middle on the second play from scrimmage on Saturday. His final stat line? Fifteen carries for 68 yards.
It was a brutal day for the Lions' ground attack, though they did stick with it despite minimal success to try and establish it. The problem came from the fact they they never did.
Key to the game on defense: Keep Jake Butt in check
Penn State did not accomplish this.
One of the nation's best tight ends, Butt found the end zone once and finished with five catches for 66 yards to go with a first quarter score. He could have had more yards if Jake Ruddock would have thrown to him more, as the Wolverine was open on a number of occasions.
Key to the game on special teams: keep Michigan pinned and be good in the return game
Michigan's averaged its own 37 yard line to start its drives on Saturday, but in reality, it started more drives closer to midfield than not.
So that aspect of the key was a failure. As for the return game, Penn State created nothing with its opportunities, and allowed a backbreaking 55 yard return by Michigan's Jourdan Lewis to help sink it late.Spring breakers got rowdy on Miami Beach Friday night. Crowds got out-of-control, forcing Miami Beach Police to shut down some streets. (Published Saturday, March 12, 2016)
Spring breakers got rowdy on Miami Beach Friday night. Crowds got out-of-control, forcing Miami Beach Police to shut down some streets.
"It was just too much. It was too chaotic. Too many people running. Too many police officers," said Keyona Winter, who is visiting from Atlanta and witnessed a fight.
Police said the large group of people started gathering on the sand near beach shore. But after sunset, the partiers spilled out onto Ocean Drive and small fights erupted.
"At first, everything was starting to get under control but then I guess some people got too rowdy and started trying to fight police," said Jovannie Sweeting, who witnessed the unruly crowds.
Police were forced to close down Ocean Drive between 7th and 10th Streets. A few people were arrested but police said it never turned into a riot.
MBPD also tweeted a photo of all the spring breakers packed on the beach. Those who witnessed it all said the fights messed with their spring break vibe.
Large #springbreak crowds on Miami Beach. Have fun, but be responsible! �� pic.twitter.com/OA40FsMcPh — Miami Beach Police (@MiamiBeachPD) March 11, 2016
"It ruins it. It ruins the vacation when you see a fight because, why are you fighting? We are supposed to be having fun. Why are you fighting?" Winter said.
But some said they feel secure knowing police are out patrolling.
"Obviously with all the lights, we can tell that the cops are on top of it, so I feel good about that. I'm not worried at all," said Annie Lutterman, spring breaker.
Traffic has since reopened on Ocean Drive. Police are urging people to have fun but also be responsible and safe.International soccer star David Beckham’s professional career began with Manchester United in 1992, part of a rookie talent pool that has been unrivaled more than 20 years later. In the upcoming documentary, Class of ’92, Beckham and former United teammates Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, and Paul Scholes recount their most intimate memories from their time with the club.
Metro has unveiled details the former England captain shared about the hazing he experienced at United.
Beckham’s story from Metro:
‘One of mine was surprising! The Clayton Blackmore!’ Recalling his teen horror, he said: ‘Everyone had an initiation that you had to go through on the youth team, that was one of the most uncomfortable ones!’ ‘The fact that I had to look at Clayton Blackmore’s calendar and do certain things, while looking at Clayton Blackmore…’ ‘I mean it was embarrassing to talk about!’ Forced to recall the full scale of the horror on camera for the documentary, the 38-year-old said: ‘I was embarrassed when I was saying it on camera let alone talking about it more. But it’s something that we all had to go through. It was definitely something I wouldn’t like to go through again!’
Beckham’s story comes in the wake of Miami Dolphins lineman Jonathan Martin’s allegations that he experienced locker room hazing throughout his time with the team. Martin’s claims are currently being investigated by the NFL.
Beckham began his career with Manchester United in 1991 as a member of the youth squad. When he turned professional, United loaned him to Preston North End from |
levels of stress due to climate change, our work suggests that the climate in sub(arctic) Europe will ameliorate the future conditions for most of its mammalian species. Warmer and wetter conditions favor more species,” the scientists concluded.Recovery worker reflects on months spent at Ground Zero 29 May 2002
By Jennifer Lin
Knight Ridder Newspapers NEW YORK -- Towering floodlights filled Ground Zero with an electric glow last Friday as Joe "Toolie" O'Toole, a Bronx firefighter, descended into the 16-acre pit for his overnight shift. For five months, O'Toole has worked with a crew of 100 firefighters, combing every shovelful of debris at the World Trade Center site for the remains of the dead. O'Toole said he would not leave until the last mound of dirt is upended and sifted for fragments of bones. "I'm here till the end," O'Toole said. "How can I leave?" But that time has come. Thursday, O'Toole will join other recovery workers and the families of victims to mark a ceremonial end to the recovery effort. In the 8 months since Sept. 11, hundreds of workers have removed more than 1 million tons of concrete and steel, and retrieved almost 20,000 body parts. Firefighters like O'Toole have spent lifetimes helping people live. But at Ground Zero, they have taken on the added task of helping people cope with death. One of the strangers whom O'Toole has helped was Fiona Havlish, of Lower Makefield, Pa., whose husband, Donald Havlish Jr., died in the South Tower. O'Toole met Havlish briefly during his first week on the job in January. She was volunteering at St. Paul's Chapel, a relief center for recovery and construction workers. He was on a break, warming up. After hellos, he didn't really know what more to say to her. "There was a lot of pain in that woman," O'Toole recalled. "I could feel it. I didn't know what the hell to do. I was lost and I was very nervous. I really didn't want to talk to her." He returned to Ground Zero, where a heavy machine with a clawlike grappler was lifting a steel box-beam that weighed 800 pounds a foot. O'Toole watched the claw release, sending the steel hulk crashing to the ground. He thought of Fiona Havlish. He shuddered to picture the brute force of steel timbers hurling to the ground from 110 stories. O'Toole went back to the chapel and, pulling Fiona aside, told her point blank that her husband didn't feel a thing. "I felt I had to talk to her," O'Toole said. "I didn't have a right to say something, but I thought it might help her." It did. In a note to O'Toole, she told him that knowing that her husband's death may have been swift "was about the only thing I could hold onto." When O'Toole signed on for trade center duty in January, he thought it would be a 30-day assignment. But after one month, he volunteered for another. And another. And another. And another. Tall and redheaded, the 47-year-old married father of three grown children speaks in an unhurried way about Ground Zero. He said he felt driven to keep working there to bring honor in death for the victims. Every time the crew discovered a body, they placed it on a stretcher, covered it with an American flag, and prayed. "Each person was treated with the greatest dignity and respect," O'Toole said. "Everybody." Too often, what he saw in the underground cavities was too unspeakable to share with anyone, even his wife. "It didn't go home with me," O'Toole said. "It didn't even go to the firehouse. It remained with the people who saw it. If you didn't see it, you didn't want to see it." He said workers found pockets that were "hot" with intact bodies. "You would find clusters and groups. It was very emotional, but you're not thinking about it. You just think, you've got to get these people out of here." The first time O'Toole came face to face with the destruction of the twin towers was dawn on Sept. 13. He said it felt as if he were standing in the portal to hell. "All the steel sticking up, it was like Satan's fingers," O'Toole said. "The sun was coming up and reflecting off the buildings. It made an eerie glow as it came through the haze." In those early days, when firefighters were still hoping to rescue trapped victims, they hauled away concrete, ash and glass "by the spoonful," careful not to disturb the wreckage too much. "We passed out metal rebar one 4-foot piece at a time," he said. "The men never gave up hope." But by the time O'Toole started working at Ground Zero full time in January, heavy equipment was being used to haul away wreckage. Before a truck could leave to take its load to a barge, bound for the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island, the cargo would be placed in a "rake field" where firefighters worked like archeologists, searching for fragments of bones. At the site, O'Toole's job has mostly involved handling logistics -- taking water to fellow workers, shuttling tools back and forth, getting more lights on rake fields. "I've done everything down here," O'Toole said. "I've been a tour guide, funeral director, counselor, exhumer." Underground fires raged for months. O'Toole remembers in February seeing a crane lift a steel beam vertically from deep within the catacombs of Ground Zero. "It was dripping from the molten steel," he said. Today, the site looks like a big rectangular pit, so scraped of debris that little is left to suggest this was the footprint of the twin towers. In a few days, O'Toole said, he will return to his Bronx firehouse. He is looking forward to fighting fires again -- "smashing windows and cutting holes in the ceiling," he said. He knows it will take months, maybe years, to process everything he has seen. "I'll go see a shrink just to let him tell me if I'm nuts," he said glibly. Years from now, if his future grandchildren ask him what he did at Ground Zero, he will answer: "I did a noble task." Shaking his head, he added, "I don't know if I want to tell them any more than that."Mass Effect: Andromeda's multiplayer is pretty good, but your success in it hinges on what gear, gadgets, and character classes you're able to accumulate. To get that stuff and make a great Andromeda multiplayer build, you'll have to unpack dozens of supply packs: loot boxes that you earn from completing missions or with cold-hard cash.
Here's how the loot system works, and how you can improve your chances of getting rare gear.
Currencies
Packs are purchased using two of the three multiplayer currencies: Andromeda Points and Credits. The remaining currency, Mission Funds, is specifically for restocking consumables and outfitting your Apex strike teams.
Andromeda Points are your typical shortcut currency exchanged for real-world money. You can buy Advanced, Expert, and Premium packs with far fewer Andromeda Points over the freely earned Credits—around $5/£4 bestows enough Points for a few Advanced packs or a pair of Expert and Premium packs. Invest your moneydollars as you wish, but note that the currencies earned in-game flow pretty abundantly from even your first Bronze-difficulty round.
You’ll both spend and accrue plenty of Credits throughout your multiplayer career, as it’s the primary payout from completing waves, challenges, and objectives. The higher the difficulty for the match, the more you'll potentially earn, but don’t get too greedy—the higher Silver and Gold difficulties will swiftly punish you if you’re unprepared and send you back to the menu screen with nothing lining your pockets. If you’re just starting out, it’s best to stick with Bronze until you reach roughly level 10 and have accumulated enough kit to tackle Silver.
Mission Funds are earned by sending computer-controlled strike teams on Apex missions or participating in a set of three daily Apex missions. These missions feature special objectives and modifiers such as eliminating a particular target, amping the damage of a certain weapon type, or restricting power usage. Their rewards are likewise more substantial than a standard round and are the best way to gather Mission Funds for cheap resupplies on medkits, revive kits, Cobra RPGs, and other important consumables. (You’ll also kick over some extra resources for Ryder in the singleplayer.)
Choosing which item pack to buy
The weapons, classes, and gear you’ll gather from item packs come in four rarities: Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Ultra-Rare. Weapons and classes are additionally divided by rank quality starting from rank 1 and maximizing at rank 10. Here’s the cost of each item pack and what you’re expected to receive for each cost tier:
Basic (5,000 Credits): Five random items or characters with a small chance for an Uncommon quality item
Five random items or characters with a small chance for an Uncommon quality item Advanced (20,000 Credits or 100 Andromeda Points): Five random items or characters with at least one guaranteed Uncommon item and a small chance for a Rare item
Five random items or characters with at least one guaranteed Uncommon item and a small chance for a Rare item Expert (50,000 Credits or 200 Andromeda Points): Five random items or characters with at least one guaranteed Rare item and a small chance for an Ultra-Rare item
Five random items or characters with at least one guaranteed Rare item and a small chance for an Ultra-Rare item Premium (100,000 Credits or 300 Andromeda Points): Five random items or characters with at least two guaranteed Rare items and a higher chance for an Ultra-Rare item
How to spend your currency
Stick with Basic packs until both your starting Common weapons and classes reach rank 10. You’ll see immediate benefits: each increasing class rank bestows a higher base skill point allotment to further augment your powers on a fresh character. Weapon stats will become better tuned for damage and weight efficiency. Most importantly, fully maxing your Common inventory removes their inclusion in future pack loot tables, increasing your chances of getting better gear from the more expensive packs.
After you’ve begun dipping into Silver matches, start buying Advanced packs to round out your Uncommon quality items and classes. Ideally, you want to mirror the same max-rank end-goal as you met for your Common stuff, but this is where the grind turns heavy; be patient and make sure to get your Apex dailies done for fat Credit bonuses. Once you hit rank 10 for your roster and armaments, you’re primed for the high-damage and high-reward big leagues.
Lastly, skip the Expert packs and go straight for the juicier Premium packs. For double the Credit price, you get a better chance at coveted Ultra-Rare unlocks alongside the two guaranteed and powerful Rare items. At this point, your class stable should be bristling with power and gear, and you shouldn’t have much trouble acing numerous Silver and Gold matches to dump Tempest-loads of Credits into your wallet. Continue using your excess Credits on Premium packs to hunt after specific weapons to your liking—some popular picks include the Mattock assault rifle, Equalizer pistol, Raptor sniper rifle, or Scattershot shotgun.Conservatives like to project themselves as lovers of the free market. They believe that everyone should go out and fend for themselves, that the government shouldn't be getting in the way of those with talent and ambition – and that it shouldn't be wasting "their" tax dollars on people who are too lazy to get off their rears and earn their keep.
That story has a certain simplistic appeal and apparent logical consistency. Unfortunately it also has almost nothing to do with the reality of where conservatives actually stand on major political issues.
We got a rare chance to see the ugly truth behind the "rugged individualist" story earlier this year when the rancher Cliven Bundy briefly became a hero to the libertarian-leaning right. The government was harassing a hard-working rancher, went the story – a man who simply wanted to feed and water his cattle.
A little investigative work revealed a very different picture. As Paul Krugman pointed out in his aptly titled column "High Plains Moocher", Bundy was fighting for the right to use government land without paying for it. That has more to do with outright theft than the free market.
The right's reaction to President Obama's new plan to curb carbon emissions from power plants follows a similar storyline of entitlement. Obama proposed a 30% reduction in emissions over the next 15 years, which will substantially reduce the use of coal and likely to lead to a modest increase in electricity prices. (The Environmental Protection Agency estimates the additional cost per household will be less than $50 a year.)
Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are having a measurable impact on the global climate, and this is causing damage to people's property and in many cases jeopardizing their lives. But Republicans quickly raced to be first in line to condemn this massive government intervention in the economy.
Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi was quick to say, "Families shouldn't have to pay $1,200 more per year for electricity so President Obama and environmental activists can have political peace of mind."
Joseph Bast, the president of the conservative Heartland Institute trashed the proposal by saying, "This is Obamacare for the environment: guaranteed to raise costs, reduce choices, and destroy an existing industry. By the time EPA is finished, millions of Americans will be freezing in the dark."
The argument against taking steps to reduce carbon emissions is an argument that we have the right to impose the costs and risks on others without taking responsibility. It is essentially like arguing that I have the right to throw sewage on my neighbor's lawn because I would find it inconvenient to build a proper sewage disposal system.
Rising ocean levels and the increasing frequency of severe weather events mean that hundreds of millions of people in low-lying areas face increased risks from storms and flooding. While people in wealthy countries will largely be able to protect themselves from the worst of this damage, poor people living in densely populated countries like Bangladesh will not be as lucky.
There is a similar story about desertification in many areas, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. There are tens of millions of people living in regions where limited rainfall provided enough water for subsistence agriculture. As the planet gets warmer, these regions will turn into desert. Their inhabitants will face starvation or risk becoming refugees in the hope that someone will care for them.
In addition to these relatively well defined threats, climate change will cause damage in many ways that are much less predictable. For example, changing climate conditions are likely to introduce new bacteria to areas for which the existing ecosystem might be ill-prepared. This can devastate livestock and crops and possibly even have serious health consequences for the human population.
So, as with Bundy, conservatives can argue that this is simply a case of the government trying to tell people what to do and, as with Bundy, they'd be wrong. For Enzi, Bast and other conservatives, "freedom" – at least in the context of the debate over global warming – is apparently the right to actively harm others with the government's permission and even its participation. They seemingly believe that you have a god-given right to, in effect, throw your sewage on your neighbor's lawn even though, if applied universally, this would mean that any given neighbor has the right to dump their sewage on your lawn, too.
But freedom has a somewhat different meaning for those who feel the obligation to be responsible for the damage they cause and to be consistent in our proclamations about the world. Any real conception of "freedom" has to apply universally – and not a single one of the anti-EPA conservatives believes that their lawn should be open season for other people's sewage.
That's how you tell the difference between a principled political argument and someone who just wants to be a jerk.Not to be confused with Union of Orthodox Rabbis
The Orthodox Union (or OU)[note 1] is one of the largest Orthodox Jewish organizations in the United States. Founded in 1898, the OU supports a network of synagogues, youth programs, Jewish and Religious Zionist advocacy programs, programs for the disabled, localized religious study programs, and international units with locations in Israel and formerly in Ukraine. The OU maintains a kosher certification service, whose circled-U hechsher symbol, Ⓤ, is found on the labels of many kosher commercial and consumer food products.
Its synagogues and their rabbis typically identify themselves with Modern Orthodox Judaism.
History [ edit ]
Foundation [ edit ]
The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America was founded as a lay synagogue federation in 1898 by Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes. Its founding members were predominately modern, Western-educated Orthodox rabbis and lay leaders, of whom several were affiliated with the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), which originated as an Orthodox institution to combat the hegemony of the Reform movement.
Cracks between the OU and JTS first formed in 1902, shortly after Solomon Schechter's recruitment from Great Britain to head JTS. Schechter "liberalized" the institution and its approach to Torah study. Most of JTS's original founders, backers, and staff disavowed the changes,[citation needed] seeing it as headed toward the very philosophy JTS had been intended to hedge against. Exactly 100 days after Schechter's arrival, they formed a new Orthodox group, Agudath Harabonim, which refused to recognize the rabbinical credentials of those ordained at JTS post-Schechter. Without their support, Schechter broke away from Orthodoxy to create the Conservative movement, with JTS as its predominant agency.[2]
Development [ edit ]
During the early decades of its existence, the Orthodox Union was closely associated with and was a supporter of the development of Yeshiva University into a major Jewish educational institution producing English-speaking, university-trained American rabbis for the pulpits of OU synagogues. Some Orthodox rabbis viewed the nascent OU and the rabbis of its synagogues as too "modern" in outlook, and thus did not participate in it, instead setting up their own more stringent rabbinical organizations.
Nevertheless, the idea for a national Orthodox congregational body took hold. The OU was soon acknowledged within the American Jewish establishment as the main, but not exclusive mouthpiece for the American Orthodox community. Representatives of 150 Orthodox congregations, with an estimated membership of 50,000, participated in the OU's 1919 national convention. The OU became more active in broader American Jewish policy issues after 1924, when Rabbi Dr. Herbert S. Goldstein, the innovative spiritual leader of the West Side Institutional Synagogue of Manhattan became the president of the OU. Under Goldstein, the OU and its Rabbinical Council, became a founding member of the Synagogue Council of America, along with representatives of the Reform and Conservative movements and their rabbinic affiliates.
The OU played an active role in advocating for public policies important to Orthodox practice, such as advocating for the five-day work week and defending the right to kosher slaughter. It was also involved in efforts to serve the religious needs of American Jewish soldiers as well as relief for European Jewry.
Kashrut [ edit ]
In the 1920s the OU started its kashrut division, establishing the concept of community-sponsored, not-for-profit kashrut supervision. In 1923, the H. J. Heinz Company's vegetarian beans became the first product to be kosher certified by the OU.[3] The OU's kashrut program was heavily influenced by Abraham Goldstein, a chemist who used his knowledge of food science to determine the kosher status of various products. In 1935, Goldstein left the OU and started his own organization, Organized Kashruth Laboratories (OK). The wide acceptance of OU kashrut supervision rested largely upon the outstanding reputation of its rabbinic administrator, Rabbi Alexander S. Rosenberg. He and his staff established effective kashrut supervision standards for modern food production technology which made possible the explosion in the availability of OU certified packaged kosher products across the US since the 1950s.
By the mid-1930s, the OU kashrut division had matured enough to influence and challenge the traditional local rabbinic "sole practitioner" kashrut supervision model. At the time, kashrut was a profitable business for rabbis; the OU sought to make kashrut freely available, to reduce the consumer cost of keeping kosher.[4]
The OU Women's Branch was also organized during the 1920s to encourage the formation and support of active sisterhoods in OU synagogue's. Women's Branch took on a number of special products, typically related to women's Jewish education and support for Yeshiva University.
OU operations became more efficient with the appointment in 1939 of Leo S. Hilsenrad as its first full-time professional executive director. Its services were further expanded in 1946, with the addition of Saul Bernstein to the professional staff. Bernstein became the founding editor, in 1951, of Jewish Life, the OU's popular publication for Orthodox laymen. Bernstein also succeeded Hilsenrad as the OU's administrator.
During the postwar years, there was considerable overlap in the lay leadership of the Orthodox Union and Yeshiva University. The Orthodox Union expanded its operations following the election in 1954 of Moses I. Feuerstein as its president. Its leadership ranks were augmented by a talented group of lay leaders including Joseph Karasick, Harold M. Jacobs and Julius Berman, who would guide the OU's growth over the next several decades.
Another major development was the appointment, in 1959, of Rabbi Pinchas Stolper as director of the Orthodox Union's youth group, the National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY). By inspiring thousands of public-school educated high school youth across North America to become more observant, NCSY played a major role in launching the baal teshuva movement, a widespread spiritual re-awakening among Jewish youth which followed the 1967 Six Day War.[5]
OU's board of directors has had female members since the mid-1970s.[6]
By the mid- to late-20th century, most synagogues affiliated with the Orthodox Union were under the leadership of rabbis trained by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik at Yeshiva University's Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. These rabbis were ideologically Modern Orthodox. By the 1990s and early 21st century, the OU's general philosophy and levels of observance may be seen to have shifted towards stricter interpretations and halachic practices. This change has not necessarily affected individual member congregations, but has impacted many Orthodox Jewish communities across America. The general trend toward stricter practices among Orthodox Union congregations reflects American Orthodoxy's trending toward Haredi Judaism.
21st century [ edit ]
In 2009, Rabbi Steven Weil succeeded Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb as the OU's Executive Vice President, and was succeeded by Allen Fagin in April 2014.[7] In 2011 Rabbi Simcha Katz became president, and was succeeded by Moishe Bane in January 2017. In 2014, the first women were elected as national officers of the OU; specifically, three female national vice presidents and two female associate vice presidents were elected.[6]
In 2017, the OU adopted as formal policy the normative Orthodox position that clergy is only for men. It precludes women from holding titles such as "rabbi", or from functioning as clergy in its congregations in the United States.[8]
Activities [ edit ]
Alliance with the Rabbinical Council of America [ edit ]
For many years the OU, along with its related rabbinic arm, the Rabbinical Council of America, worked with the larger Jewish community in the Synagogue Council of America. In this group Orthodox, Conservative and Reform groups worked together on many issues of joint concern. The group became defunct in 1994, mainly over the objections of the Orthodox groups to Reform Judaism's official acceptance of patrilineal descent as an option for defining Jewishness. (See Who is a Jew.)
Kosher certification [ edit ]
Hechsher of the Orthodox Union Expansion Orthodox Union Certifying agency Kosher Division of Orthodox Union Product category Food products Type of standard Religious Website oukosher.org
The Orthodox Union's Kosher Division headed by CEO Menachem Genack, is the world's largest kosher certification agency. As of 2017, it supervises more than 800,000 products in 8,500 plants in 100 different countries. 200,000 of those products are found in the US. It employs 886 rabbinic field representatives, mashgichim in Hebrew, and about 50 rabbinic coordinators who serve as account executives for OU-certified companies; they are supplemented by a roster of ingredient specialists, flavor analysts, and other support staff.[9] The supervision process involves sending a mashgiach to the production facility to ensure that the product complies with Jewish law. The mashgiach supervises both the ingredients and the production process.[10]
National Conference of Synagogue Youth [ edit ]
The international youth movement of the OU, the National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY), was founded in the early 1950s. After a few false starts, NCSY first achieved success under Rabbi Pinchas Stolper by reaching out to public school educated Jewish youth with a message of Orthodox Jewish religious inspiration. It has now expanded its reach to include many already religious mostly Modern Orthodox children attending Jewish day schools.
Orthodox Union Advocacy Center [ edit ]
The OU Advocacy Center is the non-partisan public policy arm of the OU, leading the organization's advocacy efforts in Washington, D.C., and state capitals. Formerly known as the Institute for Public Affairs, OU Advocacy engages leaders at all levels of government as well as the broader public to promote and protect the Orthodox Jewish community’s interests and values in the public policy arena.
Synagogue affiliation [ edit ]
The OU requires that all member synagogues follow Orthodox Jewish interpretations of Jewish law and tradition. Men and women are seated separately, and nearly always are separated by a mechitza, a physical divider between the men's and women's section of the synagogue. Many OU synagogues support the concepts of Religious Zionism, which teaches that the existence of the State of Israel is a step towards the arrival of the Messiah and the eventual return of all Jews around the world to live in the ancient national Jewish homeland. The laws of Shabbat and kashrut are stressed. They pray in Hebrew, using the same traditional text of the siddur that has been used in Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewish communities for the last few centuries.
Until recently the most popular English translation of the prayer book used in OU synagogues has been Ha-Siddur Ha-Shalem edited by Philip Birnbaum. In recent years the most popular translated siddurim have been the Rabbinical Council of America edition of the Artscroll siddur and the Koren Siddur. Until recently the most common Hebrew-English Chumash used has been the Pentateuch and Haftarahs, edited by Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz; in recent years this has been supplanted by The Chumash: The Stone Edition, also known as the Artscroll Chumash.
Yachad [ edit ]
Yachad: The National Jewish Council for Disabilities, is a global organization dedicated to address the needs of Jewish individuals with disabilities and ensuring their inclusion in every aspect of Jewish life. The inclusive design aims to ensure that persons with diverse abilities have their rightful place within the Jewish community, while it helps to educate and advocate in the Jewish world for greater understanding, acceptance, outreach, and a positive attitude towards disabled persons.[11]
Controversy [ edit ]
Baruch Lanner abuse scandal [ edit ]
The OU has been accused of ignoring multiple reports of child abuse when appointing Rabbi Baruch Lanner as Director of Regions of its National Conference of Synagogue Youth movement. Lanner was ultimately convicted of multiple counts of sexual abuse and imprisoned. In response to the scandal, the OU implemented several new initiatives to better protect children under their care.[12]
Shechita supervision [ edit ]
In 2005, an undercover video purportedly showed cruel treatment of animals in an OU-certified slaughterhouse. The story was featured many times in national newspapers and in Jewish media. The OU defended its limited scope of supervision, while studying changes to its policy. In 2006, the OU's response was the subject of a video narrated by Jonathan Safran Foer, Irving Greenberg, and David Wolpe.[13]
In May 2008, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, together with other Federal agencies, raided a kosher slaughterhouse and meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa, owned by Agriprocessors, Inc. At the time the OU provided kosher certification services to the plant. The raid was the largest single raid of a workplace in U.S. history and resulted in nearly 400 arrests of immigrant workers with false identity papers, many of whom were charged with identity theft, document fraud, use of stolen social security numbers, and related offenses. Some 300 workers were convicted on document fraud charges within four days. The majority served a five-month prison sentence before being deported. The OU had numerous rabbis working on premises, yet none reported child workers working illegally at the plant or the abusive conditions workers faced on site.[14]
Jeff Sessions speech [ edit ]
In June 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke at the OU Advocacy Center's annual conference in Washington, where he was presented with an artistic rendering of the biblical command “Justice, justice shalt thou pursue.” Given Sessions' policies, particularly those concerning immigrants and asylum seekers, the OU came under significant criticism for hosting him and presenting him with the plaque.[15]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ [1] The formal title was typically shortened to "Orthodox Union" or "OU". As the OU's scope expanded, synagogue services became an increasingly smaller part of its focus, and the formal name no longer made sense. The name was officially changed to '"Orthodox Union" in the early 21st century. The Orthodox Union has been known by several names, sometimes simultaneously. It was originally called the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, but often mistakenly referred to as the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations of America.The formal title was typically shortened to "Orthodox Union" or "OU". As the OU's scope expanded, synagogue services became an increasingly smaller part of its focus, and the formal name no longer made sense. The name was officially changed to '"Orthodox Union" in the early 21st century.The Bermuda Triangle of Science
Nonetheless, the evidentiary base regarding the existence of general intelligence and its ability to predict important life outcomes — including health, longevity and mortality, as well as other key variables — is beyond compelling, it’s overwhelming. And if you find yourself feeling like you can do damage to this evidence base by invoking arguments about “multiple intelligences” or something of the sort, let me save you the effort. Those urges illustrate unfamiliarity with any of the serious research done on the topic in the last several decades. If those urges haunt you, I’d recommend Stuart Ritchie’s excellent primer on the topic. The waters of intelligence research, though controversial, no longer require that you be Magellan to navigate them…
If you want to watch academics glorify a trait that many still think, “doesn’t exist” or “doesn’t matter”, hang around them when student applications are being reviewed.
The fact some become so histrionic in trying to prove or show that IQ is meaningless or irrelevant is evidence that deep in their subconscious there is a possibility they are wrong, that IQ is not meaningless. It’s almost like it hits too close to home. If someone proclaims that there are flying toasters in space, such statement is meaningless and no one gets defensive because it can be immediately and safely be dismissed as nonsense, but not IQ research. Hence all the arm waving in trying to explain away IQ as ‘meaningless’.
A few weeks ago I got into some Reddit debates about IQ which will be excepted here to help dispel common misconceptions about IQ:
IQ tests have been widely disregarded by academic elites since Howard Gardner’s work in the 80′s. You’re actually serving as an example of non-experts overvaluing their own opinions, as touched on in the article.
The red pill thrives on this notion. Arguments don’t have to be sound, they just have to sound good.
So please, leave the talking to the experts, or at least journalists who are trained to do more thorough research than your cherry picked, pseudo-intellectual school of “thought.”
Not true. As shown above, there is a positive correlation between IQ and income, academic and creative achievement, crime, welfare dependency, morality, success at work, and other qualities.
The problem with the multiple intelligences theory is that it’s an example of moving the goalpost – creating enough categories that everyone is a ‘genius’ at something.
I’ve written two posts with links to studies:
http://greyenlightenment.com/in-defense-of-smart-clever-people/
http://greyenlightenment.com/iq-and-morality-iq-and-job-performance/
More resources: http://greyenlightenment.com/debunking-more-iq-denialism/
Less intelligent people may be predisposed to criminality https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201006/why-criminals-are-less-intelligent-non-criminals
The push to discredit IQ tests is more motivated by partisanship than quantifiable evidence that IQ is meaningless.
On a tangential note, another problem is accusations of ‘elitism’ in defending IQ.
From Reddit:
I’m fairly sure that all this talk of anti-intellectualism is the American scholar caste’s way of expressing their frustration with democracy, and of scolding the peasants for not submitting quietly to their enlightened judgement in all matters all the time. So much for “critical thinking”. Typical of this perspective is the tendency to portray the efforts of peasants to resist cultural assimilation as an act of heinous reactionary aggression. And of course, their remedies always involve increasing the prominence, prestige, and respect afforded to, well, themselves. A quotation comes to mind:
I’m quite happy to be an anti-intellectual, actually. It is the modern equivalent of anticlericalism, and it is long overdue. One can oppose specific institutions without opposing thought in general. In fact, sometimes, it is even necessary.
The unification of anti-intellectualism with democracy is the best argument against democracy.
Also, what about the inventions and discoveries smart people bring to the world, raising standards of living as well as making the world more interesting? Everything we take for granted – internet access, running water & electricity, roofs that don;’t leak, etc -involved the ingenuity smart people, although some of the liberal arts stuff may be of dubious value. Complicated problems demand smart people to solve them, which if this is not egalitarian, inclusionary, or democratic enough, so be it.
The concept of ‘hierarchy’ and ‘natural order‘ is antithetical to the prevailing culture of egalitarianism and equality that for decades has been instilled by pop culture, parents, teachers, and clergy – the false belief that we are all, upon conception, of equal ‘value’ despite differences in ability and biology. According to this flawed thinking, a person with a middling IQ who works in an assembly line or warehouse is as valuable or important as an engineer. However, most people can do a factory job but only a small percentage can create jobs and innovation that, ultimately, employs the warehouse and assembly line worker. There is a hierarchy. Gladwell books and wishful thinking won’t change this, sorry.
An online IQ debate is not complete without the anecdotal argument about high-IQ people who ‘didn’t amount to anything’, as if these underachievers are representative of everyone with a high IQ. What must understood is that a high or low IQ is no guarantee of success or failure – it’s only about probability, with smarter people tending to have a higher probability or likelihood of being successful, if ‘success’ is measured by things such as income, educational attainment, or creative output.In Europe’s multilayered malaise of 2016, there are few things the educated elites of the Old World can agree on. But what almost everyone accepts as fundamentally true is that nationalism is evil, that it is one of Europe’s big weaknesses, and that the current so-called renationalization of EU politics is the root cause of the existential crisis the integration project is facing.
When half-truths turn into mantra, one always needs to be cautious. The wholesale condemnation of nationalism in Europe is both historically understandable and a sign of lazy thinking. It is an indicator of the biggest intellectual weakness of the pro-integration elites: their cluelessness about the positive framing power of the nation.
Jan Techau Techau was the director of Carnegie Europe, the European center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Techau works on EU integration and foreign policy, transatlantic affairs, and German foreign and security policy. More > @Jan_Techau
For almost everybody, nationalism, in its current usage, is an indisputably terrible thing, and European integration is a political project designed to overcome it. According to this reading, nationalism led Europeans into the abyss twice in the twentieth century, and it needed to be replaced by something bigger, more benign, less divisive, more brotherly. To reign in the explosive powers of that most modern and historically most impactful political invention of European ingenuity, the nation-state, an even more modern, even more impactful new political invention needed to be launched. The result was cooperation at the European level among the very entities that would otherwise continue to butcher each other.
Yet not every ism is a bad thing, and nationalism—understood as love for one’s nation—also has a profoundly positive side. To grasp the concept’s full meaning, it is helpful to realize that the nation is not an idea that narrows comprehension of and empathy for other human beings, but rather that it is wholly capable of doing the exact opposite. Nationalism can expand the space in which people care for each other. It allows people to feel solidarity with and connections to other humans outside the limiting frameworks of the family, the clan, and the tribe. Nationalism allows people to relate to complete strangers, share their worries, and feel responsible for their well-being. It also allows people to create strong identities that transcend their immediate local surroundings. This is why the nation-state |
been released.The 2006 video was released as part of the on-going litigation against the theme park by the US Secretary of Labor, who alleges SeaWorld has endangered scores of its trainers by exposing them to the dangerous whims of the enormous whales.Kasatka's attack on San Diego trainer Ken Peters eerily foreshadowed the death of trainer Dawn Brancheu in Orlando, who was butchered in February 2010 by another killer whale named Tilikum.The video of the 15-minute ordeal has only now been posted online after it was presented at a Occupational Safety and Health Administration court hearing in September.At the time, Judge Ken Welsch called the video, which was captured by SeaWorld cameras, 'chilling.'In the video, Kasatka grabs her trainer's foot and will not let go, dunking him under the water for extended periods of time.Mr Peters, who remains eerily calm, finally manages to free himself, only to have Kasatka charge him over the barrier net.According to the book Death at SeaWorld, this was the third such time Kasatka attacked, horrifying trainers and audiencegoers alike.'She grabbed his ankles, pulling him underwater for several seconds,' David Kirby writes in the book.'When he resurfaced, she grabbed him again, this time "rag-dolling" her trainer violently by shaking him back and forth with her powerful neck muscles.'He describes her actions as the calculated instincts of a killer.'Then, slowly and deliberately, as if performing a bizarre underwater pas de deux, the whale began to spiral upward with Peters’ foot in her mouth,' he said.'Finally Peters told his colleagues to abandon the recall effort since it only seemed to make Kasatka bite down harder.'Mr Kirby notes that Kasatka was careful to keep Mr Peters in the middle of the pool and away from the other trainers trying to rescue him from the edges.At the time, SeaWorld tried to downplay the incident.'There are times like this. They are killer whales. She did choose to demonstrate her feelings in a way that was unfortunate,' Mike Scarpuzzi, head trainer at SeaWorld, said at the time.Mr Kirby said that Kasatka may have been acting out because she heard her two-year-old calf's cries from another pool.Trainers were eventually able to separate the two with the help of a net, but the whale tried to rip Mr Peters away from safety. His foot broken by the ordeal, rescue personnel were able to save him.'She didn’t show me any precursors. She didn’t tell me, she didn’t show me,' Mr Peters allegedly told the other trainers after he had been rescued.He was rushed to the hospital for surgery and vowed to never swim with her again.This chapter of the sordid behind-the-scenes treatment of trainers and their animals is only the latest disturbing tale out of Mr Kirby's book.Killer whales in captivity have a mortality rate two-and-a-half times higher than those living in the Pacific Northwest, according to figures produced by marine mammal scientist Naomi Rose of the Humane Society.In addition, there are no known records of killer whales attacking humans in the wild, while even mild aggression towards trainers at close quarters is not uncommon.One staff member that Mr Kirby spoke to said he was fired from the park in 1995 for his expressive views on the treatment of the animals.'SeaWorld can make the environment safe, according to them, 98 percent of the times,' said Jeffrey Ventre to ABC's 20/20. 'But what happens when the world's top predator decides to go off behaviour?'Let go from SeaWorld for kissing a killer whale's tongue, a banned action, Ventre said that most staff members violated the so called 'tongue-tacticle' rule and were not fired.Operating in San Antonio, San Diego and Orlando, all SeaWorld's killer whales are called 'Shamus' in honour of the park's original animal and up until the Brancheau incident would perform spectacular acrobatic displays with their human trainer's in enormous pools.Attracting up to 12 million visitors a year across the three locations, SeaWorld was rocked by Ms Brancheau's death after Tilikum dragged her by her ponytail into the water, scalped her and dismembered her.One former trainer, John Jett, told Kirby that trainers were not fully aware of the safety problems related to killer whale work, however one senior trainer told a court investigating Brancheau's death that SeaWorld staff were told they may not survive falling in the water with Tilikum.'A lack of detailed information was the norm whenever accidents happened at other parks,' said Mr Jett. 'I remember one incident when all of us were pulled from water work for a short time. To this day, I don't know what happened.'Now after federal rulings which keep trainers out of the water with killer whales, SeaWorld has a specific emergency procedure should someone fall into the water.DJing is all about being in the moment, creating new sounds and blends without thinking too much. For that reason, I wanted to make a dead-simple mapping that makes it very easy to create complex effects techniques with just a single press. The Twisted Gratification mapping gives you 16 powerful effects preset, designed with house and techno in mind. Each knob does the job of three effects, adding original flavor or building seamless transitions between songs.
Twisted Gratification Traktor FX Mapping For Midi Fighter Twister
MIDI Mapping: Twisted Gratification
Twisted Gratification Software: Traktor Pro 2
Traktor Pro 2 Hardware: Midi Fighter Twister (get your own here)
Midi Fighter Twister (get your own here) Price / Availability: Download for FREE on DJTT Maps
The original Instant Gratification mapping was perfect for bass music and had a very glitchy feel. These effects are much more subtle and emulate popular effect chains in house and techno like DubFire’s Rattle echo and Richie Hawtin’s famous techno snare rolls. Each knob gently increases the level of the effects, while manipulating carefully-chosen ranges that will sound perfect every time.
For example, instead of just dropping out the low end with a filter, why not also add just a touch of reverb and a little drive for grit at the same time. These effects setups would take too long to setup live, so this mapping delivers 16 in a single press.
Each row is a different style of effect, each column is a different version of that style. This means you can have four FX units activated at any one time.
The bottom right knob is a Release FX knob – press to echo freeze and kill all FX, press and hold to filter the echo freeze
Hold any side button to see FX assignment, and press any of the four quadrants of the Midi Fighter Twister to
assign/remove FX from that deck.
Twisted Gratification Contest: Limited Edition Twister + $200 Store Credit
Do you have a Midi Fighter Twister and want to show off how it works to the world in a mix? We’re throwing a quick video performance contest – the winner will get $200 store credit and a super limited edition Twister unlike any other made. Here’s how to enter:
Download the mapping and set it up with your Twister
and set it up with your Twister Record yourself using the mapping – make sure the video looks good, people can see what you’re doing, audio is solid, etc. (See winners of past DJTT video contests for an idea:
– make sure the video looks good, people can see what you’re doing, audio is solid, etc. (See winners of past DJTT video contests for an idea: Videos should be between 1 – 5 minutes long
Upload your video to any video site (YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, etc) make sure #twistedgratification is in the title!
to any video site (YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, etc) make sure #twistedgratification is in the title! Link the video in the comments below by Monday, February 15th at noon PST Extended to March 1st at noon, PST!
UPDATE: We’ve chosen lefreak, below, as the winner for this contest. Thanks everyone for entering! 🙂
Watch Ean’s freestyle jam with the mapping for inspiration:
Twisted Gratification 4 deck freestyle jam with the new Twisted Gratification mapping from DJ TechTools. http://djtechtools.com/2016/02/02/twisted-gratification-instant-gratification-fx-for-midi-fighter-twister/ Posted by Ean Golden on Wednesday, February 3, 2016
If you’re a Midi Fighter Twister owner, we invite you to try out the new Twisted Gratification mapping right now on Maps.DJTechtools.com and leave your feedback; or post videos on Instagram with you using the mapping with #twistedgratification in the description so we can check it out!
Want to take advantage of this mapping and future versions of it?
Get a Midi Fighter Twister of your own, available on the DJTT store.Top Pentagon Intel Officer: Iraq ‘May Not Come Back as an Intact State’
The U.S. intelligence community first learned that Yemen’s Houthi rebels had launched a Scud missile toward Saudi Arabia on June 30 not from spies on the ground or satellites in the skies, but instead from a more modern form of information gathering: Twitter.
“The first warning of that event: ‘hashtag scudlaunch,’” Marine Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, the head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), said at a gathering of intelligence contractors just outside Washington on Thursday night. “Someone tweeted that a Scud had been launched, and that’s how we started to search for this activity.”
The increasing prevalence of smartphones and social media is reshaping the Middle East in ways that are impossible to anticipate, Stewart said.
“Ten years or so ago, if a Tunisian had set himself on fire in Tunisia, it would have been an interesting local story,” Stewart said in reference to Mohamed Bouazizi, whose act of self-immolation in December 2010 is widely credited with sparking the Arab Spring movement. “But the advent of smartphones and Facebook and social media [means] someone captures that image, in milliseconds it’s global, and kicks off a revolution.”
The ramifications of that revolution formed the basis of a brief rhetorical tour through the Middle East that Stewart gave his listeners. His was the voice neither of optimism nor of confidence that the future is in any way predictable. “You see nation-states collapsing in the region and maybe going to ethnic lines, and none of us understand where that will lead five minutes from now, five years from now,” he said.
Iraq “may indeed be irreparably fractured and may not come back as an intact state,” he said. Current U.S. policy, which is to treat Iraq as a unitary state and avoid formal diplomatic recognition of de facto separate entities such as the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, would have to change if that occurred.
The United States already enjoys close military relations with Iraq’s Kurds in particular, but the division of Iraq into a Kurdish state, a Shiite state, and a Sunni state could force the United States to choose between its Kurdish allies and Turkey, a NATO partner that has long opposed Kurdish independence. Stewart noted that his remarks had been written “a couple of weeks ago” — in other words, before Turkey announced it was entering the war against the Islamic State, only to begin pummeling Kurdish separatists — but acknowledged that Washington could find itself in a tricky situation if Turkey were to invoke NATO’s collective-defense provisions after an attack from a Kurdish-held area.
Iraq is not the only country whose very existence is threatened by the forces roiling the Middle East, according to Stewart. “You see a lot of fracturing in Syria, where you could end up with an Alawite-stan in the middle and something to the north and something to the south,” Stewart said in reference to the Alawite religious minority to which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad belongs and which forms the core of his regime.
The DIA director also expressed concern about Jordan, a close ally of the United States that has absorbed more than 600,000 Syrian refugees. “Jordan has got more West Bankers and Syrians in Jordan than they actually have Jordanians,” he said, adding that he believes Amman is “closer in its thought process and closer in its relationship with Israel than it is with any of the Gulf states. I don’t know if we would have said that 15 or 20 years ago.”
He said he recently invited Egyptian and Jordanian representatives to his home. “Almost in unison they said, ‘Israel’s got to be there.’”
Of course, the challenges facing the intelligence community are not limited to those in the Middle East. “I haven’t talked about the crazy in North Korea,” Stewart said, in apparent reference to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, before moving on to Vladimir Putin’s increasingly aggressive Russia. “Remember when Russia was going to be our friend?” he asked rhetorically. “It seems like a long time ago.”
For the first time, the DIA director also specified the number of operatives in his agency’s Defense Clandestine Service, which ran into problems with Congress and other critics who thought it too closely resembled the CIA’s spy corps, which until recently was called the National Clandestine Service (NCS). While the initial goal for the program was 1,000 operatives, Congress asked hard questions about the initiative before scaling back that number to 500. Stewart said he is looking to “stabilize” the total at “probably something less than 500.”
“It got a lot of friction because folks believed it was duplicative to what NCS did, but the reality is I can’t get NCS to focus on things that are important to the defense intelligence community,” Stewart said. “I can’t get them to focus on weapons systems, weapons technology, military capability, which is the sweet spot of what I need to do to support our operational commanders, so we needed our own focused defense humint [capability] to go after those target sets.”
Photo credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty ImagesWell, it’s been over a year since the last Java strip was published. I had pretty much abandoned the strip to focus on other projects, so why did I come back here all of a sudden without notice with a new strip? Because someone, somewhere in cyberspace, read the comic yesterday and left an encouraging comment.
Most people don’t realize this, but webcomics do not earn big bucks. There’s a reason they call us starving artists. But an ounce of encouragement from someone that likes your work is enough for us to live off of for at least a little while. So, here is a new Java strip.
And from now on, Java will not update on a regular schedule. Java will only update when someone leaves a comment to show their appreciation. Think of it as the tip jar for my ego.
Like this: Like Loading...It’s not easy, being a Houstonian. Here we sit, soaked in our soggy bayou homeland, scraping the contents of the neighbors’ float-away trash cans from our front lawns and wondering if there’s an automotive potpourri strong enough to mask Flooded Car Smell, thinking the thoughts that only Houstonians can think: The rain isn’t over. The Astros' slow start concerns me. Are those noises in the attic waterlogged squirrels or waterlogged rats? And the Rockets, ohhhhh, the Rockets.
Houston is frequently like a sophomore-level philosophy class, Existentialism and The Hopelessness of Human Experience. Even in this throbbing, teeming, unreasonably large city — these numbers are based solely on a recent unhappy experience driving from Pasadena to Cypress, but Houston is approximately 2.4 billion people, occupying an area roughly the size of Montana, whose freeway system was designed by the guy responsible for those Mad Max movies — it’s easy to feel abandoned and alone.
We need something to unite us, something to fill us with a sense of community, a feeling that, to quote Zac Efron, We’re All In This Together. And I’m not talking about another charming H-E-B commercial, where J.J. Watt is dressed in a toga or J.J. Watt is having a cookout or J.J. Watt is making supper with his mom. Sure, J.J. Watt is A Shining Example of Wholesome American Manhood, but he’s also a Houston Texan, and we all know, deep in the pit of our souls, that the only reason the Houston Texans exist is to break our hearts, which puts us right back in that sophomore philosophy class, dressed in a ratty Nirvana T-shirt and feeling morose. We need something hopeful, something happy, something that says to Houstonians everywhere, Kingwood to Alief, Acres Homes to River Oaks, Meyerland to Champions Forest, that we are united, we are Houston.
We need a new flag.
Our old city banner, an enormous white star on a field of blue, the city seal nestled in its center, has been around since 1915. The seal, which features a horse-drawn plow and a steam locomotive, was adopted in 1840. Back in 1840, steam locomotives and farm implements announced Houston as a cutting-edge, forward-thinking boom town, poised confidently on the cusp of greatness. Today, a steam locomotive and farm implement-adorned city crest is a little like listening to your grandfather spouting off about how there ain’t a dame in today’s Hollywood who can hold a candle to Delores Del Rio: It’s dated. It’s out of touch. It’s a little weird.
The flag has to go. But what should replace it? Houston is so vast, so diverse, so many things to so many people. Is it possible to find a symbol that speaks to every Houstonian, that unites us in an Efron-esque sense of goodwill and shared purpose?
This week’s “historic” rainfall (shake it off, TV weather people: if it happens once, it’s historic. If it happens every single year, it’s just rain) gave us the perfect symbol. You’ve seen it — it’s all over the Internet. Somewhere in our Xanadu on the Bayou, an intrepid Houstonian was spotted, knee-deep in rainwater and soaked to the skin, a yellow slicker hanging haphazardly on his shoulders, surrounded by flooded cars and floating debris, toting a waterlogged armadillo to safety.
That’s it. That’s our new flag. Because wherever you live in this far-flung metropolis, you know what it feels like to be soaked to the skin and up to your knees in rainwater, carrying a stranded armadillo to safety. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? It’s the closest thing we have to a universally Houston experience.
There will have to be some changes. Flags are like heavy metal band logos: If a ninth-grader can’t easily reproduce it on the cover of his science notebook, it isn’t any good. The image needs cleaning up. And Armadillo Dude is wearing an Air Jordan t-shirt, which isn’t Houstonian enough. We’ll need to change it to something more representative of the local zeitgeist, an silkscreened AK-47 above the legend “COME AND TAKE IT,” perhaps, or better yet, a “Number 8” Texans jersey, because you can’t obsess over your dark places, but you can’t completely ignore them, either. And there needs to be an inspiring motto, something in Latin maybe, to add some class, the vexillological equivalent of Rothko Chapel or the Menil, something we never use but we’re really proud of, something like Ipsum humidum. Amicos armadillos. (“Very wet. Friends of armadillos.”)
Imagine the Armadillo Banner, draped behind Mayor Turner as he holds next year’s round of flood-related press conferences, its very presence a gentle reminder that this has happened before, and we got through it then, and we’ll get through it now, because we’re Houstonians, and we endure. Imagine all 2.4 billion of us, crammed onto the 290, hurtling toward Cypress. We’ll still be driving like maniacs and making obscene gestures at each other, but we’ll be more sociable maniacs, making friendlier obscene gestures, knowing that we’re all just people, trying to make it in this crazy world, secure in the knowledge that sooner or later, every one of us is going to be knee-deep in flood, giving the rescuer’s gift to a confused armored rodent. We’re Houstonians. That’s what we do.
Cort McMurray is a Houston-area businessman and a frequent contributor to Gray Matters.
Check out more Gray Matters. It's a potpourri strong enough to mask Flooded Car Smell.A principal at a Jefferson County elementary school is under fire for comments she made to a New York Times reporter about allegations that Senate candidate Roy Moore had multiple inappropriate relationships with teenagers nearly 40 years ago.
Adamsville Elementary School principal Susan Remick's comments, painted as a lack of concern, were reported on Friday. Remick issued a statement on Saturday clarifying her remarks and saying her remarks were misconstrued.
Jefferson County school officials are standing behind Remick, defending her reputation as an educator and an advocate for children.
The New York Times article focused on comments and reactions from women in Alabama. Here are Remick's comments as reported by the New York Times:
"This all happened many years ago, correct? I honestly think we're paying too much attention to it. I'm a little disappointed in society right now. It ultimately hurts somebody's reputation. If it were true at the time, it should have been addressed at the time."
Many commenters on the media outlet's Facebook page focused on Remick's remarks because she is an elementary school principal, and some said she should be fired.
The response on Twitter was equally harsh, with some publishing Remick's phone number and email address and urging others to contact Jefferson County school officials.
Remick, in her fourth year as principal at Adamsville Elementary, issued a statement on Saturday afternoon clarifying her remarks and saying, "It was not my intent to express lack of concern as was stated in the article. I have spent my career advocating for children. I am concerned each and every time any child or person is mistreated."
Here is Remick's full statement:
"What I intended to communicate in response to the reporter's question was not what was conveyed in the New York Times article. First, I wish that we lived in a society where such things did not occur. Second, I wish for the healing to begin for any individual who experiences this kind of abuse as soon as possible. As our community is changing and sexual abuse has come to the forefront, many women are now able to share their experiences and confront their abusers. For these women, it has taken great strength and courage to come forward. I wish they did not have to carry this pain inside them for so many years. It was not my intent to express lack of concern as was stated in the article. I have spent my career advocating for children. I am concerned each and every time any child or person is mistreated. My words were misconstrued; I assure everyone that my actions on behalf of children for the past 20 years show what my true intent is. I have lived my life in the service of children and will continue to do so. Any other interpretation was unintentional, and I regret having said anything that could be misinterpreted in such a manner."
According to the Adamsville Elementary School web site, Remick has been an educator for 20 years.
Prior to becoming principal, Remick was an assistant principal at Chalkville Elementary, Administrative Director at Mitchell's Place, the preschool special education director and a special education teachers for Mountain Brook City schools.
Jefferson County superintendent Dr. Craig Pouncey issued a statement, touting Remick's professional career as an educator and saying her remarks were misconstrued. Pouncey's statement reads, in part:
"We want to openly express that [Remick's] statements were misconstrued and do not reflect her, or the system's, commitment to the safety and welfare of all children. The protection of children has always been, and will continue to be, a priority of Jefferson County Schools.
Social media outlets have targeted Mrs. Remick, and the presence of anonymous accounts indicate internet trolling and harassment. Unfortunately, in today's media environment, it is easy to sensationalize issues, and we feel that Mrs. Remick has been a victim of this. Thus, we felt the need to come forward with a statement in support of her, as well as clarifying the system's views on suspected abuse. The district remains committed to serving every child in the best possible way."The Canadian Red Cross says an additional 1,500 people from the Garden Hill First Nation have been given evacuation orders due to wildfire smoke in the Island Lake area.
Most of the members have health concerns and they're being flown out to Winnipeg at the request of the community which is about 470 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.
The evacuees yet to come are Priority 2, said Shawn Feely, vice-president (Manitoba and Nunavut) for the Canadian Red Cross — people with lower levels of health concerns, including small children and the elderly.
'Smoke event'
Shawn Feely, vice-president (Manitoba and Nunavut) for the Canadian Red Cross, is coordinating shelter for evacuees. (CBC News) "My understanding is it was a smoke event, and chief and council, in consultation with the federal government, decided it was time to evacuate more people," Feely said.
As of 1 p.m. Saturday, at least five or six planes had landed to bring those evacuees south and to the two evacuation centres, the Winnipeg Convention Centre and an indoor soccer facility on Leila Avenue. Feely said spaces are opening up at the centres as people find space to stay with family members and as hotel rooms free up.
About 900 people are expected to reach Winnipeg Saturday. On Sunday, the Red Cross will begin evacuating people to other locations.
They don't anticipate opening a third shelter, Feely said. The Red Cross is making arrangements for hotel rooms outside the city of Winnipeg, Feely said, though he can't yet confirm where.
The total number of evacuees is set to reach 5,000, including individuals from the Wasagamack and St. Theresa Point First Nations. That's in addition to 850 people that have been evacuated due to smoke near Poplar River First Nation.
The fire has grown since Thursday, according to a provincial spokesperson, from 23,000 hectares to 28,000 hectares Satrurday.
400 firefighters, 350 volunteers
There was rain overnight, but a provincial official says it had little impact on the fire.
Evacuees reach the temporary shelter at the Winnipeg Soccer Federation's Winnipeg Soccer North indoor complex on Leila Avenue. About 900 people were expected to reach shelters in Winnipeg on Saturday. (Julianne Runne/CBC) Feely said the rain affected transportation on Friday, but on Saturday the skies are clear.
Firefighting efforts, involving 400 firefighters, are focused on the south part of the fire, closest to Wasagamack. They're using sprinkler kits, with nine water bombers and 21 other aircraft, mostly helicopters.
The Red Cross said it has mobilized 350 volunteers, including some from across the country; 150 of those are split between the two shelters in Winnipeg.
Feely said the soccer complex was chosen as a second site because it has showers, which have presented a challenge at the Convention Centre site.
Going forward, he said that's where most of the evaucees will be directed.
Stress levels high
He said evacuees' stress levels are still high, but the situation is improving as people settle in and more people are moved to hotels.
"When they first arrived, they're still shaken, but felt relieved," Feely said. "They're settling in now, they're visiting with each other, they're more relaxed."
Feely said this round of evacuees had more time to prepare, so they'll have more luggage and important items like medications.
Ursula Wood from St. Theresa Point spent her first night at the Leila Avenue evacuation centre last night.
Ursula Wood from St. Theresa Point spent her first night at the Leila Avenue evacuation centre last night. (Julianne Runne/CBC) It was a rush to leave her home yesterday, she said.
"Hectic over there, everybody scrambling all over the place, and you know, just trying to get on a plane. And it was, I don't know, scary at the same time. Everything just happening all at once," she said.
She said being with family there helps to make the stressful situation a little easier.
"Everybody's company, just to, you know, try to make it feel like home, so nobody won't be lonely for home."
Feely said they hope people won't be away from home more than a few weeks.
"That's all up to Mother Nature," he said. "More rain is needed. So we are planning for two weeks. Whether or not we need two weeks, that is up in the air right now."Fantasy football, and every other form of fantasy sports, amounts to illegal gambling in Tennessee, according to a recent opinion from the Tennessee attorney general. (Photo: Getty Images / iStockphoto)
Any fantasy sports contest amounts to "illegal gambling" in Tennessee, argues state Attorney General Herbert Slatery in a new opinion released Wednesday.
The sweeping opinion covers all fantasy sports, the massive industry where contestants choose individual players from professional sports teams to compose their own virtual teams in a competition with other contestants. Although states across the country have grappled with the legality ofdailygame sites, where the entire contest is completed in the course of one day and generally involves monetary prizes, Slatery's opinion specifically applies to all fantasy sports.
The opinion, requested by House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley, is based on the premise that all leagues require some sort of exchange of money. That's not accurate. Many, if not most, of the largest fantasy platforms offer free options — Yahoo and ESPN offer free leagues for fantasy football, basketball, baseball and other sports.
However, it's fairly common that these platforms or leagues do involve some sort of cash prize, either distributed through the site or offline. Participants will have a buy-in for the league, with prizes distributed at the end of the game or season. Other sites, like the popular DraftKings and FanDuel, include daily fantasy options that do involve cash prizes.
Tennessee law essentially says any action where someone risks something of value, and that risk is based on a degree of chance, constitutes gambling, Slatery writes.
“While participants may use skill to select players for their teams, winning a fantasy sports contest is contingent to some degree on chance. Namely, the participants do not control how selected athletes perform in actuality on a given day. Athletes’ performances are affected by many fortuitous factors – weather, facilities, referees, injuries, etc," Slatery writes.
"Thus, absent legislation specifically exempting fantasy sports contests from the definition of 'gambling,' these contests constitute illegal gambling under Tennessee law."
In a statement, FanDuel said the company respectfully disagrees with Slatery's overall opinion but FanDuel agrees state lawmakers can change "antiquated" laws that could apply to daily or other fantasy sports.
"A bill to protect fantasy sports and install important industry-wide consumer protections has already passed the state senate and legislators will be hearing from constituents from all across the state with a clear message: do not take away a game we love. We hope members of the legislature will listen to them, and act quickly to modernize state law and bring full clarity to the issue," reads a statement, emailed by a company spokeswoman.
A statement from DraftKings also referenced the legislation.
"We call on all of our fans and Tennessee supporters to let their voices be heard in the coming days to show support for this legislation and protect their right to play the games they love," reads the statement provided via email.
The legislation referenced here would authorize a licensing structure to allow for certain fantasy sports in Tennessee. The measure recently passed the state Senate, but a House committee on Wednesday delayed action on the bill for another week.
The Fantasy Sports Trade Association reports 56.8 million people in the U.S. and Canada participated in fantasy sports in 2015. The association estimates the average player spends $46 per year on fantasy sports.
Attorney General opinions do not carry the force of law, but they are routinely cited in the course of changing laws.
Reach Dave Boucher at 615-259-8892 and on Twitter @Dave_Boucher1.
Read or Share this story: http://tnne.ws/1MSjrq5Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been just about everywhere and won just about every domestic title possible, but the English Premier League might just be the one league and domestic title he'll have to live without.
Ibrahimovic will be out of contract with Paris Saint-Germain at the conclusion of the 2015-16 Ligue 1 season, and while he'll be taking on the rest of Europe next summer, he himself doesn't see a late-career move to the Premier League developing next season.
"In my opinion, it's too late," Ibrahimovic told L'Equipe, according to ESPN FC. "I'm very happy at PSG. I'm starting my last six months over there, so we'll see what happens after that. But I'm feeling good. I'm making the most of every day that I spend on the pitch.
"As long as I'm playing at the highest level, I'm trying to make the most of it, to enjoy it as much as possible and to do what I know how to do."
At 34 years old, Ibrahimovic has been linked with a number of outfits, as well as a move to Major League Soccer.
But don't let age fool you, and don't call Ibrahimovic old, either. The citizens of Denmark know that all too well, as the big Swedish striker delivered a stinging remark to those who did just that, saying: "There was the thought that this would send me into retirement. I sent their entire country into retirement."In the previous posts we looked at how to emulate a CHIP-8 CPU with Common Lisp, added a screen to see the results, and added user input so we could play games. This is good enough for basic play, but if we want the full experience we’ll need to add sound. Let’s finish the emulator.
The full series of posts so far:
The full emulator source is on BitBucket and GitHub.
CHIP-8 Sound
The CHIP-8 has an extremely simple sound and timer system. See Cowgod’s documentation for an overview.
In a nutshell there are two registers: the “sound timer” and “delay timer”. Each of these is decremented sixty times per second whenever they are non-zero.
The delay timer has no special behavior beyond this, but ROMs can read its value and use it as a real-time clock.
The sound timer cannot be read by ROMs, only written. Whenever its value is positive the CHIP-8’s buzzer will sound. That’s the extent of the CHIP-8’s sound: one buzzer that’s either on or off.
The Emulation Layer
Let’s add the required registers and instructions to the emulator.
Data
First we’ll add the registers into the chip struct:
( defstruct chip ;... ( delay-timer 0 :type fixnum ) ( sound-timer 0 :type fixnum ) ;... )
These are of type fixnum instead of int8 for reasons we’ll see later.
Instructions
The CHIP-8 has three LD instructions for dealing with these registers. We actually saw them back in the first post, but now we know their purpose:
( macro-map ;; LD ( NAME ARGLIST DESTINATION SOURCE ) ( ;... ( op-ld-reg<dt ( _ r _ _ ) ( register r ) delay-timer ) ( op-ld-dt<reg ( _ r _ _ ) delay-timer ( register r )) ( op-ld-st<reg ( _ r _ _ ) sound-timer ( register r ))) ` ( define-instruction, name, arglist ( setf, destination, source )))
Timers
Next we’ll need to decrement the timers at a rate of 60hz. We could do some math to figure out the number of cycles between each and do this in the main loop, but let’s use a separate thread instead:
( defun run ( rom-filename ) ( let (( chip ( make-chip ))) ( setf *c* chip ) ( load-rom chip rom-filename ) ( bt:make-thread ( curry #' run-cpu chip )) ( bt:make-thread ( curry #' run-timers chip )) ; NEW ( chip8.gui.screen::run-gui chip )))
Now we just need to define the run-timers function that will be run in that separate thread:
( defun run-timers ( chip ) ( iterate ( while running ) ( decrement-timers chip ) ( sleep 1/60 )))
Simple enough. Technically this will run slightly slower than 60hz, because it will take some time to actually decrement the timers, and our thread might not get woken up exactly 1⁄ 60 of a second later.
We could try to fix this by sleeping for less or using a timer wheel, but I think this is good enough for our needs here. We already have to suffer through GC pauses anyway, so trying to get absolute precision is going to be more trouble that it’s worth.
Now to decrement the timers. The CPU thread might be executing a write instruction as this thread is updating, so we’ll use SBCL’s atomic compare-and-swap functionality to avoid losing decrements:
( defun decrement-timers ( chip ) ( flet (( decrement ( i ) ( if ( plusp i ) ( 1- i ) 0 ))) ( with-chip ( chip ) ( sb-ext:atomic-update delay-timer #' decrement ) ( sb-ext:atomic-update sound-timer #' decrement ))) nil )
This is why we declared the timer slots in the chip struct to be fixnum — the SBCL manual states that for (atomic-update place function...) :
place can be any place supported by sb-ext:compare-and-swap
And that:
Built-in CAS-able places are accessor forms whose car is one of the following: … or the name of a defstruct created accessor for a slot whose declared type is either fixnum or t. Results are unspecified if the slot has a declared type other than fixnum or t.
(emphasis mine). Remember that delay-timer is macrolet ed to (chip-delay-timer...) by with-chip, so it does refer to a “defstruct created accessor”.
We could have used a lock from bordeaux threads to manage this portably (though more slowly), but I wanted to play around with SBCL’s concurrency stuff.
Sound From Scratch
Now that we’ve got the timers all set |
this method in the Features and FormHelpers modules.
# spec/support/features/form_helpers.rb module Features module FormHelpers def within_form ( form_prefix, & block ) completion_helper = FormCompletionHelper. new ( form_prefix, self ) yield completion_helper end end end
The last step is to require these modules in /spec/spec_helper.rb.
RSpec. configure do | config | config. include Features config. include Features :: FormHelpers end
Our test is green, so we commit.
Next time, I might use the Formulaic gem. However, I find that exercises like this really help me understand the process of writing quality code.
If you found this post helpful, check out our refactoring screencast on Upcase.Tips
A feature you're bound to see more of in streaming video apps is support for offline caching —that is, the ability to temporarily download a show or movie so you can watch it later without internet access. Here's how to do it for Netflix, one of the most popular video services on iPhone and iPad.
Right off the bat, the most important thing to remember is that not everything can be downloaded due to rights issues. So while you can download "Mulholland Drive" or episodes of the original "Star Trek," you can't download "Archer" or "Captain America: Civil War." Netflix Originals like "Stranger Things" are typically compatible.Before initiating any downloads, it's probably wise to visit thescreen, which you can find towards the bottom of the list opened by the home screen's Menu button. Here you can restrict downloads to Wi-Fi, delete all of your cached material at once, or change quality settings.There are only two quality options however,and. You should probably pickonly if you have ample free space and you want maximum quality, say if you're watching on 12.9-inch iPad Pro.If you're searching specifically for offline material, Netflix has made this somewhat easier with anoption. Tap thein the upper-left corner on the home screen, and it should be one of the first items near the top. This creates a filtered version of the normal browsing interface, complete with categories and recommendations.Alternately, if you already know what you'd like to download, you can simply search for an item manually and cross your fingers that downloads are activated.Offline caching is simple. Once you've selected a title to bring up its description, you'll see asomewhere onscreen. Typically this is front-and-center for a movie, or next to each episode in the case of a TV series.Tap an arrow and a progress bar will appear as the video is saved.Downloading is, naturally, unless you have an unlimited data plan, since a even single episode of "Star Trek" can be over 235 megabytes. Also, be aware of how muchyou have —people on 16-, 32-, or even 64-gigabyte devices can quickly find themselves running out of space if they save several shows or movies at a time.Tapping on a completed progress bar will bring you to thescreen, which is also accessible from the Menu button. This is where you go to actually watch offline videos, or by tapping thein the upper-right, delete them to clear up space.Finally, be aware that you'll need an active subscription and the latest version of the Netflix app, which runs on devices with iOS 8 or later. Caching isn't available on the Apple TV.needmoney
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Activity: 1792
Merit: 1023
Blockchain Marketing: tokensuite.io
LegendaryActivity: 1792Merit: 1023Blockchain Marketing: tokensuite.io [BOUNTY] GET-Protocol - BOUNTY V2 IS LIVE! August 25, 2017, 12:32:38 PM
Last edit: September 29, 2017, 08:50:08 AM by needmoney #1 BOUNTY V2 IS LIVE!: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2213994.new#new
GUTS is a ticketing platform which uses blockchain technology to register ownership of smart tickets by doing so GUTS makes ticket fraud impossible. The purchased smart tickets can only be resold within a fixed price range, this means no more disgraceful prices for (secondary) tickets.
Have some GUTS, join our revolution!
GUTS Tickets | ICO Website | Whitepaper | Slack | Blog | ANN Thread | Twitter
This bounty campaign will last for 3 weeks. It will be the first round of bounties offered by the GUTS team. We will award %0.2 of whole token supply in the first round. It is equal to 180 000 GUTS Tokens. With our smart protocol, there will be a 0.50 buyback guarantee per token. To sum up, first round of bounties will award 90 000 Euros worth of tokens to participants.
ICO will start on October and will last for 14 days. Bounty distribution will happen 2 to 4 weeks after ICO ends.
Bounty Allocation
Signature Bounty %45 - 81 000 GET Tokens
Media/Article Bounty %20 - 36 000 GET Tokens
Twitter Bounty %20 - 36 000 GET Tokens
Translation Bounty %10 - 18 000 GET Tokens
Other Bounty %5 - 9 000 GET Tokens
General Rules
Stakes will be distributed every week, once a week on Sunday 23:59 forum time.
First week of the bounty campaign will start on 28th of August, Monday.
For any questions regarding the bounty campaign, you can contact me through PM, write a post to this thread or join #bounties channel in our Slack.
We reserve our right to eliminate you if we think you haven't been honest with your work.
We reserve the right to change bounty campaign rules.
Signature Campaign
Weekly Rewards:
Full Member: 1 stake per week
Senior Member: 1.5 stakes per week
Hero Member: 2 stakes per week
Legendary: 2.25 stakes per week
Signature Campaign Rules:
Participants have to be at least Full Member.
Every participants must wear GUTS avatar and personal text.
Multiple accounts will be banned if spotted. Spam is not allowed.
We expect you to post 10 constructive posts per week. Only 3 of these posts can be in local boards.
Posts should be made in altcoin sections, local board included (excluding bounties sections).
You will have to keep wearing our signature, avatar and personal text until the end of the first round.
Application Form: https://goo.gl/forms/TnwbBrkKvhwjnfw63
Spreadsheet: https://goo.gl/DjYPhW
Avatar, personal text and signature codes are on the second post of this thread.
Media/Article Campaign
You will have to apply to us with your website/Medium or Steem.it blog or Youtube channel before start working.
Youtube videos must be at least 2 minutes long. You must have at least 1500 organic subscribers.
Your Medium/Steem.it or any other free blogging blog page should have at least 500 followers. Your article must be original and contain at least 500 words.
You should have links to our website and whitepaper.
If you are submitting a website, it should have good traffic.
We have strict rules to make sure we reward quality works from known people. They will also be satisfied with the reward as each participant will be hand picked.
You will get stakes based on the quality and popularity of your work, reviewed at the end of the campaign.
Submit your applications to https://goo.gl/forms/kvaCJymUakZzBT482
Spreadsheet of accepted works: https://goo.gl/ntUfw1
Twitter Campaign
All participants must follow our official Twitter account.
account. Your auidit score must be more than %90.
We will check every participant to make sure their Twitter acount is genuine.
Your Twitter account must be mainly about cryptocurrencies. We will also accept media personalities.
Stakes: (stakes double if you have more than 10 000 followers)
We will accept anyone with more than %90 audit score.
If you have more than 1000 followers you'll get:
- 1 stake for following
- 0.5 stake for retweeting
- 0.5 stake for like
- 3 stake for custom tweet
If you have less than 1000 followers you'll get:
- 1 stake for following
- 0.25 stake for retweeting
- 0.25 stake for like
- 1.5 stake for custom tweet
2 costum tweets per user for a single week.
Application Form: https://goo.gl/forms/hFKlbhKR1A81nu4F3
Spreadsheet: https://goo.gl/pAoBq6
Translation Campaign
We will only ask you to translate our ANN thread for now.
If we find out you've used Google Translate, you will be banned from the campaign as a whole.
You are expected to moderate and update your thread with our news and updates to our ANN thread, at least once a week.
You are expected to finish translation in 4 days after you've assigned with the job.
We only limited number of languages, they will be selected from the most active communities on Bitcointalk.
ANN Thread translation will earn you 10 stakes. At the end of the campaign we will distribute moderation stakes depending on your activity from 1 stake to 10 stakes.
We are looking for Sr. Members or above.
Languages We Need:
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian): topbitcoin - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2138151.0
Español (Spanish): freemind1
中文 (Chinese): lihuajkl
Deutsch (German): nyle
Français
Italiano (Italian)
Philippines: Coin_trader
Pyccкий (Russian): Cloudpost
Türkçe (Turkish): ozgr
Application Form: https://goo.gl/forms/wVU3Jdw4O6vOHEcj1
Spreadsheet: https://goo.gl/WRbf8q
Other Campaign
First of all, you must subscribe to our subreddit.
You will recieve stakes proportionally to karma your comment/post recieves.
You can only apply with posts/comments more than 5 karma.
Our subreddit as well as popular subreddits like r/ethereum, r/ethtrader, r/btc, r/bitcoin and various other subreddits will be eligible.
Your comment/post must be about GUTS project.
We reserve our right to not accept your application due to spam or karma fraud.
For any other promotional idea (such as posting about GUTS on a popular Facebook cryptocurrency page/group), contact us and we can evaluate your idea. You will get stakes accordingly.
Application Form: https://goo.gl/forms/gabT5GtHh1ATabkI3
Spreadsheet: https://goo.gl/yLTKub 2 costum tweets per user for a single week. BOUNTYSUITE.COM - FULLY AUTOMATED BOUNTY PLATFORM. MANY ACTIVE BOUNTY PROGRAMS!During this chaotic time in American history, many are turning to Noam Chomsky for analysis on the fate of the country. In an hour-long special interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, the acclaimed political critic and philosopher delves into a number of pressing subjects.
"This administration is extremely unpredictable," Chomsky says at the start of the interview, which was filmed in April at a church in Cambridge, Mass. "Trump probably has no idea what he’s going to do five minutes from now, so you can’t—literally—so you can’t really make predictions with much confidence."
Chomsky goes on to share his opinions on the threat of nuclear war and U.S. relations with Syria, citing MIT professor Theodore Postol's analysis of the White House-Syria narrative.
"There certainly are some questions," Chomsky notes. "There doesn’t seem to be any strategic analysis behind any of these actions, as far as anyone can tell."
He and Goodman go on to discuss the future of WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, and the Trump administration's animosity toward the press.
"My sense is—this is just a guess—that this is a media strategy, that it’s the Bannon-Trump-Spicer strategy to try to keep attention focused on one or another form of lunacy, but not look at what’s actually happening," Chomsky says. "And what’s actually happening is that Paul Ryan and his associates behind the scenes are systematically and carefully dismantling every element of government that is of any benefit to people and that doesn’t maximize corporate power and profit."
He also discusses his latest book, "Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power," which is an outgrowth of a film of the same name.
"Humans, in the last 60 or 70 years, have succeeded in creating a kind of a perfect storm, literally," Chomsky says.
Watch the full interview, broken up into three segments, below:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
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Jeremy Hellickson will return to the Phillies on a one-year, $17.2 million deal. How does that contract compare to other pitchers with similar contracts?
Having accepted his qualifying offer of $17.2M, Jeremy Hellickson will return to the Philadelphia Phillies this year. The question circulating around though is, “Is Jeremy Hellickson worth that much money.”
Paying someone $17.2 million a year costs some teams a fortune and is nothing for others. Smaller market teams like the Rays and the Pirates can’t afford to throw around that kind of money willfully and wantonly. But the Phillies aren’t a small market team and they’re certainly not cash strapped. In fact, they have the fewest amount of dollars committed for 2017 and beyond of any team in the majors. And to add to that, they’re probably among the richest teams in the sport.
It was just two years ago at the start of the 2014 season that the Phillies flashed that payroll flexibility with an outrageous $177 million opening day payroll, the third highest in baseball. As it stands right now, they’re only obligated to pay $46.9M, the bulk of which was picked up in the last two weeks with the acquisitions of Howie Kendrick and Pat Neshak along with Hellickson’s QO acceptance.
An extremely low payroll matched with the ability to out-spend most teams means one thing: an inordinate amount of payroll flexibility. The Phillies probably have more wiggle room than any other team in any of the four major sports. It’s that flexibility that negates Hellickson’s salary.
So in the world of subjective spending and amounts to be paid, the Phillies are just fine with Hellickson’s one year, $17M deal.
But what are the Phillies getting for that money? What kind of value does Jeremy Hellickson provide at $17.2M a year?
They should be getting a pretty good pitcher. Hellickson’s effectiveness over the last year and a half has been substantially underrated, probably due to his performance from the previous two years.
Would you be surprised to learn that Jeremy Hellickson finished last season in the top 20 in pitchers WAR? He did. He actually had the 17th best WAR (3.2) among qualifying pitchers in all of baseball. That’s better than notable players like Cole Hamels (3.0), Gio Gonzalez (2.9) and the 2015 American League Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel (2.7).
And with regards to the $17.2M he’ll earn this year, if he can put up a similar season to last year he should be well worth it.
As of this writing, that salary would put him at number 20 on the list of highest paid starting pitchers. Directly in front of him on that list is Scott Kazmir, Jordan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg and Homer Bailey.
The only pitcher on that list who had a better ERA than Hellickson last year is Strasburg and the difference is minimal. Hellickson finished 2016 with a 3.71 ERA while Strasburg managed a 3.60 ERA. A key difference however is that Jeremy logged over 32 more innings than Strasburg. It’s also worth noting that Strasburg had an ERA of 9.45 over his last 20 innings of 2016 before ending his season short (again) due to injury.
The other three finished way worse than Hellickson: Kazmir had a 4.56 ERA in 136.1 IP, Zimmerman managed a 4.07 in 105.1 IP and Bailey, who was hurt most of the season only pitched 23 innings and had a dismal 6.65 ERA.
That $17.2 million is looking more and more like money well spent.
Right behind him on the salary list is Anibal Sanchez, Mike Leake and John Lackey. Again, Hellickson had a substantially better ERA than two of those three pitchers and a relatively close ERA to the other.
Sanchez pitched 153 innings and put up a whopping 5.87 ERA while Mike Leake was able to pitch in 176 innings and managed a slightly better but still not good 4.69 ERA. Lackey had an outstanding year by most accounts pitching to a 3.35 ERA in 188 innings.
That’s seven pitchers all set to make about the same as Hellickson; five haven’t performed anywhere near to as well Hellickson and two have performed just slightly better than Hellickson did last year.
Hellickson was a top prospect and a Rookie of the Year award winner. He had a 2.95 ERA his rookie year and followed it up with a 3.10 ERA season.
But it’s not just last year that Hellickson has been effective. In fact, his turnaround from back of the rotation starter to true front end starter happened just prior to the All Star break of 2015. Since his start on July 2nd of that year Hellickson has as ERA of an absolutely respectable 3.69, and that’s over a 250 innings pitched sample size.
The interesting part about this is that this may actually be who Jeremy Hellickson is, not what he’s known as.
Hellickson was highly touted as a prospect in the Rays system. In both 2010 and 2011 he was one of Baseball America’s top 20 ranked prospects, first at number 18 and then number six. To give an accurate picture of what exactly that meant at that time, Hellickosn was sandwiched in between Julio Teheran and Aroldis Chapman at five and seven respectively. Expectations at that point were very high.
He continued his success once he reached the majors, winning the AL Rookie of the year award after the 2011 season, beating out Eric Hosmer and Mark Trumbo. He finished his rookie season with an ace-ish 2.95 ERA in 189 innings. He had held opposing batters to a.210 average.
He continued that success in 2012 where he pitched 177 innings and managed a 3.10 ERA. Two seasons in and it looked as though he was going to be one of the sports best starting pitchers.
But that didn’t happen. Hellickson, for some reason, stopped being effective.
Over the next two and a half years, from the start of 2013 until around the All Star break of 2015, Hellickson was awful. He pitched a combined 320 innings to an ERA of 5.11. In the middle of that the Rays traded him to the Diamondbacks for two low-level prospects. He only pitched the one season in Arizona before they traded him to the Philiies.
Some people saw his poor performance as the inevitable regression that his underlying stats were indicative of all along. Hellickson had never managed to impress with the advanced metrics: his K rate was too low, his BB rate was too high, his BABIP was unsustainable (even though he sustained it for over two seasons). And it’s entirely possible that it’s all true.
However, Phillies fans can take solace in the fact that 2016 was his best year in strikeout percentage and base on balls percentage. His BABIP is still relatively low but at this point, five plus years in, it really can’t be considered luck anymore.
So it remains to be seen exactly what Hellickson is and if he is worth the price they’ll be paying. He’s been excellent for long stretches of time and he’s been bad for at least one extended stretch. He is, however, currently on a roll and for the Phillies front office and the team’s fans they certainly hope he can stay that way and turn the $17M into an extreme bargain loaded with value.We now know the exciting menus that the 2017 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival Marketplaces will be serving up. These marketplaces will be open daily throughout the festival from August 31 to November 13, 2107. Take a look below at the amazing dishes and drink pairings available this year!
Active Eats (NEW!) -Satisfy your appetite with action-packed offerings—each one sure to please your palate as you explore the park.
Food:
Loaded Mac ‘n’ Cheese with Nueske’s® Pepper Bacon, Cheddar Cheese, Peppers and Green Onions
Roasted Verlasso Salmon with Quinoa Salad and Arugula Chimichurri (GF)
Sweet Avocado Crema with Strawberries, Yellow Cake and Tortilla Streusel
Beverages:
M.I.A. Beer Company HRD WTR Cucumber & Lemon Lime Hard Sparkling Water, Doral, FL
Chateau Ste. Michelle Cold Creek Riesling, Washington
Evolution by Sokol Blosser Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley
Africa – Delve into a delectable menu inspired by countries abundant with history, mystery and cultural diversity.
Food:
Berbere-style Beef Tenderloin Tips with Onions, Jalapeños, Tomato and Pap (GF)
Spicy Ethiopian Red Lentil Stew with Vegan Yogurt and Quinoa
Spinach and Paneer Cheese Pocket with Mint Raita
Beverages:
Ernie Els “Big Easy” Chenin Blanc, Western Cape
Simonsig Pinotage, Stellenbosch
Jam Jar Sweet Shiraz, Western Cape
The Almond Orchard Hosted by Blue Diamond Almond Breeze (NEW!) – Let your taste buds go nuts for a tasty dessert—and beverages the complement one of the world’s most popular snacks.
Food:
Banana Almond Sundae layered with Fresh Berries and topped with Dark Chocolate and Blueberry Almonds
Beverages:
Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin “Yellow Label” Brut
Dom Pérignon Brut
Moët & Chandon Brut Rosé Imperial
Cold Brew Coffee with Almond Milk Foam
Australia – Explore an exotic array of food, wine and beer options from the Land Down Under.
Food:
Grilled Sweet and Spicy Bush Berry Shrimp with Pineapple, Pepper, Onion and Snap Peas (GF)
Grilled Lamb T-Bone with Mint Pesto and Potato Crunchies (GF)
Lamington: Yellow Cake Dipped in Chocolate and Shredded Coconut
Beverages:
Coopers Brewery Original Pale Ale
Robert Oatley McLaren Vale Shiraz
Hope Estate “Wollombi Brook” Semillon, Hunter Valley
Belgium – Indulge in waffles with a dessert-like twist as well as other sweet ‘n’ savory treats—courtesy of the Kingdom of Belgium!
Food:
Belgian Waffle with Berry Compote and Whipped Cream
Beer-braised Beef served with Smoked Gouda Mashed Potatoes
Belgian Waffle with Warm Chocolate Ganache and Whipped Cream
Beverages:
Hoegaarden Witbier
Leffe Blonde Belgian Pale Ale
Stella Artois Hard Cidre
Chilled Coffee featuring Godiva Chocolate Liqueur
Brazil – Dig into South American cuisine and culture with the Land of the Palms’ finest fare.
Food:
Escondidinho de Carne – “Little Hidden One”: Layered Meat Pie with Mashed Yucca (GF)
Crispy Pork Belly with Black Beans, Tomato and Onions (GF)
Pão de Queijo: Brazilian Cheese Bread (GF) Beverages: M.I.A. Beer Company Barbosa Black Beer, Doral, FL
Lidio Carraro Chardonnay
Frozen Caipirinha featuring LeBlon Cachaça Brewer’s Collection – Pamper your parched nature with a glass or flight of Europe’s best brews—from Pilsners to wheat beers. Food: Lebkuchenherz: Decorated Gingerbread Heart Beverages: Radeberger Zwickel Pilsner (Unfiltered)
Hacker-Pschorr Hefe Weisse Naturtrüb
Schöfferhofer Hefeweizen Pomegranate Beer Canada– Take your taste buds to the Yukon, with delightful dishes, lagers and wines from the Great White North. Food: Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup served with a Pretzel Roll
“Le Cellier” Wild Mushroom Beef Filet Mignon with Truffle-Butter Sauce (GF) Beverages: Moosehead Radler: Lager infused with Grapefruit, Grape and Lemon Juices
Neige Premiere “Apple Ice Wine”, Québec
Fielding Estate Red Conception, Niagara Peninsula The Cheese Studio, Hosted by Boursin® Cheese (NEW!) – Don’t just say “cheese”—eat it too as you indulge in foods both inspired by this international favorite. Food: Braised Beef “Stroganoff” with Tiny Egg Noodles, Wild Mushroom, and Boursin Garlic and Fine Herbs Cheese Sauce
Savory Caramelized Onion Boursin Garlic and Fine Herbs Cheese Tart with Cold Arugula Salad and Aged Balsamic
Cheese Trio: Profiterole topped with Boursin Garlic and Fine Herbs Cheese and Orange Apricot Jam, Smoked Salmon Pinwheel with Boursin Shallot and Chive Cheese and Everything Seasoning and Strawberry Macaroon with Boursin Pepper Cheese Beverages: Leth Steinagrund Gruner Veltliner, Austria
Liberated Pinot Noir, California China – Introduce your palate to a diverse variety of popular plates and potables from one of the world’s greatest cuisines! Food: Beijing Roasted Duck Bao Bun with Hoisin Sauce
Spicy Chicken Bao Bun
Black Pepper Shrimp with Garlic Noodles
Chicken Potstickers Beverages: Tsingtao Lager
Ritzy Lychee with Courvoisier Cognac VS and Smirnoff Vodka
Happy Peach with DeKuyper Peach Liqueur and Myers’s Dark Rum
BaiJoe Punch with Chinese Bai Jui Spirit, Lychee, Coconut and Pineapple Juice
Mango Bubble Tea with Assam Black Tea and Milk (Non-Alcoholic) The Chocolate Studio – Sate confectionery cravings with a trip to our one-stop chocolate shop for delectably dark and milky sweet treats! Food: Liquid Nitro Chocolate-Almond Truffle with Warm Whiskey-Caramel (GF)
Sweet Dark Chocolate Raspberry Torte with Whipped Cream and Raspberry Dust Beverages: Justin Cabernet Sauvignon, Paso Robles
Banfi Rosa Regale, Piedmont
Lenotti Recioto della Valpolicella, Italy
RL Buller Fine Muscat Coastal Eats (NEW!) – Feast on flavors from the oceans of the world, along with wines grown from the Pacific coastline! Food: Lump Crab Cake with Napa Cabbage Slaw and Avocado Lemongrass Cream
Baked Shrimp Scampi Dip with Sourdough Baguette
Seared Scallops with Roasted Corn and Butterbean Succotash and Chili-Chipotle Butter Sauce Beverages: Erath Pinot Gris, Oregon
Soter Planet Oregon Pinot Noir Craft Beers – Elevate your tastes with cool brews or a refreshing flight of American craft beer from some of the nation’s best breweries! Food: Chilled Scotch Egg wrapped in Sausage with Mustard Sauce
Zesty Cheeseburger and Cheddar Cheese Macaroni Handwich
L’Orange Cotton Candy: A mixture of Lime and Orange Cotton Candy Beverages: M.I.A Beer Company 305 Golden Ale, Doral, FL
JDub’s Passion Wheat, Sarasota, FL
Central 28 Trekkerbier Farmhouse Ale, DeBary, FL
Playalinda Brewing Company Blonde Ale, Titusville, FL
Florida Beer Company Passport 35 Triple Chocolate Milk Stout, Cape Canaveral, FL
Cigar City Guayabera Citra Pale Ale, Tampa, FL
Bright Horizons: Sprite® with Multi-flavored Boba Pearls (Non-Alcoholic) Earth Eats, Inspired by The Chew – Turn your taste buds upside down as rustic techniques and modern technology merge for a flavor revolution. Food: Ricotta and Zucchini Ravioli with Rustic Tomato Sauce
Grilled Beef Skewer with Romaine, Apricots, and Feta Cheese
Peanut Butter and White Chocolate Mousse with a Caramel Drizzle Beverages: Kurt Russell’s Gogi Wines Chardonnay Gogi “Goldie”, California
Kurt Russell’s Gogi Wines Pinot Noir, California
Redstone Meadery Black Raspberry Mead Farm Fresh – Invite your senses for some tasty vittles—featuring flavors that’ll make you cock-a-doodle-do for more. Food: Crispy Chicken with Griddled Cornbread and Red Eye Gravy
Roasted Beet Salad with Green Beans, Feta Cheese, Minus 8 Vinaigrette and Toasted Walnuts (GF) Beverages: Gumption Citrus Freak Hard Cider, Middlebury, VT
Woodchuck Raspberry Hard Cider, Middlebury, VT
Two Henrys Elderberry Cream Hard Cider, Plant City, FL
Florida Orange Groves Mango Mama Wine Flavors from Fire (NEW!) – Add some heat to your day at Epcot with spicy food offerings—and beverages that will help you wet your whistle. Food: Piggy Wings: Roasted Pork Wings with Korean BBQ Sauce and Sesame Seeds
Smoked Corned Beef with Warm Crispy Potatoes, Pickled Onions and Blonde Ale Beer Fondue featuring BelGioioso Romano and America Grana Cheeses
Sweet Pancake with Spicy Chipotle Chicken Sausage, Onion Jam and Maple Butter Syrup
Chocolate Picante: Dark Chocolate Mousse with Cayenne Pepper, Chili Powder and Raspberry Dust Beverages: Orlando Brewery Smokin’ Blackwater Porter
Ravenswood Zinfandel, Napa Valley
Swine Brine featuring Evan Williams Bourbon France – Fall in ooo-la-la-love with the classic cuisine and finest wines of France—bon appétit! Food: Moelleux au Fromage de Chèvre et Épinards: Warm Goat Cheese Pudding with Spinach (GF)
Croissant aux Escargots: Escargot Croissant with Garlic and Parsley
Boeuf Bourguignon, Purée de Pommes de Terre: Cabernet Sauvignon Braised Beef with Mashed Potatoes
Crème Brûlée à la Confiture de Framboises: Crème Brûlée with Housemade Rasberry Jam (GF) Beverages: La Passion Martini Slush: Vodka, Grey Goose Le Citron, Cranberry and Passion Fruit Juice
Chardonnay, Bouchard Ainé & Fils
Château les Graves de Barrau: Merlot and Cabernet Blend, Bordeaux
St-Germain Sparkling Kir: Sparkling Wine and St-Germain Elderflower liqueur
Kronenbourg Blanc 1664 Pale Lager Germany – Embark on an epicurean adventure to Deutschland, home of the heartiest food, drinks and appetites in the world! Food: Schinkennudeln: Pasta Gratin with Ham and Cheese
Roast Bratwurst in a Pretzel Roll
Apple Strudel with Vanilla Sauce
Lebkuchenherz: Decorated Gingerbread Heart Beverages: Radeberger Zwickel Pilsner (Unfiltered)
Selbach Bernkasteler Kurfürstlay Riesling Kabinett, Mosel
Dr. Heyden Oppenheimer Sacträger Riesling Spätlese, Rheinhessen
Selbach Riesling Classic Dry, Mosel Greece – Bask in the Mediterranean flavors of traditional dishes and heavenly drinks popular in the Land of the Gods! Food: Loaded Greek “Nachos”: Pita Chips, Meatless Sausage Crumbles, and Vegan Tzatziki
Taste of Greece: Stuffed Grape Leaves with Lemon |
During DT (developmental testing), we got to see firsthand the first vertical landing and short takeoff at sea, but in OT-1, the Marines are demonstrating a cadence to operations to gain confidence the single-engine, stealthy fighters can assimilate into an air wing onboard the amphibious ship, which will include other platforms: the MV-22, CH-53E/K, AH-W/Z and unmanned air systems among them. This is all leading up to the operational debut of the F-35B, slated in July.
This is a long video -- 8 plus minutes. But, if you stick with it, here's what you'll see. And, a word of caution. Turn down your speakers or headphones, or grab a cranial. It's very loud.
F-35B taxis from parking and preps for takeoff (a DV is giving the pilot signals -- you can see him in blue next to the yellow shirt at far right).
1:19: Notice when the lift fan doors open and nozzle angles down (the scorch marks are from repeated take offs at this 400 ft. position).
2:10: F-35B conducts short takeoff.
2:32: A second F-35 approaches for a vertical landing. Notice the nozzle's tiny corrections during the hover, slide over the deck and descent. A typical descent is about 7 ft. per second.
3:38: This F-35 clears the deck, maneuvers to parking area.
That voice you may hear is USMC Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, deputy commandant for aviation, explaining to a reporter that the takeoff point for this round of trials is 400 ft. As the next jet taxis, you can see scorch marks around the 550 ft. mark, where jets have commenced launch at 500 ft. earlier in OT-1.
4:11: Depending on how big your screen is you can see the first F-35B that took off flying in the pattern just above the cloud line to approach for a landing.
5:27: This F-35B is visible behind the ship, control surfaces deployed slowing the aircraft with doors open. At this point the nozzle is rotating and will be fully at 90 deg. once the hover is commanded.
6:22: Pilot slides the F-35 B over the deck (you can see those scorch marks in the Thermion non skid where previous landings have occurred) and comes to a brief rest. As a note: Navy ship operators onboard say they are monitoring the performance of the Thermion but detected no red flags thus far into the trials.
7:15: Yellow shirt commands taxi forward for another takeoff from 400ft.
8:10: Yellow shirt commands power (sorry for the finger -- was quite windy and lots of engine blowback -- can't drop Av Week's iPhone!).
8:28: Takeoff
That was our welcome on deck.
As senior Pentagon editor, there are perks to being a scribe. May 26, I had the opportunity to witness aviation history with a small group of reporters invited to the USS Wasp amphibious ship to witness a few hours of the first-ever F-35B Operational Test (OT-1) trails off the coast of North Carolina. I'm posting some of the many videos I collected to give our readers a sense of what we saw on the boat. During OT-1, actual Marines -- not test overseers -- are operating the six F-35Bs that embarked May 18 for the tests; this includes pilots and maintainers. During DT (developmental testing), we got to see firsthand the first vertical landing and short takeoff at sea, but in OT-1, the Marines are demonstrating a cadence to operations to gain confidence the single-engine, stealthy fighters can assimilate into an air wing onboard the amphibious ship, which will include other platforms: the MV-22, CH-53E/K, AH-W/Z and unmanned air systems among them. This is all leading up to what the operational debut of the F-35B, slated in July.This is a long video -- 8 plus minutes. But, if you stick with it, here's what you'll see. And, a word of caution. Turn down your speakers or headphones, or grab a cranial. Its very loud.F-35B taxis from parking and preps for takeoff (a DV is giving the pilot signals -- you can see him in blue next to the yellow shirt at far right). 1:19: Notice when the lift fan doors open and nozzle angles down (the scorch marks are from repeated take offs at this 400 ft. position).2:10: F-35B conducts short takeoff.2:32: A second F-35 approaches for a vertical landing. Notice the nozzle's tiny corrections during the hover, slide over the deck and descent. A typical descent is about 7 ft. per second.3:38: This F-35 clears the deck, maneuvers to parking area.That voice you may hear is USMC Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, deputy commandant for aviation, explaining to a reporter that the takeoff point for this round of trials is 400 ft. As the next jet taxis, you can see scorch marks around the 550 ft. mark, where jets have commenced launch at 500 ft. earlier in OT-1. 4:11: Depending on how big your screen is you can see the first F-35B that took off flying in the pattern just above the cloud line to approach for a landing. 5:27: This F-35B is visible behind the ship, control surfaces deployed slowing the aircraft with doors open. At this point the nozzle is rotating and will be fully at 90 deg. once the hover is commanded. 6:22: Pilot slides the F-35 B over the deck (you can see those scorch marks in the Thermion non skid where previous landings have occurred) and comes to a brief rest. As a note: Navy ship operators onboard say they are monitoring the performance of the Thermion but detected no red flags thus far into the trials. 7:15: Yellow shirt commands taxi forward for another takeoff from 400ft. 8:10: Yellow shirt commands power (Sorry for the finger -- was quite windy and lots of engine blowback -- can't drop Av Week's iPhone!). 8:28: TakeoffThat was our welcome on deck. Posted by AVIATION WEEK on Wednesday, 27 May 2015
Here is a rare glimpse (at least until the F-35B IOCs in July) of a SeaHawk taking off followed by an F-35 launch onboard the USS Wasp May 26 during OT-1. The helicopter is a requirement for search and rescue in the event of a problem. I captured the rescue SeaHawk taking off and a glimpse of Lee Hudson, managing editor of Inside the Navy.
It's rare to see this combination of takeoffs...so I thought I'd share with our readers.
Seconds later, the F-35B is commanded to taxi forward to the 400 ft. mark on the Wasp in preparation for launch.
1:27: Lift fan doors open.
2:10: Takeoff.
2:19: Look of pride from Lt. Gen. Davis, deputy commandant for Aviation.
A Marine look of pride can easily be confused with a scowl... make no mistake in this case.
For those that may not want to gaze at the F-35B for minutes and minutes, this is a simple, quick vertical perspective of an F-35B landing on the USS Wasp.
This is an interesting sequence. It's a long video, but if you stick with it, it is worth it. You'll see an F-35B dance on the deck. We begin with an F-35B taxi with lift fan doors open.
1:19: Takeoff from 400 ft. line. Again, notice the nozzle position at takeoff and scorch marks on deck.
1:32: Looking aft, a second F-35B is on final approach to hover just off the deck and then slides over to descend for a landing. Notice the nozzle working to keep the aircraft level prior to and during descent.
2:31: F-35B lands. Yellow shirt commands a brief hold and then taxi with the lift fan doors open.
3:33: F-35B holds at the 400 ft. marker. (stick with me... it gets better).
4:20: The first F-35 B is on approach and commences hover (the other jet remains in position for launch).
5:19: This F-35B lands.
5:26: F-35B holds in preparation for launch.
5:44: The F-35B that just landed taxis to park.
6:44: F-35B commences launch.
Finally, this is a short clip of our ride, an MV-22, landing at the Pentagon helipad. Our trip took about 90 minutes to reach the USS Wasp off the coast of North Carolina. Notice the National Cathedral (still under repair from the August 2011 earthquake that damaged it) in the background.
Hope you enjoyed these videos.A Seattle woman fought off a violent assault by a would-be attacker in a park’s ladies bathroom. The man, with an extensive criminal history, attacked her earlier this month while she was on a 10-mile jog.
Calling the attack her “worst jogging nightmare,” Kelly Herron, 36, said she yelled, “Not today, m—–f—–,” and fought valiantly to save her life, ABC’s Good Morning America reported.
Herron completed four of her 10-mile trek and stopped to use a ladies room in Seattle’s Golden Gardens Park. “As I was drying my hands, I became aware that something was wrong,” she told the ABC reporters. When she turned around, she saw what no woman wants to see in a ladies room–a man. The man, it turned out, is 40-year-old Arizona registered sex offender Gary Steiner, she said.
Recalling the harrowing assault, she said, “He immediately took me down to the ground, hit both my knees and legs, and then it was a fight on the bathroom floor, and I just kept screaming, ‘Not today, m—–f—–‘.” She said those words became her battle cry.
After attempting to lock herself in a stall, her attacker managed to break in, and he began beating her.
Fearing she was about to lose consciousness, Herron remembered her self-defense training. “I learned hard bones and soft fleshy places, so I just started hitting the side of his head,” she explained.
She began fighting back by scratching his face and punching him. “This doesn’t have to be a fair fight,” she recalled thinking. “All those little things that I learned in my life … how to punch and everything came back to me,” she recalled. “I started to feel like I was going to lose consciousness … but I got another surge of adrenaline, and I reached for the door and was able to get out.”
She eventually escaped from Steiner. With the help of a passerby, she used a carabiner to lock her attacker in the bathroom. They called the police who arrested Steiner–still locked inside the ladies room.
Police later learned Steiner has a long record of assaults on numerous women dating back to the 1990s, ABC reported. He is in jail pending a $750,000 bond on charges of attempted rape in the second degree and second-degree assault.
Herron sustained multiple bruises and cuts from her attacker. Her GPS tracker detailed her path, before and after the attack.
She told the reporters she has a new sense of confidence after fending off her attacker. She is continuing her training to run in the Seattle Rock and Roll Marathon scheduled for this summer.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.Members of France's ethnic Roma group and members of the country's native traveler minority blocked a major highway outside Bordeaux on Sunday after being evicted from a campsite near the city.
The blockade was the first major protest in the wake of a government crackdown on unauthorized sites across the country.
Protesters used cars, trucks and caravans to block the Bordeaux bypass and a bridge over the River Garonne in the southwest of the country.
Police and road safety officials said traffic in the direction of Paris was backed up for five kilometers (three miles) on a summer public holiday weekend.
The protesters blocked the bridge for some five hours, leaving to try to gain access to a sports ground. They were stopped by riot police and reoccupied the bridge for another hour-and-a-half.
Forced to leave site
The group of travelers and Roma had been forced to leave a campsite in the nearby town of Anglet, and had been denied access to an exhibition ground by authorities.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy last month announced plans to dismantle 300 unauthorized campsites within three months, following a clash between Roma, mainly of Bulgarian and Romanian origin, and police.
The raids, being investigated by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, were met with criticism from committee members at a meeting last week.
A lawmaker from Sarkozy's ruling UMP party, Jean-Pierre Grand branded the evictions "disgraceful" on Saturday, likening them to roundups of minorities during World War II.
Author: Richard Connor (AFP/Reuters)
Editor: Martin Kuebler""" ModelPagination Designed and Coded by Cal Leeming Many thanks to Harry Roberts for giving us a heads up on how to do this properly! You may also notice the class is almost exactly the same as the django pagination, give or take :) http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/pagination/?from=olddocs So this means, in most cases, you can use this as a drop in replacement. Although, if you are looking at using this, you would probably not just "drop it in" lol. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a super optimized way of paginating datasets over 1 million records. It uses MAX() rather then COUNT(), because this is super faster. EXAMPLE: >>> _t = time.time(); x = Post.objects.aggregate(Max('id')); "Took %ss"%(time.time() - _t ) 'Took 0.00103402137756s' >>> _t = time.time(); x = Post.objects.aggregate(Count('id')); "Took %ss"%(time.time() - _t ) 'Took 0.92404794693s' >>> This does mean that if you go deleting things, then the IDs won't be accurate, so if you delete 50 rows, you're exact count() isn't going to match, but this is okay for pagination, because for SEO, we want items to stay on the original page they were scanned on. If you go deleting items, then the items shift backwards through the pages, so you end up with inconsistent SEO on archive pages. If this doesn't make sense, go figure it out for yourself, its 2am in the morning ffs ;p Now, the next thing we do, is use id seeking, rather then OFFSET, because again, this is a shitton faster: EXAMPLE: >>> _t = time.time(); x = map(lambda x: x, Post.objects.filter(id__gte=400000, id__lt=400500).all()); print "Took %ss"%(time.time() - _t) Took 0.0467309951782s >>> _t = time.time(); _res = map(lambda x: x, Post.objects.all()[400000:400500]); print "Took %ss"%(time.time() - _t) Took 1.05785298347s >>> By using this seeking method (which btw, can be implemented on anything, not just pagination) on a table with 5 million rows, we are saving 0.92s on row count, and 1.01s on item grabbing. This may not seem like much, but if you have 1024 concurrent users, this will make a huge difference. If you have any questions or problems, feel free to contact me on cal.leeming [at] simplicitymedialtd.co.uk """ from django.core.paginator import Paginator, InvalidPage, EmptyPage from django.db.models import Max, Count, Q, F class ModelPagination : model = None items_per_page = None count = None page_range = [] def __init__ ( self, model, items_per_page ): self. model = model self. items_per_page = items_per_page self. count = self. model. aggregate ( Max ( 'id' ))[ 'id__max' ] self. num_pages = divmod ( self. count, self. items_per_page )[ 0 ] + 1 for i in range ( self. num_pages ): self. page_range. append ( i + 1 ) def page ( self, page_number ): if page_number > self. num_pages : raise EmptyPage, "That page contains no results" if page_number <= 0 : raise EmptyPage, "That page number is less than 1" start = self. items_per_page * ( page_number - 1 ) end = self. items_per_page * page_number object_list = self. model. filter ( id__gte = start, id__lt = end ) return ModelPaginationPage ( object_list, page_number, self. count, start, end, self ) class ModelPaginationPage : object_list = None number = None count = None start = None end = None paginator = None def __unicode__ ( self ): return "<Page %s of %s >" % ( self. number, self. count ) def __init__ ( self, object_list, number, count, start, end, paginator ): self. number = number self. count = count self. object_list = object_list self. start = start self. end = end self. paginator = paginator def has_next ( self ): return False if self. number >= self. count else True def has_previous ( self ): return False if self. number <= 1 else True def has_other_pages ( self ): return True if self. has_next or self. has_previous else False def next_number ( self ): return self. number + 1 def previous_number ( self ): return self. number + 1 def start_index ( self ): return self. start def end_index ( self ): return self. end ############################################################################### # OUR EXAMPLE USAGE ############################################################################### def archive ( request, * args, ** kwargs ): _t = time. time () # 4chan if kwargs. get ( 'feed' ) == '4chan' : ret = Post. objects url = '/archive/4chan-page-' else : raise Exception, "Invalid feed specified" # calculate what page we are on page_num = int ( args [ 0 ]) if args and args [ 0 ] else 1 # create the pagination object _items_per_page = 1000 pagination = ModelPagination ( Post. objects, 1000 ) # extract the items from the page page = pagination. page ( page_num ) items = map ( lambda x : { 'id' : x. get ( 'id' ), 'username' : x. get ( 'username' ), 'title' : make_title ( x. get ('message' ), x. get ( 'image_filename' ), x. get ( 'username' )), 'url' : "/fcp/ %s - %s.html" % ( make_title ( x. get ('message' ), x. get ( 'image_filename' ), x. get ( 'username' )), x. get ( 'id' )), 'partial_message' : x. get ('message' )[: 256 ] if x. get ('message' ) else None, 'created' : x. get ( 'created' ), 'image_url' : x. get ( 'image_url' ) }, page. object_list. values ( 'id', 'username','message', 'image_filename', 'created', 'image_url' )) context = RequestContext ( request, { 'url' : url, 'page_num' : page_num, 'loading_time' : time. time () - _t, 'page' : page, 'items' : items, 'pagination' : pagination }) return render_to_response ( 'lazylittlegirl/archive/results.html', context_instance = context ) """ <!-- Here is some example usage in a template, again this is just a copy and paste out of one of our projects, and not intended as a unit test or w/e --> <div id="content"> <ol> {% for item in items %} <li class="li1"> <div class="box1"> <a href="{{item.url}}" alt="{{item.title}}" title="{{item.title}}" target="_blank">Post #{{item.id}}</a> - {{item.created}} by {{item.username}} </div> </li> {% endfor %} </ol> <br /> <hr /> <div id="pagenumbers"><b>Pages :</b> {% for xpage in pagination.page_range %} {% if page.number == xpage %} [<b>{{xpage}}</b>] {% else %} <a title="Page {{xpage}} of {{pagination.num_pages}}" alt="Page {{xpage}} of {{pagination.num_pages}}" href="{{url}}{{xpage}}.html">{{xpage}}</a> {% endif %} {% endfor %} </div> """Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) has announced plans for a new, federal state to replace the current Ukraine.
The pro-Russian rebels plan to hold a referendum calling for the creation of a new state to be known as Malorossiya, which translates as "Little Russia."
In a statement published on the rebel-aligned Donetsk News Agency, the DNR leader Zakharchenko said that the new state would aspire to include not only the areas under insurgent control but also the rest of Ukraine.
Map showing Ukraine's capital Kiev in the west and Donetsk, Luhansk in the east
Ukraine's envoy for negotiations with the rebels, Yevgen Marchuk, told local media that Tuesday's announcement "could block the negotiations entirely."
The German government told DW that "a solution to the conflict could only be achieved through negotiation" and that "Russia, the Russian-backed separatists and Ukraine have all committed" to the Minsk agreement.
Responding to an email inquiry, a spokesperson for the federal government told DW: "Zakharchenko has no legitimacy to speak on behalf of Ukraine. We expect Russia to also immediately condemn this step, and that it neither respects nor even acknowledges it."
Three years since flight MH17 brought down
The rebels' statement came three years and a day after Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was brought down over eastern Ukraine with the loss of all 298 people on board on July 17, 2014. Dutch investigators say a Russian Buk-M1 anti-aircraft missile was fired at the Boeing 777 causing it to crash.
On Monday, a living memorial of trees, one for each victim, near Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport was opened. Relatives planted the saplings in the spring and it gives them a place to mourn.
The National Monument for the victims of flight MH17 which took off from Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur in July 2014
'Little Russia' or 'Malorossiya'
Representatives from the self-declared "People's Republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine had agreed to "declare the establishment of a new state, which is the successor of Ukraine," said Zakharchenko.
He accused the government of Ukraine of being "a failed state" and having "demonstrated its current and future incapability of providing peace and prosperity to its residents."
Under the proposal, Malorossiya would cover the entire area of Ukraine, while the capital would be moved from Kiev to the insurgent bastion of Donetsk. Kiev would be reduced to a "historical and cultural center."
The Donetsk rebels have repeatedly expressed their intentions to join Russia. The Kremlin, however, has stopped short of annexing the area - as it did in Crimea - and denies propping up rebel groups with military support, despite overwhelming evidence suggesting otherwise.
A dent in the Minsk accord
The notion of a "Little Russia," casts any hope of a ceasefire deal into doubt. Ukraine's pro-western president, Petro Poroshenko, responded by vowing to restore Ukrainian sovereignty to the insurgent-held areas of Donbas and Crimea.
Poroshenko described Zakharchenko as part of "a puppet show", with Russia pulling his strings in order to relay a message.
Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko Sachartschenko
Since Ukraine ousted its pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014 amid mass protests calling for closer ties with the West, pro-western security forces have been locked in a battle with pro-Moscow rebels who took control of parts of the east. Fighting to date has cost some 10,000 lives.
Read more: Rex Tillerson has sharp words for Moscow during Ukraine visit
The 2015 Minsk accord, a ceasefire deal brokered by Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France, has hit a wall with clashes continuing along the frontlines. All sides have called for a restart in talks but progress continues to stall.
Watch video 26:03 Share Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze on Conflict Zone Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/2fyoe Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze on Conflict Zone
jm/rt (Reuters, AP)WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) — After repeatedly referring to Donald Trump as a bully, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Thursday outlined an anti-bullying plan for the nation’s schools.
The backbone of the plan, dubbed “Better than Bullying,” calls for a $2 billion funding commitment for states that develop comprehensive laws to reduce bullying in schools. The money will go toward hiring support staff such as guidance counselors, school psychologists and others who can help facilitate a less aggressive or hurtful relationship between children of all age groups.
It would also go toward professional training for teachers and support staff to identify and stop bullying, and for emotional education programs for students who might be tempted to bully other children.
Lastly, the money will also help bolster suicide prevention programs in high schools because studies show bullying can be a major factor in teen suicides.
To qualify for the money, Clinton said states must pass legislation that expressly defines what bullying is, both in person and online. The legislation must also create a grievance process for resolving bullying incidents made by students, teachers and parents. And states must expressly prohibit bullying on the basis of gender, race, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or religion.
Clinton’s plan would offer states a four-to-one return on money spent on anti-bullying programs with federal education dollars.
Combined with the policy push, the Clinton campaign also unveiled a new campaign commercial entitled “Bryce” that tells the story of a young man with muscular dystrophy who overcame bullying as a child.
“When I was younger I was bullied, but now I have a strong community around me,” the ad states, while showing Bryce interacting with friends.
Bryce then recalls Trump’s remarks about a reporter for The New York Times, whose disability Trump mocked, showing the video on a laptop screen.
“His entire platform is hatred,” Bryce said. “I don’t want bullies in my life and I especially don’t want one in the White House.”Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) believes its Dream Chaser could be a viable alternative to the Boeing X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle for long-duration, recoverable experimentation in space.
The company says its vehicle, which is still in development, could be called upon to support the kinds of missions the US Air Force is currently conducting with the X-37B.
With an updated, folding-wing design unveiled earlier this year, SNC’s Dream Chaser can be launched inside a standard Atlas V or Delta IV payload fairing and can “stay on orbit well in excess of a year”, the company says.
SNC Space Systems corporate vice-president Mark Sirangelo says that while he cannot say what types of missions the Orbital Test Vehicle programme is trying to accomplish, Dream Chaser would be a larger and viable alternative to Boeing’s experimental spacecraft.
“We are not part of that programme, although we believe our vehicle can do many of those types of operations,” he said at the ISPCS commercial space conference in New Mexico on 8 October. “It is a larger vehicle that can stay on orbit for well over a year.”
Sierra Nevada Corporation
Despite missing out on NASA’s commercial crew programme, which was won by Boeing and SpaceX, SNC is continuing development of the Dream Chaser and is exploring a variety of uses for the reusable, optionally-manned spacecraft, including cargo resupply to the International Space Station.
Boeing’s X-37B was launched for the fourth time in May, and has previously spent 674 days in space. The spacecraft is just under 3m (9.8ft) high and 9m long, and Boeing has proposed a scaled-up, potentially manned version.
Dream Chaser will move to the second phase of flight testing in the first quarter of 2016, and could be ready for operational service in late 2018, SNC says.
“Unfortunately I can’t go into it for a lot of reasons, but you can look at the vehicle and its capabilities and understand its possibilities here,” Sirangelo says. “We’re not blind and neither are the various people around us."Pin 101 147 Shares
The Norcal Margarita
Ok, so it’s friday night, you’ve conquered your 30 day paleo challenge and you’re all dialed in with what to eat and more importantly with what not to eat, yet something seems to be missing, you just don’t quite feel right, almost as if something is off but you just can’t seem to put your finger on it.
You’re out with your besties and having a good time, it almost feels like you haven’t done this in a while, then it hits you… you haven’t had an adult beverage in over a month. But what to do, what to do? You don’t want to ruin all the hard work you’ve put in over the last month or so, your body and mind are feeling better than they ever have, but man it sure would be nice to kick back with some friends and enjoy a drink.
Do you find yourself asking, “is it paleo?” often? Check out our app: Paleo.io – the ultimate “Is It Paleo?” app
Well friends, Ultimate Paleo Guide has got you covered. Introducing the NorCal Margarita.
NorCal Margarita
Made famous by Robb Wolf and popular amongst Crossfitters the NorCal Margarita is a Paleo-ish friendly version of a traditional margarita. Now any alcohol isn’t actaully Paleo, but there are some fundamental rules in the Paleo world.
Sleep Eat right Be active Have fun doing it and enjoy good company
Why is the NorCal Margarita better than a traditional margarita?
Whether you make one at home or order one up at a restaurant or bar a traditional margarita is going to be laden with artificial junk and sugar. Before writing this article I went down to the grocery store and took a quick peek at the ingredients included in a standard margarita mix, here is what I found:
Agave
High fructose corn syrup
Citric acid
Sugar
Corn starch
Sodium benzoate
Sodium citrate
Yellow #5
Blue #1
Natural and artificial flavors
Juice solids
The average margarita will provide you with somewhere around 250-300 calories, over 30 grams of sugar, and more than 33 grams of carbohydrate. Long story short, if you want to save yourself some calories and avoid insulin spiking sugars the NorCal Margarita is the perfect option for you while avoiding all that junk.
NorCal Margarita Recipe (and ingredients)
Print NorCal Margarita Calories 3 kcal Ingredients 2 shots Top shelf tequila (preferably resposado or anejo, see tequila descriptions below), 3 shots if you’re feeling frisky
The juice and pulp of one lime
Club soda to taste Instructions Shake it up Serve on the rocks Nutrition Facts NorCal Margarita Amount Per Serving Calories 3 % Daily Value* Total Fat 0.01g 0% Saturated Fat 0.001g 0% Polyunsaturated Fat 0.002g Monounsaturated Fat 0.001g Sodium 0.3mg 0% Potassium 11mg 0% Total Carbohydrates 1g 0% Dietary Fiber 0.1g 0% Sugars 0.2g Protein 0.04g 0% Vitamin C 5% * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
What you’ve got yourself here is a 130-150 calorie beverage that is low carb (5 grams or less), low sugar (5 grams or less), and not too sweet or sour. All the flavor without all the junk so of course I had to taste test.
But why is this any better?
Traditional margaritas will spike your insulin levels, promote fat storage, and dehydrate the heck out of you. With the NorCal Margarita some of these issues are addressed.
The tequila being used is fermented agave juice, both gluten and starch free
The lime juice blunts the insulin response of alcohol
The carbon dioxide bubbles in the club soda help to deliver the ethanol to your blood stream quicker, thus you drink less with the same effect
Awesome! But what if I’m at a bar?
A lot of the fun in having a drink or two is being social, out and about with your friends, and mixing it up on the dance floor or at a local watering hole. If you find yourself at a bar and want a better alternative to a traditional margarita or any other alcoholic beverage for that matter you can usually ask for a NorCal Margarita and they’ll know how to make one. If they look at you cock-eyed simply ask for a “well tequila drink” which means to use an inexpensive tequila, served with real lime juice (bar lime juice is loaded with sugar), and served with club soda.
If worst comes to worst ask for a club soda with lime in a tall glass and 1-2 shots of tequila on the side. Grab a straw and mix it up yourself.
A few notes on tequila:
By no means am I a tequila connoisseur but there are some important differences in the types of tequila you can use in your NorCal margaritas. You’ll want to stick with resposado or anejo tequilas.
Resposado: “Rested” and aged for a minimum of two months and up to one year. Usually good for sipping, a-la a margarita.
Anejo: “Old” and aged for longer than a year but usually less than three years. The longer it rests the more expensive is usually is.
Joven: Usually blended with aged tequilas and additives, caramel coloring, sugars, or oak extracts. Typically refered to as gold because of the caramel coloring that is added in. Gold tequilas are typically cheaper tequilas because they are not 100% agave.
Blanco: Has a strong taste, usually bottled immediately, and is often called silver tequila.
There you have it. So this weekend whether at home or out and about with some friends be safe and choose a drink that keeps you as close to Paleo as possible.
photo credit: *Fede* via photopin cc
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, 7.8 out of 10 based on 116 ratingsDrugs, Prostitution, and the Spanish GDP–A Love Story
Gotta hand it to the European Union. They’ve always got some new scheme to keep Europe afloat. This week it’s calculating the contribution that sex and drugs have on national GDPs.
Spain, of course, has a lot to gain by bringing their massive underground economy above board. The official economy (as any prostitute, English teacher, or small business owner knows) is nonsense.
Small businesses all around work just like the Popular Party, with the official accounts, which are presented to the Tax Ministry, and then “la contabilidad B” which tells the real story. Large companies have more legal ways of getting around the system, and politicians can create laws to retroactively make whatever they did last year legal.
Omiashi by Border Garaku on Flickr. Creative Commons 2.0 License.
According to my own unofficial estimates, damn near everybody is participating in the underground economy somehow.
But if the National Statistics Institute manages to bring sex and drugs into the above-board economy, it will raise the GDP, thus lowering the debt-to-GDP ratio that Europe has been bitching about for so long. And all that without building a single factory or creating a single new job… Thanks to coke and hookers, things which the Spanish love anyway.
According to this article in the Guardian:
Most estimates put the number of sex workers in Spain at 300,000 – five times as many as are estimated to work in the UK – and, in a 2009 government survey, 39% of Spanish men said they had paid for sex.
That means that perhaps 10 billion euros per year is moved by prostitution, plus another 5 or 6 billion by illegal drugs. In all, we might get a 1-2% bump in the GDP if everything goes well.
So, Spaniards, take heart! Next time you’re getting your knob polished by a local housewife-turned-prostitute, know that you’re doing your patriotic duty–you’re raising Spain out of recession!Last week 20th Century Fox released a ton of upcoming release dates. Among them were X-Men sequels, a Fantastic Four sequel and an 'Untitled Ridley Scott Project' set for 4 March 2016.
As many suspected, the project is Prometheus 2, the sequel to Sir Ridley Scott's Alien prequel.
In 2012 Prometheus was a big box office success but suffered middling to poor reviews thanks in no small part to the revised script of Lost alumni Damon Lindeloff.
His critics (and there are quite a few) will be relieved to know that Lindeloff won't be returning for the sequel. Instead Michael Green has been brought, whose credits include TV series Heroes and monumental blockbuster flop Green Lantern.
Green will work on the script of Jack Paglen, whose most |
games managed to mimic real life with an incredible amount of precision and accuracy completely on accident. The Corrupted Blood pandemic is easily the biggest example of when the virtual world comes surprisingly close to reality.
On September 13, 2005, Blizzard introduced patch 1.7. It included a new level 60, 20 man raid called Zul’Gurub. The final boss of the instance was the giant, winged serpent Hakkar the Soulflayer. Although the current level cap is over 100, achieving level 60 in 2005 was very prestigious. Needless to say, Hakkar was no pushover. During the raid players became infected with the debuff Corrupted Blood. Once infected, Corrupted Blood dealt anywhere between 875 to 1125 damage. It would then take another 200 hit points every two seconds for a total of ten seconds. Corrupted Blood could jump from avatar to avatar and hunters could pass the disease to their pets. For level 60 players, this was more of a nuisance than any real threat.
Corrupted Blood should have stayed within Hakkar’s domain. However, if an infected pet was dismissed before it was cured or died, it was put into stasis with the debuff still in place. Players would then transport to a nearby city and summon their pet again. From there, the virus spread like wildfire because Corrupted Blood had an extremely high transmission rate. Populated cities and transportation hubs were quickly overrun with the plague. Lower level characters died and skeletons littered the streets. Areas with high populations like cities, banks, auction houses, and farming locations became hot spots for the virus.
Players quickly started fleeing to remote areas. Except they only succeeded in spreading the virus even further. Blizzard attempted to create a quarantine zone to try and stop the virus from spreading to uninfected areas. However, they could not erect a complete barrier. Players who were suspicious of the quarantine refused to remain within the infected zones. It didn’t take long for Corrupted Blood to reach pandemic proportions. Four of the eleven servers were infected by the end of the first day.
A few players tried to help by healing and resurrecting infected avatars. Ironically, their interference only helped to increase the spread of the disease. Other players intentionally returned to Zul’Gurub to infect their characters and carry Corrupted Blood even further. It wasn’t unheard of for players with infected avatars to simply give up and try to take down as many poor suckers with them as they could.
The interesting thing about the Corrupted Blood pandemic was that players were emotionally attached to their avatars. They had spent a lot of time, effort, and money on their characters. So when the plague hit, players reacted similarly to victims of an actual viral outbreak. To top it off, in World of Warcraft the playerbase spanned a wide range of demographics and came from all walks of life. The Corrupted Blood incident quickly caught the eyes of epidemiologists who studied and published scientific papers on the subject. Ran Balicer compared it to the avian flu. Corrupted Blood also had parallels to the cholera, Spanish flu, and bubonic plague epidemics.
In World of Warcraft, players can instantly teleport from one location to another (often to large cities). This transportation ability helped to simulate a disease’s ability to travel long distances. The lower level players were very similar to vulnerable populations (i.e young children, the elderly, and the immunocompromised). A few players acted similarly to first responders and tried to help by healing or resurrecting infected avatars.
These virtual first responders, much like our first responders in real life, became infected with the virus. Normally, a virus that spreads that quickly and kills that fast would burn itself out because it rapidly runs out of hosts to infect. Instead, because there was no way to become immune to Corrupted Blood, the newly resurrected and healed characters would just fall ill again. Thus, the virus always had someplace to go. Other players intentionally returned to Zul’Gurub to infect their characters and carry Corrupted Blood even further. These destructive jerks, while obnoxious, actually helped to simulate those who continue to go to work or school despite an illness.
The high level NPCs stationed around the cities also assisted in spreading the disease. They became infected with Corrupted Blood and acted similar to asymptomatic carriers of a disease. Asymptomatic (without symptoms) individuals are unaware that they are ill and can easily transmit the disease to other people. Since the NPCs did not react to Corrupted Blood, it was impossible to tell which ones were carriers. Additionally, pets acted as another reservoir for the disease, making it that much harder to stop. Eventually, Blizzard had to perform a hard reset on the four infected servers to stop the spread of Corrupted Blood.
The reason why scientists were so interested in the Corrupted Blood pandemic was because of the wide demographic and the way players reacted. Human behavior, by its very nature, is impossible to predict. People don’t always react rationally and they will often make poor decisions in tense situations. Models just cannot predict the irrational and downright dumb decisions people can make. People can be too curious for their own good (i.e. journalists, researchers, and idiots). In the case of viral outbreaks, they’ll get closer than they should and wind up contracting the disease themselves. It happened during the Corrupted Blood incident and actually occurs during real epidemics.
Unfortunately, even World of Warcraft’s Corrupted Blood incident wasn’t a perfect model. The intentionally destructive behaviors of some players combined with Corrupted Blood’s high infection rate and game mechanics prevented it from being a perfect parallel. That and, you can’t just reset the planet every time there is an ebola outbreak. However, it does show that video games can become a tool to model epidemics and pandemics.
One of the biggest problems with epidemiology is that you can’t do experiments. Scientists are able perform observational and retrospective studies. However, you can’t really run around infecting entire regions with the bubonic plague just to see how people will react. In addition to that, models just are not accurate enough. Thankfully, the Corrupted Blood incident demonstrated that MMOs are a viable tool for research and experimentation. The only moral barrier to killing millions of virtual avatars is that a player’s consent in needed in order to use their data for science.
Thankfully, it wasn’t just science that has profited from Corrupted Blood. Blizzard used the incident as inspiration for the Scourge Plague/Zombie infestation during Wrath of the Lich King in 2008. In 2012 Bioware implemented the Rakghoul plague in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Not only did this plague mimic the Corrupted Blood incident (although this time it was on purpose), but the virtual virus did a better job at simulating a real disease.We eliminated measles in the U.S. in 2000. Somebody should tell the measles. Because even though the virus has no permanent home stateside, it keeps getting in—more and more, it seems.
If you were born in the U.S. after about 1968, you’ve lived your entire life with virtually no interaction with the measles. Consider yourself lucky. The virus causes fevers over 104°F, inflamed eyes, a cough, plus a rash that begins as tiny white spots and becomes an itchy red mass spreading outward from the head to cover your entire body. And that’s just your basic measles encounter. About 30 percent of measles patients get extra complications, including diarrhea, pneumonia, brain inflammation, and permanent blindness. In healthy areas, few people died of the disease—only about 0.3 percent—but in impoverished or malnourished populations that figure jumps up to around 30 percent.
Before the measles vaccine, 3 to 4 million people got the disease every year and basically everyone had gotten it by age 15. That might sound like pretty good news. If everyone gets it as a kid, surely it’s like chicken pox—you get it, then you’re over it. In some ways, that’s right. But it also means that the potentially permanent complications (and the fatalities) disproportionately affect little kids.
We’ve kind of forgotten what it’s like to live in a world where young children regularly get serious diseases. It’s difficult to notice an absence of deaths, so here’s some perspective: from 2000-2012, the measles vaccine saved about 13.8 million lives. If we continue the way we’re going, though, we might get a different perspective. From 1989-1991, measles saw a huge comeback because people weren’t getting vaccinated enough—and we may not be too far from that happening all over again. Here’s why:
The U.S. isn’t isolated
With fewer people vaccinating their children, we’re losing the herd immunity that has protected most of the U.S. for decades, and though the measles virus isn’t endemic to the states anymore, it’s not like we’re cut off from the world. In the last decade, almost all measles cases in the U.S. could be traced to someone who was infected abroad. And many of the subsequent outbreaks were boosted by populations who had refused to get vaccinated, like Amish communities or other groups who objected on religious grounds. In a study of 970 measles cases, epidemiologists found that 60 percent of the patients hadn’t gotten the vaccine even though they were eligible to get it. Of those, 70 percent had non-medical reasons for exemption.
The real problem is that their decision to not get vaccinated doesn’t only affect them. And that’s because...
Measles is super contagious
Like, actually one of the most contagious diseases out there—it’s on the Centers for Disease Control’s list of contagious diseases alongside cholera and tuberculosis. For every 10 people exposed to an infected measles patient, nine will get measles themselves. Think about that for a second. If you worked in an office of 21 people and one person came in with the measles for one day (which is pretty easy—you’re contagious before you’re symptomatic), only two employees would stay healthy. Everyone else would be home sick or hospitalized for at least a week.
That’s why the vaccine was such a big deal. Measles spreads through the air and it’s easy to get infected. Though that’s not to say the vaccine is foolproof...
Vaccines aren’t 100% effective—and that’s exactly why you should get them
You probably assume that if you got the measles shot as a kid (it’s now combined with mumps, rubella, and sometimes varicella to make the MMR or MMRV vaccine), you’re immune to measles. Period. Surprise! You might not be. The measles vaccine is pretty amazing—with the recommended two doses, it prevents 97 percent of cases, and with just one dose it still covers you 93 percent of the time. But it’s also possible to lose your immunity over time, or for the vaccine to have simply not given you a strong enough protection in the first place. In that study of 970 measles cases, 40 percent were in people who had gotten the shot. Getting a vaccine doesn’t always mean you’re immune, so if you’re at all anxious talk to your doctor about getting a test called a titer, where they check your blood for antibodies against the measles vaccine to make sure it worked. And really, you should get the titer no matter what, because you never know.
The key thing is a vaccine's imperfection isn’t a reason not to get it. You hear this argument less with measles and more with the flu—if I can’t be sure it will work, why would I even bother getting it? Because the flu, like the measles, is awful. You really don’t want to get either disease, and it's worth it to cut your risk down significantly. But more importantly, you’re not really getting vaccinated for you. You’re getting vaccinated for the good of the many.
Herd immunity is a term that gets tossed around a lot when we talk about vaccines. And there’s good reason, especially when it comes to measles. The more contagious a disease is, the more people you need to vaccinate in order to prevent outbreaks. And for measles, your coverage needs to be about 95 percent, especially for those groups like young children, immunocompromised people, and the elderly. Do you want to guess how many states have enough coverage in school-aged kids? It’s 22. How about the number of states with enough coverage in kids under age three? Just nine.
The rates are higher for adults right now, but if kids aren’t getting vaccinated young it’s likely that future adult populations won’t be so resistant to measles. And in the meantime, we’re exposing people who actually can’t get the vaccine to a potentially deadly virus. Kids and adults who are immunocompromised aren’t allowed to get vaccinated, and those people are also the most susceptible to contracting a deadly case of measles. So if you don’t want to get the vaccine for you, do it for your frail grandfather or your infant niece. Heck, do it for that kid sitting next you on the train who could up and die from a disease that might not even phase you. Yes, the vaccine might not work—but uncertain immunity is way better than certain susceptibility. So follow Nike’s advice: just do it.Wilburn Anthony “Squidly” Cole is on the move once again. Who is Squidly Cole, you say – this singing drummer? Squidly Cole is a drummer, songwriter, producer and yes, singer. Cole is not just any drummer, but the drummer who recorded the demo for Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers’ Grammy Award-winning Conscious Party and laid down the wickedest reggae riddims of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s on ZM&MM’s classic, Grammy Award-winning albums Conscious Party and One Bright Day.
Squidly Cole, along with bassist Chris Meredith, was the backbone of the Grammy Award-winning Melody Makers – Conscious Party, Jahmekya, Joy and Blues, Free Like We Want 2 Be – there’s Squidly Cole “Beating Up Di Drum Again.” The list goes on to include most of ZM&MM albums plus Stephen Marley’s Grammy Award-nominated Mind Control and Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley’s Welcome to Jamrock. In fact, he has been the go-to drummer for the Marley family for more than 20 years. A member of the Stephen Marley Band, Squidly traveled the world in 2007 in support of Stephen’s debut album Mind Control, and returned just yesterday from a tour in support of Stephen’s Revelation Pt. 1: The Root of Life. He has played among many of the greatest Jamaican musicians including Mykal Rose, the Marley Brothers, Jimmy Cliff, Mikey General, Luciano, The Itals, Rita Marley, Gyptian, Capleton, Sizzla, Chuck Fenda, Etana, Buju Banton, Don Carlos, Dennis Brown, and Junior Reid just to name a few. Add to that list Alborosie, Bobby Digital, Mad Lion, KRS One, Sugar Minott, Anthony Cruz, Richie Spice, Terry Linen, Lady Saw, King Jammy’s, and Jon Jon Productions and you’ve got a virtual who’s who of popular reggae, dancehall, and hip-hop artists. Cole has crossed genres to support R&B and hip-hop musicians including Lauryn Hill, Amy Winehouse, Joss Stone, Bobby Digital, Trina Broussard, and many more. He currently runs his own recording studio, 100 Studio, which features the best blend of roots reggae culture and dancehall music from both seasoned musicians and the best of Jamaica’s up and coming talent.
Squidly made his debut in 1980 at the age of 13 playing drums on ”Black Black Roses” with Barrington Levy for Channel One Studio. At the age of 14, Squidly auditioned for legendary reggae artist and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Jimmy Cliff, resulting in a world tour to Europe and Africa. After touring for several years with Mykal Rose, formerly of Black Uhuru, and Dub Poet Mutabaruka, Squidly joined Ziggy Marley’s backing band in 1988, the Grammy Award-winning Melody Makers consisting of several of Jamaica’s most gifted musicians including, Sticky Thompson, Franklyn “Bubbler” Waul, Earl “Chinna” Smith, and Christopher Meredith. The run he made with ZM&MM spanned nearly 20 years and is marked by legendary performances all over the world along with several Grammy Award-winning albums.
In 1992, Cole produced Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley’s smash hit “Me Name Junior Gong” on Damian’s debut album Mr. Marley. He also recorded “Arm Your Soul” and “Lion In The Morning” on Julian Marley’s debut album Lion In The Morning. In 1998, he and Christopher Meredith co-produced Lauryn Hill’s retelling of the Bob Marley and the Wailers’ classic love song “Turn Your Lights Down Low” for Chant Down Babylon, an album in which famous Bob Marley songs were remixed with contemporary artists. The album was a smash hit, achieving platinum sales and the track “Turn Your Lights Down Low” was released as the single and music video for the album. Squidly’s work with Lauryn Hill on Chant Down Babylon led him to record Hill’s debut The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, an album that garnered ten Grammy nominations at the 41st Grammy Awards, winning five, making Hill the first female recording artist to receive that number of nominations, as well as awards in one night.
In 2001, Squidly teamed up with the Marley brothers once again to record Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley’s Halfway Tree. The album was released on September 11, 2001 and received the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album. It was co-produced by Damian Marley and his brother Stephen Marley. He also appeared on Sizzla’s Da Real Thing in 2002. He beat up de drum again in 2007 ‘pon Kymani Marley’s surprise hit “Hustler” off of the album Radio. In 2010, Squidly appeared on Buju Banton’s Grammy Award-winning album Before The Dawn.
Squidly Cole’s Other credits include played drums on Barrington Levy’s smash hit “Black Roses” at just 13 years of age; played drums on Amy Winehouse’s debut studio album ‘Frank. Since its original release in the United Kingdom, “Frank’ has been reissued in Canada, the United States and Australia and was certified triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry, denoting shipments in excess of 900,000 copies in the UK; appears on Grammy award-winning albums by Buju Banton, Sizzla, Capleton, Luciano, Bobby Digital, Damian Marley, Ziggy Marley & the Melody Makers, Stephen Marley, and Lauren Hill. He also played drums on albums by roots reggae legends Yami Bolo, Junior Delgado, Mutabaruka, and Augustus Pablo. In addition to his work as a musician, Cole is a multi-talented artist who has also appeared in the films Mighty Quinn with Denzel Washington and Club Paradise with Jimmy Cliff.
On the ‘Bloodline’ tour of 2011, Cole played to enthusiastic crowds in Berkley, CA, Santa Rosa, CA, Oakland, CA, San Juan, CA Salinas, CA, Willits, CA and Sonoma, CA. He also played shows in Seattle, Providence, RI, Tampa, FL, and Denver, CO and has appeared on-stage with SOJA and Whiskey Avengers.
Squidly Cole is currently the drummer for the Stephen Marley Band and also plays drums on all Marley family projects. He will follow his two previous solo efforts, Babylon Days (2008) and Blood Line (2010), with ‘Known Betrayers,’ which is set for a 2013 release.
Bookings: Please contact 100studios@gmail or Squidlycole@gmail
www.squidlycole.net
www.100studio.com
Squidly Cole on FacebookThe Public Welfare Foundation released a poll this week on Americans’ attitudes on paid sick days and other workplace regulations. In the poll was something interesting as we consider the need to protect cleanup workers hired by BP to clean up the oil disaster in the Gulf. (We just launched a petition for BP to pay for respirators and training for any worker who wants one.)
The poll showed that when asked which government workplace regulations were “very important,” a full 85% said that “workplace safety” was very important. The right to join a union came in last, at 43%, shockingly not too far behind maximum hour limits at 46%.
The government sets various standards to protect workers’ rights. How important do you consider the following measures. Would you say they are very important, somewhat important, somewhat unimportant, or very unimportant for workers? % Very Important Workplace safety regulations 85 Family and maternity leave 78 Minimum wage 70 Paid sick days 69 Time and a half pay for overtime work 69 Maximum hour limits 46 Right to join an union 43
It’s great to see that so many people think it’s important to protect people at work. Unfortunately, the budget doesn’t reflect this priority: OSHA’s budget for FY 2010 is only $563 million, with 35 staff. For protecting the workplaces across America, that isn’t too much. Here’s the full survey results.Ever the historian, Tennessee state Sen. Stacey Campfield dished on a variety of topics with Sirius XM radio host Michelangelo Signorile today, and in the process revealed his belief that AIDS happened because a gay airline pilot had sex with a (gay?) monkey:
Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community — it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall. My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex...very rarely [transmitted]. What's the average lifespan of a homosexual? it's very short. Google it yourself."
If your brain is reeling from that statement, that's because Campfield's words are such pure-grade bullshit that their gravity becomes infinitely dense, warping space-time to plunge readers 30 years into the past to an era where the lack of information on AIDS fueled a panic that is, unfortunately, alive and well in the state's 7th District Senate office.
Pith has called Campfield's office to see if he has joined the rest of the world in the 21st century in the time since his remarks were made, but we have yet to hear back.
Click here to listen to the entire interview.Police sift through new evidence of alleged sex abuse by Catholic priests
Police investigators are sifting through new evidence coming from people who say they were sexually abused by Catholic priests.
St. Paul Police spokesman Howie Padilla said since the department issued a call for victims to come forward four weeks ago, several people have responded.
"Some folks have courageously, bravely come forward to tell their stories," Padilla said. "We're looking into those."
• Full investigation: Archdiocese under scrutiny
• What happens next?
• Abusive priest hid in plain sight for years, retired quietly to New Prague
Police urged the public to contact investigators after they re-opened their investigation into the Rev. Jonathan Shelley and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The call for help came after MPR News reported that the archdiocese discovered pornography on Shelley's computer in 2004 -- images that the archdiocese's internal investigation concluded were "borderline illegal."
Police wouldn't say how many people came forward to report abuse.
But Padilla said the victim accounts are providing new evidence for investigators.
"This investigation is complex, it's in depth, and we are going to be thorough with it," he said. "Being thorough is going to have us follow the path this investigation takes us."
Padilla said police have not made any arrests and have not presented a case to the Ramsey County Attorney.Buy Photo Lights on a police squad car. (Photo: Matt Kryger / The Star)Buy Photo
Police are investigating after a woman was shot Thursday night on the Northside, just south of Butler University's campus.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers were dispatched about 10:39 p.m. to the 4200 block of Rookwood Avenue on a report of shots fired. Police said callers heard screaming in the street and dialed 911.
When officers arrived at the location, they received updated information that a person had been shot in the area. Police located a woman suffering from at least one gunshot wound.
IMPD Capt. Jerry Leary said the black Ford Taurus the woman was driving was struck by gunfire somewhere on 43rd Street, between Sunset and Rookwood. The bullets penetrated the car and the woman was shot twice.
Emergency medical personnel transported the woman to Eskenazi Hospital where Leary said she was stable and talking to doctors. Aggravated assault detectives were requested to the scene to investigate.
Just before the Rookwood incident, another shooting was reported in Speedway, around 10:34 p.m. Dispatchers could not confirm the victim's condition in that shooting, but police radio traffic indicated the person was shot in the side.
Call Star reporter Michael Anthony Adams at (317) 444-6123. Follow him on Twitter: @MichaelAdams317.
Read or Share this story: http://indy.st/1F0eCqDView Caption Hide Caption Tyler Johnson will still get his chance to earn a role in the Miami Heat's rotation. (Getty Images)
Heat guard Tyler Johnson is recovering nicely from one of the most bizarre injuries of the year.
Johnson broke his jaw in the Orlando summer league two weeks ago, a major derailment to an important offseason for him. He is one of several players without a guaranteed contract fighting to make the 2015-16 roster.
[2nd-round pick Josh Richardson making roster decisions tough for Miami Heat] [Update on Miami Heat’s Chris Bosh coming back from blood clots in lungs] [Miami Heat cannot trade Chris Andersen, Mario Chalmers to Cavaliers]
The good news for Johnson is that he should be back for the start of training camp in September, according to assistant coach Dan Craig.
“From what I’ve heard from the trainers, he’s doing really well,” Craig said. “He’s back in good spirits. Pain-wise, it’s nothing over the top. He was actually eating some solid foods. Back in the old days you’d have your jaw wired shut in his case, but they have a procedure where they don’t need to do that with him.”
As a rookie, Johnson averaged 5.9 points and 18.8 minutes in 32 games after the team called him up from the D-League in January. He shot 41.9 percent, including 37.5 percent from 3.
He went into this offseason with the potential to earn the back-up point guard spot as well as taking some minutes at shooting guard. As of now, the Heat plan to have at least seven guards in training camp.French riot police are out in force following Emmanuel Macron's victory in the presidential elections.
Images on social media show a heavy security presence Paris, Lyon, and Nantes among others in anticipation of any clashes.
The worst reported disturbances were in Paris although no serious incidents have been confirmed. Videos have surfaced of police firing gas canisters and a water cannon was deployed but not used.
The tactics appeared to be used to disperse protesters before any serious violence could erupt.
Hundreds of balaclava-clad and hooded protesters could be seen dispersing as riot police advanced. They are believed to be from anti-fascist and anti-capitalist groups, who would have been likely to protest against the election result regardless of the winner.
Macron, a former private banker, is seen as a staunch neoliberal whose politics are seen as being unlikely to help the poor.
He beat far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the second round of voting although the turnout, at 74%, was the lowest in France for almost 50 years.
Many of those disaffected voters are believed to have taken their frustration on to the streets, with Paris' Ménilmontant neighbourhood experiencing the most volatile demonstrations.
Piers Scholfield, of the BBC, was in the neighbourhood at the time when riot police descended.
"Four to five hundred people started walking from Ménilmontant metro station shouting anti-capitalist and anti-fascist chants," he said.
"Soon after turning into side streets we heard a couple of big bangs – presumably from the protesters. They were quickly met by police, who fired teargas.
"Following a few minutes of general confusion and copious teargas, the police blocked all exit routes to the area.
"At time of writing the situation is calm; there are perhaps 200 protesters blocked into small side streets, surrounded by hundreds of riot police. The area is filled with security forces – we believe arrests are taking place. I'm not aware of any injuries."Murder accused MLA Amanmani Tripathi shared stage with Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and sought blessings by touching his feet at an event in Gorakhpur on Saturday.
Tripathi (35), an independent MLA from Nautanwa assembly constituency in neighbouring Maharajganj district, is facing charges of murdering his wife Sara.
The MLA handed over a few papers to Adityanath during his brief interaction.
Senior BJP MLA from Campiyarganj Fateh Bahadur Singh, who was overseeing preparations of the programme, said he came to know later that Tripathi had touched the feet of the chief minister.
Even BJP party workers were surprised to see the MLA sharing stage with Adityanath, who has repeatedly said that law and order is his top priority.
BJP’s Gorakhpur unit spokesperson Satyendra Sinha, however, said, “Any public representative can greet the chief minister and touch his feet. There is nothing wrong with it.”
Amanmani’s father Amarmani Tripathi has been elected as an MLA from Nautanwa four times and was a minister in the SP government headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav. He is currently serving a life sentence in the Madhumita Shukla murder case.
First Published: Apr 30, 2017 16:44 ISTSixty-five percent of girls in Bangladesh are being married off in their childhood, trapping them in a ‘vicious cycle of poverty and ill health’, experts at a roundtable said, calling for action to break the cycle.
Married off before 18, the minimum age set for marriage by the country's law, one out of three child-wives become pregnant, contributing to the high maternal mortality rate, a study has found.
It is mainly worries of security and dowry that drive parents to marry off their daughters early, researchers said at a roundtable arranged by NGO Brac and the English daily The Independent.
They said education and employment could make a big difference.“Employment alone would not be enough. They have to feel that they have a future career in the job they do, so that they continue (with the work),” Brac’s Director Kaosar Afsana said.She suggested a ‘multi-sectoral’ approach to break the vicious cycle of child marriage, poverty and ill health.Findings presented at meet showed that adolescent girls had poor knowledge of reproductive health.They were further handicapped by traditional beliefs and practices dominating whatever little knowledge they had.“They can’t talk freely,” a gynecologist Prof Samina Chowdhury said citing her personal experiences.“In the school health programmes when we go students told us madam please tell our teachers go out then we will talk.“After that they talk openly. And only then we learn that they basically have no knowledge about their adolescence”.She also identified security as an issue. “Mostly poor parents think girls born as a burden. One parent abandoned their third child in the hospital because it was a girl child”.An ICDDR,B scientist Dr Kamrun Nahar said even educated families married off their girls early “if they find a suitable bridegroom”.“It’s all about security. They feel insecure as the girl grows”.Actor Mamunur Rashid, however, said the fear was growing with the rise of radical Hifazat-e Islam Chief comparing women with ‘tamarind’, which usually causes drooling when people see it, and telling women not to come out of home.“Child marriage is not only a social issue, it’s a very much a political issue to prevent,” he said, adding that politicians must have clear vision about “how they want to see our mothers”.One of the biggest positive steps for marijuana reform in Texas in 2017 happened here in Dallas. On Dec. 1, the city began issuing citations, rather than making arrests, for possession of less than 4 ounces of marijuana. Those busted are still subject to the same penalties as they were before Dec. 1, but Dallas' small step forward came after years of false starts and hard work. In other Dallas County cities, those arrested for pot possession alone will be released on personal recognizance bonds once they are processed, rather than being required to pay bail.
At the state level, the Texas Legislature has taken a similar path, inching toward reform in the 2015 and 2017 legislative sessions and creating optimism among marijuana reform advocates about what's possible during the next session of the legislature in 2019.
For the first time in 2017, a bill that would've decriminalized possessing 1 ounce or less of marijuana made it on the Texas House's voting schedule before being derailed by a procedural maneuver by the ultraconservative Texas Freedom Caucus to stall dozens of bills at the deadline. Despite the lack of a vote, it's clear that the Legislature is becoming more open to reforming marijuana law. The proposed law, House Bill 81, picked up 41 co-sponsors, including Republicans and Democrats, on its way through the committee process.Image copyright (C) British Broadcasting Corporation
Since the last round of UN sanctions in 2013, North Korea has unleashed a series of threats against the US and South Korea. The BBC examines how much of a threat North Korea really poses.
North Korea's threats
North Korea has frequently employed bellicose rhetoric towards its perceived enemies.
In 1994 South Koreans stocked up on essentials in panic after a threat by a North Korean negotiator to turn Seoul into "a sea of fire" - one which has been repeated several times since.
After US President George W Bush labelled it part of the "axis of evil" in 2002, Pyongyang said it would "mercilessly wipe out the aggressors".
In June 2012 the army warned that artillery was aimed at seven South Korean media groups and threatened a "merciless sacred war".
There is also a pattern of escalating threats whenever South Korea gets a new leader, with misogynist rhetoric directed at South Korea's first female President Park Geun-hye after she was elected in 2013.
While many observers dismiss the rhetoric as bluster, others warn of "the tyranny of low expectations" when it comes to understanding North Korea, because there have been a number of serious regional confrontations.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption North Korea expert Aidan Foster-Carter says the rhetoric from the North is all too familiar.
"If you follow North Korean media you constantly see bellicose language directed against the US and South Korea and occasionally Japan is thrown in there, and it's hard to know what to take seriously. But then when you look at occasions where something really did happen, such as the artillery attack on a South Korean island in 2010, you see there were very clear warnings," Professor John Delury at South Korea's Yonsei university told the BBC.
The North consistently warned that military exercises being conducted in the area would spark a retaliation.
Mr Delury argues that misreading Pyongyang's intentions and misunderstanding its capabilities has kept the US and South Korea stuck in a North Korean quagmire.
Picking apart the bluster
In recent years, the North has warned of a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the US in response to the prospect of joint military exercises between South Korea and the US.
"Any time a nation threatens pre-emptive nuclear war, there is cause for concern. North Korea is no exception, with its... shift in rhetoric from accusing the US of imagining a North Korean ballistic missile threat, to vowing to use its ballistic missile capabilities to strike the continental US," says Andrea Berger, from the Royal United Services Institute in London.
Image copyright AP Image caption Former leader Kim Jong-il in friendlier times between the US and North Korea
But many experts believe these threats come from the North's desire for a peace treaty with the US.
"It seems to believe that it will not be taken seriously until it can enter talks on this issue with sizeable military strength. This is in line with Pyongyang's historic military-first policy," Ms Berger says.
The US is often centre-stage. "There are cases where the threats are geared towards getting on the radar particularly of the White House, which tries to ignore North Korea as a matter of policy. Pyongyang's message is - you cannot break us, we will not go away, you have to deal with us," Mr Delury said.
While some worry that the North may provoke a conventional forces border clash with South Korea, threats to launch a nuclear strike are often seen as a bluff because it is thought that a nuclear attack would be suicidal for the regime.
Reactor restart
Image copyright Science Photo Library Image caption The reactor provided plutonium for Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme
But worries that it may be serious will have been boosted by the news that North Korea says it has restarted its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon.
The facility is at the centre of its nuclear weapons programme and is thought to be the country's main source of weapons-grade plutonium.
North Korea suspended activity at the reactor in 2007 under an aid-for-disarmament deal, but began renovating it after its last nuclear test in 2013.
Analysts suggest it is capable of producing around six kilograms of plutonium a year - enough for one nuclear bomb.
In a statement carried by North Korea's official KCNA news agency on 15 September 2015, the director of the country's atomic energy institute said that it was working to improve its nuclear weapons in quality and quantity.
It said North Korea was ready to respond to what it called US hostility with nuclear weapons. The announcement is likely to raise tensions significantly.
The announcement comes a day after the country said it would proceed with more rocket launches, promising to launch "satellites'' aboard long-range rockets.
It put its first satellite into space with a long-range rocket in late 2012, in what the UN said was a banned test of ballistic missile technology and imposed sanctions.
The US is concerned that such long-range rockets could eventually threaten its mainland with atomic bombs.
Is the US a real target?
South Korean tests carried out on fragments |
’t necessary for New Jersey to meet its energy needs, even during peak demand, as the company admits in legal documents. Instead, the companies behind the pipeline stand to profit from building it, whether it’s needed or not.
Tom Gilbert is the campaign director for energy, climate and natural resources at the New Jersey Conservation Foundation and ReThink Energy NJ, which have been fighting to preserve farmland on their side of the Delaware River for three decades.
“There’s a lot of compelling evidence from credible sources that there’s no need for it,” Gilbert said. “It’s one thing to have all these impacts if the project is truly in the public’s interests and there’s some legitimate public need for the gas. But several experts have concluded that’s just not the case on this project”
“This isn’t a hospital or a needed highway,” Evans said. “It’s unbelievable.”
The New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel (NJDRC), the independent consumer utility watchdog, conducted an analysis that found no need for the project and concluded it would be unfair to ratepayers. NJDRC reports that New Jersey gets more than 100 percent of the gas it needs from existing pipelines.
“This is not something that New Jersey Rates Counsel has ever said before about any other pipeline — and there are numerous proposals in the state — so it’s a pretty damning position that this agency took in terms of what’s really driving this project,” Gilbert said.
According to the NJDRC report, the return on investment the companies would receive would be “like winning the lottery for the company.”
Energy companies stand to profit from owning the pipeline rather than relying on the legacy pipelines from which they already get their gas. The companies involved in PennEast — New Jersey Resources, South Jersey Industries, Southern Company Gas, Spectra Energy Partners and the UGI Corporation — would be both owners and customers of the pipeline, meaning they would essentially be selling to themselves.
The shoreline in the borough of Riegelsville in Bucks County, Pa., is where the pipeline would cross over the Delaware River to New Jersey. (Photo courtesy of Mike Spille) MoreArkansas” unemployment rate continued to move in a downward trajectory, but so did the state”s civilian labor force.
The state”s jobless rate in July fell one-tenth of a point to 6.2% from the previous month, which was revised upwards from 6.2% to 6.3%. July”s unemployment rate was a full point-and-a-half below one year ago when unemployment stood at 7.7%.
The U.S. jobless rate was also 6.2% up one-tenth of a percent from the previous month.
While the reduction in the jobless figure is positive, the overall number of working Arkansans continues to slide.
In July, the number of employed Arkansans stood at 1,217,200 workers — down 7,200 from the previous month and 6,000 from one year ago. The number of unemployed stood at 81,000 — a decline of 700 from the previous month and 20,800 fewer than July 2013.
Kathy Deck, director for the UA Walton College Center for Business and Economic Research, said that while the falling unemployment rate will online casino garner headlines, the declining labor force should be of top concern.
“I also believe that the shrinking labor force is the primary story of what is happening in Arkansas,” Deck said.
She noted that on a seasonally adjusted basis, there are 69,228 fewer people either working or looking for work than there were in June 2008 (the labor force peak). There are 82,538 fewer jobs than at the peak (March 2008 using the household survey).
“What”s more is that that Arkansas labor force has been shrinking, while the U.S. labor force has been growing slightly,” Deck added. “And, finally, an interesting component is that the labor force is shrinking in every single metro area of the state, not just the rural areas.”
In the separate monthly survey of employers, nine sectors showed gains and two showed declines.
Mining/Logging 300
Construction 2,300
Manufacturing 2,300
Trade/Transportation 1,500
Information -500
Financial 600
Professional/Business 2,400
Education/Health 4,200
Hospitality 3,300
Other 800
Government -200
You can access the full report from the Department of Workforce Services here.
Comments
commentsPublished online 21 July 2010 | Nature 466, 422 (2010) | doi:10.1038/466422a
News
Congressional watchdog unearths shortcomings at agency in charge of repatriating ancient tribal remains.
Scientists and Native American tribes have clashed over the fate of skeletons. K. FLEMING/CORBIS
To scientists, ancient human bones and artefacts from Native American burial sites can offer a unique window onto history. But to some modern Native American tribes, allowing researchers to study these remains amounts to desecration. Long-standing tensions between the two groups were meant to be eased by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990, which allows tribes to reclaim many remains held in museum collections.
But the first official audit of the government agency that administers NAGPRA portrays a troubled organization that has failed to serve tribes well, and does not always give a fair hearing to scientists' claims. The final report, from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), is expected by autumn, but Nature has obtained a draft that is currently under review. Both the GAO and the NAGPRA office in Washington DC declined to comment on the draft.
The act created a system in which museums, universities or federal agencies that hold ancient skeletal remains and associated funerary objects had to file inventories of such items by 1995 with the NAGPRA office, part of the US Department of the Interior. Any tribe could reclaim items that were shown to be culturally affiliated with it, while the remainder could be kept by institutions for further study. The GAO report says that under the NAGPRA, 142,186 specimens have been repatriated from 209,626 publicly disclosed items. These constitute 55% of the human remains and 69% of the associated funerary objects that were inventoried.
But determinations of cultural affiliation often prove to be ambiguous and contentious, as in the Kennewick man dispute, in which the US courts ruled in 2004 that scientists could retain a 9,000-year-old skeleton from Washington state. In May this year, tensions ratcheted up when the Department of the Interior unveiled a federal rule that could allow tribes to claim thousands more artefacts — with no cultural connection — if they had been found near tribal lands (see Nature 464, 662; 2010). Some scientists are already considering legal challenges to prevent these repatriations.
Yet as NAGPRA administrators struggle to manage these disputes, the GAO report finds that the NAGPRA office — which has an annual budget of US$1 million — is beset by problems including inadequate resources and poor record-keeping. These can delay repatriations and make it harder to reach decisions on contentious cases. "We have heard for years the NAGPRA office statistics were often wrong, but it is like pulling teeth to get them corrected," says Vincas Steponaitis, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who in 2004–08 served on the NAGPRA review committee that oversees repatriations and adjudicates on ownership disputes.
The report also suggests that the NAGPRA office has manipulated the make-up of the seven-person committee, weakening scientists' voices in its decisions. The committee comprises three tribal members, three representatives of scientific organizations and an independent member agreed on by the others. Nominations for candidates are sent to the NAGPRA office, which makes a recommendation to the secretary of the interior department.
“The GAO findings are examples of everything I've heard about for a decade.”
But the GAO audit says that the NAGPRA office inadequately screened these nominees, and passed over nominations for scientific representatives in favour of its own candidates. It also says that the office used "questionable efforts to recruit members" of its own liking, including selecting a candidate six months after the nomination deadline and resurrecting a seven-year-old nomination to fill one of the science seats. "It was clear NAGPRA staff wanted to prevent strong advocates for science as professional organization representatives," says archaeologist Lynne Goldstein, of Michigan State University in East Lansing, who helped create the act.
The report notes that NAGPRA officials defended such practices, saying that one official "believed that the Review Committee had become too weighted toward the interests of the museum and scientific communities." The NAGPRA office did not respond to questions from Nature on the matter.
'Crazy and wrong'
The audit also assessed how well eight federal agencies complied with the act. It found that three — the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Forest Service and the US National Park Service — were highly compliant. But there was less confidence in the remaining agencies, including the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates hydroelectric power plants built in the 1930s, when about 8,400 ancient remains were unearthed.
The report says that the authority failed to publish notices to alert tribes to 337 "culturally affiliated human remains" that could have been repatriated. But the authority denies the charge, and has provided Nature with documents indicating that cultural affiliation was not confirmed, and that notices were sent to five tribes, who did not respond.
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A table in the report states that the Fish and Wildlife Service did not notify tribes about 100 culturally affiliated skeletons that were uncovered in Louisiana in the 1930s when the Natchitoches National Fish Hatchery was built. But wildlife-service researchers and tribe representatives say that these skeletons were not removed from the site. The GAO report's suggestion otherwise is "crazy; it's wrong", says Bobby Gonzalez, NAGPRA officer for the Caddo Nation, now of Binger, Oklahoma. Archaeologists add that such mistakes are indicative of the NAGPRA office's poor record-keeping.
"The GAO findings are examples of everything I've heard about for a decade," says Goldstein. She and others say that they hope the report will lead to a shake-up at the NAGPRA office to ensure that rules on Native American artefacts are followed properly.Manga collector Christopher Handley was sentenced to 6 months in prison last Thursday, after importing lolicon and yaoi manga from Japan that the federal government deemed obscene and prosecuted under the PROTECT Act of 2003, which states that any obscene illustrations, sculptures, computer-generated pictures or other imagery that depicts minors in sexual situations will be treated no differently from actual video recordings of child sexual abuse.
Handley plead guilty to the charges of "possession of obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children" as part of a plea deal with the government; he could have faced as many as 15 years in prison without it.
The most important difference between child pornography and drawings, of course, is that making child porn involves the abuse of real children, while drawings are not people and so creating them involves no abuse. Real people also have actual ages, whereas drawings do not, and thus the difference between an adult and a child -- which is as simple as determining someone's birthday in the real world -- becomes a very subjective matter. The issue is particularly complicated when it comes to manga, where the stylistic conventions of the art result in even adult characters looking significantly "younger," particularly given Japanese restrictions on depicting pubic hair.
Both the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and writer Neil Gaiman have spoken out in support of Handley, with Gaiman saying after the arrest that "they found his manga, and found some objectionable panels... He's been arrested for having some drawings of rude things in manga. I'm sorry, but if you went through my comic collection, you could arrest me if you're going to start doing that. It's just wrong," adding further that "nobody was hurt. The only thing that was hurt were ideas."It's worth noting that the vast majority of Handley's manga collection was not pornography, and while some of his reading choices may make some people uncomfortable, I'm way more uncomfortable with the idea of someone going to prison for looking at pictures of imaginary people drawn on a page -- for the crime of collecting fiction whose pictures and ideas are deemed offensive. As any number of comic book controversies throughout the nation have taught us, there's always going to be someone somewhere who thinks the books and comics you love are obscene, depraved, and should be set on fire.
So be careful, comic book fans -- or fans of any form of art, really. If the government determines that a work in your collection features an imaginary character that they don't think looks 18 in a sexual situation, and decide it "appeals to the prurient interest" and " lacks serious literary value," you too could be facing the same felony charges as someone with a computer full of child porn.NEW YORK, Jan. 20, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- At approximately 11:30 AM local time yesterday in Tehran, an iconic 17-story high-rise known as the Plasco Building tragically collapsed after being on fire for some 3 ½ hours. It is not yet known how many firefighters and civilians were killed, but early reports say that anywhere from 20 to 50 are feared dead.
Based on preliminary analysis of many videos of the collapse, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth)—a nonprofit that represents more than 2,750 architects and engineers who are calling for a new investigation of the 2001 World Trade Center disaster—strongly urges President Rouhani, Iranian authorities, and the people of Iran to thoroughly investigate the possible use of explosives in the Plasco Building's shocking demise, and to act swiftly and decisively to preserve the physical evidence.
Let us be clear: It is impossible to know at this early stage what caused the structure to suddenly come crashing down. But, as with any proper forensic investigation, no plausible scenario should be ruled out—especially when the available data seem to support that scenario.
Here, six separate videos we have compiled show what appear to be—and in some cases sound like—explosions emanating from the tower in sequential patterns as it began to crumble. The building's tumultuous fall is then accompanied by thick, energetic, rapidly forming plumes that are reminiscent of what we see in controlled demolitions.
Further, the BBC reported that the fires were nearly extinguished—and that emergency personnel and occupants had begun reentering the building—when the collapse unexpectedly occurred. Indeed, videos display very few flames and a thick black smoke—signs of a low-temperature, oxygen-starved fire. Moreover, the inferno was limited to the upper floors, yet the entire 17 stories came down in just a few seconds.
We at AE911Truth are all too familiar with events in which a prematurely formed narrative makes it harder to subsequently ascertain what truly happened. We therefore adamantly caution against rushing to any conclusions as investigators work to uncover the truth surrounding this national tragedy in Iran.
Should the Plasco Building collapse be found to have been caused by pre-placed explosives, sadly it will not be the first time that explosives were used to bring down a burning high-rise while people were still inside.
SOURCE Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth
Related Links
http://www.ae911truth.org/Getty/Stephanie Keith
US consumer confidence slid off 17-year highs in December, according to The Conference Board's monthly survey.
The headline index fell to 122.1, making for a much steeper drop than economists had forecast. They were expecting a fall to 128.0 from November's 128.6, according to Bloomberg.
Consumers were more positive about present conditions but were mixed on the state of the labor market.
The percentage of those who said business conditions were "good" increased to 35.2% from 35%, while those saying business conditions were "bad" slipped to 12.1% from 12.3%.
People claiming jobs were "plentiful" fell to 35.7% from 37.5%, while those claiming jobs were "hard to get" hit a 16-year low of 15.2%, down from 16.8%.
"Consumer confidence retreated in December after reaching a 17-year high in November," said Lynn Franco, the director of economic indicators at The Conference Board. "The decline in confidence was fueled by a somewhat less optimistic outlook for business and job prospects in the coming months. Consumers' assessment of current conditions, however, improved moderately. Despite the decline in confidence, consumers' expectations remain at historically strong levels, suggesting economic growth will continue well into 2018."UCF athletics director Danny White urged Knights fans to divert their focus from shifting conferences to winning more championships on the American Athletic Conference Tuesday afternoon during a Facebook Q&A.
But that doesn't mean UCF administrators aren't making a quiet push to join the Big 12 should the conference expand, which appears to become more likely by the day.
UCF, along with a handful of schools that include Houston, Memphis and Colorado State, lobbied members of the Big 12 expansion composition committee. The group, which includes West Virginia university president Gordan Gee, was created to explore expansion candidates.
According to documents obtained by ESPN, Gee has been in communication with the aforementioned schools during on-campus visits and phone calls.
"I appreciate very much our [phone] conversation, and I appreciate the information you sent me," Gee wrote to UCF president John Hitt on Oct. 6, according to ESPN. "Be assured that the University of Central Florida is very much on our radar screen. The future of expansion is very much uncertain, but I also know that we are looking at these issues very carefully given the tumultuous nature of college athletics."
ESPN president John Skipper declined to share his thoughts on whether or not the Big 12 needs to expand for playoff survival when questioned by the Orlando Sentinel Saturday. Skipper delivered a UCF College of Business commencement speech Saturday morning.
"We're partners with the leagues, but we license rights from the leagues and we try very hard to stay out of the business of advising them on the composition or what they should or should not do," Skipper told the Sentinel.
Memphis is making the most aggressive public push amid Big 12 expansion talks, according to ESPN's report.
UCF and Nike revealed the Knights' new uniforms for the 2016 football season. (UCF Knights) (UCF Knights)
Memphis President David Rudd and the school's top donor, FedEx founder and CEO Fred Smith, pledged the shipping company would sponsor a Big 12 championship game and become one of the Big 12's major corporate sponsors. Rudd also wrote in a letter dated Feb. 24 to multiple Big 12 school presidents that Memphis would make a $500 million investment in academic and athletic infrastructure of the next five years.
The school is one of four AAC programs that does not have an on-campus football stadium. UConn, USF and Temple also do not currently have on-campus stadiums.
Gee's communication with UCF predates the hiring of White. But it's hard to imagine the extra income a move to a Power 5 conference will bring isn't a thought among current administrators.
While the Knights spoke publicly about their potential move to the Big East, which became the AAC, the school has kept a lower profile on the topic of Big 12 expansion. White is among the school leaders working to manage fan expectations and channel their energy toward supporting current programs.
"I think that as a community, as an alumni base, as a fanbase, as a university, we need to be mostly focused on the things that we can control. That's building a fanbase, building our season ticket base up, getting our donations up to a Power 5 level and making sure we're maximizing all of those things. If we do that and support our coaches at that level, because of all the other competitive advantages, we're gonna be really successful here.," White said Tuesday. "I think we're going to win an awful lot and then I think we'll be in a position where we have a lot of options but for right now, we're really excited to be in the American Athletic Conference. I think it's a great league. We should be more boastful and prideful about the league that we're in and focus on hopefully dominating the AAC."
Big 12 representatives will meet again on May 31 in Irving, Texas, for spring meetings that run through June 3. The AAC spring meetings take place at the same time in Key Biscayne.
E-mail Shannon Green at sgreen@orlandosentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter at @osknights.Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks to supporters at a rally in the BB&T center, Ft Lauderdale, Florida, August 10, 2016. Photo by Gary I Rothstein/UPI | License Photo
Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton addresses workers and supporters at the Futuramic Tool & Engineering plant in Warren, Michigan on August 11, 2016. Photo by Rebecca Cook/UPI | License Photo
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- The UPI/CVoter daily presidential tracking poll released Wednesday shows Hillary Clinton's lead over Donald Trump rose to 6.5 percent.
The online poll shows Clinton with 50.67 percent to Trump's 44.19 percent in Monday's data. The Democratic candidate crossed the 50 percent mark in Sunday's sample for the first time since Aug. 6.
Republican Trump has declined in the poll from a peak of 49.18 percent on July 24, days after the GOP convention.
Over the course of seven days through Monday, the full sample size for the poll, Clinton added 2.15 percentage points to her total, while Trump lost.86 percent. The percentage of "others" in the poll, defined as respondents who declined to pick either candidate, dropped by 1.3 percentage points to 5.14 percent.
The UPI/CVoter online tracking poll surveys about 200 people each day, leading to a sample size of roughly 1,400 people during any seven-day span.
Because the poll is conducted online and individuals self-select to participate, a margin of error cannot be calculated. The poll has a credibility interval of 3 percentage points. This seven-day span includes data collected from Aug. 9 through Monday, when 1,445 respondents were surveyed. Of them, 1,035 identified themselves as likely voters.The gap between reality and what the U.S. government says is reality has widened into a chasm with the mainstream U.S. news media usually nodding at whatever absurdity is presented, but the AP’s Matthew Lee is one of the few reporters who challenges the State Department’s “Twilight Zone,” as William Blum notes.
By William Blum
“You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop the Twilight Zone.” (American Television series, 1959-1965)
U.S. State Department Daily Press Briefing, Feb. 13, 2015. Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki, questioned by Matthew Lee of The Associated Press.
Lee: President Maduro [of Venezuela] last night went on the air and said that they had arrested multiple people who were allegedly behind a coup that was backed by the United States. What is your response?
Psaki: These latest accusations, like all previous such accusations, are ludicrous. As a matter of longstanding policy, the United States does not support political transitions by non-constitutional means. Political transitions must be democratic, constitutional, peaceful, and legal. We have seen many times that the Venezuelan Government tries to distract from its own actions by blaming the United States or other members of the international community for events inside Venezuela. These efforts reflect a lack of seriousness on the part of the Venezuelan Government to deal with the grave situation it faces.
Lee: Sorry. The U.S. has whoa, whoa, whoa the U.S. has a longstanding practice of not promoting What did you say? How longstanding is that? I would in particular in South and Latin America, that is not a longstanding practice.
Psaki: Well, my point here, Matt, without getting into history
Lee: Not in this case.
Psaki: is that we do not support, we have no involvement with, and these are ludicrous accusations.
Lee: In this specific case.
Psaki: Correct.
Lee: But if you go back not that long ago, during your lifetime, even (laughter)
Psaki: The last 21 years. (Laughter.)
Lee: Well done. Touché. But I mean, does “longstanding” mean 10 years in this case? I mean, what is
Psaki: Matt, my intention was to speak to the specific reports.
Lee: I understand, but you said it’s a longstanding US practice, and I’m not so sure it depends on what your definition of “longstanding” is.
Psaki: We will okay.
Lee: Recently in Kyiv, whatever we say about Ukraine, whatever, the change of government at the beginning of last year was unconstitutional, and you supported it. The constitution was
Psaki: That is also ludicrous, I would say.
Lee: not observed.
Psaki: That is not accurate, nor is it with the history of the facts that happened at the time.
Lee: The history of the facts. How was it constitutional?
Psaki: Well, I don’t think I need to go through the history here, but since you gave me the opportunity – as you know, the former leader of Ukraine left of his own accord.
Leaving the Twilight Zone: The former Ukrainian leader ran for his life from those who had staged the coup, including a mob of vicious U.S.-supported neo-Nazis.
If you know how to contact Ms. Psaki, tell her to have a look at my list of more than 50 governments the United States has attempted to overthrow since the end of the Second World War. None of the attempts were democratic, constitutional, peaceful, or legal; well, a few were non-violent.
William Blum is an author, historian, and renowned critic of U.S. foreign policy. He is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II and Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, among others. [This article originally appeared at the Anti-Empire Report, http://williamblum.org/.]Organisers of the Amgen Tour of California and the Breakaway from Heart Disease Women's Race today announced route details from the two events, which start on May 11 for the women and on May 14 for the men. Related Articles Peter Stetina: The pros and cons of Tour of California's addition to the WorldTour
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Mt. Hamilton will join previously announced Mt. Baldy as one of the main obstacles on the men's 927km route, while the women's 413km race will likely be animated by the two opening stages in South Lake Tahoe.
Establishing the GC pecking order early
After the inaugural Tour of California WorldTour race starts with an opening stage in Sacramento on a flat course that will lend itself to a field sprint, the men will tackle a second stage that could provide the general classification contenders with their first opportunity to show off their form.
The men will tackle Mt. Hamilton during the race's second stage, which uses the same finish as the 2015 stage won by Hincapie rider Toms Skujins after a daring, long-range solo move. Peter Sagan won the field sprint on the final uphill grind.
Stage 2 will throw five categorised climbs at the peloton before the finish at the Santa Clara Motorcycle Park. The climb Del Puerto Canyon will start the barrage of ascents, with three additional KOMs coming in succession before hors category climb up and over Mt. Hamilton. A technical descent down Quimby Road provides a chance to collect any escapees before the final ascent to the finish.
The 186.5km third stage starts in Pismo Beach and ends in Morro Bay, where the sprinters will face a 0.5km climb to the finish if they've managed to sweep up any breakaways.
Stage 4 is another opportunity for the sprinters who can make it over the day's four classified climbs over Casitas Pass [second summit], Santa Paula Road and Balcom Canyon.
The peloton will face Mt. Baldy on the Queen stage during day five, a 125.5km route from Ontario to the top of the iconic Southern California peak. The route includes KOMs on Glendora Mountain Road and Glendora Ridge Road before the summit finish. Julian Alaphilippe won on Mt. Baldy when the stage finished here in 2015, but Sagan, the eventual GC winner, kept his overall hopes alive with a surprising ride.
The general classification contenders will have another shot at consolidating a lead or taking back some time during the stage 6 individual time trial in Big Bear Lake. The race was supposed to visit the California mountain time for a time trial in 2015, but a freak May snowstorm cancelled those plans. The 24km course starts on the south side of town, travels across the lake to Fawnskin, then returns to a finish on the Big Bear Lake jetty. Although the course is relatively flat, its sits at nearly 2,100 metres above sea level.
With the general classification likely decided, the final stage from the Mountain High Ski Resort to Pasadena looks good for another field sprint. Although the stage profile is generally downhill all the way, the peloton will contest KOMs on Mt. Emma Road, Angeles Forest Highway and Upper Big Tujunga Road before the finish in downtown Pasadena.
The peloton crests the Mt. Hamilton climb in 2014.
Tahoe routes likely to decide women’s race
The women's race, which is once again on the Women's WorldTour, will start in South Lake Tahoe with to stages that will go a long way to establishing the final general classification.
Stage 1 is a 117km clockwise loop around the lake that straddles the California and Nevada borders. The stage will feature two sprints, more than 1,600 metres of elevation gain and two Queen of the Mountain climbs. The final climb is a brutal ascent back to the finish at Heavenly Mountain Resort.
The brand-new route for stage 2 also starts in South Lake Tahoe before the peloton heads south on a 108km loop with one short detour. The stage includes two large climbs and an uphill finish that organisers believe will whittle the lead group down to five to 10 riders who will be fighting for the overall lead. The final QOM of the stage will greet the riders at the finish at Heavenly Mountain Resort.
From the Tahoe area, the peloton will travel west to Elk Grove for the start of stage 3. The route, which ends in Sacramento, is flat, fast and primed for a full-on field sprint.
The final stage for the women will be the traditional circuit race in Sacramento around the Capitol mall. This flat 3.5km course features six turns and encompasses the Capitol building while passing by several other notable state government buildings. The 90-minute race will include 20 laps of the circuit, beginning shortly after the men depart the course to begin their opening stage.
2017 Amgen Tour of California, May 14-20
Stage 1 – Sacramento, 167.5km
Stage 2 – Modesto to San Jose, 143km
Stage 3 – Pismo Beach to Morro Bay, 186.5km
Stage 4 – Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita, 159.5km
Stage 5 – Ontario to Mt. Baldy, 125.5km
Stage 6 – Big Bear Lake (ITT), 24km
Stage 7 – Mountain High to Pasadena, 125km
2017 Amgen Breakaway from Heart Disease Women's Race empowered with SRAM, May 11-14
Stage 1 – South Lake Tahoe, 117km
Stage 2 – South Lake Tahoe, 108km
Stage 3 – Elk Grove to Sacramento, 118km
Stage 4 – Sacramento, 70kmFormer Indy 500 winner and 1997 Formula 1 World Champion, Jacques Villeneuve, designed the 4.9-kilometre race circuit in South Okanagan, British Columbia.
Jacques Villeneuve designed the circuit at Area 27 to capture the essence of the Classic Grand Prix track and to instantly be recognized as a 'Driver's Track'. Classic elements combine to captivate, challenge and reward drivers of all skill levels.
Built to FIA Level 2 standards, modern features like asphalt run-off zones and gravel traps, along with'soft' barriers, combine to promote the safest possible track day environment. Enthusiasts can comfortably explore the limits of even the most exotic performance machine.
It will be the only race track over three kilometre in length to be constructed to the west of Ontario. The next construction phase involves the installation of more than 16,000 tonnes of asphalt. The Area27 website provides a targeted opening date of “late spring or early summer 2016”.
Area 27 was founded in 2013 by Trevor Seibert, Jacques Villeneuve, Bill Drossos, and David King. Founding members include Les Cool, Daryl Carter, Gord Lindsay, Robert Sinneave, Robbie Dickson, Paul Neider and Brett Knelson.
Richard Spenard has been named as lead instructor and head of the Area 27 Driving Academy.A city ordinance passed in 2007 forbade smoking inside municipal buildings. This includes the police precinct, according to the AP.
As a police officer, Bishop was employed to uphold the law. It turns out he might have been breaking the rules himself.
Tennessee police officer James Bishop was fired last week for smoking inside the precinct. Bishop had been a veteran of the force for about 17 years.
Bishop was on notice. Police Chief Harold Dunivant issued a memo after the ordinance was passed. When Dunivant received complaints that some officers were still smoking in their offices, he issued another reminder.
Dunivant again fielded complaints about officers smoking. At that point, he issued another warning.
It seemed clear that Bishop knew about the policy. In fact, he even asked Dunivant once what areas the no-smoking policy would apply to.
The police chief said that after he received more complaints about Bishop's smoking, he was forced to terminate him.
Some individuals may wonder if they could also be fired for smoking at work. It depends on your employer's policies. It may also depend on state laws. Some states have passed laws that limit or eliminate smoking in the workplace.
This means that in some jurisdictions, smoking at work is banned. In others, smoking is permitted but only in certain areas or outside.
Other states have not addressed this issue yet.
Before you light up in your office, you might want to consult your state statutes first. Or, ask someone in your company's human resources department about company policies. You don't want to end up like James Bishop, the cop who was fired for smoking.
Related Resources:“People were shocked because most people don’t think of dolphins doing flips in the wild.”
Pacific white-sided dolphins are known for their sleek and beautiful appearance, and also for their playfulness.
But on Wednesday in Monterey Bay, one of a pod of about 400 Pacific white-sided dolphins took this exuberance to a new level by performing a series of backflips across the water.
Part of the sequence was captured on video by Slater Moore, a photographer for Monterey Bay Whale Watch.
"Everyone was super excited because it was unexpected," Moore told GrindTV. "People were shocked because most people don't think of dolphins doing flips in the wild."
The footage is a bit shaky, Moore said, because he had been shooting stills from a distance with a long lens when the dolphin began to flip. "It flipped about 10 times," Moore said.
Nancy Black, owner of Monterey Bay Whale Watch and an expert on Pacific white-sided dolphins, said during a recent American Cetacean Society conference that they are the only dolphin species in the Northern Hemisphere to backflip fairly regularly.
RELATED: Dolphins stampede for their lives during ambush by killer whales
Black told GrindTV: “This behavior occurs when these dolphins are in large groups, usually over 500 to several thousand, and many members of the group are engaged in repetitive leaping behaviors.
“While studying them for my masters I documented 13 types of surface active behaviors. The dolphins appear to be involved in social interactions while aerially active. It’s not rare but rarely seen by people unless you are there at the right time, or spend lots of time with them.”
Dusky dolphins, their close relatives in the Southern Hemisphere, are famous for backflipping.
Pacific white-sided dolphins, which are easily identifiable because of their creamy white bellies and sides, are found in temperate waters of the North Pacific.MUSIC NEWS - The rock and roll life isn't what it used to be. Ron Wood, the 61 year old Stones' guitarist has been warned to stop drinking or face being fired from the ROLLING STONES as the group plans an autumn 2009 US tour. A source told Britain's Daily Express newspaper that "all the band have to have a compulsory pre-tour medical to make sure they can get insurance." According to the source, "Ronnie failed his medical test for the 2002-2003 tour because of his drinking seven times the recommended number of alcohol units a week. As a result he was forced to dry out at a rehab clinic in Arizona. Mick Jagger and band are concerned that they may face the same issue with Mr Wood this time! Back in August 2008, Ronnie was treated for alcohol addiction at the Life Works clinic in Surrey, England, after a 10-day drinking binge in Ireland with his 20-year-old Russian girlfriend, Ekaterina Ivanova.
And, if he's barred from the Stones, he will have plenty of free time as even though he was pushing for a for a Faces reunion with Rod Stewart, that reunion plan has fallen apart. He'd also lose out financially if he gets removed; note that the Stones' 2005-2007 Bigger Bang tour garnered $558,255,524 US dollars, an all-time record.5 years ago
Washington (CNN) – In an interview |
the novel would help us stay on this particular wave a little bit longer. Luckily for us, Barbarian Days didn’t disappoint; Finnegan takes readers on his long, strange, lifetime trip riding waves around the world, first in California and Hawaii as a child in the tumultuous 60s and then throughout the world. The book serves not only as a surfing memoir, but also as a classic road trip story… only these roads are paved in water, and can come crashing down at any time.
Night at the Fiestas Kirstin Valdez Quade
Here’s another book we were also introduced to via the the New Yorker (that subscription really just pays for itself, you know? not in, like, money, but in good books) when we first read the excellent “Ordinary Sins,” a story about a young, unmarried pregnant woman working in a Catholic church and her attendant guilt due to her compromised situation. That story is in this collection and is one of many true masterpieces within it, many exploring the way our sense of self—and the shame that so often resides within it—can cripple us, and blind us to the beauty around and, most importantly, within us.
In the Country: Stories Mia Alvar
In this collection of stories (and, yes, there are several collections of stories here, because they rarely get the attention they deserve), Mia Alvar reveals a world of fluid borders—both international and ethical. Her characters crisscross the globe, going back and forth from the Philippines to the United States and the Middle East, all the while leaving morally complicated trails in their wakes. Alvar deals beautifully with issues of identity and allegiance, and the novella which ends this collection is a quiet tour de force about the turmoil intrinsic to not only the characters’ lives, but also to the country—the Philippines—they call home.
Loving Day Mat Johnson
Here, Johnson—author of Pym and graphic novel Incognegro—offers a darkly comic look at race and what it means to be mixed-race (Johnson has called this novel his “coming out as a mulatto,” and the narrator calls himself “a racial optical illusion”) via a narrative which revolves around a falling-apart Philadelphia mansion and is told through the singular, mordantly witty voice of one Warren Duffy, whose traumatic story isn’t just his own, but is rather America’s own.
Follow Kristin Iversen on twitter @kmiversenThere may come a day when water is in even higher demand. Or some disaster happens and water is in high demand. You should have a plan to make that water stretch.
*** First one note. This is for light gray water. I think if you have a bigger dirt mess this may not be the place to clean up at. Also I do not suggest using dish water in this. Food contaminants may not make the water safe for hygiene purposes.
This set up is a lot like a make shift ceramic water filter set up. Just a few steps more.
Some call it a field sink. And it packs up nice...to the size of one bucket.
You will need:
3 - 5 gallon Buckets
1 - Bag of sand
or Multi-Use Transfer Pump (or you can get fancier or more creative) I found these to be the cheapest.
1 - hose fitting, can be found in plumbing dept.
(you can use activated charcoal in this to Click here to see how to make your own) 1 - 6' Siphon Hose with pump or Multi-Use Transfer Pump (or you can get fancier or more creative) I found these to be the cheapest.1 - hose fitting, can be found in plumbing dept.(you can use activated charcoal in this toto see how to make your own)
Bottom bucket is where the filtered water will go. So to make this all work we need to start there.
You will need to drill a small hole in the bottom side. This is where you will attach the hose fitting. There are all kinds. Make sure to get one that fits the hose to the pump you get.
**suggestion get a longer piece of hose for one end, so that the pump can sit on the ground and be pumped with your foot, so your hands are free. (this extra bit of hose will cost about a buck at the hardware store)
Attach one end of pump to the bottom hole fitting.
You can even micky mouse it by using bottle caps on each side. If you get it tight enough it will not leak.
Now you need to take the lid of that bucket and cut a hole in it...this will allow you to place the filter bucket on it so the water can drain into it.
Which leads to the next step....put holes in the bottom of the second make sure they aline with the bigger whole on the lid to the first bucket. Then place a clean cloth in the bottom of the 2nd bucket to keep sand from coming through.
Duck tape the longer hose up the side making sure to have the pump on the ground and Bam you have recycled water wash station. Saving you precious drinking water and still allow to stay clean.
Here are 2 videos of similar projects to give you ideas.
Song for this post will be one of my all time fav's Grateful Dead - Ripple Song for this post will be one of my all time fav's Grateful Dead - Ripple
Now you can fill it with sand, charcoal, (or activated charcoal ) gravel even some grass fill the bucket about half way to leave room for water to sit.. What ever you have or prefer. Remember this is for washing hands face ect...when water is low so you do not waste your drinking water on hygiene.So the more extravagant the products you put in the bucket the cleaner the water will be.Now place the second bucket on the first.Now repeat...make the large hole in lid you can just make a small drain hole in the bottom of the third bucket of the third bucket. Place on top this will be you sink bucket. You can use a smaller one like this basin bucket.Adam Ondra has completed what is being called the world’s hardest single rope-length climb at Flatanger in Norway
In the last few years the tiny world of elite rock climbing has fixated on a giant windswept granite cave in Norway, and the potential for one climber, Adam Ondra, to set a new benchmark in the sport.
Like a giant eye socket set in a hillside, the Hanshelleren cave in Flatanger – claimed by some as the world’s greatest climbing cliff - has become a summer mecca for the world’s best climbers who come to dodge the Scandinavian showers and pit themselves against its vast overhangs.
Quick guide The three main climbing disciplines Show Hide Sport climbing Sport climbing emphasises physical difficulty in a relatively safe environment, both on indoor walls and on outdoor cliffs. The climbs have expansion bolts drilled in at regular intervals to which the rope can be clipped. The bolts are not used as holds but to allow a belayer holding the rope to stop a fall safely. Traditional climbing The rope is clipped to the rock with removable wedges on a wire placed in cracks and carried by the climber. If the protection fails - the climber could fall a long way. The emphasis here is on the psychological challenge as much as the physical aspects of the climb. Bouldering Bouldering involves short, very hard sequences generally close to the ground. It is done ropeless above portable crash mats and is also popular indoors with artificial routes. Like sport climbing the emphasis is on the absolute physical and technical difficulty of a short sequence.
Now, after over 40 days of efforts spread across two years and seven visits to Norway, Ondra has completed what is being claimed as the world’s hardest single rope-length climb, both in terms of physical effort and technical difficulty.
The climb – 45 metres long and forging its improbable way through the cave’s huge grey overlapping roofs – marks the latest achievement by Ondra, who has dominated rock climbing in recent years in the same way Usain Bolt dominated sprinting, consistently setting new levels of difficulty that others have struggled to follow.
For a so-called sport climb – in which expansion bolts are drilled permanently into the rock to clip the rope into – climbers can spend months (sometimes even years) trying to complete their first ascents.
For Ondra success finally came on Monday in 20 intense minutes after between 40 and 50 days of attempts over two summers.
“When I knew I did it, I had one of the strangest emotions ever,” he said, describing the moment of catharsis when he completed the ascent.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Adam Ondra: ‘It’s a very special climb. Very weird.’ Photograph: Pavel Blazek
“I could not even scream. All I could do was just hang on the rope, feeling tears in my eyes. It was too much joy, relief and excitement all mixed together … Months and months of my life summed up in 20 minutes.”
Speaking to the Guardian shortly after the ascent he explained the long process that began four years ago.
“It’s a very special climb. Very weird. I searched for a climb that would fit my style, and it fit my expectations.”
The “weirdness” Ondra describes is evident in videos of him training on the climb, not least a bizarre sequence of moves on one of the two “cruxes” – the hardest sections – where, upside down, he is required to hang briefly from a jammed toe before rotating his whole body and climbing feet first along the tilted roof.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Adam Ondra hangs upside down during the climb. Photograph: Pavel Blazek
Four years ago Ondra – who is now beginning to think about on the inaugural Olympic climbing competition in Tokyo – was not even sure that it was climbable.
“I bolted it in 2013. Back then I only tried it for a few days and thought it was way too hard. Then last season I started again. Over seven trips to Norway, I guess I’d say I spent 40 or 50 days trying it.”
It is not the first time in recent years that Ondra, who grew up in Brno in the Czech republic, has claimed the world’s hardest climb.
He was the first person to climb a route graded 9b+ on the popular French sport-climbing scale, a feat that only one other climber has repeated.
On the French scale, the level of difficulty is graded on an open ended numerical system subdivided into three other sub divisions carrying a letter a,b or c in numerical order, with the addition of a “plus” to denote a particularly hard climb for that grade.
After a first ascent, climbs can be adjusted up or down by consensus if necessary although in Ondra’s case there is no question among his peers that his hardest climbs represent the very pinnacle of the sport.
“It’s very different to running 100 metres,” he said.
“Everyone knows what it means to run 100 metres in a world record time. Because grades in climbing are subjective, I am fan of making big gaps between climbing grades. Knowing it was so much harder gives me the courage to say it is the world’s first at this level (9c).”
All the more remarkably, Ondra continued with his studies at school and recently fitted in a degree around his six-day-a-week training schedule.
“Right now,” he said. “I am full time athlete. I finished my degree so I’m definitely hoping I have some more time to climb.”
He said he felt he still had the capacity to climb even harder.
“When I did this climb I did not feel it was at my absolute limit. I can imagine climbing a harder route. I think I can climb more at this grade one day and potentially harder.”
Natalie Berry, the editor of the UK Climbing website, and an accomplished climber herself, is a year older than Ondra and knows him from when she competed in international competition climbing events.
“It’s almost difficult to find words to describe what he is doing. I think what is interesting is not just that he is breaking new barriers of difficulty but he is transferring his skills to different kinds of climbing including 800m high big walls.
“He’s been climbing since he was about five of six and ever since then, every year, he has broken new new ground.
“What’s nice is that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. And that is part of his appeal. He doesn’t get in a tizz [if something doesn’t go right] and in a sport that is very individualistic, where it is very easy to get wrapped up inside your head, he’s not got a big ego.”Yet again, 2K Games was out in full force at E3 with one of the most ambitious booths of the entire show. Sporting a 25-foot tall Evolve monster and a huge, tournament space, the company’s presence was well felt at E3 2014.
However, while a lot of the attention was focused on Evolve (read our preview), the developer also brought Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel along for a short theater presentation and hands-on demo. In case fans hadn’t heard, Handsome Jack is back for this new interquel, and he’s more vane than ever.
By now fans know what they are getting when they fire up a Borderlands game. Developer Gearbox Software, and now 2K Australia, have honed in on a formula that delivers solid FPS gameplay, and a self-referential tone that keeps players consistently laughing. That being said, some might argue that the well has run dry for Borderlands, or at the very least that the franchise needed to take a break.
Nevertheless, 2K Australia setup at E3 2014 with a massive, moon-shaped theater built specifically for showing off Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. The theater itself was easily the most comfortable set-up I’ve ever experienced at E3, and the video presentation, which focused on funny tips for new Pre-Sequel players, had the crowd roaring the whole way through. New features like a butt stomp from high elevations and the usefulness of low-gravity were just some of the hints highlighted by the video, which was preceded by the latest trailer.
As far as the playable version of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is concerned, it was a familiar experience albeit with a few clever twists. Players are still cast as one of four classes, each with a unique set of abilities and skill trees, and given a wealth of unique weapons to work with. This time around ice-based guns are a big selling point, allowing players to hold enemies in place before shattering them into tiny pieces.
The low-gravity moon setting also factors heavily into the gameplay, giving players the ability to leap high into the air and take enemies out from a greater vantage point. In fact, it appears the combat scenarios in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel were built with the low-gravity in mind, as many of the enemies charge the player headfirst and require plenty of dodge jumps.
Aside from that, though, this was Borderlands through and through. There were new enemy types and areas to explore, and players need to be mindful of their Oxygen levels, but you’re still firing creative weapons at uniquely designed enemies in a cel-shaded lunar world.
And so, in that respect, it’s hard to evaluate Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel as anything other than more Borderlands. Fans will certainly love it, and the changes Gearbox and 2K have added should spice up the combat a bit, but this is a last-gen title built using what are now tried and true mechanics. For some people that will be exactly what they want, but for others Pre-Sequel might be seen as a disappointment, regardless of how strong the storytelling may be.
For our money, the game is still as fun to play as ever and will get plenty of love come October, but we hope that this is a stop-gap not a new solution. Borderlands 2 was arguably the perfect refinement of the first title’s stellar gameplay, and Pre-Sequel, while still fun, didn’t show us enough at E3 2014 to make it an instant-buy.
What are your thoughts on Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel? Are you excited for the game, disappointed it’s not next-gen, worried it will be too much of the same?
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel releases October 14, 2014 for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.
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Follow Anthony on Twitter @ANTaormina.What I would like us to talk about during this meeting is, perhaps, the same topic that we used to speak about last time. To be precise, I would like to continue with that topic. It relates to each one of us, it is about the way we deal with the Sacraments of Repentance and Eucharist, about the relations between these two Sacraments, and about the Divine Liturgy. This topic is wide, so I think we will do the right thing if we devote this meeting to it.
However, first I would like to say that it is very good to be with God. You know, a woman came to me to confess during the Vespers this Saturday. In fact, I could not get what she was talking about for a couple of minutes because she owned up to the joy she was filled with. The woman was doubtful, “All people come for confession with sheets of paper or even notebooks, they weep and sob, but I am brimming with life, I am overflowing with joy. I must be doing something wrong and I want to confess it.” Then I saw what she was after and asked her, “How long have you been a Christian?” She replied, “For two months.” So I asked her another question, “Do you feel as if the world used to be black-and-white but now it is full-colour?” She said yes. “Everything around and inside you used to be a mess but suddenly it all changed into awesome harmony?” And she nodded. “Do you feel that your life is full?” She said, “Yes, I do.” So I replied, “Well, I know your diagnosis. It is called the excitement of a neophyte.”
Of course, there can be no true faith without that joy, without the experience of the fullness of life. More often than not, we have this experience in the beginning of our spiritual journey to God, just as we encounter God. Nevertheless, each individual has her own personal experience of the Heaven, the experience of God’s Kingdom.
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! – Apostle Paul writes to the Philippians (Phil.4:4). The Lord tells His disciples during their last talk before His passion: again I shall see you, and your heart shall have joy, and no man shall take from you your joy. And in that day ye shall not ask me any thing (Cf. John 16:22-23). It is this experience of joy that we can return to every time we celebrate the Divine Liturgy, the Sacrament of Eucharist. Eyes of faith can see the Risen Christ in our midst, and we become His Body, we become the Church, we become the organism of the God-man, as Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh used to refer to the Church. We gather in one single whole with Christ in order to ascend to the Heaven. We are given the experience of Heaven when we are still on earth. We are allowed to be the partakers of the Heavenly Kingdom. The Kingdom of Heaven has come, it is in our midst. Father Alexander Schmemann once said that Nietsche had uttered the greatest slander against Christianity when he said that Christianity is joyless. Really, how can you know God and be with Him, and be unhappy?Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!– Apostle Paul writes to the Philippians (Phil.4:4). The Lord tells His disciples during their last talk before His passion:again I shall see you, and your heart shall have joy, and no man shall take from you your joy.And in that day ye shall not ask me any thing(Cf. John 16:22-23). It is this experience of joy that we can return to every time we celebrate the Divine Liturgy, the Sacrament of Eucharist. Eyes of faith can see the Risen Christ in our midst, and we become His Body, we become the Church, we become the organism of the God-man, as Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh used to refer to the Church. We gather in one single whole with Christ in order to ascend to the Heaven. We are given the experience of Heaven when we are still on earth. We are allowed to be the partakers of the Heavenly Kingdom. The Kingdom of Heaven has come, it is in our midst.
is the Kingdom of God coming in might and power, the place where God and man are already united. This is what we get as the apex of our prayerful supplication to God, our daily cycle of services, as the completion and the fulfillment. The Church again and again becomes the Heaven through the Sacrament of Eucharist. That is why many theologians and saints, and first and foremost, the first Christian saints, referred to the Eucharist as the Sacrament of Sacraments. This is due to the fact that the Eucharist makes the Church what it is, namely, the Body of Christ. The Church has a dual mode of being, which may be expressed as both the waiting mode and the fulfillment mode. The Church waits for the Second Coming of Jesus. At the same time, the Church herself alreadyisthe Kingdom of God coming in might and power, the place where God and man are already united. This is what we get as the apex of our prayerful supplication to God, our daily cycle of services, as the completion and the fulfillment. The Church again and again becomes the Heaven through the Sacrament of Eucharist. That is why many theologians and saints, and first and foremost, the first Christian saints, referred to the Eucharist as the Sacrament of Sacraments. This is due to the fact that the Eucharist makes the Church what it is, namely, the Body of Christ.
But ye are a royal priesthood, an holy nation (Cf.1 Pet.2:9). Each time we gather for the liturgy, we must realise that we come here in order to become one single whole in God, in Christ, as well as for celebrating the liturgy, the Sacrament of Eucharist, the Sacrament of Thanksgiving. We all serve each other; every Christian becomes a priest of the Most High God in the Sacrament of Baptism. It does not belittle or abolish or question the priesthood in the Church as a special gift of ministry, as a special gift of the Holy Spirit. Apostle Peter writes in his epistle,But ye are a royal priesthood, an holy nation(Cf.1 Pet.2:9).
We tend to think that it is the priest who celebrates the liturgy, while we simply attend the service and therefore can come whenever we please and do whatever we want during the liturgy: pass a note with a prayer request, look at the church goods in the booth, have a chat with someone else, and of course, go and confess during the liturgy. We do not come to church in order to become the Body of Christ and to ascend to the Heaven; we do not realise and do not consider ourselves to be a part of the organism of the God-man; we do not come in order to become the Church, we are led by our personal desire and because our hearts require it. Our faith has become too individualistic. However, this was not part of God's plan for us because He planted the Church on earth as the place where people are united in God. We must be aware of the fact that whenever we come to church, we come in order to become one single whole, to pray like Jesus did, because it is Him who leads every service, and He is in our midst every time. Therefore, everything that distracts us from this God-man-like prayer, can be with all certainty attributed to the works of the devil. The Rev Alexander Schmemann wrote in his diary a year before his death, “It has somehow became perfectly evident to me that the devil within the Church struggles first of all with the Eucharist, with the Liturgy.” This is understandable because the devil aims at un-churching the Church, dislocating it, and making each one of us turn our attention on ourselves. Of course, he cannot simply do away with the Liturgy, although there have been such cases already, not in the Orthodox Church but in the Catholic Church.
I watched a story in the news and I'm going to tell you about it, in case you haven't seen it. The story took place in Italy, in a Catholic parish where a church was made into a shelter for refugees. They took all the pews typical of Catholic churches out, they emptied the sanctuary completely: they carried away the Holy Table and the entire altar, they set up many beds and provided accommodation to the poor refugees who badly needed it. The Catholic priest told the reporter, pointing at the bed in the place of the Holy Table in the sanctuary, “This is the best Holy Table, this is the best sacrifice to the Lord!” This is a devil-inspired substitution, indeed!
Satan rarely tempts us with pure and unmasked evil. He is a liar, this is why he always suggests that we do anything except for prayer. I believe that each one of you has encountered and tackled with such thoughts and temptations: whenever you make up your mind to pray, a dozen of very important, really indispensable, tasks suddenly pop up, so we say, “Okay, I'll do this or that, and then I'll pray.” St Ignatius Bryanchaninov wrote that everything that gears you away from prayer is sent by the devil, however important or nice it appears. We have the chance to participate in the divine prayer and to ascend to the Lord's Feast during the Liturgy. This is our prayerful ascent, this is our spiritual growth, so each prayer in the Liturgy, each part of the Liturgy is vital. We may put it in a different way: everything that leads us away from the Liturgy, from the common prayer, from the prayer of the Church comes from the devil. I think that it is wrong to have confession during liturgy.
We should be aware of the fact that confession during liturgy is only for those who make the first steps on their road to God, for those who have not entered the fullness of life with God in the Church yet. Last time we heard a remarkable example of a man who wanted to go fishing but was going past a church on his way to the lake and confessed for the first time in his life. It is awesome that it happened this way. However, if we, the practicing Orthodox, begin to treat worship, especially liturgy, superficially, there must be something wrong with that. Last time it was said that we cannot set a general rule. I beg to differ. It seems to me that we have such an amazing time in our life now when each one of us should finally consider growing up and becoming more mature in our relationship
with God by becoming more responsible (because maturity invariably means being responsible) for what we do and how we live. Each of us should know when we sin against the Gospel and the Church Tradition and consider changing our minds and lifestyles. Sure, there are some cases when one has to go and confess immediately, even if it is during a liturgy. An individual may stumble down and lose her connection to God. But then again, let's be honest: once we are fully immersed into living with God, after we spend a decade or more in the Church, there are few such moments in our lives. Therefore, as we go to church, we must remember that we go to church in order to celebrate the Eucharist. If we feel that we need to confess, we should do it in advance: on Saturday night or on the eve of great feasts. Confessing one's sins once a week is enough.
We might be somehow mistaken, perhaps, in our understanding of what the Sacrament of Repentance is about. We can learn the meaning of this sacrament from the absolution prayer that a priest reads after the confession. This prayer contains the following words: “Reconcile him (her) and unite him (her) to Your Holy Church, through Jesus Christ our Lord…” Reconcile and unite, because we sinned and broke away from the unity with God, and therefore we need reconciliation and unity.
However, we should acknowledge the difference between sin as an action, and sinfulness as a way of life. Each of us possesses all gifts of God to some extent, but only to some extent, and we should be aware of that. This is not the reason to go to confession. More often than not, people come and say, “I have no love, I have no mercy, I have no patience.” We do not possess these qualities to the full extent. Nevertheless, we have everything we need, all the gifts of God, all the potential that we should make manifest through ourselves. This is probably something we have to pray for. This is where we need spiritual guidance and spiritual knowledge.
We must distinguish the Sacrament of Repentance from a spiritual talk, from the spiritual guidance that we all should have in our lives, when we can ask some questions, share our opinions or ask for advice. We come to the confession in order to repent, in order to ask God to forgive our sins. A substitution happens often: we turn a confession into a spiritual talk. It seems to me that we, the clergy, must not be lax in this regard: yes, it is important to listen to people but we ought to explain to them why they come to the confession, to the Book and the Cross, in the first place. They come in order to die for sin and rise up for the new life, the eternal life. They come in order to reconcile with God. This is why talking with a priest during confession is simply irrelevant. The priest reminds us of this fact before the confession, saying, “I am but a witness.” Indeed, a priest is just a witness and a helper in our confession; he is the person who sympathizes with us and prays for us. It is God Himself who we speak with during the Sacrament of Confession. It seems to me that we are losing this understanding of the Sacrament of Confession. We are capable of transforming it in anything but what it should be.
Now, in the summer, we do not have priests on duty but in all other seasons there is always a priest around in the Convent, whom you can contact from 10 am till 5 pm. There is a schedule, and we can always find time to come for a spiritual talk, and the priest will pay as much attention and time to us as we need. Is a spiritual talk possible during the liturgy when a crowd of people wait in the queue for the confession? If something serious happened in our life, something that really separated us from God, we can come to the confession (given that we had no opportunity to do that the night before the liturgy), briefly tell God about our problem and ask Him to forgive us.
We see that people who regularly go to church often spend entire liturgies in queues for the confession… Each of us knows from our own experience that (let alone the fact that we cannot take part in the liturgy when we confess) it is impossible to pray while we wait in the queue. We recall our sins over and over again, trying to remember everything and to express everything as clearly as possible. We are not here: our minds and our hearts wander in a different place. This is how we miss out on the liturgy. It may appear to us that we lead a very righteous life — a vigorous, spiritual, and
pious life, while in fact there is a substitution when we leave out the most important thing.
This is what I want to tell you about confession during the liturgy. We all confess that we have a dysfunctional relationship with God, that we pray in an indifferent mechanistic manner, that we stop praying. Imagine how weird this situation appears? It is during the liturgy that we neglect the prayer of the Church. After we fall out of the unity with the Body of Christ, after we abandon the most essential prayer, we repent: “Lord, forgive me, for I neglect prayer.” I think that our enemy must be applauding right at that moment.
The next thing that we should think about is that the words of our main service, our main Sacrament, our main prayer are meaningless for us, or we make them meaningless. Every supplication and every prayer is the prayer of the entire Church. It is our prayer that goes out of the mouth of the priest and the choir, this is our common prayer. I’d like to remind you once more: we all celebrate the Eucharist. Protopresbyter Nicholas Afanasiev, one of the prominent theologians of the Russian Church abroad, writes that if the ancient saints, such as St Justin Martyr, St Cyprian of Carthage, St John Chrysostom, or St Jerome, heard that only the priest celebrates the liturgy, while all other people simply attend the service, they would not believe their ears: how can one priest celebrate the Sacrament of the entire Church? This is just impossible. Our canons say that a priest cannot celebrate the liturgy without people, without at least one or two persons present in the church, because it is the work of the Church. So here we are, standing in a queue for the confession during the Sunday service. A deacon exclaims: “Let us stand well, let us stand with fear, let us attend, that we may offer the Holy Sacrifice in peace.” The choir replies on our behalf: “Mercy of peace, sacrifice of praise.” However, we do not respond to any of these words. We do not stand “well”, we do not stand “with fear”. We do not “attend”, nor do we plan to offer the Holy Sacrifice. This is because we are queuing for the confession, we are waiting for our turn, we are preoccupied with our sins and the events of our own lives. And then the priest exclaims, calling and warning us, “Let us lift up our hearts.” – “Let us have our hearts exalted to the Heaven.” Let’s be honest. I can see clearly from the altar that the church is divided into two groups (even if they are not equal in number). One bigger group of parishioners face the altar and pray, and the other group stands in a queue for confession. So who is this exclamation for?
“Let us lift up our hearts.” I would like to say a couple of words about this brief yet meaningful exclamation. Archpriest Alexander Schmemann writes that it is frightening to remain on earth at that moment. We must be afraid of staying put on the earth with our hearts, our souls, our minds… This exclamation is a warning. Where are we? Aren’t we stuck to the earth?
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh had some remarkable life stories to share. Once he looked out of the church window to the church yard. It was a sunny spring day, the grass was green, birds were singing, the weather was seasonable. He saw an old lady who entered the church yard and dived deep into a litterbin in order to find something there. Metropolitan Anthony concludes: “Doesn’t the same happen to us, too? Here is the God’s world, here is the Heaven, here we hear the call to ascend to the Heaven with Christ and to partake of His meal. But we say, ‘No, Lord, please allow me to go on examining my own sins, I have no time for the Heaven because I face so many problems!’” And we do not notice how ridiculous it sounds! It seems to us that we spend our time doing something important and vital, and that this self-awareness, this self-condemnation is what the real life with God is all about. Basically, this is a rat race without measuring our lives up against the Heaven, without the joy and the fullness of life that is given, is revealed to us through the Divine Liturgy. And then a priest implores us to offer the pivotal prayer of gratitude to God with all our mouths and all our hearts, the prayer that will transform our offerings of bread and wine into the Body and the Blood of Christ. “Let us give thanks to the Lord.” Some of us do not react to it in any way. We have more pressing issues to deal with. And this at the time when the Pentecost happens, and the Holy Spirit descends onto everyone present in the church over and over again.
During an evening service on the eve of the Pentecost, Father Andrew said that special prayers of invocation of the Holy Spirit would be read on the day of the feast. I had just finished listening to confessions and stopped to listen to his sermon. A woman who stood by my side asked me, “Father, at what time will these prayers be recited, the prayers that are read once a year and therefore possess such a magic power? I am afraid to miss them.” You see, the Pentecost happens every day during the Divine Liturgy. Do we contemplate on this, do we realize this, do we live in accordance with this? No, we continue to queue for the confession.
We can witness the same process going on practically at every liturgy, especially on Sundays and feasts. The Chalice is already here, the Lord Himself gives his Blood and his Body to us through
the hands of priests. Here we are in the Heaven, partaking of God’s meal in his Kingdom; but the confession goes on endlessly. Finally, the Communion is over and the priests carry the Chalice back into the sanctuary; moreover, a priest already calls us to descend from the Heaven: “Let us depart in peace.” This is a call and a command to go back to the world again. And we reply: “In the Name of the Lord.” At last, the service is over, and the priest has already dismissed the people but we go on confessing. The Chalice has to be taken out of the sanctuary again. And again, and again… We do not even realize that we break the rules of the most important service, the essential Sacrament. Maybe some cases are an exception but this has become a large-scale phenomenon. This has a lot to do with me and you, the observant Christians.If you liked the run up to the US attack on Iraq, with the lurid fictional tales o fmobile chemical weapons labs and Saddam’s nukes, you will love “Iraq, The Sequel”, currently unfolding in Syria. It is everything the interventionists have been hoping for: a heady brew of Kosovo, Iraq, and Libya all rolled into one. The possibility for an infinitely more toxic conflagration is exponentially higher, to boot, adding for the interventionists much excitement to the mix.
Here is the latest:
A fourth US warship capable of launching the type of cruise |
? You don't bring a knife to a gunfight. That's just the way it is, folks. It's a dog-eat-dog world."
On the seven-minute tape, Rumsfeld is joined by counter-terrorist leaders Vice-President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft, each seated on folding chairs in front of an American flag. Ashcroft described some tactics the government currently uses—pre-dawn assaults on civilian targets and subjecting potential stateside traitors to psychological intimidation—as a "small step in the right direction."
"I can't really say what we have planned for the future," Rumsfeld said. "As terrorists, fear and uncertainty will be our best weapons. Let me just say that the gloves are off. It is inevitable that indiscriminate attacks will be carried out, and innocents will lose their lives, but the end will justify the means."
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Rumsfeld refused to comment on the recent abuse of military prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, other than to characterize those abuses as "nothing compared to what we are capable of."
"It's vital to remember that these terrorists hate freedom," Rumsfeld said. "Well, guess what? From now on, we're going to hate it even more. Do you think terrorists care about due process and fair treatment of prisoners? Of course not. Why should we give them the upper hand? You fight fire with fire."
Cheney restated that the goal of the new policy is to put an end to terror around the world, once and for all.
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"It's time to get this war over with," Cheney said. "The philosopher Eric Hoffer said, 'You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.' Well, we've been observing, but finally we've started taking notes. We'll have these terrorists running scared in no time."
Cheney urged Americans to "be on alert" in upcoming months.
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"Seneca once said, 'To be feared is to fear: No one has been able to strike terror into others and at the same time enjoy peace of mind,'" Cheney said. "If we want these terrorists to fear the U.S., we as a people need to be filled with fear. Expect to see more heavily armed, uniformed officers, both at home and abroad."
Elliott Abrams, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director For Near East and North African Affairs, said that the Bush Administration acknowledged the ethical inconsistencies of its opposing-terrorism-through-terrorism stance, but doesn't really care.
"Look, any eighth-grader knows that the line between good and evil is blurry," Abrams said. "Our concern is the safety of the American people. An eye for an eye: Let's see if that plan works."
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Abrams refused to provide clues about the time and method of attack, other than to allude to an "election-year surprise."
"Just wait and you'll see," Abrams said. "Martin Luther King said, 'Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.' Well, enemies of democracy and freedom around the world are going to find out just how right he was. They'll see just how dark it can get."
Experts from the Mukhabarat el-Aama Egyptian intelligence service have deemed the message authentic.
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"There is no doubt who the men on the tape are," spokesman Sulieman Assad said. "Cheney can clearly be recognized from previous tapes, albeit a bit aged, and John Ashcroft is wearing his iconic stern, fanatical expression. I would recommend that the Arab world raise its security alert level to'severe,' but apparently, it has already been that way for some time."A relatively narrow plurality of Americans believe that a federal appeals court made the right call in refusing to reinstate President Donald Trump’s travel ban, a new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds, although they remain divided on the ban itself.
Forty-four percent of Americans say the court made the right decision in refusing to reinstate the ban after it was temporarily halted by a judge, while 37 percent say it made the wrong decision and 19 percent aren’t sure.
By a 21-point margin, 51 percent to 31 percent, Americans say that the judicial system should have the power to halt the president’s travel ban. And by a 24-point margin, 54 percent to 30 percent, they say Trump acted inappropriately when he disparaged the judge who temporarily blocked the ban in a tweet he sent earlier this month:
The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017
Opinions on all of this are split along the same partisan lines that have divided views about nearly every aspect of both the travel ban and Trump’s presidency itself. Eighty-nine percent of voters who backed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in last year’s presidential election agree with the court’s decision, while 88 percent of Trump’s voters disagree. Clinton voters almost universally believe that the courts should have the power to halt the ban, while nearly three-quarters of Trump voters say that the judicial system should not have that power.
The Huffington Post
Although the HuffPost/YouGov survey finds modest support for the court’s decision, it also finds Americans evenly split on the ban itself, with 45 percent approving and 45 percent disapproving.
HuffPost/YouGov’s initial survey after Trump’s executive order found Americans split 48 percent to 44 percent in favor of the ban, while other surveys, especially those conducted by pollsters using live interviewers, found considerably higher disapproval for the ban.
Why are Americans currently more likely to approve of the ban than to think the court made the wrong decision in refusing to reinstate it? The difference comes in part because, while 86 percent who disapprove of the ban think the court made the right decision, a smaller 76 percent majority of those who approve of it say the court was wrong. Fifteen percent of Americans who approve of the ban still say they aren’t sure whether the court made the right decision or not, while 8 percent believe that it did. (It’s possible that some are inclined to defer to the judicial system; it’s also possible that the somewhat convoluted nature of the ban’s current legal status, and thus the question, was unclear to some respondents.)
Regardless of how Americans feel about the ban, they’re now souring on the way it was implemented. Only 27 percent of Americans now think the government has done a somewhat or very good job of carrying out the ban, down from 41 percent in the previous survey. The majority, 51 percent, say it has done a job that was not very good or not good at all.
The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted Feb. 11-13 among U.S. adults, using a sample selected from YouGov’s opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.
The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls.You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov’s nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be found here. More details on the polls’ methodology are available here.While we all eagerly await the fully illustrated edition of the first Harry Potter book, set to be released in October, Bloomsbury has announced something exciting for collectors – there will be a deluxe edition of the book.
The Deluxe Illustrated Edition will go on sale a little after the regular edition, on November 5, 2015. From the press release:
The deluxe illustrated edition of J.K. Rowling’s timeless classic will feature an exclusive pull-out double gatefold of Diagon Alley; intricate foiled line art by Jim Kay on a real cloth cover and slipcase; gilt edges on premium grade paper; head and tail bands and two ribbon markers. It is the ultimate must-have edition for any fan, collector or bibliophile. This edition will be sold exclusively from the Bloomsbury.com website until March 2016 when it will be made available to retail outlets. This special edition is an utterly enchanting feast of a book and something to treasure for a lifetime. Brimming with rich detail and humour, Jim Kay’s dazzling depiction of the wizarding world and much loved characters will captivate fans and new readers alike. In oil, pastel, pencil, watercolour, pixels and a myriad of other techniques, Jim Kay has created over 115 astonishing illustrations.
Here’s an image of what the Deluxe Illustrated Edition will look like:
And here’s the Diagon Alley image mentioned above (a larger version can be found here on Bloomsbury’s website):
Press Release HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE – DELUXE ILLUSTRATED EDITION Written by J.K. Rowling, illustrated by Jim Kay Published by Bloomsbury 5th November 2015, £150 Bloomsbury are set to publish a deluxe edition of the full-colour illustrated Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone written by J.K. Rowling and illustrated by Jim Kay, alongside the much anticipated £30 edition. The deluxe illustrated edition of J.K. Rowling’s timeless classic will feature an exclusive pull-out double gatefold of Diagon Alley; intricate foiled line art by Jim Kay on a real cloth cover and slipcase; gilt edges on premium grade paper; head and tail bands and two ribbon markers. It is the ultimate must-have edition for any fan, collector or bibliophile. This edition will be sold exclusively from the Bloomsbury.com website until March 2016 when it will be made available to retail outlets. This special edition is an utterly enchanting feast of a book and something to treasure for a lifetime. Brimming with rich detail and humour, Jim Kay’s dazzling depiction of the wizarding world and much loved characters will captivate fans and new readers alike. In oil, pastel, pencil, watercolour, pixels and a myriad of other techniques, Jim Kay has created over 115 astonishing illustrations.
There’s only one piece of bad news – this beautiful new edition will set you back £150. Still, doubtless many collectors will happily pay for owning such a gorgeous book. Will you be one of them? Let us know in the comments!Re: Senior cop set to face long-delayed G20 hearing, Dec. 17 Senior cop set to face long-delayed G20 hearing, Dec. 17 Your report on the hearing into Supt. David Fenton's conduct during the G20 in 2010, and his claims of protester violence, including the burning of police cars, reminds me of what I witnessed during the march on the afternoon of June 26. Police had declared Queen's Park a “safe zone” so marchers gathered there prior to setting off down University to Queen and then west to Spadina. I had become separated from my wife and the group I was part of, so when the march started I waited for her at University and College The stream of marchers was at that point about eight deep, so by my sample count I came up with about 50,000 marchers — far more than reported by the media. There was some excitement in the air. The crowd included all types of people, families with young children, elderly people, some with flags and banners, but it was entirely peaceful, and with the alleged exception of a small breakaway group that turned back to go up Yonge, it stayed peaceful throughout the whole event.
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Then I saw a police car, being driven by a uniformed officer, drive into the middle of the stream of marchers, where he stopped, opened the car windows, got out and walked off. At that time I wondered why he would do that. Only later, when similar cars further south were found burning, with no effort by the police to extinguish the flames, did I realize what police were up to. The protester violence Fenton refers to was certainly at least in part initiated by, and certainly amplified by, police behaviour that infamous weekend. Michael Brothers, Toronto
Supt. Fenton says that “Toronto deteriorated into a sense of lawlessness” at the G20. This is a gross exaggeration. The violence that did happen occurred in a relatively small part of the city and the police allowed it to happen. I watched live TV coverage and none of the 19,000 police amassed in the city were to be seen in the vicinity of the violence. More than once the announcer asked “where are the police?” When a cruiser was torched at Bay and King, the announcer said they must surely send in the police now. The fire department showed up but it was another 10 or 15 minutes for the police to arrive. Somebody allowed this lawlessness to spread. Was it Stephen Harper, who needed to justify the enormous cost of security? Was it Julian Fantino, from OPP headquarters? Or Toronto police chief Bill Blair? We will never know because the governments refused to convene an extensive inquiry. The generals get away and the foot soldiers are prosecuted. Kenneth Brown, Toronto
Read more about:The UK government must consider the possibility of an Islamic State attack on its territory with unconventional weapons. As Europe debates how to deal with Isis in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, Isis is revelling in what it considers success, and is undoubtedly planning the next assault. Only that the next strike may be just as Isis vows: more lethal, even more shocking, it may just be one where the internationally banned abhorrent weapons of mass destruction are used. The UK, and other states fighting Isis, need to be on alert.
French prime minister Manuel Valls has already warned the French parliament that Isis may use chemical and biological weapons in future, in a speech aimed at seeking parliamentary approval to extend a state of emergency. Valls’ office stressed that his mention of the possibility of a chemical weapons attack was “not new information on the status of the threat, just a realistic observation”. “Middle East experts know that Daesh [Isis] seeks and uses chemical weapons,” a spokesman told Le Monde. “To not consider this possibility would be a mistake.”
On 14 November the French government authorised the use of atropine sulfate, which can be used as an antidote in the event of chemical attacks. The British government is yet to announce any such measures. Security around Paris’s water supply recently increased following concerns that they might be vulnerable to a unconventional attack.
I was held hostage by Isis. They fear our unity more than our airstrikes | Nicolas Hénin Read more
Valls’s warning should not come as a surprise since Isis now possesses and is viewed as capable of manufacturing its own chemical weapons. There is evidence that the movement has already used these weapons in recent months in Syria and Iraq, with incidents against Kurds in northern Iraq in July and in the town of Marea in northern Syria in August.
There is a very real risk of Isis using unconventional weapons in Europe and beyond. What makes Isis so dangerous is its radical ideology coupled with its continued success in recruiting hundreds of foreign fighters, including some with degrees in physics, chemistry, and computer science, and some who have previously worked in Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme. These recruits have the skills to manufacture lethal weapons from raw substances as well as access to serious funding. After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, there was a consensus that no militarily usable WMD were found, but the Iraq Survey Group in its final report in 2004 stated that there is a “possibility that some weapons existed in Iraq, although not of a military significant capability.”
In 2005, according to a recent New York Times report, the CIA repeatedly purchased and destroyed Borak nerve agent rockets from an Iraqi seller, but the relationship had “dried up” in 2006. That year, a US House of Representatives permanent select committee on intelligence stated that: “Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent.”
These munitions meet the technical definition of WMD, according to the commander of the National Ground Intelligence Center, who also warned of the danger of remnants of these materials falling into the wrong hands: “Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally intended … though agent remaining in the weapons would be very valuable to terrorists and insurgents.” It remains unclear whether all those munitions found have been destroyed and whether all of them indeed have been found.
In July 2014, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) disclosed that militants linked to Isis “seized a large quantity (40kg/88lb) of ‘uranium compounds’ from Mosul University in northern Iraq. The unspecified material was described by the IAEA as ‘low grade’ nuclear material.”
Also in 2014, Isis controlled the so-called al-Muthanna site in Iraq for some months. According to UN reports, the bunkers from the past Iraqi chemical weapons programme at this site contained “2,000 empty artillery shells contaminated with mustard agents, 605 one-tonne mustard containers with residues and heavily contaminated construction material”. Iraq has retaken possession of the site, but due to its poor state is not able to conduct a full assessment. According to experts, due to its limited toxicity, this material could be used to spread panic rather than to inflict serious physical harm. Yet it is not without risk and casualties should not be ruled out.
As Wolfgang Rudischhauser, director of the WMD Non-Proliferation Centre at Nato headquarters in Brussels, states in his article Could Isil go Nuclear? “Isil actually has already acquired the knowledge, and in some cases the human expertise, that would allow it to use CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear] materials as weapons of terror.” He explains that Isis differs from groups like al-Qaida because of the lethal combination of access and expertise that Isis has acquired. Osama bin Laden reportedly advised against use of CBRN because of the problem of access and handling of such materials, but Isis is different and might be tempted to use these materials.
Britain, France needs you in this fight against Isis | Jean-Yves Le Drian Read more
As Europe faces an imminent threat of more Isis attacks, more attention needs to be given to the possibility of an attack with unconventional materials. The UK government needs to inform the public about the nature and scope of the threat and what it is doing about it. Military and civil prevention and response strategies need to be reassessed and addressed. As the threat is not only to the UK, coordination with the EU and Nato is essential and enhanced intelligence-sharing is required. Returning foreign fighters and home-grown radicals must be monitored closely given the knowledge they may have acquired and the easy availability of industrial chemicals for those determined to use them.
In 1990, during the Gulf war, Israelis were advised to carry a small bag containing a gas mask and antidotes to a chemical attack at all times. People felt that they were informed about the nature of the threat and they were prepared for an attack; they knew the risk and were adequately equipped. They knew that they should seek cover in sealed rooms above ground in case of a chemical attack. They felt empowered to deal with any kind of potential threat. Even as scud missiles were landing in Israel, people went to work, children went to school, and with every missile that landed the public was given precise details about the nature and scope of the attack.
The nature of the Isis threat is very different, and the UK needs to tailor a response according to an up-to-date assessment of threat perception. Keeping silent about it is not the answer. The public has the right to know and it needs to be prepared.Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you’re perversely proud of the fact that you didn’t grow up in New York.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you actually grew up in Chicago — not in Skokie, Evanston, Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove or any of the other suburbs where Jews started to flee when real estate prices in their neighborhoods started getting too low and the sports teams at their public high schools started getting too good.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means your parents or their parents or their parents’ parents came over from the Old Country and lived in shtetl-like neighborhoods in Albany Park or on the Old West Side. Or maybe they lived in Hyde Park or South Shore, in which case they probably didn’t associate with the parents or parents’ parents who lived in Albany Park or on the Old West Side.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means it took you a long while before you figured out what that meant.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you lived in Lincoln Park or Hyde Park or Budlong Woods or, in this case, West Rogers Park — a cereal deliveryman to your left, a rabbi and rebbetzin to your right, a retired construction worker immediately across the street.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you didn’t grow up in Sauganash.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you lived in a house where you were surrounded by thick books with portentous titles such as “To Jerusalem and Back,” “The End of the Jewish People” and “Elsewhere Perhaps,” but you never actually saw anyone in your house reading those books and, after a certain point, you understood that your parents had gotten them from Book-of-the-Month Club and, since the books were written by Jewish authors, they would have felt guilty about sending them back.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that Isaac Bashevis Singer once pinched your cheek at the JCC and autographed your copy of “When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw.”
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that your father once took you to hear George Steiner speak at the JCC when you were far too young to understand what the hell he was talking about.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that your father subscribed to Commentary.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you grew up Jewish but not all that Jewish, so your class at the Daniel Boone Elementary School was filled with Goldbergs, Goldsteins, Grosses and Mosses, but also with Flynns, Kotowskis, O’Haras and Yungs, and all of those names seemed to mean pretty much the same thing.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means your second grade class took two field trips — one to Congregation KINS of West Rogers Park, the other to St. Timothy’s — and your mother wrote you a sick note so you wouldn’t have to go on the second field trip.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, though your parents were committed to the city, they were also ambitious (at least as far as you were concerned), so they bailed on the public school system and sent you to a private school in the northern suburbs where President Ford’s Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld had gone, and where you were the only Jew in your second grade class which had a kid in it named Mike who said he hated all Jews but you were okay. And so, at the end of the school year, your parents pulled you out of that school and sent you back to the crappy public school, which had gotten even crappier so they sent you back one more time to the private school where the anti-Semitic second grader was thankfully gone. And by then, even the mean kids didn’t seem to really care one way or the other about the fact you were Jewish because they had other people to harass, such as the couple of black kids and the one Chinese kid. And if you had been a young, social justice type of Jew, you would have spoken up for them. But you weren’t, and so you didn’t. And, though you don’t feel good about that, nevertheless, it’s true.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means it was a little weird when the music teacher expected you to know the words to “Mary Had a Baby,” which she asked you to sing at the school assembly. But truth be told, it really wasn’t that big of a deal; you felt more uncomfortable when you had to sing “Dreidel Mine Spin Spin Spin.”
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, when you were sent to the principal’s office for calling another kid some bad word that you actually can’t recall right now, you put on an innocent face and said you would never ever do such a thing because you knew that, as your class’s only Jewish kid, people could say worse things about you.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means your principal believed you.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means at least you think she did.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that when you would go over to your non-Jewish friends’ houses, their parents would ask you if you were watching miniseries such as “Holocaust” and “Masada” and you didn’t know if they were trying to be sensitive or if they were just being jerks, but now you think they were probably both.
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Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, though you were lousy in sports, you took a particular interest in Jewish or Jewish-sounding or Jewish-seeming Chicago athletes such as Mike Veisor, Ron Blomberg and Eric Soderholm, who, as it turned out, wasn’t Jewish but did wear a Star of David. So there’s that.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that probably the most sacrilegious period of your life took place during the five years you attended Hebrew school — a sad, sordid tale involving tacks placed on rabbis’ chairs and snowballs whipped at CTA buses and hallway fistfights and classmates who spent recess swiping porn and Cadbury chocolate bars from nearby Sun Drugs, after which teachers shouted and banged tzedakah boxes and ordered everyone to copy passages from Maimonides 100 times.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you attended Hebrew school with tough, or at least boastful girls, one of whom got sent home for wearing a Campbell’s Soup “Mm-Mm Good” T-shirt that your rabbi insisted was “pornographic” and another who asserted that, ever since she had started giving blowjobs, she had given up chewing the free hot dog-shaped bubblegum at Fluky’s Red Hots.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you didn’t know if she was joking or not.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you’re still not sure.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, during a rehearsal for an all-school play, you accidentally turned off the synagogue’s eternal light and your rabbi didn’t believe you when you said it was an accident even though it really was.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that you once saw one of your Hebrew school rabbis attending “The Black Stallion” at the Nortown Theater on Western Avenue with his wife and you realized he was just a person like anyone else and you felt sort of bad for everything he had endured as your class’s teacher.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you still remember his name.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you’re sensitive enough not to print it.
Or maybe you’re not.
Rabbi Knoblauch.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, during the High Holidays, you sat in shul with your dad in one of the back rows on a metal folding chair and spent most of the service trying to see if you could develop telekinetic powers and use them to sear a hole into the freckle on the neck of the man sitting in front of you.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that you should remember all this fondly now, and you guess you sort of do, but at the same time, you sort of don’t.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means your bar mitzvah was held at a fancy-schmancy Magnificent Mile hotel with an open bar where you and your 12- and 13-year-old friends drank actual cocktails, told dirty jokes and looked out at the view of Lake Michigan while some of your car salesmen cousins shared tips on fleecing customers.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, when you look back at that night, you still think it’s weird.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you understand there’s a difference between remembering things and feeling nostalgic for them.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that you were named your Hebrew school’s valedictorian, which should have been called the Lesser-of-15-Evils award. As a prize, you got a book by William Safire and a scholarship to the Ida Crown Jewish Academy, which you turned down because you would instead be attending a public school in the north suburbs, which, according to one of your rabbis, used to be good but now had too many blacks. He added something negative about Jesse Jackson and something positive about Bayard Rustin.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, after your bar mitzvah you lost track of most of your Hebrew school classmates: the girl who talked about blow jobs and Fluky’s gum; the wild, funny kid who invited you over to his house to play Intellivision; the girl you had a crush on who used to scrawl Aerosmith, Rush and other band names all over her notebooks.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that you went to an integrated public high school in Evanston, but you got involved in drama and journalism, where Jews were overrepresented, so it was pretty much like going to a Jewish high school anyway.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you probably were attending that Evanston high school illegally.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you wonder if you still might get busted for that.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that actor Robert Clary from “Hogan’s Heroes” addressed your school at a Holocaust remembrance assembly and you felt uncomfortable when some people started laughing.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, when Harold Washington and Bernard Epton were running for mayor, you felt divided because your liberal Jewish friends were supporting Washington, but you sensed that Epton was being used and was actually a decent enough guy, and he could become Chicago’s first Jewish mayor and how could you vote against that? Then again, you weren’t old enough to vote, so it was all pretty much moot.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that most of the adults you tended to encounter — your relatives, your father’s high school friends — had spent their entire lives in and around Chicago, and you realized that you didn’t want to be someone who spent his whole life in and around Chicago.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that you decided to go to college in New York.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, when you went to college in New York, you were just about the only Jew from Chicago.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that you majored in political science because, for a while, you thought you might go into politics and, hell, if Bernard Epton almost became Chicago’s first Jewish mayor, why not you? And, yes, you gave up that dream pretty quickly, but did the one who finally destroyed it have to turn out to be Rahm Emanuel? Did it really have to be a guy who went to New Trier?
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means you find it weird that Rahm Emanuel and Liz Phair went to the same high school.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, when you went to college in New York, you were surrounded by New York Jews who seemed different than the sorts of Jews you knew from Chicago. They had had addresses on Park Avenue or Central Park West or they grew up in rent-controlled apartments in the Village but summered in Connecticut. These were Jews who knew Bob Dylan because he lived across the hall. These were Jews whose families owned big-name mail order businesses or department stores. These were Jews who looked dubious when you said you grew up in the Chicago equivalent of Brooklyn because they sensed that where you grew up was really the Chicago equivalent of Queens. Which meant that you spent a lot of time hanging out with first-generation Asian kids and lapsed Catholics on merit scholarships, and scions of WASPy families who had pissed away the fortune eons ago, all of whom seemed a lot more similar to Jews growing up in Chicago than you did to Jews who grew up in New York.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, after you’d been away from Chicago for a while, you realized that a Jew who grew up in Chicago was a thing you could be, an identity you could embrace. When you came home on breaks, you could take people around and show them the schoolyard where you’d played fast pitch, the Hebrew school where you and your friends had terrorized your teachers, the home of the rabbi who still lived next door. You could walk up and down Devon Avenue as if you were Tony Danza patrolling the streets of Little Italy, and you could get a kichel from Levinson’s Bakery or a cheese slice from Tel Aviv Kosher Pizza and say, “This is my neighborhood; this is where I grew up.” And because this was who you actually were and not someone you were pretending to be, this turned out to be a far better first date strategy than a trip to Lincoln Park Zoo or a walk on the beach or a candlelit dinner at Ambria or Spiaggia or the Cape Cod Room or whichever overpriced dining establishment was supposed to be romantic.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means when you decided you were going be a writer, your father told you to see if Commentary was hiring.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that you moved back to Chicago after college, but you sort of knew you would eventually move back to New York.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, when you moved back to New York, you wound up in a neighborhood that reminded you of your old neighborhood in Chicago.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that you wrote some books about Jews who grew up in Chicago and the books did okay, but everyone kept telling you they would have done so much better if they had been set in New York, so you set some books in New York and they did all right, but for some reason, New York seemed so much smaller to you than Chicago ever did so you started writing about Chicago again.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, when you told your parents that you were going to be a parent, they told you that they wanted your children to be circumcised and you were so thankful that you wound up having girls so you wouldn’t have to have that particular argument.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, every so often, you think about your Hebrew school classmates and what became of them, but most of them had pretty common names, so even on Facebook they’re hard to find. You once caught a glimpse of one of the girls at an Aerosmith concert; you once heard that the wild, funny kid you’d played Intellevision with jumped out of a window at college and killed himself. You heard some other stories — some are sort of dull, others are more interesting — you won’t repeat those.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, for a while in New York, you spoke out with a missionary zeal about the Jewish food in Chicago and how it was far better than the Jewish food in New York. For a while, you were convinced that the corned beef at Manny’s Deli on Jefferson was better than the corned beef at the 2nd Avenue Deli, that the matzo ball soup at The Bagel on Broadway was superior to the one at Zabar’s, that nothing could compare with the apple danishes you had consumed as a child at Ashkenaz. But after a certain point, you realized you didn’t eat any of that crap anymore and, though even now you’re still fond of Lincolnwood’s New York Bagel & Bialy (despite its name), it just can’t measure up to Absolute Bagels on Broadway. And yes, the challah and rye bread at North Shore Kosher Bakery are actually still pretty damn good, but aside from that, none of it really matters.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, when the economy went to hell a few years ago, you and your family toyed with the notion of moving back to Chicago, but you quickly realized that, given the crappiness of the public school system, you’d probably wind up living in the suburbs. And you just couldn’t see yourself doing that.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, though you’ve lived in New York for more than a decade, you care more about Chicago politics than you’ll ever care about New York politics, that you watched each of the debates between Rahm Emanuel and Chuy Garcia and not one second of any involving Bill DeBlasio, that you don’t give a damn about sports anymore but you still kind of like it when the Blackhawks win or when the Yankees lose.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that your daughters are New Yorkers in a way you’ll never be.
Growing up Jewish in Chicago means that, even though you live in New York, you’ll never be a New York Jew.
And you’re perversely proud of that fact too.
Adam Langer is the Forward’s culture editor.
This story "What It Means To Grow Up Jewish in Chicago" was written by Adam Langer.DENVER — The city of Denver has fined the permit holder of the annual Denver 4/20 rally about $12,000 and banned it from holding the event for three years, it was announced Saturday.
Rally organizers disagreed with the city’s ruling and promised a prompt appeal.
Denver Parks and Recreation announced it issued a letter to the permit holder advising of the event violations and penalties imposed.
It happened as a result of a review of this year’s 4/20 event ordered by Denver Mayor Michael Hancock.
The mayor said the event “experienced notable safety concerns and left the park in disarray.”
About 80 to 100 bags of trash were strewn all over the park in Civic Center Park one day after thousands of people attended the pro-marijuana festival.
At the time, the event producer said all of the trash from the rally had been bagged for pickup the next morning but during the night, someone slashed the bags and spread the trash all over the park.
After the rally, Hancock said the event was “under-resourced and presented numerous safety hazards.”
“After a thorough review of the event, substantial violations of city requirements were found,” said Happy Haynes, executive director of Denver Parks and Recreation.
“We will continue to ensure that events in our parks are safe, compliant and of high quality, and we remain focused on protecting Denver’s parks and facilities which are valuable assets to our city and our residents.”
“DPR is imposing a monetary penalty in the amount of $11,965, an additional $190 in damages, banning the event holder from being granted any event permit for three years, and rescinding their priority event status.”
“The 4/20 Rally disagrees that it committed any substantial or intentional violations and will promptly appeal this finding,” permit holder Miguel Lopez said in an email.
“Anything identified in Haynes’ letter as a violation is of a hyper-technical nature, and no actual problems, permanent damage, nor injuries occurring from the Rally.”
Lopez said organizers followed all laws and permit conditions, and trash removal occurred within the specified time.
“We left the park cleaner than we received it,” he said.
The permit holder has the right to appeal the decision within 15 days of the notice.Interactive fiction, especially parser interactive fiction, has a tradition of wordplay games: pieces where you manipulate spellings, untangle anagrams, and solve puzzles using common proverbs and idioms.
Infocom’s Nord and Bert Couldn’t Make Head or Tail of It went |
5 and RM33 billion beginning 2016, adding that the increased revenue would open up the government’s purse on public spending, which would benefit the people.
But the students remained sceptical; one claimed the government’s push to roll out the GST suggested it was really “desperate for money”.
“I don't know… it just seems to me that the government really wants to tax everyone because they are so eager about it. It's like they are desperate for our money,” the student said.
Lokman did not address the question but maintained that Putrajaya's revision of Budget 2015 included a cut in operating expenditures.
He also maintained that the GST was necessary because of Malaysia's mounting deficit which, was among others, caused by maintaining subsidies on basic goods like fuel and food.
He also said the subsidies were proof that the government was only interested in helping the people, unlike what was claimed by the opposition.
“We didn't have that much money because we had to spend RM20 billion yearly on subsidies… it is not true that we do not want to help the people,” he said.
But PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli who was also on the forum panel, scoffed at Lokman for echoing the government’s explanation, saying it showed a top-down mentality.
“Lokman, when you said the subsidies the government give, the book vouchers the government gives, you must never forget that all that come from the people's money, from the tax they pay.
“So don't ever tell these students to be grateful because these things are rightfully theirs,” Rafizi said, to loud applause.
Earlier during the debate the federal opposition lawmaker claimed that Lokman and the BN government had still to provide concrete “moral justification” to introduce GST at a time when living costs were sky high.
The Pakatan Rakyat opposition bloc has been opposing the implementation of the consumption tax when most taxpayers were facing austerity on the grounds that while the tax would be beneficial, now was not the right time to push it out.
The opposition pact claimed Putrajaya wanted the GST to offset the billions of ringgit in losses incurred through leakages and corruption annually, insisting that the new tax is necessary if the government was more prudent with taxpayers’ monies.
Since announcing the GST last year, the Najib administration immediately launch a public relations campaign to explain the new tax system in a bid to contain a public backlash.
A survey done by Malay Mail Online found that the public remain nescient about how the tax works and majority are still sceptical that prices of goods would remain relatively low despite the government's repeated assurance that inflation is expected to stabilise after the first year of GST.When Hurricane Harvey hit southeast Texas, Houston, America’s fourth-largest city, became an unnavigable web of islands and devastation. The city’s vast, layered highway system—with its rises and dips, on-ramps and off-ramps, crossing bayous and reservoirs and swamps—was a gauntlet of rushing water and sudden roadblocks. West of Houston, fields turned into lakes, with brown water lapping at the sides of Highway 71 and threatening to overrun it. On the way in from Austin, at a farm near Plum, a bloated armadillo corpse bobbed in the water.
Then, on Tuesday afternoon, as the storm blew east toward Louisiana, the rain stopped. By mid-afternoon, the city’s drainage system had done its work, and Highway 288, which bisects central Houston and had transformed over the weekend into a deep river, was no longer flooded. It was simply wet. The receding waters had left behind detritus: shoes, shredded tires, home insulation, a light-blue Mustang with its convertible roof half torn. A few blocks west of 288, I found a homeless man, who introduced himself as Larry, sitting on the corner of San Jacinto and Binz Streets, near the Museum of Fine Arts. He seemed in a daze. “It was very strange,” he told me. “The water subsided very quickly. It was over that curb right there, but then it was all gone in about five or ten minutes.”
Under a church arch, Larry, a homeless man, watched the streets fill with water as the hurricane intensified. Photograph by Mike Osborne for The New Yorker
Larry, who is in his fifties, said that he has been homeless since he was twelve. When he was three or four years old, he woke up at a hospital in Houston, and a nurse explained to him that his right eye was missing because he had been shot in the face, in a “domestic incident.” He told me that he never learned who did it, but, when he was twelve, his mother shot his step-father, and by the end of that year Larry was living in the city’s streets. Late last week, Larry noticed that the Museum of Fine Arts was stacking sandbags around its entrances. The next day, before Larry had ever heard of Hurricane Harvey, its winds were flinging debris at his body, and he went to hide beneath a small, open-air arch on the side of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church. Then came the rain. Huddled under a thick blanket, Larry watched the block fill with water, day after day.
Now he could finally leave the church. His blanket was sodden, his feet had pruned, and he hadn’t eaten since last Friday. The nearby shelter where he usually got sandwiches was shuttered. He used to pass the time circling letters in his book of word-search puzzles, but now the pages were rotting and the blue ink had run. “I’m on the waiting list for transitional housing,” he told me. “It’s been a few months now. I just gotta hope there’s no more storms like this one.”
Houston is entering a new stage, recovery. But the process will be uneven, and it is unclear who will fully recover and who will not. Many areas outside the city center are still underwater. During the storm, the Addicks Reservoir, to the west, which was constructed after the Second World War to help protect Houston from flooding, filled for the first time ever. When the water level surpassed a hundred and eight feet, it began to spill. To prevent an uncontrolled breech, the Army Corps of Engineers began a managed release of the reservoir into the nearest river, Buffalo Bayou. A Harris County police officer who had parked on the side of Interstate 10 told me that the situation in that section of the highway was worsening. “The water’s coming back up,” he said. “I got here around ten o’clock, and it wasn’t even on the feeder road.” Five hours later, the water was now encroaching into the westbound lanes of I-10. A few feet away, a red pickup truck was filled with water nearly to the top of its windows.
Two large vehicles pulled onto the shoulder of the highway to examine the scene. One driver, an Army veteran from San Antonio, named David Saunders, was towing a boat. A few minutes later, the trucks left, in convoy, to carry out rescues in areas that had been affected by the Addicks release. I drove behind them as they made their way to what was normally a creek; now it was a raging river that was pushing up against a concrete bridge. “The bridge is failing,” Saunders told me. It was too dangerous to launch the boat there, so he drove to the nearby neighborhood of Westlake and put it down in the middle of Saums Road, where the water was calm. Saunders set off with two other veterans. When he came back, almost two hours later, he told me that they had rescued about thirty people from homes in Cinco Ranch. “It was a mess over there,” he said. “The water was about thigh-deep in most of the houses. Everyone’s photographs were floating in the water. Their furniture was destroyed. There were a lot of older people, too.” Other volunteer rescuers told me that many locals whose homes were flooded were still refusing to leave. “One guy got pretty torn up by fire ants,” Saunders said. I had seen them floating in colonies, climbing up any solid surfaces they encountered.
As the sun set over the neat rows of suburban-style homes in Westlake, Kevin Maloney, who is thirty-one and works at the local Home Depot, arrived, by bicycle, to check out the flooding at Saums Road. “My wife’s friend—her third-floor apartment was flooded today, after they released the water from Addicks,” he said. “I don’t even know where these reservoirs are. I was just looking on the map to see if I was downstream.” Three military helicopters flew overhead, as a group of soldiers helped some civilian rescuers load their boat onto a trailer. A few blocks away, in the parking lot of the Brazos Valley Schools Credit Union, two flat shovels lay atop an inflatable mattress—a makeshift paddleboat, abandoned at the point where its occupants had hit land.Audi 200 classic parts
Audi 200 classic parts
The Audi 200 is a car model from Audi, which was built in the period 1979-1991. In principle, it was a car similar to the Audi 100 just with more equipment and larger engine. Within the Audi 200 there are two models Audi 200 C2 (type 43) and Audi 200 C3 (type 44).
Type 43 was produced in the period 1979-1982 and is the first type of Audi 200 that was introduced to the public. The basic engine for this model was a 2.1-liter five-cylinder series engine (100-125 kW), but you could also get larger engines. The changes in relation to the Audi 100 are that the Audi 200 C2 contains central lock, electric windows, car radio, velor seats, 4 head restraints, and a lot of other extra equipment. The look has also got a little renovation. For example, the front indicators are located in the bumper, which is now made of black plastic with integrated glass fiber carriers.
Type 44 is put into production in 1983 and all the way up to 1991. The engine is 2.1-2.3 five-cylinder suction motor (100-162 kW respectively). The model is available in five-speed manual gearbox or three-speed automatic transmission. The model has of course also got an outer facelift, which has given the car a more modern and sporty expression.
Models:
Audi 200 C2 classic parts
Audi 200 C3 classic parts
Audi classic parts and more information: Audi 200 partsBill Cosby appeals judge's refusal to dismiss sexual assault case
Posted
American TV personality Bill Cosby has appealed a Pennsylvania state judge's refusal to dismiss a sexual assault case against him.
Dozens of women have accused the 78-year-old actor and comedian of sexual assault dating back decades, but the vast majority of cases have expired under statutes of limitations.
The small number of proceeding cases are being heard in civil court, except in Pennsylvania where Cosby is standing trial for the first time on a criminal sexual assault charge.
Cosby's appeal centres on a decision in Pennsylvania earlier this month by Judge Steven O'Neill who threw out an attempt by the actor's lawyers to have the case dismissed.
Cosby's lawyers filed their notice of appeal against that decision to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania on Friday.
The accusation against Cosby dates back to 2004, a matter that was originally settled by a civil suit in 2006.
Andrea Constand accused Cosby of forcing himself on her at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.
Prosecutors said he urged her to take pills and drink wine, leaving her unable to resist the assault.
In a deposition Cosby gave as part of the civil suit, he admitted giving Ms Constand a pill, but said all relations with her were consensual and accused her of lying about the assault.
Prosecutors reopened the case last year, claiming new evidence came to light in July.
Cosby's legal team argued that violated a 2005 agreement saying he would never be prosecuted over the allegation of assault made by Ms Constand.
The avalanche of accusations against Cosby have led television networks to back away from projects connected to him, and several universities have stripped him of honorary degrees.
On Friday, Cosby also appealed another decision in which the judge refused to disqualify the lead prosecutor from participating in an eventual trial.
AFP
Topics: assault, crime, law-crime-and-justice, courts-and-trials, sexual-offences, united-statesHouse Republicans are proposing to invest additional money in bad policy. Moderate members have been offered $8 billion more in the American Health Care Act, or AHCA, that could help fund high-risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions, a policy that has failed to provide adequate health coverage in the past. With the deal, up to $138 billion could go to high-risk pools under the AHCA, but that additional $8 billion would subsidize just 76,000 more people.
The high-risk pool plan is an attempt to cover up for another provision in the bill, via an amendment by New Jersey Rep. Tom MacArthur (R), that would allow states to easily waive protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions in the individual market if they experienced a gap in coverage.
The Center for American Progress found that the $130 billion of funding already in the AHCA would be insufficient to sustain even a small high-risk pool. Supposing the size of the pool was about 5 percent of the small-group and individual markets, the AHCA would need to provide a total of $327 billion to offer moderately subsidized high-risk pool coverage for those 1.5 million people. The current version of the AHCA falls $200 billion short of that, and the $8 billion promised to House Republican moderates would fill in just 4 percent of the funding gap.
Suppose that the high-risk pool’s enrollees would receive Affordable Care Act-like benefits, including limits on out-of-pocket costs, no rating based on health status, coverage of essential health services, no annual or lifetime limits, and a subsidy that covers 68 percent of the average premium. We start our calculations by assuming that the average high-cost enrollee has annual claims of $32,108, the average in the Affordable Care Act’s transitional Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan. We then subtract the consumers’ share of medical costs from the total claims cost and add health insurance companies’ administrative overhead. The resulting premium for the AHCA high-risk pool would be $31,000 per year. A 68 percent subsidy would be $21,000—hardly generous considering that the consumer’s share of the premium would be $10,000.
Two moderate Republicans, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) and Rep. Billy Long (R-MO), have reportedly been promised that the AHCA will put an additional $8 billion toward high-risk pools over five years, for an average of $1.6 billion in funding per year. The money could be limited to states that choose to waive pre-existing condition protections. Assuming moderately generous premium subsidies of $21,000 per year for high-cost coverage, the Upton amendment could help cover 76,000 enrollees—a tiny fraction of the 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions.
The full $138 billion would subsidize about 700,000 people annually, including the 76,000 from the Upton amendment, in a high-risk pool. But if roughly 5 percent of current individual market and small-group enrollees needed coverage through the high-risk pools, more than 800,000 people with high-cost health conditions would still be left without protection or affordable coverage. We show estimates by state in the table below. We assumed that states which outlawed health-based rating in the individual market would not waive pre-existing condition protections under the AHCA and would therefore be ineligible for Upton amendment funds.
Note that our estimates have made generous assumptions about the maximum funding available for the AHCA high-risk pool. For a full $138 billion toward the risk pool, money would need to be redirected away from other AHCA programs, including promotion of preventive services; the federal invisible risk-sharing program; and maternity care, newborn care, mental health care, and substance use disorders. The entirety of the bill’s Patient and State Stability Fund would need to be dedicated solely to the third option in its list of possible purposes: “reducing the cost for providing health insurance coverage in the individual market and small group market … to individuals who have, or are projected to have, a high rate of utilization of health services.”
House Republican leaders have been presenting the latest ACHA plan as a deal: In exchange for moderate Republicans in the House backing the MacArthur amendment, they sink more money into high-risk pools. But as often happens in trade-offs, there would be winners and losers. Even if the Upton amendment wins votes, the staggeringly large funding gap could leave many Americans with pre-existing conditions stranded outside the high-risk pool without affordable options for coverage.
Emily Gee is a Health Economist at the Center for American Progress. Topher Spiro is the Vice President for Health Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.Editor’s Note: In this blog, Charles Frank answers five questions on low and no-carbon electricity technologies. For a more detailed look at alternative technologies for reducing emissions, read Frank’s latest paper.
As the science on climate change and its impacts on the global economy become clearer and more urgent, governments are increasingly looking for ways to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The largest source of these emissions comes from the combustion of fossil fuels—including coal, oil and natural gas—to produce electricity, an effort that in 2012 made up about 40 percent of emissions globally and 32 percent in the United States. More and more, countries are seeking to lower emissions in the electricity sector by turning to low and no-carbon generation options. However, until now, there has been little thorough, empirical analysis of which of these technologies is most efficient, and which provides the best “bang for our buck” as we seek to reduce emissions.
My new Brookings working paper breaks down the comprehensive costs and benefits of five common low-carbon electricity technologies: wind, solar, hydroelectric, nuclear, and gas combined cycle (an advanced, highly energy efficient type of natural gas plant). Using data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the paper asks the question, “Which of the five low-carbon alternatives is most cost-effective in lowering emissions?” The results are highly policy-relevant, and offer enlightening answers to a number of questions that can help governments aiming for a low-carbon future.
1. What’s it going to cost me?
This is an important question because energy costs are private and owed by everyday consumers, whereas the benefits of reducing carbon use are shared as a global public good. So, what would it cost you and I to move toward a world where we generate electricity through mostly low-carbon technologies? How would the cost per megawatt hour (MWH) and kilowatt hour (KWH) change?
One of the best scenarios for our proposed low-carbon alternatives would be for each of them to replace the use of coal-fired plants when electricity demand is moderate, which is most of the time, and gas simple cycle plants during shorter periods of peak energy use.
The table above compares the cost per kilowatt-hour (KWH) of each of the five low-carbon technologies compared to the cost per KWH of the high-carbon technologies that it replaces. All of the low carbon technologies save on energy costs compared to coal and simple cycle gas plants: wind, solar and hydro because the energy from wind, sun and water is free; nuclear because uranium is cheaper than coal or gas per unit of energy; and gas combined cycle because it is much more energy efficient than coal or gas simple cycle. Four of the five low-carbon technologies, excluding gas combined cycle, have a much higher net capacity cost—that is, the cost of building and maintaining the low-carbon power plants—because all four are much more costly to build and maintain than a new coal or gas simple cycle plant. A gas combined cycle plant saves on capacity costs mainly because it costs about two-thirds less to build than a coal-fired plant.
Adding up the net energy cost and the net capacity cost of the five low-carbon alternatives, far and away the most expensive is solar. It costs almost 19 cents more per KWH than power from the coal or gas plants that it displaces. Wind power is the second most expensive. It costs nearly 6 cents more per KWH. Gas combined cycle is the least expensive. It does not cost more than the cost of power from the coal or less efficient gas plants that it displaces. Indeed, it costs about 3 cents less per KWH.
To place these additional costs in context, the average cost of electricity to U.S. consumers in 2012 was 9.84 cents per KWH, including the cost of transmission and distribution of electricity. This means a new wind plant could at least cost 50 percent more per KWH to produce electricity, and a new solar plant at least 200 percent more per KWH, than using coal and gas technologies.
2. Are the additional costs of wind and solar justified by the benefits of reduced carbon dioxide emissions?
The additional costs of wind and solar could be worthwhile, provided that the value of the emissions they avoid is great enough. However, as the following table shows, if we value the reduced emissions at $50 per ton of carbon dioxide, the benefits of wind and solar, net of their costs, is less than the other three low-carbon alternatives.
The emission benefits of four of the five low-carbon alternatives per KWH are roughly the same, about five cents per KWH. The benefits of wind and solar, minus their additional costs, are negative. The net benefits of the other three alternatives are positive and substantially higher. Gas combined cycle ranks number one in terms of net benefits while hydro and nuclear rank two and three.
A carbon dioxide price of $50 per metric ton places quite a high value on reducing carbon dioxide emissions. For example, the price for carbon dioxide emissions in the European Trading System reached a high of about 30 euros in 2006 and was trading around 5 euros at the end of 2013. Recent prices in trading systems in California have been around $12 and in several eastern U.S. states around $2 per ton.
3. Why are the costs per KWH of wind and solar so much higher, and the benefits not much different, than the other three low-carbon alternatives?
Costs are much higher for three reasons. First, the cost per MW of capacity to build a wind or solar plant is quite high (and much greater than that of a gas-fired plant). The cost per MW of solar capacity is especially high. Reductions in the cost of solar-voltaic panels have reduced the cost of building a solar plant by 22 percent between 2010 and 2012, but further reductions are likely to have a lesser effect because the cost of solar panels is only a fraction of the total cost of a utility-scale solar plant.
Second, a wind or solar plant operates at full capacity only a fraction of the time, when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. For example, a typical solar plant in the United States operates at only about 15 percent of full capacity and a wind plant only about 25 percent of full capacity, while a coal plant can operate 90 percent of full capacity on a year-round basis. Thus it takes six solar plants and almost four wind plants to produce the same amount of electricity as a single coal-fired plant.
Third, the output of wind and solar plants is highly variable—year by year, month by month, day by day and hour by hour—compared to a coal-fired plant, which can operate at full capacity about 90 percent of the time. Thus more than six solar plants and four wind plants are required to produce the same output with the same degree of reliability as a coal-fired plant of the same capacity. In the paper we estimate that at least 7.3 solar plants and 4.3 wind plants are required to produce the same amount of power with the same reliability as a coal-fired plant.
By way of contrast, a new low-carbon gas combined cycle or nuclear plant can operate also at 90 percent of full capacity and can replace a coal-fired plant on a one-to-one basis. A hydro plant with storage can operate at 100 percent capacity during peak periods and more than 40 percent during non-peak periods. In dollar terms, it takes a $29 million investment in solar capacity, and $10 million in wind capacity, to produce the same amount of electricity with the same reliability as a $1 million investment in gas combined cycle capacity.
The benefits of reduced emissions from wind and solar are limited because they operate at peak capacity only a fraction of the time. A nuclear or gas combined cycle plant avoids far more emissions per MW of capacity than wind or solar because it can operate at 90 percent of full capacity. Limited benefits and higher costs make wind and solar socially less valuable than nuclear, hydro, and combined cycle gas.
4. How can we be sure that a new low-carbon plant will replace a high-carbon coal plant rather than some other low-carbon plant?
We cannot be sure. If electricity producers do not have to pay a price for the carbon dioxide they emit, the likelihood is great than a new low-carbon plant will replace an existing, low-carbon gas combined cycle plant. The cost of running an existing coal plant is typically much less than running an existing combined cycle plant and the combined cycle plant will be shut down before the coal plant. The reduction in emissions will be far less than if the coal plant is shut down because a coal plant emits about three times as much carbon dioxide as a gas combined cycle plant.
However, if electricity producers have to pay a high enough price for the carbon dioxide they emit, then a coal plant will be shut down before a gas combined cycle plant. The price of carbon dioxide emissions required to tip the balance between shutting down coal and shutting down gas depends on the price of gas relative to that of coal. It also depends on whether we are talking about the short-term choice of running an existing gas plant rather than an existing coal plant or the longer term choice of investing in a new combined cycle gas plant rather than a new coal plant.
In the United States, where the price of natural gas is low compared to most other countries, the price for CO2 emissions had to be about $5 or more in 2013 in order to tip the short-term balance in favor of shutting down coal. At current U.S. gas prices, investment in new gas combined cycle is more profitable than an investment in a coal plant even without any price penalty attached to CO2 emissions.
In Europe, where the price of natural gas is much higher than in the United States, a CO2 emission price of $65 to $85 per metric ton is required to tip the short-term balance in favor of shutting down coal, far higher than the current price of CO2 emissions in the European Trading System. However, the price of CO2 emissions need only be about $12 to $22 per metric ton to tip the longer-term balance in favor of investing in a new gas combined cycle plant rather than a new coal plant.
5. What does this paper have for policymakers interested in reducing carbon dioxide emissions at a reasonable cost?
First, renewable incentives that are biased in favor of wind and solar and biased against large-scale hydro, nuclear and gas combined cycle are a very expensive and inefficient way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Second, renewable incentives in the absence of a suitably high carbon dioxide price are even less effective, because without a carbon price renewable energy will replace low-carbon gas plants rather than high-carbon coal plants.
Third, renewable incentives should be based not on output of renewable energy but on the reduction in CO2 emissions by renewable energy. They are not the same thing.
Fourth, a carbon price is far more effective in reducing carbon emissions precisely because it is not biased toward any one technology but rewards any technology that reduces emissions at a reasonable cost.
Fifth, the benefits of a natural gas combined cycle plant are not dependent on the natural gas fracking revolution in the United States. Combined cycle plants are highly beneficial even in Europe, where natural gas prices are higher and fracking more limited. The problem in Europe is that the price of CO2 emissions in the European Trading System is far too low to encourage production of electricity by gas rather than coal.
Sixth, even though the electricity sector accounts for only 40 percent of worldwide carbon emissions, cleaner electricity can reduce CO2 emissions in other sectors, for example by reducing the carbon footprint of electric vehicles and home heating.
Finally, the electricity sector offers one of the simplest and most cost effective ways of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Simply replacing all high-carbon U.S. coal plants with any of the five low-carbon alternatives can reduce U.S. CO2 emissions in the electricity sector by 50 to 70 percent. The potential reductions in other countries, such as China where coal is more important, are even greater.Bogaerts isn’t taking advantage of the Monster the way he could. (Photo: Keith Allison)
Last week in this space, we took a look at some shortstops predominantly known for their gloves who’ve taken some real (and not so real) steps forward with the bat. (Zack Cozart was not included; he deserves his own article soon.) This time, let’s flip the script and assess the light offensive production of some shortstops known for their bats not all that long ago.
Brandon Crawford, Xander Bogaerts and Trevor Story are all at different career stages and bring unique skill sets to the table. Crawford is 30 years old and has been a linchpin for multiple World Series champions. Bogaerts, amazingly still only 24, won a ring at age 20, weeks into his major-league career. He, like Crawford has a single 20-homer season to his credit. Story, 24, launched 27 homers in only 97 games in his rookie 2016 campaign. Whatever their differences, all three currently share something in common: all of them have struggled with the bat this time around.
These players were heralded all-around prospects throughout their minor-league career. Each season, I compile my own minor-league position-player prospect list, based on production relative to level and league and adjusted for age. The three players qualified for my list a total of eight times, with all three recording a peak ranking in the top 35 (No. 35 for Bogaerts and Crawford, No. 32 for Story).
That’s a big deal: as I don’t adjust for defense or position on my list, it’s tough for shortstops to shine. This is basically a master full-season follow list, which I use to define the population of players upon whom to conduct more traditional analysis. All three combined offensive potential with the defensive chops to stick at a premium defensive position.
How real are these players’ diminished levels of offensive performance? Let’s drill down into their plate-appearance-frequency and batted-ball-quality data to get a better feel.
In the two tables below, such data is provided for all three players.
Plate Appearance Frequency Data Name POP % FLY% LD% GB% K% BB% Crawford 2.3% 33.3% 17.8% 46.6% 20.1% 6.6% Bogaerts 4.8% 24.8% 20.9% 49.6% 17.7% 7.1% Story 6.0% 42.0% 18.3% 33.7% 36.1% 9.5%
Contact Quality/Overall Performance Data Name UNADJ C U-FLY-A U-LD-A U-GB-A ADJ C wRC+ PRJ PRD Crawford 71 53-87 85-92 79-93 89 67 87 Bogaerts 91 64-35 99-94 167-135 72 88 76 Story 135 111-103 111-105 279-117 108 63 71
The first table lists each player’s K and BB rates, as well as the breakdown of all of their BIP by category type. For this table, color-coding is used to note significant divergence from league average. Red cells indicate values that are over two full standard deviations higher than league average. Orange cells are over one STD above, yellow cells over one-half-STD above, blue cells over one-half STD below, and black cells over one STD below league average. Ran out of colors at that point. Variation of over two full STD below league average will be addressed as necessary in the text below.
The second table includes each player’s Unadjusted Contact Score. This represents, on a scale where 100 equals league average, the actual production level recorded by each player on balls in play. Basically, it’s their actual performance with the Ks and BBs removed. Their Unadjusted and Adjusted Contact Scores for each BIP category are then listed. Adjusted Contact Score represents the production level that each player “should have” recorded if every batted ball resulted in league-average production for its exit-speed/launch-angle “bucket.” Players assessed an extreme grounder-pulling penalty would be in red font; none of these players were assessed such a penalty, though Story qualified for one.
Finally, overall Adjusted Contact Score, actual wRC+ and Projected Production are listed. Projected Production adds back the Ks and BBs to the Adjusted Contact Score data to give a better measure of each player’s true performance level.
Crawford’s raw offensive line is the worst of the group. His K and BB rates, particularly the latter, have moved a bit in the wrong direction this season. Much of the drop-off in his performance this season can be traced to a single number: his subpar liner rate. The good news is that liner rates are much more volatile than other BIP types. Positive regression can be expected, though perhaps not quite soon enough to salvage his 2017 campaign.
The lefty hitter has also been quite unlucky across all BIP types, with his Unadjusted Contact Score exceeding his adjusted mark on all BIP types. His average fly-ball authority has been almost exactly the same in 2016 and 2017 (90.4 mph average both years, 85 and 87 Adjusted Contact Scores). His average liner authority has declined a bit (93.7 to 90.7 mph, 100 and 94 Adjusted Contact Scores). Another positive? His pop-up rate has been almost cut in half this season.
Bottom line: except for the effects of the lower liner rate, Brandon Crawford is virtually the same, almost exactly league-average bat that he was as recently as last season. He’s better than his 2017 numbers and has multiple seasons of solid all-around value ahead.
Any discussion regarding Bogaerts must be prefaced with a nod to his youth and the significant accomplishments already in place for his age. That said, there are scary aspects to his profile. He’s gradually developed a fairly significant ground-ball tendency. That, in and of itself, isn’t a huge deal, as Fenway Park helps fly balls to such an extent that you don’t need a ton of quantity to take advantage. What is concerning, however, is his high pop-up rate despite his low fly-ball output. That’s a bad combination. It’s not even his biggest issue, however.
Bogaerts’ fly-ball authority has plummeted this season, from an average of 90.0 mph (64 Adjusted Contact Score) in 2016 to 83.0 mph (35 Adjusted Contact Score) in 2017. That is a massive, massive drop, and is even more acute in Fenway. Fly balls at 90 mph are outs in most parks a high percentage of the time; in Fenway, however, they sometimes become Monster doubles. He simply hasn’t been able to tap into the huge Fenway fly-ball advantage that’s sitting there waiting for him. He’s been somewhat fortunate on all BIP types, with his Unadjusted Contact Score outpacing his adjusted mark on flies, liners, and grounders.
Looking for good news? There’s his typically low K rate, which affords him margin for error with regard to contact authority — margin that he’s unfortunately using. Also, he’s crushing his grounders, even more so than he has in the past. It’s very rare for a hitter to consistently hit grounders at a much harder velocity relative to average than fly balls. Melky Cabrera likely fits that mold best; Lorenzo Cain once did, but has upped his fly-ball authority a bit over time.
Bogaerts has actually been a bit worse than his 2017 numbers, so it’s fair to call his ultimate upside into question. That upside, though, is quite significant. If he gets a bit stronger and recaptures his previous ability to occasionally drive the ball in the air, Bogaerts would still be a force in Fenway. The chances of him reaching a superstar-level peak have diminished a bit. Put it this way: the 2017 season very likely represents his near-term floor. I can live with that.
Lastly, we have Story. He’s just not the same guy who busted onto the scene in the spring of 2016. His shortcomings are obvious: he gives away tons of free outs via the strikeout and the pop up. His K rate is actually up sharply from its already rarefied 2016 level. His average launch angle was high in 2016 (16.2 degrees) and is materially higher (20.0 degrees) this season. The reality is, there is nowhere for it go but down.
Those frequencies aren’t even his biggest problems. Story absolutely devastated the ball in the air last season, with an average velocity of 93.3 mph and an Adjusted Contact Score of 187. In 2017, those marks are down sharply to 90.6 and 103, respectively. Coors Field obviously makes fly-ball hitters look a lot better than they should, but it’s got a lot of work to do to pretty up this year’s version of Story.
Want an even bigger issue? Story has somehow recorded a.373 average and.407 slugging percentage on the ground despite being an extreme puller, an easy infield overshift decision. He would have been assessed an excessive grounder-pulling penalty if the contextual adjustment based on exit speed didn’t already do the job. Story could easily hit.100-.150 on the ground. What would his overall numbers look like then?
Story needs to make major adjustments to survive, let alone thrive. When you strike out as often as he does (plus the pop ups and the pulled grounders), you must destroy the baseball when you get it in the air. He did so last year, but not thus far in 2017. Adjusted for context, Story “should be” slashing.196/.273/.359. Those are sobering numbers.
So, I see Crawford as a steady, above-average all-around player in the early stages of decline, Bogaerts as an above-average player having a bad year, and Story as a guy who needs to make adjustments quick to remain a viable major-league starter. Their raw numbers might beg to disagree with those diagnoses, but the introduction of some B |
, and has learned valuable lessons in the process that Egypt, a major non-NATO ally, should benefit from. Cairo has historically been resistant to accepting advice. Washington has to make Egypt an offer of COIN training -- in Egypt, the United States, or a third location -- it can't refuse, creatively incentivizing the instruction and adoption of a new approach to counterinsurgency operations.
Developing the Sinai. Egypt's Sinai counterinsurgency approach is one-dimensional, but successful COIN campaigns have both civilian and military aspects. Problems in the Sinai didn't start with the Islamic State; the region has long been underserved, peripheralized, and unhappy with Cairo. The arrival of al-Qaeda and IS, and the breakdown of traditional tribal bonds, has only exacerbated the foment, and the collateral civilian damage meted out by the army is seemingly making matters worse. Absent economic and educational opportunities, the Sinai will continue to prove fertile ground for jihadist recruitment. In tandem with battling the insurgency, Washington should join with Cairo and other regional partners to invest in the Sinai, beyond the hotels of Sharm al-Sheikh.
Leveraging the Gulf. Washington has had little success in incentivizing improvements in Egyptian governance or modifications in military tactics by conditioning assistance dollars. It's possible that U.S. allies in the Gulf -- Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait -- which are currently underwriting Egypt's budget, would have more luck pressing Cairo to prioritize Sinai economic development and adopt modern COIN techniques. The U.S. administration should be engaging with its Arab Gulf allies to help convince Egypt of the wisdom of these two initiatives.
Increasing visibility. Egypt has been loath to allow journalists or other outside observers -- including U.S. military officials from the Defense Attache's office at the U.S. embassy in Cairo -- into the Peninsula. It would be helpful if U.S. strategists had more visibility regarding the situation on the ground in the Sinai. If Egypt were ever amenable, this could set the stage for a more robust U.S. advisory presence. Additionally, because Egypt is deploying U.S.-origin weapons systems in the fight, as accusations of human rights abuses mount, it will be important to either substantiate or refute the claims. This will require the presence of journalists on the ground.
Securing the border with Libya. The Obama administration has pressed Egypt to reprogram some of its $1.3 billion in annual Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to deploy equipment and systems to help better secure the long, porous, and dangerous frontier between Egypt and Libya. Egypt has thus far refused. Egypt's atavistic attachment to expensive legacy systems -- like F-16s, M1A1 tanks, and Harpoon missiles -- with only marginal utility in the current threat environment is undermining state security. There is little appetite in Congress for increasing Egypt's $1.3 billion in annual FMF. Washington has to do better in cajoling a recalcitrant Egypt into devoting financial resources to aerostat balloons, C4ISR systems, and even Black Hawk helicopters for rapid troop response to threats.
Sweetening the pot. Convincing Egypt to slow the purchase of extremely costly prestige weapons systems will be difficult. If disclosure permits, perhaps Washington could encourage Cairo to do so by offering to sell other high-value/high-prestige weapons systems, including armed drones, which would benefit operations along the Libyan border and over the Sinai.
Boosting dialogue on Libya. There is a complete disconnect between Cairo and Washington on Libya. Washington is backing talks between factions in Libya that Cairo believes have no chance of succeeding. Egypt believes Libyan Gen. Khalifa Haftar's Operation Dignity militia is the most moderate local military force and worthy of materiel support. Twice in recent years, Egypt has taken military action in Libya against IS without first notifying Washington. Increased understanding -- and perhaps coordination -- on Libya may be a more productive course of action, particularly in terms of future intelligence sharing.
Encouraging more Israel-Egypt cooperation. In August 2013, an Israeli drone operating with permission in Egyptian airspace reportedly killed five Islamist militants in the Peninsula. The quiet Israel-Egypt cooperation in the Sinai has been one of the few bright spots in the region, but it remains sensitive. Israel has advanced intelligence and kinetic capabilities to assist Egypt in counterinsurgency operations in the Sinai. The United States should continue to encourage this cooperation, and urge Sisi to deepen it from the highest echelons to the working levels.
Improving Egyptian airport security. Despite Cairo's reluctance to concede a bomb may have downed the Russian airliner over Sinai in October, the United States, Egypt, and the international community all have an interest in addressing concerns over airport security in Egypt. As the New York Times reported in November, European officials "have repeatedly complained that X-ray and explosive-detection equipment used to scan baggage is out of date, poorly maintained or poorly operated by inadequately trained staff members." This is a problem that Western financial and technical support can and should help solve.
Preventing further unproductive delays. In 2013, a congressional hold delayed the transfer of ten Apache attack helicopters for use in Egypt's counterinsurgency for a full year. The attack helicopter armed with Hellfire missiles is a preferred Egyptian platform for Sinai operations, and the Egyptian leadership was furious over the delay. Indeed, it confirmed to much of the top military leadership the conspiracy theory that Washington was supporting a return to power of the Muslim Brotherhood. While there were clearly reasons for holding the delivery, this tack did not serve U.S. or Egyptian interests. In the future, if the United States feels the need to withhold weapons systems for Egypt, the United States should be careful not to pick counterinsurgency tools.
Avoiding the leveraging of U.S. military assistance. While it doesn't seem like Egypt is taking the terrorism problem seriously, evidence suggests that the Sisi administration sees it as a grave threat. Cairo's human rights policies are problematic and perhaps even counterproductive to the state's long-term stability. But a cutoff in U.S. assistance will neither improve Cairo's conduct nor enhance the already fraught U.S.-Egypt relationship. Indeed, precedent suggests that withholding assistance would aggravate -- not moderate -- the worst tendencies in Egyptian governance. To get what it wants from Egypt, the United States must be more creative -- perhaps by floating the prospect of reintroducing early disbursement of aid, or selling Cairo unprecedented equipment, like drones. Now that Egypt is receiving billions in Gulf funding per year -- including substantial military aid -- Washington is no longer the only game in town.
David Schenker is the Aufzien Fellow and director of the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute.DAVIE, Fla. -- There is something different about Miami Dolphins running back Jay Ajayi this summer. The third-year player has a certain swagger and confidence this offseason that wasn't there a year ago.
Ajayi has big goals in 2017 coming off a career-high 1,272 rushing yards and his first Pro Bowl. Ajayi is out to prove he is not a one-year wonder and is aiming to put his name among the elite players at his position.
"Right now, having a couple years under my belt, knowing what I want to be, I want to be the best," Ajayi said following Day 1 of Miami's mandatory minicamp. "I strive for that. I know that to be considered the best at the running back position, you have to be a guy that can do it all."
Ajayi was happy with his production on the ground last season, but he wasn't much of a threat in the passing game. Ajayi recorded 27 receptions for 151 yards and averaged just 5.6 yards per catch. In comparison, he averaged 4.9 yards per rush.
Jay Ajayi has his sights set on becoming a more complete running back, building on his 1,272 rushing yards from a season ago. AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee
That is why catching the ball out of the backfield became a major focus during Ajayi's offseason training. He doesn't want to come off the field on third down and he looks much smoother running routes and finishing receptions.
Ajayi also has been more detailed mentally in the offense, according to Dolphins head coach Adam Gase.
"It's slowed down for him a lot from where we were last year at this time compared to where we are right now," Gase said. "The questions that he brings up to us are very detailed. They're really beyond next-level questions. They're almost kind of quarterback-ish questions for a running back."
Ajayi's journey from relative unknown to Pro Bowler got off to a rocky start. He didn't make the trip to Seattle for the regular-season opener due to disciplinary reasons and wasn't a full-time starter until Week 5.
The end-of-the-season experience at the Pro Bowl in Orlando, Florida, last January was important, according to the tailback. Ajayi said the biggest thrill was to speak to future Hall of Famer Ray Lewis, who told Ajayi he followed his progress and ability to overcome adversity throughout the season.
Ajayi, 23, aims to put together another Pro Bowl-caliber season in 2017.
"It definitely made me want to continue to work harder and push myself," Ajayi said. "Because I want to be on that level every year, being able to be recognized as [that] type of player."The Metropolitan Council on Wednesday awarded a $118 million contract to Siemens to design 27 light-rail cars for the Southwest Light Rail Project.
Construction on the 14-mile line from downtown Minneapolis to Eden Prairie is expected to begin next year and cost $1.858 billion. The Federal Transit Administration is expected to contribute $928.5 million to the project, which will feature 15 stations and open in 2021.
The council's action on Wednesday authorizes the German-based firm to begin engineering cars that will be "improved versions of the Green Line cars, including improvements for users of wheelchairs and passenger with disabilities," the council said.
Production of the light rail vehicles will begin in early spring 2018 after the Met Council awards the second stage of the contract to build the cars, which will be able to be paired with cars currently in service on the Green Line.
Awarding the contract now will help keep costs down and allow enough time to produce and deliver the vehicles in time to do several months of testing before revenue service begins, the council said.
The total contract price is 5 percent lower than the lowest cost estimate and is included in the $1.858 billion cost for the total project, the council said.
“While this step forward is a technical one, it embodies the planning and work that has gone into SWLRT,” said Met Council Chair Adam Duininck. “As we seek to continue investing and building out our regional transit network, it is critical we find opportunities like these for future cost savings in operations and maintenance.”
The contract also includes the option for the Council to purchase an additional 50 vehicles to meet anticipated needs for the Blue Line Extension LRT project, should funding sources be identified. The Blue Line Extension is about nine months behind SWLRT in terms of its level of design. It would run from downtown Minneapolis to Brooklyn Park.MITCHELL Starc is closing in on an unlikely Test batting feat, Matt Renshaw justified the selectors’ faith and the jury is still out on Shaun Marsh.
Here are five things we learned from day one of the first Test against India in Pune.
SENSATIONAL STARC NEARS RECORD
Mitchell Starc is just a handful of runs away from overtaking vice-captain David Warner as the leading Test run-scorer on Indian soil among Australia’s current XI.
Starc’s rearguard, unbeaten 57 from 58 balls included five fours and three sixes, with 49 of his runs coming in an unbeaten tenth wicket stand of 51 with Josh Hazlewood (1 not out).
Incredibly, his 202 Test runs at 50.50 apiece in India is just 31 shy of David Warner’s total of 233 and ahead of captain Steve Smith’s 188.
Australia's Mitchell Starc celebrates his fifty against India. Source: AP
Thursday’s 57 was his second highest score in India, trailing his 99 in Mohali in 2013. He also made scores of 3, 8 and 35 in that series.
Starc has also been in imperious Test batting form this season, hitting three half centuries in his past five innings to push his average above 25 and career aggregate past 1000 runs.
Such commanding numbers in Australia’s fragile lower order begs the question, why is he not given stronger consideration as the solution to Australia’s ‘all-rounder problem’?
According to ICC rankings prior to this Test, Starc was the world’s seventh highest ranked all-rounder in the five-day format, one position ahead of Stuart Broad and three behind Ben Stokes.
His Test batting record also compares favourably to current number six Mitchell Marsh (630 runs @ 22.50) and the most likely all-rounder to be selected if changes are desired, Glenn Maxwell (80 runs @ 13.33).
This is how Australia’s XI in Pune has fared with the bat in India:
Warner 233 @ 25.88
Starc — 202 at 50.50
Smith — 188 at 37.60
Wade — 121 at 17.29
Renshaw — 68 at 68.00
Lyon — 54 at 13.50
Handscomb — 22 at 22.00
S Marsh — 16 at 16.00
M Marsh — 4 at 4.00
Hazlewood — 1 at NA
O’Keefe — 0 at 0.00
Australia's Mitchell Starc made 57 not out on day one against India. Source: AP
RENSHAW JUSTIFIES HIS PLACE
From the moment he smashed a breakthrough 184 against Pakistan, Matthew Renshaw’s spot at the top of the order has been questioned by coach Darren Lehmann.
Before the SCG Test had even wrapped up, Lehmann openly debated whether the 20-year-old would even be in the touring party to India.
It should never have been up for debate.
Forget the period he spent off the field and whether he was “half dead” or not – it’s fair to assume that what happened once he went off camera was probably not fit for prime time TV viewing.
What he did before and after showed this kid is made of the right stuff and has a long future in the Test team.
At 20 years and 322 days Renshaw is the youngest Australian to play a Test in India.
He did so on a rank turner described by the great Shane Warne as an “eighth day wicket”.
And he delivered in spades.
Renshaw – clearly under the weather - did superbly to graft his way to 36 before succumbing to illness.
He returned to anchor the Australian innings, eventually dismissed for 68.
It may never be viewed on the same level as Dean Jones’ historic 210 in the 1986 tied Test, but it was a superb knock and one which proves Renshaw is a player of significant substance.
JURY STILL OUT ON MARSH
Shaun Marsh was drafted into the Australian XI as a subcontinental specialist.
The man who could handle the spin. The secret weapon in the middle order. The rock, where Usman Khawaja would crumble.
The spotlight always shines brightly on Marsh.
But given he was brought in at the expense of a player who was the top-scorer in the home series against South Africa – where he hit a career-best 145 – it has rarely burned hotter on him, especially as at 33 years of age he is very much on his final chance in the baggy green.
For 54 balls he delivered everything Australian cricket fans could ask of him – he safely navigated the tricky 15 minute period before lunch and then unleashed a barrage of glorious shots.
Australia's Shaun Marsh was dismissed for 16 on day one. Source: AP
For a moment, it looked like he was going to produce the sort of innings that Australian selectors had been praying for from the moment they concocted the plan to bring him back into the Test team.
But then Virat Kohli put himself at leg slip - and Marsh fell right into the trap.
Jayant Yadav sent through a flatter delivery and Marsh attempted an awkward sweep, with the ball hitting Marsh’s pad and his glove before bobbling up and ricocheting off the back of his bat.
From there, it landed safely in the hands of Kohli, who cheered in delight: Australia’s middle order saviour was gone for a mere 16 runs.
An unfortunate dismissal in every sense of the word. And Khawaja, sitting in the stands, must’ve wondered what exactly he’s done wrong.
INDIA SHOWS ITS HAND EARLY
There was nothing subtle about India’s approach very early on day one.
Much was made of the state of Pune’s wicket pre-game. It was every part the crumbling turner that was predicted.
Virat Kohli handed the second over of the day to Ravi Ashwin and he delivered six maidens in his opening spell, tormenting Australia’s left-handed openers with his turn and bounce.
Fellow tweakers Ravi Jadeja and Jayant Yadav were also injected into the match early. India’s second seamer Umesh Yadav was not seen until the 28th over.
He extracted instant reverse swing and struck immediately to remove David Warner, the first of his four ‘old ball’ wickets. Yadav’s was a fine spell.
India's captain Virat Kohli (R) and bowler Ravichandran Ashwin celebrate a wicket. Source: AFP
But for the most part spin dominated the bowling crease on the eroding pitch.
Puffs of dust could be regularly seen as each of Ashwin, Jadeja and Jayant extracted prodigious turn and shared in the wickets.
Such a tactic was no surprise but even for a Test on Indian soil, the conditions were extreme. Rarely has such a crumbling wicket been seen on day one.
The hosts put their cards on the table from the off – and laid down the gauntlet for the remaining 19 days of the series.
BEWARE THE EARLY CROW
Australia scrapped and fought to reach 9-256 by stumps.
And that’s not a bad effort at all – at the toss, most of the jokes on social media focused on whether Australia would be able to pass the score of 184 set by the Twenty20 team the night before.
But a word of warning.
Joe Root was the second-top run-scorer in the series with 491, while Moeen Ali (381), Alastair Cook (369) and Jonny Bairstow (352) all cracked the 350-mark.
England batted first in four of their recent five-Test series against India, and on three occasions plundered 400: 537 in the first Test, 400 in the fourth Test and 477 in the fifth Test.
At this stage, Australia would trip over themselves to accept an offering of a 400-run first innings.
But England went home with a 4-0 series loss to their name.
Even though the pitch looks like a minefield and is turning square, it’s worth remembering that India have shown a willingness to bat for enormous totals.Funimation Entertainment announced at Comic Con International in San Diego on Thursday that it will release TOHO's Godzilla: Resurgence (Shin Godzilla) film. Funimation plans to release the film in theaters in late 2016.
The film will open in Japan on July 29, and will have IMAX, MX4D, and 4DX screenings.
The film is the 29th Godzilla film by TOHO. Evangelion director Hideaki Anno and live-action Attack on Titan film director Shinji Higuchi are collaborating on the film. Anno is serving as chief director and writer, while Higuchi is directing the new film and is also serving as visual effects director. Mahiro Maeda ( Mad Max: Fury Road, The Animatrix, Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, "Kyoshinhei Tokyo ni Arawaru") worked on the image designs, and Takayuki Takeya ( Kamen Rider Drive, live-action Attack on Titan) worked on the character designs based on the concepts by Maeda and Anno.
The film's main cast includes:
Hiroki Hasegawa (live-action Attack on Titan films' Shikishima, live-action Princess Jellyfish's Shū Koibuchi, pictured center in photographs above) plays a person linked to the government when Godzilla attacks modern Japan. Yutaka Takenouchi ( Hoshi no Kinka, Calmi Cuori Appassionati, Nagareboshi, left) plays another person linked to the government, and Satomi Ishihara (live-action Attack on Titan's Hans/Hanji, Pokémon the Movie: Black - Victini and Reshiram's Karita, right) plays an American agent.
Executive producer Akihiro Yamauchi ( Trick, Densha Otoko, Bakuman ) explained that the film's Japanese title, Shin Gojira or Shin Godzilla, signifies that it is not a "revival" or a "rebirth." While it can be translated as "New Godzilla," it can also mean "True Godzilla," "God Godzilla," and other connotations. Chief director Anno coined the title to incorporate various possible meanings.
According to a Sankei Sports' source close to the production, the story is mainly set in modern Japan, and America is also involved. At 118.5 meters (about 388.8 feet), the new Godzilla will be the tallest one yet, towering over the 108-meter-tall (355-foot-tall) incarnation in Gareth Edwards and Legendary Pictures' 2014 Hollywood film.
Higuchi promised that this will be the scariest Godzilla yet, quoting the horrors of the real world, like 9/11, the March 11 tsunami, and subsequent Fukushima nuclear crisis having stripped the the world of its innocence. The film will use a hybrid of actors moving through miniatures (a staple of the early Godzilla films), computer graphics, and special effects.
Images © 2016 Toho Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.Possibly one of the most intense battles we’ve seen so far, it’s time to choose whether you prefer Arya & Gendry from Game of Thrones or Sherlock & Watson from Sherlock as your preferred OTP!
What’s going on?
Over the past month and continuing for another three weeks is Hypable’s BattleShips, a tournament where we pit fandom against fandom to see which relationship on television has the most support. It’s all about the chemistry between two characters and the love you have for them, so rally your friends to help support your One True Pairing (OTP)!
If you’d like to know more about our BattleShips Tournament then we recommend checking out the announcement post, or posting your questions in the comments below
The Current Standings
It’s time to vote!
[poll id=”157″]
Who did you vote for?Ted Fitzgerald/Pool Judge Charles R. Johnson had been demoted last year.
A judge once publicly complained that Charles R. Johnson, the former chief justice of the sprawling Boston Municipal Court, “is almost never at his post,” setting off a controversy that simmered for years. Last November, administrators replaced Johnson as chief justice, setting him on a path to retirement.
But in the final six months of his career, court records show, the 65-year-old judge appears to have done a disappearing act at a significant cost to the Commonwealth.
After his demotion from chief justice, Johnson took a paid three-month leave in January and then appeared in court only a handful of times in the three months after that. But during that stretch of time, he qualified for two raises that boosted his annual salary to nearly $160,000 and his pension by nearly $20,000 a year.
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As a result of the well-timed exit, he qualified for a pension of $119,781 a year, though he has elected to take a smaller amount of $97,865 a year to ensure survivor payments for his wife if he dies first.
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And, despite all of Johnson’s time off in 2014, he still received a payment of $40,200 for unused sick and vacation time when he retired days after the second pay increase took effect, according to the state comptroller.
Court officials said Johnson used some accumulated sick and vacation time to take an extended leave starting Jan. 2 and later helped his successor, Roberto Ronquillo Jr., with the transition during the month of April. But they declined to discuss Johnson’s overall work this year or his reasons for retiring five years before mandatory retirement age.
“Judges’ decisions about their retirement plans are personal decisions that they make,” said Trial Court Chief Justice Paula M. Carey, who has previously praised Johnson in a statement as someone who “led the Boston Municipal Court through a period of dynamic change.”
However, taxpayer watchdogs criticized Johnson’s work this year as a waste of scarce resources.
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“Whatever the rationale in this particular case,” said Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation president Michael Widmer, “it illustrates the all-too-common problem of stretching the system for personal gain at taxpayers’ expense.”
Former Boston Municipal Court Judge Peter Anderson, who said he retired in 2007 because he no longer wanted to work in Johnson’s “dysfunctional” court, said court administrators have long known about Johnson’s shortcomings but did nothing.
“The issues of his not showing up for work and his management style have gone on for years,” said Anderson, who accused Johnson of being a no-show in a 2007 retirement letter that someone leaked to the media. “There is a real need for the leadership to get some backbone and take on these tough issues.... They keep doing this kind of thing over and over again.”
Johnson did not return repeated calls for comment placed to his cellphone, adult son, or friends, and he did not answer when a Globe reporter visited his home. Court officials also attempted to reach Johnson on behalf of the Globe, but were unsuccessful.
However, a defense lawyer who worked with Johnson in Roxbury before he was named to the bench in 1984 by Governor Michael Dukakis, described him as an “even tempered, very smart, and very fair judge.”
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John Amabile said that Johnson, a graduate of Tuskegee University and Harvard Law School, is quite formal, and polite, preferring to be known as “Charles” and not “Charley.”
“When he got on the bench, he was appreciated by everybody, including people on the prosecution side,” said the lawyer, Amabile. “He treated the police, the prosecution, and the defendants fairly. He wasn’t just a good judge. He was a great judge.”
Johnson was named to manage the eight courthouses of the Boston Municipal Court system in 2003 and received a second five-year term in 2008.
Along the way, he had successes — top court officials selected him to preside over a high-profile libel suit pitting Judge Ernest Murphy against the Boston Herald.
But Johnson came under attack from Anderson and others who said his hands-off management style helped slow the wheels of justice, including a backlog of 3,000 cases at the Roxbury branch of the municipal courts in 2011.
When Fox 25 reported on the controversy in 2011, Johnson issued a statement, saying, “I am dedicated to my office and all of my energy is consistently focused on the effective administration of the Boston Municipal Court department.”
Chief Justice Carey replaced Johnson on Nov. 15, 2013, with Ronquillo, who had been in the East Boston court. That cleared the way for Johnson either to retire or return to presiding over cases instead of managing the courts.
But Johnson took what court officials called an “accrued leave” on Jan. 2, 2014, time off that can be taken for medical or personal reasons, though the court disclosed no reason for Johnson’s leave. He remained on leave until the end of March.
Then, according to trial court officials, Ronquillo asked Johnson to help him with the transition to running the court system which, by then, had already been underway for four months.
For the last two months of Johnson’s tenure, Ronquillo assigned Johnson to hear cases every day at the downtown branch of the court, but records of judicial hearings show Johnson appeared on the bench on only a handful of days in May.
In fact, when Johnson showed up in court on May 14, lawyers and others in the courtroom seemed surprised, according to a recording of the session.
“Yeah, I thought I’d just pop in and see what’s going on,” said Johnson, according to the recording.
On at least two occasions he was in court, Johnson heard motions to suppress evidence, but left the cases hanging until the litigants complained that the decision was taking so long. In one of the cases, Johnson finally filed a hand-scrawled decision July 11 siding with the defendant. But prosecutors have argued that it should be disregarded because it came after Johnson retired.
Johnson’s long run-up to retirement proved profitable, allowing him to collect $80,504 in salary for the first six months of the year, according to the comptroller.
In addition, he received $40,200 in payments for unused vacation and sick time.
Perhaps the biggest benefit to Johnson was the increase in his pension from receiving two pay raises totaling $30,000. Under the pension rules, a judge receives 75 percent of his highest salary — $159,694, in Johnson’s case — which would entitle him to a maximum benefit of $119,771. Had he retired before the raises, Johnson would be eligible for only $101,343.
But Johnson agreed to take a smaller amount in his pension, $97,865 a year, so that his wife could continue to receive it after his death.
Johnson is not the only judge to step down with an increased pension in the wake of the pay raises — 31 filed for retirement this year, including 11 in July alone. But Johnson’s work record during the past six months before the pay increases, make his case more controversial.
Widmer of the taxpayers foundation called it “one more blow to public trust in government.”
Globe correspondent Jasper Craven contributed to this report. Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea.estes@
globe.comEL SEGUNDO, Calif. – You have to wonder why the Devils waited so long.
Struggling to score goals against the Los Angeles Kings, Petr Sykora will return to the lineup Wednesday night in Game 4. It will be the fifth Stanley Cup finals for the 35-year-old winger, who has a history of scoring big goals.
“Of course I’m excited. Hopefully I can bring some spark to the team,” Sykora said. “I’m just going to go out there and try to play my best game.”
Coach Pete DeBoer wouldn’t acknowledged that Sykora will play, although in practice he had Patrik Elias back at center between Sykora and Dainius Zubrus.
“He’s an option for us,” DeBoer said. “We’re going to consider him. We haven’t scored. He's a guy that doesn't need a lot of looks to stick one in the net. That's what he does best. So he's definitely an option.”
Sykora last played in Game 3 of the conference finals against the Rangers on May 19. Jacob Josefson will come out.
* * *
Kings center Mike Richards admitted there will be some nervousness in trying to close out the Devils in Game 4.
“It’s a position that you dream about since you're young,” Richsrds said. “It's a situation where I think you have to try to enjoy. You're probably going to be a little bit nervous at the same time. You just have to enjoy the process.
“We know how tough of a game it's going to be, what's ahead of us. At the same time we have to be ready for it and not make mistakes just because we're nervous."
So what will that mean for the Devils?
“In the back of our minds, no one wants this to end,” captain Zach Parise said. “But we have nothing to lose. We can go and play as hard as we can and hope for the best. There’s nothing really right now to save it for.
“Try to get this thing taken back to New Jersey. That’s all we can do right now. We believe we can do it. Of course we do. We’re in a tough spot. It will be very hard but we’ll try our best. You can’t look at the big picture right now.”
* * *
Fourth line winger Ryan Carter and defenseman Anton Volchenkov have the Devils’ only two goals in the finals. Parise, Ilya Kovalchuk and Patrik Elias are all without a goal.
Parise acknowledged the team’s top guns need to put the puck in the net.
“We need to. There’s no secret there,” Parise said. “I know how this goes. When the offense struggles you look at certain individuals. I get it. Yeah, we have to do a better job of scoring some goals. They’re playing a real good defensive game in not giving us a lot of room and a lot of chances. But the chances are there. You have to make them count and so far we haven’t been able to do that.”
* * *
Defenseman Henrik Tallinder, who hasn’t played a game since Jan. 17 because of blood clots in his leg, said he will definitely not be in the lineup Wednesday night.
“No, I’m not playing,” Tallinder said.
DeBoer did not appreciate a question asking if Kovalchuk is battling a significant injury, perhaps the herniated disc in his back that sidelined him for a game against the Flyers.
“You get this deep in the playoffs, everybody's playing hurt,” DeBoer said. “You guys want somebody to blame for the situation we're in.
It's not like that, you know. We're working hard. We're doing a lot of good things. It hasn't gone our way yet. We've got to keep going.”
* * *
Martin Brodeur spoke of the Kings’ first goal during Game 3 in which he felt the play should have been blown dead buit wasn’t.
“It’s an unfortunate call that I think really affected us in that game,” he said. “At the time you’re always a little mad about it and you don’t understand. Those guys (the referees) have a hard job and they react on the play. Sometimes they make the decision and sometimes they make bad decisions, regardless of what he feels.
“It’s up to him (Dan O’Halloran) to live with that call. It really affected us in that game, but we have to move on.”
Did he get an explanation for no whistle?
“Nope,” Brodeur said. “It’s kind of hard. Especially with some of the words I told him. I don’t think I was going to get an answer back. All in French.”
DeBoer said he did not get an explanation for the goal.
"I didn't get one. I didn't ask for one," the coach said. "I mean, I guess you have an opportunity on the ice, right, for the referee to come over and explain to you the thought process. That was the opportunity I did not get. I didn't pursue one after the game.
"I think it's pretty evident to me after re-looking at it that it shouldn't have counted. It was a critical time in the game. So it's unfortunate."
Rich Chere: rchere@starledger.com; twitter.com/Ledger_NJDevilsI have been observing and wondering about the softer side of the software industry, especially the values and principles that drive the business. Years ago, when I worked for the software services giant Infosys, the corporate tagline was
That tagline perhaps symbolized the quintessential Indian middle-class values of service and sharing; values that prompted the founders to share the wealth they created by giving away stock options, grants and ESOPS to hundreds of early employees. That story was the stuff of corporate legends in the nineties through 2000s.
Infosys’ slogan is long gone, which implies things are changing fast in the software services sector. On one hand, there is a talk of how the industry has matured and globalized; and on the other hand, there is the reality of the slowdown that leaders and managers are coming to grips with.
Indian software services companies are under tremendous pressure to continue to show growth in a slowing global market that is also experiencing increased protectionism in the west. Old linear growth model of hiring more ‘freshers’ and taking larger application development and maintenance contracts has reached a plateau. CEOs and boards of Services companies are hard pressed to explain newer game-plans to their shareholders. At the recent AGM of Infosys that I attended, the CEO Vishal Sikka tried to address the challenges head-on describing the convergence of factors impacting the ‘businesses’ of technology services. At the meeting, Mr. Sikka also described how the company “released 11,000 jobs due to automation.” Many small shareholders appealed to the board to consider the “human cost” of layoffs in the software sector.
Those in the industry are acutely aware of the market reality and ensuing layoffs. The global media too has been watching closely. Last week, an article in the New York Times address the human side of the issue, interviewing folks from companies like Tech Mahindra and Cognizant. (ref: "Indian Technology Workers Worry About a Job Threat: Technology" ) Last week, many of us also got to observe the saga unfold at Tech Mahindra; and here is the gist of the story if you missed it:
The recording goes viral reminding me of George Clooney’s character in the 2009 hollywood movie ‘Up in the Air.’ If this were not a serious matter, there are too many satires and spoofs about the recording one could come up with.
The viral recording forces the head of HR and the chairman of the company, Anand Mahindra to begin damage control on social media - issuing a twitter apology.
“You're Fired!” so, where’s the question of Values?
This incident is sure to bring layoffs at Indian IT back to the spotlight. However, the bigger question here is the set of values that drive these multi-billion dollar businesses.
In the process of globalizing and maturing, new generation of tech-leaders seem to have taken a crash course from Trump University. Donald Trump made the tagline “You're Fired!” famous in his starring role in reality-TV show ‘The Apprentice’. After hearing the audio clip, one wonders if Indian managers and HR representatives are secretly aspiring to ape Mr. Trump.
Most managers and leaders are drilled on ‘cor |
were found not guilty for lack of evidence by the anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi, just outside Islamabad.
Farhatullah Babar, the spokesperson for Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, expressed "disappointment and shock" over the verdict and acquittals, saying "justice has not been done."
The court did find two police officials guilty, Saud Aziz and Khurram Shehzad. They were convicted of mishandling security at the Bhutto rally and mishandling the crime scene. Each was jailed for 17 years.
In a 2010 report, the United Nations blasted the investigation, saying the Musharraf government "failed in its primary responsibility to provide protection" to Bhutto.
The report also mentioned Aziz by name, alleging that he prevented investigators from reaching the crime scene for two days, by which time much of the scene had been scrubbed.
Bhutto became the first woman elected to lead a Muslim-majority country in 1988, when she first became prime minister. She was the daughter of another former prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was executed in 1977 after being deposed in a coup. She served as prime minister again from 1993-1996.
At the time of her assassination in December 2007, she was a leading opposition figure running to replace Musharraf, who had seized power in a bloodless coup eight years earlier.
Bhutto had repeatedly spoken out against Islamic militant groups, and prior to her assassination had vowed to shut down militant sanctuaries near the border with Afghanistan.THE mouse never stood a chance.
Wings spread and talons outstretched, the magnificent bird flew off with its prey firmly clutched in its beak before tucking into the tasty meal.
media_camera A great grey owl with its catch. Picture: Picture Media
The shots were captured in February by photographer Tom Samuelson, 55, while shooting along the Lake Superior shoreline just south of Two Harbors in Minnesota, in the US.
media_camera A great grey owl with its catch. Picture: Picture Media
Tom, from Minnesota, said: "A friend and I continually monitor different websites for wildlife activity in the area and heard there were a good number of owls at the location so headed over.
media_camera A great grey owl with its catch. Picture: Picture Media
"Although owls are notoriously shy creatures it is possible to get up close and personal with them.
"Great greys are very tolerant of humans as long as you approach them in the right manner. I have had them within feet of me and they will sit there as long as you are quiet and don't move.
media_camera A great grey owl with its catch. Picture: Picture Media
"On this occasion our tip was right on the money as we didn't have to wait long to capture the amazing animal.
"I use a Canon 5D Mark II camera and had barely finished setting up before the owl homed in on the mouse within the blink of an eye.
media_camera A great grey owl with its catch. Picture: Picture Media
"It was an incredible yet quite terrifying moment to see how quickly and accurately the owls can catch prey like that - I didn't think the shots would come out so clean with it happening so fast.
"I love nature photography - it gets me out into the natural world. There is so much beauty out there."
Originally published as Great grey owl swoops in for the killPlus: Pentatonix aiming for its seventh top 10 album with "PTX, Vol. IV – Classics."
The Chainsmokers’ new album Memories… Do Not Open, is aiming to debut atop next week’s Billboard 200 chart, according to industry forecasters. Sources suggest the set -- which will mark the duo's first No. 1 -- could earn over 200,000 equivalent album units in the week ending April 13, with perhaps 150,000 to 160,000 in traditional album sales. Memories was released on April 7 through Disruptor/Columbia Records.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The top 10 of the new April 29-dated Billboard 200 chart (where Memories will likely debut at No. 1) is scheduled to be revealed on Billboard’s websites on Sunday, April 16.
The hefty amount of the sales of Memories will be driven by a successful concert ticket/album bundle sale redemption promotion with the duo’s tour, which kicks off April 13 in Miami. The ticket/album offer was also included with select dates of the act’s residency at the XS Nightclub and Encore Beach Club in Las Vegas.
Memories is The Chainsmokers’ first full-length album, after releasing two EPs: 2016’s Collage, which peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200; and Bouquet, which hit No. 31 in January 2016, following its release the previous year.
Drake’s More Life, which is currently in its third straight week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 (dated April 22), will likely fall to the No. 2 slot in its fourth week, behind The Chainsmokers.
Following The Chainsmokers, the chart’s next biggest debut will likely come from Pentatonix, as the vocal group’s PTX, Vol. IV – Classics, could start in the top five with around 50,000 units (most of which will be in traditional album sales).
The a cappella quintet previously hit the top 10 with A Pentatonix Christmas (No. 1 in January), its self-titled album (No. 1; 2015), That’s Christmas to Me (No. 2; 2014), PTX: Vol. III (No. 5; 2014), PTX: Vol. II (No. 10; 2013) and PTXmas (No. 7; 2013).Luxury condo. If you live in New York, chances are, you have learned to feel a hidden threat whenever these ominous words are uttered. Beautiful old buildings out, condos in. This seems to be the current urban dynamic. In fact, with all the construction going on around NYC, one can’t help but wonder: why hasn’t the whole city turned into a homogeneous tract of condos yet?
The answer is NYC’s Landmarks Preservation Act. Adopted fifty years ago, it protects buildings—as well as whole districts— “of historic significance” and it’s doing a pretty good job. Even still, every now and then you’ll hear a public outcry over some historical structure that’s being threatened with conversion. But the truth is, there’s a lot of buildings staying just as they are because of their landmarked status. Perhaps, as some would argue, way too many. Yes, that’s right: while one half New Yorkers are not happy about new condo construction, the other half is vigorously complaining that the whole historical building preservation thing is getting out of control.
Related: Historic L.A. Landmark To Be Preserved As Affordable Housing
You be the judge: Almost a third of Manhattan buildings are landmarked and so are more than 33,000 structures across five boroughs. Landmarking, by the way, doesn’t just apply to the standalone buildings—but to districts too: 114 NYC districts, to be precise (you can see the interactive map of NYC Landmarks here). Whole NYC neighborhoods are basically frozen in time, and while the past is being preserved—what about the future of NYC urban development?
Earlier in 2016, The Reason TV came up with a curious video “How New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Act Bulldozed the Future” – an interesting take on what landmarking in NYC really means. Imagine if the city would have adopted the aggressive landmarking policy a hundred years earlier, the narrative says.
Related: New York’s Next Big Public Landmark Is Coming to Hudson Yards
As the somewhat utopian story of the video unfolds, the ghosts of the past—the now demolished buildings—magically appear in the streets of NYC, only to be replaced by the modern urban view. But if the Landmarks Preservation Commission had been established a hundred years earlier, the original Waldorf Astoria, this architectural masterpiece of the Jazz age, would surely have been landmarked. In this instance we wouldn’t have the Empire State building, which now occupies exactly the same spot. Which would you rather have? And even if you’d prefer the former—especially you jazz lovers—isn’t losing great buildings to skyscrapers an inevitable part of how a city grows and evolves?
It isn’t the old buildings that we should mourn, suggests the author of the video. What we’ve truly lost is the invisible buildings which will never exist.
What is the real price of having all these landmarked buildings? Do we forsake affordable housing units where the lucky few would live happily ever for $800 a month or lose the luxury condos reserved for foreign moguls, or some awesome building which New Yorkers would learn to love, cherish and protect? That’s a great unknown. But here is food for thought: if living in a condo tract isn’t where NYC is going, will we all then end up existing in a “life-sized historical diorama?”An antibacterial hand soap is under recall because of microbial contamination, Health Canada says.
Avmor Ltd. of Laval, Que. is voluntarily recalling one lot of its Antimicrobial Foaming Hand Soap.
"Product testing undertaken by Health Canada detected bacteria (Pseudomonas aeruginosa) that may pose serious health risks to people, especially those with weakened immune systems," the department said in a release.
People with cystic fibrosis, HIV/AIDS, cancer, burns, diabetes and severe lung disease who bought or used the product could be affected.
Health Canada recommends:
Do not use Avmor Ltd.'s Antimicrobial Foaming Hand Soap (Triclosan 0.3 per cent) or any other antimicrobial foaming hand soap that you cannot identify from a dispenser.
Speak to your healthcare practitioner if you have used the affected product or have concerns about your health.
Schools, offices, hospitals and consumers should contact the company, Avmor Ltd., at 1-450-629-8074 extension 2360 for more information about the recall
Health Canada said it hasn't received any adverse reaction reports involving the use of the product, adding that the company confirmed it hasn't received any reports either.
The affected product has the Drug Identification Number 02319144 and lot number F121392032.
A spokesperson for the company said it has retrieved most of the recalled product, which was originally distributed in Atlantic Canada, Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.
Paul Goldin, the company's director of marketing and technical services, said there were 1,020 one-litre containers in the recalled lot.
For those whose immune system has been weakened by other serious conditions, the bacteria can cause serious infections including pneumonia, bone infections, urinary tract infections, gastrointestinal infections, meningitis, and blood infections.
In healthy consumers, Pseudomonas bacteria can enter the body through cuts, lesions and open burn wounds and may cause local infections, abscesses and blood infection, the department said.Many readers thought the GT350 we featured the other day was too expensive. Many also would have preferred a GT500. Well, here you go… This 1969 Shelby GT500 has been sitting in this garage since the eighties. It only has 62k miles on the odometer and is still in the possession of the first owner. The owner’s son has listed it for them here on eBay with no reserve. It will go to the highest bidder.
The owner of this GT500 purchased the car right after returning from Vietnam. They babied it and supposedly never raced it. That is hard to believe considering they had 400 horsepower under the hood, but you never know. It was equipped with an automatic so maybe they just used it for cruising. Anyway, the car was parked in the eighties because of some water pump and heater core issues.
The car is currently not running. The carburetor and air filter are sitting in the trunk, but everything else looks to be in place and accounted for. That is a 428 V8 in there and we are hopeful it can be made to run again without too much effort. Even if it does take some work, you will be well rewarded.
The engine, transmission, interior, and even the Competition Red paint are all claimed to be original to this Shelby. With a little work you could have yourself one of the best preserved GT500s around and if bidding stays under $60k it will be one heck of a deal too. We just hope the next owner will at least have the sense to forgo a restoration and just drive the car as is.Update: Batman vs. Superman has now passed $800 million.
While Batman Vs. Superman has been taking some heat (at least rumored) regarding its box office returns, the movie is now getting close to making $800 million worldwide.
Batman Vs. Superman currently has a $783,485,542 worldwide gross: $296,685,54 in the U.S., with $486,800,000 internationally.
Following a slow week that saw Batman Vs. Superman actually perform less than Man of Steel and Ant-Man, this weekend saw things pick up a bit as Batman Vs. Superman netted around $23.3 million domestically.
It's estimated that Batman Vs. Superman may come in at #2 this weekend, falling to Melissa McCarthy's The Boss, but the difference is marginal at best, possibly as little as $45,000. Full numbers will be known Monday.
Regarding why Batman Vs. Superman has been taking heat, while $800 million may sound like a large number, when Batman vs. Superman's total budget is accounted for, it's rather low.
It's probably a safe bet to state WB expected Batman Vs. Superman to hit a billion - especially with adding Batman into the movie - as Nolan's two previous Batman movies scored over a billion. If anything, it goes to show a good story and writing goes along way rather than simply adding in something people consider "cool."
"Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" is directed by Zack Snyder release starring Ben Affleck as Batman, Henry Cavill as Superman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, Diane Lane as Martha Kent, Jeremy Irons as Alfred, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Ray Fisher as Cyborg with Callan Mulvey, Holly Hunter as Senator Finch and Tao Okamoto as Mercy Graves.
Synopsis:
Fearing the actions of a god-like Super Hero left unchecked, Gotham City’s own formidable, forceful vigilante takes on Metropolis’s most revered, modern-day savior, while the world wrestles with what sort of hero it really needs. And with Batman and Superman at war with one another, a new threat quickly arises, putting mankind in greater danger than it’s ever known before.There's An Island In Japan Filled With Bunnies And It's The Best Place Ever
Belinda Carlisle was right: heaven is a place on earth. That place is Ōkunoshima, Japan. What’s so special about it, you ask? Take a seat and prepare yourself. It’s an island whose main inhabitants are… bunnies.
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Image via The Dodo
To visit, you can take a quick ferry ride from the mainland of Tadanoumi. The fluff balls are wild, but reportedly friendly. Their two favorite activities are being pet and eating so pellets, veggies, and a willingness to snuggle are recommended.
Image via In Otter News
No one is sure how the bunz ended up there. The island was used as a secret poison factory for Japan in WWII. Some say the rabbits were brought to the island as test subjects for the effects of poison. Another (happier) theory is that children brought bunnies with them on a school trip. Either way, they bred like wildfire.
Image via Reddit
Ōkunoshima isn’t the only place inhabited by cute beings. Japan is home to a fox village and a cat island as well. There’s also a piggy island in The Bahamas and a horse island in Virginia. The only downside to visiting any of these places is that you can’t take all of animals home. For a taste of what your visit to Ōkunoshima will be like, here's video of the luckiest man in the world being smothered by bunnies:
Video via mybbbunny on YouTube
Top image via: Tails Of Wonder
Read more on BUST.com:
Bathing Your Easter Bunny Isn't Cool
Animals Sitting On Capybaras Will Brighten Your Tuesday
8 Badass Ladies Of The Animal World
Katie is a writer from and based in NYC. She enjoys discovering new bands to listen to, reading, and Googling "baby animals in party hats." You can find her having a political debate with her dog or on Instagram.Named for a metal dildo in a William Burroughs novel, Steely Dan’s whole identity was basically one big esoteric misanthropic dirty joke. Between 1972 and 1980 the band—which eventually boiled down to co-founders Donald Fagen (on piano and lead vocals) and Walter Becker (on bass and guitar)—created some of the most impeccably produced, and most impossible to categorize jazz/rock/pop/soul music ever recorded.
Drawing on classical composers, Greek mythology, and jazz standards for inspiration, and enlisting the chops of virtuoso musicians like Wayne Shorter—as well as legendary producer / A&R man Gary Katz —to craft their studio masterpieces, the core members of Steely Dan were a pair of peculiar perfectionists who always made it funky.
While Fagen and Becker remained reclusive and somewhat mysterious figures for most of their careers, they demonstrated a knack for making improbably popular hits from their very first album, 1972’s Can’t Buy A Thrill. Their 1977 long player Aja sold over a million copies and is esteemed by audiophiles for its stellar production standards. As a generation of hip hop producers began exploring the group’s fat basslines and tightly constructed grooves, Steely Dan recordings started providing the building blocks for some amazing hip hop records.
“In the beginning, they used them without asking,” Donald Fagen told Complex back in 2012. “Then there were lawsuits, so they started asking for licenses. Now, when they sample, they almost always ask for a license. Our management will make a deal where we get part of the composing royalties.”
Though the clearance fees came in handy, Fagen and Becker would decide whether or not to grant permission based on whether they liked what a given producer did with their samples. “I’d prefer that they do something creative with it, that’s my main thing,” Fagen said. “I don’t have any moral objection; I just prefer that they do something interesting, rather than something that’s ugly. If they really make something new out of it, then that’s cool, it doesn’t bother me.”
Everybody knows that Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz jam “Uptown Baby”—one of Fagen’s favorites, constructed from Aja‘s album opener “Black Cow”—but producer KNS was not the first to flip that particular sample. And how many remember what MF Doom did with it? As for that Kanye West song, “Champion”? Almost didn’t happen. Steely Dan just wasn’t feeling it and Yeezy had to write a heartfelt letter to get the go ahead.
In honor of Walter Becker, who died this weekend at the age of 67, here are some of the greatest Steely Dan samples ever chopped. Or better yet the greatest ones so far, because timeless music lives forever.There’s one thing you’re not supposed to do on the rugby pitch: Pass the ball forward.
But the Sarnia Saints rugby club defies that logic as, for the seventh straight year, the local organization will be Playing it Forward.
“It allows us to contribute to the community,” said club president Chris Groombridge. “It changes people’s perspectives as to what we represent and what we do.”
A different cause is chosen for each year’s fundraiser, and this time they’ve chosen to support an Afghanistan war memorial monument being installed in Sarnia’s Veterans Park. There’s a direct connection between the Saints and the monument through former player and club president Errol Cushley.
“(He) was a driving force in our rugby club at the time,” Groombridge said of Cushley, who was president in the early 1990s.
His son, Pte. William Cushley, was killed while serving his country in Afghanistan in 2006. To remember Cushley, as well as Cpl. Brent Poland who was killed in action in 2007 and other local soldiers who served during the 13-year campaign, the 1st Hussars Association and Royal Canadian Legion Br. 62 have teamed up to bring a decommissioned Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV) III to the park behind the Sarnia library.
“Only a few communities in Canada are getting those light armoured vehicle IIIs that were used in Afghanistan,” Groombridge said. “We’re lucky in our community to get one.”
Supporting this project through Playing it Forward was an easy choice, he added.
“We thought, well, that would be a great thing because this, the creation or an establishment of a war memorial in Sarnia to the Afghan veterans is only going to happen once,” he pointed out.
The total cost of the monument ranges from $45,000 to $60,000, which includes purchasing the vehicle’s hull, transporting it from London, installing a concrete mounting pedestal, purchasing memorial plaques and landscaping, according to a project brochure.
Past Playing it Forward events have raised funds for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada and the Canadian Mental Health Association.
On the pitch there will be a series of games June 25, but the fundraiser – a dinner and silent auction – is June 22 at the Gateway Room of the St. Clair Corporate Centre.
The Saints’ colours are black and white, but for those matches the players will be wearing unique jerseys that will be sold at the auction: Camouflage colours and patterns modeled after what the Canadian army wore in Afghanistan. A total of 22 men’s and 22 women’s game-worn shirts will be sold, expecting to fetch between $50 and $400 each.
“It really adds up,” Groombridge said, adding some reserve bids have already filtered in.
Other rugby and non-rugby items will be sold, too.
“We raise a chunk of change,” he continued. “I say chunk of change because we never like to get nailed to an amount.
“It will be successful no matter how much we raise.”
Recent Chopped: Canada contestant Paresh Thakkar will be preparing the meals.
“He has generated all kinds of interest for us,” he said.
Tickets are being sold for the dinner but the auction is open to the public.
As for the games on that Saturday, Sarnia’s women’s team will take on Stratford at 12 p.m. followed by the men’s second side and first side playing Brampton at 1:30 p.m. and 3 p.m., respectively, all at Norm Perry Park. The men’s team hits the pitch this Saturday with a friendly on the road against Bruce County.
In addition to the senior teams, the club continues to field youth squads and a rookie rugby program for players between ages seven and 13.
For more information on the fundraiser, e-mail sarniarugbyplayingitforward@gmail.com or visit their Facebook page.
tbridge@postmedia.com
@ObserverTerrySen. Rand Paul and Rev. Al Sharpton meeting in Washington. Al Sharpton Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), who is likely running for president in 2016, had a meeting with the Rev. Al Sharpton in Washington, D.C. Thursday morning. Both men characterized the conversation as an attempt to foster dialoque across party lines.
"It was a very candid and courteous conversation. We pledged to continue to have such conversations where conservatives and progressives can have dialogue and break the log jam in American discussion," Sharpton said in a statement.
Paul's press secretary, Eleanor May, told Business Insider the meeting with Sharpton is "another example of Sen. Paul's willingness to work across the aisle to solve our nation's problems."
According to Sharpton, the pair discussed Paul's "position on dealing with some criminal justice issues that I am concerned about." This included "mandatory sentencing" for drug-related charges and legislation Paul and Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) have proposed to limit punishments for non-violent drug offenders.
In addition to "criminal justice reform," May also noted the two talked about Paul's support for the "demilitarization of police." She said they also discussed Paul's recent trip to Ferguson, Missouri where protests this summer over the death of an unarmed African-American teenage who was shot by a police officer were met with a violent crackdown by local law enforcement.
Sharpton noted the two did not see eye-to-eye on everything. Specifically, he said they disagreed over President Barack Obama's plan to issue an executive order to shield some undocumented immigrants from deportation. Sharpton supports Obama taking executive action while Paul does not.
"We do not agree on executive action on the President, I agree and he does not," said Sharpton. "It was a very candid and courteous conversation. We pledged to continue to have such conversations where conservatives and progressives can have dialogue and break the log jam in American discussion."
Paul has made reaching out to African-American voters a priority as he considers a potential presidential bid. A recent poll found New Yorkers consider Sharpton the city's most important black leader, above even Obama.President-elect Donald Trump is widening his search for a secretary of state nominee, and 2012 presidential candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. is said to be in the running.
Huntsman, who speaks fluent Mandarin and served as ambassador to China between 2009 through 2011, is said to be on an expanded list of potential nominees for the position, according to the Associated Press. Huntsman is currently chairman of the Atlantic Council, an influential foreign policy think tank based in Washington, D.C.
Trump is reportedly “moving away” from current front-runners, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, according to Jonathan Lemire and Julie Pace of the Associated Press.
New candidates for the position include Huntsman, John Bolton, former ambassador to the United Nations, Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon Mobil; and Democrat West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, according to the New York Times.
NBC’s Hallie Jackson reported that Huntsman was in the mix, as did CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Top transition source indicates @JonHuntsman is in the mix for Secretary of State job. Adds that Mitt Romney has “definitely fallen back.” — Hallie Jackson (@HallieJackson) December 4, 2016
Sources tell CNN @JonHuntsman also under consideration for Secretary of State (along with Romney Giuliani Petraeus & Corker) — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 4, 2016
Huntsman Jr. told CNN in February that he could get behind Trump, calling him a “total outsider.” Trump is right about bringing aboard a new generation of the best and the brightest and wiping out the old Washington establishment and the old Washington culture,” Huntsman Jr. said.
The 56-year-old father of seven told the Wall Street Journal in June that the U.S. should get tougher with China, and gave some examples of specific steps on how to do so. “There’s section 337 of the Trade Act, which allows you to block at the border things that are a risk to our national security,” Huntsman said, alluding to a way to combat intellectual property theft, a multi-billion dollar problem faced by American companies.
Huntsman Jr. is seen as part of the establishment, and someone with extensive knowledge of international relations, specifically South-East Asia. The longtime public servant has been a supporter of the Trans-Pacific partnership, arguing that it “serves an extremely important role as our strategic backbone in the region.”
Huntsman Jr. is the son of Jon Huntsman Sr., a billionaire businessman and philanthropist. Huntsman Sr. founded the Huntsman corporation, a chemical products and manufacturing behemoth. The multinational corporation operates more than 100 facilities in over 30 countries and 15,000 employees.
Huntsman Jr., like Trump, attended the University of Pennsylvania. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce under President George H.W. Bush, and became Ambassador to Singapore in 1992. He served as Deputy United States Trade Representative under President George W. Bush, before becoming Governor of Utah.
President Obama nominated Huntsman to serve as Ambassador to China, a position Huntsman held until 2011. He launched a long shot Presidential bid in 2012, with a slogan similar to Trumps message; “Country First.”
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In the Isis (Islamic State) video released earlier this month showing the beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning, Isis vowed to behead Kassig next saying:
"Obama you have started your aerial bombardment of the Sham which keeps on striking our people. So, it is only right that we continue to strike the necks of your people."
Kassig, a former US soldier, had gone to Syria in 2013 to help Syrian refugees. He went missing the same year.
Several Isis supporters have been sharing the Saad Alaqidy (@saadalaqidy) tweet below that translates as, "Wednesday is the last day of the time limit set related to American Soldier Kassig."I got home one Saturday in December to find in my mailbox a package waiting for me. My Secret Santa let me know s/he shipped it out on Wednesday, so I was sort of expecting it.
What I wasn't expecting was the way the mailman left it for me. At my apartment complex, the side the mailman loads the mail through is larger than the side I get it from—something I did not realize until today. What was a perfect fit for him ended up being a fight on my end. I tugged, twisted and yanked, but it wouldn't come through.
I decided to open the package while it was still in the box, then pull. I was worried this would ruin the surprise, but my Secret Santa was wise enough to wrap it. The present was wrapped in wrapping paper, surrounded by bubble wrap and then the package itself.
"This should be easy," I thought.
Just then a man walked by watching me struggle.
"My package is too big for this box," I said.
Whether it was the fact it sounded like something out of a porno or the way it sounded like a First-World Problem, he never broke stride and went to greet his lady friend outside while I turned beet red.
Back to the task at hand. With only my keys in hand, I tore through the bubble wrap with my bony fingers, hoping this would make things easier. Nope. Slid the envelope off of the package. Nope. Instead I've got a wrapped box inside my mailbox taunting me.
The next two minutes were a blur of my jamming my skinny limbs into the mailbox and massaging the box at an angle where it finally came out. I raced to my apartment to see what was inside.
It turns out my Secret Santa pulled a fast one on me about 10 days ago. I was pondering how to swap the optical drive out of my MacBook Pro and replace it with an SSD, so I made a thread in r/applehelp about a month ago. 10 days ago, someone found that thread and asked if I had any success, to which I said no I was putting that off until at least after the holidays and gift giving was done.
What I didn't notice was the fact this apple_noob had created their account very recently. Like within 24 hours recently.
Back to that Saturday in December. I unwrapped it and what did I find? A 64GB SSD.
It was at that moment that I'm very thankful my downstairs neighbors moved out. The jumping, dancing and excitement over the next five minutes would have really pissed them off. I was about as happy getting a 64GB SSD as a kid getting a N64 was on YouTube.
So to my Secret Santa (who has chosen to remain anonymous). Thank you very much. I'm researching the best way to swap out the drive and slimming down my current hard drive for cloning as we speak.General Motors is "well positioned" as a future mobility leader thanks to its extensive autonomous vehicle research and production, UBS research said.
UBS reiterated its buy rating on the company's shares and raised its price target, citing GM's leadership in developing automotive technology through its AV unit as well as opportunities in the ride-hailing business.
"We continue to be surprised by the performance of GM's autonomous vehicle unit," wrote analyst Colin Langan in Tuesday's note to clients. "It's doubling its AV fleet and expects to accumulate more than 1 million miles per month by 2018, giving them a competitive edge."
Langan added that GM's program is one of the best in the industry, perhaps second only to Google's self-driving car project Waymo. He raised his price target on GM shares to $50, which is 11 percent higher than Tuesday's closing price. His previous target was $39.
Langan joins other top Wall Street analysts in predicting success for the company's autonomous vehicle technology. Last month, Deutsche Bank released a report arguing that General Motors, not Tesla, is a better bet for the AV future.
GM shares have been on a tear this year, up nearly 30 percent since January, and they traded 0.1 percent higher Wednesday.
Adding to the excitement surrounding GM's autonomous innovation is the company's budding ride-hailing and rental segment known as Maven, UBS said. Currently, Maven can provide GM vehicles directly to ride-hailing drivers who previously leased them through Lyft and Uber. But as Maven grows, it could become a serious competitor to existing companies.
"Current ridesharing accounts for only ~0.1 percent of U.S. miles traveled," Langan said. "Even as cost per mile falls to 60 cents per mile, GM expects the ridesharing market to rise from ~$5 billion to $1.6 trillion."
General Motors is expected to report earnings Oct. 24 before the opening bell.The big flaw in the Occupy Wall Street movement ever since it began some three weeks ago has been that the actual proposals for action demanded by its members have largely been incoherent, confused and self-contradictory. This is still true. Suddenly, though, this defect has lost its potency. Almost overnight, the movement has begun to gain respect, even from its opponents.
A man holds a sign on the edge of Zuccotti Park in New York's financial district. (Oct. 17, 2011) ( Spencer Platt / GETTY IMAGES )
Thus, a week ago Eric Cantor, majority leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, dismissed the protestors as “an angry mob.” He now admits, “there is growing frustration across the country,” adding that this anger is “warranted.” Two factors explain the change. The first is that the protestors haven’t done what many of their neo-conservative opponents undoubtedly hoped they would. They haven’t protested physically. Only verbally, and often with humour. No violence, that is to say, and no disorder. Indeed, at New York’s Zuccotti Park, which has become the centre of what is now a worldwide movement, an extraordinary exercise in self-government is taking place. Food, toilets, medical care, books and magazines to read, tents, warm clothing, have all somehow been organized for a gathering of people almost all of them strangers to each other.
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The other factor is more profound. If the protestors haven’t yet come up with any credible cures, they have diagnosed exactly the nature of the problem itself. It’s not a matter of some brave new economic or financial policy. Instead, it’s a matter of reverting to something very old-fashioned: morality. The best expression of this was contained in an editorial in the Financial Times. It informed its readers (most of them themselves exceedingly well-suited) that: “The fundamental call for a fairer distribution of wealth cannot be ignored.” It continued: “The (American Dream) has been shattered by a crisis brought about by financial excess and political cynicism.” The result, declared the Financial Times, “has been growing inequality, rising poverty and sacrifice by those least able to bear it.” To confirm that every word in those sentences is accurate is easy — sadly: • In the U.S. over the last 30 years, the top 10 per cent of income earners have taken all of the income gains, and then more, so that the entire bottom 90 per cent has undergone a net loss.
• The top 1 per cent of Americans now possess more wealth than do all the members of that same 90 per cent. And on the other side of the ledger:
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• More Americans (46 million) are now living in poverty than at any time since records were first taken more than 50 years ago. In the days when Occupy Wall Street was still an easy target, Mitt Romney, the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, accused the protestors of engaging in “class warfare.” Even in detail, Romney had got it wrong. The real war going on now is that between the generations. It’s the young who will pay the price for the bailouts of bankers that they promptly turned into bonuses for themselves. This is the accumulation of behaviour and attitudes that a Judge Richard Holwell described while sentencing an insider trader to 11 years in jail as, “a virus in our business culture.” As the weather gets chillier and as many of those taking part have to leave for other pursuits — such as trying to find a job — it’s likely that the Occupy Wall Street movement will fade away, as populist movements commonly do. What will remain will be the memory of the magic moment when vast numbers of ordinary people were able, somehow, to say simultaneously that the emperor has no clothes. Afterwards will come the hard part of convincing those same ordinary people to again believe in the American Dream. Richard Gwyn’s column appears every other Tuesday. gwynr@sympatico.caIf you’re a fan of 1960s sci-fi shows, then you probably recognize the computer in the video above. Everybody from the Robinson family to Bruce Wayne had one and to viewers, it looked like the future.
Brian Mix is |
our trust and created an economic disaster for American families, they should be reminded that the bail out was George Bush's and John Boehner twisted arms to pass the bill for his friends on Wall Street. Although a response while our nation stood at the edge of economic collapse may have been necessary, a bail out without transparency, accountability and safeguards for American families was inexcusable. But 'Bail Out Boehner' chose to protect his friends on Wall Street and stiff working families, leaving them to pick up the tab."A team of six scientists and a government official in Italy are facing the potential of spending the next four years in prison.
The seismologists have been charged with manslaughter for underestimating risks prior to the 2009 earthquake, which killed 309 people in the medieval town of L'Aquila. They will learn their fates when verdicts are handed down by a court on Monday.
The case has provoked outrage in the international scientific community, with some commentators warning that any conviction would dissuade other experts from sharing their expertise for fear of potential legal actions.
Failure to alert
Claudio Lavanga reports from L'Aquila
Prosecutors argue that the seven - all members of the Major Risks Committee - failed to adequately alert the town's population after studying a series of small tremors in the weeks before the 6.3-magnitude quake struck.
The experts provided "an incomplete, inept, unsuitable and criminally mistaken" analysis, downplaying risks and reassuring residents, leaving them unprepared for the quake, said prosecutors during the year-long trial.
The committee met six days before the earthquake devastated the region, tearing down houses and churches and leaving thousands homeless.
"This seems to be a case of bad timing rather than bad science," said Al Jazeera's Claudio Lavanga, reporting from L'Aquila in Italy's central Abruzzo region.
"Clearly, [the scientists] said, 'look, we cannot predict an earthquake. We can say that the likelihood that these small tremors will lead to a major earthquake is not that great'. One of them even got carried away and said that the small tremors were a good thing, because they would dissipate the energy and make it unlikely for a major earthquake to come."
The then vice-director of Italy's Civil Protection department, Bernardo De Bernardinis, told reporters the seismic activity in L'Aquila posed "no danger" and advised residents to relax with a glass of wine.
But government lawyer Carlo Sica has called for the seven defendants to be acquitted.
Minutes from the March 31 meeting were not valid as evidence because they were only written and signed following the April 6 earthquake, he argued.
"They are not guilty of anything, the earthquake's no-one's fault," he said.
Last week Filippo Dinacci, lawyer for De Bernardinis and one of the other defendants, denounced the charges as something out of "medieval criminal law".
Outrage
Tarek Bazley explains earthquake prediction
The case sparked outrage when the charges were brought against the geophysicists in 2010. Many commentators complained that the scientists were merely scapegoats and that science itself was being put on trial.
"Scientists we have spoken to have described this trial as something of a 'witch hunt'," said our correspondent. "They understand the need for relatives [of those killed] to find someone responsible, but say that they should turn their attention to those who failed to meet the building regulations in a highly seismic area."
More than 5,000 members of the scientific community sent an open letter to Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano denouncing the trial. Their colleagues were being prosecuted for having failed to predict an earthquake: but that was a feat widely acknowledged to be impossible, they argued.
Prosecutor Fabio Picuti, however, insists the point is not whether they could have predicted the quake. He says the government-appointed experts' job was to evaluate the risk and advise a large population in a town with fragile, ancient buildings.
The seven defendants include Enzo Boschi, who at the time was the head of Italy's national geophysics institute; Giulio Selvaggio, head of the INVV's national earthquake centre in Rome; and Franco Barberi of Rome's University
Three.
The other scientists on trial are Mauro Dolce, head of the Civil Protection's seismic risk office, Gian Michele Calvi, head of the European Centre for Training and Research in Earthquake Engineering (EUcentre); and Claudio Eva of the University of Genoa.
As well as being charged with manslaughter, the seven also face charges of reckless endangerment.As Tim Schafer might say, development is slower than molasses going uphill in January. On crutches. While Ciarán got a million and one things documented in the last few days (see?), I’ve mostly been fighting with the design for Weave. And it seems to have stolen my trousers.
What is Weave?
Weave will be a map (and audio and settings) editor for the engine. It’s got an awesome name, and it may or may not be powered by unicorn tears. It’s a browser-based GWT app, and it’s entirely my responsibility.
What does Weave look like?
I’m so glad you asked. It looks like this:
What does Weave do?
Weave’s split into three parts (really, two parts). It edits the maps, the audio and the settings. The latter two will be stored in XML files, and the maps will be stored as serialised objects in JSON format.
We’re using JSON for our maps because the map editor actually uses much of the actual game engine. Naturally, it has to render the map, all the objects, has to use a graphics abstraction layer, et cetera, and because we’ve already designed all of those things for the Flax Engine, it seemed foolish not to re-use those parts. I mean, we’re using GWT so we can leverage Java and OOP, and this is what Object Oriented Programming is made for.
We’re using XML for the Settings and Audio, as neither of those are actual objects (unlike the Map). I’ve not yet gotten around to properly designing those sections yet, so I’ll shut up about them and focus on the maps today.
Flax’s Maps
For Flax, we’re going with some good old 2D maps, Gameboy style. Essentially, they’re a group of tiles. These tiles are objects, programming-wise, so they each know where they’re supposed to go. They have a few default properties, and more can be added. The map object itself holds this group of tiles.
Easy, right? Right.
You said something about trousers?
Right, well. Up until now, it’s all been fairly easy. Designing Weave wasn’t too difficult. At least, that’s what I thought. Then the excrement hit the ventilator: we figured out that we couldn’t do things we wanted to do, namely using JSON to serialise and deserialise objects. Ciarán mentioned this in his post, with a handy-dandy diagram. Because of this, Weave’s gone through quite a few design revisions. We had maps as XML first, then JSON, then fully serialised, non-human-readable objects, then XML again, then XML and serialised objects, and now, finally, JSON again. Thanks to the magic of the GWT-Ent library, which we discovered a few days ago, we can serialise and deserialise objects just how we want them.
So, finally, we beat the problem into the ground and I took my trousers (and pride) back. Then I rode away on a unicorn.
Man, programming stories are fun.BBC and ITN say police must follow proper procedure of obtaining court order to avoid compromise of editorial standards
The BBC and ITN have responded to David Cameron's call for them to immediately hand over unused TV footage of rioters by arguing that the proper procedure of the police obtaining a court order must be followed.
Earlier on Thursday the prime minister told MPs that the media has a "responsibility" to immediately release footage to help police track down and punish those responsible for four nights of rioting in cities across England.
Liberal Democrat MP John Leech asked the prime minster during an emergency Commons session whether he would "encourage media organisations to immediately release footage".
"I will certainly do that," Cameron responded. "Everyone has a responsibility. Media organisations have a responsibility too, and I hope they will act on it."
Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 an order must be obtained from a judge to obtain unpublished material such as film and pictures. The judge is supposed to weigh the interest of the police in obtaining evidence with the public interest in a free press.
ITN, which produces news programmes for ITV and Channel 4, said that despite the drive to swiftly identify looters the government cannot run roughshod over standard legal practice.
"We expect any request will come from the police," said a spokeswoman for ITN. "When that happens, we will deal with it as per our established practice for handing over unbroadcasted material."
A BBC spokeswoman added: "We have standard processes in place to deal with requests from the police through our litigation department, regardless of the subject matter. Any request would need to be dealt with by the courts."
Fran Unsworth, the BBC's head of newsgathering, said on Wednesday that the corporation would not hand over any footage without a court order.
"It's a matter of principle for us, we don't just hand over our rushes [raw footage] to the police without them going through a proper process which is via the courts," she said in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Media Show. "It doesn't really matter what the nature of the offences are – if we went down that road of making judgments of the nature of the offences, that would compromise our editorial standards."
Unsworth was then asked whether the fact that the footage showed "transparent criminality" of looting should change the BBC's position.
"It is a matter for a court to decide that, not for us to decide … for a court to decide whether it is criminal or not," she replied. "If [the police] come up with a court order we will probably hand [footage] over because that's the process and then the courts will decide whether its criminal activity or not. But we are not in a position to prejudge that."
John Ryley, head of Sky News, said: "It's business as usual. Our standard policy remains in place and we will of course co-operate with any court orders."
The Newspaper Society, which represents regional newspapers, echoed the views of broadcasters.
A spokesman said: "The police cannot just demand editorial material nor do editors have automatically to comply with police requests. If the police are asking for unpublished material, then newspaper editors may well refuse to supply any material unless ordered to do so by a court, under the procedure laid down by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Pace). If the police want to obtain and view journalistic material, including photographs or audiovisual material, in order to investigate serious offences, then the police must apply to the court and ask a judge to make a production order."
He added: "The media organisation is entitled to oppose the police application. In practice, the police have all too often successfully applied for orders, but there have been occasions where judges have refused to grant the police application.
• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediatheguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".
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The USA Today promptly reported (joined by CBS and CNN): "Jews emerging from a synagogue say they were handed leaflets that ordered the city's Jews to provide a list of property they own and pay a registration fee "or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated," reported Ynet News, Israel's largest news website, and Ukraine's Donbass news agency."
Consequences for non-compliance will result in citizenship being revoked "and you will be forced outside the country with a confiscation of property," it said. A registration fee of $50 would be required, it said.
Odd because as the same USA Today further reported, "Olga Reznikova, 32, a Jewish resident of Donetsk, told Ynet she never experienced anti-Semitism in the city until she saw this leaflet."
Perversely, even the local Jewish community issued a statement saying the leaflet distribution "smells like a provocation." The chief rabbi of nearby Dnipropetrovsk, Shmuel Kaminezki said, "Everything must be done to catch them."
So the bottom line, namely that this was merely a provocation designed to generate a kneejerk emotional response from the west and paint the pro-Russia militia as neo-nazis and generally, as fascists (even though it was the ultra nationalist Right Sector that was instrumental in the overthrow of the Yanukovich government) was clear to most - even the population that was seemingly being targeted.
But not to John Kerry. "Secretary of State John Kerry said the language of the leaflets "is beyond unacceptable" and condemned whomever is responsible."
"In the year 2014, after all of the miles traveled and all of the journey of history, this is not just intolerable — it's grotesque," he said. "And any of the people who engage in these kinds of activities — from whatever party or whatever ideology or whatever place they crawl out of — there is no place for that." U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt called the leaflets "the real deal." But the man whose name appears on the leaflets, Denis Pushilin, identified as chairman of "Donetsk's temporary government," said he was not responsible.
"The real deal"... with the small exception that they were forged, in everything from the photoshopped stamp, to the fact that the person who allegedly signed the leaflets, Denis Pushilin - the Chair of the recently created Donetsk republic - explicitly stated he had nothing to do with this attempt to rile up anti-semitic sentiment in Donetsk.
Of course, with the CIA operating freely in Kiev, and having been rather instrumental in the establishment of the current political regime (as it did in the US-foreign policy "success stories" of Libya and Egypt), one can be sure that the provocations will only gets more grotesque, surreal and most likely, violent from this point onward.
More details on the forgery in the clip below:In a rare open hearing, Michael Morell, the deputy CIA director during the 9-11 anniversary assault in Benghazi on Wednesday, fired back at Republicans who have alleged that he cherry picked intelligence for government-wide talking points in the aftermath of the attacks.
The former deputy and acting director of the CIA has come under fire in the last month from some Republicans for allegedly lying to Congress and editing the now infamous Benghazi talking points. Despite multiple streams of intelligence to the contrary, the talking points for senior government officials in the aftermath of Benghazi and in the heat of the 2012 presidential election said the attack stemmed from demonstrations.
At first Republicans fixed blame for the talking points on the most prominent U.S. official who read them, Susan Rice. In interviews with five major Sunday shows, Rice—who was then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations--said the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans grew out of a demonstration against an Internet video that negatively depicted the life of Islam’s prophet, Mohammed.
In his written testimony, Morell said, “there is no truth to the allegations that the CIA or I ‘cooked the books’ with regard to what happened in Benghazi and then tried to cover this up after the fact.”
While Morell acknowledged the CIA could have done a “better job” on some aspects of its analysis of Benghazi. The former top intelligence official also said that none of the agency’s flaws “reflect any intention to mislead Congress or the American people or any intention to provide political benefit to anyone.”
But some members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have another view of the matter. On Tuesday, the CIA’s station chief during the Benghazi attack testified in a classified session before Congress. He told lawmakers on the committee that his assessment for the entire week of the attack was that the Benghazi incident was a terrorist attack and not a mob that had gotten out of control. The Senate Intelligence Committee came to a similar conclusion in its report on Benghazi as well.
In his opening statement Wednesday, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Morell told senior officials inside the Obama administration a day before Rice appeared on the Sunday talk shows “that the chief of station reported that there was no protest.” But Morell said that the chief of station mused in one communication that one of three possible motivations of the attackers could have been a reaction to the anti-Muslim web video.
Morell acknowledged that he had read the cable from the station chief in Libya in his testimony. But he also said his assessment was at odds with the evaluation of CIA analysts who had prepared the classified analysis that informed initial drafts of the talking points read by Rice.
He said the chief of station based his assessment that there was no demonstration on two pieces of evidence. The first was that local press reports said there was no demonstration. But Morell said there were other press reports that said there was. Also, the chief of station relied on the accounts of CIA security contractors who were sent to Benghazi that evening. “This was not compelling because these officers did not arrive until almost an hour after the attack started and the protesters could have dispersed by them,” Morell said.
But the chief of station was not the only person to alert U.S. officials that there was no demonstration that evening. Greg Hicks, who was the deputy to Ambassador Stevens, testified last year that he told then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that there was no demonstration on the night of the attack. Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Republican member of the House intelligence committee, challenged Morell. She said there were multiple streams of intelligence--including signal intercepts and reports from human sources in Benghazi that confirmed that Benghazi was a terrorist attack before Rice's appearance on the Sunday shows.
One U.S. intelligence official who has worked on the intelligence on Benghazi told The Daily Beast this week that there nearly all of the human sources for the CIA in Benghazi also confirmed it was a terrorist attack along with considerable amounts of signal intercepts picked up by the NSA that evening.
The Daily Beast first reported that the United States monitored communications between some of the Benghazi attackers and individuals in al Qaeda’s North African affiliate on the evening of the attack as well. But Morell said that the CIA analysts who prepared the first assessment did not have access to all of this reporting from the field or interview transcripts of U.S. officials on the ground in Benghazi at the time.
Morell also addressed allegations from some Republican senators such as Lindsey Graham, that he misled them in November 2012 at a meeting to discuss the possible nomination of Rice to be secretary of state. She eventually withdrew her name from consideration and has since been appointed National Security Advisor
Since that meeting, Graham has alleged that Morell told him that it was the FBI and not the CIA and himself who edited the Benghazi talking points. In his testimony Morell said he regrets that he left the senators with the wrong impression.
“I strongly regret that left the Senators with the impression that I deliberately misled them,” he said. “I did not – nor did I intend to – do so.”A show about clinical depression...with laughs? Well, yeah. Depression is an incredibly common and isolating disease experienced by millions, yet often stigmatized by society. The Hilarious World of Depression is a series of frank, moving, and, yes, funny conversations with top comedians who have dealt with this disease, hosted by veteran humorist and public radio host John Moe. Join guests such as Maria Bamford, Paul F. Tompkins, Andy Richter, and Jen Kirkman to learn how they’ve dealt with depression and managed to laugh along the way. If you have not met the disease personally, it’s almost certain that someone you know has, whether it’s a friend, family member, colleague, or neighbor. Depression is a vicious cycle of solitude and stigma that leaves people miserable and sometimes dead. Frankly, we’re not going to put up with that anymore. The Hilarious World of Depression is not medical treatment and should not be seen as a substitute for therapy or medication. But it is a chance to gain some insight, have a few laughs, and realize that people with depression are not alone and that together, we can all feel a bit better.
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Find promo codes and check out our sponsors here Find The Hilarious World of Depression on Twitter and Facebook Questions? Feedback? Story to Share? Contact us The Hilarious World of Depression is made possible by a grant from HealthPartners and its Make It OK campaign, which works to reduce the stigma of mental health. Find out more at www.makeitok.org Subscribe/listen at Apple Podcasts Stitcher, or Radio PublicHouse Resolution 4133 – the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012 is making its way through congress. It was introduced into the House of Representatives on March 5th “To express the sense of Congress regarding the United States-Israel strategic relationship, to direct the President to submit to Congress reports on United States actions to enhance this relationship and to assist in the defense of Israel, and for other purposes.” The sponsors include Eric Cantor, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Howard Berman and also Steny Hoyer of Maryland. The bill basically provides Israel with a blank check drawn on the US taxpayer to maintain its “qualitative military superiority” over all of its neighbors combined. It is scheduled for passage on a “suspension of the rules,” which means it will not actually be formally voted on and will be approved by consent of congress.
Congressman Ron Paul appears to be the only one speaking out against it, calling it “one-sided and counter-productive foreign policy legislation. This bill’s real intent seems to be more saber-rattling against Iran and Syria.” Paul also observes that “This bill states that it is the policy of the United States to ‘reaffirm the enduring commitment of the United States to the security of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.’ However, according to our Constitution the policy of the United States government should be to protect the security of the United States, not to guarantee the religious, ethnic, or cultural composition of a foreign country.”
The scariest bit of the bill is its call for “an expanded role for Israel within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), including an enhanced presence at NATO headquarters and exercises.” Israel as part of NATO, clearly the intent of Congress, would mean that the US and Europeans would be obligated to come to the aid of a country that has no defined borders and which has initiated a series of wars against its neighbors.
The bill appears to be unrelated to a Republican proposal earlier this week to give Israel $1 billion dollars more aid in 2013 to enhance its missile defense system. Or possibly it is related.Is this a good idea? Is discriminatory buffet pricing the true Brazilian miracle? More importantly, is womankind getting snookered on her pilgrimages to Golden Corral?
I am of two minds.
First, discriminatory pricing is everywhere you look in the U.S. Many all-you-can-eat restaurants already charge less for kids' and vegetarian meals, and they've been known to kick out customers for whom "all" that they could physically eat turned out to be the metric volume of a Buick Encore.
Certain other businesses, like hair salons, already charge women more than men. (There's already been an uproar over this tendency in Scandinavia, though.) And many bars and clubs in the U.S. offer "ladies' nights" with a lower or no cover charge for women – though this, too, is illegal in some states.
And maybe this type of thing would help make up for the fact that women pay more for things like deodorant and razors when the only difference between the male and female versions is the lilac packaging and “Summer Rain” scent.
Then again, food-related discriminatory pricing is uniquely awkward. If this became widespread, it could reinforce the stereotype that women are supposed to be birdlike and abstemious while men can indulge without restraint.
I do tend to eat less than my boyfriend most days. But I have also been known to hoover up more than an Icelandic body-builder, tucking away, in one short sitting, a Chipotle burrito, chips, guac, random olives and things we had in the house, those two-bite brownies from Whole Foods, and definitely more than one "serving" of gelato. In short, Anachronistic Gender Ideas Restaurant would get hosed if they caught me on the wrong day.
If an entire restaurant just assumes that women eat less than men, then it might be seen as wrong or unusual if they eat more. And we don't need the judgy weight of menu pricing when we're just trying to enjoy our fourth buttery Corral roll, or our zillionth Pao de Queijo cheese poof. I, for one, would gladly pay an additional $2.25 for the moral freedom to eat with the abandon of a post-breakup Henry the VIII.On Sunday, the Jeff Bezos-backed spaceflight company Blue Origin will air a test launch of their space system live for the first time online.
This will mark the fourth time this particular New Shepard rocket and capsule have flown a test flight.
The actual test is expected to start at 10:15 a.m. ET Sunday, with the webcast itself beginning about 30 minutes earlier, at 9:45 a.m. ET. You can watch the launch in the window below or directly through Blue Origin.
"Watching a rocket launch (and rocket landing!) might add a little extra fun with the kids on Father’s Day — enjoy," Bezos wrote in an announcement of the launch.
This test will be Blue Origin's biggest challenge yet.
The company will purposefully make one of the capsule's parachutes fail during the craft's descent back to Earth after flight. In theory, the capsule should be able to land safely — if not slightly harder — with just two parachutes.
Flight to test one-chute-out failure scenario & push envelope on booster maneuvers #GradatimFerociter pic.twitter.com/oWIGMqMCoa — Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) June 13, 2016
Look for one-chute-out test starting about 7 minutes into flight + continue pushing envelope on booster. #GradatimFerociter — Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) June 17, 2016
And of course – development test flight – anything can happen. #GradatimFerociter — Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) June 17, 2016
"Works on paper, and this test is designed to validate that," Bezos said. "We’ll also use this flight to continue pushing the envelope on the booster. As always, this is a development test flight and anything can happen."
The company's three other previous launches all appeared to go off without a hitch, bringing the New Shepard rocket up to suborbital space and back to the launch site in Texas safely.
One day, Blue Origin plans to launch people to suborbital space with New Shepard, taking paying customers about 62 miles up where they can see the Earth against black space and even feel weightlessness for minutes.
Blue Origin's capsule. Image: blue origin
Bezos has said on multiple occasions that he hopes to see millions of people living and working in space some day in the far future, and he thinks there's a role for Blue Origin in making that goal a reality.
The company is working to create a fleet of reusable rockets that can launch people and payloads to suborbital space. Blue Origin is also developing a larger rocket to launch to orbit. Reusable rockets could greatly reduce the cost of flying to space, making it easier for people to fly objects to orbit and maybe beyond.
This live webcast could also mark a serious change for the usually secretive spaceflight company.
Usually Blue Origin only announces its launches after they occur, but now, people around the world will be able to watch every triumph and failure during the risky test.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.As evolution remains a contentious issue for many public schools, a new survey suggests that views on the question are driven by Americans’ religious affiliation more than their level of education.
Overall, six in 10 Americans say that humans have evolved over time, while one-third reject the idea of human evolution, according to a new analysis by the Pew Research Center. The one-third of Americans who reject human evolution has remained mostly unchanged since a 2009 Pew survey.
About one in four American adults say that “a supreme being guided the evolution of living things for the purpose of creating humans and other life in the form it exists today.”
While education matters, the new analysis suggests that religion appears to have more influence than level of education on evolution. The 21-point difference between college graduates and high school graduates who believe in evolution, for example, is less stark than the 49-point difference between mainline Protestants and evangelicals.
Evangelicals are four times as likely to reject human evolution as mainline Protestants, with 64 percent of evangelicals saying that “humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.” Half of black Protestants say humans have not evolved, compared to 15 percent of white mainline Protestants who share the same opinion.
Those with more years of formal education are more likely than those with less education to say that humans and animals have evolved over time. Seventy-two percent of college graduates say humans have evolved over time, compared with 51 percent of high school graduates who say the same thing.
The gap between Republicans and Democrats on belief on human evolution has grown by 10 points since 2009, with 43 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats saying humans have evolved over time.
Even those who hold views on evolution differ in how it may have happened. The belief that evolution occurred as a natural process (not necessarily one guided by God) is still a minority view. At 57 percent, only people who have no religious affiliation hold a majority view that says humans evolved due to natural processes.
Among those who express a belief in human evolution, just 32 percent of them take the view that evolution is “due to natural processes such as natural selection.” For Protestants who say that humans have evolved over time, the group is divided over whether evolution is due to natural processes or whether it was guided by a supreme being (36 percent each).
Meanwhile, the Creation Museum in Kentucky that promotes a literal reading of the Bible that God created the earth in six days will begin offering free admission to children in 2014. Seeking a wider audience, the museum rolled out displays this year that contain no religious messages as total attendance since the museum’s 2007 opening approached about 2 million.
Copyright: For copyright information, please check with the distributor of this item, Religion News Service LLC.We need to talk about your cat because your cat is pissing me off.
Your cat is eating my socks. No. Really. Your cat has eaten four pairs of my socks.
Yes, I know cats can’t digest cloth. Your cat does not have super-feline sock-eating and digestion skills. Your cat nibbles the toes off my socks and then throws up these toe parts all over my closet floor as little gooey sockballs.
Your cat is pissing me off and we need to have a conversation about it.
The Topic of Conversation
In How to Run a Meeting, I describe a conversation as “verbal ping pong… you bat the little white verbal ball back and forth until someone wins”. This describes a simple conversation, but conversations are rarely simple. They have a variety of structures that are carefully negotiated and molded by the participants.
To understand the different type of structures, we need to define a base unit of conversation and the actions that potentially surround it. Let’s call this base unit of conversation a topic.
A topic is the headline you’d give to the current content and state of the conversation. Examples:
The problem with our bug queue.
I can’t stand Stan.
You are bugging me in indescribable ways that I will now attempt to describe.
In my head, a topic looks like this:
The key parts of this model are:
Stop button. For any number of reasons, a conversation can stop or be interrupted. When this occurs, all conversation participants are effectively agreeing: “This topic is done and there will be no further discussion during this conversation”. The agreed upon Topic of the conversation. Progress Bar. This is a totally subjective measure that indicates how close a conversation is to being resolved. If the bar is moving, this topic is currently in play. Pause button. A healthy conversation is rarely only focused on a single topic. Conversations meander from one topic to the next. When paused, a topic is no longer being discussed, but it remains open and unresolved in the minds of the participants.
This is a lot of preamble to describe an act we do automatically. If this model strikes you as overly complex, know this — you are going to spend half of your goddamned life suffering through the alignment of differing perspectives in any given conversation. It’s the single biggest waste of your time in dealing with other people and the better you understand, the less time you’ll waste. So, let’s circle back to…
Your Goddamned Cat
As we sit down to have our conversation regarding the sockballs littering my closet floor, I’m thinking about how I’m going to successfully convince you to keep your cat on a tighter leash. In fact, I don’t want the cat in the house at all, but you pay half the rent and we did agree when we arrived that the cat was cool. I need to figure out how to verbally amend that agreement, which means we’re going to need to negotiate. I’m going to have to concede something in order get the goddamned cat away from my delicious socks and out of the house.
In this case, I don’t know what my concession is — it’s something we need to discover via our conversation, which means there are a couple of potential topics:
Regarding your cat eating my socks. The cat eviction negotiation. Things I know that piss you off.
With these topics in mind, our conversation starts gently, in the living room. I explain, “I would like to discuss the matter of your cat eating my socks,” to which you respond, “I am sick and tired of you not cleaning the bathroom”.
Whoa. Wait. What?
In my head, the conversation looked like this:
But you just hit the pause button on our first topic and started another topic:
The second topic introduces a new element in the model — the segue. This handy line is the context that ties one topic to another, which, in the case of the sockball situation, is currently a confusing, “Wuh?”
The point: it takes at least two people to have a conversation, but the real work is in making sure you’re both having the same conversation.
I can help.
A Conversation Structure
In computer science, there’s a concept called data structures. The idea is that a data structure is a model used to organize data so that it can be used efficiently. One of the simplest structures is called a list and it looks like this:
In terms of a conversation, think of lists as the most basic and easy to follow type of conversation. Using the model I describe above, no topic can be paused or stopped until the topic is resolved. There are no segues, tangents, or sidebars.
You’re thinking conversations as simple and structured as these don’t exist, and you’re right. This type of meeting does occur, but it’s called a presentation — where the speaker is click-click-clicking through his topics on his merry way towards the undisputed end.
While this basic list of conversations doesn’t exist, there are people who want them to exist and will make this clear as part of the conversation. They sound like this:
“Wait, wait, wait, we’re not done with topic #1. Can we talk about topic #1?”
“Hold it, before we go there, what about the issue at hand?”
“This new topic has absolutely nothing to do with what we’re talking about.”
The intricacies and implementation of various data structures are not the topic of this article. What’s relevant is understanding that there are different conversation models you might find yourself in and then figuring out how to adapt.
The Stack
A slightly more complex data structure, and one that is more representative of a real conversation, is the stack. This is where our Pause and Stop buttons come into play. Let’s go back to that goddamned sock-eating cat to understand. Our conversation started with the sock topic, but you immediately put a Pause on that first topic and fired up a new one. In my head that looks this:
This is a stack. The topics are literally stacked on top of each other because, in my head, we’re actually talking about both topics, and the successful conclusion of all topics is key to this entire conversation coming to a successful conclusion. The question is are we both prepared for this type of conversation?
My definition of an effective conversation is if, at any moment, you could ask any participant in the conversation to point at precisely which topic was being discussed and how that topic was progressing. Bonus points for walking through the stack and explaining how you got there.
When conversation participants lose the context of the conversation, when they lose track of where they are, they stop listening and stop participating. The conversation no longer has a chance of resolution because resolution requires their active involvement and all they’re doing is fake listening to your speech.
Conversation Tolerances
A stacked conversation, one with multiple topics tied together with segues, is where everyone involved needs to keep track not just of the complexities of the conversation, but of the tolerances of those participating. Again, this is not a meeting with a well-defined agenda and anointed leader; this is a conversation where everyone needs to keep their wits about them.
When a conversation gets complex, this is what I’m watching for:
How many open topics can we handle? Each segue moves us slightly further from the starting topic. Are you cool with that? Ok, how many topics can you keep in your head? There’s a point where everyone will lose track of where they are if we have too many open topics — what’s your threshold? Wait, now I’m lost, so I’m |
everyone in that space can feel. You’re just creating in a completely unrestrained way and as a result that kind of artwork is incredibly exciting.
I think that when a dollar sign is attached or even when your name is attached, those pressures change things.
That’s why I love the kind of art that is generated out of that community. I really wanted to work with someone who came up in that community, who was still in touch with those passions and that kind of creative freedom of expression.
The main cover for "Fence" No. 1. (Boom! Box)Winston Peters says his party's own internal polling puts it higher than other polling results.
Winston Peters could be the key player in the next election.
Why so popular? The NZ First leader puts it down to his party's stance on the "elephant in the room": immigration.
Not that he takes any notice of recent Roy Morgan results, which has NZ First at 9.5 per cent for May. (National rose to three points to 45.5 per cent, ahead of a potential Labour-Greens alliance sitting at 41.5 per cent).
"We have our own polls that says that's nonsense," Peters said, implying the number was much higher.
READ MORE:
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* Housing for homeless not guaranteed - Bennett
* Govt announces $41.1 million boost for emergency housing
A recent Reid Research/ Newshub poll also showed an increase since November, with NZ First at 7.8 per cent.
"There's no doubt we're gonna corrode the National party base because people have got a guts-full," Peters said.
"We've spoken about things for a long time that have proven to be true, more and more New Zealanders are remembering who said that first."
New Zealand's levels of immigration were "disastrous economically and socially" - an issue NZ First had predicted years ago based on international research, he claims.
"When we were saying that, others were calling us xenophobic and racist. Look at the mess in Auckland now.
"Every infrastructural demand is at its very tipping point, whether it be roading, railways, hospitals, schools, it's all at a critical tipping point."
So it's no surprise the party's housing policy involves stopping speculation in land banking.
Peters is a fan of overseas speculators being hit with a "serious series of taxes", as well as a housing and land register to keep track of who owns what.
The party would also buy land and build state housing.
However, Peters points out that the Government has an obsession with Auckland housing. All they need to do, is "give it a chance to breathe" (that is, with an immigration policy).
ON THE BUDGET 2016: Peters wants a focus on exports.
"What we want to see in the Budget is the change in the economic approach, that demonstrates the understanding of how sound economies work. They work on wealth creation, on exports, on living within your means when it comes to imports.
"They would be policies to do with research and development and taxation. The word 'incentivisation' is deliberately used to rapidly grow our export capacity by making it worthwhile for people to take the risks to be exporters.
"Right now the support for our exporters is virtually zero and with an inflated dollar.
ON TAX CUTS: Not a fan.
"How can we afford tax cuts now?" Peters said. "This is a very shaky economy. One or two things go wrong and we're seriously going to be in a spin."
ON RAISING TAX BRACKETS: Even less of a fan.
"The country, with the level of debt we've got, cannot go borrowing to change tax rates."This article is about the municipality of Arendal. For the town/city of Arendal, see Arendal (town)
Municipality in Aust-Agder, Norway
Arendal ( Urban East Norwegian pronunciation: [²ɑːɳɖɑːl] ()) is a municipality in the county of Aust-Agder in southeastern Norway. Arendal belongs to the region of Sørlandet. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Arendal (which is also the seat of Aust-Agder county). Some of the notable villages in Arendal include Rykene, Eydehavn, Færvik, Strengereid, Kongshavn, Kilsund, Brattekleiv, Longum, Saltrød, Staubø, Vrengen, and Kolbjørnsvik. The offices of UNEP/GRID-Arendal are also located in the city of Arendal.[2]
The 270-square-kilometre (100 sq mi) municipality is the 288th largest by area out of the 422 municipalities in Norway. Arendal is the 20th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 44 800. The municipality's population density is 174.7 inhabitants per square kilometre (452/sq mi) and its population has increased by 11.3% over the last decade.[3]
General information [ edit ]
Arendal viewed from the harbour
River Nidelva in Arendal
Municipal history [ edit ]
The town of Arendal was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). On 1 January 1875, a small area with 22 inhabitants was transferred from the town to the neighboring municipality of Østre Moland and another small area with 52 residents was transferred to the neighboring municipality of Øyestad.[4]
On 1 January 1902, the rural municipality of Barbu (population: 6,787) was merged into the town of Arendal. In 1944, a small area of Moland with a population of 21 inhabitants was transferred to Arendal as well. On 1 January 1992, the town was vastly expanded. The neighboring rural municipalities of Hisøy (pop: 4,026), Moland (pop: 8,148), Tromøy (pop: 4,711), and Øyestad (pop: 8,679) were all merged with the town of Arendal which had a population of 12,478, bringing the total population of the new municipality of Arendal to 38,042.[4]
Origin of the name [ edit ]
The Old Norse form of the name was probably Arnardalr. The first element is the genitive case of ǫrn which means "eagle" and the last element is dalr which means "valley" or "dale", thus meaning the "eagle valley".[2]
The coat-of-arms of Arendal were granted on 7 November 1924 (based upon an older seal). The blue and silver arms show a sailing ship as a symbol for the importance of fisheries and sailing to the local economy. A ship appeared on the oldest known seal of the town, dating back to the 17th century. In the late 19th and early 20th century the arms showed the ship in the upper part and a landscape with the coat of arms of Norway in the base of the shield.[5][6]
Churches [ edit ]
The Church of Norway has six parishes (sokn) within the municipality of Arendal. It is part of the Arendal prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Agder og Telemark.
History [ edit ]
Map of Arendal from 1897
View of Arendal in 1902
The village of Arendal was established in the middle of the 16th century, and was then called Arendall. Initially, it had no formal town status.
When the town of Christianssand was founded by King Christian IV in 1641, he granted the citizens a monopoly on all trade in Nedenæs and Lister og Mandal counties (including the area of Arendal). This grant, intended to subsidize Christianssand and its fortifications, placed existing towns in a difficult position. Both towns and the peasants in the rural countryside protested the hardships this caused. As a result, Arendal received royal permission in 1622 to continue as a loading-place for timber until a means could be found to transfer its trade to Christianssand.
The town of Arendal was given market city privileges in 1723. However the peasants in the surrounding district, who by law were to sell their goods only at Arendal, were smuggling their goods out on cutters and selling them in Denmark, in the Baltic, and in Britain.
This continued until 1735, when Arendal was granted a full town charter. This charter, combined with Danish imposition of a monopoly on grain imports, caused great poverty and starvation among the peasants in the surrounding districts, leading to several famous rebellions.
As a result of the rebellions, the age of privileges for towns like Christianssand and Arendal came to an apparent end in 1768 by royal proclamation. But the problems did not end then; a farmer, Christian Jensen Lofthuus, in nearby Vestre Moland led a rebellion in 1786 which resulted in the government actually remedying some of the most repressive trade policies, but Lofthus died in prison. The charges against Lofthus were that he dealt in grain and other commodities to the detriment to Arendal's privileges.
Shipping, shipbuilding, and timber trade as well as mining and ironworks were important branches of industry in Nedenæs county for many centuries, especially in the Arendal region. Frequent contacts with the world abroad put their mark on our culture and traditions. In 1880, it was the country's biggest port in terms of tonnage handled. At the end of the 19th century, Arendal was recognized as a major shipping centre with many wealthy shipowners. However, this came to an end following the 1886 Arendal crash, in which Axel Nicolai Herlofson had defrauded many bank customers in the city, leading to bankruptcies and extreme unemployment.[7]
Around the turn of the twentieth century, when thousands of Norwegians sought to take advantage of the more stable economic climate of the United States by emigrating, many of those from Arendal took their economic traditions with them. In New York City and the surrounding areas, a great deal of Americans who claim Norwegian ancestry can trace their roots to Arendal, as a great deal of Norwegian sailors, trimmers, shipbuilders, and carpenters from Arendal settled in areas of New York such as Brooklyn, Port Richmond (Staten Island), and several industrial centers in northern New Jersey such as Jersey City, Bayonne, Perth Amboy, and Elizabeth. In 1939, Arendal had the 4th largest Norwegian tanker fleet; only Oslo, Bergen, and Stavanger were larger.
During the German invasion of Norway on 9 April 1940, Arendal was captured by the German torpedo boat Greif.[8]
Today, the town has small boat manufacturing, mechanical industry, electronics industry, as well as one of the world's largest silicon carbide refining plants.
Government [ edit ]
All municipalities in Norway, including Arendal, are responsible for primary education (through 10th grade), outpatient health services, senior citizen services, unemployment and other social services, zoning, economic development, and municipal roads. The municipality is governed by a municipal council of elected representatives, which in turn elect a mayor.
Municipal council [ edit ]
The municipal council (Kommunestyre) of Arendal is made up of 39 representatives that are elected to four year terms. Currently, the party breakdown is as follows:[9]
Geography [ edit ]
The municipality is bordered to the southwest by Grimstad, to the northwest by Froland, to the northeast by Tvedestrand, and to the southeast by the Skaggerak. The lake Rore is located on the Grimstad border along with the river Nidelva.
Arendal is the geologic type locality of the mineral Babingtonite, which was first described from specimens discovered here in 1824.[10]
The coastal municipality includes several populated islands such as Hisøya, Tromøya, Merdø, Flostaøya, and Tverrdalsøya as well as many unpopulated or sparsely populated islands such as Ærøya. The island of Merdø was a major export port in the 17th and 18th centuries and now has a museum, a kiosk, and several beaches. There is regular boat service from Arendal to the island every day during the summer season.
Attractions [ edit ]
Lille Torungen Lighthouse
Strømsbo gård
Townscape [ edit ]
In the middle of the town centre of Arendal is an area with wooden houses dating back to the 17th century. This area is called Tyholmen, and is what is left of buildings from before the 19th century. The inner harbour of Arendal is called "Pollen", where the fish market, pubs, and restaurants are located. Trinity Church dominates the skyline of this area.
Arendal has grown from a traditional sleepy summer-town (with culture activities just in the summer) to a more "all year" city. The building of the new library and the combined city hall/concert house has greatly improved culture life.
Lighthouses [ edit ]
The Store Torungen Lighthouse is located on the island of Store Torungen outside Arendal. It was constructed in 1844 and electrified in 1914. It is 34.3 metres (113 ft) high and contains a 2nd order lens. It is reachable by a 55-minute boat trip from the town centre. The lighthouse is still in use.
The Lille Torungen Lighthouse is situated on the small island of Lille Torungen outside Arendal. The lighthouse is 28.9 metres (95 ft) high. Lille Torungen and Store Torungen were constructed as twin lighthouses, and both are located in the Arendal shipping lane.
The Sandvigodden Lighthouse is also located in Arendal.
Strømsbo gård [ edit ]
Strømsbo gård is a manor house on a historic farm located west of the center of Arendal. The manor dates from the 1760s. From 1804 the manor and farm were owned by members of the Herlofson family. Peter Herlofson took over the farm and gave the building its present form. In 1883, Axel Herlofsen (1845–1910) built the Strømsbo steam sawmill at the head of Strømsbubukt. Nicolai Benjamin Herlofson (1876-1945), former mayor of Arendal, was born and raised at Strømsbo.[11]
Music festivals [ edit ]
Canal Street is Arendals yearly jazz and bluesfestival during the summer. It has been arranged since 1996, at that time by the name of Arendal Jazz and Blues Festival. The popularity of the arrangement has been steadily increasing.
From 2007 until 2014, the Hove Festival was located on the island of Tromøy just outside Arendal town. It was the largest festival scene in Norway the debut year, and it has an audience capacity of up to 25,000.
Transport [ edit ]
The European route E18 highway is a major transportation route through Arendal heading to Oslo in the northeast and Kristiansand to the southwest. Other main roads in Arendal include the Norwegian County Road 407, Norwegian County Road 408, and Norwegian County Road 410. The local railway line Arendalsbanen runs to Nelaug where it connects with the main Sørlandsbanen railway line, which runs between the cities of Oslo and Stavanger.
The Setesdal Bilruter (on behalf of public transit authority AKT) provides bus connections throughout the Arendal area, the Setesdal-region including Froland, as well as to the neighboring towns of Grimstad, Lillesand and Kristiansand, and a handful of their suburbs and outlying villages. A few more destinations can be reached with other bus operators (namely Agder Buss, Nettbuss, Konkurrenten.no, and Lavprisekspressen), including places such as Risør, Tvedestrand, Oslo, and Stavanger.[12] There is also a bus connection to Kristiansand Airport operated by Agder Flyekspress and Nettbuss express (the latter on behalf of Flybussen.no).[13] Ferries run between the city center and the islands of Hisøya and Tromøya.[14][15] Arendal does also have an airport, Arendal Airport, Gullknapp, although it does not have any commercial airlines regularly stopping here.[16]
Climate [ edit ]
The climate here is mild, and generally warm and temperate. Arendal has a significant amount of rainfall during the year. This is true even for the driest month. The climate here is classified as Cfb by the Köppen-Geiger system. The average annual temperature in Arendal is 7.2 °C (45.0 °F). In a year, the average rainfall is 1,010 millimetres (40 in).
Climate data for Arendal Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Average high °C (°F) 1.8
(35.2) 1.4
(34.5) 3.4
(38.1) 7.7
(45.9) 13.0
(55.4) 16.8
(62.2) 19.2
(66.6) 19.0
(66.2) 15.3
(59.5) 11.0
(51.8) 6.7
(44.1) 3.8
(38.8) 9.9
(49.8) Daily mean °C (°F) −0.4
(31.3) −1.0
(30.2) 0.9
(33.6) 4.7
(40.5) 9.6
(49.3) 13.3
(55.9) 15.9
(60.6) 15.8
(60.4) 12.5
(54.5) 8.7
(47.7) 4.5
(40.1) 1.7
(35.1) 7.2
(45.0) Average low °C (°F) −2.5
(27.5) −3.4
(25.9) −1.6
(29.1) 1.7
(35.1) 6.3
(43.3) 9.9
(49.8) 12.6
(54.7) 12.6
(54.7) 9.8
(49.6) 6.4
(43.5) 2.3
(36.1) −0.3
(31.5) 4.5
(40.1) Average precipitation mm (inches) 85
(3.3) 60
(2.4) 67
(2.6) 49
(1.9) 61
(2.4) 64
(2.5) 78
(3.1) 105
(4.1) 107
(4.2) 122
(4.8) 120
(4.7) 92
(3.6) 1,010
(39.6) Source: Climate-Data.org[17]
International relations [ edit ]
Twin towns — sister cities [ edit ]
Arendal has sister city agreements with the following places:[18]
In fiction [ edit ]
The 2013 Disney film Frozen is set in a fictional kingdom named Arendelle, which is derived from and loosely based on the city of Arendal.
Notable residents [ edit ]This case arises out of a confrontation between Mr. Glasscox and Officer Moses on July 24, 2014. The parties do not dispute the fundamental facts of this case, but they greatly dispute their interpretation.
On that day, Mr. Glasscox was driving erratically on Interstate 59 South near the city of Argo. Mr. Glasscox is a Type I diabetic, and his doctor stated in an affidavit that he believed was suffering from a hypoglycemic episode during the incident. The Argo City Police dispatched Officer Moses to intercept Mr. Glasscox after they received reports of a reckless driver on the freeway. Officer Moses located Mr. Glasscox’s vehicle and engaged his emergency lights and sirens, signaling for Mr. Glasscox to pull over.
Mr. Glasscox did not comply. Officer Moses pursued Mr. Glasscox for nearly five miles. During the pursuit, Mr. Glasscox swerved his vehicle, often straddling the shoulder of the road and the median. Eventually, Mr. Glasscox drove completely onto the median, crossing towards the northbound side of the interstate. The vehicle stopped right alongside the northbound left-hand lane.
Officer Moses exited his police car and approached Mr. Glasscox’s vehicle with his weapon drawn. Although Officer Moses had called in the vehicle’s license plate number, he had not received any information concerning Mr. Glasscox’s identity or whether any outstanding warrants for his arrest.
Officer Moses opened Mr. Glasscox’s driver side door and ordered Mr. Glasscox to lift his hands, unbuckle his seatbelt, and get out of the car. Mr. Glasscox raised his hands but did not comply with the other two instructions. Mr. Glasscox told Officer Moses, “I’m sorry, man.” Officer Moses repeated his instruction to unbuckle the seatbelt and get out of the car. Mr. Glasscox unbuckled his seatbelt. Once again, Officer Moses told Mr. Glasscox to “get out.” Mr. Glasscox responded, “I’m going to get out. Shut up....” Officer Moses then fired his taser, shooting the electric probes into Mr. Glasscox’s body. Officer Moses states he deployed his taser because Mr. Glasscox’s right arm reached out of view towards the middle seat console and he feared for his own safety.
A tase conveys electricity into the target’s body for five seconds. Mr. Glasscox attempted to pull the probes out of his body. Officer Moses ordered him to “stop it” and fired his taser a second and third time, during which he warned Mr. Glasscox that he will “give it to him again” and once again ordered him out of the car. Officer Moses testified he tased Mr. Glasscox again because he was “actively resisting my ability to take him into custody.” (Doc. 31-1 at 80). Officer Moses also testified that he could see Mr. Glasscox’s hands after the first tase.
Officer Moses then reached into the vehicle and grabbed Mr. Glasscox’s wrist. Officer Moses repeated his instruction for Mr. Glasscox to get out of the car and Mr. Glasscox said, “I will.” Approximately two seconds later, Officer Moses again ordered Mr. Glasscox to “stop it.” Officer Moses appears to place the taser against Mr. Glasscox’s leg to administer a contact tase. Mr. Glasscox placed his hand on the taser as Officer Moses tased him for a fourth time. Officer Moses told him to “stop fighting” and to “get out.” Officer Moses testified that he tased Mr. Glasscox a fourth time because he “was trying to take the taser out of my hand when it was pressed up against his leg.”... Mr. Glasscox contends that he was not actively resisting arrest, but that his physical reactions were a natural reaction to being tased.
Mr. Glasscox then said, “Okay,” and exited the vehicle as Officer Moses was holding Mr. Glasscox’s left wrist. The total time elapsed from when Officer Moses opened the vehicle door until Mr. Glasscox exited was approximately one minute. Officer Moses then took Mr. Glasscox into custody without incident.
Officer Moses cited Mr. Glasscox for reckless driving, eluding a police officer, and resisting arrest. An Argo Municipal Court convicted Mr. Glasscox on all three offenses. Mr. Glasscox has appealed his conviction to Jefferson County Circuit Court.Many a (field of) Indy dreamers has hoped for a major league franchise to lead off from the Circle City. For one fleeting year, 1878, the Indianapolis Blues were members of the National Baseball League — the same league that exists today with the likes of the Cincinnati Reds, the Chicago Cubs, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the LA Dodgers, and others.
According to W. C. Madden in his book “Baseball in Indianapolis,” the Indianapolis Westerns became Indy’s first professional baseball team in 1876. The following year, 1877, the Westerns won the International Association pennant and changed their name to the Indianapolis Blues, in reference to the blue color on their uniforms.
Then in 1878, the Blues made the jump from the International Association to the National Baseball League — but the team didn’t enjoy the same success they had known from the previous year. That year, the National League consisted of only six teams and the Blues finished fifth among them, with a record of 24 wins and 36 loses. The order of finish was: Boston Red Caps, Cincinnati Reds, Providence Grays, Chicago White Stockings, Indianapolis Blues, and Milwaukee Grays. Unfortunately, the Blues folded after one year, due to insufficient funds to pay the player’s salaries.
The starting lineup for the Blues consisted of: Sliver Flint C, Art Croft 1B, Joe Quest 2B, Ned Williamson 3B, Fred Warner SS, Orator Shafert RF, John Clapp LF, and Russ McKelvy CF. The pitching staff consisted of: Edward “The Only” Nolan, Jim McCornmick, Tom Healey, and rounding out the roster were Candy Nelson and Jimmy Hallinan.
The team played their home games at South Street Park on the northeast corner of Delaware and South Streets. The property was later used by Big Four Railroad. Presently, the site is a parking lot for Banker’s Life Fieldhouse.
In the early years of baseball the rules were slightly different than they are today. For example, players didn’t wear gloves. They “barehanded” grounders, fly balls, and throws to bases to tag runners out. Yes, even the catcher had to “bare hand” the ball.
Sports Reporter Anton Scherrer wrote a column called “Our Town” for the Indianapolis Times. In Scherrer’s March 22, 1940 column, he interviewed an early Indy baseball pioneer, Fred Boardman. In 1876, Boardman umpired a Chicago -vs.- Indianapolis game at South Street Park. Scherrer wrote, “Back in those days, the players handled the ball with their bare hands. They couldn’t ‘block’ the balls the way gloved players do today. To stop the ball, they had to ‘go with the ball’ says Mr. Boardman which is why old-time players had more grace and rhythm than the padded players of today. Outside of that, Mr. Boardman finds no fault with modern baseball.”
Incidentally, Albert G. Spalding was the winning pitcher that day for Chicago. Spalding was the founder of the Spalding sporting goods company.
Even though the ball was softer “back in the day” than in today’s game, there were still plenty of gnarled fingers.
Professional baseball wouldn’t surface in Indianapolis again until 1883 when the Indianapolis Hoosiers were formed as an independent team. In 1884, the Hoosiers joined the American Association.
Over the years the Hoosiers moved in and out of various leagues, reorganizing and regrouping. From 1887 to 1889, the Indianapolis Hoosiers made thier way back to the National League. During this time they played their weekday home games at Tinker Park at Tinker Street (now 16th Street) and Tennessee Street (now Capitol Avenue) where Methodist Hospital is located today.
To avoid Blue Laws (a law that restricts or bans certain activities like shopping in observance of religious worship days), the Hoosiers played their 1887 weekend home games at the Indianapolis Park located at New York Street and Arsenal Avenue, and their 1888-89 weekend home games were played at Bruce Park at Bruce Street (now 23rd Street) and College Avenue.
To muck up more confusion about Indy’s reformations and league changes, there were also many minor league teams coming and going during those years.
It was in 1914 that the Indianapolis Hoosiers joined their last professional league — the Federal League, considered to be the third major league at the time. But the Federal League couldn’t compete with the well-established National and American Leagues, and in 1915 the Federal League folded along with Indianapolis’ last professional major league baseball team.
Of course, baseball continued in Indianapolis. Currently, the Indianapolis Indians (a minor league team) is the triple-A farm team for the major league Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League. The Indians are the second oldest minor league baseball club in U.S. history, established in 1902. The Rochester Red Wings are the oldest.
There was scant information about the Indy Blues in the usual research repositories. If you have photos, baseball cards or stories of the Blues, please share them with us in the comments sections below!
Guest columnist Don Lorentz is an Indy “lifer”… He was born and raised on the south side of Indianapolis in Southport and now resides on the north side of the city in Nora. Don is a graduate of Indiana University, Bloomington and received a Master’s Degree in New Media from the IUPUI Campus.Good news can be elusive when reporting on the steady rise of inequality. So its heartening to see that median household incomes in the past year jumped more than 5 percent in the past year, now up to $56,500 according to a just released Census report.
The income boosts were felt across economic spectrum, a sharing of gains rarely seen since the shared prosperity decades between 1947 and 1977.
There was a sharp decline in the poverty rate and an expansion of the number of households with health insurance coverage, an undeniably positive development.
In the aftermath of the 2008 economic meltdown, wages for most workers have been stagnant leaving most families out of the promised benefits of continued economic growth. Even as unemployment rates fell, wages have been slow to recover.
Meanwhile the share of income and wealth flowing to the top 1 percent of households has accelerated. In fact, the top 1 percent took more than 90 percent of all new income in the five years following the 2008 financial crisis.
Before we break out the champagne, its worth noting that we have a long way to go to get onto a sustainable path to shared prosperity. Real incomes for most Americans are still smaller than the late 1990’s. The median income has still not returned to its 2007 pre-recession level and is still 2.4 percent lower than 1999. And whole regions of the U.S. are not sharing in the advances, including rural America.
The stars have aligned for rising wages –with extremely low energy costs and low unemployment. But a huge amount of these wage gains are going to pay for increased health insurance and college costs, keeping most earners in a budgetary vice.
It was amusing to see The Wall Street Journal trumpet on page one, “Family Incomes Rise After Lull.” For decades, the Journal’s editorial page denied the data, and later when it was undeniable, dismissed the relevance of inequality.
The reality is, however, income and wealth inequality is more extreme in the U.S. than in almost any other advanced industrial economy. And these inequalities are now deeply entrenched and not easily reversed. Since 2008, the homeownership rate –one real indicator of economic security and well-being–has been on a downward trend.
To shift our national trajectory from its current direction — leading to an economic apartheid society governed by a hereditary aristocracy of wealth –-we need a solid decade of rising incomes and declining concentrations of wealth.
The work to raise wages must continue. Over 40 percent of the country earns less than $15 per hour despite the Fight for 15 movement’s efforts at the municipal level to raise wages. Voters in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington will vote on whether to increase their living wages this November. But we need a national increase in the minimum wage to reach into communities and states that have not shared equally in the most recent income boost.
And we must make deep investments in expanding opportunity and wealth for those excluded. Restoring progressive income tax rates and closing estate tax loopholes would generate revenue that could be invested in public infrastructure and accessible higher education. These are the kinds of investments the U.S. made after World War Two that set us a path of prolonged shared prosperity.
Chuck Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies where he co-edits Inequality.org. He is the author of “Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good.”VIENNA, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Plans by the Austrian province of Carinthia to set up a vehicle to pay back creditors of the now-defunct Hypo Alpe Adria, or Heta, have been called off, according to a court document posted on the website of a law firm involved in the proposal.
Hypo’s home province of Carinthia facilitated the rise of the regional lender by guaranteeing billions of euros of its debt before its collapse, which led to the creation of the “bad bank”, Heta Asset Resolution.
As part of efforts to reach a settlement with Heta creditors a holding company owned by Carinthia, Kaerntner Landesholding, submitted a restructuring plan which included the creation of a special purpose vehicle into which federal funds could be used to settle with Heta’s creditors, a court filing showed last month.
That plan was withdrawn last week, according to a court document posted on the website of a law firm involved in drawing up the proposal. It did not give a reason for the withdrawal.
“Given the latest developments it is no longer necessary to continue the reorganisation proceedings, which is why we have stopped the proceedings,” Hans Schoenegger, the chief executive of Kaerntner Landesholding, said by email on Sunday, without elaborating on the developments or the reason for the decision.
A spokeswoman for the government of Carinthia was not available for comment on Sunday.
A spokeswoman for the Austrian Finance Ministry suggested the broad idea behind the restructuring plan remained in place.
“Based on what Kaerntner Landesholding has shared with us, we presume that the Carinthians will build on the base that has now been established and continue to work on the implementation of the concept,” the spokeswoman said.
Austria’s parliament passed a law on Thursday paving the way for Austria to pay 1.23 billion euros ($1.40 billion) in a settlement with the German state of Bavaria, Hypo’s former owner, a sum equivalent to 45 percent of Bavaria’s claims against Heta.
The reorganisation plan for Kaerntner Landesholding was part of a separate, less advanced effort to reach a settlement with Heta’s other creditors.Details Published on Friday, 06 November 2015 15:43
56 – NIKKTECH & BIOSTAR KICK OFF YOUR NEW BUILD WORLDWIDE GIVEAWAY - OVER
Before we close the doors of yet another great giveaway and prepare to start a new one (it will only take but a few hours) i feel that i need to point out one thing (i shouldn't really but after what happened in this giveaway i really need to). Our giveaways are not based on popularity so no matter how many "friends" (real or fake) someone "invites" or asks to "refer", "recommend" him or her will not make a single difference in the end. Sure we need the extra followers/likes but these are two entirely different things.
With that out of the way we can announce the names of our 7 lucky winners :
1) Damitha Palliyaguruge is our very lucky first winner and gets the H170T Gaming Commander Mainboard
2) Our 2nd H170T Gaming Commander Mainboard goes to Nick Fotos
3) Our first backpack & USB flash drive set goes to Mikael Grahn
4) Lloyd Partoza gets one of these cool backpacks and a 8GB USB flash drive
5) One of our 8GB USB flash drives goes to Meaghan Larson
6) Another of our 8GB USB flash drives will be delivered to John Joel Reyes
7) Jake Payne is the lucky winner of the last 8GB USB flash drive
I do realize that just a 8GB USB flash drive may seem too little for some so i plan on asking Biostar if they can also ship backpacks to our three last winners. Chances are they don't have the stock to do so otherwise they'd recommend that on their own but it doesn't hurt to ask.
Congratulations to our 7 lucky winners but things are not over yet since we still need you all to reply to our Facebook Messages with your shipping addresses accompanied by a valid telephone number for the courier company. Also once you receive the prizes do post a picture in our Facebook page so people can see you actually got them. We can't and don't want to force anyone to do so but remember that there are always people out there who may think the worse when it comes to giveaways and you have the power to change that.
As for everyone else we will launch our Huntkey giveaway in a few hours (certainly before the end of the day) so do stay tuned.
It took quite a while for us to start our 56th giveaway but it was worth the wait since we managed to secure two H170T Gaming Commander mainboards by Biostar along with 2 Backpacks (design may vary from the above picture) and 5 USB flash drives (8GB each - unfortunately we don't have any pictures of those). These prizes will go to a total of 7 winners |
closing argument for Novell, followed by a rebuttal by Singer. Then the jury - minus the alternate, who was excused - retired to consider their verdict. Now, it seems is the time to wait... and if you're a lawyer, take bets, I guess. (I was asked by several, including Mr. Hatch, how I was handicapping it.) Say, how was he handicapping it? I guess we'll have to wait. And here's Chris's report: I got to the courtroom at about 11:45am and found it standing-room only. Novell's Sterling Brennan was just winding up his last fifteen minutes of an impassioned, even patriotic, summation to the jury. I heard SCO's Sterling Singer provide his last rebuttal, a strongly argued request to rule in their favor. Judge Stewart gave some final direction to the jury, including announcing to them that Juror 13 was the alternate and would not have the privilege of deliberating. When Judge Stewart opined that she'd be sorry to do so, she vigorously shook her head no (drawing a laugh from everyone). A marshal affirmed an oath to protect the jury, and they left in good spirits. After they'd departed, Judge Stewart said in his ten years on the bench he's never had a finer, more talented, professional set of lawyers in the room. He thanked them sincerely for their fine work and demeanor. He thanked Mr. Lee and Mr. Grant for their deft handling of the courtroom technology, saying it almost made it worth its money. He said if anyone has children at home and is interested in buying their own noise system, to contact Ms. Malley. He then adjourned the court. All the lawyers and audience were in high spirits, spending a lot of time chatting in groups before they left. I chatted with a number of Groklaw people afterwards who'd attended all or part of the day and who promised to get reports in. I don't know about the jury, but my plan is to sleep until Tuesday. Nah. Kidding. I'll let you know the minute I get more reports. Update 2: And here they come. Lots of folks were there today, so let's start with MSS2: Sorry this took me so long. Rather than come straight home, I hung around the courthouse until after 4:00, chatting and hoping that there would be a verdict. When we got the word that there wouldn't be, I headed home and started typing. The morning started with a conference. They agreed on how to handle presentation of materials in the closing arguments. (I believe that the issue here was that SCO wanted to show videos, and Novell argued against. They agreed not to.) SCO filed a motion on three issues (see two articles ago). Stewart said he was going to agree with SCO on all three points. First, the demonstratives. Second, Novell can't argue that the APA only meant Unix, not UnixWare. Novell said that they would argue that they owned the pre-APA code and SCO owned everything SCO had written post-APA. Stewart said that would be all right. Third, the motion said that Novell couldn't argue anything contrary to the law (perhaps this meant contrary to the law of the case). Novell could not argue that the copyrights did not transfer based on the lack of a 204A writing. Novell said that they would argue based on the contract. There was some discussion about a footnote in the 10th Circuit ruling. After looking at the wording, Stewart said that Novell could argue based on intent. Judge Stewart said that Novell's slander claim against SCO had been dismissed. Both sides' proposals for findings of fact and conclusions of law are due on April 16th. Then the jury came in. The jury will get a copy of the jury instructions in the jury room. Judge Stewart read them to the jury. The first few points were about following the law. If the jury doesn't follow the law, they will be violating their oath as jurors. Statements by counsel, he told them, are not evidence. Novell's slander of title claim is gone. The jurors should not worry any further about it. SCO has the burden of proof, he explained. They need to show that the preponderance of evidence is in their favor. This is not the same as showing that they have the higher number of witnesses. This is based on probabilities, not certainty. For constitutional malice, SCO has a higher burden of proof. The standard is clear and convincing evidence, meaning that there is no substantial doubt. The jurors are allowed to use notes, but should not use them as anything but a personal memory aid. Evidence can be either direct (testimony or exhibit) or indirect (chain of reasoning). Both are acceptable. The charts and illustrations presented to the jury are illustrations, not evidence. The prior rulings in the case that the jurors heard about were without benefit of the evidence presented to the jury and were overturned unanimously. They are relevant only to the determination of special damages. It was mentioned that SCO was bankrupt. That's not relevant to the case. They heard about the 2008 trial. That was about other matters than what is before the jury. Finding that Novell committed slander of title requires four elements. First, it requires that Novell made statements disparaging SCO's title. They must have been made to someone other than SCO. They must convey the idea of a statement of fact. Don't consider words or even sentences in isolation. Second, slander requires falsity, either a statement that is directly untrue or which conveys a false impression. This means that the jury must determine who owns the copyrights. The APA and the amendments must be taken together to make this determination. The amendments supercede parts of the APA. The jury must determine what the intent was at the time of the contract. They may consider extrinsic evidence such as testimony of intent and the course of conduct of the parties. (I think this means that SCO lost a small battle here; if I recall correctly, they wanted Stewart to say "should" instead of "may".) To be valid, the transfer of copyrights must be in writing. Third, slander requires constitutional malice. This means either knowledge that the statement was false, or reckless disregard of the truth. This means a high degree of awareness that it was probably false. It takes more than recklessness or spite. Finally, slander requires that the statements caused special damages such as lost sales. The slander has to be a substantial factor in loss of specific purchases, or else it has to be widely disseminated. A decline in stock price is not special damages. If ill will was involved, punitive damages may be awarded. Regular damages must be real damage, not speculation. The issues related to 4.16 are for the court, not for the jury, but may be used to help the jury interpret the APA. And then came an instruction that I thought was rather odd: The jury is not to write on the copy of the instructions in the jury room. Finally, Stewart said that the jury needed to reach a unanimous verdict. They need to come to conclusions together without doing violence to each other's opinions. And here is his report on SCO's closing arguments: SCO's closing argument, by Stuart Singer: This is an important case. It's important to SCO. It's important to individuals who work at SCO. There are two questions for the jury. Did the copyrights go to SCO? And was there slander? And if so, what are the damages? He talked about consistency. I think his point was that you had to build a consistent picture out of all the evidence presented, but he used it to point out a couple of inconsistencies, as he saw it, in Novell's testimony. Some said that the waiver in the IBM case was without input from IBM, but LaSala said Marriott asked for it. Also, Stone said that he was asked to leave Novell, but Messman said that he was not. Did the amended APA transfer the copyrights? The amendment replaced language that was inconsistent with the intent. The plain language of the APA with Amendment 2 says that the copyrights transferred. Novell admits that Amendment 2 transfers the copyrights. In the June 6 press release, they said that it "appears to". And Amadia's testimony said that whatever SCO needed to exercise their rights transferred. And the copyrights were needed. He quoted from Frankenberg, Jim Wilk, Sabbath, and Broderick. It all makes sense with Amendment 2. There was too much money for it not to be a sale of the whole business (he included the royalties here). The license back makes no sense without the purchase of the copyrights. This all makes sense in light of the witness testimony. He cited Michaels, Sabbath, Madsen, Mohan.. (He specifically noted that Madsen has no interest in the outcome of the case.) And Novell's people agreed, too: Frankenberg, Duff Thompson, Ed Chatlos, and Ty Mattingly. He noted that Frankenberg had no interest in the outcome. You have to believe that all ten of their witnesses are mistaken or lying in order to believe Novell. Tor Braham was only involved in the last two weeks of the negotiation. He ignored the intent of the negotiators in a "forced march" to get the deal done. No pushback from SCO at the time of the sale means that the copyright transfer was missed, not that it was accepted. At the Novell board meeting, the copyrights were not mentioned in the overview, but only in the resolution. Messman says he remembers, but then he's the one who approved the slander. This was done by mistake, or by overzealous lawyers. It was fixed by Amendment 2. That this was the intent is supported by the press release. It's supported by the summary reported to the federal government. IBM recognized that SCO had the copyrights. What was the course of performance of the parties? Broderick had letters sent to the customers. Nagle had the code changed to reflect the copyright change. So, yes, the copyrights transferred. Did Novell slander SCO? If SCO owns the copyrights, there's not much question. After June 6, Novell's statements were made with actual knowledge that they were false. Novell's May 28 statement was reckless - Novell already had found Amendment 2, though unsigned. On June 5, they got a signed copy. On June 6, they made a clear statement of SCO's ownership. But on March 14 (next year), Stone said "we still own Unix". Chatlos and Levine said that it would have been unethical to do the deal without transferring the copyrights. So Novell's allegations must have been knowingly false. Special damages are the damages to SCOsource. They have claims that their source code was found in Linux, but that's not an issue before the jury. The companies getting SCOsource licenses were sophisticated companies. He quotes Laura Didio and two others. (I'm a bit unclear on what point he was trying to make here.) Punitive damages are based on malice, on intent to injure. Two slanders on the same day as SCO's earning announcements. That's intent to injure. (There was lots of anger and outrage in his voice here.) O'Gara's testimony about Stone shows intent to injure. Messman said that Novell's intent was to publicise their statement as widely as possible. Novell waived SCO's rights against IBM at the same time as IBM's investment in Novell. (Reporter's note: My overall impression of Singer's statement is that he had lots of logical gaps where his facts didn't add up to his conclusions, papered over with rhetoric.) Then Brent Hatch took over. He was wearing a maroon (or burgundy?) bow tie. SCOsource had real sales, in the tens of millions of dollars. HP was looking at a contract worth $30 million. Then Novell inserted themselves and said that they would re-assert copyright ownership. The deal went away. Google has over 500,000 servers. That would have been a large deal. Novell was a substantial factor in why the deal fell apart. A deal with Dell died after Novell's December 22nd announcement. He quoted testimony from SCO's salespeople. Gasparro had $50-60 million of opportunities, but they dried up after Novell's claims. Novell was a major factor why. Langer had more than $3 million worth of deals in the pipeline, but they dried up after Novell made their claims. There was a third salesman, named Peck or Pettit, that he talked about. He talked about the standard specified in the jury instructions to show that it lined up with the evidence he was reviewing. Musika said that people disliked SCO. It's just a small Utah company standing up for its rights. But it's hated. Botosan and Pisano took all this into account. They came up with 19 to 45%. Pisano's hard, scientific data took into account all the factors that Musika used to say that the figure was zero. The special damages are the vendor licenses that SCO didn't sell. The damage figures are conservative. Musika didn't do any calculations; he just highlighted the risks. He didn't use a "but for" analysis, even though he admitted that it was the correct method. Punitive damages are at the discretion of the jury. Hatch points out that Novell is worth about $1 billion. The jury is allowed to consider that in determining the amount of punitive damages. Hatch closes by saying that Novell knew with certainty that it didn't own the copyrights by the time of their second anouncement (December 22). We also had in the audience a new reporter, his first time sending us a report from the trial, and here are his impressions of the two Fridays he was in attendance, today and the morning of March 12: Here is my summary impression of the part of the Novell vs. SCO trial I witnessed. I attended two morning portions of the trial: Friday March 12 and Friday March 26. On the 12th, I think Ty Mattingly had pretty good command in delivering his testimony (whether it has bearing or not) and that tended to carry the morning. This morning, on the 26th, my impression is that Singer started with a pretty strong closing but then Brennan gave a masterful presentation that carried it home. Singer came back at the very end for 12 minutes but it seemed he was fishing for something to equal it, talking quickly and not being as organized as he was in his first segment of closing. At the end, Judge Stewart stated that he had never had so much legal competence in the room over the last 10 years as he did this day. It was fun to see them in action! Other notes: Judge Stewart's instructions to the jury: The jury only needs to decide based on a preponderance of the evidence, i.e. that it is more likely true than not true. In the case of a tie (my own words), they should rule in favor of Novell. SCO's evidence must be clear and convincing. Even though the judge let the jury take notes (not allowed by the judge in some cases), the jury's memory should take precedence over their notes (i.e. their notes are a tool only, as they aren't evidence). Acts and omissions by the actors of corporations are the acts and omissions of the corporations. The Kimball ruling (not referred to by Stewart as the Kimball ruling) should have no bearing on the jury's finding. The jury should view the contract and Amendment 2 as the contract, with Amendment 2 taking precedence in the event of any conflicts. Also the jury should look at the course of performance subsequent to the signing of the contract to resolve any ambiguities. Something about exclusive licensee. Slander of title has to have constitutional malice. A drop in value (of what was sold) is not a damage. Singer closing: Amendment 2 replaces the asset purchase agreement and is the rest of the story (to use a phrase Paul Harvey was known for that Brennan used earlier). It wouldn't make sense to get the Unix and UnixWare business without the copyrights. Consideration of 40 to 50 million plus royalties having four components was given. The license back to use wouldn't have been given to Novell unless the copyrights were transferred. 10 SCO witnesses said SCO got the copyrights, plus Sabbath, Madsen, Mohan, Wilt et al [incomplete]. Some Novell executives agree with the SCO witnesses. Frakenberg the most important witness says the copyrights didn't transfer. Amendment 2 was a fix applied a year later to clarify the intention of the parties. How did the mistake happen in the first place? The original APA was screwed up due to time pressures in getting the business transacted. No push back doesn't make sense. Attorneys operated on cover documents without details. Or we have a case of overzealous lawyers. Press articles confirmed the nature of the deal. Novell told the federal government such (something consistent with SCO's viewpoint). With regard to course of performance: Novell gave notices to customers stating ownership had transferred. SCO put copyright notices in the code. With regard to Novell slandering SCO: Singer referred to the 2003 statements by Novell. Messman conceded ownership after being confronted with Amendment 2. Singer said Messman couldn't get the decade right to otherwise damage the reliability of his testimony. Novell announced on SCO's earnings statement days -- on two occasions -- their assertion of ownership to damage SCO. Then Hatch on Singer's team got up. I had to feed the meter as it was now about 10:15 and so I missed most of Hatch's argument on how much the damages should be. Hatch stated HP was told by Novell that they (Novell) would assert and that killed the licensing deal. Then a licensing deal with Google was killed, then a deal with Dell (McBride had met with them). Hatch states something to the effect that the jury should fill in the blank on the amount of punishment (for punitive damages). Brennan closing: When growing up he had heard the phrase let's not make a federal case out of it but here we are in federal court, and this is a federal case. It's not trivial. It's very important. Open source has been threatened. This is the entry (i.e., beginning) to many cases if there's an adverse verdict. The sanctity of contracts and being able to rely on what they say is at stake here. Contracts are not determined by hindsight or what we would have wanted to do. At question here is whether people are free to speak what they believe (in reference to the slander part of the case). Novell minutes are what appear in the contract. The agreement (i.e., contract) has three months for review and nobody objected to the language as written. Other provisions were modified but the asset transfer provisions were not modified. The bill of sale refers to the APA; therefore, one has to look at the APA to determine what transferred. SCO could not represent to Caldera that they had chain of title. Enter McBride. Notwithstanding the above, he chose a course of litigation. (This was stated more than once). Mike Amber said the contract excludes everything. The term sheet produced by Ty Mattingly, late and initially only to SCO counsel, was preliminary. The press release was SCO's statement only. The license back provisions referred only to assets transferred. Jim Tolonen testified he wrote the contract the way Novell has stated it is constructed. Also Tor Braham, the lawyer who wrote it. I believe he stated the two prior individuals had no financial interest to gain. Alison Amedia drafted Amendment 2. Sabbath under sworn testimony said that Novell retained IP. Chatlos he and his wife stand to make money if the outcome is favorable to SCO. Ryan Tibbitts and McBride had no involvement with the contract and stand to gain if the outcome is favorable to SCO. Novell had business reasons to exclude transfer of the copyrights: 1) to protect Novell's interests, and 2) Novell didn't get sufficient money to transfer them. There's a great void of evidence. None of SCO's hired attorneys are testifying [directly or through deposition] that the copyrights transferred. On Amendment 2 that Steve Sabbath drafted, he stated something about the copyrights that SCO had acquired and that language was struck out intentionally. What copyrights were required to conduct business? To give copyrights to SCO would have required that signers of Amendment 2 get approval from the board of directors, but they did not get that approval because they knew they weren't transferring copyrights. Was transfer of copyrights required for SCO to conduct business? McBride testified something to the effect that we could run our business without it though he also knew he couldn't sue the heck out of everyone without it. So was the exclusion snuck into the APA? This was not the case. Let's look now how people believed what they had transacted (course of performance). SCO only put their copyright notice on new code. The letters Novell sent to customers did not say Novell transferred ownership. It directed customers to SCO for help with the software. About the slander part of the case Novell had a first amendment right to say what they believe. Santa Cruz stated that SCO was in a protection racket [akin to extortion is how I took it]. Messman was there, at the board meeting, and despite SCO trying to embarrass him when he failed to place some events in the right decade, he specifically stated that the APA excluded transfer of the copyrights. Maureen O'Gara is not credible. On June 6, 2003 in a private letter Novell disputed SCOs claim. McBride knowing this, still publicly claimed that Novell would state that SCO had the copyrights. On slander: 1) the transfer didn't occur (so that is the end of it), 2) [oops I didn't write this one down quick enough], 3) there was no constitutional malice. Linux does not infringe Unix. A judicial ruling (Kimball) at a minimum calls into question that SCO had copyrights. Note: Brennan waxed really eloquent at the end. I liked the way he treated the jury... like they were smart thinkers. At one point he requested them -- in support of the point he was making -- to refer to an exhibit when deliberating that he in the interest of time wouldn't be able to cover. He also referred to the painting in the hall about the signing of the Constitution, and that the right to free speech was something that protected Novell, himself, and the jurors. It was much better than I am describing here and at one point he -- Brennan -- choked up when talking about these things and I was feeling a little choked up myself! Good going Brennan! Singer final words: The book Brennan was holding up in his closing remarks and with which he was visually making his point doesn't contain Amendment 2. It's not an extortion (in reference to the licensing scheme of McBride). I didn't editorialize much in my notes, but I couldn't help but write the words I am not a crook on my note pad. Those words dogged Nixon much of his life. I did behave, though, and I didn't show what I had written to McBride he was sitting nearly directly behind me on the back row. I believe it was him because he said "Darl" when he was checking past security (we both arrived at the same time, at about 8:20am). Singer then refers to the 10 witnesses they are credible. He then uses exclamatory excerpts and phrases from their testimony like copyrights are like oxygen to the business etc. & etc. He mentions others agreeing to their position as well. I believe. That's what I've got! I wish you could have been there, maybe you were. Me too. I wish. Isn't it lovely, though, to have multiple pairs of eyes and ears? Losat was there today again as well, and here is his report, part 1: Here's part 1 of my notes from today: jury instructions and first hour of closing (Singer and Hatch): Next up: Brennan's closing and Singer rebuttal. It was a full courtroom today. Im not familiar with the faces, but I was told there were several of the usual SCO supporters. Groklaw was well represented. I spoke with 4 fellow Groklaw frequenters, and I think there was at least one other. MSS2 remained at the courthouse in case theres a quick verdict. He urged others of us to post information as soon as possible because there are 10000 geeks waiting. :) [PJ: more than that.] I had thought I might mostly listen to the closing arguments as if I were on the jury, not taking extensive notes. But, I ended up taking lots of notes anyway. I didnt try to catch every word by any means, but I wrote down things that seemed interesting or important. First, the judge asked if there were disputes over closing. There were no objections. He then indicated that SCO had filed a motion today with 3 points: Judge Stewart said the first is no longer relevant. The second: that Novell should not argue Unix not UnixWare. Jacobs agreed with regard to closing. Third, there should be no attempt to argue contrary to law. He stated his assumption that nobody would do that. Jacobs said that was correct. They would not argue the bill of sale under section 204 of copyright act. They may argue that there was only a promise to assign under contract law, which the 10th Circuit did not address. Singer stated that arguing contract law equivalent to section 204, contrary to 10th circuit. Jacobs referred to a footnote in the 10th circuit ruling (not a holding); he offered to hand it to the judge. Judge Stewart: I should probably look at it. Singer made an argument, to which Judge Stewart replied that was a good argument for his reply. He allowed Novell to go there if not arguing pure legal but the intent of the parties. Singer will go first. SCO will reserve 15 minutes for the end. Hatch will share time: 45 minutes Singer then 15 Hatch. Brennan will close for Novell. Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law will be due in 20 days. Jury is brought in. Judge Stewart delivers jury instructions. There was a lot of typical stuff, which I didnt take notes of. Only the items particular to this trial are described below. SCO burden of proof, mostly preponderance (which he describes including the phrase probability not possibility). The constitutional malice requires clear and convincing evidence. He uses the phrase no substantial doubt. He comments about notes taken by jurors, which he has allowed while some courts do not. He cautioned: dont compare notes, dont give extra weight to things written in your notes. He mentioned direct vs. indirect/circumstantial evidence (both acceptable under the law). He mentioned the earlier rulings: did not have benefit of the evidence youve heard. Reversed, why youre here. No bearing. But they may be considered for special damages and punitive damages, if any. He also mentioned the bankruptcy and 2008 trials. Slander of title requirements: lists the 4 requirements then provided detail on each: 1. Publication
Not private, not in pleadings; not slanderous if clear its opinion, not fact; but couching purported facts as opinions doesnt excuse; dont consider in isolation context of statement, surrounding circumstances must be considered. 2. Falsity
Directly untrue or untrue inference; need not be absolutely, totally, or literally accurate. Substantially true, the gist. In order to answer this, must decide who owns the copyrights (Unix and UnixWare). APA: interpret: taken together, as single document; what the terms mean; the intent of the parties. Where clear, ordinary meanings. Whole agreement, not isolated portions. Extrinsic evidence as to intent. Intent of those negotiating; performance of the parties after the agreement, before the dispute. May consider nature of copyright (lists rights: reproduction, derivatives, distribution) Owner: author, assignee, or *exclusive licensee*. Possession of registration certificates immaterial to ownership but may be considered for other purposes. Transfer must be in writing. Exclusive license, transfer, sale, conveyance must be in writing. Implied may be non-written, can only be non-exclusive. 3. Constitutional Malice
Clear and convincing evidence 1. Knowledge of falsity; or 2. Reckless disregard High degree of awareness that probably false; or substantial doubt that it was true. Not enough: negligence; carelessness; sloppy; not researched; reliance on one source, even if others would be available or one might think should reasonably be consulted; spite, hate, evil purpose, or intent to harm. Unless you find constitutional malice, there is no liability. 3. Caused Damages: Special Damages
No lost sale, no damage.
Loss in value not sufficient.
Proof of specific person or group not possible to identify individually.
Slander is substantial factor, not exclusive or predominant factor; had substantial weight on decision.
Stock price is not special damages. Punitive Damages
If statement is false, and:
Hatred, intent to injure
Reasonable and proper punishment and wholesome warning to others.
Caution. Only for reason just mentioned. The fact you were instructed on damages does not indicate you should award any. Damage award must have reasonable basis without speculation or guesswork.
Burden of proof as to damages and cause
Not speculative Section 4.16 issue is for the court to decide. May consider the section in interpreting the amended APA. Lawyers have a duty to object. Dont show prejudice. Foreperson selection. Collective judgment. Unanimous. Consult without violence to individual judgment. (There was no break between instructions and closing.) Singer: Depends on copyright ownership. (I noticed the jury was very attentive at this point and seemed to remain so through closing arguments.) Credibility: Stone vs LaSalla contradiction regarding IBM asking Novell to waive.
Another: Stone vs Messman about whether Stone was asked to leave Novell. Amendment 2 replaces old language. Novell in opening referred to the rest of the story: the rest of the story is the copyright exclusion language doesnt exist any more. Thats really the rest of the story on this. All rights and ownership. Novell admitted in June 6 2003 press release appears to support SCO claim. 2nd time admitted: March 23rd. Allison Amadia. (Cites Normand cross, question about the required for SCO language -- Q: if required, copyrights transferred? A: Yes) No real dispute that copyrights are required. Ludicrous to exclude. Like breathing oxygen. Walk out the door and your head goes with you. Couldnt go after pirated software. With Amendment 2, APA makes sense. (Suggest car without engine, house without roof, sundae but you only get the cherry.) Its consistent with the intent. (Shows Novell slide from opening statements)
40-50M a lot of money: wouldnt even receive that if copyrights werent included. Sale of business, not agent. License-back: no sense if Novell kept the copyrights. TLA: ownership of licensed technology is with SCO. Made sense in light of testimony of witnesses. Novells intent is not the issue: look at the intent of both parties.
Santa Cruz said copyrights are like oxygen.
We put copyright notices in every software module we wrote.
An executive: if suggested SCO had to ask Novell, Id have laughed them out of my office. Kimberly Madsen (at Apple now): clear to me intent was to transfer copyrights. Numerous execs with Novell agree. Frankenberg -- the most important witness in this trial. The term stand up guy I think of him. He said it was clear to him the copyrights went to SCO. There was an error that had to be fixed a year later. Chatlos' wife has a little stock. Youd have to believe 10 people remembered wrong or were lying half of them Novells people. Braham ignored months of negotiation from before his involvement. He ignored the term sheet. The term sheets list of rights lines up well with the copyright rights listed in the jury instructions. No pushback from SCO about copyright exclusion in contract means it was just missed. Executives copy of draft APA had *no* schedules [neither the included nor exclude assets schedules]. [PJ: Not to interrupt, but a draft of a contract would often not have the schedules, just because of the way drafting works. In my experience, drafts get passed back and forth a lot and then the schedules referenced get added. So this is the worst argument made so far, to me.] Messman didnt even know which decade the agreement was from (81 or 83). It isnt even in the board of directors meeting minutes that the discussion took place. Either by mistake or overzealous lawyers. Mistake corrected in Amendment 2. Press release at the time said intellectual property. Novells version cant be squared with this. Even IBM recognized that SCO had the copyrights. You can show us the source code because you have copyrights to protect you. Course of performance: 3 individuals' testimony. Nagle [didnt catch other 2 names]. Virtually undisputed. Letters were sent (Prentice Hall) by Novell. ownership Nagle: changed copyright notices in UnixWare. Novell could have kept registrations, but theyve been sitting with Santa Cruz. Next question: slandered? If SCO owns the copyrights, theres not much question. It was a campaign. Constitutional malice: Reckless disregard. After June 6, knowledge of falsity. Balance of free speech. Knew about unsigned Amendment 2. Didnt do checking. Could easily. Could have called Sonsini. Could have called Frankenberg. Recklessness. After that, not just reckless. They turned upside down looking for signed Amendment 2 know it was very important. June 5: signed Amendment 2 faxed by SCO. MkBride says Messman admitted copyrights transferred. Press release next day. June 6: not just casual statement. Amendment 2 language was in one paragraph. Didnt take months to analyze. It took them months to turn it around. Stones We still own Unix outrageous! This was echoed by Messman. Falsity proven by Novell witnesses. So absurd would be unethical to take that position. Deal I negotiated included copyrights. Chatlos similar. unethical Damages: special (to compensate SCO), damage to SCOsource. Certain Unix libraries being used to run Linux. Obtain a license. Unix in Linux not issue. Protection against infringement, a number of these individual companies took licenses after seeing code room Press citations readible If everything SCO showed me today is true, then Linux [users] should be concerned. Sent letters with examples of code. Not issue in this trial. Percentage of users would license; others wait and see; others never. Members of Open Source community viciously attacked. Submit Novell has brought some of them here. [?! ] If no threat to Novells Linux activities, there would have been no slander. (Compare to house: no title) Deadly. That type of slander killed SCOsource. Punitive: personal malice intent to injure. No shortage of evidence. Same day as earnings announcement. Not a coincidence. Intent to injure. Malice. OGara: Stone admitted timing was planned. [PJ: Shame. Even she didn't say that. She inferred.] [statement trying to dismiss] why dont you take a jab at PJ? while chortling Messman published as widely as possible. Waiver was because of IBM. Consider as evidence of intent. Consider 50M investment. Not telling the truth about IBMs involvement the first time asked. Singer turns time over to Hatch. Hatch: SCOsource had begun to make sales. Tens of millions of dollars. Next: HP deal (shows draft contract): redlines typed in by HP: $30M deal. Sudden change. McBride said Novell inserted itself to reassert copyright ownership. Google (500K Linux servers): pulled out of deal, Novell a substantial factor. Dell. Primary reason: Novell. Testimony of 3 SCO salespeople:
Potential buyers cant buy because theres not clear title. Referred to jury instructions. People hated SCO: It was a small Utah company standing up for its IP rights Some of largest companies Sun, Microsoft -- had done deals. Understood the risk yet took licenses. [PJ: If they understood, why did Microsoft say they licensed a patent from SCO, when SCO had no Unix patents?] 3 studies (not one): 19-45% range. Taking into account every one of the risk factors hard, scientific data Verdict form question 3: amount of special damages, if any:
Best and proper measure: Expert helped you. Botosan cherry picked the low numbers to be conservative. conservative on top of conservative Novell offered no calculations. Agreed it was the correct but for Answer for #3: 115-200M range from Botosan. Malice / bad acts: punitive. Additional. Teach them a lesson. Timing of press release was to maximize damages. 2nd time, again to maximize damages. And here's Losat's part 2: One thing of note I forgot to mention on the jury instructions: when he told them they wouldn't be deciding the Novell counterclaim of slander of title, he instructed them not to infer anything from this, not to speculate. Disclaimer: the actual closing arguments on both sides were much, much smoother and effective than my poor notes might suggest. Now, on to Novell's closing arguments: Brennan: I promised to tell you "the rest of the story." Burden is on SCO. I don't get to speak to you again after Singer. Please anticipate what you think Novell would say. When I was a kid I was told "don't make a federal case out of it." (Don't make |
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During one court hearing, Abdo yelled “Nidal Hasan Fort Hood 2009!” as he was being led out of court, a reference to the 2009 shooting spree.
Defense lawyers argued that Abdo never built the bomb and had no ability to build the bomb. Abdo did not testify during the trial.
“It is important to note that this plot was interrupted and a potential tragedy averted because an alert citizen notified law enforcement of suspicious activity, triggering prompt intervention and investigation,” U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman said after the jury verdict was read.
Jeffrey Addicott, a former Green Beret and judge advocate and the head of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, said Abdo is an example of a “new breed” of American-born militant.
“They are not hard core al Qaeda members. They have been radicalized as Americans here in this country. These are people whose plots are not as sophisticated. A lot of them are very sophomoric in their approaches, and many, like this man, are not as willing to die for their cause,” Addicott said."The Prince" leading man Jason Patric talks about the movie outside the Brickyard Bar in Mobile,Al. on Wednesday, Dec. 18 (Michael Brannon, FOX10)
MOBILE, Alabama – The powers behind "The Prince" have the sweetest things to say about movie-making in Mobile.
"This has been the best film experience that I've ever had. It's by far the highlight of my career to date," said director Brian Miller on Wednesday night, during a press conference at the Brickyard Bar on Dauphin St.
"The Prince" director Brian Miller talks about the movie and Mobile outside the Brickyard Bar in Mobile, Al. on Wednesday, Dec. 18. (Tamara Ikenberg/tikenberg@al.com)
"The locals of Mobile embraced us. They are some of the friendliest most wonderful people that I've ever had the opportunity to meet or work with."
Producer Randall Emmett of Emmett/Furla Films, feels the same way.
"The community was amazing; everybody from the restaurants to the hotels, to the laundromats, to the crews, to the Film Commission," he said. "Everybody wanted to make it work for us...It kind of felt like a home away from home."
Miller and Emmett aren't just paying the Port City lip service.
They are so impressed with the friendliness, freedom and fabulous locations Mobile offers filmmakers that they're making it a priority to bring more productions here.
"We're coming back in March. I can't say exactly what (we'll be doing,)" Emmett said. "We'll probably announce it within the Hollywood community after the holiday,"
In the meantime, "The Prince" pack is wrapping up filming before departing Mobile this weekend.
During "The Prince"'s presence in the Port City, downtown denizens have become accustomed to the sight of trailers and camera crews stationed around the RSA Tower and Battle House Hotel, the sound of various vehicles blowing up, and hot Hollywood stars like Bruce Willis, Jason Patric and John Cusack working and taking the occasional time-out to grab coffee at Serda's.
The movie's stars have also become accustomed to the Port City's politeness and talent for making them feel welcome and wanted.
"One of the things you find out quickly is southern hospitality isn't just an idiom," said the movie's leading man Jason Patric.
The movie centers on Patric's character Paul, the titular "Prince." He's a retired mob boss on a dangerous and delicate mission.
"I play a father whose daughter is going to college and she disappears so he has to find out where she is," he said. "And it turns out she has this dark side he wasn't aware of. And in the process, you find out he has this dark past she wasn't aware of."
To portray his complex character, Patric tunes into some very distressing emotional wavelengths.
"I'm a father so the idea of losing a child is devastating," he said. "So you put yourself there...and I have some dark days I can draw on."
In the scene Patric and his colleagues shot in and around The Brickyard after talking to us on Wednesday, Paul tries to gather information about his daughter's whereabouts from the folks inside the bar.
Director Miller sees "The Prince" as a contemporary take on a classic film genre.
"It's a modern day western. It's a story about a gun-slinger who twenty years ago made a mistake resulting in the death of some innocent people," he said. "He's a wanted man in the city he returns to...It's a story of redemption. It's a story of a man that's seeking to make right what he once made wrong in his life."
Mobile the movie star
Mobile has hosted several productions in years past, but 2013 is poised to be remembered as the year the city really became a star.
This year, Mobile and Baldwin County were among the most celeb-studded locations in the country outside of Hollywood and New York.
It all began in June when Nicolas Cage, Danny Glover and the rest of the cast and crew of "Tokarev" took up residence in town and stayed for practically the entire summer.
Then in November the psycho-thriller "Somnia" started shooting in Fairhope. That production brought a batch of stars including Kate Bosworth and Thomas Jane to the area.
And while "Somnia" was still in progress, "The Prince" popped into the Port City.
A sparkling review of filming in Mobile from Richard Rionda Del Castro, a producer of "Tokarev," who is also involved in "The Prince," was pivotal to bringing "The Prince" to Mobile.
"When a film company comes into your area, they spread the word of how good it was to film there or how bad it was to film there and it goes quickly through the community," said Mobile Film Office Director Eva Golson in a previous AL.com story. "And I understand what they're hearing is Mobile is a very film-friendly city...
They certainly have a great effect on our economy. We have another movie coming in January. We are scouting locations for it right now."
Golson said she couldn't reveal any more details about the coming production at this point.
So, what has made Mobile such a movie mecca?
In 2009, legislation was passed that allowed Alabama to offer attractive incentives to filmmakers.
Any film project that spends at least $500,000 in the state gets a 25 percent rebate on any expenses exceeding $500,000.
And if the project uses local talent to fill cast and crew positions, which all of this year's productions have done, the filmmakers get a 35 percent rebate on however much that talent gets paid.
"In a lot of the states incentives have collapsed," Emmett said. "When you have a state like Alabama, which popped up recently, which really embraces the film community, it becomes a real competitive place. The word travels quickly. You end up with gigantic movies. You could end up getting (something like) 'Terminator.'"
'A producer's dream'
Emmett said that the convenience of filming in a city that isn't already overrun by productions, bumper to bumper traffic, or jaded residents who feel irritated and inconvenienced by a shoot, also add to the appeal of shooting in Mobile.
He said The Battle House Hotel has played a big role in making the cast and crew feel comfortable.
"That hotel has such a grand feel to it...The Battle House has been available in giving us both accommodations and allowing us to film in the hotel, so that's been really convenient," he said. "Being set up at the Battle House, having our production offices a block away, having most of the filming in and around Mobile, I mean, that's really like a producer's dream."
Emmett said he's eaten at the Joe Cain Cafe about twenty five times, and that Bruce Willis also enjoyed a meal there.
"The first night we got here we took him to dinner," Emmett said. "We took over the Joe Cain Café."
The Bull restaurant on Dauphin St. is also one of Emmett's favorite Mobile food destinations because"I'm a steak fanatic," he said.
The incentives and convenience wouldn't be worth much without picture-perfect places to shoot, s
o it's fortunate that Mobile has such a variety of versatile and stunning scenery.
From the RSA Tower, to the quirkily majestic Masonic "Temple Downtown," Miller was dazzled by the "robust visual architecture" at his disposal, and the ease he had accessing the spectacular sites.
He said that before filming began he walked his beagle Houston around the city and marveled at all the possibilities for brilliant backdrops.
"The locations and the production values are just through the roof," he said. "We were able to really transform the city into our own personal back lot. This is the type of city you can dress up, dress down," Miller said. "You can kind of make it what you want."
In the case of "The Prince," Mobile is standing in for The Big Easy.
"We really shot the city out even though we're doubling it for New Orleans," Emmett said.
"Now that I know Mobile and that I've spent time here, going forward on other films that we're developing to come here, we'll just (set them) in Alabama. It's a lot easier."The service is a shared high-power EV-DO Rev. A connection, at 3.6Mbps downstream and 1.8Mbps upstream.
By April, 100% of Virgin America's flights will have GoGo service. Dayumn! All GoGo service is $10 for short flights (under 3 hours) and $13 for longer flights (over 3 hours).
So far I've been getting about 1Mbps down, and 200Kbps up -- pretty good considering that this is about as pinned as the system is going to get. There are only about 150 people on it right now, you know?
Latency is between 200-500ms, sometimes higher. Reasonable latency, though.
The system uses 802.11a/b/g, although it's an open AP (i.e. no encryption).
Speaking of which, GoGo claims they'll support VPN, so expect that to work. SSH is iffy though -- it worked for us, but they don't really want people SSH tunneling (especially to do stuff like VoIP).
Aircell intends to block voice and video chat to keep things less obnoxious for travelers. It's working in flight though -- people are doing iChat sessions. But part of this inaugural flight will have live YouTube streaming, so one should expect to have this cut off later.
BitTorrent works! It's not crazy fast, but I'm peering with about 8 nodes. I wouldn't expect this to work when the service launches.
GoGo has a built-in traffic shaper that keeps an eye out for those using more traffic than others. If you're consuming too much, it'll scale you back (although no one has a hard cap). If you're the only one on GoGo (say, on a red-eye at 4am) then you can go crazy, you won't be scaled back. Still, I'm sitting next to my old pal Brian Lam from Giz, and I'd wager the two of us are somehow taking up about 80% of the plane's bandwidth.
Virgin America isn't filtering content, so feel free to cast a glance over your shoulder and engage your browser's private mode.
So I took a little a break from working on gdgt to get on Virgin America's inaugural Aircell GoGo WiFi party flight, posting this at altitude. If you haven't already caught one of the early Aircell flights on Delta, American, or Air Canada, their now-active GoGo service provides in-flight internet. So far, as far as party planes go, this one hasn't been too raucous -- probably because everyone's been geeking out on their laptops.Quick facts:Any thing else you want to know?Critics usually blame Martin, a soft-spoken Republican known as a political tactician who has accomplished the rare feat of being criticized by all four of his fellow commissioners. He is also facing a congressional inquiry into the FCC's procedures and allegations of flawed research studies, suppressing data, ignoring public input and holding hearings with minimal notice.
"The FCC appears to be broken," Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said during a hearing last week. Congressional Democrats' growing frustration with Martin could hinder his agenda. Last week, for example, a Senate committee passed legislation to delay Martin's planned vote this month on loosening media ownership rules.
...
Commission employees said that Martin, chairman since 2005, keeps his plans tightly wrapped, believing there's a tactical advantage in springing them on other commissioners with little notice. For example, last month commissioners learned the details of his proposal to ease restrictions on owning a newspaper and broadcast station in the same market when they read about it in an opinion article by Martin in the New York Times.At first we would like to thank BIOSTAR for offering their Hi-Fi Z97WE motherboard for testing and reviewing.
About BIOSTAR:
“In 1980, the IT industry was growing at a phenomenal rate. With wide experience in buying and selling electronic parts as well as researching on future demands for mainboards and add-on cards, the founder of BIOSTAR GROUP, established BIOSTAR MICROTECH INTERNATIONAL CORP in 1986.
In the early years, BIOSTAR concentrated on the manufacture of mainboards built for XT form factor. To maintain steady business growth, BIOSTAR managed to keep a large portion of its capital and manpower invested on the design and development of new products, which at the same time has enabled it to stay competitive in the rapid evolution of the computer industry.
BIOSTAR has enriched its competence in the design and manufacture of products such as add-on cards, multi-media and system products to develop the market and meet the demands of customers for more integrated solutions. In order to expand its capacity to meet customer demand globally, BIOSTAR was the first to establish a manufacturing facility in China in 1990. In 1998, its sales revenues exceeded US$130 million and it ranked 227th among the top 1000 enterprises in Taiwan. Furthermore, BIOSTAR obtained an ISO 9001 certification in 1999 and became a publicly listed company in the same year. BIOSTAR’s future has limitless possibilities.”Welcome to the novelization of my current D&D campaign, told through the perspective of the characters. For me, it lets me do a little creative writing between more serious projects. Links to the previous posts are at the bottom of this one. Enjoy!
Arius…
The Splattering… Ritual of Kurasak…left my soul and body weary but joyful. I had delivered true holy retribution by turning over Captain Wildsong to Prince Wheaton as his slave. My faith calls for maintaining a balance under the eyes of God. Giving up the Captain was a more honorable justice than I wanted to give that scoundrel.
Images of the fireball that had consumed brave Galinndan were seared into my closed eyelids as I prayed for him. He fought well, he fought gallantly, and it cost him his life. Worst yet, his death had come at the hands of one of our own.
I wiped the sweat from my brow and Althalus spoke up, shattering my peace, “We did a lot of good things this day. We have lifted their hunt for Blackshear.”
“I will get you for this!” Wildsong managed to yell as the Minotaur’s bound him.
I opened my eyes and look at him. As we locked gazes, I blew him a kiss and smiled.
The remaining royal guards stared at us in shock and amazement. Althalus stood before them. “You men have a choice. Stay here, or come with us to the Gash.”
One of the men, a skinny fighter with a blackened beard stepped forward. “I will fulfill the last set of orders we had to go onto the Gash.” Most of the others were stunned still. “We have known Wildsong for years…and you sold him into slavery.”
“I didn’t sell him. And, for the record, he we going to kill my friends and me.”
All but one of the dozen men seemed to begrudgingly agree. They had all witnessed what had taken place and none were willing to risk out blade and ire to test us. They were, in that one moment, wise. The one defiant one glared at us. “I will not be a party to this betrayal. I will go back to Karn and tell them what I witnessed here this day.” I know my comrades wanted to kill him but my piety held my hand. “Let him go.”
“It is dangerous to let him leave,” Althalus muttered.
“You are not going to kill him.”
Wheaton heard our debate and seemed to understand. “We will take him with us for a few days.”
“Allow me to offer you 25 silver coins for the trouble your highness.”
He waved his hand. “I would not think of taking money from members of my tribe who have fought so bravely.”
I gave him a nod, acknowledgement between warriors. We began to march off and saw the Minotaurs bow their heads to us, one by one. Wheaton came forward a few steps with a small wooden box. “One more thing. I offer these tokens to you to honor your fight today and the friend you have lost.”
They were small polished silver rings. One of his men stepped forward with a piercing iron. They tugged at my armor and exposed my nipple. The iron stung like being hit by an arrow. When I looked down I saw one of the small silver rings hanging there, dripping with my blood. They were just like those that the other Minotaurs wore. One by one each of us endured the painful ritual, none making a sound at the piercing.
We headed north along the road for two hours before finding a place suitable for camping. When we awoke, we discovered that another of our troop had fled during his watch in the night. A coward that could not hold to his word. We trudged on, my arms and back aching from the battle still.
By the shadowless hour we saw the border and a tower there. This one was under construction. Stone blocks had been hoisted by tackle up to the top and a rickety wooden scaffolding surrounded the structure. They saw us approaching and waved from the tall half-completed battlements.
One of the guards there approached and called, “Hail!” We responded with far less enthusiasm.
“Who is in command here?”
“I am,” Althalus responded confidently.
“Where is Captain Wildsong?”
The warlock seemed to revel with the question. “Captain Wildsong was lost the Minotaurs that were roaming in the area. We have lost two other men since we encountered them.”
“Oh. They must still be on their quest to look for Blackshear then,” the guard said, shaking his head.
“I suppose,” Althalus said. “But I get the feeling that their quest may be winding down.” He smirked. I saw it, I’m sure of it.
“That can only be good for the realm,” the guard replied.
“We are undertaking the mission that the Captain started,” the warlock replied.
“And that is?”
“Going to the Gash to reinforce the troops there.”
The guardsman seemed nonplussed at the task. “It is two days ride north of here, you cannot miss it. You’re welcome to stay here for the night. We’ll provide you food and shelter before you get on your way. We donna’ have much room but you are welcome to what space we do have. We were going to have rabbit stew tonight. Not much, but a hot meal.”
“We greatly appreciate your hospitality,” Althalus replied.
We began to walk towards the small stone barracks adjacent to the tower. “So how did, of all people, Wildsong become lost to the Minotaurs?”
I was fully prepared to lay out the case as to how the Captain had betrayed us at the orders of the Vizir, but our warlock cut me off. “They were on a quest for revenge for Blackshear killing their former ruler. Their prince, Wheaton, was with them. He decided to exact his revenge on the Captain.” The twisting of the truth out of my friend’s mouth was a sin that I would never get him to confess to.
“Yet you survived?”
“Not all of us made it out unscathed,” the warlock continued.
The Guard seemed to understand. “Well, my father fought with Blackshear. He’s a big man, quite brave. It is too bad about the Captain. Was he killed in battle?”
The lie got thicker. “He seemed gravely wounded it and seemed we would not be able to save him,” Althalus said casting me a glance that sternly told me to not speak up at this moment. “If he is not dead, I don’t see him coming out this way anytime soon.” It bothered me that he was enjoying weaving this story to the innocent man…but not enough to stop him.
“Well, he always was a bit of an ass I always felt but I bear him no ill-will. Make sure you get fodder for your horses. You know it is a holy order that guards the Gash, so you will need to mind what is said and done there. They can be prickly.”
I was not concerned. Fellow paladins would be a nice relief from my comrades. We dined with the small guard contingent, exchanged pleasantries, and bedded down. Bor asked me as he lay on his straw, “What should we do to commemorate Galinndan?”
I reflected for a moment. “We will get a plaque made in his honor…and tell Blackshear what he did.”
Althalus spoke in a low tone. “We should carve on it, ‘He died for the love of Blackshear’s daughter.’” I winced slightly at the warlock’s twisted sense of humor, yet oddly, I think the thief would have liked that. He had rambled on about the girl for miles during our journey.
The next day a light rain fell and we saddled up for the final leg of our journey. We moved north along the muddy road and spoke little, our wounds from the ritual still mending. The next day we came up a low rise and below us in the distance was the Gash. At the end of the vast crack in the earth stood a castle – and jutting out from that some 50 yards was a half-arch of stone with a dais at the end of it, hovering over the vast emptiness of the Great Gash.
I had heard of this place only in stories…of how during the last great war, the Banner of Gold drove the armies of the Black Banner and the evil Serhath Dorn out onto the long flat plains there. The fighting in the Gellesian Fields drove the enemies of the world to this spot. Then the last king of men, Ansil Albinson the Swift summoned the greatest wizards – the Elder Council of Magics and the Lord Victar to a rocky prominence and they unleashed a powerful incantation. The ground opened beneath the armies of darkness, devouring them as the great chasm was formed. It was said that the crack plunged into the soul of the world, but I did not know that. The fortress had been built there to stand guard over the evil dead – dubbed the Fangs of Kraylor. Their Legion of paladins were sword to protect the world from anything that might have survived the plunge into the eternal black of the Gash. Now here I was, looking at this place of legend and wished my father had lived to see such a place. The stories you told me were true father. In my mind I can almost see King Albinson there, standing at that dais.
As we approached the fortress, we were hailed from the battlements. We told them we had been sent to reinforce the Gash…that we had heard there was something that had come out of the Gash and they were in need of assistance. They opened the massive ironbound oak-stone doors.
Two knights approached us. One was old, with thinning gray hair and beard, and a look of consternation and pure anger painted his face. The other was walking three steps apace behind the angry knight. The elder man stood before us. “Who is in charge here?”
“I am – my name is Althalus,” the warlock responded. He made quick introductions of us as well.
“I am Sir Karrick of the Order of the Silver Blade, Acting First Shield and Commander of this Order.”
Althalus explained how a Gray Rider had come to our village and how we had undertaken the journey to complete his ride. He told him, in very vague terms, how we had recovered the message that had called for aid, and how Lord Sklaver had sent us to honor that request.
“I sent for no Gray Rider…no message for aid was sent,” Karrick replied sternly.
The second knight stepped forward. “Commander. I called the Gray Rider and sent the message.” There was a hint of penance in his voice.
Karrick reeled on him. “Ferrin, why would you do this? Our order has always dealt with these matters on our own – it is our charge to do so.”
“We had to do something commander. We needed reinforcements,” the shorter knight named Ferrin replied.
Althalus interceded in their debate. “I have no idea what is going on here but it is serious enough for someone to have intercepted your message to prevent it from being delivered. Someone was willing to risk slaying a Gray Rider.”
Sir Karrick glared at the warlock and said nothing for a moment, then ordered the gates closed. “Very well, come into my office. We have much to speak of.”
Althalus ordered the other guards to find quarters. Our original party followed Sir Karrick into the inner keep. The inside of the Fangs of Kraylor were pristine, with magnificent green grass and the Sept of the Silver Blade, the church of the order, was of ancient design, with vines creeping up along its sides. White marble pavers marked the walkways. It was as if the interior of the fortress was a world of its own, a contrast to the black rip in the soul of the world it protected.
Inside his Spartan office he invited us in and closed the door. “Ferrin, what have you done?”
“While you were in the north searching, I did what I thought was best. Lord Sklaver was the closest place for us to get reinforcements. We are alone here against the night.”
Karrick shook his bowed head in thought, then turned to us. “Forgive me, these are trying times for us.”
“Lord Sklaver was unwilling to send an army until he confirmed your need,” Althalus replied. “Since the rider had been ambushed and he never got the message directly from the rider’s pouch, he didn’t entirely trust it.”
Or us…
He asked for the message and I produced my copy for him to read. He put the paper on his desk after reading the words. Sir Ferrin glanced at it. “Those are my words commander, yet not my handwriting.”
The older knight seemed to know that already. “It is difficult to admit our need for aid, we have never called for it before. First Shield Sir Theris Bentblade had gone to the Wail, an observation post along the Gash. Something rose out of the Gash…a shadow…yet something more. The First Shield set out after this shadow with 400 paladins of the legion heading north to the Pass at Sever. There their trail disappeared. Our defenses have been stripped. We cannot let the foes of all that is good know that we are almost defenseless. There are many that would take advantage of our state.”
For a few moments we said nothing. Sir Karrick continued, “We accept your men as reinforcements. Our rules are simple. Only an ordained paladin may enter the Sept of the Silver Blade or step out onto the Pinnacle of Light.”
“We should send someone back to Lord Sklaver…to get more reinforcements,” Althalus offered and Karrick solemnly agreed.
Then Althalus said something that seemed to escalate the emotions in the room. “We have reason to believe that the Sisterhood of the Sword may be involved in this somehow.” He told him that we had encountered one of them, that she had intercepted the message. The mention of the Sisterhood made Karrick stand erect, taller than even Bor. His eyes fixed on the warlock. “Her name was Lexa Lyoncroft.”
Karrick turned to Ferrin, then back to us. “Lexa Lyoncroft. She is involved with this?”
“Yes,” I answered firmly. “She was the one that attacked the Gray Rider and took Ferrin’s call for aid. She has the original message. We obtained a copy of it from her.”
“This does not bode well. It is like a nightmare that has come back from my youth.”
“You know her?” I queried.
“Yes – I do. I fear I played a part in her plight. The Sisterhood of the Sword was at one time as powerful a military order as our own. Lexa was one of their most fearless sisters, a holy warrior beyond repute. Her skills with the blade were greater than any other. She burned with a holy passion that made her glow in the dark.
“She told me that she discovered a corruption in the church, a plague that devoured all that was good in the church. She and her mother superior were going to confront the Council of Cardinals about their misdeeds.
“The church turned on them. My order was one of three sent in to purge them. It is my fault that she lived. Our battle was one for the ages. I cornered her while her temple burned around her, but I could not bring myself to kill her. There was something about her, something that I cannot describe. I could not bring myself to take her life. It was wrong then…and wrong now.
“She fled, along with four others of the sisterhood. The church labeled them the Five Witches…done to prevent them from ever gaining help from locals. Over the years two of the five have been caught and have faced the church’s justice.
“Lexa wants revenge. I fear she may ally herself with something dark and soulless to extract that vengeance.”
Althalus spoke up. “She didn’t seem to be motivated by vengeance when we met her. She acted as if there was something else in play, some greater evil she wanted to stop.”
Sir Ferrin spoke up. “Commander, how would she have known what was in my message? How would she have known to intercept it? I wonder – is it possible that we have a spy in our midst?”
Sir Karrick’s face shifted from old remorse to a hint of anger. “This does not bode well for us if that is the case. Lexa Lyoncroft…she should have been dead a thousand times. I refused to let myself believe that she was somehow still alive. She will not have her revenge until the corruption in the church is purged.” It was almost as if the elder knight was speaking to himself, not to us.
Karrick gathered himself and turned to me. “We are facing other problems as well here. We keep a man up on the Pinnacle of Light to keep watch over the Gash. We have always done that. Just like sending men to the Wail, it is our duty to look over the evil imprisoned below. Of late, we have found we cannot keep men out there long. Several brother-knights have gone mad staring out into the darkness. They used to stand watch there for ten days as a time. Now it is no more than three days. There is something out there, something that is attacking them in their thoughts.
“We had purged the undead from the world except for places like the Gellesian Fields…now I fear that those that refuse to die may once more walk the world.
“That was where we found Lexa,” Althalus said.
“A perfect place for her to hide.”
I could see the pain in his soul every time that Lexa was mentioned. I came to appreciate that we had been lucky to survive our encounter with her. There was clearly more to her character than any of us appreciated. There was more to her story than we understood.
Sir Karrick gathered his emotions and stuffed them down deep into his massive frame. “What I could use from you is information. We lost the trail of the men under the First Shield’s command that headed north. While we await Lord Sklaver’s response, I suggest that you and your small party try and follow the trail north to the Pass at Sever and the Vale of White – the Vale of Bones. It is said that there an entrance to Tempora there, but no one has found it in years. We must know the fate of those holy warriors.”
“There is still the matter of the traitor…” I said. “But that is a matter that you are best suited to solve. It takes a week to summon a rider…so somehow she must have received word as to your intent.” I felt bad adding to the burden to Sir Karrick, but I could see that he was a man that could handle it.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Character Background Material
My New Campaign
#dungeonsanddragons
#DandD
AdvertisementsWhy We Are So Focused on Low-Intensity Training?
-by Scott Johnston. Uphill Athlete co-founder and Master Coach.
Special thanks to Dr. Monica Piris, MD and Dr Scott Ferguson, PhD for their help with this article.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Steve and I continue to beat the drum of low-intensity training for building endurance. Early on in our careers, we connected some previously unconnected dots and had the proverbial ah-hah moment that shaped our training philosophy. Over the past 15 years of ascents and achievements, both personally and with our clients, that philosophy has proven itself to work very well.
Yet we still run into alpine climbers and trainers on daily basis who continue to use training methods more suited to sport climbers and 5000 meter runners because they think high-intensity training is a shortcut to long duration endurance.
What does climbing high mountains look like from a metabolic standpoint? And more importantly, what are the implications for training? We were able to collect data for some of the best alpinists in the world while they trained up to 20,000 feet / 6,100 meters and we feel that sharing this information will help others understand the importance of building the basic aerobic capacity of our athletes.
David and Ueli both wore their HR monitors and uploaded the workouts so we could view them in near real time. One of the first things that we noticed was just how low their heart rates were during all their runs and climbs: The average and peak HR are much lower than when these guys are training at home in the Alps.
Below is a screen shot of the workout data download where they climbed Island Peak. The red line represents David’s HR. The grey is the elevation gain (about 1500m) and the horizontal scale is time in hours and minutes. David’s AeT is about 155 BPM at sea level. His maximum HR on this workout was 133. They were climbing at a controlled aerobic effort similar to how they would feel at home: gaining 1500m in 2 hours and 40 minutes. After 15 minutes on the summit his resting HR dropped to only 95 BPM, 50 beats above his low-elevation resting HR (indicating that he was not well acclimated). This give him a very small effective working range. So, he better have a good low-end work capacity because the top-end doesn’t exist.
Physiological mechanisms and implications
There are several prevailing theories as to why this occurs:
At high elevations (and the higher that is the more pronounced the effect) the barometric pressure and thus the partial pressure of Oxygen (PO 2 ) of the atmosphere drops. Therefore, each breath contains fewer molecules of oxygen than it does at lower altitude (which has a higher barometric pressure). If you’ve been to even moderately high elevations like 14,000ft you have no doubt noticed that your work rate/speed is greatly reduced. There just isn’t enough O 2 to power sustained vigorous work. One of the upshots of this is that a well-trained heart has much more pumping capacity than is needed at these high elevations. In fact studies have shown that on the summit of Mt. Everest, even if we had an unlimited cardiac output, our maximal work rate would remain unchanged due to the huge drop in oxygen content of the blood. The heart is a slave to the brain which gets feedback from the muscles as to how much O 2 is needed to sustain the work required. When the PO 2 drops, the muscle power output necessarily drops with it and so the heart, in response to the lower power demands, cuts the cardiac output by lowering the heart rate.
Additionally, the brain may select to prioritize the cardiac muscle over skeletal muscle for O 2 delivery.If there is not enough O 2 to support a higher cardiac output then the brain will limit the heart rate to ensure that the heart’s O 2 demand does not outstrip its supply. Couple this lower cardiac output with the lower PO 2 and you’ve got skeletal muscles that simply don’t have enough oxygen to sustain high intensity exercise.
Due to the very high rate of ventilation (breaths per step) required at these very high elevations, a great deal of blood will be shunted to the respiratory muscles. This too will leave less for the skeletal muscles.
All three of these stack the deck against those leg muscles being able to get enough blood/O2 to power high intensity movement
Training Implications
So here is the take-home: With HRs so limited, even these very well trained athletes cannot operate at high intensities. They never even see HR Zone 2 or 3 let alone Zone 4 intensities. They just can’t access the higher power muscle fibers that are trained with high intensity (high HR) workouts and consume primarily glycogen for fuel. They are restricted to their humble slow twitch fibers which rely almost exclusively on fat for fuel. Their base aerobic capacity (measured by the Aerobic Threshold) had better be as high as possible because that is really the only metabolic engine they can use at these high altitudes.
This really drives home the importance of low-intensity aerobic base training for these types of athletes. Hours upon hours, month after month for years upon years are required to maximize this quality. This long term |
by meditating on it for 24 hours. My Body is a Temple Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, training has not only heightened your mental strengths, but also the strength and durability of your body. When you gain a level in this class (including this level), you gain 8 + your Constitution modifier hitpoints instead of the usual 1d8 + Constitution, and when you take a long rest, you regain all spent hitdice instead of half. My Mind is a Palace By 6th level, the powers you have unlocked are dangerous for both you and the people around you. For the safety of everyone, you have sealed away your own power, but by clearing your mind, you can tap into a bit of it. On your turn, you can use your bonus action to enter an enlightened meditation. You cannot be wearing any armor or wielding any weapons to enter this meditation. While meditating, you gain the following properties: • You gain immunity to psychic damage. • Your body becomes +2 magic weapon. • When you make an unarmed strike, you deal an extra damage die as psychic damage on a hit. • You gain immunity to psychic damage.• Your body becomes +2 magic weapon.• When you make an unarmed strike, you deal an extra damage die as psychic damage on a hit. These effects lasts for 1 minute. Once you use this feature, you must finish a long rest before you can use it again. The number of uses increases to two when you reach 9th level in this class, and three when you reach 12th level in this class. When you reach 17th level in this class, this feature becomes passive. My Soul is a River Starting at 11th level, just by focusing, you can calm your mind and your body, allowing you to draw out your hidden of ki from deep within you. When you have no ki points remaining, you can use your bonus action to regain 1d4 expended ki points. You can use this feature a number of times equal to half your Wisdom Modifier (rounded up). You regain all uses when you finish a long rest. Released Potential Starting at 17th level, your psionic abilities have become honed to the point of mastery; where your mind and body were unable to withstand your full power before, you can now release this power in short bursts without the harsh consequence of death. At the start of your turn, you can release your potential for 2d4 + half your wisdom modifier (rounded up) rounds (this does not use an action or bonus action). You gain the following benefits for the duration: • You gain resistence to slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage (this includes magic slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage). • When you take the attack action to make an unarmed strike, you may attack a number of times equal to your wisdom modifier. • At the end of each of your turns, you must make a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw. On a successful save, you create a pulse of psychic energy that deals psychic damage equal to your monk level + your Wisdom modifier to all enemies within 15 feet of you. On a failed save, this pulse backfires, thus you and anyone within 15 feet of you take 2d10 psychic damage (this damage is not mitigated by your psychic immunity). If you drop to 0 hitpoints whilst using this ability, you continue to fight until the duration of this ability has expired, however you must continue to make death saving throws as normal. If you fail 3 death saving throws or die outright whilst this ability is in effect, you instead drop to 1 hitpoint and immediately fall unconscious for 8 hours or until healed any number of hitpoints. After the duration of this ability expires, you gain 3 points of exhaustion. • You gain resistence to slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage (this includes magic slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage).• When you take the attack action to make an unarmed strike, you may attack a number of times equal to your wisdom modifier.• At the end of each of your turns, you must make a DC 14
Psionic Talents A psionic talent is a psychic ability that requires psionic aptitude. Some are innate abilities that can be done freely, while others are slightly stronger, thus they cost an amount of a mystic’s psionic energy (ki) that equates to the strength of the talent. Some require practice, thus you might need to meet some prerequisites in order to learn a specific talent. Alternatively, you can use your talent in psionics to do things that are not listed here. Think of what you wish to do, and ask your Dungeon Master if it is possible. If it is, your DM will give you a Ki cost to perform the ability. After paying the cost, you must make a "Psionic Power Check" (this DC is determined by your DM: your DM does not need to tell you the DC). If you succeed, you perform the ability you wished to perform. If you fail you still lose the Ki points you paid. You cannot perform a listed "Psionic Talent" using this ability. Psionic Power modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier Eagle Eyes As a bonus action, you can spend 1 ki point to grant yourself incredible eyesight, allowing you to see objects 500 feet away from you as if they were 5 feet away from you. This benefit lasts for 10 minutes. prerequisites: none Psionic Sniper When you activate your "Eagle Eyes" psionic talent, or as a bonus action whilst Eagle Eyes is active, you can expend 2 extra ki point to extend the reach of your mind. For the duration of "Eagle Eyes," double the range of all psionic talents (excluding "Beacon" and "Radiant Body"). When you use psionic talent with a range of "touch," it gains a range of 30 feet. prerequisites: Eagle Eyes Piercing Sight When you activate your "Psionic Sniper" psionic talent, or as a bonus action whilst Psionic Sniper is active, you can expend 2 extra ki points to give your eyes the ability to pierce the ether itself. For the duration of "Eagle Eyes," you gain the ability to see through walls that are up to 3 feet thick. You can see through multiple walls so long as their combined thickness is no more than 3 feet. You cannot see through lead, objects that are magical in nature, or living bodies. prerequisites: Psionic Sniper True Sight When you activate your "Piercing Sight" psionic talent, or as a bonus action whilst Piercing Sight is active, you can expend 2 extra ki pooints to give your eyes the ability to perceive the un perceivable. For the duration of "Eagle Eyes," you gain True Sight with a radius of 30 feet. prerequisities: Piercing Sight Ethereal Strike When use your "Flurry of Blows" class feature, but before you roll for an attack as part of this feature, you can spend 1 extra ki point to momentarily transform your fists into psionic energy. Attacks you make as part of this bonus action gain advantage, and deal extra psychic damage equal to half your Wisdom modifier (rounded down) on a hit. prerequisites: none Ethereal Mind Your mind is a powerful tool that can help you to overcome and defeat failure. When you fail a saving throw for a skill you are proficient in, you can use your reaction and expend 2 ki points to instead succeed that saving throw. If you would take damage from the ability used on you upon succeeding the saving throw, you instead take no damage. You can only use this ability once per short or long rest. prerequisites: none Ethereal Defense Your "Patient Defense" class feature no longer costs any Ki points, however when you use said feature you can expend 1 Ki point to transform your body into psionic energy, increasing your AC by 2 for the duration of the Dodge action. prerequisites: level 6 Ethereal Aspect Your "Step of the Wind" class feature no longer costs any Ki points, however when you use said feature, you can expend Ki to enhance your reflexes. You can spend 1 Ki point to take both the Dash and the Disengage actions as a singular bonus action. prerequisites: level 6 Ethereal Reflexes You can heighten your muscles with psychic energy, allowing you to make quick movements at the last minute. When an ally attacks a creature that is within 10 feet of you, you can use your reaction and expend 1 Ki point to take the "Help" action, distracting the enemy and giving your ally advantage on the attack. prerequisites: level 6 Ethereal Energy When you use a skill that requires a target to make a saving throw against your Ki save DC, you can spend 1 ki point to give said target disadvantage (you can spend this ki point before resolving the effect of "Soul Bombardment"). This does not affect the saving throw caused by your Radiant Body psionic talent. prerequisites: level 11
Conquering Mind As an action, you can spend 1 ki point and target a creature that you can see within 120 feet of you. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw against your Ki save DC. On a failed save, the target truthfully answers one brief question you ask it as part of this action, provided that it understands the question, OR the target believes one statement of your choice for the next 5 minutes, provided that it understands the statement. The statement can be up to ten words long, and must describe you, a creature, or an object the target has seen before or can see. On a successful save, the target is unaffected, and automatically succeeds on all subsequent saving throws against this ability for 12 hours. prerequisites: none Broken Will As an action, you can spend 4 Ki points and target a creature that you can see within 120 feet of you. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw against your Ki save DC. On a failed save, the target is charmed per the "Charm Person" spell. On a successful save, the target is unaffected, and automatically succeeds on all subsequent saving throws against this ability for 12 hours. prerequisites: Level 6, Conquering Mind Revolting Presence As an action, you can spend 6 ki points to exert an aura of repulsive power. Up to five creatures of your choice that you can see within 30 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, a target is frightened of you for 10 minutes. While frightened, it takes psychic damage equal to twice your Monk level if it doesn’t end its turn at least 10 feet farther away from you than it was at the start of that turn. It can then make another Intelligence saving throw at the end of each of its turns. On a success, this effect ends. prerequisites: Level 11, Broken Will Cult Leader You can now focus all your mental acuity into your voice, allowing you to captivate an entire audience of people. You must spend at least 10 ki points to use this ability. For the next 10 minutes, you channel this ki into your voice, allowing you to convince an audience of people to follow you. Make a DC 20 Persuasion check. This DC is lowered by 1 for each additional ki point spend after 10. Anyone that heard the entirety of your speech is swayed to your cause. Men and women alike now deem you to be their friend as per the "Charm Person" spell, however this is not a magical effect, as you did not just convince the people that heard your speech, but you also convinced their very spirits that what you believe in is right and just, and they do not need to follow your orders as per the charm persom spell. This effect lasts until you betray those that you convinced of your cause. If you fail this check, the people that you are trying to convince believe you to be a heretic, and thus either disregard you as crazy, or can go as severe as to lock you in prison or sentence you to death. prerequisites: Level 17, Revolting Presence Mind Meld As a bonus action, you can touch one creature to communicate telepathically with it. You don’t need to share a language with a creature for it to understand your telepathic utterances, and the creature understands you even if it lacks a language. You can allow a creature to respond to you telepathically, but it must understand at least one language in order to communicate this way. You can’t communicate with an unwilling creature. prerequisites: none Mental Link As an action, you can spend 2 ki points and touch one creature to create a mental link between the two of you until your next long rest. For the duration, you can hear its thoughts and speak telepathically with that creature so long as you can see it. The creature does not know you can hear their thoughts unless you divulge this information, and they do not know it is you talking to them in their mind unless you tell them. If the creature is unwilling, they must make a wisdom saving throw against your Ki save DC in order to resist this effect. If they succeed this save, they know you tried to influence their mind in some way, and are immune to this ability for the next 24 hours. prerequisites: Mind Meld Skill Swipe As an action, you can spend 2 ki points and touch one creature to steal one of their proficiencies until your next long rest. Choose one weapon, tool, or ability they are proficient in: for the duration, you become proficient in that ability, and they lose proficiency in said ability. If the creature is unwilling, they must make a wisdom saving throw against your Ki save DC in order to resist this effect. If they succeed this save, they know you tried to influence their mind in some way, and are immune to this ability for the next 10 minutes. prerequisites: Mental Link Mental Breakdown As an action, you can spend 5 ki points and touch one humanoid to steal their mind until your next long rest. For the duration, your body falls into a deep meditation, and both your mind and spirit are forced into their body. You learn enough facts about this person to pass yourself off as them without issue, including the names and faces of people they are close to, daily routines, and so on. You can end this at any time by focusing for 1 minute. If your body drops to 0 hitpoints whilst you are inside this body, you must make death saving throws as normal. If your body dies outright, when you take your next long rest, you must make a DC 20 Wisdom saving throw. If you succeed, you push the mind permanently out of the body you are occupying, making you the new owner of the body. If the creature is unwilling, they must make a wisdom saving throw against your Ki save DC in order to resist this effect. If they succeed this save, they know you tried to influence their mind in some way, and are immune to this ability for the next 24 hours. prerequisites: Skill Swipe
Cosmic Lore You can spend 1 ki point and meditate for 10 minutes on a specific location. At the end of the meditation, you proceed to speak a summary of the important lore regarding that place aloud in riddles. Players can make an Insight check (DC is decided by the DM) to understand the riddle and its information. At the DM’s disgression, you also speak up to three secrets about it, such as the location of traps, passwords, or where treasure is hidden within it. You do not retain any of this information, rendering the information useless without someone around to hear it. You have to be there in order to use this ability: if you are not there, but have been there before, this ability takes 1 hour to cast. If you have never been there before, this skill requires 24 hours of meditation and causes 2 levels of exhaustion. prerequisites: Level 6 Cosmic Knowledge You can meditate for 24 hours on a specific being. After one minute, you proceed to speak a summary of the important lore regarding that person aloud in riddles. Players can make an Insight check (DC is decided by the DM) to understand the riddle and its information. At the DM’s disgression, you also speak up to three pieces of useful information about this being, such as weaknesses, last known location, or where it lives. You do not retain any of this information, rendering the information useless without someone around to hear it. This process is particularly tiring, thus you gain 2 levels of exhaustion each time you use this talent. prerequisites: Level 11, Cosmic Lore Mind Thrust As an action or a bonus action, you can blast psychic energy at one creature that you can see within 30 feet of you. The target must succeed on an Intelligence saving throw against your Ki save DC or take 1d6 + your Intelligence modifier as psychic damage, and you can push it up to 10 feet away from you. The talent’s damage increases by 1d6 when you reach 6th level (2d6), 11th level (3d6), and 17th level (4d6). prerequisites: none Thought Spear As an action or a bonus action, you can spend 1 ki point to psychically strike one creature that you can see within 120 feet of you. The target must succeed on an Intelligence saving throw against your Ki save DC or take 2d8 + your Intelligence modifier as psychic damage, and their movement speed is reduced to 0 until your next turn. The talent’s damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 11th level (3d8), and again at the 17th level (4d8). prerequisites: Mind Thrust, level 6 Telekinetic Blast As a bonus action, you can spend 4 ki points to psychically strike one creature that you can see within 300 feet of you. The target must succeed on an Intelligence saving throw against your Ki save DC or take 4d12 + your Intelligence modifier as psychic damage (or half as much on a successful save), and they are paralyzed for 1 minute. They can make a saving throw at the end of each of their turns to break this effect. The talent’s damage increases by 2d12 when you reach the 17th level (6d12). prerequisites: Thought Spear, level 11 Soul Bombardment As an action, you can focus all your mental acuity into a single beam to strike an enemy. You must spend all your remaining ki points: the target must succeed on an Intelligence saving throw against your Ki save DC or take 2d10 points of psychic damage per ki point spent, or half as much on a successful save. If you spent 15 or more ki points on this ability and the enemy fails the saving throw, they are immediately disintegrated. You can only use this ability once per long rest. prerequisites: Telekinetic Blast, level 17
Beacon You've learned how to reach through the ether and harness divine light straight from the source, allowing you to draw forth this power without the boon of any god. As a bonus action, you can spend 1 Ki point to cause divine light to radiate from your body in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet. This light can be colored as you like. Any undead or fiend that comes within 5 feet of you must make a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, it is frightened of you until the end of your next turn. This benefit lasts for 1 hour, and you can extinguish it as a bonus action. prerequisites: none Radiant Body When you activate your "Beacon" psionic talent or as a bonus action whilst "Beacon" is in effect, you can spend 1 ki point to charge the light radiating from you, increasing the radius of bright light to 50 feet and dim light to 50 feet. This increases the area in which fiends and undead are affected by your light to 10 feet. Further, when an undead or fiend fails this saving throw, they take 1d6 Radiant damage on top of being frightened. Creatures that look directly at you must make a Constitution saving throw (DC 14) or be blinded until the end of their turn. These benefits last for 10 minutes, after which time the effects of "Beacon" are also exhausted. prerequisites: Beacon Sunflame Strike The well from which you borrow divine energy is vast, and through digging you've found the source. When you activate your "Radiant Body" Psionic talent or as a bonus action whilst "Radiant Body" is in effect, you can spend 1 ki point to ignite the radiant aura around you by touching the source of this divine energy. When you make an unarmed strike against an enemy, you deal an extra 1d6 radiant damage. Further, any enemy that begins its turn within 10 feet of you takes 1d6 radiant damage due to the proximity of this divine heat. This "divine fire" cannot light anything on fire. These benefits last for 1 minute, after which time the effects of both "Beacon" and "Radiant Body" are also exhausted. prerequisites: Radiant Body Soul Rend By touching the souls of those that you slay with divine light, you can force them to repent their sins and fight on your behalf. Whilst "Sunflame Strike" is active, when you kill any creature with a soul, you can spend 2 ki points to force their spirit to tear its way into the waking world again. Most creatures you force back into the waking world become a Will-o'-Wisp, however at your DM's discretion, a particularly tough creature can become a Wraith or a Deathwisp (p. 72, Tome of Beasts). This phantom will fight on your side until all enemies are slain, or itself is slain in battle. It will remain for 10 minutes otherwise, then will pass on. Creatures lacking a soul like Vampires, or creatures who owe their souls due to devil contracts, are immune to this ability. prerequisites: Sunflame Strike Defibrillation You have never felt sorrow quite like seeing a comrade in arms die in battle, thus to prevent this grief, you found a way to reach through a fallen friend and heal them from within. As a bonus action, you can spend 1 Ki point to transform your hands into ethereal energy, allowing you to reach inside a fallen comrade that has 0 hitpoints and stabilize them. If this creature has the "Poisoned" status effect, the first use of this ability cures this status effect, however it does not stabilize them. prerequisites: none Psionic Physician The power to bring a comrade back from the brink of death is one thing, but preventing them from falling in battle in the first place can also save a life. As an action or as a bonus action, you can touch a creature and spend 2 ki points to heal them a number of hitpoints equal to your Monk level + your Wisdom modifier. You can only use this ability once per turn. You cannot heal yourself with this ability. prerequisites: Defibrillation, Level 6 Mend Wounds Psionic talent Being someone that heals a group of people can make you the target of attention in battle, thus making sure you survive as to help your friends to survive can be valuable. As a bonus action, you can spend 1 Ki point to gain temporary hitpoints equal to your Wisdom modifier + your proficiency bonus. Alternatively, you can spend 2 Ki points to heal yourself a number of hitpoints equal to your Wisdom modifier. prerequisites: level 11, Psionic Physician Ethereal Heal Through your selflessness, you've accumulated a well of ki from which you can draw to heal a friend in need. You know the spell "Heal," and can cast it by spending 8 ki points. prerequisites: Mend Wounds, level 17CRESTVIEW — A man gave a fake name to a sheriff’s deputy to avoid being arrested, but it turns out the name he gave was that of a man who was not supposed to be driving.
In late December the 38-year-old Niceville man was stopped at State Road 85 and Interstate 10 in Crestview after an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s deputy noticed the windshield on his pickup truck had a crack across the driver’s field of vision.
The man initially gave the deputy a false name and birthdate. When the deputy conducted a records check he discovered the person by that name had had his driver license suspended for DUI. He arrested the man.
Later, the man admitted he’d given the deputy a fake name because he wanted to avoid being arrested on an outstanding warrant. Turns out he too had lost his license due to a DUI, but he was also wanted for aggravated battery.
He was charged with driving without a license and obstruction. His court date is Jan. 5, 2016.CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — A well-known New York architect who designed homes for celebrities in the Hamptons and elsewhere has been charged with violating probation in a child pornography case.
Authorities say Jay Lockett Sears was charged Thursday with having several bags of child pornography at his Long Island home during a recent visit by a probation officer.
Sears had been convicted of possessing child pornography and was sentenced in 2014 to three weeks in jail and five years’ supervised release.
Newsday (http://nwsdy.li/2r318p5 ) reports Sears was not required to enter a plea on the latest charge.
The 78-year-old was arraigned in a hospital, although it wasn’t immediately clear why.
Sears’ public defender declined to comment.
Sears is credited with designing homes for celebrities including Clint Eastwood, Michael J. Fox, and Susan Lucci.
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Information from: Newsday, http://www.newsday.comParty says proposal is compatible with tight timetable for Brexit, though deal would need to be agreed within nine months
Britain could have a second EU referendum as an early Christmas present in 2018, the Liberal Democrats have said, proposing a lengthy 12-week campaign starting in September to give the UK the option to accept a deal or stay in the EU.
The party said holding a referendum on the final deal – which the government has repeatedly ruled out – in December was compatible with the tight timetable of EU withdrawal, falling within the article 50 timeframe of two years, which will end in March 2019.
The Lib Dem leader, Vince Cable, said a referendum should be timed to coincide with EU states’ own votes on the final agreement.
The party’s proposed timing for a referendum would mean a final deal needing to be agreed in time for campaigning to kick off in September, just nine months away.
Critics have argued that a second referendum would be an incentive for European leaders to give the UK a poor exit deal. Theresa May said in the Commons on Monday that promising a referendum would “actually be betraying the British people”.
Cable said there was growing public support for a referendum on the final deal, citing a recent poll by Survation that found 50% of respondents wanted a vote.
“This potential timeline to a public vote shows Brexit is not a done deal. It can be stopped, but not without the approval of the British public,” he said. “It’s time the Conservatives – and the Labour leadership – listened.”
The party proposes a timetable for a referendum beginning when the EU withdrawal bill is given royal assent in April 2018. It has proposed an amendment to the legislation, to be debated on Wednesday, which would give a final vote on the deal to the British public. The amendment is highly unlikely to pass.
The party’s proposed timetable is:
April 2018: government introduces a referendum on the deal bill.
May 2018: referendum on the deal bill receives royal assent
September 2018: a 12-week referendum campaign begins, with a vote scheduled for early December.
September-December 2018: the European parliament votes on the final Brexit settlement, and the European Council approves the deal.
December 2018: the referendum, and a parliamentary vote to adopt the result. If remain were to win, the government would formally withdraw from the article 50 process.
Cable said his party would campaign to remain in the EU regardless of the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, as any deal agreed could not have better terms than full membership.A developer who cut down 106 trees without a city permit was acting in "good faith" and deserves the benefit of the doubt, says Mountain councillor Terry Whitehead.
At Whitehead's urging, Hamilton city councillors changed their minds Friday about denying a prominent developer permission to fell 106 trees it's already illegally cut. They just deferred the issue.
It wasn't like 'oops, I took down a tree.' - Matthew Green, Ward 3 councillor
While councillors have deferred taking a stand on the illegal clearing, bylaw officials are proceeding with a charge against Valery (Chedoke Browlands) Development for violating the city's tree cutting bylaw. It's not clear what impact the council vote will have on the case.
Council was poised Friday to deny a last-ditch attempt from Valery (Chedoke Browlands) Development to get permission to cut the trees at 820, 828 and 870 Scenic Dr. and 801 Sanatorium Rd. Instead, the matter will go to a different bureaucratic process.
Valery cut the trees in late March while waiting to hear back from the city on whether it had permission. A few days later, the city denied the request, only to learn Valery had already cut them.
On Aug. 15, the developer asked councillors to reconsider and retroactively give him permission. But city council's planning committee turned down that request earlier this week. On Friday, as council was about to rubber-stamp that decision, some councillors changed their minds.
Terry Whitehead, Ward 8 councillor, moved referring it to the development application process — when Valery will unveil what it plans for the land, and the public will get to respond.
This map shows areas for future development, including the woodlot. (Urban Solutions)
The developer acted "in good faith," Whitehead said. It already had to cut 33 dead ash trees and decided to manage the whole section.
Whitehead said cutting the trees was either "altruistic" or about expanding the footprint for development, and "I'd rather give them the benefit of the doubt."
It doesn't justify what happened. I want to make that clear. - Terry Whitehead, Ward 8 councillor
"It doesn't justify what happened," Whitehead said. "I want to make that clear."
But "there's a difference between a developer going in with the sole intent to expand their footprint. This one is somewhat different because the genesis was 33 dead trees."
Whitehead said he's only spoken to Valery briefly since the planning meeting, when the developer thanked him for his comments. He said he's not trying to appease Valery.
"This is actually more about what the community and I want," he said. "Not what the developer wants."
This map shows where the developer cut trees. (City of Hamilton)
The developer is scheduled to appear in court Sept. 11.
'It wasn't like 'oops, I took down a tree''
Councillors voted 11-3 for the referral, several saying they're OK with it as long as the case is still proceeding in court.
Matthew Green, Ward 3 councillor, voted against it.
"It wasn't like 'oops, I took down a tree,'" he said. "Sometimes that happens in residential situations. They took down 106."
In court, the developer faces a maximum fine of $500,000 or more, the equivalent of $5,000 per tree. The judge can also add a special fine of more than $100,000 to make sure the fine is more than an incidental hardship.
Valery, a frequent donor to municipal election campaigns, hasn't submitted a development application yet. As for when that will happen, the developer's lawyer has yet to respond to requests for comment.
samantha.craggs@cbc.ca | @SamCraggsCBCFormer Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joked about the ongoing investigation over her use of a private email server while at the State Department, telling a group of Iowa Democrats that the hubbub is just “politics.”
Speaking to about 2,000 Democrats at the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding at the historic Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, Clinton was defiant about the controversy and her use of the personal account, days after turning over her private server to the Justice Department. The agency is probing the handling of classified information on the server—with the U.S. intelligence community saying the account contained at least two emails that should have been labeled Sop Secret.
“You may have seen that I recently launched a Snapchat account,” Clinton said at the start of her 25-minute address. “I love it. I love it. Those messages disappear all by themselves.”
Later, reflecting on Republican attacks on her over the terrorist attack in Benghazi in 2012, Clinton referenced the ongoing investigation.
“You know what, it’s not about emails or servers either—it’s about politics,” Clinton said, her voice rising as the crowd of Democratic loyalists cheered. “I will do my part to provide transparency to Americans, that’s why I’m insisting 55,000 pages of my emails be published as soon as possible. I didn’t offer to answer questions for months before Congress. I just provided my server to the Justice Department. But here’s what I won’t do. I won’t get down in the mud with them. I won’t play politics with national security or dishonor the memory of those who we lost.”
“I won’t pretend that this is anything other than what it is: the same old partisans games we’ve seen so many times before,” Clinton added. “So I don’t care how many super PACs and Republicans pile on. I’ve been fighting for families and underdogs my entire life and I’m not going to start now.”
Read Next: Hillary Clinton’s Lawyer Readies for Email War
Contact us at editors@time.com.Big-ticket announcements by politicians are passé. Now, there are children in Gujarat who are writing small, silent revolutions without waiting for official claims.
Take the toilet-building project by Class XI students of Vadodara’s upmarket Navrachana International School, who brought newspaper scrap from their homes and Vadodara’s residents to build toilets for a slum located near the school.
They chose Ambedkarnagar in Bhaili village near their school and are constructing 37 toilet blocks, with 20 of those ready while work is in progress for the rest.
Class XI students of Vadodara’s Navrachana International School in Ambedkarnagar, Gujarat, collected newspaper scrap from their homes to build toilets for a slum
Navrachana School principal Theo D’Souza told Mail Today: “Class XI students themselves took the initiative and they brainstormed on how to generate funds for it.”
“The students’ initiative is to ensure all homes in Ambedkarnagar have their own toilets and to make sure that the area is cleared of human waste,” said Tejal Amin, who is chairperson of Navrachana Education Society and brand ambassador for the Chief Minister’s Swachhata Abhiyan.
She told Mail Today that the toilet project is an initiative by students of the International Baccalaureate (DP-IB) programme of Navrachana School and will be accepted as part of “their Creativity Action Service (CAS) project requirement, which is compulsory for each student.
The students walked around the city every Saturday and collected some 200kg of newspaper worth Rs 2,000
Student Ishita Patel said: “We initially collected newspaper scrap from our homes and then went around the city to gather the same. The response was good.”
They used to traverse the city every Saturday and collect some 200 kg of newspaper worth Rs 2,000.
Another student Bansree Patel told Mail Today: “Newspaper and other scrap was one mode of fund generation. We went to Navratri and Diwali events in the city to ask for funds and we got favourable reactions.”
The students first conducted a survey of Ambedkarnagar and learnt that 37 houses of the 250 dwellings did not have toilet facilities. The locality also lacked a playschool.
Later, International School of Stockholm Region (ISSR), which partners Navrachana on the CAS programme, also approved the project and was keen on working on it.
Moreover, seven students and a teacher from the Swedish school have contributed to raising funds in Sweden for three toilet blocks.
The students also contacted an NGO which works extensively on sanitation projects
Principal D’Souza said that once the “project was decided for 2014-15 CAS activity, each student pledged to construct one toilet on his own.”
He added that the students gave themselves one year to raise money for the project and came up with user-friendly designs - economical and sustainable.
The students also contacted an NGO SVADES (Society for Village Development in Petrochemicals Area), which works extensively on sanitation projects and rural development.Retired French accountant André Bamberski waited more than a quarter of a century for the man he believed had killed his daughter to be brought to justice.
Exactly 27 years and 99 days after Kalinka Bamberski, 14, died, her father took the law into his own hands, judges heard as his court case started today.
The man he blamed for killing her, German cardiologist Dieter Krombach, was abducted from his home in Bavaria in October, beaten, bound and gagged. He was then driven across the border to France where he was left near a courthouse in the eastern city of Mulhouse.
Bamberski told investigators he had received an anonymous telephone call in October from someone offering to snatch the doctor, but denies organising or taking part in the abduction. He has been put under official investigation for his role in the kidnapping and appeared before two judges for questioning today.
Police found Krombach, 74, who had been convicted of the manslaughter of Bamberski's daughter by a French court in absentia – after an anonymous caller with an "eastern European accent" tipped them off. Bamberski, 72, who is of Polish origin, and was in Mulhouse at the time, is believed to have made the call.
Krombach was taken into custody, as was Bamberski.
The snatching of Krombach two months ago brought to light the story of this heartbroken but determined father's relentless crusade on behalf of his daughter.
Year after year, Bamberski, with the help of private detectives, locals and supporters of his campaign "Justice for Kalinka" made sure he knew where Krombach was living and working. He also made sure the doctor not only knew he knew, but was aware he would never give up.
Kalinka Bamberski died in mysterious circumstances in July 1982 while on holiday with her mother and stepfather, Krombach, at Lake Constance in southern Germany. She was found in her bed one morning with needle wounds on her arms and a minor injury to her genitals.
Krombach said the death was an accident after he injected her with a substance used to combat anaemia to help her tan |
was 20 years ago."More than six months have passed. Being the only person who fully knows what happened that day, Detective Rose Yancey now carries dark secrets of her own. Zade is about to take control once more and things are really going to get Jacked Up!
"Jacked Up" is volume two in Forward Comix’s "Nowhere Man”, a crime drama / sci-fi psychological thriller. The volume will be released starting this summer in three 7"x10" trade paperback books. Each book will be approximately 50 pages in full color!
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The goals for this campaign are simple:
1) Provide pre-order copies of the first book in the “Jacked Up” volume.
2) Fund the completion of books two and three in this volume. Some reward levels will allow you to pre-order and receive books two and three as soon as they are completed.
New to the series? No problem. There are reward levels that will allow you to get copies of “Nowhere Man: You Don’t Know Jack” books 1 - 3 from a new print run, plus the full "Jacked up" volume. You will be getting a total of SIX BOOKS!!
The series has had many highlights including nominations, 5 star reviews, featured in press and blogs.
Accolades for "Nowhere Man: You Don't Know Jack" books 1-3
NOMINATED FOR THREE GLYPH COMICS AWARDS 2014
(Best Artist • Best Male Character • Best Cover)
WINNER FOR BEST MALE CHARACTER
GLYPH COMICS AWARDS 2014
NOMINATED FOR THE URBAN ACTION SHOWCASE
COMICS CREATOR AWARD 2013 & 2014
"a REALLY VISUALLY STRIKING comic book series." – Comic Book Resources
"looking for THE NEXT OBSESSION, say hello to Jack" – Games Fiends
"SOMETHING DIFFERENT in the world of Indie comics." – Examiner.com
"...SO DEEP, you will need a shovel to dig your way out." – ComicsToRead.net
"SWEET AS HELL!!" – Canned Air Podcast
"a character that many of us can easily relate to." – Comic Box, NJ.com
Pick of the Week. "An amazing work of 'GRAPHIC MAGICRY'" – Book Case TV (Episode #309, starting at 25:43)
("Jacked Up" sample pages)
Early reviews for "Nowhere Man: Jacked Up" book one
Editor’s Pick. “One of those comic book series I want people to keep their eyes on, and not just for the gorgeous art. The story is DIVERSE, COMPLEX and UNEXPECTED, and yes the ART IS AMAZING.” – Ladies of the Round Table
"OMG!!! Great story, amazing art, badass characters!" – Canned Air Podcast
“A GRIPPING TALE of obsession, love and loss. A hardcore read for anyone who loves stunning art and the darker side of a sci-fi conspiracy thriller. – Suzy Dias, 7 Robots
In a morass of "Everything is the same" Jerome Walford's brilliant comic, Nowhere Man is not only a beacon of hope but a refreshing breath of fresh air, as he manages to successfully craft a highly-readable, thoroughly engrossing, and completely entertaining tale by writing an actual story, and in this fashion, clearly proves that he is perhaps the most astonishingly capable and brilliant writer of his generation. – Robert J. Sodaro, Examiner.com
BONUS CONTENT:
"Jacked Up" book one will also feature art from multiple Glyph Comics Awards Winner and Eisner Award Nominee, N Steven Harris (Watson and Holmes, Ajala) and the amazingly talented, Caanan White (Uber, The Harlem Hellfighters).
$3,000 STRETCH GOAL
Thank you page listing all backers
(More goals to be added if the pace picks up.)
It is a modest minimum goal, but I'm really hoping to outperform it. A significant fund raise here will me dedicate more time to finishing and coloring the art for "Jacked Up" books two and three. A lot of the pages are highly detailed like the double page spread WIP shown below.After months of planning, a group led by gambling giant Caesars Entertainment Corp. is expected to get the green light Tuesday to build a 3,750 slot-machine casino ringed with restaurants a few blocks from M&T; Bank Stadium in Baltimore.
Maryland's slots location commission — which has been considering an application by CBAC Gaming since September — is scheduled to vote on the plan when it meets Tuesday. The Las Vegas-based gambling company has teamed up with a number of local partners, including Baltimore financier and philanthropist Eddie C. Brown.
"We're hoping to be in a position to make the award,"Donald C. Fry, the commission chairman and president of the Greater Baltimore Committee, said Monday.
The vote comes as the General Assembly is set to return to Annapolis next week for a special session to consider major changes to the state's nascent gambling program. Proposed legislation would authorize a sixth casino in Maryland and allow table games like poker at all six. Voters would have the final say in November.
The extra casino would be in the Washington suburbs, about 45 miles south of the new Baltimore site. Caesars officials say they could accept the additional competition as long as they could offer table games, which the casino brand is known for. The company runs the popular World Series of Poker tournaments.
The Baltimore casino would operate under the Harrah's name. As planned, it would be Maryland's second largest when it opened in mid-2014. Company officials estimate it would bring in about $324 million annually in state taxes. Through a separate city tax, Baltimore expects another $16 million a year. MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blake says she would use much of the cash to reduce the city's property tax.
CBAC Gaming was the only group to submit a qualified bid last September to build the city casino. It included 27 principals — so many that a minibus was required to transport them all during a site visit last fall. The group has since swelled to 37.
"We anticipate a decision, we can't comment beyond that," said Robert Ruben, an attorney for CBAC.
The group was far more effusive in a recent letter to Baltimore city lawmakers, writing that it awaited the slots commission decision with "great excitement" and promising its casino would "anchor" economic development and growth in the neighborhood.
Plans call for a two-story, 3,750 slot machine casino on Russell Street.
Caesars CEO Gary Loveman pledged in November that he would bring a "world-class" casino to Baltimore. He said it would attract gamblers from across the country and the world.
However, Rawlings-Blake has since said that the company would build a "slots barn" — shorthand for a cheaply built facility — unless the state allows table games like blackjack and poker. Currently, state law allows only slot machines. The mayor is among those who have been pushing for a special session so the General Assembly could vote on a bill to allow table games.
Loveman and others in the Caesars group also have supported proposed changes to the gambling program. Jan Jones, an executive vice president with Caesars, said the city casino could be the "nation's next great destination location."
Members of Baltimore's House delegation have been skeptical. Several have said they believe the city's interests would be best met by adding table games — but not the competition of a sixth casino.
"We are just interested in making sure that Baltimore as well as Caesars gets the best possible deal," said Del. Talmadge Branch, a Baltimore Democrat. "We do want Caesars to get this because we do want a casino in Baltimore."
The Baltimore license was supposed to have been awarded in early June, but the addition of new investors required additional background checks.
Some in Annapolis have accused the Caesars-led group of "slow walking" the background-check process to buy time as state Democratic leaders considered the changes to Maryland's gambling program. But Fry blamed the delay on a separate work group in gaming expansion that met in June and poached his staff.
If the license is awarded Tuesday, the group would still have 60 days to settle a land agreement with Baltimore. Unlike most of the state's casinos, Baltimore's gambling site is on city-owned land, which adds a layer of bureaucracy to the approval process.
Tuesday will be the second time that the Video Lottery Facility Location Commission has considered licensing a city casino. In December 2009, the commission rejected an application by the Baltimore City Entertainment Group, a Canadian-led outfit.
The rejection resulted in litigation, which delayed the process.
"I think we are all eager to move forward and make this happen," said James King, a former Republican delegate who is on the state commission. "I haven't received any information that would deter me from supporting it."
annie.linskey@baltsun.com
http://www.twitter.com/annielinskey
Who is CBAC Gaming?
A state commission is likely to decide today whether CBAC Gaming should get a license to open a slots casino in Baltimore. Here's who makes up the company, and how much they own:
•Caesars Baltimore Investment Co. (52 percent) Company is wholly owned by Caesars Entertainment Corp., which runs more than 50 casinos in the U.S. and overseas. Key players include Leon Black, a billionaire investor.
•Rock Gaming Mothership (37 percent) Subsidiary of a company that owns Cleveland's new casino and another set to open in Cincinnati next year. Principal executive is Daniel Gilbert, who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA.
•Stron-MD Limited Partnership (5 percent) Limited liability corporation controlled by Belinda Stronach, daughter of Magna Entertainment Group founder Frank Stronach, whose company owns Pimlico and Laurel, among other race tracks. Belinda Stronach is a former member of Canada's Parliament.
•CVPR Gaming Holdings LLC (4 percent) An affiliate of Caves Valley Partners, a group of local business people that includes Anthony Deering, former CEO of the Rouse Co., and Steven B. Fader, CEO of MileOne Automotive Group. Also involved in CVPR are Michael Bronfein, CEO of Remedi SeniorCare and a founder of NeighborCare, and Theo Rodgers, a prominent African-American developer in Baltimore.When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, they created walled-off ghettos in the larger cities to concentrate and imprison the Jewish residents.
Henryk Ross worked as a news and sports photographer in the city of Lodz. Once in the city’s ghetto, he was employed by the Department of Statistics to shoot identification photos and propaganda images of the factories which used Jewish slave labor to produce supplies for the German Army.
When not on the job, he documented the horrific realities of the ghetto, at tremendous personal risk. Peeking his lens through holes in walls, cracked doorways, and the folds of his overcoat, he captured scenes of starvation, disease, and executions.
As tens of thousands of Jews were deported from the ghetto to the death camps at Chelmno nad Nerem and Auschwitz, he kept shooting.
He also captured tiny sparks of joy — plays, concerts, celebrations, weddings — each one an act of resistance against a dehumanizing regime.Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks defends President Donald Trump’s recent criticism of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a new campaign Ad released Friday.
Brooks, who has previously criticized McConnell, said Trump is “absolutely right” to be frustrated with the Senate Majority Leader because of the Senate’s failure to pass ObamaCare repeal legislation, and slams his opponent in the race, Republican Sen. Luther Strange.
“You’re absolutely right Mr. President, and Luther Strange and Mitch McConnell, they are dead wrong,” Brooks says in the ad. “They have failed you on ObamaCare, building the wall, balancing the budget.”
WATCH:
Brooks is running against Strange for Attorney General Jeff Sessions old Senate seat, which Strange currently holds due to a February appointment. Strange must win a special election to finish out the term and faces two primary challengers — Brooks and former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore.
“McConnell and Strange are weak, but together, we can be strong,” Brooks says in the ad, gearing up to use a famous line from “The Apprentice.” “Mr. President, isn’t it time we tell McConnell and Strange: ‘You’re fired?'”
Trump formally endorsed Strange in a tweet Tuesday, a decision pro-Trump candidate Brooks slammed. Brooks asked Trump to reconsider his endorsement in a tweet Wednesday.
McConnell has backed Strange. A Runoff election date has been set on Sept. 26 in the event no candidate reaches the crucial 50 percent mark. (RELATED: Mo Brooks Don’t Want Mitch No Mo [VIDEO])
“Make no mistake: a vote for Luther Strange is a vote for Mitch McConnell,” a source close to Brooks’ Senate campaign told The Daily Caller News Foundation regarding the Brooks ad. “The Trump agenda is dead with McConnell and Strange. It’s time to fire them both.”
The source close to the campaign said the ad is being funded completely by Brooks’ campaign and is currently running statewide in “heavy rotation” throughout election day.
Polling shows the Alabama special election will be extremely close despite Trump endorsing Strange.
Follow Henry Rodgers On Twitter
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.Anti-Gentrification Protesters Plan To Take Over The 606 Tuesday Evening
By Rachel Cromidas in News on May 16, 2016 8:59PM
(By Braden Nesin/Chicagoist)
Activists dedicated to fighting gentrification in Chicago's lower income communities are taking their calls for more affordable housing to The 606 Tuesday evening.
Since the elevated trail and public park network that stretches through Wicker Park, Bucktown, Logan Square and Humboldt Park was built last year, The 606 has become a focal point for many concerned that rising property taxes will push many of the Northwest Side's longtime residents out of their homes. To raise awareness about the city's lack of affordable housing and call for property tax reforms, activists say over 600 of them will hit the trail Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., when many joggers and cyclists are out getting a workout in or commuting home.
They're also calling for local aldermen and other community leaders to support two new proposed city ordinances that address property tax rebates and home teardown fees. Property taxes have been an especially hot issue in Chicago since Mayor Rahm Emanuel pledged to raise the city's property taxes by nearly $600 million to make up for the city's budget shortfall. Many residents of communities around The 606, also known as the Bloomingdale Trail, have said they're already seeing their property taxes jump as the county re-assesses their property values, and some say the advent of The 606 is to blame.
The protest is organized by the Logan Square Neighborhood Association as part of its 54th Annual Congress, and organizers say six aldermen (Roberto Maldonado, Deb Mell, Joe Moreno, Ariel Reboyras, Carlos Rosa and Milly Santiago) have pledged to attend. Ralliers will meet at Stowe Elementary School's auditorium at 3444 W. Wabansia Ave. at 5 p.m. and then head north to the trail.
The group's proposed Property Tax Rebate Ordinance would call for the city to give tax relief to certain low-income and working-class community members who own homes in neighborhoods like Humboldt Park that are feeling the squeeze of gentrification, and give tax relief to two-to-four-flat owners who offer "stable, affordable" rents. The 606 Pilot District Teardown Fee Ordinance would require the city to charge higher fees to developers and property owners demolishing existing buildings to make way for new construction, according to a statement released by organizers. Single family homes in the district, for example, would cost a builder $25,000 to demolish, while buildings with five or more units would cost $10,000 per unit to tear down. That money would go toward a "local impact fund" which would funnel the money toward building repair grants, neighborhood rental subsidies and affordable housing programs.Dark Horse and Joss Whedon first explored the “vampire slayer” world in the 2001-2003 8-issue miniseries Fray, widely available now in TPB. With an original script by Joss Whedon, conceived and written during the troubled period between Buffy seasons 5 and 6, Fray served several purposes for Whedon and the development of the comics legacy of Buffy and all the other famous Whedon characters, including the introduction of the Slayer’s Scythe, which would feature prominently in Buffy, Season 7, and the theme of a world without magic, which formed the crux of Buffy Season 8. It also presented a slayer story without our familiar characters, allowing Whedon to grow and enrich his mythology, and explore a visual world beyond what was possible on television.
Fray is the story of Melaka Fray, a spunky young girl living in the futuristic city of Haddyn (a future version of New York). The art, by Karl Moline and Andy Owens, presents this city very much in terms of The Fifth Element: flying cars, urban decay and a certain “cyberpunk” caste to the speech patterns of the characters. The city is populated by a variety of “monstrous” types, including mutants (or “Radies”) such as Gunther, her aquatic business associate (whose character design owes a great deal to Abe Sapien). Fray begins the story as a small-time criminal, who makes use of her considerable physical skills to steal items for Gunther’s organization and bring the spoils home to her slum district. After one such mission she returns home to find a classically monstrous demon, Urkonn, complete with cloven feet and horns, waiting for her with a message. Fray doesn’t trust Urkonn at first, but he begins telling her stories of a “Slayer” and a world of magic where one girl is chosen to fight the forces of darkness.
Urkonn introduces a crucial historical point: this is a world from which all (or most) magic has been drained. There may be scientifically-based mutants and monsters, but no magic. Except for “lurks”, strange creatures that are never seen in the daylight and drink the blood of the living. Urkonn explains that these “lurks” are actually vampires, and as the Slayer, it is Fray’s mission to combat them. But Fray herself has no interest in that particular mission, as she isn’t the chosen one as such, but the chosen one’s twin. She was born with a fraternal twin, named Harth, who had none of Fray’s physical gifts but a certain mental and emotional acuity. When Harth and Melaka were youths, Harth was taken by lurks and “turned” into a vampire himself. He is indeed the Lord of the vampires and the story’s chief antagonist, trying to re-open the portal to a magical world where he can rule over armies of vampires and demons. Fray’s mission becomes to defeat her own brother, who she had long ago given up for dead.
In terms of the Whedon universe, there are some fascinating echoes here. The notion that the Slayer could be effectively “split” into two individuals in terms of skills and then manipulated by the forces of darkness is a novel notion for a mythology that has previous postulated a single slayer born unto each generation. Harth himself as a “male slayer” is also an intriguing character, especially given that he is turned into vampire. Since the very beginning of the Buffy series, the question of turning a slayer was lingered on the periphery of the mythology without ever quite being addressed. In Fray we get to see something of the possibilities presented by that scenario. The trajectory of a young girl receiving, and resisting, the call to be a slayer is of course very familiar to Buffy fans, and here it is given some superficial spin (Urkonn is not strictly speaking a Watcher, and Fray is not strictly speaking a complete Slayer). And when Urkonn introduces Fray to the Slayer’s scythe, a weapon specifically designed for killing vampires with an axe on one end for decapitation and a sharpened wooden stake on the other for driving through hearts, an important piece of the Whedon universe clicks into place.
As a comic book, Fray delivers on the genre expectations with some characteristically great Whedon dialogue. For example, when Fray shoots Urkonn in an early scene, he reminds her, “Bullets cannot harm me,” to which she responds by pulling the trigger on her laser/energy weapon and saying, “What’s a bullet?” Fight scenes are played out with excruciating detail and this may indeed be the weak spot of Fray: too much energy spent on making the fight scenes seem elaborate and “large scale” and not enough on subtle interactions between characters. Fray’s facial expressions, for example, sometimes lean a bit too much towards Manga for my taste, and the severe thinness of her and many of the other characters contrast with the variety of body types found in the Buffy TV series. Occasionally the fight scenes get a bit on the “big” side, focusing on each and every aspect of each thrust and parry to the point where story and clarity are somewhat lost in the shuffle. The relationship between Fray and her older sister, Erin, a law-enforcement officer, reaches for territory beyond cliché but never quite gets there. And Fray’s final decision regarding Urkonn, her watcher, seems misguided, given the amount of mentorship and information she will need to complete her (presumably) many future missions.
But Fray is an important piece of the Buffy puzzle. In blending the Buffy-style magical universe with the science-fiction Firefly universe, Whedon attempts an ambitious marriage of all of his mythical worlds. Fray and her universe will be seen again in Buffy Season 8, as well as an explanation of how her magic-less world came to be. Perhaps significantly, future appearances of Fray will be illustrated by artists other than Moline and Owens, perhaps responding to their slightly incompatible style, although they deserve a great deal of credit for realizing Whedon’s first all-original comic book vision.
For Buffy fans, particularly those who wish to explore the comic book incarnations of their favourite characters, Fray is an important piece of the mythic puzzle. For others, it might seem simply puzzling, but it would work as a standalone piece of derring-do set in the future with a strong female hero. Perhaps that alone is enough to recommend it.
Next time, we’ll take a look at Tales of the Vampires and Tales of the Slayers, anthology comic pieces that truly established the comic world that Buffy and her friends were about to inhabit.Grab yourself a sipper and let's get to know each other.
So, what is Workhorse Rye?
THANKS FOR ASKING. Workhorse Rye is a progressive whiskey and bitters company based in San Francisco, California that makes organic rye whiskeys aged in wine barrels. Whiskey has been made and aged in generally the same fashion since its conception hundreds of years ago, and because of all the room for experimentation, we like to make our own path.
Our products are designed for those who care about craft beverages of all kinds. Given that our whiskey comes from craft beer and that we use wine barrels and coffee, we believe the whiskeys and bitters we make cross boundaries in a way that those who say they are "typically not a whiskey person" will be pleasantly surprised.
Bitters are classic and crucial components of a cocktail; they are basically complex flavor extracts, like the vanilla extract added to a batch of cookies. They have been prized for centuries for their digestion benefits and flavor additions. Our methods of making bitters, and implementing them into food, desserts, and drinks are quite distinct, as described in more detail below. The main difference, we use a base of rye whiskey where most use neautral spirit (vodka). This brings new layers of flavor that are usually not seen in bitters.
What are you trying to accomplish?
Again, sweet of you to ask. We are trying to raise money to simply make more whiskey and bitters to bring to your local quality-focused cocktail bars and your home. The more money we raise, the more communities we can partner with a supremely organic and creative product. (for more information on whether our whiskey is available on the shelf in your local liquor store, please read the FAQs)
If we reach our goal of $25,000 we can expand our selection of California and New York specific products (and sell directly to you online internationally), however if we get to $50,000 or beyond we can establish new relationships with organic rye farmers, and partner with other whiskey loving cities and countries.
We think the level of quality that craft beer and wine makers have established hasn't been followed in mass within the spirit industry, and we aim to change that. Because of that, as a company we are focused on:
1. Crafting uniquely delicious whiskeys with odd recipes and aging techniques -- you will not see these recipes and methods anywhere else
2. Sourcing ingredients from sustainable and organic agriculture. We want future generations to drink delicious things too. It is important to us to educate the consumer on our practices, and make sure that agriculture is brought back into the spirits discussion, as it has been left out for too long. This stuff comes from plants, and how we choose to treat and grow those plants effects not only the final product but the environment and the economy. We are very passionate about this, and we know this can be a personal conviction, but regardless you can taste the difference
3. Drinking better and drinking with intention -- we want our brand to portray craftsmanship and intention in everything that we do -- we are focused more on education than we are actual drinking
4. Building community through teaming up with like-minded brewers, bartenders, wine makers, and farmers in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York to make whiskeys specific to both regions.
5. Supporting American made products -- From the glass we use to the whiskey inside the glass, our company supports our neighbors, this is so dear to us and will never change
Got it. So, who is Workhorse Rye?
Workhorse Rye was founded by Rob Easter & David Gordon in 2011 in a foggy backyard in the Mission District of San Francisco. Educated at Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago, Rob brought the knowledge back to San Francisco inspired to make something completely different from anything offered previously. In the past two years we've managed to build a solid archive of very unique whiskeys all while funding this from our day jobs (Rob is a bartender and distiller at Kings County Distillery, while David is an artist) and a little help from a couple friends.
Since then, a lot has happened. We've been pouring our whiskeys at cocktail and food events and for critical tastemakers, bartenders, sommeliers, chefs, and of course our thirsty friends all around the country in order to develop and critique our process.
We want to be as independent as possible, so self-financing the slow and steady way has been our route. Acquiring local organic grain requires a lot of buying power. So far we have been creative and resourceful enough to get the good stuff, but to move forward we could use a kick start!
Now we are ready to offer these products to all our favorite bars and most importantly to YOU! RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.
Brewing what will become Workhorse Rye at ThirstyBear Organic Brewery in San Francisco
Our first two whiskeys we are releasing this spring in California are called Palehorse and Darkhorse. They both have our distinct flagship recipe but differ in their methods of aging. We've also partnered with coffee professional Four Barrel to develop a coffee rye bitters to be released soon.
Watch the videos below to learn more.
PALEHORSE
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Palehorse is aged in used whiskey barrels (like Scotch and Tequila are aged) which in the end makes a Frankenstein whiskey of sorts. A Frankenstein whiskey in that the recipe is very American (rye) but the aging style lands somewhere in between Scotch and Japanese whisky (used American oak barrels).
Tasting notes: Palehorse starts with a spicy apple cider and sweet malt mouthfeel, finishes with a mild toasty oak aftertaste. You could say it smells like a rye but drinks like a rye mixed with a fruity and smoke-free Speyside Scotch.
DARKHORSE
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Darkhorse is aged in used French Oak red wine barrels from a number of wineries inside the city of San Francisco and in Napa. Each release of Darkhorse will have a hand-written notation of which winery the barrels came from. This type of batch-to-batch distinction lends a sort of fleeting nature to each release, and we think that makes each barrel rather special.
Tasting notes: Darkhorse has an upfront and dominating flavor of chocolate covered strawberry, then lingers to a lighter port, leaving a baking spice and jam note to hold on to. Its quite bright overall. We like to think it drinks like a cross between an aged rye and a Burgundy. We think that mainly because it is a fact with empirical evidence.
COFFEE RYE BITTERS
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The challenge in trying to extract the essence of a coffee bean is oxidation. Coffee decays rapidly, which smells and tastes rough! Because of that we went straight our friends Four Barrel, proper experts to tackle this issue. No staleness in our juice!
Tasting notes: WHR Coffee Rye Bitters behave in many ways, depending on what you add them to. If you dash a bit on top of an iced coffee, you get an herbal, spiced drink similar to a New Orleans Style Coffee. Utilized in a classic cocktail like the Old Fashioned, you get a red fruit and coffee tone, underhanded with a touch of citrus and pepper/rye spice. If you add a few dashes to a salad dressing or a batch of cookies, prepare for elevation.
Testimonials
"I met the Workhorse guys back in 2011 at SF Cocktail week, just after they had made their first batch of Palehorse. Immediately, I was won over by their unique approach of making whiskey styles that hadn't been done before. Workhorse whiskeys are malty, fragrant, layered -- really just fantastic. I've had the privilege of tasting their whiskeys and bitters for almost three years now, and I've been a fan of everything they've put in a glass. The fact that there are bartenders behind the brand makes Workhorse products even more interesting, and also purpose-designed for our trade. Rob is one of my go-to bartenders for cocktail events that I produce in New York, and we always have a great time working together. I'm looking forward to working with these guys for a long time to come, both as a friend and as a supporter of their products."
Anthony Caporale
Founder of Art of the Drink
"These guys played a major part in a lovely NY Fashion Week party we co-hosted last year in Brooklyn. This particular event was really buzzing, with the strongest point of focus being on the Workhorse cocktails (all puns fully intended). It was as enjoyable straight as it was mixed with their coffee bitters and other fresh and choice accoutrements. At most of these sort of events you'll find watered down well beverages... but this was not allowed by Workhorse, instead the drinks were brilliant."
Brendon Healy
Rising Sun Jean Co. in Pasadena, Ca
"The guys at Workhorse are constantly working towards creating the best elixirs imaginable, and push spirituous boundaries constantly. Whether it is creating rye whiskeys with a higher proportion of rye grain than many would dream of, concocting fortified spirits from grain where others would use grapes, or creating magical cocktail possibilities with via an acute sense of what works in bitters, Workhorse is surrounded by a sense of excitement and possibility. These guys are beyond the zeitgeist, they are making things happen. Tasty, Tasty things!"
Greg Brown
Manager of Monk's Kettle in San Francisco
How do you actually make this whiskey?
We are "gypsy distillers"!
What? YES. Gypsies. That means we don't *own* a distillery. Rather we utilize other people's distilleries, but make the recipes and products ourselves. This allows for lower overhead, and for all capital to go directly into making whiskey. Its already a popular and viable model for brewers and wine makers, so why not utilize those principles for distilling?
We own our brand and recipes, but we lease equipment, time, and space when appropriate. We always do the appropriate thing. Speaking of which, did we mention that our whiskey comes from organic grains? WE DID? Right...
We want to have the best impact possible on your taste buds AND the environment. The most appropriate option in our eyes is committing to organic. Simple as that.
ALL of the proceeds from this campaign go into making more organic rye whiskeys and building out our facility to better develop bitters and spirits around the country.
The more we raise on Kickstarter, the more whiskey we can make, and the more towns with which we can partner.
What is whiskey?
Did you know that whiskey comes from beer?
IT'S TRUE!
Whiskey is essentially distilled (but hop-less) beer. That's a little oversimplified, but pretty close. We make malted rye, barley, and wheat beers at Thirsty Bear Organic Brewery. We love working with them and we love their commitment to quality.
We distill said beers on Treasure Island in an old Navy jailhouse. It's kind of an eerie place, but the joint makes great booze. Seen below is the 250 gallon capacity still with which we have produced our whiskeys for the past two years.
So why is your whiskey so "progressive"?
Outstanding question. In short, long fermentation, distinct recipes, and used French oak red barrel aging put our whiskeys in a league of their own.
We like the longer ferment because it brings fruity and estery flavors up front, like a Belgian ale. "Long" fermentation in this case means a little over two weeks. Most beer made for whiskey (the term for a brew made to be distilled is wash) is fermented between three and five days. We like to ferment a bit longer, a little over two weeks. If you're a brewer, you know that yeast type, temperature, and fermentation length are huge factors that make or break the flavor of your beer.
We like dreaming up unique recipes. Bourbon Whiskey and Rye Whiskey are the whiskeys for which America is known. Simply put, a Bourbon recipe is mainly corn and topped off with a little barley and maybe some rye, depending on the maker. Recipes for Rye Whiskey are at least half rye, with corn and barley filling out the rest. Scotch Whisky recipes are either Single Malt (all malted barley) or Blended (a mix of Single Malt and other neutral whiskys from corn and wheat). For our first recipe of 70% Malted Rye, 20% Barley, 10% Wheat, we took inspiration from all these recipes but definitely landed on our own breed of a cross between American Whiskey and Scotch Whisky. You won't see this recipe on any other whiskey currently on the market.
We like big barrels and used barrels. That means that the spirit gets to do the talking, and its not masked by a lot of barrel taste since the previous liquid took a lot of that barrel taste out. Using big barrels means that the spirit can take a little longer to age than other craft whiskeys on the market, but we're ok with that because taste, not timing, is our guide.
We like French Oak. Lightly toasted French Oak barrels give a spirit taste and smell that is WAY different than a new charred American oak barrel, like those legally required for aging Bourbon. French Oak barrels are a bit more subtle and nuanced in their flavor addition, just a softer wood in general. We use both, but are very conservative in our New American Oak usage and quite flaming liberal with our Used French Oak usage. The construction of French Oak barrels is a little more tedious and time intensive than American Oak barrels, and thusly they come with a fancier price tag.
The exclusive use of French Oak red wine barrels for aging whiskeys is exceptionally atypical and it is one of the reasons why our rye whiskey is super unique, not to mention delicious. Our favorite source of barrels is Sutton Cellars right here in the city of San Francisco. Yep! Wine made in the city!
Carl Sutton of Sutton Cellars and Rob Easter of Workhorse Rye
"For Gentleman and Savage Alike!"
What does that even mean?
When doing initial "market research" (read: drinking and exploring other whiskeys) before founding Workhorse Rye, we caught wind of a couple holes in the whiskey world. Rather than try to compete with big brands with deep pockets, we decided to carve a niche and stay true to that. Which is a convenient choice because we couldn't compete with them anyway! The two areas we found being under served are:
I. Whiskeys with odd recipes and experimental aging techniques.
II. Truly handmade, organic products that didn't cost an arm and a leg.
For us, its important that we satisfy the connoisseur of whiskey as well as the rookie. There also needs to be a few whiskeys in our arsenal that even WE could actually afford to buy... Hence we are hellbent on satisfying these metaphorical gentlemen and savages simultaneously.
That's one of the reasons we chose to be gypsy distillers; we are able to keep our bottle cost a little more manageable, AND we can distill our product almost anywhere.
We have put in a year of planning and preparation for distilling in New York. We are hoping this Kickstarter will propel us enough to start full production in New York as well as San Francisco. While Rob worked for "New York City's Oldest Whiskey Distillery" Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn (which by the way is the *oldest* at a mere four years old!) the idea to make Workhorse Rye in a distillery in New York was an obvious |
This is The Globe's daily politics newsletter. Sign up to get it by e-mail each morning.
POLITICS BRIEFING
By Chris Hannay (@channay)
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In a busy week for Parliament Hill's social calendar – the annual press gallery dinner, a summer social hosted by Rona Ambrose at Stornoway and a garden party at the Speaker of the House of Commons' historic Farm – one of the highlights was last night's gathering for the Prime Minister, where PMO staff, Liberal ministers and Hill journalists mingled. And one of the biggest eyebrow raisers of the night was where it was hosted: the back lawn of 24 Sussex.
Normally this wouldn't be surprising: 24 Sussex has for decades been the official living quarters of the prime minister and his or her family, and the grounds have hosted their fair share of shindigs. But since becoming PM, Justin Trudeau, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau and their children have lived on the nearby Rideau Hall grounds, as years of neglect and postponed renovations have taken their toll on the historic home.
Does last night's gathering indicate a return to the home Mr. Trudeau grew up in? Probably not any time soon. Despite brief rain showers, guests were kept out on the grass outside the building, and the National Capital Commission's official line remains that no decision about the property's future has yet been made.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW IN OTTAWA
> In other personal Trudeau-family news, one of the nannies has been let go and another will be hired with personal funds.
> The Senate will continue debating the assisted-death bill today, and will consider at least 50 proposed amendments. With the Supreme Court's deadline passed the medical procedure is now legal, and Alberta has given the clearest signs yet it won't prosecute physicians involved in the process.
> The Liberals made a campaign pledge to hold an "open and transparent" tendering process to replace Canada's fighter jets, but the government appears to be backing off that promise. A pair of CF-18s did see a bit of action in Ottawa last month after a drone was spotted outside the city's airport.
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> The federal government is looking outside the public service to recruit executives for the bureaucracy. In related news, Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board, says they will change the rules around bargaining with unions as talks continue to drag on.
> A survey by the Environics Institute suggests non-indigenous Canadians are becoming more concerned about the challenges that indigenous Canadians face.
> And your fun read of the day: Why there's an Istanbul-based clothing chain named "Paul Martin Canadian." (If you'd like prime-ministerial merchandise from closer to home, the Liberals have started selling Justin Trudeau cookie cutters.)
REGIONAL ROUNDUP
> Ontario: The provincial government will release details of its climate action plan this morning. Premier Kathleen Wynne says at least 40 per cent of all provincial appointments to boards and agencies will go to women by 2019, a move that could help recruitment of female executives in the corporate world. And General Motors of Canada will announce later this week it will hire 1,000 engineers to boost its research division.
> Newfoundland and Labrador: The governing Liberals are introducing a form of carbon pricing to reduce emissions.
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> New Brunswick: The Liberals have created the first Minister of Celtic Affairs, a portfolio reminiscent of Nova Scotia's Minister of Gaelic Affairs.
> Alberta: The Fort McMurray wildfires have left the area's soil with a toxic level of contaminants.
WHAT EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT
Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail): "The vast majority of serious economists and think tanks believe Britain would be an economic loser following withdrawal from the EU. As former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney and current Bank of England Governor Mark Carney (a Canadian) have argued: There can be no guarantees about what kind of deal Britain might get with the EU. Why trade what works economically for the unknown?" (for subscribers)
John Ibbitson (Globe and Mail): "Justin Trudeau's solution – to appoint senators based on merit who sit as independents – has had an immediate impact. And as it happens, Bill C-14 offers the Senate the perfect opportunity to show what it can do: carefully study and thoughtfully amend a hugely important bill – on nothing less than the right to death – that the House passed in haste." (for subscribers)
Colin Robertson (Globe and Mail): "In short, the relationship between the foreign service and the Harper government was one of mutual contempt. Now, with that decade of darkness behind us, we need a compendium of best practices – our own and those of other nations' – to encourage traditionalists to think out-of-the-box. Canada's diplomats need to change their mindset from that of compliance in just carrying out government orders to one of policy innovation and public diplomacy." (for subscribers)
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Matt Gurney (National Post): "If Canada is to buy new jets, we need to buy enough of them, and quickly enough, to make a real difference. We will have to invest heavily in infrastructure and training and simulators. Super Hornets evolved from the same F-18 jet that Canada first bought in the 1980s, but they are, in many ways, very different aircraft and would involve significant expense. Even as an interim solution, the air force would need enough of them to be able to actually deploy in strength."
Edmonton Journal editorial board: "In a place [Fort McMurray] that, at times, has a reputation for cowboy attitudes, it's the best cowboy attributes shining through. People are pulling up to their homes and launching into the hard work of cleaning up. They are going heavy on good manners, not skimping on thank-yous, as they wait in lineups at the restaurants and stores opened with limited staff. And they are reaching out to help their neighbours – especially those displaced by the fire – offering spare rooms and help where possible."
Welcome to the Globe Politics newsletter! Let us know what you think.Content warning: Use of ableist slurs, uncensored.
Hello all! As of this post I am one of the newest writers for Teen Skepchick! To kick off my time writing here, I am going to introduce you all to an issue that we have to deal with when the skeptic community and the social justice community intersect, but that is far too often ignored. Namely, ableism as it manifests in a community full of smart folks.
When we discuss woo-pushers, snake-oil-salesmen, and science-deniers, there is an instinct to respond by insulting them regarding their perceived lack of intelligence. We laugh at them as we tell them how stupid they are for believing and pushing the things they do.
The way we go about doing this is not okay. Thing is, it isn’t just women who are turned away from the skeptic community due to the way they are seen and regarded by skeptics. Something similar happens with people with disabilities as well. Women are put off of this community when we throw sexist slurs at the people we argue against as a way to belittle them by comparing them to women; In the same sense, people with disabilities are told that they are not welcome here by people using ableist slurs as insults.
It should hopefully come as no surprise that calling someone a “retard” or its derivatives is absolutely not okay. And no, “special” is no better. The issue here is that what you are saying is “you lack intelligence, much like someone who is developmentally disabled.” As a mentally disabled person who knows many people with intellectual disabilities, this is absolutely, 100%, Not Okay. Many of the people I know with intellectual and learning disabilities are astoundingly brilliant, and even if they were not, it would be wrong to use a slur that they are often cruelly subjected to as a quick gotcha against someone who peddles nonsense. There is a world of difference between having trouble intellectually because of a disability and believing in non-scientific nonsense. People who believe in say, homeopathy, don’t (necessarily) have developmental disabilities, and should they have one, the two are not related. Plenty of developmentally and intellectually disabled people are, in fact, huge skeptics (Go ahead, get an autistic person started on anti-vaxxers.)
Now, beyond that we run into murkier territory– words like stupid or idiot. Many social justice versed people still feel it is okay to use these words to describe anti-skeptical people. I will argue that not only is this not okay, but not desirable. On one hand, it’s simply not accurate. Plenty of the people who push these things are not in the least unintelligent– they just use their intelligence to weasel their way out of sense-making arguments. And of course, words like stupid and idiot are used to insult those with intellectual disabilities, though many argue that “stupid” is something someone does, not something one is, but nonetheless these words have become tools of the kyriarchy that hurt and disempower disabled people. I, personally, am fond of the logic that even if you believe this about the word “stupid” and similar words, the loss you suffer by removing it from your vocabulary is less than the harm you cause by using it and othering disabled people.
This is about the point that even well-intentioned people start arguing about censorship and sanitizing their language, but I just can’t take the argument that language is lessened when you remove privilege-entrenched words.
Simply because, if not stupid, what do you call a woo-monger?
There’s wrong, for one. Or disingenuous. Or uninformed. Or a ridiculously underinformed fallacy-spouting nonsense-geyser. All far superior options, if you ask me– it’s similar to how, when we take away bigoted slurs to use as insults, we wind up using truly fabulous phrases like “asshat” and “douchenozzle.”
Removing undesirable words does not hurt us. It makes us more welcoming to underprivileged people, while forcing us to expand our vocabulary to be more specific and descriptive… and often, hilarious. We are entirely better off for the effort.
featured image courtesy of Laura Lewis via FlickrSEATTLE — Seattle filed a lawsuit Wednesday over President Donald Trump's executive order that threatens to withhold federal funds from communities that refuse to cooperate with efforts to find and deport immigrants in the country illegally.
Mayor Ed Murray said the order issued in January punishing "sanctuary cities" is unconstitutional and creates uncertainty around the city's budget.
Other governments have sued Trump over the sanctuary issue. San Francisco filed a lawsuit earlier this year, also saying the order was unconstitutional. California's Santa Clara County and two Massachusetts cities with large Latino populations - Chelsea and Lawrence - have also taken legal action.
The Justice Department said in a statement that "the American people want and deserve a lawful immigration system that keeps us safe and serves our national interest" and that the federal government will enforce relevant laws.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions reiterated this week that the Justice Department would deny grant money to cities that violate a federal law dealing with information-sharing among local police and federal authorities. Sessions said the cities are making their communities unsafe.
Murray challenged that claim.
"Apparently the Trump administration, their war on facts has now become a war on cities," Murray said during a news conference. "Let me be clear about the facts. We are not breaking any laws and we are prioritizing safety."
In 2017 the City of Seattle will receive $154 million from the federal government. Of that, $55 million will go towards the city’s operating expenses, another $99 million is allocated toward capitol project support.
"We are dealing with communities that are really afraid and we’re dealing with a situation where it’s really hard to plan a budget when you have inconsistent statements that are threatening our own budgets in our own cities," Murray said.
Under the order, Seattle could face at least $10.5 million in cuts to public safety programs, he added.
Trump's order violates the constitution by trying to make local law enforcement enforce federal immigration law, Murray said.
The order also makes communities less safe by forcing people underground, said City Attorney Pete Holmes.
When people are marginalized and made to fear police, they are less likely to come forward as witnesses to crime, Murray said.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court asks a judge to declare that Seattle is in compliance with the law and that the executive order is unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment and the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
"This administration has created an atmosphere of anxiety in cities across America and has created chaos in our politics," Murray said. "It is time for cities to stand up and ask the courts to put an end to the anxiety in our communities and the chaos in our system."Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pledged to boost Japan’s efforts to ensure the safety of nuclear power as one of its firms jointly won an order to build an atomic plant in Turkey, the first such order for a Japanese company since the Fukushima crisis started.
Earlier Tuesday, Abe and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed promoting bilateral economic cooperation. Japan aims to increase exports of large infrastructure to Turkey and other emerging economies in fields such as energy, health care and agriculture.
“Japan is responsible for helping improve the safety of atomic power in the world by sharing its experience and lessons from the accident,” Abe said at a joint news conference following the summit in Istanbul, referring to the Fukushima catastrophe.
Erdogan said Turkey needs nuclear power, showing his intent to call for more foreign investment in relevant projects.
During Abe’s visit, a joint venture established by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Areva SA of France reached agreement with the Turkish government on a project to construct a nuclear plant with four advanced reactors in the Black Sea province of Sinop.
The venture, Atmea, set up in 2007 and based in Paris, had obtained preferential negotiating rights with Ankara.
When last visiting Turkey in May, Abe agreed with Erdogan to provide the country with Japan’s civil nuclear technology — an accord necessary for Japanese manufacturers to be involved in such projects.
On Tuesday, Abe said he and Erdogan “discussed measures to promote economic cooperation, such as large infrastructure development.”
They had been expected to agree to launch preliminary talks for a bilateral free trade accord, but they ran out of time..HARDCORE fans of The Beatles legend John Lennon uncovered where in the grounds of his Surrey, southern England, home he hid his stash of LSD more than 40 years ago.
Builders digging up the lawn of his old house, Kenwood, came across the remains of a leather holdall containing several large broken glass bottles, The Sun reports.
Legend has it that Lennon buried a large quantity of the drug in his garden in 1967 when The Beatles declared they had given up drugs in favour of transcendental meditation.
But when the band returned from India, John decided he had been a bit hasty and tried to dig it up - but never found it.
Now fans are convinced these bottles contained the missing treasure - though they will never know for sure as the one bottle found intact had a cracked cork, so it was empty.
Originally published as Lennon fans uncover singer's LSD stashEventually, a device no bigger than your thumb could perform routine blood tests, without the need for needles, by using an optical microscope that shines a light through the skin to look directly at blood flowing through capillaries. The Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) researchers developing the device say they already have used their prototype to measure several key components of blood cell health.
The prototype device, currently around the size of a shoe box, relies on a technique called spectrally encoded confocal microscopy (SECM). It enables researchers to determine characteristics of individual blood cells by projecting a beam of light into them.
SECM creates images by splitting a beam of light into its color spectrum components. Researchers press a probe against the skin of a patient, and the light beam shines across a tiny blood vessel just below the skin’s surface. When blood cells cross the beam of light, they scatter the light’s rays. The researchers collect that light-based data and then use computer programs to translate it into 2-D images of the blood cells.
“We have invented a new optical microscope that can see individual blood cells as they flow inside our body,” said Lior Golan, a Technion graduate student working on the project. Golan and four co-authors published a paper describing the device this week in the open-access journal Biomedical Optics Express.
Blood draws for routine blood tests are minor but invasive procedures that can be exacerbated by patients’ fears of needles and the need for repeated tests. Various researchers have explored approaches for noninvasive blood monitoring by using ultrasound waves or electricity, but the techniques haven’t proven to provide precise measurements, and often are hampered by relatively low spatial resolution.
Studies also have explored using fluorescent dyes that are injected into the bloodstream to illuminate the specific blood components for viewing under a microscope, but those dyes could be harmful to patients.
To demonstrate their technique, the Technion researchers used the device to image the blood flowing through a capillary in the lower lip of a healthy volunteer. They found their SECM approach was able to identify and classify different types of leukocytes within the capillary, calculate the percent volume of the different cell types, and to show cellular flow dynamics with submicron resolution. The results from the SECM device correlated with results from conventional blood testing, the researchers said.
The device was able to detect blood vessels at depths ranging from 70 μm to 200 μm under the tissue surface by using a separate green LED light and a camera, which the researchers then incorporated into the system. Green light makes blood vessels appear dark, since hemoglobin absorbs light.
Each imaging session lasted only about 30 seconds, mainly because the subject had to sit very still for the device to work.
The device’s ability “to directly and continuously visualize blood cells flowing inside human patients' vessels has the potential of providing noninvasive measurement of important blood parameters such as hematocrit, mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and WBC [white blood cell] count, as well as for establishing new clinical indices derived from the cells' morphology and dynamics within their natural physiological environment,” the researchers said in their paper. “Continuous tracking of hematocrit levels could be useful for intra- and post-surgical monitoring of patients for detecting sudden changes in the circulation caused by internal bleeding, for example, and online monitoring of WBC concentration could be highly useful in critical care to detect a rapidly developing inflammatory process.”
The device is merely a prototype in its earliest stages, and it is years away from any clinical application, the Technion researchers cautioned. Work has begun on a second generation system that the researchers hope will have the ability to beam deeper into the body, which might expand the possible imaging sites beyond the inside lip. The lip was chosen initially because it’s a blood vessel-rich site that doesn’t contain any pigment that might block light, and because trauma patients don’t lose blood flow in their lips.
Golan said the team hopes to have a thumb-sized prototype in the next year.
Other researchers are experimenting with new techniques that might allow physicians to “see” blood cells beneath the skin. For example, photoacoustic tomography -- a technique that pairs the light absorption of colored molecules such as hemoglobin with the spatial resolution of ultrasound -- might allow physicians to examine lymph nodes in breast cancer patients without the need for dye tests or invasive procedures.
Source:
Golan L. et al. Noninvasive imaging of flowing blood cells using label-free spectrally encoded flow cytometry. Biomedical Optics Express. Published online 21 May 2012.Learn about the latest features in Unity 5.2 and see Unity’s development roadmap at the next meetup when Unity does a live broadcast to recap UNITE 2015 followed by a Q&A session hosted by Unity’s very own evangelist Carl Callewaert. This will also be a good networking opportunity for our community.
Date: November 18, 2015
Location: Qualcomm 5535 Morehouse Drive, San Diego, CA 92121.
Room: “S” Cafe
Event timeline:
Social networking starts at 6pm. Pizzas and soft drinks will be served.
Live broadcasting starts at 6:30pm
Social networking resumes after broadcasting ends around 8pm
Raffle:
At least one lucky winner will take home a brand new Beats Solo headphone, courtesy of Qualcomm Developer Network. There may be other surprises waiting for you.
Please note:
Qualcomm Developer Network is graciously sponsoring this event and will be the provider of our food and drinks.Your RSVP is therefore requested in order for us to prepare enough food for everyone to enjoy.
About Qualcomm Developer Network:
Qualcomm Developer Network (https://developer.qualcomm.com/) offers tools, technologies and resources to help developers innovate for future technologies. Whatever you’re building, whether it is high-performance apps, smart Internet of Things (IoT) devices, or immersive gaming experiences, Qualcomm Developer Network provides revolutionary technology to integrate into your own unique concepts and cutting-edge designs.
Link to Qualcomm Morehouse Map (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4lhXiDzW1xtdGFFMVBlUENyMUE/view?usp=sharing)Goshin, is on display at the United States National Arboretum.[1] John Naka's masterpiece,, is on display at the United States National Arboretum.
Bonsai (盆栽, literally “tray-planted” or "potted plant") is the art of aesthetic miniaturization of trees by training them and growing them in containers. Bonsai can be developed from seeds or cuttings, from young trees, or from naturally occurring stunted trees transplanted into containers. Most bonsai range in height from 5 centimeters (2 inches) to 1 meter (3.33 feet). Bonsai cultivation includes techniques for pruning roots and branches, wiring and shaping, watering, and repotting in various styles of containers. Bonsai may live for a century or more, if cared for properly, and prized specimens are handed down as family heirlooms.
Penzai (盆栽; pun-sai), the practice of cultivating single specimen trees in wooden trays or earthenware pots, originated in China during the Han dynasty and was introduced to Japan during the Kamakura period (1185-1333), along with Zen Buddhism. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the Japanese arts reached their peak, the art of bonsai became highly evolved. In the late nineteenth century, after Japan opened its doors to the world, increasing demand resulted in a commercial bonsai industry and the use of innovative techniques and plant species other than the traditional pines, azaleas, and maples.
History
Bonsai at garden show in Tatton Park (Cheshire)
Bonsai is believed to have originated in China nearly 2,000 years ago, during the Han Dynasty. "Bonsai" is a Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese penzai (盆栽; pun-sai), the practice of cultivating single specimen trees in wooden trays or earthenware pots. The trees were trained in naturalistic shapes, and the gnarled trunks of early specimens often looked like animals, dragons, and birds. Grotesque, animal-like trunk and root formations are still highly prized by the Chinese.[2] The practice eventually developed into new forms in parts of China, Korea, and Vietnam, but it reached its greatest level of sophistication in Japan.
Bonsai was introduced to Japan during the Kamakura period (1185-1333) along with Zen Buddhism. A possible reference to it in a Japanese scroll, dating to 1195, suggests that bonsai may have already arrived in Japan before the thirteenth century.[3] The Kasuga-gongen-genki, a picture scroll by Takashina Takakane (1309), contains the earliest confirmed Japanese record of dwarfed potted trees. A rhymed prose essay from the same period, Rhymeprose on a Miniature Landscape Garden, by the Japanese Zen monk Kokan Shiren, outlines the aesthetic principles for bonsai, bonseki, and garden architecture itself. Yoshida Kenko (1283–1351), a Japanese satirist, wrote a well-known quote, "To appreciate and find pleasure in curiously curved potted trees is to love deformity.”[4]
The Japanese used miniaturized trees grown in containers to decorate their homes and gardens.[5] By the fourteenth century, bonsai was viewed as a highly-refined art form. During the Tokugawa period (1603–1868), landscape gardening attained new importance when cultivation of plants such as azalea and maples became a pastime of the wealthy. Dwarf potted trees (鉢の木, hachi-no-ki, "a tree in a pot") were symbols of prestige among the aristocracy. At this time, naturally-dwarfed trees were transplanted from the wild; the practices of pruning and training did not develop until later.[6]
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the Japanese arts reached their peak, the art of bonsai became highly evolved. The containers used at that time seem to be slightly deeper than those used today. The main principle was now the removal of all but the most important parts of the plant, and its reduction to the most essential elements. Bonsai became popular among the general populace, increasing the demand for naturally-dwarfed wild trees and stimulating the development of artificial cultivation.
Different styles of bonsai began to emerge, as artists introduced other elements of cultural importance in their bonsai plantings, such as rocks, supplementary and accent plants, and even small buildings and people (the art of bon-kei). They also began to reproduce entire miniature natural landscapes (sai-kei).
After the Meiji Restoration (1868), when Japan opened itself to the world after 230 years of isolation, travelers to Japan began to spread the word of the miniature trees in ceramic containers which mimicked aged, mature wild trees in nature. In the latter part of the century, bonsai were displayed at exhibitions in London, Vienna, and at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900. The upsurge in demand led to commercial production by artists who used wire, bamboo skewers, and special growing techniques to train young trees to look like bonsai. Nurseries were dedicated solely to the growth and training of bonsai trees for export; and different plants, which were appropriate for other climates, which produced neater foliage and had suitable growth characteristics, came into use. Techniques such as raising trees from seed or cuttings, and the styling and grafting of unusual or tender material onto hardy root stock, were further developed.
Modern bonsai reflects changing tastes and the great variety of countries, cultures, and conditions in which it is now practiced. While Japanese bonsai artists still prefer to use traditional native species such pines, azaleas, and maples, bonsai growers in other countries are more open to innovation and novelty.[7]
The oldest known living bonsai trees are in the collection at Happo-en (a private garden and restaurant) in Tokyo, Japan, where there are bonsais between 400 and 800 years old.
Aesthetics
The cultivation of bonsai, like other Japanese arts such as tea ceremony and flower arranging, is considered a form of Zen practice. The combination of natural elements with the controlling hand of humans evokes meditation on life and the mutability of all things. A bonsai artist seeks to create a triangular pattern which gives visual balance and expresses the relationship shared by a universal principle (life-giving energy, or deity), the artist, and the tree itself. According to tradition, three basic virtues, shin-zen-bi (standing for truth, goodness and beauty) are necessary to create a bonsai.[8] The expression "heaven and earth in one container" refers to the fact that the bonsai, with its container and soil, is a separate entity, complete in itself, since its roots are not planted in the earth, yet part of nature. A bonsai is positioned off-center in its container because the center symbolizes the point at which heaven and earth meet, and should therefore be left unoccupied. The direct inspiration for bonsai are the gnarled, naturally-dwarfed trees that grow in rocky crevices and overhanging cliffs. The Japanese prize an aged appearance of the trunk and branches, and weathered-looking exposed upper roots, expressing the aesthetic concept of wabi-sabi, “nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.”
The bonsai artist does not duplicate nature, but rather expresses a personal aesthetic philosophy by manipulating it. Japanese bonsai are meant to evoke the essential spirit of the plant being used: In all cases, they must look natural and never show the intervention of human hands. There are several aesthetic principles which are for the most part unbroken, such as the rule that tree branches must never cross and trees should bow slightly forward, never lean back.[9]
The following characteristics are desirable in Japanese bonsai and other styles of container-grown trees:
Miniaturization. By definition, a bonsai is a tree which is kept small enough to be container-grown while otherwise fostered to have a mature appearance. One way in which bonsai are classified is according to size.
By definition, a bonsai is a tree which is kept small enough to be container-grown while otherwise fostered to have a mature appearance. One way in which bonsai are classified is according to size. Gravitas. A sense of physical weight, the illusion of mass, the appearance of maturity or advanced age, and the elusive quality of dignity.
A sense of physical weight, the illusion of mass, the appearance of maturity or advanced age, and the elusive quality of dignity. Leaf Reduction. Leaf reduction varies over the life cycle of a particular bonsai. A bonsai’s leaves might be allowed to attain full size for many years in order to encourage vigor and growth of some other aspect of the bonsai. Prior to exhibiting a bonsai, it is usually desirable to attain a degree of leaf reduction. Leaf reduction may be encouraged by pruning, and is sometimes achieved by the total exfoliation of a bonsai during one part of its growing season. Conifer needles are more difficult to reduce than other sorts of foliage.
Leaf reduction varies over the life cycle of a particular bonsai. A bonsai’s leaves might be allowed to attain full size for many years in order to encourage vigor and growth of some other aspect of the bonsai. Prior to exhibiting a bonsai, it is usually desirable to attain a degree of leaf reduction. Leaf reduction may be encouraged by pruning, and is sometimes achieved by the total exfoliation of a bonsai during one part of its growing season. Conifer needles are more difficult to reduce than other sorts of foliage. Lignification. This refers to the “woody-ness” of a bonsai’s trunk and branches so that they have a mature appearance. Typically the surface is encouraged to become rough and brown, but in some cases this aesthete will vary, such as in a birch tree bonsai attaining the white color and exfoliating bark of a mature specimen.
This refers to the “woody-ness” of a bonsai’s trunk and branches so that they have a mature appearance. Typically the surface is encouraged to become rough and brown, but in some cases this aesthete will vary, such as in a birch tree bonsai attaining the white color and exfoliating bark of a mature specimen. Nebari. Also known as "buttressing," nebari is the visible spread of roots above the growing medium at the base of a bonsai. Nebari helps a bonsai seem grounded and well-anchored and helps a tree look old, mature, and more akin to a full-sized tree.
Also known as "buttressing," is the visible spread of roots above the growing medium at the base of a bonsai. helps a bonsai seem grounded and well-anchored and helps a tree look old, mature, and more akin to a full-sized tree. Ramification. Ramification is the splitting of branches and twigs into smaller ones. It is encouraged by pruning and may be integrated with practices that promote leaf reduction.
Ramification is the splitting of branches and twigs into smaller ones. It is encouraged by pruning and may be integrated with practices that promote leaf reduction. Deadwood. Bonsai artists sometimes foster certain types of deadwood to be produced by and remain on a bonsai tree, just as scars or bare, dead branches may occur on full-sized trees. Cultivators use deadwood features called jin and shari to simulate age and maturity in a bonsai. Jin is the term used when the bark from an entire branch is removed to create the impression of a snag of deadwood. Shari denotes stripping bark from areas of the trunk to simulate natural scarring from a broken limb or lightning strike.
Bonsai artists sometimes foster certain types of deadwood to be produced by and remain on a bonsai tree, just as scars or bare, dead branches may occur on full-sized trees. Cultivators use deadwood features called and to simulate age and maturity in a bonsai. is the term used when the bark from an entire branch is removed to create the impression of a snag of deadwood. denotes stripping bark from areas of the trunk to simulate natural scarring from a broken limb or lightning strike. Curvature. Bonsai that achieve a sense of age while remaining straight and upright can be especially impressive, but many bonsai rely upon curvature of the trunk to give the illusion of weight and age. Curvature of the trunk that occurs between the roots and the lowest branch is known as tachiagari.
Cultivation
Bonsai are not genetically dwarfed plants. They can be created from nearly any tree or shrub species, and remain small through pot confinement and crown or root pruning. Some specific species are more sought after for use as bonsai material because they have characteristics that make them appropriate for the smaller design arrangements of bonsai. In Japan, varieties of pine, azalea, camellia, bamboo and plum are most often used.
There are several sizes of bonsai. Miniature bonsai can be up to two inches (5 centimeters) high, and take three to five years to mature if started from seeds or cuttings. They may live for several decades. Small bonsai, two to six inches tall, must be trained for five to ten years. Medium bonsai (six to twelve inches in height) and average bonsai (up to two feet high) can be produced in as little as three years. Properly cared for, bonsai can live for hundreds of years, with prized specimens being passed from generation to generation as family heirlooms.
Naturally dwarfed trees collected in the wild often do not adapt to cultivation as bonsai because of the shock resulting from the abrupt change of environment.
Techniques
This juniper makes extensive use of both jin (deadwood branches) and shari (trunk deadwood)
The small size of the tree and the dwarfing of foliage result from pruning of both the leaves and the roots. Most trees require an annual dormancy period and do not grow roots or leaves at that time. Improper pruning can weaken or kill trees.[10]
Copper or copper-colored aluminium wire wrapped around developing branches and trunks holds the branches in place until they lignify (convert into wood), usually 6-9 months, or one growing season. Some species do not lignify strongly, or are already too stiff or brittle to be shaped and are not conducive to wiring, in which case shaping is accomplished primarily through pruning.[11]
Watering
The limited space in a bonsai pot means that regular attention is needed to ensure the tree is correctly watered. Sun, heat, and wind exposure can dry bonsai trees to the point of drought in a short period of time. While some species can handle periods of relative dryness, others require near-constant moisture. Watering too frequently, or allowing the soil to remain soggy, promotes fungal infections and root rot. Free draining soil is used to prevent waterlogging. Deciduous trees are more at risk of dehydration and will wilt as the soil dries out. Evergreen trees, which tend to cope with dry conditions better, do not display signs of the problem until after damage has occurred.
Repotting
An uprooted bonsai, ready for repotting.
Bonsai are repotted and root-pruned at intervals dictated by the vigor and age of each tree. In the case of deciduous trees, this is done as the tree is leaving its dormant period, generally around springtime. Bonsai are often repotted while in development, and less often as they become more mature. This prevents them from becoming pot-bound and encourages the growth of new feeder roots, allowing the tree to absorb moisture more efficiently.
Young pre-bonsai shoots are often placed in "growing boxes" made from scraps of fenceboard or wood slats. These large boxes allow the roots to grow more freely and increase the vigor of the tree. The tree is then replanted in a smaller "training box," to create a smaller, denser root mass which can be more easily moved into a final presentation pot.
left to right ): leaf trimmer; rake with spatula; root hook; coir brush; concave cutter; knob cutter; wire cutter; small, medium and large shears Set of bonsai tools (): leaf trimmer; rake with spatula; root hook; coir brush; concave cutter; knob cutter; wire cutter; small, medium and large shears
Special tools are available for the maintenance of bonsai. The most common tool is the concave cutter, a tool designed to prune flush, without leaving a stub. Other tools include branch bending jacks, wire pliers. and shears of different proportions for performing detail and rough shaping.
Soil and fertilization
Opinions about soil mixes and fertilization vary widely among practitioners. Some promote the use of organic fertilizers to augment an essentially inorganic soil mix, while others will use chemical fertilizers freely. Bonsai soil is primarily a loose, fast-draining mix of components,[12] often a base mixture of coarse sand or gravel, fired clay pellets or expanded shale combined with an organic component such as peat, bark or moss. In Japan, volcanic soils based on clay are preferred, such as akadama, or "red ball" soil, and kanuma, a type of yellow pumice used for azaleas and other calcifuges.
Akadama soil.
Location and overwintering
Most traditional bonsai are temperate climate trees and are kept outside all year. They require full sun in summer and usually a near-freezing dormancy period in winter. Depending on how hardy the tree species is, protection from very low temperatures may be required. Certain tropical species can survive winter without a dormancy period, and can therefore be kept indoors all year. Indoor bonsai are sometimes artificially exposed to cold by using a refrigerator to simulate winter temperatures.
Outdoor bonsai can be brought into the house occasionally for appreciation and enjoyment. In Japan, they are traditionally displayed in a special alcove (tokon |
said, adding that the stance of all these countries are in favour of Egypt, except for Qatar which has been sending mixed signals through the Al Jazeera channel which still describes the July 30 revolution that laid out a roadmap for presidential elections and brought Abdul Fattah Al Sissi to power, as an uprising.
Al Khaleej was also privy to the fact that today’s meeting is not related to the crisis in the relations between Qatar and its neighbours, because the meeting was planned in advance despite the fact that it is taking place at the height of the crisis.
On Friday Al Sharq Al Awsat reported that Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will today discuss the report of a committee tasked with overseeing the implementation of the Riyadh Agreement and decide on the next steps to be taken as they contemplate their diplomatic relations with Qatar.
Qatar on Wednesday reportedly refused to sign the final report prepared by a technical committee set up by the GCC to monitor the implementation of the agreement to end the diplomatic crisis.
However, the Gulf source did not rule out that outstanding issues between Egypt and Qatar may be discussed and also related to the crisis of Qatar with its neighbours on matters such as Qatar harbouring a number of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Doha that are wanted in Egypt.
Success of roadmap
These leaders are on top of the banned list that are a part of the Riyadh agreement that will be followed up by GCC foreign ministers on August 30 in Jeddah.
Doha stopped all forms of assistance to Egypt after the success of its revolution.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia on the other hand were in the forefront of countries backing Egypt for the success of the roadmap and to stand in solidarity with the Egyptian people.
The support started by allocating $8 billion (Dh29.39 billion) as assistance and deposits, while the UAE continued its support through a package of investment, housing, and energy projects and through official and mutual visits.For people of a certain age, owning a Myspace account was an essential rite of passage. Countless teenage years were spent carefully customizing the CSS on profiles, ranking friends into top eight lists, and picking out the most perfectly angsty pop-punk track to autoplay.
Ten years later, Myspace is a relic of the past. It’s forgotten, but not quite gone, existing in a moribund state. Although nobody updates their profiles anymore, they’re still there, ignored and unloved.
Myspace, perhaps conscious of the fact that many people have since lost access to the email accounts associated with their profiles, offers a tool that lets you recover them. You simply have to verify your identity by providing a few pieces of information.
Unfortunately, according to information shared exclusively with TNW by security researcher Leigh-Anne Galloway, this process is deeply flawed, and makes it trivially easy for a bad actor to gain unauthorized access to any account.
When you recover a long-lost Myspace account, you’re asked to provide information about the account. Myspace says that the more information you provide, the greater chance you’re able to get back in.
This is an automated process. Once you’ve successfully gained access to an account, you’re prompted to change the password before heading to your profile.
So, what do you need to get into the account? It turns out, not much. While Myspace prompts you for a current email address, as well as the email address registered with the account, it doesn’t validate this.
It validates just three pieces of information: name, username, and date of birth.
Names are found on the profile itself, and you can discern the username from the URL (so, for myspace.com/thenextweb, thenextweb is the username). The only tricky part is the date-of-birth, although you can figure that by sleuthing on other social networking sites.
Once you have obtained those three pieces of information, you can essentially break into any Myspace account.
It’s bad. Galloway, who works as a Cyber Security Resilience Lead at Positive Technologies, described this process as “so flawed it deserves a place in history.” I’m inclined to agree with her.
Following responsible disclosure best practices, Galloway informed Myspace of the vulnerability in April of this month. The company sent an automated reply, but has otherwise failed to act.
This inaction forced Galloway to take action into her hands, and she has publicly disclosed the vulnerability while it still exists. In a damning blog post, she said Myspace is “an example of the kind of sloppy security many sites suffer from,” citing “poor implementation of controls, lack of user input validation, and zero accountability.”
She also encouraged anyone with the ability to delete their account to do so, saying “whilst Myspace is no longer the number one social media site, they have a duty of care to users past and present.”
Myspace has a checkered record when it comes to security. Last year, the company confirmed the leakage of 360 million user accounts. Researchers believe this is one of the largest data breaches of all time.
We’ve reached out to Myspace for comment. If we hear back from them, we’ll update this post.
Update: Myspace got in touch. In a statement, the company said:
“In response to some recent concerns raised regarding Myspace user account reactivation, we have enhanced our process by adding an additional verification step to avoid improper access. We take data security very seriously at Myspace. We plan to continue to refine and improve this process over time.”
It's not Yourspace, it's Myspace on Leigh-Anne Galloway
Read next: Learn to spot fake news with this Tinder-style browser gameMicrosoft is shaking up its consumer-oriented e-mail offerings, further improving the value of its Office 365 subscriptions as it continues to push customers away from perpetual licenses.
Features formerly part of the Outlook.com Premium scheme, an annual subscription to Microsoft's consumer e-mail and calendaring service, are now rolled into the Office 365 Home and Personal subscriptions. But there's a downside to this: Outlook.com Premium is being discontinued (as spotted by Paul Thurrott). At least for now, that service includes features not found in Office 365 Home or Personal.
Consumer editions of Office 365, unlike their corporate counterparts, don't come with an Exchange account for e-mail. Rather, Microsoft's consumer e-mail solution is Outlook.com, an ad-supported free-mail provider. Separately from Office 365, Microsoft also sold Outlook.com Premium. This removed the ads, increased the size of your inbox, and allowed the use of Outlook.com mail with a custom domain name.
Some of these Premium advantages are now being enabled for Office 365 customers. Most visibly, the ads will go away. The size of your inbox is also increasing, from 15GB to 50GB. Office 365 users also get more robust virus scanning and malicious link detection. Microsoft also says that subscribers will receive premium support for any e-mail-related difficulties. These changes are being rolled out over the next month and will apply to all Outlook.com accounts associated with a subscription.
But one feature doesn't appear to be making the transition: personal domain names. Existing Outlook.com Premium customers will be able to renew their subscriptions (with Microsoft saying it has "no plans" to discontinue subscriptions for existing subscribers), but nobody new can join the service. It's not clear why personal domain names aren't being extended to Office 365 subscribers. Custom domain names are an important element of corporate Office 365 plans, and there's certainly lots of user interest in having the same capability for Office 365. Microsoft just hasn't done it for whatever reason.
Separately, in a bid to make Outlook.com a bit faster to use, the service will now migrate your data between datacenters to strive to keep it close to where you are. Previously, Outlook.com would store data in the same region as you set up your account; European accounts have their data in European servers, Americans in American ones, and so on.
Going forward, if you persistently access your account from somewhere far away from its datacenter, Outlook.com will start migrating it to be closer to where you now live. Reducing the distance between you and your data reduces the latency of the service, and so this makes using the Web interface snappier and more responsive. Microsoft says that it won't move data during short periods of long-distance access—it should stay put even if you go on vacation—but if you emigrate or are otherwise away from home for long periods, your e-mails will eventually follow you.WASHINGTON -- Seventeen Democratic governors have signed and sent a letter to congressional leaders stating their firm opposition to a Medicaid reform proposal championed by House Republicans.
The letter, sent on Monday, is a preemptive strike of sorts against House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) before he unveils a 2012 budget proposal that is expected to endorse turning Medicaid into a block grant program.
“We strongly oppose a congressionally-mandated block grant of federal Medicaid spending, which would shift costs and risk to states,” the governors wrote. “Such a cost shift would severely undercut our ability to provide health care to our residents and adequately pay providers.”
Added the signatories: “We are concerned that Congress, in an attempt to reduce the federal deficit, may pursue the exact opposite course of action by creating a mandated block grant which would do little to address cost growth while shifting costs to states and threatening program integrity.”
A shift from current policy to a block grant system would drastically alter the way that state governments administer Medicaid. Under current law, the federal government matches a percentage of the money that states spend on Medicaid. That percentage was upped by the 2009 stimulus legislation in response to the heavy debt burdens facing states.
A block grant program would essentially cap the amount of federal Medicaid money to states, so that in lean times states might have to make drastic cuts -- or hike taxes -- rather then lean on Washington, D.C. While Ryan and others have argued that taxpayers stand to save a good deal of money from such a move, the governors' letter argued that the end result would be 50 far more difficult balancing acts.
“in the face of state and federal budget pressures and rising health care costs, we need federal policy that creates cost savings, not cost shifting,” the governors wrote. “States are already innovating within Medicaid, and the current financing system provides ample room to manage our Medicaid programs to provide increasingly efficient quality care.”
All 17 signatories are Democrats, though notably absent from the list is New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.Looking for news you can trust?
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Two months ago, we told you how Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s plan to drug-test the state’s welfare recipients—at their expense—turned out to be a very costly waste of time. Now the effort has been ruled unconstitutional, too.
In a blistering 37-page opinion (PDF) issued late Monday night, federal court Judge Mary Scriven put a halt to the tea party Republican’s marquee plan, concluding that “the wholesale, suspicionless drug testing of all applicants” for Florida’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) constituted an unreasonable search in violation of the 4th Amendment. It’s just the latest setback for Scott, who’s recently come under fire for pooh-poohing nonbusiness majors, collecting cut-rate health insurance, cutting support to the disabled, building himself a military hall of fame, and imploding on a live cable news show.
“Though the State speaks in generalities about the ‘public health risk, as well as the crime risk, associated with drugs’ being ‘beyond dispute,’ it provides no concrete evidence that those risks are any more present in TANF applicants than in the greater population,” Scriven wrote in her ruling against Florida’s government. “It is not enough to simply recite a governmental interest without any evidence of a concrete threat that would be mitigated through drug testing.”
The state ACLU and the Florida Justice Institute filed the suit on behalf of one Luis Lebron, who refused to pay for the $10-to-$82 urinalysis that would have proven that he was drug free. As the ACLU of Florida’s Maria Kayanan put it:
Luis, 35, is a U.S. Navy veteran and a single father who fought to establish paternity of his son. He goes to college full-time and cares for his disabled mother. Recently, his veterans’ benefits ran out; he was living day to day on student loans and grants, teetering on the brink of poverty, so he asked the state of Florida for a helping hand and qualified for food stamps and Medicaid. Luis also qualified for TANF, but there was a catch…He would have to give a sample of his urine to a lab and acknowledge that the state would share any negative results with Florida’s Child Abuse Hotline. Luis knew he’d test negative because he doesn’t use illegal drugs, but that wasn’t the point: he also knew that he shouldn’t have to submit to an invasive search to prove it.
Judge Scriven agreed, shooting down the notion that the state would save taxpayer money from being spent on drugs by welfare recipients. Ultimately it’s Florida that is wasting “millions of [welfare] dollars” to fund the drug tests, she wrote in her opinion. She noted that Florida attorneys had offered a pamphlet asserting that the drug plan would save money, but that “the data contained in the pamphlet is not competent expert opinion, nor is it offered as such, nor could it be reasonably construed as such…Even a cursory review of certain assumptions in the pamphlet undermines its conclusions.”
Judge Scriven also balked at state attorneys defending the law by claiming Florida’s government has a right to nanny Luis’ son. “The State contends that by being the conduit for a maximum of $241 per month in federal cash assistance for a finite period of time to TANF applicants, it somehow ‘steps into the role of the parent,'” she wrote, saying that argument was “without merit.”
She added: “Even if the State did assume some authority over the children, it does not follow that the State would be justified in drug testing their parents, whose role the State suggests it supplants.”
Who’s your daddy, Florida? Apparently, not Rick Scott.There's a tendency when reading a series to rate the books against each other rather than against the world. I've seen it done to my own books: I loved XXXX of Thorns but it wasn't as good as YYYY of Thorns... so 4*.I didn't enjoy The Wise Man's Fear as much as I enjoyed The Name of the Wind. I didn't enjoy A Dance With Dragons as much as I enjoyed A Game of Thrones. But I'm giving them ALL 5* because compared to most books I read... they're noticeably better. I won't 4* this book to make my point that it's (for me) not as good as its predecessor... I'll make that point here. With words.Readers often get 'confused' between the journey, the destination, and the story. When the reader thinks the story lies at the end of the journey, and the writer thinks the story IS the journey, it can cause tensions between them.Reading TWMF part of me was always wanting to get back to 'the thing' where 'the thing' was where my knee-jerk tells me the story lies, i.e. making solid progress at the university in order to tackle the Chandrian. And that really doesn't happen in this very long book. In fact so little happens in that direction that I wonder if Rothfuss might not wholly evade that issue. Certainly if he's to conclude the story in three books it seems that a drastic up-ing of focus and pace (or a 10,000 page book) would be required to deal with Heliax and friends.So, let's put to one side the fact that if you think the story is about revenge on the Chandrian then basically nothing happened, and note instead that all the'side' adventuring was fun to read and very well written.Kvothe continues to be brilliant at everything. The fact that on one page late on we discover he's not genius level at mathematics hardly balances that he picks up a difficult new language, makes startling progress at marshal arts, and impresses a sex fairy with his sexing, even though it's his first time.If you let go of your destination desires this is an enjoyable book with great prose. The story meanders, seemingly without direction. In fact a big chunk of it is about Kvothe and friends meandering without direction, hunting bandits in a vast wood. The aim doesn't feel particularly important (protecting tax collectors in a distant land), the meat of it doesn't feel very exciting (they wander for a LONG time), and much of it feels pretty random (the sex fairy encounter comes out of nowhere)... but even so, I plain enjoyed reading it, we get our little band group dynamics, we get story telling around the camp fire... and each told story is a fun bit of fiction in itself... It all sounds a bit dull when I lay it out, but the deliciousness (like the devil) is in the detail, and I kept coming back for more.In the end we're back at the university and bugger all has been accomplished. On a basic level we're pretty much where we started, and left wondering how this story is going to move forward. But on an entirely different level, I've consumed a 1000 page book in an unheard of (for me) two weeks and enjoyed pretty much every minute of it.So five stars.I now, at long last, join the end of a lengthy queue of people agitating for book 3.....News that Claudio Abbado has had to cancel his tour to Japan with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra "due to reasons of my health" is, most obviously, a major disappointment for Japanese music lovers. I wrote last month about how powerful this year's performances of unfinished symphonies by Schubert and Bruckner were with this orchestra - that astonishing assemblage of musicians, friends of Abbado's from a lifetime of music-making, with its core of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, which he has convened every year since 2003. According to one of the LFO's violinists, Etienne Abelin, the final concert of the Bruckner was a still more shattering encounter with the ultimate questions of musical and human existentialism than the one I saw; "no words, only tears as far as I'm concerned", Abelin told me.
That Abbado recovered from a life-threatening illness at the start of the new century and went to go on to conceive and conduct this orchestra of his dreams is one of the minor miracles of recent musical history. They have created what I've described as a virtuosity not just of playing, but of listening in orchestral music, a charmed circle of musical community that starts with Abbado's relationship with the score, extends to his musicians, and reaches out to his audience, however they're listening or watching.
You don't have to take my word for it: watch Abbado's Mahler, Bruckner, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and others, on film and see what you think.
Abbado has had the energy also to set up still another orchestral project in the last decade, the young chamber players of Orchestra Mozart, which he conducts in London on the 1 October with pianist Martha Argerich. Here's hoping that Abbado doesn't have to cancel this concert as well; do whatever you need to for a ticket, is my advice.
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The links are powered by Skimlinks. By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that Skimlinks cookies will be set. More information.After the 2010 landslide election victory of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party, several companies with links to government figures have started to flourish. The businesses of Orbán’s father and two brothers, however, began to grow only years later, in 2014.
There was a reason for the delay.
Lajos Simicska, the businessman and longtime ally of Orbán, who helped transform Fidesz into a powerful political force, had been a dominant figure in the construction industry from 2010 until 2014, when he had a falling out with Orbán.
During that 4-year-long period, Simicska, through his companies, had been involved in the majority of major public projects and influenced who else could be part of those works. According to sources familiar with his activities, Simicska and his associates had made sure that the companies of Orbán’s family members received only a limited amount of work in state-financed construction projects.
This practice was primarily aimed at Orbán’s father and two brothers – whose companies deal with mining, manufacturing of concrete products and transportation – but was also extended to István Tiborcz, the then-boyfriend and current husband of Ráhel Orbán, the prime minister’s daughter.
Simicska’s empire, which had been considered by many the symbol of political corruption at the time, did not follow this practice due to selfless moral commitments. They exercised control over the Orbán family’s involvement in state projects in the interest and, according to a source close to Simicska, at the request of Viktor Orbán. The goal was to spare Orbán from similar political attacks he had come under during his first term as prime minister between 1998 and 2002, when he was frequently criticized because of his father’s alleged involvements in public projects.
However, by 2014 when Fidesz was reelected, the alliance between Simicska and Orbán had broken up. This changed the landscape of the construction business. Simicska was not replaced by other similarly influential figure and this gave more room for the businesses of people with family ties to the prime minister in state projects.
The businesses owned by Orbán’s father and the two brothers nearly doubled their revenues by 2015 and their profits was rising even faster. This was made possible at least in part by their involvement in mostly EU-financed constructions, as Direkt36 revealed in a previous investigation. The company of István Tiborcz, who married Ráhel Orbán in September 2013, also gained new momentum in state tenders after he had parted ways with Simicska’s empire.
This article is based on conversations conducted with sources close to Viktor Orbán, Lajos Simicska and other, still influential players in the construction industry. They all asked for anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the story. Simicska declined to comment. Orbán and his family members did not respond to the detailed questions Direkt36 sent them.
Party and family
Simicska helped lay the groundwork for the Orbán family’s businesses in the early 90s.
During the privatization process that followed the collapse of the socialist system in Hungary, in 1992 Győző Orbán and his business partners managed to get hands on a company operating the mine in Gánt. The purchase was helped by companies with ties to the Fidesz party, an article entitled “Boys in the mine” revealed in 1999. According to the article, a company linked to Simicska, previously capitalized from the party’s money, bought a share in the mine company during the privatization, then sold it well below its nominal value to Orbán’s father and his business partners.
Thus, Győző Orbán became the majority owner of the company called Dolomit Kőbányászati Kft. (Dolomit Rock Mining Ltd.). Győző Orbán later established other companies with his two other sons, Győző Jr. and Áron, but based on its revenues and activities, Dolomit is still playing a central role in the family business.
After this episode in the early 90s, Simicska did not appear to play any role in the Orbán family’s business activities. He focused on helping his high-school friend Viktor Orbán to transform Fidesz, a small liberal party at the fall of communism, into a major political party. From the outside, there seemed to be a clear division between their responsibilities: Orbán was fighting on the political frontline while Simicska was working behind the scenes to provide a solid financial background for Fidesz by acquiring companies that later won state tenders from Fidesz-led municipalities. He apparently used some of that money to build a media empire that supported the party.
In reality, however, the division was not so stark.
Orbán’s men
Simicska, according to sources close to him, frequently talked with Orbán, and the businessman’s inner circles also included people who were close to the politician. The most prominent among them was Zsolt Nyerges, a lawyer, who joined Simicska as an associate in the mid 2000s. They worked closely together on further strengthening Fidesz’s economic background, with Simicska taking care of the strategy and Nyerges running the daily operations.
According to a friend of Simicska, it was not the businessman who chose Nyerges, but accepted him at the request of Orbán. “Nyerges was a friend of the Orbán family,” said the source, adding that Nyerges was sent to Simicska so that Orbán had a confidant in the businessman’s circles.
The Orbán companies’ involvement in state projects in recent years. Source: Direkt36, Figyelő, Magyar Narancs
Later there were other overlaps between Simicska’s business empire and Orbán’s personal circle. In May 2010, a company linked to Simicska became the majority owner of an energy company called ES Holding, whose co-owner and director was the then-24-year-old István Tiborcz. At that time, the young man was already dating his future wife, Ráhel Orbán, Viktor Orbán’s oldest child. Tiborcz kept serving as one of the directors of the energy company, but continued his business activities under the supervision of Simicska and his associates.
During this period, Simicska’s empire – including its flagship company, construction giant Közgép – produced spectacular growth. The firms kept winning lucrative state tenders, while government positions overseeing major construction projects were also filled with people close to Simicska and Nyerges. This turned Simicska and his companies into a frequent target of opposition politicians and anti-corruption activists, who said that the businessman’s empire symbolizes the rampant corruption of Orbán’s government.
“There was a ceiling”
While the revenue of Simicska’s companies multiplied in just a few years, the performance of the Orbán family’s businesses largely stayed on the level they had been in 2010 and before. This happened despite that Simicska’s companies could have easily given them plenty of work in the state-financed projects they were in charge of.
Not doing so was the result of a conscious decision, according to construction industry sources familiar with the details. “Lajos [Simicska] limited the opportunities of the daddy [of Orbán] in several ways,” said one of the sources, the owner of a construction firm that had worked closely with Közgép. One of Simicska’s close associates also confirmed this to Direkt36. “There was a ceiling for the Orbán family. They could go as high as that, but could not get more,” the associate said.
The associate said that this was not Simicska’s own decision, he just followed Orbán’s directions. The source could not tell whether Orbán made this request personally, but he said that it was clear that it originated from him.
Limiting the family businesses’ involvement in public projects could have been important for Orbán so that he can avoid what happened under his first term as prime minister between 1998 and 2002. At that time, he was often criticized because of his father’s businesses. Opposition politicians have brought up that Dolomit Ltd. was a supplier of the then state-owned Dunaferr, and some also alleged that the company supplied materials for state-funded motorway constructions. With regards to Dunaferr, Orbán’s family emphasised that Dolomit Ltd. had already become its supplier in 1997, before the first election victory of Fidesz. They denied, however, the involvement of the father’s business in the motorway projects.
In a TV interview in August 2001, Orbán tried to refute the accusations arguing that if he had really wanted to favor his father, he would have not only helped him to get orders worth of some tens of millions of forints, but he would have been able to aid him build the whole motorway. Orbán also stated that his father had planned to get involved in certain motorway constructions, but dropped these plans at his son’s request. “This was a very difficult conversation, by the way. He did not agree with this, but eventually he said that there must be certain correlations that I see better than him, and then he accepted it,” Orbán said.
Unsatisfied relatives
Orbán’s family did not seem to take the restrictions well after 2010 either. Sources working in state-financed projects and close to Simicska, told Direkt36 that the prime minister’s family expressed their concern to Közgép’s management over the limited amount of work they got from the company. As Direkt36 showed in a previous story, Közgép ordered products from Dolomit Kft. in certain sewage constructions, but the family wanted to get more, sources said.
It was not only Orbán’s father and brothers in the prime minister’s family who had conflicts with Simicska. István Tiborcz also had a tense relationship with the leaders of the Közgép group. The management thought that the young businessman was acting too independently in the matters of E-OS, the energy company Közgép had bought a few years earlier. “There was a conflict because of the different business approaches,” said one of Simicska’s associates. He added that Tiborcz is an intelligent person, but he did not understand that “first he should have learned how things work on a lower level.”
Lőrinc Mészáros, a longtime friend Orbán and mayor of the prime minister’s hometown, was also frustrated by the volume of orders he received from Simicska’s circles. In the early 2010s, Mészáros, a former gas repairman who later founded a construction company, complained to other people in the industry about the contracts he could get in state projects. “He said that Lajos [Simicska] is bleeding him out,” recalled a contractor who had worked with Mészáros.
The pushback against Mészáros was not done at Orbán’s request. It happened simply because Simicska’s companies were not happy with the performance of Mészáros’ firm. A top manager at Közgép told a contractor that “Lőrinc cannot be let close to the constructions because his company doesn’t work well.” A source close to Simicska added that Mészáros “wanted to work at a very high price,” so the Közgép group was only willing to give him smaller contracts.
Signs of change
The situation, however, started to change in the favor of those who were frustrated by Simicska’s influence. In 2013, there were signs that the businessman’s position began to weaken. Duna Aszfalt, another construction company, which teamed up with Lőrinc Mészáros, emerged as a rival of Közgép. A few months before the 2013 September wedding of Ráhel Orbán and István Tiborcz, Közgép quit the energy company managed by Tiborcz.
The personal relationship between Simicska and Orbán also started to get cooler. “In 2013, it was clear that the set-up was changing,” a close friend of Simicska said. According to the source, Simicska learned that Orbán was planning to cut back the influence of the Simicska-controlled media companies within the government-leaning media conglomerate.
After Fidesz’s reelection in April 2014, the conflict became visible for the wider public as well, as figures close to Simicska were purged of government positions. This included Lászlóné Németh, a longtime confidant of Simicska, who was the minister in charge of major construction projects. In early 2015, the conflict turned into a full-out war when Simicska threw slurs at Orbán in response to the prime minister’s alleged interference in his media businesses.
At the same time, the businesses of those personally close to Orbán skyrocketed.
The companies of Orbán’s father and brothers have nearly doubled their revenues since 2013 and their profits have risen even faster. While in 2013 they gained only 15% of profit on their total revenue of 2.7 billion forints (8.6 million euros), their profit increased to 30% on 5.2 billion forints (16.7 million euros) of revenue by 2015. The profit gained during these three years was fully withdrawn from the companies. In 2016, the revenue was significantly lower (11.3 million euros) but this was an industry-wide trend, most probably because of the sudden slowdown in EU-financed construction projects. (The slowdown was only temporary, new projects have been launched since then.)
István Tiborcz’s energy company produced similarly large growth after Simicska and Tiborcz parted ways. In early 2014, Tiborcz regained his ownership in the company then called Elios Innovatív, which began to win a series of lucrative state tenders for upgrading street lighting systems in several cities. Elios got the majority of these tenders without facing competition. (As Direkt36 revealed it earlier, this happened because the tenders’ conditions were tailored to Tiborcz’s company.)
Lőrinc Mészáros’ rise was the most spectacular. In only a few years, the former gas repairman has become one of the country’s wealthiest person, now holding major positions not only in the construction business but also in the media sector, tourism, and the bank industry. As Direkt36 showed in a recent article, a rail construction company linked to Mészáros even took over a firm that had been part of Simicska’s empire.
Hidden works
Compared to Mészáros, the Orbán family’s enrichment has been more modest. In 2015, István Tiborcz even sold his shares in Elios Innovatív after the controversy surrounding the company’s state tenders grew bigger and drew the attention of Hungarian and European Union authorities. Since then, Tiborcz personally has stayed away from state businesses, but people close to him remained involved in them.
The companies of Orbán’s father and brothers are still working on state-financed projects but it is hard to get information on them as they are hired not directly by state agencies but by contractors or subcontractors. In Hungary, the public procurement database contains information only about the contractors and major subcontractors but there are no records available about those who work on the lower levels.
Direkt36 managed to unearth details about some of the Orbán family’s contracts through a months-long investigation. It is still not known how much money their companies got for these works as the records obtained by Direkt36 did not contain information about the payments and the Orbán companies never responded to any of our inquiries.
Apparently, it does not bother Viktor Orbán anymore that his family members are involved in publicly funded projects. At a press conference in June, Orbán told Direkt36 that he still considers it important for his father not to participate in public investments. Orban’s answers, at the same time, also suggested that he thinks – as opposed to his earlier statements – that if his father does not participate in the project as a main- or subcontractor but as their supplier, it is not problematic. He said this in spite of the fact that suppliers also receive public money, just like higher level participants of state projects.
For company records, we used the services of Opten.24
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Malina Bleeding Heart Morris 1k 191
This is a good base recipe, but I had to make a lot of changes. I doubled it, added 2 tablespoons of sugar to the rice and coconut milk, used a tablespoon of butter, sauteed the tofu with the cu... Read more
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Robin 0 3
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I cook a lot of curry and this was awful. I did a lot to dress it up, added peas, corn, chili powder, cumin, cashews, salt/pepper, ect. Nothing could make it good. Read moreValues of Turkey’s ruling AKP rapidly weakening: Former PM Davutoğlu
ANKARA
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The values of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) are “rapidly weakening,” former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said, commenting |
a permit to a medical marijuana cultivation facility. (Photo: Rob Schumacher/The Republic)
Forget plastic grocery bags. The first target in the effort by state lawmakers to tamp down on municipal authority is marijuana.
Rep. Paul Boyer, R-Phoenix, filed an official complaint Thursday with the Arizona Attorney General's Office alleging the town of Snowflake violated several state laws in issuing a permit to a medical-marijuana-cultivation facility. Boyer has been among the state's most vocal critics of marijuana legalization.
This is the first official complaint filed under Senate Bill 1487, which allows any state lawmaker to direct the attorney general to investigate any allegation that a city or town violated state law. If the attorney general finds the community in violation and it is not remedied, the state treasurer could withhold state-shared monies until the issue is resolved. For most communities, state shared revenue makes up about half of their operating budgets.
Snowflake allegations
Boyer alleges Snowflake violated state open-meeting laws, notice requirements for zoning-law changes, zoning-contract regulations, the right of referendum and access to public records during the process of issuing a use permit to Copperstate Farms. Fife Symington IV, the son of the former governor with the same name, is behind the project.
According to a letter from Boyer to the Attorney General's Office, he alleges that the Snowflake mayor, town manager and members of the council may have violated the state open-meeting law by meeting with Copperstate Farms officials and discussing a deal. He alleges the town failed to provide adequate advanced notice for public hearings regarding the permit. He alleges the town may have violated state law by entering into "quid pro quo arrangement" that involved the farm giving the town up to $800,000 a year in exchange for the permit.
Boyer also alleged the town violated residents' right to refer the permit issue to the ballot by refusing to approve minutes of the meeting in which the permit was approved. Referendum paperwork requires the minutes be attached.
The allegations mirror allegations made in a lawsuit residents filed against Snowflake and Copperstate Farms in Navajo County Superior Court.
Snowflake Town Manager Brian Richards did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
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Doug Cole, with Highground Consulting, is working with Copperstate Farms on the project. He said the city is in the process of redoing the permits. The Planning and Zoning Commission was scheduled to re-hear the permit proposal Thursday night, and the town council is scheduled to re-vote Friday.
"Residents raised some issues, so they're all being redone," Cole said.
The Attorney General's Office has 30 days to investigate Boyer's complaint. If Snowflake is found to be in violation, it has 30 days to resolve the issue. If the issue is not resolved, the Attorney General's Office notifies the Treasurer's Office to withhold state-shared revenue.
Targeting plastic bags
Sen. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, sent a letter Monday to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich stating that she has heard concerns from constituents about a Bisbee ordinance regulating plastic bags. She sought more information about the new state law, but didn't go so far as to file an official request for investigation.
VALDEZ: Will red tape save Bisbee's anti-bag brigade?
The Legislature this session passed nearly a dozen laws asserting its authority over issues ranging from requiring cities to allow short-term rentals to forbidding them from regulating guns. House Bill 2131 prevented cities from banning or regulating plastic grocery bags.
Griffin in her letter said she'd heard that some believed the 2012 Bisbee ordinance ithat requires stores to charge a 5 cent fee to get a disposable bag is not subject to SB 1487 because the ordinance passed before the state law did.
Attorney General's Office Chief Counsel Paul Watkins responded via letter Wednesday that the new law has no exceptions, not even for ordinances enacted before it took effect. But he said his office would not begin a formal investigation until it received a formal investigative-request form.
Griffin did not respond to The Arizona Republic's request for comment on whether she plans to file a formal complaint.
Cities' rights
The League of Arizona Cities and Towns' executive director, Ken Strobeck, unsuccessfully lobbied with cities against the new law, and the group is working with cities on complaints. He said the penalty "is pretty much devastating."
"It's the elimination of state-shared revenue, which is pretty close to half of your operating budget," he said.
Strobeck said the law substitutes the judgment of a single legislator for the votes of a city's elected representatives and short-circuits the legal process. "It is putting the attorney general in the position of being the court, the finder of fact and the imposer of the penalty," he said.
Boyer's letter — written on House letterhead — appears to be copied and pasted from a letter from someone else. It states that the letter is "on behalf of Ken Krieger, whom our firm represents" in opposing the town of Snowflake. Boyer is a teacher, not an attorney. Krieger is a former Peoria City Council candidate. Attorney Kory Langhoffer is the one who filed the lawsuit against Snowflake.
Strobeck said the letter is an example of how the law "can be abused and misused to have a Phoenix-area legislator trying to tell a small town in northeast Arizona how to take care of their own business."
"He's just cut and pasted the letter from an attorney onto his letterhead and is using the power of his office for fulfilling the request of a private form," Strobeck said.
Boyer said he worked with an attorney on the language, but the complaint ultimately comes from him.
"I'm working 24/7 to defeat marijuana legislation and now this facility for the residents of Snowflake on my own time," he said.
In the case of Bisbee, he said Bisbee is a charter city, meaning it has authority under the Arizona Constitution to set its own local ordinances.
"They believe they have the authority to enact local ordinances in a local matter," he said. "This is an extreme overreach of injecting state legislators as individuals into city business."
Bisbee, three Tempe City Council members and several cities are already in the midst of a lawsuit against the state over whether the state has the authority to usurp charter cities' authority in other areas, particularly paid-employee sick leave.
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/2bl4SxNDonald Trump is gaining on his opponent in Virginia, according to a new poll. | AP Photo Poll: Trump gains on Clinton in Virginia
The race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is drawing closer in Virginia, according to a University of Mary Washington poll released Thursday.
About 40 percent of Virginians surveyed who said they are likely to vote said they would support Clinton, while 37 percent backed Trump in the five-way ballot test question, with Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson at 8 percent, independent candidate Evan McMullin at 3 percent, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein at 1 percent. Among registered voters, Clinton's lead is slightly larger — 38 percent to Trump's 33 percent — while Johnson received 10 percent, McMullin 3 percent and Stein 2 percent.
Clinton led the race by 16 points (48 percent to 32 percent) in a Roanoke College poll last month and has not nominally trailed against Trump in any poll in the state since the start of the primary season in 2015.
The former secretary of state still holds a 9-point lead over Trump in the POLITICO Battleground States Polling Average for Virginia, taking into account the five most recent polls, dating back to a Washington Post survey conducted Aug. 11-14. That poll showed her with an 8-point edge matched head-to-head against the Republican nominee.
The University of Mary Washington conducted its poll from Sept. 6-12 via landlines and cellphones, surveying 1,006 adults with an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points. Among the 852 registered voters surveyed, the margin of error is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points, while the sample of 685 likely voters carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.Lebanese President Michel Suleiman has formally accepted the resignation of the prime minister, who stepped down blaming government infighting during a time of rising sectarian tensions.
The departure of Najib Mikati could plunge Lebanon, already struggling to cope with a spillover of violence and refugees from Syria's two-year-old civil war, into further turmoil and uncertainty three months before a planned parliamentary election.
Mikati called for the formation of a national unity government.
"I announce the resignation of the government, hoping that this will open the way for the major political blocs to take responsibility and come together to bring Lebanon out of the unknown," Mikati told a news conference on Friday.
The resignation on Friday came after a two-day ministerial meeting remained deadlocked by a dispute with Hezbollah, a political movement that has dominated Lebanese politics in recent years and helped put Mikati into office after toppling the previous government.
Shia group Hezbollah and its allies blocked the creation of a body to supervise parliamentary elections which is due in June and opposed extending the term of a senior security official.
The cabinet failed on Friday to extend the term of Major General Ashraf Rifi, head of Lebanon's internal security forces, who is due to retire early next month.
Rifi, like Mikati, is a Sunni Muslim from Tripoli.
Mikati was appointed prime minister in 2011 after the Hezbollah and its allies brought down the unity government of Saad al-Hariri, son of former prime minister Rafik Hariri who was assassinated in 2005.
During his two years in office he has sought to insulate his country from the civil war in neighbouring Syria which deepened Lebanon's own sectarian tensions and led to street battles in the northern city of Tripoli.
Sporadic clashes erupted again in Tripoli early on Saturday, residents said, with at least two people wounded by sniper fire.
Lebanese politicians have yet to agree arrangements for the poll.
The president and the prime minister said they were not prepared to chair any cabinet meeting if the supervisory body was not on the agenda, ministers said, effectively halting further cabinet meetings.
Under Lebanon's division of power, the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim, the president a Maronite Christian and the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim.
Former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a close political ally of Hariri who had frequently called for Mikati to step down, said the resignation "opens the possibility of fresh dialogue" between Lebanon's political camps.
The influx of Syrian refugees, as well as Lebanon's own political turmoil, have caused a sharp slowdown in Lebanon's economy and a 67 percent surge in its budget deficit last year.Play Facebook
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Donald Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 state income tax returns, according to documents obtained by the New York Times.
In an article posted online Saturday night, previous tax returns appear to show the businessman and GOP nominee reported a nearly $1 billion loss, which could have been used to offset federal taxes.
An unsigned statement from the Trump campaign posted to its website late Saturday did not appear to deny or dispute a single fact in the Times story, but asserted the document was "illegally obtained."
Trump himself tweeted early Sunday: "I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them." Again, he did not deny or dispute the Times' findings.
Three tax experts hired by the Times said the size of the deduction and tax rules governing wealthy filers could have allowed Trump to legally pay no federal income taxes for 18 years. There is nothing in the report that shows he actually took advantage of the rules to avoid paying taxes.
I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them. #failing@nytimes — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2016
Trump has based his campaign on his experience as a successful businessman, vowing to rewrite trade agreements and make deals with other countries that would ensure jobs return to the U.S.
Trump has declined to release his tax returns, an issue which was raised by his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton at the Sept. 26 presidential debate.
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Clinton at the debate suggested the returns might show Trump hasn’t paid any federal taxes, which Trump did not address.
When Clinton said a couple years of returns when Trump was trying to get a casino license showed he didn’t pay any federal income taxes, Trump interjected: "That makes me smart."
The Clinton campaign pounced on the Times report. Campaign spokesman Brian Fallon tweeted: "Trump's returns show just how lousy a businessman he is AND how long he may have avoided paying any taxes."
The Times published the first pages New York, Connecticut and New Jersey state tax returns online. The newspaper said the three pages were mailed to reporter Susanne Craig last month.
Related: Tax Comments Are The Gift Trump Keeps Giving to Clinton
The Trump campaign in a statement after the report was published said the tax document was "illegally obtained."
"The only news here is that the more than 20 year-old alleged tax document was illegally obtained, a further demonstration that the New York Times, like establishment media in general, is an extension of the Clinton Campaign, the Democratic Party and their global special interests,” the campaign said in a statement.
"Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required," the statement continued. "That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes, along with very substantial charitable contributions."
The Times also said a lawyer for Trump threatened legal action against the newspaper if the records were published, arguing in a letter to the Times that publishing records without Trump’s authorization would be illegal.
Related: Video of Trump Deposition in D.C. Hotel Feud Released
Trump’s tax returns have become a line of attack among Clinton and her supporters.
Vice President Joe Biden on the "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" on Thursday ripped Trump for his "that makes me smart" comment.
"What does that make the rest of us? Suckers? I really mean it. Think about it", Biden told Fallon.
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The tax experts hired by the Times said there is nothing in the 1995 documents that suggest any wrongdoing, the newspaper reported.
The Times said it showed the documents to an attorney who has handled Trump’s taxes for three decades, Jack Mitnick.
The paper reported that Mitnick said "This is legit," referring to the documents.
The Trump campaign in its statement to NBC News criticizing the Times report Saturday used a version of a line he has used in his campaign.
"Mr. Trump knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and he is the only one that knows how to fix it," the campaign said.
Trump in announcing a tax plan in September of 2015, which he later scrapped, said: "I fight like hell to pay as little as possible. Can I say that? I’m not a politician. I fight like hell always because it's an expense."Emergency teams are working to contain a crude oil spill after two ships - a tanker and a bulk carrier - collided in waters off Singapore.
Port officials said no injuries had been reported but the Malaysian-registered tanker had ruptured one of its tanks.
An estimated 2,000 tonnes of crude oil are leaking into the sea.
The collision happened in the Strait of Singapore, one of the most important shipping lanes in the world.
Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) said the Malaysian-registered tanker Bunga Kelana 3 was damaged in a collision with the MV Wally, registered in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
The Bunga Kelana 3 was carrying light crude oil and condensate.
"The collision caused a 10-metre (yard) tear in the left side of the tanker and 2,000 metric tonnes of crude oil has spilled into the sea where the collision occurred," Cmdr Abdul Hadib bin Abdul Wahab of the Malaysian Coastguard told Reuters.
Both ships are anchored off Singapore as work continues to contain and clean up the oil spill.
The Malaysia-based operators of the tanker, AET, said booms were being placed around the vessel to contain the spill.
Salvage operators said the oil could damage the local environment but that the speed of the response had reduced the impact.
"I think it can be controlled - 2,00r who asked not to be named told the AFP news agency.
There was no reported effect on shipping traffic in the Strait of Singapore, one of the world's busiest sea lanes, connecting trade routes from Asia to Africa and Europe.When Lani Sarem was a little girl, she had a fantasy. Like so many little girls and boys, she wanted to be a star, and for a brief moment this summer, her dream seemed poised to come true. She was a New York Times best-selling novelist, and if everything continued according to plan, she would soon star in a major motion picture based on her book. But then the dream ruptured. It was over almost as soon as it began.
Sarem, in case you missed the headlines, is the author of Handbook for Mortals. In August, her book suddenly appeared at the top of the Young Adult Hardcover Books best-seller list. Apparently she had sold more than 18,000 copies in the first week alone. A Hollywood movie that sells 18,000 tickets in its first week is a catastrophe; a YA book — any book, really — that sells that many copies within a week of publication is a sensation. And yet, hardly anyone seemed to have read her book. No one had reviewed it in any of the usual blogs or publications. If anyone in the publishing world had even heard of Sarem, they didn’t say so. Amateur detectives — several of them YA authors themselves — soon uncovered evidence that Sarem, or someone working with her, had bought the book in bulk, presumably in order to get it onto the best-seller list. The reaction on Twitter was swift and unsparing. People called her a con artist and a cheat. They ridiculed her writing. Former employers disparaged her. She was accused of plagiarizing the book cover, white entitlement, and of hiring ResultSource, a company that runs cynical marketing campaigns aimed specifically at gaming the best-seller system. Within 23 hours, the Times removed the book from the list, acknowledging in a vague statement that they had discovered “inconsistencies in the most recent reporting cycle.”
“If I were an 18-year-old, I would have probably killed myself,” Sarem, now 35, told me a few weeks ago over a glass of Chardonnay at the Sheraton JFK Airport Hotel. Still, she made it clear she doesn’t have many regrets: “There’s good and bad in what occurred.” Yes, her reputation had gone up in flames. But now she’s more famous than ever.
I met up with Sarem almost two weeks after her book was removed from the list. In interviews she’d given before our meeting, she claimed she hadn’t participated in any plot to game the system, and wasn’t even aware of one. She blamed her downfall on the YA Establishment — the reviewers and authors and bloggers who had shamed her on Twitter. They didn’t like her, she argued, because she was an outsider. Sarem hadn’t sent them advance copies of her book — instead, she had promoted it herself and with friends, selling it at comic conventions. It was a “witch hunt,” she said.
Was it possible there was some truth to her claim? None of the writers weighing in on the controversy had met Sarem in person. Besides, best-seller campaigns of all sorts — ResultSource-aided and otherwise — are not all that uncommon. I wrote her a message saying I wanted to hear her perspective, and Sarem wrote back that she was flying from her home in Vegas to a comic-con in Nashville and would be willing to make a detour to New York for the meeting. I suggested a bar in Manhattan; she proposed I come out to the Sheraton JFK Airport Hotel instead. Sarem, I’d learn, belongs to the Sheraton Club, which offers its members access to a sort of VIP lounge where you can get free chicken fingers and dumplings that are mysteriously filled with cheese.
In the lobby of the Sheraton, the elevator doors parted to reveal Sarem in a flowing blouse, a hopeful smile on her face. Her long tresses were blonde on top and pink and blue at the ends. Upstairs in the lounge, she began to tell her life story. Her father died when she was a baby. She and her mother moved often, ten different states in Sarem’s first 19 years. Wherever they went, Sarem tried out for local theater productions and TV commercials, but all the best roles went to other girls. She realized that if she wanted to be a star, she’d have to write the script herself. “I wanted to forge my own path, and I ended up in Vegas,” Sarem said.
For about a decade, Sarem paid the bills by taking on entertainment gigs in Vegas and on the road. She worked at David Copperfield’s theater for a while. She became the manager of a band called 100 Monkeys and the ’90s jam band Blues Traveler. In 2010, when she was 28, her fiancé broke up with her. Three weeks later, she began writing the first draft of a screenplay for Handbook; she found it cathartic. Four years after that, she decided to turn the screenplay into a book. “When I started writing, I really wanted all the things that I couldn’t have at that moment,” she said. “I wanted somebody’s love story to work out. I wanted this character to have all the things I was lacking, and then live vicariously through her.”
The character in question — the protagonist and narrator of Handbook — is a young woman named Zade. In many ways, Zade is just like Sarem. She dyes her hair in the same fun colors. She leaves her home in a small Southern town to work in Vegas. Unlike Sarem, Zade always gets what she wants, and she doesn’t have to struggle for it. As a result, the book doesn’t offer much in the way of conflict or plot. Zade auditions for a magic act and is instantly hired; men meet her and fall in love at a glance. Some of her triumphs are almost touchingly modest. At one point, she goes on a trip to the mall where she runs into Vegas mainstays Carrot Top and Wayne Newton. Newton tells Zade he’s excited about watching her perform. Carrot Top shares his real name and invites her to come backstage to hang out anytime. That’s the entire exchange. Sarem has compared her book to Fifty Shades of Grey, another novel by an industry outsider that many have derided as a silly wish-fulfillment fantasy. But Fifty Shades, whatever you think about the writing, allows women to imagine themselves having kinky sex with a billionaire. Handbook features some light petting, but mostly it offers the kinds of dubious thrills that come from making small talk at a mall with Carrot Top.
Lani Sarem and Thomas Ian Nicholas during the Wizard World Chicago Comic-Con on August 25, 2017, in Rosemont, Illinois. Photo: Barry Brecheisen/Getty Images
At the Sheraton, Sarem didn’t attribute the book’s phenomenal success to the quality of her writing. She attributed it to someone named Thomas Ian Nicholas. Maybe you’ve heard of him. If so, you were probably a kid in the ’90s. He starred in the 1994 kid flick Rookie of the Year and 1999 teen hit American Pie (and its three sequels). Sarem met him a few years back. At the time, she was trying to put together a band of actors who are also musicians. (The lead singer of 100 Monkeys played Jasper Hale in Twilight.) That project never came together, but she showed Nicholas the script for Handbook and promised him a supporting role and a producer credit if he helped her get it made. Nicholas thought the project had potential, and they became business partners. Later, I spoke to Nicholas as well and asked what drew him to the script. He mostly spoke about himself, saying he was from Vegas and that his great-uncle was John Scarne, a Vegas magician who served as Paul Newman’s hand double in The Sting. “Those two elements were a big part of why I was intrigued,” he said.
Sarem jumped in. “You also liked the little twists and stuff that I’d written,” she offered.
“Yeah,” he said. “When Lani liked all but one of my notes, that got me interested in getting involved in the project,” he added, “because you want people who value your opinion.”
While the two of them were taking meetings, trying to get funding for the movie, a friend in Vegas suggested that Sarem also turn the screenplay into a book. This struck her as a shrewd idea. “A lot of the things that grow to be the biggest tend to have both a book and a movie,” she explained. “If people say they don’t look at the business perspective of things, they’re lying. From the business perspective, it made sense.”
Adapting the screenplay was challenging. “My grammar isn’t always the greatest,” she told me. Sarem had to hire three different editors to help pull the book into shape. She took pains to make sure it mirrored the script as much as possible. According to a person who read both the script and the book, Sarem said she had promised Carrot Top a part in the film, therefore she had to include him in the book as well.
Despite these challenges, Sarem finished a draft she felt good about. At the beginning of 2017, Nicholas took it to his friend, Clare Kramer, who plays the villain Glory in season five of Buffy, and her husband, a producer, and asked them if they wanted to publish it. They had never published a book before, but they ran the pop-culture website GeekNation and were happy to lend its name to the project. After that, Sarem says, she and Nicholas began taking early orders for the book at Wizard World conventions and other comic-cons where Nicholas was already a regular. The book, I must stress, had not yet been printed. For several of the conventions, Sarem didn’t even have a cover she could show people. But she insists the buyers didn’t care. As she explains it, Nicholas would sit at a booth decorated with Rookie of the Year and American Pie memorabilia, and convention guests would wander over and ask him what he was working on next. He’d tell them about Handbook and say that for $35 he’d send them a copy after it was published. He and Sarem would promise to autograph it.
Sarem characterized these customers as “collectors” above all else. “Some of them will probably never even read the book,” she said, “but that doesn’t matter as long as they buy.” She estimates they sold almost 13,000 books in this way — an average of more than 2,100 per convention. The rest of the 18,000 she says she sold through her website and at Wizard World Chicago right after the book came out. (They had the actual published books stacked on the table for that one.)
I asked a few comic-con regulars if they thought Sarem’s story of how she’d sold all these books was plausible. Charlie “Spike” Trotman, a writer who runs the largest comic-book publisher in Chicago, was highly skeptical. Neil Gaiman, she wrote, could ship 500 books to a comic-con and sell them all – but that’s on the very highest end of what anyone might hope to sell at a con. “I, and other people, would have noticed this bizarrely, wildly popular PROSE book that people who are coming to conventions explicitly to buy COMICS simply can’t say no to,” she wrote. Maryelizabeth Yturralde, co-owner of Mysterious Galaxy, a bookstore that specializes in mystery, fantasy, horror, and science fiction, said a big-name author like George R.R. Martin could perhaps sell hundreds of books — not thousands — in a day at a comic convention, and even then, only on the best of days. “I’m not sure what known reality her books reached all these readers in,” she said. “But it’s not one I’m familiar with.”
Sarem and Nicholas had already heard all this, and they had an answer: Sarem sold so many books because she had a “famous” person right there with her at the booth. “The comic-cons are very celebrity-focused,” Nicholas said. Most writers are sequestered in their own area, he explained. “But Lani’s at my booth.”
Nicholas surrounded by Rookie of the Year paraphernalia at Wizard World. Photo: Barry Brecheisen/Getty Images
Now, if the actor who played the virgin with the girlfriend from the American Pie franchise can sell roughly four times as many books as someone like Neil Gaiman or George R.R. Martin just because he offers to autograph the copies, that says something pretty sad about the state of American culture, but it does not constitute a scam in and of itself, unless you consider consumerism, nostalgia-peddling, and celebrity worship to be scams. The scam — one of them, anyway — was in the way she fulfilled all those comic-con orders. At the Sheraton, Sarem admitted she had not been entirely truthful in her first round of interviews after the scandal broke. To fill the orders, she said, she had indeed called up bookstores and ordered her books in bulk. (She later made a similar point in an op-ed in Billboard.) Before placing those orders, she first asked if the bookstores reported their sales to the Times. Not all bookstores do. The methods the Times uses to compile lists are as mysterious as the rites of a medieval religious order, but what the Times does make clear, in a statement on its website, is that it bases the rankings on retail sales. Convention floors don’t count as retailers. As Sarem made clear to me, she wanted the Times to count her supposed convention sales, so instead of ordering the books directly from her publisher, she took the stealthier route. “I wanted to hit the list,” she admitted. “Doesn’t everyone? It’s crazy to think not.”
But the bigger question was how would a first-time author, a first-time publisher, and one of the virgins from American Pie have come up with this scheme? Did they have any help?
YA author Phil Stamper, the first to tweet that there was something odd about Handbook’s ranking on the list, suspected that they did. He’d heard from a number of booksellers around the country who said they had received calls from people placing bulk orders for Handbook. At least two of these callers had provided the booksellers with email addresses containing the domain name of a company called Author Book Events. It had no website, perhaps because it did not exist. One of the calls, however, seemed to hold a clue. The buyer asked the bookstore employee to get in touch with his assistant, who would place the order for him. He gave the employee his assistant’s email address, which contained a domain name that sounded innocuous enough — authorbookevents.com. And then, like a poker player accidentally showing his hand, he identified the assistant as Krista Tetreault and told the employee he could reach her at a 760 phone number. As a friend of Stamper’s pointed out on Twitter, if you google “Krista Tetreault” and that Southern California area code, the first match that comes up is a ZoomInfo page for an employee of a company called ResultSource.
If you have heard of ResultSource, it is probably in connection to one of several different scandals that have made the news over the years. Maybe you remember the pastor who used church funds to buy his way onto the best-seller list in 2014, or the California gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner, whose memoir turned up unsolicited in the mailboxes of hundreds of California residents in 2010. Up until a few years ago, ResultSource was strikingly transparent about its mission. “We don’t sell vague promises like ‘increase your awareness,’” the website once read. “Instead, we create campaigns that reach a specific goal, like: ‘On the bestsellers list’, or ‘100,000 copies sold.’” After the pastor debacle, however, the site went dark.
At the Sheraton, I asked Sarem when she’d hired ResultSource; she denied working with the company at all. If that were true, I countered, then why had she thanked three employees of ResultSource in the acknowledgements of her book?
She admitted then that she had talked to them, but only to solicit their advice. “I was trying to figure out the book world because it’s very confusing,” she said. I told her I knew for a fact that someone working for ResultSource had placed a bulk order for copies of Handbook. I’d seen the order slip myself. Her face went pale and her eyes went wide and the silence stretched before us.
A few days later, I had another conversation with Sarem. She’d promised a response to my question about ResultSource. Nicholas was on the line as well — they were together in Nashville for another convention. Sarem began to argue that the Times’ system for evaluating best sellers was snobbish and outdated and unjust, and asked why nobody was talking about that, a point she’d made in that Billboard op-ed after our meeting at the Sheraton. In the Billboard piece, she admitted vaguely that she did buy the books in bulk, but since “real people” (the comic-con buyers) supposedly ended up with the copies, she believed the steps she took were “well within the rules.” (She has also made this point in a similar op-ed in the Huffington Post.)
Over the phone, Sarem and Nicholas went a step further, admitting that they had, in fact, hired a company to help them orchestrate a targeted bulk-buying campaign. “I can’t tell you who we hired,” Sarem said, “because I signed an NDA.”
“I don’t think we’re necessarily breaking rules so much as abiding by them,” Nicholas said. “Because there was no way to make our sales count without running them through the stores.”
I asked Nicholas and Sarem if they felt discouraged by the recent uproar. Short answer: no. “If I listened to the word no then I wouldn’t be in the entertainment business for, now, 31 years,” said Nicholas. “If we listened to people telling us no, women would probably not even have the right to vote,” Sarem added.
Sarem did say that if she could do it all over, she would send advance copies to people in the YA community. Other than that, she’s not sure she would do anything differently. She and Nicholas said they haven’t ruled out using the same strategy to sell the second book Sarem is planning for the series.
They both remain mystified about why the Times removed Handbook from the list. Throughout the conversation, Sarem and Nicholas insisted they had sold all 18,000 books to “real people,” the comic-con customers. I asked Sarem if she could show me proof of those sales. After six days, she sent me a 269-page document. She said the list showed “almost 10,000 orders of our presale list with data info protected.” The document is a PDF of a spreadsheet; there’s no way to prove or disprove its authenticity. It contains no information about when or where the customers placed the orders, nor does it give the names of any customers; it only says what town or city they’re from, when the books were shipped, and whether the customers paid in cash or credit card. (If the document is real, the vast majority paid in cash.)
Since our meeting I’ve talked to two people who told me they heard Sarem casually discussing plans to buy her way onto the Times’ list this past spring. One of them, who asked to remain anonymous because she is still in touch with Sarem, said the author told her on two different occasions that she planned to push Handbook onto the Times best-seller list by buying copies in bulk and handing them out for free to convention attendees.
Still, there may be something to Sarem’s claim that she has been punished for being an outsider. Earlier this week, I got a message from an employee at an independent bookstore in California that had handled one of Sarem’s orders. He’d heard I was working on this story and wanted me to know “how not uncommon” it was for authors and publishers to buy books in bulk in order to boost their rankings. “When the big publishers do this, no one ever finds out,” he wrote, “because it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb, the way her thing did.”
I asked him to elaborate, and he sent back an unsettling note. The only reason his bookstore reports its sales to the Times each week is because occasionally someone will call to ask if it does, and will then buy 60 or 70 books at once. “Selling 70 books at a pop, even at a discount, will turn a sub-par sales day into a ‘sales were up today!’ kind of day,” he said. “Bookselling,” he added, “is a barely head-above-water kind of business.”
Perhaps that explains why a company like ResultSource is still doing business, even as it stays in the shadows. Recently, a clerk for San Diego County confirmed for me that Author Book Events is indeed a fictitious business name (the official term) for ResultSource Inc. ResultSource did not respond to my request for comment. But the company is still around, and so long as writers desire the title of best-selling author, and publishers see an advantage in helping them attain it, and bookstores depend on bulk-buying campaigns to keep their doors open, ResultSource Inc. seems likely to endure.
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. Yet Rosenbaum and Drazen seem to think it is insulting to physicians and medical researchers to suggest that their judgment can be affected in the same way. Doctors might wish it were otherwise, but none of us is immune to human nature.”
They add that Rosenbaum uses shoddy logic and invents non-existent reasons to justify her opposition to conflict of interest policies and regulations.
“No one is proposing that ‘we prevent the dissemination of expertise, thwart productive collaborations, or dissuade patients from taking effective drugs,’ or allow ‘true experts to be replaced on advisory panels, as authors of reviews and commentaries, in other capacities of authority by people whose key asset is being conflict-free.’ Where is the evidence of ‘a loud chorus of shaming,’ or ‘a stifling of honest discourse,’ or that ‘the license to trample the credibility of physicians with industry ties has silenced debate?’ Silliness and fear mongering about straw men are masquerading as scholarly analysis.”
As editors, they say it was “sometimes difficult, but nearly always possible, to find outstanding authors with the needed expertise and without a conflict of interest to write editorials and review articles.” And they laud The BMJ for implementing a “zero tolerance policy” on educational articles by authors with industry ties. They predict that the NEJM’s new approach could herald a decline in journal quality or, perhaps, help galvanize strong opposition.
“In 1990, it was a bad idea for authors of editorials, review articles, and other opinion articles in medical journals to have financial conflicts of interest. A quarter of a century later, it is a very bad idea. The articles by Rosenbaum and the supportive editorial by Drazen could presage a further weakening of the conflict of interest policy at the NEJM, or they could serve as a wake-up call for all medical journals and the profession. It is time to move forward, not backward.”
The piece is worth reading in its entirety, as is a related editorial by current BMJ editors Elizabeth Loder, Catherine Brizzell, and Fiona Godlee, who say they are “deeply troubled by a possible retreat from policies that prevent experts with relevant commercial ties from authoring commentary or review articles.”
While Dr. Susan Molchan – one of our editorial contributors – was one of the first to register opposition to the NEJM’s soft-pedaling on conflict of interest, it is important for leaders like these editors to weigh in forcefully as they did with their conclusion: “It is a mistake by NEJM to suggest that rigorous standards should be revisited. To do so would undermine the trustworthiness of medical journals and be a disservice to clinical practice and patient safety.”
(Publisher’s note for journalists: We offer a list of industry-independent experts to help you do your work. But we wonder why we’ve seen almost no mainstream news media coverage of this continuing NEJM controversy.)ADVERTISEMENT
What do conservatives have against rail travel, asks Dave Weigel at Slate. Republican governors like John Kasich (Ohio), Scott Walker (Wisconsin) and Rick Scott (Florida) have all rejected stimulus funding for high-speed rail projects since being elected last year. The Republican Study Committee now wants the government to yank funding from Amtrak, and the president's $53 billion proposal to boost high-speed rail has been met with a chorus of boos from the opposition. Why exactly does the right wing hate trains?
The Right considers trains a poor investment: Conservatives don't like trains for economic reasons, says Megan McArdle at The Atlantic. Put simply, rail is never going to work at "anything close to a decent cost-benefit ratio in most of America." Not enough people will ride them to make the numbers work. Rail advocates say that if you build it, passengers will come. But conservatives rightly think that spending "tens of billions of dollars" on a risky proposition is a bad bet.
"Why do conservatives hate trains"
The Right thinks trains will turn us into socialists: Yes, rail projects can be dismissed as risky investments, says Weigel at Slate. But there's also a more complex, "cultural" reason why conservatives dislike them. They believe the primary reason liberals want to fund train travel is to "change [Americans'] behavior," towards a collectivist, European-style society where we all ride trains together.
"Why do conservatives hate trains so much?"
The real question is, why do liberals love rail? I find it hard to understand why liberals are so wedded to "a technology that was the future two centuries ago," says George Will at Newsweek. Perhaps it's because trains diminish Americans' individualism. Rail, with its timetables and fixed routes, requires pasengers to show "the deference on which progressivism depends." Meanwhile, the automobile allows them to roam free, "unsupervised, untutored and unscripted." Isn't that the American way?
"High speed to insolvency"First Production At Arctic Offshore Goliat Field
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First production at Arctic offshore Goliat Field from the world’s largest cylindrical FPSO, becoming the first oil field to reach production in the Barents Sea.
Goliat, located 53 miles (85km) offshore Hammerfest Norway, sits in an ice-free region of the Arctic’s Barents sea.
First Production At Arctic Offshore Goliat Field
The field is serviced by a cylindrical Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO), The Goliat, which operators ENI claim to be the largest and most advanced in the world.
The Goliat field has estimated reserves of around 180 million barrels of oil, and is expected to produce 100,000 barrels of oil per day once at full production.
Delays And Safety Breaches
The project has been dogged by a string of delays, and endless safety breaches, missing its original production startup in 2013 by around three years.
Most recently the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) hit operators ENI in February 2016 with non-conformance notches; after finding further ‘serious breaches’, during a follow-up inspection aimed at seeing if the company had rectified failings from previous audits.
The PSA had given ENI until March 4th 2016 to rectify and comply with their orders, which was achieved prior to allowing the FPSO to start production.
Goliat FPSO
The field consists of 22 wells, 12 are oil producing, 7 water injectors and 3 gas injectors. Out of the 22, 17 wells have been completed and are currently being brought on stream.
Goliat has the capacity to store up to 1 million barrels of oil in its structure; and is powered by electricity brought offshore from the Norwegian mainland via a 66 mile (105.5 km) long subsea cable.
The Goliat FPSO
The supply is designed to increase efficiencies over traditional generators, and brings CO2 emissions downy around 50%.The wood-burning fireplace warming the den is cozy, but it can belch as much pollution as an old diesel bus. That vintage wood stove cranks out heat, but it can contribute to asthma attacks in the neighborhood, or even inside the house.
When fuel oil prices soar, as they have this year, more Mainers turn to wood heat. But wood smoke contains fine particles that can cause health problems. In some locations, especially river valleys, residential wood smoke is a major source of winter air pollution.
Additional Photos
Now the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is preparing regulations meant to tighten emissions limits for new residential wood heaters. For the first time, these regulations will cover pellet stoves and outdoor boilers — heat sources that have become popular in Maine.
Also likely to be included are new indoor furnaces and cookstoves.
The proposed rules don’t involve any existing heaters. And new fireplaces, both factory-built and masonry, will continue to be exempt, at the urging of industry.
But the pending changes are noteworthy, because they cover most of the wood-burning devices common in Maine and represent the first substantial changes since the EPA set performance standards to “certify” wood stoves, 23 years ago.
The draft regulations were scheduled to be released next month, but have been pushed back until January. The compliance date for wood stoves and outdoor boilers is likely to be June 2014. Other standards will kick in by 2017.
The agency has been circulating details, which are being reviewed by interest groups.
Cleaner-burning technology could help reduce thousands of cases of asthma, respiratory symptoms and lost work days by 2017, according to EPA estimates.
But the standards don’t get at the biggest sources of wood smoke pollution: thousands of older wood stoves and alternative heaters still in use. An old wood stove, for instance, releases four times as many particles as a modern device, and because it’s less efficient, it burns more wood.
“Most of the stoves used in Maine and elsewhere are still pre-1990,” said John Crouch, public affairs director for the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association. “The old ones just don’t wear out.”
One solution developed by the EPA and Crouch’s group is to redirect money from air pollution fines to provide vouchers for residents who forfeit their old burners for new ones.
A program last year in Keene, N.H., used $106,000 to fund 86 change-outs. Residential wood smoke contributes a quarter of the winter air pollution in the town, which is flanked by mountains.
Ed Miller, vice president of health promotion at the American Lung Association in Maine, currently is working with a similar program in western Massachusetts. It provides vouchers for up to $3,000 to buy new wood, pellet or gas stoves. Miller wants to launch a similar program in Maine, but isn’t aware of any funding now.
A survey done by the association during the last heating oil price spike, in 2008, found a quarter of Maine households using wood as supplemental heat. One third of the stoves were more than 20 years old.
“Wood smoke is, in many ways, like second-hand cigarette smoke,” Miller said.
Overall, the new EPA proposals seek to strengthen emission limits to reflect today’s best available technology.
That shouldn’t be hard for certified wood stoves. The standards would cut fine particle emissions from a maximum 7.5 grams per hour to 4.5 grams for stoves using non-catalytic technology. Catalytic stoves would go from 4.1 grams to 2.5 grams. The tougher standards have been in place in Washington state since 1995.
Pellet stoves would have to meet the new wood stove standards, and the EPA estimates that two-thirds already do. In addition, the EPA wants certification tests for pellets, to assure mills are making premium fuel with clean-burning qualities.
Factory-built fireplaces, which make up 90 percent of all units, also came under scrutiny. Washington has had an emissions limit since 1995. Some communities, such as Denver and parts of California, ban new open-burning fireplaces altogether.
The EPA has a voluntary limit of 5.1 grams per kilogram of wood burned. Some manufacturers meet that standard now, but the EPA concluded that extending it to all prefab units isn’t cost effective.
Crouch’s group argued against a mandatory limit, saying most factory-built units aren’t used for serious heating.
“It’s more of a Sun Belt product,” Crouch said.
A major target of the new standards is outdoor boilers, technically known as hydronic heaters. Neighbors frequently complain about the smoke they generate. The heaters are subject to bans and regulations in some communities and emission limits in some states, including Maine.
Some manufacturers have voluntarily begun making heaters that meet the EPA’s proposed standards, which limit particulate emissions, carbon monoxide and visible smoke.
These changes are pending as the hearth industry recovers from a drop in sales during the recession, despite federal tax credits meant to create incentives. The trade group’s latest survey counted nearly 1 million units shipped nationally last year. Seven out of 10 units were gas. Cordwood heaters made up 25 percent of the total; pellets were 5 percent.
Roughly one-third of the wood- and pellet-stove owners use their units as the major heat source, lighting a fire an average of 120 times a year. Fireplace owners reported burning 52 times a year, the survey found.
The survey also determined that more than half of all U.S. homes have a fireplace or freestanding stove, and that fireplaces rank second among the features buyers want in new homes.
Beyond dirty wood burners, the EPA identified another obstacle to cleaner air.
Manufacturers can develop the best technology, but it only achieves the design potential when operated properly, with a hot fire fueled by dry, seasoned wood.
In a discussion of its draft options, the EPA notes that a typical prefab fireplace emits 12 grams of particulates per kilogram of wood. That level can be cut to 1 gram, the EPA says, if owners would close the glass fireplace doors.
Staff Writer Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or at:
[email protected]
ShareDo you ever go through patches when you feel a bit blah? We’ve all been there.
The good news is that happiness is within your reach right now. It is totally possible to boost your sense of well-being with the right kind of soul-nurturing foods. You just need to know which ones to put in your shopping cart.
1. GREENS
We’ve all heard the saying ‘Eat your greens!’. Well, when it comes to feeling good, there is nothing better. Dark green veggies, such as collard greens and spinach, are a rich source of vitamin C and magnesium.
These are both important in converting tryptophan and tyrosine amino acids to serotonin and dopamine – the neurotransmitters responsible for making us feel joyful. A good dose of greens every day is, therefore, a must!
2. NUTS AND SEEDS
One of the highest natural sources of tryptophan, a couple of handfuls of cashews a day can keep the blues at bay. And let’s not forget the king of nuts – almonds, which contain zinc (a major nutrient in maintaining a balanced mood), iron (which curtails brain fatigue) and healthy fats (which reduce anxiety).
3. BLUEBERRIES/ACAI BERRIES With blueberries considered a superfood, these little round bites of sweetness are excellent at relieving angst. Rich in vitamins, phytonutrients (plant nutrients) and a variety of stress-reducing antioxidants, blueberries are the perfect snack to help activate happy messages in the brain. And, it’s not just blueberries. Acai berries are also rich in phytonutrients, with antioxidant levels through the roof!
4. RAW CACAO It’s no secret that eating high-quality dark chocolate makes you feel good, right? That is because your body harnesses the benefits of cacao – the raw ingredient that gives good chocolate its taste and color. Renowned for promoting well-being, cacao contains phenylethylamine (the same chemical generated by the brain when falling in love), causing the release of endorphins. What a great excuse to indulge! Plus, with our
The power of nuts and seeds can never be underestimated. While flax/chia/hemp/pumpkin seeds and walnuts are great sources of mood-boosting omega-3s, cashews have been shown to provide the equivalent effect of a therapeutic dose of Prozac.One of the highest natural sources of tryptophan, a couple of handfuls of cashews a day can keep the blues at bay. And let’s not forget the king of nuts – almonds, which contain zinc (a major nutrient in maintaining a balanced mood), iron (which curtails brain fatigue) and healthy fats (which reduce anxiety).It’s no secret that eating high-quality dark chocolate makes you feel good, right? That is because your body harnesses the benefits of cacao – the raw ingredient that gives good chocolate its taste and color. Renowned for promoting well-being, cacao contains phenylethylamine (the same chemical generated by the brain when falling in love), causing the release of endorphins. What a great excuse to indulge! Plus, with our Superfood Chocolate, you can enjoy the benefits of energizing, mood-boosting cacao with the beautiful caramel toffee notes of coconut sugar, and Himalayan sea salt. Curb those cravings and feel good again!
5. FOODS HIGH IN VITAMIN BThe man who was questioned in connection to a deadly Akron fire that killed seven people, and later cleared by police, spoke to WKYC Channel 3 News on Wednesday afternoon.
While the investigation into the Fultz Street fire continues, police have cleared Angela Boggs’ estranged husband, Patrick Boggs, in the case after identifying Stanley Ford, 58, of Hilllcrest Street as the suspect. Ford is accused of setting setting an early Monday morning fire that killed seven members of the Boggs-Huggins family last week.
READ MORE I Neighbor arrested for Fultz Street fire that killed 7
“I’ve been free of all charges, said Boggs. “It’s a tragedy what happened.”
Boggs only spoke a few words to Channel 3 News Wednesday afternoon. He was joined by J. P. Laczko, Boggs’ public defender, representing him on a separate case in Portage County Municipal Court.
“He acknowledges that, the entire scenario, what took place is a grave tragedy and he’s sorry that anything happened,” said Laczko.
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Boggs, who was being held on a parole violation, was questioned by police soon after the fatal May 15 fire that killed seven people including mother Angela Boggs, father Dennis Huggins, Dennis Huggins, mother Angela Boggs, Cameron Huggins, Alivia Huggins, Kylle Huggins, Daisia Huggins and Jered Boggs.
READ MORE I Candlelight vigil held for Akron family of 7 killed in fire
On Tuesday afternoon, authorities named Ford as the suspect in the fatal arson, publicly clearing Boggs of any connection in the case.
“Boggs is not a suspect,” said Kenneth Ball, deputy chief with the Akron Police Department. “He’s not connected to this. He was interviewed very early on in our investigation which is very typical in cases like this.”
Boggs was never named a suspect in the case, but questions immediately surfaced surrounding his past. He spent 12 years in prison, convicted of arson for dousing Angela Boggs with Kerosene in 2001 and threatening to use a lighter, according to court documents.
Ford, 58, of Hillcrest Street, was charged with seven counts of aggravated murder and one count of aggravated arson. Ford lives about a block away from where the deadly fire took place and his home is adjacent to an empty lot where a home once stood in 2016 before a fire, ruled arson, killed two people.
At this point, no connection has been released or identified in the two arson cases, but investigators did confirm that they are looking into evidence in the 2016 case.
READ MORE I Fultz Street fire is 2nd deadly blaze within a year in neighborhood
Officials have not discussed any possible motives in the case.BOSTON ( BOSTON ( MainStreet ) -- Old brands never die -- they just fade away until someone figures a way to capitalize on the nostalgia for them. From candy to retailers, even the biggest names can fall out of favor. Some disappear forever while others just become harder to find. From candy to retailers, even the biggest names can fall out of favor. Some disappear forever while others just become harder to find. Eventually -- if enough folks start playing "remember when?" -- someone will take notice and try to cash in. Eventually -- if enough folks start playing "remember when?" -- someone will take notice and try to cash in. Remember Narragansett Beer? Rhode Island-based Narragansett Brewing opened for business in 1890. In 1981, the original Cranston brewery was closed and due to poor management by Falstaff (which had bought the brand in 1965) andproduction came to a near stand-still. In 2005, Mark Hellendrung, former president of Nantucket Nectars, along with a group of investors, bought the brand back from Falstaff. Remember Narragansett Beer? Rhode Island-based Narragansett Brewing opened for business in 1890. In 1981, the original Cranston brewery was closed and due to poor management by Falstaff (which had bought the brand in 1965) andproduction came to a near stand-still. In 2005, Mark Hellendrung, former president of Nantucket Nectars, along with a group of investors, bought the brand back from Falstaff. A similar East Coast treat, the sweet, concentrated syrups marketed since the 1930s as A similar East Coast treat, the sweet, concentrated syrups marketed since the 1930s as Zarex (with a Zebra mascot) were once hugely popular, then all but vanished. That is, until a new generation of owners brought it back to store shelves. Last year, Racebrook, a New York-based private equity firm and auction specialist, announced it was selling off 150 "classic American brands" it had acquired over the years. Among them were Handi-Wrap, Victrola, American Brands, Meister Brau, Braniff International and Shearson (as in Shearson Lehman, which begat Lehman Bros., which begat financial chaos in 2008). Last year, Racebrook, a New York-based private equity firm and auction specialist, announced it was selling off 150 "classic American brands" it had acquired over the years. Among them were Handi-Wrap, Victrola, American Brands, Meister Brau, Braniff International and Shearson (as in Shearson Lehman, which begat Lehman Bros., which begat financial chaos in 2008). "In recent years, there has been renewed interest around the world in branding that evokes nostalgia," John Cuticelli, CEO of Racebrook, said in a statement at the time of the auction. "These brand names have been, and will become again, globally recognized by consumers." "In recent years, there has been renewed interest around the world in branding that evokes nostalgia," John Cuticelli, CEO of Racebrook, said in a statement at the time of the auction. "These brand names have been, and will become again, globally recognized by consumers." Roughly a third of the names at that auction found buyers. Roughly a third of the names at that auction found buyers. There are probably hundreds of long-gone or hard-to-find brands, products and businesses that trigger happy memories and remind us of "back in the day." Here are 10 of the most talked-about: There are probably hundreds of long-gone or hard-to-find brands, products and businesses that trigger happy memories and remind us of "back in the day." Here are 10 of the most talked-about:
F.W. Woolworths
There was a time when predicting the demise of the famous Woolworth's would have been unthinkable. There was a time when predicting the demise of the famous Woolworth's would have been unthinkable. The retail giant, one of America's biggest businesses for many years, was among the breed of so-called five-and-dime stores that used their buying power to undercut the prices of competitors. Started in 1879, it is credited as being the first general merchandise store that kept its goods out in the open, letting shoppers handle, inspect and compare items. The retail giant, one of America's biggest businesses for many years, was among the breed of so-called five-and-dime stores that used their buying power to undercut the prices of competitors. Started in 1879, it is credited as being the first general merchandise store that kept its goods out in the open, letting shoppers handle, inspect and compare items. For decades, shoppers across the country and overseas flocked to Woolworths to shop and enjoy a snack at its beloved food counters, which often became a community gathering spot (parent to modern food courts). Its success established a blueprint for retail giants that followed, Wal-Mart ( Target ( Kmart ( For decades, shoppers across the country and overseas flocked to Woolworths to shop and enjoy a snack at its beloved food counters, which often became a community gathering spot (parent to modern food courts). Its success established a blueprint for retail giants that followed, WMT ), TGT ) and SHLD ) among them. Why do we speak of Woolworths in the past tense when so many people loved it for so long? Simply put, it collapsed under its own weight -- expanding beyond sustainability and moving away from its five-and-dime discount roots and more toward a department store model. Why do we speak of Woolworths in the past tense when so many people loved it for so long? Simply put, it collapsed under its own weight -- expanding beyond sustainability and moving away from its five-and-dime discount roots and more toward a department store model. The end came in 1997 when its parent company pulled the plug and evolved into Foot Locker ( The end came in 1997 when its parent company pulled the plug and evolved into FL ), devoting its energy to sporting goods and footwear.
Amiga
The hallmark of hardcore geek cred is having owned an Amiga. The hallmark of hardcore geek cred is having owned an Amiga. Unlike other computer makers that have come and gone, the Commodore Amiga still commands a place of reverence among tech aficionados. As The New York Times once put it, "Amiga loyalists are a fanatical bunch who make Apple ( AAPL) partisans look apathetic." The first Amiga, made by Commodore as a follow-up to its Commodore 64, hit stores in 1985 as a top-of-the-line personal computer. Its various incarnations sold extremely well in Europe and the U.S., as users were enthralled by its fast processor, top-notch (at the time) graphics, audio and video editing capabilities and its proprietary operating system. Over time, competition from Apple and IBM ( IBM) eroded its share of the PC market. But a funny thing happened on the way to extinction: People held onto their machines, so much so that an estimated half-million are still in use. Websites and Internet message boards bring Amiga fans from all over the world together to offer advice, develop new programs and trade software and parts. Strut with your fancy iPad if you want, the real techies are clinging to their decades-old Amiga. The computer's legendary status has led to a reincarnation. A-Eon Technology is a privately funded company founded with the sole intent of developing new hardware for the AmigaOS. This week, beta testers were shipped its AmigaOne X1000, a machine built to look just like the old system. Under the hood it features a dual-core CPU made by Apple-owned semiconductor maker PA Semi, which provides parts used in the iPhone and iPad. Unlike other computer makers that have come and gone, the Commodore Amiga still commands a place of reverence among tech aficionados. Asonce put it, "Amiga loyalists
Merry-Go-Round/Chess King
If you were a fashionably dressed teen in the '80s you probably relished a trip to the mall. Girls would head to Merry Go Round to pick up their Cyndi Lauper-inspired fashions (fingerless gloves!) and the boys would load up on whatever they thought their pseudo-Valley Girl would like (skinny leather ties!). If the outfit was really, like, oh my god, radical, it would be off to Glamour Shots to be immortalized in soft focus. If you were a fashionably dressed teen in the '80s you probably relished a trip to the mall. Girls would head to Merry Go Round to pick up their Cyndi Lauper-inspired fashions (fingerless gloves!) and the boys would load up on whatever they thought their pseudo-Valley Girl would like (skinny leather ties!). If the outfit was really, like, oh my god, radical, it would be off to Glamour Shots to be immortalized in soft focus. Fashion is fickle and styles constantly changing. Most retailers are able to adapt by rotating merchandise. But Chess King (which actually had been around since 1968) and Merry Go Round, owned by the same parent company in their later years, seemed trapped in the amber of the New Wave era. Once the market for parachute pants, suspenders and Velcro wallets dried up, so did their sales, and they went out of business in 1996. Fashion is fickle and styles constantly changing. Most retailers are able to adapt by rotating merchandise. But Chess King (which actually had been around since 1968) and Merry Go Round, owned by the same parent company in their later years, seemed trapped in the amber of the New Wave era. Once the market for parachute pants, suspenders and Velcro wallets dried up, so did their sales, and they went out of business in 1996.
Diners Club Card
If you were a somebody in the '60s and '70s, you probably flashed a Diners Club card when picking up the check. If you were ain the '60s and '70s, you probably flashed a Diners Club card when picking up the check. You may not see too many folks paying with the card any more, but it holds an important place in history for creating the massive credit card industry we have today. For many of our older readers, it was likely the first charge card they ever had. You may not see too many folks paying with the card any more, but it holds an important place in history for creating the massive credit card industry we have today. For many of our older readers, it was likely the first charge card they ever had. The origins of the card began when a man named Frank McNamara had dinner in a New York restaurant but left his cash in another suit. The embarrassing situation gave him the idea for a "charge card" that could be used for payment. In 1950, Diners Club International launched the first such card of its kind, with members required to pay off the balance upon getting their monthly statement. The origins of the card began when a man named Frank McNamara had dinner in a New York restaurant but left his cash in another suit. The embarrassing situation gave him the idea for a "charge card" that could be used for payment. In 1950, Diners Club International launched the first such card of its kind, with members required to pay off the balance upon getting their monthly statement. Over time, American Express ( Visa ( Master Card ( Over time, AXP ) horned in on its market and there was additional competition from a new breed of "revolving credit" cards offered by the likes of V ) and MA ). Those feeling nostalgic for their first charge card can take some solace in the fact that Diners Club, though rarely seen, still exists, owned by Discover Financial Services ( Citi ( Those feeling nostalgic for their first charge card can take some solace in the fact that Diners Club, though rarely seen, still exists, owned by DFS ), which bought Diners Club International from C ) for $165 million in 2008. Its Its current website, perhaps trying to rekindle its cachet, describes Diner's Club as "a globally recognized brand serving the payment needs of select and affluent consumers, offering access to more than 400 airports lounges worldwide, and providing corporations and small-business owners with a complete array of expense management solutions." It even has its own It even has its own online gift shop, if you are inclined to brag about being "select" and "affluent." Thus far, we haven't seen a similar reissue of the Players' Club Gold Card, once marketed with machismo by the late Telly Savalas. Thus far, we haven't seen a similar reissue of the Players' Club Gold Card, once marketed with machismo by the late Telly Savalas.
Tab
As kids, many of us guzzled soda. It is no surprise then that cola brands trigger warm, fuzzy (and fizzy) memories. As kids, many of us guzzled soda. It is no surprise then that cola brands trigger warm, fuzzy (and fizzy) memories. Pepsi ( PEP ) tapped into such nostalgia recently when it made Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback, packaged with retro labeling and a made with real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup (just like in the olden days). Other brands we may recall fondly from years past include Dr Pepper Snapple Group ( Other brands we may recall fondly from years past include Shasta, RC Cola (now owned by the DPS )) and White Rock (which always makes us think of grandmothers and ginger ale). So why our focus on Tab? It started the diet cola craze, for one (advertising slogans included: "A Beautiful Drink for Beautiful People" and "One Calorie -- Beautiful)." So why our focus on Tab? It started the diet cola craze, for one (advertising slogans included: "A Beautiful Drink for Beautiful People" and "One Calorie -- Beautiful)." The familiar pinkish can with simple white lettering has become a symbol of the 1970s aesthetic. TV shows and movies set during his era very often include a can somewhere in the scenes to add a touch of period-piece verisimilitude. The familiar pinkish can with simple white lettering has become a symbol of the 1970s aesthetic. TV shows and movies set during his era very often include a can somewhere in the scenes to add a touch of period-piece verisimilitude. Alas, Tab in its original form had a hard fall from '70s stardom. Alas, Tab in its original form had a hard fall from '70s stardom. To start with, there was that whole cancer thing. To produce a tasty but low-calorie beverage, Tab included the artificial sweetener sodium saccharin. Tests on lab rats (that years later were debunked) led to a scare that the chemical could cause cancer. Those concerns led to mandatory, off-putting warning labels. (The FDA relented on the labels and admitted it goofed regarding saccharine in 2000.) To start with, there was that whole cancer thing. To produce a tasty but low-calorie beverage, Tab included the artificial sweetener sodium saccharin. Tests on lab rats (that years later were debunked) led to a scare that the chemical could cause cancer. Those concerns led to mandatory, off-putting warning labels. (The FDA relented on the labels and admitted it goofed regarding saccharine in 2000.) The bigger problem was the global power of the Coca-Cola ( The bigger problem was the global power of the KO ) name. Soon after its introduction in 1982 a product called Diet Coke became the soda standard for calorie-counters, and the company focused on it rather than its older Tab product. Tab, which hit shelves in 1963, never regained its popularity. As more and more diet drinks hit the marketplace it became a bit of a footnote to the cola wars. Tab, which hit shelves in 1963, never regained its popularity. As more and more diet drinks hit the marketplace it became a bit of a footnote to the cola wars. Nevertheless, it is still available in the U.S. if your grocer is inclined to carry it (something the website Nevertheless, it is still available in the U.S. if your grocer is inclined to carry it (something the website ILoveTab.com has started a petition to encourage). There is even a Tab Energy Drink launched by Coca-Cola in 2009. Within a year, it was deemed an underperformer and now is found in only a handful of countries, among them Canada, Fiji, Mexico and New Zealand.
Rustler Steak House
Once upon a time, going to a "steakhouse" didn't mean dropping a week's pay at Morton's ( Once upon a time, going to a "steakhouse" didn't mean dropping a week's pay at MRT ) or The Palm. Middle America flocked to a variety of affordable, family steakhouses. Bonanza, Ponderosa and Sizzler still dot the landscape and, for a time, Massachusetts' Hilltop Steak House had the distinction of being the nation's busiest restaurant. Bonanza, Ponderosa and Sizzler still dot the landscape and, for a time, Massachusetts' Hilltop Steak House had the distinction of being the nation's busiest restaurant. Less durable among its peers was the Rustler Steak House, which thrived as an after-church, Little-League-victory, Uncle-Jim's-birthday-party kind of place for those in the Mid-Atlantic states. Less durable among its peers was the Rustler Steak House, which thrived as an after-church, Little-League-victory, Uncle-Jim's-birthday-party kind of place for those in the Mid-Atlantic states. The beginning of the end for Rustler came when Marriott ( The beginning of the end for Rustler came when MAR ) bought its parent company, the Gino's fast-food restaurant chain, as part of a move to extend its Roy Rogers chain. That plan fell apart when Marriott re-sold the Gino's chain for $365 million to Hardee's which, in turn, sold off the properties to McDonald's ( Wendy's ( That plan fell apart when Marriott re-sold the Gino's chain for $365 million to Hardee's which, in turn, sold off the properties to MCD ), YUM ) and Boston Market. The remaining Rustler steakhouses were sold off by the Marriott and, in 1985, Collins Foods, a subsequent owner, converted them into Sizzlers. A similar fate befell the family-friendly, cafeteria-style chain of York Steak Houses, many of which were found alongside shopping malls. A similar fate befell the family-friendly, cafeteria-style chain of York Steak Houses, many of which were found alongside shopping malls. Popular in the '70s and '80s, York was owned by General Mills ( Darden Restaurants ( Popular in the '70s and '80s, York was owned by GIS ), but most were shuttered by 1989. (The parent company also jettisoned other food chains, including Betty Crocker Tree House and Guadala Harry's, and spun off others such as Red Lobster and Olive Garden as DRI ) in 1995. Today only one York Steak House remains, near the Westland Mall in Columbus, Ohio.
McCall's Magazine
A confession: As kids we used to sneak a quick read of our mothers' copies of McCall's Magazine. A confession: As kids we used to sneak a quick read of our mothers' copies of We weren't looking at the popular housekeeping-themed magazine for centerpiece ideas or sewing tips. Our |
next project, writing, directing and starring in a big-budget movie about the men who chased down the stolen art of Europe during World War II, he told TheWrap on Saturday.
“The Monuments Men,” which Clooney is co-writing with his producing partner Grant Heslov, will tell the story of a hand-picked group of art experts chosen by the U.S. government to retrieve artwork stolen by the Nazis.
“I’m excited about it,” Clooney told TheWrap at the Palm Springs Film Festival on Saturday. “It’s a fun movie because it could be big entertainment. It’s a big budget, you can’t do it small — it’s landing in Normandy.”
The movie will be based on the book “The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History,” by Robert M. Edsel.
Also read: 'Descendants': George Clooney as a Cuckold? Heck, Yes!
Clooney said he will co-write, direct and star in the movie, which has been set up at Sony. It will have several meaty roles for actors, though Clooney said it was too early to think about who might fill those roles.
“Grant and I have been trying to find a project,” Clooney said.
“I’m not opposed to doing a commercial film, I’m just opposed to doing a commercial film that doesn’t feel organic to me. So if we’re going to do a commercial film we thought, 'Let’s do something that seems fun and actually have something to say.'”
"Monuments” is an intrigue-filled tale of art theft and espionage in Europe during World War Two. (Photo of U.S. soldiers retrieving artwork in Austria in 1945, Getty Images.) Hitler systematically emptied the museums and private collections of Europe during World War II.
The book tells the tale of a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians – called the Monuments Men – who risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of this culture.
Also read: George Clooney Starring in Prop 8 Play From Dustin Lance Black
The book specifically follows the 11-month period between D-Day and V-E Day. The group worked behind enemy lines and were often unarmed.
Clooney and Heslov often make movies about political or socially-oriented subjects. Last year they made “Ides of March” together, about a corrupt political campaign, and they also co-produced “Good Night and Good Luck,” an examination of the limits of freedom of the press, as well as the Middle East war caper, “The Men Who Stare at Goats.”
Clooney was in Palm Springs to be honored at a festival gala. Related Articles: Clooney, Pitt, Chastain Pay Tribute to Risky Films at Glitzy Palm Springs Gala Clooney Leaves Warners for Sony Clooney Talks Politics, Charms Crowd at Toronto FestCharles Cameron says a third-party audit by industry bodies was a better way to ensure employers are complying.
A legal advocate says a standdown list naming and shaming employers that have breached minimum standards of the employment law will not be enough to solve work exploitation.
Since April, over 150 employers that breached their minimum employment standards have been put onto the standdown list, according to the Labour Inspectorate.
Workers' advocate Nathan Santesso said a stronger deterrent could be making certain types of exploitation a criminal offence.
SUPPLIED Labour Inspectorate national manager Stu Lumsden is pleased with the effect the standdown list is having as a deterrent.
"There are a lot of issues at play here but a big one of them is that this is a type of white collar crime that's not treated as a crime," Santesso said.
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"You don't see the police going and arresting these people. It's a very low risk and high reward crime."
SUPPLIED Hospitality NZ's Rachael Shadbolt says often businesses that fail to comply are SMEs that were not aware they were in the wrong.
Bella*, one of Santesso's clients, works for a large retail clothing chain to fund her budding photography career.
She has not been paid for about 20 hours of overtime, and the 22-year-old's employer has also breached her holiday and annual leave entitlements, Santesso said.
But Bella's story is not an anomaly.
SUPPLIED Legal advocate Nathan Santesso says the standdown list brought attention to the problem but would not solve employment exploitation alone.
Recently the Labour Inspectorate issued out a warning for other employers to provide correct entitlements to staff during the Christmas period, after an Auckland restaurant failed to pay 10 employees their entitlements and was fined $22,000 by the Employment Relations Authority (ERA).
In some other cases, migrant employees have had to worked under bonded labour or without employment contracts.
Earlier this year an ERA decision showed an exploited Chinese New Zealand newspaper worker was asked to pay a $50,000 premium in return for a job.
The Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) said the heftiest fine ordered to be paid by an employer on the list as of November 27 was $78,000.
The fine was issued to restaurant employer NZ C&J which failed to pay correct wages and holiday pay to 70 employees, most of whom were migrants.
The standdown list was introduced in April by the Labour Inspectorate and Immigration New Zealand working together to hold employers to account.
Employers on the standdown are not able to sponsor new visas to recruit migrant labour for a period between six months and two years.
Employers who breach minimum employment standards may have failed to provide their employee with at least the minimum wage, holiday pay, an employment agreement, or keep records of employment as legally required.
An infringement notice will result in fines of $1,000 per breach up to $20,000 in any three month period.
But labour Inspectorate national manager Stu Lumsden said he was satisfied with the effect the standdown list was having as a deterrent.
Lumsden said the Labour Inspectorate had received fines totalling about $965,000.
"It should be clear to employers from the standdown list that access to migrant labour is a privilege not a right, and if you fail to meet the bare minimum standards required to be an employer in New Zealand you will lose this access."
Hospitality employers tend to frequent the list, but Hospitality New Zealand spokeswoman Rachael Shadbolt said food and accommodation businesses were often small businesses.
"Sometimes it's not a case of deliberately not complying. It can be just a case of not knowing.
"We spend a lot of our time making sure our clients have all the finer details whether that's Easter trading or staff entitlements for holiday pay. It's really complex for them to get their heads around."
Labour on hire industry body Recruitment, Consulting and Staffing Association (RCSA) had a third-party pilot audit where employers were randomly checked and endorsed if they complied. This will be launched more broadly next year.
RCSA chief executive Charles Cameron said a third-party audit was a more efficient way to ensure its members were complying.
"Overseas issues of modern slavery have become more prominent, and one of the issues in a changing world is more innovative ways to employ people have made it complex for even the most sophisticated employers to make sure they are complying to employment standards."
Lumsden said that while the Inspectorate would not provide endorsements that validated the compliance, it would support industries that did so.
"That's what we're looking for all industries. We want them to take responsibility for their own industry."
"We'll get to a point where people will think twice before buying goods or services unless they can guarantee those industries are looking after their workers.
* Bella is not the person's real name.The comprehensive guide to European city cards (mid-2015 edition)
Whether you’re taking in one country or the whole continent, most European cities have a special card that offers some special benefits to tourists. Which ones are worth your money, though? Which ones should you pass on? Plan your trip through Europe the smart way!
Update: there’s a newer post (updated February 2016) offering even more reviews than seen here. Check it out.
Three quick notes before we get started here:
Some cards were received for free from the relevant tourist authorities. Receiving something for free did not (and does not) factor into their rating – I’m looking at the value received for the price and effort to use.
Because Europe has a lot of city cards, I put the call out to friends and fellow bloggers. Quite a few responded with great reviews and details – thanks a bunch everyone! If you see someone’s name and website under a review, check out their website for more awesome travel stories and adventures (they’re all set to open in a new window / tab)
Cards are rated 1 to 5 globes based on their value and usefulness (five being the best).
Quick jumps:
What is a city card?
I’m so glad you asked. A city card is a program typically run by the city’s tourism authority which typically offers free or discounted access to the city’s public transportation and attractions. Some programs are run by private companies, and I’ve tried to note the origin of the program where I could. Each program is run and priced a little differently, however, meaning it’s important to know what’s covered and what isn’t.
Austria
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Vienna
On the cheaper side of European city cards is Vienna’s offering, which runs 18.90 € for the 48-hour card and 21.90 € for the 72-hour card. The card covers unlimited public transportation and discounts (only discounts) to dozens of attractions. These discounts aren’t particularly substantial – usually 10%-20% – but run the gamut on everything from food to museums to shows to accessing Austrian Airline’s business-class lounge. Over 210 partners are listed in the guidebook you’ll receive, which is itself worth a few euros.
The value comes mainly from accessing public transportation, since it’s only about five euros more than the three-day public transportation pass. Without trying too hard you’ll accrue enough small discounts to make it worth your while. It’s far from the all-inclusive card found in other cities, but it’s a worthwhile deal that’s easy to pick up.
I’ll note there are two other cards available for Vienna, which I can’t rate since I didn’t try them firsthand and didn’t thoroughly research them:
The Vienna Pass (viennapass.com), which offers free admission to about 60 of Vienna’s well-known and mainstream attractions along with the Hop on, Hop off buses that only stop at tourist attractions. They’re pricier: 2 days is 69 €, 3 days is 84 €, and 6 days is 99 €. These don’t include public transportation, either – add 13 €, 17 €, and 33 €, respectively.
(viennapass.com), which offers free admission to about 60 of Vienna’s well-known and mainstream attractions along with the Hop on, Hop off buses that only stop at tourist attractions. They’re pricier: 2 days is 69 €, 3 days is 84 €, and 6 days is 99 €. These don’t include public transportation, either – add 13 €, 17 €, and 33 €, respectively. The Niederösterreich Card (niederoesterreich-card.at) actually covers an eye-watering 331 different attractions, scattered across Austria. For 55 €, the card gets you free admission to places across the country, including dozens in Vienna and the nearby areas. If you’ll be traveling around the country, this is likely to be a great deal even though it doesn’t cover any public transportation.
Belgium
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Ghent
From Sofie Couwenbergh at wonderfulwanderings.com
On my last trip to Ghent I used the Ghent Citycard. I’d mostly recommend it if you’re staying in Ghent for more than one day as it covers a lot of attractions and is valid for 48 or 72 hours. It might seem a bit pricey at €30 for the 48 hour card, but if you know you can use it at over 20 sights AND on public transportation, it’s really a good investment.
I think it’s a shame that the “shortest” option is 48 hours. You can do a hell of a lot with it so if you come for two days it can basically cover everything you might want to do, but it’s rather expensive for one day and you might not get your money out of it in that case.
Czech Republic
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Prague
Coming in 2-day (46€ ), 3-day (56€ ), and 4-day (65€ ) varieties, the Prague card covers public transportation and offers free admission to many of the city’s more touristy attractions. A two-hour bus tour of the city is also made free with the card, if that’s your thing. While most places are covered, you have to really hustle to make it worth your time. The famous Prague castle offers only a ‘short tour’ for free, which you’ll discover is admission to four of the castle’s 10+ sites. There are 20-40% discounts on a number of private museums and tours, but beware of copycats and similar-sounding places. There are multiple ghost tours and museums about instruments of torture, for example, and only one of each gives you the discount.
An alternative might be the one- or three-day transportation-only pass, which can be purchased at the train station or most metro stations. These give you the benefit of getting around on Prague’s excellent (if occasionally confusing) tram and metro system, without the pressure of getting to everywhere you can. Purchase online or learn more at praguecard.com.
France
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Lyon
From Irene Levine at moretimetotravel.com.
With a Lyon City Card (available for purchase online from the Lyon Tourism Office), a tourist can access 22 museums for free and well as the city’s excellent metro system to explore its abundance of markets and restaurants. We used the card to take open-top bus and riverboat tours, which are especially beautiful at night when 35 buildings and monuments are illuminated. Also included with the card: A 10 Euro discount off the advertised price of a two-hour electric taxi tricycle tour, a nice way to travel slowly and see city sites with a local.
Marseille
Mah-say is open for business, and there’s plenty of reasons to pick up a Marseille City Pass. Good for 24 (24 €), 48 (31 €), or 72 (39 €) consecutive hours after the first use, it offers free public transportation on their metros, trams, and buses. Most of the mainstream destinations and offerings (including the boat out and entrance to Chateau d’If) are free with the card, but it does take some effort to get more value than you’re spending on it. A few nice extras are free tastings or samples – track down the restaurant on the map, flash the card, and enjoy.
Note that if you’re taking it slower, look for a transportation-only pass to come much cheaper – 24 hours for 5.20 € or 72 hours for 10.80 €. Learn more at lepilote.com.
Learn more about the card at their official website.
Paris
Photo credit: Cory Dehaan at theinspirationallifeadventures.com.
Text from Noel Morata at travelphotodiscovery.com.
Considering that Paris is a very large city, it made sense to get the Paris city cards to save on a variety of local transportation, attractions and cultural venues. You save so much time and effort when you have this pass, and you get a nice variety of features and attractions that are included in the price. As an example with my 3 day pass: I was able to see over 5 museums for free, 4 landmarks, I did the hop on – hop off bus, a nice cruise around the Seine, and discounts at major tourist venues. A big plus are the many fast track entrance to the many of the museums that bypass those incredibly long lines and I did this at the D’Orsay and Louvre to beat out the hordes of tourists visiting Paris. In my book, it was definitely worth the cost for this complete package.
Learn more about the Paris city pass.
Germany
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Berlin
Berlin has plenty going on, which includes no fewer than three ‘city passes’. I’ve rated them individually, and they can be picked up online or at the major hotspots.
The Berlin Welcome Card (from 19.50 € to 42.50 €, available for 2, 3, or 5 days) – gets you free use of Berlin’s extensive public transportation system and discounts of 25-50% off museums, shows, restaurants, and the like. Note I said discounts, which in most cases ends up being a disappointing amount actually being saved. You’ll likely save money from the free public transportation alone, but savings from the destinations will be minimal. If you’ll be shopping or eating at the specific places, or going to the shows around town, then the 25% discount can be a bit more significant. You would need to make the effort to find them, of course, and even with the discount you might end up spending more than another local option.
You can pair the Welcome Card with the Museum Pass, a three-day card costing 24 € that gets you into over 50 Berlin museums for free. It’s primarily for city-owned or state-funded museums, so there are a number of prominent private museums and cathedrals that end up not offering any savings. Still, if these places are on your list, it’s worth the investment.
The Berlin Pass (79 € for 2 days or 99 € for 3 days) aims to be the all-inclusive card. Between getting you into over 60 attractions, free transportation around the city, and free tours, it’s bound to make most everything you’d want to do in town free to use. This card includes free use of the ‘hop-on-hop-off’ bus tours, walking tours, and bike tours, if you need even more to see. With a relatively short period of time to make the most of the card, you’ll need to be moving for most of those days to make it worth your while.
If the places you want to see are part of the Museum Pass, I’d suggest combining it with the Welcome Card. It’ll come out a little cheaper than the Berlin Pass that way. If they’re not covered, or if you’re staying well on the tourist trail, get the Berlin Pass and make the most of it.
Ireland
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Dublin
From Cheryl MacDonald at whatboundariestravel.com
The Dublin Pass is a great way to check out more than 30 of the top sites in Dublin! Some of the top attractions include the Guinness Storehouse (includes a free pint), the Jameson Distillery, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, museums, zoos, and even a cemetery! One cool inclusion is the free airport transfer into Dublin, but remember the first time you use your card, even if it is for the airport transfer, it activates the card and starts the clock counting down your 1, 2, 3, or 6-day pass.
You can pre-order the card for delivery or arrange to collect it at the airport (to take advantage of your free transfer). We found the 3 day card to be the best option at around €70.
After visiting the top 3 or 4 attractions, you will have already paid for your Dublin Pass ticket. It is definitely a nice way to see all the major sights in Dublin and save money.
Combine the Dublin Pass with the Dublin Bus Pass Freedom Ticket and all of your Dublin transport and attraction needs will be met!
Italy
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Bologna
After researching this card, we ended up not getting it for our own trip, which was a three-day trip to both the city and a few destinations in the surrounding area. Bologna lacks a subway system, so getting around town is all about the buses or walking. That said, you’d have to use quite a few bus trips at 1.50 € (if paid on the bus) to make this worth your while – the card costs 20 € for 48 hours access, which is the only length available.
The card covers free admission to nine mainstream museums in town, precisely zero of which were on our list, and one (only one) of the following: a shuttle bus to the airport, 24 hours free public transportation, or a walking tour in the late afternoon. I’m not convinced this card would be a good value for the majority of tourists, which is why it’s earned one of the lowest ratings in the entire post.
Florence
Florence’s card, the Firenzecard, costs 72 € for 72 hours of use, and covers priority admission to dozens of museums and use of buses and trams. It also enables access to city-provided wi-fi during your time in Florence. On paper, this card sounds pretty good.
The reality is quite different. Since most of Florence’s main attractions are centered in the walkable downtown area, you’re unlikely to need the buses. In several days of walking around Florence, I never once saw a tram. (It turns out that as of our trip in June 2015, only one tram line was running, and that line went nowhere near the touristy areas.) The wi-fi might be a decent add-on, but getting a SIM card for your unlocked smartphone is straightforward and inexpensive. (I paid 20 € for a data-only SIM that lasted the entire three weeks we spent in Italy – took about 15 minutes at a local mall to setup.)
If your plans to Florence involve going to all seven of the most expensive sites in town that are covered, it might be worth your while – if you can get to them all in three days. The card doesn’t include any optional reservation fees, however, and over a dozen of the museums covered under the card are free to the public anyway. Not sure why they’re mentioned here except to pad the numbers a bit. Almost any tourist that bought it would really have to hustle just to break even, which is why it’s earned the lowest rating in this group.
Naples
We were more than a little frustrated by the Naples pass. On paper, it sounds great – choose between a 3 day card (32 €) and a 7 day card (34 €). Wait, what? The 3 day card offers public transportation and your first two admissions are free, while the 7 day card only covers your first five admissions without covering any travel.
(Not pictured is a 3-day card for Naples city proper for 21 €, which covers transportation and local attractions, but nothing outside the city border. If you’re going to Pompeii, Herculaneum, or dozens of other attractions in the area, you want the regional card described below, not the blue city card.)
The one we bought was the artecard tutta la regione, a pink-branded card that covers over 80 attractions across the Campania region including Pompeii. The confusion started as soon as we bought the cards – Laura never received the brochure / booklet explaining where the card was good for. Each place we tried to use it did things a little differently – one scanned the magnetic strip on the back, while another was fine with simply seeing it. There was very little signage at the places themselves, and we narrowly avoided a disaster regarding the Campania Express (an express train connecting Naples to Pompeii). None of the signage inside the train station mentions the niggling detail of the 10 € price for the express train – you’ll have used the card to pass through the train station turnstiles. We declined the opportunity to pay an extra 10 € to save a few minutes on an express train, and can only hope you’re able to buy a ticket on the train itself before being fined by a ticket agent for not having one.
To be fair, this confusion worked to our advantage. Whatever system they have / had in place did not prevent us from getting a third freebie (!), and considering the amount of frustration, we didn’t mind sticking it to them in the slightest. Even without the ‘confusion’, we still saved money thanks to all the getting around town needed. It’s definitely worth the time and effort to use, even with the lack of signage.
IMPORTANT: we stopped by the small shop at Naples’ main train station just before we left to clarify a few things. We were told they were ‘sold out’ and that new cards were being printed (this was in the middle of July, during the high season and the Milan Expo of all times). If you’ve purchased an artecard under this new program, I’d love to update this entry since I suspect it may already be out of date when it’s published!
Palermo
Part of the northern coast of Sicily, the Palermo card’s a rather curious one. We ended up not buying it because we were only in town for about 48 hours, and we never found a place to purchase them. The PMO card comes in 24 hour (13 €), 48 hour (18 €), and 72 hour (24 €) lengths. Curiously, there’s a 72 hour card for two people for 38 €, but it only allows free travel for 48 hours according to the website. I suspect this is a typo but never got confirmation of that. In any case, the cards offer free bus rides (no trams or metro lines on the island), 20%-50% discounts on attractions, a 15% discount on taxis, and anywhere from 10% to 25% discounts on restaurants, opera, and shopping.
I wouldn’t bother with the card – once you’re in town, you’ll realize it’s much more time effective to walk to your next stop, even if it’s a kilometer away. While the area has a decent number of bus routes, the buses themselves come infrequently enough to be frustrating to wait for. You might make your money back with the restaurant and shopping discounts, but you’d have to be careful to ensure the place you want to go is on the list.
Rome
All roads may lead to Rome, and there’s a worthy card to pick up once you get there.
It’s called the Roma Pass, and offers a 48 hour (28 €) or 72 hour (36 €) pass to public transportation and free admission to 1 or 2 museums. After the freebies are used, you get the ‘concessionary’ price as long as the pass is valid, which can saves a few euros each time. We both got this primarily for the convenience of not having to find a ticket machine or a tobacco shop (a common place to buy bus tickets), but definitely got our money’s worth.
Protip: offer up the card for the Coliseum (typically a 12 € ticket) and the Capuchin crypt (typically a 8 € ticket) and you’re more than halfway to getting your money’s worth.
Lithuania
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Vilnius
From Margherita Ragg at http://www.thecrowdedplanet.com
I’m a big fan of city cards and often use them when I travel around cities, but I have found that often they include very little, offering instead discounts in a variety of places. Luckily, this is not the case in Vilnius. I used the 72 hour card with free public transport there and I was very pleased. The card includes free entrance to lots of museums and attractions, including the very moving Museums of Genocide Victims and Gediminas Castle. On top of that, it offers discounts in stores, restaurants and cafés – including Vilnius’s cat café! On one hand, I was very happy with what it included, but on the other, Vilnius is so small that you don’t really need buses to go around, so I didn’t use the public transport component of the city card enough to justify the cost. But that’s just me – I love walking!
Netherlands
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Amsterdam
From Amy Hardy at thehardytraveller.com.
The Iamsterdam City Card is a great way to explore Amsterdam. Valid for 24, 48 or 72 hours (€49/€59/€69) the card includes a very detailed city map, along with unlimited use of buses, trams and metro operated by the GVB in Amsterdam (although take note you cannot use bus lines operated by Connexion and EBS). The card also includes free entrance to many of Amsterdam’s best museums and attractions and some tasty discounts and special offers around the town. Note a couple of the top museums aren’t included for free and just have a small discount.
It’s a great buy if you plan on visiting at least a handful of museums and attractions as they can be pricey in Amsterdam so a lot of money can be saved this way. If you only plan on visiting a couple, it’s probably better value to pay individually (depending on the museum) and buy an OP-Chipkaart for the transport. Buy online or in various outlets around the city at www.iamsterdam.com.
A second opinion from Cheryl MacDonald at whatboundariestravel.com.
The iAmsterdam Card is one of the best values we have seen for a city card pass. The card gives you access to over 50 attractions as well as free use of public transportation for the duration of your card.
In addition to the usual free admission to the main Amsterdam attractions, this card also gives you a free canal cruise. What better way to see Amsterdam than from the canals? By the time you visit 3 main attractions, use the free public transport, and jump into your canal cruise; the card has paid for itself. The complete list of inclusions and discounts can be found here.
The IAmsterdam card can be purchased for 24-72 hour time frames and ranges in price from €49 – €69. For just €10 more you can add the regional pass to your card. This allows you to explore some more great attractions outside of Amsterdam, and with public transport covered in your card, you are off to explore even more of the area.
Norway
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Oslo
From Hannah Kacary at thatadventurer.co.uk.
Oslo is renowned for being expensive and on your visit there you’ll find things really add up. The Oslo Pass to help lessen the blow to your bank account. Lasting from 24 to 72 hours the Oslo Pass gives you free transport, free entrance to museums and galleries and many more discounts. It is well worth buying if you’re considering doing even one tourist attraction in Oslo!
It comes in especially useful if you plan to visit the Holmenkollen ski jump as the transport from the city centre and the entrance to the museum (usually 110Nok) is included in the price of the Oslo Pass.
Without the Oslo Pass I would’ve spent a small fortune on transport around the city and entrance to museums and other attractions. Whilst it’s easy to get your money’s worth if you’re prepared for a packed weekend of sightseeing, if you’re after a more relaxed break you may be better off without the pass.
Portugal
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Lisbon
From Amanda Mouttaki at http://marocmama.com
When we visited Lisbon we bought the Lisbon visitors card on a whim. One of the biggest advantages is that the price includes all public transportation; buses, trams, funiculars, and the regional train to Cascais. The card gives you access to many sites for free, some others for a discount. You also get “front of the line” jumping privileges. The infamous Tram 28 fee is included with the card and admission to sites like the Belem Tower and Castelo Sao Jorge are also free. For just 18 euros this is a great deal!
Spain
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Barcelona
The Barcelona City Card is actually two cards – one’s a plastic card that you’ll use to get free tickets or discounts at attractions (like the one above). The other’s one a paper one you use to ride the extensive metro / tram / bus system for free. The 150+ page accompanying booklet is helpful and offers info in all of Europe’s major languages, but note that it’s useful for a given number of calendar days, not 24-hour periods. Whatever day you start to use it, that’s day 1. Available in 3 day (45 €), 4 day (55 €), and 5 day (60 €) lengths, it’s a great deal any way you slice it. If you just want the transportation part of things, you can pick up that card by itself at any metro station, but I don’t know why you’d want to do that. There’s more freebies and discounts available than you’ll have time to try. Get it at the airport once you arrive.
Learn more at barcelonacard.com.
Lloret de Mar
I’ll be honest with you – I didn’t really get the chance to use this card despite being in town for TBEX for several days. Pre- and post-conference, I was either A: in Barcelona, B: working at my computer in the hotel, or C: networking with other bloggers. As a result, I did very little sightseesing around the area.
One unique quirk about the Lloret de Mar card (for 10 €) is that it’s good for your entire trip – it’s not restricted to being used for only a few days. It gets you in for free to five of the city’s museums and 50% off to a couple of others, while offering 10% off discounts to dozens of other places. It doesn’t get you any free public transportation around the area, though frankly this is no big loss as the entire area is walkable. If you’ll be in town for more than a few days and think the museums sound interesting, this is a good deal. If you’ll only be around for a few days or mostly be at the beach, give this one a pass.
Learn more at their official website.
Valencia
From Paula McInerney of Contented Traveler.
We liked that the Valencia Tourist Card included free transport to and from the airport, free transport on the trams, buses and Metro. There is free entry to the museums and various public buildings and this is a big savings. We walked a lot but we did use public transport to go to the beach in Valencia and at other times when it was late or we were tired.
We had the 72-hour pass and this gave us all of the above as well as 2 free tapas & beverages, which we didn’t use but some people might. It also gives various discounts up to 50%, which is a lot more generous than other cities that we have travelled in.
Buy them online and you save 10%, so a 72 hour card costs 22,50€, 48 hours it is 18,00€, and for 24 hours it is 13,50€. On the Valencia Tourism Board’s site they do the calculations for you. This means that you can work out if it is a viable option or not. It is. For this amount of money, it is one of the cheapest and most inclusive cards that we have seen. It covers everything except the paella, though there is a discount coupon for that.
Switzerland
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Lausanne
The Lausanne card is a curious one. The good news is that it’s free. Like other city cards in Switzerland, however it’s only available through your hotel when you check-in. If you’re staying with friends or Couchsurfing, you’re out of luck as you can’t buy one at any price. If you get one, however, it provides unlimited public transportation around Lausanne in zones 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, and 19. That’s the entire city, the suburban area, and a fair bit more.
The card also offers some small discounts on attractions (between 20-50% at the places we’ve gone), but no freebies beyond transportation. The tram / metro / train / bus systems are well-signed and on-time (this is Switzerland, after all), but the lack of any real discounts is a small downer.
Zurich
Available in two lengths (a 24 hour card for 24 CHF or 72 hours for 48 CHF), the Zurich card gets you around Zurich and the surrounding region along with free admission or discounts at destinations. You’d have to be going pretty far out of town to leave the covered zones, and in Switzerland, even small discounts can help. Free entrance into some museums are fine, and you won’t have to work too hard to make your money’s back.
United Kingdom
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London
From Vicky Sosa at buddythetravelingmonkey.com.
We used the London Pass back in November and thought it was a really good deal. We got a 1 day pass since we had made previous arrangements for the rest of our stay, but for all that it offered, I would have gotten a pass for more days if we’d had the time. We used the pass to get into the Tower of London and the new London Bridge Experience, both of which had the Fast Track Entry option so we went right to the front of the line. The time we saved by not having to wait in line made the pass worth it! With the pass you also get a really great guidebook, a tourist map, and a tube map.
I would have liked to be able to download and print my pass after I purchased it online. Instead, you either have to pay for your pass to be shipped to you or you can pick it up for free at their office in central London. It wasn’t a huge deal, but it took up some time and was a little out of the way.
… and that concludes one of the longest posts I’ve ever written, with or without anyone’s help. If you’ve made it all the way, thanks for reading, share with your friends, and hope it’s been helpful.
Have you used a European city card during your recent travels? Share your experience in the comments!
Like this post? Like the Facebook page!Dehradun: There seems to be no end in sight to controversies over Uttarakhand political crisis involving Harish Rawat.
In the latest episode of controversy, yet another sting operation video has been released by a private news channel (Samachar Plus). The sting video claims that Harish Rawat gave Rs 25 lakh each to 12 MLAs.
The sting video allegedly shows Congress MLA Madan Singh Bisht talking about the money deal involving Harish Rawat.
Noteworthy, this is the same channel which had released the earlier sting showing Harish Rawat.
WATCH THE STING OPERATION VIDEO here:-
Earlier, it was reported from CBI sources that the sting operation that allegedly showed Harish Rawat attempting to bribe lawmakers to support him in a floor |
bill, and WWF would be happy to work on changes with the Government.
Minister determined to push ahead
However, WA Environment Minister Albert Jacob said the biodiversity bill would be debated, and would not be dumped.
"Absolutely not! This bill will not be abandoned, this bill is a key election commitment of the Liberal-National Government," he said.
"Our biodiversity conservation legislation is the oldest in Australia, we need this legislation to properly protect our incredibly rich biodiversity in Western Australia and the Government remains committed to this bill."
Mr Jacob said there was nothing wrong with expanded ministerial discretion.
There's been criticism of the ability for a minister of the day to allow a species to go extinct, yes that measure is in the bill. Environment Minister Albert Jacob
"Our entire political system says that when there's a discretionary decision that needs to be made, that should usually be made by a minister," he said.
The bill would bring a massive increase in fines for anyone who killed an animal of a threatened species, substantially larger than what was currently available under the Wildlife Conservation Act.
Mr Jacob said the threat of prison time was also inherent because if a fine was not paid, offenders could potentially go to jail.
He also criticised the white paper issued by the Environmental Defender's Office.
"It is littered with inaccuracies, whether deliberate or otherwise -- some of the criticism of this bill is coming very close to moving into the space of political activism," he said.
Extinction 'only in rare circumstances'
Mr Jacob said extinction would only occur in extreme situations, for instance where the public good on a state or national level outweighed that of rare groundwater species, known as stygofauna.
"There's been criticism of the ability for a minister of the day to allow a species to go extinct, yes that measure is in the bill," he said.
"But there's a very high trigger point for that as well, that is not something that any future minister will do lightly.
"Any allowance of an extinction on current knowledge would have to go through parliaments anyway."
Mr Jacob described it as "an incredibly high threshold."
He said he did not expect to have to make such a decision during the current term of government.
Topics: environmental-policy, endangered-and-protected-species, waOrange school-bus driver attacked by teenage BMW driver, report says
The teenager is facing felony charges after allegedly punching the bus driver because he copied down the boy's license plate.
Alvin Lanning, 58, was picking up students on his way to Lockhart Middle School when a white BMW whipped by the bus while it was stopped and its red lights were flashing, the Orange County Sheriff's Office said.
A 16-year-old boy is facing felony charges after he allegedly attacked an Orange County school-bus driver Tuesday because he wrote down the teen's license-plate number, a report indicated.
Lanning spotted the vehicle that had passed his bus and paused to write down the license-plate number to turn him in for a traffic violation.
Seeing this, the automobile's teen driver confronted the bus driver.
According to the report Lanning gave deputies, the teenager walked aggressively toward the closed bus doors and swung around to the driver's sliding window.
He punched Lanning in the face and took his $800 glasses, according to a report from the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
Surveillance cameras on board the bus captured the sudden assault with schoolchildren aboard. It has not been released publicly.
The accused attacker fled in his vehicle with at least two other young men.
Deputies stopped the car later and detained two of them, but the suspected attacker again fled the scene.
Lanning identified his adolescent assailant in a photo lineup that included the teenager's booking photo from a previous arrest.
The two witnesses detained by deputies also confirmed the 16-year-old's involvement in the incident, the report said.
The two young men are also facing charges after deputies said they helped their friend break Lanning's glasses.
Orange County deputies arrested the juvenile at his home, and he was charged with burglary of a conveyance, battery of a school official and grand theft.
The Orlando Sentinel is not identifying him because he is a minor.
arehernandez@tribune.com or 407-420-5471 or @ahernandez_OSHome Class Schedules Downloads / Payments Meet Our Instructors What We Do About Us Contact Us About Us We would like to tell you a bit about the owners of Decker’s Driving Academy. Karen and Tom Decker are both lifelong residents from the Wausau area, we have two children Jon and Madeline. Tom has driven school bus here in Wausau for 18 years and was also an over the road truck driver for 15 years. He has acquired over 2 million miles of accident free driving. No freight claim, or equipment damages, not even a speeding ticket. It is this kind of experience that is being passed on to student drivers. Karen is a licensed school teacher for the state of Wisconsin certified pre-k thru 8. Together we have come up with a program that is informative, entertaining, and a lot of experience is being passed on to your student driver. Not just information on driving in general, but how to identify problems other drivers may be having, making your student driver better prepared to handle situations before they become a problem. We have also trained other employees that share the same passion for teaching. Our mission statement:
“To educate student drivers with the understanding of the rules in a safe driving operation. To help students drive in a safe and courteous manner, and how to recognize other drivers having problems, to help student drivers become better prepared to help them survive while driving.”
When choosing a driver education program be sure to ask questions about their program. What kind of content is in the classroom portion and how it is presented? Are there discussions and demonstrations, or is it all book reading and worksheets. Are there a lot of different teaching and training methods, or is it the same thing all the time; book reading, worksheets and lectures? We here at Decker’s believe in many different teaching methods, we like to keep things going by using discussions, activities that show students why, so they have a visual conformation instead of just a verbal base. Games break up the time and have fun with a competitive spirit. Basic information on driving is better absorbed with students who are having fun and are alert. Going out to the car to better understand the reasoning behind the instruction is also beneficial and hands-on. We have simple projects that students do and our weekend projects get parents involved with their student drivers. Parents play a huge part with the training of their student driver’s success. Behind the wheel instruction should try to put your student driver in as many situations as possible. With parking, backing, heavy traffic, tight spaces, busy areas, etc…, it is extremely important for students to feel confident but not scared to death with driving. Ask the driving school on average how many miles does a student drive with the driving school?vNetwork with other parents who may have gone through a program, or ask a driving school for references so as to talk with other parents on their experiences. You may be surprised at the difference. As a parent, don’t ever be afraid to call the school or instructors to ask questions about the training of your student driver. You, too, are a vital part of their driver education program. Remember, don’t take your son’s or daughter’s driver education program lightly. We as parents want the best for our children from pre-k through high school. You don’t hear of students dying from football, basketball or volleyball involvement. Driving is the number one cause for teenage deaths. A proper driving school can lay down the foundation needed for success and survival. A driver’s license in today’s society is becoming more and more challenging. There are more cars, aggressive drivers and distractions, everyone is in a hurry. Choosing the right driving school can make all the difference between either just passing the state driving test, or being a safe, courteous and defensive driver as to survive and not become a statistic.This year's new watches, such as the Apple Watch Series 2, the Fitbit Blaze and a slew of Android Wear watches, were mostly underwhelming, with merely incremental upgrades. Battery life continues to be unsatisfactory, the cases are usually still too thick, and companies still struggle to balance timeless design with futuristic functionality. Google, which originally planned to launch Android Wear 2.0 this year, is pushing that update to early 2017. The new version will apparently allow for apps that can run independently on smartwatches without requiring a companion phone, something that Apple's watchOS 2 has offered since fall 2015. Speaking of Apple, the Series 2 appears to be one of the few smartwatches that did well this year: It's received mostly positive reviews and appears to be selling decently well, although Apple did not respond to queries on actual sales numbers.
Traditional watchmakers continued to smarten up their products this year, with one of the most notable being Tag Heuer and its fancy Connected watch. That thing costs a whopping $1,500, and it doesn't offer much more than the other Android Wear watches. Sure, it's a Tag, but when most Android Wear watches cost between $150 and $400, you realize that you're paying $1,200 more for yet another wearable that needs recharging every two days or so, with a display that's middling at best.
The only established watchmakers that succeeded at producing decent devices (think Timex and Fossil) did so by avoiding going fully digital, sticking instead to more-conventional analog designs with hidden sensors for basic fitness tracking. Really, then, the watches that did well this year were the hybrids, with the one big exception being the Apple Watch Series 2.
Then come the brands that have basically given up on making smartwatches altogether. A Motorola exec recently said the company is not working on a successor to last year's Moto 360, because it just doesn't "see enough pull in the market" to justify developing an updated model. That this kind of sentiment is coming from Motorola, of all companies, is telling. After all, the Moto 360 was the first Android Wear watch to have a round face and is one of the most well-received smartwatches running Google's software.
Similarly, this year Microsoft discontinued its Band fitness wearable. Although it's more of an activity tracker, the Microsoft Band always toed the line, what with its color touchscreen and smartwatch-like features such as phone notifications and third-party app support. Unlike Motorola, however, Microsoft never explained its exit from the field, although it continues to support its suite of health apps that can run on other devices.
One of the biggest signs that smartwatches are in trouble, though, was industry pioneer Pebble's recent acquisition by Fitbit for the modest sum of about $40 million. Back in its heyday, Pebble reportedly received bids from Citizen and Intel for $740 million and $70 million, respectively. The startup declined both suitors and went on to launch a new line of fitness-focused smartwatches this year. The Pebble 2 and Pebble Time 2 raised $12 million on Kickstarter, beating the $1 million funding goal. Despite the company's fundraising successes, Pebble failed to resolve its financial woes and eventually accepted Fitbit's offer.
With so much consolidation in the smartwatch space, the future of the category looks gloomy. Less competition can mean less innovation, which can result in products growing stale and eventually fading altogether. Still, there have been developments in 2016 that could give the industry a boost. Startup Matrix Industries came up with a way to use body heat to power a smartwatch, which could eliminate (or at least alleviate) the problem of inadequate battery life. Plus, with Android Wear 2.0 slated to arrive early next year, the next generation of smartwatches will likely become more functional, giving users more reason to wear them.
We also saw a few watches this year that let wearers control Amazon's Alexa from their wrist, although they ran obscure independent operating systems that barely had third-party app support. The Alexa integration means that these watches can access more than 2,000 so-called skills, letting you do things such as turn on your smart lights or thermostat, ask how much you've spent at specific stores, or buy many, many pairs of socks. You can't do most of that yet with Android Wear's OK Google command, but Alexa's expansion into watches could spur Google to improve its own assistant.
So 2016 wasn't a great year for smartwatches. In fact, it was a disappointing 12 months that don't bode well for the future of the category. But there are enough upcoming potential enhancements that the industry could be revived. Components could also get smaller and more powerful over time, as they did with smartphones, eventually leading to sleeker frames housing more full-featured systems. But that's something to look forward to in the future. As for this year's smartwatches? Goodbye, and good riddance.
Check out all of Engadget's year-in-review coverage right here.0 of 7
We all know about the kid in class whose parents hit the jackpot in the California Lotto earlier this season and aren't being shy about spoiling their family.
That family is the Los Angeles Dodgers, and it is really good to be a part of it. Players, coaches and fans alike are being lavished upon by the new owners, who are determined to win a title at any cost. Literally.
As a fan, you love to see your team being competitive and showing such a willingness to acquire winning talent. At the same time, it kind of sucks to be "Yankees West."
But, any suckage that may occur for being the rich franchise that everyone hates in the National League would be wiped out with a World Series title. The Yankees are also hated for winning so often. And as many opposing fans have pointed out, snagging Hanley Ramirez, Adrian Gonzalez, Shane Victorino, Josh Beckett, Brandon League, Randy Choate, Joe Blanton and Nick Punto over the last month doesn't mean anything unless the Dodgers win as big as they spend.
And as the Colorado Rockies so aptly demonstrated last night, money doesn't always guarantee success. A 10-0 blowout loss and an extra half-game behind the San Francisco Giants in the standings later, this new-look Dodger team needs to wake up. Now.
No, not just to please a disgruntled fan like myself, but instead, because the September schedule they are a mere three games away from entering is an absolutely terrifying gauntlet.
If the Dodgers win the division, it will have been earned, not bought, regardless of how many players were brought in at the deadline and beyond. Here's why:I love toys and my Secret Santa sent me a great toy I have wanted for a while. It is Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory wearing an awesome outfit! He can sit with me and my family as we celebrate The World's End.
Thank you very much Secret Santa, you have made me extremely happy :D
Update: Another parcel arrived today and I was blown away. I was already pleased with my Sheldon doll and my Secret Santa has sent me even more gifts and a personalised letter!
My family will have a lot of fun playing Cards Against Humanity. I showed my dad some of the examples and he laughed so much.
Not only will we enjoy time together as a family, I am now also prepared for minor emergency situations with my new Survival Kit. It is packed full of stuff. I was going to take it all out but I wasn't sure I could repack it so well! I think I'll leave it neatly packed for now until it's needed. I'm really impressed with how much stuff there is, everything from waterproof matches to an emergency blanket and fishing hooks.
Thank you for sending me such an amazing gift Santa and the friendly letter. You are awesome :DRed Bull’s Darryl “Snake Eyez” Lewis is strongly associated with Zangief, his classic main since he started to play Street Fighter. However, according to an interview performed by Daily Dot Esports at DreamHack Austin, he has found competing with Street Fighter V’s version of the Red Cyclone too difficult, and is now deciding on a new fighter to rely on for upcoming tournaments.
“It’s not working out at all right now…the character’s kinda dead,” he claims, citing that his recent matchups with Zangief have been far less successful than before. He expresses concern that Zangief will be unable to compete against Street Fighter V’s inevitable newcomers as they are introduced, and also hints that we may see him bring out Ryu as his main for SFV in the future.
In the interview, RB|Snake Eyez also discusses his thoughts on Street Fighter V’s reported 8-frame latency on PlayStation 4, the growth of Street Fighter and the FGC, and how unsponsored players can provide a challenge.
Source: Daily Dot EsportsA law granting Israeli authorities the power to detain illegal migrants for up to three years came into effect on Sunday, in the wake of widening public controversy over the influx of African migrants who cross into Israel along its border with Egypt.
The law makes illegal migrants and asylum seekers liable to jail, without trial or deportation, if caught staying in Israel for long periods. In addition, anyone helping migrants or providing them with shelter could face prison sentences of between five and 15 years.
The law amended the Prevention of Infiltration Law of 1954, passed to prevent the entry of Palestinians as part of emergency legislation. The law is expanded to address migrant workers or asylum seekers who enter Israel without posing a threat to Israel's security.
According to the law, migrant workers already here could be jailed for the most minor offense such as spraying graffiti or stealing a bicycle - infractions for which they would not have been detained before.
So far, all migrants who have been caught by the Israel Defense Forces on the Israel-Egypt border have been transferred to the Saharonim detention facility which holds 2,000 spaces.
The facility is currently being expanded to 5,400. The Interior Ministry has reported that they are implementing the amendment and will fill up Saharonim, where they will be held until the ministry "finds other solutions."
According to the Interior Ministry, the Saharonim detention center will run out of space within a month.
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All those detained go through an identification process and a medical examination. Those who file for asylum receive a temporary visa to remain in Israel. Sudanese and Eritreans, however, are not allowed to file for asylum, although they are automatically eligible for temporary shelter and a one-way ticket to Tel Aviv. Some migrants continue independently to Arad or Eilat where they often have acquaintances.
According to the ministry, up to 60,000 African migrant currently live in Israel, with 2,031 entering in the month of May alone.
Human rights organizations see the amendment as a harsh step which contradicts the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (CRSR). According to the Hotline for Migrant Workers, the law was "born in sin" and is a "dark moment for Israel."
"Instead of acting like all civilized countries and verifying requests for asylum and granting refugee status to those who are eligible, which Israel is obligated to do under the UN convention, the state sees mass imprisonment of thousands of people, women and children, whose only offense was seeking escape from murderous regimes, as a solution to the problem. This solution will not solve a thing as it is neither humane nor effective.
In a statement, the Israel Prison Services said that it was ready to "take in as many illegal residents as come to its facilities, with the required detainment authority and according to time of detention."
"For this purpose, several wards outside Saharonim have been converted, and we will prepare according to need," the statement added.
Meanwhile on Sunday, Israeli daily Maariv published an interview with Interior Minister Eli Yishai, in which he stated that most of the "Muslims that arrive here do not even believe that this country belongs to us, to the white man."
"I will continue the struggle until the end of my term, with no compramises," Yishai continued, stating that he would use "all the tools to expel the foreigners, until not one infiltrator remains."
African migrants in south Tel Aviv's Levinski Part. Daniel TchetchikStephen Anderson, a former New York Police Department (NYPD) narcotics detective, recently testified that he regularly saw police plant drugs on innocent people as a way for officers to meet arrest quotas. While the news may shock many civilians, the custom is so well known among officers that it has a name: “flaking.”
This practice has reportedly cost the city $1.2 million to settle cases of false arrests.
“The corruption I observed … was something I was seeing a lot of, whether it was from supervisors or undercovers and even investigators,” said Anderson.
And if anyone is an expert on planting drugs, it's Anderson. This is a man who was busted back in 2008 for planting cocaine on four men in a Queens bar.
“It's almost like you have no emotion with it, that they attach the bodies to it,” Anderson coolly admitted to a reportedly stunned Brooklyn courtroom. “They're going to be out of jail tomorrow anyway – nothing is going to happen to them.”
Forgotten in that detached assessment, obviously, is the horrific experience of being in jail; the financial burden of having to pay up to a $500,000 fine; and, oh, having a criminal record possibly wreck one's chances of future employment – not to mention dealing with the social stigma of being in jail; the travel restraints; the loss of voting rights; difficulty in finding affordable housing; and dealing with barriers to education (the Higher Education act was amended in 1998 to delay or deny federal financial aid to students on the basis of any drug offense,) among other hurdles too numerous to list.
Perhaps the most disconcerting details concerning the practice of police drug planting is that we have no idea how prevalent the problem is. There is no national database tracking the number of cases dismissed because of this kind of illegal behavior.
Jason Williamson, staff attorney with the ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project, admits that his knowledge of the issue is “fairly restricted.” He has been working on a case for close to a year and a half based in Camden, New Jersey, that concerns drug planting by police. These kinds of individual cases are all litigators really have to work with since there has not thus far been an effort to track national trends.
“Some of these issues never make it out of the Internal Affairs department,” says Williamson. “Even cases that make it to court might not get very far.” Let alone make it to some kind of neat Microsoft Excel sheet for journalists to comb through.
However, in speaking with the ACLU and former police officers, it becomes clear that drug planting is not only common knowledge among those in the know, but it is a highly prevalent problem that affects poor minorities fairly regularly.
“I think that it happens more than people would like to think,” says Williamson. He adds that in Camden and in New York, there is a certain degree of pressure to make arrests, and even if a department doesn't have a specific written quota policy, there is always an expectation that a productive police officer makes arrests and hauls in contraband off the streets. “There's a natural temptation for police officers to [plant drugs].”
It's difficult for the ACLU to take on the issue of arrest quotes precisely because they are oftentimes unofficial understandings between supervisors and officers. There's not a giant plaque posted at headquarters that reads, “Each police officer is responsible for X arrests per month,” or, “When in doubt, plant evidence!” but rather, officers understand they're meant to bust drug deals and bring in enough “bad guys” to win them praise.
In the past, New York City (NYC) police have confirmed the existence of ticket quotas, and NYC officer Adil Polanco told WABC that precinct commanders relentlessly pressure cops to make more arrests and give out more summonses.
However, officially, these quotas don't exist, and since official quotas “don't exist,” then the instances of drug planting are always presented as isolated cases of bad apple officers gone rogue instead of natural byproducts of a high-pressure system of quotas.
“We would be naïve to believe it's not happening on a pretty widespread basis around the country,” Williamson says about drug planting.
Tracking how far rot extends up the ladder of a department is also extremely difficult to determine. Unless someone like Anderson steps forward to spill the beans about corrupt brass, supervisors and investigators almost always deny they knew this kind of behavior was ever going on.
And that might be true, Williamson offers, but even if supervisors are indeed naïve about this behavior, then “the question is what kind of mechanisms should a department have in place in order to catch this kind of thing before it gets out of control?”
The victims of drug planting are, unsurprisingly, poor minorities. “Police officers aren't stupid,” says Williamson. “They're not planting drugs on the nun walking up and down the street. They're finding people who they think they can make a credible case against. So you have people who have prior convictions, or people who a court or a jury is likely to believe was involved in this sort of thing.”
These “undesirables” are the ones society believes belong in prison, in the sense that the privileged members of communities don't raise concerns even when it becomes clear poor minorities are being incarcerated at extremely high rates for questionable reasons. Well, they were probably guilty of SOME crime. Throw away the key! seems to be their reasoning.
On August 2, 2008, rank-and-file police officers in Camden who were “familiar with the community,” according to Williamson, planted drugs on a young, poor black man named Joel Barnes, who ultimately spent 419 days in prison.
The ACLU sued five police officers, and all five were indicted in federal court. During a separate criminal investigation, three of the five (Jason Stetser, Kevin Parry and Dan Morris) pled guilty and admitted to the drug planting, and the other two officers are going to trial in November. The three officers who pled guilty will be testifying against them.
These five officers are responsible for locking up 185 individuals by planting evidence on them. Once the officers were indicted, the district attorney's office oversaw the release of all 185 people.
“Lest anyone think this is a figment of our imagination, or that it's unclear if this is happening, in this case, at least, it happened,” says Williamson.
The ACLU is seeking both damages and injunctive relief to force the Camden police to change the way they track arrests and monitor the behavior of individual police officers.
“Over the years, there have been studies on this kind of corruption, but I don't know of any national database,” says former Deputy Chief Stephen Downing, a 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), who was in charge of implementing Nixon's War on Drugs in Los Angeles.
Downing makes reference to the Rampart scandal, a case of widespread corruption in the Community Resources Street Hoodlums (CRASH) anti-gang unit of the LAPD. In the late '90s, more than 70 officers from CRASH were implicated in misconduct, including charges of planting evidence and framing suspects.
“Nobody was really watching over them,” says Downing. “So they just went wild. They turned into a bunch of cowboys … When they become free of supervision and then you impose this quota thing, they're driven to cheat.”
In May 2000, Capt. Robert B. Hansohn told the Daily News that CRASH did not have arrest quotas before bragging that Rampart led the city's LAPD division in that category. In that short interaction, Hansohn unwittingly highlighted the central problem of policing in the United States: perhaps official numbered quotas don't exist, but arrests – regardless of their merit – are rewarded.
Since Nixon declared the War on Drugs, part of the $1 trillion the government has spent in the last 40 years has been to finance “drug task forces.” The federal government handed out money to police departments all over the nation to form High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) task forces authorized by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1998. In 2000, HIDTA's annual budget was projected to be $186 million.
“Corruption is always rearing its ugly head in these task forces because it's taking local police officers and putting them in small units, supervised by people not in their own department, and many times supervised by people who are in the quota system,” says Downing.
Downing talks about when he first learned of these task forces back in the '70s and discovered the Drug Enforcement Agency gave their agents bonuses for arrests and seizures.
“I said, no way. We're not going to be involved in that at all because that is a corrupting influence.”
But that kind of protection is not widespread. Googling “drug task force corruption” reaps 7.5 million results, and the lawsuits and cases of corruption are too plentiful to list.
“This has been going on for forty years,” Downing states simply. “These corruptions are emerging all over the country. It's not systemic to a police department, per se, but it is systemic to the War on Drugs in the context that the federal government is basically corrupting local government with their funds and the helter-skelter way of putting these task forces together and diverting local police from their basic public safety duties to the priorities of the federal government in terms of the War on Drugs.”
Then, cities get “hooked,” as Downing puts it, on federal drug money and asset seizures (the federal government splits seizures with local communities) to fulfill their budgets.
There is another layer to the quota system. For example, a city manager might say to the chief of police that the department's budget is $5 million, but officers will have to go out and earn a million of it in asset drug seizures. The natural result is that instead of allocating officers to fight crime, they're instead sent on a fundraising drive via seizures.
Downing says it's “difficult to prove” arrest quotas even exist. “Police administrations have become savvy to the criticism that can come from a stated quota policy.”
So for example, in California, there is a law against quotas for traffic tickets. Yet, ten LAPD officers sued the department in August because they allege their supervisors retaliated against them for resisting traffic-ticket quotas. According to Downing, this is a rare case because most officers won't speak out against enormous pressure to act as whistleblowers.
“There is no official policy,” says Downing, but what happens is a supervisor will say to an officer charged with finding traffic violations, “how can you possibly be out there eight hours a day and not see at least ten violations?”
Downing says that same model can be applied to drug law enforcement. “You're only coming up with twenty drug arrests a month? You're not working very hard, are you bud? We're not going to keep you around,” says Downing in the voice of a hypothetical supervisor.
You won't read these quotas in any police manual, but you will see them at the supervisory level. Anderson was the inevitable conclusion of a corrupt system. It was only a matter of time before an officer got caught planting drugs and rolled on the department.
Anderson testified under a cooperation deal with prosecutors and admitted what poor minorities and police have known for years: officers sometimes (more frequently than people like to believe) plant drugs on individuals to frame them. And these aren't the acts of a few bad apples. This behavior is institutionalized.
In the United States, more white citizens use drugs, yet more black people are imprisoned for drug offenses, according to a Human Rights Watch report released in 2000. With this in mind, it makes sense that privileged (usually white) sects of society would find Anderson's testimony shocking. White people are generally unfamiliar with the shady underbelly of police tactics like stop-and-frisk policies and drug planting.
Even though police departments across the country continue to deny the existence of these quotas, what's become clear through the deluge of corruption cases is that these are not exceptional situations, but rather the expected consequence of a system of skewed priorities beginning 40 years ago that has only served to enrich underground drug pushers and destroy local communities.Mina's Fresh Cardboard Where I discuss my game buying addiction and love affair with freshly-printed cardboard. I dislike randomness and love high strategy. I play daily with my partner, Peter, who is always ready to win, but mostly ready to lose. Don't worry. He loves it! :) Recommend 190 36.65 *** SPECIAL POST *** MINA'S TOP FAVORITE GAMES OF 2016 *** Posted by Milena Guberinic Milena Guberinic milenaguberinic) Canada
Toronto
Ontario Mina's Fresh Cardboard Hi Friends!
HAPPY NEW YEAR! We are now in 2017, so it's time to take a look back at what happened in 2016 and put it in some order of order!
Whenever I put together a list of top 10 games of the year, or any other top 10 list of games, my goal is to include the games I most enjoyed playing. This means that my personal preferences, preconceptions, biases, and moods are front and center in these lists. Rather than thinking of this list (or any other top 10 lists of mine in general) as lists of what I consider to be the BEST games of 2016 (or of any other category), consider them to be lists of the games I most enjoyed playing and the games I most want to continue to play. There are some games that I would consider to be objectively better than ones on my list that do not appear here at all and there are some games that "should" be higher or lower on the list had I gone with the "best" criteria. Just keep that in mind when you go through this list.
For games that I have reviewed, I will include some of my final thoughts, adjusted to reflect my current feelings about the game in question, as well as the basic and points I presented in the original review. If you would like to see more details about these, please check out the Review section for the game. For games that I have not yet reviewed, I will try to capture my current feelings as best as possible and provide some general and points.
My overall impression of the year as a whole was quite positive, but some of my favorite games were re-imaginings of ones that had already been published. This year definitely brought a number of such re-imaginings, from 51st State Master Set to Key to the City - London to Avenue to to Evolution: Climate to Pandemic: Iberia to Pandemic: Cthulhu to Cottage Garden. And though I tend to prefer heavier games, some of the heavier hitters don't appear on my list. This may be a reflection of my shifting tastes, it may be a reflection of the quality of games of medium weight that 2016 produced, or it may be a bit of both. Either way, sit down and get ready for some surprises!
*Don't worry, I don't think any of my choices will elicit any heart attacks
***
Top Ten Favorite Games of 2016
10. Terraforming Mars
Terraforming Mars is an excellent game, but not one that is easy to review or rate. It wasn't love at first play and it isn't perfect. At least, it isn't perfect for me or with two players. There are nearly as many things I don't like about it as the ones that I do, but the balance falls FAR in favor of the ones that I do. The high level of game-to-game and turn-to-turn variability, broad decision space, and great sense of evolution and progress towards the ultimate goal make Terraforming Mars something I intend to keep playing for a long time to come!
Now, if I had to liken Terraforming Mars to a food item, which I feel I do for no good reason at all, it would be a kumquat, as it features a full spectrum of game flavors. It's a little sour on the outside because it doesn't look all that appealing...at least the cards don't. It's incredibly sweet and delicious in the middle because the decisions you make are so many and varied and each card pulls you in a different and equally appealing direction as the next, and if you're like me, this just makes you smile. And it can be quite bitter if you get unlucky and fail to draw the cards you want/need while you watch your opponent get the perfect ones. It's like a kumquat in another sense too; it so cleverly combines so many game elements and mechanisms, including card play, engine building, tile laying, and resource management, that it overwhelms the senses! I just love it! Sour, bitter, sweet, and tasty! I'll never get tired of it!
Great graphic design that makes the game easy to learn and play
Very satisfying sense of progression
An INCREDIBLE amount of stuff to think about each turn
Interesting spatial element
Unique, science-based theme that comes out in the card effects and actions
Variable player powers
High replay value
The two-player game takes as long as a three-player game, which takes as long as a four-player game, which makes the game quite long (i.e. 1.5 to 2 hours)
Can be difficult to keep track of all effects late in the game, particularly when playing with two players, as your tableau sprawls uncontrollably
Spatial aspect would be more interesting with more than just two players involved
The card artwork is very strange and disjointed, as it combines photography with illustration
Card randomness can be a bit annoying, but given the number of cards you draw throughout the game, it seems to even out
The game has a strange decision curve, with few actions available to you early in the game, many in the middle, and few again in the end
Might be a bit mean for some people, but the stealing that happens in the game is occasional and limited and not at all problematic for me
***
9. Roll Player
Roll Player is super! I was hooked on its wild dice rolling, extensive scoring options, and fun theme from my first play! The artwork may be less than sublime, but I'm happy to look past that to the fun and pleasant game that lies beneath. And the stories I get to tell at the end of each game are just priceless! Roll Player is a sweet treat at any time of day! Deep enough for a main course but procedurally light enough for an end-of-night session, it's dice-rolling perfection!
Unique theme
Unique game with a large number of scoring criteria, effects, and options to be kept in mind and an interesting and unusual system of dice activation and allocation
Much to think about for a dice/card game
High replay value
Sense of accomplishment for having created a fun character with a story and personality
Double-sided boards with male/female versions of each character
Production is |
in a general election."
Adams said in general elections, voters tend to migrate toward a candidate that represents a party with a likelihood of having influence, rather than voting for their true preference.
"I think [these results are] a reflection of the damage the NDP has taken over the past few years," he said.
The Progressive Conservatives' share of the popular vote has remained steady in the constituency, at around 17 per cent for the last three elections, with most of their support coming from the most southern region of the neighbourhood, along Waterfront Drive.
Adams said the rise of up-scale condo developments in this area explains the consistent Conservative support.
"Here we're looking at demographics: people voting according to their socio-economic status, no surprise here."This review of the Yongnuo YN 50mm f/1.8 full frame lens for Nikon DSLR cameras (additional coverage of that lens can be found here) is by Arkadiy Shapoval from radojuva.com:
Important: Please note that the Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8 lens model, in versions for Nikon and Canon, looks very different from one another. Usually, third-party lenses such as Tokina, Tamron, Sigma, Carl Zeiss, etc., have a very similar barrel design for versions for different systems.
In brief
Yongnuo 50mm 1: 1.8 (YN50mm F1.8N) is a very inexpensive fast nifty fifty lens from the Chinese manufacturer Yongnuo Digital. The lens copied the original Nikon 50/1.8G barrel design and the optical performance of the Yongnuo Lens EF 50mm 1: 1.8. In general, it is not bad. First of all Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N is interesting to owners of Nikon D40, D40x, D60, D3000, D3100, D3200, D3300, D3400, D5000, D5100, D5200, D5300, D5500, D5600. For those who have a Nikon camera with a built-in focus motor, there is a remarkable and inexpensive Nikon 50/. 1.8D (as well as a million of its old sub-versions).
The creative and practical potential of this 50 mm lens is difficult to overestimate. It is suitable for a wide range of photo tasks. Photographers often use it as a portrait lens. A lot of them just want a high-speed fix, in addition to their kit lens. The aperture F/1.8 is 3.5 stops wider than the aperture F/5.6, which is used in the'slow' kit lenses at 50 mm. In a numerical equivalent, this means that the Yongnuo 50mm 1:1.8 (YN50mm F1.8N) is 10 times faster, for example than Nikon 18-55/3.5-5.6 kit lens (which uses a maximum relative aperture, equal to only 1:5.6, for 50 mm). Counting in the difference of the relative aperture is quite simple: (5.6*5.6)/(1.8*1.8) = 9.679, rounded to the value '10'.
History
The first lens from the company Yongnuo Digital was a nifty fifty lens for Canon EOS cameras - Yongnuo Lens EF 50mm 1:1.8 (YN50mm F1.8), presented on December 27, 2014.
On July 10, 2015 Yongnuo AF-S 50mm 1:1.8 (AF-S 50mm 1.8, for Nikon cameras) was introduced in Shanghai. The lens had the inscription 'AF-S', and the DOF scale was for F/22. Near the filter thread was the designation 'YONGNUO AF-S 50mm 1.8', near the DOF scale was the designation 'AF-S 50mm 1:1.8'.
On May 7, 2016 the lens 'YONGNUO O58mm YN50mm F1.8' (without the designation 'AF-S', without the designation 'N' and with the DOF scale for F/16) was on sale. Most likely Yongnuo AF-S 50mm 1:1.8 was just a prototype, its optical scheme and the type of focusing motor will remain unknown.
After some time, the letter 'N' was added to the lens name ñ YONGNUO O58mm YN50mm F1.8N. 'N' is an abbreviation for 'Nikon', after which the lens took on the form shown in this review.
All lenses of Yongnuo Digital
For Nikon DSLR:
For Canon EOS DSLR:
Teleconverter (only for Canon):
The Yongnuo Digital lenses copy the optical designs of the old Canon EOS lenses. Usually, first the version for Canon comes out, and after a while ñ for Nikon. Yongnuo does not produce lenses for other popular SLR systems (Pentax, Sony, Sigma, Micro 4/3). As for Yongnuo Digital teleconverters, now, they exist only for Canon EOS cameras.
The main technical characteristics of YONGNUO 50mm 1: 1.8 (YN50mm F1.8N):
The name of the copy from the review Near the front lens: YONGNUO O58mm YN50mm F1.8N. On the barrel: 50mm 1:1.8 SN0011346. On the box: YONGNUO DIGITAL YN50mm F1.8N standard prime lens Basic characteristics The lens is designed for full-size Nikon FX cameras
Built-in micro-focus motor, Nikon AF-I analogue
No diaphragm control ring, Nikon G analogue
AF/MF (Auto Focus ó Manual Focus) ó the lens is equipped with a focus mode switch
During focusing, there is no extension or rotation of the filter thread (analogue of the internal focusing)
Multilayer coating (type and quality of coating are unknown)
The design is copied from Nikon 50/1.8G, the optical design is copied from YONGNUO LENS EF 50mm 1:1.8.
Gilded contacts of microcircuits (the presence of gold there is not verified)
Metal mounting of bayonet
Light weight and low cost
Important: the lens from a third-party manufacturer, which imposes some limitations on its practical use. Filter thread 58 mm, plastic thread Focal length 50 mm, equivalent focal length for Nikon DX cameras is 75 mm Zoom 1 X (this is a fixed lens, it does not have a zoom) Made for For Nikon full-frame digital cameras Diaphragm blades 7 rounded blades Markings Focusing distance in meters and feet, DOF for F/16 value, bayonet mount marking and lens hood mountings Aperture from F/1.8 to F/16, without an iris control ring, Nikon G lenses analogue Minimum Focus Distance 0.45 m, Maximum Reproduction Ratio - 1:6.7 Weight 203 g Elements/Groups 6 elements in 5 groups. The lens does not use special optical elements in its optical design.
The optical design is identical to the YONGNUO LENS EF 50mm 1:1.8 lens Also, a similar optical design is used in lenses: Canon Lens EF 50mm 1:1.8
Canon Lens EF 50mm 1:1.8 II
Canon Lens EF 50mm 1:18 STM
Nikon 50mm 1:1.8D AF Nikkor
and many, many other class 50/1.8 lenses. Optical scheme of the type of a double Gaussian lens (ie Planar). Hood Plastic, bayonet type. The model is unknown. Sometimes is not included. Country of manufacture The country of the manufacturer is not specified on the lens barring. But, in fact, the lens is made in China. Period On sale since May 7, 2016. The prototype was introduced on July 10, 2015 User manual View my scan Price Aliexpress link
For some reason, I've seen very little information on the web on the Yongnuo 50mm lens for Nikon cameras, so I tried to add as much useful information on the YN50mm F1.8N in this review as possible.
Assembly
The lens I got for a review was almost new. Before sending it to me, the owner has been using it only for a few days.
In a small box are the warranty card, instruction in Chinese and English languages and the lens itself with the front (YN-58) and the back cap. The box is made in the golden coloration style of the Nikon Nikkor lenses. What this lens did not have was the protective film on the front and back lenses, which originally comes with the lens.
The lens is not bad. It's nice that unlike the version of Yongnuo Lens of the EF 50mm 1:1.8, the Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N version has a metallic bayonet mount.
The focus ring is rubberized. It is stated that the contacts of the microcircuits are gilded to improve the current flow.
Among the shortcomings, I would like to highlight:
The focus ring has a slight backlash.
If you press the diaphragm pin on the side of the bayonet (linkage lever to control the diaphragm), it will be obvious how the diaphragm blades not only close/open but also move back and forth towards the front or rear lens. In the other lenses, I did not observe such a loosening of the diaphragm mechanism. I cannot say how critical this behavior of the diaphragm mechanism is. During the actual photography, I had no problems with the diaphragm whatsoever. Of course, the mechanism of the diaphragm is rumored to be a weak link of this lens on the forums.
Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N weighs 20 grams heavier than the original Nikon 50/1.8G, from which the barrel design was copied (185 vs. 203 grams).
Also, it is unfortunate that I did not find the lens hood in the delivery set. At the same time, some Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N lenses come with a plastic hood bayonet type. It is unknown, why the lens hoods are not part of every YN50mm F1.8N lens kit.
The camera lost contact with the lens several times during high-speed continuous shooting. To restore functionality, I had to detach the lens and reattach it to the camera. This situation occurred several times on different cameras, which indicates that the problem lies with the lens and not the cameras.
Unlike the Nikon 50/1.8G, the Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N does not have a dustproof and waterproof rubber lens mount seal.
There is no country of manufacture label on the lens case. Of course, we all know perfectly well that the lens is made in China, but still, the lack of information on the product itself is a bit alarming.
The diameter of the front filter is 58 mm, the same diameter is used by Nikon 50/1.8G and many other lenses.
I want to note that Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N (for Nikon cameras) is better manufactured in terms of quality than Yongnuo Lens EF 50mm 1:1.8 (for Canon cameras). Unlike the version for Canon cameras, it uses a metal bayonet, a virtually internal focus, has a window with a focusing distance, a DOF scale, a more thoughtful AF/MF switch and can use a bayonet-type hood.
Focusing
The lens has a built-in focus motor, so the Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N will automatically focus on all Nikon digital SLR cameras, even on Nikon D40, D40x, D60, D3000, D3100, D3200, D3300, D3400, D5000, D5100, D5200, D5300, D5500, D5600.
To be extremely precise, the Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N is the analogue of the Nikon AF-I series lenses. Unlike Nikon AF-S lenses that use Nikon SWM's ultrasonic focusing motors, the old Nikon AF-I lenses use the built-in buzzing micro-focus motors.
When focusing, the motor is making noise. Strangely, but the noise level is much lower than that of the Yongnuo Lens EF 50mm 1:1.8 lens. It's very good that the Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N is noisier than the non-motor Nikon 50/1.8D. It is a pity though that it still cannot compare with a low level of noise from the ultrasonic motor Nikon 50 /1.8G.
The automatic focusing of the lens is fast enough. The autofocus speed is comparable to the Nikon 50/1.8G.
When used on a Nikon D90 camera (with a simple Multi-CAM 1000 focusing system), as well as on a Nikon D70 camera (with a super-simple Multi-CAM 900 focusing system), the lens behaves well and rarely has errors in focusing. I did not have any problems with precision and tenacity of focusing. In addition, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the focus. On the Nikon D90 I checked the presence of the back and front focus at different focusing distances (infinity and MFD including). As a measure, the photos were taken using the Live View mode (which does not suffer from the back/front focus). The accuracy of focusing using phase sensors completely coincided with the Live View mode.
I have a lot of experience with the Nikon 50 /1.8D lens. Therefore, I want to note that Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N is not as confident as the original lens when it comes to focusing.
When focusing, the front lens group moves in the middle of the barrel frame. I can not say that the lens has an internal focusing. But, when focusing, the lens does not change its size. This type of focusing can be found in the Nikon 50/1.8G and Nikon 50/1.4G.
The focus ring is rubberized and rotates about 80 degrees. When the end positions are reached, the ring rests. The focus distance scale rotates in the opposite direction to the rotation of the focusing ring (this is the first I see!). Manual hitting is not very convenient. During manual focus, it is audible as 'plastic rubs against plastic'.
The lens housing has a focus mode switch 'AF/MF' (auto focus / manual focus). During autofocus, the focus ring remains stationary, while it can be freely rotated 360 degrees without any effect on focusing.
The lens has a window with a focus distance scale in meters and feet, as well as a DOF scale for F/16. The minimum focusing distance is 45 cm, and the maximum magnification ratio is 1:6.7 (typical figures for similar nifty fifty lenses).
Other features:
Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N does not have any focusing problems in Live View mode (checked on Nikon D90).
The lens transmits the value of the focusing distance to the subject in the camera (Nikon D, Nikon G analogue).
Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N has a not very pronounced 'Focus Breathing' effect (change of the viewing angle during focusing). During the focusing toward the MFD, the viewing angle decreases.
The viewing angle of the Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N is slightly wider than that of the Nikon 50/1.8D. It may seem that the focal length Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N is closer to 45 mm.
Focusing is performed by simultaneously moving the entire lens unit (all lenses) relative to the focal plane.
Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N does not have a hard stop (hard infinity mechanical stop), which allows you accurately and quickly focus the lens at infinity under any external temperature conditions. For accurate focusing to infinity, you cannot just bring the focus ring to its extreme position.
Important: The YN50mm F1.8N has a small shift-focus. During the aperture, the exact focus moves away from the lens. The shift level is the same as for the Nikon 50/1.8D.
Important: Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N is a third-party lens. It may happen so that it will not work correctly with the new Nikon cameras, which will be presented after the announcement of this lens.
Important: I have already seen some info on the web that the Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N does not automatically focus with some Nikon cameras. I also ran into some reviews that Yongnuo YN50mm F1.8N may suffer from a strong twitching of the focus.
Important: this particular copy suffers from a front-focus on the Nikon D40 camera, which is used by the owner of this lens (according to the owner).
Compatibility with teleconverters is unknown.
Compatibility with the FT-1 adapter for Nikon 1 system cameras is unknown.
To summarize, the focusing of the lens is all right, and well thought through design of the barrel and the 'AF/MF' switch make the YN50mm F1.8N more convenient to handle than the Nikon 50/1.8D.
Image quality
The color rendering is pleasant, in some ways even better than the original Nikon 50/1.8D. Also, I want to note that the lens coating of the versions Yongnuo Lens EF 50mm 1:1.8 and Yongnuo 50mm 1:1.8 (YN50mm F1.8N) visually differ a lot. Most likely, the version for Nikon uses a newer lens coating.
I could not leave out the chromatic aberrations. Particularly noticeable is green and violet contours of contrasting objects in the blur zone.
In the center of the frame, the lens is quite sharp already at F/1.8. Confident sharpness in the center of the frame comes with F/2.2-F/2.5. At the aperture of F/2.8, the lens in the center of the frame is very good. On full-size cameras, there will likely be a noticeable subsidence of sharpness in the corners and edges of the image.
The level of vignetting on APS-C cameras is small even at F/1.8. I did not have a light filter at 58 mm to check how much it could affect the vignetting.
The level of distortion is small.
The lens moves the backlight and side light well. The deep-set front lens contributes to that. The frame of the barrel works like a small lens hood. With the additional bayonet lens installed, the work in the direct sunlight should improve. It is quite difficult to achieve the effect of a 14-ray star from bright objects. Because of the rounded blades, the effect only occurs on heavily covered diaphragms, while the formed star is not very beautiful and poorly conveyed.
I want to highlight in bold that optically YN50mm F1.8N is not worse than the original Nikon 50/1.8D. Perhaps, laboratory tests could even show the superiority of the YN50mm F1.8N.
True, modern Nikon cameras can automatically correct some of the shortcomings of the Nikon 50/1.8D, such as vignetting, distortion, chromatic aberration, etc., in the case of the YN50mm F1.8N, you will have to use third-party software to remove distortions (or not use).
On the open diaphragms, bokeh of the lens is nothing special from the Nikon 50/1.8D and Canon 50/1.8 II. The reason is the same similar optical design. Below is a GIF animation of optical designs for six similar lenses:
Sample Photos
Snapshots with the Nikon D70. The photos are shown without processing, a camera JPEG. You can see the bokeh of the lens.
Download the source files by clicking on this link (56 original JPEG files).
Snapshots with the Nikon D90. The photos in the gallery are shown without processing, the original RAW-files are converted by the original Nikon ViewNX-i utility without making any additional adjustments.
Download the source files by clicking on this link (70 RAW files).
My Experience
The cheap 50 mm lens for Nikon non-motorized cameras is very good. Owners of cameras with a motor could always afford to buy a nice Nikon 50/1.8D for only 90-110 USD. However, the owners of non-motorized cameras had to buy a more expensive Nikon 50/1.8G (170-200 USD). With the introduction of Yongnuo 50mm 1:1.8, you can afford to buy a new nifty fifty lens with a built-in focus motor for 80 USD.
I treat the YN50mm F1.8N quite warmly and am glad that amateurs have the opportunity to buy a high speed 50 mm lens so cheap. In addition, I am glad that the YN50mm F1.8N is generally better than the Yongnuo Lens EF 50mm 1:1.8 for Canon. Only a pity that the version for Nikon is 1.5 times more expensive than the copy for Canon.
Important: this lens is primarily designed for amateur photographers (not professionals and not advanced amateurs!), who will take good care of their photo equipment and refrain from using it in conditions with a heavy load (weddings, reports, extreme conditions, etc.). I saw with my own eyes how my colleague, during the change of lenses, dropped the Nikon 50/1.8D from a meter height on the concrete floor. The lens received only a tiny scratch on the barrel, but it did not affect its functionality in any way. I do not think Yongnuo 50mm 1:1.8 will survive such a test.
Of course, the resilience of Yongnuo 50mm 1:1.8 is not comparable to the old manual lenses Nippon Kogaku Japan Nikkor-S Auto 1: 2 f = 5cm or Nikon Nikkor-S.C Auto 1: 1.4 f = 50mm. Nevertheless, for most tasks, I would prefer the presence of automatic focusing to a strong well-made barrel. Users leaning towards YN50mm F1.8N are often constrained in their means and are faced with the question: shall I choose'made in China' or 'Japanese manual'? I am often asked this question in pm. Usually my answer is that'made in China', in general, is better for photography, while for video shooting (where automatic focusing is not so important) - any 'Japanese manual'.
Summing up all my experience with the lens, here's my brief recommendation: YN50mm F1.8N can be safely purchased for Nikon non-motorized cameras. For cameras with a built-in focus motor, it is better to take the original Nikon 50/1.8D (does not matter, used or new).
All autofocus Nikon 50/1.8 lenses
In 2017, Nikon has 5 autofocus class 50/1.8 lenses (but only with two fundamentally different optical designs):
Nikon 50mm 1: 1.8 AF Nikkor (the first version, MK I, Non-D) ñ the lens was produced only in Japan from 1986 to 1990. Nikon 50mm 1: 1.8 AF Nikkor (second version, MK II, also known as 'N', or 'NEW' version, Non-D) - the lens was produced in Japan and China. The MK II version was produced from 1990 to 2001. There are three sub-types that do not differ in anything: MIJ (MADE IN JAPAN)
NJ (NIKON JAPAN)
MIC (MADE IN CHINA) Nikon 50mm 1: 1.8D AF Nikkor (the third version, MKIII, is more commonly known as the 'D'-version) - the lens has been produced since 2002 to this day. All lenses are manufactured in China. Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm 1: 1.8G SWM Aspherical (the fourth version, MKIV, better known as the 'G'-version or' AF-S'version) - the lens has been produced since 2011, all lenses are produced in China. Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm 1: 1.8G SWM Aspherical Special Edition (the fifth version, MKV, is better known as the version of 'Special Edition' or 'SE' or the version for Nikon Df) - the lens has been released from the autumn of 2013. All lenses are manufactured in China.
I want to note that the versions of MKI, MKII, MKII use the same 6/5 optical design, similar to YN50mm F1.8N.
MKIV, MKV versions use a newer optical design 7/6.
The main differences between Yongnuo 50mm 1:1.8 (YN50mm F1.8N) and Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm 1:1.8G SWM Aspherical:
The YN50mm F1.8N is a newer lens, introduced five years after the Nikon 50 / 1.8G.
YN50mm F1.8N is 18 grams heavier than the Nikon 50/1.8G.
Lens hood is not always included in the YN50mm F1.8N set.
The Nikon 50/1.8G has a rubber lens mount seal that makes the mounting of the bayonet dust and waterproof.
Lenses use different focusing motors. The YN50mm F1.8N uses a conventional micro motor, the Nikon 50/1.8G uses an ultrasonic Nikon SWM motor. The speed of focusing is practically the same.
The Nikon 50/1.8G has the ability to continuously control the 'M/A' focus manually. For manual focus, the YN50mm F1.8N must be set to 'MF'.
Different optical designs. The Nikon 50/1.8G uses a more modern optical design incorporating one aspherical element, which allows for a better image, especially on open diaphragms.
Modern Nikon cameras can automatically correct some distortions of the Nikon 50/1.8G lens. With YN50mm F1.8N, some image enhancement functions will not be available, since this lens is not in the memory of modern cameras.
The cost of the new Nikon 50/1.8G is about 2-3 times higher than the cost of the new YN50mm F1.8N.
The main differences between Yongnuo 50mm 1:1.8 (YN50mm F1.8N) and Nikon 50mm 1:1.8D AF Nikkor:
YN50mm F1.8N is a newer lens, introduced 14 years after the release of the Nikon 50/1.8D.
Lenses use a completely different design of the barrels. Visually Nikon 50/1.8D is much smaller than YN50mm F1.8N.
Nikon 50/1.8D is approximately 50 g lighter than YN50mm F1.8N.
For focusing, the YN50mm F1.8N uses the built-in micro-focus motor. The Nikon 50/1.8D does not have a built-in focus motor and is focused by the focusing motor built into the camera. This is one of the main functional differences between lenses.
Unlike the Nikon 50/1.8D, during focusing, the YN50mm F1.8N does not have an extension of the barrel.
Modern Nikon cameras can automatically correct some distortions of the Nikon 50/1.8D lens. With YN50mm F1.8N, some image enhancement functions will not be available, since this lens is not in the memory of modern cameras.
Nikon 50/1.8D has a diaphragm control ring that is not available for YN50mm F1.8N.
The new Nikon 50 / 1.8D is slightly more expensive than the new YN50mm F1.8N.
To summarize, it turns out that Yongnuo 50mm 1:1.8 is a mixture of Nikon 50/1.8D and Nikon 50/1.8G. From Nikon 50/1.8G, it borrowed control and design of the barrel, while it copied the optical design from Nikon 50/1.8D. From the functionality point of view, Yongnuo 50mm 1:1.8 is still closer to the Nikon 50/1.8G.
Conclusion
Yongnuo 50mm 1:1.8 (YN50mm F1.8N) ñ is a cheap Nikon 50/1.8G analogue, with an optical design close to the Nikon 50/1.8D. However strange it may sound, the YN50mm F1.8N is a perfectly usable lens. Given the price/performance ratio, I recommend it to all amateur photographers who want to join the world of high-speed auto focus fixes.
The material prepared by Arkadiy Shapoval, author of radojuva.com.
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Apple Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive — the man behind the iMac, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, iPod, iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad (to name just a few) — has given a rare interview to the London Evening Standard. And while Ive doesn’t offer any trade secrets, or reveal what Apple has in its pipeline, the design virtuoso does provide some unique insight into the world’s most profitable electronics company.
“Most of our competitors are interesting [sic] in doing something different, or want to appear new — I think those are completely the wrong goals,” says Ive. “A product has to be genuinely better. This requires real discipline, and that’s what drives us — a sincere, genuine appetite to do something that is better. Committees just don’t work, and it’s not about price, schedule or a bizarre marketing goal to appear different — they are corporate goals with scant regard for people who use the product.”
In other words, if a consumer electronics company wants to achieve Apple-level greatness, it must stop reacting to its competitors by releasing “just another” tablet, or smartphone, or laptop, simply because others are doing the same. Creating a better product is the reason Apple owns the tablets space: Because nobody else has made a better iPad. Sure, there are devices with tighter specs, or more attractive price tags (though even that is up for debate, now). But no other company has released a tablet that gives the majority of users a better experience than the iPad. And doing so is the only way to break Apple’s stranglehold on tablet market — something that’s obviously far easier said than done.
In addition to this daunting insight, Ive also explains why, unlike so many other companies out there, Apple doesn’t use focus groups to fine-tune their products.
“We don’t do focus groups – that is the job of the designer,” says Ive. “It’s unfair to ask people who don’t have a sense of the opportunities of tomorrow from the context of today to design.”
That’s right, he’s talking about you (and us) — people who don’t have a sense of the opportunities of tomorrow. And he’s probably right, at least in general. Apple has made billions by telling people what they want, not asking them what they want, and then trying to give it to them.
The rest of the interview has a few good tidbits, especially if you’re a fan of Apple and Ive. But it’s mostly fluff. Still, it’s refreshing to know that someone at Apple has maintained the signature Steve Jobs bravado.
[Image via Wikipedia]The electricity grid is in the beginning stages of a fateful evolution.
For a century or so, the model for the grid has been "hub and spoke" — electricity has been generated in large central power plants and spilled through wires into customer buildings. It works like water flowing downhill through canals and channels into basins; the basins are passive recipients, and the water only flows one way.
In the grid of the future, electricity will behave less like water and more like information. Everyone will consume it, produce it, store it, and share it. The customers at the ends of the wires will become active participants — producer/consumers, or "prosumers," in the awful jargon — and hub-and-spoke will give way to a multidirectional network.
In short, the grid will become less like a public water system and more like the internet, a networked platform upon which all sorts of innovations and markets can grow.
The internet is blessed with a community of thinkers, advocates, and activists who recognize that the full benefits of the web will only be unlocked if it is open to everyone, with no barriers to full, equal access. That's what the net neutrality movement is about.
As the power grid evolves into a network, it needs the same protections, for many of the same reasons. It needs a grid neutrality movement.
Nerds to the rescue!
The five core tenets of grid neutrality
In this month's issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly, a group of electricity analysts — Jenny Hu, an analyst at Clean Power Finance, Shayle Kann, head of GTM Research, James Tong, VP for strategy and government affairs at Clean Power Finance, and Jon Wellinghoff, lawyer for Stoel Rives and former chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — have issued a call for grid neutrality, offering five broad tenets they say should guide coming efforts at grid reform.
Here are the tenets:
Here they are as text, with a little explanation (quoted from the graphic above):
The consumer empowerment principle: Empower the consumer while maintaining universal access to safe, reliable electricity at reasonable cost. (Maximize consumers’ ability to achieve their individual energy needs and the needs of the grid without compromising the universal right of all consumers to access a safe, reliable energy service at reasonable cost.) The commons principle: Demarcate and protect the "commons." (Establish clear operational and jurisdictional boundaries for public and private interests.) The risk/reward principle: Align risks and rewards across the industry. (Allocate financial risks to stakeholders who are most willing and able to assume them. Safeguard the public interest by containing the risks undertaken by private parties to those participants.) The transparency principle: Create a transparent, level playing field. (Promote and protect open standards, data access, and transparency to encourage sustainable innovation on the grid. Prevent any single party — public or private — from abusing its influence.) The open access principle: Foster open access to the grid. (Allow all parties who meet system-wide standards the opportunity to add value to the grid. Apply all standards evenly and prevent any non-merit-based discrimination.)
Using the five tenets to analyze a recent utility case
These principles are a bit abstract, so to show how they work in action, the authors use them to analyze a recent bit of hot utility action in New York.
As you recall, New York is in the midst of a hugely ambitious rethink of its energy systems, including its power utilities (I wrote posts about it: one, two), but the authors hone in on a particular episode, an early harbinger of those reforms.
It begins with New York utility Con Edison:
Con Edison faced a situation common to many utilities. Electricity demand growth in Brooklyn and Queens had increased significantly, threatening by the year 2018 to overload the capabilities of feeders serving two substations (Brownsville 1 & 2) by 69 MW. Historically, utilities in Con Edison’s position met similar grid needs by constructing new substations, feeders and switching stations, which in this case would result in an aggregate cost of over $1 billion. But this time, in July 2014, Con Edison solicited offers to fill this need not only in the traditional way, but also by non-traditional resources.
The plot thickens!
So Con Edison needed 69 MW of new grid capacity to handle the rising load. What it proposed was novel: It would get 17 MW of that capacity the traditional way, by investing in grid infrastructure, but it would get the other 52 MW by soliciting help from third-party suppliers of distributed energy resources (DERs). It would put out a request for proposals (RFP) saying, in effect, "We have a problem; help us solve it."
Most of the responses to the RFP came in the form of "demand management." The goal of demand management is to make demand a controllable ("dispatchable") resource. Each customer is paid a small amount to allow his demand to be slightly dialed back during peak hours; those customers are aggregated together (by a third-party "demand response aggregator") until the cumulative demand is enough to make a difference to grid congestion.
Thus was born the Brooklyn/Queens Demand Management (BQDM) program.
The total cost of ConEd's proposal was $200 million, which is... considerably less than a billion. The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) approved it.
So let's look at how this case stacks up to the five tenets of grid neutrality.
1) Empowering customers: By making some traditional infrastructure investments just in case, ConEd fulfilled its responsibility to assure reliable service. But by filling most of the need with DERs, it drew in private companies and empowered customers to lower grid-wide costs.
That's the dual mandate: reliable service and empowering customers.
2) Demarcating the commons: The idea here is to clearly separate monopoly activities from market activities, and to keep the utility out of the latter. So in this case, ConEd made some traditional grid investments and will own the infrastructure; those investments will be "rate based," i.e., charged to customers through rates.
But the nontraditional portion of the proposal, the demand-management products and services, will be owned by third parties. ConEd will procure it, but not own any of it, so as not to wield undue influence on market competition.
Thus: regulated monopoly on |
consider doing. It is at the core of the gospel—an indispensable, essential, foundational element. Without this transformational work of caring for our fellowmen, the Church is but a facade of the organization God intends for His people… No matter the outward appearance of our righteousness, if we look the other way when others are suffering, we cannot be justified.(22)
As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are not obligated to accept anything that fails these measures. But, conversely, as disciples of Jesus Christ we are obligated to accept things which pass these tests — exercising faith and repentance.
We can sustain prophets by turning our hearts to Christlike charity and understanding their words in that light.
Fifth: Prophecy often challenges our narratives.
We are commanded to build on the foundation of Christ and that gospel foundation is very simple: faith, repentance, baptism, and Holy Ghost. This is analogous to the story of manna in the Old Testament(23). Manna gave the children of Israel life and nourishment, but it also expired and had a limited shelf life. As we build on the foundation of Christ, our constructions will have a limited shelf life as they necessarily use the material available in a certain time and place. We don’t build ex nihilo, but by organizing and reorganizing from surrounding spiritual material. Periodically, we will need to return back to our shared foundation in Christ, gather fresh manna anew, and build or renovate on that foundation.
This process can be uncomfortable, (restoration and renovation often are) but as we stay on the foundation of Christ this is the call and challenge of ongoing restoration. We plead with God when we feel the shaking of our faith, but it is often God who is shaking our world and our constructions(24) bringing us back down to the foundation to build something greater. Here, prophets are the “voice of him that crieth in the wilderness”(25) calling us back to Christ’s foundation. By responding to prophetic calls to repentance and restoration, we can be prepared to do the hard work of renovation and construction over again and again.
We can sustain prophets as we we respond to their calls back to the foundation of Christ, and engage with them in renovating, restoring, and building anew on that foundation.
Sixth: Prophets invite us to repent.
Throughout scriptures, prophets have called for repentance. This is a consistent and frequent message in the Book of Mormon(26). Repentance is a key part of Jesus’ gospel foundation and the scriptures testify that “none but the truly penitent are saved.”(27). Thus, if prophets are called to testify of Christ, then repentance is a key principle prophets will teach.
Jesus underscored the importance of repentance in the parable of the publican and sinner:
And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.(28)
The surprising result is that it is the penitent sinner who was the righteous one – not the rigidly orthodox Pharisee. Indeed, regardless of whatever our strengths and virtues may be, “none but the truly penitent are saved.”(29)
We can sustain prophets as we answer the call to repent in ways that turn us to Christ.
Seventh: God teaches how we can discern the words of prophets.
Using the test of charity mentioned above, we are each charged with the responsibility to heed and discern the words of prophets for ourselves. Brigham Young once said:
What a pity it would be if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation… Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not. This has been my exhortation continually.(30)
A prophet’s words are not true merely because they said them, a prophet’s words are true if those words turn us to charity, provoke us to do and become part of the good in the world, are spoken with “long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned”(31), and gives us a spirit “of power, and of love, and of a sound mind”(32). We are not required to obey words which fail these tests. But conversely, as disciples of Jesus, we seek to align our discipleship to words which do pass these tests, even and especially when that alignment requires repentance on our part.
We can sustain prophets when we prayerfully discern their words using Christ-centered principles.
Eighth: Prophets are forth tellers, not fortune tellers.
Many insights on the role and limits of prophets and prophecy are found in the story of Jonah. Jonah initially seemed to see his role as more of a fortune-teller who predicts an inescapable fate. He saw the people of Nineveh’s fate as already sealed and that he merely needed to put a stamp on it with a curse. But God had much wisdom to teach Jonah. After Jonah saw that Nineveh was not destroyed he had what might be called an existential crisis. His faith and narrative were challenged and he was shaken to his core. But God taught Jonah that humanity cannot be reduced to mere fate or curses and that human agency always has a role to play in our past, present, and future and that prophecy operates within that context.
Thus a prophet’s role is to provoke and persuade us to use our agency in ways that will turn us towards God and build God’s Kingdom. And it is through the use of our agency that we can bring about God’s work and will.
We can sustain prophets by heeding their warnings and deciding how we can each respond in ways that will turn us to God.
Ninth: We cannot abdicate our moral responsibility to prophets.
Mormonism places a strong emphasis on prophets and prophecy. This is an important part of the restoration and a key heritage in the Mormon faith. Much is gained from the gift of prophecy, and several Mormon prophets themselves have warned against abdicating personal moral responsibility to leaders and prophets. Joseph Smith warned that people must “deliver their own souls” and that they cannot do so simply “depending on the Prophet”(33); Brigham Young taught that church members cannot “be led entirely by another person, suspending their own understanding” which leads to being “dictated to do in every trifle, like a child”(34); Dallin H. Oaks taught that general authorities “preach general principles”, “don’t try to define all the exceptions… to some rules”, and that “you must work that out individually between you and the Lord”(35); Jeffrey R. Holland echoed that by saying that we “lead specific lives and must seek out the Lord’s guidance regarding specific circumstances”(36); and M. Russell Ballard emphasized that “I am a general authority, but that doesn’t make me an authority in general” and that he “worr[ies] sometimes that members expect too much from Church leaders and teachers, expecting them to be experts in subjects well beyond their duties and responsibilities”(16).
We can sustain prophets by seeking personal revelation to guide our lives as also understand their words.
Tenth: All can seek the gift of prophecy.
Against the backdrop of a variety of types of prophets in the scriptures, in the LDS church our prophets are also the ecclesiastical leaders of the church. This places the role of prophet in an official place of institutional authority. The scriptures and modern teachings of LDS prophets also disperse the gift of prophecy to more than just ecclesiastical leaders. Moses expressed a desire “that all the LORD’s people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!”(37); John the Revelator and Joseph Smith both taught that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy”(38). And Wilford Woodruff sought to endow the gift of prophecy on all when he said “He is a prophet, I am a prophet, you are, and anybody is a prophet who has the testimony of Jesus Christ, for that is the spirit of prophecy”(39).
We can sustain prophets as we join our testimony with others as we each seek the gift of prophecy.
Eleventh: Prophets communicate “after the manner of their language.”
In the first section of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord frames the limits of prophecy stating that “these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding.”(40). In the Book of Mormon, Alma points out how “the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have”(41).
William James described human limitations in religion when he said, “Religious language clothes itself in such poor symbols as our life affords”(42). As long as God respects human agency, religion and prophecy are limited to the capabilities of those it finds expression in (more on that here). While God can enlighten our minds and hearts, God cannot and will not override our own agency. And the scriptures are full of stories where prophets struggle to communicate using the culture and language available to them.
James E. Talmage warned about how our biases affect our ability to know God when he said, “[Mankind is] prone to conceive of the attributes of God as comprising in augmented degree the dominant traits of their own nature.”(43). And like Paul’s “[seeing] through a glass, darkly”(9), Brigham Young taught that revelation is an imperfect process:
I do not even believe that there is a single revelation, among the many God has given to the Church, that is perfect in its fullness. The revelations of God contain correct doctrine and principles so far as they go; but it is impossible for the poor, weak, low, grovelling, sinful inhabitants of the earth to receive a revelation from the Almighty in all its perfections.(44)
Through acknowledging how prophecy operates within the context of the limited knowledge, aesthetics, culture, language, symbols, etc. in individuals and societies, we can find empathy with and better choose how we sustain prophets in context.
Twelfth: We can sustain prophets “in all patience and faith”.
In the 21st section of the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord commands that we “shalt give heed” to the “words and commandments” which prophets “shall give unto you”(45). Dieter F. Uchtdorf spoke about this need for patience and faith for past and present leaders saying “we don’t really know what it was like to live in that time, in those circumstances”, “how encouraging it is to know that God was able to use them anyway”, and that this wisdom of patience and faith applies today as we can “know, though we are imperfect, if our hearts are turned to God, He will be generous and kind and use us for His purposes.”(46).
Jeffrey R. Holland has spoken about the need for realistic expectations about ourselves and others as we engage together in the Lord’s work emphasizing that “except for Jesus, there have been no flawless performances on this earthly journey we are pursuing” and that we should avoid expectations of “toxic perfectionism” which can “make us cynical about the truths of the gospel, the truthfulness of the Church, our hope for our future, or the possibility of godliness.”(47)
God would not have called us to “give heed” to prophets in “all patience” if there was no need for patience.(45) Prophets are imperfect (even when acting as prophets) and we are imperfect (even when we may feel led by God), but God calls us to extend patience and forgiveness to one another as we serve together in Christ.
We can sustain prophets in “all patience and faith”(45) and feel the blessings of the same as we serve and extend that same “patience and faith” to one another.
Thirteenth: Prophets draw their power from “principles of righteousness”.
One of the most moving passages of Mormon scripture teaches on the nature of power and authority:
That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and … the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness. That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man. Behold, ere he is aware, he is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks, to persecute the saints, and to fight against God. We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. Hence many are called, but few are chosen. No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile – Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy; That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death. Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven. The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.(48)
Just as Jesus taught that “the law and the prophets” hang on the two great commandments to love God and love others(18), power and authority that prophets use come from “principles of righteousness” and not “by virtue of the priesthood” alone.
We can sustain prophets as we respond to and uphold the principles of “persuasion”, “long-suffering”, “gentleness and meekness”, “love unfeigned”, “kindness”, and “pure knowledge”.
Fourteenth: Charity is essential to sustaining in failings and disagreements.
What might it mean to “hang all the law and the prophets on charity”?(18) Certainly, interpreting their words through the lens of charity is one way. Another way to bring charity into sustaining comes when failings and disagreements arise. What are we to do when we are unable to find charity in what a prophet says or does? How are we to respond to the failings of their humanity?
One way is to ignore it all together. With our best intentions, we may simply ignore the failings and errors of prophets. Or, worse, we may pretend such things don’t exist — an implicit infallibility. But we give up an important opportunity to bring charity into our sustaining when we do this. Moral agency is more complex than perfect obedience or ideological perfection will allow. And moral agency is why such things as faith, patience, love, and forgiveness are basic principles of the gospel. If the words of prophets require perfect obedience or are assumed as ideologically perfect then they would end up undermining these basic principles and moral agency rather than supporting them.
Another approach divides the body through contention. An example of this is Peter’s defense of Jesus as he was arrested. The defense of Jesus was a righteous desire. Unfortunately, his zeal that lead to violence was out of line.(49) We should be ashamed when any ears are cut off in our church today. Swords are drawn on various sides as some members who are hurting are cut off or pushed out and swords of indignation are swung at some of the flaws in the church. We even see this play out in families where faith can become a contentious wedge rather than a healing balm.
Contrast both of these approaches with Jesus’ response to Peter and Malchus as he stops Peter and heals Malchus’ ear. Can we see in this example how Christ is perhaps calling us to put away our ideological weapons and instead see and heal the suffering of others? With so many who are hurting today, we have a much greater need for healers and peacemakers than we do for zealots. I think we all have the responsibility to find ways to put injured ears back on and begin listening to one another.
The question then isn’t whether prophets are always right or whether we must be perfectly obedient, the question is, “How can we charitably respond to one another’s failings and disagreements as we seek to follow the Spirit?” Seeking by the Spirit to find charitable ways to sustain when failings and disagreements arise requires courage and a deep sense of love and personal agency. Seeking to sustain with charity requires us to “dig deep”(50) to ensure we are on a solid foundation. Seeking to sustain with charity requires faith. In short, it requires Christlike discipleship and it places Christ at our head. Compared to obsequious obedience or indignation, this can create a sustaining that is more robust, more centered on Christ, and more able to weather the storms of failings and disagreements when they occur.
Rather than see our only options as total agreement or apostasy, we can sustain prophets as we use our agency in charitable ways as we serve with one another despite failings and disagreements.
Conclusion
While not exhaustive, these 14 keys have helped me find meaning, faith, love, wisdom, and strength in how and why I sustain. They help me avoid counterfeits to sustaining which undermine my faith and help me find Christ. My testimony is strengthened as my sustaining helps me see that the church is a living, breathing, bleeding body. And as I seek to be charitable and forgiving in my sustaining towards imperfect people, I too can have faith that others can seek to be charitable and forgiving in their sustaining of me as I imperfectly work with them to build up the Kingdom of God.
Citations:We won't find out until Thursday whether or not Sixers rookie Joel Embiid will be a starter in next month's NBA All-Star Game.
But if the popularity of his jersey -- or the fact that attendance is the highest it's been since before Allen Iverson was traded more than a decade ago -- is any indication, there's reason to believe the 22-year-old will earn a date with his celebrity crush, even if he's left out of the Eastern Conference's starting five.
According to sports merchandise leader Fanatics, who compiled data from all their various sites, including the NBA Store and Sixers Shop official online stores, Embiid and the Sixers are among the most popular in basketball.
Over the past week, the Sixers are the fourth best-selling NBA team, trailing only the Warriors, Cavaliers and Bulls in total merchandise sales. Embiid, who is averaging 19.7 points, 7.7 rebounds and 2.4 blocks in 25.3 minutes per game, ranks fifth among all NBA players in terms of merchandise sold in that time frame.
But it's been more than just the last seven days, when Embiid's online All-Star campaign really jumped into high gear.
Since the start of the 2015-16 season, Sixers merchandise ranks in the top-10 of NBA teams. Their total sales are up 110 percent compared to the same period in 2016, marking the largest year-over-year increase of any NBA teams this season.
And it doesn't look like that will be ending anytime soon. In January alone, Sixers merchandise has spiked more than 150 pct. compared to January 2016.
Should Embiid be named an All-Star, you can add another jersey to that list.
The Sixers, who have won six of their last eight games, play host to Kyle Lowry and the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night. Embiid (illness) did not participate in the morning shootaround and is questionable, as is T.J. McConnell (wrist).
Follow Matt on Twitter: @matt_mullinMost people who take out student loans for university are deep in debt by the time they graduate, so it is therefore imperative to know how to pay back the money you have borrowed as quickly as possible. Being saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt can be extremely frustrating, which is all the more reason to have as many tips as possible for paying it back quickly.
Evaluate and come up with a plan
You will have to first assess the student loan debt that you have accumulated before doing anything else. Once you have done this you will be able to start working on a plan to pay it off. This initial step is very important, as it will help you to get a handle on your debt for the steps to come. There is no way that you can pay back your student loans quickly if you do not first come up with a plan.
Do whatever you can to increase your regular payments
It is always a good idea to increase your loan payments as much as possible, even if it is only an extra £50 or so each payment. Whether you have to borrow some money from friends or pick up extra shifts at work, you will most definitely want to think about doing this. Increasing your regular payments will help you make a bigger dent in your student loans so that you can get them paid off as quickly as possible.
Cut back on the luxuries
If you are trying to save as much money as possible because you’re trying to pay off your student loan debt, make sure that you find ways to reduce your spending on a regular basis. Maybe you can eat out less or forego certain other unnecessary expenses that have been preventing you from paying back your student loans as efficiently as possible. This can actually be extremely effective when it comes to paying off the money you owe, so you will need to keep it in mind.
Refinance your loans
One great option that you will want to consider when it comes to paying back your student loans is to refinance. You could choose a new loan term that will help you to pay back your loan faster than you ever thought possible. It is very important that you look into your refinancing options so that you can get the best deal possible. You definitely don’t want to rush into refinancing your student loans, because you will most likely end up regretting it for one reason or another.
Lower your interest rate
If you want to lower the interest rate on your loan, you will want to at least think about making it so that your payments are automatically taken out of your checking account. This could potentially decrease your interest rate in a very noticeable way, so it is certainly something worth looking into. Interest rates on student loans tend to run fairly high, so you will need to make sure that you do everything you can to get yours down as much as possible.
Start making payments every couple of weeks
Another effective tip when it comes to paying off your student loans as quickly as possible is to increase the frequency of your payments to every couple of weeks instead of just once every month. You might actually be surprised at how much of a difference this can make when it comes to helping you to get your loan paid off faster. This may require some creative budgeting on your part, but it is well worth it if it really helps you in a noticeable way.
Focus on paying off the higher interest loans first
Make sure that you stay focused on paying off the loans with the highest interest rates first so that you don’t end up spending more than you have to over time. By doing this you will almost certainly be able to pay off your loans fairly quick.
Final Thoughts
It can be easy to feel overwhelmed when it comes to paying off your student loans, but it’s important that you stay focused and do everything you can to pay them off as quickly as possible. There are many different ways to go about doing this, and it is crucial that you try everything you can. You will most likely be able to pay your loans off much sooner as long as you follow these tips.CPAC is out in full force today, and to kick off his speech, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal issued a “heartfelt and sincere apology” to none other than Jimmy Carter. Why? Well, Jindal explained that during the 2012 election he referred to President Obama as the “most liberal and most incompetent president in my lifetime, ever since Jimmy Carter,” but based on everything he’s seen from Obama, perhaps that metric needs to be shifted a bit.
Jindal said it’s horrifying for America to be “seeing a president who doesn’t understand that a weak America leads to instability, seeing a president who doesn’t seem to understand that our allies and enemies alike need and want a strong America.” Jindal got a little personal, saying it’s “time to revisit” the assumption that Obama is a “smart man.”
And that’s when he issued this “apology”:
“Let it be heard, and I hope he’s watching, to President Carter. I want to issue a sincere apology. It is no longer fair to say he was the worst president of this great country in my lifetime. President Obama has proven me wrong.”
[photo via screengrab]
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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comlol is this your new profile pic?” Two weeks back we reported that Security firm Trend Micro discovered a worm targeting Skype users with spam messages designed to infect machines with the Dorkbot ransomware has been discovered. This malware is spreading through a question/ phrase sent to the users by someone and the question is: “
Yesterday Security researchers from Avast have intercepted a currently spreading Darkbot malware campaign, that's affecting millions of Skype users. According to him," It targets all the major Web browsers, and is also capable of distributing related malware such as Ransomware/LockScreen, as well as steal accounting data for major social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter, as well as related services such as GoDaddy, PayPal and Netflix."
Some of the infected PCs install the malware known as ransomeware which locks your PC and ask you to pay $200 dollars within 48 hours to retrieve your files.
"If you click on the link, your infected computer becomes part of a botnet, or a network of computers controlled by hackers to execute DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks. A DDoS attack causes the site or service to be temporarily unavailable by flooding the targeted website with traffic until the site’s servers are overloaded."
Initially only 2 of the present 44 antivirus engines identified the threat, but currently the number has increased to 27, which is still quite low. However, it also indicates that about 1 Million users must have clicked o the links and greeted infection on the links.The NRL is expected to do so on Monday, providing all aspects of the deal and his transfer from Parramatta are in order, but Henry would rather avoid the potential disruption to his team by playing Peats.
"There has been a lot of talk obviously, in the last 48 hours about Nathan Peats amongst the group and he would come in with welcome arms,"Henry told the Titans website.
"We think he would be a welcome addition to our squad as well, so we are are looking forward to seeing him get involved next week. But our focus has been on getting a win at home against an opposition that have got a a few players back, with [Jared] Waerea-Hargreaves, Mitchell Pearce and Boyd Cordner, and are a tough team so I think we are going to be up for a good game."
Captain Nathan Friend, who is off-contract at the end of the season, will start at hooker for Gold Coast, with Keirran Moseley to provide cover from the interchange bench against the Roosters. But both know their positions are now under threat due to the arrival of Peats.
Friend, Moseley and fellow hookers Daniel Mortimer and Matt Srama are all off-contract at the end of this season and with the Titans having signed Peats for the remainder of this year and 2017 it is likely that one or more will go.0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
On their respective radio shows today Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh went on the attack against Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) because she voted for advancing the healthcare debate forward in the Senate. Instead of criticizing her position on the bill, both Beck and Limbaugh took the lowest possible road by calling a female US senator a prostitute.
Here is the audio of Beck courtesy of Media Matters:
Beck accused the Senate Democratic leadership of bribing Landrieu to get her vote on healthcare, “We’re with a high class prostitute. That’s what we’re with…You’re not sittin’ there in a back alley and sayin’ hey what do you say, five bucks? No, no, no this comes to your Four Seasons hotel room and does it right. There’s nobody that’s going to look at her and say oh my gosh you’re with a whore…”
Here is the audio of Limbaugh, also from Media Matters:
Limbaugh said, “That may be folks, that may be, the most expensive prostitute in the history of prostitution, and she’s bragging about it. Mary Landrieu bragging about a $300 million payoff from Dingy Harry to get her vote on this healthcare scam on Saturday night.”
The “prostitution” that Beck and Limbaugh are so outraged by is actually a grant to help the state of Louisiana cover Medicaid costs for the poor. The notion that Landrieu herself is benefitting from this deal is completely false. It is convenient for Beck and Limbaugh to also forget that these kinds of deals were common place when Republicans were in the majority. The Republicans frequently used both grants and tax breaks for corporations and industries in specific states to sway votes.
The idea that Mary Landrieu is a whore is strictly sexism. How would Beck and Limbaugh react if their beloved Sarah Palin was labeled a whore and a prostitute because she decided to quit the post that the votes of Alaska elected her to in order to sell books and make money? They would be outraged by the notion that Palin is a whore, but it is fine for them to call a sitting US Senator, who got funding for the poor in her state, a whore.
If Mary Landrieu was a man, would she still have been called a whore? I doubt it. This sexist attitude is one of the reasons why the GOP is going to continue to struggle to attract a majority of female voters. There are lots of conservative women out there, but many Independent and Democratic women are pushed away by such sexist rhetoric, at a time when the Republican Party needs to attract more voters, instead of pushing them away.
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:Image caption President Obama: "There has to be consequences"
US President Barack Obama has said North Korea must be "held to account" for the sinking of a South Korean warship.
He said he stood with South Korean leader Lee Myung-Bak, and condemned Pyongyang's "irresponsible behaviour".
His comments came shortly after the G8 group of industrialised nations meeting in Toronto condemned the sinking of the corvette Cheonan earlier this year.
North Korea has denied attacking the ship.
An international investigation concluded that it was sunk by a North Korean torpedo.
After meeting the South Korean leader on the sidelines of the summit, Mr Obama said: "There has to be consequences for such irresponsible behaviour."
The G8 leaders also criticised North Korea - and Iran - over their nuclear activities, and they described the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip as "not sustainable".
And they admitted that the global financial crisis had compromised efforts to meet UN targets for reducing world poverty.
Canada is also hosting a summit of the wider G20 group of industrial and developing powers, which will will discuss the global economy and financial reform.
Thousands of demonstrators marched on the G20 summit on Saturday in what is being reported to have been a largely peacefully rally that saw outbreaks of violence on its edges. These saw groups of young men scuffle with riot police and set fire to at least two patrol cars.
Security concerns
In their final summit statement, the G8 - the US, Canada, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Japan - said: "We deplore the attack on 26 March that caused the sinking of the Republic of Korea's naval vessel, the Cheonan, resulting in tragic loss of 46 lives."
Noting that an international investigation had found that, despite its denials, Pyongyang was to blame for the attack that sank the warship, the statement adds: "We condemn, in this context, the attack which led to the sinking of the Cheonan.
"We demand that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea refrain from committing any attacks or threatening hostilities against the Republic of Korea."
Reuters news agency says the statement was not as strongly worded as some nations, including the United States, had hoped. It says Russia was said to have held out against stronger language.
The statement also expresses the G8 leaders' "gravest concern that the nuclear test and missile activities carried out by the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea have further generated increased tension in the region and beyond, and that there continues to exist a clear threat to international peace and security."
The document calls on Iran to carry out a "transparent dialogue" over its controversial nuclear programme.
"We are profoundly concerned by Iran's continued lack of transparency regarding its nuclear activities and its stated intention to continue and expand enriching uranium," it says.
The UN Security Council earlier this month approved a fourth round of sanctions against Tehran for failing to halt nuclear enrichment. The measures include tighter finance curbs and an expanded arms embargo, but not the crippling sanctions the US had wanted.
On Gaza, the communique says the G8 leaders "deeply regret" the loss of life and injuries in the aid flotilla that was stormed by Israeli commandos last month as it was approaching the Palestinian territory. Nine Turkish activists died on board the flotilla's main ship.
In a reference to the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory, which is controlled by Islamist group Hamas, it says: "We urge all parties to work together... to ensure the flow of humanitarian and commercial goods and persons, to and from Gaza. The current arrangements are not sustainable and must be changed."
Poverty of ambition
The grouping concedes that the global economic crisis had jeopardised the chances of meeting the UN's development goals by the target year 2015, and that renewed aid commitments are necessary.
STEPHANOMICS The argument over the right way to support the global recovery here at the G20 summit in Toronto is the mirror image of the debate at the London Summit last year Stephanie Flanders Damned if they do
It says supporting development remains a cornerstone of the G8's approach, and that the countries will meet their obligations.
But BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall, in Toronto, says that unlike last year, the G8 has sidestepped any mention of the aid targets they set themselves five years ago at their Gleneagles summit, some of which have still not been met, and focused instead on maternal health and child mortality.
On Friday, the G8 agreed to donate $5bn (£3.3bn) over five years towards improving the health of mothers and young children in the developing world.
Our correspondent says that the immediate response from aid agencies has been dismay, and that they have accused G8 leaders of moving from "ambition on poverty in 2005 to poverty of ambition in 2010".
Efforts to bridge differences over budget policy dominated Friday's talks before Saturday's discussions on global security.
The twin summits, being held in and near Toronto, have come at a time when largest economies are divided over whether to cut deficits or stimulate economic growth.
President Obama is worried that a series of austerity measures announced by European countries may delay global recovery.
The G8 leaders will be joined by China and other rising economic powers for the G20 summit.
Mr Obama has called for the group to pull together to promote economic growth, saying that world economies are "inextricably linked".
BBC economics correspondent Andrew Walker says there is a dilemma for the group on the best timing for fixing debt problems.Washington Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan found a diamond in the sixth-round rough when he selected Florida Atlantic running back Alfred Morris 173rd in the 2012 NFL draft, but don't call it a fluke.
Maybe even Shanahan didn't expect Morris to rush for a team-record 1,613 yards as a rookie and outgain every back in the league not named Adrian Peterson. But history is certainly on Shanahan's side when it comes to taking less-than-blue-chip backs and turning them into extremely productive studs.
Since being hired to coach the Denver Broncos in 1995, Shanahan has groomed seven different 1,000-yard backs, none of whom were drafted in the first round. Combined, those backs posted 12 1,000-yard campaigns.
There was that now-famous Terrell Davis pick in Shanahan's first draft in Denver. Davis, who was the 196th pick in Round 6, was drafted after 17 other backs. But the Georgia product went over the 1,000-yard mark in each of his first four seasons, finishing second to Barry Sanders in the race for the rushing crown twice and winning it with the fourth 2,000-yard season in NFL history in 1998.
Injuries caught up to the Super Bowl MVP after that, but that didn't hurt the Broncos' running game as much as you'd expect.
In 1999, Shanahan found Olandis Gary with the 127th pick in Round 4. |
for assistance in overhauling their university’s codes of conduct and sexual harassment policies for the field.
“What’s been heartening, is the huge number of fellow scientists who are absolutely rooting for this research and want to see a change in how science is conducted,” Clancy said.Posted by Lethality in News | 8 Comments
If you think you’ve seen all you need to see about interactive skill tree calculators, think again.
R2-Db, the original and authoritative database site for Star Wars: The Old Republic, has introduced their skill calculators, and they didn’t stop at simply letting you spend your points and fill your tree. They’ve created skill tree calculators that tie into the rest of the services on R2-Db, including their new Guides system. What does this mean? It means you can design a build and embed it right into a guide that you create! This goes way beyond simply “voting” on someones build. You can put your entire character build and strategy online for everyone to interact with, discuss and maybe even improve on!
But that’s not all. Right now, these skill trees are embeddable in R2-Db posts, forums and guides. But soon they will be embeddable right on your own site, your guild’s forums or anywhere that has the R2-Db Powered Script installed!
It’s important to realize that R2-Db is not only the best database site for Star Wars: The Old Republic, but that they have features and infrastructure that are truly next-gen. From a built-in reputation system, level and achievements you can earn by just using the site and even your very own inventory called The Stash.
Also, I’ve seen some of the things they having coming in the future, and trust me, this is where you want to be. Don’t settle for the cut-n-paste DB sites based on other games – R2-Db was created for TOR from the ground up. Head over now, and while you’re there, create an account and start taking advantage of all of these cool features!In this video, I build a new Flash ROM / RAM board and use it to install the RomWBW CP/M distribution on the RC2014:
I’ve already done one video on CP/M on the RC2014, but when I built the Zeta 2 Single Board Computer, I liked Sergey Kiselev’s design so much that I thought I’d try to adapt it over to the RC2014.
Overview of the new design
The new design, based on the Zeta 2 by Serget Kislev, uses a 512 KB Flash ROM and a 512 KB static RAM. There are two register file chips that implement a 7-bit paging register. This allows you to slice up the Z80’s 64 KB address space into four windows, each of which can point to any 16 KB page in ROM or RAM.
There are several advantages to the new design:
The CP/M operating system and BIOS is built into ROM
ROM disk allows over a dozen CP/M applications and tools
RAM disk allows programs to be downloaded, assembled, etc.
No external storage (CompactFlash or Floppy) is needed for a basic CP/M system
Flash ROM can be reprogrammed without needing to be erased
Schematic
Here’s a picture of the schematic
Implementation
Here’s the board I built
Modifying RomWBW
The CP/M distribution that runs on the Zeta 2 is called RomWBW by Wayne Warthen. Since the RC2014 is not exactly a Zeta2, I had to make a few modifications:
Added support for the Z80 SIO/2 chip
Added support for the ICAI chip (for those using the original RC2014 serial board)
Github makes it very easy to fork an existing project and make available your own changes. My fork of RomWBW is located at https://github.com/sbelectronics/RomWBW
Flash ROM / RAM Board Bill of Materials
Name Description Supplier Pc-board osh park U$2 512K Static Ram AS6C4008 digikey 1450-1027-ND U$3 512K Flash ROM 39SF040 digikey SST39SF040-70-4C-PHE-ND IC1, IC2 74HCT670N register file ebay or digikey 296-33164-5-ND IC3 74HCT139N dual 2-4 decoder digikey 296-8390-5-ND IC4 74HCT138N 3-8 decoder digikey 296-1608-5-ND IC5 74HCT74N dual flip-flop digikey 296-1625-5-ND SV1 2×8 male header RN1, RN2 10K x 5 (6-pin) resistor network digikey 4606X-1-103LF-ND
Board Ordering
As usual, the boards are up on osh park:Markets to watch in 2017: Miami by James McClister October 31, 2016
There is no denying the affordability and oversupply problems plaguing the Miami market, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it’s still considered one of the top real estate markets to watch in 2017, according to a joint report from the Urban Land Institute and PwC.
In a survey of more than 500 real estate professionals, around which ULI and PwC shape its annual report, Miami was ranked the overall No. 25 market to watch in 2017, with the consensus being that it is a challenged market but still provides great opportunities for both investors and families.
Praise for the Miami market included:
International investment is again growing in the market
Demand is increasing in the industrial sector, which is leading to stronger market fundamentals
Commercial development is growing and will benefit the overall market
To see Miami’s full rankings and how it compares to other cities, see our table below:Felix, who was drafted by the Cavaliers in the second round of the NBA draft in June, was a driving force for the Sun Devils in his senior season. He led the team in steals in 2012 with 50 and in rebounds with 285. Felix was second on the team in points with 511, second only to freshman sensation Jahii Carson’s 647, and he was also among the team’s best in field goal percentage (.500) and three-point shot percentage (.374) during his final year in Tempe.
The Sun Devils missed out on the NCAA tournament in their 2012 campaign and fell in the second round of the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) to the eventual NIT champions, the Baylor Bears.
Felix’s ability on the defensive end of the floor has opened some eyes; his 5.4 rebound per game average in the NBA’s summer league impressed the coaching staff in Cleveland enough to sign the 33rd overall pick to a four-year contract. That contract could reportedly be worth as much as $3.3 million if he were to stick around with the team.
Felix joins James Harden of the Houston Rockets and Jeff Pendergraph of the San Antonio Spurs as former Sun Devil basketball players currently under contract in the NBA.Advertisement
It's the battle of the giant kangaroos. Just a week after pictures of a 2m eastern grey stalking suburban streets emerged, a challenger has stepped forward - and he's not shy to flex his muscles.
Roger the red kangaroo weighs a whopping 89kg and stands 2.007m tall from top to tail - almost exactly the same height as Dave, the east coast's behemoth who wanders the streets, startling dog walkers and golfers alike. But Roger is only nine years old.
To show off his prowess, Roger, who lives at The Kangaroo Sanctuary Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, likes to crush metal buckets with his bare paws to workout - while staring menacingly at the camera.
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Roger lives in The Kangaroo Sanctuary Alice Springs in the Northern Territory and is seen here crushing a tin bucket
And Dave better be careful because Roger is trained in hand-to-hand combat and can disembowel his opponent with a well-placed kick, according to sanctuary manager Chris 'Brolga' Barnes.
'His daily exercise regime is sparring [kickboxing] his rivals and chasing his human 'Mum', me,' Brolga told Daily Mail Australia.
'He also loves crushing metal buckets.
'Don't mess with a "Big Red" [red kangaroo], they'll disembowel you... or worse.'
Dave (right) made international headlines after appearing in a video (left) filmed by North Lakes woman Linda Hellyer
But Roger might be no match for his eastern grey opponent who tips the scales, weighing in at a massive 95 kilograms.
Though soon Roger will be undefeated as Brolga expects the nine-year-old alpha male to grow bigger as he gets older.
It is a far cry from the baby joey Brolga rescued in 2006 after finding his mother dead on a highway.
A recent photograph also posted on social media shows a young Roger cradled in a carer's hands.
Roger was found on the side of the highway in his dead mother's pouch in 2006 (left). Now he is 89 kilograms and hugging stuffed bunnies (right)
Usually Roger is very protective of the female members of his group, with the sanctuary manager saying he will attack anyone who gets too close to them
COMPARE THE STATS Dave Weight: 95kg Height: 2m Breed: eastern grey kangaroo Roger Weight: 89kg Height: 2.007m Breed: red kangaroo
The now more mature kangaroo showed off his softer side earlier this year when he was pictured hugging a stuffed toy bunny he had received from a fan just before Easter.
'When I gave it to him he snatched it off me really quickly and proceeded to attack it, giving it a "bear hug" and wrestling it, even hugging it and kicking out as he would do in kick boxing match, he's an expert kick boxer,' Brolga said back in April.
Usually Roger is very protective of the female members of his group.
'[He] will attack anyone or anything that gets too close to him or his women,' Brolga said.
But for now Dave who has been seen hopping around the suburban streets of Moreton Bay, north of Brisbane, reigns supreme because of his sheer size.
The kangaroo with a torn ear made international headlines after North Lakes local Linda Hellyer posted a video of him online when she encountered him on a footpath while walking her dogs.
'I looked up he was standing in the middle of the road,' Ms Hellyer told Daily Mail Australia when the story emerged last week.
'He was watching me and my dogs and they were watching him. I didn't get too close but I took a quick photo and video and left him alone.'
Dave (pictured) made international headlines after he was found hopping around in North Lakes - north of Brisbane
Roger's daily exercise regime includes kickboxing with his fellow animals, chasing his carer and crushing buckets
Ms Hellyer said she had seen the kangaroo - which was nicknamed 'Dave' by staff at the local golf course - in the area before but never on a footpath.
'We have a whole mob of roos from the area… that's where they were living we've just developed around them and now they haven't got a massive amount of room,' she said.
'So they spend a lot of time around the golf courses and parks.'Before the Ukraine, there was Syria. Before Syria, there was Iran. For over 30 years, Iran was the perpetual strawman of every attempt to escalate hostilities in the middle east. One only needs to recall that the original "red line" was not Obama's but that of Israel's PM Netanyahu referring to Iran's nuclear program (which most likely was under the control of Stuxnet, and thus the NSA, more than it was Iran's to begin with).
What is surprising in recent months, is how quickly in the aftermath of the Syrian failed escalation script from last summer, Iran quickly dropped off the axis of America's worst enemies, and from the biggest bogeyman, has rapidly become a nation with which the US is eager to resume diplomatic and trade relations. Sure, Israel pretended to be angry about Iran's ascent in the ranks of US foreign allies-to-be, and issued a few angry press releases, but that's all it was - posturing, fit only for the front page of tabloids. It is what was happening behind the scenes that is noteworthy.
And what is happening behind the scenes is the same thing that happens every time the US (or Israel, or any other western nations) finds a surprising new ally: said ally proceeds to purchase military equipment from the US (or other western nations), using loans from the US (or other western nation banks).
Enter bizarre twist #1 - US companies selling military parts to none other than the formerly country non grata (at least until mid-2013): Iran. Reuters reports:
U.S. aerospace companies are seeking permission to sell airliner parts to Iran for the first time in three decades, in a key test of the temporary relief on sanctions given under talks to curtail Iran's nuclear activities. At least two leading manufacturers, Boeing and engine maker General Electric, have applied for export licenses in a six-month window agreed by Iran and six world powers in November, industry officials and other sources familiar with the matter said. If approved, the sales would be the first acknowledged dealings between U.S. aerospace companies and Iran since the 1979 U.S. hostage crisis led to sanctions that were later broadened during the dispute over Iran's nuclear activities. A source familiar with the matter said that Boeing, the world's biggest manufacturer of passenger jets, had also filed a request for permission to export parts to Iran. Boeing declined to comment, referring questions to the U.S. State Department, which in turn referred queries to the U.S. Treasury. A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, which enforces international sanctions, declined to comment on specific license requests or applications.
Enter bizarre twist # 2 - "GE is doing it for the kids."
A GE spokesman said his company had been asking since 2004 for permission to provide parts and maintenance for engines for safety reasons, without profiting from the scheme. GE, the world's largest maker of jet engines by sales, refiled its request after the sanctions relief came into force, he added. "We don't want to make a penny on it. It's entirely for flight safety," Rick Kennedy said, adding that GE would donate any proceeds to charity.
But of course, because when one thinks suing the US to get tax refunds corporate generosity (if not bailouts), one thinks GE.
Enter bizarre twist # 3 - it is not only the US that is seeking to promptly capitalize on this "temporary" elimination of Iran sanctions. It is Iran's perpetual nemesis, Israel, that is not only planning to supply weapons to Iran, but is already doing so. However, unlike the US which at least has clumsily stumbled upon a detente whose only purpose is logically to get Iran to buy Made in America weapons, with Israel the hypocrisy takes on a whole new meaning. Quote the Telegraph:
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, called for increased pressure on Iran to force it to abandon a programme that Israel regards as a front for building an atomic bomb and a threat to its existence. Visiting the Golan Heights on Tuesday, he accused Iran of “arming those who are carrying out the slaughter” in neighbouring Syria. "I would like to tell the world, today, as the talks between the major powers and Iran are being resumed, that Iran has changed neither its aggressive policy nor its brutal character. Iran is continuing to support the Assad regime, which is slaughtering its own people,” Mr Netanyahu said.
And this is where it gets embarrassing for Bibi: it was Israel that was arming Iran.
[A] court in Athens has told The Telegraph that parts appearing on an American list of forbidden military-grade materials had been shipped from Israel on two occasions, apparently destined for Iran. The seized items comprised spare parts for military aircraft: a constant speed drive designed for the F-4 Phantom jet, and a voltage output sensor used in the F-14 Tomcat. The parts were confiscated by Greece’s financial crimes squad and were being sent to the US for investigation, court officials said.... Israeli arms dealers twice tried to send spare parts for fighter planes to Iran, The Telegraph has established, flouting an international arms embargo and openly contradicting the bitter enmity between the Jewish state and the Islamic regime. The illegal shipments are now being investigated by the US Homeland Security Department after they were intercepted by authorities in Greece.... The shipments - one in Dec 2012 and the other last April - were sent by courier from the Israeli town of Binyamina-Givat Ada, near Haifa, via a company in Greece, the newspaper reported. The firm was later established to be a ghost company. Its contact number was said to belong to a British national in the Greek city of Thessaloniki, who could not be traced.
Was Mossad involved? But of course.
A blogger, Richard Silverstein pointed the finger at two possible culprits who he said were well-known arms dealers living in Binyamina-Givat Ada. The pair had come to the attention of Israeli and US authorities on suspicion of violating the arms embargo on Iran in the past, Silverstein wrote, but had never been charged or prosecuted. “There can be no doubt that they are colluding with Israeli intelligence,” he added.
For those who are not convinced, "The defence and foreign ministries in Israel declined to comment on the seizures, which were first revealed by Kathimerini, a Greek newspaper. "
Finally, tying it all together, is another report from Reuters. in which we learn that "as Syria's war nears the start of its fourth year, Iran has stepped up support on the ground for President Bashar al-Assad, providing elite teams to gather intelligence and train troops, sources with knowledge of military movements say."
This further backing from Tehran, along with deliveries of munitions and equipment from Moscow, is helping to keep Assad in power at a time when neither his own forces nor opposition fighters have a decisive edge on the battlefield.
Assad's forces have failed to capitalize fully on advances they made last summer with the help of Iran, his major backer in the region, and the Hezbollah fighters that Tehran backs and which have provided important battlefield support for Assad. But the Syrian leader has drawn comfort from the withdrawal of the threat of U.S. bombing raids following a deal under which he has agreed to give up his chemical weapons. Shi'te Iran has already spent billions of dollars propping up Assad in what has turned into a sectarian proxy war with Sunni Arab states. And while the presence of Iranian military personnel in Syria is not new, military experts believe Tehran has in recent months sent in more specialists to enable Assad to outlast his enemies at home and abroad. Assad's forces have failed to capitalize fully on advances they made last summer with the help of Iran, his major backer in the region, and the Hezbollah fighters that Tehran backs and which have provided important battlefield support for Assad. But the Syrian leader has drawn comfort from the withdrawal of the threat of U.S. bombing raids following a deal under which he has agreed to give up his chemical weapons. Shi'te Iran has already spent billions of dollars propping up Assad in what has turned into a sectarian proxy war with Sunni Arab states. And while the presence of Iranian military personnel in Syria is not new, military experts believe Tehran has in recent months sent in more specialists to enable Assad to outlast his enemies at home and abroad.
To summarize: in an act of complete disregard for the official diplomatic song and dance, both Israel and the US are now providing military support to Iran, which in turn is providing military support to Syria, which is also getting military support from Russia. And now, just to make things more interesting, the same labyrinth of "military support" is about to be unleashed in the Ukraine, whose western half is just as likely getting arms and military equipment (not to mention funding)from the West under the table, while Russia, whose main Black Sea port is in the Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, is arming the Eastern part of the Ukraine.
What can possibly go wrong?If he is found guilty, the former Italian prime minister faces a jail sentence of up to six years.
The verdict, which could have major political repercussions, ends a two-year trial which has focused attention on the billionaire's alleged "bunga bunga" sex parties in his private villa outside Milan while he was premier in 2010.
If the 76-year-old is found guilty it could weaken Prime Minister Enrico Letta's fragile, left-right coalition government which depends on the centre-right leader's support for its survival.
Several members of Mr Berlusconi's People of Freedom party have urged him to withdraw his support and he may be more tempted to do so if he decides his backing for Letta is giving him no legal protection.
"He is expecting it to go against him, he has been telling everyone that the judges are prejudiced," said James Walston, politics professor at the American University of Rome.
Mr Berlusconi is accused of paying for sex with former nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug, alias "Ruby the Heartstealer", when she was under 18, and of abuse of office to get her released from police custody on a separate occasion.
He denies all wrongdoing and says he is being persecuted by left-wing prosecutors. He says the alleged sex parties were elegant dinners where the female guests performed "burlesque" shows. El Mahroug denies having sex with Berlusconi.
Prosecutors say Mr Berlusconi should serve one year in jail for paying for sex with a minor and should be given five years' imprisonment and a life ban from holding public office for the abuse of office charge, which they consider more serious.
Whatever the verdict, Mr Berlusconi will not go to jail before he has exhausted his right to two appeals under the Italian legal system, which could take years.
Edited by Bonnie Malkin for telegraph.co.ukJeff Janis may have a chance to become the Packers’ No. 3 wide receiver, but he must first prove he can cut down mistakes running routes. Credit: Mike De Sisti
SHARE Poll Does Jeff Janis have a chance to become the Packers’ No. 3 receiver? Yes No vote View Results Yes: 65% No: 35% Total Responses: 1218
By,
On the first play of the Green Bay Packers' team drills Thursday — the very first play — Aaron Rodgers' throw to Jeff Janis was intercepted.
The pass was behind Janis, which gave cornerback LaDarius Gunter the angle on the ball. But judging by Rodgers' reaction, Janis ran a bad route.
Uh-oh.
Or not.
Yeah, the guy who couldn't get on the field last year because of poor route running apparently ran another bad route Thursday. What's up with that? Is he still not getting this?
And if you want to know why it matters so much, Gunter's interception would have been a touchdown. That can be the difference between winning and losing a game.
But this is exactly what the off-season is for. The Packers should be throwing to Janis again and again to see his mistakes and whether he learns. They can't treat him like they don't trust him, as they did last year. They need to let him botch a play and go back to him for more.
Maybe they'll find out he's just not good enough, at least to fit into their top-four receiving rotation. But the bet here is if they push him, if they force-feed him and don't bench or ignore him after a mistake, he'll beat out Davante Adams for their No. 3 receiving job and add an element of speed their offense needs.
Janis has almost every advantage on Adams physically. He's 2 inches taller (6 feet 2⅞ to Adams' 6-0⅞) and a little bigger (219 pounds to 215). He's significantly faster (4.42-second electronic time at the 2014 NFL scouting combine to Adams' 4.56 seconds) and outperformed him on all combine tests save the vertical jump (Adams' 39½ inches to Janis' 37½).
The difference is, Adams went to a college (Fresno State) with a sophisticated passing game and caught 233 passes in two seasons there. Janis faced lesser players (Division II Saginaw Valley State), and though he put up good four-year numbers he basically ran only two routes: post and go.
So for all his physical talents, Janis came into the league with limitations. Some are still there.
But just imagine the difference for Randall Cobb and new tight end Jared Cook to have a second deep threat outside with Jordy Nelson. Adams isn't that guy. When the Packers drafted Adams in the second round in 2014, they thought he'd make plays downfield by jumping over defensive backs. His low average-per-catch as a rookie (11.7 yards on 38 catches) and again last season (9.7 yards on 50 catches) suggest otherwise.
With Nelson back from an ACL tear, I'm sure Rodgers can put up plenty of points with a possession receiver as his No. 3. But for the Packers to be a truly dynamic offense, and to threaten even the best defenses they'll face, they'll need more speed on the field. You have to think general manager Ted Thompson drafted fifth-round rookie Trevor Davis (4.42-second 40) with exactly that in mind.
I can't say for sure whether Janis will be that guy. Only two off-season practices have been open to media. The interception was the lone throw to him that I saw Thursday in 11-on-11. That's not much to go on.
Maybe he's a good special-teams player and that's it. But last year he did enough in the three games in which injuries forced him onto the field (San Diego, at Minnesota and in the playoffs at Arizona) to think he'll make plays that Adams can't.
Janis wasn't in the locker room after Thursday's OTA practice, so I didn't get the chance to talk to him about the interception in practice, or what he's been doing to improve as a route runner.
But Nelson was around. Nelson developed slowly as a 2008 second-round pick, though still much faster than Janis. He said it took until training camp his third season to feel like he'd made a breakthrough with Rodgers.
"It takes reps," Nelson said. "For everyone. That's going to be all in practice and in the film room. There are questions that get asked in the film room, and the way you answer those makes a difference. And the way you practice on a daily basis makes a difference. It's all about reps, and it's reps with Aaron, not just reps on the field. Every rep counts, but reps with Aaron weigh more."
I'm sure there's a hint of what's been hindering Janis in there. Always be prepared for meetings. Treat practice snaps like a game.
But it works both ways. The Packers last year kept playing Adams and throwing him the ball even when the results weren't there. He got chance after chance after chance. Janis has physical talent that Adams doesn't. Will they give him the same benefit of the doubt now?
Pete Dougherty is a columnist for the Green Bay Press-Gazette.With the US stepping up its rhetoric against the Assad regime and the killing of civilians in Syria, the Pentagon is engaged in contingency planning for a military operation there that could include a cyberwarfare attack.
But even as military planners voice optimism that the US possesses the vast technical superiority and tactical ingenuity to overcome Syria’s robust air defenses and air force, defense analysts warn that Western military intervention could cause Syria to erupt in a civil war that would eclipse the Iraq war in devastation and mayhem.
It remains to be seen whether the depth of these political concerns nullifies any deterrent effect discussion of the US military planning could have on the Syrian regime.
On Friday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned that the situation in Syria is “intolerable” and that President Bashar al-Assad must go, but added that any military operation the Pentagon is planning would not come without broad support from the international community.
So far the US and Western powers have been unable to overcome Russian and Chinese objections to any diplomatic initiatives that could pave the way for the use of force in Syria. But even if that broad support is forthcoming, the military operation would not be an easy one, or one on par with, say, Libya.
“From the military option perspective, Syria has a much more robust surface-to-air missile defense network than did the Libyans,” says retired US Air Force Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, a former war planner and the principal air attack planner for Operation Desert Storm, who adds that the Pentagon could use a cyberwarfare attack to take out those air defenses.
There are some 130 active surface-to-air (SAM) missile sites throughout the country, which are far more daunting than those Libya possessed because they stay in a far higher state of readiness as a result of the perceived threat they face from Israel, Mr. Deptula notes.
US military drones would be of little use in what the Pentagon calls a “contested air environment” since they are easy to shoot down and have no radar-evading capabilities, for example.
This is precisely what the so-called fifth generation US military fighter jets like the F22 and the F35 are designed to do, says Deptula, who adds that there’s no doubt that the US military could go up against a robust air defense system and “shut it down.”
Indeed, most SAM systems “are designed to be able to only engage a single target a time,” he adds, “which then leads into a counter technique in terms of saturating their air defenses in order to render them ineffective” – a “swarming” of sorts by US military air assets.
Nor are “kinetics” – in military parlance – the only option. US forces could begin reaching out to rebel fighters, if they haven’t already.
The Pentagon is also likely looking at cyberattack options, Deptula notes.
“We’ve come up with ways that can make the target-tracking radar think it’s a GE washing machine – that effectively takes it out of service without destroying it,” he says. “Operation in the cyber realm are certainly part and parcel” of the planning effort.
But the question remains to what end – and to what purpose? Pentagon planners will no doubt be asking themselves the same thing, Deptula adds. “Assad is clearly a leader that needs to be disposed of – the question is what’s the best way to do that?”
Among defense analysts, there is a growing belief that in dismantling a state like Syria, the lessons learned of such an operation will not come from Libya, but rather from Iraq, warns Aram Nerguizian, a fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Much like Iraq, Syria has deep-rooted sectarian, tribal, and socioeconomic fault lines. But civil war has the potential to look far more messy in Syria, and spill out into neighboring countries.
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Unlike Iraq, Syria has little experience with education reform, institution-building, and structural change, Mr. Nerguizian adds, noting that it has long been a “banana republic” grappling with decades of coup and counter-coup.
In the wake of a military intervention by the United States or the larger international community, “the sectarian and tribal pressures will all come to a head,” Nerguizian says. “And what comes out of it will be anyone’s guess.”Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann has been a vocal critic of the Israeli offensive [Al Jazeera]
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann has been a vocal critic of the Israeli offensive [Al Jazeera]
"The council cannot disavow its collective responsibility. It cannot continue to fiddle while Gaza burns."
Ryad Mansour, the Palestinian observer at the UN, called for an independent investigation of Israel's "grave breaches and systematic violations of international law".
"Since this crisis began, it is without a doubt that a multitude of war crimes have been perpetrated by the occupying power [Israel]," he said while also calling for "measures for the protection of the defenceless Palestinian civilian population."
Gabriela Shalev, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, dismissed the session as a "cynical, hateful and politicised [attempt] to de-legitimize Israel's fundamental right to defend its citizens".
Gaza war 'genocide'
The emergency meeting had been requested by the 118-member UN member states making up the non-aligned movement.
An Israeli delegate had sought to block the session on procedural grounds by arguing that under the UN charter the 192-member assembly could not rule on a matter already being tackled by the Security Council, but the move was dismissed.
D'Escoto noted that the Security Council last week had called for a Gaza ceasefire leading to the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
"Prime Minister Olmert's recent statement disavowing the authority of Resolution 1860 [the Security Council resolution] clearly places Israel as a state in contempt of international law and the United Nations," d'Escoto added.
He urged the assembly to agree its own non-binding assembly resolution reflecting "the urgency of our commitment to end this slaughter" in Gaza.
Israel has continued its offensive regardless of the resolution which was also rejected by Hamas.
D'Escoto, a former Nicaraguan foreign minister, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that Israel's killings of Palestinians in Gaza amounted to "genocide".
Almost 1,100 Palestinians have been killed during Israel's Gaza offensive, which Israel says is to stop Palestinian rocketfire coming from Gaza.David Petraeus is not the next victim in President Barack Obama’s crackdown on whistleblowers. He is not someone that should be defended like previous leakers, who have been prosecuted aggressively and charged with violating the Espionage Act. People opposed to excessive secrecy by the United States government do not have an obligation to oppose prosecution of him either.
What the former CIA director allegedly did was leak (or direct subordinates to leak) classified information to his biographer and lover, Paula Broadwell. In effect, he is believed to have bypassed the prepublication review process at the CIA and leaked secrets to his mistress to help her write a book about him, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus. This alleged leak can only be said to have been for his own self-aggrandizement with little to no public benefit whatsoever.
Now, there are writers who grasp the unjust nature of Espionage Act prosecutions by the Justice Department but are hesitant to support an indictment against Petraeus.
If FBI prosecutors and Justice Department prosecutors recommended charges to Attorney General Eric Holder, it should be a simple decision. Holder should indict him. That is what would happen in the majority of other cases.
There should be equal application of the law, even if one opposes the way the Espionage Act has been used. Petraeus should not benefit from the government showing discretion when others have not been afforded the same leniency.
POLITICO senior media writer Jack Shafer argues:
…Government officials leak classified information day in and day out, sometimes as “whistle-blowers,” sometimes to float a policy balloon, sometimes to undermine their bureaucratic opponents, sometimes by mistake, and sometimes (I’m only guessing here) to placate the mistress who is writing an adulatory biography. Upwards of 1.4 million people hold “top secret” clearances, and the secrecy machine creates tens of millions of new classified documents each year. That sort of profligacy makes a mockery of the government’s definition of “top secret” as information that “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security”? As Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan concluded as the last century closed, such over-classification tends to leave us less safe, not more, by slowing the information flow between policy makers. If neither justice nor national security are being served by pressuring the general, prosecutors should back off… [emphasis added]
The most glaring issue with Shafer’s argument is that it neglects the words of Petraeus himself, who was proud when the government convinced former CIA officer John Kiriakou to plead guilty to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA).
…This case yielded the first IIPA successful prosecution in 27 years, and it marks an important victory for our Agency, for our Intelligence Community, and for our country. Oaths do matter, and there are indeed consequences for those who believe they are above the laws that protect our fellow officers and enable American intelligence agencies to operate with the requisite degree of secrecy…
Kiriakou confirmed the name of an agent, who the government claimed was still undercover, to a reporter. He also was charged with violating the Espionage Act and lying to the CIA’s Publications Review Board when working on his book, The Reluctant Spy. He pled guilty to ensure that he was only sentenced to prison for a maximum of 30 months and has been in jail at a federal correctional facility in Loretto, Pennyslvania, since February 28, 2013.
What Kiriakou, who had become a critic of the CIA’s use of torture, was nailed for doing could be considered a mistake. Certainly, he views it as a mistake now. So, where was the Justice Department’s discretion in his case?
But the counter to Shafer’s argument is not merely that Petraeus should go to jail because Kiriakou or others convicted of leak offenses went to jail. It is the nature of Petraeus’ leak itself, which invites prosecution.
NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake was prosecuted for retaining classified information in violation of the Espionage Act. He went to a reporter and revealed wasted and fraud related to the NSA’s Trailblazer program. Former FBI linguist Shamai Leibowitz uncovered documents he claims showed the FBI had committed “illegal and unconstitutional acts” and showed those documents to a journalist. He pled guilty to an Espionage Act violation, went to prison for 20 months and cannot even talk about what was in the documents.
Former State Department employee Stephen Kim took a plea deal and was sentenced to 13 months in prison for disclosing information to a reporter that US intelligence officials knew North Korea would react to United Nations sanctions with more nuclear testing. Former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling is on trial right now for allegedly disclosing information on a botched CIA operation in Iran where officers deployed a former Russian scientist to provide flawed nuclear blueprints. Sterling faces seven counts of violating the Espionage Act and three other felony charges.
Military whistleblower Chelsea Manning disclosed documents to WikiLeaks, some of which revealed details related to assassination squads in Afghanistan and torture, abuse and threatened executions of Iraqi detainees. She also disclosed the “Collateral Murder” video that showed two Reuters journalists being gunned down in Baghdad along with other atrocious military conduct. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who Shafer has defended, revealed various programs showing the US government’s “aggressive spying on its own citizens” (as |
into the outgoing stack whenever an item is enqueued or dequeued. Because we can only add items to the top of the outgoing stack (since it’s a stack), not the bottom, we’ll have to have a ‘ready to dequeue’ outgoing stack and a ‘partially rebuilt’ outgoing stack. Whenever an item is enqueued or dequeued, we’ll reverse a few more items onto the partially rebuilt outgoing stack. Once the partially rebuilt outgoing stack is completely rebuilt, we’ll replace the true outgoing stack.
The second necessary change is a consequence of the first. The incoming stack is no longer being reduced (its items are needed in the same order for the next outgoing stack rebuilding pass). Garbage will accumulate at the bottom of the incoming stack. We can ignore it by keeping a count and artificially decrementing it but, unless we want memory usage to go up without bound, those nodes eventually need to be cleaned up. To make that possible, the incoming queue will also have to be continuously iteratively rebuilt.
Implementation
The source code, about 200 lines of C#, is too long to embed comfortably into this post. It’s divided into three data structures. First is the ‘stack with a count that can be decremented to ignore items’, which I call DropStack (because items ‘drop’ off the bottom). Second is the DropCollectStack, the augmentation of the drop stack that rebuilds its internal stack to ensure dropped items can be eventually dereferenced (for garbage collection). Finally, there’s the constant time immutable Queue, which keeps rebuilding an outgoing stack based on an incoming drop collect stack.
I assume the above high level overview is not sufficient to really ‘get’ what’s going on, so I also made a visualization of the described constant time immutable queue:
The shaded area along the top the the incoming stack shows the progress of the incremental copy into the ‘partially rebuilt outgoing’ stack. The shaded area along the bottom of the incoming stack shows the progress of the current incremental copy into the ‘partially reversed incoming’ stack. Black rectangles represent items that are ignored, but still in the underlying stack.
The visualization shows fifteen items being enqueued, with the outgoing stack being rebuilt the whole time, and then shows the items being cycled out and back into the queue, with both the outgoing and incoming stacks being rebuilt. Note how the incoming rebuild has to play catchup with the actual current state before it can replace the incoming queue, whereas the outgoing rebuild can get away with omitting some of the freshest items (because they won’t be dequeued for awhile).
Side note: the visualization has more rebuilding-per-operation than the source code, to decrease the maximum number of black squares and keep the outgoing stack more obviously up to date.
Analysis
I chose the rate of iterative rebuilding, per enqueue or dequeue, to be the simplest values that ensure items are always available to be dequeued and to ensure that the amount of garbage is linear in the size of the queue. These rates can be tweaked, to get better performance trade-offs, but ultimately rebuilding needs to be done often enough to ensure that items are available to be dequeued and that nodes are garbage collected.
For rebuilding the outgoing stack, I set every enqueue to be worth 1 step and every dequeue to be worth 2 steps. Each step pushes at least one item onto the partially rebuilt outgoing stack (and replaces the outgoing stack if possible). This number of steps ensures the number of items available to be dequeued is always at least half of all the items in the queue.
For rebuilding the incoming stack, I set every dequeue to be worth 3 steps (and enqueues are worth 0 steps). Each step either pushes an item onto the partially reversed stack or onto the partially rebuilt incoming stack (and replaces the incoming stack if possible). This bounds the amount of garbage nodes to be at most six times the number of nodes actually in the queue (more steps decrease this rather large bound, but of course take more time).
The performance of this queue is consistent. Consistently bad (but very consistent!). Every operation takes approximately the same amount of time, but that amount of time is at least an order of magnitude slower, overall, than the simple immutable queue. This could be improved by having an immutable facade, instead of true end-to-end immutability, or tweaking constants but, ultimately, we’re not going to be able to come close to beating the minimal overhead achieved by the naive immutable queue without some sort of major revision.
In general, I recommend favoring the simple immutable queue over my constant time immutable queue. A constant time queue might be better if you had hard real time constraints, but I doubt you’d be using a language with a garbage collector in that case.
Summary
Immutable data structures are useful and interesting. It’s possible to make an immutable queue with guaranteed constant time operations, instead of just aggregate constant time, but there are severe performance trade-offs. If you need an immutable queue, use the one in the immutable collections library released by the BCL team last week.
Note that the content of this post barely scratches the surface of information available in the research literature, and elsewhere. For example, way back in 1999, Kaplan and Tarjan showed how to implement an immutable constant-time deque with catenation (pdf of paper).
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ArchiveThere are loads of reasons to love Fringe, which is currently the best sci-fi show on television and don't even try and argue that. There's a complicated romance that's destined to be. There are cases that even Mulder and Scully would think are weird. There are multiple universes, multiple characters, and multiple mind-benders. But all of those are just are just extras to what the show is really about: Walter Bishop (John Noble) saying some outlandish shit.
Because Fringe's almost-a-month-long hiatus ends this Friday, what better way to get excited about the show's return than to watch a compilation of some of the craziest things Walter has said? This two-minutes-plus reel of "Walterisms" premiered during the Fringe panel at WonderCon over the weekend, but now it's online for everyone to see. So pour yourself some grape soda, take a dose of your favorite LSD, and watch Walter deliver some of his best lines ever.
Nudity! Pudding! Anuses! That's Emmy-worthy stuff right there.
Fringe returns with "A Short Story About Love" this Friday at 9pm on Fox. Here's a peek at what to expect; it's also a guarantee that you will stay as far away from Saran Wrap as you can for the next few days.
Follow TV.com writer Tim Surette on Twitter: @TimAtTVDotComLA police shoot paper carriers during Southern California manhunt
By John Andrews
11 February 2013
Los Angeles Police Department officers guarding the home of an LAPD captain from an ex-officer vowing revenge shot and wounded two women while they were delivering the Los Angeles Times last Thursday morning.
Photographs of the paper carriers’ pickup truck show multiple bullet holes entering from the rear, indicating that the still unidentified officers fired as the women were driving away. They were covering their regular delivery route in a housing tract located within the South Bay community of Torrance.
Emma Hernandez, 71, was in the rear seat handing the papers forward to her daughter, Margie Carranza, 47, who was driving and tossing the papers onto driveways. The women were following the common newspaper delivery practice of turning off their headlights to avoid disturbing residents who may still be sleeping.
Hernandez was hospitalized with two bullets in the back, but is expected to survive. Carranza was cut either by bullet or glass fragments. LAPD bullets pierced nearby cars, roofs and homes. Fortunately, no one else was hit. The LAPD has not announced the number of rounds fired, but estimates by neighbors range from 20 to 60.
Minutes later, a Torrance police cruiser responding to the LAPD shooting deliberately rammed a second pickup truck, after which the officers fired several rounds through the front window. Miraculously, the driver, who has not yet been identified, was able to duck and avoid injury.
Triggering this police mayhem is former LAPD officer Christopher Dorner, who identified himself earlier in the week as the perpetrator of the February 3 double murder of a couple in Irvine, California, about 40 miles south of Los Angeles.
On February 4, Dorner, 33, posted a “manifesto” on the Internet in which he appears to take responsibility for the killing of Keith Lawrence and Lawrence’s fiancée, Monica Quan, whose father, Randy Quan, represented Dorner at the Board of Rights hearing leading to his 2009 termination from the LAPD.
Dorner’s lengthy and rambling document complains that the LAPD tolerated a culture of violence and racism, and then terminated him for reporting that another officer beat a mentally disabled person.
Dorner, who recently spent a year in Iraq as a Navy reservist, listed several LAPD officials he holds responsible and pledged to wage “unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty.”
Dorner is believed to be responsible for the shooting of two Riverside, California police officers, one of whom died, while they were stopped at a traffic light in Corona, which is located about 60 miles east of Los Angeles, shortly after 1:00 am on February 7.
The Torrance LAPD shootings of the newspaper carriers happened about four hours later.
Dorner is a 270-pound black man. He was reported to be driving a dark blue Nissan Titan. The two shooting victims were female and Latina, driving a light-blue Toyota Tacoma. The pickup rammed and shot at by the Torrance officers was a black Honda.
Glen T. Jonas, an attorney for the LAPD’s victims, said that the LAPD officers failed to warn before firing at the two newspaper carriers. “It’s obvious that police wanted to execute this guy,” Jonas said.
LAPD Police Chief Charlie Beck, however, wrote off the incident as “a case of mistaken identity by the officers.”
Ignoring the fact that the officers had no legal justification to fire from behind at a vehicle slowly driving away—not to mention shooting in the direction of homes and people—Beck sought to blame the victims because the pickup’s lights were out.One of Australia's top scientists has voiced her horror at 'feminised' changes to the HSC physics curriculum.
University of NSW Professor Michelle Simmons believes the efforts to make physics more appealing to girls have been a 'disaster.'
Speaking to crowds at the Sydney Conservatorium of music for her 2017 Australia Day address on Tuesday, Prof Simmons said the current system was leaving students 'ill-equipped for university.'
University of NSW Professor Michelle Simmons says efforts to make physics more appealing to girls have been a 'disaster'
CHANGES TO THE HSC CURRICULUM BETWEEN 2000 AND 2010 Questions from HSC physics exams in 2000 and 2010
2000: Two HSC students, Kim and Tran, are at a grass ski slope that is 6·00 m high. Both Kim and Tran are wearing frictionless grass skis. Kim has a mass of 68·0 kg (including skis). Tran has a mass of 56·0 kg (including skis). Initially they are both at rest, Kim at the top of the slope and Tran at the bottom. Kim slides down the slope and collides with Tran. (a) Calculate Kim’s speed immediately before the collision. (b) After the collision, Kim moves with a speed of 6·26 m s–1 at an angle of 30·0° from his initial direction of travel, and Tran moves off at an angle of 30·0° on the other side of Kim’s initial direction of travel, as shown in the diagram.
2010: Magnetic resonance imaging is a current technology that uses superconductors. Identify two other technologies that use superconductors. Evaluate the impact of these technologies on society and the environment.
'One of the few things that horrified me when I came to Australia was to discover that, several years ago the high school physics curriculum was 'feminised',' she said.
Prof Simmons was referring to the swapping of laborious mathematical problem-solving for written responses.
'In other words, to make it more appealing to girls, our curricula designers substituted formula with essays. What a disaster.'
'From the students coming to university I see little evidence that this has made any difference and indeed I see many students complaining that the physics curriculum has left them ill-equipped for university.'
She also warned against perpetuating the 'lucky country' aspect of Australia's national fabric, which can stand in the way of putting in the hard yards.
'I think this is a mistake, because it does not acknowledge the hard work that people have done to be successful and it encourages us to shy away from difficult challenges. In short, I believe it will eventually stop us from being as ambitious as we might be.'
Prof Simmons (left, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (right), Federal Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Christopher Pyne (second left) and Senator Bridget McKenzie) said the current curriculum was leaving students 'ill-equipped for university'California drought: North Bay organic dairies desperate Central Valley isn't only region feeling effects of drought
Joe Tresch Jr. (left) and Jesus Rodriguez throw feed to farm animals along Walker Road at the organic Tresch Family Farm in Petaluma, Calif. on Tuesday Feb. 11, 2014. Even with the recent rains local dairies are having to truck in organic forage from upper Northern California growers to feed their animals. less Joe Tresch Jr. (left) and Jesus Rodriguez throw feed to farm animals along Walker Road at the organic Tresch Family Farm in Petaluma, Calif. on Tuesday Feb. 11, 2014. Even with the recent rains local dairies... more Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 29 Caption Close California drought: North Bay organic dairies desperate 1 / 29 Back to Gallery
Far from the cameras that will be trained on President Obama when he stops in Fresno on Friday to see the havoc wreaked on farms by California's drought, barren pastures and empty ponds threaten the organic dairies of the North Bay.
Organic cows must forage on organic pasture, pasture that by definition must be within a cow's walking distance from the milking barn. Thanks to the drought, there is virtually no pasture in Marin and Sonoma counties - and without locally grown pasture, a farm can't keep its organic certification.
Last weekend's heavy rains helped a lot, dumping 11 inches on Richard Hughes' 200-cow farm in Bodega, turning the hills green and adding precious water to his pond, but he'll need a lot more rainfall for his herd to last another year.
Milk is mostly water, and dairy cows need a lot of it.
"You know how big a 50-gallon barrel is?" Hughes said. "A cow would drink almost that much water on a hot summer day. When they put their head into the water trough, they start sucking like a vacuum cleaner. On a real hot day, you can have a 400-gallon water trough and you can put five or six cows around that thing and they can suck it right to the bottom in no time."
Marin and Sonoma counties are the cradle of the organic dairy industry. The Straus Family Creamery on Tomales Bay became the nation's first fully organic creamery in 1994. Most North Bay dairies are now organic, meeting the rules of the Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program.
Under those rules, cows must forage at least four months on organic pasture, but the North Bay pastures are barren after 13 months with nearly no rain. Local officials have asked the USDA for temporary variance to allow cows to eat organic feed purchased from outside the area until their pastures recover. A decision is due Thursday, said a spokesman for the agency's Agricultural Marketing Service.
Yet a variance won't be enough.
Costs surge
Farmers can buy organic alfalfa, but with much of the West also in a drought, there is little available. Alfalfa prices have soared and trucking costs are exorbitant.
"This is the worst I've seen in my life," said Albert Straus, president of the Straus Family Creamery, which contracts with eight local dairies for milk from 2,500 cows to produce its organic milk, butter, yogurt and ice cream. "There are farms in this drought that are hauling water already for months. It's scary.
"There's actually no alfalfa," he said. "A lot of these feeds are running out, so there's nothing available to feed the animals if it doesn't start to get a pasture season really quickly."
Political attention has been focused squarely on the San Joaquin Valley, where farms growing fruits, vegetables and especially tree crops such as almonds rely on irrigation from the Central Valley Project that takes water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Central Valley focus
The House passed a Republican bill last month that would permanently reallocate water from the delta to Central Valley farms, as proponents argued that water is being wasted on restoring rivers and saving salmon runs and the endangered delta smelt. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, held a news conference near Bakersfield last month to put pressure on Democrats to prove they care about farmers, too.
Obama is expected to talk to local farmers when he comes to Fresno on Friday. On Tuesday, California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer introduced a bill to relax water rules to aid Central Valley farmers.
But little attention has been paid to other California farmers.
"One thing that needs to be in this discussion is the hardships that are being faced everywhere in California that have nothing to do with the delta smelt, hardships that are at least as extreme as what we're hearing out of the San Joaquin Valley," said Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael.
Huffman said forage losses in Marin County alone were at 100 percent before the recent rain.
Survival fears
Jake Lewin, president of California Certified Organic Farmers, a group accredited by the Department of Agriculture to certify organic farms, said the drought problems on the North Coast are "especially pronounced." There is little groundwater to pump, and because the organic standard requires a pasture-based system, the dairies depend on winter rains.
"We're less worried about the variance than the fortunes and survival of the dairies," Lewin said. "We haven't seen a perfect storm like this in the past. It's a Western-wide drought with limited feed supplies, and the drought is so significant that people are buying water just to give the animals. They are already expending tremendous amounts of money."
Lewin's organization is asking member farmers who have organic waste such as vegetable matter or almond hulls that they might normally compost to send them to dairy and livestock farms to carry them over. "We're hoping we can all get through this together," he said.
Bodega dairyman Hughes said alfalfa is going for $7,000 a truckload, if you can find it. Before the drought, it was going for $5,000.
"If we don't get sustainable rains coming on, the grass is going to grow real quick and it's going to grow to maturity and it's going to dry out real quick," Hughes said.
The recent rains were a big help, he said, "but we need more. We're not trying to be greedy about this 10 inches of rain, but a normal year is 28 to 30. Last year it was not even near that."
With little pasture, low water supplies and a small amount of alfalfa, Hughes said, "we don't know what's going to happen."No part of what’s been a mostly predictable NBA postseason has been more entertaining than Stephen Curry’s emergence as a bona fide superstar. Even on the playoff stage, where opposing coaches knew exactly what Curry wanted to do, and how he wanted to do it, defenders were still resigned to simply crossing their fingers and hoping he would go cold.
It’s treatment typically reserved for scoring machines like Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony, two potent scorers who have frustrated defenses for years with their incredible shot-making. Curry has joined that rarefied company, and in terms of his ability to pile up points, the comparisons are apt. What sets Curry apart, though, is that he has the potential to be much more than a brilliant individual scorer. He can be the maestro of great offenses for years. It’s not Kobe or Carmelo to whom Curry should be compared. It’s Steve Nash.
The Curry-Nash comparison is certainly not a mind-blowing new concept. The similarities between Curry and Suns-era Nash are pretty evident — both are elite shooters, high-IQ players, ambidextrous finishers, and creative passers. Nash may not have put up the points that Anthony or Bryant do, but his influence on an elite offense (the same ability Curry may have) was possibly greater. Despite never once averaging more than 20 points per game, four of Nash’s Suns teams rank in the top 25 all time in terms of offensive efficiency. The only other players anchoring that many teams in the top 25 are Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan.
Given the aggressive nature of today’s NBA defenses, any offense with a primary option who isn’t a willing and capable passer has a cap on its potential. LeBron James, one of the most well-rounded superstars in the history of the game, has always embraced this, and even the formerly tunnel-vision-afflicted super scorer Kevin Durant has started to accept it.
Nash didn’t morph into a playmaking savant until his move to Phoenix, which happened well into his career. It was with the Suns, aided by experience and the guidance of Mike D’Antoni, that Nash fully embraced the art of making his teammates better. Whether it was a shift in his own basketball values or a matter of pragmatism, Nash improved his teams offensively not because he controlled the game through his scoring or shooting, but because he used the threat of each to create chances for others. It wasn’t always with physics-defying passes, either. More often than not, Nash made the simple play that allowed his teammate to have an advantage when shooting or driving against a defender. He was a master at what in coaching terms is called “creating closeouts,” or forcing help defenders to gravitate toward him, sometimes just a step or two, and putting them in a tough spot to recover back to their original man. Nash played the role of the decoy to perfection, a role made possible because of the threat his shooting presented. With the ability to convert jumpers from any spot on the floor with great efficiency, defenses were always forced to pay attention to Nash wherever he went at the expense of guarding his teammates. It’s why Gregg Popovich always famously tried to turn Nash into a scorer during those epic Spurs-Suns clashes in the mid-’00s — he’d rather get burned by Nash’s jumpers than have to worry about him getting the entire team involved in scoring.
This is what Curry, who is just entering his prime years, should understand. At a certain point, teams want players with Curry’s array of talents to simply be scorers. And in Golden State, he has the chance to be more. There will always be the notion that Nash became Steve Nash, NBA MVP, because of D’Antoni’s system, and therefore Curry would need to luck into a similar system to truly capitalize on his immense playmaking potential. That’s somewhat of a half-truth. D’Antoni’s system succeeded on the same basic principles as the current Warriors offense does under Mark Jackson — play fast, spread the floor with wings who can shoot, and give the decision-making power to the primary ball handler, which more often than not is Curry. It’s certainly true that Nash and D’Antoni’s system had a mutually beneficial relationship, but what made it work was Nash’s ability to pass and willingness to seek any small edge for his teammates to succeed.
That is the challenge now facing Curry. Right now, he is still in the process of figuring out who he is and what he can do. After this postseason, it’s clear to Curry and those who watched him that he can dictate a game through sheer scoring power, but his impact on the offense was much bigger than that. When Curry’s space-creating shiftiness was limited due to a sore ankle, he was forced to slow down his game, and we saw the amazing lefty hook passes float over defenders and lead to easy buckets. Not only did he display the ability to make all the simple and extraordinary passes that made life easier on his teammates, but he showed an understanding that his team could function at a higher level because of it — the same understanding Nash gained in Phoenix.
As a young player whose definition still lies somewhere between being potent individual scorer and unselfish playmaker, Curry has a decision to make about which direction he wants his offensive game to go. If he stays the same type of player he is now, he will still be an entertaining force, but perhaps not one that makes his entire team unstoppable. As Nash enters the twilight of his career in L.A., Curry may very well be his successor. But it’s up to him to decide whether that’s the kind of superstar he wants to be.No book has affected my note taking workflow more than The Sketchnote Handbook: The illustrated guide to visual note taking. This hand-sketched book is masterfully drawn, offering tips and tricks to blend traditional note taking with intentional doodling. For those who are familiar, the book is formatted more like a graphic novel than a traditional productivity/self-help book. Each page is drawn as a sketchnote with examples from the personal notebook of the author.
The premise behind sketchnotes is simple; text notes are limiting and drawing helps with retention. As students we are taught to take notes verbatim, trying to copy down every word that comes from the front of the classroom. During this process, we lose sight of the real purpose of the classroom lecture, capturing and retaining the main ideas. Building from the Allan Paivio's Dual Coding Theory, sketchnotes employ both the verbal and visual channels in which the brain processes information through sketches and words. The process of sketching also forces us to think more abstractly about key concepts and how they relate to other ideas.
While many may be turned off by the idea that they are "not artistic," Rohde reassures his readers that artistic ability is not a requirement nor an excuse. He provides basic sketching tutorials and suggests ways to convey complex ideas with simple images that everyone can create.
I finished reading the book in the middle of the semester and below is a sketchnote I created for my African Archaeology class using an iPad and the GoodNotes App.
It's not the prettiest of sketchnotes but it's a start. Admittedly incorporating sketchnotes slows down the note taking process but causes you to focus on ideas not words; thus reinforcing a key concept of the book. In this examples, I found I was able to more visualize the differences among the African, Taurine, and Indian cattle more readily with images rather than words.
With that said, sketchnotes isn't ideal for every situation. I tried - to no avail - to incorporate sketchnotes into my Intro to Statistics class but the only things I ended up drawing were equations and some pretty bad sketches of the teacher.
If you find yourself doodling in the margins of your notes you should definitely check out THE SKETCHNOTE HANDBOOK. You may even end up creating notes that you'll actually enjoy reviewing.
For a short but thorough introduction to his "sketchy approach" watch this YouTube video where Mike Rohde, the author, introduces the concept. Also check out the Sketchnote Army, a collection of user-submitted sketchnotes updated daily.
Do you use sketchnotes? Please share your sketchnotes below and let me know if you would like to see a review of THE SKETCHNOTE WORKBOOK.
This post is part of the Book Review Series which features short summaries and reviews of books that are helpful to students in 500 words or less.ADVERTISEMENT
President Trump has more in common with Russia's Vladimir Putin and Chinese business titans than most people realize.
Trump represents the latest iteration of a very particular sort of global plutocrat. These super-wealthy elites have a penchant for nationalism, and often xenophobia. They boast authoritarian streaks, and exhibit total shamelessness about mixing business and politics. You often can't tell where one form of power ends and another begins.
Nowhere is this more clear than it is with Trump. He clearly isn't divesting from his globe-spanning branding and real estate empire. Every economic and regulatory policy he undertakes has the potential to redound to his own profit. Trump mixes business negotiations with diplomatic affairs, and his administration is stumping for his family's product lines. Should Trump get his corporate tax breaks for private infrastructure spending passed, you could easily imagine him selling his brand to every company who takes advantage of the deal: American infrastructure jobs, brought to you by Trump Inc., with the president's name on every new bridge, road, and seaport.
Such government-run self-enrichment schemes are classic Putin, too. The economic chaos that followed the Soviet Union's fall created a market ruled by feudalistic Russian business elites. Putin took advantage to install himself as Russia's permanent leader, enriching himself and his compatriots along the way. Russia's government now owns a considerable portion of the country's oil and gas industry.
China's economy is also a "mixed market" — largely driven by state-owned enterprises — in which political powerbrokers double as the nation's business titans.
It probably goes without saying, but this is a far cry from the liberal and technocratic global elites who flock to events like Davos, and who have long dominated Western policymaking.
The Davos crowd is largely appalled by Trump's vulgarity, xenophobia, and jingoism. But perhaps just as appalling to them is his blending of government and business. The Davos elite embrace a very strict separation of the political sphere from business. The market should evolve on its own, free from government interference.
Trump, on the other hand, is totally on board with political ambition and business ambition mixing until they're one and the same. He's exceedingly upfront that the U.S. government should foster American businesses and jobs through direct deal-making and protectionism.
Heads of major Chinese corporate behemoths, like Alibaba and Foxconn, and Japan's SoftBank "see where this guy Trump is coming from, and, at a visceral level, identify with him," Alberto Moel, an analyst at research firm Sanford C. Bernstein, told The New York Times."These guys are political animals. They live in Asia, where things are different. There's more autocracy and more connected transactions. In the U.S., people still expect things to be fair."
That's changing, and fast. Trump is bringing a new brand of elitist power to the West. And he's importing it from the oligarchs of the East.
Let's be clear: Trump's populism is not actually about empowering the people, here or abroad. It's about ensuring his own rule and popularity. Doing deals, rather than repairing the system, allows Trump to play the kingpin upon whom American workers depend for their livelihoods. This is what Putin does. This is what oligarchs do. And all of these powerbrokers are part of the same emerging global plutocratic class, with certain fundamental interests in common.
Trump's campaign rhetoric wasn't wrong: Globalization and political corruption really did screw the American working class. But Trump painted U.S. politicians and foreign workers as the final beneficiaries of American workers' exploitation. In reality, they were simply tools used by the global one-percenters who really benefited — a crowd that includes Trump, Putin, and China's wealthy elite.
That's the part Trump doesn't want to acknowledge.Greece has been rocked by riots and protests for the past seven days. They have caused the worst destruction in 25 years sparked by a controversial shooting of 15-year-old boy, Alexis Grigoropoulos, by a police officer on Saturday night.
Update:
Euronews reports that the riots continued for a seventh day, and have caused hundreds of millions of euros worth of damage.
Athens has seen its seventh day of rioting. Despite a night of relative calm across Greece, fresh violence broke out after a peaceful demonstration turned nasty. Students and security forces clashed outside the parliament building in the capital. Firebombs and stones were thrown at police who responded with teargas.
Protests spread to other cities in Europe, briefly blocking the Champs-Elysees Friday, reports the AP.
PARIS -- Demonstrators rallying in support of protesters in Greece scuffled with police and spilled onto the Champs-Elysees Friday, partly blocking the capital's most famous avenue. The protest started peacefully outside the Greek Embassy in Paris, where about 300 demonstrators from student groups, unions and left-wing parties gathered to show solidarity with the Greek youths, who have been rioting for seven days to express deep discontent with the government and poor economic prospects. Police were caught off-guard as the protesters shifted speedily down sidestreets from the embassy to emerge onto the Champs-Elysees, thick with Friday night traffic and bright with Christmas lights. Roughly 100 protesters moved in a group down the avenue, some ripping out streetlights as they moved along. About 10 protesters blocked a police car driving up the avenue and smashed its windows with stones. "Police, pigs, everywhere!" they shouted.
The Prime Minister made a statement while meeting with European leaders in Belgium. He called for an end to the violence and said he would not step down.
Asked whether he still considered the government's mandate to be strong, in light of its slim majority and the recent events, the Greek premier underlined that he did not intend to step down or call early elections. The country has a strong government and its strength is not measured by the number of MPs but by the reforms that it carries out," he said, adding that Greece was now up against a great economic crisis that demanded consistency, a responsible policy and "a firm hand at the helm."
The Guardian reports Thursday that clashes continued for the sixth day but workers returned to their jobs after the strike. And the government tried to carry on its business.
[Costas] Karamanlis and the opposition leader, George Papandreou, have appealed for an end to the violence, which hit at least 10 Greek cities and damaged hundreds of millions of euros in property. The government - clinging on to power by a single seat in the 300-member House - appeared to have weathered the immediate storm, but its hands-off response to the rioting has damaged its already low popularity ratings, analysts said. "The most likely scenario now is that Karamanlis will call elections in two or three months' time," Georges Prevelakis, a professor of geo-politics at Sorbonne University in Paris, told Reuters.
The AP reports that Greek authorities will hold two policemen accused of killing the teenager in jail pending their trail.
One officer has been charged with murder for allegedly shooting dead 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in a confrontation Saturday in Athens. The other has been charged as an accomplice to murder. No trial date has been set.
Greek newspaper Kathimerini reports on the Greek union strike Wednesday amid the violent riots:
The violence continued despite the efforts of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis in particular to build bridges with the opposition parties in the hope of discouraging people from continuing with their protests. Karamanlis met separately with the leader of each of the parliamentary parties, who in turn emerged from the talks to assert that the government could not cope with the crisis and that their respective parties are offering a way out. "The only thing that this government can now offer is its resignation," PASOK leader George Papandreou told his deputies after the meeting, as he called for elections to be held.
Alexis Papachelas writes a commentary for Kathimerini describing his despair over the whole situation in Greece and explains why the violence has gone this far:
The fatal shooting of the teenager in Exarchia and the destruction that followed struck a vein of rage and has created a wave of senselessness that has choked all reason. Teenagers are taking to the streets because they are disillusioned with the legacy they have inherited and know how hard it will be to maintain their standard of living in the future. They are also getting the message that right now, anything goes. The middle class despairs because it feels the government is totally incompetent and fears what lies ahead in terms of the economy. Policemen cast their eyes to the ground because they feel lost and don't know exactly what their job is or how to do it. The government has lost the plot, living in its own ivory tower and looking for conspiracies, or squads of well-rested riot police. The opposition has failed to grasp the gravity of the situation and does not realize that if it ever does get elected, candles and words won't cut it because the people, and especially the young, have run out of patience.
Global voices reports that a citizen journalist was beaten by the police after taking photos and video of the events. Here is his description:
I suffered a dislocated shoulder, fractured nose and multiple cuts and bruising for taking these photos of the Greek riot police during a peaceful demonstration on September 8th, 2007, Thessaloniki, Greece. I was detained, placed in an unmarked van by the four plain clothes cops and taken to the central police station. Later I was released without charge, but in excruciating pain and covered in blood.
The New York Times describes the severity of the crisis:
While clashes between the police and students have been common in Greece for decades, the ferocity of the reaction to the boy's death took the nation -- and its government -- by surprise. Outrage over the death was widespread, fueled by what experts say is a growing frustration with unemployment and corruption in one of the European Union's consistently underperforming economies, worsened by global recession. But it was expressed in violence in the streets by student anarchists, who had been quiet for several years but seemed revived by the crisis. Mr. Karamanlis, hanging on to power in Parliament by only one vote, has seemed frozen, his government, once popular but now scandal-ridden, increasingly under pressure.
AP reports on the 10,000 person strike in Athens:
Protesters attacked Athens' main courthouse with firebombs during a hearing for police officers whose shooting of a teenager set off rioting that appeared to be tapering off Wednesday even as a general strike paralyzed the country. The police involved in the fatal shooting were testifying behind closed doors when youths hurled Molotov cocktails at the courthouse and smashed a television satellite truck. Riot police fired tear gas. At least two people were hurt. Riot police and youths also clashed in the city center during a demonstration by more than 10,000 people to protest the conservative government's economic policies. But outbreaks of fighting were smaller and less |
mansion slip from its grasp. Concern that Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam was failing to excite the base, along with a fear-mongering anti-immigrant campaign run by Republican Ed Gillespie, led to concerns it would be a repeat of the 2016 presidential race.
Win McNamee via Getty Images Democrat Ralph Northam celebrates his victory over Ed Gillespie to be governor of Virginia.
Northam, however, sailed to victory Tuesday, guaranteeing Democrats a seat at the table when state legislative and congressional districts get redrawn in 2020. The party won the races for lieutenant governor and attorney general, too.
The night was validation for the many activists around the country who joined the resistance after Trump’s win and have been feverishly working at the grassroots to mobilize the party’s base. There’s no doubt that the victories will provide a jolt of energy for what’s coming in the 2018 midterm elections.
“Today’s progressive victories in Virginia make one thing clear: A newly awakened grassroots movement is rising up to reject Trump’s politics of hate and reclaim political power,” said Maria Urbina, the political director of the progressive Indivisible movement, which has more than 180 active groups in Virginia.
Democrats also saw the wins as a rejection of the type of nationalism championed by Trump and his former aide, Breitbart News Executive Chairman Steve Bannon, who maintained that a win by Gillespie in Virginia would prove that “Trumpism without Trump can show the way forward.”
“Tonight, the message for Democrats and the country is that fear and division and hatred do not work,” Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) said. “They don’t work here in Virginia, and they’re not going to work in Virginia.”
Trump attempted to distance himself from the crushing GOP losses Tuesday night, tweeting from South Korea that Gillespie “worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for.”
Almost no one expected Democrats to do as well as they did in the Virginia House of Delegates. Democrats targeted the 17 GOP-held districts where Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton defeated Trump. Winning all of the seats would swing control of the chamber, but few thought it was possible. Republicans have controlled the state’s house of delegates for nearly two decades and held a 66-34 majority.
The last time Democrats picked up more than one seat in the body was 2007, when they gained four. Last week, Virginia Democratic National Committeewoman Yasmine Taeb estimated that a pickup of six to eight seats would constitute a “success.”
But by 9:30 p.m., Democrats had already picked up 14 Republican-held seats in the House of Delegates, with eight more in play.
Northern Virginia, a Democratic stronghold, turned only bluer. Voters outside a polling location in Fairfax, which supported Clinton by a two-to-one margin in 2016, cited health care, education and Trump as top issues that drove them to the polls Tuesday.
“It seems like the other guy, Gillespie, he’s being supported by Trump, and [the president] tweeted about him,” Soleyman Ahmed, who voted for Northam, told HuffPost. “Northam seems like he’s a doctor, he’s served in the government, he’s got experience that could help.”
The electoral wave lifted the fortunes of even very left-wing candidates, including Democrat Lee Carter, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and supporter of single-payer health care. He unseated GOP House Majority Whip Jackson Miller in Northern Virginia’s 50th District. Carter, a former Marine, failed to provide the state Democratic Party with daily updates about his campaign, prompting the party to deny him aid and go silent on his bid. The Washington, D.C., chapter of DSA stepped in to help with canvassing, and on Tuesday Carter won.
In Virginia’s 13th District, outside Fredericksburg, voters ousted Republican Del. Bob Marshall, the author of the state’s bill to ban transgender people from using the bathrooms of their choice, and replaced him with Danica Roem, a transgender woman who ran on a platform of fixing the area’s transit problems.
Virginia Democratic Del. Charniele Herring said Roem’s victory “sends a message to politicians that the politics of bigotry is over. It’s not acceptable to voters.”
CHRIS KEANE / Reuters Chris Hurst, a former TV anchor, beat a Republican incumbent for the 12th District seat in Virginia's House of Delegates.
Chris Hurst, a former Roanoke news anchor whose girlfriend was fatally shot by a colleague on-air in 2015, beat an incumbent Republican in the state’s 12th District, which stretches from Blacksburg, the home of Virginia Tech, to the West Virginia border.
“This isn’t a wave. This is a tsunami,” said David Toscano, the Democratic leader in the Virginia House of Delegates.
This isn’t a wave. This is a tsunami. David Toscano, Democratic leader of the Virginia House of Delegates
The wins in New Jersey, Virginia and Washington, where Democrats won a key Washington state Senate seat — and, with it, control of the only part of the state government they didn’t already run — will have real policy consequences in the short term. Northam will be able to veto Republican legislation in Virginia, and Democratic pickups in the Virginia House of Delegates will give him much more leverage in the legislature. New Jersey, where Murphy ran on promises to legalize marijuana and introduce public banking will be under full Democratic control for the first time in nearly a decade. In Washington, Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee and the Democratic-controlled legislature will have much more freedom to enact their agenda.
The election results will affect lives in other states, too. In Maine, voters approved a ballot measure expanding Medicaid to tens of thousands of people over the objections of Paul LePage, the state’s Republican governor. In New York City, Bill de Blasio — who achieved a longstanding liberal goal of creating a universal pre-kindergarten program — became the first Democratic mayor to win reelection since Ed Koch in 1985.
The big question for Democrats now will be whether they can translate wins in this year’s elections to victories in next year’s congressional midterm elections. The Virginia electorate in 2017 is not the same territory as the battlegrounds Democrats will face next year — for one thing, Trump is more unpopular in the state than he is in the nation as a whole. And, as FiveThirtyEight recently noted, Virginia’s off-year results “haven’t been so predictive” as a barometer of each party’s strength in the following midterm House races.
But what Democrats hope is that the GOP loss in Virginia ― where Gillespie played up the nativist message popularized by Trump ― will make Republicans rethink their strategy.
“I think the appeal to the bad side of human instinct ― which Donald Trump did when he ran, and now Republicans are adopting ― does not serve America well, but won’t serve them well either,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told HuffPost on Tuesday, before the results came in.
Next up: A Dec. 12 special election for a U.S. Senate race in deep-red Alabama, where Roy Moore, a controversial-but-Republican judge, is narrowly leading former U.S. attorney Doug Jones, a Democrat, in the polls.
But on Tuesday night, most Democrats were still focused on celebrating their victories, not preparing for the long slog ahead.
The Democrats are like “the field goal kicker who’s missed three kicks in a row,” said Jared Leopold, communications director for the Democratic Governors Association. “Now we’ve made a few, and we’ve got our groove back.”
“Welcome to the bounce-back,” said Paul Kent, an elated union member who attended Northam’s victory party on Tuesday. “People have been waiting for a day like today since Nov. 9. This was the real bellwether. The narrative is we’re coming. There is no apathy.”
Ariel Edwards-Levy and Daniel Marans contributed reporting.CBS "Face the Nation" host John Dickerson said Friday the "press did all that good work ruining its reputation on its own" due to what he called "hysterical coverage" of 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.
Dickerson made the comments during an interview with conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt.
He analyzed the president's repeated attacks on the press during a Thursday press conference, which included Trump declaring the American people don't trust the media the way it used to.
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"That one comment, ‘they don’t trust you anymore,’ is a summation of where we are in America,” Hewitt observed. “Because I really do think Manhattan-Beltway elites have lost the country. They’ve lost it. There’s just no confidence.”
“Yes, it’s true, and it’s not because of anything obviously Donald Trump did,” Dickerson concurred. “The press did all that good work ruining its reputation on its own, and we can have a long conversation about what created that.”
Dickerson, who took over as "Face the Nation" moderator in 2015, compared press coverage of Trump to meteorologists who overhype every storm in their forecast.
"Part of it, though, is what you mentioned about the local weather report, which is to say a lot of hysterical coverage about every little last thing that doesn’t warrant it, "Dickerson said.
"Having said that, it doesn’t mean, and in fact, it most explicitly does not mean that the press just throws out the standards."
Trust in media is at an historic low, with 70 percent of independent voters stating they don't trust the media in Gallup's annual poll on the subject.
Among Republicans, 86 percent don't trust the media. On the Democratic side, 51 percent say they still have trust in the media.Despite being relegated with Hull City, disgraced midfielder Jake Livermore will have to endure a wait to find out what his personal punishment will be. Livermore failed a drugs test after a 2-0 win against Crystal Palace, with apparent traces of Cocaine in his specimen. He was subsequently suspended by the FA and the Hull City. How should he be punished?
It’s only natural there will be people calling for a harsh punishment. Livermore is in a privileged position, admired and watched by thousands of youngsters who wish to emulate him. However, with privilege comes responsibility. He has let not only himself down, but his manager, the club that employs him and the fans that pay exorbitant ticket prices to see him play. However, does the club need to be compassionate to a young man who has made a mistake?
Is a two year ban too harsh? Should his contract be torn up to make an example? I work in a job where the employer has a duty of care towards its employees. If I was to declare that I was struggling with a drugs problem, then I would be given help and guidance to get myself back on track. So is being a Premier League footballer any different?
To sack him would be the wrong decision. Of course he should be punished, perhaps with a fine to be donated to a charitable cause and a ten-game ban. He should be made to do some sort of community work to atone for his mistake. But to sack him would show that mistakes won’t be tolerated. Considering that everyone makes mistakes, this would be making an unnecessary example of him.
Nevertheless, it makes sense that Livermore should be punished heavily. If the FA and the club were to ban him for a lengthy period of time, it would surely send out a signal that engaging in criminality won’t be allowed in the professional game. But will this really change anything? Livermore doesn’t deserve to have his career ruined and I he will be the first to admit that he was in the wrong.
In comparison, several other players have tested positive for recreational drug use. The most high profile and recent case in the Premier League was that of Chelsea striker Adrian Mutu. He admitted to actually playing whilst under the influence of cocaine. Chelsea subsequently sacked the Romanian.
Now, if we were in a perfect world we could say that everyone should be treated the same. Mutu played for Chelsea who arguably could afford to lose a player of his stature and replace him. It’s different for Hull City. They haven’t got the same resources. Livermore can’t simply be replaced. The controversial point is that this case should be treated on its merits. The FA must take into account that Hull have just been relegated and can’t afford to lose a player of his talent. Historically, clubs that get relegated into the Championship need to get promoted the following season, otherwise they slide down the leagues.
Whatever happens, after a tough week for Hull City, it will only get worse for both them and Jake Livermore.American Giant designs and manufactures its clothes in the United States, yet the firm has found a way to keep its quality high and its prices comparable to those of other high-end retailers Photo courtesy of American Giant Hoodie/Svpply
In December, I wrote about American Giant, a San Francisco-based apparel startup that had perfected the hooded sweatshirt. Actually, that’s putting it mildly. I didn’t just write about American Giant. I turned down the lights, put on some Barry White, and, over the course of around 2,000 gyrating words, unspooled my sweet, tender love for the company and its clothes.
“There is really no comparison between American Giant’s hoodie and the competition,” I wrote. “It looks better and feels substantially more durable.” And: “When you run your hand against American Giant’s hoodie, you find a finely textured, rugged, warm exterior.” And: “Before I wore American Giant’s hoodie, I couldn’t ever picture a hoodie looking unslouchy. This one makes it look like you spent a minute considering your wardrobe before you rushed out the door.” And finally: “When you wear this hoodie, you’ll wonder why all other clothes aren’t made this well.”
I was just as floored by the way the company made its garments as I was by the resulting products. American Giant designs and manufactures its clothes in the United States, yet the firm has found a way to keep its quality high and its prices comparable to those of other high-end retailers. (American Giant’s hoodie sells for $79, which is more than you’d pay at the Gap or American Apparel, but about the same as hoodies at Levi’s, J. Crew, and Banana Republic.)
American Giant’s trick to maintaining quality at reasonable prices is to cut out middlemen. Clothes you buy at most mall stores are marked up so the retailer, brand, and various buyers can make their cut. That leaves very little money for producing the item itself. American Giant, by contrast, designs and manufactures its own clothes and sells everything through its own website. Because there are no middlemen, American Giant can spend a lot more time and money making better clothes.
My story was a viral hit. It got American Giant noticed by ABC News, Kottke, NPR, and scads of people on Twitter and Facebook. Many Slate commenters complained that the company’s clothes were too expensive, but they seem to have been in the minority. “In the span of about 36 hours we sold out of everything,” Bayard Winthrop, American Giant’s founder, told me when I called him earlier this month. “We were down to the bare shelves. Not a single item was left.”
Replenishing those shelves has not been easy. In the months since my story ran, at least a dozen readers have emailed or tweeted at me to complain that they couldn’t get a hoodie. The company’s products have been backordered since December, with long delays awaiting anyone who places an order. American Giant currently estimates that it will be fully back in stock by the beginning of May. If you order a hoodie right now, you’ll have to wait a month, at least, to get it.
The BBC recently pointed to American Giant as an example of a “catastrophic success”—a business whose instant overnight fame rockets it into doom. Jason Pontin, the editor–in-chief of MIT Technology Review, scolded me on Twitter for destroying American Giant with too much praise. Several readers also wondered if the delay exposed a problem in American Giant’s lauded approach to manufacturing. “Why has it been so difficult to ramp-up after getting what really should have been the greatest break any company can get?” asked one reader. “And, does this actually show their view of manufacturing to be fundamentally flawed? Perhaps this episode just confirms the thesis that the Apple version of a manufacturing process—with Chinese suppliers willing to locate near each other and put their workers through extraordinary demands for time-sensitive production—is the only way to maximize revenue.”
I called Winthrop to ask him about all this. Why couldn’t American Giant keep up, and would it have been able to handle the sudden demand more deftly if, like most clothing companies, it manufactured its goods in Asia?
In a lengthy conversation, Winthrop argued that wasn’t the case. He walked me through the mechanics of the delay—why, exactly, my story had sparked such a lengthy backorder, and what the company has been doing in the past few months to meet demand. He also argued that scaling up has been good for the company. Everything about American Giant is now more giant than before—the firm’s production capacity has increased by 15 to 20 times what it was in December, and it’s now planning on launching new products, including a women’s line that will debut in the spring. “This is a whole new ball of wax for us—we’re entering a whole new phase of growth, permanently resetting the company at a new level,” the company’s founder says.
Before my piece ran, Winthrop had been slightly worried about the holidays. “I’d had a planning meeting with my operations guy, and he warned me that we’d overbought for the holiday season—that we were just too deep in inventory,” he says. “Then your piece came out, and orders started to come in. Within a few minutes I was like, Oh, wait a second, this is starting to pick up steam. I called our e-commerce team and talked to my main contact there, and he told me they were trying to level-load the servers because traffic is rising. And then as we were talking, he says, ‘Dude, I don’t know if you understand what’s happening. In the last minute that we’ve spoken, 55 orders have come in.’ It was just crazy.”
The company slapped up a pre-order page on its blog, promising delivery in a few weeks’ time. Orders kept piling up. “We sold out of all of our January allotment, all of our February allotment, all of our March allotment, and to this day orders are pouring in, every day, like clockwork,” Winthrop says. Eventually the orders completely overwhelmed American Giant’s capacity to make and sell new hoodies—and it was at that point, Winthrop says, that he had to make a big, expensive decision about whether to permanently restructure the business.
To understand this decision, it helps to know the three-step process for making an American Giant hoodie. First, raw cotton gets knitted into spooled fabric, a process that takes about 50 days. Then the fabric must be finished and dyed, which takes about 15 days. Finally, the fabric is cut and sewn into a finished product. This last step takes about 45 days. In total, then, American Giant’s pipeline—the time it takes from ordering raw material to getting a bunch of sweatshirts—is about 3 1/2 months long.
And that gets to the key reason why American Giant’s stuff has been backordered for what seems like forever. Like any business, American Giant has to constantly predict future demand, ordering fresh materials that will only be available for sale three months from now. My story sparked an immediate spike in demand, but, back in December, Winthrop had no way of knowing whether the demand would be permanent. Would people still be interested in American Giant’s sweatshirts in April just because some yahoo on Slate had praised them back in December?
“We had to step back and decide whether this was real,” Winthrop says. “We had to get a certain level of confidence and make a big financial commitment to say, this permanently changes our business.” In other words, Winthrop had to take a big leap of faith. This meant ordering a lot more raw material into the pipeline—an order of magnitude more than American Giant was ordering back in December, at a cost of “millions of dollars.”
Winthrop argues that nothing about the delay suggests a flaw in American Giant’s production process. A three-month pipeline might sound long, but it’s a relatively quick cycle in the garment business. Winthrop believes that if American Giant were manufacturing overseas, many of the steps in the process would take much longer. For instance, to ramp up production so quickly, executives would have had to travel overseas to find new partners to work with. They would also have been unable to monitor the quality of the garments coming out of the new, higher-capacity production system—which, in the long run, would have been terrible for a company that’s trying to distinguish itself by focusing on the quality of its products.
“The bottom line, for us, is that this wasn’t about the failure of the supply chain,” Winthrop says. “It was about planning. And if we plan correctly from now on, we should never be in that situation again.”
This seems like a reasonable explanation for the delay, though I think it’s a little pat. One of the promises of hosting your business on the Internet is that, thanks to viral marketing, you can become an overnight hit. For lots of Internet companies there’s little downside to instant success. If you sell software, your app can go from 10 users to 10 million overnight and, as long as you manage your servers well, you’ll be OK.
American Giant’s story illustrates the problem with applying that same expectation to tangible products. The success of its hoodie revealed a yearning for quality, American-made apparel. But that yearning proved overwhelming for a company that had to rely on an antiquated, slow backend. And it suggests a lesson: If you make stuff that can’t scale at the speed of the social Web, instant demand might be more of a curse than a blessing.
I hope that the delay doesn’t hurt American Giant’s long-term prospects. I still wear the company’s hoodie every single day, and I’ve been waiting for months to get another sweatshirt. I don’t want to wait anymore.Welcome to the annual series: ‘A Minor (League) Review of 2015.” This series is a great way to receive a quick recap of the ’15 minor league season for your favorite club(s), while also receiving a brief look toward the 2016 season and beyond. It can also be a handy feature for fantasy baseball players in keeper and Dynasty leagues.
A Minor Review of 2015: Oakland A’s
The Graduate: Billy Burns, OF: The Nationals scored big in the 32nd round of the 2011 draft with Burns. He understands what he needs to do to be successful: get on base and run. His approach at the plate collapsed a bit in the majors (26-81 BB-K rate) compared to his time in the minors (211-245 BB-K) but he was still successful thanks to his ability to hit for average. He stole 26 bases (in 34 tries) at the big league level but has topped 50 bases twice in his career so there is more value there if Oakland gives him the green light.
The Riser: Jacob Nottingham, C: Acquired from the Astros in the Scott Kazmir deal last year, Nottingham immediately became the organization’s catcher of the future. He should be good enough defensively behind the plate to stick there but he’ll never win a gold glove. Still, his bat has immense potential as a catcher and could hit 15 home runs in a season. Just 20, the former sixth round draft pick has a shot at opening 2016 in Double-A, although he could return to High-A ball if the A’s want to slow him down a bit to work on his defence.
The Tumbler: Raul Alcantara, RHP: A former Red Sox prospect, Oakland acquired him as a low-level flyer and saw him start to breakout in 2013. Unfortunately, he missed almost all of 2014 and part of ’15 due to injury (Tommy John surgery). When he returned, he still had the fastball that could reach the mid-90s but he lost key development time needed to improve his breaking ball. He struck out just 29 batters in 48.2 innings of work last year and has a ways to go with improving his secondary stuff and command (His control continues to be above average). A bounce-back year from Alcantara in 2016 would be huge; the system is loaded with bats but has few impact arms.
The ’15 Draft Pick: Richie Martin, SS: A lot of teams were said to be high on Martin and the A’s nabbed the college shortstop with the 20th pick of the ’15 draft. Oakland has a number of promising shortstop prospects but Franklin Barreto will likely relocate to the outfield which will open up the infield position for Martin. That’s good news for the prospect’s value because his greatest asset is his work at shortstop… followed by his solid speed. He doesn’t project to be an impact player at the plate but he should be respectable.
The Lottery Ticket: Yairo Munoz, SS: Yet another shortstop prospect in the system, Munoz was a key international free agent signing back in 2012. Now 20, he has shown the ability to step into some home runs and also steal some bases. He’s extremely athletic and could easily move to another position to accommodate Franklin Barreto and/or Richie Martin.You may have entertained the idea of an improbable civilization ending events such as a ‘global killer’ asteroid, earth crust displacement or massive solar storms, but what if there existed a situation right now that was so serious that it literally threatened our very existence?
According to a host of scientists, nuclear experts and researchers, were are facing exactly such a scenario – and current efforts may not be able to stop it.
When the Fukushima nuclear plants sustained structural damage and a catastrophic failure of their spent fuel cooling systems in the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, it left the government of Japan, Tokyo Power and nuclear regulatory agencies around the world powerless to contain the release of deadly radiation. A year on, the battle for control of Fukushima continues to no avail.
It’s estimated that tens of thousands of people in Japan and the whole of North America have been affected, with reports indicating that children in Japan and the U.S. are already being born with birth defects, as well as thousands who have already succumbed to radiation related illness. As we initially followed the breaking news during the first thirty days of the accident, we suggested the Fukushima disaster would be worse than Chernobyl. Not even we could have imagined how much worse it would be.
If current estimates are correct, Fukushima has already released as much radiation into the atmosphere and Pacific Ocean as Chernobyl, and the potential for a disaster at least ten times worse is highly probable in the event of another earthquake or accident that leads to a collapse of the cooling structures which are above ground and have already suffered significant damage.
According to U.S. Army General Albert N. Stubblebine (ret.) of the Natural Solutions Foundation, the situation is extremely serious and poses a significant danger to our entire civilization. Since TEPCO and the Japanese government have refused the entombment option (as the Russians did with Chernobyl) the world is at the mercy of nature. A mistake here would cause the deaths of tens of millions of people across the globe.
If there ever existed a threat that could cause the end of the world as we know it, it’s the ongoing and unresolved nuclear saga in Japan:
When the highly radioactive Spent Fuel Rods are exposed to air, there will be massive explosions releasing many times the amount or radiation released thus far. Bizarrely, they are stored three stories above ground in open concrete storage pools. Whether through evaporation of the water in the pools, or due to the inevitable further collapse of the structure, there is a severe risk. United States public health authorities agree that tens of thousands of North Americans have already died from the Fukushima calamity. When the final cataclysm occurs, sooner rather than later, the whole Northern Hemisphere is at risk of becoming largely uninhabitable. … Fact. On March 11, 2011, Fukushima Daichi nuclear power station with six nuclear reactors suffered cataclysmic damage that some believe was a man made event,and the resulting Tsunami. Hydrogen explosions…at least one nuclear explosion… and then subsequent deterioration of the visible plants at five of those reactors have created a threat situation unparalleled in human history. Fact. Despite denial and cover-up, the reality has emerged, that enormous amounts of radioactive material has been spewing into the atmosphere, polluting the groundwater, and the food of Japan, and entering by the tens of millions of gallons the waters of the Pacific. … There’s no way to sugarcoat these facts. Denying them, blocking them out, pretending that they are not real is of no help to you and your family, and it leaves you totally unprepared for a danger that the Natural Solutions Foundation has been warning about since the first day. As of three weeks ago the levels of radiation inside of the spent fuel pools of unit no. 2 are too high to measure. Get that… too high to measure. And, the water there is evaporating, meaning that heat and radiation could easily build to very high levels. … Very simply put, if this much Cesium 137 is released, it will destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugulistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival.
We can play the denial game all day long and pretend that, because the mainstream media is not reporting on it, there is no threat, but the facts are quite clear.
This is, without a doubt, the most immediate threat faced by the world. It’s so serious, in fact, that the Japanese government has considered and put into place evacuation plans for the whole of Tokyo – some 40 million people. Reports are also emerging that suggest a collapse of the spent fuel pools would be so serious that the entire country of Japan may have to be evacuated. The entire country – that’s 125 million refugees that will cause an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.
Before you argue that these are the ravings of just alternative media conspiracy theorists and fearmongers, consider the assessment put forth by Robert Alvarez, a senior policy adviser to the Secretary for National Security and the Environment for the US Department of Energy:
The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident. The infrastructure to safely remove this material was destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks.. As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in unknown waters. … The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or ~9.9 E+18 Becquerel). It is important for the public to understand that reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site, have generated some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet.
Regulatory agencies all over the world are warning of the potentiality of a further degradation of the Fukushima nuclear reactors and spent fuel pools, and the subsequent nuclear fallout that would follow.
If these reactors go – and they could at any moment for any number of reasons – we’re looking at a situation for which you simply cannot stock enough food, or water, or supplies. Radiation would spread across the entire northern hemisphere and would be impossible to contain.
While we’ve argued in the past that there is no place we’d rather be than in the United States of America in the event of a socio-economic collapse or global conflict, if these spent fuel pools collapse, then an international exit strategy may be the only option.
Because details are sparse and research limited, it is difficult to predict what nuclear fall out from Japan may look like. The following map may be of some help, as it details the estimated fallout pattern resulting from a nuclear war between Russia and the United States. You’ll note that, while most of the world would be irradiated, the southern hemisphere would be your best bet to avoid the brunt of it:
(via Where Do I Go If Fukushima Blows?)
Beachfront property in Antarctica sounds quite appealing right about now.
For breaking news on Fukushima follow: Stan Deyo, Jeff Rense, Steve Quayle, Alexander Higgins, Infowars, The Intel HubYou are so not ready for this.
A new piece of medical equipment is being tested right now called the Pedisedate. Basically, it is a headset that is placed on a child before they are admitted to surgery. The device connects to a Game Boy or portable CD player (yup, not a Nintendo DS or iPod -- apparently the Pedisedate also transports you to 1996) and a snorkel-like piece swings forward and is placed over the child's nose. As the kid plays videogames or listens to music, nitrous oxide, an anesthetic gas, is emitted through the snorkel and puts the child to sleep.
Nope, I am not joking.
While I think its intentions are noble (making kids comfortable during surgery is a wonderful thing) the concept of the Pedisedate is absolutely ridiculous.
But you think just reading about this is what is so out of control? Oh, my friends, you would be wrong. Please hit the jump and check out the promotional video.
Seriously, you are not ready.
[Thanks, Matthew!]
You are logged out. Login | Sign upNEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Air India will introduce women-only seats on its domestic flights to give female passengers more choice and comfort, said a senior official from the national carrier, rejecting claims the move was linked to reports of in-flight sex attacks.
From Wednesday, Air India will allocate six seats in the third row of its economy class cabin for solo women travelers - making it the only airline in India, and possibly the world, to take this step, said the official.
India already has policies which segregate women from men on public transport to avoid sexual harassment and molestation. Many trains - both underground and overground - have carriages reserved for women, and some buses have women-only seats.
“We are doing this as we get lots of requests by female passengers at the check-in counter who want to sit next to another woman, rather than a male passenger,” said G. Prasada Rao, Air India’s general manager for corporate communications.
“It is not connected to the reports of sexual assaults. It’s more to do with the fact that economy class doesn’t have much space to move around easily and comfortably for women, so this option will give them more choice.”
Rao said that seats would be offered at no extra cost and would be available for up to an hour before check-in closed. The airline may also extend this policy to international flights, after measuring its effectiveness on domestic routes, he added.
Many news reports have linked Air India’s decision to introduce the women-only seats to incidents of sexual assaults on the state-owned carrier over the last month.
On Dec. 21, a 40-year-old female passenger complained that a man sitting next to her groped her as she slept during a flight from Mumbai to New York.
Less than two weeks later, a female flight attendant complained of being molested and subjected to lewd language by a male passenger during a flight from Delhi to Muscat.
Both men were reported to local police upon landing.
Women and girls in India face a barrage of threats, including sexual violence whilst traveling, say activists, blaming deep-rooted patriarchal attitudes that objectify women.
There are numerous reports of women being groped or “touched up” on crowded buses or on trains and even on flights. In some cases, victims have taken to social media - posting videos and photographs of the perpetrators - to report the assaults.Urgent:
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Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa says he wants explanations from the Justice Department after an inspector’s general report found “hostile, racist and inappropriate” behavior by officials within the agency’s Civil Rights Division.Grassley said he wants to know why employees found to have misbehaved stillhave a job, The Washington Times reported.The report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz stemmed from the Civil Rights Division dropping a complaint of voter harassment against the New Black Panther Party and the subsequent charges that the move was racially motivated.The report, released earlier this week, is critical of the atmosphere in the Voting Rights section of the division, which is headed by Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, who is expected to be nominated by President Barack Obama to head the Labor Department.Grassley said the report affirms his belief that there is “an inherent culture of harassment against conservatives in the Civil Rights Division,” The Times reported.The report said the Voting Rights section was polarized over the issue of whether laws enacted to protect minorities should be used when whites are faced with improper voting procedures.Divisions over the issue prompted some career employees to send hostile andmocking emails to their fellow workers on the other side of the voting rights interpretation, the report said.“Future hiring within the Civil Rights Division needs to value intellectual diversity to put to rest any perception that employment is based on politics,” Grassley said.7:45 PM EST As there are no more proceedings in the trial this week, it is important to make a couple of notes. First, thanks to my assistant, Jeff, who has been helping me keep this space updated during the week.
Thank you to the Freedom of the Press Foundation for the grant. I was able to stay in a hotel nearby Fort Meade and it helped ensure I would not be too tired to keep up with the pace of proceedings.
And, I must noted that the book I co-authored with Greg Mitchell, Truth & Consequences: The US v. Bradley Manning, was updated. Mitchell has also been live-blogging the Manning trial, referencing the work I am doing here at Firedoglake often.
3:45 PM EST Bradley Manning was tasked to do a “trend analysis” of the military incident reports from Iraq ( |
of how it began? How to look at the Universe as an object of study if we can't get out of it, separate it from the rest? Can science as we know it deal with the totality of things?"
Scientist: "I agree, this is a very complicated problem, that philosophers like to call the First Cause and physicists call initial conditions. We do need to assume a context in order to offer an explanation. We don't have, at least for now, a law or principle that explains how to select an initial condition for the Universe, although there are plenty of conjectures out there. But they all suffer from some kind of arbitrariness, which comes from having to assume something from the start or to start with. Sometimes I think we are like a fish in an aquarium trying to make sense of the ocean as a whole. Still, even if we don't know how to explain something we don't need to invoke a supernatural explanation. And that includes the origin of the Universe. Especially if the explanation assumes the Universe is the work of some kind of entity that we can't ever be sure exists. What kind of explanation is that?"
Religious Person: "That's the explanation through faith, beyond science. You don't measure or quantify it. It just is."
Scientist: "Better to be ignorant than to be fooled. I prefer to keep trying to understand things my own way."
Religious Person: "Good luck with that! May God inspire you."
Scientist: "Nah, I'd rather find this inspiration on my own."
You can keep up with more of what Marcelo is thinking on Facebook and Twitter: @mgleiserThere will be 10,000 bright blue bikes on the streets of New York by the end of the year.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and Motivate, the Citi Bike operator, announced Thursday that the bike share network will expand further into uptown Manhattan and south Brooklyn this summer.
New stations will come to Manhattan up to 110th Street, and in Brooklyn’s neighborhoods of Gowanus, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook and Park Slope.
“The recent growth and expansion of Citi Bike is great for New York City, and something we are proud to have helped secure,” said Mayor de Blasio in a statement. “My former neighbors in Park Slope will certainly welcome the blue bikes this summer, and their arrival in transit-deprived neighborhoods like Red Hook illustrates our continued commitment to strengthening all of our communities and fighting inequality.”
The expansion is set to begin this August and will involve the installation of about 140 new docks and about 2,000 bikes. The news comes just before Citi Bike’s three-year anniversary and shortly after the bike share celebrated 2015 as its busiest year, with more than 10 million total trips logged.
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“We are thrilled that Citi Bike continues to grow and grows more convenient to more New Yorkers,” said Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg in a statement. “With today’s announcement, Motivate will both add more neighborhoods to the bike-share network while also bringing more bikes and stations to established neighborhoods. With annual membership at about the cost of six weeks’ use of a monthly MetroCard, even more New Yorkers will have a new, fast and easy transportation option.”
To address station density, Motivate plans to place 42 of its new stations in already established Citi Bike areas, like the Upper West Side and Upper East Side. Currently, the network includes 470 stations below 86th Street in Manhattan, in Long Island City, Queens, and Brooklyn.
Transit advocates are thrilled about the success of Citi Bike, but continue to push for growth in other transit deserts, like Staten Island and The Bronx.
“The connectivity of the program is important so it’s a natural progression,” said Caroline Samponaro, deputy director of campaigns and organizing for Transportation Alternatives. “It’s a good sign that we can see it expand north,” but she added that a lot of neighborhoods are asking, “When’s it our turn?”
Officials and advocates are eagerly awaiting details for the unplanned phase three of Citi Bike expansion that they hope would widen the web out farther into north Harlem, South Bronx and maybe even Staten Island.
“Several months ago we met here at Borough Hall with Jay Walder and his team from Citi Bike,” said Staten Island Borough President James Oddo in a statement. “We expressed our hope that we can in some form bring Citi Bike to portions of Staten Island, particularly our North Shore. With the new projects coming online on the North Shore it seems like the obvious fit. The takeaway from the meeting is that they are definitely interested, and I am confident Citi Bike will eventually be on Staten Island.”
Oddo said the challenge on the Island is pinpointing stations that would sustain a healthy network serving commuters near the ferry, or possibly students at the College of Staten Island.
A Citi Bike membership costs $155 per year, with an option to pay in installments of $14.95 per month under an annual commitment.
Council Transportation Chair Ydanis Rodriguez, who has championed bringing Citi Bike into less-affluent neighborhoods, said the growth was a solid step, though he’d like to see greater access and affordability.
“We are moving in the right direction with this latest expansion,” Rodriguez said in a statement.
“But now is the time to seriously consider adding public dollars so that this system can be used by New Yorkers in every borough,” he added, echoing his requests from a City Council budget hearing Tuesday.
“This network is now much more than a novelty for tourists, it is a public good that should be treated as such and subsidized so that New Yorkers living throughout all five boroughs can use it as well,” Rodriguez said at the hearing.
Citi Bike, for its part, recently announced discounted membership available to NYCHA residents and members of certain Community Development Credit Unions. Under the programs, discounted $60 annual memberships are billed in $5 monthly installments instead of one lump payment. IDNYC holders are also eligible for 15 percent discount in their first year of memberships.
“This year Citi Bike is getting bigger and even better,” said Jay Walder, President and CEO of Motivate, in a statement. “We are connecting the City like never before. And as we expand to new neighborhoods, we continue our efforts to invite more and more New Yorkers to try this healthy, convenient and fun way to get around.”Modern society has and continues to witness the rapid evolution of technology and information systems, creating realities that would defy even the most active imaginations of eras past. How has the digital era transformed humanity and its values, its modes of communication and interaction, and how do we reconcile traditional and futuristic sentiments and virtues? French photographer Léo Caillard addresses these complicated societal questions and others through his expressive photography and digital manipulations.
Raised by two parents in tune with their own musical talents, Caillard gained an appreciation for the arts at a young age. Developing concepts so that each piece reflects the whole, he learned to approach photography like a mathematical equation, being particularly cautious to include every feature essential to the larger picture. Each image possessed a certain element of simplicity, but with careful attention to detail through shadowing and elaborate use of color, the end result would manifest as an eye-popping photograph.
Taking a unique approach to photography, Caillard transcends time periods, offering a diffusion of classical and contemporary concepts and color schemes. The final product is playful imagery hosting deep philosophical questions. One of Caillard’s most recent projects, Street Stone (on which he collaborated with French art director Alexis Persani), pulls vogue sculptures from the Louvre Museum and thrusts them into the imaginative and effervescent world of today’s most popular fashion trends. The contrast of these lifeless stone sculptures reflecting artists’ visual concepts from centuries past together with today’s fashionable wear, creates warm imagery that is relatable to contemporary social groups. In one image, the viewer is presented with a sculpture of the Greek god and culture hero Aristaeus, looking stern and cold; however, after Caillard’s witty alteration, his persona has been transformed into one that can be seen as approachable and hip. Aristaeus can now be seen donning a pair of sunglasses, a t-shirt with rolled sleeves, jeans, and the smallest of accessories to make the look complete. While implementing the new look, Caillard paid specific attention to the details the original sculptor gave to the Greek god’s arms in hope of capturing the creases in his clothes, creating a realistic and active appearance in which Aristaeus, barefooted with a walking stick and animal skin at his side, becomes relatable to modern society. As the viewer, you begin to forget that these are sculptures, and not real humans. This satirical and lighthearted series is distinct from his other works, such as Art Game, in which Caillard has managed to create a museum atmosphere metamorphosed into the chaotic environments of technological interruptions of human thought and observance.
These descriptive and metaphorical photographs attest to what Caillard explains is one of the most detrimental attributes of today’s society — we let technology control humanity and culture, rather than vice versa. In many ways, Caillard’s series give way to speculation about artistic creationism in general. What separates those concepts that live to be iconic throughout the ages versus those that are ephemeral, their popularity to decay with the temperamental trends of their time?
Taking a break from his upcoming pieces, Caillard spoke with GALO Magazine to discuss his work on Street Stone and Art Game in greater depth.
GALO: Your photographs from the series Street Stone involve numerous, classic sculptures, adorned in modern clothing, completed with a creative use of Photoshop manipulation. The contrast of bright, contemporary garb against the extreme black and white stone of the sculptures resembles black-and-white, hand-painted photographs. How do you utilize lighting and shadows to remake these classical pieces from not just ancient sculptures dressed in modern clothing, but rather into unique, eye-popping pieces? And how did you come to decide upon a color scheme for each image?
Léo Caillard: It’s a long brainstorming process before I begin making any creative manipulations. I went to the Louvre Museum several times to take pictures of the statues. Depending on the day and weather, the light on the sculptures wasn’t the same. Then I began editing all of these pictures in order to keep a few of the statues that had the exact light I wanted.
In [my] studio, I photographed a model wearing different styles of hipster/street wear clothing. I reproduced the exact same light on the model as it was on the statue, and I asked him to pose the same way.
Having colorful street wear on almost black and white statues is very important in this series. A good friend of mine, Raphael Federici, helped me choose the colors and style of clothing for each statue. Raphael is an art director and has a great eye for this kind of association.
GALO: This is a fun collection. People often view vogue sculptures with dark overtones, but you managed to create a more lighthearted reaction with your imagery. I imagine it was amusing discussing each sculpture’s wardrobe with French art director Alexis Persani, who did the retouching on Street Stone. How did you and Persani come to meet and agree to work with each other and what would you say was your favorite aspect of working on this series with him?
LC: I met Alexis after shooting the pictures. I was thinking about someone who would be able to make the post-production of my idea a reality. Usually, I work with different post-production labs, but Alexis presented me with his photo-manipulation jobs that he made before and I liked the style of his retouch. I then presented him [with] the pictures [from Street Stone] and the concept and he liked it. I decided to let him do the post-production, which he did perfectly.
Alexis is somebody who understands street art and street wear. He knows how this type of clothing has to look like, and I think that helped a lot in making the right decisions during post-production. It’s always hard to decide what to do in front of your computer when something doesn’t work well in the picture. I think he made the right decisions and right manipulations in making everything look as realistic as possible.
GALO: Did you have any particular interest in vogue sculptures from a specific time period or artist, or had you ever studied them prior to taking on this project?
LC: My work as a photographer is to have a point of view on modern society. In my work, I combine elements from different time periods into the same scene to demonstrate the differences between the past and present world. That’s my way of expression and I use this process as a major part of my photography. I studied art history for many years and I definitely love classic sculptures. I have to say that working with a classic museum background [makes for a] very interesting playground for my creations.
(Article continued on next page)165 RE100 companies have made a commitment to go '100% renewable'. Read about the actions they are taking and why.
The IKEA Group is a home furnishing company with 336 stores in 28 countries. The company has committed to produce as much renewable energy as the total energy it consumes in its buildings by 2020. Alongside Swiss Re, IKEA Group is a founding partner of the RE100 campaign.
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The Swiss Re Group is a leading wholesale provider of reinsurance, insurance and other insurance-based forms of risk transfer. Its global client base consists of insurance companies, mid-to-large-sized corporations and public sector clients. Recognising the business risks associated with climate change, Swiss Re is motivated to drive a low carbon economy and has a goal to use 100% renewable electricity by 2020. Alongside IKEA Group, Swiss Re Group is a founding partner of the RE100 campaign.
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Anheuser-Busch InBev is the world’s largest brewer, based in Leuven, Belgium. Its diverse portfolio of well over 400 beer brands leverages the collective strengths of 200,000 employees in 50 countries. AB InBev has committed to transitioning its global operations to 100% renewable electricity and set a target to secure 100% of the company’s purchased electricity from renewable sources by 2025.
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Adobe is a multinational software company based in the US. The company is committed to powering its operations and the digital delivery of its products entirely with renewable electricity by 2035 as one of five ambitious goals that will contribute to a low-carbon, sustainable future.
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AEON Co., Ltd is a global retailer operating more than 600 general merchandise stores and 303 shopping malls in Japan and overseas. AEON joins RE100 with a target of sourcing 100% renewable electricity to power its global business operations by 2050.
AkzoNobel is a Dutch paints and coatings company aiming to be carbon neutral and use 100% renewable energy – heat as well as electricity – by 2050.
The Allianz Group is one of the world's leading insurers and asset managers with more than 88 million retail and corporate customers. As one of the world’s largest investors, Allianz is managing over 660 billion euros on behalf of its insurance customers while its asset managers Allianz Global Investors and PIMCO manage more than 1.4 trillion euros of third-party assets. Allianz joins RE100 with a target to source 100% renewable electricity across its global operations by 2023.
alstria is one of the largest real estate companies in Germany. Having moved towards 100% fossil-free electricity in 2013, the company has a RE100 goal to roll out 100% renewable electricity across its entire portfolio by 2020.
Amalgamated Bank, as part of its commitment to values based banking, has joined the RE100 initiative as well as calling on the rest of the industry to follow its lead and take significant steps to proactively address climate risk and reduce carbon pollution. Amalgamated Bank achieved its goal to source 100% renewable electricity in 2017.
Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. In April 2018, Apple achieved 100% renewable electricity powering its global facilities across 43 countries. Apple is also helping its manufacturing partners lower their carbon footprint, working with them to install more than 4 gigawatts of new clean energy worldwide by 2020.
ASKUL Corporation is a Japanese e-commerce company offering a wide variety of products to households and companies across Japan. The company is committed to sourcing 100% renewable electricity by 2030, with an interim goal of 80% by 2025.
AstraZeneca is a global, science-led biopharmaceutical business that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialisation of prescription medicines. The company is committed to doing its 'fair share' to protect the planet and to keeping employees safe and healthy. AstraZeneca has a goal to source 100% renewable electricity globally by 2025, with an interim target of 100% in Europe and the US by 2020.
Aurora Organic Dairy is a leading producer and processor of high quality organic milk and butter for retail store brands. The company has a goal to source 100% renewable electricity by 2020.
Autodesk is an American multinational software corporation that achieved its goal to source 100% renewable power in 2016 – four years ahead of schedule.
Aviva is a British multinational insurance company providing savings, retirement, insurance, health and asset management products and services. The business is working to increase the amount of renewable electricity it purchases for its operations globally, and has a RE100 goal to procure 100% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025.
AXA is a French insurance company targeting 100% renewable electricity by 2025. Operating in more than 60 countries with diverse energy markets, AXA intends to achieve this target by using a mix of approaches, notably buying electricity directly from providers and compensating for non-renewable electricity.
Bank of America is one of the world’s leading financial institutions, offering a full range of banking, investing and other financial and risk management products and services. As part of its commitment to grow its business responsibly, it has set a goal to become carbon neutral and purchase 100% renewable electricity by 2020.
Bankia is a Spanish bank with a universal banking business model based on multi-channel management. Since 2013, Bankia has been using, in all its buildings and all its offices, 100% renewable electricity with certificates of Guarantees of Origin, and Bankia plans to continue this approach in future.
BBVA is a global financial group that operates a customer-focused retail business model, offering clients a comprehensive range of financial and non-financial products and services around the world.
The company has committed to source 100% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, with interim targets of 48% by 2020 and 70% by 2025.
BESTSELLER is an international family-owned fashion company founded in Denmark in 1975 that provides clothing and accessories for women, men, teenagers and children through 17 brands. BESTSELLER joins RE100 with a commitment to power its owned and operated buildings globally with 100% renewable electricity by 2021.
Biogen is an international biotechnology company based in the United States, developing and delivering innovative therapies for those living with serious neurological, autoimmune and rare diseases. The company has been working for years to drive operational efficiencies and currently buys renewable energy certificates equal to all of its electricity across its value chain. It is now also working to engage its supply chain and source renewable power more directly.
Bloomberg LP, through its unique technology, delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the world. Based in the US, the company is committed to renewable energy and sustainable business practices, and has set a goal to become 100% renewable by 2025.
BMW Group is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturer with a global market. Aspiring to be the most sustainable company in the automotive industry, the business is intensifying its efforts to produce more electricity in-house and source locally generated renewable energy. BMW is committed to procuring 100% of electricity from renewable sources for its operations and has an interim target to source more than two thirds of its electricity from renewables by 2020.
British Land is a London-based property investment company focused on managing, financing and developing prime commercial property. In 2016, the company completed the largest installation of solar PV at a UK shopping centre. 97% of the electricity used to light and power all of British Land’s shopping destinations and office campuses currently comes from guaranteed renewable sources. The company aims to switch the remaining 3% to renewable power by 2019.
BROAD Group is a Chinese developer of air conditioning units, combined cooling-heating-power projects, fresh air systems, and factory-made sustainable buildings, with products in more than 80 countries. The company has a RE100 commitment to source 100% renewable electricity for of all its operations by 2045.
BT’s purpose is to use the power of communications to make a better world. As one of the world’s leading communications services companies, BT serves the needs of customers in the UK and in more than 170 countries worldwide. BT has put sustainability at the heart of its business, and its 2020 goals include ambitions to procure 100% renewable electricity globally.
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Burberry is a global luxury fashion brand with a distinctive British identity, founded in 1856. As a global retailer and manufacturer, Burberry employs over 10,000 people and has over 400 retail locations worldwide. Burberry is aiming to procure 100% of electricity from renewable resources to power its whole business by 2022.
CaixaBank is Spain’s leading bank by market share, operating in retail banking and insurance, while also holding investments in international banks and prominent services companies. The bank is among the most sustainable in the world according to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, and also received a 100A score in the CDP’s ‘The Climate A List’. It has a goal of sourcing 100% renewable electricity by 2040. Around 99% of all the electricity consumed by CaixaBank is already from renewable sources.
Califia Farms is a leading provider of nutmilks, ready-to-drink coffees, juices and creamers, all of which are 100% plant-based, non-GMO, carrageenan-free, gluten-free, vegan and made with no artificial ingredients. The company is committed to sourcing 100% renewable electricity by 2020.
Canary Wharf Group is a fully integrated property development, investment, and management group. The Group is on a zero carbon trajectory, and since 2012 has procured 100% renewable electricity for all of its managed areas and construction projects. Based in London and fully committed to a more sustainable future, the Group aims to inspire positive impact through making great places.
Capital One is a diversified bank that offers a broad array of financial products and services to consumers, small businesses and commercial clients. In 2017, Capital One reached its goal of achieving 100% renewable electricity across its global operations.
The Carlsberg Group, headquartered in Denmark and one of the world’s biggest brewers, is switching to 100% renewable electricity at its breweries by 2022, as a step towards its target to become carbon neutral in 2030.
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Citi is the leading global bank, with approximately 200 million customer accounts and business in more than 160 countries, and a mission to responsibly provide financial services that enable growth and economic progress. The bank has set a target to go 100% renewable by 2020.
Clif Bar & Company is an American maker of organic foods and drinks, committed to 100% renewable power. The company has been purchasing renewable electricity certificates equivalent to 100% of its total operations for the last 10 years, and is now exploring more direct ways of sourcing renewable energy.
Coca-Cola European Partners manufactures, markets and distributes Coca-Cola products in Western Europe. The company has committed to power all of its operations with 100% renewable electricity by 2020.
Colruyt Group is a Belgian retail corporation, consisting of a family of sister companies including the Colruyt stores. The group employs over 28,000 people. Colruyt Group has put the environment at the heart of its business model by generating renewable energy, by making its product range more sustainable, and by the maintenance of a sustainable personnel policy. The company has already met its RE100 goal of sourcing 100% renewable electricity. Now it aims to achieve 100% self-produced renewable electricity by 2020 – and is already 25% of the way there.
Commerzbank see climate change as a global challenge and recognize that decisive action from the finance sector is required to address it. They have designed a climate changes strategy that aligns existing activities with their vision for a low carbon future.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is one of Australia’s leading financial services providers with operations across Australia, New Zealand and abroad and joins RE100 with a commitment to power its operations with 100% renewable electricity by 2030.
Coop Sapporo owns a chain of grocery stores for its members in Japan, as well as operating a food delivery service. The company has a target to achieve 100% renewable electricity across its operations by 2040, with an interim target of 60% by 2030.
Corbion is a Dutch biotechnology company; the global market leader in lactic acid and lactic acid derivatives, and a leader in functional blends containing enzymes, emulsifiers, minerals, and vitamins. Corbion aims to power its global operations with 100% renewable power – reaching at least 50% of this goal by 2020.
Crédit Agricole Group is one of the largest banking groups in Europe, and the biggest contributor of loans and advances to the French economy. It supports its 52 million customers’ projects in France and around the world through its universal customer-focused retail banking model, based on cooperation between its retail banks and their related business lines. Crédit Agricole Group is already sourcing 100% renewable electricity in France.
The Crown Estate is a real estate business specialising in commercial property in central London, prime regional retail and offshore wind. It also has a substantial rural and coastal portfolio and manages the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Established by an Act of Parliament as an independent commercial business, The Crown Estate returns 100% of its annual profits to the Treasury for the benefit of the public finances. It has a target to source 100% renewable electricity by 2022.
Daito Trust Construction Co., Ltd. is a construction and real estate engaged company, supplying and managing the largest number of rental housing units in Japan. The company has a target to source 100% renewable electricity by 2040.
Daiwa House Group is one of Japan’s largest homebuilders, specializing in building, managing, and helping to maintain single-family houses, condominiums, and rental housing. The company has set a target to achieve 100% renewable electricity for its entire global operations by 2040.
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Dalmia Cement is a leading supplier of cement and the flagship company of Indian conglomerate Dalmia Bharat Group. The company has set a goal to power all its operations with 100% renewable electricity, and an interim target to increase fourfold the renewable/carbon-neutral share of its electricity use by 2030 (2015 baseline).
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Danone is a leading global food company targeting 100% renewable electricity by 2030, with an interim goal of 50% by 2020.
Danske Bank Group is a Nordic universal bank with more than 3.4 million clients. The bank acknowledges that the financial sector plays an important role in supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy and, since 2009, it has worked to minimize the negative environmental impact of its business operations. In 2015, Danske Bank became 100% powered by renewable electricity.
DBS Bank Ltd is a leading financial services group in Asia committed to sourcing renewable energy. The bank has set an interim goal of transferring its Singapore operations to 100% renewable electricity by 2030, and aims to subsequently extend this to its global operations.
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Decathlon is a leading sports retailer in Europe and around the globe, with presence in over 50 countries. Decathlon joins RE100 with a target to achieve 100% renewable electricity for its global operations by 2026.
Dentsu Aegis Network is committed to sourcing 100% renewable electricity by 2020. The U.K.-based company recognises that de-coupling carbon from growth will allow it to become resilient to resource scarcity and price fluctuations.
Diageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with a wide collection of brands across spirits and beer including Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff and Guinness. To date, the company has focused largely on the use of renewables for heat, which accounts for most of its energy use. Now, Diageo is increasing its commitment to renewable electricity, and has committed to powering its global operations with 100% renewable electricity by 2030, with an interim target of 50% by 2020 – setting a positive example to its supply chains.
DNB is Norway’s largest financial services group. It already purchases renewable electricity certificates equivalent to 100% of the business’ electricity consumption, and joins RE100 with a target to be powered by local renewable electricity certificates by 2020.
eBay is a multinational e-trading company that connects millions of buyers and sellers around the world – aiming to create a more sustainable form of commerce. eBay has committed to 100% renewable energy in its electricity supply by 2025 at its data centers and offices.
Elion is one of China’s top 100 private enterprises that puts managing natural sources at the heart of its business model.
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Elopak is an international supplier of paper based packaging solutions for liquid food, and is the first packaging and first Norwegian company to join RE100. It achieved its target to use 100% renewable electricity in 2016.
Envipro Holdings Inc. is a Japanese recycling business working with building waste, precious metal recycling, accumulator batteries as well as plastic recycling. Envipro Holdings has committed to source 100% renewable electricity for all its operations by 2050.
Equinix is a global interconnection and data centre provider, committed to using 100% power across its global operations. The company achieved its interim goal of sourcing 50% renewable electricity (against a 2015 baseline) in 2016, a year ahead of schedule.
The Estée Lauder Companies, a global leader in prestige beauty focused on makeup, skin care, fragrance and hair care with a diverse portfolio of 25+ brands sold in 150 countries, is proud to join RE100 and be a sponsor of Climate Week NYC 2017.
Etsy is the global marketplace for unique and creative goods. It’s home to a universe of special, extraordinary items, from unique handcrafted pieces to vintage treasures. Etsy is committed to powering its operations with 100% renewable electricity by 2020.
Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. The company is committed to powering connectivity with the smallest footprint possible, and set a goal of reaching 50% clean and renewable energy in its electricity supply mix for its data centers in 2018, which it achieved a year early. Facebook has a goal to run its entire operations on 100% renewable energy by 2020.
FIA Formula E is the first electric single-seater championship, showcasing that electric vehicles can be fast, fun and safe. Its cars run on 100% renewable power. The success of the championship is helping to change the image of electric vehicles and demonstrate that they are the vehicles of the future.
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Fifth Third Bancorp is a diversified financial services company headquartered in Ohio, US. Fifth Third operates four main businesses: Commercial Banking, Branch Banking, Consumer Lending and Wealth & Asset Management, and is among the largest money managers in the Midwest. The company set a target to become 100% renewable by 2022. In March 2018, Fifth Third announced a Virtual PPA equivalent to 100% of its consumption from a new solar project.
Firmenich is the world's largest privately-owned fragrance & flavor company, creating positive emotions through the senses of taste and smell. Conducting business in a way that protects and promotes the environment is paramount for Firmenich. The company aims to obtain 100% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and to ultimately become carbon neutral.
Fujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company, offering a full range of technology products, solutions, and services. Approximately 140,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. Fujitsu has set a target to source 100% renewable electricity by 2050, with an interim target of 40% by 2030.
Fuyo General Lease Co., Ltd. engages in leasing, instalment sales, financing, and other support services. This includes the leasing of buildings, IT and office equipment, industrial machinery, medical devices and transport equipment. Based in Japan, the company has a target to power 100% of its global operations with renewable electricity by 2050, and 50% by 2030.
The major international airport Gatwick Airport Limited, has been 100% renewable since 2013, via the purchase of unbundled renewable energy attribute certificates and some onsite solar. The UK based airport joins RE100 with a target to increase its share of direct generation by 2020.
General Motors is a global automobile manufacturer that produces vehicles in 30 countries. The company plans to meet the electricity needs of its 350 operations in 59 countries with renewable energy by 2050. This goal, along with the pursuit of electrified vehicles and responsible manufacturing, is part of the company’s approach to strengthening its business, improving communities and addressing climate change.
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Based in Switzerland, Givaudan is the global leader in the creation of fragrances and flavours. The company is committed to an ambitious climate action agenda and has set a target to source 100% renewable electricity by 2025.
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of financial services to corporations, financial institutions, governments and high-net-worth individuals. The company recognizes the key role it can play in addressing climate change by deploying capital to low-carbon solutions including renewable energy. It has set a RE100 target of being 100% renewable by 2020.
Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the ways people connect with information. Google’s innovations in web search and advertising have made its website a top Internet property and its brand one of the most recognized in the world. Google achieved its goal of sourcing 100% renewable electricity globally in 2017.
Grupo Bimbo is the global leader in the baking industry and is headquartered in Mexico. The company will power its operations with 100% renewable electricity by 2025, with an interim target of 80% by 2020.
Gürmen Group operates within the fields of retail, mining, energy, agriculture, construction and real estate. The group, situated in Turkey, employs around 3,000 people and exports its products to 60 countries worldwide. The company is already powered by 100% renewable electricity.
H&M, the popular swedish fashion retailer, is working to achieve 100% renewable power by 2030 and is currently sourcing more than 90% of its electricity consumption from renewable energy.
Hatsun Agro Products Ltd is India's largest private dairy. The company is committed to sourcing 100% renewable electricity by 2032, and is already over 80% there.
Heathrow Airport is the UK’s only hub airport, serving over 13,000 flights and 200,000 passengers every day. Heathrow 2.0 is the airport’s plan for sustainable growth, including a goal to become zero-carbon airport by 2050 for fixed infrastructure. To help deliver on this, Heathrow has sourced 100% renewable electricity from April 2017, with an increased proportion coming from on-site generation.
In over 150 years, the Helvetia Group has grown from a number of Swiss and foreign insurance companies into a successful international insurance group. Protecting the environment is part of Helvetia's core business. The Group continuously reduces its own CO2-footprint and converted its power consumption to 100% renewable sources in 2015.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is an industry-leading technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HPE Technology and services aim to help customers worldwide make IT more efficient, productive and secure. Committed to delivering a better future, HPE has set an interim goal to source 50% of its total energy consumption from renewable sources by 2025, with a long term intent of reaching 100% renewable energy in future.
HP Inc., a global leader in printing and personal systems, has made a RE100 commitment to use 100% renewable energy to power its electricity. The company has set an interim goal of sourcing 40% renewable electricity by 2020.
HSBC is one of the world's largest banking and financial services organisations, serving around 38 million customers through four global businesses: Retail Banking and Wealth Management, Commercial Banking, Global Banking and Markets, and Global Private Banking. HSBC's network covers 67 countries and territories in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, North America and Latin America. The bank is targeting 100% renewable electricity by 2030, with an interim goal of 90% by 2025.
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Headquartered in the US, International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. is a leading innovator of products that consumers taste, smell, or feel in fine fragrances and beauty, detergents and household goods, foods and beverages. The company is committed to procure 100% of its electricity from renewable sources in the shortest practical timescale possible and as financially feasible.
IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO) is a world leader in critical information, analytics and expertise, serving more than 50,000 customers in 140+ countries – including leading financial institutions and 85% of the Fortune Global 500. As part of its ongoing corporate sustainability commitment, IHS Markit has joined RE100 and pledged to source 100% renewable electricity by 2020.
Infosys is an Indian multinational corporation that provides business consulting, information technology, software engineering and outsourcing services. The company aims to go 100% renewable by 2020.
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Based in the Netherlands, ING is a global financial institution meeting the needs of a broad customer base comprising individuals, families, small businesses, large corporations, institutions and governments. ING is currently among leaders in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index ‘Banks industry’ group. The bank is 91% renewable, and is committed to powering all of its operations 100% with renewable electricity by 2020.
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Upon writing my article for the first time, Phinn and Ardan’s kits fell directly into this pitfall. More on them later!
Looking at overdrives can also mislead a viewer into thinking that x or y stat is OP and incredibly strong or instead absolutely worthless. Analyzing and then interpreting raw data is always subject to a little bit of “researcher” bias! Do take note; my lens is indeed mostly overdrives but I’ll try to address critical pieces of full kits if they are pertinent.
The Ugly:
To be honest this is more of just “bad” but it’s more of “awful” and it hasn’t changed since I wrote my last article. Overall, change has been happening but some aspects will obviously lag behind.
The biggest piece of these lagging design details is what I believe (I stole from VGFierte and coined) and call the Koshka Effect^TM.
In short, Koshka’s overdrives (@1.18/1.19) added damage and nothing else. This overdrive design has been slowly phased out over time throughout VG on some heroes but not others… Taka, Rona, Reim and Koshka in 2.2 still fall victim to varying levels of the dreaded Koshka Effect^TM.
I also understand I am viewing overdrives in a bubble (only special effects of the 5th point, not looking at meta specifically, etc) but this is just to boil them down to their essence. This inherently includes the cons of such an analysis into the “ugly” section of this breakdown.
So What’s New?
Overdriving should feel (and often, correspondingly look) special. It’s a key, unique and magical part of Vainglory and needs to, in my opinion, be treated as such across the board. In some cases, the concept of an overdriven ability is applied perfectly and in some cases it’s done maybe a little sub-optimally.
This is where we left off last time. I’m not going to bother and include the raw data in the article, but the stats I’m working off of (for 2.2) are here in a google doc. Again, I am looking at the raw BONUS stats for overdrives (A&B) and including the 3rd point in ult/C as a reference point for flexibility.
Overall, I want to focus on the two sections “feel/look special” and “be treated as such across the board.” These aspects are important to the core of my article and I will attempt to refer back to them as I write. These two quoted portions will manifest themselves in power/flexibility and consistency, respectively. I will also note drastic improvements (or regressions) from my previous article if they’re relevant.
We’ll be dividing the heroes into categories again; this time, with a simpler division that many of you are likely familiar with.
GRADES! A+ through A-, B+ through B-, C+ through C- and D/F. Since I’m in college now… I guess I figured I’d make this relate and justify my procrastination.
Reminder that this is not a tier list. (Who even does those nowadays?) “Metrics and Methodology” e.g. how did you come up with this shit, is at the end of the article. Ctrl+f the quoted phrase before moving on if you’re the type that likes to know how and why I’ve done what I’ve done.
You’ll notice that as A turns to B, heroes lose either a) flexibility or b) strength in their overdrive/skill-point distribution choices. B turns to C, a hero might not have either in abundant stores… and the D-F range is reserved for heroes that honestly have some of the worst overdrives in the game. Period. Overdrives so poor that honestly, with all due respect I’m baffled as to how they made it through balance/release. And continue to make it through patches untouched. See Koshka in particular, for this; in fact, if you read nothing else, read Koshka’s analysis. It encompasses a majority of the issues for the low-end heroes and gives them a bright yellow highlight.
Ahem. Without further ado, let’s look at those report cards. Bolded are shining examples of their respective grade sections and are highlights of the article! Once we get down into the B- and below, some food for thought improvements (labelled FFT) will be added as they come up.
2.2** → Grumpjaw is added purely from a stats and hypothetical perspective.Issue 232 of Parking Review features a folded Brompton on the cover and the magazine has three major articles on the resurgence of cycling in Britain.
The magazine says: "Cycling is back in fashion, it would seem. After many years of decline the bicycle seems to be undergoing a renaissance as a mode of transport. A growing number of people are deciding that their cycles are not just a weekend leisure accessory but a viable means of getting to and from work."
When a magazine devoted to the business of storing cars plugs cycling you know the zeitgeist is a-changing.
Parking Review continues: "Reasons for the increase in cycling’s popularity include the impact of traffic congestion on journey times and the rising cost of motoring" and the magazine admits "cycling can often prove to be the quickest way to get to work, with a survey by the Chartered Management Institute finding that the most reliable way of getting to work is by bicycle."
Naturally, the health benefits of cycling are also mentioned but it's interesting that speed and money-saving are plugged first.
The magazine lists the latest research on the increasing number of city cyclists: "The number of commutes by bicycle in the UK has risen from 57m in 2006 to 73m in 2010, according to a survey conducted by sustainable transport charity Sustrans and transport consultant Mouchel. Cycling in the UK increased by 12% over the last decade, and cyclists now outnumber motorists on some of the UK’s busiest commuter routes during rush hours…On Cheapside, a street in the City of London, bicycles make up more than 50% of the commuter traffic, according to Mouchel/Sustrans data."
Parking Review suggests that employers wishing to encourage healthier, more time-efficient employees might want to invest in "bicycle libraries."
Staff at Unilever and the Daily Telegraph can borrow Bromptons supplied by London bike shop Pearson Cycle Specialists.
At Unilever, employees can use the Pearson bike library free of charge for both short trips and longer local commutes. This cuts expenditure on rental fees for employees’ car parking spaces.
The Telegraph Media Group has 10 Bromptons at its offices near Victoria Station, with the bikes available on free loan.
Lorrie Dannecker, service director at Telegraph Media Group, says: “The aim of implementing the library was to give our staff a tangible benefit with a difference. The positive feedback we have had is enormous. Bikes have been in use for trips to meetings, lunchtime jaunts to Hyde Park, and commutes to and from the office."
Brompton has a famous picture of 42 folded bikes taking up the space of one car.Image caption The scandal broke after it emerged that Findus beef lasagne sold in Britain contained up to 100% horsemeat
Six French supermarket chains have withdrawn frozen beef meals made by Findus and Comigel after it emerged some beef-labelled foods sold in Europe and the UK contained horsemeat.
France is investigating if the frozen food companies knew of the horsemeat in their products. Findus says it has been misled by its Romanian meat supplier.
Romania has launched a probe into its abattoirs in response to the claims.
Officials said they would take action if laws had been broken.
Swedish food giant Findus withdrew ready meals in France and Sweden on Friday after it emerged that its frozen beef lasagne sold in Britain contained up to 100% horsemeat.
The Findus products were prepared by French food manufacturer Comigel using meat provided by Spanghero, a meat-processing company also based in France. Spanghero, in turn, obtained its meat from a Romanian supplier.
'We were deceived'
The French supermarket chains decided to recall Findus and Comigel products due to concerns over a "labelling non-compliance in regards to the nature of the meat", the national retail association FCD said on Sunday.
Products withdrawn include pasta dishes with meat sauce, shepherd's pie and moussaka. The chains taking action include Carrefour, Monoprix, Auchan, Casino, Cora and Picard.
The decision was made due to to concerns over a "labelling non-compliance in regards to the nature of the meat", FCD said in a statement.
We thought we had certified French beef in our products - but in reality, we were supplied with Romanian horsemeat Matthieu Lambeaux, Findus France
It added that French authorities had indicated there was no health risk from the products.
"The retailers are following the investigations carried out by suppliers with the greatest attention and waiting for the results of public inquiries," it said.
The French probe aims to determine who supplied the horsemeat and whether the ready meal companies knew about the contamination.
If there is evidence that the firms knowingly mislead consumers, "we will not hesitate to take legal action", French Consumer Affairs Minister Benoit Hamon told Le Parisien daily.
Early findings from the probe indicated that the horsemeat had been supplied since August, he added.
"We have estimated that the profits drawn from what seems to be a fraud lie around 300,000 euros (£253,000)," Mr Hamon said.
Preliminary results of the investigation are expected to be released on Wednesday.
Responding to the food scandal, the director of Findus France, Matthieu Lambeaux, said in a statement the company would file a legal complaint on Monday.
"We thought we had certified French beef in our products. But in reality, we were supplied with Romanian horsemeat. We have been deceived," Mr Lambeaux said.
Image caption French company Spanghero has also threatened to take legal action against its Romanian supplier
French company Spanghero has also threatened to take legal action against its Romanian supplier.
Romania's food industry union has rejected the allegations.
"I find it hard to believe that a Romanian abattoir could have delivered horsemeat that was labelled beef," union head Dragos Frumoso told AFP news agency.
"If [the importer] did not make any protest when it received the meat to say that it was horse and not beef, then either it was an accomplice to the Romanian producer or it changed the labels afterwards."
The scandal has highlighted the bewildering complexity of the food business in the EU today, the BBC's Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.
A Swedish brand Findus supplying British supermarkets employed a French company Comigel to make its ready meals, our correspondent says.
To get meat for its factory in Luxembourg, Comigel called on the services of another French firm Spanghero. This company in turn used an agent in Cyprus, who in turn used an agent in the Netherlands, who placed the order at an abattoir in Romania, our correspondent says.
That extraordinary Europe-wide chain of instructions has now been identified by the French anti-fraud office, which is piecing together how so much horsemeat masquerading as beef entered the food chain, our correspondent adds.Part of the Donald Trump appeal is that he is a great businessman, and he certainly has taken his dad’s business and grown it to big heights. But Trump is less of a business manager, and more of a marketing genius–a PT Barnum. He knows what to say and do to promote. It’s why he is leading in the polls, and why he gets all the free airtime from the media.
His record as a COO/Manager, etc. is uneven. He has built businesses and he has destroyed them, as witnessed by his four bankruptcies. The Donald will correctly say he has never filed for bankruptcy. What he has done is driven a business into the ground causing the business to go belly up.
Donald Trump is a great “talker” and promoter, and to be perfectly honest that is part of what we need in America. Certainly in his effort to become president he has talked an excellent game and so far he has been lucky that there has been few attempts to back up his promoting skills.
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Will the media learn anything from their biased reporting of the Jussie Smollett story? * Yes, they've gotten so much wrong recently that they're bound to be on their best behavior. No, they suffer from a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Jussie who?
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America needs need much more than a promoter and bloviator, we need someone who can “manage,” and the record shows Trump is not the best at managing.
Trump keeps saying he is a winner/he doesn’t lose…That’s not true, including the four bankruptcies, here are twelve times where he has lost:
Trump Mortgage
What happened: Trump launched his own mortgage company, and his son predicted that it would be the No. 1 home-loan lender in the US. And then … the housing market completely crashed in 2007. Trump’s mortgage company was shut down after a year and a half.
Shortly after the company’s launch Trump said on CNBC: “I think it’s a great time to start a mortgage company … who knows about financing better than I do?”
Trump Steaks (2007 – unknown)
What happened: Trump launched his name-brand steaks specifically for Sharper Image (and naturally graced the cover of the Sharper Image catalogue) in 2007. They have since been discontinued. The prices ranged from $199 for a pack of 12 steak burgers and four steaks, all the way up to $999 for a selection of 16 top cuts. Bonus: The Trump Steakhouse in Las Vegas was briefly shut down following 51 health code violations, including expired yogurt and five-month old duck.
Trump Vodka (2006 – circa 2011)
What happened: Trump dipped his toes into the “super premium” vodka industry around 2006. It’s unclear when exactly Trump Vodka was shut down, but by 2011 the drink was no longer being produced “under the Trump trademark because the company failed to meet the threshold requirements,” Trump’s people said, according to Gothamist. However, perhaps Trump should have considered expanding into the global “super premium” vodka market. Much to his annoyance, in 2011 Trump’s name-brand vodkas were being sold in Israel without authorization. What Trump said about the vodka when it launched: “By the summer of ’06, I fully expect the most called for cocktail in America to be the T&T or the Trump and Tonic.”
Trump: The Game (1989 – 1990, 2005)
What happened: Trump first released his own pseudo-Monopoly board game in 1989, but it didn’t sell well at all and was discontinued after a year. After the success of his TV show, he revived and updated the game in 2005. You can still purchase the game today via several online retailers. What Trump’s promo said: “Parker Brothers and Donald Trump are challenging consumers to determine whether they have the brains and the brawn to be the next Donald Trump with the launch of TRUMP the Game, the new high-stakes board game, where if you play your cards right, you can make hundreds of millions of dollars, just like The Donald.
Trump Ice (Shut down in 2010)
What happened: Trump Ice has been available at Trump’s casinos for some time, and according to Trump “it was so good that people wanted to buy cases of it!” So the bottles were produced and distributed to the masses. They never hit it big. You can still find bottles on eBay if you’re interested in tasting the “purest” bottled water. And although it was discontinued, the official Trump website says that you can find Trump Ice at “specialty food stores and grocery chains nationwide.” What Trump said about the bottle design: “It is fiery, isn’t it? It’s fire and ice! The water puts out the fire.”
GoTrump.com (2006 – 2007)
What happened: GoTrump.com was a search engine for bargains on luxury travel deals. It was powered by Travelocity.com, so it started off pretty well. However, the site was quickly ripped apart by critics, and it was shut down after a year. What Trump said when he launched the site: “It doesn’t matter how rich you are. You don’t want to be a fool and you want to get the best deal. But people who aren’t rich want to associate with rich, and that’s why this thing has become so crazy.” “When you get millions of people using your service, and you get X dollars per person, it adds up to a lot of money.” Source: The New York Times
Trump Magazine (2007 – 2009)
What happened: The Trump magazine was a collaboration between the Trump brand and what is now called Niche Media. It launched with glitz and loads of PR but was shut down after two years. According to the press release, “the quarterly magazine saw early success, cashing in on the booming advertising market for yachts and other high-end commodities.”
2007 to 2009 was probably a difficult time for the “booming advertising market for yachts.”
Before the first issue came out, The New York Times asked whether Donald Trump would be on the first issue’s cover. How Trump replied to that: “Only if they want to sell a lot of magazines.” Ultimately, his daughter Ivanka Trump graced the debut issue’s cover.
The New Jersey Generals (1983 – 1985)
What happened: Donald Trump originally owned the The New Jersey Generals — a United States Football League team — but quickly sold them to focus on construction projects like the Trump Tower. Later he changed his mind, reacquiring the team in 1984. The team folded one year later, in 1985, along with the entire USFL. People blamed Trump for the demise of not only the team, but the entire league. The league had been successful when it played in the spring, but Donald Trump insisted they moved the season to the fall and compete with the NFL. Allegedly, he was trying to pull the Generals into the NFL — and made poor investment decisions in the process, as the USFL was trounced by the NFL.
In May 2014, Trump expressed interest in buying the Buffalo Bills.
What Trump said: “Without me, the USFL would have been dead immediately. It was a league that was failing badly … I did something I rarely do with the USFL. I went into something that was not good, not established. And it was failing. I knew that but I also went in for cheap. I bought something for peanuts.” He also called the USFL a “second-rate operation.” Source: United States Football League
Trump Airlines (1989 – 1992)
What happened: Trump bought Eastern Air Shuttle in 1988, which had been running for 27 years between Boston, NYC, and D.C., and updated it to make it look more glitzy and Trump-esque. But because it was a short-distance airline, customers weren’t looking for a luxury experience — just something that was convenient. The style-savvy investment was a bust.
On top of that, the pre-Gulf War fuel prices were extremely high. The airline never turned profit, and Trump defaulted on his loans.
What Trump said about the airlines in retrospect: “It worked out well for me … I ran an airline for a couple of years and made a couple of bucks. The airline business is a tough business, [but] I did great with it.”
Source: Time
Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. — 4 bankruptcies (1991, 2004, 2009, 2014)
What happened: Trump Entertainment Resorts filed for corporate bankruptcy four times. The first time was after the Trump Taj Mahal’s construction in 1991. The next time was in 2004, when it “filed for voluntary bankruptcy after accumulating $1.8 billion in debt.” Next came 2008-2009, when the company missed a $53.1 million bond interest payment. (The stock dropped to 23 cents per share from $4.) And finally, in September 2014, the company filed for bankruptcy once again. (The company still exists despite its bankruptcy.)
What Trump said about the bankruptcies in court: “I don’t like the ‘B’ word.” Additionally, during an MSNBC interview, Michael Isikoff asked Trump what exactly he was paid for if he “had nothing to do with running the company.” And Trump replied to that: “Excuse me … Because of my genius. OK?” Source: ABC News
Trump Tower Tampa (2006 – 2007)
What happened: There’s a history of buildings that paid to be called “Donald Trump developments” but ultimately never became anything. One of these is Trump Tower Tampa.
Donald Trump said he never had any plans to develop the building himself and that he only licensed his name to other developers. Nothing ever came of Trump Tower Tampa, and the buyers lost a lot of money on the deal. The site was finally sold in 2011 for $5 million. What Trump said in retrospect: “[The buyers] were better off losing their deposit.”
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Trump University (2005 – 2011)
What happened: In 2005, Trump opened Trump University, a for-profit but non-accredited school where he would bestow his industry expertise upon the masses — aka anyone who forked over $35,000. That same year, he licensed his name to an affiliate program called the Trump Institute. In 2010, four students sued the “university” for “offering classes that amounted to extended ‘infomercials,’ ‘selling non-accredited products,’ and ‘taking advantage of these troubled economic times to prey on consumer’s fears.'”
The “university” then changed its name to “The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative.
And in 2013, the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued Trump and Trump University for allegedly defrauding students. The business officially ended operations in 2011. Trump compared his ideas to Einstein’s in the “Trump University Entrepreneurship 101” official book: “Albert Einstein believed that a ‘Theory of Everything’ in physics unified the four primal forces of nature: gravity, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, and electromagnetic force. Our unifying theory for sustainable success in business is so much simpler. […] The Customer Is Everything!”
What Trump said about Trump University: “I went to the Wharton School of Finance … I have a great feeling for education and for knowledge and learning … I love the idea of helping people, because I’ve had a lot of experience with real estate, to put it mildly.” Source: The New York Times
Folks, I am not saying Donald Trump is a loser, what I am saying is like any showman he sometimes wins and sometimes loses. And when he does lose–based on the above, he really couldn’t give a rats arse about the people he’s hurt. Just imagine what he would do when he screwed up something in the White House.
If you are considering Trump, please think about that.The California woman who livestreamed the brutal crash that killed her 14-year-old sister and injured another teenager says the video makes her look like "a monster."
In a Friday night phone interview with NBC Fresno affiliate KSEE from jail — where she is being held on $300,000 bail — Obdulia Sanchez, 18, said she drove while filming herself often on Instagram and Snapchat, but she had never crashed before.
"I didn't even know I looked like a monster — like, I look like a freaking horrible monster," Sanchez said of the video she took last month as her little sister died in the wreck. "That was not my intention at all."
Sanchez has been charged with drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter.
According to California Highway Patrol, Sanchez was under the influence and livestreaming on her phone when her car suddenly began veering to the left. She tried to over correct but panicked.
"That's when I just started freaking out," she said. "And then I look in the back seat and there's nobody in the back seat, and that's when I started freaking out."
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Her car rolled, tumbling off the road and into a barbed wire fence. The backseats were empty because, at some point, Sanchez's sister and another 14-year-old were ejected from the car.
Sanchez turned off the live stream momentarily, as she exited her vehicle, but switched it back on a few minutes later. Her viewers watched as she then discovered the dead body of her sister, Jacqueline, in the grass a few yards away.
"I knew she was dead because I took her pulse and she had no pulse," she said.
The livestream also captured her 911 call.
"I f-----g killed my sister, OK? I know I'm going to jail for life," Sánchez says in the video. "This is the last thing I wanted to happen, OK? I don't f-----g care though, I'm going to hold it down. Rest in peace, sweetie. If you don't survive, I am so f-----g sorry."
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Sanchez stopped short of defending livestreaming while driving but said it was popular among her generation.
"We do it all the time — all the time," she said. "Trust me, it's like a reflex. Like I haven't crashed, you know?"
She also seemed to suggest that her age and the social pervasiveness of streaming ought to precipitate some forgiveness.
"Everybody does it. Everybody does. They take Snapchats. Everybody does it. Why not? People take video of them in cars like all the time. And I'm only 18 — we're still young."
But now, almost a month later, she has nothing left to do but think about the sister she called "my mini-me" while she and her family receive death threats and await a hearing for the charges she has pleaded not guilty to.
"If I would've known that was going to happen that day," she said, "I would've never left the house — ever."Logitech customers are not happy, as they recently found out that the company would be discontinuing service for its popular Harmony Link remote system. The device and its cloud-based system allow users to control home theater and sound equipment from a mobile app. Customers received an e-mail explaining that Logitech will "discontinue service and support" for the Harmony Link as of March 16, 2018, adding that Harmony Link devices "will no longer function after this date."
While Logitech is offering a one-time, 35-percent discount on its Harmony Hub to affected customers that are out of warranty, that's not enough for Harmony Link users who are expressing their dissatisfaction on Logitech support forums and Reddit. Users have not experienced major problems with the Harmony Link system that would indicate they are approaching end of life. Harmony Link customers do not pay a subscription or service fee to use the device, either.
The only reason provided comes from a Logitech employee with the username Logi_WillWong, who explains in a response post from September 8, 2017 that Logitech will not be renewing a "technology certificate license" that expires in March. No details were provided about how this certificate license allows the Harmony Link to function, but it appears that without it, those devices will not work as promised. "The certificate will not be renewed as we are focusing resources on our current app-based remote, the Harmony Hub," Logi_WillWong added, which seems to indicate that the shutting down of the Harmony Link system is a way to get more customers on the newer Harmony Hub system.
But customers are calling out Logitech for bricking a device that works perfectly fine for most of them, presumably in the hopes of forcing an upgrade to a new device. While out-of-warranty customers can get a discount on a Harmony Hub, according to an updated response posted yesterday on the Logitech support forum from Logi_WillWong, those still under warranty can receive a free Harmony Hub from Logitech as a replacement for their Harmony Link.
The Harmony Link system predates the Harmony Hub by a few years and allows users to control televisions, sound systems, and even VCRs and Blu-ray players from the free companion mobile app. The Harmony Hub expands on those capabilities by adding more IoT device support, making things like Roku players, Hue smart lights, and Sonos systems controllable via the remote app. The Harmony Link isn't available to purchase from Logitech's website anymore, and it's listed as "discontinued by manufacturer" on Amazon.
The forced end-of-life of the Harmony Link is a harsh reminder that companies like Logitech have the power to make useful yet older devices obsolete for whatever reason they see fit. Customers likely purchased the Harmony Link system because they wanted a smart device to control only the entertainment system in their home, thinking it would last as long as the device kept running. But since Harmony Link devices can only be configured through Logitech's web-based systems, they can only truly live as long as Logitech allows. Ars has reached out to Logitech for a full statement about this issue, and we will update this post if we hear back.
Update, 5:57pm: A Logitech representative reached out to Ars with this statement from Rory Dooley, head of Logitech Harmony:Sen. Tim Kaine accused Donald Trump of “chumming around” with the the Klu-Klux-Klan, asserting that Hillary Clinton was merely talking about white supremacists when she referred to half of his supporters as a “basket of deplorables.”
“She advanced the notion that if you’re chumming around with the head of the Klu-Klux-Klan or people who had that title, that’s deplorable,” Tim Kaine said. “You gotta call that out.”
Kaine referred to a CNN interview with Trump’s running mate Mike Pence where he declined to describe former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke as a “deplorable” person, saying he had no interest in the “name-calling business.”
Duke has indicated his support for Trump, delighting Democrats who are eager to smear Republicans with his history of white supremacy.
But both Tim Kaine and Donald Trump had disavowed David Duke — even as the media repeatedly pesters both candidates about his support.
“I’m not really sure why the media keeps dropping David Duke’s name,” Pence said in the same CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer. “Donald Trump has denounced David Duke repeatedly. We don’t want his support and we don’t want the support of the people who think like him.”
Donald Trump has also denounced David Duke.
“David Duke is a bad person, who I disavowed on numerous occasions over the years,” Trump said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe in March. “I disavowed him. I disavowed the KKK. Do you want me to do it again for the 12th time? I disavowed him in the past, I disavow him now.”
But during his rally at the University of Michigan on Tuesday, Kaine continued to smear both Pence and Trump with the “deplorable” behavior exhibited by Trump’s supporters.
He challenged Trump for failing to call out “deplorable” supporters who demonstrated bigotry, racism, xenophobia, anti-LGBT and anti-immigrant behavior.
“If you can’t call it out, and you stand back and silent about it you’re enabling it to grow, you’re enabling it to become more powerful,” he said. “We want to be a nation of the positive virtues not the dark emotions and not the negative virtues.”I have a funny relationship with my own culture in that I feel like a tourist in it. I was raised in complete seclusion from my Aboriginal background. There was no parental influence that rooted me in any cultural experiences. I grew up knowing the textbook definition of Indians. The hunter-gatherers, the feather in the hair, something about a peace pipe... It became clear these were just stereotypes. The truth is “indians” are my family, and I should probably know about my own culture. So, now that I’m in my early twenties, it’s become a goal of mine to immerse myself in the culture that I missed out on as a child. First stop, sweat lodge.
Certain people might find a sweat lodge to be a hellish experience. When I first got inside one I realized it was truly not for everybody. A small, tent-like structure is built from maple branches and a tarp cover. Inside, fifteen scalding hot rocks are placed in a dirt pit and, on several occasions, healthy amounts of boiled water are poured onto them. You’re left to sit inside for close to three hours and take in the dense steam and allow your body to drain out those years of binge-drinking and fast food. To me, it sounded exotic and dangerous. I’ve heard stories of people claiming to have visions and hallucinations while inside. They claim to have reached states of nirvana where the Creator speaks directly to them. For years, Aboriginal men and women have been using sweats as a means to seek peace of mind and spiritual direction. What a thrill ride! However, after going in, I wasn’t prepared to take it that seriously. I have become disillusioned with this idea of talking to God for a long time now. Still, I felt like my years of sitting through dense and abstract church sermons should be balanced by something. Making contact with a God other then that of the church seemed like a welcomed change. That gave me all the more incentive to try it.
I found myself in the woods of Vasey, a small village in the Tay Township of Ontario, at the Enaahtiq Healing Lodge. A burly Ojibwe man named John, who was to be our elder for our ceremony, greeted me. The ceremony starts with the entry of the Grandfathers. The Grandfathers aren’t actually old men—they’re the preheated rocks in the sacred fire pit. The Fire Keeper shovels them in. Most crumble and hiss as they’re thrown into place. Then the artifacts are placed inside. A tin of boiled cedar water, a marble cup of tobacco, a whistle carved from animal bone, and musical shakers. I sat there while this was happening, in nothing but boxer shorts, eyeing the other seven participants that were huddled in this lodge with me. The ceremony consists of prayers, songs, and the passing of the feather. When the feather gets passed into your hand, it’s your turn to speak to the Creator. This part put me off a bit. Have you ever had dinner at someone else’s house and had to sit through grace? Doesn’t it seem awkward and unnecessary? Now imagine having to actually say grace for the table. I guess I was prepared to have a back seat experience but now I was suddenly expected to drive.
All this was shooting around my mind as the doorway, traditionally facing the East, was shut and we were submerged into absolute darkness. I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. That’s when things got intense. That’s when I began to question what I was doing there. From the first onslaught of steam, my face was in the soil seeking the coolness of the earth. I don’t think I was prepared for the intensity of the heat. It was disorienting and unsettling. I tried to think of the origin story we were told, and I tried to remember the physical benefits of the sweat itself, but when you’re actually in there all the niceties of that one Wikipedia article I read seem like bullshit. This was an endurance race. It didn’t take long before I was fully experiencing the sweat. I was drenched. Dirt was mixing into my pores and every movement was itchy and sensitive. The feather was being passed around and I was listening to these strangers open up about their personal trials and tribulations. Perhaps the honesty that was shared that day would have been vehemently moving in any other environment but here I was finding my cynicism coming to the forefront of my thoughts. I guess I felt like I didn’t need the supposed Creator’s help.
I listened to what the other participants shared. “I’m confused with what to do with my life,” “I’m mixed in with a bad crowd,” “My vices are consuming my life.” I didn’t think I shared any of these problems and began to wonder why I thought I needed this experience in the first place. I wasn’t depressed, a drop out, a felon, or on parole. I wasn’t even a serious spiritual seeker. I felt this was no more then a cultural experience. It was clear that believing in the Creator or a God or some spiritual lifestyle is what brought these people here in the first place. So where was I coming from? The feather was passed to me and to my surprise I found myself talking. Talking about what I’m talking about now. How I didn’t know how to take this sort of thing seriously. How I was more then happy to treat this like a cultural experience. I wasn’t knocking it or putting it down. All I did was state my belief that when I exited I would feel like the same human being as when I came in. My honesty was all I could share in that moment. In response, the other participants gave out some affirming whoops and hollers. They seemed to understand where I was coming from.
The feather had gone around. We had sang the songs of old. The air was dense with steam and our bodies were jellylike. We were back in the womb. I was settling into something I might call being comfortable. At any rate, I could see the ceremony was coming to a close. I began to look forward to the cool night air soothe my skin as we emerged from a complete sweat session.
“Thank you, my brothers, for coming along on this journey. It may take some time to process the meaning of what you found today. At least it will hopefully have alleviated some heavy thoughts so that you may focus on purer things. Trust me when I say that you will sleep well tonight.”
John closed with a prayer and when the Fire Keeper lifted the veil, we exited through the rising steam and felt the wide-open air once more. I had made it through in one piece, but did I find God? Was I supposed to? For me, taking part in such an old tradition was enough. I feel that a native sweat |
7 people per square kilometer, it too has seen the effects of deforestation and land use change.
In this image, lighter-toned areas contain shorter or less-developed trees. These areas could be the result of past disturbance, including fire, Hansen said. “Sandy upland soils can lose forests easily,” he said. “Most of the grasslands abutting the rainforest are derived.” (In “derived” or “secondary” grasslands, trees have been removed, leaving behind only a low-growing layer of native vegetation.) Measuring up to several kilometers in length, these patches cut into wooded areas where trees can stand up to 18 meters (nearly 60 feet) tall.
NASA Earth Observatory maps created by Jesse Allen, using data provided by Matt Hansen and Alexandra Tyukavina (University of Maryland). Caption by Pola Lem.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his push to reform the Senate along independent lines is playing out as planned, blaming recent legislative squabbles on Conservatives senators.
"We are stymied a bit by a bloc of partisan Conservatives who vote against the government every chance they can get. [That] simply means there is more to do to create a more independent and thoughtfully reflective Senate," Trudeau said at a press conference in Ottawa Tuesday to mark the summer recess.
The remarks immediately angered Conservative senators, who saw it as another sign the government is intent on dismantling the Official Opposition in the Red Chamber, morphing the parliamentary body into a sort of "debating society" that will roll over in the face of pressure from the Liberal government.
"When you have a majority government talking about abolishing opposition in the legislative chamber... it is really dangerous rhetoric. What does he want to do? He wants to have a parliamentary body similar to one in North Korea, or Iran, or Cuba. That is what this prime minister is really proposing," Conservative Leo Housakos said in an interview with CBC News on Tuesday.
The comments follow a stormy finish to the parliamentary spring sitting.
The government's budget bill was amended by the Senate last week, and some senators threatened to delay its passage unless a plan to hike alcohol taxes each year with the rate of inflation was removed. Liberal and Independent senators ultimately relented while pushing back against a suggestion from the prime minister that the Senate does not have the right to amend, or defeat, budget legislation.
Independents vote with government
While some of the Trudeau-appointed Independents have stood in opposition to aspects of the Liberal agenda — notably embedding the creation of the infrastructure bank in the budget bill — an analysis by CBC News shows they have so far voted with the government 95 per cent of the time. That number is actually higher than those senators who identify as Liberals (78 per cent).
The Conservatives have delayed the passage of some legislation, but they, too, have voted with the government on occasion (25 per cent). Thus, Conservatives have voted more often with the Liberal government than Independents voted against it.
"Nearly 100 per cent of the time his appointees have been ultra, super partisan and blindly supportive of his legislation, without any question," Housakos said. "The appointees he put in place, above all else, have one thing on their mind and that's abolish the opposition."
Conservative Senator Leo Housakos, the chair of the Senate's powerful internal economy committee, said Liberal and Independent senators 'caved' to the government by accepting the budget bill. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
After appointing 27 senators in 18 months, the prime minister will have a further 11 seats to fill before Parliament returns in the fall. Independent senators will then hold a numerical majority in the upper house, and the leeway to implement fundamental reforms.
Indeed, Independent Manitoba Senator Marilou McPhedran said Monday in an interview with CBC Radio's The Current that she no longer sees a need for political "dichotomy" in the Senate.
"I can't quite figure out why we'd still be designating an Official Opposition. I think the job of all of us, as senators, is to focus on what is in the best interest of our nation, and be much less partisan," she said.
Peter Harder, the government's representative in the Senate, has also said there shouldn't be "organized and disciplined" government and opposition caucuses in the Red Chamber. "Reproducing a government-versus-opposition dynamic in the Senate… is detrimental to independence, non-partisanship and complementarity," he said at a meeting of the Senate's modernization committee.
'A growing independence'
McPhedran, who Conservatives have pointed out is a former donor to the Liberal Party, said there is "a growing independence" and voting patterns only tell one part of the story.
"I haven't really had the same experience as Senator Housakos," she said, pointing to her work to amend the government's legislation to redress the discrimination Indigenous women face when registering under the Indian Act.
McPhedran changed the government's Bill S-3 to open up registration to far more women than the government had initially intended. The amended bill was rejected by the House of Commons, but was not dealt with by the Senate before Parliament rose for the summer.
Independent Manitoba Senator Marilou McPhedran, centre, stands with Senator Peter Harder, left, and Senator Murray Sinclair. McPhedran has amended the government's bill that makes changes to the Indian Act registration process. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)
"The government is going to have to handle this bill very differently than what they planned to do," she said, as a result of lobbying efforts from Independent Indigenous senators and their allies.
Despite those efforts, Housakos said tinkering with government bills will not replace a properly constituted opposition and he is prepared to stand strongly against the government's reforms.
"We will go as far as necessary... this government, Peter Harder, Trudeau, they are going to have a huge political price to pay if they continue to infringe upon fundamental principles of democracy by not respecting our British parliamentary system and the fact that you need strong opposition represented in both chambers."So I’ve been watching Achievement Hunter’s Call of Duty videos this week, they are playing a range of different Call of Duties in preparation for the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare coming out, its a pretty cool idea.
After watching them play Call of Duty 4, I felt like going back and playing easily one of the best Call of Duty games ever created and one of my favourite games of all time. Unfortunately there is still people that are getting enjoyment from modifying almost every game there and ruining the real experience of Call of Duty 4. I found a sort of way to avoid those types of game lobbies.
The ‘hackers’ that are still ruining the game for others are usually only playing TDM and Search & Destroy. I managed to play a few very fun games of normal CoD4 by totally avoiding those game types. I had a few fun games of free-for-all and Mercenary TDM.
Sadly for all of us looking to recreate the fun times had on this great shooter, it will never be the same. Avoiding the two main game types is more likely to get you into a normal lobby but the peace rarely lasts long. There are people running around with one-shot-kill pistols and unlimited ammo on their noob-tubes ready to invade your normal game.
While watching the Call of Duty videos by Rooster Teeth’s Achievement Hunters, one of them mentioned doing this for other great games like Halo. Now that got me on another train of thought, I’d love to go back and play Halo 3 but unfortunately there is hardly ever people online and searching for games. One thing 343 Industries are doing is remastering all of the older games, meaning that the great Halo 2 and 3 multiplayer will be populated without hackers, unlike Cod 4.
I really hope that one day the main developer of Call of Duty will go back and remaster Call of Duty 4, get rid of all the annoying ‘hackers’ and update the graphics (although they are still looking pretty good considering the game is 7 years old).
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If you enjoyed what you read, found it useful or entertaining, let me know by supporting the website!This is a compilation of questions we get asked a lot, so that if your question has already been answered, you don’t have to wait days for a reply. Feel free to send messages, but if your question has been answered here, it may not be answered again, especially if it’s something we get asked a lot.
This doesn’t cover everything, but it covers a lot of the questions currently in the inbox, and I gather some people have been having accessing the permanent page on our blog.
The FAQ is also gradually being updated.
What is bisexuality?
Bisexuality is the attraction to two or more genders, not necessarily to the same extent, not necessarily in the same way, not necessarily at the same time.
But bi means two?!
I understand that this may be confusing but think of it this way, you know how Octo means eight? And how October is not the eighth month but the tenth? Definitions change. Bisexuality as the attraction to two genders was the definition thrust upon bisexuals by straight people. Bisexuals as a community have chosen to define bisexuality as the attraction to two or more genders.
What’s the difference between pansexuality, bisexuality, and polysexuality?
Pansexuality is the attraction to all genders, whereas bisexuality is the attraction to two or more genders.The main difference between pansexuality and bisexuality is that pansexuality tends to take a “gender makes no difference to me” approach to attraction.
Polysexuality is the attraction to multiple genders, so bisexuality and polysexuality are super similiar, and it’s mostly just a matter of choosing a label you feel comfortable with.
How do I know if I’m bi?
How to Determine Your Sexuality - A Guide
1) Step in front of a mirror and say “Freddie Mercury” three times.
2) If a rainbow unicorn appears, you are bisexual
The alternate method is to:
1) Ask yourself if you’re romantically attracted to more than one gender
2) Ask yourself if you’re sexually attracted to more than one gender
If the answer to either of those questions is yes, congratulations you can identify as bi!
Keep in mind that:
a) your sexual and romantic attraction don’t have to be the same (you can be romantically or sexually attracted to one gender and not another and that’s cool) and also, you can have a preference for one gender or the other. Preferences don’t make you less bi
b) experience is not a prerequisite for sexuality
c) it’s okay to be confused. If you’re not sure try to experience attraction freely and let the labels come later
d) you might feel more comfortable with the label pan or poly which is totally cool
Can I identify as bi and pan/poly?
Absolutely. There’s enough overlap in the different identities that many people feel as though they fall into more than one of them. If you feel most comfortable using more than just one label, go ahead.
The Bisexuality Chart
It’s by no means a complete comprehensive view on bisexuality (ie. it doesn’t include, for example gray ace bisexuals) but I’ve tried to make it as inclusive as I can
How should I come out?
However you feel comfortable! Coming out doesn’t have to be an all or nothing thing. However before you come out it’s probably a good idea to consider a couple of things
1) What is the impact of my coming out? If coming out to your parents is going to put you in danger or render you homeless then it’s probably not a good idea to come out (sorry)
2) Do you feel comfortable coming out? If you don’t feel like you’re ready you don’t have to. Coming out is a purely personal decision.
Also, try to be patient with people. Like, it might take time for your parents or friends to understand that you’re bi, and to get their head around it. Try to not let that frustrate you. Also with parents, if your parents are homophobic/biphobic, keep in mind that a lot of parents do come around so just hang in there. With friends, I’m of the opinion that friends who don’t accept your sexuality probably aren’t very good friends to begin with.
All of that said, there isn’t a right or wrong way to come out. If you want to sit people down and just tell them that’s cool. If you want to bake a cake and have “I’m bi” written in icing, go for it. You could message a friend with “Bi the way, I’m not straight”. You can come out however you want to.
Also if you want more resources about coming out, I’m just going to link to bi-privileges page on it because I think they explain it better than I do, so you can click here to check that out. They also have some resources on how to come out as a biromantic asexual so that could also be helpful if that’s describes you.
Other Coming Out Resources
How to Come Out as Bisexual
Coming Out as Bi
Bi the Bi: How Do You Come Out to Your Parents as Bisexual?
I don’t want to come out. Do I have to?
Not at all. Coming out is a personal decision and not everybody wants to or does. It’s up to you!
I’ve never been in a relationship/only been in a relationship with one gender/no same sex relationships, am I still bi?
Relationships are absolutely not a requirement for your sexuality! Your orientation is about the relationships you’d potentially be interested in, not based on the relationships you have. You could never date anybody, you could only date people of your own gender, of different genders, of multiple genders at the same time, and so on, and you’re still just as bi as anybody else :)
I think I’m bisexual, but what if it’s a phase?
How long should you worry that your sexuality is a phase before you decide that it’s not? You could spend years waiting to grow out of the phase, years that you could have been getting used to how you feel and learning to embrace it.
Try and learn to be comfortable with how you feel now. If it does end up being a phase, you can adjust to that if and/or when it happens, but even if it changes in the future, it doesn’t make how you feel now any less real - and it’s just as likely, if not more likely, that it’s real :)During your training of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, there are going to be times when you want to throw in the towel. Maybe your perspective of the past two or three weeks is that you haven’t shown any progression or you’re getting caught in techniques that you typically defend and counter.
Don’t quit.
Think about where you were 6-months or 12 months ago. It is very tough to see improvement in your game, especially once you hit the Purple Belt. You will have times of doubt, especially when you are getting taped by Blue Belts who you were tapping all the time back when you were a Blue Belt!
It happens. Those teammates see the change in belt color as see that as a measuring stick to turn their game up a notch. While you still see them as your teammate, they now view you as an “upper belt” that they want to tap.They are going to be coming at you with everything they know and if you tapped them, it’s expected as you are the higher rank. Now when they tap you, they are going to puff their chest out a little further because they tapped an “upper belt”. Even if you were promoted last week, they don’t care.
Don’t let the learning opportunities on the mat make you quit. Are you getting caught in submissions because your teammates have been drilling a specific technique over and over to eliminate the mistakes that they were making; which allowed you to escape or defend so easily in the past? Have they been working on chaining together several techniques to keep you off guard and just as you are about to escape, you fall right into their submission.
When you train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, you will have your fair share of peaks, valleys and plateaus but those are never reasons to quit. Your journey will have plenty of twists and turns and when you look back on this moment 6-months or 10-years, you will be very happy that you did not allow BJJ to make you quit.
So keep training. Take notes and be honest with your game so you can make the improvements that you need. Talk with your teammates that have been gaining on you to see what it is that they have been doing (or what you have not been doing) that has been allowing them to catch you more often. Maybe you have been setting up your same chains in the same order.
Ask them. Because once you start making it difficult for them to catch you again, they will need to bring their game up.
Never quit.
Ed LeMonnier
2 Stripe Purple Belt
Frequency Martial Arts – Bloomington, Illinois
Affiliate of Robson Moura Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Association
AdvertisementsThe first interactive book for personal & professional development from the Balkans. Inspire yourself. Motivate others. Make a change.
Coming from a constantly changing and developing region, by walking the bumpy road of creation, we never gave up to make an impact. So we created TIP OF THE WEEK.
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The times are changing, businesses change, societal norms and templates change. The Universe is changing. If we do not accept this new situation, we cannot hope to succeed in the future.
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TIP OF THE WEEK© is the first interactive book for personal and professional development written by successful businessmen and women coming from the Balkans. It contains 40 practical and educational tips on how to improve, make a change and become more successful on various fields in your everyday life.
Specially created/designed TIP OF THE WEEK kit is to help and provoke readers be more open to changes because only by changing ourselves and focusing on implementation of new ideas we can become better day by day.
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✓Amplify motivation, self-education, inspiration and provoke discussion on various issues.
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What makes us unique is that we are adapting the concept to the new reader, creating a unique, practical, user-friendly and most of all, FUN way of presenting the information. You can read it from wherever, whenever you like. Write in it, scribble, put post it’s on it and comment. Communicate with each and every one of the texts, give your perspective and comment on the content. Develop your views and DON'T agree with the advices that are written, or DO agree with them and implement that knowledge in your environment.
The idea is, that each and every one of you can have their copy on the desk, and revisit it whenever you find yourself in a certain situation in need of advice.
This is the first edition.
There are many yet to come.
This is not a book you read, it is book you talk to!
360º innovative approach
Innovation in Product Development – The concept started by business people (Petar Lazarov and Kalin Babusku) who transfer the knowledge they have gained by working with national and international companies. The manuals are the only of this kind published on the Balkan and beyond aiming to combine different experiences of successful people from the region.
Innovation in Structure - non-standard edition / manuals in terms of writing and developing open communication with readers and giving them opportunity for self-evaluation. Innovation in Visual appearance - full copyright work in terms of design and visual concept, original cover, specially-made illustrations and fully designed interior text.
Innovation in terms of Marketing and Sales strategy - completely innovative approach with special emphasis on social responsibility by developing unique and original author sponsorship model ("COS model" - Customer Oriented Sponsorship Model) in order to provide variety of benefits to publisher - company that uses it – end buyer.
1. WEEKLY PLANNER (only available for Kickstarter backers)
As a Kickstarter special we have created and designed a weekly planner which will help you reach your goals. The planner will be available for kickstarter backers only. On this carefully designed planner you can write down your daily tasks, take notes, scribble and note your weekly goals.
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Together with the book come the interactive cards which feature 10 different exercises and activities for daily motivation. These exercises will help you improve your daily performance. You can use them by yourself, or you can share them with your team or your employees.
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With the complete kit you will get 30 ‘fortune tips’ each with an inspirational quote or a short advice for each day of the month. Pick one every day and stay motivated.
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Peter Lazarov and Kalin Babushku are authors, consultants for marketing/branding, sales, export, management and co-owners of a company called Macedonia-Export. They have extensive experience in training and developing management and leadership skills of employees in the Balkans, through innovative and practical approach in the working.
With the complete kit you will get 6 months interactive video tutorials in 6 separate sessions, one per month, on some of the topics of the book. With these tutorials you get motivated, learn some new things about management, leadership, marketing, sales and running your own business.
Executives, business owners, HR departments and other high-level managers love using this book with their teams. Buy it for your employees and implement the tips to improve your team’s performance and keep them motivated every day of the week. We offer the mini business package with 5 books at a great discount, but you can add up to 10 for additional $15 per copy.
Petar Lazarov and Kalin Babusku are the creators and the main authors of „Tip of the Week“ concept. They are also owners of Macedonia-Export, a company created with vision to present the best Balkan products on the global market. Ambitious and aware of the social environment they constantly trying to create recognizable world brand, while trying to enjoy the maximum in what they do.
Additionally, authors who will collaborate on this edition:
BRANISLAV MARIČIĆ, director of the Educational center Finesa. His life motto is: “ I learn, I love, I serve”. His seminars have been completed by over 20.000 people. Author of the book “Self discipline”
IGOR PURETA, president of the Management Grawe Hrvatska d.d. loves to motivate, and knows how to guide and so is a fan of leadership, because he considers it a key factor in guiding people. Author of the blog www.igorpureta.com.
and many more…
The main goal and long-term vision of TIP OF THE WEEK is to create a digital Tip of the Week experience where we can grow a community of like-minded visionaries to share their knowledge, learn from one another, help and support each other to achieve a common goal.For those of you wondering if today's Facebook app update for iOS fixes the oft-reported battery drain issue, you might be tempted to check the App Store release notes. Sadly, Facebook has decided that, instead of giving details for updates, they're going to stick with a generic "To make our app better for you, we bring updates to the App Store every 2 weeks." Which is...nice? But it's hardly helpful if you're trying to determine if an update is going to keep your phone from dying in the middle of the day.
Luckily, Ari Grant, Engineering Manager at Facebook, has a public Facebook page where he dished details on the release for those that are curious. Turns out, this release did partially address the battery drain issue.
We recently heard reports of some people experiencing battery issues with the Facebook iOS app and have been looking into the causes of these problems. We found a few key issues and have identified additional improvements, some of which are in the version of the app that was released today. The first issue we found was a “CPU spin” in our network code. A CPU spin is like a child in a car asking, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”with the question not resulting in any progress to reaching the destination. This repeated processing causes our app to use more battery than intended. The version released today has some improvements that should start making this better. The second issue is with how we manage audio sessions. If you leave the Facebook app after watching a video, the audio session sometimes stays open as if the app was playing audio silently. This is similar to when you close a music app and want to keep listening to the music while you do other things, except in this case it was unintentional and nothing kept playing. The app isn't actually doing anything while awake in the background, but it does use more battery simply by being awake. Our fixes will solve this audio issue and remove background audio completely. The issues we have found are not caused by the optional Location History feature in the Facebook app or anything related to location. If you haven't opted into this feature by setting Location Access to Always and enabling Location History inside the app, then we aren't accessing your device's location in the background. The issues described above don't change this at all. We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. We are committed to continuing to improve the battery usage of our app and you should see improvements in the version released today
It appears Location Settings apparently weren't the cause of the battery drain (but I'd keep them switched off anyway). Instead it was two minor issues, one dealing with the app not properly putting itself to sleep in the background and the other having to do with the audio in timeline videos (which isn't surprising, considering they've been tweaking that feature quite a bit lately).
If you've switched to a mobile bookmark solution, feel free to reinstall the app. If you kept it installed, make sure you update the app as soon as you can. It sounds like there are additional battery-life improvements in development, but this should take care of the worst of the unintended battery drain.Why waste your time at gatherings of like-minded skeptics when you could be engaging with people who might actually benefit from what you have to say, asks Alom Shaha
If you're reading this, you probably know that homeopathy is an entirely made-up pretend medicine that has somehow become accepted by millions of people as "real" medicine. You probably know that no one actually has psychic powers and that no aliens have ever landed on this planet, but humans have certainly landed on the moon. I can confidently assert these things about you because you're reading this on the Guardian Science Blog and, let's be honest, that makes you a Guardian Reader.
Don't like that label but want to show off that you're super smart and rational? You might want to call yourself a "skeptic" (and make sure you spell it with a "k"). Then you can meet up with other skeptics and nod along with them as someone lectures you in a pub (yes, a pub!) about these things that you already know. You can enjoy a few pints and can go home having had your belief in how smart and rational you are confirmed.
There'll sometimes be "celebrities" at these events, you know – people with more followers than you on Twitter, maybe even someone who is followed by Stephen Fry. There might even be a Guardian science blogger if you're lucky.
Once a year, you might get to go to a big conference (no, of course it's not a pilgrimage) and hear really famous people talk about these same things, maybe even Stephen Fry himself. And all the while you're there you'll tweet about it, so that everybody knows that you agree with everyone else about just how brilliant the brilliant minds assembled before you are. If only the rest of the world thought the same way you and your friends do. Wouldn't it be wonderful? And you'll tell yourself this isn't really like church. After all, religion is all about believing in God, isn't it? And you don't believe in God. You're far too rational for that.
Ok, I'm going to own up – I am deliberately "skeptic baiting". Some people have accused me of doing this on Twitter, simply because I raised a few questions about what I see as a failure of the UK skeptic movement to fully engage with audiences which might really benefit from being exposed to the kind of ideas about critical thinking that skeptics espouse.
I'm not alone in thinking that people from ethnic minorities are under-represented in skeptic groups. I had to bite my tongue when told by a skeptic in a pub that "they're not interested in these things" because otherwise I would have had to point out that they were perilously close to saying "you're not like the rest of them", that favourite get-out clause for my racist childhood friends. Recent experiences in my own life, since "coming out" as an ex-Muslim atheist, have led me to believe that there is a pressing need to create opportunities for people from Muslim backgrounds to engage with skeptic and atheist movements.
There are cultural issues that make it difficult for people from certain backgrounds to engage with other skeptics or to be openly sceptical about things like religion or "alternative" medicine. The mainstream skeptic community should be aware of this and do what they can to help support those less fortunate than themselves. It's not good enough to tell people with concerns like mine that "no one can prevent you from setting up a forum for black atheists".
But that's not the only aspect of the UK skeptic movement that I think needs challenging. To me, it looks like skeptics spend a large part of their efforts "preaching to the choir" or trying to change the minds of people who are just never going to change their minds. I see little evidence of the UK skeptic movement targeting that group of people who are still in the process of deciding what to believe and how to think about the world: children.
There is a genuine need to help young people improve their critical thinking skills. It seems to me that campaigning to make the teaching of critical thinking more important in schools, or creating resources to help schools teach it, might be useful things for skeptics to do. Tim Minchin's Pope Song is a work of genius, but it's hardly appropriate for use in schools. How about putting some of that imagination and creativity to work producing stuff that might get used in school religious education or science lessons?
If you're poor or if you're from a strictly religious family, like many of my students are, then it's likely that school is the only place you might ever get to listen to and engage with someone like Richard Dawkins in person. So, instead of getting these brilliant people to go and talk in pubs or at conferences, where everybody already knows what they're going to say, why not get them into schools where they might inspire a new generation of skeptics?
Sure, there are practical hurdles and you'll need to find out a little about the rules and regulations that schools have about these things, but a lot of schools already have external speaker programmes and many would welcome the calibre of speaker that Skeptics in the Pub attracts. Children are natural skeptics, they want to challenge authority and doctrine – help them do so.
Let me be clear: I know of, and hugely admire, the good work that many skeptics do, for example when they challenge the false advertising of "alternative" medicine and the inappropriate use of NHS funds, and expose the charlatans who make money by lying to the bereaved and desperate.
I'm glad there is a skeptic movement in the UK. I'm glad that skeptics have a sense of community and find ways to hang out together and celebrate their common beliefs. These things are important – ask any churchgoer. But if skeptics are going to live up to some of the crusading hype that often accompanies their rhetoric, they're going to have to step out of the pub far more often.Two Democratic members of President Obama’s fiscal commission are taking aim at a deal the president struck with the drug industry to pass healthcare reform in the last Congress.
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin Richard (Dick) Joseph DurbinKids confront Feinstein over Green New Deal Senate plots to avoid fall shutdown brawl Overnight Energy: Trump ends talks with California on car emissions | Dems face tough vote on Green New Deal | Climate PAC backing Inslee in possible 2020 run MORE (D-Ill.) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) have introduced legislation that would require the secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate lower prices for beneficiaries of the Medicare prescription drug program.
The legislation threatens a behind-the-scenes agreement Obama forged with Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) in 2009 to win the powerful trade association’s support for healthcare reform legislation.
In exchange for the president agreeing not to push a Democratic-favored proposal to empower the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices on behalf of all Medicare Part D beneficiaries, the drug industry also agreed to provide $80 billion worth of drug discounts to seniors, according to media reports and Democratic sources.
But now that healthcare reform is law and Republicans are pushing to cut billions of dollars from social programs, Democrats in Congress don’t feel bound by Obama’s agreement.
For Durbin, this is a long-running effort. "Sen. Durbin introduced this immediately after Medicare Modernization Act was enacted - previous to any deal - and has introduced it in each congress since. He'll continue to do so until all seniors have access to low cost prescription drugs," said Christina Mulka, Durbin's spokeswoman.
Durbin and Schakowsky estimate their legislation, which they unveiled late Friday, could save $20 billion a year in government spending.
“Our bill would save taxpayer dollars by giving Medicare beneficiaries the choice to participate in a Medicare Part D prescription drug plan run by Medicare, not private insurance companies,” Durbin said in a statement. “Seniors want the ability to choose a Medicare-administered drug plan. Let’s give them this option – just as they have this choice with every other benefit covered by Medicare.”
Schakowsy said: “By giving HHS negotiating power, seniors and people with disabilities would see lower drug prices through an alternative public plan.
“Importantly, this legislation has the potential for enormous savings to Medicare beneficiaries, but it would also reduce our country’s deficit,” she said.
Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.), senior Democratic member of the Commerce Committee, and Rep. Pete Stark (Calif.), senior Democrat on the Ways and Means health subcommittee, have cosponsored the legislation.
The legislation would set up Medicare-operated drug plans and task the secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate with drug companies on the prices of drugs provided through those plans. The Medicare Part D program is currently administered through private insurance companies.
The drug industry is among the most powerful special interests in Washington, and it would wage a fierce fight against Durbin’s and Schakowsk’s proposal.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said last month that additional savings need to be found in the nation’s healthcare accounts, Medicare and Medicaid.
Conrad said he personally favored empowering the secretary of health and human services to negotiate on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries but conceded the reform would be difficult to accomplish.
When asked if the deal Obama struck with the drug industry would pose an obstacle, Conrad demurred.
“It’s hard to do because it’s hard to do,” he said.
Conrad’s longtime home-state colleague, former Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) waged a long-running and ultimately unsuccessful battle against the drug industry to allow for the re-importation of cheaper pharmaceuticals into the country.
Liberal Democrats in the Senate and House were critical of the deal with PhRMA when news of it broke in the summer of 2009.
“Are industry groups going to be the ones at the table who get the first big piece of the pie and we just fight over the crust?” Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), co-chairman of the House progressive caucus, asked in The New York Times.
Families USA, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, SEIU and AFSCME support the Durbin-Schakowsky proposal.DHS Wants Travelers Entering The US To Include Their Social Media Handles... Just Because
from the maybe-they-want-to-be-friends dept
“Please enter information associated with your online presence—Provider/Platform—Social media identifier.”
It will be an optional data field to request social media identifiers to be used for vetting purposes, as well as applicant contact information. Collecting social media data will enhance the existing investigative process and provide DHS greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity and connections by providing an additional tool set which analysts and investigators may use to better analyze and investigate the case.
Late last week, a proposal from the Department of Homeland Security was published in the Federal Register concerning forms tourists need to fill out upon entering the US. Specifically, DHS proposed adding the following to Form I-94W, which is the Nonimmigrant Visa Waiver Arrival/Departure Record:Why? Well, it's pretty much exactly as you guessed:In other words, if you're following ISIS accounts on Twitter, DHS might not let you into the US. And sure, it's voluntary, but it looks like some in Congress aresaying that this sort of thing ought to be mandatory. Of course, for the vast majority of people, their social media profiles are going to be pretty boring for your average Customs and Border Patrol agent, but do we really think it's a good use of their time to be trolling through their Facebook and Twitter feeds or Instagram and Pinterest images?Overall, this seems like a typical kneejerk response to various concerns about letting people with ill-intent into the country. Eventually, someone travelling here on a tourist visa will do something horrendous, and people will look at who was friends with that person on Twitter or Facebook and freak out. But the idea that the government should be asking travelers for their social media info feels fairly intrusive. What people say on social media or who they're connected with seems likely to be a pretty poor indicator of whether or not they're coming to the US to blow stuff up.
Filed Under: cbp, customs and border patrol, dhs, social media, tourist visaRuss Klisch and I set out to rescue a |
the Grand Old Party.
The Democrats will have a tough time cobbling together an opposition, since their losses included some of their most respected and powerful members.. When the Republicans rode to power in the 2002 election, winning the House majority and installing Tom Craddick as Speaker, Democrats have relied on leader Jim Dunnam to throw bombs at Craddick’s hard-right, authoritarian leadership style. But Dunnam is out, beat by Marva Beck, a candidate few initially considered a serious challenge.
In addition to the political leadership, the Ds have also lost some of their major policy voices. Take, for example, state Rep. Jim McReynolds, the chair of the Corrections Committee, who lost to Tea Party Republican James White. As chairmen of the House Corrections Committee, McReynolds played a major role in trying to reform state prisons and beef up mental health services and drug therapy for offenders. He’s frequently reached across the aisle to work with others on such issues. Now we may see the corrections in Texas take an entirely new direction. Other committee chairs and vice-chairs are also gone: Mark Homer, the chair of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, Patrick Rose, the chair of Human Services, Allen Vaught, the vice chair of Defense and Veterans Affairs and Stephen Frost, the vice chair of Public Safety.
So all-in-all, it wasn’t a great night for Texas Democrats—it likely isn’t going to be a good session for them either.Five burning questions and answers about the Toronto Raptors' immediate future in the wake of their humbling Game 4 loss in the nation's capital that sealed a first-round sweep for the Washington Wizards:
1. What is the proper reaction to the news that the Raps got swept?
I've been trying to come up with something clever to soothe the basketball-loving locals in one of my favorite cities in the world.
Trying and failing.
Pretty sure that a friendly reminder that Toronto's first-ever NBA All-Star Weekend is a mere 293 days away won't bring much comfort to one of the league's top two or three most rabid fan followings. We've seen three sweeps already in this lopsided opening round of the NBA playoffs, with Portland still at risk as of this writing, but the Raps have already clinched Most Disappointing Team of Round 1.
You won't be able to find anyone on the planet who can prove they picked the Wizards, under any circumstances, to sweep the East's No. 4 seed.
Take all the time you want to search for evidence to disprove that theory.
2. What does such a meek exit mean for Dwane Casey's future?
In this particular series, Washington's Randy Wittman was widely presumed to be the Coach on the Hot Seat.
But things can change quickly when you get broomed out of the first round by a lower seed and its under-fire coach in a matchup that all of those ESPN experts project to go six or seven games.
We're exaggerating the experts part, but you get the point. Go winless in a No. 4-versus-No. 5 series and lose Game 4 in no-show fashion and people are going to instantly question the coach's job security.
The well-chronicled reality that Raptors president and general manager Masai Ujiri inherited Casey, as opposed to hiring him as his proverbial "own guy," inevitably only adds volume to the questions.
Offseason Outlooks ESPN.com's Marc Stein shares his scoop on what teams are thinking, while Insider Kevin Pelton examines what each team should explore this summer. NBA Offseason »
Initial indications, though, suggest that Casey will indeed be back next season, according to the latest whispers on the Toronto grapevine.
The fact Ujiri scheduled his end-of-season news conference for Tuesday, instead of taking an extra week to evaluate things like Sam Presti did in Oklahoma City, would also seem to bode well for Casey.
A few key points to bear in mind here:
• Casey only just completed the first season of a three-year extension.
• He happens to have done more winning than any other Raptors coach before him. In addition to back-to-back division titles and his role in helping Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan break through as All-Stars, Casey happens to be the most successful coach in team history... with a record of 154-158 (.494).
• The Raptors, for all their undeniable financial resources, also happen to be investing in a new practice facility, as well as their own D-League franchise, and presumably would not love the idea of absorbing the remaining money on the coach's contract if there was a sudden clamor to make a change.
The big knocks against Casey are (A) that Toronto was ousted in Round 1 despite sporting home-court advantage for the second spring running and (B) that he's known as a defensive specialist but couldn't prevent the Raps from slipping from No. 9 to No. 23 in defensive efficiency from last season to this season.
Then this series was so noncompetitive, especially in the Game 4 finale, that Casey's status inevitably becomes a prime post-series topic.
Yet it's only fair to note that the Raps, with memories of that Game 7 loss to Raps killer Paul Pierce and the Brooklyn Nets still fresh, declined to make a midseason acquisition (or two) to give the roster a boost.
It's a group that really could have used a new rim protector. Or a more dependable small forward. Or a Pierce-like vet to try to keep the locker room connected in tough time.
So you're moved to ask: Is it Casey's fault he couldn't keep the Raps in the league's upper third defensively with the personnel at his disposal?
Greg Fiume/Getty Images
3. What about the roster? How much change do you expect?
Even accounting for Ujiri's measured nature, I'd still brace for considerable change.
The evaluation here will be more drawn out. And the Raptors have a variety of directions they can go. Yet the early word on the personnel grapevine is that Lowry, DeRozan and big man Jonas Valanciunas (who's eligible for a contract extension this summer) are the only players on the roster who can feel with a healthy sense of confidence that they're likely to stay right where they are.
You likewise have to figure Lou Williams isn't far off lock-to-return status, either, after winning Sixth Man Award honors this month. But the Raptors' planning is really just beginning.
Ujiri was widely expected to blow up his roster early last season, only to be somewhat forced into standing pat when the Raptors -- Lowry specifically -- took off after Rudy Gay was dealt to Sacramento in December 2013. The swift and steep fall endured by this group, which closed on a 12-18 swoon after a 22-6 start, gives Ujiri ample justification to be as aggressive in launching a reboot as rivals expected months ago.
4. What does the future hold for Lou Williams specifically?
Lowry and DeRozan possess quite reasonable contracts considering both became All-Stars over the past two seasons.
How reasonable?
Lowry makes $12 million per season; DeRozan is at a mere $10 million annually.
So...
As long as the Raps can re-sign Williams at a palatable number of his own, it's believed they want him back, as well, no matter how badly they need frontcourt upgrades. Which speaks to the sort of splash Williams made in his first season in Canada, arriving via trade with Atlanta on the day before free agency commenced last summer and going on to win the league's highest honor for reserves.
5. What do the Raptors have working in their favor going forward?
Ujiri has neatly avoided bad contracts and maintained future flexibility, giving himself plenty of team-building options.
The Raptors, last we checked, also get to stay in the East, where teams are generally just one good trade away from legit contention.
Yet you're advised, with Ujiri, to rule nothing out. If he suddenly elects to plot a drastic course, like shopping Lowry in the most aggressive possible teardown, rival teams won't be surprised.
Irrespective of the justifiable fretting about the way the season ended, on top of the various health struggles that slowed Lowry down so much after his first All-Star appearance, there are reasons for optimism if you know where to look north of the border.
And we're not just referring to Toronto's looming opportunity to host All-Star Weekend for the first time.Planning your trip to Tokyo Disney Resort and its two parks, Tokyo Disneyland & Tokyo DisneySea, is an overwhelming experience. Not only are you planning a trip overseas, but traveling to a country where you may not speak the language or have knowledge of the culture. That’s where we come in with our updated Tokyo Disneyland Trip Planning Guide!
We’ve done all the hard work for you! We have researched and refined our guide to give you the best, and most accurate advice for planning your trip to Tokyo Disney Resort. After living in Japan for 5 years and many visits to both parks, I want to share my years of experience to help you plan the perfect vacation.
In addition to this guide, we’re also proud to offer our e-book that covers everything here but in greater detail over 200-pages. The best part is, you can download it right to your device and have it available offline. With over 1300 copies sold, it’s one of the best and most up-to-date published travel guides for Tokyo Disneyland.
If you’re now through March 2019, you’ll be happy to learn that the Resort is celebrating its 35th Anniversary. The Tokyo Disney Resort 35th Anniversary “Happiest Celebration!” is on from April 15, 2018, through March 25, 2019.
UPDATED: November 11, 2018
Table of Contents
Overview
Tokyo Disney Resort has two parks: Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. The resort itself is not in Tokyo, but in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, which is to the east of Tokyo. These are the only Disney Parks which are not owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company but rather owned by the Oriental Land Company, which licenses the brand from The Walt Disney Company.
Since the Walt Disney Company doesn’t own and operate Tokyo Disney Resort, it’s best to throw almost everything you know about planning a trip to a Disney Park as a lot of it won’t apply here. This guide makes sure you learn everything you need to know. I tell you this to save you frustration and confusion.
Tokyo Disneyland Park is the first Disney Park built outside of the US and opened on April 15, 1983. Modeled after the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World and Disneyland Park in California, this is the park most familiar to those who’ve visited the American resorts. The most noticeable difference is the World Bazaar, which is essentially a covered Main Street USA.
Tokyo DisneySea is the second park at the resort. It opened on September 4, 2001, at a cost of 335 billion yen (approx US$2.7 billion). Often referred to as the crown jewel of Disney Parks, Tokyo DisneySea is the 4th most visited theme park in the world. Consisting of seven themed ports of call (or lands), this ambitious theme park displays what is possible when Imagineers are given the freedom to explore their creativity.
When to Visit
The biggest challenge is deciding when you want to visit the resort. There are many factors that you need to take into account Japanese Holidays, weather, and school calendar. Public holidays in Japan are vastly different compared to other parts of the world.
Our updated guide tells you the best and worst times to visit, along with my recommendations for 2018 based on refurbishments, celebrations, and construction.
Here’s a quick summary:
The best time to visit is at the end of May for weather and crowds
The worst time is Golden Week (Beginning of May), New Years, and the month of March (Spring Break)
Best days to visit in general are Tuesday through Friday (always check park hours)
Use the Tokyo Disneyland Crowd Calendar to check your dates
Weekends
You may have heard the stories about weekends at Tokyo Disney Resort — that the parks are busy, crowded, and you wait for everything. The majority of this is true. As a general rule, you are best to avoid the weekends, if possible (exceptions do apply). Not all hope is lost if you find yourself visiting on a weekend.
Seasonal Events
The resort is a locals park, which results in OLC constantly offering something new (or updated) for guests. Events at both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea change with the seasons and sometimes in-between. Visiting in December versus May gives you a different experience. All the more reason to visit multiple times! Here’s a list of events at the resort over a given year.
These limited time events bring a variety of offerings for guests to enjoy. Live shows, parades, merchandise, and seasonal menus. Check the event calendar for 2019 here.
How Many Days
The largest number of days offered for a Park Ticket is a 4-Day Passport. The reason for this is a majority of its guests are locals who tend to consider 4 days long enough. If you plan on staying longer than 4 days in the parks, you’ll have to buy additional tickets.
If it’s your first time, I recommend at least 3 or 4 days. Read our full blog post that helps you decide how many days is best for you.
Park Tickets
After you decide how many days you wish to visit, next is purchasing your park tickets! Here’s a brief breakdown of options:
1-Day Passport Choose between Tokyo Disneyland or Tokyo DisneySea
2-Day Passport Visit Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea each day (no park hopping)
3-Day Magic Passport One day at each park followed by a park hopper day
4-Day Magic Passport One day at each park followed by two park hopper days
Starlight Passport Visit one park after 15:00 on weekends and public holidays
After 6 Passport Visit one park after 18:00 on weekdays (excluding public holidays)
Tickets are available 60 days in advance and I always recommend buying them before you get to the park. This avoids having to wait at the ticket booths and wasting precious time. If you’re staying at the Disney Hotels or Official Hotels (this includes Hilton Tokyo Bay and Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Hotel) then you have guaranteed park admission — even if the park is full — and you can buy them at the hotel.
You’re able to buy tickets online through the official website. Another option is buying your 1 or 2-day ticket through our affiliate Klook (read our disclosure). It’s quick, easy, and if you use our offer code KLKTDREX you’ll get $4 USD off your first order ($50 USD minimum order).
For more details on park tickets for Tokyo Disneyland read our comprehensive ticket guide.
Costs
Coming to Japan is pricey, depending on where you live. You will have to think about flights, hotel, food, transportation, and how many more suitcases you will need to buy to hold all your exclusive Disney merchandise!
Here’s a list of average costs for various items at the resort, keep in mind that prices do vary and are subject to change. Use xe.com to convert into your currency:
Food
Small Soft Drink or Coffee – ¥240
Set Meal at Counter Service Restaurant (Entree, drink, dessert) – ¥920 to ¥1500
Entree Only Meal – ¥600 to ¥900
Children’s Meal – ¥900
Snack (Churro, Popcorn, etc) – ¥310
Merchandise
Character Stuffed Keychain (Badge) – ¥2000
Pins – ¥1000
T-Shirt – ¥2000
Duffy the Disney Bear Outfit – ¥5000
Character Plush – ¥3800
Transportation
One Day Monorail Pass (on Resort) – ¥650
One-way JR Ticket from Tokyo Station – ¥220
One Day Car Parking – ¥2,500 (weekdays) and ¥3000 (weekends)
Flights
This is one of your biggest expenses when traveling to Japan, no matter where you are in the world. There are some ways to cut this cost, follow our detailed guide for more details. I also recommend setting up alerts with Google Flights with your dates. On average the best time to book a flight is about 3-months in advance.
There are two airports you can fly into:
Narita Airport (just outside of Tokyo)
Haneda Airport (within Tokyo)
Each airport has shuttle buses that will get you to Tokyo Disney Resort if you are staying on Resort. If Tokyo Disney Resort is part of a larger trip and you are staying off-site, there are plenty of options for you to get to the resort. Japan is well-known for its world-renowned public transportation.
Getting There
As mentioned, Japan is world-famous for its excellent transportation system. English-language information is readily available at most major stations in Tokyo, so figuring out where to go is not impossible. Getting to the resort from Narita or Haneda Airport is intimidating, though.
Our full guide gives you all the details on how to get to Tokyo Disney Resort from the airport by various means and budgets.
JR Rail Pass
If you’re staying in Japan longer than 7 days and plan on visiting other parts of the country, I recommend buying the JR Rail Pass. Which gives you unlimited use of certain trains in Japan for different time periods. As an example, the cost of a bullet train (shinkansen) ride round-trip to Tokyo is just under the cost of the 7-day pass. To see if this is right for you, our informative blog post gives you a price breakdown.
Accommodations / Hotels
You have a variety of choices for hotels. All of which depends on your budget and time in Japan. A list of hotels on and near the resort is available on the official Tokyo Disney Resort website in English. Read our growing list of Tokyo Disney Resort Hotel reviews and recommendations to help decide what’s best for you. We cover both Disney and non-Disney hotels.
Be sure to read our full guide to Disney Hotels for further details. We also have a guide on how to book Disney and Non-Disney Hotels.
Here is a summary of your hotel options (in order of cheapest to most expensive):
Disney Hotels
Guests staying at the Disney Hotels receive the following benefits:
Park Ticket Sales (includes Special Park Hopper tickets)
Guaranteed Admission
Complimentary Monorail Passes
Entrance to the parks 15 minutes before regular guests
Tokyo Disney Resort Official Hotels
Guests staying at these hotels receive are able to buy park tickets right at the hotel. Also guaranteed admission to the park, even on sold out days. These hotels include Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Hotel and Hilton Tokyo Bay Hotel, which is a popular option for guests.
Tokyo Disney Resort Partner Hotels
These hotels are located in and around the Tokyo Disney Resort area. All of which include park ticket sales and free bus shuttle service to and from the Resort.
Tokyo Disney Resort Good Neighbor Hotels
If Tokyo Disney Resort is part of a bigger trip to Japan, then staying at one of these centrally located hotels is an option. All of which include shuttle services to and from the Resort. Note that they do not offer park ticket sales nor guarantee admission into the park. You are best to buy tickets ahead of time.
What to Bring
Japan has four distinct seasons, which means what you bring to the parks will vary depending on the weather. Do not worry if you think you are bringing too much. Lockers are available at various locations throughout the resort for use.
As a general rule, the following items are essential for you to bring:
Read our full article on what to pack for Tokyo Disney Resort!
Eating & Dining
A concern for many overseas guests is what to expect for food offerings at the resort. While the focus is on the local tastes, there are plenty of food choices for those who are not as adventurous. Burgers, fried chicken, and chicken nuggets are options.
For those of you who want to try something different, there is no shortage of options. Japan takes their cuisine seriously and Tokyo Disney Resort does everything to cater to the local tastes and expectations. All menu items are on display as plastic food near the front of the restaurant to help you decide on your choice. (How convenient is that?!)
Seasonal menu items are rotated throughout the year as a “special set.” We recommend trying these dishes, as they offer usually an entrée, dessert, and drink. Another option is the Souvenir Set, which includes merchandise that is only available by purchasing that set. Check the food display cases to see these!
Counter Service
These are the “fast food” restaurants where you order at the counter. Your typical burgers, fries, and pizza are found at some of these locations. Other locations also serve more than your fast food, such as sandwiches, curry, Japanese udon, and seafood. The level of quality of most counter service restaurants at both parks outshines other Disney Parks in both theming and quality. Read my top 10 counter service restaurants for more details.
Table Service
Looking for an experience that goes beyond simple counter service? Table service restaurants range from mid-end (¥3000 per plate) to the high-end (¥8000 per plate). Disney Hotel guests may book their reservations online ahead of time. If you are not a Disney Hotel guest you can book a table in the park for that day. We recommend getting your reservation early in the day to guarantee your table.
As mentioned early, Tokyo Disney Resort caters primarily to local Japanese guests, the service at these restaurants are second to none. No other Disney Park comes close to the Japanese hospitality. While there can be language difficulties (see our section on language), the experience is wonderful and is crucial to your experience at Tokyo Disney Resort.
Snacks
You have seen the photos on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Photos of the various cute, adorable, and ever-changing snacks at the Resort. One could easily survive off snacks alone during their entire visit! While we do not recommend trying that, it is certainly fun to try some of the different delectable choices. With all the cute, delicious, and Instagram-worthy deliciousness, it is hard not to open up your wallet.
While some snacks are available year-round, some are seasonal (much like the special sets at Counter Service restaurants). Grab a Japanese Park map and take a look inside. They list all the seasonal snacks (with pictures) and their locations. While it is in Japanese, simply take it to a Cast Member and they will point you in the right direction.
“Where is this?”
これはどこですか？
ko-re wa doh-ko de-su-ka?
Use that simple Japanese above and the Cast Member will know exactly what you are talking about. Just make sure you are pointing to the item on the map.
Popcorn
Technically a snack, but this deserves its very own section. Popcorn one of the most popular snacks at the resort. Given the number of flavours (limited and regular) and the many souvenir buckets to buy, it is no secret that everyone loves it. If you only have one snack make sure it is the delicious popcorn from Tokyo Disney Resort!
Hotel Restaurants
Each of the Disney Hotels has a variety of restaurants to choose from. From table service to buffets to character dining.
Character Dining
A small number of character dining options are available to guests. One at each park and one at the Disney Ambassador Hotel.
Chef Mickey at Disney Ambassador Hotel
Horizon Bay Restaurant in Tokyo DisneySea
Money & Credit Cards
Japan is a cash-based society, and by always having Japanese yen on-hand, you guarantee yourself to not run into problems. However, sometimes having to use your credit card is unavoidable. Tokyo Disney Resort accepts major credits cards. There are a few points to keep in mind:
Credit cards are swiped, there are no terminals to enter your pin (Some places in Japan have these but the majority of the resort does not have these terminals).
Most locations at the resort take credit card. Small food carts may or may not.
Your card MUST have a signature on the back.
Chip and pin cards should work but have been known to cause issues.
If your card is a credit card but also a debit card, they may or may not take it. Even though your card may actually be a credit card with debit functionality.
Bring a backup credit card for when yours does not swipe or work.
Some purchases (hotel charges, etc.) have been known to take up to one month to appear on your statement.
Call your bank to tell them you are using it in Japan to avoid having your card locked
Cast Members ask you how many payments you want your purchase split across, which is not something that is done in North America. They will default to asking you if you want it as one payment. They will do the hand motion for one. Simply say “Yes”.
Now, what about cash? 7-11 ATMs are your best option for taking out Japanese yen directly from your bank account back home. Only one 7-11 ATM exists on Resort and is found in Ikspiari (Tokyo Disney Resort’s version of Downtown Disney). Menus are available in English and other languages. Remember to tell your bank before you head on your trip.
How much money should you take out? It would depend on your banking fees – the higher the fees per transaction, the more you should take out to avoid paying more fees.
Budget at least ¥10,000 per person (about $100) for one full day at the parks. This includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, drinks, and merchandise. ¥10,000 is one note which makes it easier to carry around.
Internet & Data
Tokyo Disneyland does not have free public Wi-Fi in the Parks. This makes it a bit tough to stay connected. Recently, Japan has made it easier for visitors to get SIM cards and mobile hotspots while in the country. Wi-Fi is available in the Disney Hotels for free (the other hotels you need to check their website).
If you have an unlocked phone, a SIM card is your best choice. For those with a carrier-locked phone, there are mobile hotspots for rental.
While out and about in Japan various locations offer free wifi hotspots:
Japanese Language
You do not have to speak Japanese to enjoy your time at the parks. All the important signs and food menus are in English, and if you need assistance in English a Cast Member will find someone for you. Someone who speaks a level of English is always available in the hotels and guest relations.
While many of the shows have English lyrics, many of the story elements are in Japanese. The stories are simple enough that you are able to get the gist of what’s happening. Shows in the Mediterranean Harbour are a bit harder to follow story-wise for non-Japanese speaking guests, but they look fantastic so just sit back and enjoy!
Knowing the basics and key phrases in Japanese will help you immensely. Cast Members and people, in general, appreciate you attempting to speak their language. We have two simple guides which give you some basic Japanese phrases, specific to the parks. If you are not comfortable with speaking you can always print out the sheet too!
Cultural Differences
Traveling to a foreign country comes with experiencing first-hand cultural differences. Even if you are a Disney veteran some things are simply done differently at Tokyo Disney Resort. Here are a few cultural differences you will notice immediately:
Smaller portion sizes for most food items. Overall, Japanese eat smaller portions than Western countries. You may find yourself eating more often simply because of this.
Guests are typically quiet on attractions. This includes thrill rides. While guests will scream out in laughter and enjoyment, do not be alarmed if most guests in your car are quiet as a mouse.
Sitting for parades is the norm and for most spots, you are required to sit for the entire show. Bring your leisure sheet, snacks, and favourite distraction, and get cozy while you wait for the next parade!
When paying for an item or after a meal, do not hand the cash (or credit card) over directly to the cashier, unless they put their hand out. There is a small dish for you to place your cash or credit card in. The cashier will put your change, card, and receipt back into the dish for you to pick up. This not only applies to the resort but Japan.
Making customizations of your food is uncommon at the resort and around Japan. If the cheeseburger comes with tomato on it, that is what you will receive. Asking for a customization can cause unneeded confusion. Unless you have an allergy, it is easier to alter your order yourself after you sit down at your table.
Attractions
Both parks offer unique attractions not found at any other Disney Park, along with slightly altered versions to their US counterparts. Make it a priority to ride these attractions to experience the best of Tokyo Disney Resort! The following lists include unique and/or popular attractions at the parks.
Download the TDR Dash wait time app on iOS and Android.
Read our full attractions guide for both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. Where we go into great detail explaining which attractions to ride and a guide to FastPasses.
Tokyo Disneyland Must Ride Attractions
Pooh’s Hunny Hunt is by far the best attraction at the resort in terms of theme, technology, and enjoyment factor. This means the wait times are usually high and the FastPasses run out quickly. Monsters, Inc. is another popular attraction which also has high wait times. Our suggestion is, grab a FastPass for Monsters Inc, then head straight to Pooh’s Hunny Hunt first thing in the morning. Once you have those out of the way, you are able to enjoy the rest of your day and start checking off that list.
Tokyo DisneySea Must Ride Attractions
While not unique to Tokyo DisneySea, Toy Story Mania! is the most popular attraction at the park. Wait times easily go over 3 hours on weekends and busy days. FastPasses run out rather quickly. If you have experienced this attraction at other Disney Parks, you can easily skip this and not miss too much. If you have never had the pleasure of experiencing Toy Story Mania! then make this your first attraction in the morning.
Journey to the Center of the Earth is easily the best thrill ride at the park. The painstaking detail in the queue and attraction itself make it worth waiting for. The waits get long on this one, so if you skip Toy Story Mania! make this your first choice of the day.
Not all rides have thrilling drops and over the top special effects. If you want to take it easy and relax, the Venetian Gondolas and the DisneySea Transit Steamer Line are the ticket. Experience it for yourself to see what we mean.
It is easy to spend your entire day riding attractions and waiting in lines. Jot down which attractions you must ride ahead of time and make your day that much easier.
Shows & Entertainment
Arguably, Tokyo Disney Resort has some of the best live entertainment ranging from an over-the-top swinging jazz show to seasonal entertainment in which guests are hosed down by Mickey Mouse himself. If you are a fan of parades and live entertainment, you have no shortage of options. Here are our recommendations for entertainment at Tokyo Disney Resort!
Read our full guides to entertainment for both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea.
Tokyo Disneyland
Tokyo DisneySea
This is a living, breathing guide with the goal to offer the best and most up-to-date information on planning for Tokyo Disney Resort. If you have any suggestions or comments, please let us know in the comments!
Keep up with the latest from Tokyo Disney Resort by subscribing to TDRExplorer and following us on Twitter & Facebook.
If you found this article useful, please share this with your friends, family, and followers! We want everyone to experience the best of Tokyo Disney Resort. Start planning your trip with our guide to Tokyo Disney Resort!
Select photos provided by Duy Phan Photography unless otherwise stated.
RelatedThe Orleans Township Board in Michigan has finally figured out the problem with America: Not enough Christianity.
That’s why all five board members unanimously voted this week to say a prayer at the beginning of all their future meetings:
“I brought it up, as I know of another nearby township that has been doing this for years,” [Supervisor Jim Patrick] said. “It’s been bothering me, because in America in general, we’re doing so much to take God out of everybody’s life.” Patrick said the invocation will be on a voluntary basis between board members, and in the event that no board member chooses to deliver a prayer, he will do so.
Well, isn’t that convenient…
There doesn’t appear to be any way for atheists, Pagans, Hindus, Muslims, or any non-Christians to deliver their own invocations, which means the board members are just setting themselves up for a lawsuit in which they’ll be throwing away taxpayer money to fix a problem of their own creation.
All because Patrick doesn’t think it’s enough to pray at church, at home, before the meeting, after the meeting, in the car, or in his head. He has to do it only when everyone else is watching and no one who believes differently from him gets to participate.
(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to Brian for the link)A Denver couple decided to change their baby’s diaper in the seating area of a Starbuck’s when they realized the coffee shop’s restroom wasn’t equipped with a changing table. Ruth and Alex Burgos were making a Friday night coffee run with their 1-year-old son Thiago when they were faced with the must-change nappy.
“As a mother, you have to do what you have to do. Wherever you have to do it,” Ruth told 9News. “I just kind of wiped him off, cleaned him off as quickly as I could.”
A Starbucks employee was displeased by the Burgos’ choice and tossed a rag at the couple while shouting out rude comments. “You better clean that seat,” the barista said, and then proceeded to laugh with fellow employees.
The father Alex was irritated by the employee’s demeaning tone and dumped his drink onto the floor and said, “You make sure you clean that up,” according to USA Today.
One of the employees called 911 and cops came onto the scene. No arrests were made. Starbucks has since apologized to the Burgos family.
This story raises the question, What is appropriate and inappropriate when it comes to changing diapers outside the house? I think it all depends on the situation, the severity of the diaper (wet or dirty?) and how discreetly it can be changed. Parents need to use their best judgement. But generally, I think you should always aim to change a diaper in a private place and it’s an especially bad idea to change a dirty diaper in a public place where people are consuming food and beverages.You are never too old to benefit from a plant-based diet and I am living proof. Shortly before my 80th birthday, my son-in-law John Corry started sharing information about a documentary he was working on called Forks Over Knives. The evidence of improved health provided by reputable scientists was quite convincing.
Although I was in good health, I thought I’d test some of their claims. I exercised regularly, kept my weight under control except for a mid-section pouch, and was energetic for my age. I began slowly, first eliminating animal meat from my diet. Then I excluded fish, and most processed sugar and oils. The most drastic change was saying “no more” to dairy and eggs. I had a serious addiction to frozen yogurt. I drank milk. I liked cheese. Thankfully the super markets all carry vegetable-based cheeses and I discovered almond milk was delicious on my cereal.
The changes were noticeable from the start. The tummy pouch melted away as I dropped about 14 pounds. My energy level went up several notches. Prior to going on the plant-based diet I found by late afternoon I was done for the day. Now I can keep going late into the evening, requiring less sleep than I used to. I feel more alert.
Most surprising to me was that I no longer have any desire to eat meat or dairy. I related to Dr. Melanie Joy’s article in the recent newsletter which describes a vegan’s deepening connection with food, self, and animals. I find myself filled with empathy for the painful sacrifices made by animals in order to fill our grocery stores with cuts of meat.
I am aware of what foods my body needs and sometimes scrap plans to prepare a meal I had intended because I sense my body requires a different type of nutrient. Meal preparation was always a chore. But once I started eating fresh fruits and vegetables I began to look forward to cooking. I’ve “invented” all sorts of entrees as I experiment with seasonings, sauces and grains. The plant-based diet has added a new dimension to my life. It’s never too late to start feeling great.Turkish army howitzers stationed inside Turkey, shelled DAESH targets in Jarablus and the PKK's Syrian affiliate Democratic Union Party's (PYD) areas in northern Manbij late Monday, a Turkish official said. The official also said that DAESH and PYD presence in Jarablus was "unacceptable."
Speaking to Daily Sabah on the condition of anonymity, the official said that Turkey is taking military precautions regarding the developments in Jarablus and that the prime target was DAESH, not the PYD.
The official said that the presence of DAESH or the Syrian wing of the PKK in the Syrian town on the Turkish border was "unacceptable."
The official also said that the U.S.-led anti-DAESH coalition forces were informed about the Turkish strike on PYD targets in Manbij.
The Turkish military launched artillery strikes on DAESH and PYD positions in northern Syria, hitting the targets around 20 times "to open a corridor for the moderate opposition," another official told Reuters.
Ankara has frequently voiced its concern over the the PYD's armed People's Protection Units' (YPG) activity along the Turkish border and has been rigid in its stance in not allowing the PYD militant group to found any kind of de facto Kurdish state in northern Syria. Ankara claims the PYD enjoys close connections with the PKK, including militant and ammunition support through underground tunnels.
Earlier Monday, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu reiterated that Turkey was determined to fight DAESH terrorists inside Turkey and in Syria, after a suicide bomber attacked a wedding party, killing at least 54 people, many of them children.
Çavuşoğlu said that Turkey would provide every kind of support needed to "cleanse" Turkey's border with Syria of terrorists.
Turkish military fires shells at DAESH targets
The Turkish military fired 40 shells at four DAESH terrorist targets in Syria, in retaliation to mortar shells that struck the southeastern Gaziantep province.
According to military sources, two mortar shells fired by DAESH terrorists hit Gaziantep's Karkamış district early Tuesday and the Turkish military immediately retaliated.
No injuries or deaths were reported following the incident, but security closed the area to all entries and exits as part of precautionary measures.
Occasional stray rockets and mortars land in southern and southeastern Turkey due to the civil war in neighboring Syria. Despite a cease-fire in the war-torn country, violence still persists in the area.Abstract Following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants in 2011, a large |
reality is: having a child needs to also be a logistical matter. One where women need to also think about money, time, and the possibility of single parenthood. After all, the wage gap is real — putting the responsibility of children on women only is pretty damn unfair.
From the beginning: The From the beginning: The cost of giving birth, without complications is about $15,000. Nerd Wallet recently analyzed the cost of having a baby with a $40,000 and $200,000 annual income level. For those on the lower end of the income spectrum, which is the majority of people in the United States, the potential first year costs of having a baby was $21,248. This is a price tag to which over 50 percent of surveyed Americans drastically underestimated. At least 36 percent thought a baby would cost only $1,000 to $5,000 the first year.
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Consider those costs along with the fact that the average American graduate student is also about $37,172 in debt, a number that only goes up. No amount of “miracle of life” is going to make that debt go away.
This math gets to me every time I pay my credit card bills. I literally can’t afford to be a mother and I definitely don’t want to be one by surprise.
I see the joy in other families’ eyes and a tiny part of me thinks about children in the future.
looking at data of 1.77 million Americans and parents from other wealthy countries, found that people who were happier with children were those who made a deliberate choice to be parents. Maybe for them, unconditional love can offload some of the stress. Or maybe they were actually prepared for the costs of having a child. Researchers looking at data of 1.77 million Americans and parents from other wealthy countries, found that people who were happier with children were those who made a deliberate choice to be parents. Maybe for them, unconditional love can offload some of the stress. Or maybe they were actually prepared for the costs of having a child.
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But as long as a family is part of the low- and middle-income group, there’ll always be an But as long as a family is part of the low- and middle-income group, there’ll always be an increased risk of high blood pressure, arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, and more. Families who earn $100,000 annually have a 50 percent decrease in risk for chronic bronchitis than those who earn $50,000 to $74,999 annually. That’s a lot of health risks to consider.
Love isn’t enough to raise a child
I’ll admit, love can help ease the weight of stress. My friends see how much I love my dog and say it’s a sign I’m going to be a great mother. He’s a show dog with certificates and awards and gets the best I can afford. In human terms? He got the best education.
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Let’s put the money argument aside in terms of education. There are only so many states that have educational standards I agree with. America’s public education system, with the current political climate, is unknown. This makes the planner inside me hesitant to pop out a kid unless I can ensure a stellar education for them.
Sure, parenting style plays a huge role in a person’s upbringing too. But then I think back to when I was 6 and my parents raised their voices at us, unintentionally taking out their stress on my brother and me. I can see my 20-year-old self like it was yesterday: sitting in my cousins’ living room, turning up the TV volume so their kids would only hear Mickey Mouse instead of the shouting.
My dad constantly apologizes these days and I always say, “It’s okay, I understand,” but secretly I wonder how much all that shouting and stress has impacted me.
I say it doesn’t impact me now, but a part of me believes it has. It must’ve.
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I have my father’s temper, and I don’t want to ever be in a place where I’m apologizing 10 years later, unsure if I can ever assuage my guilt.
It’s why they say it takes a village to raise a child. Love, on its own, isn’t enough.
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The huge carbon footprint of being a mother
My grandma tells me to change my mind because I’ll get old and lonely. I joke that I’ll live in my best friend’s basement as the troll aunt who kids visit when they’re behaving badly.
I’m not joking.
Other people’s kids are wonderful in the way library books are. When you’re not sure you want your own copy, give it a trial run. It’s incredibly environmentally friendly, mutually beneficial, and somehow the most rational choice for social good.
Wanting or not wanting to have kids is not about money, gender gaps, hypothetical stress, or age. It’s just about the limited resources we have and an experience that can’t be replaced by tech.
One American child produces as much carbon footprint as 106 Haitian kids. Mother Jones
There’s only one Earth and with There’s only one Earth and with 7,508,943,679 (and counting) people slowly crowding it, not having children is one way of not adding to the problem of climate change and global warming. Not having children is probably the greatest going-green promise I can keep. And with the small allotted time and patience I do have for children, I can offer to parents who need a little break for themselves.
The underestimated weight of wanting to be a good mother
My grandma's friend once called me selfish for not wanting to have children. In a way she’s right. If I had the money, if I lived in a city with good education, if I could reduce at least 20 percent of the stress and find the right balance of circumstances so my child wouldn’t make the world a worse place — yeah, I’d have a mini-me.
Author Lisa Hymas wrote for Author Lisa Hymas wrote for Rewire in 2011 about her decision to not be a mother due to environmental reasons. She also mentioned that real reproductive freedom “has to include social acceptance of the decision not to reproduce.”
It dismisses the stigma that people are meant to be parents, relieves pressure for those who don’t want to be parents, makes sure that children are born who are truly wanted.
It’s 2017, not 1851. Nobody’s purpose in life is ever to just copy and paste. Until I can guarantee my children can have a better childhood than mine, they’ll never come to be. And to the people who keep asking (especially if you aren't family), please stop asking.
Stop assuming that all women want children and it's just a matter of when. Some people can't have children, some people don't want children, and all these people don't owe any explanation to anyone.
Christal Yuen is an editor at Healthline.com. She regrets telling her grandma that she started seeing someone, but at least, for now, her grandma has a new set of questions to repeat, which is distractedly more pleasant than the old set of questions.For the White House, this has meant accepting a Russian role in the region but hoping that Moscow will appreciate the risk of becoming bogged down. That, they hope, will raise the costs of backing Mr. Assad and force Russia to work sincerely on a political transition that will lead to the Syrian leader’s departure.
“Knock yourselves out,” one Obama administration official said, mocking Mr. Putin’s bravado about forming a grand coalition in Syria.
For the Kremlin, it means restoring enough stability to Syria to win acceptance of an expanded role for Russia in the Middle East — not to speak of its expanded military presence. Such a development, in the Kremlin’s view, would also validate Mr. Putin’s contention that toppling authoritarian governments in the Middle East has led only to chaos and sanctuaries for terrorists.
Two speeches, one reception and a meeting later, there was no hint that the two leaders had substantially narrowed the chasm between them on their principal disagreement: the future of Mr. Assad.Inter goalkeeper Samir Handanovic has revealed he wants to stay at the club.
The 30-year-old Slovenian’s current deal expires in June 2016 and there had been suggestions he was looking to leave the Nerazzurri for Champions League football, though he is now close to extending his Stadio Meazza stay.
“When there are no contracts to fight for, everyone does their part,” he told Inter Channel.
“I would like to say that I am close an agreement to stay here [at Inter] and I am happy about that.
“We have to forget about last season and start again. This could be the right year to take the club to where it deserves to be.
“The fact we aren’t playing in a [European] cup isn’t so bad, it could be an advantage for us and could be a turning point.”I love vim and often use it to write Python code. Here are some useful plugins and tools for building a delightful vim python environment, escpecially for Vim8:
As you can see, tmux is also one of my favourite tools in terminal.
Syntax Checking
If you use Vim8, w0rp/ale is a better option than syntastic, for it utilizes the async feature in Vim8, you will never get stuck due to the syntax checking. It’s similar to flycheck in emacs, which allows you to lint while you type.
(taken from ale)
Code Formatter
google/yapf can be used to format python code. Make a key mapping as bellow, then you can format your python code via <LocalLeader> =.
autocmd FileType python nnoremap < LocalLeader >= : 0, $! yapf < CR >
You can also take a look at Chiel92/vim-autoformat.
Sort Import
timothycrosley/isort helps you sort imports alphabetically, and automatically separated into sections. For example, use <LocalLeader>i to run isort on your current python file:
autocmd FileType python nnoremap < LocalLeader > i :! isort % < CR >< CR >
Or you can use its vim plugin: fisadev/vim-isort.
Update: ALE now has a command ALEFix for autofixing. Concerning code formatter and sort import, you could do that by merely configuring ALE properly. I’d love to put these in ftplugin/python.vim:
let b:ale_linters = [ 'flake8' ] let b:ale_fixers = [ \'remove_trailing_lines', \ 'isort', \ 'ale#fixers#generic_python#BreakUpLongLines', \ 'yapf', \ ] nnoremap < buffer > < silent > < LocalLeader >= : ALEFix < CR >
If you want to fix files automatically on save:
let g:ale_fix_on_save = 1
Now you have the support of syntax checking and autofixing with one ALE! As a matter of fact, ALE also has a plan to support auto-completion via LSP. Keep watching this amazing project if you are interested.
Auto Completion
Valloric/YouCompleteMe is a good way to provide code auto completion. It has several completion engines, aside from Python, C, C++, Rust, Go and Javascript are also supported. Whereas a bunch of people also think YCM is too huge and need to be compiled, then jedi-vim is an alternative. They all use jedi as their backend.
(from jedi-vim)
What’s more, I know many people use Shougo/deoplete.nvim. Thanks to the async API, some more hopeful completion plugins are borned:
maralla/completor.vim is an code completion framework for Vim8, and support NeoVim too.
(from Completor)
roxma/nvim-completion-manager also provides experimental support for Vim8. prabirshrestha/asyncomplete.vim is a fork of nvim-completion-manager in pure vim script with python dependency removed.
(from NCM)
Update: Unfortunately, NCM is not maintained any more.
Update again: ncm2, the successor of NCM, comes out! coc.nvim is also promising.
Quick Run
If use Vim8, you can execute python file asynchronously by skywind3000/asyncrun.vim and output automatically the result to the quickfix window like this:
" Quick run via <F5> nnoremap < F5 > : call < SID > compile_and_run ()< CR > function! s:compile_and_run () exec 'w' if & filetype == 'c' exec "AsyncRun! gcc % -o %<; time./%<" elseif & filetype == 'cpp' exec "AsyncRun! g++ -std=c++11 % -o %<; time./%<" elseif & filetype == 'java' exec "AsyncRun! javac %; time java %<" elseif & filetype =='sh' exec "AsyncRun! time bash %" elseif & filetype == 'python' exec "AsyncRun! time python %" endif endfunction " Deprecated: " augroup SPACEVIM_ASYNCRUN " autocmd! " " Automatically open the quickfix window " autocmd User AsyncRunStart call asyncrun#quickfix_toggle(15, 1) " augroup END " " asyncrun now has an option for opening quickfix automatically let g:asyncrun_open = 15
For neovim, neomake/neomake is worthy of trying. Here is the description from neomake’s README:
It is intended to replace the built-in :make command and provides functionality similar to plugins like syntastic and dispatch.vim. It is primarily used to run code linters and compilers from within Vim, but can be used to run any program.
Another approach is to use TMUX. The idea is simple: it can split your terminal screen into two. Basically, you will have one side of your terminal using Vim and the other side will be where you run your scripts.
Enhance the default python syntax highlighting
python-mode/python-mode provides a more precise python syntax highlighting than the defaults. For example, you can add a highlighting for pythonSelf.
hi pythonSelf ctermfg = 68 guifg = #5f87d7 cterm = bold gui = bold
For more customized python syntax highlightings, please see space-vim-dark theme and syntax/python.vim in python-mode/python-mode. You can also put them after color command.
Actually, python-mode contains tons of stuff to develop python applications in Vim, e.g., static analysis, completion, documentation, and more. (But personally, I prefer to obtain the functionalities by some other better plugins.)
Python text objects
vim-pythonsense provides text objects and motions for Python classes, methods, functions, and doc strings.
LSP
The concept of Language Server Protocol has been around for quite a while, many languages already have a decent LSP support. So far LSP is the only way to bring in various features similar to IDE for the text editors in a standard way. To do that, you need to install the correspoding language server and a LSP client to interact with it.
LCN implements the LSP client in Rust, so it obviously has an outstanding performance compared to others written in vimscript or lua. Most LSP clients are usable now, but far from perfect:
simple and crude UI
poor performance
Still a long way to go :).
Summary
There are also some neccessary general programming plugins, e.g.
scrooloose/nerdcommenter for convenient commenter.
Yggdroot/indentLine or nathanaelkane/vim-indent-guides for visually displaying indent levels in Vim.
fzf and fzf.vim for fuzzy file searching, also vim-fz and fzy.
……
Although vim is great and many plugins are productive, IDE is still my first choice when it comes to refactoring code and debugging:). Some useful links for debugging python:
For detailed vim configuration, please refer to space-vim. Enable ycmd / lsp, auto-completion, syntax-checking, python, programming Layer, then you could get a nice vim environment for python like the above screenshot. Enjoy!
⤧ Next post Vim Port of spacemacs-theme ⤧ Previous post Switch from spacemacs to vim painlesslyBob Chapman | November 19, 2008
What you are now witnessing is the slow motion destruction of the CRIMEX, formerly known as the COMEX, a commodities futures market which is supposed to provide a means for producers to hedge their products, but which has morphed into a rigged casino where commodities that don't exist are traded as if they did for prices that exist only in the fairytales woven by the Illuminati, who control the exchange. This destruction is what happens when the credibility and integrity of the market owners and managers of the CRIMEX, together with the credibility and integrity of the market regulators, the CFTC, move from near zero to negative infinity.
Not only do the owners and regulators do absolutely nothing about obvious criminal manipulations and illegal concentrations of short positions, but also we believe that they conspire with the criminal operators, which we refer to as "commercial shorts," to aid and abet their criminal mischief by divulging the precise nature of the trading positions of the "spec longs" who take the other side of the contracts, thus allowing pinpoint attacks on black-box formulations, especially where stops have been placed, thereby minimizing the cost of the manipulations by preventing the waste associated with overkill. Also, the owners and regulators change margin requirements, and whitewash investigations of obvious illegalities, whenever it serves to protect the commercial shorts, thus making a mockery out of the exchange and transforming what are supposed to be free markets into crony capitalist, corporatist fascist systems of syndicated piracy. This lack of integrity and criminal manipulation is the most pronounced in the gold and silver commodity markets, but many other types of commodities are under manipulation as well, especially oil, base metals and agricultural produce, meaning most of the rest of the exchange.
The despicable, nefarious dealings of the miscreant CRIMEX owners and regulators is quickly catching up to them in the precious metals markets of the exchange, and soon every one of the spec longs is going to pick up their toys and go home, and if the specs have any brains or sense of justice, they will take as much of the CRIMEX gold and silver with them when they leave by paying cash for it and taking delivery of it.
Since the end of October, when open interest for the December gold contract started a new series of decreases as the rollovers got off to any early start, the December open interest has fallen from 190,140 to this past Friday's 122,902, yet total open interest has fallen from 305,451 to 285,219 during that same period.
Thus, of the 67,238 December contracts that have been terminated in the rollover thus far, total open interest has plummeted by 20,232 contracts, meaning that many of the contracts are not being rolled over, and are being cashed out instead. If this 30% ratio persists, we could see gold open interest fall to under 250,000, a multi-year low, an astonishing drop of 58% from the peak of 593,953 contracts set on January 15, 2008.
This is an absolute disgrace for the CRIMEX owners and regulators, and we wish them well in the ensuing bankruptcies and criminal investigations that will occur after the exchange collapses. No one wants to play in a game where the owners and sponsors are in cahoots with certain privileged players to make sure they come out on top. In addition, we note that no commodities market can survive without speculators who provide balance to the markets by taking the other side of contracts and by keeping the pendulum of market momentum alternating between bulls and bears. Otherwise the markets lean to far to one side or the other, and then bubble and/or collapse due to the lopsided positions. Once the precious metals markets of the exchange collapse, all the other markets will soon follow, as everyone realizes that the whole system is rigged against them. The CRIMEX will soon be ostracized from participation by honest market players. The criminal manipulators will soon find themselves traipsing in and out of court in endless investigations, and they will be forced to sit in their bedrooms, lonesome, because their is no one left who wants to play with them.
In a stunning new development, the Dubai Multi-Commodities Center is now putting the finishing touches on the formation of an exchange traded fund for silver with a launch likely next month as demand for silver has surged in the past six months. What may be happening here is that the OPEC nations, and possibly also Russia, are setting up a counterbalance against the collapse of oil prices. You may recall from past issues that we discussed at length how we thought that sovereign wealth funds in oil-rich nations were tweaking gold and silver upward every time oil was smashed by the Illuminist manipulators. The message was, you leave oil alone, or we will send gold and silver to the moon and expose your destruction of the US economy by killing the canaries in the coal mines, thus ringing the gold and silver alarm bells loud and clear. This makes the Illuminists rabid, and induces collective myocardial infarctions among them, because precious metal suppression, especially of gold, is JOB ONE at the Fed. The failure to cap the price of gold was Paul Volcker's only regret as Fed Head during his handling of the inflationary crisis of the late 70's and early 80's, and the privately owned, Illuminist Fed does not intend to make the same mistake twice.
The Illuminati have made two major mistakes, and the Dubai exchange may be the OPEC solution to the oil takedown, which is the direct result of those mistakes. The first mistake is that the Illuminati gave OPEC a taste of 147 oil, and then pounded it down to 55. This will not be tolerated, especially after these nations got a chance to experience the huge profits generated by such lofty oil prices. The second mistake is the trashing of silver prices in the face of growing shortages at a time when the above-ground silver stocks are at an all-time low and headed even lower. The shortages are being caused by manipulated silver prices that are below the cost of production, thus causing a collapse in production, and the manipulation of base metals prices into the subbasement is adding to the loss of production because 70% of silver is produced as a by-product of base metal processing. Due to these criminal price manipulations, the gold to silver ratio is now 77 to 1, when historically is should be around 15 or 20 to 1. This huge price imbalance, growing shortage and all-time low levels of above-ground stocks has set up the greatest opportunity to corner a commodity market in the history of the world.
The Hunt Brothers would be drooling right now. When they were trying to the corner the market, it was much, much larger by many billions of ounces, and prices were being driven much, much higher, topping $40 per ounce, because there was far less manipulation of those markets than there is today (yes, believe it or not, we once had something bordering on free markets). The Dubai silver ETF may pick up where the Hunt Brothers left off. Since there are only about a billion ounces of above-ground silver stocks left, and because silver is trading at a ridiculous sub-10, ten billion could clean out the entire above-ground silver stock. This is chump change for these wealthy oil sheiks and their sovereign wealth funds. So get ready to rumble as the evil Illuminist scum and the price-gouging sheiks of OPEC prepare to "get it on" in an oil-silver showdown, complete with some very spectacular fireworks to come. Both oil and silver are headed much higher, and gold will tag along for the ride as silver vaults to new heights.
In the end we expect some sort of compromise, as $150 oil would take down the entire world economy, which is now teetering on the brink. We should soon see $80 to $100 oil and $15 to $20 silver. Silver may go much higher than that depending on how stubborn the Illuminists become about the price of oil. This is starting to get very interesting, so stay tuned, as one of the greatest financial battles of all time gets under way.
Instead of foolishly pumping money into insolvent, zombie banks, the sheiks may well have decided to go after the silver market. Imagine what will happen as those who require silver to make their products see the COMEX gold and silver being funneled to Dubai's ETF. All we can say is, if you were waiting for some precious metals fireworks, get ready, because it's coming. It is now time to load up on precious metals, especially silver. Oil will do well also. As some form of confirmation, we also note the growing open interest in the February gold options and futures contracts. Let the Battle of the Titans begin.
The WSJ again avoids reality in an op-ed piece by Judy Shelton, called “Stable Money is Key and How the G-20 Can Rebuild the Capitalism of the Future.”
She points out, and rightly so, “that foreign attendees will take the view that Wall Street greed and inadequate regulatory oversight by US authorities caused the global financial crisis – never mind that their own regulatory agencies missed the boat and that their own governments eagerly bought up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities for the higher yield over Treasuries.”
Ms. Shelton forgets that US interests asked, cajoled and strong-armed many nations into those purchases, as they did CDOs, SIVs and ABSs. Don’t you think they read the fine print and knew what they were buying – they are professionals? Behind the scenes there was a plan to spread the risk. Why would any sane government buy such toxic waste? Incidentally, where are the lawsuits and criminal actions? There are none because they were all in on the plan to distribute America’s problems, because if the US goes under they all go under. Regulatory agencies deliberately missed the boat because they were told to do so.
Then she has the temerity to tell us that “at the bottom of the world financial crisis” is international monetary disorder. Stating, “ever since the past WWII Bretton Woods system – anchored by a gold-convertible dollar – ended in August of 1971, the cause of free trade has been compromised by sovereign monetary – policy indulgence.” Spoken like a true internationalist Illuminist. This is what the WSJ and Barron’s have always been mouthpieces for – the Illuminists.
She goes on relating to sound money – perhaps even to a gold-based international monetary system. She says, “It’s hard to imagine a more universally accepted standard of value.”
Ms. Shelton admits that the nation of sound money and a new gold standard international monetary regime is appealing, neither will be part of any solution coming out of Washington or the G-20 this weekend or anytime soon. She goes on to say that fundamentally, our nation has only a sliver of bullion available to back tens of trillions in financial claims that are the crumbly bedrock for the entire global financial system.
Someone should make Ms. Shelton aware that in order to accommodate a gold standard for the world or the US all that has to be done is to officially increase the value of gold to where it belongs at $3,000 to $6,000 an ounce. Nations, particularly the US, do not want to do that because they have sold most of their gold in their efforts to suppress the gold price. That is why a gold standard is dismissed out of hand. She says the consensus is that concerted inflationary measures are the only possible solution. They would be wouldn’t they? She and all concerned know better. Every time in history re-inflation has been used it has been a failure.
That said don’t expect much in the way of public statements on a new currency. Along those lines there will only be leaks until they decide what can be done without weakening their control. Remember, part of what will happen is the further exposure that conventional economic doctrine is fatally flawed. What is disturbing is that many say that today’s problems are not the result of policies of the last 15 months. The greatest bubble in history began on August 15, 1971, and is littered with a trail of greed and power. Wall Street and banking led the looting of our country and Washington complied. Almost universally as well the media never questions decisions by the Treasury, Fed or Wall Street. They just report what the elitists want the public to hear. The revisionist falsehoods promulgated by the likes of Milton Friedman, Keynes and Ben Bernanke are enough to make real scholars cringe. The disinformation and distortion is startling. The public doesn’t know the difference and we never get to challenge them. Often what they have had to say are lies. Defending any of these liars from academia, Wall Street, such as Paulson, and government is a sacrilege. These people all participated in the rape of America over the past 31 years.
The best-laid plans often go astray. The elitists figured they’d have the time to lay off their losses over time. Banking analyst Meredith Whitney of Oppenheimer 1-1/2 years ago when she blew the whistle on Citigroup upset that plan. She still probably doesn’t realize that she changed the course of history.
These events have upset the elitists’ plans forcing them into policymaking out of desperation. In fact after 15 months the system is still out of control. We do not believe they will ever get a handle on it. No reform is on the way and only stopgap measures, such as creating more money and credit and having zero interest rates are the solution. Of course, they are not a solution. The powers are going to play this out to the bitter end. There is no stable money or monetary unit on the way. They just want you to think there is. They are scrambling now to create a major war, because they know if they do not they’ll be revolution.
Over the past eight years a major change has overcome America. As we have said before it is now socially and politically acceptable to lie and to mislead. Fascists have stolen our rights under our Constitution, from us and our leaders in Washington and Wall Street and banking are corrupt. There is no one left to complain too. There is no one there to protect us. Our Congress, courts, law enforcement, and regulatory agencies only protect the elite. We have just seen massive fraud by Wall Street and banking and our government allows American taxpayers to illegally bail them out.
Our protectors are looking the other way deliberately as we are looted of our assets and our freedom. This will continue until there is war or revolution. There is no meaningful change coming from Washington nor will the corruption and looting stop.
It seems now everyone is too big to fail except the average taxpayer. Each and every day brings us closer to the economic brink, even though our government is able without interruption to manipulate all world markets. This fraud will soon come to an end and we will have our vengeance.
The brainwashing of the American public has been successful but there will soon come a time via more hardship that they’ll finally wake Americans up. All those who have misled us and lied to us will be dealt with including those in our media.
At $1.25 quadrillion derivatives inhabit every part of our society and the world as well. We are at the beginning of the beginning of the horrible fallout we face caused by the Federal Reserve, Wall Street and banking. The $10 trillion plus that we have forecast as the bill for the taxpayers is but a drop in the bucket. Credit ratings are falling like stones and well they should. The only AAA rating left is for gold. You had best own it or you will regret it.To be beloved by a fan base is one thing, to be worshiped is another. Such was, and indeed still is Bastian Schweinsteiger’s stock in Bavaria. The German maestro has fit seamlessly into his role at Manchester United further reinforcing his class. Cabral Opiyo looks at just what makes the Machiavellian Prince close to divine.
It had to be under the sweltering Rio de Janeiro heat in the Maracana with nerves frayed to a twang, hearts in mouth and tension gripping every single body in that soulful old stadium that Bastian Schweinsteiger was defined most clearly as a man and as a player. Bloodied, bandaged, cramped he was at the wars and spectacularly looked like a doped up Tutankhamun running around upending Argentina players when need dictated, such as his yellow card suffered in the twenty ninth minute for clattering into Ezequiel Lavezzi. He was not in a jolly let’s-have-tea-in the-garden mood, he was zipping around the pitch with absolutely no anxiety and even when Germany faltered, he was often the last bastion of defense. Being man of the match on the biggest stage of all was typical of the man many in Bavaria had christened ‘football God’, a term reserved only for the most charismatic and enigmatic players- indeed the only players that come to mind are Matt Le God Tissier, the king of the Dell and the original Eric Cantona, impressive company.
“A prince never lacks legitimate reason to break his promise” – Niccolo Machiavelli
In Bavaria he is beloved, adored and even worshiped. He has managed to create a cult like, frenzied following that has culminated in his status as an inductee into the pantheon of the greatest German players who have defined an era alongside the likes of Lothar Matthaus, Andreas Brehme and Franz Beckenbauer. Long considered as the nearly men of Bavaria alongside Philipp Lahm and Miroslav Klose they were in danger of falling into disrepute and being cast aside by history and Europe as the men who escorted the bride to the altar all the time but never snagged a wife of their own. That is until they had a ground breaking season in 2013 when they did the Treble and annihilated every team that dared cross swords with them. Bastian was colossal that season being the brain of the frighteningly dominant team.
A converted wide man, he still retains the cunning mastered from his days on the wing but in central midfield he is a sight to behold. When Louis Van Gaal’s eccentricities led him to change a great but unspectacular wing wanderer first into a box to box midfield devastation and then further adapted into the deep lying nucleus of the team, it might have been the best thing he ever did for Bayern Munich alongside promoting David Alaba and Thomas Muller. He took to the role like he was made for it, like Captain Jack Sparrow to an enigmatic mystery. He thrived in his new found role till the tactician that is Pep Guardiola rolled into town and like the sheriff he is, did not hesitate to cock his gun and let everyone know there was a new club order. While he did not obviously alienate Bastian Schweinsteiger neither did he unconditionally make it known that the now more calculated midfield tornado was indispensable to him. The first invisible shot was fired when Philipp Lahm and David Alaba were tested in the Schweinsteiger role, a lair that was previously reserved for him before his niggling injuries stopped becoming unnecessary bothers and instead became actual concerns to the decision makers at Sabener Strasse. When Thiago Alcantara and Xabi Alonso washed up ashore the ever perceptive Schweinsteiger saw the signs of the times and heard the chiming of his life span clock.
See the thing about Bastian Schweinsteiger is that he knew how to read human beings perhaps even better than he knew how to kick a ball. He saw the body language of the coaches and there were whispers that ever the perfectionist Herr Guardiola saw a fault in the previously flawless German midfield machine’s game. Apparently he was not the cerebral presence he wished for his engine room, he moved the ball a tad slower than Guardiola would have liked and slowed down the whizz pizz football that he so craved. Contingencies were made to deal with his continued prolonged absences, Joshua Kimmich was sought and integrated, the midfield ping pong Sebastian Rode was already at the club and the Busquets-like Xabi Alonso was already installed at the base of midfield to dictate play and he was doing so splendidly. He was still played when fit, but over the years his influence on the pitch was reduced and Bayern Munich found out that they could win without him, convincingly even. Most iconic footballers outlast their usefulness in the clubs that they’ve served for years and the once adoring fans on the terraces that used to sing their names start grimacing whenever their names appeared on the team sheet. Granted Bastian was nowhere near that level but he felt that he needed a new scenery after conquering the world and winning all there is to be won bar the European Championship. Bags packed, heartfelt thanks to the fans who were seemingly the only shocked party at this swift transaction, they knew it in the deepest recesses of their souls that he was going to up and leave. They just never thought they’d be alive to witness it.
On the other hand there were plenty of mightily delighted Manchester United fans who were getting a genuine marquee signing though outside of the club and its fans, it was portrayed as a huge gamble and settling for Bayern Munich’s damaged goods, not that United fans cared. They had long craved a domineering midfield general since what’s his name had been unceremoniously ushered out of the club; they had long sought a calm head since Paul Scholes had slunk off into the twilight without much fuss. They had long wished for Bastian Schweinsteiger having made eyes at him in 2010 and flirted unashamedly throughout the summer, they were getting a certified Football God resplendent in all his glory. Though mocked throughout the land, he was a genuine world class star brought in by his de facto god father to implement his systematic and at times maniacal methodology to football games.
He has quarter backed impressively for United and the minute he steps on the pitch it is as if the principal bespectacled, haughty and feared had walked into a melee on the play ground and everything quietens and calms down and everyone stops brawling and lines up properly. He has induced such a forceful state of order to every game he has played for United and his team mates all seem to sober up and regain their focus when he enters the fray.
He is a wily old fox that one, when an Eindhoven midfielder thought he had cornered Bastian and even I as a fan thought he possibly could not extricate himself from such a jumble of legs and pressing bodies he swiveled this way and that and created such huge space for himself to play the ball I not only stopped questioning his abilities, it was blasphemous to even contemplate it. When |
3 -12.1 -4.1 DET Maxiell 45% 11.9 17.0 -5.2 -5.1 -3.1 -2.0 -4.1 PHI Allen 42% 12.1 18.8 -6.6 -3.0 -3.6 +0.5 -4.2 ORL Harkless 49% 13.1 15.5 -2.3 -11.4 -2.6 -8.8 -4.5 OKC Perkins 49% 8.9 17.6 -8.6 +10.0 +8.3 +1.7 -5.2 BOS Bass 56% 12.9 17.7 -4.8 -3.7 +4.3 -8.1 -5.9 CLE Gee 64% 10.8 17.7 -6.9 -6.6 -1.1 -5.5 -6.4 CLE Zeller 51% 11.4 20.1 -8.7 -6.1 -3.1 -3.0 -6.8 WAS Seraphin 43% 10.3 17.5 -7.2 -6.1 +0.2 -6.2 -6.9 PHO Morris 46% 13.0 22.3 -9.3 -9.4 -3.8 -5.6 -8.1 MIA Cole 40% 8.0 13.8 -5.9 +0.2 +12.8 -12.6 -8.1The Naval Kishore Press established in Lucknow by Pandit Naval Kishore in 1858 was once the largest publishing initiative in South Asia and second only to the Alpine Press of France. Before it was closed in 1950, it had published Urdu translations of over 500 Hindi, Arabic and Persian texts, and 124 Sanskrit texts, including the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita and Manusmriti. In keeping with the legacy of Naval Kishore Press, popular Urdu poet Anwar Jalalpuri has translated The Bhagavad Gita into Urdu shayari. Former chairman of Uttar Pradesh Madarsa Board and former member of the Urdu Akademi (UP), Jalalpuri had earlier translated Rabindranath Tagore’s Geetanjali and Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat into Urdu poetry. Jalalpuri tells Aishwarya Gupta that through his latest book, Urdu Shayari mein Gita, he aims at an interaction of Hindu and Islamic worldviews.
Edited excerpts from an interview:
What inspired you to translate the Bhagavad Gita into Urdu shayari?
I completed my MA in English in 1968 but have always been a poet by nature, writing in many forms — nazm, ghazal, naat, ruba’i, tareekh, qasida, salaam. On completing my MA in Urdu in 1978, I wanted to pursue a PhD, for which I was looking for a topic that would integrate both Hindus and Muslims. And that is when I decided to translate the Gita into Urdu shayari.
During my research, I found that over 80 such translations have been done in the past, of which over 60 were in prose while the remaining were in poetry. Of these 24 translations in Urdu poetry, I couldn’t find more than eight copies through references, having looked from Patna to Kolkata to Hyderabad to Rampur. Most of these early age manuscripts couldn’t be traced or were destroyed. Also, I realised that the subject and learning of the Gita in itself is so wide that if I pushed to crunch and completed it, I would not have been able to deliver justice. But the idea and philosophy of Gita remained close to me throughout and has resulted in this book after 35 years.
What is your understanding of the Gita?
Like the Quran, the Gita also has a divine style and it contains the words of the Lord. The shayar that I am, I found it difficult to overlook the poetic lutf and andaaz in the shloks of the Bhagavad Gita. The philosophy of life after death is very attractive, whether you choose to believe it or not. Having translated the third chapter of the Quran Sharif in Urdu poetry in Tosh-e-Aakhirat, I found a striking similarity in the moral teachings of the two books. My aim was to tell the Urdu speaking awam (masses) that you are unaware of the great book that is the Bhagavad Gita and to tell the Hindus that the Gita is much more than a book you swear by in the court of law. An urgent need to see the sangam of these communities is what made me translate this book.
Which other works related to the Gita did you refer to while writing your book?
In order to attain a comprehensive understanding of the book, I made some key works on the Gita as my reference. These included Khawaja Dil Mohammed’s Dil ki Geeta, Osho’s eight volumes of Geeta, Mahatma Gandhi’s Bhagvad Gita According to Gandhi, Pandit Sundarlal’s The Gita and the Quran, Manmohan Lal Chhabra’s Mann ki Gita and works of Ajmal Khan and Hasanuddin Ahmed on the subject.
How is your translation different from Khawaja Dil Mohammad’s?
Language plays a major factor in any work of translation. Dil Mohammad’s Dil ki Geeta was highly Persianised due to which it failed to gain popularity among common people. I have made a necessary effort to translate the shloks in awami Urdu and Hindustani, so that it is easily understood by all, especially those who are not familiar with the backdrop of the Mahabharata. Beher (meter of Urdu poetry) and grammar of the language need to be given specific attention. This form of translation is masnavi (detailed or elaborate), which gives a story-telling like appeal to the shayari. This has resulted in 701 shloks from 18 chapters of the Bhagavad Gita to culminate in do misre waale 1,761 sher (1,761 two-line couplets).
Started and majorly promoted by Lucknow’s Naval Kishore Press, does this secular tradition of translations have any more cultural relevance or has it merely been reduced to the nostalgic value of ganga-jamuni tehzeeb?
The society is changing very rapidly and I often encounter my friends, writers in both Hindi and Urdu, complaining that there isn’t enough work happening in either language. The contemporary literary scene has very few people who offer the kind of sincerity and integrity required for such works. Pandit Naval Kishore was too big a man in terms of stature and the work he did through his press over a century ago. Today, if someone is trying to achieve even five percent of what he did, I think we should appreciate it. As far as the relevance of the ganga-jamuni tehzeeb is concerned, I believe that in any society there are three major stakeholders who have the power to promote or demote communal harmony — politicians, religious leaders and writers. If even one of them does otherwise, the tehzeeb will be difficult to sustain.
Being a reputed and senior nazim (convenor or anchor) for some of country’s well-known mushairas, what changes have you witnessed since the time of Kaifi, Faiz and Majrooh?
Just like any other sphere, the culture of mushairas has undergone a considerable change in the past three decades. Some new practices that might be acceptable to some and not to others have entered its ambit. Clapping, for instance, was considerable a distasteful action during the proceedings of a traditional mushaira, but is now widely practiced. It is seen as a positive change. We no longer live in the times of Meer or Ghalib, but the wise thing would be to keep the learnings of the past intact and still be accommodative to the present. Whenever I am in charge of nizamat (anchoring), I forewarn others from reciting mazhabi shayari (communal poetry).
Having been a close friend of Munawwar Rana and a former member of the UP Urdu Akademi, do you support his decision of resigning as the president of the institution?
Both Nawaz Deobandi (Chairman) and Munawaar Rana were appointed in February by CM Akhilesh Yadav. As his friend, it would be embarrassing for me to comment on his decision. But as a shayar, I firmly believe that for someone as determined as Munawwarji, he would have succeeded in getting the government to concede to his demands, had he not resigned within three months.
[email protected]Activist Post | There are very real conspiracies in the world, and those conspiracies are always conducted by people “in the know” against those who are ignorant or naive of back-room machinations.
Past slavery was largely based on force (thus was much more obvious), but modern-day slavery is actually more widespread because global slave masters use all of the scientific tools at their disposal to win hearts and control minds, convincing us that our hands and feet are free, so we must be living self-directed lives.
There are signs that the mind-pyramids that technocrats have built to enforce their 21st-century global plantation slave system are crumbling as they press harder upon our cognitive ability to make sense of words and actions. The owners of the shoulders on which the structure of tyranny is supported are beginning to leave in droves. The pyramids are falling as slaves begin to recognize their unconscious effort, and consciously encourage others to find a different line of work.
Here are 10 ways that you can help collapse all of the pyramids of control.
1. Media and Intelligence – Information is knowledge and knowledge is power — this is where it all starts. Turn off the TV, stop passively receiving information that turns you into an idiot at the teat of the “idiot box.” Get creative: start a blog, a neighborhood newsletter, radio show, public access TV or YouTube channel, write encouraging letters to companies you appreciate and nasty ones to those you boycott; DO something; anything to increase awareness. Homeschooling is another great way to help short circuit the negative influences of systematic programming. Even if you don’t agree with homeschooling, or are not able, there are concepts that you can help introduce into your public school to enhance education. Intelligence – there are technologies to thwart constant surveillance, as well as low-tech solutions to high-tech tyranny. The Internet is being used to surveil the public, but it also provides an opportunity for the public to surveil and report the real criminals. Use the system against itself.
2. Health and Agriculture – Why do tyrannical systems always move to declare methods of independence such as farming, vitamins, raw milk, and natural medication like cannabis as underground contraband systems that threaten the health of society? Clearly because this is a cornerstone of freedom. Learn to make your own medicines, trade on the underground, support other states (and countries) who have embraced food freedom, and stand your ground by forming local community resistance against food and health tyranny. Moreover, simply making your mind and body stronger by pursuing what is natural and healthy will give you more power to challenge the system in every other way.
3. Energy and Technology – Support true economic development and pursue open source solutions to all technological problems that can affect humanity on the widest scale. These are the technologies that have been suppressed in the past, their creators destroyed; but now there are too many people pursuing goals to free humanity. Embrace innovation and technology, but only as it leads to self-empowerment, self-determination, and genuinely helps the human and environmental condition. There are reportedly many free-energy patents being kept from the public. These technologies can’t be kept secret forever as long as the Internet remains free and open. Support all efforts to maintain Internet freedom and the right to pursue innovation.
4. Mobility and Flexibility – Always be willing to adapt and move. The structure of tyranny might be global, but there are always pockets of freedom that tyranny ignores — normally based on economic interest. Become adaptable, don’t buy into the “American Dream” of having possessions to define your self-worth. Once you discard the unimportant things, look for specific towns, states, or countries to escape economic decline and those which promote freedom. It’s a difficult decision to pick up and move, especially when extended family comes into play, but discuss your ideas and the evidence for your concerns openly and honestly, and be the first to pioneer the building of a new future — if things begin to collapse in earnest, you will soon be sought after by those who once doubted your “crazy” reasoning.
5. Prepare for the Worst – Along the same lines as being mobile and flexible, make sure that you store enough supplies to get through a few months or more of tough times. The current system relies on your dependence and they can easily control those who live just-in-time lifestyles. Most people don’t realize how much they “need” the system until something like a blizzard knocks out their power and wipes out the grocery store shelves. It’s wise to store back-up food, have the ability to produce food, gather tools and other items needed during power outages or other disasters, and actively pursue any and all other survival prepping and self-sufficiency techniques.
6. Refuse to Pay Unjust Debt – This is a moral decision based on the information that much of what was created to be a “loan” was based on a predatory system. As they say, ignorance of the law is no excuse, and that is duly noted, but when confronted with an enemy that has deliberately contrived devious ways to steal productivity and the fruits of honest labor, then the principle of justifiable self-defense is invoked. Forget about your credit score; it is the invisible chain that keeps you in prison. Refuse to pay debts that you know were fraudulently imposed. Remember, the banks never had the money they “lent” to you in the first place; they created it out of nothing to buy your servitude. If you are hesitant to simply quit paying the criminal banks, then learn how to reduce your exposure to all debts.
7. Create New Banking Systems – We have seen economic collapse taking down countries like dominoes across the third world, and now the first. These money junkies cannot and will not stop. It is up to us to develop systems which permit us to completely withdraw our support for the current system and shield us from manipulated collapses. This may be the most productive way to break free from modern slavery; whether it’s switching to local credit unions, storing precious metals instead of cash, engaging in barter systems or using alternative currencies, or supporting full-blown monetary reform.
8. Learn a Skill – Learn as many skills outside of your day job as possible. This can be as simple as giving more attention to your hobbies like fishing, hunting, gardening, painting, blogging, tinkering on cars, building things, sewing, cooking, etc. Whatever useful skill you’re most passionate about, learn more about it, become an expert at it, and acquire the necessary tools to start a side business with it. By doing this, you’ll reduce the dependence on your job and find much more fulfillment in life. Remember, skills are the only form of wealth that can’t be taken from you. Additionally, form clubs or partnerships with your neighbors and share your skills and tools to form a stronger community that will be resistant to whatever the systems of control throw your way.
9. Boycott – Activists have enjoyed many recent victories through boycott, most notably the rapid removal of “pink slime” meat from major supermarket chains following public outcry once they became aware of the product. It goes to show that the public still holds the power over corporations, but the masses must be educated before they’re moved to action. Not you though. Readers of this post know exactly what companies to boycott and why. Start living your principles and follow through on your knowledge. Voting with your dollars DOES work, but not if the aware crowd refuses to do it.
10. Taxes – Taxes are the most controversial of all — the one that catches the most flak, so the one that must be most directly over the target. How do you feel knowing that money is extracted from you by force to be injected into systems around the world that create violence, rip apart cultures, and put us on a path of complete annihilation and self-destruction? This is slave-like thinking in its highest form of denial. No Constitution of any country anywhere in the world openly recognizes that it is lawful to forcefully extract money you have earned enslaving you for life to kill others with it, upon penalty of imprisonment. It’s the final chain to be broken, and is admittedly the thickest. But how can a machine be built without the funding to build it? The entire prison system we see around us has been built with our own money. Did you authorize it? Did you authorize the preemptive wars, bank bailouts, corporate subsidies, the high-tech surveillance grid that enslaves you?
Significantly, these are all things you can do on your own. You don’t need to influence politicians, or ignite a mass protest, or wait for an uprising. There is no cavalry coming. You are the change you seek. Get out there and become more self-reliant and the system will lose its grip on you. If enough of us do this, the system will fall apart by its own unsustainable making. Refuse to be a slave today and unchain others by sharing this article and implementing the tips on this list.
Did we miss anything? Please offer your own guidelines for freedom in the comments section below.
Read other articles by Activist Post HERE.
You can support this information by voting on Reddit HERE.N Developer Preview 2 Rolling Out to Nexus Players
A few days ago a handful of Android phones and tablets received an OTA update to the newest version of Android N. This second preview is now rolling out to the Nexus Player as well. In a Android Development blog post, they highlight a few pretty big changes to the operating system.
Vulkan
Vulkan is a really awesome new set of graphics APIs that make vast improvements over the current OpenGL libraries. Graphics can take better advantage of modern hardware and really shine on app. While these APIs are currently only available on the NVIDIA Shield TV, Google is working on implementing the current standard into the operating system in Android N. Not only will the Nexus Player be able to take advantage of it, but so will phones and tablets. You should see new games getting a big spike in graphics capability.
Emoji Unicode 9
Emoji have quickly become the best part of the Unicode standard, a standard for assigning codes to characters across different fonts. As emoji are tied to fonts, each operating system and font can implement them differently, which is why they look slightly different compared between an iPhone and Android device.
Now they’re getting more similar. Google is moving away from the classic blobs to more humanlike characters. Support has been added for skin-tone differences in many emoji, allowing a glyph to look just like the person sending it. They’re also including the new glyphs from the Unicode 9 standard, which includes “shrug” as well as other popular icons.
Nexus Player Specific
Ian Lake adds some specific Nexus Player issues on a Google+ post. These things will certainly be addressed in later builds, although getting a barebones implementation of Vulkan to developers will be appreciatd.
Specific to the Nexus Player:
– Playback of Netflix HD content may fail on Nexus Player.
– Any application that relies on dynamic video resolution changes may fail on Nexus Player.
– Any application that use the VP9 video codec may fail on Nexus Player.
– – Vulkan: SPIR-V shaders may trigger driver asserts.
– Vulkan: Some pipeline configurations may cause vkCreateGraphicsPipeline() to crash.
Conclusion
Aside from these big changes, there have been some bug fixes based on public feedback as well as some changes to the APIs to help developers build their apps. There may be some other minor differences, and we’ll be sure to let you know if we spot them. If you don’t want to wait for the OTA update, you can manually flash the images here.
Nick Felker Nick Felker is a student Electrical & Computer Engineering student at Rowan University (C/O 2017) and the student IEEE webmaster. When he's not studying, he is a software developer for the web and Android (Felker Tech). He has several open source projects on GitHub (http://github.com/fleker) Devices: Moto G-2013 Moto G-2015, Moto 360, Google ADT-1, Nexus 7-2013 (x2), Lenovo Laptop, Custom Desktop. Although he was an intern at Google, the content of this blog is entirely independent and his own thoughts. More Posts - Website Follow Me:Convince someone to let you use their space for a few days.
In my case, the episode of Roguelike Radio after the IRDC Atlanta 2015 episode was an interview with Frank Lantz, who is the director of NYU's Game Design department. (Yes, NYU has a Game Design department. It's part of the art school.) A few months after that, I went to said department for an event, celebrating the completion of their Incubator program for the year. Teams gave short presentations then opened the floor to have the public play their games.
And so, I saw an opportunity. I got in touch with Frank at the start of 2016, which turned into discussions with other staff at Game Center. By February we were deciding on dates that would work for both me and the facility; by March we had those settled on early August.
Game Center was extremely generous, offering to use the space for free as long as we didn't interfere with any of their activities. That being said, that wasn't a guarantee. I had as backup ideas various coworking spaces, where I would have had to pay. I was willing to do so if necessary, but I'll admit, it was a boon not to worry about that.
Convince folks to come to the convention and talk about their roguelike experiences, and more folks to come to the convention to listen to those talks.
I made a free Mailchimp list from the list of people who had voted on a date. The first email I put out was a "call for speakers and demonstrators", and I got a number of volunteers, almost all of whom were at Atlanta last year. Other emails included a Code of Conduct (which I didn't have to invoke, but was great to have on hand) and various reminders.
E-mail blasts were paired with updates from my Twitter and RogueBasin. I also posted on RogueTemple at least once, as well as /r/roguelikes on Reddit. If I had really put in the effort, I could have also gone onto game-specific forums/chat rooms/Discord, but I think most of the "roguelike community" knew IRDC was happening, at least.
I still had fewer speakers than Atlanta, so I padded the time in various ways - a later start and an earlier finish, time for "lightning talks" for smaller things to show off and "open play" where people could demonstrate the games they were making. This turned out to be an amazing idea - it meant a lot of space for solving technical issues and organic discussion.
I also tried a tiny bit to engage with the local independent game community - I went to a public networking event hosted by New York Critic's Circle and mentioned the event, and got on a local "geek event calendar". There's probably more I could have done here - most of the attendees were repeats from Atlanta and not local to New York - but I was running on a bit of a time crunch, and foolishly tried to do this part solo. I highly encourage others to learn from this and get others involved in getting the word out.
Figure out how to get those talks onto the Internet, even for those who aren't at the con.
One of the biggest features we had in Atlanta was streaming the talks given, which was a huge hit. That was mostly thanks to Eben Howard, as well as an anonymous former editor of Roguelike Radio. They brought multiple laptops, a video splitter, and a whole lot of expertise. I had some experience using OBS from my days streaming, but admittedly not a ton and rather outdated since I had stopped streaming in June 2015. Neither Eben nor the editor were available to come to New York, so I was on my own. (I wish I had done more research on this before the con, which is one of my biggest reasons for making this post - to make this information as public as I can so others can have a jumping off point.)
I have only one laptop, an ASUS F555LA. I also had a Rock Band microphone (useful for picking up a single person's voice, but not much else), a random Logitech webcam, and an Android tablet and phone. (The tablet and phone were more useful than I thought they'd be - more on that in a bit.)
Game Center has an impressive setup for presenting within the room, but it's not set up for streaming that presentation to others. There were microphones hooked to a mixer that only provided sound to the speakers in the room, and a setup to connect to the projectors through HDMI. I used the mics they provided for the first part of Saturday but not the rest of the time; the space we ended up using for talks was small enough that most people could be heard regardless.
So I hooked my laptop to the main presentation setup at the podium and extended my display (so the screen on the laptop was basically a second monitor to the projectors). OBS 'understood' Chrome but not LibreOffice, so I relied on Google Slides in a Chrome window. For one talk I downloaded a PDF and showed that in the Chrome window, which worked fine for static slides but obviously doesn't work with interesting transitions or animations. I connected the Rock Band mic to the laptop, and made people speak into that microphone. (When I was also using Game Center's microphones, I basically hooked them to a lavalier/collar microphone and had them hold the Rock Band mic. Awkward, but workable.)
So OBS picked up the Chrome window, the Rock Band Mic/In, and 'desktop audio' when audio was playing in the Chrome window. The speaker was up at the podium, using the arrow keys on my laptop to shift from slide to slide. I was in the back with my tablet on Twitch, in chat only mode, moderating the chat. This worked...okay. Not great, and not for everything. Some folks had trouble talking into the RB microphone, and of course, unlike Atlanta, the webcam didn't get much use.
Consider at least some loot.
NYU policy meant that everyone would have to sign in at the front desk with the security detail, showing ID; if folks then got a specific sticker of my choosing inside the building, they wouldn't need to show their ID a second time after lunch. So of course, I picked up round @ stickers ($5 for a 20 sticker sheet on Zazzle!) I kind of wish I had picked up two kinds of stickers, to easily differentiate between the two days, but they were still a big hit.
Let the convention happen, and roll with what the RNG gives and takes away.
So I mentioned the imperfect technical setup: it was really only designed for use with Google Slides and one speaker at a time. I had a big whiteboard available: it had information about the loot, the Wi-Fi password, and a reminder for speakers to repeat the questions asked of them before answering for the sake of the stream/recording. This is a very artificial way of speaking, so compliance wasn't great, but it mostly worked.
When Sheridan said he had no slides but a bunch of files on his own laptop to show off, I went to the back, tried to balance the webcam on top facing him and the laptop in my lap, and that went...poorly, to say the least.
Google Slides also messed with the formatting of Mark's slides (and possibly others as well), and the PDF conversion we used for Brian had its limitations too. This is actually why I didn't record/stream the second set of lightning talks - Squirrel's talk included animations that I didn't trust Google Slides to convert properly which wouldn't work on PDF.
Adam's remote talk deserves its own discussion/apology: we initially had Google Hangouts running in one of the Chrome windows. Then Adam's audio dropped...and he didn't realize it until almost done with his talk. After much stress, we restarted Hangouts, and there was a pile of weird screensharing shenanigans to get it restarted. I think I was streaming the Chrome window with his slides in full screen, and sharing over Hangouts my OBS with Adam, who was speaking based on my shared screen. (It was stressful, to say the least. But people were awesome and patient even as I was getting increasingly frustrated.)
For Roguelike Radio, we set up three phones to record scattered around the room and did a'sync clap'. This is all thanks to Brett, who is also offering to merge these recordings together...somewhow, alongside his travel-heavy day job and the other things he does. The man is an incredibly generous machine, and I'm grateful. (Also, between us having dinner together in 2015 and his contributions to IRDC, I think I owe him at least six beers. Probably more. I just want that on the public record.)
Speaking of the podcast, my earlier decision to pad time so extremely did have a slight downside. To be frank, by late Sunday, people didn't have a ton to talk about. I wish I had solicited questions (from Reddit? RogueTemple?) or otherwise structured things better, and maybe gotten another speaker or two before RLR so that there'd be more content to discuss as a whole.
Figure out how to manage the hunger clocks, even for those on conduct runs.
My partner was the real hero here - he'd worked near the venue in the past, and finding amazing food in New York is one of his biggest hobbies. So he had a good sense of internal geography and a good palate for the group, which worked out very well. We even found ways to accomodate the variety of food allergies in the group!
We also did breakfast/snacks alongside the stickers - doughnuts from the always-awesome Doughnut Plant on Saturday, and currant/coconut rolls from Allan's Sunday, plus fast food coffee by the box both days. We had these 'pay-what-you-can', with the suggested price matching the retail price. We didn't quite make our money back, but I'm fine with treating people to local delicacies when they come to my city. (Thanks to Jeremiah for helping with doughnut acquisition!)
Learn from every person who came.
And here, finally, I'll gush a bit about some of the content of IRDC New York 2016.
Jason made Markov chains accessible and argued for using them mechanically, which set a theme about procedural lore and storytelling that carried through Mark's procedural dialects and Mitu's karaoke.
Patrick and Brett talked about AI and pathfinding, which tied to Brian's talk as well; a lot of cool technical discussion, and honest presentation of imperfect implementations. I love that Patrick was willing to present a 'failed' implementation to try to get feedback and learn.
Sheridan, Brett, Jeremiah, and Adam also used their talks as ways to get feedback on innovative game mechanics which I really appreciate. They brought to the table really cool ideas about the 'edges' of the roguelike space that I'm excited to see more of.
Thom and Squirrel (and to a degree Brian too) discussed best practices in coding, and about structured thought informing code. Presenting clean code as self-care when in a stressful situation (like game jams!) was honestly really valuable. (That's a big part of why I tried so hard to structure this post, too.)
I got to play a lot of cool games and mess with a lot of cool procedural tools! That's always satisfying, and something I need to prioritize even outside of IRDC-space.
So the last time I posed here, I said maybe I'd make IRDC NYC happen but wasn't sure.Long story short: I made it happen, it was exhausting but worthwhile, I learned so much about the value of delegation. This is how I made an IRDC happen, so that you can do it too. (Consider it a postmortem, but for building a convention instead of a game.)So. That was fun. I think I need a little time (and far more naps) before running it again, but it was totally worthwhile. I hope this inspires someone to make their own roguelike convention happen!AFP archive | French police are routinely armed, but have strict rules restricting their ability to use them in self defence.
The French cabinet was set Wednesday to fast track a proposed law that will widen police officers’ ability to use their sidearms in self-defence.
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Under current rules, officers are only allowed to use their weapons on the basis of “necessity and proportionality”, and only if they are faced with a direct personal threat.
They can only fire if they are directly assaulted by armed individuals, to defend an area they have occupied or if repeated demands to stand down have been ignored.
Police often do not use their sidearms even when faced with threats to their life because they are afraid of breaking the rules, which can lead to their immediate suspension pending an inquiry.
Their anger came to a head in October after four officers were subjected to a Molotov cocktail attack on their car.
They didn’t use their weapons, officers told FRANCE 24 at a protest in Paris the following month, because they “probably hesitated because they were not being shot at”.
Decades of neglect
At the protest, Versailles police officer Nicolas explained that their current rules of engagement were “identical to civilian rules governing self-defence”, and that criminals were both perfectly aware of them and conscious of officers’ fear of getting into trouble.
“It’s a Catch-22,” he said. “When someone is holding a petrol bomb and is ready to throw it, if you use your weapon you are in big trouble. If the petrol bomb lands on you before you can use your weapon, you are also in big trouble because you are being burned. So what’s the point of being armed?”
Officers also complained of chronic under-funding and being “fed up after decades of neglect by changing governments that have eroded our ability to function properly in a job we love”.
“We work in filthy, run-down police stations, we have to provide much of our own equipment – business cards and even pens. We don’t have up-to-date communications or radio equipment and we are expected to rely almost completely on our private mobile phones,” said Nicolas’ colleague Alexandre Langlois. “Above all, none of us feels we can defend ourselves properly.”
Law and order issues ahead of election
The bill would strengthen a law passed in June 2016 that allowed officers to shoot if it would “prevent loss of life in the immediate aftermath of an act of murder”.
It would also allow officers to fire at vehicles that are bearing down on them.
Other proposed measures include doubling sanctions for insulting police, easing conditions to wear hoods to better protect the identity of police officers and €250 million (£222.78 million) to buy new equipment.
The bill, which was proposed in November 2016 and is due to be submitted to Parliament in January 2017, also provides for a tightening of how investigators are identified during criminal proceedings in order to protect them from public retribution.
It is being rushed through parliament by the Socialist government at a time when law and order issues are likely to feature highly in next year’s presidential elections.
Latest polls show the ruling Socialists trailing in third place behind far-right candidate Marine le Pen, and conservative opposition candidate François Fillon, as the two most likely to go through to the second-round face-off.The biggest challenge for Lebanon at this World Cup won’t be that presented by the Kangaroos on Saturday. It was getting on the field in the first place.
Many of the players in the Cedars squad hold down fulltime jobs to pay the bills. They can’t afford to abandon their businesses for an entire month. They have willingly sacrificed work opportunities and taken a financial hit to represent Lebanon at this tournament.
Nick Kassis is an electrician, Chris Saab has an earth-moving business, Jason Wehbe is a cafe owner, Jamie Clark is in the building game, Abbas Miski and Ray Moujalli are personal trainers, Ahmad Eliaz runs a chicken shop and Ray Sabat, who lives in Lebanon and has travelled here with the squad, runs a gym back in Jounieh.
The list goes on. When we’ve got a day free of training, or a late-morning start, many of the guys will disappear back to their jobs to maintain the momentum of their businesses and keep their cashflows alive. Then they’ll return to camp in time for our next commitment.
It’s been an eye-opener for me, the other fulltime players and our coach, Freddie Fittler.
We’re not paid to play. We receive $30 spending money per day. That’s all. The Aussies and the Kiwis are paid to play and stand to earn plenty more in prizemoney at the end of the tournament should they lift the trophy. But our boys will get nothing.
We take it for granted sometimes in the NRL, earning a living out of playing footy, but these boys playing in the NSW Cup and Ron Massey Shield and other competitions can’t rely on that to make ends meet.
During the season they work during the day and train at night. But they don’t complain. They’re doing what they love.
Our World Cup camp will be over in a couple of weeks and everyone will return to their normal lives. For them, that’s holding down a regular job or running a business. Without that they would have nothing.
I’ve been mightily impressed with their attitudes.
THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO US
I’m just as impressed by what I’ve witnessed at training and on the field.
I’ll give you an example of their commitment.
Ray Moujalli plays for Canterbury in the NSW Cup. He has played one NRL game in his long career. Not many people are aware of this, but he badly injured his knee three months ago and needed a reconstruction.
Normally, a player would have no hope of returning in time for this World Cup. But Ray was desperate to be part of it. He had been representing Lebanon for many years but had never participated in a World Cup because we hadn’t qualified since 2000.
He opted for LARS surgery in an attempt to speed things up. Still, no one gave him a chance. No one, that is, except him. He worked incredibly hard through all of the rehab. And last week he played against England – three months after a knee reconstruction.
That’s inspirational. We all thought he was |
child, which is expensive for the municipals.Disabled immigrant children cost Danish municipalities millions, a report from BT says.In Copenhagen County alone, the number of disabled children has increases 100 percent in 10 years.The explanations are many:More women give birth in old age.More disabled children survive.But it also turns out that immigrants give birth to more disabled children than Danes do.A major reason is due to the many cousin-marriages among immigrants.The risk of having a disabled child in a cousin-marriage is twice as large as if the child is born in an ordinary marriage.Therefore the Integration Ministry and the Ministry of Health have a sent out information to warn about cousin-marriages and to explain the health risks.It is exclusively aimed at immigrants and sent out to 97 Turkish associations, 75 integration counsels, 35 Pakistani associations and 275 municipalities.Already in 2000 it was clear that while 13 per cent of all children were immigrants in Copenhagen Municipality, they accounted for 24 per cent of severely disabled children.- We can not say exactly to what extent it is related to cousin-marriages. But we know that it is twice as likely to have a disabled child if one is closely related than if you're not, says Karen Brøndum-Nielsen, professor and department chief at the Kennedy Institute, a scientists in genetics.She explains that one do not register people based on ethnicity because it considered discriminatory.The heavy resource burden is something that affects the budgets of both county and municipality.Eg. the City of Copenhagen's family and labor management, where one see a clear over-representation of disabled children of immigrants, the budget is overrun by 43 million DKK.The initial budget was a staggering DKK 1.2 billion.One reason for the significant increase is believed to be the many cousin-marriages, which is a tradition among many Muslims.- No one knows for sure why the number of disabled children is increasing, but the diagnosis is that cousin-marriages play a role for the children, says Karen Brøndum-Nielsen.Comment below.Dario "TLO" Wünsch is a StarCraft II player from Germany. TLO is a former Brood War and Supreme Commander player currently playing for Team Liquid. Known for his happy and carefree demeanor, as well as his unique strategies, TLO is a favorite of fans worldwide.
He played Random during the Beta, switched to Terran after launch, and again to Zerg around BlizzCon 2010. In early 2011, he announced returning to Random after a period of relative inactivity due to injury, but then switched back to Terran in March 2011. More recently, TLO has gone back to playing Zerg, starting during Battle in Berlin.
TLO's tactics became very popular during GSL when he used Nuclear launches to confuse his enemy while he dropped marines in his opponent's main base or to move his enemy's army where he wanted to ambush them. TLO's Terran play is overall very solid, strategically flexible, and hard to break.
In Beta [ edit ]
After seeing his unique play and creative builds during the Team Liquid SC2 Invitational #1, a fan club thread was created on the Team Liquid forums: TLO Fan Club Thread. That same strong play earned him his invitation to join Team Liquid.
TLO enjoyed a very successful beta period with two Go4SC2 ESL cup victories, a ZOTAC win and second place in the International PLU.cn Kaspersky Cup. Due to his popularity and success, he was invited to Day[9]'s King of the Beta tournament.
Wings of Liberty [ edit ]
TLO kicked off Wings Of Liberty with two live events. He won a Best of 5 showmatch against MaDFroG at the European Warcraft Regionals[1] before heading to the IEM Global Challenge Cologne to play in the live $15,000 tournament.
On August 13, 2010, it was announced that TLO was heading to Korea with other Liquid` members: Nazgul and Jinro in preparation for the GOMTV Global StarCraft II League. They stayed in the oGs House with players like Ensnare and TheStC and competed in South Korean live events, as well as online events from around the world. On the 28th of August, TLO qualified for the GOMTV StarCraft II Open 1 after going through Group B1.[2] He advanced to the Round of 32 before losing to house mate oGsHyperdub 1-2. TLO's victory in the first set became one of the most viewed VoDs on GOMTV.[3] TLO qualified yet again for GSL Season 2 where he encountered former Brood War player SangHo in the Round of 64. He ultimately lost 1-2 in what was his final televised match as a Terran player.
TLO was one of the 2 representatives of Europe for Blizzcon 2010. He later competed with the entire Team Liquid roster at the MLG Dallas National Championships where he placed 5th.
In early November, it was announced that for unspecified personal reasons, TLO was returning to his home in Leipzig after the MLG Dallas event and competing in the foreign scene. Speaking in the Liquid Weekly #14, TLO said that "due to a number of reasons I do not wish to go into at this time, living and playing in Germany is what will benefit both me and my team the most right now."[4] Although his results in the previous 2 GSLs qualified him for Code A for the 2011 January Tournament, TLO chose to remain in Germany instead. He has since participated in the DreamHack SteelSeries LAN-Tournament as one of the 16 invitees where he was upset in the group stages by MaNa and LaLuSh.
On May 22, TLO streamed StarCraft for 24 hours straight in order to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. The charity marathon, dubbed "Starcraft Without Borders", proved to be an enormous success, raising over $2487 in ad revenue and earning him the nickname "Dr. Dario". The stream for this event peaked at 26,000 live viewers, overtaking the official NASL stream which was also live during this period.[5]
TLO was one of the 50 players invited to participate in the North American Starleague and was placed into Division 1. He ended the season with a record of 10-11 in his group, with four series wins and five series losses, placing sixth in the division and 28th overall, qualifying for Season Two. However, he relinquished his spot in the tournament.[6]
At MLG Columbus 2011, TLO went 1-4 in Pool D, winning against Machine, but losing to HayprO, iNcontroL, LosirA, and MajOr. He lost to ViBE in the Championship Bracket knocking him from the tournament.
On June 10, 2011, TLO announced he was taking a break from playing SC2 due to the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome he experiences in both hands. He will continue to be involved in the E-sports scene during that time, whether it be casting or some other organizational role.[7] On July 18, it was announced that TLO has been recovering well, and managed to qualify for Germany's WCG Playoffs.[8]
At MLG Anaheim 2011, TLO went 1-4 in Pool A, winning against Tyler, but losing to DongRaeGu, HayprO, HuK, and NaNiwa. He lost to his teammate Sheth in the Championship Bracket, after beating iNcontroL, knocking him from the tournament.
TLO saw a modest run at MLG Raleigh 2011 where he found himself in Pool C. He finished 1-4, falling to SeleCT, Slush, teammate HerO and DongRaeGu, although he managed to defeat TricKsteR 2-1.[9] His run in the championship bracket was short-lived as he was knocked out by DeMusliM 2-0. TLO finished 25th in the tournament.[10]
On September 10, TLO competed in The SHOUTcraft Invitational #3 and placed in a tournament for the first time since January 2011. He lost to White-Ra 3-0 in the third place match, finishing 4th overall.
On September 14, he defeated GoOdy 3-1 in a best of 5 showmatch, organized by the German community.[11]
TLO played in MLG Orlando where he was seeded into Group A. TLO managed to beat Drewbie in group play, but lost all of his other matches, therefore placing second last in his group. In the Championship Bracket, he would lose in his first match to Polt 0-2, ending his run in the tournament in 22nd place behind his teammate Tyler.[12]
For Battle in Berlin and 2011 MLG Providence TLO chose to again switch race and play Zerg.
TLO announced on December 13, 2011 via Twitter that he would be moving back to Korea in the following year to rejoin his teammate Jinro,[13] finally departing on May 15, 2012.[14]
2012 [ edit ]
TLO's most recent placing in 2012 was at the ASUS ROG The GD Invitational he was placed in group B with Kas, elfi, & MaNa going 3-0 in series and only dropping 1 map to MaNa which placed him straight into the Semifinals he then went up against elfi, losing 1-3 which gave him a final placing of 3rd/4th in the ASUS ROG The GD Invitational. TLO also participated in 2012 DreamHack Open/Bucharest where he was able to go through the group stages and reach the quarterfinals, beating notable players, such as Ziktomini, Beastyqt, and Harstem, before ultimately losing 0-2 against Nerchio, who ended up winning the tournament.
Finished 41-48th in the MLG Pro Circuit Winter.
Finished 45-60th in IPL 4.
Finished 23-45th in NASL Season 3.
Made the Ro32 at HSC 5, meaning he was not able to attend group stages at TaKe's place, having fallen short in the online qualifiers.
Finished 23-45th in NASL Season 4.
Reached as far as the Ro32 at DreamHack Valencia. TLO finished last in his group with a record of 2-5. He lost to TheSTC 0-2, won against JeaL 2-1, then losing to HerO 0-2.
TLO did much better at DreamHack Bucharest only losing in the Ro8. In his run he took out Harstem 2-1 but the lost to Nerchio 0-2. This would be one of his best result for 2012.
He finished in the Ro12 for DreamHack Winter. Finishing third in his group stage going 9-6, he then have to face Snute. He loses with a score of 1-3.
The last event of 2012 for TLO would beHSC 6. He would top his group in group stage 2 over MC, Grubby and Kas going 4-1 in matches. In the playoffs, he faced the Korean Zerg player Symbol, in a close series TLO ends up losing 2-3 in the Bo5. This would conclude 2012 for TLO.
2013 in Wings of Liberty [ edit ]
Starting the year off strong, TLO reached the Ro8 at IEM Season VII Katowice. In the group stage round robin style, TLO placed second over Grubby, mOOnGlaDe, Snute and Tarson. In the Ro12, he defeated MaNa 3-2 to face First. First proved to be too strong and 3-0'ed TLO.
Heart of the Swarm [ edit ]
2013 [ edit ]
At IEM Season VII World Championship TLO placed 21-24th. He lost in the round robin group stage with a 2-8 record, his group contained Mvp, Dream, Stephano, Golden and Grubby.
In the first season of WCS Europe, TLO finished in 5th place taking out Shuttle, Kas, Strelok, MMA but ultimately losing to Mvp 0-3, the eventual champion of Season 1.
At DreamHack Stockholm, TLO got as far as the Ro16 losing to NaNiwa 1-2.
At WCS Season 1 finals TLO placed in the Ro16, finishing third on his group, winning against Stephano 2-1, but ultimately losing to Soulkey and aLive without taking a map. He finished with a record of 2-5.
Making it as far as the Ro8 at DreamHack Open Summer, he took out Squirtle in the Ro16, but lost to TaeJa 0-2.
His highest finish of the year happened at HomeStory Cup 7, where he finished third overall. In group stage 1, he placed second within his group over Dragon and Harstem, with Seed taking first, he went 5-2 in the group. In group stage 2, TLO placed first overall over MC, Bunny and NightEnD with a record of 4-2. Bunny and MC each took a game off him. In the playoffs, he would 3-1 Violet, but fall 2-3 against TaeJa. He ultimately won 3-2 over HyuN and took third place.
At WCS Europe Season 2, TLO only went as far as the Ro32, getting knocked out by MMA and MaNa, going 3-4 overall. He won 2-0 over MaNa, then got 2-0'd by MMA and lost 2-1 to MaNa.
At ASUS ROG Summer 2013, he made it as far as the Ro32, being defeated 3-1 by TaeJa, then winning 3-0 over Bischu and getting 3-1'd by HyuN.
Season 3 of WCS Europe would be same as Season 2. His group consisted of Happy, duckdeok and SaSe. He went 3-4 in games and 1-2 in series.
At DreamHack Bucharest TLO made it as far as the Ro32, getting knocked out by Nerchio and elfi.
At IEM New York, TLO placed 13-16th, finishing last in his group.
At HomeStory Cup VIII, TLO went as far as the Ro32, getting knocked out by MC and HeRoMaRinE.
For the last tournament of 2013, TLO attended DreamHack Winter. He ended up placing in the top 13-16th, barely advancing in the group stage to play JYP in Losers round 1. He got 2-0'd by the Korean Protoss player and his run ended there.
2014 [ edit ]
The first event TLO attended was WCS Europe. He made it as far as the Ro16 before getting knocked out of a group containing BabyKnight, Welmu and StarDust. He finished 1-4 in maps, losing 0-2 to StarDust and 1-2 to Welmu.
His best result so far was at IEM Sao Paulo in which he placed 3rd-4th. He qualified online taking out StarDust, Kane, Snute and MaNa. In stage 2 of the offline event, he finished second taking out Shakti and hellokitty. He went 4-2 in games losing only to MC. In stage 3, TLO upset Bomber 3-2 but fell to herO 1-4.
TLO was seeded directly into Ro32 for WCS Europe Season 2 due to his run in Season 1. His group, consisted of MC, Happy and Golden. TLO lost his first match 1-2 to Happy and fell 0-2 to Golden in the losers match, knocking him out of WCS Europe Season 2.
He requalified for Premier League in WCS Europe Season 3 by defeating Namshar 3-2 in Challenger League, despite losing the first two maps. In Premier League, he was placed in a group with Welmu, uThermal and LiveZerg. He was able to advance from his group in first place, beating both LiveZerg and uThermal. In the Round of 16, he faced VortiX and the two Koreans YoDa and San. He lost to YoDa in the opening match, then defeated VortiX in the losers match. Unfortunately, he fell to San in the decider match and did not advance to the Round of 8.
2015 [ edit ]
TLO started of 2015 by narrowly qualifying for WCS Season 1 by defeating Miniraser 2-1 in the last European qualifier. He went on to defeat Ret 3-1 in Challenger League, to qualify for Premier League. In the Round of 32, he was placed into a group with Polt, Kelazhur and Jim. After suffering a surprising 0-2 defeat against the relatively inexperienced Kelazhur, he managed to come back and defeat Jim 2-0. In the deciding match, he faced Kelazhur again. This time, he got the better end of their encounter, winning 2-1 and advancing to the Round of 16. In the Round of 16, he lost to ForGG in the opening match but managed to defeat XiGua and Serral in order to advance to his first WCS Round of 8 since 2013 WCS Season 1 Europe.
VoDs [ edit ]
First Person View Match VODS [ edit ]
Trivia [ edit ]
Considers Snute to be the most handsome progamer in Europe. [ Citation needed ]
Played Protoss in Brood War.
Has severe Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in both wrists.
Got his nickname (TLO stands for "TheLittleOne") from playing 2v2 in Supreme Commander with his older brother "TheBigOne".
His big brother uses the nickname "TheBigOne" despite being shorter.
Was given the nickname "NostraDario" (reference to Nostradamus) for his predictive nuke that killed many of Hyperdub's Vikings in the 2010 TG Sambo Intel StarCraft II Open Season 1.
TLO was a member of Germany's national team - Team Germany.
TLO originally played StarCraft II under the nickname of "TheLittleOne" as mentioned above, but as this was shortened by fans to "TLO", he preferred the shortened version.
TLO played Random throughout most of beta, then switched to Terran for early release. Later he switched to Zerg for a very brief amount of time, before switching back to random, then Terran again. For Battle in Berlin, he switched to Zerg again. Since then he has stated multiple times, that he does not plan to switch races again. [ Citation needed ]
He became the first and only player to win an episode of the weekly ZOTAC Cup while playing as random.
Is a noted fan of the series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. [15]
. At the start of 2012, he stated numerous times on his stream that he would not shave his beard until he placed exceptionally well or outright won a tournament. He finally shaved his beard in May 2012. [16]
His beard has a fanclub.
While living in Korea, he adopted an abandoned kitty that he named Spot. He found the cat when he was going out for dinner in the streets.
Once had Day9 send him a shipment of sand to impress a girl. Day9 was very amused when he heard that TLO's try failed.[17]
Achievements [ edit ]
Team Achievements
WoL Matches [ edit ]
Replays [ edit ]
Beta Matches [ edit ]
Heart Of The Swarm Beta [ edit ]
Gallery [ edit ]
Interviews [ edit ]
TLO loves the Wiki
2017 [ edit ]
2014 [ edit ]
2013 [ edit ]
2012 [ edit ]
2011 [ edit ]
2010 [ edit ]
Battle Net profile and Ranking page for his European server account.Today is the big day for Tesla CEO Elon Musk's solar aspirations.
Tesla and SolarCity shareholders will vote on a merger, worth $2.6 billion, on Thursday. SolarCity shareholders will meet at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Foster City, California at 11 a.m. PT/ 2p.m. ET. Tesla shareholders will meet three hours later in Fremont, California to cast their vote.
The Tesla meeting will be webcast live to the public.
Analysts are expecting the merger to be approved.
“We fully expect the deal to go through,” Jeffrey Osborne, an analyst covering Tesla and SolarCity for Cowen & Co., said Wednesday, according to Bloomberg. “Every Tesla shareholder I’ve talked to has the view that a year from now, we won’t be talking about SolarCity’s cash needs — the solar-plus-storage story will be playing out.”
Elon Musk owns about 20% of both companies and is CEO of Tesla and chairman of SolarCity. Musk is also the cousin of SolarCity's CEO Lyndon Rive.
Musk has unveiled several energy products ahead of the merger to show his vision for the combined company. Musk showed his solar roof product on October 28 — four solar shingle options that Musk claims will have the most efficient solar cells at the lowest price.
Details on the products price have yet to be revealed, but Rive said during a conference call in early November that they are aiming for 40 cents a Watt, which would put it in line with the competition.
elon musk solar roof More
Musk also unveiled an improved version of Tesla's at-home battery, Powerwall 2.0, that can store 13.5 kWh of energy.
The proposed merger has gotten criticism as Tesla has a lot to contend with in 2017 as ramps up production for the Model 3. Tesla will be absorbing SolarCity's roughly $3 billion in debt as part of the merger.
Tesla is pushing its solar ambitions forward during a potentially difficult time under President-elect Donald Trump, a known climate denier.
Angelo Zino, an equity analyst at CFRA Research, wrote in a Nov.9 research note that a Trump presidency is bad for the solar industry as it could negatively impact solar subsidies.
"We believe a Trump presidency along with a Republican-led Congress poses significant risks to a potential reduction/elimination of the 30% ITC [Solar Investment Tax Credit], extended at the end of '15," Zino wrote.
NOW WATCH: Elon Musk just unveiled something that could revolutionize how you power your home
More From Business InsiderUpdated March 30: Revised to include TSA statement about the agency speaking with Jennifer Williamson.
A mother who asked TSA agents at DFW International Airport for alternative screening for her son with special needs said they were "treated like dogs" and forced to miss a flight during an extensive security check, according to her Facebook post that has since gone viral.
But the Transportation Security Administration said in a prepared statement that it followed approved procedures to "resolve an alarm of the passenger's laptop."
The agency said in a statement Thursday that it had spoken to Williamson about the incident to "learn more about her family's screening experience," KXAS-TV (NBC5) reports.
Jennifer Williamson wrote Sunday morning that her son has a sensory processing disorder and that she asked agents to "screen him in other ways per TSA rules."
An accompanying video shows a TSA agent patting down her son. The agent pats down his backside before moving to his front. She writes in the post they were kept for more than hour in the "horrifying" incident.
TSA disputed Williamson's account, noting in its statement Monday that the passengers were at the checkpoint for about 45 minutes, including the time it took to discuss screening procedures with the teen's mother and the inspection of three carry-on items. The pat-down took about two minutes, according to the agency.Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny (R) and British counterpart David Cameron (C), pictured at Downing Street November 9, 2015, welcomed a revised power-sharing deal in Northern Ireland announced November 17 (AFP Photo/Jack Taylor)
London (AFP) - Northern Ireland's power-sharing government was pulled back from the brink of collapse Tuesday by a deal struck after ten weeks of deadlock linked to alleged IRA activity.
The administration featuring former foes the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), who are pro-British, and Sinn Fein, which wants Northern Ireland to be part of the Republic of Ireland, is set to resume normal work after the stalemate which threatened Northern Ireland's hard-earned stability.
The new agreement runs to nearly 70 pages and features a string of measures designed to allay suspicions about the ongoing role of paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland while boosting its economy.
British Prime Minister David Cameron called it "an important turning point for Northern Ireland" while his Irish counterpart Enda Kenny said it "tackles the toxic legacy of paramilitarism and its links to criminality."
Northern Ireland, whose government has devolved powers from London, endured 30 years of sectarian violence known as The Troubles in which 3,500 people died.
A 1998 peace deal, that led to the formation of a power-sharing government, ended most of the violence.
But in September, DUP First Minister Peter Robinson abruptly resigned, causing concern for the future of the executive.
His resignation came a day after a senior figure in his power-sharing partners Sinn Fein -- formerly seen as the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) paramilitary group -- was arrested in connection with the murder of a former IRA gunman.
The Sinn Fein man, Bobby Storey, was later released without charge and his lawyer said he would sue police for unlawful arrest. Robinson resumed his duties last month.
But the stalemate, which was also connected to a budget crisis over welfare reforms not being implemented, lingered on until Tuesday's deal was signed by Robinson and his deputy, Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness.
The deal includes a string of pledges to eliminate the influence of paramilitary groups.
It also agrees that corporation tax in Northern Ireland should be cut to 12.5 percent, the same as in Ireland.Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
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The war of words between the United States and Iran is escalating, with much of it, as always, for domestic consumption—President Barack Obama against his hawkish Republican rivals, and various Iranians in competition within Iran’s fractured politics. Still, the bluster and toughened sanctions are worrisome. There’s little to no chance, practically zero, that the United States will attack Iran in 2012. But what’s worrisome is that Iran, feeling backed into a corner and under assault—the United States is threatening its lifeline by moving to cut off its oil exports and sanction its Central Bank’s transaction with financial institutions worldwide, while yet another of its nuclear scientists was assassinated this month—might lash out militarily or via terrorism of its own. Or Israel might decide to take matters into its own hands. In either case, it’s likely to lead to a full-fledged US-Iran war. Ad Policy
Strangely enough, it’s all happening just as it appears that talks between Iran and the P5+1 world powers might be restarting and it appears that a delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency will visit Iran later this month.
Like the Bush administration before it, the Obama administration is more than well aware of Israel’s ability to bomb some of Iran’s nuclear research sites. (Bush administration officials repeatedly warned Israel not to do so, and Obama’s team has done the same since 2009.) According to the January 14 Wall Street Journal,
U.S. defense leaders are increasingly concerned that Israel is preparing to take military action against Iran, over U.S. objections, and have stepped up contingency planning to safeguard U.S. facilities in the region in case of a conflict. President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other top officials have delivered a string of private messages to Israeli leaders warning about the dire consequences of a strike.
The Journal article notes that in response to US pleadings, the Israelis have been “noncommittal.”
Outrageous as it might be that Israel, a supposed ally, would refuse to cooperate openly with the United States on a matter of such grave importance, it also appears that Israel is openly seeking to sabotage the possibility of US-Iran negotiations. The latest assassination of an Iranian scientist in north Tehran, via a bomb attached to his automobile by a motorcycle-riding terrorist, came one day after the arrival of a top State Department official, Bill Burns, in Turkey, part of an attempt by the Obama administration to restart the long-stalled negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 world powers. The timing of that act, which provoked great anger in Iran, was probably calculated to inflame opinion so that diplomacy, once again, fails.
The United States did deny responsibility for the assassination outright, but it failed to condemn it in strong terms. If that’s because the United States is trying to handle its seemingly uncontrollable ally with kid gloves, that’s an enormous mistake. Terrorism is terrorism, and killing Iranian scientists, inserting computer worms in its control systems, and the explosion that killed one of its leading rocket experts in 2011 are clearly acts of war. If Obama thinks that he can tolerate such behavior by Israel, or worse, abet it, and then talk Israel out of bombing Iran, then he’s wrong.
As Laura Rozen reported for Yahoo, a large-scale set of military maneuvers between the United States and Israel, set for later this year, has been postponed or canceled. Though both sides downplay the cancellation, hopefully it’s intended as a message to the Israelis that they need to behave themselves.Ranking Systems
Years Used: 1994-1995
Type: Additive, 52 week rolling
Restrictions: Best 14
Players are ranked on the basis of their best 14 results in the previous 52 weeks.
Currently unable to locate point schedule used during this time. It was ~ 20% lower than
subsequent systems 1996-1999; compare Sampras' winning point totals at US Open:
769 - 1995
994 - 1996
Years Used: 1996-1998
Type: Additive, 52 week rolling
Restrictions: Best 14
Players are ranked on the basis of their best 14 results in the previous 52 weeks.
Total Points
Category Prize Money W F SF QF 16 32 64 128
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Grand Slams 4,750,000- 750 537 325 163 82 41 20 1
5,000,000
Super 9 2,250,000- 370 265 160 80 40 20 10 1
2,500,000
Champ 2,000,000 360 258 155 78 39 20 1
Series 1,875,000 350 250 150 75 38 19 1
1,750,000 340 243 145 73 37 19 1
1,625,000 330 235 140 70 35 18 1
1,500,000 320 228 135 68 34 17 1
1,375,000 310 220 130 65 33 17 1
1,250,000 300 213 125 63 32 16 1
1,125,000 290 205 120 60 30 15 1
1,000,000 280 198 115 58 29 15 1
875,000 270 190 110 55 28 14 1
750,000 260 183 105 53 27 14 1
625,000 250 175 100 50 25 13 1
World 1,375,000 250 183 115 58 29 15 1
Series 1,250,000 240 175 110 55 28 14 1
1,125,000 230 168 105 53 27 14 1
1,000,000 220 160 100 50 25 13 1
875,000 210 153 95 48 24 12 1
750,000 200 145 90 45 23 12 1
625,000 190 138 85 43 22 11 1
550,000 180 130 80 40 20 10 1
475,000 170 123 75 38 19 10 1
400,000 160 115 70 35 18 9 1
325,000 150 108 65 33 17 1
250,000 140 100 60 30 15 1
175,000 130 93 55 28 14 1
Challengers* 125,000+H 100 73 45 23 12 1
125,000 90 65 40 20 10 1
100,000 80 58 35 18 9 1
75,000 70 50 30 15 8 1
50,000 60 43 25 13 7 1
* Any Challenger providing hospitality will receive the points of the next
highest prize money level. (Note: 125,000 + H points are shown).
First Round Losers
------------------
First round losers always receive 1 point. Any player who reached the second round by
drawing a bye and then loses will receive second round prize money but only 1 point.
Main Draw Bonus Points
----------------------
The following points are awarded for defeating a player ranked #1 through 200. The match
must actually be played, not a walk-over. Double Bonus Points are awarded instead of
Regular Bonus Points in the case of Grand Slam matches and best-of-5-set finals in Super
9 ATP tournaments.
Regular Double
Ranking Bonus Points Bonus Points
--------------------------------------------
1 50 100
2-5 45 90
6-10 36 72
11-20 24 48
21-30 18 36
31-50 12 24
51-75 6 12
75-100 3 6
101-150 2 4
151-200 1 2
Qualifying Points
---------------------------
A player gaining entry to an event through a qualifying competition shall receive one
half the points awarded to a second round loser in the main draw, in addition to whatever
points they
actually earn in the event.
In Grand Slam qualifying tournaments, players receive 1 point for losing in the first
round of qualifying, 3 points for losing in the second round, and 5 points for losing in
the third round. In ATP Championship Series Tournaments, players in qualifying receive
1 point for losing in the first round and one quarter of the points a main draw second
round loser receives (plus bonus points) for losing in the second round. As of 1997
bonus points for beating ranked players are awarded in Grand Slam and ATP Championship
Series events. Neither ranking nor bonus points are awarded to players who fail to
qualify for ATP World Series tournaments.
Ranking Penalty: Withdrawals After 12 Noon Eastern Time USA
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If a player withdraws from an event after 12 Noon Eastern Time USA on the Friday before
the start of the event, he will be penalized in the rankings by one event per 12 month
period, e.g. he will be ranked by his best 13 events instead of his best 14 events after
one such infraction, by his best 12 events after 2 such infractions, etc. The penalty
shall remain in force for 52 weeks after the time of the infraction. This penalty shall
be waived if, within the first 3 days of the main draw, the player is examined on-site by
the tournament doctor and deemed incapable of competing at a professional level.
Years Used: 1999
Type: Additive, 52 week rolling
Restrictions: Best 14
Players are ranked on the basis of their best 14 results in the previous 52 weeks.
Points were increased for GS/Super 9.
Total Points
Category Prize Money W F SF QF 16 32 64 128
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Grand Slams 4,750,000- 770 552 335 168 84 42 21 1
5,000,000
Super 9 3,000,000 400 288 175 88 44 22 11 1
2,750,000 390 280 170 85 43 22 11 1
2,500,000 380 273 165 83 42 21 11 1
2,250,000 370 265 160 80 40 20 10 1
Champ 2,000,000 360 258 155 78 39 20 1
Series 1,875,000 350 250 150 75 38 19 1
1,750,000 340 243 145 73 37 19 1
1,625,000 330 235 140 70 |
). What he means is that when it comes to such matters as education, which affect the good of all, each individual should be guided by the collective decisions of the whole community. An individual citizen does not belong to himself, in the sense that it is not up to him alone to determine how he should act; he should subordinate his individual decision-making powers to those of the whole. The strong form of egoism we have been discussing cannot accept Aristotle's doctrine of the priority of the city to the individual. It tells the individual that the good of others has, in itself, no valid claim on him, but that he should serve other members of the community only to the extent that he can connect their interests to his own. Such a doctrine leaves no room for the thought that the individual citizen does not belong to himself but to the whole.
10. Three Lives Compared
In Book I Aristotle says that three kinds of lives are thought to be especially attractive: one is devoted to pleasure, a second to politics, and a third to knowledge and understanding (1095b17–19). In X.6–9 he returns to these three alternatives, and explores them more fully than he had in Book I. The life of pleasure is construed in Book I as a life devoted to physical pleasure, and is quickly dismissed because of its vulgarity. In X.6, Aristotle concedes that physical pleasures, and more generally, amusements of all sorts, are desirable in themselves, and therefore have some claim to be our ultimate end. But his discussion of happiness in Book X does not start from scratch; he builds on his thesis that pleasure cannot be our ultimate target, because what counts as pleasant must be judged by some standard other than pleasure itself, namely the judgment of the virtuous person. Amusements will not be absent from a happy life, since everyone needs relaxation, and amusements fill this need. But they play a subordinate role, because we seek relaxation in order to return to more important activities.
Aristotle turns therefore, in X.7–8, to the two remaining alternatives—politics and philosophy—and presents a series of arguments to show that the philosophical life, a life devoted to theoria (contemplation, study), is best. Theoria is not the process of learning that leads to understanding; that process is not a candidate for our ultimate end, because it is undertaken for the sake of a further goal. What Aristotle has in mind when he talks about theoria is the activity of someone who has already achieved theoretical wisdom. The happiest life is lived by someone who has a full understanding of the basic causal principles that govern the operation of the universe, and who has the resources needed for living a life devoted to the exercise of that understanding. Evidently Aristotle believes that his own life and that of his philosophical friends was the best available to a human being. He compares it to the life of a god: god thinks without interruption and endlessly, and a philosopher enjoys something similar for a limited period of time.
It may seem odd that after devoting so much attention to the practical virtues, Aristotle should conclude his treatise with the thesis that the best activity of the best life is not ethical. In fact, some scholars have held that X.7–8 are deeply at odds with the rest of the Ethics; they take Aristotle to be saying that we should be prepared to act unethically, if need be, in order to devote ourselves as much as possible to contemplation. But it is difficult to believe that he intends to reverse himself so abruptly, and there are many indications that he intends the arguments of X.7–8 to be continuous with the themes he emphasizes throughout the rest of the Ethics. The best way to understand him is to take him to be assuming that one will need the ethical virtues in order to live the life of a philosopher, even though exercising those virtues is not the philosopher's ultimate end. To be adequately equipped to live a life of thought and discussion, one will need practical wisdom, temperance, justice, and the other ethical virtues. To say that there is something better even than ethical activity, and that ethical activity promotes this higher goal, is entirely compatible with everything else that we find in the Ethics.
Although Aristotle's principal goal in X.7–8 is to show the superiority of philosophy to politics, he does not deny that a political life is happy. Perfect happiness, he says, consists in contemplation; but he indicates that the life devoted to practical thought and ethical virtue is happy in a secondary way. He thinks of this second-best life as that of a political leader, because he assumes that the person who most fully exercises such qualities as justice and greatness of soul is the man who has the large resources needed to promote the common good of the city. The political life has a major defect, despite the fact that it consists in fully exercising the ethical virtues, because it is a life devoid of philosophical understanding and activity. Were someone to combine both careers, practicing politics at certain times and engaged in philosophical discussion at other times (as Plato's philosopher-kings do), he would lead a life better than that of Aristotle's politician, but worse than that of Aristotle's philosopher.
But his complaint about the political life is not simply that it is devoid of philosophical activity. The points he makes against it reveal drawbacks inherent in ethical and political activity. Perhaps the most telling of these defects is that the life of the political leader is in a certain sense unleisurely (1177b4–15). What Aristotle has in mind when he makes this complaint is that ethical activities are remedial: they are needed when something has gone wrong, or threatens to do so. Courage, for example, is exercised in war, and war remedies an evil; it is not something we should wish for. Aristotle implies that all other political activities have the same feature, although perhaps to a smaller degree. Corrective justice would provide him with further evidence for his thesis—but what of justice in the distribution of goods? Perhaps Aristotle would reply that in existing political communities a virtuous person must accommodate himself to the least bad method of distribution, because, human nature being what it is, a certain amount of injustice must be tolerated. As the courageous person cannot be completely satisfied with his courageous action, no matter how much self-mastery it shows, because he is a peace-lover and not a killer, so the just person living in the real world must experience some degree of dissatisfaction with his attempts to give each person his due. The pleasures of exercising the ethical virtues are, in normal circumstances, mixed with pain. Unalloyed pleasure is available to us only when we remove ourselves from the all-too-human world and contemplate the rational order of the cosmos. No human life can consist solely in these pure pleasures; and in certain circumstances one may owe it to one's community to forego a philosophical life and devote oneself to the good of the city. But the paradigms of human happiness are those people who are lucky enough to devote much of their time to the study of a world more orderly than the human world we inhabit.
Although Aristotle argues for the superiority of the philosophical life in X.7–8, he says in X.9, the final chapter of the Ethics, that his project is not yet complete, because we can make human beings virtuous, or good even to some small degree, only if we undertake a study of the art of legislation. The final section of the Ethics is therefore intended as a prolegomenon to Aristotle's political writings. We must investigate the kinds of political systems exhibited by existing Greek cities, the forces that destroy or preserve cities, and the best sort of political order. Although the study of virtue Aristotle has just completed is meant to be helpful to all human beings who have been brought up well—even those who have no intention of pursuing a political career—it is also designed to serve a larger purpose. Human beings cannot achieve happiness, or even something that approximates happiness, unless they live in communities that foster good habits and provide the basic equipment of a well-lived life.
The study of the human good has therefore led to two conclusions: The best life is not to be found in the practice of politics. But the well being of whole communities depends on the willingness of some to lead a second-best life—a life devoted to the study and practice of the art of politics, and to the expression of those qualities of thought and passion that exhibit our rational self-mastery.
GlossaryExamples of how states have been reacting to the threat of running out of federal money for the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It was unclear how their plans might change with the short-term federal funds Congress approved Thursday.
—Arizona: More than 24,000 children covered. Current funding was expected to run out by the end of December. Could shift children to Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, which reimburses states at a lower rate than the children’s health program does. Republican Gov. Doug Ducey hinted he could use state funds to continue coverage, perhaps costing $80 million.
—California: Plans to shift many of the 1.3 million covered children and pregnant women to Medicaid. Officials say this would cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars, could put 32,000 at risk of losing coverage.
—Colorado: Lawmakers approved Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper’s request for $9.6 million in state funds to finance the program through February. Covers almost 75,000 children and pregnant women.
—Connecticut: State has been notifying thousands of families that the program could run out of money by Jan. 31 unless Congress reauthorizes federal funding. Letters urge parents to enroll their children in new health coverage for Feb. 1. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said more than 17,000 children could be affected.
—Minnesota: Around 125,000 children covered. State will use more of its own money to cover recipients if federal money halts, said state Human Services Commissioner Emily Piper.
—Oregon: Federal money ran out this month for 120,000 children and 1,700 pregnant women, but coverage continued with added state money. One-third of the children would be shifted to Medicaid. The rest would continue in the children’s health program.
—Texas: About 400,000 children covered, expected to have enough money through February. No warning letters sent to families. Christine Mann, spokeswoman of the state health department, says, “We’re hopeful that Congress will renew the program soon.”
—Washington state: 58,000 beneficiaries. Amy Blondin, spokeswoman of state Health Care Authority, said the program has been functioning with money redistributed from other states. “We’re choosing to not send out any notices right now to families, especially right before the holidays, when we’re not clear on what the final outcome will be,” she said.When I told my uncle that I was going to be writing about the Tampa Bay Lightning online, he was ecstatic. Not as much about the writing part, but more so the Lightning. Even though I knew Tampa had a loaded team under GM Steve Yzerman, I was pretty confused. My uncle is a lifelong Bruins fan, like myself, so the Lightning just seemed like a random team for him to be so enamored with. He talked about their owner and how great he is. Sure, I thought, sounds great. I didn’t think too much of it.
I got home that night, and I was still curious about what he said. So, I decided to do some reading and see what I could find. Turns out Jeff Vinik, the Lightning’s current owner, is pretty great at what he does. He’s why you’ll find articles titled, “Are The Tampa Bay Lightning The Best Buy In NHL History?”
Changing the City of Tampa
Any time a team tries to move to a new city or build a new stadium they make claims about “revitalizing downtown.” They promise economic development in exchange for the millions it costs to build stadiums these days — makes sense. You get more people coming and spending their money, you get more economic growth.
Of course to spend money, there needs to be shops and restaurants nearby, which is what Vinik is currently trying to do. Back in 2014, he announced his plan to finally finish, the currently incomplete, downtown Tampa.
The Tampa Bay Lighting owner on Wednesday rolled out his long-awaited $1 billion “vision plan” to build nearly 3 million square feet of development along the city’s waterfront. “What we’re doing is completing the plan city planners dreamed up long ago,” Vinik told an approving throng of VIPs who gathered at his Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel & Marina for the glitzy unveiling. Jamal Thalji
This project shows two things about Vinik, that he cares about Tampa and that understands the modern fan. The reason it shows he cares is purely due to the price tag of this endeavor. While the project was originally reported at around $1 billion dollars, a more recent Forbes article has the whole thing pegged at $3 billion. Not exactly a small sum. It’s also important to note how this dedication to the area builds trust and support with the same locals Vinik is trying to attract as Lightning fans.
Creating an Experience for Tampa Bay Lightning Fans
That first part is pretty easy to understand. It’s the idea of the modern fan that’s more abstract.
Today, less and less people will attend a hockey, football or baseball game purely for the game itself. The modern fan requires more incentive to spend their money because they could easily just watch the game at home. That incentive comes by creating more of an experience.
It’s exactly why Nashville has flourished. Going to a game at Bridgestone Arena is unlike anything else in the NHL. Obviously there’s the fans, but there’s also the surrounding area. By adding a great nightlife in addition to the guys chasing a puck around a sheet of ice you get a great product. That’s what has kept attendance fairly regular over the past six years despite varying amounts of success.
The Big Picture
The “vision plan” also calls for more residential properties downtown, a new medical campus for USF and more hotels on top of the “high energy” development next to Amalie. All these should help to create that Nashville experience which is essential if Vinik wants fans to get off their couch and spend their disposable income. Right now they’re already on their way. After all my uncle did rave about one Irish bar right across from Amalie Arena. If they can keep creating places like that, you can expect to see the Vinik become an even richer man.Abstract Newly discovered fossils of the Middle Triassic reptile Atopodentatus unicus call for a radical reassessment of its feeding behavior. The skull displays a pronounced hammerhead shape that was hitherto unknown. The long, straight anterior edges of both upper and lower jaws were lined with batteries of chisel-shaped teeth, whereas the remaining parts of the jaw rami supported densely packed needle-shaped teeth forming a mesh. The evidence indicates a novel feeding mechanism wherein the chisel-shaped teeth were used to scrape algae off the substrate, and the plant matter that was loosened was filtered from the water column through the more posteriorly positioned tooth mesh. This is the oldest record of herbivory within marine reptiles.
Keywords
paleontology
marine reptiles
Atopodentatus unicus
Middle Triassic
INTRODUCTION The recovery of the trophic structure in both terrestrial and marine biota following the end-Permian mass extinction has recently been a topic of intense discussion (1–4). Here, we report the first herbivorous filter-feeding marine reptile known, from the early Middle Triassic of China. Relative to the heavily built trunk skeleton, the skull is remarkably small (skull length is approximately 18% of trunk length), which calls for an efficient foraging mechanism that is uniquely specialized in this new form. Atopodentatus unicus was originally described (5) as a putative sauropterygian filter feeder with a downturned rostrum, supposedly used to stir up invertebrates in soft sediment in a flamingo-like manner. Here, we describe two new specimens of Atopodentatus from the Guanling Formation (Member II, Anisian) of Luoping County, Yunnan Province, that require a very different interpretation of skull morphology and provide evidence for an even more remarkable feeding strategy. The new specimens clearly demonstrate that rather than being downturned, the rostrum was developed into a “hammerhead” with pronounced lateral processes formed by the premaxillae and maxillae in the upper jaw and mirrored by the dentary in the lower jaw. We confirm the presence of fine and densely packed needle-shaped teeth in the ramus of the dentaries and maxillae, but the premaxillary teeth are arranged along the anterior edge of the element and are more robust and peg-like in form.
RESULTS The new specimens (V20291 and V20292, Figs. 1 and 2) are unquestionably referable to A. unicus. IVPP (Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology) V20291 is exposed in dorsal view, and apart from the distinct hammerhead, it exhibits dermal skull roofing elements that broadly follow the pattern described in the holotype (5), including the narrow L-shaped maxillae with a short anteriorly placed ascending process; needle-shaped teeth; the presence of very large nasals; prefrontals and postfrontals sharing a broad contact, thereby excluding the frontal from the orbital margin; a robust jugal; and a much reduced lower temporal fenestra that forms a weak embayment at the ventral margin of the otherwise closed cheek region. The slight variability in the arrangement of the articulation of the frontal with the parietal is readily attributable to individual variation and/or preservational differences. Furthermore, the postcranium also closely resembles the holotype, with anterior dorsals bearing distinctly tall and rounded neural spines, a moderately elongate neck, and large and robust forelimbs. The new specimens of Atopodentatus provide no further insights into the phylogenetic relationships of this taxon that, presently, must still be considered an aberrant sauropterygian (5). Fig. 1 Prepared skulls referred to the Middle Triassic marine reptile A. unicus. (A) IVPP V20291 exposed in dorsal view. (B) IVPP V20292 exposed in ventral view. Scale bar, 2.0 cm. [Photo Credit: W. Gao, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology] Fig. 2 Interpretative drawings of the skulls of A. unicus. (A) IVPP V20291 in dorsal view. (B) IVPP V20292 in ventral view, with detail of the shagreen of palatal teeth highlighted. a, angular; ar, articular; at, atlas; ax, axis; cr, cervical rib; cv, cervical vertebra; d, dentary; ect, ectopterygoid; f, frontal; hy, hyoid; in, internal naris; j, jugal; mx, maxilla; n, nasal; p, parietal; pal, palatine; pf, postfrontal; pm, premaxilla; po, postorbital; prf, prefrontal; pt, pterygoid; q, quadrate; sa, surangular; sp, splenial; sq, squamosal; v, vomer. [Illustration: X. Guo, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology] The second specimen of Atopodentatus at our disposal, IVPP V20292, is the only one that displays the skull in ventral view. The transversely oriented premaxillae have separated from one another. The spatulate teeth are preserved in situ on the right premaxilla; tooth attachment is pleurodont, and in some positions, at least two teeth are ankylosed to each dental groove, thereby forming a rudimentary battery of teeth slightly reminiscent of a hadrosaur jaw. No teeth are preserved on the left premaxilla. At its anterior end, the dentary forms a medial transverse process that engages in the formation of the symphysis and a lateral transverse process to match the width of the premaxilla. Exposed in ventromedial and ventrolateral view, respectively, an extensive and deep splenial is also exposed in the right mandible, whereas prominent surangular and angular are apparent in the left mandible. Between the mandibles, the right side of the dermal palate is exposed, with the posterior end of the left pterygoid emerging from below the left mandible. The pear-shaped internal naris is located in an anterolateral position, with its narrow anterior margin lying slightly behind the anterior margin of the external naris. The broad posterior margin of the external naris is formed by the anterior margin of the palatine. Medial to the right internal naris, there seem to be paired elements that might represent the vomers, separating the internal nares from one another (the left one concealed by the left mandible). The dermal palate is extensively developed, mainly through a conspicuous enlargement of the pterygoids, which form broad and elongate, plate-like elements obliterating the interpterygoid vacuity and underlying much of the base of the braincase. From the posteromedial margin of the left pterygoid, protruding from below the left mandible, projects a bulbous flange that seems to form the pterygoid notch that in turn would have received the basipterygoid process. If our interpretation is correct, it would imply that the palatobasal articulation was not fused, in spite of the development of a closed dermal palate. Behind the right internal naris lies the palatine, a relatively slender but elongate element, extending back alongside the pterygoid. Both the pterygoid and the palatine are covered by a densely set shagreen of minute denticles. Near the posterolateral corner of the right pterygoid, the ectopterygoid embraces the posterior end of the palatine. The posterior end of the ectopterygoid is partially concealed by matrix. The paired hyoids are conspicuous rod-like elements: the left one overlying the left pterygoid and the right one lying just behind what we consider to be the right ectopterygoid. Behind the skull, and oriented at a sharp angle relative to the long axis of the skull, lies a string of four cervical vertebrae and associated cervical ribs. The anterior-most of these cervical vertebrae displays a broad, crescent-shaped neural spine, indicating that it represents the axis. The atlas centrum is preserved right in front of it, apparently without any cervical ribs in association with it. The right cervical ribs associated with the axis and the succeeding cervicals overlap and thus obscure both the posterior margin of the dermal palate and the contact of the pterygoids with the quadrate. With the new specimens on hand, closer examination of the holotype WIGM SPC V1107 shows that, in essence, the dentary is of a pronounced T shape [Fig. 2, A and B, of (5)]. In addition to the lateral process, the dentary also turns sharply inward to form the symphysis with its counterpart. The teeth on the dentary appear to have been arranged in a single row, extending from the symphysis along the entire anterior edge of the bone to the extremity of the lateral process before flexing back along the posterior margin of the process and then extending posteriorly along the main anteroposterior axis of the skull. As a consequence, the dentary has a double row of teeth on the lateral hammerhead process as can be seen in the holotype. The teeth on the maxilla extend as a single row along the entire lateral process and then turn sharply backward. The portion of the maxillary tooth row on the hammerhead process thus occluded between the two dentary tooth rows on the counterpart process. We reconstruct the premaxillae as overhanging the dentary, with the combined rows of teeth on both sides forming a single raking “comb.” From this very peculiar tooth arrangement and jaw structure, we infer that Atopodentatus used the premaxillary teeth to scrape soft plant material (algae) off the substrate underwater (Fig. 3). Subsequent rapid opening of the broad mouth would have created a significant suction force, drawing the watery mix into the buccal cavity. On closing the mouth, the tongue, supported by the hyoid skeleton, was involved in forcing water out through the mesh formed by the maxillary and dentary teeth, thereby filtering out plant matter. It could be argued that Atopodentatus filtered small invertebrates in suspension, but such a feeding mode would not explain the peculiar morphology and arrangement of the premaxillary teeth. Fig. 3 Artist’s restoration of A. unicus depicting it as a herbivore grazing on marine plants growing on a hard substrate in the eastern Tethyan Sea during Middle Triassic times. Using batteries of spatulate teeth lining the hammerhead expansions of both the upper and lower jaws, it would have been able to scrape off numerous pieces of plant matter into suspension in the water. This could then be sucked in and filtered by the long, thin, and closely packed needle-shaped teeth lining the main jaw rami. [Illustration: Y. Chen, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology]
DISCUSSION Herbivory in marine reptiles is exceptional, yet herbivory evolved a second time, during the Triassic recovery phase, in the unrelated placodont Henodus from the Gipskeuper of Tübingen (Carnian, Upper Triassic) (6). Henodus is only known from a marginal marine environment. The skull of Henodus lacks the remarkable hammerhead (7), but it is still flattened and square in outline with a broad and straight transversely oriented rostrum formed by the premaxillae. The ventral margin of the overhanging premaxillary edge is furnished with a palisade of spatulate denticles (8), interpreted to have had a plant-scraping function. The broad flat skull again identifies Henodus as an efficient suction feeder that filtered the plant material thus acquired, not through teeth, but possibly by baleen-like structures (9, 10). Both Atopodentatus and Henodus lack the morphological characteristics that are otherwise functionally correlated with true suspension feeding (11). This early convergence in herbivory in Atopodentatus and Henodus is remarkable because no other case of herbivorous adaptation has been recorded for marine reptiles for the rest of the Mesozoic, with the possible exception of some Late Cretaceous marine turtles. The sauropod dinosaur Nigersaurus (12) sports a similar, rather spatulate and very blunt snout bearing transversely orientated rows of teeth, but it lacked the array of intermeshing teeth in the main quadrant of each jaw. In Nigersaurus, wear facets on the peg-like teeth indicate their use for cropping soft vegetation close to the ground, possibly in a riparian environment (12). In addition to Sphyrna, the extant hammerhead shark, a number of vertebrates have evolved a hammerhead-shaped skull. The freshwater Diplocaulus from the Permian and the Triassic Gerrothorax have similar lateral extensions on the rostrum, albeit more boomerang-shaped. The function of the rostral modification in these forms varies: In Diplocaulus, for instance, it likely served a hydrodynamic function, providing lift to the head, whereas in Sphyrna, with its eyes at the ends of the extensions and with an array of electroreceptors, it also provides an increased sensory function. Atopodentatus is unique in having a hammerhead adaptation for underwater grazing. Atopodentatus is the earliest marine reptile to have evolved herbivory. Convergence in Henodus shows that herbivory evolved in the photic zone of near-shore shallow water habitats. The predator-prey pyramid reestablished quickly after the end-Permian extinction (2, 3). Herbivory adds a new dimension to the diversity of feeding styles reported for the recovery of the marine biota. This documentation is coeval with the first occurrence of a macropredatory ichthyosaur (4), serving to underscore the concept that a complete restitution of trophic networks had occurred by the Anisian.
MATERIALS AND METHODS Two new specimens of Middle Triassic (Anisian) tetrapods were collected from outcrops of the Guanling Formation in Luoping County, Yunnan Province. They were prepared mechanically using air scribes together with fine needles and pin vises at the IVPP preparation laboratories at Xiaotangshan, Beijing. They were examined under an Olympus SZX7 binocular microscope and photographed using a Pentax 645D camera with a 120-mm fixed focus lens under fiber-optic lights. Drawings were made using a camera lucida.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.
REFERENCES AND NOTES ↵ Z.-Q. Chen, M. J. Benton, The timing and pattern of biotic recovery following the end-Permian mass extinction. Nat. Geosci. 5, 375 – 383 ( ). OpenUrl CrossRef ↵ T. M. Scheyer, C. Romano, J. Jenks, H. Bucher, Early Triassic marine biotic recovery: The predators’ perspective. PLOS One 9, e88987 ( ). OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed ↵ R. Motani, X.-H. Chen, D.-Y. Jiang, L. Cheng, A. Tintori, O. Rieppel, Lunge feeding in early marine reptiles and fast evolution of marine tetrapod feeding guilds. Sci. Rep. 5, 8900 ( ). OpenUrl PubMed ↵ N. B. Fröbisch, J. Fröbisch, P. M. Sander, L. Schmitz, O. Rieppel, Macropredatory ichthyosaur from the Middle Triassic and the origin of modern trophic networks. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 110, 1393 – 1397 ( ). OpenUrl ↵ L. Cheng, X.-H. Chen, Q.-H. Shang, X.-C. Wu, A new marine reptile from the Triassic of China, with a highly specialized feeding adaptation. Naturwissenschaften 101, 251 – 259 ( ). OpenUrl PubMed ↵ F. von Huene, Henodus chelyops, ein neuer Placodontier. Palaeontogr. Abt. A 84, 99 – 147 ( ). OpenUrl ↵ O. Rieppel, The cranial anatomy of Placochelys placodonta Jaekel, 1902, and a review of the Cyamodontoidea (Reptilia, Placodonta). Fieldiana (Geology) 45, 1 – 104 ( ). OpenUrl ↵ W. E. Reif, F. Stein, Morphology and function of the dentition of Henodus chelyops (Huene, 1936) (Placodontia, Triassic). Neues Jahrb. Geol. Paläontol. Monatsh. 1999, 65 – 80 ( ). OpenUrl ↵ O. Rieppel, Feeding mechanics in Triassic stem-group sauropterygians: The anatomy of a successful invasion of Mesozoic seas. Zool. J. Linn. Soc. 135, 33 – 63 ( ). OpenUrl CrossRef ↵ D. Naish, Fossils explained 48: Placodonts. Geology Today 20, 153 – 158 ( ). OpenUrl ↵ R. Collin, C. M. Janis, Morphological constraints on tetrapod feeding mechanisms: Why were there no suspension feeding marine reptiles?, in Ancient Marine Reptiles, J. M. Calloway, E. L. Nicholls, Eds. (Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 1997), pp. 451–466. ↵ P. C. Sereno, J. A. Wilson, L. M. Witmer, J. A. Whitlock, A. Maga, O. Ide, T. A. Rowe, Structural extremes in a Cretaceous dinosaur. PLOS One 2, e1230 ( ). OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed
Acknowledgments: We are grateful to J. Ding for the preparation of the specimens, X. Guo for the line drawings, W. Gao for photographic work, and Y. Chen for the life reconstruction. X. Wu provided many valuable comments, and we thank him for useful discussions. Two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on the original version of the manuscript. Funding: This work was supported by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Wuhan Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources. Author contributions: L.C., O.R., and N.C.F. contributed equally to the research, conceiving the study and writing the manuscript. C.L. provided the original data for the holotype specimen and contributed to the analysis of the results and discussion. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper. Additional data related to this paper may be requested from the authors.This Tuesday - 4.26.16 - is "Alien Day" and we're thrilled to celebrate one of our favorite franchises with a line-up of posters, vinyl, apparel, pins and patches. In addition to online releases, select products will be available at a pop-up shop inside the South Lamar Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas. The pop-up opens tomorrow at 12PM CST and will run through next week. If you're in town, stop by and see us!
Apparel will be available online for pre-order starting tomorrow (4/22/16) at 11AM CST and posters & vinyl will be going on sale ALIEN DAY (4/26/16) at 11AM CST. Below you can check out all of our offerings and when / where you can grab them.
Alien by Kilian Eng. Edition of 300. 24"x36" Screen Print. Printed by D&L Screenprinting. $50
Available at mondotees.com at 11AM CST on 4/26. Allotment available at South Lamar pop-up shop on 4/26.
Alien by Mike Saputo. Edition of 225. 24"x36" Screen Print. Printed by D&L Screenprinting. $45
Available at mondotees.com at 11AM CST on 4/26. Allotment available at South Lamar pop-up shop on 4/26.
Alien (Variant) by Mike Saputo. Edition of 125. 24"x36" Screen Print. Printed by D&L Screenprinting. $65
Available at mondotees.com at 11AM CST on 4/26. Allotment available at South Lamar pop-up shop on 4/26.
Alien by Jay Shaw. Edition of 70. 18.5"x24.5" Solvent Print on 9mil Front Print Backlit Polyester Film. Printed by CBS Graphics. $60
Available at mondotees.com at 11AM CST on 4/26. Allotment available at South Lamar pop-up shop on 4/26.
UPDATED: Jay's poster was originally listed as 18" x 24" but has been updated to its true size of 18.5" x 24.5".
Aliens - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack 2XLP. Artwork by Kilian Eng. Limited to 75 copies. Pressed on ultra clear vinyl with Green “Xenomorph Blood” colored liquid inside. $225
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Prometheus - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack 2XLP. Music by Marc Streitenfeld. Artwork by Kilian Eng. Pressed on 180 Gram Engineer White with grey splatter (Limited to 1,000 copies). Also available on 180 Gram Black Vinyl. Featuring exclusive liner notes by the composer Marc Streitenfeld. $35
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USCSS Nostromo Crew Patch Set. Set of three screen replica patches worn by the crew of the USCSS Nostromo in Alien. $15
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USCSS Nostromo Crew Pin Set. Set of four screen replica 1" pins worn by the crew of the USCSS Nostromo in Alien. $25
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Xenomorph Head Enamel Pin. 1" soft enamel pin with glow in the dark teeth. Designed by Bruce Yan. $10
Available at the South Lamar pop-up shop and online on 4/22.News
Alan Pardew Question & Answer Session Cancelled
Alan Pardew’s question and answer session at the end of last season on Radio Newcastle, made a lot of headlines.
A repeat performance was due to happen this Friday (19th May) with the manager taking questions from 7pm until 8pm.
However, Radio Newcastle have announced that the event has been cancelled, no reason has been given and |
, work-loving utilitarian Jeremy Bentham.
Therefore it was almost as nice a surprise to see the Left talking about the pleasures of doing nothing as it was to read the Right stirring up revolutionary fervour. One of the Statesman pieces, by the novelist Jenny Diski, had an anarchist flavour: “Avidness to work hard all their lives is the ruling classes’ and the corporations’ definition of the good citizen.”
The other was by the former cricketer Ed Smith, who cited Bertrand Russell’s famous essay “In Praise of Idleness”. He also made the fascinating observation that in cricket, practice does not make perfect: practice plus oodles of idle time make perfect. He said that four hours a day was about the right amount of practice. More than that and his game would deteriorate.
Smith also wrote that top classical musicians are fairly lazy. It’s the mediocre who practise a lot; the best give themselves time to relax. “The idea that being good at something demands harried, exhausted martyrdom is relatively new,” argued Smith. There is no relationship between workaholism and success, he said, rightly. “Stopping practising at the right moment is a vital form of self-discipline.” It was truly heartwarming to see that even the world of competitive sport is starting to praise idleness.
My god: I’ve just seen another idler-friendly piece in the New Statesman, this time, an article praising the noble ways of the tortoise. Will it never end? It is truly delightful to see so many old myths being smashed in the political press. Let the middle classes now smash the system. Or better, create a new one.
Tom Hodgkinson is editor of ‘The Idler’
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
Subscribe nowOn a recent evening, Martin Shkreli was drinking beer at Tuttles, a bar in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan that has sticky wooden tables and sports playing on TV. He was taking a break from two activities that now consume much of his time: writing computer code for a new company he heads and meeting with his lawyers in anticipation of his upcoming criminal fraud trial.
“I think they’ll return a not-guilty verdict in two hours,” he said. “There are going to be jurors who will be fans of mine. I walk down the streets of New York and people shake my hand. They say, ‘I want to be just like you.’ ”
Shkreli achieved infamy as the founder and C.E.O. of Turing Pharmaceuticals, where he applied strategies honed in his career as a hedge-fund manager. Under his direction, Turing acquired a drug called Daraprim, which treats a parasitic infection that can be deadly when it afflicts unborn babies and people with H.I.V. and AIDS, and then raised the price of a single pill from $13.50 to seven hundred and fifty dollars. Although Shkreli’s company wasn’t the first to order such a price increase, his did so in the late summer of 2015, as the Presidential race was warming up. He was also arrogantly unapologetic about it. Hillary Clinton accused him of “price gouging,” and he was described in the press as “the most hated man in America.” That December, just weeks after Donald Trump referred to him as a “spoiled brat,” Shkreli was arrested and charged with securities fraud in a case involving his hedge funds, MSMB Capital Management L.P. and MSMB Healthcare L.P., and another drug company that he had founded, called Retrophin. (He denied the charges.)
Shkreli, now thirty-four, has pale, thin arms and black hair that falls into his eyes. He can be more self-effacing and thoughtful than his public persona would suggest. “Many men are sensitive about their psychiatric well-being,” he said, explaining that he used to have anxiety attacks every day. “I saw a psychiatrist a long time ago. He said, ‘Martin, you have anxiety. Take this pill.’ ” The medication was Effexor. Shkreli went on, “My affinity for pharmaceuticals is partly due to the miracle of that pill.”
He used to be a provocative user of Twitter (he was suspended from the service in January) and now live-streams himself on Facebook, where he has more than seventy thousand followers. He is well versed in many subjects: romantic relationships, drug-pricing models, his entrepreneurial feats, and the hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen. At Tuttles, Shkreli was eager to discuss what he claimed was his underappreciated role in the downfall of Cohen’s fund, S.A.C. Capital.
He said that in 2008, when he was working as a portfolio manager, he invested money in shares of a pharmaceutical company called Elan, which was conducting a clinical trial of a promising Alzheimer’s drug. On the morning that the trial results were set to be announced, Shkreli watched Elan’s stock price excitedly. “The stock was up two bucks, so I’m giddy,” he said. When the price started to move erratically—he remembers it lurching up three dollars and then down two—he became convinced that inside information about the results was leaking to certain traders with sizable stakes in Elan. Shkreli said that he called the New York Stock Exchange to complain, suggesting that it temporarily halt trading in the stock until the results of the trial were released. Later that day, after the results were announced and they failed to meet expectations, Elan’s stock price quickly fell by almost forty-two per cent. “I was devastated,” Shkreli said.
The government ended up investigating Elan, and in 2012 it indicted an S.A.C. portfolio manager named Mathew Martoma on insider-trading charges. Martoma was convicted. (He denied the charges and his case is on appeal.) The Elan case also helped lead the government, in 2013, to bring insider-trading charges against S.A.C. Capital itself. S.A.C. closed after Cohen agreed to pay more than a billion dollars in fines. It is difficult to confirm Shkreli’s story, although its outlines conform to what is known about how the investigation started. Shkreli himself seemed to delight in the idea of being the catalyst for one of the biggest insider-trading cases in U.S. history.
Now Shkreli is facing serious legal troubles of his own. The federal government has accused him of fraud, contending that he misappropriated funds from his three companies in order to conceal losses and mislead investors. As Robert Capers, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, described it, “Shkreli essentially ran his companies like a Ponzi scheme.” (In an unrelated twist, S.A.C. Capital disclosed in 2014 that it had bought stock in Retrophin.) Shkreli claims that the government misunderstood what happened and picked on him because he had been so vilified for the drug-price hike. “This case never would have happened if Daraprim hadn’t happened,” he said.
Shkreli hinted that he intended to testify at his trial, which starts in June. In the meantime, he is working on a new biotech-software startup, called Godel Systems, which he won’t describe in detail. “I haven’t told anybody what it is,” he said. “When I do, it will shock and awe the world.”
It was almost 9 p.m. when Shkreli drained his second glass of beer. He suddenly looked alert, remembering that he had received a jury-duty summons. He looked at his phone and said, “Shit, I might have missed it. What day is it?” ♦The Corporate Education Reform Agenda
It is becoming increasingly clear that the future for working-class and poor youth in the United States is bleak. Three years into the most severe economic and social crisis of the capitalist system since the Great Depression, the unemployment rate for teenagers 16-19 years old is 26 percent. A recent study by Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies points out that the employment-population ratio – the ratio of the number of people employed to the total working-age population – which is a broader measure of labor market health than the unemployment rate, has fallen by about 20 percentage points over the past decade to 25.6 percent for teenagers. This is a record low in the post-World War II period.
The picture is even worse when looking at the situation for poor black and Latino youth. The employment-population ratio for African Americans ages 16 to 19 was 14.4 percent in July. Since middle-class youth will still go to college and will one way or another find jobs, albeit perhaps jobs that pay less than the ones they would have expected to get in the past, the picture is not as grim for them. But a whole generation of poor youth now essentially has no experience of paid employment. This is truly a lost generation.
Why begin a discussion of the state of education with unemployment statistics? This is the right place to start because most people would agree that a key aim of education should be to prepare young people for a better life than their parents had. The corporate elite that dominates our society also looks at education in relation to the future, but from the more narrow perspective of training the next generation of workers.
What conclusions have the corporate elite and their servants in the political establishment and the media drawn about the next generation? The U.S. is facing a bleak future of mass structural unemployment where even those with a job will see their wages and working conditions degraded. Most job growth will be in low-wage, relatively low-skill employment sectors. Of course there remains a need for a technical/scientific elite if the U.S. is to compete with its capitalist rivals. But despite all the previous talk of the growth of “high end” jobs in a globalized economy, the dominant reality will be the opposite. The situation will, of course, be even worse in black, Latino and immigrant communities.
In that context, the goal of the elite is to tailor education to the type of workforce that corporate America will need in the future while making education itself a field for profitable enterprise. They will continue to seek out the most talented working-class youth. But for the rest the purpose of education remains as always to instill obedience, acceptance of capitalist ideology and “basic skills competence.” There is, in fact, a need to decrease the expectations of young people, especially working-class youth. Higher expectations that are consistently unmet are very dangerous for any social order. This is the key starting point for the assault on the public education system that we see today and which is carried on under the guise of “reforming” education.
In 2006, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, major promoters of education reform, funded a study by the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce called Tough Choices or Tough Times. This study spelled out the endgame for “reform,” including replacing public schools with “contract schools,” akin to the much-hyped charter schools; eliminating nearly all the powers of local school boards; eliminating teacher pensions and slashing health benefits; and forcing all tenth graders to take a high school exit examination based on twelfth grade skills and ending the education of those who failed. This would mean expelling millions of students from school at age 16.
This is an open admission that providing a rounded education to working-class and poor youth in this country is simply not a priority for the ruling class.
The Origins of Education Reform
The public education system in the U.S. has a very contradictory character. Historically, for example, it has served the interests of the ruling class well by “Americanizing” millions upon millions of immigrants and integrating them into the workforce, which turned the U.S. into the most powerful economy on earth.
But the public education system is by no means simply the result of the farsightedness of the capitalists. It is also the result of the struggle of workers, women and black people to expand the access to and quality of that education. The popular myth of education as a leveler and a road to advancement for the masses has a grain of truth, but the deeper truth is that what is progressive about public education, like every other gain for working people in our society, was the result of struggle.
The corporate-inspired “education reform” movement can be traced back to the publication of the Nation at Risk report in 1983 by the National Commission on Excellence in Education appointed by Ronald Reagan. The report claimed that American education was falling behind the rest of the world. The recommendations of Nation at Risk may not have been that extreme by today’s standards. That’s not the point. Corporate America seized on the report. “Something has to be done” about “failing schools,” the more radical the measure the better, became the mantra of the next period.
We need to be clear from the start: Socialists are in no way defenders of the status quo in public education. As has been documented by writers like Jonathan Kozol, the quality of education received by public school students in poor, inner-city communities, especially poor black and Latino communities, is vastly lower than that received by upper-middle-class public school students in the suburbs.
At their worst, some public schools in the inner cities have more the character of minimum security prison camps than genuine schools, complete with metal detectors and squads of “safety officers” roaming the halls. Yet even these schools, or at least some of the classrooms in them, can seem like havens compared to the reality of the streets around them.
As Kozol demonstrates, a key reason for this is that public schools are primarily funded by local property taxes. This leads to a massive disparity in the resources put into schools depending on the affluence of the community. In fact, the property tax rates levied for schools are often higher in poor communities but lead to fewer funds because of the lower total value of property in these areas.
But the vastly unequal funding of education based on class and race is of no interest to the education reformers. Instead they actually exaggerated the overall dysfunctionality of the system to make it seem like schools in general were chaotic places where little or no learning took place. Exaggerating the situation and creating the public perception of deep crisis helped to justify their assault on public education as a whole while ignoring the deep inequalities in the system.
The Goals of “Reform”
Education reform, as currently promoted by a large section of the political establishment, is a thoroughly neo-liberal, corporate-backed project. The key players are the Gates Foundation (Microsoft), the Walton Family Foundation (Wal-Mart) and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation (Eli Broad made his fortune in construction and insurance). Education reform also creates some strange bedfellows, like the national tour in late 2009 by the right-wing Republican Newt Gingrich and the Rev. Al Sharpton to promote charter schools.
The goals of the education deformers which are overlapping include:
Opening up education to private investment. According to U.S. Census data, over $800 billion is spent on education, public and private, at all levels, in the U.S. each year. Especially in the current downturn of the capitalist system, corporate interests are determined to pry open public education and get their hands on more of these billions. Examples of companies that already make big money out of public education are the publishers of text books, the companies producing test material, the growing number of for-profit charter school operators, and the private professional development and consulting services which have proliferated. Downsizing and restructuring what is left of education after this privatization drive, in line with the changing needs of capitalism. In the medium term the reformers are looking to significantly reduce the cost of public education as part of scaling back the public sector in general. The outcome will be an even more unequal system where poor and working-class kids get the cheap, low-quality education while the rich kids still get private schools. Making teachers scapegoats for the problems in education and society. This is not a new theme but it has accelerated dramatically during the current economic crisis as the elite try every trick they can think of to deflect anger from the bankers and their politician accomplices in both major political parties. Turning public education into a marketplace where parents and students are “consumers” with choices as opposed to citizens with rights. As a consumer if you don’t like the product you chose, you switch to a different one but you have no say or control over the products themselves. By killing the neighborhood school rooted in a community you remove any pretence of democratic participation or oversight of this key public service. Smashing or substantially diminishing the power of the teachers’ unions, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA). This is part of a wider assault on the public sector and on public sector workers which is gathering force here and internationally. The AFT and the NEA are not, by historical standards, particularly militant unions but their combined membership of four million makes public education one of the best organized employment sectors in the country. They represent an objective obstacle to the ruling class’s agenda at this juncture. And, as a by-product, taking these organizations down would be a massive blow to an already weakened labor movement.
All of this goes to show that, from the point of view of the corporate elite, the stakes in the drive to dismantle public education are very high. They are determined to see this through. History and recent experience demonstrate that they will be ruthless in pursuing their goal.
Rhetoric vs. Reality
The new wave of corporate-inspired “education reformers” have dominated the national debate since the days of the Reagan administration, through the Clinton administration and both Bush administrations and, now, under Obama and his secretary of education, Arne Duncan. It has certainly been a bipartisan affair. The high point of their success in reshaping education up until recently was the adoption of No Child Left Behind in 2001.
But this also means that we now have over two decades of experience by which to judge their claims, despite the reformers’ pretense that they are forever fighting an uphill battle against “entrenched bureaucracies.”
They claimed that they would raise the standard of American education by comparison with other countries. Even using their own narrow measures, this has not happened.
A second claim was that they would narrow or eliminate the “racial gap” between the performance of white and black students on standardized tests. In reality, as Jonathan Kozol argues in his book Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, the gap declined significantly as schools became more integrated between 1965 and 1990. The most concentrated gains for black students in math and reading, according to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, came between the mid-‘70s and mid-‘80s.
Since then, American schools have been steadily re-segregated. As of 2006, the proportion of black students who attended integrated schools had dropped to its lowest level since 1968. During the 1990s, the racial gap began to widen again, and while there has been some narrowing in the last decade it is miniscule compared to the gains made in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The position is most clearly illustrated by statistics for black 17-year-olds. In reading their scores rose 27 points between 1971 and 2008. Twenty-one of these points were gained between 1980 and 1984. Even this cursory glance shows that the education deformers who have increasingly dominated policy over the past 20 years have accomplished next to nothing on what they define as a core goal. Only a move back toward voluntary integration measures – which polls show would have wide public support – combined with real equitable funding for education could begin to seriously close the racial gap.
Finally, as things stand today, far from it being the case that ever-wider sections of the population are achieving the high-quality college education apparently necessary for access to decent jobs, the outcomes in education are increasingly unequal. It is true that far more young people go to a “higher” education institution compared to a generation ago, but the rapidly increasing cost means many never finish, and the top colleges have fewer and fewer students from working-class and poor communities attending. Furthermore, we see the proliferation of low-quality, for-profit “colleges.” Is all this any surprise when the U.S., over the past 30 years, has experienced a massive growth in inequality and a decline in social mobility? The increasing inequality in education outcomes is simply a reflection of this ever-growing social divide.
Education reform, therefore, is a failure on its own terms, but in truth it has been a giant con job. Many people were taken in by the claims, but the goal was never really to improve the education of the vast majority. The first step on the road to building a movement for real progressive reform of education is to expose the anti-working-class and anti-democratic nature of the corporate education reform drive that has far from run its course.The benefits of having a diverse police force were on display Friday morning after a Hindi-speaking Regina cab driver was robbed.
At around 5:15 a.m. CST, some police officers were just leaving headquarters downtown when they got called to the 1800 block of Osler St. — about a block away — where there was a robbery in progress.
They learned the driver had been filling a tire on his cab using an air compressor when the suspect tried to reach inside his vehicle.
The suspect didn't get any money but grabbed the air compressor and took a swing at the cabbie. Then he took off on a bicycle.
When police arrived, the driver was running down the street trying to chase the thief, who got away.
Police wanted a statement from the driver, who was having difficulty explaining in English what happened.
By co-incidence, one of the officers spoke Hindi, so the victim was able to give his statement in that language.
The case remains under investigation, police said.WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled House voted Thursday to resume the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children, the first immigration-related vote in either chamber of Congress this year and a measure of the daunting challenge facing supporters of a sweeping overhaul of existing law on the subject.
The party-line vote of 224-201 was aimed at blocking implementation of President Barack Obama's 2012 election-year order to stop deportations of many so-called DREAM Act individuals. Democrats on the House floor reacted with boos when the provision was added to a routine spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security.
The vote was largely symbolic, since the administration has threatened to veto the overall legislation on budgetary grounds. It nevertheless stood as a stark warning from conservatives who dominate the ranks of the Republican House majority about attempts in the Senate to grant a chance at citizenship to an estimated 11 million immigrants residing in the country illegally.
And the White House reacted sharply, saying the House-passed measure would affect "Dreamers" who are "productive members of society who were brought here as young children, grew up in our communities, and became American in every way but on paper."
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said in a statement that the vote prohibits the administration "from implementing executive amnesty" without congressional action. "Bipartisan support for my amendment is the first test of the 113th Congress in the House of Representatives on immigration. My amendment blocks many of the provisions that are mirrored in the Senate's 'Gang of Eight' bill. If this position holds, no amnesty will reach the President's desk," he said.
The vote took place as Senate leaders set Friday for the opening of debate on White House-backed legislation that would create a chance at citizenship for those in the country unlawfully, at the same time it takes steps to assure the borders are secure against future illegal immigration.
The measure was drafted by a bipartisan group of eight senators, then approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last month on a vote of 13-8. It also creates a new low-skilled guest-worker program, expands the number of visas available for high-tech industry workers and reorders the system for legal immigration that has been in place for decades.
Debate is expected to consume weeks on the Senate floor as lawmakers of differing views try to change it more to their liking. Notably, Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who was part of the group that drafted the legislation, is saying he wants changes before he will support it on final passage. His office did not respond to a request for reaction to the House vote.
In the House, 221 Republicans and three Democrats voted for King's proposal, while 195 Democrats and six Republicans opposed it.
"I can't believe they just did that," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a leading supporter of the DREAM Act. Ana Avendano of the AFL-CIO, said in a statement that King and his allies are playing to "a dwindling base of anti-immigrant Republican primary voters. We hope and expect that the leadership of the Republican party will understand that this is not only abhorrent policy but suicidal politics."
Speaking to a group of reporters, a White House official, Cecilia Munoz, said, "If part of what is driving this debate is a recognition, particularly on the Republican side, that they need to do better with the Latino community, this is really not the right way."
Obama announced a new policy in June 2012 that puts off deportation for two years for many of those brought to the United States as children, specifically if they were under 16 at the time and are no older than 31 now. They also must be in school, graduated from high school or have served in the military and have no criminal record. The order offers relief from deportation from many young immigrants who would be covered by the so-called DREAM Act, which has repeatedly failed in Congress.
Democrats argued vociferously against King's proposal when it was debated Wednesday evening. "We should not hold children responsible for the actions of adults and their parents. We should give them an opportunity," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who has been involved in a sputtering attempt to produce a compromise immigration bill in the House.House GOP 'bewildered' by financial crisis Nick Juliano
Published: Monday September 22, 2008
Print This Email This It's been a confusing few days as conservative Republicans who support big business, tout the free market and decry big government intervention have watched a GOP administration propose a massive government intervention to prevent business collapses that could shatter the market.
A $700 billion bailout package is causing plenty of consternation for the minority party on Capitol Hill, which seems to be facing competing pressures from its political and ideological interests. Roll Call lays out Republicans' woes in a subscription-only report Monday. Last weeks deepening financial crisis and the string of bailouts engineered by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke left Republicans bewildered, whipsawed and divided over how to respond. The paper's Steven T. Dennis outlines some of the rhetorical somersaults and near-instantaneous flip-flops that have marked prominent Republicans' attempts to address the crisis.
For example, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) went from rallying against "more federal involvement in our markets" to supporting an $85 billion bailout of insurer AIG within just a few hours, Dennis reports. By week's end he was backing the administration's wider bailout plan. Boehners turnaround matched that of GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who said the fundamentals of the economy are strong on Monday and then spent the rest of the week scrambling to get ahead of the unfolding crisis, even saying he would like to fire fellow Republican and former Rep. Chris Cox (Calif.) as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. While the party's leaders were scrambling to find common ground on an approach to the crisis, some rank-and-file Republicans were less unified.
Some members of the Republican Study Committee, which represents conservative stalwarts, were decrying the bailout plan as a step closer to "socialism," according to Roll Call.
For their part, the Democrats did not exactly have an easy path toward a bailout bill, either, with many liberal members decrying packages they saw as geared more toward helping Wall Street CEOs than average Americans.
Democratic leaders are facing pressure from the White House to pass a bailout bailout package quickly, Politico reports, although several members are trying to attach provisions that would halt home foreclosures and curtail CEO compensation, among other proposals.It look like NVIDIA may soon lift the ban on custom GTX TITANs.
ZOTAC GTX TITAN X Arctic Storm (ZT-90402-10P)
ZOTAC is the first manufacturer to offer custom hybrid cooling for TITAN X. In fact, apart from EVGA’s GTX TITAN X ACX 2.0 cooler which is sold separately, and GTX TITAN X HydroCooper, this is the only TITAN X sold with custom cooling with no modifications required.
ZOTAC’s Arctic Storm is a hybrid cooler is a dual-slot and triple-fan solution with custom water block, which can optionally be used with existing liquid cooling. Cards like these are perfect combination between performance and compatibility with new products. You can stick to the air-cooling, or connect a water loop in case you need more cooling efficiency. Plus you don’t have to buy 100 EUR-worth water block.
The fun fact, ZOTAC’s renders are using PG401 PCB, which is in fact GTX 980 PCB. These are pure photoshops, not a real PG600 PCB from TITAN X (just saying).
ZOTAC’s GTX TITAN X is factory-overclocked. Card is running at 1026 / 1114 MHz, with memory clock at 7 GHz. Despite no real picture used for the renders, card is likely using reference PCB with two power connectors (6+8pin).
ZOTAC has not commented on the pricing. Also, in case you’re wondering, ZOTAC is actually making GTX 980 Ti with the same cooler too.
I’m just wondering, why now? Is reference TITAN-X not good enough to compete with Fiji?
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Udruženje "Da se zna" saopštilo je da je podnelo prijavu Sektoru tržišne inspekcije Ministarstva trgovine, turizma i telekomunikacija zbog uvredljive terminologije u predizbornom spotu Aleksandra Vučića, za koju kažu da može podstaći dalju diskriminaciju i socijalnu distancu prema LGBT populaciji.
Prijava udruženja "Da se zna" osnosi se na spot u čijem se završetku sa tribina čuju navijački pokliči "Vučiću, pederu". Udruženje podseća da Zakon o oglašavanju zabranjuje bilo koji sadržaj koji se može smatrati uvredljivim i može podstaći diskriminaciju.
"Ističemo da je reč 'peder' uvredljva i da se koristi isključivo u negativnom kontekstu, te da kao takva nesumnjivo vređa pripadnike LGBT populacije. Emitovanjem navedenog spota se podstiče diskriminacija na osnovu seksualne orijentacije", navodi se u prijavi koja je dostavljena medijima.
Ta nevladina organizacija zatražila je da Sektor tržišne inspekcije Ministarstva trgovine, turizma i telekomunikacija naloži SNS-u da sa zvaničnog kanala te stranke na YouTube ukloni sporni spot, odnosno da iz spota uklone uvredljive izjave "Vučiću pederu".
Organizacija "Da se zna" do sada je podnela dve pritužbe Regulatornom telu za elektronske medije zbog spota SNS-a. Prvu 3. marta zbog emitovanja spota na YouTube kanalu SNS-a, a drugu 13. marta zbog emitovanja spota istog dana u 8.45 na RTS 1.Eight legislators from Meghalaya, including five from the ruling Congress, resigned from the state assembly on Friday apparently to join the National People’s Party (NPP), an ally of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Resignations, which came ahead of assembly polls due next February, are a jolt to the ruling Congress government in the state led by Mukul Sangma.
The strength of the Congress in the 60-member assembly has now further depleted to 24 from 29. Last month another Congress MLA P N Syiem had resigned.
However, there is no immediate threat to Sangma’s government as it has support of independent and allies.
The legislators who gave up their assembly seats on Friday are Sniawbhalang Dhar, Comingone Ymbon, Prestone Tynsong, Rowell Lyngdoh and Ngaitlang Dhar of Congress, Remington Pyngrope from UDP and Independents Stephanson Mukhim and Hopeful Bamon.
“The MLAs submitted their resignations from the state assembly to speaker Abu Taher Mondal. A notification in this regard would be issued soon,” Andrew Simons, commissioner and secretary of the state assembly told HT.
All eight legislators are slated to join the NPP at a public rally in Shillong on January 4, the party sources said.
An ally of the NDA-regime at Centre, the NPP is part of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government in Manipur and also one of the constituents of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA).
The BJP launched its poll campaign in the northeastern state earlier this month with a rally addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Shillong. He urged voters to overthrow the Congress for rapid development of the state.
There are no pre-poll tie-ups yet between the saffron outfit and the NPP or any other regional party in Meghalaya.
“We are part of the NDA at the Centre and the BJP-led NEDA in the region. But for this election in Meghalaya we have decided to go alone and contest most of the 60 seats,” NPP president Conrad Sangma told HT recently.
The move could be a tactical move in the predominantly Christian state where the BJP has drawn flak for its policy on cow slaughter.
First Published: Dec 29, 2017 15:54 ISTFrontline Relies On Straw Man To Shield Its NRA Documentary From Criticism By Progressives January 22, 2015 3:30 PM EST ››› Blog ›››››› TIMOTHY JOHNSON
PBS' Frontline is responding to criticism of its recent documentary about the National Rifle Association by misrepresenting the arguments made by progressives in order to dismiss them. On January 6, Frontline aired Gunned Down: The Power Of The NRA, a documentary that covered the history of the NRA from when the group began to become politicized in the 1960s through legislative efforts in 2013 following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. In a January 8 blog post, Media Matters leveled several critiques against the documentary, namely that it overstated the ability of the NRA to influence election outcomes, that it credited the NRA with Al Gore's defeat in the 2000 presidential elections, and that it created the perception of NRA invincibility by only including recent NRA victories, but not defeats. Frontline Misrepresents Media Matters Critique Of Documentary's Treatment Of NRA Influence In its response, Frontline wrote, "As for the assertion by Media Matters writer Timothy Johnson that the film overstated the influence of the NRA, we stand by our reporting." According to the documentary's producers, "The many interviews we conducted support the notion that since 1999 Washington has failed to enact tougher national gun legislation and the NRA has been the key reason why." This is a straw man argument. Media Matters never argued that Frontline had overstated the influence of the NRA on federal legislation since 1999. That the NRA is a powerful lobbying force on Capitol Hill is obvious and has been discussed by Media Matters previously. Instead, Media Matters criticized Frontline -- as it has criticized quite a few media outlets -- for overstating the ability of the NRA to determine the outcomes of elections. In part, politicians' misguided fears about the NRA punishing them on Election Day plays into the NRA's ability to effectively lobby. Frontline's response doesn't take into account the distinction between the ability to influence election results and the ability to influence legislation. In addition to crediting the NRA with Gore's defeat in the 2000, Gunned Down credulously promoted the NRA's supposed electoral prowess by quoting a former NRA spokesperson saying, "You are a politician, you want to get elected, you want votes, NRA has votes" while offering no countervailing perspective. Although that type of conjecture is often pushed by the NRA and its allies, a regression analysis of actual House and Senate races that involved NRA spending and endorsements has disproven the notion that the NRA is effective in determining the outcomes of elections.
Frontline Backtracks On Suggestion The NRA Was Responsible For Al Gore's 2000 Defeat
Media Matters criticized Gunned Down for suggesting that the NRA was "a decisive factor" in the defeat of Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. In its response to Media Matters, Frontline changed its tone, writing, "Clearly, that election outcome is a whole story itself, and as the article [Media Matters] cites states, there were arguably a multitude of factors that could be described as decisive. Our research and interviews with people on both sides of the debate, however, support the conclusion that the NRA was one of those factors."
Although Frontline acknowledges that "a multitude of factors" could have caused Gore's loss, the documentary did not present any alternatives other than the NRA's advocacy. During a sequence lasting several minutes, Gunned Down framed the 2000 presidential election as an opportunity for the NRA to get revenge against Gore because of his tie-breaking vote on Senate gun show loophole legislation following the Columbine High School mass shooting. Gunned Down showed a montage of the NRA's anti-Gore advocacy, then news footage of Gore losing the election, followed by the claim of a former NRA official that the NRA was responsible for Gore's defeat, before finally the narrator said, "In Washington, they say the NRA was a decisive factor in Al Gore |
Bhadra as the next Tarun Matara. Amita sees the practice as superstitious, old, and ultimately sexist, objectifying young women and robbing them of autonomy, a good education, and social life. She believes that intellectual, social, and financial progress is the only way to ensure a stable future for Kyrat.[1]
Far Cry 4
Amita was training Bhadra and showing her how to defend herself, which was unacceptable for Sabal, but the training is stopped because the Golden Path team had gone to De Pleur's Compound to rescue Darpan and Ajay Ghale has returned. Amita does not agree with Sabal's choice to risk their lives to go after Ajay. Amita then questions about Darpan and Sabal tells her that he is dead. Amita becomes enraged and shouts at Sabal, stating that they lost one of their best soldiers in order to save Ajay, who they barely knew. Then she goes away and retreats to teach Bhadra how to use a bow.
Ajay later returns to talk to Amita. Amita apologizes for being rude and states she was stressed because of the war, also telling that the war feels a guilt trip for the death of Darpan. Ajay offers to help them and after that the player can side with Amita or stay on Sabal's side.
Fate
“Go on. Son of Mohan. Savior of Kyrat! Follow your orders, pull the trigger! I'm sure it's the will of Kyra!”
— Amita, urging Ajay to shoot her under Sabal's orders (Determinant)
In the mission To Reap What You Sow, if Sabal is selected to lead the Golden Path, he will order Ajay to kill Amita, arguing that she is "just another Pagan" and has no respect for her heritage. Upon arriving at Amita's hideout and dispatching her followers, Ajay walks into the house and confronts Amita, who was typing some documents on a typewriter, her purpose of doing so unknown. Amita is surprised that Sabal sent Ajay to do the job, and Ajay, out of frustration, tells Amita that no one else pulls the trigger around there. Amita assures to Ajay that Sabal hides behind his blind faith and tradition, and that she is surprised on how he can follow along like one of his puppets. Amita then tells Ajay that she really believed him when he told her that he only wanted to fulfill Ishwari's dying wish.
After mocking that Ajay is the son of Mohan and that he will be the sole savior of Kyrat, Amita tells him to follow through with his orders and pull the trigger, assuring that it is the will of Kyra.
If the player decides to shoot Amita, she picks up the folder with her documents and slumps back on the chair, and after a few moments, she drops the folder and succumbs to the wound.
If the player decides not to shoot Amita, she picks up her folder and walks away in anger, telling Ajay that while he is saving her life, he is killing Kyrat.
After the end of the game, if Amita was placed in charge to lead the Golden Path, there will be a secret cutscene featuring her in Tirtha. There, Amita reveals her true intentions of turning Kyrat into a totalitarian drug state. She proceeds to order the rebels into the houses, conscripting every child they find to be recruited as soldiers into the Golden Path, claiming that the increased numbers are necessary for enforcing Kyrat's future peace and protecting the drug fields. When Ajay demands to know what Bhadra has to say about this, Amita claims that she sent her away, where the Golden Path's enemies cannot find her, implying that she had Bhadra killed, as she tells Ajay that she will not be coming back. As Amita walks away, Ajay has one last choice: to leave her alone or shoot her.
Personality and Traits
Amita is a strong genius and does not like to be contradicted, but always tries to show her hand. She believes she will repair Kyrat with the money she gains, but her form of gaining money relies heavily on selling and trafficking drugs. Amita wants to break Sabal's heavy pace into the traditions of Kyrat, and openly manipulates Ajay into helping her, only to show her true intentions later, showing it if the player chooses her to be the Golden Path leader.
Trivia
If the player sides with Sabal but decides not to kill Amita, after the end of the game, Amita can be found at the Sherpa Yak Enclosure on the top of the mountain north of Banapur, but cannot be interacted with, and is treated by the game as simply a regular civilian NPC. She may also be found here even if Ajay did killed her.
If you side with Amita but don't kill her after the last interaction with her post game, she can be found southwest of Tirtha, at these coordinates: (X:489.6 Y:356.9). Amita will be found praying at a Kyra statue with two Golden Path members guarding her, despite her testament of breaking away from Kyrat's traditions.
Gallery
ReferencesWarning: Video contains violence
A Panthers fan took his aggression too far Thursday night during the team’s 28-23 loss to the Eagles, sucker-punching another fan in the stands.
According to an onlooker, who posted the assault on Instagram, an older fan asked the Panthers fan and his girlfriend to sit down, as they had been standing during the game. As words were continually exchanged, the Panthers loyalist allegedly called the victim a “geriatric f–k” before throwing a punch. Others surrounding the exchange tried to keep the aggressor from doing more damage.
As the enraged Carolina twosome left the scene of the incident to an eruption of boos and shouts, the older fan stayed seated as blood dripped down his face.
The Panthers released a statement Friday, confirming they identified the person in question.
“We have reviewed video tape of the incident and have identified the perpetrator. We are working with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department to pursue charges to the fullest extent of the law,” the statement read.
“The Carolina Panthers are committed to a fan-friendly and family-friendly stadium experience. The behavior exhibited by the perpetrator is unacceptable and will not be condoned at Bank of America Stadium.”
Carolina’s next home game will take place on Sunday, Nov. 5 against the Atlanta Falcons.Washington, D.C., voters appear to be ready to legalize marijuana, according to a new poll that puts support at 65 percent.
The NBC4/Washington Post/Marist poll's finding that district voters support legalization by amost a 2-1 margin “is the highest support ever for a marijuana legalization ballot initiative,” Adam Eidinger, chair of D.C. Cannabis Campaign, the group backing the legalization measure, said in a statement. “It vindicates the work of this campaign so far, but we still have more work to do turning out the vote come Election Day.”
On Nov. 4, D.C. voters will decide Initiative 71, which would legalize adult marijuana use, possession of up to two ounces, and home cultivation of up to six marijuana plants for personal use. The sale of marijuana would remain illegal. The D.C. Council is considering a separate bill that would allow the regulation and taxation of marijuana.
The new poll suggests D.C. will join Washington state and Colorado in legalizing recreational marijuana. Just days before Washington state voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, Public Policy Polling found 53 percent support for the measure. The day before Colorado voters approved marijuana for recreational use by adults, PPP found 52 percent support.
“Voters are relating to the message that legalization will end D.C.’s rampant discrimination when it comes marijuana enforcement," said Dr. Malik Burnett, D.C. Policy Manager for the Drug Policy Alliance, in a statement.
According to the Washington Lawyers' Committee, arrest statistics from 2009 to 2011 revealed that nine out of 10 people arrested for drugs in Washington were black, though blacks make up just slightly more than half of the city's population. Yet government surveys show that blacks are no more likely than whites to use the drug.
A marijuana activist criticized The Washington Post for editorializing against legalization.
"At the very moment this Washington Post poll was in the field, the paper's own editorial board was circulating a 'Reefer Madness'-style, error-laden screed urging D.C. voters to reject legalization," Marijuana Majority's Tom Angell told The Huffington Post. A Sunday Post editorial urged D.C. voters to "reject the rush to marijuana."
"It looks like that didn't work," Angell said of the editorial. "No matter how hard prohibitionists try to spread scare stories about legalization, poll after poll confirms that this is a mainstream issue supported by a growing majority of the public."
Kevin Sabet, co-founder of anti-legalization group Project SAM, said he sees the poll numbers differently.
"I think it represents the fact that the 'Yes' side has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars raised outside the District on its messaging," Sabet said. "As voters hear more about why marijuana and marijuana businesses are not good for the District, I expect the gap to narrow."
The ballot measure builds on several recent moves to remove restrictions on marijuana in Washington. The District's first medical marijuana dispensary opened last year. Earlier this year, the D.C. Council decriminalized the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana. The District legalized marijuana for medical use in 2010. Twenty-three states also have legalized medical marijuana.Being a member of the MMA media is a labor of love for most. The money isn't great unless you have a television gig or are a member of a very small group that covers news for larger sites. If you happen to be a female, there are defintely more issues at play. As a member of that latter group, I've always been grateful for the opportunities I've been blessed with over the last 11 years. That's not to say I've not had some bumps in the road, but I've definitely been more fortunate than most.
A large part of the reason why I've not experienced some of the problems that other women in the community have faced is due to my choice to stay "behind the curtain," so to speak. I've always done radio and writing, nothing video oriented. When I started out, there wasn't a "vlogosphere." You could literally count on one hand the available podcasts, and videos were mainly for fights and highlight reels.
Today, everyone has a podcast, runs a periscope, a snap chat, live Youtube or Facebook feeds, and when a woman gets in front of a camera to cover sports, there is a noticeable change in perception from when a man does. From my experience of working outside the video bubble, I've been told things like, ‘You're a woman and don't know what you're talking about,' or ‘Let the men cover the men's sports,' and several other choice things along these lines. Putting yourself out there publicly, in any format, leaves you open for more than just criticism, it leaves you open for sexism and misogyny, and this increases exponentially when you're in front of the camera.
There are several excellent women in this sport's media circles currently, both in and out of video reporting. Megan Olivi, Ana Hissa, Phoenix Carnevale, Evy Rodrigues, Loretta Hunt and Sydnie Jones are names that immediately come to mind. Recently, the Three Amigos Podcast spoke to another great reporter, FOX Sports anchor, Karyn Bryant. She opened up and discussed what her journey has been like since she started covering MMA and the continuous battle women have in getting prime jobs in front of the camera. Below is a transcribed portion of our interview with her.
"I work mostly on television in a video-based medium with our MMA Heat site, so I'm primarily, and always have been, an interviewer and presenter. I think in terms of being on camera, there are opportunities, and I would imagine probably more so in the written word, because it doesn't matter what you look like. It's funny, because when I look for stories or I'm reading about fighters, I personally don't say, ‘Hey, let me go see what the women's take is on this storyline.' I personally don't worry about the source other than there's a couple of guys that I think are total jerks, and I don't want to read their stuff because I don't want to get their storylines branded in my head.
In terms of the female storytelling angle, sometimes that comes into play, but for the most part, I'm not really worried who the byline is coming from, so I think for that [written word], women can keep growing and do a lot more. Unfortunately, I do believe that on camera, there is still that requirement for a certain level of "hotness" that is decided upon by whomever is in the offices, who, by the way, are pretty much never women. In that respect, it's still an uphill battle.
For the first--I don't know how many years it was, every interview would be [very affected imitation of male voice] ‘Oh I know what they did after that interview. They totally did it!' There was also the, ‘Who did she "F" to get that job? She probably brought her kneepads over there,' yada yada yada.-Karyn Bryant
We look at the guys that are covering the sport, and there is no requirement for them to be handsome, fit or whatever. For women, there certainly still is, and I don't like the idea that somebody who is passionate about the sport and may have a great depth of knowledge about the sport, won't get a job because she's not hot, and unfortunately, that's going to come into play, and I don't want this this to somehow get twisted into something narcissistic, because I'm not sitting here trying to say that I'm hot, because I'm not. I think I‘m just a little ahead of the curve in being a woman in the right place at the right time in some of these things.
Some of the people that I know are trying to get into it [television media], and when you look at people on the internet that are trying to do things, there is still that element of, ‘Hey, I'm a really cute girl and I like the sport, so I bet I could do it, too.' It's happened over the years, and I think it continues to happen. Eventually, they figure out that you have to actually know something, too. I'm not trying to call names here, I'm just saying you do have to know something and you can't just get by on your looks. The opportunity for cute girls that know stuff is definitely there, if you're looking to work on camera. Unfortunately, it's still an uphill battle and the requirements for the men are not ever going to be the same.
In terms of the fighters, they've been great. I don't think the fighters are worried about the women that are holding the microphone. I don't think they are prejudiced by what she looks like, but the people who may be offering the on-camera jobs...that is still a great concern. In terms of the fighters recognizing that women are valuable and have just as much of a right to be there, I definitely think they're all for that."
Karyn went on to discuss when she first started covering sports, before MMA, detailing the things she's been told or seen over the years, as well as the differences in the way males and females are perceived in sports reporting.
"Believe me, this is not my first rodeo. I've done a lot of reporting and coverage and on-camera things for years before I covered MMA. For the first--I don't know how many years it was, every interview would be [very affected imitation of male voice] ‘Oh I know what they did after that interview. They totally did it!' There was also the, ‘Who did she "F" to get that job? She probably brought her kneepads over there,' yada yada yada.
It still happens. It happens less than it used to, but it still happens. There are forum threads about which one of us the guys think is the hottest. Guess what? There's no storyline like that on the male reporters. That part is ridiculous, but it's also expected. It's not a surprise. It's not new. It can be discouraging."
There was a lot more to this excellent interview, with topics that covered the following:
Assessment of females in MMA media and what kind of advancement you see in the next 3 years
Biggest story over the last year
Importance of free agency
Thoughts on possibility of UFC sale and how it will affect the sport
Thoughts on judging/refereeing issues that seem to be a blight on the sport
You can listen to Karyn's segment at the 1:23:20 mark of the audio HERE, or via the embedded player below. Remember, if you're looking for us on SoundCloud or iTunes, we're under the MMA Nation name. Follow our Twitter accounts: Stephie Haynes, Three Amigos Podcast, Geroge Lockhart, Iain Kiddand Mookie Alexander or our Facebook fan page, Three Amigos Podcast.Annual rises in exam grades do not always equal better standards in schools, the Education Secretary has said in a further hint that A-level results could drop this summer.
Nicky Morgan said it was not important to see “numbers rise” to achieve overall improvements to the education system.
She insisted increases in the past had been achieving by "drilling" pupils to pass and shifting children onto low-grade qualifications to boost league table positions.
The comments follow warnings that grades in GCSEs and A-levels could decline this year following a series of major changes to the exams system in England.
This week, some 300,000 teenagers will receive their A-levels, with experts suggesting the number of test papers graded A* or A may drop for the third year in a row.
Ofqual, the exams watchdog, has already told pupils to expect “particularly volatile” GCSE and A-level results because of the qualifications shake-up.
In an article for the Telegraph, Mrs Morgan criticised “ever higher grades and pass rates” seen under the last Labour government, saying they had been achieved at the expense of a proper understanding of traditional subjects.
It was claimed that children’s education had been damaged by “constant drilling for examinations” and a drive towards poor quality courses.
The number of A-level exams awarded the highest grades tripled over the last three decades, from just under nine per cent in 1982 to a record high of 27 per cent in 2010 and 2011.
In 2012, top grades dropped marginally to 26.6 per cent before falling again to 26.3 per cent last summer.
This week, the proportion of good grades may fall again, with just over half of test papers expected to be given at least a B and three-quarters marked C or better.
It follows a pledge by Ofqual to stamp out “grade inflation”.
This year, January A-level exams have been abolished, forcing all students to take tests in one sitting in the summer, reducing chances to bump up their grades.
Changes to GCSEs include the downgrading of coursework, a switch to end-of-year exams and a clampdown on resits by only including a pupil’s first attempt in official league tables. Ministers have also encouraged schools to focus on traditional subjects such as maths, the three sciences and foreign languages.
In her first national newspaper article since taking over as Education Secretary from Michael Gove, Mrs Morgan said that “as these reforms start to take effect, results may well change”.
She added: “What really matters isn’t that numbers rise, but that standards rise. So no matter what the results, there is one important thing to remember.
“Each and every single pupil this year can be confident that the results they worked so hard to achieve represent real achievement – and will give them a better, brighter start in life.”
Prof Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said Ofqual had “started squeezing out grade inflation” by using pupils’ prior exam results to ensure scores do not differ wildly from those in previous years.
“Ofqual has already concluded that there had been grade inflation in the past,” he said. “Results were not reflected in improvements in understanding of subjects.
“It has attempted to regulate the outcome by looking at prior attainment of the students and this has – in the last two years – brought down performance at the higher grade levels.
“The further application of that approach will mean that we are more likely to see a slight drop than an increase in grades this year, but the more likely outcome will be a set of results that are, in fact, very similar to those seen in 2013.”– It was a Hillary Clinton rally – without the candidate. And the fill-in speaker had Bernie Sanders on his mind.
The Democrat who knows her better than anyone, former President Bill Clinton, touted her credentials on a range of issues Monday – and repeatedly sought to drive home a message that Sanders is a one-issue candidate without a his wife's broad experience on the wide range of issues that will face the next president.
Clinton never mentioned Sanders by name. But he, as well as leading Democratic politicians brought in to introduce the former president, frequently depicted Sanders as someone who doesn't know how to work with others to get things done.
At one point, Clinton likened Sanders and his supporters to the tea party movement, which has taken over and dominated the Republican Party in recent years. Something similar is "going on right now in our party," Clinton said.
"If you don't deal with the fact that we are too politically polarized and we keep rewarding people who tell us things we know we can't do because it pushes their hot buttons, we can't go forward together," he said.
Former President Bill Clinton appears at the Port of Palm Beach cruise terminal in Riviera Beach on behalf of his wife’s presidential candidacy. (Amy Beth Bennett) (Amy Beth Bennett)
He said both the Democratic and Republican primaries "have been dominated by very emotional campaigns that I think are the product of peoples' doubts" about the future.
Sanders's campaign is focused on economic inequality and the problems he says stem from Wall Street interests' dominating the economy. Clinton repeatedly said there is more than one critical issue facing the nation. "We've got to realize this is not a single issue campaign," he said.
He also suggested Hillary Clinton, a former secretary of state and former U.S. senator, is better prepared to navigate treacherous international waters. "We need somebody that knows how the world works, who's committed to keeping big, bad things from happening."
Before Clinton got on stage in front of a crowd of about 800 at the Port of Palm Beach, U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings delivered a slashing critique of Sanders, Clinton's competitor for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Hastings, who represents parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, explained that he served with Sanders for years in the House of Representatives, where he advocated the same policies he does today – but wasn't able to accomplish anything.
"I know Bernie," Hastings said. "He hasn't been able to accomplish it at all for the whole time he has been there…. I don't have time for that. There comes a time when reality meets the rubber on the road. I'm for pragmatic politics." He then told the cheering crowd Clinton would be the next president.
Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, also didn't get any respect from his colleague, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. "There is only one qualified candidate to be president of this country," he said.
Hillary Clinton was originally scheduled to hold the rally. But faced with a need to step up her efforts in Nevada before that state's caucuses on Saturday, she sent her husband to Riviera Beach in her place.
"If you're going to have [a stand in], he's the best one to have," said Clinton supporter Priscilla Taylor, a Palm Beach County Commissioner.
Hastings also emphasized President Barack Obama's trust in Clinton, and her support for Obama's policies.
Clinton and Nelson said the death of Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, and the quickly politicized discussion about appointing a new justice, shows why it's critical to have a Democratic president. "Isn't that enough of a reason to be supporting Hillary? But there's so many more," Nelson said.
Clinton, who spoke for 30 minutes – in a voice no longer as robust as it used to be – also touted his wife's positives. "She makes everything and everyone she ever touches better. She will lead us there [to a better place] if you will be with her."
He said she has plans to create more jobs with higher wages – for example, through a national infrastructure bank to help with public works projects and by increasing the use of solar and wind energy. He said that would also help combat climate change.
He touted her years of work promoting the expansion of health care. Sanders wants a universal, government-paid health care system. But Clinton said it would be easier to get to full coverage by starting with the base of people covered under Obamacare than to attempt a single-payer universal health care system.
Addressing black voters, a critical constituency, Clinton said his wife has been on the front lines of the civil rights movement for decade.
"It's important that we listen to the Black Lives Matter movement. I'm tired of seeing kids on television shot down," he said.
He called for "police reform, because let's not forget we really need our police officers. But we need them connected to the communities."
Near the end of his speech, he was interrupted by a supporter of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The protester yelled something about Clinton's foundation taking Trump's money. Clinton said he "sure did" – and said his foundation used the money more effectively than Trump is using his own money now.
Republicans said Hillary Clinton's cancellation was a sign of big problems.
"Hillary Clinton's last minute decision to skip Florida is a clear sign that her campaign is in crisis after her devastating loss to Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire,'' Wadi Gaitan, spokesman for the Florida Republican Party said in a statement.AIGLE, SWITZERLAND —In the wake of overwhelming allegations that he engaged in illegal doping throughout the course of his professional career, cyclist Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles Monday, effectively making this article the last story ever written about the sport of cycling.
This one, right here, sources confirmed.
Accepting the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s sanctions against Armstrong for allegedly overseeing a far-reaching doping conspiracy, the International Cycling Union has erased his name from the record books and banned him from the sport for life, marking an ignoble epilogue to the athlete’s career and ensuring that cycling will never be mentioned in a mainstream news publication ever again, because, what’s the point?
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“Given the staggering body of evidence and testimony against Armstrong, we cannot advocate sanctions any more lenient than these,” ICU president Pat McQuaid said Monday at a press conference in which reporters who had covered cycling since Armstrong won his first Tour title in 1999 exchanged farewells with one another. “But while his conduct has dealt a heavy blow to cycling, we are confident that—actually, why am I even here anymore? Lance Armstrong is done and cycling is over.”
“I understand why you’re all walking out of this press conference,” McQuaid added. “I would be too.”
According to sources and basic common sense, now that the storied career of cycling’s most prominent and marketable figure has been revealed as a complete and undeniable fraud, there is no chance the sport will ever again receive even one line of coverage from any news outlet in the world.
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Though Armstrong has tarnished the unpopular sport’s reputation with drug trafficking, blood-test manipulation, and general moral hypocrisy, nothing else really needs to be reported on the subject. In fact, these statements, sources confirmed, are redundant and would have been removed in the editing process if anyone still gave a shit and didn’t just want this article to be over.
At press time, now that a few hundred words have been obligingly thrown together on the matter, this is reportedly the last paragraph in the last article ever written about cycling, and it will conclude with a few more words and then a final period.The Looming Transit Breakdown That Threatens America’s Economy
While federal transit funding stagnates, the nation’s largest rail and bus systems have been delaying critical maintenance projects. Without sustained efforts to fix infrastructure and vehicles, the effects of deteriorating service in big American cities could ripple across the national economy, according to a new report from the Regional Plan Association [PDF].
RPA focuses on ten of the nation’s largest transit agencies — in Boston, San Francisco, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York, Cleveland, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Between them, these agencies face about $102 billion in deferred maintenance costs. To bring the systems into a state of good repair will require about $13 billion in maintenance spending per year — more than twice the current rate of investment.
These regions house about one-fifth of the country’s population and produce about 27 percent of the nation’s economic output. They also carry about 60 percent of the nation’s total transit ridership, up from 55 percent 20 years ago. That’s a reflection of how transit has become increasingly important in these regions, with passenger trips growing 54 percent over the same period.
That level of ridership growth can’t be sustained if the transit systems aren’t maintained properly. RPA cites a 2012 report from San Francisco’s BART that says if the system is allowed to deteriorate…
…the consequences will be drastically negative. BART’s aging infrastructure will fail more frequently, causing substantial declines in reliability and more crowding. In turn, BART ridership, which is expected to increase to half a million riders a day if current levels of service can be maintained, will stagnate or even decline.
The decline of the country’s big transit systems could have wide-ranging economic consequences, deterring growth in America’s most productive regions.
In 2013, about $5.4 billion in capital funding was available to these 10 agencies from the federal, state, and local governments, with another $1.9 billion coming from fares, tolls, and dedicated taxes. Of that $7.3 billion, about 80 percent, or $6 billion, was spent on maintenance, RPA reports. But even if it all went toward maintenance, that would fall far short of the $13 billion needed to repair and replace the systems’ core infrastructure.
The federal government isn’t about to step in. The transportation bill working its way through Washington right now will, at best, continue status-quo funding levels for transit over the next six years. If anything, the federal bill will aggravate the problem.
A late amendment from Washington Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler eliminates the “Growing State and High-Density States Funding Program,” which helped deliver about $272 million in funding to some of the big transit agencies in the Northeast in particular, according to the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. It’s not clear whether the amendment will survive conference committee.
RPA Board Chair Lee Sander said that creating wider recognition that transit maintenance is a national problem, not just a local one, is an important first step.
“Hopefully this will give leverage to the individual transit properties… as they deal with their state legislatures and other legislative bodies,” he said.
Correction: This post originally reported Jaime Herrera represented Oregon in Congress. She represents Washington.Opinion around the league is that the Red Sox need another starter for the top-half of the rotation. President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski, who is certainly more talkative than we're used to seeing from a Boston executive, doesn't agree, though. Dombrowski told FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal that the Red Sox aren't "actively looking" to make a deal for pitching.
This is not a huge surprise, especially when you consider Dombrowski's other quote on the matter: ""I don't even know where we would put him." The Red Sox have David Price at the top of the rotation, then Clay Buchholz in the number two slot. They need to find out what Rick Porcello is going to be since he has five years and $82.5 million on his deal. Eduardo Rodriguez is missing from the start of the season, sure, but he's a potential number two arm who thrived in his rookie campaign -- he's set to pitch far, far more of the season than he won't, and he might be even better than in 2015.
Joe Kelly is still something of a question mark, yes, but it has to be said that, if he's going to eschew topping out his velocity in favor of having more command of what he throws, he's going to do just fine as a starter even in the AL East.
Then, you've got Steven Wright, who could likely start for a number of teams in the league. There's Henry Owens, who would probably be in the majors if he were in an organization that didn't have at least six options in front of him. Roenis Elias started for the Mariners in 2015, and while he's sort of just a guy, the Sox have to put him in Triple-A if they want to keep him starting. Brian Johnson might end up being the best of the bunch, and he's something of an afterthought in the team's depth. Like Dombrowski said, where are you going to put another arm?
It should be noted, too, that Dombrowski isn't saying the Sox are set forever. He went as far as to say "Can you always be better? Sure." The thing is, March and April isn't the time for it. The rotation the Sox have assembled -- especially when Rodriguez returns -- deserves a chance to show that they're the rotation the Sox can rely on. If, after a couple of months, it looks like Porcello is still full of bad habits or Kelly isn't the starter the Sox want him to be, then Dombrowski will surely find room for that starter the anonymous scouts think Boston needs. Until then, like Dombrowski, let's give this talented group a shot to see if they can do what's not only expected, but needed of them.Hello and welcome to the GSUGA Invitational Website!
The GSUGA Invitational is the 4th Annual Invitational in the State of Georgia, and is being put on by a combined moderator staff of The University of Georgia and Georgia Southern University. We are very proud and excited to be running this event and cannot wait to see as many of you as we can on July 24-25 in Athens, Georgia!
The event is free to play, and open to anyone! Participants younger than 18 will require some extra paperwork, and participants younger than 16 will be required to have a parent or guardian older than 18 present at the event (We reccommend that the parent or guardian also play and join the fun!)
Registration for the event is now open, so feel free to sign up and fill out your account page! Please poke around the site to view more information about the event!
The site is still currently under construction, and you may see some features change or some information change as we progress through the summer and finalize the game details. If you haven't already, please join our facebook page (facebook link) where you can chat with your fellow HvZers and be aware of announcements as they happen. (The website will update with current information soon after it is settled upon, but the facebook page may provide you with announcements)
We have yet to create a printable waiver for persons under 18, but once we do, that will appear in the legal section, along with a printable version of our standard waiver. For now we will be using the Georgia Southern Waiver in your digital signature when you sign up for the event. The printable waivers will be very similar but with GSUGA Invitational instead of Georgia Southern, and possibly some additional provisions.
If you have any questions, concerns or comments, please email the moderator team at gsuga2015@gmail.com!
Thank you,
GSUGA Mod Team
Game Feed: 07/09/2015 at 1:39AM - The game has been stopped! 07/09/2015 at 1:39AM - Caleb Ditchfield was tagged by David Menear. 07/09/2015 at 1:39AM - The game has been started! 06/06/2015 at 5:16AM - The game has been stopped! 06/06/2015 at 05:16AM - David Menear was brought back to life! It's a miracle! 06/06/2015 at 05:16AM - Chris Efferth was brought back to life! It's a miracle! 06/06/2015 at 05:15AM - Simon Luu was brought back to life! It's a miracle! 06/06/2015 at 5:15AM - Simon Luu was tagged by David Menear. 06/06/2015 at 5:14AM - Chris Efferth was tagged by David Menear. 06/06/2015 at 5:14AM - David Menear made their first kill and was revealed as an original zombie! 06/06/2015 at 05:14AM - Chris Efferth was brought back to life! It's a miracle! 06/06/2015 at 05:14AM - David Menear was brought back to life! It's a miracle! 06/06/2015 at 5:14AM - Chris Efferth was tagged by David. 06/06/2015 at 5:14AM - David made their first kill and was revealed as an original zombie! 06/06/2015 at 05:14AM - Chris Efferth was brought back to life! It's a miracle! 06/06/2015 at 5:12AM - Chris Efferth was tagged by. View MoreLast year award-winning Swiss journalist Kurt Pelder, above, warned that the An’Nur mosque in Winterhur, inset, was brainwashing young Muslims into committing violent acts.
“No, no, no!” said mosque officials.
They denied radicalising youngsters and insisted that it would throw out anyone who tried.
And Swiss police chief Nicoletta Della Valle went on record to say it was a “cliché” to think of mosques brainwashing youngsters, and that radicalisation is more likely to be conducted over the Internet.
Well, Pelder was proved right this week when police arrested the mosque’s imam for allegedly urging his followers to kill fellow Muslims who refused to join communal prayers.
In a statement |
to do with me!
"The Metal Gear games are about political fiction and espionage. Where do zombies fit in with that?"
Kojima's views were echoed by Yoji Shinkawa, who previously designed the characters and mechs on the Metal Gear Solid games.
Asked what he thought of Metal Gear Survive, Shinkawa said: "If I had worked on that game, it would have mechs in it."
Kojima was at the Tokyo Game Show to update fans about his mysterious new game Death Stranding.
Asked about the Death Stranding release date, Kojima said that not only would it be out before the next Olympics in 2020, but it would also be released the year before anime movie Akira is set.
Seeing as how Akira took place in 2019, Death Stranding should make its debut at some point on 2018.With a red and green bandana fastened around his neck, Colombia’s high commissioner for peace, Sergio Jaramillo, approached the edge of a stage adorned with fresh flowers as if walking to the edge of a precipice. Below him, 8,000 people hushed in anticipation. They wore the same colors, representing blood and land, each with the insignia of one of Colombia’s strongest minority movements: the regional Indigenous Council of Cauca, or CRIC. In the background, a banner hung like a limp sail with the black and white faces of dozens of assassinated indigenous leaders in a long, unnamed row. “A transition to peace in any part of the world is full of risks, full of doubts,” Jaramillo said. “We cannot let fear overtake us.”
When Jaramillo uttered those words in the indigenous reserve of La María, Cauca, less than two weeks had passed since the government finalized a peace accord with the leftist guerrilla group FARC, seeking to end over 50 years of armed conflict. On Oct. 2, the public voted against ratifying the deal, shocking the world with a “No” decision that won by a sliver margin of 50.25 to 49.75 percent.
For indigenous communities like the crowd in La María, that outcome was unacceptable. Colombian indigenous leaders say they’ll move forward with the peace accord anyway, contending that their communities have borne the brunt of a conflict that has claimed an estimated 220,000 lives, 81 percent of them civilian.
“Indigenous and Afro-Colombians cannot wait for a solution to this crisis while the Colombian government makes institutional adjustments,” an official CRIC statement said on Oct. 4. Luis Fernando Arias, the president of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia — ONIC, in Spanish — said in a radio interview the day before, “We believe that the victims of this conflict voted in favor of the accord, and this is legitimate.” Both organizations called for continued U.N. security monitoring to uphold the bilateral ceasefire in effect as of Aug. 29.
The unexpected outcome left the country in a vertigo of unknowns. The referendum was an all-or-nothing arrangement with “no Plan B,” and polling before the vote erroneously forecast a safe approval victory. Now, it’s unclear what will become of the result of four years of negotiations in Havana to resolve the oldest armed conflict in the Americas.
“There are several possible routes forward,” José Domingo, a top leader from CRIC, told the Dispatch in an interview. “In every case, it’s going to be very complicated.”
Indigenous groups’ stake in the peace process has a different gravity than for many other Colombians. The violence has not torn through the country uniformly — it concentrates more heavily in the countryside, afflicting indigenous, Afro-descendent and campesino communities disproportionately. Colombia has the highest number of internally displaced people in the world at over six million, many of whom are ethnic minorities, a 2015 Amnesty International report found.
The areas of the country most victimized by the conflict and considered most vulnerable during the post-conflict, like the southwest department of Cauca, largely voted “Yes” for the peace agreement with generous majorities.
Depending upon how the country reshuffles the peace process, minority groups could potentially experience new waves of violence, get pushed out of the negotiation process or lose their hard-fought protections from the 1991 constitution that recognizes Colombia as a multiethnic, multicultural country. With so much to lose, indigenous authorities want to uphold the terms of the existing agreement at a local level.
On Oct. 21, three municipalities in Cauca — Toribio, Corinto and Jambalo — will begin collecting signatures that allow local leaders to implement the accord in their territories. This process relies on a constitutional process called “open council,” which establishes public consultation rights.
“We don’t want an accord that is only between elites,” Domingo said. “With our local authorities and our own communal organizations, the peace accord doesn’t necessarily have to be imposed; we can find a way to apply it for ourselves.”
Like the half century of conflict itself, the referendum vote carved up the population along different allegiances, just as messy as the violence that necessitated it. Many opponents — most prominently former President Álvaro Uribe, a vocal defender of the “No” campaign against the peace deal — argued that the agreement allowed for impunity of guerrilla members who perpetrated war crimes. Critics felt it offered too many concessions to the FARC, a group the U.S. State Department continues to categorize as a terrorist organization.
Minority movements were also skeptical of the accord, but for different reasons. Indigenous communities have constitutionally recognized collective land ownership rights that prevent division of their territories from individual purchase or sale. Beginning in 1971, indigenous people in Cauca began a movement under CRIC to reclaim their ancestral land and self-determination. Today, indigenous collective lands, known as “resguardos,” have a parallel self-governance structure from the central state.
Although international law reinforces the same rights under the International Labor Organization’s convention 169, indigenous leadership feared that aspects of the peace agreement could undermine their independence.
“We are going for the yes vote, but in a critical way,” indigenous counselor Nelson Lemus told the Dispatch. On a national scale, the indigenous movement consolidated around the “Yes” vote under certain conditions– “Yes, but with guarantees to protect our territories, our communities and our autonomy. Yes, but with demilitarization,” Lemus said.
Lemus participated in the Ethnic Commission that represented minority interests in the Havana negotiations. Since the beginning of the peace dialogues in 2012, Colombia’s indigenous movement, led by the CRIC and ONIC, sought participation, arguing that whatever the government and FARC decided upon to end the conflict must take into account their unique forms of autonomy. Although the Ethnic Commission formed in 2015, it wasn’t until June of this year that they paid their first visit to Havana, and it wasn’t until three hours before the dialogues closed that they succeeded in appending an ethnic chapter to the 297-page peace agreement.
“You could say that the Ethnic Commission didn’t participate until the final hours of the negotiations,” Jaramillo said in La María. “But you could also say that they were the only ones to make it to Havana at all.” The chapter enshrines their right to consultation and direct leadership for any projects occurring in their territories, like rural development initiatives or the placement of “concentration zones” where FARC combatants were supposed to demobilize and hand over their weapons.
The week after the vote, hundreds of people in Cauca mobilized a caravan atop brightly painted “chiva” busses to Bogotá as a protest of the decision. The procession culminated at the ONIC’s national congress, where 7,000 indigenous people converged from all over the country to show their commitment to implement the peace agreement.
“In whatever way, the war necessarily cannot continue,” CRIC counselor Favio Alonso Avirama said. “We support the peace process with all of the uncertainties there have been, even if from here forward, we must make some modifications.”
Still, if the FARC and government return to negotiations to revise the peace deal, they will likely have to adapt it to placate its strongest detractors. Uribe and his supporters in the Democratic Center party have insisted that guerrilla war criminals must receive harsher punishments. His platform of “peace without impunity,” however, does not account for the culpability of other armed groups beyond the FARC; the Colombian armed forces and paramilitaries groups also committed egregious human rights violations, with the latter accounting for three times as many massacres as the guerrilla.
Many concerns linger for indigenous and Afro-descendent communities, who have endured violence from all sides while maintaining a peaceful position of neutrality. In an impassioned speech before the representatives in La María, prominent indigenous leader Aída Quilcue read the latest threat from the paramilitary group the Aguilas Negras. Just a day after the meeting in La María, a campesino woman in Cauca who was a vocal peace leader was assassinated. Most people in the area presume that paramilitaries committed the killing to intimidate “Yes” voters.
Quilcue acknowledged all of the victims, like her husband and the 27,016 other indigenous people in Cauca slain in the conflict, who could not be present to witness the historic meeting. Her eyes were wet, though her voice remained poised and commanding. “We applaud the victims during this moment of great achievement,” she said. “Today, the end of conflict is announced.”
For some communities in the epicenters of violence, Quilcue’s pronouncement already spoke to a palpable shift. In Toribío, Cauca, a predominantly indigenous town that suffered more attacks by the FARC than almost any other place in Colombia, the population has now lived almost two years without a single hostility, which the mayor Alcibiales Escue attributes to the negotiations. Eighty five percent of voters from Toribío supported the accord. Escue acknowledged that constructing peace will require many decades of reconciliation, but it helps to start from a foundation of tentative tranquility.
With all of its gaps and uncertainties, the peace accord represented a profound opportunity for Colombia to transition into a new chapter of post-conflict. At the U.N. General Assembly in September, all 15 members of the security council unanimously voted to support it. Now that the Colombian population has struck it down, maybe the country’s minority groups will lead the effort to turn the page.In 1969 Chevrolet marketing exec Vince Piggins utilized the company’s Central Office Production Order (COPO) program to produce a fleet of Camaros specially engineered for drag racing. A bargain at $489.75, the COPO 9561 package included the L72 427/425 HP V-8 engine, special ducted hood, dual exhaust system, increased cooling capacity, heavy-duty suspension, power front disc brakes and a special 4.10:1 Positraction third member with heat-treated ring and pinion. This is a very rare 1969 Camaro COPO 9561 Coupe. Unlike the standard COPO, this one was ordered with the Rally Sport package, Muncie M22 4-speed manual transmission, center console with Special Instrumentation, front and rear spoilers, power steering and AM/FM radio with rear seat speaker.
Perhaps more significantly, this is a 15,000 original mile, unrestored original. The owner even has all the original documentation with the original Protect-O-Plate, broadcast sheet, dealer invoice, new vehicle warranty and W.U. telegrams from Chevrolet chronicling the order and delivery status of this rare machine. Side note: this car sold for $369K.During World War II, Britain ordered the massacre of all family pets!
750000 pets were killed within a week to overcome food shortage in a starting war!
What to do with your pets once a war brakes out? During WWII, the British government, concerned by food shortages, created the National Air Raid Precautions Animals Committee in 1939, which drafted a notice named Advice to Animal Owners.
The pamphlet, which came with an advertisement for a specific type of gun, said: “If at all possible, send or take your household animals into the country in advance of an emergency […] If you cannot place them in the care of neighbours, it really is kindest to have them destroyed.”
The reaction of the British population was radical. Within the course of a week, 750,000 family pets were “destroyed.”
Also, please note that this took place during the summer of 1939 — i.e., before Germany invaded Poland, and during a time when the British government could have done a lot more damage to Nazi Germany if they simply attacked them instead of massacring all family pets and printing posters for when the Nazis conquered London.
Follow us: Facebook und TwitterJERUSALEM, Israel – In what the medical community hopes will be a major breakthrough, Israeli doctors have implanted the first device in a patient suffering from congestive heart failure.
A medical team at Haifa's Rambam Medical Center recently performed surgery on a Canadian man, 72-year-old Robert McClaken, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post.
McClaken has suffered the effects of congestive heart failure for years. It occurs when the heart cannot pump sufficient blood flow to meet the needs of the body.
He came to Israel to receive the implant, which in simple terms is a spring that helps to relax the heart muscle.
The patient says his condition has improved and he is expected to be released soon to return to Canada.
For three years he worried about dying from the disease.
"When I heard that there a possible solution in Israel, I took a plane and came," McClaken told the Post.
The surgery was performed by the director of Rambam's cardiac surgery team, Prof. Gil Bolotin, along with another Israeli experimental cardiology specialist, Dr. Arthur Kerner.
Israel's health ministry gave the green light to attempt the experimental procedure.
"Over 40 percent of the patients who are in Robert's condition are expected to die within five years of diagnosis," Bolotin explained. "In a very simple mechanical way, we are actually trying to solve an unmet medical problem, even though it's a bit scary to be the first to do it," he added.
An estimated 10 million people worldwide suffer from congestive heart failure. The successful procedure in Haifa is an encouraging sign that relief for others from the debilitating condition may soon be on the way.While working on a project recently, I needed to find an easy way to take ownership of a profile folder and its subfolders to allow our support staff to either delete the profile or be able to traverse the folder to help troubleshoot issues. Typically, one could use Explorer to find the folder and then take ownership and be done with it. But the goal was to come up with a command line solution that not only worked quickly, but didn’t miss out on a file or folder.
The brief background on this is that roaming profiles sometimes would become inaccessible to our support staff in that only the user account and System would have access to the profile folder and its sub-folders and files. Also, ownership of those objects were by the user account. This created issues with deleting accounts and troubleshooting profile related issues.
Before showing the solution that I came up with, I will run down a list of attempts which never quite met my requirements and why.
Using Takeown.exe
This was actually my initial idea as I allows for recursive actions and lets me specify to grant ownership to Builtin\Administrators. Sure it wasn’t a PowerShell approach, but it met the requirements of what I wanted to do…or so I thought.
The first problem is that it is slow. I kicked it off on my own profile (because it is always more fun to test on yourself than others) and found that it would take upwards of 10 minutes vs. the ~2 minute UI approach. Obviously this is an issue if I expect to have this used as part of my project for others to take ownership on profiles which would more than likely have more items than my profile. I still decided to press forward with this and later found the second issue: takeown.exe would not reliably grant ownership completely down the tree of subfolders. This was a huge issue and would not be acceptable with the customer.
Take Ownership using PowerShell and Set-ACL
The next idea was to grab the ACL object of a folder elsewhere in the user’s home directory that had good permissions and then change the owner in that ACL object to ‘Builtin\Administrators” and the apply it to the profile folder.
Sounds good, right? Well, not really due to some un-foreseen issues. Because the accounts do not have the proper user rights (seTakeOwnershipPrivilege, SeRestorePrivilege and SeBackupPrivilege), this would fail right away with an ‘Access Denied’ error. Fine, I can add those privileges if needed and continue on from there. Well, it doesn’t quite work that way either because only the directories would propagate these permissions but the files wouldn’t get ownership.
Set-Owner Function
The final thing that I came up with followed a similar idea as my second attempt, but makes sure to allow for recursion and files and folders as well as allowing either ‘Builting\Administrators’ or another account to have ownership of files and folders. To do this I dove into the Win32 API to first allow the account to elevate the tokens that I have mentioned before.
This allows me to traverse the directory tree and set ownership on the files and folders. If I cannot take ownership on a file or folder (because inheritance is not allowed from the parent folder), then it moves up a level to grant Full Control to to parent folder, thus allowing me to take ownership on the folder or file below it.
Using this approach, I was able to accurately take ownership on all of the items as well as not facing major slowdown (it was roughly 30 seconds slower than the UI approach). Seemed like a good tradeoff to me.
Here are a couple of examples of the function in action:
The function is available to download from the following link:
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Set-Owner-ff4db177Supposedly, the armed services are working hard to make air-to-air and air-to-ground capable drones. There’s a lot of futurism, sponsored by a lot of defense contractors, talking about the day some drone will down a manned plane.
That ship, it turns out, has already sailed. In a 2003 online article by Tom Cooper at the Air Combat Information Group, we learn:
In May 1970, an AQM-34L was on a mission over Hanoi area, acting as a manned reconnaissance aircraft. Finishing its photo-run, the drone turned toward the Tonking Gulf, where it was to ditch after spending its remaining fuel. Almost everything was going according to plan – down to one detail: the drone was intercepted by an MiG-21 of the 921st FR. The fighter closed and tried to shot it down by two K-13/AA-2 Atoll air-to-air missiles. Both malfunctioned however, and the Vietnamese continued the pursuit, trying to down the drone by tackling its wing. By doing so, the SRVAF-pilot forgot to control his fuel reserves: after the drone fell harmlessly into the sea, he found out that he had not enough fuel to return to base. The Vietnamese ejected while flying back toward the coast. This was the first air-to-air kill scored by an unmanned aircraft in the history of air warfare.
The AQM-34L was an advanced (for the day) reconnaissance version of the Ryan Firebee, which had been designed as a target to emulate fast jets. It had no landing gearl; it was usually launched by a modified C-130 and deployed a parachute at the end of its flight. It could be snatched in the air by a helicopter with a special trapeze that snagged the chute, and winched aboard; or it touched down on land or water, where it deployed flotation bags and waited patiently for pickup.
There’s no word on whether the North Vietnamese jet jockey in question survived (always a question with the MiG-21’s seat, which often saved a pilot’s life but broke his back). Unlike the MiG, the jet drone recovered safely and flew again. Further to bedevil the Sons of Ho Chi Minh and their MiGs:
This drone was salvaged and it continued its interesting carrier. On 9 March 1971 it was on a photo-run, most probably over the SRVAF’s Tho Xuan AB, when intercepted by two MiG-21s. Manoeuvring behind the drone, one of Vietnamese pilots „finally“ acquired the target and fired an K-13/AA-2 missile. A direct hit was scored – however, not on the drone but on the leader of the Vietnamese section, flown by pilot Luong Duc Truong, who was killed. Only several weeks later the same drone flew straight into fierce Vietnamese air defence fire and was simultaneously intercepted by an MiG-21 of the SRVAF. While the drone came away the unlucky MiG-pilot experienced the excellent marksmanship of his colleagues on the ground: he was shot down. By the end of 1971, the same drone „scored“ two further „kills“, becoming the actual first US air-combat „ace“ of the Vietnam War!
The drones were also sent on suicide missions to draw enemy SAM fire. The SA-2 Guideline, high-tech workhorse of the People’s Army of Vietnam Air Defense Forces, was a two-stage missile evolved from late WWII German experiments, and was the scourge of air attacks on North Vietnam and, later, Laos. (Here’s a technical report on the missile from Air Power Australia). The fighter-bombers and Wild Weasels (special aircraft for what is now called the suppression of enemy air defenses) evolved many tactics for dealing with them, and the B-52s, once then engaged in 1972, used electronic countermeasures. The SAMs could be defeated by nap-of-the-air flight, but that put aircraft into range of the heaviest concentrations of flak ever assembled. So it seemed like a natural idea to get the North Vietnamese and their Russian SAM donors to waste their missiles on relatively inexpensive drones instead of expensive jets stuff with priceless crewmen.
Some of the drones of the AQM-34 series finished the war packed with ALQ-51 „Shoehorn“ ECM-system and acting as baits for Vietnamese SAM-defences. One of them supposedly managed to drew – and avoid – no less but eleven SA-2 before being shot down. It’s log book was finished with words: „Success! The drone didn’t came back from the mission!“
Drone missions continued past the end of US involvement in Vietnam. Almost 600 of them were lost on operations (more than half to known shootdowns or simple disappearance). The Chinese on Hainan Island were particularly keen on intercepting and shooting down the drones, and appear to have had better luck than their communist cousins across the Gulf of Tonkin.
The operations themselves were hazardous to the drones, even without interception or missiles. Over 80 of that 600 were lost during recovery operations, after completing their mission but before delivering their data, which might have been photographs,radar traces, radio intercepts, or any imaginable combination of sensors. One unlucky drone had completed its mission and was forming up on its control aircraft (a DC-130) when a pair of Navy F-4 crews got a bad case of buck fever and shot it down, mistaking it for a MiG attacking the Hercules.
But almost 3,000 drone missions over denied areas in Southeast Asia were successfully completed.
These feats were all accomplished on a drone platform with 1950s aeronautical technology and 1960s electronics: all analog, no digital. They used Doppler radar and LORAN for navigation and could fly a preset route or be controlled by pilots aboard the launch aircraft.Though Disney’s live-action adaptations of their traditional animated stories have been a mixed bag so far, Jon Favreau and company have delivered a surprising gem in The Jungle Book. Like other adaptations, this film is certainly a re-make of the original and contains many of the same thematic elements, but some unique nuances add a great deal to the overall quality of the film. Though the movie is not without its faults, it is vastly superior to the animated version from 1967 in almost every way: it has a stronger sense of character development, a more coherent plot-theme, and even sports higher-quality animation. This is hands-down the best of Disney’s recent live-action adaptations.
Though, from a stylistic standpoint, classifying the film as “live-action” may be a bit of a stretch. The only live-action element of the film is the human character of Mowgli (Neel Sethi). His performance is solid as far as child actors go, but can’t compare to the voice-acting and gorgeous CGI. All of the animal characters and the environment are animated, and it is some of the most immersive, realistic world-building we’ve this side of Avatar. The animation of the animals is also pitch-perfect, and for the most part speeds right past any uncanny valley. A couple of the character models were slightly distracting to me, most notably the wolf puppies, but all the major characters look wonderful – even when they are talking.
The plot is essentially the same as the 1967 animated film, but adds a few interesting improvements. The villain, the tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) is given much more weight and prominence in the narrative. Mowgli himself is more of a complete character and less of a plot device. Where the original Disney story simply explains that Mowgli needs to leave the jungle for his own safety, this updated version actually shows it – sometimes with surprising brutality. It feels like there are actual stakes in this version of the story, and that Mowgli has real choices to make and isn’t simply wandering from one setting to the next.
As previously mentioned, the voice talent that was assembled for this film is impeccable. Ben Kingsley is a great Bagheera, lending the panther the perfect mix of authority and compassion for the wayward Mowgli. Idris Elba’s Shere Khan is likewise excellent; intimidating but with a realistic emotional weight to his rage. On the other end of the spectrum, Bill Murray is great as Baloo, and actually manages to make the character something more than just a carefree sidekick. Sadly, Scarlett Johansson is wasted as Kaa, and could have been omitted from the story altogether (it really doesn’t add anything to the overall story). I also have my suspicions that her sequence was so lacking because they had a hard time figuring out how to include her song in the narrative. They didn’t have that issue with Christopher Walken’s awesome rendition of King Louie, for some reason.
This is one of the main weaknesses of the film. It is clear they didn’t know what to do with the musical aspect of the original. When you fully commit to the idea of making a musical, having characters break out in song is just fine (as we can see in the original). But, when you try to straddle the fence like they did in this version, it can feel a little awkward. There are only two songs included: “The Bare Necessities” and “I Wan’na Be Like You”; one works in the story, the other does not. “The Bear Necessities” is sung by Mowgli and Baloo in celebration of a recent success of theirs, and hence it just feels like two friends enjoying themselves. It is completely believable in the world of the film that Baloo may have known this song and taught it to Mowgli. King Louie’s song, however, follows the standards of a musical: he’s just singing what he’s thinking, and somehow that is supposed to be accepted at face value. In the world of the film, it is jarring – because The Jungle Book in this form is not a musical! I would guess that this is the exact reason that Kaa’s song was not included in the film (it is played over end credits – so it was recorded). Let’s be clear: King Louie’s song is excellent and Walken performs it to perfection, but its inclusion breaks the narrative in a fundamental way.
That being said, it is a minor gripe in an otherwise great film. Thematically, The Jungle Book has always been about belonging and family, with a bit of a coming-of-age aspect as well. But, there is also the concept of the power of human ingenuity. This was always present with the “Red Flower” / fire aspect of the original, but it is emphasized in this rendition of the story. One of the first scenes involves all the animals sharing the waterhole. To get water for himself, Mowgli has created a little contraption out of a turtle shell and a vine. The other animals chastise him for resorting to these “tricks”, but they are what make him special. Through the application of his mind, he is able to do things that they other animals cannot do.
The Jungle Book is very easily the best of the Disney live action remakes, with the other true competition being Cinderella. The nuanced themes of The Jungle Book, the fantastic performances, and game-changing visuals give it the edge. Though there are a few uneven aspects of the film, they are minor and very easily overlooked in favor of the myriad successes.
What did you think about The Jungle Book, and how do you feel about Disney’s recent decision to adapt its traditional animated stories in to live-action versions? Which film would you absolutely like to see get a live-action adaptation, and which one absolutely should not? Let me know in the comments, and share with your friends!And just like that, we are a family of four. Little Isac is one week old tonight. Luise gave birth to him in our home. He was delivered under water and into the arms of the bravest, strongest and most beautiful mother I know. Isac is a cute and calm little fellow that spends his days grunting around on our chests, eating and then dozing away in sleep. We are spoiling him with hugs and kisses and eventually we will also spoil him with home cooked food that makes him a healthy and strong plant eater. Thank you so much for all your cheering comments on Instagram, we are so happy to feel your support and love. Now take a look at this lovely little bug.
We could go on and on about him forever, but we actually also have a new recipe for you. It is almost tradition for us to create a new yellow/orange soup every year. We have done lentil soups, sweet potato soups, pumpkin soups and orange soup. Today we are sharing this warm, smooth and creamy carrot soup spiked with tomatoes, coconut milk and turmeric and topped with a corn ceviche loosely inspired by one of Sprouted Kitchen’s recipes. The corn adds a really nice texture to the soup and a fresh twist in flavour. If you are looking for a recipe to start off autumn with, this soup is quite perfect.
This is also a great recipe if you are on a budget. Carrots are always cheap to buy, but now, when they are in season they are extra frikkin’ delicious. Make a huge batch of this soup and fill the freezer with it. I am sure we have mentioned this before, but it’s worth mentioning again: Using seasonal ingredients is a great way to eat good organic vegetables without paying a fortune. Plan what you cook after which seasonal ingredients that are cheapest.
Carrot, Tomato & Coconut Soup
Serves 4-6
1 tbsp cold-pressed coconut oil or olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tsp ground turmeric (optional)
10 medium size carrots, rinsed and sliced
1 can (400 g / 14 oz) plum tomatoes or approx. 5 chopped fresh tomatoes
water, enough to cover
sea salt & black pepper
1 can (400 g / 14 oz) full fat coconut milk or any plant milk of choice
Heat oil in a pot. Add onions, garlic and turmeric and sauté until soft and fragrant. Add carrots and tomatoes and cook for a minute or so, while stirring. Now add water, sea salt and pepper, cover and let simmer for 15-20 minutes until the carrots are tender. Meanwhile prepare the corn topping. When the soup is ready, use an immersion (hand) blender to puree until smooth. Stir in the coconut milk, taste and adjust the flavors. Serve the soup in bowls with a couple of spoonfuls topping and a drizzle of olive oil.
Raw Corn Ceviche
2 fresh corn cobs, husks removed
4 sprigs flat-leaf parsley
juice from 1-2 limes
1 tbsp cold-pressed olive oil
sea salt & black pepper
Cut off the corn kernels from all sides. Chop the parsley. Place in a bowl. Combine all ingredients and season to taste.
Okay, just one last photo of him. Because those lips are made for kissing!To employ laziness.
In JS any object can have a special link to another such that if JS cannot find a key-value pair in the former, it also looks in the latter before failing.
Looking up a hierarchy is the essence of inheritance and the special link that forms the hierarchy between two standard objects is the defining feature of prototypical inheritance. JS, as is now obvious espouses prototypical inheritance.
In prototypical inheritance, the object that carries the special link is called the instance and the object to which it links to is called its prototype.
Note: As this topic is one of the rat’s nest that JS is notorious for and also a very puzzling juncture where most beginners go home, I’m going to go ahead and do something drastic to alleviate some of the pain usually encountered while tackling this topic. Sure there’s no gain without pain but trust me, there are worthier causes. With that, I’m going to pretend that the ECMA standard, IE and Opera doesn’t exist! We sure will bring them back into the fold. But that’s only much later. But to make painless progress in this front, ignore them. For now.
So by now you should be running interpreters provided by the house of Mozilla and the family of KHTML (Chromium, Webkit, et al).
Let’s consider that for our program, we have lots of objects similar to these two.
var flub = { color : "green", size : 20, speed : 40, weapon : {name :'slime', ammo : 100} }, blob = { color : "red", size : 20, speed : 30, weapon : {name :'slime', ammo : 100} };
We immediately see that these objects have common key-value pairs (properties). So to save us some typing (more than anything else), we make an object having the common properties and set it as the prototype of all the objects that needs these properties.
As a consequence, we get for free the ability to centrally tweak the common properties of all the instances of that prototype, also, in the process of naming the prototype object, we may attain a deeper insight into our program. After all, prototypes (as defined by the dictionary) are a convenient forgetfulness (abstraction) that represents similar objects.
So here’s how we go about doing that.
Create the object that will act as the prototype.
var thingy = { size : 20, weapon : {name :'slime', ammo : 100} }
Create the objects that will act as the instances.
var flub = { color : "green", speed : 40 }, blob = { color : "red", speed : 30 };
This doesn’t look like much of a saving. But you’re only saying that because we’re only dealing with a few objects. You’ll quickly change your opinion (as I’m sure you will) when dealing with hundreds of similar objects in real programs.
Okay, you say. We have some objects.. now what?
Enter __proto__ the non-standard unreliable hero.
See, __proto__ is a modifiable key that objects created by the implementations mentioned previously provide. Assigning to the __proto__ property of an object causes it to inherit (be the instance of) the assigned object (prototype). Thus.
flub.__proto__ = blob.__proto__ = thingy;
You should from the previous post know that = operator is right associative and that its value is the assigned object leading to a cascade that sets both flub.__proto__ and blob.__proto__ to refer to thingy.
Accessing a non-existent value from an instance will cause JS to follow the hidden link ( __proto__ ) up the hierarchy looking for what we asked it to find.
So… You may visualize what we did as follows.
Looks pretty complicated but that’s only because we’re looking at the all at once exploded view. Imagine the exploded view of your mobile phone (using which is of-course second nature) for contrast.
When actually using objects, we should be at ease as using a mobile phone. Because with practice and with programs having numerous objects, we won’t be thinking about it all at once. We’d be employing the hierarchical nature of our thought process to forget most of the detail. A session on the REPL should help cement some of these ideas.
Refer the diagram above, and trace JS’s activity through it.
>> flub.color //As expected. >green >> blob.color //Same >red >> flub.size //JS looks up the prototype chain to thingy and gets size from thingy. >20 >> flub.weapon.name //We can keep qualifying as needed and JS follows along. >slime >> blob.weapon.name //Same as above. But from a different object. >slime >> blob.weapon = {name: 'laser', ammo: 40}; //Mew weapon object assigned to blob >[object Object] >> thingy.weapon.name //But not to the prototype (thingy) >slime >> blob.weapon.name //Blob has its own weapon. >laser >> blob.__proto__.weapon.name //Explicitly asking JS to follow __proto__. >slime >> flub.weapon.name //Flub has no weapon. JS follows the proto chain. >slime >> thingy.size = 100; //Assigning to the prototype object directly. >100 >> flub.size //Leads to dynamic changes in its instances. >100 >> blob.size //Same as above. >100 >> flub.__proto__.size = 40; //Assigning to prototype via the __proto__ reference. >40 >> blob.size //As expected. >40
At its core, this is all there is to JS’s flavor of prototypal inheritance. The rest is all JS’s self important posturing. The ECMA standard hides the special link ( __proto__ ) and goes on in a round about way how to achieve more or less the same thing.
But we cannot wrangle JS like this in polite company and we sure should learn to be diplomatic and standard compliant with JS. But that’s for later. For now, we can rest assured at having the upper hand.
Activities.
More REPLing.
Try chaining objects using __proto__.
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together to serve our customers even better as we continue to grow our business.”A snow leopard walks in its enclosure at the RZSS Highland Wildlife Park near Kincraig Scotland, Britain, February 12, 2016. REUTERS/Russell Cheyne/File Photo
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Hundreds of snow leopards are killed illegally every year in remote mountains from China to Tajikistan, further endangering the big cats that number only a few thousand in the wild, a report said on Friday.
Prices ranged up to $10,000 for the carcasses, prized for thick light-colored fur with dark spots, according to the study by TRAFFIC, an international network which monitors wildlife trade.
An estimated 221 to 450 snow leopards were killed annually since 2008 despite bans in 12 Asian nations where they live, it said. TRAFFIC said there were many uncertainties because the leopards live in inaccessible regions including the Himalayas.
About half were shot by farmers to protect goats, sheep and other livestock, with many carcasses then sold, it said. Others were targeted by poachers or trapped in snares meant to catch other animals such as deer.
Still, it said there were some successes in protecting the animals. Only one leopard skin was found on sale in the central Chinese city of Linxia in a 2011 survey, against 60 in 2007.
A Red List of endangered species estimates the global population of snow leopards at between 4,080 and 6,590. International trade in snow leopards has been banned since 1975.
Before that, according to TRAFFIC, one 1960s U.S. fur coat advertisement, for instance, said:
“Untamed... the Snow Leopard, provocatively dangerous. A mankiller. Born free in the wild whiteness of the high Himalayas only to be snared as part of the captivating new fur collection”.An Indian standup comic, Sanjay Rajoura, who goes by the Twitter handle “@urbantucchha” today resorted to name calling and threats to another Twitter user who did not agree with his views on the Supreme Court’s order of banning firecracker sale in Delhi this Diwali. Rajoura is a part of the group Aisi Taisi Democracy, which claims to be into stand-up comedy on social issues. Other members of this group are Indian Ocean’s bassist and vocalist Rahul Ram and lyricist/comedian Varun Grover. The handle of this group, had tweeted the below, ascribing it to Rajoura:
Twitter user @GappistanRadio, quoting this tweet said that despite Rajoura’s dislike for firecrackers and Chetan Bhagat’s books, he couldn’t quite forcibly stop anyone from buying either. However, this triggered Rajoura who took to Twitter to threaten Gappistan Radio, by using the usual Indian Liberal (his bio also says he’s a feminist) weapon of personal attacks and going after livelihood of an individual they disagree with. While he has deleted these tweets, here are the screenshots where he claims how he knows where Gappistan Radio lives and works, and his boss may be someone whom Rajoura knows, so “he should be careful”.
Ironically, his own tweets from the archives speak on how abusive Modi fans are and how he would straighten them up if he ever gets his hands on them.
Twitter was quick to react to the deleted tweets.
Interestingly, Rajoura is being followed by various politicians and journalists.
This is not the first time the so-called champions of free speech have made personal attacks and gone after employment of people they don’t agree with. OpIndia co-founder @Bhak_sala was also hounded by abusive troll masquerading as journalist Swati Chaturvedi. Even author Shuchi Kalra was attacked by pseudo liberals when she showed her anger towards terrorists who had killed our soldiers.
It is shocking how a little bit of criticism riles up these snowflakes and quickly move from abusing and threatening someone to playing victim.The Florida Gators held its first spring scrimmage last Thursday before Jim McElwain gave his football team a long weekend to go home for Easter. Florida ran over 100 plays, not including special teams reps, and it was the first chance the coaching staff was able to see how the team responded to live reps in a game like atmosphere.
McElwain met with the media on Monday and gave a report of what he liked and didn’t like from the Gators’ first true scrimmage of spring camp.
Injuries:
Cam Dillard (broken nose), Jordan Scarlett (hamstring), Jalen Tabor (hamstring), Thomas Holley (hip), Ahmad Fulwood (hamstring) and Dre Massey (leg) all missed the scrimmage with injuries. Duke Dawson sustained a thumb injury, but was able to return and is expected to practice on Monday.
Quarterbacks
Luke Del Rio and Austin Appleby took reps with the first team during Thursday’s scrimmage but Del Rio has yet to create separation at the position battle, according to McElwain.
“I think both those older guys had their moments,” McElwain said. “I think both of the young guys really threw the ball well. I was impressed with how they handled a lot of situations. But, you know, no clear-cut one way or the other.”
Receivers
Antonio Callaway’s absence this spring has created opportunities for all of Florida’s receivers. Fulwood and Massey missing the scrimmage meant even more reps for the position group, including some older players that haven’t made much of a splash yet in their career.
McElwain praised Alvin Bailey, who has dealt with a back injury this camp, as well as Ryan Sousa and Chris Thompson. Thompson had just five catches a year ago, but is making the most of his opportunity heading into his senior season.
Running backs catching on
There’s more to playing running back than just running the football. McElwain was pleased with the way the three running backs he had available on Thursday blocked in pass protection and how they caught the ball out of the backfield, something Florida didn’t do a good job of last season.
“Mark Thompson, he started out as a wide receiver and outgrew the position. He’s got real natural hands and that was good to see,” said McElwain. “To see those guys kind of compete and get after it, I was really happy and would be remiss to say that I thought we caught the ball really well in the scrimmage. Even our running backs out of the backfield. I guess I knew this and didn’t really realize it but Mark Thompson started out as a wide receiver and outgrew the position. He’s got real natural hands and that was good to see.”
Additional Notes:
Kicker Eddy Pineiro had a good scrimmage other than mishitting one kickoff that went out of bounds.
Early Enrollee Chauncey Gardner was moved to safety almost immediately and he’s making an impact at the new position, forcing a turnover during Thursday’s scrimmage.
The offense came out early and moved the ball effectively, but did turn the ball over several times. The defense did a good job when the scrimmage went into red zone situations and on third downs. Florida will scrimmage again on Friday this week.Hillary Clinton speaks at “No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project,” in New York on March 9. (Greg Allen/Invision/Associated Press)
Former prosecutor and chairman of the Benghazi select committee Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) has had enough of Hillary Clinton’s antics. That was plain from this exchange on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Host John Dickerson asked about the State Department’s admission that she had not turned over all her work e-mails, which Sid Blumenthal provided in his deposition.
GOWDY: Well, the significance, John, is it undercuts the three main points that Secretary Clinton made. She said that the public record was complete. You will remember in her single press conference she said that she had turned over everything related to work to the Department of State. We know that that is false. She said the e-mails from Sidney Blumenthal were unsolicited. We know that that was false. So, so far, she also said that she had a single device for convenience. We now know that she had more than a single device. So every explanation she’s offered so far is demonstrably false. DICKERSON: On the question of completeness, the State Department said, well, but she turned over 55,000 e-mails. This is just 15. So how big a deal is that? GOWDY: Well, we don’t know, in fairness to her, because I don’t have anything to compare it with, because she had this unprecedented e-mail arrangement with herself. Only she and her attorneys know whether or not she turned over everything. What we now know is just within the small area of Libya and Benghazi, not her entire tenure of secretary of state, just Libya and Benghazi, we found 15 e-mails that she did not produce to the Department of State, despite the fact that she claimed she produced everything. So we know that her seminal point, ‘don’t mind my unique e-mail arrangement, you have everything you’re supposed to have,’ we know that that is patently false. What we don’t know is whether or not that is also true or false with respect to other areas outside of Libya and Benghazi.
Gowdy added: “They haven’t given us e-mails for nine of the 10 senior aides that she had. It’s been over a year and we don’t have a single scrap of paper from nine of the 10. So I am happy to include this investigation just as soon as John Kerry decides that he’s going to give us the documents we’re entitled to.... [and] if I don’t get satisfaction from that public interaction with his chief of staff, the next person to come explain to Congress why he has been so recalcitrant in turning over documents will be the secretary himself.”
It is hard to fathom why Hillary Clinton and her lawyers are playing fast and loose with a committee when other people (Blumenthal, State Department aides, various hackers) may have her e-mails. One explanation might be that she has destroyed so much for whatever reasons that she does not know what the universe of e-mails — work-related or otherwise. One is hard-pressed to disagree with CNN’s John King, who observed: “The Democratic front-runner has only herself to blame. After the House Select Benghazi Committee released some new e-mails this past week, the Obama State Dept. was forced to admit it was not in possession of some Clinton e-mails that clearly discuss Department business.... This would not be an issue if Clinton hadn’t erased her e-mail server and if she followed the wishes of her boss, Obama, about how to handle Cabinet-level e-mails.”
And with Hillary Clinton one never knows what is yet to come out, especially in light of the court-ordered monthly release of more e-mails. Based upon what we know already, Clinton’s favorability and honesty numbers have tanked. The MSM openly disparages her lack of transparency and denounces her behavior that increase distrust of government. That might not be enough to boost Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to victory, but he might be the least of her troubles.
It seems Vice President Biden is still mulling his options, according to the Wall Street Journal. Moreover, “Before his death last month, elder son Beau Biden encouraged his father to get into the race, people familiar with the matter said. And Hunter Biden told a friend in recent weeks he, too, would like to see the vice president wage one more campaign for the White House.” Oh, my. A grieving father running for president as a tribute to his recently deceased son. A loyal VP who pushed the president forward on gay marriage. A man who has not gotten rich off trading access nor set about to evade his boss’s guidelines.
The potential for a Biden run should send shivers up Hillary’s spine. If ever someone “earned” a chance at the nomination, it’s Biden, not Hillary. At least with Biden you know what you are getting.The Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings will be playing in the 2013 Winter Classic at the University of Michigan's Big House. Bob McKenzie confirmed as much on TSN's Insider Trading last night in the intermission of the Montreal-Boston game. Since Pierre Gauthier hit the panic button mid-game I expect the announcement to be overshadowed. Here are Bob's quotes:
I can in fact confirm those reports that the NHL's desire is that the Leafs play the Wings at the Big House. It'll be configured for 115k. It's not finalized yet, but by the end of the month there's expected to be a formal announcement. The NHL is well down the road.
To say this is a shock would be a stretch as the rumours have been rampant for a while. I know I was cautious but skeptical because so far the NHL hasn't really given any indication that they wanted Canadian teams to play in the NBC version of an outdoor game but let's not forget that Leafs Nation is legion. The great news: the Big House, in addition to being a really fun name for a stadium, will be configured so that there will be 115,000 seats.
This Winter Classic will be truly amazing.
KICKING OFF A PARTY
I hate to do this but...as per Rosie DiManno (and Brian Burke confirms that the Leafs are pushing hard to host it presumably playing one the road might be a prerequisite), the Leafs are shooting for the moon in the coming years:
Alas, the game won't be in Toronto because there's no suitable outdoor venue, Rogers Centre proving yet again that it's good for absolutely nothing, including baseball. Instead, the shivery mano-a-mano will be staged at Michigan Stadium, the Big House in Ann Arbor, home of University of Michigan, with a seating capacity of 115,000 and site of an outdoor NCAA game in December, 2010. The Leafs have formally asked for all three marquee events on the hockey calendar next year: Winter Classic, all-star game and NHL draft. Winter Classic in 12 months' time would be first on the agenda, and best odds, even with the Leafs as road invitees.
Be still my heart! Jeff Arnold of Puck Daddy has some great details on the event which notes that the game may be played at Comerica Park but it seems like Option A is the Big House as it should be.
HBO'S 24/7
Brian Burke, in answering questions on Twitter, said that he would not allow the Maple Leafs to take part in a 24/7-type series unless the league mandated it. Given the way that fans have enjoyed the two series to date (PIT v WSH, NYR v. PHI) they would be dumb to not tell the Maple Leafs that it is a mandatory part of participation in the Winter Classic. Now, the real question is whether HBO will want to do a 24/7 starring a Canadian team. I think that the Leafs have enough high profile American ties in Brian Burke, Ron Wilson, Mike Komisarek, and Phil Kessel to get it done.
If they do, who will be the breakout star? If he's still a Maple Leaf, it'll be Mikhail Grabovski. Phil Kessel will be hiding from the camera, Nikolai Kulemin will be making goldfish faces, and Dion Phaneuf will be glaring. But Grabovski? He'll be dropping gems like this one to Mirtle:
Grabovski said the only advice he gives Kulemin is outside of hockey. "But he don't listen to me." What advice is it? "Russian advice."
Or this other gem:
"Like he told me, he did that for me because [Kaleta] hit me," Grabovski said. "I'm happy for that because Russians stay with Russians."
The guy is a lunatic - and that's without mentioning the fact that after some chump in Vancouver attacked him in the Olympics that he basically broke him into a dozen pieces - just take a look at this quote after Zdeno Chara delivered two hits to his head:
"I feel bruise in my eyes," Grabovski told AM640 after the game. "But like I tell it before, it give me more motivation to play harder."
Of course, then he went out and scored this goal:
ALUMNI GAME
The Maple Leafs and Red Wings' rivalry is one that sadly has been mostly killed outside of their rare meetings since the Leafs moved back to the Eastern Conference. You would think that with the two teams so close geographically that there would have been some thought to keeping the matchup alive despite being in different conferences. While the games have been less frequent there haven't lost any of the buzz.
At least the rivalry went out with a bang:
That was the team that the late Pat Burns always said was his favourite team. Check out the 92-93 rosters that both clubs could draw from:
1992-1993 Detroit Red Wings 1992-1993 Toronto Maple Leafs Shawn Burr Glenn Anderson Jimmy Carson Dave Andreychuk Tim Cheveldae Ken Baumgartner Steve Chiasson Drake Berehowsky Dino Ciccarelli Bill Berg Paul Coffey Nikolai Borschevsky Jim Cummins Wendel Clark Bobby Dollas John Cullen Dallas Drake Mike Eastwood Sergei Fedorov Dave Ellett Gerard Gallant Mike Foligno Jim Hiller Grant Fuhr Mark Howe Todd Gill Sheldon Kennedy Doug Gilmour Steve Konroyd Mike Krushelnyski Vladimir Konstantinov Guy Larose Vyacheslav Kozlov Sylvain Lefebvre Gord Kruppke Jamie Macoun Martin Lapointe Kent Manderville Nicklas Lidstrom Bob McGill Brad McCrimmon Dave McLlwain John Ogrodnick Ken McRae Keith Primeau Dmitri Mironov Bob Probert Mark Osborne Yves Racine Rob Pearson Vincent Riendeau Felix Potvin Ray Sheppard Daren Puppa Mike Sillinger Bob Rouse Chris Tancill Joe Sacco Dennis Vial Darryl Shannon Jason York Dave Tomlinson Paul Ysebaert Rick Wamsley Steve Yzerman Peter Zezel
Then there is the official Detroit Alumni team. Yikes, slim pickings. The Leafs could also pull in players like MATS SUNDIN!!! Curtis Joseph, Chad Kilger (lol), and Bryan McCabe (double lol).
Any way you slice it, this is going to be a must attend event for Leafs fans. I cannot wait.On 19 May 2016, the web site The Free Patriot published an article reporting that “Sunny Oaks Elementary School in California” was forcing young children to “cross dress” in honor of LGBT week:
Sunny Oaks Elementary School in California is making headlines this week for the absurd thing they are having their students participate in. The staff is under question by parents and media after a student came home complaining to her parents that she had to dress up in boys clothes over her dress that she wore to school. Parents of the girl said to Fox News, “It is bad enough that our society is now forcing us to allow transgenders into the wrong bathrooms, but for our school system to teach our kids that this is normal is absolutely wrong.” Although the superintendent did not know of the transgender desensitization event at school he did say that he had approved of LGBT week for students to learn about the prejudice of society against this group of people. All events for the week have been cancelled after making media headlines.
Although it was twice mentioned that the purported controversy was “making headlines,” we were unable to locate a single news item from May 2016 (or any other time) about mandatory cross-dressing at any U.S. school. Neither did we find a record of any “Sunny Oaks Elementary School” existing anywhere in the state of California. Needless to say, Fox News didn’t speak to any parents of students at the non-existent school, and all references to the supposed controversy linked back to the above-referenced item.
A reverse image search for the appended photograph of “Sunny Oaks Elementary” led primarily to pages about other fake news items that were utilizing the same image. (For example, in 2013, the photograph was attached to a fake news claim about a student purportedly suspended for saying “Merry Christmas” to a teacher.)
The Free Patriot is much like the unreliable web site American News, publishing a variety of outrage-inducing claims of questionable veracity.Illustration by Dominick Saponaro. Click to enlarge.
Words of Radiance is coming, and we’re delighted to be able to share with you this stand-alone excerpt from the book!
“Lift,” by Brandon Sanderson, is an interlude chapter from his upcoming novel, but new readers or those afraid of spoilers need not fear; it introduces a new character and a new land entirely removed from the plot of The Way of Kings, and stands very well on its own.
Lift, a young thief who augments her skills with some magical “awesomeness,” infiltrates a palace where a council of viziers is choosing their new supreme leader from a large pack of applications. She wants to steal their dinners, but is being chased by a terrifying lawman she calls “Darkness.”
What kind of magic is she using? Is the word “awesomeness” commonplace in this part of Roshar? Read on!
Lift
Lift had never robbed a palace before. Seemed like a dangerous thing to try. Not because she might get caught, but because once you robbed a starvin’ palace, where did you go next?
She climbed up onto the outer wall and looked in at the grounds. Everything inside—trees, rocks, buildings—reflected the starlight in an odd way. A bulbous-looking building stuck up in the middle of it all, like a bubble on a pond. In fact, most of the buildings were that same round shape, often with small protrusions sprouting out of the top. There wasn’t a straight line in the whole starvin’ place. Just lots and lots of curves.
Lift’s companions climbed up to peek over the top of the wall. A scuffling, scrambling, rowdy mess they were. Six men, supposedly master thieves. They couldn’t even climb a wall properly.
“The Bronze Palace itself,” Huqin breathed.
“Bronze? Is that what everythin’ is made of?” Lift asked, sitting on the wall with one leg over the side. “Looks like a bunch of breasts.”
The men looked at her, aghast. They were all Azish, with dark skin and hair. She was Reshi, from the islands up north. Her mother had told her that, though Lift had never seen the place.
“What?” Huqin demanded.
“Breasts,” Lift said, pointing. “See, like a lady layin’ on her back. Those points on the tops are nipples. Bloke who built this place musta been single for a looong time.”
Huqin turned to one of his companions. Using their ropes, they scuttled back down the outside of the wall to hold a whispered conference.
“Grounds at this end look empty, as my informant indicated would be the case,” Huqin said. He was in charge of the lot of them. Had a nose like someone had taken hold of it when he was a kid and pulled real, real hard. Lift was surprised he didn’t smack people in the face with it when he turned.
“Everyone’s focused on choosing the new Prime Aqasix,” said Maxin. “We could really do this. Rob the Bronze Palace itself, and right under the nose of the vizierate.”
“Is it…um…safe?” asked Huqin’s nephew. He was in his teens, and puberty hadn’t been kind to him. Not with that face, that voice, and those spindly legs.
“Hush,” Huqin snapped.
“No,” Tigzikk said, “the boy is right to express caution. This will be very dangerous.”
Tigzikk was considered the learned one in the group on account of his being able to cuss in three languages. Downright scholarly, that was. He wore fancy clothing, while most of the others wore black. “There will be chaos,” Tigzikk continued, “because so many people move through the palace tonight, but there will also be danger. Many, many bodyguards and a likelihood of suspicion on all sides.”
Tigzikk was an aging fellow, and was the only one of the group Lift knew well. She couldn’t say his name. That “quq” sound on the end of his name sounded like choking when someone pronounced it correctly. She just called him Tig instead.
“Tigzikk,” Huqin said. Yup. Choking. “You were the one who suggested this. Don’t tell me you’re getting cold now.”
“I’m not backing down. I’m pleading caution.”
Lift leaned down over the wall toward them. “Less arguing,” she said. “Let’s move. I’m hungry.”
Huqin looked up. “Why did we bring her along?”
“She’ll be useful,” Tigzikk said. “You’ll see.”
“She’s just a child!”
“She’s a youth. She’s at least twelve.”
“I ain’t twelve,” Lift snapped, looming over them.
They turned up toward her.
“I ain’t,” she said. “Twelve’s an unlucky number.” She held up her hands. “I’m only this many.”
“…Ten?” Tigzikk asked.
“Is that how many that is? Sure, then. Ten.” She lowered her hands. “If I can’t count it on my fingers, it’s unlucky.” And she’d been that many for three years now. So there.
“Seems like there are a lot of unlucky ages,” Huqin said, sounding amused.
“Sure are,” she agreed. She scanned the grounds again, then glanced back the way they had come, into the city.
A man walked down one of the streets leading to the palace. His dark clothing blended into the gloom, but his silver buttons glinted each time he passed a streetlight.
Storms, she thought, a chill running up her spine. I didn’t lose him after all.
She looked down at the men. “Are you coming with me or not? ’Cuz I’m leaving.” She slipped over the top and dropped into the palace yards. Lift squatted there, feeling the cold ground. Yup, it was metal. Everything was bronze. Rich people, she decided, loved to stick with a theme.
As the boys finally stopped arguing and started climbing, a thin, twisting trail of vines grew out of the darkness and approached Lift. It looked like a little stream of spilled water picking its way across the floor. Here and there, bits of clear crystal peeked out of the vines, like sections of quartz in otherwise dark stone. Those weren’t sharp, but smooth like polished glass, and didn’t glow with Stormlight.
The vines grew super-fast, curling about one another in a tangle that formed a face.
“Mistress,” the face said. “Is this wise?”
“’Ello, Voidbringer,” Lift said, scanning the grounds.
“I am not a Voidbringer!” he said. “And you know it. Just…just stop saying that!”
Lift grinned. “You’re my pet Voidbringer, and no lies are going to change that. I got you captured. No stealing souls, now. We ain’t here for souls. Just a little thievery, the type what never hurt nobody.”
The vine face—he called himself Wyndle—sighed. Lift scuttled across the bronze ground over to a tree that was, of course, also made of bronze. Huqin had chosen the darkest part of night, between moons, for them to slip in—but the starlight was enough to see by on a cloudless night like this.
Wyndle grew up to her, leaving a small trail of vines that people didn’t seem to be able to see. The vines hardened after a few moments of sitting, as if briefly becoming solid crystal, then they crumbled to dust. People spotted that on occasion, though they certainly couldn’t see Wyndle himself.
“I’m a spren,” Wyndle said to her. “Part of a proud and noble—”
“Hush,” Lift said, peeking out from behind the bronze tree. An open-topped carriage passed on the drive beyond, carrying some important Azish folk. You could tell by the coats. Big, drooping coats with really wide sleeves and patterns that argued with each other. They all looked like kids who had snuck into their parents’ wardrobe. The hats were nifty, though.
The thieves followed behind her, moving with reasonable stealth. They really weren’t that bad. Even if they didn’t know how to climb a wall properly.
They gathered around her, and Tigzikk stood up, straightening his coat—which was an imitation of one of those worn by the rich scribe types who worked in the government. Here in Azir, working for the government was real important. Everyone else was said to be “discrete,” whatever that meant.
“Ready?” Tigzikk said to Maxin, who was the other one of the thieves dressed in fine clothing.
Maxin nodded, and the two of them moved off to the right, heading toward the palace’s sculpture garden. The important people would supposedly be shuffling around in there, speculating about who should be the next Prime.
Dangerous job, that. The last two had gotten their heads chopped off by some bloke in white with a Shardblade. The most recent Prime hadn’t lasted two starvin’ days!
With Tigzikk and Maxin gone, Lift only had four others to worry about. Huqin, his nephew, and two slender brothers who didn’t talk much and kept reaching under their coats for knives. Lift didn’t like their type. Thieving shouldn’t leave bodies. Leaving bodies was easy. There was no challenge to it if you could just kill anyone who spotted you.
“You can get us in,” Huqin said to Lift. “Right?”
Lift pointedly rolled her eyes. Then she scuttled across the bronze grounds toward the main palace structure.
Really does look like a breast…
Wyndle curled along the ground beside her, his vine trail sprouting tiny bits of clear crystal here and there. He was as sinuous and speedy as a moving eel, only he grew rather than actually moving. Voidbringers were a strange lot.
“You realize that I didn’t choose you,” he said, a face appearing in the vines as they moved. His speaking left a strange effect, the trail behind him clotted with a sequence of frozen faces. The mouth seemed to move because it was growing so quickly beside her. “I wanted to pick a distinguished Iriali matron. A grandmother, an accomplished gardener. But no, the Ring said we should choose you. ‘She has visited the Old Magic,’ they said. ‘Our mother has blessed her,’ they said. ‘She will be young, and we can mold her,’ they said. Well they don’t have to put up with—”
“Shut it, Voidbringer,” Lift hissed, drawing up beside the wall of the palace. “Or I’ll bathe in blessed water and go listen to the priests. Maybe get an exorcism.”
Lift edged sideways until she could look around the curve of the wall to spot the guard patrol: men in patterned vests and caps, with long halberds. She looked up the side of the wall. It bulged out just above her, like a rockbud, before tapering up further. It was of smooth bronze, with no handholds.
She waited until the guards had walked further away. “All right,” she whispered to Wyndle. “You gotta do what I say.”
“I do not.”
“Sure you do. I captured you, just like in the stories.”
“I came to you,” Wyndle said. “Your powers come from me! Do you even listen to—”
“Up the wall,” Lift said, pointing.
Wyndle sighed, but obeyed, creeping up the wall in a wide, looping pattern. Lift hopped up, grabbing the small handholds made by the vine, which stuck to the surface by virtue of thousands of branching stems with sticky discs on them. Wyndle wove ahead of her, making a ladder of sorts.
It wasn’t easy. It was starvin’ difficult, with that bulge, and Wyndle’s handholds weren’t very big. But she did it, climbing all the way to the near-top of the building’s dome, where windows peeked out at the grounds.
She glanced toward the city. No sign of the man in the black uniform. Maybe she’d lost him.
She turned back to examine the window. Its nice wooden frame held very thick glass, even though it pointed east. It was unfair how well Azimir was protected from highstorms. They should have to live with the wind, like normal folk.
“We need to Voidbring that,” she said, pointing at the window.
“Have you realized,” Wyndle said, “that while you claim to be a master thief, I do all of the work in this relationship?”
“You do all the complainin’ too,” she said. “How do we get through this?”
“You have the seeds?”
She nodded, fishing in her pocket. Then in the other one. Then in her back pocket. Ah, there they were. She pulled out a handful of seeds.
“I can’t affect the Physical Realm except in minor ways,” Wyndle said. “This means that you will need to use Investiture to—”
Lift yawned.
“Use Investiture to—”
She yawned wider. Starvin’ Voidbringers never could catch a hint.
Wyndle sighed. “Spread the seeds on the frame.”
She did so, throwing the handful of seeds at the window.
“Your bond to me grants two primary classes of ability,” Wyndle said. “The first, manipulation of friction, you’ve already—don’t yawn at me!—discovered. We have been using that well for many weeks now, and it is time for you to learn the second, the power of Growth. You aren’t ready for what was once known as Regrowth, the healing of—”
Lift pressed her hand against the seeds, then summoned her awesomeness.
She wasn’t sure how she did it. She just did. It had started right around when Wyndle had first appeared.
He hadn’t talked then. She kind of missed those days.
Her hand glowed faintly with white light, like vapor coming off the skin. The seeds that saw the light started to grow. Fast. Vines burst from the seeds and wormed into the cracks between the window and its frame.
The vines grew at her will, making constricted, straining sounds. The glass cracked, then the window frame popped open.
Lift grinned.
“Well done,” Wyndle said. “We’ll make an Edgedancer out of you yet.”
Her stomach grumbled. When had she last eaten? She’d used a lot of her awesomeness practicing earlier. She probably should have stolen something to eat. She wasn’t quite so awesome when she was hungry.
She slipped inside the window. Having a Voidbringer was useful, though she wasn’t completely sure her powers came from him. That seemed the sorta thing a Voidbringer would lie about. She had captured him, fair and square. She’d used words. A Voidbringer had no body, not really. To catch something like that, you had to use words. Everybody knew it. Just like curses made evil things come find you.
She had to get out a sphere—a diamond mark, her lucky one—to see properly in here. The small bedroom was decorated after the Azish way with lots of intricate patterns on the rugs and the fabric on the walls, mostly gold and red here. Those patterns were everything to the Azish. They were like words.
She looked out the window. Surely she’d escaped Darkness, the man in the black and silver with the pale crescent birthmark on his cheek. The man with the dead, lifeless stare. Surely he hadn’t followed her all the way from Marabethia. That was half a continent away! Well, a quarter one, at the least.
Convinced, she uncoiled the rope that she wore wrapped around her waist and over her shoulders. She tied it to the door of a built-in closet, then fed it out the window. It tightened as the men started climbing. Nearby, Wyndle grew up around one of the bedposts, coiled like a skyeel.
She heard whispered voices below. “Did you see that? She climbed right up it. Not a handhold in sight. How…?”
“Hush.” That was Huqin.
Lift began poking through cabinets and drawers as the boys clambered in the window one at a time. Once inside, the thieves pulled up the rope and shut the window as best they could. Huqin studied the vines she’d grown from seeds on the frame.
Lift stuck her head in the bottom of a wardrobe, groping around. “Ain’t nothing in this room but moldy shoes.”
“You,” Huqin said to her, “and my nephew will hold this room. The three of us will search the bedrooms nearby. We will be back shortly.”
“You’ll probably have a whole sack of moldy shoes…” Lift said, pulling out of the wardrobe.
“Ignorant child,” Huqin said, pointing at the wardrobe. One of his men grabbed the shoes and outfits inside, stuffing them in a sack. “This clothing will sell for bundles. It’s exactly what we’re looking for.”
“What about real riches?” Lift said. “Spheres, jewelry, art…” She had little interest in those things herself, but she’d figured it was what Huqin was after.
“That will all be far too well guarded,” Huqin said as his two associates made quick work of the room’s clothing. “The difference between a successful thief and a dead thief is knowing when to escape with your takings. This haul will let us live in luxury for a year or two. That is enough.”
One of the brothers peeked out the door into the hallway. He nodded, and the three of them slipped out. “Listen for the warning,” Huqin said to his nephew, then eased the door almost closed behind him.
Tigzikk and his accomplice below would listen for any kind of alarm. If anything seemed to be amiss, they’d slip off and blow their whistles. Huqin’s nephew crouched by the window to listen, obviously taking his duty very seriously. He looked to be about sixteen. Unlucky age, that.
“How did you climb the wall like that?” the youth asked.
“Gumption,” Lift said. “And spit.”
He frowned at her.
|
.[38][39] Hamer was hired by Governor Coke Stevenson, whose name by now was synonymous with old-school Texan conservative integrity,[40] to accompany him to the Texas State Bank in Alice, the county seat of Jim Wells County in South Texas. Stevenson wanted to examine the tally sheets for ballot box 13, which held ballots for his opponent, then-Representative Lyndon Johnson, he knew were fraudulent, and not in a way that favored him. Outside the bank stood two glowering groups of armed men. Hamer got out of the car. He approached the first group and said, "Git." They did. To the second group blocking the doors of the bank he said, "Fall back." They did.[41] In the end, Johnson won the election, even though the Johnson campaign stuffed the ballot box with over 300 nonexistent voters. This is clearly stated in "Texas Ranger" by John Boessenecker.
Frank Hamer retired in 1949 and lived in Austin until his death.
Health and death [ edit ]
In 1953, Frank Hamer suffered a heat stroke and though he lived two more years, never regained his health.[42] He was buried near his son in Memorial Park Cemetery in Austin.[43] In his life he was wounded 17 times and left for dead four times. He is credited with having killed between 53[9] and almost 70[44] people.
Popular culture [ edit ]
In "The Barrow Gang," an episode of the TV version of Gang Busters, Jim Davis plays Texas Ranger Captain "Bob Stewart," a thinly fictionalized depiction of Hamer who is personally assigned to run down Bonnie and Clyde by Governor "Ma" Ferguson. This episode was later incorporated into the theatrical release Guns Don't Argue, along with two other episodes of the series.
In the 1958 film The Bonnie Parker Story, Douglas Kennedy plays Ranger Captain "Tom Steel," another thinly fictionalized Hamer figure on the trail of the bandit couple.
In the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, Hamer appears under his own name, and is portrayed by Denver Pyle. He is depicted as incompetent, and the Barrow gang in the movie easily captures, teases, and humiliates him, after he foolishly creeps up on them. In consequence, their ambush at the end of the film appears to be his personal, petty revenge. After the film's release, Mrs. Frank Hamer, formerly Gladys Johnson Sims, originally from Snyder, Texas, and Frank Hamer, Jr., sued Warner Bros.-Seven Arts for defamation of character and in 1971 received an undisclosed out-of-court settlement.
Gener Shelton's novel, Manhunter - The Life and Times of Frank Hamer, attempts to depict the lawman's whole career, but concentrates primarily on his pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde.
Frank Hamer appears as a character in the musical Bonnie and Clyde.
In the 2013 TV-movie Bonnie and Clyde, Frank Hamer is portrayed by the actor William Hurt, as a righteous law officer, uncomfortable with the limelight.
In the 2013 direct-to-video film Bonnie and Clyde - Justified, Hamer is portrayed by Eric Roberts as a flamboyant showman who enjoys his celebrity status.
In the Timeless episode "Last Ride of Bonnie and Clyde", Hamer is played by Chris Mulkey.
Kevin Costner will portray Hamer in the upcoming 2019 Netflix film The Highwaymen.[45]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]Academy of Sciences of Yakutia/The Siberian Times
This cub is among two cave lions that were discovered this summer, which roamed the snowy, Siberian wastelands over 10,000 years ago.
The extraordinary discovery was made by the scientists in the Academy of Sciences of the Sakha Republic, aka Yakutia, and they revealed the stunning images ahead of a major presentation of the remains next month.
RGO/The Siberian Times
It’s hoped these remains will shed light on the reasons why the cave lion became extinct and scientists are looking to obtain genetic material of a high enough quality to attempt to bring the cave lion back to live- similar to the woolly mammoth.
The cave lion roamed the ancient world from the British Isles to northern Europe and Russia. They were even found in Alaska and Northern Canada before becoming extinct over 10,000 years ago. The Siberian Times reported that the prehistoric mammal was the best preserved ever unearthed and could be even older than first thought.
Academy of Sciences of Yakutia/The Siberian Times
Both cubs will be unveiled at a presentation to scientists and the international media in Yakutsk, which will also include remains of 39,000-year-old woolly mammoth Yuka, also found in the same region.The government will spend nearly $300 million over the next decade to collect data about the housing market.
In particular, the Liberals have budgeted $39.9 million over the next five years so that Statistics Canada can compile information on foreign ownership of homes in Canada, as well as assembling data on the demographics of owners and how they are financing their home purchases.
It’s hardly the biggest spending commitment in a federal budget that contemplates well over $300 billion in annual program spending. It’s also a fraction of the government’s $11.2 billion, 11-year national housing strategy.
But economists say it’s an important move because it would provide a clearer picture on the conditions driving housing prices. While some provinces, such as B.C. and Ontario, have moved to compile their own data on home ownership, the nationwide picture has been one of anecdote, not evidence.
[np_storybar title=”What it means for you” link=””]Starting this fall, you’ll be able to know exactly how much foreign buyers are driving up the prices of homes in Rosedale or Kitsilano.[/np_storybar]
“This is much needed,” said Craig Wright, chief economist with the Royal Bank of Canada. “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”
The funding commitment announced Wednesday will be spread over five years. After that, the government said it will spend a further $6.6 million a year on the collection of housing data.
The funding will enable Statistics Canada to create the Housing Statistics Framework, a database of all properties in Canada that will track purchases and sales. “Statistics Canada will begin to publish Housing Statistics Framework data in the fall of 2017,” the budget document states.
Douglas Porter, chief economist with BMO Capital Markets, said the national housing data will be welcome. “Just last year I poked fun at the government for announcing all of $500,000 on foreign data collection. That’s barely enough for a down payment on a Vancouver or Toronto home.”
Housing prices in Vancouver have cooled this year because the B.C. government has introduced a tax directed at foreign purchasers. The tax was introduced after the B.C. government collected data on the provincial housing market.
The Ontario government has started compiling data but has taken no steps as of yet to address the housing market in Toronto, where data from February showed a stunning 24 per cent rise in the benchmark price for existing homes.
The creation of the Housing Statistics Framework is one of several housing-related measures in the budget. Much of this spending, which is called the national housing strategy, is directed toward boosting the amount of subsidized housing that is available to low-income Canadians. For example, a National Housing Fund will receive $5 billion in funding over the next 11 years.
The Liberal government, which likes to talk about its use of “evidence-based decision making,” is keen to document the impact of its spending.
For example, the national housing strategy spelled out in Budget 2017 also contains a commitment to provide the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation with $241 million in funding over the next 11 years to improve data collection and analytics.
Taken together, the price tag for collecting CMHC data and creating and running the Housing Statistic Framework would cost $291 million over the next 11 years.
Financial Post
dhasselback@nationalpost.com
twitter.com/vonhasselbachStarladder has announced the first details about the qualifying process for the CIS Minor.
The qualifiers will begin on May 13-14 with an open bracket, featuring up to 512 teams from 12 Eastern European countries.
The top four teams from the open qualifier will advance to the closed stage, in which they will be joined by 12 invited teams. These 16 sides will be split into four GSL groups, with eight teams advancing to the Minor.
hooch's EPG invited to the Minor closed qualifier
More details about the Minor, which will run from June 8-11 at an as-yet unspecified location, will be released by Starladder next week, HLTV.org has learned.
Below you can find the 12 teams who have been invited to compete in the closed stage, which will run from May 16-19:
Teams can sign up for the open qualifier by heading over to FACEIT's website.Loading... Loading...
How does one retain some semblance of health while existing in a world that has become alarmingly toxic and incompatible to life as a whole? Though there are countless sources of contamination, the climate engineering fallout is the most pervasive of all. I am not a physician, but I have made an effort to understand and pursue fitness and health since I was about 14 years of age. To some degree I have avoided previously penning this post because it is not my primary area of study. This being said, I have had many requests to outline what my personal health protocol is, so I’ll do exactly that. I am not giving medical advice, I am not suggesting or directing anyone to practice the health/fitness regime that I follow, I am simply sharing it.
The Basics:
Abundant Clean And Mineral Balanced Drinking Water
Acquiring this most essential element is no simple task in our now completely contaminated world. I have intentionally located in an extensive wilderness area for many reasons, one of them is the access to exceptional ground water. I, of course, realize that such a source of water is not available to many or most, so other options must be found. The quest for clean water is a complex question and not within the scope or this article, but the point is simply this, water is the most essential foundation of our health.
Exercise, Resistance And Aerobic Training
For me, this is first and foremost. If an individual is physically able to engage in consistent cardiovascular and resistance weight training, there is no substitute for the benefits. “Use it or lose it”, how many times have we all heard this simple mantra, yet, how few put it to practice? Physical exercise triggers countless beneficial processes in the body, including the cleansing effect of perspiration. Coupled with the constant consumption of clean and mineral balanced water, great benefits can be realized. It is the consistency that matters when it comes to exercise. With few exceptions, I try to train every day.
Avoiding Further Contamination While Training
Unless the outside air is relatively clear, I do not do workout outside. Many choose to ignore the obvious negative effect of heavy outdoor exercise (and thus heavy respiration) in polluted air, this is a big mistake. The harder one breaths in particulate laden air, the more deeply those contaminants penetrate into the lungs. I grew up in unimaginably smoggy conditions in Upland, California. Only when I retreated to the mountains (which I did constantly as I lived right at the base of them) could I escape the polluted air. Even as a boy I was instinctually careful not to exercise heavily while outdoors on a smoggy day. I feel I am still reaping the benefit even today from the caution I practiced so long ago.
Adequate Rest Is Absolutely Essential
Consistently following a protocol of sleep hygiene is imperative. No regime of fitness and health can approach its full potential without the rejuvenation process of adequate rest. Many in today’s reality do not take this fact into account and thus neglect this extremely important aspect of sound health. It is essential to consider that the time you choose to go to bed can have a big impact on the rejuvenation that is realized from your sleep. Rest in the earlier hours of the night are generally more beneficial for most.
Sleep Aids
Because sleep is so important, and because there are so many factors in the current paradigm that interfere with our natural sleep cycles, I choose to utilize various supplements to assist with my sleep hygiene. The amino acid “Gaba” is one supplement that I regularly take. Gaba has natural calming effects and can also help the body to produce HGH during rest. Melatonin is also a regular supplement for me. There are multiple benefits from Melatonin as well, including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Chamomile and Valerian Root are two more options. I rotate supplements, this is important. Constantly taking the same supplement without any break can and does cause the body to build a tolerance and thus the effectiveness is diminished or lost.
Diet
This is, of course, a very complex subject with countless points of view. Again, the point of this article is to share my own protocol and practices, not to push others to follow any particular practice. What we eat matters immensely. The pros and cons of particular practices and protocols regarding foods and food groups can vary greatly from individual to individual. Blood types are medically shown to be a very significant factor that should be considered (due to different genetic makeup). I had an extensive lab blood test done for food lectin intolerance to confirm the foods that were most compatible for my blood type and genetics. Investigating and understanding what foods are most beneficial to our individual systems is imperative. So many live out their entire lives without knowing or understanding that their systems are intolerant to specific foods. Over time, this intolerance has a grinding down effect on our overall health. I try to consistently consume foods that are most compatible with my system.
When To Eat, And When Not To
Part of my family is from Lithuania, and there is a saying there, “breakfast you keep for yourself, lunch you share with a friend, dinner you give to your enemy”. What I consider from this proverb is this, piling up on calories late at night before bed is very counterproductive in many ways and is especially detrimental to sound rest. If your body is struggling to digest while trying also to rejuvenate and cleanse (especially in regard to the brain), these are opposing forces. Avoiding heavy protein meals late in the day and evening is also essential to better sleep at night. Light meals or serotonin producing foods are best for late day and evening meals in order to assist with more restful sleep.
Supplements
This subject is also very complex and must be tailored to the individual. I will again share my own personal regime in this arena. I have a pantry that is overflowing with supplements, so many that it takes a bit of navigation to know where to find what you are looking for. This being said, I do not take handfuls of the same vitamins and supplements every day. I am selective, and I consistently rotate supplements. I also take short breaks from supplements altogether to allow my system to settle and clean out. It is important to remember that many herbal supplements and even various vitamins are diuretics. If you load up constantly, you will soon begin to purge your system of water (and thus essential nutrients) which greatly diminishes or completely negates the benefits you are trying to gain from the supplements to begin with. Again, as previously stated, I rotate what I take in order to avoid losing the benefit from various supplements by building up a tolerance to them (I do not apply this rule to some of the most basic and essential supplements like vitamin C). Something to consider, purchasing supplements online is far less expensive than shopping at a retail store.
Which Supplements
As already stated this is a complex subject which can and should vary greatly from individual to individual. The following is a list that covers many of the supplements that I take on a rotational basis. Ginkgo Biloba, Chamomile, Valerian root. Turmeric, Saw Palmetto, Broccoli extract, L-lysine, Amino complex, Vitamin D, Vitamin C (Ester C or comparable), Vitamin E, Vitamin B complex, Magnesium Malate, Boron, Chromium Picolinate, Kelp, Vitamin K-2, Calcium (high quality), Glucosamine/Chondroitin/ MSM (joint maintenance), Green tea extract, Chlorella, essential minerals, apple pectin and Bromelain. Though there are those who claim if one eats properly, supplements are not needed. I disagree. Our bodies daily face a virtual onslaught of attacks and contamination from countless unnatural sources, extra ammunition for remaining strong and healthy is essential.
The Most Important Food Of All, Essential Fats
The body cannot function without essential fat lipids, they are the single most important food we can consume. A deficiency in essential fat lipid intake can lead to an endless list of ailments and diseases. Essential fats are critical in regard to cellular communication and hormone production within the body which is in turn are critical to our overall health. Essential fat lipids are exactly that, essential. Two primary sources I consume are organic Flax and Hemp oils. Both can be found in the refrigerated section of any health food store.
Fermented Foods
Foods containing beneficial bacteria are another basic building block of maintaining our health. There are many sources, I am not advocating any particular one, just a general statement of fact. I try to consistently keep my intestinal flora maintained.
Avoiding Sugars And Staying Alkaline
The importance of avoiding refined sugars and maintaining an alkaline balance cannot be overstated. The reasons are many, it is not within the scope of this post to cover this subject in depth. I frequently add apple cider vinegar to my drinking water to further decrease acidity, but always in moderation. Apple cider vinegar (like most other supplements) is a diuretic and should be utilized in moderation.
Prevention Of Respiratory Infections
Chronic respiratory infection is now epidemic all over the globe. Mathematically speaking the greatest single source of toxic atmospheric particulate contamination is the global climate engineering assault. This fact cannot be rationally denied if all available data is investigated and examined. These particulates are platforms for fungal proliferation and thus fungal infections. Not surprisingly, studies now show that as much as 90% of chronic upper and lower respiratory infections are fungal. To combat this source of infection, I consistently use a nasal spray/inhaler that is comprised of the several essential elements. I fill a 2 ounce nasal spray bottle with clean water and add 1/2 pack of “Neti Pot” salt mix (available in any drug store). I then add 2 drops of tea tree oil, 2 drops of eucalyptus oil, and 2 drops of grapefruit seed extract. Shake to mix thoroughly, and put it to use. Every night before bed I spray several herbal prevention shots up each nostril while inhaling and also inhale several sprays through the throat of the same mixture. If I feel I have had unusual exposure for any reason, I will use the spray in the morning as well. With this practice, I also rotate and occasionally switch to Olive Leaf Extract nasal spray (also available in any health food store). The importance of keeping any fungal infections (also bacterial and viral) from getting started cannot be overstated. Once deeply rooted, such infections are much more difficult to eradicate. Mainstream medical “professionals” nearly always only feed the problem by prescribing antibiotics which then kill of beneficial organisms in our system thus further fueling fungal infections. I also utilize the following internal supplements if I am battling an infection: Olive Leaf extract capsules, Grapefruit seed extract capsules, and Monolaurin.
What We Believe, And Our Health
Our mental state carries the most profound impact to our health. Our body is a manifestation of our state of mind. This fact in no way negates all the protocol and practices outlined above, but rather is an essential component to the whole approach of staying strong and healthy in a toxic world.
The Bottom Line, We Must All Work Toward Completely Altering The Current Paradigm On Our Planet
Staying healthy is, of course, important and essential for countless reasons, but the most critical of all is this, in doing so, we can be much more effective in the fight for the greater good. The posted information above is not complete, but rather a general overview of my personal practices and protocols. Staying healthy requires each individual to be pro-active, it cannot be accomplished in any other way. The human race has truly painted itself into a very dark corner, we now face countless daunting existential challenges. The list of contamination sources we face is endless. From GMO foods to Fukushima, to Monsanto chemicals, our exposure is constant. This being said, the single most important leap we could make in the right direction is to fully expose and halt the climate engineering assault on the biosphere and the web of life. No matter how much effort we make toward maintaining or improving our health, every breath we take is now laden with the toxic geoengineering fallout. Everything we eat is now exposed to the same contamination. Exposing and halting the ongoing climate engineering insanity must be our common cause, it should logically be our primary focus. This battle is about every single breath we take, make your voice heard in this all important fight.
DW
Sources: geoengineeringwatch.org, http://www.zengardner.com/
Help Us Be The Change We Wish To See In The World.Chief Wahoo No Longer Primary Logo for Cleveland Indians
Chief Wahoo is now officially second-fiddle in Cleveland as word came today courtesy a Tweet via Paul Lukas of ESPN and Uni-Watch that the block-C logo has been promoted to the status of primary logo. Although the Chief will still remain on the jersey sleeves and primary home caps, this serves as another example of what appears to be the Indians slowly phasing out the existence of the controversial logo.
As noted in a related article from October, the Indians have been using the block-C logo everywhere; From the batting helmets for both home & away games to outright replacing Chief Wahoo on a World Series retrospective posted by MLB.com, the block-C has been gaining plenty of prominence in the Indians’ logo hierarchy. Hardball Talk’s Craig Calcaterra notes that the block-C logo has been far-and-away the most prominently used logo at the Indians’ spring training facilities in Goodyear, Arizona. Clearly, it appears that this move has been coming, and we’ve seen it coming from a mile away.
Although it doesn’t seem likely that Chief Wahoo will be completely eliminated from the Indians’ visual identity anytime soon, it does look clear that the logo will at least be phased out to the backgrounds, maybe even to become a mere shadow behind the block-C logo and the Indians script logo.
The Indians have apparently denied the logo change is happening:
And they’re either lying or this particular spokesperson is just unaware of the change. We can 100% confirm that the change has happened through our super-reliable sources, unless the Indians start a Atlanta Braves-esque “IT WAS NEVER OFFICIAL” cover-up like the Braves did with their 2013 BP cap.
Either way, with this news and the news that the Spokane Indians (minor league affiliate of the Texas Rangers, go figure) also promoted their secondary logo, a roundel that spells Spokane Indians in the Salish language of the Spokane Tribe of Indians (who were consulted when the minor league team went through the process of going to their excellent current identity in 2006) to primary status, it appears that the tide is definitely turning when it comes to these types of logos.
What are your thoughts? Are you glad to see the Indians going towards the block-C logo or do you disagree? Let us know, as always!An urgent court action threatens to disrupt the billion-dollar WestConnex project and add more than $80 million to the final price tag.
Listed property company Desane Group filed a short service order in the NSW Supreme Court this week accusing the NSW government of trying to unfairly seize a Rozelle property.
The WestConnex proposal includes a plan for the acquisition of a property on Lilyfield Road, Rozelle.
Joined to the action was Roads and Maritime Services and the Sydney Motorway Corporation, the principal agencies behind the government's signature infrastructure project, WestConnex.
At the centre of the dispute is a 5200 square metre triangle of land in Rozelle, on Lilyfield Road. The Desane Group has grand plans for the site, including 200 apartments with views of the city and Blackwattle Bay and 1800 square metres of retail and commercial space.TEHRAN(Basirat)- Defense Minister Brigadier-General Hossein Dehqan said on Friday that the Islamic Republic of Iran spares no efforts to help restore international peace and security.
Defense Minister Brigadier-General Hossein Dehqan said on Friday that the Islamic Republic of Iran spares no efforts to help restore international peace and security.
reports:He made the remarks to the people prior to Friday prayer sermon in Isfahan.He said that terrorists have targeted the world security and the entire international community are embarrased by their heinous crimes against humanity.The terrorist groups have been created by the US, Zionist regime and some Arab states are to put the global peace at risk, he said.The Islamic Republic of Iran plays a very significant role in global equations and the country's status has roots in national unity, solidarity and wise leadership of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, he said.This remarkable asset has lead to restoration of peace, security in the country thanks to the national resolve, said the minister.With reliance on such powerful pillar, the Islamic Republic of Iran can address the regional and global crises, Dehqan said.The entire world admits the impressive role of Iran in regional and global equations which is regarded as a significant asset for the Iranian nation and government, he said.'We should do our utmost to make use of such authority to gain more development,' he said.To attain such prime goals, Iran should increase its power under unity and solidarity, the minister said.The defense minister arrived in Isfahan on Thursday morning to inaugurate some development projects in the province.A Look At The Health Impacts Of The Nova Scotia Liberal’s Attack On Workers’ Rights
By Jason Edwards
On Saturday, Nova Scotia’s legislature, led by Liberal Premier Stephen McNeil, came together to pass essential service legislation, forcing home-support workers from Northwood Homecare back to work (and stripping 700 nurses from the Victorian Order of Nurses of their right to strike). This effort to subvert health-workers’ right to free collective bargaining comes at a time when nurses across Halifax are poised to strike.
The legislation came as somewhat of a surprise. As the province’s New Democrats have been quick to point out, the Premier has voiced opposition to subverting public sector workers’ collecting bargaining in the past. In response to Conservative essential service legislation tabled in 2007, McNeil said: “It has been proven from one end of this country to the other – this legislation will not work.” It is also worth noting that while both other parties voted against the bill, Conservative and New Democrat consent was given to hold the weekend session where the bill was passed.
The government’s heavy-handed approach is presumably an effort to slow the rise in the province’s healthcare costs. The larger part of that effort is not the attack on nurses’ and home-support workers’ wages, however. Rather, by attacking health-workers’ right to strike, the government will be able to circumvent Halifax nurses’ demands pertaining to their working conditions. In particular, the government is likely trying to avoid instituting mandatory nurse-patient ratios, which will force them to hire more front line health-workers.
Is the effort to undermine health-workers’ ability to strike a good thing? Will it improve the provision of healthcare in Nova Scotia?
The answer to this question is a resounding no.
The Evidence
The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that essential service legislation results in a less responsive, less effective provision of health care.
Is Compulsory Arbitration a Good Substitute for the Right to Strike in Health Care? was released in 2008. Concerning recruitment, retention and morale of health-workers, the authors conclude: “Removal of the right to strike will allow health care managers to ignore or delay addressing serious problems and will drive those problems underground, only to resurface in ways, many of them unpredictable, that will even more seriously harm our health care system.” By removing health-workers’ best avenue to air workplace grievances and problems with the provision of health care—the bargaining table—a government bends its jurisdiction into one where health care concerns don’t have to be addressed, and where employment is much less desirable, thus driving away potential health professionals.
A Tale of Two Provinces is a 2007 study comparing numbers of job actions in Nova Scotia to those in Alberta over the past three decades. The authors explain how making strikes illegal in the health sector doesn’t necessarily result in less frequent job actions. Despite its tight restrictions on health-worker strikes and a political climate that is relatively unfriendly to organized labour, Alberta has had an abundance of job actions. Based on the data, the study found:
“So what we have, in a province where strikes are illegal, is a strike volume more than fifty times that of a province where strikes are legal. More speculatively, we might even suggest causation, i.e., that banning strikes may well contribute to more strikes.”
Health Care Strikes: “Pulling the Red Cord”, released in 2007, makes several more important findings. The most notable is that the ability to strike is the most effective method healthcare workers have to warn their employer and the public of impending problems with health services. Strikes provide healthcare workers with a last course of action—a red chord they can pull—that will force employers to recognize problems in the provision of health care.
The authors also find that more voluntarism in healthcare labour relations leads to better outcomes. “The more we remove voluntarism, the more we infantilize the parties… the less practical and responsible” they become. Parties will not make serious efforts to come to solutions when they expect that their position will be ignored, and an alternative solution will be imposed on them by government.
The study also notes that healthcare strikes are not total withdrawals of service, leaving patients to die in the streets. “[W]e question just how disruptive labour disputes are to the health care system and determine that it is too easy to confuse inconvenience with disruption and to overstate the level of disruption.” Collective agreements that govern the relationship of health care employers and their workers make clear that, during lawful work stoppages, health workers will continue to provide emergency services.
The Right to Strike and the Provision of Emergency Services in Canadian Health Care is an older study that surveys different models of labour relations in health care. Again, the study’s findings strongly support the notion that health workers’ right to strike improves the provision of health care services. Allowing both parties input into who is designated “emergency” (and continues working) results in “a shorter, sharper drop in health services,” which is ultimately “less harmful to the health care system than the deterioration that accompanies a longer, corrosive dispute.”
Even the right-wing C.D. Howe Institute released a study supporting this conclusions entitled No Free Ride: The Cost of Essential Service Legislation. Using a large set of government data, this study concluded that essential services legislation tended to increase the day-to-day costs of employing health-workers. It found: “While government officials may wish to be seen to ensure essential public services by way of legislation, the designation is costly for taxpayers and increases the length and likelihood of partial strikes.”
Conclusions
The evidence overwhelmingly shows that respecting health-workers’ right to strike has a positive impact on the provision of health care services.
This argument makes perfect sense when considered in conjunction with the concerns of Nova Scotia’s healthcare workers. The primary concerns of nurses in Halifax revolve around their working conditions, including nurse-patient ratios. If nurses’ workloads are lessened and more frontline health professionals are hired, this will result in better care for patients and cut costs on things like readmissions, infections, complications, and other negative outcomes.
As a Nova Scotian, my friends, family, and I all are potential patients of these health care professionals. Their employment conditions are our health care conditions. In light of the overwhelming evidence, I would feel much better if their right to strike were respected.
As one of the above-mentioned studies concludes:
“If [healthcare workers] are too important to be allowed to be absent on strike, then their terms and conditions of employment are too important to be ignored.”Note: There has been some confusion about what happened at Sonos this week. After running this story, we were given reason to doubt that Mothersbaugh ever made these remarks. It turns out that he did say them—at a press preview of the Sonos event that took place one night earlier than the public event. Apologies to Daniel Maurer of Bedford and Bowery for casting his reportage in a negative light. The good news is that Mothersbaugh’s tapes appear to exist! Yay!
Yesterday, at an event hosted by Sonos at its Soho location in Manhattan, Mark Mothersbaugh divulged some news that has some fans of David Bowie positively salivating.
The “Song Stories” event was a tribute to Bowie, in which the lead singer of DEVO was joined by Meredith Graves of Perfect Pussy, photographer Mick Rock, Motley Crüe‘s Nikki Sixx, and moderator Rob Sheffield. The idea was that each of the four guests would tell a story about Bowie and each story would be paired with a Bowie track.
According to Daniel Maurer of the Bedford and Bowery blog, Mothersbaugh let it be known that he had recently come across some tapes of a remarkable jam session that featured members of DEVO jamming with David Bowie, Brian Eno, and Holger Czukay of Can (!). “I haven’t listened to it yet because I just found this tape,” Mothersbaugh said to the startled attendees.
The recording stems from the sessions for DEVO’s first album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, which was recorded at the studio of renowned Krautrock producer and musician Conny Plank near Cologne, Germany. Brian Eno produced the album with occasional assistance from Bowie, who was filming the David Hemmings movie Just a Gigolo nearby. Bowie also remixed most of the album’s tracks. Apparently all the members of DEVO participated in the jam session, except for the band’s “bassist,” who had “missed his connecting flight because he was fighting with his girlfriend on an airport pay phone.” Presumably this refers to Gerald Casale?
In 1977, the wife of Michael Aylward, the guitarist in another noted Akron band, Tin Huey, sent Bowie and Iggy Pop a tape of DEVO’s demo songs; both musicians immediately became fans of the band and expressed an interest in producing DEVO’s first album. DEVO’s first gigs in New York took place on July 8 and 9, 1977, when the band played two sets per night at Max’s Kansas City. According to Mothersbaugh at Sonos last night, Bowie “came out on stage when we played our second show at Max’s” on the first night.
He came out on stage and goes, “This is the band of the future, I’m going to produce them this Christmas in Tokyo!” And we’re all like, “Sounds great to us. We’re sleeping in an Econoline van out in front on Bowery tonight, on top of our equipment.”
As Maurer writes, “Bowie ended up taking the band out on the town, putting Mothersbaugh up in his hotel room, and introducing the Akron, Ohio innocent to sushi.”
Mothersbaugh apparently found the tape after bringing his DEVO archive back to his studio. The jam session featuring DEVO, Bowie, Eno, and Czukay isn’t the only interesting tape he found, however. Mothersbaugh also found the 24-track master tapes used for the album, accompanied by Eno’s documentation of each song’s instruments, effects, and audio settings: “There’s these tracks down below that say things like: ‘David’s vocals’ and ‘Brian’s extra synths.’ And I’m like, ‘I remember turning that stuff off when we were doing our final mixes.’”
The band’s lead singer explained the band’s reluctance to use the vocal of a pop star as massive as Bowie by reference to DEVO’s paranoia of having their distinct sound messed with after so many negative experiences with hinky industry people and unauthorized releases.
Mothersbaugh indicated that he’ll have a listen to the tapes. “I’m thinking we should see what’s on those tapes.... I’m really curious to see what the heck they did.” He joked by saying that DEVO “might have been more successful” if they had used Bowie’s vocal tracks.
Interestingly, Bryan Rolli’s account at Billboard of the Sonos event makes no mention of Mothersbaugh’s revelations, so we’ll see what shakes out.
Here’s footage of DEVO playing Max’s Kansas City that first night, July 8, 1977:
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
DEVO, Blondie, Talking Heads, Klaus Nomi on ‘20/20’ segment on New Wave, 1979
John Lydon almost joined Devo in 1978? Well, I’ll be.The Boston Red Sox have set their sights on adding to their starting rotation this trade deadline. The team has aimed high and asked about Pittsburgh Pirates' starter Gerrit Cole and Miami Marlins' ace Jose Fernandez according to a report from Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald.
According to Silverman, when the Red Sox were making similar calls this offseason--involving Chris Sale and Matt Harvey--the ensuing demand revolved around either Mookie Betts or Xander Bogaerts. While the cost of getting an ace should certainly be exorbitant, it doesn't make much sense for the Red Sox to part with what appear to be franchise cornerstones at centerfield and shortstop. Apparently though, the asking price hasn't seemed to change into the season.
The Red Sox pitching staff currently sits ninth in the league by FanGraphs' WAR. Among only starters, the team's productivity drops them to 11th in the American League. The Red Sox seem to have assessed their weakness and want to address it.
Both Cole and Fernandez seem like they will be dominant starters for years to come. However, parting with either Betts or Bogaerts--their leadoff and number two hitters for the majority of the season--half way through the year seems like it could cause more harm than good.
That being said, the Red Sox have one of the top farm systems in all of baseball and just because the asking price revolves around major league talent doesn't mean it will stay that way. It definitely seems like the Red Sox are in a good position to add substantial major league talent from their deep farm system and their major league depth. Players like Yoan Moncada, Andrew Benintendi, and Rafael Devers could be packaged together to entice a rebuilding team.
But here's the other problem: neither the Pirates nor the Marlins seem to be in rebuild. The Marlins are currently second in their division, half a game up on the New York Mets. Predicting what the Marlins will do is a fool's errand, though dealing away Fernandez seems unwise at this time. Fernandez has been a top-five pitcher in all of baseball so far this season. In |
budget (about two percent), especially after considering that our state budget is still smaller than it was in 2011.
In fact, by 2014-15, North Carolina was still spending $100 million less on public education than it had before the economic recession. And over the past ten years, public schools added more than 150,000 additional students. No Republican legislator can honestly say that per pupil expenditures across the state have increased in the last six years.
Taking Aim at Teachers
Curiously, the Republican-held capital didn’t stop at defunding education. They also took aim at teachers.
N.C. teachers are prohibited by law from unionizing, but they did have a common advocacy group in the North Carolina Association of Educators. In 2011, the legislature passed a law targeting how the group collects dues from member teachers. Then-Governor Beverly Purdue vetoed it. In 2012, the law made its way back to Purdue, who vetoed it again–but the House overrode it during a sneaky, late-night vote. (The law was later found to be discriminatory, retaliatory, and a violation of free speech and thrown out by state courts.)
But with teacher’s main advocacy group effectively muzzled, the legislature was free to run rampant, and teachers quickly came under fire.
Teacher salaries fell to near the bottom among all states in the nation and worst in the South after five years with zero pay increases. And when Republicans finally acted to increase teacher pay, they claimed to make the biggest pay hike in state history–but in reality only bumped up paychecks by an average of $270 per year. When you factored inflation into the mix, teachers were losing money.
Meanwhile, Texas and Virginia started actively recruiting North Carolina teachers to go work in their states. It didn’t take much to convince Tarheel teachers to flee–especially after some teachers discovered they earned substantially less money than when they started thanks to inflation.
In case pitiful paychecks weren’t enough to deter teachers from returning to work, the legislature next took aim at teacher tenure. The Republican-led proposal initially was to eliminate tenure altogether, but eventually they came up with a plan that would grant teachers pay raises for giving up their career status. It was, as I wrote then, a clever way of getting rid of veteran teachers.
Eventually, that compromise became law, and teachers state-wide began the effort of figuring out if their career status or their retirement pension was more important–and once again, the court stepped in and overturned the law. Another legislative overreach corrected by the courts.
(This year, just for kicks, the N.C. Senate is proposing an end to teacher healthcare coverage in retirement. “That’s something that should have been done a long time ago,” state Rep. Gary Pendleton said.)
The assault didn’t stop with the assaults on new and tenured teachers. It continued on teacher preparation programs, including the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program.
The Teaching Fellows program was arguably one of the best teacher prep scholarships in the nation; it celebrated a better retention rate than its federally funded cousin, Teach For America, and it produced droves of quality teachers who filled hard-up school classrooms. Its budget was a modest one, and yet Republicans uprooted it from the state budget and killed the entire program.
This year, with its final class of scholars graduating college, the program officially flat-lined. State Teacher of the Year Keana Triplett called the legislature’s shuttering of the Teaching Fellows “the single biggest mistake in public education.”
The result? Enrollment in teacher prep programs in the UNC system has dropped 27 percent in the last five years. A teacher shortage is just around the corner.
First, weaken schools. Then print parents a ticket out–and into for-profit schools
North Carolina schools were dealt another blow when the legislature re-ordered how schools are evaluated in 2012. The new evaluations, which used an A-F grading system, were intended to provide an easier to understand metric for school effectiveness.
The result? More than 700 of the state’s public schools (nearly thirty percent) received a score of D or F. Many parents struggled to understand how so many schools could so quickly fail.
But instead of demonstrating the quality of a school, the state’s new grading measure much more accurately described the socio-economic status of its enrolled students–nearly every one of the state’s “failing” schools were considered high-poverty schools. The state of Virginia, which also had an A-F rating system, got rid of the system because it was ineffective.
No matter, though. It was perfect timing for the legislature’s next move: with this new “evidence” that North Carolina schools were failing in their mission, the state could move forward with its plan to grant parents options–freedom of choice was how the Republicans phrased it–and built a tuition voucher plan that sent tax dollars to parents who opted out of public schools and into private or religious schools. Despite another lawsuit, this time the legislature came out on top after a court upheld the practice.
In principle, voucher programs seem to make sense: give parents the opportunity to send their kids to another school besides the failing one in their neighborhood. Republicans like to say this is how business works–if the store in your town isn’t very good, you shop somewhere else.
When it comes to schools, though, the capital doesn’t add up. Vouchers take dollars away from those failing public schools, which all but guarantees they will continue to struggle as desperately needed resources are diverted elsewhere. It’s like making McDonald’s pay for your Whopper at Burger King because the McDonald’s got a bad health rating. It’s a bad idea.
To make matters worse, the legislature took away cap restrictions on charter schools, which have grown by nearly 50 percent in number and doubled their student enrollment since 2010.
But the legislature has also weakened oversight at public charters–introducing legislation this year to remove them from the Department of Public Instruction’s management altogether. The result is a diminished accountability for tax payer dollars spent in schools–the exact opposite of what the legislature said was important when it came to public schools originally.
(And aren’t you curious why the legislature has been so kind to charters? It isn’t hard to figure out when you follow the money. Apparently if you have a lobbyist group that isn’t a teacher’s “union,” nothing is impossible in Raleigh.)
The legislature then opened up the charter field to for-profit companies, many of which have terrible track records for effectiveness, and some of whom have benefited from zero-bid competition for state tax dollars.
That’s right–our state government has maimed public schools so it can offer tax dollars to for-profit charters and private schools with totally inadequate government oversight from the same systems that declared public schools inadequate in the first place.
No mercy for the UNC system, either
I’ve spent a long time documenting the war on K-12 education, but the state’s university system–arguably one of the best in the country–hasn’t been spared the wrath of Raleigh. In addition to the hundreds of millions in lost funding, the legislature has targeted the University of North Carolina jsystem in the last couple of years, pushing it to shift priorities and philosophies.
The most notable–and blatant–target was UNC System President Tom Ross, who was forced to resign after a record of commendable service to the university. Ross, who was appointed in 2010, when Democrats controlled the legislature, had done nothing wrong–and yet he was pushed out in favor of a replacement more agreeable to the radical changes in store for UNC.
What might those be? Among other things, this year, the House saw proposed legislation designed to fundamentally alter how professors work in the university.
And Elizabeth City State University, one of two historically black institutions in the UNC system, has long been picked upon by legislators bent on shutting it down. In 2014, the Senate approved a study to determine the feasibility of eliminating ECSU, but so far it’s been spared.
School starts soon, but no budget till Labor Day?
Let’s review. With an unassailable, veto-proof majority, North Carolina Republicans seized control of this state and unleashed a devastating blow to public schools.
They have systematically pared budgets to the bone. They have insulted, antagonized, and demoralized teachers through stingy salary offerings–and they’ve muted the organization that had for many years protected them.
As a result, public schools have suffered, and Republicans went the extra mile to design a new school rating system that exploited every weakness. It became the perfect excuse to bring private schools and for-profit operators into the mix, diverting critical taxpayer dollars from public schools into the deep pockets of companies like Pearson, sometimes without even a competitive bid process.
And now? What’s happening today?
Well, we’re five weeks overdue on the budget, and some legislators are saying the budget might not be settled until Labor Day. Meanwhile, school systems are grasping at straws trying to figure out whether or not they can hire teachers or teacher assistants (whose jobs might have to be cut). At stake in the forthcoming budget negotiations: teacher pay, whether or not to lay off 8,500 teacher assistants, and proving no budget line is too small to be spared, driver’s education.
Further, with no clear direction on what the state might decide in regard to classroom size, principals don’t even know how many classrooms they’ll need–and school starts in just a few short weeks.
Make no mistake: this is a war against public education. Teachers are losing. I have been reading and writing about education in North Carolina for several years now, and while it might not always appear obvious, our state has formed a cohesive and coordinated attack against public schools.
Public education is at risk. And with every measure–every budget cut, every insult, every weakening–our school house slides toward devastation.Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Aluminum started as one of the world’s most expensive materials because it was difficult to refine—even though it made up 8 percent of the world’s crust. But eventually aluminum became one of the cheapest materials after methods of mass producing it were invented in the 1880s. It went from $1200 per kilogram down to a dollar in 50 years.
The aluminum used back then was still weak and malleable, though. It wasn’t until Alfred Wilm accidentally discovered age-hardening which transformed aluminum to duralumin, an alloy with a much stronger crystalline structure, that things began to change. Duralumin was used to create the first all-metal airplane, and its strength eventually led to new plane structures being built that changed air travel forever.
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Real Engineering goes through the history of aluminum and makes the case that it’s one of those materials in history that completely changed the world. The video cites other examples for aluminum’s importance, like how its lightness is favored in power lines (even though copper is a better conductor) and how its used in construction. There’s a damn fun history for such an interesting material.NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says he has not yet agreed to participate in two high-profile English language leaders' debates, despite promises from the organizers the NDP leader would be there.
Both The Globe and Mail and the Munk Debates have said Mulcair will be part of their leaders' debates, on the economy and foreign policy, respectively. But Mulcair told a Radio-Canada radio morning show Wednesday he had only committed to two debates, and neither were to be hosted by Munk or the Globe.
"For now, I will attend [the debate organized by] Maclean's tomorrow," he said in French. "I have confirmed that I will participate in the TVA debate."
That Maclean's debate takes place Thursday in Toronto, and leaders from all parties have spent weeks preparing. The TVA debate is Oct. 2 in Montreal.
Mulcair has also put conditions on his potential participation in debates in both languages organized by a consortium of Canadian broadcasters: No Harper, no Mulcair.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has already said he will not participate in those consortium debates.
"I hope Stephen Harper will change his mind and accept the consortium debates," Mulcair said. "And if not, at every step I will require that if we add a debate in English, one has to be confirmed in French, as well."
The Conservative campaign said Wednesday the party has accepted four debates, "the most in Canadian history."
"We have not received a second French language proposal, however are open to considering a proposal once we receive it," a party spokesperson said.
The Conservatives later said there are, in fact, other French debate options on the table, but the party has yet to decide which way to go. It said it will announce a decision, once one has been made.
NDP sets conditions
But the Globe and Munk engagements were being promoted as centrepiece debates. On Tuesdaya Globe headline advertised Mulcair's participation: "Harper, Mulcair and Trudeau confirm Globe debate attendance," it read.
Mulcair's spokesman George Smith said the NDP leader has not pulled out. Rather, the party had only ever agreed in principle to participate.
"He did not back out of any debates," Smith wrote. "The NDP has agreed in principle to many of the proposals it has received.
"The Party will announce the final list of debates in which Mr. Mulcair will participate on Aug. 10."
Smith referred to an earlier NDP call for debate proposals from all interested parties to be delivered to the party by the end of this week.
In a press release last week, the party said it had received dozens of invitations.
"The NDP has agreed in principle to many of the proposals it has received, including those submitted by the Broadcast Consortium, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, 'Up for Debate' alliance, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Aboriginal People's Television Network," the party said.
The party laid out four conditions:
The host be credible and non-partisan.
The topics be varied and relevant.
Harper and "other political party leaders" are invited and agree to participate.
And, that there be an equal number of French and English language debates.
It's not clear how or whether the Globe or Munk debates offend these principles, but Green Party leader Elizabeth May has not been invited to either.
The debate about debates began after the Conservative Party announced its leader Stephen Harper would participate in five debates, and laid out which ones those would be. Not among them were the traditional debates organized in both languages by the broadcast consortium.
Harper agreed to the Maclean's and TVA debates, as well as those proposed by theGlobe and Munk.BEIJING (Reuters) - China is building underground caverns capable of holding up to a quarter of its expanded strategic oil reserves by 2020, as it looks for new storage methods away from expensive and exposed above-ground tanks in crowded coastal regions.
An employee walks on top of an oil tank at a Sinopec refinery in Wuhan, Hubei province, in this April 25, 2012 file picture. REUTERS/Stringer/Files
In a move to improve its energy security and take advantage of cheap oil, China is spending billions of dollars to build up strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) to meet up to 90 day’s worth of net import demand in case of a disruption.
While many western countries make SPR data public, China rarely gives detailed information on its oil reserves or locations.
So far, China has built almost all of its SPR tanks above ground, but now at least five underground sites have been identified, with one at Huangdao in Shandong province completed and another four under construction, according to local media and several oil analysts surveyed by Reuters.
“Building facilities all on the ground would be like putting all your eggs in the same basket. That is why the government diversified its stockpile centers,” said a senior researcher involved in storage design at the Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, run by China National Petroleum Corp [CNPET.UL].
The official declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to media.
Despite the cost of drilling the caverns, underground storage can be up to two-thirds cheaper than above-ground tanks, especially as the cost of land surges in coastal regions, and are less prone to potential sabotage, experts said.
“While traditional above-surface storage has the advantage of a shorter construction period, the underground caverns generally have the advantages of lower costs, lower environmental risks, as well as greater perceived level of security,” said Wendy Yong, a senior analyst with energy consultancy FGE.
Underground sites are slated to hold about 130 million barrels, which would account for nearly a quarter of the 550 million-barrel SPR target set by Beijing for 2020, according to local media and analysts.
Three underground rock cavern sites under construction are at Jinzhou in northeast Liaoning province, and Zhanjiang and Huizhou in southern Guangdong, all expected to be ready to take oil over 2016 or early 2017, according to industry sources and analysts. A salt cavern has been partially completed in Jintan, in eastern Jiangsu province.
TECHNICAL PROBLEMS
Beijing confirmed the completion of its first underground site, a 19 million-barrel facility in Huangdao in Shandong province, in December when it said its reserves had doubled in the eight months to mid-2015 to 190 million barrels.
However, construction of caverns is taking longer than expected as Chinese builders are new to the technology and challenges such as water seepage during excavations and rock disposal can be daunting, experts said.
Engineers are encountering technical problems in adapting to local geological conditions, resulting in construction delays and the abandonment of one small, pilot underground facility due to oil leakage and high maintenance costs.
“China had a late start on research related to underground oil. In practice we borrowed foreign technologies that don’t apply to China’s scenario,” said Zhuang Duanyang, a researcher at Dalian University of Technology.
Unlike the United States, which stores its vast oil supplies in hollowed-out underground salt domes, China’s different geology means it mainly has to excavate hard rock caverns up to 200 meters (220 yards) below the surface, similar to South Korea.
An employee walks down the stairs of an oil storage tank after a regular check at a PetroChina refinery in Lanzhou, Gansu province in this January 7, 2011 file picture. REUTERS/Stringer/Files
Once the caverns are filled with oil, pressure from water naturally present in surrounding rock prevents it from seeping away, and Chinese officials say the caverns are relatively cheap, long-lasting and require little maintenance.
China has still identified two salt mines, the Jintan site and Qianjiang in central Hubei province that could be suitable for oil storage.
Work is also being carried out at Jintan by companies including PetroChina and Hong Kong’s Towngas for gas storage.There was a time the nation’s apex court was respected and feared. If it passed an order, everyone, from top to bottom would fall in line to adhere, in letter and spirit. The government in Haryana seems not to worry about it though.
The Aravalis, which are among the oldest mountain ranges in the world, are being ravaged and raped. The apathetic administration is choosing to look the other way, by either pretending not to know, or by being completely cahoots with the corrupt politico-businessmen nexus. All this, despite there being a ban on any such activity in the region by the nation’s Supreme Court.
As the series of these pictures that follow show, developers and land-grabbers and illegal miners are running riot in the hills in the Gurgaon-Faridabad belt.
We have been cycling in these hills for years. We often stop and engage with the locals and villagers and tell them about the need to ensure their surroundings are not ravaged. So much so that once, when some ATV users ran riot in the area, the villagers came complaining to us and thereafter blocked all possible trails that could take motorized vehicles. But that seems like a long-long time ago.
The trails we rode on were not even frequented by walkers, as they were strewn with thorns and rocks. Imagine our shock when one fine morning, just ten days ago, when we reach there to find a proper, wide track that can take not just a SUV, but any 4 wheeler. And mind you, the entire track is NOT next to a road, it is at least 10km into the hills. You can check the exact location of this rape on this GPS link (https://connect.garmin.com/activity/702304842). The road ends at the 9km mark and this illegal rape continues to the 21km mark. How could heavy machines, that are noisy as hell, be used surreptitiously without the knowledge of the authorities?
Let us allow the pictures to do the talking from here on.
If all this doesn’t shock you, wonder what else will. How can anyone’s greed be so great that they would allow this? I have written about the rape of the Aravalis in the past too – The Rape of the Aravalis: A photo blog, in August, 2009 and Rape of the Aravalis: Photo blog 2, in November, 2009.
After that, there seemed to be a halt in these activities save a few low level activities that nature is capable of taking care of by itself. But the scale of destruction we noticed this time is unimaginable.
We had always known that illegal activities have been taking place in this region despite the apex court’s ban. In fact, in July last year, we had done a story about it – Ban fails to stop illegal mining in Aravalis. But then, there was some surreptitiousness about it. It is now brazen.
Does the National Green Tribunal know about it? Should not the Supreme Court catch these crooks by their, you know what, and haul them over fire for contempt of court?
The least we all can and must do is to raise our voices. Share this as widely as possible. Make yourselves heard. If you are witnessing similar rapes in your areas, share them here. Show that you care for your environment. It already is too late, but that can’t be an excuse to let it get worse.Ukraine's Elina Svitolina defeated Halep to win the Italian Open. Credit:AP Sixth-seeded Halep, of Romania, had just lost the Italian Open final to eighth-seeded Elina Svitolina of Ukraine, 6-4, 5-7, 1-6, the latest in a series of results in women's tennis this year that have sown uncertainty about who can be relied upon to contend for the biggest titles. Halep, who won earlier this month in Madrid and reached the Stuttgart semifinals, has been the most common answer in recent weeks, even if said with minimal confidence. Though Halep is a light, graceful mover on clay, where her counter-punching game is at its most effective, her mental toughness is sometimes questioned. Halep is often sullen and frustrated on court, and her Australian coach, Darren Cahill, stopped working with her for five weeks after a particularly uninspiring midmatch coaching visit in Miami, in which Halep repeatedly appeared to throw in the towel before a third set. "I was ashamed, and also upset, with myself when I watched it," Halep said in an interview last week. "I felt very bad, personally, inside. So I said I had to stop it."
Cahill left the door open for his return, and Halep won him back with impressive play at Fed Cup and Stuttgart. The two reunited in Madrid, where Halep successfully defended her title with a renewed commitment to positivity on court. "I'm really motivated to not disappoint him again," she said. "I just want to do this also for myself, because I don't lose as much energy and I feel fresh after I finish a match. It's a big difference. But the main reason is to be OK on court, because I love what I'm doing. I have to show that I love it, not that I hate it. Sometimes, I show too much negativity, and I act like I don't want to be there. But the only place I want to be is there." Halep's momentum continued this week in Rome until she rolled her right ankle in the eighth game of the first set against Svitolina. Though she was able to compete well through the second set, she played cautiously in the final set, which went quickly. Though she figures to be back at full strength in Paris, Halep has been far from bankable at major tournaments. After reaching the final of the French Open in 2014, Halep has suffered early losses in her subsequent two appearances in Paris, falling in the second round in 2015 and the fourth round last year. In her most recent Grand Slam event, she lost in the first round of the Australian Open.
Even with that stained resume, tennis analyst Pam Shriver said, Halep still sits atop the pile of current candidates for the position of French Open favourite. "There's no pattern - it's a free-for-all," Shriver said. "This isn't just going to be the French Open - this appears to be what it's going to feel like the rest of the year." Several top players are not competing in Paris. Second-ranked Serena Williams, who won the first major title of the year at the Australian Open in January, is pregnant and will miss the rest of this season. Former No. 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus is also still out on maternity leave, planning to return for Wimbledon. Even with her eligibility to play in the event uncertain, Maria Sharapova of Russia had a brief stint last month as the oddsmakers' favourite to win the French Open after she won the first three matches of her comeback from a 15-month ban for testing positive for meldonium (she was ultimately not granted the wild card she needed to enter the tournament).
The most obvious options still competing also cause hesitation. Top-ranked Angelique Kerber of Germany has struggled to back up her breakout performance last season and has yet to beat a top-20 opponent this year. Svitolina, the champion in Rome, also won a tournament in Dubai in February and is the leader in the year-to-date rankings. But she has made the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam only once, and she has lost before that stage at this year's four biggest tournaments (the Australian Open, Indian Wells, Miami and Madrid). Current players agree with Shriver's sentiment that there is no use predicting women's tennis right now. Seventh-ranked Garbine Muguruza of Spain, last year's French Open champion, expressed relief after winning her third-round match in Rome against Julia Gorges of Germany, who is ranked 45th. "All these girls are kind of in a similar level," Muguruza said. "There is nobody that I feel right now that is much better than the other ones." Muguruza cited Williams' departure as the origin of the uncertainty.
"You were thinking, 'I have to beat Serena to win a Grand Slam,'" Muguruza said. "But now it's more like, 'I don't know.' Surprise after surprise." Veteran Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, 35, of Croatia, expressed confidence that some sort of order would be restored, eventually. "There was tennis after Steffi Graf; there will be tennis after Serena, and after other big players," Lucic-Baroni said. "There are a lot of new ones, a lot of new potential. At the moment, not one is dominating, but I don't see that as a bad thing." Lucic-Baroni said she was wary about any possible state of play in women's tennis being skewed negatively. "People will complain about the sunny skies, you know?" she said. "If there is one that dominates? Well, then, it's boring because she wins everything. If there is one that isn't dominating? Well, women's tennis sucks at the moment. I don't see it as that. There are a lot of great players."
The New York TimesOUTSKIRTS OF SIRTE, Libya — The flood of civilian cars leaving Sirte slowed significantly today as civilians and rebels reported that loyalists had forced back some families who had been attempting to flee.
According to rebel commanders from Misrata, loyalist troops barricaded escape routes from their stronghold in Abu Hadi, a neighborhood south of Sirte, and north along the coastal road.
Rebels have been attempting to evacuate the city before launching a full-scale assault in the hope of reducing civilian casualties. But loyalist forces have repeatedly scuttled any such attempt.
While escorting a civilian car out of the city Friday morning, rebels came under heavy fire. The civilian car was shot at and at least one rebel was killed.
“Before there was 600 cars going out daily, today one hundred,” said Osama Muttawa Sweki, an operations commander who coordinates some 70 Misrata-based brigades and who communicates with NATO on air strikes.
“They shot artillery at us as we left today,” said Malik Mohammed, a Sirte resident, as he passed through a rebel checkpoint with his family 40 kilometers outside of Sirte. “There are 500 people on a list that Gaddafi soldiers are looking for … I’m on the list.”
“One man from the family Zain was shot for being a rebel,” he added.
On Thursday, officials at one checkpoint just outside of Sirte registered 200 families, or about a 1,000 residents, who had fled Sirte. Today, half that many managed to escape, as Gaddafi loyalists blocked the exits with sand berms and shot at anyone who tried to leave.
Swecki said that the rebel forces were trying to starve the loyalists out while giving families a chance to flee. But, he said, “Once the stream of families slows to a trickle, then stops, we’ll go in … It won’t take weeks,” he said.
Meanwhile, a commander on the eastern front told news agencies that his fighters had penetrated the eastern gate of Sirte without resistance. This news may give the Misrata brigades cause to attack sooner than later as they attempt to maintain their reputation as better fighters than the National Transition Council’s eastern-based army.
Sadik Al Hadad, who is from Misrata but traveled to Sirte to try and evacuate his sister, said that he had tried to take her through one gate, which was closed, and instead moved out through another area that was free.
Dozens of Girad rockets, launched by loyalists, slammed into the western outskirts of the city Friday while NATO broadcasted English and Arabic messages urging Sirte residents to “raise the white flag.”
“Make a choice for your family,” the broadcast said.First, sign up to Sqlify to get a free API key, you can continue once you’ve got your key.
Also, don’t forget that you can always do this without creating an account on our convert JSON to SQL tool!
Step by step version
Export MongoDB data from your collection as JSON using mongoexport, remember to replace database and data with your database and collection names.
$ mongoexport --db database --collection data > data.json
Call the convert to sql step to convert the JSON to runnable SQL, configure what flavour of SQL you need, the table name and wether you would like us to create the table.
Check out the API reference for the convert endpoint for more advanced options here.
$ curl https://sqlify.io/api/pipelines/sqlify/convert/run \ -u "{API_KEY}:" \ -F "file=@data.json" \ -F "return_output=true" \ -F "options[to]=sql" \ -F "options[output][flavour]=mysql" \ -F "options[output][table_name]=table" \ -F "options[output][create_table]=true" > data.sql
Then pipe the result into your MySQL server to import the data
$ mysql -u username -p database < data.sql
One-liner
With this, it means that you can do very interesting one liners like this one:
$ mongoexport --db database --collection data | \ curl https://sqlify.io/api/pipelines/sqlify/convert/run \ -u "{API_KEY}:" \ -F "file=@-" \ -F "return_output=true" \ -F "options[to]=sql" \ -F "options[output][flavour]=mysql" \ -F "options[output][table_name]=table" \ -F "options[output][create_table]=true" | \ mysql -u username -p database
Happy migrating!Oilers not getting swamped, not at all, but would benefit from Cam Talbot stepping up again
This in, news that the Edmonton Oilers have recalled Brad Malone from Bakersfield. They also placed Drake Caggiula on injured reserve.
My take
If the Oilers needed depth at centre, and they do with Leon Draisaitl out, Brad Malone is as good a bet as anyone in Bakersfield. The fact is the Oilers forward depth in the Bake isn’t great right now, certainly not a centre and also not on the wing. For now, right winger Jesse Puljujarvi needs to work on hustling harder and reading the game better. Essentially he’s got to move from being a dominant teen in a teen’s game to being a dominant young man in a man’s game. Until he puts together a superior run of 15 or 20 games in a row in Bakersfield, he should remain in Bakersfield. Malone, 28, is a big tough plugger in the Chris VandeVelde-class of big tough pluggers. He’s got three points in three AHL games this year, but had just 28 in 71 last year. In 176 NHL games, he’s got 30 points so he should not be counted on to solve Edmonton’s bottom line scoring blues. Of course, the folks who have criticized Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli for two years are in full voice right now, singing the praises of the advice they gave that Chiarelli rejected and instead built this team as he saw fit. It might be wise, though, for all Oilers fans to take a chill pill, both the “I-told-you-so” brigade, as well as the normal fan who might well be freaking out a bit after three straight losses. There is one big difference between the Oilers this year and last year, the play of goalie Cam Talbot. If Talbot was now outplaying the opposing goalie in two out of three games — that’s my rough estimate of what he did last year — the Oilers would be at least even up, two wins and two losses. Goals for and against win games, but if you want to know where a team itself is at (minus goaltending, good or bad), it’s wise to focus on scoring chances for and against. So far this year, the Oilers have a scoring chances differential of +2.5 per game. They allowing 14.3 scoring chances against per game, exactly the same as last year. They’re creating 16.8 per game, which is more than the 16 per game of 2016-17. Of course, this data only goes so far, partly because it doesn’t factor in goalie play and partly because scoring chances aren’t the whole story of hockey. No stat is. But at least we can comfort ourselves that nothing much is wildly out of whack with the Oilers that a few bracing Talbot saves on Grade A chances at the start of each game could not solve. The one stat (other than goals) that I put the most weight on is Grade A scoring chances, hard or dangerous shots on net from the inner slot. In that category, Edmonton has created 8.5 per game and given up 6.5 per game. Last year they were at 8.5 for and 7.5 against. So, again, we see an improvement here. I’ve tracked the Oilers long enough to know that when the scoring chances numbers are bad, the team stinks, and when the scoring chance numbers are good, the team is in the right ball park. This Oilers squad is in the right ball park. Some tinkering might well be in order. I’ve argued here another depth d-man for the bottom-pairing would be a helluva good idea. For now, though, I’m seeing a team that’s doing as much right as it is wrong. And, in Cam Talbot, I see a goalie who has been able to work out the problems in his game two years running. I expect he can do the same right now. You? In suggesting that we all take a chill pill, I mean we fans, of course. When it comes to the coaches, management and players, they shouldn’t be chilling, but they won’t be chilling. They’ll be in a state of misery and will remain so until they win. Every thought and effort will be directed towards turning around the team. As for the fans, well, folks can be a fan however they want. Some fans get great satisfaction from judging the coach, GM and players. I certainly have that instinct, so I get it if you’re glorying in having predicted the Oilers are over-rated and you have some early evidence that you were right. But most fans just want the team to win. I see no reason for that group to be despondent about the Oilers. This is a good team. It will win its fair share and good share of games.
On the civic election
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West Edmonton wants transit but maybe not LRT
Can southwest Edmonton find a new champ to build arterial roads?
The politics of making Accidental Beach permanent
The Cult’s Oilers 1, Senators 6 podcast
At the Cult of Hockey
STAPLES: Oilers game grades in loss to Ottawa Senators
McCurdy: A concussed Draisaitl? Ouch
STAPLES: Update on Jesse Puljujarvi and the Oilers’ farm team
STAPLES: Oilers need a wee bit more from Strome, Jokinen & depth forwardsJonas Thern
Euro 2012: Sweden v England
Venue: Olympic Stadium, Kiev Date: Friday, 15 June Kick-off: 19:45 BST Coverage: BBC One, BBC Radio 5 live, highlights on BBC One and BBC Sport website
England are too "predictable" and "stereotyped" to beat Sweden on Friday, according to their opponents' former skipper Jonas Thern.
England drew 1-1 with France in their opening game while Sweden were beaten 2-1 by Ukraine, but Thern believes the Scandinavians are the better team.
"The one shot towards the France goal over 90 minutes was all it took to ignite the chronic English illusion of world football supremacy," he said.
"Their style of play is predictable."
England v Sweden England have failed to beat Sweden in seven competitive meetings: Jun, 2006: England 2-2 Sweden (2006 World Cup, Cologne)
England 2-2 Sweden (2006 World Cup, Cologne) Jun, 2002: England |
elling end, Kelli is working her way back with rides on the Red Hook Crit tour, and stages on the US Domestic circuit. And with a renewed focus on cycling and a run at the 2020 Olympics beckoning, Kelli wraps up our interview with a reflection on the journey that got her to this point. “Its tough, but I enjoy the personal battle,” she says. “I always think if you’re not having fun don’t do it. I mean what’s the point, we’re all capable of making decisions, so why not make a decision to do something you will enjoy.”
Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.First Listen: Franz Ferdinand, 'Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action'
Enlarge this image toggle caption Andy Knowles/Courtesy of the artist Andy Knowles/Courtesy of the artist
Almost 10 years after "Take Me Out" helped the band break through commercially, win a Mercury Prize and craft a zeitgeist-defining sound — and two years after a rumored breakup — Franz Ferdinand returns with its first new album since 2009. It's the Glaswegian dance-rock ambassadors' best work since their 2004 arrival: Confident and freshly energized, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action captures the ease of pressure that comes with knowing that a decade-old band can't be co-opted as a cool new thing.
Out August 27, the album is worthy of its title, a mantra for Franz Ferdinand's expertly executed sound. Singer Alex Kapranos once said the group would make "music for girls to dance to," and the propulsive bass lines and immediate drumming align on Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action to fulfill that statement. The provocation to move feels especially resounding in standout tracks like "Bullet" and the disco-dripping single "Right Action."
It's a sound that should never go out of style. So here's to a Cher-like run of triumphant returns, in which Franz Ferdinand comes back each decade with hits engineered to remind us of the joy of rock n' roll.You would think if Columbus Crew SC were going to make an improbable run to the MLS Cup Playoffs, it would come thanks to key contributors like Wil Trapp and Federico Higuain.
These two provide an important part to the spine of the Black & Gold formation, yet both players have been out as Crew SC makes one final attempt to erase a forgettable 2016 over these last few weeks.
Trapp has been out since a head collision in the Aug. 27 match with the San Jose Earthquakes. The central midfielder suffered a concussion, something he’s dealt with in the past, and the medical staff is being careful with the 23 year old.
In speaking with Trapp over the last two weeks, he sounds much better than a year ago when he missed nearly three months with a concussion. He explained that the symptoms were different and he felt the situation was handled better due to the experience a season ago.
The midfielder returned to training over a week ago, initially wearing a protective headgear that he said he was trying out. He did not make the 18-man game day roster for Crew SC’s 2-0 win over the New England Revolution on Sunday and the updates remain unclear as to when he will return.
“Wil’s doing okay,” head coach Gregg Berhalter updated on Tuesday. “He took part in training today and we’ll see where he’s at.”
Federico Higuain seems just as much a mystery. Columbus’ No. 10 missed six matches earlier this year after sports hernia surgery. He returned as a substitute on July 23 for 19 minutes against Orlando City SC then started the subsequent four games before again being left off the game day roster in the same match Trapp was injured.
Higuain played 45 minutes off the bench against the LA Galaxy the following week and has been absent ever since.
Up until Sunday, all that was said about Higuain’s issue was inflammation in a similar area to the sports hernia. Following the win over the Revs, Berhalter added more information.
“He (Higuain) had a slight tear in his muscle,” he said. “It started out as inflammation and then as we got the MRI we saw a little tear in his core and he’s rehabbing from that.”
On Tuesday, Berhalter labeled the injury as a strain — which is just a minor tear — and clarified that it was not the same muscle group as the initial issue and occured once he was back in training.
“He’s making progress,” Berhalter said. “I know I say that every day, but he did a little bit more today than he’s been doing. He’s getting there.”
Higuain was not working with the rest of the team when media were permitted in the EAS Training Center, but did take part in what appeared to be fitness drills on the far field.
Crew SC have won two in a row and currently sit five points back of D.C. United, Wednesday night’s opponent. The playoffs remain a possibility, but wins are now a must.
So will the Black & Gold have two of the team’s best players back at some point during the final five matches?
“They’re both progressing,” was Berhalter’s answer. “I would hope to have at least one of them back in some capacity on Wednesday, but again, we’re going to be smart with this, we’re going to make sure both of them are ready before they’re back out on the field.”The star of a massively popular viral 'ginger people have souls' meme has revealed that she is now a woman after undergoing five months of hormone replacement therapy.
CopperCab, an internet personality whose real name was Michael Kittrell, became famous in a matter of hours after posting a filmed response to an episode of South Park in which Cartman claims red-headed people don't have souls.
Kitrell then became the target of a long bullying campaign from online trolls, which had the ironic effect of boosting his popularity as millions tuned in to watch his increasingly irate rants about everything from Gangam Style to "white male privilege".
Read more: Shock jock Gavin McInnes makes transsexual star of 'gingers have souls' meme CRY during harrowing showdown
4 CopperCab is now Claire Cab, her Twitter account announced last night
4 Claire Cab intends to continue her YouTube career and spread her message of feminism and'social justice'
But late last night, CopperCab's Twitter account announced that her name will now be Claire Cab.
She wrote: "I am so sick and f*** tired of hiding behind characters, I stopped enjoying YouTube years ago, I just want to be myself."
We spoke to Claire after her announcement to ask how life would change.
She told The Sun Online: "In some ways my life will be drastically different but I will adapt as I have always learned to.
"I went from an angry kid bullied at school by a handful to a kid being laughed at by millions across the world.
"What's a few more people staring at me on the street gonna really do?"
In the six years since the "ginger have souls" meme surged to popularity, Claire has filmed a number of videos which angrily respond to her haters - who appear to enjoy tormenting her and getting a reaction.
They pored over her videos to extract the parts they found amusing, which were then turned into looping gifs like the one below.
She added: "I have been bullied online for the past 6 years so I've grown somewhat of a thicker skin, like, it takes more to piss me off... but I still have a hot head admittedly. I stopped making videos for a number of reasons but one of those is that I was tired of seeing what I felt was a character on the screen."
Claire recently began speaking out on feminist issues, earning her the praise of some woman and the mocking vilification of many men.
"I've always felt odd about myself and I had trouble explaining it," she continued.
"I never really felt right in boys clothing, and my parents would have me in sports but I never really wanted to play. I kind of always knew in some form but I just wasn't sure what it was until I became slightly older."
After her announcement quickly popped up to mock Claire, who became something of a whipping boy for some members of the right wing online media after declaring himself a feminist.
The abuse Claire received reached its peak when she appeared on an online television show run by Gavin McInnes, co-founder of Vice Media.
In a brutal and sometimes harrowing confrontation, McInnes labelled Kitrell a "sub-fag" and made shocking digs about her dead mother.
4 Claire Cab responds to Gavin McInnes' tweet about her sex change
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"Gavin turned out to be a real a****** like I predicted and he slightly triggered me," Claire added.
She vowed to continue her mission to bring feminism to the internet and told us her zeal for social justice was the thing which brought her out of retirement.
"I was honestly frustrated with how women were being treated on the internet: it's like the entire f******* gender is being turned into some sort of meme and I wasn't happy with that.
"I was going to quit doing videos until I decided NO enough is enough."
Sick trolls have already started mocking the YouTuber formerly known as CopperCab after her revelation.
"RIP Coppercab's penis," one bully wrote on Twitter.
The YouTuber will make her first appearance as Claire in a video released later this week which is likely to receive millions of views.
But it also likely to result in a torrent of abuse and nastiness aimed at Claire, who was declared the third most bullied person on the internet.A number of incredible new products were launched this year. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) introduced the iPhone 4S — a phone with voice command — and Boeing's (NYSE: BA) 787 Dreamliner — a fuel efficient jet built of carbon composite — finally had its first commercial flight.
But not all products and services launched this year did well. Some failed miserably. 24/7 Wall St. looked at the biggest product launches of 2011 in order to identify the worst of the lot.
Products generally fail because they are either inferior versions of already successful products or they have little to no demand. Research In Motion's (NASDAQ: RIMM) PlayBook is the greatest example of the former. There was no room for a poorly designed tablet in a market dominated by the upmarket iPad and its inexpensive cousin Kindle Fire. The Playbook was widely panned. RIM publicly blamed its weak sales on competitive shifts in the tablet market, referring to the release of Kindle Fire. Many companies also often fail to understand consumer sentiment and, as a result, do not accurately estimate demand for the product. When Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) announced it would spin off its DVD-by-mail service in the form of a new service called Qwikster, customers were outraged. Nobody wanted the new site and nobody wanted to pay extra money for it. As a result, it failed before it even got off the ground. The Qwikster blunder ended up costing Netflix many customers.
This post originally appeared at 24/7 Wall St.West Ham United could face another blow in their bid to find a big-name replacement for Sam Allardyce as Marseille try to tie Marcelo Bielsa down to a new two‑year contract.
Having failed in moves for Rafael Benítez and Carlo Ancelotti, and with David Moyes insisting he is staying in Spain, West Ham are searching for a high-profile candidate to take them into the Olympic Stadium next year.
Bielsa is among a host of names under consideration and has been contacted by West Ham, but the French club hope to agree a new deal with the Argentine.
Despite the fact Bielsa hinted recently he may be ready to leave Marseille, French sources are confident negotiations are progressing well between the two parties.
Bielsa, 59, has a CV that has impressed the West Ham co-owners, David Sullivan and David Gold, but the former Argentina and Chile manager’s inability to speak English is seen as a problem.
Sevilla’s Unai Emery is another man on the West Ham long list, but the Spaniard is also thought to be of interest to AC Milan. It emerged that any club wishing to take Emery will have to pay Sevilla a £1 million compensation fee, although that is unlikely to put off West Ham as they are prepared to pay big money on the right man.
Slaven Bilic and Michael Laudrup are both keen on the job and the club would not be required to pay compensation for either. Bilic confirmed that he will not manage Besiktas next season and Demba Ba, who plays for the Turkish club, thinks the Croat would do well at Upton Park.
The former West Ham striker said of Bilic: “He is full of motivation and very close to the players and it helped, especially us in Besiktas. West Ham have a young team and he helps a lot. He is a good guy. He would be a good choice. If he comes here [to West Ham], I think and I hope he is going to be successful.”
Meanwhile, West Ham could re‑sign Carl Jenkinson on loan for another season after the right-back was denied a permanent switch by Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager. Jenkinson held talks with Wenger over his future, but the Frenchman is only willing to allow the 23-year-old to leave on another temporary deal.For four straight seasons spanning over three years (2013, '14, '15) Team SoloMid vs. Cloud9 was the final match of the NA LCS playoffs. The two titans of North America faced off in four straight grand finals, with the blue and white of C9 sweeping the first two before TSM stormed back to win back-to-back titles of their own.
The 2016 spring postseason will not end in the fifth installment of the classic playoff rivalry -- but it will begin with it. After an offseason where both teams believed they'd built title contending teams -- TSM even assembling a squad I dubbed a 'dream team' in the preseason -- here they sit: one of them moving onto the semifinals and a guaranteed spot in the Las Vegas finals weekend, and the other sent home with nothing else to do but ponder what went wrong until the summer split starts. Editor's Picks EU LCS Playoff preview - Fnatic vs. Vitality The EU LCS Playoffs are about to hit, and Fnatic has an uphill battle against the stronger Team Vitality. Adel Chouadria has the preview.
Another time around for Origen and Unicorns of Love in LCS playoffs In 2015, Unicorns of Love lost a best-of-five series vs. Origen with a berth in the LoL World Championship on the line. One year later, they meet in the first round of the EU LCS playoffs.
CS:GO global power rankings - March 17, 2016 Tomi "Lurppis" Kovanen breaks down the top 20 CS:GO teams in the world ahead of MLG Columbus. 2 Related
SoloMid have never played in an NA LCS season without reaching the final match, having competed in all six grand finals up to this point.
At 9-9, with a slump in the second half of the season, and time running out before they have no time left to fix its issues, this could be the season that ends TSM's historic streak of reigning atop the NA region. Well, that's if rivals C9 have anything to say about it.
Top Lane: An "BalIs" Le (C9) vs. Kevin "Hauntzer" Yarnell (TSM)
While it's been anything but a dream season for TSM, Hauntzer has had a solid first split on the squad in the replace of longtime veteran Marcus "Dyrus" Hill. On a team with two super carries and a forward-pushing jungle, he's primarily been in a supportive role for a large part of the season, and he's done well for the most part.
Balls has been in a similar situation, as his team plays mostly through the jungle, mid and AD carry positions, and he's generally seen as a backup for his offensive-minded teammates. It's been a bit of a comeback season for the former best top laner in North America; although not near the place in hierarchy he used to inhabit, it's hard to argue Balls hasn't had a few standout performances this split.
Riot Games
Still, Hauntzer has almost identical numbers on a weaker regular season team, so I'll give the edge to the TSM newcomer over the C9 veteran.
Advantage: TSM
Jungle: Lee "Rush" Yoon-jae (C9) vs. Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen (TSM)
Unlike the top lane pairing, the jungle faceoff isn't nearly as close. Rush was last split's MVP, and he's been a strong signing for C9 since moving over from Team Impulse. He's currently in the process of fully transitioning over to his new squad, but the Lee Sin main has been picking up steam as the split has gone along.
TSM, though, thought it was getting the same type of deal as C9 when it picked up Svenskeren. One of the best offensive junglers in the western scene last year, his move from Europe to North America hasn't been as smooth as Rush's chemistry with C9. There are times when he'll have fantastic openings to games and then have it all fall apart when it hits the late-game.
Skill-wise, Rush might be the most talented player in North America. Svenskeren, who has heaps of mechanical skill in his own right, isn't going to beat Rush unless he's at his optimal form and synergizing with the rest of his team.
Advantage: Cloud9
Mid Lane: Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen (C9) vs. Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg (TSM)
This is the heavyweight title fight of this opening round matchup. In the blue corner, we have Jensen. He came into the NA LCS with tons of skepticism due to his professional suspension because of online behavior. The Danish solo queue prodigy hadn't even really played in a pro setting before signing with Cloud9. Since starting off in a slow manner, he's become synonymous with C9's success, becoming a full-fledged ace in the mid lane and reincarnating as a true pro-gamer alongside his comrades.
Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg, star player of Team SoloMid, at the Summer Final at Madison Square Garden Riot Games
In the black corner, we have Bjergsen. The king of North America. The Jensen before Jensen even stepped foot on United States soil. The two-time MVP and multiple-time champion. One of the best technical players on the planet, and the man who has carved his name into the legacy of North American esports forever. Even in a season when his team has been through countless issues and various slumps, Bjergsen put up numbers of a player you'd think was on a vastly outperforming squad.
Last year, if all else failed on Summoner's Rift, Bjergsen was able to save his team, his management, and TSM's fans with late-game heroics. This season, while trying to become a more strategically diverse team with a plethora of carry weapons on the map, it could very well revert back to how it was in 2015 if things don't go well in the first game or two.
Jensen had an MVP-like season. Bjergsen can always be seen as the MVP of the league due to how important he is to TSM. Ultimately, I side with the player on a better streak of play, but it'd be foolish to count out NA's most dangerous player.
Advantage: Cloud9
Bottom Lane: Zach "Sneaky" Scuderi and Hai "Hai" Lam (C9) vs. Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng and Bora "YellOwStaR" Kim (TSM)
It's frankly scary how star-studded these two bottom lanes are. Sneaky is possibly the most consistent player in the history of the NA LCS. Hai is one of the greatest in-game leaders of all-time. Double lift is one of the greatest AD carries the western scene has ever seen. And YellOwStar is the captain of the Fnatic team that went 18-0 in last season's summer regular season and made the 2015 Worlds semifinals.
The biggest difference between these two bottom lanes is trust and comfort. Regardless of Hai's lack of experience in the support role, he and Sneaky trust each other. They've been friends and teammates for over three years, and they know how to play together. When they have small hiccups in lane, they know how to move onto the next stage in the game without skipping a beat.
Hai "Hai" Lam was a retired veteran of Cloud9, but returned in brief stints to play as a temporary substitute. He's currently the mid laner for the Milwaukee Bucks-backed League of Legends team FlyQuest. Riot Games
Doublelift and YellOwStar are attempting to reach even half of what what the C9 bot-lane possess in terms of comfort and reliability. They're too talented of players and hard workers to not reach a higher plateau, but time is up -- it's do or die time for the spring season.
In spite of Doublelift having a much better season than TSM's regular season standing shows, it's Cloud9's complete belief in one another which gives them the leg up in the bottom lane.
Advantage: Cloud9
TSM, if they keep the same starting five for summer, could be one of the best western teams. The talent is there. From everything I've heard from players and everyone surrounding the team, TSM have the drive and work ethic to be one of the best western teams. It's just the simple fact that they haven't fully gelled as a unit, and Cloud9, though not being perfectly in sync this spring, is the complete opposite. They're laid back, having fun with each other in practice, and have a leader in Hai who knows how to get it done in the postseason.
I still believe in the dream of this all-star TSM lineup. Unfortunately, those dreams look to be heading towards the clouds this Saturday.
Prediction: Cloud9 3 - 2 TSMTo do this most easily have all supplies stacked in the center of a tarp marked with a 14’ circle, and build from the inside. Optionally draw a circle in the sand if you don’t use a floor tarp. Use a stepladder to save time.
The dome will be quite floppy during deployment and hard to manage until you get the hang of using the support poles. You will need to adjust the poles during the process to allow all edges to meet their neighbors and get the true dome shape. Moving one pole can make 2 other poles fall down.
Partially unfold the 9-piece base segments and clip them to their neighbors; as you adjust the ring to fit the circle it should hold itself up. See photo. A couple of chairs help. Once the ring is even, nail down all the footers with the stakes.
Pre-assemble all the pentagons. If you have a helper, they can put together pentagons and hexagons while you clip them in place from within. Hang the first 5 pentagons off the outside of the base ring.
Open a base hexagon up and clip it into its convex shape, then support it with a pole. Flip up a pentagon beside it and connect them with the tabs; support the pentagon with a pole. Go around the perimeter and flip up alternating hexes and pents. See photo. Finish with one 6’ pole holding up each of the 5 pentagons - things should balance in a sagging fashion.
Next pre-assemble all 5 upper hexagons, hang them all off the outside by their tabs, then flip them up in turn using 8’ poles to support them as you clip them together. As you go around, the 6’ poles will fall away and you will need to adjust the tall poles frequently. Once you’ve added the last hexagon the dome gets firm and the 8’ poles fall down. Add the top pentagon to complete the structure.
Put in the light bamboo sticks to hold up the vents, and put two poles on either side of the door to support the opening. For tough conditions use tape on the outside to reinforce connections between segments as desired. You can put extra clips inside around the door frame.Here it is. Chapter 3. It’s almost a month late. I apologize for that. I would say midterms called my name, I would say I’m swamped with real life issues. There is now excuse. I should have had it up by now.
So, without further ado,
Chapter 3: Negotiations
The dwarves were rich. Richer than any mortal bank. Most countries owed them a marker or six. Rumor had it that there were literal mountains of gold, artifacts and precious metals hidden in vaults. I could believe this.
Dwarfs could control entire economies and entire countries if they so wished. I’ve seen them do it before. When the war, the slaughter, reached critical mass, they would activate wards that had withstood Fae Queens and retreat beneath their cavernous halls.
I didn’t blame them for it. The world goes to hell, daemon and undead running loose, magic that kept polite society fed and clothed all but gone, and you have to look out for you and yours, and damn the rest. I was the poster boy for that.
After all, it wasn’t that kid and his parents across the street out for a Saturday stroll that made me sell my soul and damn myself, it was my friends and family.
It didn’t make the hate any less pronounced. It didn’t erase the fact that they had left us to starve and rot time and time and time again while they feasted in their halls below the ground. Familiarity and contempt and all that bullshit.
Midas New York showed all that hoarded wealth. Each of the doors on the bank were twenty feet tall and seven foot wide. They were silvery titanium, studded with diamonds that hummed with magical energy. Magical energy that smelled like the earth, and felt like a spring storm, a howling blizzard. It was at once hopeful and terrifying. It set my mage sense screaming and it was all I could to shut my senses down before I lost control.
There were five dwarven guards standing outside the door. All of them were dressed in body army, some Frankenstein’s creation of Kevlar and dragon leather with call backs to the middle ages. Caine had everyone on high alert.
Two were armed with sleek crossbows, the bolts were no doubt enchanted with spells and laced with poisons that promised a very fatal demise. It’s why they haven’t switched over to automatic weaponry yet. A bolt, enchanted to activated when it came in contact with someone’s shield spell and trace the latent magical energy used in the projection of the shield and follow it back to the source of the spell and detonate would require a lot of room for rune carvings, and those were something that no-one has quite figured out how to machine print yet. It’s why the Hunters preferred Gestare to weapons.
One of the others was armed with a halberd almost taller than him. The other had no visible weapons, but I felt the same magic coming off of him that the door hummed with. If it came to a fight, I’d kill him first.
We walked up the steps, through the massive doors and walked into luxury. The floors were white and black marble, the booths the dwarfs sat were made of dark, shining wood. The couches where clients sat when waiting for a meeting were big leather islands of comfort. A couple of honest to god freaking butlers were standing around talking in lower tones.
I placed a hand on Maddie’s shoulder and she turned to me.
“Follow my lead on this one, okay?” I half asked, half stated. She paused for a moment, and then nodded.
“Jeremiah, I’ve got to return to work. Aelfric will be wondering where I’m at.”
“Stay awhile, won’t you love?”
“Fine, and don’t call me love.”
We walked across the bank floor until we stood in front of the manager’s desk. He had two more guards, both armed with crossbows and reeking of magic.
The bank was mostly deserted. It was a Saturday and usually they closed around noon, but the warders and guards were housed below in case of break-ins. Those never ended well.
“Yes, can I help you?” The dwarf said in a condescending tone, his voice was deep and sounded vaguely Nordic.
“I am seeking council with Grimtooth Oakenshield, on behalf of the Council of Mages, by the Treaty of Ragnarok under the purview of Thule,” I said this calmly. I brought up every bit of rich asshole that was becoming of the ruling families.
The dwarf’s eyes narrowed.
“Mage, you are speaking of things you don’t know, leave,” I knew he had just pressed a hidden button alerting a battalion of guards. It would be a few scant minutes until crossbow bolts and spellfire filled the air.
Both guards had their crossbows raised, and I felt their magic being drawn up. I drew my wand in a flash and pointed it at the manager on duty. I manifested my magic as a glowing hazel ember on the end of my wand. A promise of unspent power ready to lay waste to any who stood in my way.
“Tell your guards to lower their weapons or I swear by my magic this bank will be ash before I lay my wand to rest.”
You had to be firm with the dwarfs. It was all they understood. There was a fine line between firm and stupid. I was tiptoeing it.
“Those are brave words magician. Brave and foolish. Lord Oakenshield is busy at the moment,” The dwarf said.
I scoffed. I didn’t have time to play these word games.
“I know you’re just stalling me until more guards with those shiny crossbows can show up. My head of House knows I’m here. Should I report back to her that this was a failed meeting, we will go to the Council,” his eyes widened. The Council, one delegate from each of the races that made the laws for the magical and human world. To bring their name up was like bringing a fucking nuke to a knife fight. In a way, I had just declared war on the dwarves. War it would be regardless, but I didn’t want to fire the first shot.
I had his ass over a barrel. He knew he had to obey the old laws and customs. If other powers found out that the dwarves of all beings refused the old ways, their banks would be all but forfeit.
“Allow me to escort you.” He said with a forced grin.
He opened the little gate next to his desk and Madeline and I followed him down the hall. It was decorated mostly in dark wood, we strolled down the halls for some ways, slowing going down further and further into the earth. We walked until we got to a hallway, there was an occasional marble bust that depicted one of the former bank presidents. I knew that the wood was an illusion, and that it was metal underneath. Hidden in the pedestals there were AP Mines. I was walking through a kill box. If it came down to it I would redirect the millions of pellets away from us by magnetizing the walls themselves.
After ten minutes of walking we came to a wide oak door which opened with a hiss of pneumatics. This office was in stark relief to the endless tunnel of wood and carpet we had just trekked through. It was all glass and chrome. There were floating screens of either Elementrian holography tech or magical projections that showed stock tickers, business news, and security feeds. Grimtooth Oakenshield sat at the desk, when we entered he quickly gestured in the air and the screens dispersed. So holograms then.
In mortal fantasy dwarfs were portrayed as miners, all chainmail, axes and anvils. Since the Middle Ages this has changed considerably. When they moved into the banking business they had slowly ditched the armor for Armani. This didn’t change their attitudes. They were still mean bastards to those who have pissed them off or messed with the status quo.
So you’re fucked Mr. Owens. There’s nothing new about that. I clamped down on that thought hard.
Two of the guards protecting Grimtooth raised their crossbows when they saw me. I felt the third bringing up his magic. My wand was in my hand instantly, hazel twinkling like starlight.
“You dare try to attack me in my own place of power?” Grimtooth asked.
“Tell your pet mage to stand down and I’ll do the same,” I said. I set my face in a hard cold mask.
Grimtooth nodded subtly and the magic I felt brewing in the air like a storm subsisted. I stopped my own little light show, but I didn’t put the wand away.
I made a note to get a second one as soon as possible. Only having one was going to be a handicap I could not afford.
“Mage, You have one chance to convince me not to kill you. I would seriously consider your words.”
“I’ll be frank then. Caine has made a play for Thule. I need the dwarves’ assistance to get it back. I’ll give you a quarter of whatever bounty I find inside those walls, and in exchange I’ll hunt down that thrice curse bastards and kill him. All I need are the five favors detailed in the Treaty of Ragnarok as agreed to and decreed by Merlin.
Dwarves, for all their cunning favored Honor above all else. I held no stock in such things. I had learned not to. I wasn’t one not to exploit a weakness. I saw a brief glimmer of surprise in the old dwarf’s eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a calm mask.
“Those are some bold claims. Why aren’t the mages contacting me through the proper channels? Why did they send me a member of the lesser houses to invoke the treaty, and finally, how do I know you are telling the truth?” He said. If I failed, and I was right about this being my last chance to set everything right, and I failed my little errand, then the Dwarfs would be in the right to declare war on the mages, and that was a war we would not win.
“I will swear on whatever you wish me to swear on. Thule must be reclaimed from Time. I am coming to you because this is a mission the Conclave of Mages has no knowledge of, but my Head of House, and my benefactor do,” The less said about my benefactor being a goddess who had turned me out into the cold, the better.
Oakenshield peaked his hands and rested his head on them. He looked past me, and up to the manager who had escorted me to his office.
“Take the guards and leave us, we need to discuss this in private,”
Without hesitation his manager did so. Grimtooth could hold himself in a fight. It was the dwarves that had saved Boston during the Fomor attacks after all.
“Mage, I am taking you at your word. Should this prove to be a falsehood, I will strike with the full might of my Clan. You understand this, correct?” Once more I nodded.
“Fine than, that being said, what favors do you wish?”
“For the first, weapons. Three gladius made of Mythril, bound to none.” He nodded.
“The second, a trinket. It is heard that the Oakenshields have a ring in their vaults that negates the auric tracking the council uses, The Ring of Gygax. I need it loaned to me for a year and a day. Should I lose it, you may take the value of it out of the Owens accounts. A wave of my wand, and a note with forged with my mother’s signature, both pen and yellow aura, appeared, agreeing to this. If I didn’t return that ring our accounts would take a seriously hit.
“I also need 1 million of Euro, USD and Yen delivered in extended Samsonite suitcases.” He nodded without hesitation, 3mil was nothing to the dwarves.
“Anything Else?”
“I need airship boarding passes, and identities for myself, ¬Miss Dubois,” I gestured toward Maddie, “and Connor York,”
“Finally, I need a warder on retain. I’ll accept the services of Miss Dubois,”
“Very well,” He picked up the phone on his desk and dialed a number. After speaking for a moment he hung up.
“You’ll have what you need by the time you return to the Lobby,” He said. Hmm, that was odd. This was usually when they tried to kill me. “Would you like an escort?” By that he meant a minder. No fucking thank you.
“No thanks,” I said with a smile.
“Mister Owens, I will be blunt with you, the moment you leave my office, you leave my Protection. Even now rumors of you are starting to circulate. You will have a bounty on your head before this day is done. You do know this, correct? Furthermore, that ring will mask your auric signature. As a client of this bank, I have to remind to you that this is felony under the Mage Laws,” Oh, wasn’t that just a dreadful bit of news. To be exempt from the O-Net tracers and the ether spire triangulations. It was almost if I was trying to hide from my fellow mages.
“The ring is Thulosion. It is crucial to entering the city, without it my plans are useless.”
“Would you mind telling me what else is crucial to the city?”
“Regalia, Kusanagi is a key in more than one way. I need your men to steal them. I have business with an Oni on Fuji.” I said with a rogueish grin.
“Now, if the ring could arrive with my papers, and weapons that would be great,”
We ironed out a few more kinks, signed an official contract regarding the ring, and picked up the artifact in question.
We left Midas New York at fifteen after two. I had the ring of Gygax on my finger. I knew it was a fraud, MI-13 had the real deal |
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