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socket wrench tool is properly fitted onto or into the driven shape of the top or the upper portion of the hull of a Easy Inter Burial Container, the barrel grab-and-rotate unit, 216, is tightened around the Easy Inter Burial Container, 218.
This type of screw in Easy Inter Burial Container is then moved to the augered pilot hole, positioned to align its tapered end with the hole and pushed into the hole. The shaft of the drive motor, 212, is activated to turn the socket wrench, 217, in the proper direction to cause the Easy Inter Burial Container to turn its way in a screw like fashion into the receiving material (See FIG. 31 ). Water may be added to the hole to soften the receiving material and assist the passage of the threads or fins and the hull. Should the receiving material be of a harder or more dense material than expected, a drilling nose can be attached to assist installation. (See 199, FIG. 23.)
As the Easy Inter Burial Container is turned, the threads or fins pull it into the receiving material, following the line of the hole, and the material around the hole is forced outward, causing compaction of the receiving material and creating a tight fit around the Easy Inter Burial Container. A small amount of displacement and uplifting occurs around the top of a Easy Inter Burial Container as it nears the surface of the receiving material.
This displacement causes a gradual rise of the receiving material from somewhere outside the Easy Inter Burial Container up to the container itself (See FIGS. 24, 25 and 26). This rise does not usually interfere with power mowing and adds a pleasant effect around the top of the Easy Inter Burial Container. If the area where the Easy Inter Burial Container is installed, is covered with grass, or other such ground cover, the grass or ground cover is usually just pushed outward and up and covers the slight rise and only minimum labor is required to even it out.
A less sophisticated, but effective embodiment of this invention is to use manual labor to install a screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container. The body handling and preparation is the same for a manual labor installation as for a power equipment installation.
Once the body has been placed in the Easy Inter Burial Container, the container is sealed and carried to the grave site. At the center of the grave site a two to three foot deep hole, about one to two feet in diameter is dug. A Easy Inter Burial Container of the finned or screw thread type is positioned with its tapered end in the hole and held in place. For small, pet size, Easy Inter Burial Containers of the finned or screw thread type, handles are inserted into the top or the upper portion of the hull or a fabricated socket fitting the driven shape of the top or upper portion of the hull is fitted and the container is screwed into the receiving material to the desired depth. (See FIGS. 44 to 60.)
On child size Easy Inter Burial Containers of this type (see FIG. 45 ), one or more persons hold the unit in line with the hole, insert handles into the top or the upper portion of the hull or into a fabricated socket which fits the driven shape of the top or upper portion of the hull and the container is screwed into the receiving material to the desired depth. (See FIG. 45.)
On larger finned or screw thread types of manual Easy Inter Burial Container installations, cited herein as preferred embodiment, heavy bands with handle receptacles (See FIGS. 48 and 49 ) are installed and tightened over bridging sticks (see FIG. 50 ) on the hull. Handles are fitted into the band receptacles and the unit is lifted into alignment with the pre-dug pilot hole. Several people hold the unit in alignment with the hole while a number of others use the handles fitted into the heavy bands to turn the Easy Inter Burial Container to screw it into the receiving material. As the lowest band nears the surface of the receiving material, it is removed or moved upward and the turning process is continued.
If the persons manually installing this type of Easy Inter Burial Container wish to set the container lower than the height of the last band with handles, and a top is used that does not have handle receptacles, a capstan wheel like device (See FIG. 52 ), with a wrench made to fit a driven top or the upper portion of a hull (See FIGS. 51, 53, 54, 55 and 56) or a two stud device fitting the flower receptacles of a top (See FIG. 59 ) is used to additionally turn the unit and set it deeper, as illustrated herein (See FIG. 60 ). Setting an Easy Inter Burial Container as deep as possible is usually only important when future maintenance of the cemetery includes mowing the grass with power equipment and a near level surface is desired.
Some screw in types of Easy Inter Burial Containers are split lengthwise to act as conventional caskets or coffins during funeral services and some are made with one piece hulls and end caps. Both of these types incorporate continuous or intermittent, close or open spaced, left or right hand external threads around their exterior, depending on the type of soil or receiving material into which they are to be buried. Intermittent threads are much like a series of similarly angled fins which cause the unit to be pulled into the receiving material as it is rotated. There are a number of other ramifications of the invention which accomplish the objectives stated herein.
A basic variation is a Easy Inter Burial Container made to look like a currently used coffin or casket for display of the body during funeral services. After funeral services, the contents are securely retained within the container and a sturdy exterior head piece with provision for marker, plaque, flower and flag receptacles is installed. The entire unit and its contents are lifted by the headpiece and manipulated to effect satisfactory interment into the receiving material. (See FIG. 82.)
A further variation on this design is to attach a pointed nose piece with sharp edges on the opposite end from the head piece and rotate and press the unit into earth or other receiving materials. (See FIG. 90.) This design bores its own final hole for interment.
Another self boring type of Easy Inter Burial Container has screw threads or angled fins, similar to several other designs shown as part of this invention and is split lengthwise in a manner like a current casket or coffin so it can be used in conventional funeral services. It has its screw threads extending outward from the tapered hull to approximately the diameter of the largest end of the Easy Inter Burial Container and has cutting edges on the lower end of these screw threads. The purpose of this configuration is to have it bore its own hole and loosen and re-distributes the earth or receiving material when rotated in the correct direction for installation in a grave site. (See FIGS. 64, 65 and 66.)
A further Easy Inter Burial Container design which self digs is built in several configurations. Some configurations are split lengthwise to be used as display caskets in conventional funeral services while some have a non-split hull with a top similar to several of the screw in Easy Inter Burial Container types shown herein. All of this design have digging blades extending outward from near the bottom of the tapered end of the hull to approximately the diameter of the top of the hull and additional extensions from the cutting blades upward along the side of the hull to cause the loosened earth or other receiving to move upward and out of the hole when the hull is rotated in the correct direction. (See FIGS. 67 and 76.)
A non-self-digging type of Easy Inter Burial Container has a smooth and tapered hull, either split lengthwise like presently used caskets, for current type open casket funerals or is made as a single piece hull with a top. The single piece hull with a top design is used where the body is to be displayed in a show casket and later moved to the Easy Inter Burial Container or a closed casket funeral service is conducted. This design is pressed and occasionally agitated into a pre-dug or bored hole, usually smaller in diameter than the hull.
Several other Easy Inter Burial Container designs used for pressing and agitating into pre-dug or bored holes incorporate protrusions on the lower portion of their hulls to assist in breaking up firmer earth or other receiving materials. This design is also made in a split hull configuration for use in funeral services or is made as a non-split hull with a top, similar to several of the screw in designs. (See FIGS. 108 to 114.)
It should be noted here that the interior of all Easy Inter Burial Container designs are made to fit their intended content, such as a human body, including several made large enough to hold a conventional casket or coffin and yet achieve the advantages of saving cemetery space and burial labor.
A main benefit of this invention is in the conservation of land area usage. It allows far more interments per land area than by current practice, plus it provides a means to inter bodies very near to trees and in ponds and lakes on the cemetery property. Pond and lake grave sites provide a strikingly tranquil and pleasant environment. Easy Inter Burial Containers are used not only vertically, but horizontally or angularly in trench side, hillside or cliff face burials, thus using land space not readily available for burials by current interment means.
The Easy Inter Burial Container method conserves labor by greatly reducing the large size grave excavation and the need to extensively refill and replant as in current burials.
A Easy Inter Burial Container provides for the dignity of a deceased person to stand erect for all time and greatly reduces disrespectful walking on graves by later visitors. The top of the Easy Inter Burial Container with or without its plaque, marker or monument, is visible and the burial itself is directly beneath the top. A top or top cap can be locked securely to the Easy Inter Burial Container, but can be unlocked and opened with the proper tools.
Easy Inter Burial Containers are made using a wide range of materials, such as plastic, cement, concrete, wood, fired clay and metal. Mold formed fiberglass and plastic, cement and concrete are the most common. Optional, but more expensive, methods are forming and carving a Easy Inter Burial Container from wood or machining it from metal. Different materials are used to accomplish different requirements, ranging from the need for very inexpensive burials to elaborately striking and ceremonial burials.
An elaborately striking interment may require a Easy Inter Burial Container of highly polished metal, wood or even clear plastic. A clear plastic Easy Inter Burial Container, where the body is additionally encased in clear resin and is standing erect for all to view during installation, creates a very impressive image.
The majority of equipment used for a Easy Inter Burial Container installation is in common use. Backhoes, tractors, augers and drum or barrel handlers are commonly available. Several easily fabricated vise like gripping devices and socket wrenches welded from plate steel to match the driven portion of Easy Inter Burial Container hulls or tops are all that may be required by the interring cemetery. A cemetery may even do away with the more sophisticated and motorized tools and perform Easy Inter Burials manually.
Another feature of the Easy Inter Burial Container is an option where holes may be provided in the lower portions of the hull to return the body to the earth. The Easy Inter Burial Containers, with security locked tops are also used for multiple interment of ashes.
Should a full disinterment be required, the Easy Inter Burial Container is raised from the receiving material using the same equipment as used for installation. In such disinterments the locking or securing devices are left in place to provide a transfer of force from the gripping or wrenching device to the main hull. Should a minor disinterment be required of a hull and top cap type, such as for DNA sampling or to add ashes of another person or personal effects, the securing devices are removed and only the top is opened.
Easy Inter Burial Containers are also used in ways other than to provide for the burial of human and pet remains. Easy Inter Burial Containers are filled with food, water or other material, securely sealed and quickly installed. An optional installation is to install a through-hull fitting, evacuate the air, refill it with an inert gas, and use it for long term storage. Such containers are easily hidden in most surfaces of the earth and are accessible only to those knowing the location.
Other embodiments, ramifications and combinations of the different designs shown herein for Easy Inter Burial Containers and their interment methods are equally preferred depending upon local conditions and social preferences.
DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES
FIG. 1 shows a body, 150, resting in a form fitting body tray, 151, which is set into a lavish casket, 152, with its lid open, 153, for funeral services.
FIG. 2 shows the body tray, 151, with the body, 150, covered with a sturdy retention shroud, 155, which is fastened securely to the body tray, 151, being inserted into a externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container hull, 154, shown in cut-away cross section, which has internal threads, 148, to receive the top cap.
FIG. 3 is a cross section of a screw in top cap for an externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container showing how hardware, 161, is set through the top, 156, which fits the Easy Inter Burial Container shown in FIGS. 2 and 5 by way of its threads, 149.
FIG. 4 is an enlarged cut-away view of the joint between a top, 156, and a hull, 154, with a gasket, 157, and shows a toggle bolt, 160, used to secure the top from easy removal.
FIG. 5 illustrates a cut away cross section of a screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container in the erect position, with a hull, 154, a form fitting body tray, 151, shroud, 155, body, 150, top cap, 156, gasket, 157, and top cap retaining toggle bolt, 159.
FIG. 6 is a side view of the exterior of the Easy Inter Burial Container shown in FIG. 5, with a monument, 158, installed on the top, 156, a hull, 154, with external threads, 160.
FIG. 7 is a top view of the Easy Inter Burial Container in FIG. 8, showing six lands, 165, on which to fit a wrench and rotate the hull and cause the threads, 167, to pull the Easy Inter Burial Container into the receiving material.
FIG. 8 is a side view of a screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container hull, 166, having open spaced, left hand threads, 167, driven lands, 165, as a part of the upper portion of the hull, 166, with a cut-away section at the upper right, showing a gasket, 169, and internal threads, 168, into which a screw-in top cap, such as those shown in FIGS. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 may be fitted, provided the threads of the top cap are of the same rotation direction as the external threads, 167, on the outside of the hull, 166.
FIG. 9 is a top view of the Easy Inter Burial Container hull in FIG. 10, showing an octagonally shaped set of lands, 170, on the upper portion of the hull, 173, and its external screw in hull threads, 174.
FIG. 10 is a side view of a screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container hull, 173, having close spaced, left hand threads, 174, driving lands, 170, as a part of the upper portion of the hull, with a cut-away section at the upper right, showing the gasket, 172, and the internal threads, 171, into which a screw-in top cap, such as those shown in FIGS. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 may be fitted, provided the threads of the top are of the same rotation direction as the external threads, 174, on the hull, 173.
FIG. 11 is an oblique view of a top cap showing a round recess for the attachment of a plaque or marker and a hex shaped series of lands, 175, by which to turn the top and the Easy Inter Burial Container for installation. Also shown is a small channel, 161, around the periphery in which to place weed killer to reduce ground cover encroachment.
FIG. 12 is an oblique view of a top showing a flat surface, 176, for placement of a plaque or marker, a flower receptacle, 177, a flag pole receptacle, 178, and flat areas forming a square, 179, onto which is fitted a wrench or driver socket to rotate and install the Easy Inter Burial Container in earth or other receiving materials. Also shown is a small channel, 162, around the periphery in which to place weed killer to reduce ground cover encroachment.
FIG. 13 shows a Easy Inter Burial Container top having a cross shaped recess, 180, which can be used to install the Easy Inter Burial Container, and later receive a plaque, marker or monument, and also having a flower receptacle and flag pole holder.
FIG. 14 is an oblique view of a top with a rectangular recess for plaque, marker or monument mounting, flower receptacles and flag pole holes and bosses, 181, for receiving a wrenching device to rotate the Easy Inter Burial Container for its installation.
FIG. 15 is an oblique view of a top cap with a square installation recess, 183, which is used later for a plaque or marker, flag pole and flower receptacles, hardware holes, 182, for plaque or monument mounting and also showing the threads, 184, by which it is screwed into a Easy Inter Burial Container hull. Also shown is a small channel, 163, around the periphery in which to place weed killer to reduce ground cover encroachment.
FIG. 16 is a cross section of the Easy Inter Burial Container top cap in FIG. 15, showing its recessed flat area, 183, to receive a plaque or marker, screw-in threads, 184, to fit a Easy Inter Burial Container hull having internal threads, and holes, 182, through which hardware is fitted to attach a plaque, marker or monument. Also shown is a small channel, 163, around the periphery in which to place weed killer to reduce ground cover encroachment.
FIG. 17 is a cut-away cross section of a Easy Inter Burial Container top having a flat area, 185, screw in threads, 186, a hole laterally through the top cap, and a bar, 187, fitted through the hole to be used to receive a wrenching device to rotate and install the Easy Inter Burial Container.
FIG. 18 is a top view of the Easy Inter Burial Container top shown in FIG. 19, illustrating a rectangular recess for a plaque, marker or monument, and showing a hex shaped configuration, 190, of flat lands by which a matching wrenching device is used to turn the Easy Inter Burial Container for installation.
FIG. 19 is a side view of the screw on Easy Inter Burial Container top shown in FIG. 18, having a raised section on which can be mounted a plaque, marker or monument, internal threads to fit a hull as shown in FIG. 20, and showing a hex shaped set of lands, 190, to receive a installation wrenching device.
FIG. 20 is a side view of a Easy Inter Burial Container hull, 193, having external left hand angled fins or intermittent threads, 192, for more retention into the receiving material, and different external left hand threads, 191, at its upper portion, to receive the left hand screw on top shown in FIGS. 18 and 19.
FIG. 21 is a top view of the Easy Inter Burial Container press on top, also shown in FIG. 22, illustrating a rectangular recess for a plaque, marker or monument, and showing a four sided configuration of lands, 194, by which to allow a matching wrench device to turn the top and the screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container for installation.
FIG. 22 is a cross section view of a press-on Easy Inter Burial Container top as shown in FIG. 21 having through holes, 195, for insertion of a bar or bars by which to turn the unit and later insert security devices, to fit a Easy Inter Burial Container hull as shown in FIG. 23, and a raised section on which can be mounted a plaque, marker or monument.
FIG. 23 is a side view of a Easy Inter Burial Container hull having right hand intermittent external threads or fins, 197, no top threads, and through holes, 196, directly in the main hull, 198, into which bars are used to turn the unit and later bolts or locks to secure the top, plus an attached auxiliary auger nose, 199, to assist installation into firmer receiving materials.
FIG. 24 illustrates vertical positioning of two externally threaded Easy Inter Burial Containers, with their tops showing, 205, a plaque, 206, attached on the left unit and a cross monument, 208, attached on the right unit, with displaced and raised receiving material, 207, shown in the cut-away cross section.
FIG. 25 illustrates near horizontal positioning of two externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container installations in a steep hillside or the sidewall of an embankment or trench, with their tops showing, 205, a plaque, 206, attached on the upper unit with displaced and raised receiving material, 207, shown in the cut-away cross section next to the upper unit.
FIG. 26 illustrates two diagonally installed screw in type Easy Inter Burial Containers, with their tops showing, 205, plaques, 206, attached on both units, with displaced and raised receiving material, 207, shown in the cut-away cross section of the left hand unit.
FIG. 27 is a view of four screw in type Easy Inter Burial Containers placed in a shallow water area, such as a pond or lake within a cemetery, with three of the Easy Inter Burial Containers having tops, 205, below the water level and special, topical monuments, such as the cross, 208, showing above the water level and the unit on the right having its top and plaque, 206, above the water level, but still surrounded by water.
FIG. 28 shows how a tractor or backhoe, 210, with a rear mounted work arm having at its end, 214, a rotator, 215, and an angled adaptor, 211, onto which is mounted a hydraulic motor, 212, driving an auger, 213, making a pilot hole and a drum handler, 216, with which to position a Easy Inter Burial Container.
FIG. 29 is an oblique picture of equipment on the end of a tractor backhoe arm as in FIG. 28, showing the angle adaptor, 211, hydraulic motor, 212, barrel drum handler, 216, arm end, 214, rotator, 215, and a socket wrench, 217, to fit the top of a screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container and rotate it for installation.
FIG. 30 is an oblique drawing of a tractor backhoe, 210, angled adaptor, 211, hydraulic motor, 212, barrel drum handler, 216, arm end, 214, rotator, 215, socket wrench, 217, with a screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container, 218, being picked up for installation.
FIG. 31 illustrates the positioning of a tractor backhoe, 210, angled adaptor, 211, barrel drum handler, 216, arm end, 214, socket wrench, 217, and a screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container, 218, fitted into a pilot hole and being rotated by the hydraulic motor, 212, for installation.
FIG. 32 is a top view of the screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container shown in FIG. 36, with a flag pole receptacle, 224, a flower receptacle, 226, the top itself, 220, one of six flat sections or lands, 221, on the main body by which a wrench, shown elsewhere, will rotate the unit, 223, so that the hull's external screw threads, 222, will pull the container into the receiving material.
FIG. 33 is an enlarged view of the upper left cut away portion of the drawing in FIG. 36, showing the relationship of the Easy Inter Burial Container top, 220, the main hull, 223 and a tube nut, 230, fitted from the inside, protruding out into the upper rim of the main hull and into which is fitted a flush bolt, 229, to deter the removal of the top.
FIG. 34 is a view looking up from below the Easy Inter Burial Container shown in FIG. 36, emphasizing the cutting edges, 228, on the self drilling nose.
FIG. 35 is a view of only the bottom portion of a Easy Inter Burial Container, such as the one shown in FIG. 36, with cutting plates, 232, bolted to the self drilling cutting edges to facilitate installation into firmer or harder receiving materials and having digging tabs, 231, to break up and loosen the receiving material.
FIG. 36 is a full side view of a screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container with its hull, 223, having flat areas, 221, around its upper portion to receive and be driven by a wrench, shown elsewhere, medium spaced, right hand screw threads, 222, around the hull, 223, a press in top, 220, and a built-in self drilling nose, 228, at the bottom.
FIG. 37 is a tractor backhoe, 210, with arm end, 214, angled adaptor, 211, hydraulic motor, 212, socket wrench, 217, and barrel drum handler, 216, using a built-in self drilling nose, 228, to bore its own installation pilot hole as the unit is rotated and installed.
FIG. 38 illustrates a hexagonal shaped top, 235, made to fit into the Easy Inter Burial Container in FIG. 39, with through-holes, 236, aligning with through-holes in the upper portion of the hull shown in FIG. 39.
FIG. 39 is an oblique view of the upper portion of a screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container hull, 239, having a recessed hexagonal shaped section, 237, into which the top in FIG. 38 is fitted, with the through-holes, 238, matching the through holes in the top, 236, FIG. 38, and through which bars or pipes are fitted for turning the unit for installation.
FIG. 40 is a view of the underside of a top, 240, with through-holes, 242, for driver handles and with a series of bosses, 241, matching the recesses in the externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container hull in FIG. 41, to transfer the rotational force from the top to the hull when handles are fitted into the top holes and the Easy Inter Burial Container is rotated for installation.
FIG. 41 is an oblique view of the upper portion of a externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container hull having recesses, 243, into which the top in FIG. 40 is fitted, and provides the transfer of force from the top to the hull, 244, during installation.
FIG. 42 is a view of a top, 245, with a series of lobes and recesses, 247, matching the lobes and recesses in the Easy Inter Burial Container in FIG. 43 and showing holes, 246, into which handles are fitted to rotate the Easy Inter Burial Container for installation.
FIG. 43 is an oblique view of the upper portion of a externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container hull, 249, having lobes and recesses, 248, to match the lobe and recess configuration of the top in FIG. 42 and provide for the transfer of force from that top to the hull, 249, during installation.
FIG. 44 is a view of the upper portion of a externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container with its top in place and having handles, 251, placed into the top holes to allow manual rotation of the container for installation or extraction.
FIG. 45 illustrates a manual turning of a smaller sized externally threaded screw in type hull, 252, by the use of handles, 253, placed in the holes of a smaller sized Easy Inter Burial Container top.
FIG. 46 shows the use of handles, 255, placed into the holes in the upper portion of a externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container, 254, to facilitate manual turning of the unit. Note that the hull shown has close spaced external threads providing more downward pressure per revolution.
FIG. 47 shows a manual turning and installation of a medium sized screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container by the use of handles, 257, placed into holes in the upper portion of its hull, 256.
FIG. 48 is a top view of a band, 258, with handle receptacle fittings, 259, attached with hardware, 260, and handles, 261, placed into the fittings, and attachment hardware, 262, installed at the band clamping point, which is placed around the hull of a externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container to provide for a number of persons to assist in turning the Easy Inter Burial Container for installation.
FIG. 49 is a side view of the band in FIG. 48 showing the handles, 261, handle fittings, 259, fitting hardware, 260, and the band clamping hardware, 262.
FIG. 50 illustrates a packet of stout sticks, 263, of sufficient length to bridge across several threads or fins of a externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container to provide more positive and more level contact between the band shown in FIGS. 48 and 49 and the Easy Inter Burial Container hull.
FIG. 51 is an isometric view of a six sided driver wrench, 265, to match the configuration of a six sided top of a screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container and allow it to be rotated by way of the shaft, 264.
FIG. 52 is an isometric view of a spoked capstan-type driver to be used by several people for manually turning a externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container, with handle spokes, 266, braces, 267, a center hex hub, 268, matching the shafts of the drivers shown in FIGS. 51, 53, 54, 55 and 56, center plate, 269, center assembly hardware, 270, holding the handles in place and brace attachment hardware, 271.
FIG. 53 is an isometric view of a square sided driver wrench, 272, which matches the configuration of a square receptacle in the top of a externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container or the upper portion of a Easy Inter Burial Container hull and provides the means for it to be rotated by way of the hexagonal shaft, 273.
FIG. 54 is an isometric view of a eight sided driver wrench, 275, which matches the configuration of a eight sided receptacle on the top or the upper portion of a externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container hull and provides the means for it to be rotated by way of the hexagonal shaft, 274.
FIG. 55 is an isometric view of a two boss driver wrench, 277, which matches and fits into two flower receptacles in the top of a externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container and provides a means for the burial container to be rotated by way of the hexagonal shaft, 276.
FIG. 56 is an isometric view of a crossed bar driver wrench, 279, which matches the configuration of a screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container top having crossed recesses and provides a means for it to be rotated through the shaft, 278.
FIG. 57 is an oblique view of the upper portion of a externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container hull, 283, and a top, both with non-meshing striations, 280 and 281, which, with the striations filled with cement, pressed into the hull, and allowed to cure, provides the transfer of rotational force when a device such as those shown in FIGS. 55 and 59 are fitted into the flower receptacles, 282, to rotate the unit for final insertion into the receiving material, as shown in FIG. 60.
FIG. 58 is a side view of a externally threaded screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container being manually rotated into a receiving material by several persons using handles, 261, on bands, 258, as shown in FIGS. 48 and 49, with bridging sticks, 263, as shown in FIG. 50.
FIG. 59 is a oblique view of a device made with handles, 284, bolted together with hardware, 285, and driver protrusions or studs, 286, made to fit into the flower receptacle holes of a screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container top, similar to the one shown in FIG. 57, and by the application of manual force, the container is rotated in the proper direction and is inserted into the receiving material.
FIG. 60 is a side view of persons using the device, 287, shown in FIG. 59, to finish the insertion of a screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container into receiving material.
FIG. 61 depicts an externally threaded, self boring, screw in type Easy Inter Burial Container, sitting on blocks, 293, in funeral display, split lengthwise and hinged with the lid segment, 290, raised above the hull, 289, to display the contents, and showing that the external screw threads, 291, match across the split line and continue to the tapered end of the hull, 292. The drawing shows that these threads extend outward from the hull a sufficient distance to ensure that the loosened receiving material is moved upward around the hull as it is rotated in the proper direction. Note that the flat areas at the lower end of the screw in threads will act as cutting blades in softer receiving materials and can be fitted with add-on hardened blades for burials in firmer receiving materials.
FIG. 62 is an end view of FIG. 61 showing the main or lower hull section, 289, with the lid segment, 290, open and with blocks, 293, holding the Easy Inter Burial Container in place.
FIG. 63 is an end view of the unit in FIG. 64, in a closed position showing screw threads, 291, and the driven section, 294, in this case a hexagonal shape, by which it will be rotated into a receiving material.
FIG. 64 illustrates a side view of the Easy Inter Burial Container in FIGS. 61, 62 and 63, in a closed position with the driven section, 294, noted and showing add on cutting blades, 295, attached to the ends of the screw threads, 291.
FIG. 65 is a diagram of a tractor backhoe, 210, using its rotator section, 215, angled adaptor, 211, drive motor, 212, barrel drum handler, 216 and wrench unit, 217, to install the Easy Inter Burial Container shown in FIGS. 61, 62, 63 and 64.
FIG. 66 depicts a Easy Inter Burial Container, such as that shown in FIG. 65, installed and having its top, 290, slightly above the surface level of the receiving material.
FIG. 67 is a side view of a Easy Inter Burial Container with self digging blades, the hull split lengthwise into a open, padded, upper lid segment, 301, and a lower main section, 303, as is common practice in current coffins and caskets, with a body and body tray, 302, inside, and being stabilized and held level by blocks, 304, for funeral display.
FIG. 68 is an end view of the Easy Inter Burial Container shown in FIG. 67, illustrating the positions of the raised lid segment, 301, body and body tray, 302, lower main section, 303, and the support blocks, 304.
FIG. 69 is a side view of the Easy Inter Burial Container in FIG. 67, except in its closed position showing cutting blade extensions, 305, which guide the cut away receiving material to the surface, and added on cutting blades, 306.
FIG. 70 is and end view of the Easy Inter Burial Container in FIG. 69 showing the relationship of the cutting blade extensions, 305, and the added on cutting blades, 306.
FIG. 71 is an end view of the screw in top in FIG. 72 and the matching single piece hull in FIG. 73, showing the driven flats, 307, rectangular plaque or monument area, 309, flower receptacle, 310 and flag holder, 311.
FIG. 72 is a side view of the screw in top, which fits the hull depicted in FIG. 73, pointing out its driven flats, 307 and the threads, 308, to match those inside the hull.
FIG. 73 is a side view of a single piece, non-split hull, 312, with a body and body tray, 302.
Note that the hull has cutting blade extensions, 305, and added on cutting blades, 306, for self digging and movement of loosened receiving material to the surface.
FIG. 74 is a side view of a Easy Inter Burial Container with cutting blades and cutting blade extensions being held by a barrel drum handler, 216, on the end of a tractor backhoe arm, 214, and rotated by a socket wrench, 217, which is in turn rotated in the correct direction by a drive motor, 212. Note the removed receiving material, 313, around the start of the hole.
FIG. 75 is a cut away side view of the self digging Easy Inter Burial Container in FIG. 74, having dug into the receiving material with some dug away receiving material, 314, outside of the hole and additional dug away material, 315, being forced upward and out by the cutting blade extensions.
FIG. 76 is a |
for more than 30. It is not yet clear who would replace him, or what role the administration would play in that process.
Industry sources had said the White House planned very tough medicine in Monday's announcement, which turned out to be an understatement. And it went to the very top. The measures to be imposed by the government will have a dramatic effect on workers, unions, suppliers, bondholders, shareholders, retirees and the communities where plants are located, the sources said.
GM and Chrysler first requested billions in federal aid in November, warning that they could run out of cash in a matter of months if they didn't receive it. In December, President Bush agreed to loan $9.4 billion to GM and $4 billion to Chrysler.
Last month, GM asked for $16.6 billion more and Chrysler requested an additional $5 billion.
Earlier this month, Obama agreed to loan $5 billion to American auto parts manufacturers to help them weather the steep drop in new vehicle orders and the financial uncertainty at the Big Three.
Obama and his aides may have honed in on Wagoner for two reasons. First, his company is asking for the most in total federal aid: $26 billion, a figure administration officials fear could grow even larger. Second, the GM chief was tied more directly to the ill-fated decisions that that brought much of the American auto industry to the brink of collapse. Wagoner joined GM in 1977, has had a senior role in GM management since 1992, and became CEO of the company in 2000. He is considered responsible for increasing GM's focus on trucks and SUVs—at the expense of the hybrids and fuel efficient cars that have become more popular in the last couple of years.
This article tagged under: 2010
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Copy Protection in Jet Set Willy: developing methodology for retrogame archaeology John Aycock 1 and Andrew Reinhard 2
1. Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Canada, aycock@ucalgary.ca 2. Archaeogaming, areinhard@numismatics.org
Cite this as: Aycock, J. and Reinhard, A. 2017 Copy Protection in Jet Set Willy: developing methodology for retrogame archaeology, Internet Archaeology 45. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.45.2
Summary
Video games, and more generally computer games, are unquestionably technological artefacts that have cultural significance. Old computer games in particular had to function under technical constraints that would be alien to many modern programmers, while at the same time providing something novel and at first foreign to consumers. How did their creators accomplish their technical feats, and what impact did that have for the player-consumer? The study of'retro' computer games' implementation is one topic within the nascent area of archaeogaming.
Digital rights management (DRM) continues to be a major issue in the protection and distribution of content in electronic form. In this article, we study an early example of the implementation of copy protection in the 1984 game Jet Set Willy, something that comprises both physical and digital artefacts. It acts as a vehicle to illustrate a number of methods that we used to understand game implementation, culminating in a full reconstruction of the technique. The methods we cover include: 'traditional' research, along with its limitations in this context; code and data analysis; hypothesis testing; reconstruction. Through this positivist experimental approach, our results are both independently verifiable and repeatable. We also approach the complex context of early DRM, its hacks and workarounds by the player community, and what precipitated the design choices made for this particular game.
Go to article Table of Contents.
Keywords: methodology, video game, computer game, technology, copy protection, Jet Set Willy, ZX Spectrum, reverse engineering, experimental archaeology, retrogaming
This publication received the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.UPDATE: Police have identified the suspect as Munir Ayyoub Ammari, 47. Ammari has been charged with murder and his bond was set at $100,000. See previous story below.
SAN ANTONIO - Police arrested the owner of a car dealership Tuesday evening, hours after they say he gunned down a man who ripped him off.
"At some point today, he (the suspect) was calling SAPD to make a report because he realized that a car he sold to the victim was purchased by the use of a fraudulent check," said Doug Greene, a spokesman for the San Antonio Police Department. "He was making that report, and it seems like coincidentally, that victim was driving by around the same time that the suspect was making the report."
Greene said the suspect, who police did not identify late Tuesday, hopped into a vehicle with his son near the dealership in the area of Loop 410 and Evers Road. They raced after the victim, and eventually, the suspect boxed in the victim and fatally shot him with a handgun, Greene said. He'll be charged with murder.
Someone flagged down an officer at about 5:50 p.m. Tuesday near Loop 410 and Ingram Road. Both cars wound up in the parking lot of the Jack in the Box. The victim, a man in his mid-30s, was pronounced dead at the scene. The fast food restaurant closed for the evening.
The suspect's son, who was a passenger in the car, will not be charged, Greene said.
A third vehicle was clipped as the victim backed up, trying to escape.CLOSE Oscar Pistorius has been sentenced to five years in prison for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. South African Judge Thokozile Masipa delivered the ruling on Tuesday, with the double-amputee Olympic runner in court. VPC
South African athlete Oscar Pistorius arrives at the High Court in Pretoria on Oct. 21. (Photo11: AFP)
JOHANNESBURG — South African Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to prison for five years Tuesday for the 2013 killing of his girlfriend, less than half the time he could have received following his manslaughter conviction last month.
Judge Thokozile Masipa said a long sentence would show a lack of mercy toward Pistorius, known as the "Blade Runner" for racing on prosthetic legs. She suspended a separate three-year sentence for an unrelated firearms charge.
Barry Roux, Pistorius' lawyer, said his client could be released after 10 months to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest.
Pistorius could have received up to 15 years in prison for shooting model Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day 2013 in his home. The case has brought global attention to the 27-year-old double-amputee.
The judge, ruling in place of a jury, found Pistorius guilty of culpable homicide — the equivalent of manslaughter — for killing Steenkamp, 29, after shooting her through a bathroom door. She acquitted him of murder.
Pistorius said the shooting was accidental.
"The following is what I consider is a sentence that is fair and just both to society and the accused," Masipa said.
Pistorius' uncle, Arnold Pistorius, said the family would support the track star during his time in prison.
"We accept the judgment. Oscar will embrace the opportunity to pay back society," he said, suggesting there would be no appeal from the defense. Nathi Mncube, a spokesman for prosecutors, said his office has not decided whether to appeal the sentence.
Steenkamp's family was in court Tuesday to hear the sentence.
June, Reeva's mother, said justice had been done. Last week, the Steenkamps said they would not file a civil claim against the Olympian. They also said they would pay back money he lent them to cover living expenses.
Some South Africans feel the prison sentence was too light.
"I think it should have been 10 to 15 years and the only reason that it's less is because of his contribution to society and his disability," said Ilanit Chernick, 22, of Johannesburg. "I think he will be out within the next year or two because of good behavior, which is an injustice to the justice system."
"(Pistorius is) a killer, a murderer," said Zamikhaya France, 33, a magazine seller in Cape Town. "You have to punish him (strongly) or he'll do it again."
Culpable homicide in South Africa typically carries a maximum sentence of 15 years and the prosecution had called for a minimum 10-year prison term.
Legal experts said Masipa managed to remain uninfluenced by the public pressure that has built up in South Africa over the course of the lengthy trial.
"She's a really, really well-balanced judge," said Mannie Witz, a criminal defense attorney in Johannesburg who mentored Masipa for a year when she was training to be a lawyer in 1991. "She's really what you want in a judge — she's impartial, she doesn't follow media, she won't be influenced by anything."
Once the darling of South Africa's cultural and sporting elite, Pistorius was the first double-amputee sprinter to compete at both the Olympics and Paralympics in London in 2012.
The International Paralympic Committee has ruled out a return for Pistorius to Paralympic events while he is serving his prison sentence. The International Olympic Committee declined to comment on his eligibility.
Pistorius is still revered in some quarters and some felt his previous accomplishments should be taken into account.
"(The sentenced is) reasonable because he's a national hero," said student Lameez Omarjee, 23, in Johannesburg. "He wasn't going to get a tough sentence, we knew it."
Pistorius' brother and sister, Carl and Aimee, gave interviews to a South African television station on the eve of the sentencing, describing what they said was a difficult and emotional time in the more than a year and a half since their brother killed Steenkamp.
"It has been a long journey to this point," Aimee Pistorius told eNCA.
PHOTOS: OSCAR PISTORIUS TRIAL
Cassim reported from Johannesburg and Weber from Cape Town. Contributing: Nikolia Apostolou in Berlin; Associated PressThe odds of Tom Coughlin returning to coach the 2015 Giants have skyrocketed dramatically. So dramatically, in fact, The Post has learned the Giants are leaning strongly towards bringing him back next season for one last Super Bowl run.
How strongly?
“99.9 percent he’s back,” a source familiar with the club’s thinking told The Post Sunday night.
The Giants, as is their preferred policy, prefer to make their decisions public when the season ends.
“I have no comment,” co-owner John Mara said following Giants 24, Redskins 13.
“No comment,” co-owner Steve Tisch said.
Neither owner would divulge whether the decision on Coughlin’s future has already been made.
A source told The Post several weeks ago Coughlin’s return at that time was “50-50.”
It has since become crystal clear that the Giants are fighting to the end with Coughlin.
There are other factors that have weighed strongly on ownership’s thinking:
No one ever likes using injuries as an excuse, but the 2014 Giants have been decimated, with 20 players — including key players such as Victor Cruz, Jon Beason, Geoff Schwartz, Walter Thurmond III, Prince Amukamara and Rashad Jennings — sidelined either for all or significant stretches of the season. The drunken-sailor free-agent binge general manager Jerry Reese went on in the offseason has hardly paid dividends.
Coughlin is widely, if not universally, respected in the locker room and at the highest levels of the organization. He and Reese have enjoyed a healthy working relationship.
Coughlin — and Eli Manning — were asked to preside over the changing of offensive coordinators, from Kevin Gilbride to Ben McAdoo, who is calling plays for the first time in his version of the West Coast offense. Manning is growing more comfortable, and asking him to start over again with a new offense and new coordinator next season wouldn’t make sense. If the powers-that-be view McAdoo as a possible heir apparent, another season of working under Coughlin would only help his candidacy. Give them Odell Beckham Jr. and Cruz together on the field and get them another offensive lineman or two, and let it ride.
Coughlin is the only head coach Manning has played for, and he has told The Post he believes Coughlin remains the right man for the job.
Coughlin still has the fire in his belly and no one, now that 68 is the new 67, has seen a drop-off in his energy, passion or will to win.
The Giants have long reaped the benefits of stability and continuity, and Coughlin’s values remain treasured by the organization.
TOM MUST STAY is the right call.
Yes, he has missed the playoffs three straight seasons. But his voice is still being heard. His preparation isn’t the reason the Giants are 5-9. This isn’t about sentimentality. It’s about keeping a Hall of Fame coach where he belongs. Coughlin once wrote a book titled “A Team To Believe In.” The Giants still have A Coach They Believe In.
First-and-2015 for Tom Coughlin.The trade of Chicago Cubs outfielder Alfonso Soriano to the New York Yankees was finalized Friday after he officially waived his no-trade clause.
"It's a good day for me today to have the chance to put the uniform back on again," Soriano said after he went 0-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored in the Yankees' 10-6 loss to the Rays Friday night.
"This is a great organization, I played for (five years), to come back is an exciting moment for me."
Soriano batted cleanup and played left field for the Yankees in the first game of a three-game set against Tampa Bay at Yankee Stadium.
"We've obviously been trying to improve our offense this season, to no avail," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said. "By far, he was the best available bat to date."
Of the estimated $24.5 million Soriano is owed through the end of next season, the Cubs are going to pick up about $17.7 million and the Yankees will cover the remaining $6.8 million, sources told ESPN. Soriano is scheduled to make $18 million next season, $5 million of which will be paid by the Yankees, the sources said.
Major League Baseball had to approve the dollar exchange for the trade to go through. The Cubs will get Class A pitcher Corey Black from the Yankees.
Soriano is excited to join a team in a playoff race. The Yankees are 3½ games out of a wild-card spot.
"I'm happy that I have the opportunity to come back to New York, where I started my career," Soriano said. "I'm happy I can try to help the team to win and make the playoffs."
Yankees manager Joe Girardi said he will use Soriano in left field and as the designated hitter, and the outfielder will provide much-needed power from the right side. The Yankees last received a homer from a righty on June 25, courtesy of Jayson Nix.
"I hope it makes us better, a lot better," Girardi said. "You're able to split up your lefties a little bit, too, by putting him in the middle. Hopefully it helps our lineup."
Soriano, 37, began his career with the Yankees -- playing for them from 1999-2003 -- and was all smiles as he met with former and new teammates before the game. Soriano played with Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte during his previous stint with the team.
"It was great when I used to be with the Yankees," Soriano said Wednesday. "My best friend with the team is Jeter, and he's still there. Mariano is still there too. And me and [Robinson] Cano are good friends, too, because we're from the same town. I could feel very good with the Yankees because I've been part of the family before with them."
Soriano is batting.254 with 17 home runs and 51 RBIs this season and has heated up in July, with eight homers and 16 RBIs. He's 11 hits shy of 2,000 for his career and 11 home runs short of 400.
"He's played there before," injured Yankees outfielder Curtis Granderson said earlier in the day at the team's spring training complex in Tampa, Fla. "That's one thing that is a difficult thing to adjust to.
"You've got to come to New York and can you handle it, can you not? Obviously he had in the past."
Girardi added: "It's something he's very familiar with, and there are still people here he played with and he'll be comfortable. I think it's important. Sometimes it takes players some time to adjust coming in here, but it shouldn't be any issue with him."
Soriano will wear No. 12, which he wore in his final two seasons in New York. Vernon Wells, who had worn 12 this year, will be No. 22.
Mark Teixeira, who played with Soriano in Texas in 2004-05, likes the move.
"He's a great addition, one of my favorite teammates of all time," Teixeira said. "We had a great time together. He's happy. He's like Robinson Cano, one of those guys that's always happy. Loves playing the game. Incredible talent. I love the move."
Soriano never has played a regular-season game at the new Yankee Stadium. He did, however, hit a home run in his lone game at the ballpark -- in April 2009, when the Cubs played a pair of exhibition games at Yankee Stadium before the official opener.
"This is my house. I play here. I start my career [here]," Soriano said. "I think I have a great moment here with the Yankees and I'm happy when I play here, so that's why I come back here."
The Yankees also announced that outfielder Thomas Neal was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.Westbound is the second book from the makers of the Pure Steam Campaign Setting. Take your game westward with unique races, new classes, archetypes, gear, and western monsters, all perfect for a rootin’ tootin’ steampunk wild west adventure. The base funding will produce a premium quality, 230-page PDF and print version chock full of Steampunk Wild West goodness.
Pure Steam:
Our previous Kickstarter campaign brought Pure Steam to life. Pure Steam is an alternate history campaign setting which takes place in the age of steam. It presented two new base classes, the Gearhead, a tech 'wizard' whose contraptions can bring the power of science to bear; and the Chaplain, whose force of charisma can bolster allies and stifle foes.
Pure Steam presented new steam-themed equipment, weapons, vehicles, and monsters. It has truly become the definitive steampunk supplement for pathfinder. But it’s time to head west.
New Stuff:
In Westbound, you get everything you need to expand your game to the West.
New base classes like:
The Marshal, a lawkeeper whose jurisdiction grows with his renown.
The Savant, an intuitive contraption builder (think tech'sorcerer')
Wild West archetypes such as:
The Wrangler, who can outrope, outride, and outgun her foes
The Gaucho, crazy enough to bring a knife to a gunfight
The Gun Devotee, a gun-slinging monk who uses ki for deeds
There is expanded support for the Chaplain and Gearhead, like:
New Chaplain organizations
New Gearhead archetypes like the Arsenalist
Clockwork schematics - expanding your contraption capabilities with options like delayed activation and self-propulsion.
A bevy of new monsters like the sand troll, the loch satyr, and the eternal soul, all with stunning art.
New vehicles to span the desert, like the skiff and the ornithopter.
We’ve got a new gameplay soundtrack, too, to evoke the feel of the Ulleran West!
Premium Quality
What really sets Pure Steam and Westbound apart as a third-party offering is the quality. We’ve got a great team, including dynamite designers and writers, as well as artists--even down to our printer.
Just like it's predecessor, Westbound is fully compatible with Pathfinder RPG. The book has new races, classes, archetypes, equipment, monsters, factions, NPCs, and tons more!
Westbound will be at (and above) the same high quality mark we set with our first book, The Pure Steam Campaign Setting, which:
-has 4.5 stars across virtually every rating site available.
-is compared to Paizo-level quality in terms of content and production.
-is a SILVER best seller on DriveThruRPG!
-is THE definitive steampunk offering for Pathfinder RPG.
Why Back Westbound?
We have some great rewards for our backers, with benefits you won't get if you wait. For example, our PDF will launch at $20 retail, but backers can get a PDF for as low a pledge as $15, and that PDF will be delivered to backers well before it's commercially available. The same is true for the print copy, which you can snag for as low a pledge as $35 and ship to backers ahead of commercial release, and will retail for $40.
Of course, there are plenty of great rewards for folks who want to make an impression on the game. You can help design a faction in the game, or be made into a character or deity with artwork, stats, and story. Some reward levels can even get your character on the cover, AND have the potential of turning your character into a mini!
Pledge Add-Ons
We know there are some of you who are new to Pure Steam. Welcome aboard! To get you up to speed, we're offering backers some of our Pure Steam products at reduced rates. Simply increase your pledge amount by the amounts below and you'll tell us the add-ons you want in the post-funding backer survey. Digital add-ons require a minimum $15 base pledge, and physical add-ons require a minimum $50 base pledge.
Digital add-ons:
FREE - one month subscription to AdventureAWeek.com
$5 - Pure Steam original soundtrack
original soundtrack $5 - The Alchemist's Run novel ebook
novel ebook $5 - Pure Steam Campaign Setting cover art desktop background
cover art desktop background $5 - Westbound cover art desktop background
cover art desktop background $10 - Pure Steam Campaign Setting PDF
PDF $20 - ALL digital add-ons!
Physical add-ons:
$5 - Gearhead character mini
$5 - Ructioneer character mini
$5 - Each stretch goal character mini
$15 - Each stretch goal vehicle mini
$20 - Pure Steam Campaign Setting print copy
print copy $20 - Pure Steam T-Shirt
T-Shirt $25 - Revamped Pure Steam Campaign Setting stretch goal print copy
STRETCH GOALS!
If we hit $19,500, we'll level up the artwork in the book to premium full color. The base cost includes just enough funding for our stylized, B&W/sepia artwork inside (color cover) which looks great for the setting, but full color would be amazing!
At $23,500, we'll turn all five iconic characters from the cover into miniatures, each of which will be a $5 add-on for anyone receiving physical rewards ($8 for everyone else). Backers at $100+ will receive a single mini in their shipment for free, and at 500+ will receive all minis. Anyone who backs at the MARSHAL level will be an iconic character (on the cover and a mini). All other backers will be able to add minis to their rewards shipment as an affordable add-on.
At $29,500, Vehicle Minis! We'll kick off production of miniatures of two of our iconic vehicles. These will be in beautiful detail, and full playable scale (1in = 5ft). $500+ backers will receive one vehicle in their shipment. All other backers will be able to add a vehicle to their rewards shipment as an affordable add-on.
At $37,500, we're going to revamp, colorize, and reprint the original Pure Steam Campaign Setting. It'll be updated with all corrections and errata. We'll add in tons more art, and convert all the art to full color. The spine will get the case bind treatment. The revamped PDF will go to all backers backing at $15 and up. All $500+ backers will receive a print copy in their shipment. All other backers will be able to add a print copy to their rewards shipment as an affordable add-on.One of the Israeli government’s secrets to manipulating the American media has been revealed for the first time by new research.
Israel habitually launches its most unpopular and, sometimes, deadly attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to coincide with big news events here in the U.S., so that they don’t get too much public attention, according to the study.
The news management is so sophisticated that the Israeli government is especially good about avoiding damaging “follow-up” or “day two” stories about its attacks — stories most likely to include awkward human interest details about the casualties and their families.
So finds a study conducted by Ruben Durante, professor at Sciences Po in Paris, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, professor at the Paris School of Economics Read the study: Attack When the World is Not Watching? International Media and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
“We find that Israeli attacks are more likely to occur prior to days with very high news pressure driven by clearly predictable events.” Ruben Durante and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya
The findings aren’t just useful for those following the news from the Middle East, but are fascinating for students of marketing, manipulation and propaganda everywhere — from politics to business.
The researchers looked at Israel’s military interventions in Palestine over an 11-year period, from 2000 to 2011, and then compared them to what was going on in the news at the time. That included looking at whether there was big other news, and whether that other news was scheduled — such as, say, the Super Bowl — or unscheduled, such as an earthquake or tsunami or plane crash somewhere in the world.
“We find that Israeli attacks are more likely to occur prior to days with very high news pressure driven by clearly predictable events,” they found. There were statistically significant upticks in Israeli military action in the West Bank and Gaza Strip before big holidays or sporting events, but not before things that the Israeli military could not anticipate.
Too cynical? Maybe — or, maybe not. Bibi Netanyahu, who was just re-elected as Israeli prime minister after a stunning last-minute rally, boasted as long ago as 2001 about Israel’s ability to play American public opinion.
“I know what America is,” Netanyahu boasted during a meeting that was caught on camera. “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.” You don’t, he told his listeners, have to worry about Americans forming their own opinions about the conflict in the Middle East.
Netanyahu is so good at this that he is able to come to the U.S. to chastise the sitting president, even while billing the U.S. taxpayers $3 billion a year for military aid.
In the days following 9/11 of 2001, when the rest of the world was transfixed by the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the Israeli government under Ariel Sharon seized the chance to send tanks into the West Bank, and attack helicopters into Gaza.
The government of Israel didn’t invent this technique. Most marketing techniques are as old as the hills. Back in 1994 Silvio Berlusconi took advantage of Italy going through to the final of the soccer World Cup to push through an unpopular decree that was designed to save corrupt politicians from jail. In 2008 Russia timed its invasion of Georgia to coincide with the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing.
So if you’ve got some bad news to dump on the public, your first move is to check the calendar. After all, the public can only pay attention to so many things at once. Playing this game is easy once you know how.
Want news about Asia delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Asia Daily newsletter. Sign up here.Members of French special police forces of the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI) are seen near a raid zone in Saint-Denis, near Paris, France, November 18, 2015 during an operation to catch fugitives from Friday night's deadly attacks in the French capital. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
By Michel Rose and Philip Blenkinsop
PARIS/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - An investigation into the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris widened on Tuesday when French prosecutors said a man who provided lodging to the suspected ringleader must have known of a terrorist plot, and Belgium issued a warrant for a new suspect
Painting a chilling picture of ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Paris prosecutor said that after dropping off the gunmen and suicide bombers at the cafes and bars where the attacks were to take place he had later returned to the scene while the killing spree was in full swing.
The coordinated attacks, in which 130 people were killed, prompted France to declare a national state of emergency and to step up air strikes in Syria on Islamic State, the militant group which has claimed responsibility.
President Francois Hollande, who is trying to rally global support for the military campaign against Islamic State, won the support of U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday during a whistlestop visit to Washington.
In Paris, prosecutor Francois Molins said Islamist militants who died during a shootout with police on Nov. 18 had been plotting an attack on the capital's business district. Reuters exclusively reported the plot to attack the district of La Defense on Nov. 18.
Molins said he had put under formal investigation a Frenchman who had provided lodging for Abaaoud and his associates at the apartment in the suburb of St. Denis targeted in the shootout.
"Jawad Bendaoud himself welcomed the terrorists on Nov. 17 towards 22.45 pm. He could not have been in any doubt... that he was taking part in a terrorist organization," Molins told a news conference.
Bendaoud said before he was detained by police last Wednesday that he had been asked to put up two people for three days in the apartment, but that he had no idea one of them may have been the suspected mastermind of the Nov. 13 attacks.
Abaaoud died during the police raid along with Hasna Aitboulahcen, a woman believed to be his cousin, and an as yet unidentified third person.
BRUSSELS LOCKDOWN
French investigators are still piecing together exactly who did what when and have launched a hunt to find Salah Abdeslam, who is suspected of being the eighth attacker mentioned by Islamic State when it claimed responsibility.
Abdeslam, 26, fled to Belgium the day after the shootings and his presumed presence in Brussels was one of the factors behind a security lockdown in the city over the past few days.
Fearing an imminent Paris-style attack, Belgium has extended a maximum security alert in Brussels until next Monday. About half the stations on its metro system will re-open on Wednesday along with city schools, but 300 more police officers and 200 soldiers will be deployed.
Belgium has been at the heart of investigations into the attacks since France said two of the suicide bombers in Paris had lived there. Five people, including two who traveled with Abdeslam back to Brussels, have been charged with terrorist offences in Belgium. Abdeslam's brother Brahim blew himself up.
Belgium's state prosecutor, in a statement announcing details of other people charged in the case, said on Tuesday it had issued an international arrest warrant for Mohamed Abrini, who was seen with Abdeslam two days before the attacks.
Abrini, 30, was filmed with Abdeslam at a fuel station in northern France on Nov. 11 and was driving the Renault Clio car that was later used by the attackers in the French capital.
An accompanying police wanted poster described Abrini as "dangerous and probably armed".
While major shopping centres in Brussels remained closed on Tuesday, two Ikea furniture stores on the edge of town reopened, along with some of the larger supermarkets in the city.
The Magritte museum remained shut, however, and Brussels had yet to decide whether to open its Christmas market on Friday in the historic Grand Place, where workers have set up stalls with an armored personnel carrier in the background.
"We are at the time of year when we are supposed to have a lot of people, and increase business," said Brussels toy shop worker Laeticia Shalaj. "People are scared and are afraid of leaving their homes."
Since the Paris killings, France has moved its flagship Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier into the eastern Mediterranean to step up its bombardments of Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq.Matthew McGrory (May 17, 1973 – August 8, 2005) was an American actor, known for his great height. He held the Guiness World Records title for tallest actor, biggest feet and longest toe.[1][2]
Early life [ edit ]
McGrory was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, the son of Maureen, a homemaker, and George McGrory, an accountant.[3][4] He studied pre-law at Widener University. He also studied Criminal Justice at West Chester University. McGrory grew to the height of 7 ft 6 in (2.29 m) and had size 29.5 shoes.[5] He was over five feet (1.5 m) tall by the time he completed kindergarten.[6]
Career [ edit ]
McGrory's large size led to appearances on The Howard Stern Show[7] beginning in December 1996[8][9] as a member of Stern's Wack Pack. He also appeared on Oprah Winfrey's daytime talk show and in music videos including Iron Maiden's "The Wicker Man" and the 1999 Marilyn Manson "Coma White"[10] (and God is in the TV VHS cover). He can also be seen in Blondie's video for their 2003 hit "Good Boys."
Due to his height and deep voice, he was in demand to play roles in movies[10] cast as a giant – he did so in films such as Bubble Boy (2001), Big Fish (2003), House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and The Devil's Rejects (2005). Television appearances included Malcolm in the Middle, Charmed, and Carnivàle.
Death [ edit ]
He lived in Sherman Oaks, California, with his girlfriend Melissa. On August 8, 2005, McGrory died at age 32 of heart failure.[5]
Rob Zombie's film The Devil's Rejects was dedicated to him.[11]
Filmography [ edit ]Marsh, Hastings steer Aussies to victory
Kane Richardson has been ruled out of the final Chappell-Hadlee ODI against New Zealand with back soreness, and Western Australian quick Joel Paris will be parachuted into the team.
Richardson was a late withdrawal from Saturday's second ODI, replaced before the toss by Victorian Scott Boland.
An update from Cricket Australia this morning said Richardson continued to suffer back pain and would return to Australia today "for further investigation into the issue".
1/3 Kane Richardson's back pain hasn't subsided sufficiently to take part in the final ODI in Hamilton tomorrow night. — Cricket Australia (@CAComms) February 6, 2016
2/3 He will return home today for further investigation into the issue. — Cricket Australia (@CAComms) February 6, 2016
3/3 Joel Paris will join the squad in Auckland as cover for the final match. — Cricket Australia (@CAComms) February 6, 2016
Australia tied the Chappell-Hadlee series at 1-1 with a four-wicket win in Wellington on Saturday. The third and final match will be played in Hamilton tomorrow, Monday being a public holiday in New Zealand for the nation's Waitangi Day celebrations.
Paris had been with WA's Sheffield Shield squad in Lincoln, where he took 4-37 in the second innings with the red ball as NSW held on for a draw.
Paris made his ODI debut at the WACA in this summer's VB ODI series against India, and also played the second game in Brisbane.
WATCH: Paris claims maiden ODI wicket
Wicketless in eight overs in his debut match, he claimed the scalp of India opener Shikhar Dhawan in Brisbane with his second delivery.
Paris was also the bowler who delivered a bouncer that jagged back off the Bert Sutcliffe Oval surface catching Ed Cowan on the helmet. The NSW opener was felled by the blow but quickly recovered, but was ruled out of the match under CA's concussion guidelines.
WATCH: Paris picks up a second-innings 4-37 in Lincoln
For Richardson, he faces an anxious wait to determine the extent of his back injury with Australia set to announce their World T20 squad later this week.
Richardson was diagnosed with a back 'hot spot' while playing for Australia A in 2013. In 2014, he was also sidelined during an ODI tri-series in Zimbabwe.
"I've always had things like this as a kid and it's one of those things if the physio gives you the all clear you go for it," Richardson said at the time.
The South Australian quick's injury trouble adds another headache for selectors already grappling with injuries to T20 skipper Aaron Finch and pivotal allrounder James Faulkner, who both have hamstring issues.
Boland, Richardson's replacement in Wellington, was despactched for six back over his head from his first ball. His second delivery, however, removed the off bail from Brendon McCullum's stumps.
He finished with 2-61 from his ten overs, his best return of his fledgling international career that has so far yielded 3-320 at 106.66 in five matches.
Victorian quick James Pattinson is now also with the squad in New Zealand, having been withdrawn early from the Commonwealth Bank Bushrangers Sheffield Shield game against Tasmania at the MCG, and indicated his willingness to play an ODI. But that option has been ruled out by CA, with Pattinson instructed to focus on red-ball bowling and the first Test against New Zealand in Wellington starting February 12.Recently I’ve been trying to find new ways to incorporate vegetables into my diet. Don’t get me wrong, I love meat and chicken, and I’m definitely not trying to go veggie crazy, but I realized it would probably be good to shake things up a bit. As |
people removed products, including those made by the Coca Cola company, from the shelves of Sainsbury’s supermarket in west Belfast.
Many held aloft banners and flags, shouting 'Free Palestine'.
The footage was published by Seosamh O Bradaigh.
The clip has already received a huge amount of attention through social media.
Elsewhere, last week leading supermarket chain SuperValu has confirmed it ordered all stores to remove Israeli carrots from their shelves in the Republic.
Despite insisting it has not enforced a boycott of goods from the country, an email instruction was sent to all 232 stores last Friday saying the Chantenay variety must not be sold.
SuperValu denied it was imposing a formal ban against Israeli goods in its shops.
In a statement, it said: "SuperValu is not involved in a boycott of Israeli produce and ultimately consumers will make their own purchasing decisions.
"We understand that this is an emotive issue. However, we have a policy of not taking a position on international affairs."
Belfast Telegraph DigitalBy Sarah Jaffe
This story is part of Sarah Jaffe's new series, Interviews for Resistance, in which she speaks with organizers, troublemakers and thinkers who are doing the hard work of fighting back against America's corporate and political powers.
Last week in Washington, DC, members of American Indian tribes and their supporters demonstrated against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The protest was led in part by members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, who have been battling the U.S. government for almost a year over the oil pipeline, which they say will contaminate their drinking water and has destroyed sacred sites in North Dakota.
In this edited interview, Jaffe speaks with Kandi Mossett of the Indigenous Environmental Network about the march last week and what's next in the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline, as well as other pipeline projects. (The full interview is available in the audio above and online at TruthOut.org). Mossett is a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, which has been active in the Standing Rock protests since August.
Sarah Jaffe: Last week, there was a march on Washington and an encampment. Can you tell us about that?
Kandi Mossett: The Native Nations Rise march came out of the Standing Rock camps and what was happening in North Dakota. When we started planning, we didn't know what was going to happen at the camp—it was prior to the forced removal. But we thought something bad might happen, so we wanted to make sure that we were following up with something positive and with the next steps. Then, the camps were raided and it was a really horrible.
When we were all together in DC last week it was like a family reunion. It really lifted up everyone's spirits because what we did at Standing Rock was much more than just a physical encampment. It has been ongoing for over 500 years. It is about sustainability and not continuing to take from the Earth without ever giving anything back.
We held a four-day event with a tepee encampment that included lobby visits, speaking, panels and performances. We had originally been expecting maybe 500 people to make it to DC for the march. When it was all said and done, there were at least 5,000 people at the march with us on Friday.
It was a great success and it will lead people to protest against all the other pipeline sites. The Dakota Access Pipeline encampment, all of that was a result of the success we had with Keystone XL. We now have Keystone XL back on because of Donald Trump, but people are going back to Keystone XL to continue to fight that.
There are already other camps. There is a camp in South Dakota near the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. There are people also going to the Two Rivers Camp in Texas to fight against the Trans-Pecos pipeline, which is also owned by Energy Transfer Partners.
To continue to fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline, a lot of people are going to Louisiana, where a camp is being set up against the Bayou Bridge pipeline. That one will connect to the Dakota Access Pipeline in Illinois so that the oil can continue to go down to Port Arthur, Texas, where it will be refined and shipped to foreign markets. It is all part of the same project. A lot of people didn't understand that until they went to DC and made the connection that we need to continue to fight.
In addition, we are arranging toxic tours and having people visit North Dakota to view the Bakken oil shale formation, so they can see where the oil is coming from and help push for more fracking bans and moratoriums.
We have the economy on our side. As we have been saying all along, the price of oil has been dropping. There is going to be a slight increase in 2017, but not what [Energy Transfer Partners] have been touting. For the last two years they have been telling oil industry folks, "Wait until 2017 when everything is going to be great again." We know that is not true.
But we still have to continue to fight back, because there is a massive new shale oil formation that was recently discovered in Texas. While it will take the pressure off of North Dakota, the problem is just going somewhere else. In the big picture, that doesn't help any of us. That is why I really want to go to the Two Rivers Camp in Texas.
We are going to build the Mní Wičóni Sustained Native Community, but we did have a delay with everything that happened. Community members there are really tired of the militarized police force and different non-Bureau of Indian Affairs officers now that are on the reservation because of cross-deputization and jurisdiction. The project is still fully funded and we're continuing to have educational forums about it. It is what we had always talked about, leaving something behind for the Standing Rock community, their children and future generations.
Sarah Jaffe: I want to go back to the forced removal from Standing Rock. A lot of people were closely paying attention around the election and then the election took everybody's attention away, so people don't really know the story of the removal. Could you give us a little bit more background?
Kandi Mossett: What happened was the state waged a really good campaign—for themselves, it wasn't good for us—to cause division between the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the people at the camps. They did that by blocking the bridge on Highway 1806, which caused casino revenue to drop significantly because a lot of people would go from Bismarck down to the Prairie Knights Casino. It also forced ambulances to go around to get up the hospital because they couldn't take Highway 1806 to Bismarck.
Because of the fight at Standing Rock a lot of the hidden racism that was always there in North Dakota—I grew up there, I always experienced it—became more blatant because of the actions that were being done in Bismarck to say, "Look, this is affecting you, too. Of all the people, you in Bismarck should care the most because you didn't want this either." But it pulled out the racism. School children were getting harassed and they actually had to have escorts follow them to their basketball games because whether or not the children said anything about the pipeline fight, they would get harassed by the other kids and their parents.
All of these things were causing further division amongst the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe community and people in the camp. There were a lot of really well-meaning, non-Native people that came to stay in the camp and there were a lot of different things that were happening in the camp … The camp became infiltrated with people that were working for the police, people that were working for the Dakota Access Pipeline and people that were working as private mercenaries. Even right now, there is a "terrorism" FBI task force that is basically harassing some of the water protectors. There are three of us that we know of for sure that are being investigated by the FBI Terrorism Taskforce.
But what the press really glommed onto was "These water protectors are polluting and destroying the river by being there." They took all of the attention away from the fact that there is an oil pipeline with carcinogenic materials running through it and said we were polluting the river. That caused further division that made it really hard for us because it was like, "How can the media twist or spin this anymore than they already were before?"
We were cleaning up for two or three weeks and then, when we were forcibly removed, we had to stop because they were like, "Get out of here." Then, they said, "We had to clean this. It is all their fault." It is like, "You forced us out at gunpoint." All of that led up to the police, fully geared up with rifles, machine guns and tanks, that came out against unarmed water protectors. They had made it sound like they were going to find weapons or something. But the Sheriff of Morton County, Kyle Kirchmeier, put out a report that said, "We did not find any weapons in the camp." We thought, "Of course you didn't! We have been saying this all along." On my on Facebook page I was teasing them saying, "Did they find my stash of snowballs?" because that was one of the things they complained about, that people threw snowballs at them with their machine guns pointed at us.
The whole point is that all of this still exists in this country. It really woke up the country. In fact, it woke up the world to see that the U.S. isn't just one almighty entity against the rest of the world but that we are broken down into factions within our own country. It is founded on a legacy of taking, pillaging of native lands for the gain of capitalism and colonization. Other countries were on board with us and were standing with Standing Rock.
How do we continue that fight on? It is to say: No more fossil fuel industry anywhere in the world. Do not allow the U.S. to be the bully it has been. It is really ridiculous that all of these other countries are on board with changing their energy systems and their transportation systems and yet, the U.S. keeps holding on to oil, gas, coal and uranium. It negatively affects other countries because of that need or that greed for the fossil fuel industry.
Sarah Jaffe: How can people keep up with these different camps and with the movement and be supportive?
Kandi Mossett: Even if people can't go to a camp they can support the defund campaign and the divestment campaign. We have DefundDAPL.org, which shows you the 17 banks that are directly funding these projects. No matter who people bank with, we are asking them to take their money out of big banks and put them into their local credit unions to bring power back to their communities and away from corporate interests.
Standing Rock showed people, "Oh, we do actually have a lot of power. We didn't realize it." We are encouraging people to fight against the Trump administration's push for fossil fuel resources. We want people to do that by having community gardens and local community education events on how to live more sustainably. If that means not having strawberries in December, depending on where you live, then so be it. Food sovereignty and transportation systems are all tied into it.
Another layer in addition to doing grassroots work is to get involved in politics. I know that is hard for some people because they hate it. I used to hate politics myself because I felt like politicians didn't represent me. They won't represent you unless you make your voice heard in your town, community and state.
In North Dakota we are battling against all of these ridiculous laws—for example, they are trying to ban wind projects for two years so they can bring back coal projects. I have to talk to my family and say, "Here is a letter for you. Just sign it." You have to do whatever it takes to get people involved and aware of the issues in your own communities. We have to make a political impact. If that is not good enough, then people should run for office if they want to make change.
Interviews for Resistance is a project of Sarah Jaffe, with assistance from Laura Feuillebois and support from the Nation Institute. It is also available as a podcast. Not to be reprinted without permission. Reposted with permission from our media associate BillMoyers.com.To help you get started with the latest GDELT collection of 3.5 million digitized historical English language books published from 1800-2015 from the Internet Archive and HathiTrust collections, we've included a selection of SQL queries below to show you how to work with the collection in Google BigQuery. Remember that since all of the books were processed using the same GDELT Global Knowledge Graph 2.0 system that we use for daily news articles, all of the BigQuery examples from our Google BigQuery + GKG 2.0: Sample Queries tutorial work here as well, just by changing the FROM field to the following:
Internet Archive: FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:internetarchivebooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(d{4})") BETWEEN "1800" AND "2015"'))
FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:internetarchivebooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(d{4})") BETWEEN "1800" AND "2015"')) HathiTrust: FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:hathitrustbooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(d{4})") BETWEEN "1800" AND "2015"'))
In particular, check out the tutorial for making network diagrams with Gephi the sample queries. Just as a reminder, here are the direct links to the two BigQuery datasets for the Internet Archive and HathiTrust datasets processed by GDELT:
SIMPLE TIMELINES
Here's a simple timeline query to count how many books are in the Internet Archive collection by year:
select DATE,count(1) FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:internetarchivebooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(\d{4})") BETWEEN "1800" AND "2015"')) group by DATE order by date
To modify this to count only the number of books by year from 1810 to 1850, you would modify the FROM field like this:
select DATE,count(1) FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:internetarchivebooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(\d{4})") BETWEEN "1810" AND "1850"')) group by DATE order by date
And to count the number of books by year in the HathiTrust collection instead, you would modify the FROM field again like this:
select DATE,count(1) FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:hathitrustbooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(\d{4})") BETWEEN "1800" AND "2015"')) group by DATE order by date
To estimate the number of likely US Government publications by year in HathiTrust, use this query, which looks for common author and publisher values highly indicative of US Government publications:
select DATE,count(1) FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:hathitrustbooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(\d{4})") BETWEEN "1800" AND "2015"')) where BookMeta_Publisher like '%Washington%' or BookMeta_CorporateAuthor like '%United States%' or BookMeta_CorporateAuthor like '%U.S.%' or BookMeta_CorporateAuthor like '%National%' group by DATE order by date
To count the total number of unique Title+Author combinations by year in HathiTrust as a simple naive measure of the number of unique works by year:
select DATE,count(distinct(concat( IFNULL(BookMeta_Title,""), IFNULL(BookMeta_Author,""),IFNULL(BookMeta_CorporateAuthor,"") ))) FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:hathitrustbooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(\d{4})") BETWEEN "1800" AND "2015"')) group by DATE order by date
Note the use of the IFNULL() construction within the COUNT(DISTINCT()) – this is because without it, if any of the fields are NULL (such as Corporate Author), then the entire CONCAT() becomes NULL, so this protects the CONCAT() and ensures it has a valid value regardless of whether Title, Author, or CorporateAuthor fields are NULL.
PERSON/ORGANIZATION/THEME HISTOGRAMS
To make a histogram of the top person or organization names identified by GDELT's algorithms from all Internet Archive books published from 1800 to 1820 you would use this query:
SELECT person, COUNT(*) as count FROM ( select UNIQUE(REGEXP_REPLACE(SPLIT(V2Persons,';'), r',.*', "")) person FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:internetarchivebooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(\d{4})") BETWEEN "1800" AND "1820"')) ) group by person ORDER BY count DESC limit 10000
You should get a list like this:
Row person count 1 Jesus Christ 6686 2 Queen Elizabeth 3465 3 Christ Jesus 3035 4 King James 2524 5 Virgin Mary 2504 6 Queen Anne 2225 7 King Charles 2006 8 King William 1956 9 Isaac Newton 1913 10 Queen Mary 1869 11 Julius Caesar 1747 12 William Jones 1601 13 Oliver Cromwell 1592 14 King John 1442 15 King Henry 1404 16 King Edward 1334
Note the emphasis on religious persons and English leaders like Jesus Christ and Queen Elizabeth. To repeat the query for books published 1900 to 1920, you would just modify the FROM clause:
SELECT person, COUNT(*) as count FROM ( select UNIQUE(REGEXP_REPLACE(SPLIT(V2Persons,';'), r',.*', "")) person FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:internetarchivebooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(\d{4})") BETWEEN "1900" AND "1920"')) ) group by person ORDER BY count DESC limit 10000
This time the list includes more American leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. You will also find some false positives in the list like Los Angeles due to OCR error confusing the algorithms.
To repeat this analysis, but for HathiTrust books published 1800-1810, just modify the FROM clause again:
SELECT person, COUNT(*) as count FROM ( select UNIQUE(REGEXP_REPLACE(SPLIT(V2Persons,';'), r',.*', "")) person FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:hathitrustbooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(\d{4})") BETWEEN "1800" AND "1820"')) ) group by person ORDER BY count DESC limit 10000
The list should not be too different from the one you received from Internet Archive books, but with a few subtle differences reflecting the slightly different compositions of the two collections.
BOOK METADATA HISTOGRAMS
Most of the BookMeta_* fields use semicolons to delimit multiple entries. Thus, to find the top subject tags for Internet Archive books published 1855-1875:
SELECT subject, COUNT(*) as count FROM ( select UNIQUE(SPLIT(BookMeta_Subjects,';')) subject FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:internetarchivebooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(\d{4})") BETWEEN "1855" AND "1875"')) ) group by subject ORDER BY 2 DESC LIMIT 300
You should get results that look like:
Row subject count 1 null 59121 2 Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 2079 3 Bible 1515 4 Hymns, English 1205 5 Slavery 940 6 Slavery — United States 703 7 United States — Politics and government 1861-1865 683 8 Science 642 9 bub_upload 614 10 Presidents 585
Note the high number of NULL results for books that did not have any library-provided subject tags. For those books with subject tags, Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and US Politics predictably dominate these two decades, which center on the American Civil War.
MAPPING BOOKS
Using the example of the American Civil War, the query below filters to all Internet Archive books published between 1855 and 1875 that contain a library-provided subject tag that contains any of the phrases "Civil War", "Lincoln", "Slavery", "Confedera" (matches Confederacy, Confederate, etc), "Antislavery", or "Reconstruction". All geographic locations mentioned anywhere in the text of the books is compiled and those locations appearing in at least 4 books and 4 times overall are kept, with their latitude and longitude rounded to three decimals.
select lat,long, cnt, numbooks from ( SELECT lat,long, COUNT(*) as cnt, count(distinct(BookMeta_Identifier)) as numbooks FROM ( select BookMeta_Identifier, ROUND(FLOAT(REGEXP_EXTRACT(SPLIT(V2Locations,';'),r'^[2-5]#.*?#.*?#.*?#.*?#(.*?)#.*?#')),3) as lat, ROUND(FLOAT(REGEXP_EXTRACT(SPLIT(V2Locations,';'),r'^[2-5]#.*?#.*?#.*?#.*?#.*?#(.*?)#')),3) AS long FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:internetarchivebooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(\d{4})") BETWEEN "1855" AND "1875"')) where BookMeta_Subjects like '%Civil War%' or BookMeta_Subjects like '%Lincoln%' or BookMeta_Subjects like '%Slavery%' or BookMeta_Subjects like '%Confedera%' or BookMeta_Subjects like '%Antislavery%' or BookMeta_Subjects like '%Reconstruction%' ) where lat is not null and long is not null and abs(lat) < 80 and (abs(lat) > 0 or abs(long) > 0) group by lat,long ) where cnt > 4 and numbooks > 4 ORDER BY cnt DESC
The output of this can be saved as a CSV and imported directly into CartoDB to create the map below of the locations most frequently mentioned in books about the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and Reconstruction. Note that this map displays every single location worldwide mentioned anywhere in any of these books, so you will see a small selection of locations outside the United States and not associated with these subjects on the map. However, overall you will notice the map focuses extensively on the areas of the United States involved in these topics.
Imagine that – a single line of SQL and just 3.5 seconds later you have a CSV file that, with CartoDB and a few additional mouseclicks, gives you a map of the American Civil War through the eyes of 7,715 books published over the twenty years surrounding the war.
Now let's switch to the HathiTrust dataset and map all books published from 1900 to 1920 with the library-provided subject tag "World War", which refers to World War I:
select lat,long, cnt, numbooks from ( SELECT lat,long, COUNT(*) as cnt, count(distinct(BookMeta_Identifier)) as numbooks FROM ( select BookMeta_Identifier, ROUND(FLOAT(REGEXP_EXTRACT(SPLIT(V2Locations,';'),r'^[2-5]#.*?#.*?#.*?#.*?#(.*?)#.*?#')),3) as lat, ROUND(FLOAT(REGEXP_EXTRACT(SPLIT(V2Locations,';'),r'^[2-5]#.*?#.*?#.*?#.*?#.*?#(.*?)#')),3) AS long FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:hathitrustbooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(\d{4})") BETWEEN "1900" AND "1920"')) where BookMeta_Subjects like '%World War%' ) where lat is not null and long is not null and abs(lat) < 80 and (abs(lat) > 0 or abs(long) > 0) group by lat,long ) where cnt >= 10 and numbooks >= 10 ORDER BY cnt DESC limit 13000
The 13,684 books with this subject tag generate a lot more hits than the Civil War dataset, so we increase our cutoff threshold and also limit ourselves to the first 13,000 results so that BigQuery will still allow us to download as a CSV file instead of having to export as a table and then export through GCS. The final map looks like this:
EMOTIONAL TIMELINES
For those more interested in tracing emotions over time, the query below shows how to graph the average intensity of a given emotion over time. If we look at the GCAM Codebook, we find that the ANEW Valence score for each book is stored as value "v19.1", which we can extract with the following query:
SELECT DATE, sum(integer(REGEXP_EXTRACT(GCAM, r'wc:(\d+)'))) wordcount,avg(float(REGEXP_EXTRACT(GCAM, r'v19.1:([-\d.]+)'))) emot FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:internetarchivebooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(\d{4})") BETWEEN "1800" AND "2015"')) group by DATE
This yields the following timeline, where higher numbers represent more positive language used in books published that year, while lower numbers indicate greater negativity. Of course, the ANEW dictionary was designed for modern language use, so it may not accurately capture the emotional connotations of the English language of 200 years ago, but within those boundaries, the graph presents some intriguing results. Tone is relatively stable through the onset of the American Civil War in 1860, recovering by its end in 1866, then restabilizing through the turn of the new century, dropping sharply during the First and Second World Wars, and decreasing steadily through 1961, before rebounding sharply starting in the 1990's as the Archive's composition shifts to materials like university student newspapers, yearbooks, and other promotional materials.
FULL TEXT SEARCH
Finally, for those interested in examining the fulltext itself, the BookMeta_FullText field contains the fulltext of all Internet Archive books published from 1800 to 1922, inclusive. All carriage returns have been removed and hypenated words that were split across lines have been reconstructed.
NOTE that the complete fulltext of all Internet Archive books over these 122 years reaches nearly half a terabyte, so a single query across the entire fulltext collection will use up nearly half your monthly Google BigQuery free quote, so work with the fulltext field SPARINGLY.
Here is a simple example that shows how to construct a single-word ngram histogram for all Internet Archive books published in the year 1800. It consumes 550MB of your BigQuery quota and takes just 23 seconds to execute. It first converts the text to lowercase, then uses a simple naive regular expression to convert all non-letter characters to spaces, then splits on spaces into single words and finally generates a histogram of all words appearing more than 10 times total. Imagine that – a single line of SQL and 23 seconds later and you have a full-fledged single-word ngram histogram for books published in the year 1800!
select word, count FROM ( select word, count(*) as count FROM ( SELECT SPLIT(REGEXP_REPLACE(LOWER(BookMeta_FullText),'[^a-z]',''),'') as word FROM (TABLE_QUERY([gdelt-bq:internetarchivebooks], 'REGEXP_EXTRACT(table_id, r"(\d{4})") BETWEEN "1800" AND "1800"')) ) group by word ) where count > 10 order by count desc
The queries above represent just a minute sampling of what is possible with these two datasets and we are so enormously excited to see what you're able to do!Johan Larsson and Simon Engstrand followed a team of female CS:GO players during Copenhagen Games, to give some exposure to a minority within the esports community.
The resulting documentary, called ”Equal Gaming”, has now won first prize at a film festival in Sweden.
– It’s a recognition that even people who are not into esports thought the movie was good, he says.
The idea to make a movie about a female esports team came from Simon Engstrand. As a long time CS-player, he didn’t understand why organizers arranged separate tournaments for men and women.
– I thought it was a strange phenomenon to split people up and reading the debates online made me non the wiser, so I felt I wanted to view the issue from different perspectives and I thought that it would be good if others could do it as well.
”Our goal was to create a debate”
Along with Johan Larsson, a fellow student, he set out to create what would become ”Equal Gaming”, a 23 minute documentary about Team TacTix and their journey to Copenhagen Games. Now, the movie has won first prize at the Vasterbotten Amateur Film Festival in Umea, Sweden.
– It feels great and kind of unexpected since the movie we competed with is a cut down version which I this is worse than the Youtube version. But it’s a recognition that even people who are not into esports thought the movie was good.
What kind of reactions have you received after the movie was released?
– Part of our goal was to create a debate. If you look in forums and comment fields there are lots and lots of opinions so that has turned out as we wanted it. Regarding the message in the movie we’ve received tons of different reactions, but it’s fun to see people talking about it.
”It’s a very complex issue”
During the creating of the movie he personally learned a lot about what keeps women out of esports a lot of times.
– I feel I recognize why the women want to compete separately. People tell them ”come and play” but they don’t feel welcome. The main problem is that there are too few women in the scene, and I think that goes hand in hand with them not feeling welcome. It’s a very complex issue with lots of things to discuss, but one thing that could really make a difference is getting more women involved in esports.
”Equal Gaming” is now being shown during Umea European Film Festival, and Engstrand is thinking about more projects involving esports.
– I have some ideas I want to follow through that I think could be really good.Fairfax, Va.— On behalf of its five-million members, the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) today applauded the introduction of S. 446, The Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017, sponsored by Senator John Cornyn (TX).
“The current patchwork of state and local gun laws is confusing and can cause the most conscientious and law-abiding gun owner to run afoul of the law when they are traveling or temporarily living away from home,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA-ILA. “Senator Cornyn’s legislation provides a much needed solution to a real problem for law-abiding gun owners.”
S. 446 would eliminate the confusing patchwork of state carry laws by allowing individuals who possess concealed carry permits from their home state or who are not prohibited from carrying concealed in their home state to exercise those rights in any other state that does not prohibit concealed carry.
This legislation would not override state laws governing the time, place or manner of carriage or establish national standards for concealed carry. Individual state gun laws would still be respected. If under federal law a person is prohibited from carrying a firearm, they will continue to be prohibited from doing so under this bill.
“Law-abiding citizens should be able to exercise their fundamental right to self-defense while traveling across state lines,” continued Cox. “We thank Senator Cornyn for his leadership on this important issue.”
Concealed Carry Facts:
Every state in our nation recognizes the right of residents to lawfully carry a concealed handgun in public for self-defense – a right that more than 15 million Americans now exercise.
America’s experience with concealed carry demonstrates that the repeated anti-gun claim that concealed carry increases violence is factually incorrect. The available evidence shows that concealed carry licensees are exceptionally law- abiding.
National reciprocity is already a reality in the 22 states that recognize all other concealed carry licenses or allow law-abiding non-residents to carry a firearm without a license.
Only ten states still refuse to grant full faith and credit to the permits of other states, forcing lawful concealed carriers to surrender their rights when traveling through these jurisdictions. The consequence is obvious, as otherwise law-abiding citizens – including veterans, a single mother, a disaster response worker, a nurse and medical school student, and even a corrections officer – have become accidental criminals and suffered seizure of property, arrest, detention, and even prosecution because they failed to navigate the legal minefield that is the current state reciprocity system.
The bill recognizes the diversity of state concealed carry laws by making each person subject to the concealed carry laws of the state where they are present, including certain places off-limits to firearms and laws governing the defensive use of force. It merely allows out-of-state permittees to concealed carry the same way in-state residents already do.BARCELONA (Reuters) - Fernando Alonso’s imminent retirement from Formula One is a real possibility, world champion Lewis Hamilton said, adding that he hoped the Spaniard would decide to carry on.
Belgium Formula One - F1 - Belgian Grand Prix 2016 - Francorchamps, Belgium - 27/8/16 - McLaren's Fernando Alonso of Spain during the final practice session. REUTERS/Yves Herman
Former double champion Alonso produced one of the surprises in Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix by jumping from 22nd on the grid to finish seventh but on the whole has endured another miserable campaign since returning to McLaren.
In an interview with Spanish newspaper AS published on Monday, Hamilton called Alonso “one of the best drivers of all time” but admitted his former team mate could quit the sport.
Asked if the Spaniard retiring was a “real possibility”, Hamilton said: “Of course it is. He’s 35 and he’s already earned enough money. He has won enough races, he has enough experience and he doesn’t need Formula One to be someone anymore.”
Nevertheless, Hamilton said he hoped the Spaniard would go on. His contract with McLaren expires at the end of the 2017 campaign.
“If he quit next year and I couldn’t race against him again, that would be a shame, a real shame,” Hamilton said.
“It wouldn’t be good for this sport and it would send out the wrong message. Formula One would not be the same if Alonso didn’t continue.
“I still think he is one of the best drivers around, I’ve always said that,” added Hamilton, who is bidding to win a third consecutive world title this season to add to his first triumph in 2008.
“I really hope McLaren can make him a car that would allow him to win again, and so I can compete against him again.”
Alonso is 11th in the drivers’ standings on 30 points, 202 behind current leader Hamilton and has not achieved a podium finish since 2014. He had a serious crash in the Australian Grand Prix in March.
Alonso has previously brushed off suggestions that he could retire and in April reacted angrily to Sky Sports Formula One pundit Johnny Herbert telling him he should quit.
Last Thursday in Spa, however, the Spaniard floated the idea of ending his 15-year career in the sport next year due to recent changes in the sport’s regulations.
“I think if the cars are fun to drive, I will probably stay longer and drive more years in Formula One, and if the cars are still giving me the feeling that I have in the last couple of years probably I will stop,” Alonso said.Updated 26/9/2011: It is clear that some of the points of my article were less clear than I hoped (my fault: it’s clear that my writing was less than perfect). So, as a clarification, I would like to point out a few things.
As a starting point, I am referring to the Android Open Source Project when talking about “Android”. It is clear that a proprietary, binary firmware released by a phone vendor is definitely not free, and I assume that Richard Stallman knows it as well, and in talking about Android he is referring to the open source project as well. So, when some of my polite commenters (I am blessed of having kind and nice people among my readers, it seems) mentioned that Android has proprietary pieces I actually have to point out that in the AOSP GIT there are no such proprietary pieces – even the imported kernel tree has no (optional) proprietary driver bits. So, if you want the Broadcom binary blob, or the Intel binary pieces, you have to download them externally. Also, as RMS points out in the article, it is possible to have a functioning phone using only the open parts; in fact, if you go and check what proprietary parts are usually needed in an Android build the primary culprits are the WiFi drivers and ancillary components like Camera, Video Out, and accelerated graphics like OpenVG) – nothing that stops you from creating a real phone out of it, albeit with lots of parts that require work. Lots of people is working on creating or porting fully open drivers-meaning that a fully open Android on all hardware devices is possible, just requires work.
Second, when talking about “free” there is always an uncertainty in discussing what “free” is without adding a definition. I am guilty of it as well, but here is my definition, which is by the way the same used by RMS:
“Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.” Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it means that the program’s users have the four essential freedoms:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms.” (Source: the Free Software Definition) Given this definition, I still have to object that under RMS definition Android (as the AOSP, released at this moment) IS free. It does not matter whether future versions are not (or will not be |
Monday dawn attacking the Tunisian army and police forces and leaving at least 53 people dead.
The militants launched their cross-border attack at dawn, and residents told AFP that it was still raging after daybreak.
“I saw a lot of militants at dawn. They were running with their Kalashnikovs," Hussein, a local resident, told Reuters by telephone. "They said they were [the Islamic State group] and they came to target the army and the police."
It started with coordinated attacks on a military base and nearby police posts, the Defense and Interior Ministries said in a joint statement.
A National Guard army barracks, a government building and local hospitals in the vicinity of the Ras Ajdir border crossing and the nearby town of Ben Guerdane were targeted.
Hospital official Abdelkrim Chafroud told Agence France-Presse a 12-year-old patient was among those killed in the clashes.
The clashes reached civilian areas and the final death toll was set at 53, where 35 terrorists, 7 civilians, and 11 members of Tunisia’s security forces were reported dead according to Tunisian Interior and Defense ministries.
“This is an unprecedented attack, planned and organized, and whose goal was probably to take control of this area and to announce a new emirate,” said President Beji Caid Essebsi.
The town of Ben Gardane is 18 miles away from the Libyan border, and is close to a popular, and usually crowded, beach resort called Djerba.
Tunisian security forces blocked entry to Djerba and continued searching the area for more militants, according to the local state agency TAP.
A night curfew in the town will be set as of Monday evening due to the unstable and unsafe conditions, until further notice. Officials also called upon the residents to stay indoors as the gunfire continued.
"We have decided to impose a curfew in Ben Gardane on both vehicles and pedestrians... starting from today [Monday] between 7pm [18:00 GMT] and 5am [04:00 GMT]," an interior ministry statement said.
This clash is the second clash in the district in a week. Last week, a number of heavily armed men crossed the Tunisian borders coming from Libya. Tunisian security forces killed five of them after a long gunfight.
Reinforcements and helicopters were sent to the area around Ben Guerdane by the Tunisian military.
Tunisian defense minister Farhat Horchani had said last week that German and American security experts were expected in Tunis on Monday to help Tunisia devise a new electronic video-surveillance system of its border with Libya.
Reports explained that Tunisian troops on the border have been alert and aware for any possible assault, after slipped reports since a US air strike on an ISIS group training camp in Libya on February 18 killed dozens of Tunisian militants.
Accordingly, a security and military campaign began last week in Ben Gardane, after Tunisian security officials said that "terrorist groups" had sneaked into the country. Officials said the campaign followed attacks in Libya against ISIL terrorists.
ISIL terrorists launched several attacks inside Tunisia last year.There has been growing concern in Tunisia that the war in Libya would spillover its borders, since the presence of ISIL there has been increasingly expanding.The 36-year-old also knows that Sunday's showdown with Sydney, win lose or draw, could well be his final appearance in the navy blue shirt with which he has been synonymous through A-League history, ever since he scored Victory's first ever goal in a 1-1 draw with Sydney in the opening round of the 2005-06 season. "Everyone knows that I want to play on. Whether it be here, it's still yet to be decided. I spoke to Musky (coach Kevin Muscat) four months ago and said where does my future lie? He said it's a month by month, week by week thing. "It's almost getting time where the club has to make a decision. I think I have done well this year with the limited time that I have. I have scored 11 goals. When I have started matches I have performed and done a job... and at 36 years old I am still running rings around 19-year-olds. "I would love it (the continuation of his career) to be here but obviously Benny (Fahid Ben Khallfallah, who recently inked a more lucrative, two-year deal to stay at Victory) has taken all the money in the [salary] cap so that might make it a little bit hard. "I might be playing for peanuts if I stay here but I feel personally that I don't warrant a big drop in pay because I am still performing. Whether it be here or somewhere else we will wait and see."
The uncertainty over his future has made it difficult, Thompson says. "You like to know your future as a player, but this has added a different element to it as I know this might be my last season here. "I want to play, I want to start. When I have started this year I have done a job and I think I have done it well. Whether Kev wants to start me or have me come off the bench, I have had to adapt this year. "Probably in previous years I would have lost my shiz, but this year I am not doing that because it's more about the team. I have played my role this year and hopefully I can do it again on Sunday. "I have been treating every game as if it's my last for Melbourne Victory since I had that talk with Musky four months ago. I want to win something with this club because potentially it could be my last game with this club."
Would he be tempted by a move to City? Two former high-profile Victory men, Harry Kewell and Brazilian midfielder Fred, both crossed town to join the then Melbourne Heart, although the new City, with its funding from Manchester City, is a very different beast and is likely to look further afield for younger recruits. "I am open to anything. I want to keep playing football, I am still performing, I still feel good, I still feel like I have a lot to contribute to any club. My main focus at the moment is doing a number on Sydney on Sunday. "It's been a long, long time coming. If this is going to be my last game with Melbourne Victory, which I don't want it to be, I want to leave on a winning note." Thompson will turn 37 shortly after the start of the next A-League season. He is definitely in the veteran stage, but there have been plenty of older players who played the game at a much higher level than the A-League. He likened himself to Essendon legend Dustin Fletcher, who is still holding down a first team spot with the Bombers at the age of 40.
"I love this game, I feel as though I am in good shape. I am like Dustin Fletcher. I used to be Benjamin Button, now it's the Dustin Fletcher of Australian soccer. I still feel good and I still want to contribute until the day I feel I can't do that any more, whether that's in the grand final or a pre-season training session, that will be my decision." The grand final is huge for the club, but it's equally the chance for Thompson to make another statement. He might not bag five goals like he did in the 2007 destruction of Adelaide, but even one on Sunday would make a point. "If not to Melbourne Victory, I want to prove to other clubs that I have still got it, and I think I have. I want to stay at Melbourne Victory, but the final decision comes down to the club."As negotiations with Iran over the future of its nuclear program inch toward a possible deal, another intractable Middle East problem with a nuclear dimension is likely to start getting more serious attention. It is the question of whether there is any chance that Israel, Iran, and their Arab neighbors will agree to discuss establishing a regional zone free of all nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and their delivery systems.
As negotiations with Iran over the future of its nuclear program inch toward a possible deal, another intractable Middle East problem with a nuclear dimension is likely to start getting more serious attention. It is the question of whether there is any chance that Israel, Iran, and their Arab neighbors will agree to discuss establishing a regional zone free of all nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and their delivery systems.
Earlier this month in Vienna, Jaakko Laajava, a Finnish diplomat and the facilitator of the proposed 2012 Middle East WMD-Free Zone Conference, reported to the Non-Proliferation Treaty preparatory committee meeting that although he had conducted more than 100 meetings — both inside and outside the region — he had yet to secure an agreement from all relevant states on participation. News of Laajava's no-news statement was met with another round of eye-rolling and finger-pointing: The likely holdouts are Israel and Iran, with a major question mark hanging over Syrian participation.
After decades of backsliding, proliferation, and conflict in the Middle East, the conventional wisdom says the current round of efforts will fail. I think the conventional wisdom is wrong.
In the past, many leaders in the Middle East have seen chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons as an attractive answer to their problems. But this logic is changing. Developments in the region are creating conditions that make progress on arms control and disarmament more possible, not less.
Reviewing matters within. Internal conditions throughout the Middle East are becoming less conducive for either sparking or sustaining WMD programs. Arab protesters are demanding less corruption and more government accountability. Large, secretive WMD programs supporting unaccountable military-industrial cliques will be harder to support in the region's emerging political economies. The domestic political struggles underway across the Middle East have both leaders in power and their opponents focusing inward on reform, not outward toward old enemies.
If democratic processes begin to take root (and, admittedly, it is premature to say that they will), what effect will this have on the perceived role of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons? Research by political scientists Harald Müller and Andreas Schmidt suggests that democratizing states, in need of international acceptance and support, are particularly sensitive to nonproliferation norms and loathe to violate them.
Regional evolution. The region's historic military rivalries have receded and the security rationale for WMD is receding with them. Iraq, which was once Iran's bitterest enemy and in US crosshairs for its WMD programs (real and imagined), now closely coordinates its policies with both Tehran and Washington. Tension in the Saudi-Iranian relationship requires the attention of leaders in Riyadh and Tehran, but in no way resembles the military rivalry that once existed between Iran and Iraq.
Inter-Arab animosity has also moderated. In April, when demonstrations erupted outside its embassy in Cairo, Saudi Arabia quickly withdrew its ambassador, Ahmed Qattan. But within a week, Riyadh reinstated Qattan and promised a major aid package to Egypt. Contrast that incident with Saudi-Egyptian relations in the 1960s, when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser deployed his country's troops in Yemen to defeat Saudi proxies and used poison gas to do the job. Times have changed
The Arab-Israeli conflict, the original driver of Israel's nuclear weapons program, has been reduced to two issues: the core question of Israeli-Palestinian relations and the future of the Golan Heights. Although each problem is vexing, neither is any longer the spark that can ignite region-wide conflict and threaten Israel's very existence. Israel's peace with Egypt may cool even further, but neither of Egypt's presidential candidates calls for abrogating the treaty because the treaty is as much an anchor of Egypt's national security as it is of Israel's.
Israeli and Iranian calculations. As Israel considers how best to secure its future, it must choose among three strategic options.
Israel can try to extend its nuclear monopoly by attacking or sabotaging the nuclear projects of Iran and perhaps other states down the road. This option, Israel's policy for the past several decades, is becoming increasingly untenable. In the short- to medium-term, bombing carries the risk of retaliation, and the unintended consequence of fueling the nuclear ambitions it is trying to stamp out. And Israel can only bomb what it knows about. But the long-term problem is more profound: Can Israel sustain a policy of militarily preventing nuclear development in a neighborhood of growing interest in nuclear power and a progressive diffusion of technology?
Israel's second option — deterrence — carries the price of eventually abandoning nuclear ambiguity, since maintaining an active deterrent through periods of crisis and change in Iranian capabilities will require explicit statements and even demonstrations of Israeli capability. Such demonstrations will threaten and provoke Arab states in a way that Israel's nuclear weapons now do not, further raising the costs and risks of deterrence.
In light of the above choices, Israel may come to see the third option as the least unpalatable: Entering into negotiations with its neighbors to establish rules for limiting the possession of WMD across the region, eventually putting its own capabilities on the negotiating table. Discussing a WMD-free zone would allow Israel to prolong its nuclear weapons monopoly with the fewest challenges for an interim period, while negotiating the terms of a transition to a nuclear and WMD free Middle East. It can also use a forum on regional arms control as a venue to raise its concerns about proliferation elsewhere in the region.
Iran has important security interests in pursuing a WMD-free zone. Tehran has a long-term strategic interest in denuclearizing Israel, and, odious as it might seem to Iran's leaders, direct negotiations with Israel on regional security and a WMD ban are the only way to do that. Iran would find other security benefits from engaging diplomatically on the issue: Regional security discussions can help Iran break out of its isolation. In WMD-free zone discussions, Iran can split the US-Arab coalition against it and focus attention on Israel's nuclear weapons. The creation of a zone — if it were to occur in the next several years — would leave Iran far ahead of its Arab neighbors in its nuclear knowledge and experience, preserving an important security hedge, while reducing the incentives for its neighbors to attempt to match its expensive fuel-cycle investment.
Wild cards. If the current P5+1 negotiations with Tehran collapse and Israel or the United States attack Iran, then both the political and security justifications for proliferation will be reinforced across the region. Voices within Iran calling for an operational deterrent will gain traction. And similar arguments will reverberate in Riyadh, Cairo, and possibly elsewhere. Failure of the proposal to hold a conference in 2012 on a Middle East WMD-free zone will be the least of concerns.
Syria also presents potential problems. In the short-term, having suspended its membership in the Arab League for its violent crackdown on protesters, many Arab states would prefer not to reward the Assad regime with a platform at a conference to discuss weapons of mass destruction. In the long-term, competitive external intervention in a Syrian civil war could help reverse the trends supporting the move toward WMD disarmament. Syrian behavior, together with its chemical weapons stocks, should remind everyone why the discussion of a WMD-free zone and regional security more broadly in the Middle East is urgent. The short-term political costs of Syrian participation are trivial by comparison.
Predictions. In capitals across the Middle East, policy makers will soon be pressed for their responses to a proposal to meet in Finland to discuss a regional WMD ban, possibly in December. Though Tehran and Jerusalem will grasp at old arguments to insist that the idea is foolish or unnecessary, a cold, hard look at emerging security interests in the new Middle East will take a bite out of old dogmas. Invitations to Helsinki will bring Israel and Iran to the negotiation table. Undoubtedly, the process will be long and frustrating. But the conventional wisdom will be overturned.The official Twitter account of Amazon Video Japan announced on Tuesday that the Kamen Rider Amazons web series will get a second season next spring. The 13-episode first season debuted on April 1 on Amazon Prime instant video in Japan, and is currently streaming a new episode weekly.
Tom Fujita stars in the series as 20-year-old Haruka Mizusawa/Kamen Rider Amazon Omega, and Masashi Taniguchi (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni live-action film) co-stars as 38-year-old Jin Takayama/Kamen Rider Amazon Alpha. Haruka has a weak body and stays inside all the time, spending his days feeding his tropical fish. Jin is an Amazon who also hunts other Amazons. The story focuses on two contrasting Kamen Rider Amazons. Additionally, Rena Takeda plays 17-year-old Midzuta Mizusawa, who is Haruka's younger sister-in-law; and Ayu Higashi plays 25-year-old Nanaha Izumi, Jin's partner.
Hidenori Ishida and Ryūta Tasaki are directing the series. Tarō Kobayashi is performing the theme song "Armour Zone."
Kamen Rider Ghost, the latest installment in the long-running Kamen Rider special effects series, premiered on TV Asahi last October.
Kamen Rider Amazons is part of Toei's "Superhero Year," which celebrates the 45th anniversary of the Kamen Rider franchise and 40th anniversary of the Super Sentai franchise. The Kamen Rider 1-Gō film, which features both the original Kamen Rider character and Kamen Rider Ghost, opened in Japan on March 26.
[Via Hachima Kikō]Though not a core subject in peace negotiations, Jewish settlements are a charged issue for Israelis and Palestinians because they involve building in areas that both claim as their ancestral lands.
The administration’s handling of settlements has become a new source of tension in the Middle East. The Palestinians are refusing to negotiate with Israel in the absence of a complete freeze, while other Arab leaders are seizing on what they view as a retreat by the United States.
Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League, urged the administration not to accept what he called a “slap in the face” by Israel. He said he hoped the Americans would “try hard and in a firmer way.” Egypt’s foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said the United States had to provide “guarantees about issues of settlements.”
The inability to win a freeze would undermine the prospects for peace talks, Mr. Moussa told reporters. “I’m really afraid that we’re about to see a failure,” he said.
On Saturday, Mrs. Clinton met in the emirate of Abu Dhabi with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who rejected an Israeli proposal to put a moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank, but to allow the completion of about 3,000 additional units and to exclude East Jerusalem from any restrictions.
The Palestinian foreign minister, Riad Malki, said accepting such an offer would undermine the Palestinian Authority when Mr. Abbas had already hurt his standing among Arabs by agreeing to defer consideration of a United Nations report detailing evidence of possible war crimes by both the Israelis and Palestinian militants in Gaza last winter. Mr. Abbas eventually reversed himself, pushing to have the report sent to the Security Council.
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Mr. Malki said in an interview that he was surprised by Mrs. Clinton’s comments in Jerusalem. “It was, from our point of view, inconsistent with what we had heard back in Abu Dhabi.”
At her first public appearance in Marrakesh on Monday, Mrs. Clinton read a statement saying that the American position had not changed. “As the president has said on many occasions,” she declared, “the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”
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A State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, declined to characterize her earlier remarks as a misstep, but said, “We obviously were very conscious of the reaction in the region to her appearance in Jerusalem.”
While the Obama administration has not changed its policy, its public statements on settlements have evolved considerably. In May, Mrs. Clinton said President Obama wanted to see “a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions.”
But at the United Nations in September, Mr. Obama used the word “restrain” in referring to construction, suggesting the administration realized it was unlikely to get a total freeze.
Some Middle East analysts said the Obama administration may have concluded that there was no value in continuing to press Israel about settlements, when the prospects for peace negotiations seemed remote.
“They’re dialing things back a notch until they can think through how and what to do for the next phase,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Some administration officials have said they are rethinking a strategy that has produced neither a settlement freeze nor gestures toward Israel by its Arab neighbors, which Mr. Obama has also sought.
Mrs. Clinton unexpectedly put off her return to Washington for a day so she could fly to Cairo on Tuesday to meet the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak. American officials said she wanted to meet face to face with a “critical player” to discuss developments in the region.
On Monday, Mrs. Clinton met with foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Afterward, she said some ministers seemed unaware of the extent of the Israeli proposal on settlements, which she said “holds the promise of moving a step closer to a two-state solution.”Apple has asked the judge in GTAT’s bankruptcy filing to keep a large number of documents sealed. In a recent court hearing covered by Fortune's Philip Elmer-DeWitt the judge said he was ‘having some trouble’ finding any trade secrets or commercial interests to justify a blanket seal. He added ‘I’m seeing what looks incredibly like a construction suit, where a homeowner says to the contractor, ‘It didn’t come out the way I wanted to,’ and the contractor says, ‘Well, it would have come out that way if you hadn’t changed the specifications.’ The judge has asked Apple to provide page by page and line by line details on what should remain sealed. (Note that I own Apple shares).
So why would Apple not want to have its GTAT agreements be public besides Apple’s culture of secrecy? There is another hearing on Tuesday, October 21, the day after Apple announces it September quarter results, so while we may learn more then I doubt the documents will be released that day since the judge will have to rule on the information provided by Apple’s attorneys.
Note that GTAT’s stock is no longer traded on the NASDAQ after the close this past Wednesday and is now traded on the Pink Sheets under the symbol GTATQ. It closed at $0.39 on Friday but given the financial resources or lack thereof I'd expect it to eventually go to $0.00.
Companies don’t want contract details leaked
First companies don’t want to have contracts they have struck with other companies made public. There is pricing information that the buyer and the seller don’t want to be available since it would weaken their negotiating position in dealings with other companies. There are also terms and conditions that while they could be unique to a specific deal (buying a factory for its supplier like Apple did for GTAT is a bit extreme and was made public due to its size for GTAT) there are many other arraignments that have value that companies don’t want to disclose.
What could be some of the reasons
In this situation Apple may not want public the details that are in its Master Development and Supply Agreement (MDSA) with GTAT; the exclusive rights GTAT agreed to not supply certain sapphire material or related technology to other companies (may lead to legal problems for Apple restricting products to another company?); the facility Apple bought for GTAT with below market lease payments or the payment terms for GTAT to pay back up to $578 million to Apple.
Apple doesn’t want any ‘dirty laundry’ aired
While information such as Phil Schiller’s, Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Marketing, email to its advertising agency lamenting how Samsung’s Super Bowl commercial had Samsung ‘feeling it, like they were in the zone’ and Apple was ‘struggling to nail a competitive brief on iPhone’ came out during a patent lawsuit there could be information on its dealings with GTAT that it doesn’t want made public.
Provide a view into future product plans to competitors?
As with any of the reasons this could be the most important for Apple’s secrecy desire. However what Apple and GTAT were doing was well known. All anyone needed to do was to read GTAT’s SEC filings, listen to its quarterly conference calls and read various analysts and press reports.
A competitor should be able to calculate using how much was being spent on equipment, amount of purchase commitments, how much inventory was in raw materials, work-in-process and finished goods and various other metrics to calculate how much sapphire glass GTAT could produce and therefore what products it could go in (such as only high-end 5.5’ iPhone 6 Plus’s or throughout the entire iPhone 6 product line).
Other various items were public
The effective interest rate that GTAT calculated on its loan from Apple was 7.44% which compares to 3.0% on its 2017 and 2020 debt.
In GTAT’s second quarter earnings presentation it talked about its Arizona sapphire facility being nearly complete and commencing transition to volume production.
From GTAT’s second quarter results conference call Tom Gutierrez, GTAT’s CEO said ‘our Arizona facility, which has involved taking a 1.4 million square foot facility from a shell to a functional structure and the installation of over 1 million square feet of sapphire growth and fabrication equipment is nearly complete and we are commencing the transition to volume production’ which gives parameters on how much sapphire could be produced and when.
From GTAT’s second quarter 2014 10-Q filing it had ‘the Company has identified three deliverables in the arrangement, namely, the supply deliverable (supply of sapphire material pursuant to the MDSA), the exclusivity deliverable (which represents the exclusivity rights granted to Apple), and the equipment lease deliverable (as described in the following sentence). The Company concluded that since the arrangement conveys to Apple the right to control the use of the equipment, the arrangement represents an operating lease of the equipment at the Arizona facility to Apple.’CLOSE David Manzo was paralyzed during an incident at the Riverside jail on in October, 2016. Newly released video shows how Manzo was injured by another inmate, then jail deputies repeatedly attempted to lift him to his feet without neck support.
Screenshot from a video of a Riverside Jail incident that eventually left an inmate paralyzed. (Photo: Riverside Jail security video)
A schizophrenic man who was paralyzed in a caught-on-video incident at the Riverside jail has sued the sheriff’s department claiming that jail staff broke his spine while handling him roughly after he was beaten by another inmate.
David Manzo, 34, of Perris, is now quadriplegic and will require 24-hour medical care for the rest of his life, according to his lawsuit, filed Wednesday.
Manzo was injured in the common area at the Riverside jail in October. The entire incident was captured on jail security cameras, and footage was released by Manzo’s attorneys.
In the video, an inmate with a mohawk can be seen fighting with Manzo, grabbing his shirt and trading punches. The two inmates then topple to the ground, just as jail staff flash the security lights, sending all of the prisoners back to their cells.
Screenshot from a video of a Riverside Jail incident that eventually left an inmate paralyzed. (Photo: Riverside Jail security video)
The inmate with the mohawk gets up and walks away. Manzo doesn’t. He is alone on the floor for two full minutes before seven deputies enter the common room.
Two deputies take the other inmate into custody, and the rest attend to Manzo, who appears limp on the jail floor. The deputies lift Manzo by the back of his shirt, propping him into a sitting position with his legs folded awkwardly beneath him.
The deputies then lay Manzo back on the floor, at which point he distinctly moves his right arm, showing that he has not yet been paralyzed.
READ MORE: Coachella Valley Unified said this video of a student trapped on a school bus does not exist. Here it is.
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Three deputies then grab Manzo under his arms, trying to hoist him to his feet, but he drops back on to the floor again. The deputies then try to lift Manzo two more times – once into a seat at a common area table, once in a sitting position on the floor – but he is unable to support his own weight. Lying on his back, Manzo distinctly moves his head to look toward his feet, but does not move any of his limbs. A deputy notices the other inmates watching through the windows of their cells and shoos them away.
Screenshot from a video of a Riverside Jail incident that eventually left an inmate paralyzed. (Photo: Riverside Jail security video)
Eight minutes after Manzo first falls to the ground, deputies hoist him into a wheelchair and push him out of view of the camera.
The lawsuit claims the jail staff caused “catastrophic injury” to Manzo’s spine.
“No cervical collar was placed on Manzo, nor was a backboard utilized to prevent damage to Manzo’s spine,” the lawsuits states. “Video of the incident shows deputies trying numerous times to pick up Manzo only for Manzo to slump back awkwardly to the floor, clearly lacking any ability to move his four limbs after having been picked up by the deputies.”
READ MORE: Someone left a'suspicious' toy outside Palm Springs police headquarters, and the building shut down
Due to Manzo’s severe disability, the lawsuit threatens to be exceedingly expensive for the sheriff’s department. In 2014, the county was ordered to pay $7.8 million after a deputy shot an unarmed man in the face, leaving him fully disabled.
Riverside County has not yet responded to Manzo’s lawsuit in court.
Screenshot from a video of a Riverside Jail incident that eventually left an inmate paralyzed. (Photo: Riverside Jail security video)
Ray Smith, a county spokesman, said Wednesday that the county had not yet been served, but attorneys will review the case once it has been received. The county rejected a claim filed by Manzo earlier this year.
At the time of his injury, Manzo had been in jail for about a month, accused of resisting arrest. In his lawsuit, Manzo claims he inadvertently flicked cigarette ash onto a police officer, then was roughly arrested and taken to jail. A judge later deemed Manzo incompetent to stand trial, and prosecutors dropped all charges in February.
One of Manzo’s attorneys, Robert Trujillo, said the initial arrest was “unnecessary,” and that police mistreatment of people with mental disabilities has “become all too common.”
“Further escalating this deep injustice was the deliberate indifference of the County of Riverside and its various employees to David’s medical needs, as well as the repeated violation of David’s constitutional rights,” Trujillo said a press release.
The inmate with the mohawk, who is identified as Kevin Sanchez in Manzo’s lawsuit, does not appear to have been prosecuted for the fight.
Reporter Brett Kelman can be reached by phone at (760) 778-4642, by email at brett.kelman@desertsun.com, or on Twitter @TDSbrettkelman.
Read or Share this story: http://desert.sn/2t3IkatWASHINGTON : The US space agency Nasa announced Wednesday it has cancelled the August research mission it had hoped to base at U-tapao airbase after the government refused to endorse the project.
The official announcement, on the Nasa website early Thursday Thailand time, said:
"Nasa cancelled the SEAC4RS mission, which was scheduled to begin in August 2012, due to the absence of necessary approvals by regional authorities in the timeframe necessary to support the mission's planned deployment and scientific observation window."
The single paragraph was added to a website page which described the project in glowing terms as "something that has never been done before: probing a vast expanse of the Southeast Asian atmosphere from top to bottom" during the monsoon season.
(Continued below the graphic)
Nasa posted the cancellation notice in a simple "Editor's Note" atop a previous article describing what it called an unprecedented research mission.
A few hours later, Nasa confirmed the cancellation with a tweet:
"We have, unfortunately, had to call off this airborne science mission planned for Southeast Asia this year."
In Thailand, the Democrat party on Wednesday rejected all blame for the cancellation.
The scheme was scrapped after the cabinet decided to forward the project proposal to parliament for debate in August, as delivery of equipment and preparations must take place ahead of time for the research to begin in the same month.
Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said critics did not oppose Nasa's request to use U-tapao airport for its programme, but wanted the government to carefully consider the project and disclose more information.
It was absurd that the government was pointing the finger of blame at the opposition for doing its job, he said.
"Why doesn't the government back down on the reconciliation or charter amendment bills? Things would have been better," he said.
Mr Abhisit said the government should admit it had not thoroughly vetted the project, and that any loss of benefits that would have arisen from the study was partly because of this.
Deputy Democrat leader Korn Chatikavanij said the government was to blame for any loss of opportunity because it was avoiding questions instead of looking into them.
He challenged the government to grant Nasa permission to proceed if it was certain the scheme did not violate the constitution.
"I'm sure the scheme has something to offer to us. But I doubt there is no hidden agenda," Mr Korn said.
Democrat spokesman Chavanond Intarakomalyasut called for the removal of Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul and Science and Technology Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi for distorting facts and lying to the public about the shipment of equipment for use in the weather research project.
Senator Somchai Sawaengkarn - who had previously compared the project to US requests to use the airport during the Vietnam War and said it would raise suspicions in Cambodia, Vietnam and China - suggested a special parliamentary session to debate the scheme if the government insisted it was essential for the country's benefit.
"There are six weeks to go before the project is scheduled to begin. Why waste another month if it is really important?" Mr Somchai said.
Mr Surapong told US ambassador Kristie Kenney about the cabinet decision on Tuesday before leaving for Dubai.
"The US ambassador expressed disappointment but understood Thailand's internal process and hopes to cooperate with Thailand in other aspects," Foreign Ministry spokesman Thani Thongphakdi said.
Ms Kenney will convey the decision to Nasa, he said.
He also quoted her as saying that it was yet to be decided if Nasa will choose Thailand as the base for its climate study in the region after the delay.
The armed forces have been instructed by Defence Minister ACM Sukumpol Suwanatat to prepare information about the project for the joint sitting in August.
Defence spokesman Thanathip Sawangsaeng said the information will relate to the study's security aspects.Get Shift Done: Management
Inbox is less annoying than Gmail, and you can always go back.
Online email systems perform the valuable service of filtering out spam at the server before it can clog up our local Internet connection. But even Gmail has its issues, mostly in the design of its web and mobile clients, which tend towards cluttered displays and unnecessary notifications. Who needs an alert that you just got 10 new emails, when none of them are of actual interest?
Google Inbox is an attempt to fix those mail design deficiencies on the web client as well as iOS, and Android. With Inbox, Google introduced a new way to bundle categories, both in and out of the traditional email inbox. Messages are displayed differently — I’d like to say with true innovation — by allowing you to see more of their content before actually opening them.
Even more importantly, in Inbox you can decide which categories merit notifications and which don’t. Plus, you can pin messages you want to keep; sweep all unpinned messages in a bundle to a “Done” folder; set reminders; and snooze messages until you reach a specific time or place.
I adopted Inbox when it was first released as a beta test. Initially it lacked several of Gmail’s important features, but it was never an either/or choice. For any feature that Inbox lacks, you can always go back to Gmail. Since Inbox’s introduction, Google has gradually refined its operation and display formats, to the point that now I only go back to Gmail to administer new or changed email accounts, or to edit old-style rules.
On the other hand, you do have to train Inbox’s classifiers, over and above the way you trained Gmail. You also need to check your Promo and Spam folders on a regular basis to rescue misclassified messages by pinning them or moving them to another folder.
Sadly, the beloved Gmail “mute” button — so useful when someone starts a “reply all” chain to tell someone else not to broadcast trivia to the entire company — is still MIA from Inbox. Fortunately, you can handle a problem like that by moving the offending thread to “Low Priority.” If you’re lucky, the next “Who took my umbrella from the kitchen?” thread will wind up there, where it won’t bother you.
As the old Alka-Seltzer ad said, “Try it, you’ll like it.” But there’s no punch line: Google Inbox won’t give you heartburn. And if you don’t like it, you can always go back to Gmail, whether for one task or for the long-term.
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The GSD Management channel is brought to you by Work Market, the leading labor automation platform. Work Market empowers businesses and skilled professionals to unlock new levels of productivity, engagement and growth across the entire lifecycle of work. Learn more at www.workmarket.com.Last week I went to San Francisco to do some business, and having some extra days I decided to get outside and take a few shots around the city.
Little did I know that there was an Occupy San Francisco movement over at the Federal Reserve bank building. It was an interesting and shocking thing to see all those signs and tents and people camping there. Everyone was in peace and calm. People got close to them to talk and exchange ideas, there were books and publications scattered everywhere and they had some kind of lectures and classes at certain times.
The funny thing was the coincidence that earlier on that same day I went to see the musical Hair, at the Golden Gate theater. It’s sad so see how similar the movement for peace in the 70’s is to the movement for |
these raucous conditions!" yelled Twilight. I looked around to see that Rarity was using my toothbrush to comb her mane. Using my revolutionary fingers, I turned off the bathwater and the sink, pulled the plunger out of the toilet and actually removed the towel that was in it, and still managed to refrain from punching anything. I stared the two ponies down as the water drained out of the bathroom and into the hallway.
"Come with me." I took them down to the living room. That was it, they were all going to sit quietly in the living room for the rest of the day. Rarity brought my toothbrush with her, continuing to comb her mane with it.
"This device is simply divine for all purposes!" she exclaimed. It's okay, I can always get a new toothbrush.
We entered the living room, where Fluttershy remained on the couch. She was the only one who hadn't done anything. Pinkie Pie was still floating off somewhere, Rainbow Dash was attacking all the meat I had, and Applejack was....
I went to the office to check what Applejack was doing.
"Y'all humans sure have a lot of fun when you wrestle!" she exclaimed when I walked in. My eyes shattered. She was watching porn on my laptop. I've just scarred her for life, and she doesn't even know it. I ran for the computer, slamming it shut. I quickly ushered Applejack out of the room, who complained that she wanted to finish the video.
After ripping Rainbow Dash away from her meat, I brought all the ponies into the living room where my disassembled TV laid in the center.
"Okay, everybod-, er, everypony stay put. I'm going to get some of my friends to come help me watch you all." I walked over to the office to contact my friends. I was in the room for all of twenty seconds when I heard a knock on the door. My eyes widened, remembering that I had ponies in my house. As I passed by them in the living room, I brought a finger to my lips, signaling that they all shut up.
I brushed off my clothes and slicked back my hair behind the door, and then opened it gracefully. Outside stood two police officers, both looking quite bored.
"We got some complaints of a lot of yelling coming from this house, and then something flying through the roof. Care to explain?"
I could feel sweat forming all over my body and my hands became clammy. Think of an excuse. Cmon brain you're good at this, you do this all the time at school. Think! I stared the officer straight in the eye and said, "I'm having a contest with my brother to see who can act the angriest, and he won when he took our toaster and smashed it through the roof." After having said it, I realized how ridiculous it sounded. Nice one brain, I would've been better off saying the ponies did it. I didn't even have a brother.
"Are your parents home?"
"No."
The officers stared at me for a long while, and I couldn't blame them. I wasn't even sure if toasters could even break through roofs. The officers gave me a pat on the back and a buisness card. I thanked them as they walked down my driveway, back into the patrol car. I turned from the door and wiped the sweat off my forehead. The card that they had given me had a phone number and a name on it. It was for a therapist. They think I'm mentally insane.
It didn't matter, they were gone and that was all that mattered. I turned back to the living room. Kill me now.
Applejack was chasing Rarity, yelling, "I want to try out a new wrestling move on you!" while Rarity ran away, trying to use my toothbrush to fend off Applejack. Twilight was trying to explain to Rainbow Dash why ponies shouldn't eat meat, but was using vocabulary much too advanced for Rainbow to understand. Instead, Rainbow Dash was taking things off my table and gnawing at them, trying to see if they were meat. Fluttershy continued to sit on the couch, looking out the window at the trees in my front yard.
Pinkie Pie was still nowhere to be found, but I assumed she would just appear in my living room at some point. I knew that any effort was going to be futile, so I didn't even try to bring order to the scene. Instead, I watched in horror as Rainbow Dash flew around the room, tearing up my curtains and other possessions. Rarity was using my toothbrush to clean the living room, but was using toothpaste. So instead of cleaning, she was just providing dental care to my floor and windows.
Applejack was chasing Twilight now, trying to get Twilight to participate in her "uncouth" wrestling games. Applejack shouted out the names of multiple sexual positions, but thought that they were wrestling moves. I was on the verge of just leaving my house and never coming back again, but then somebody else knocked at the door. I swear if that's the cops again...
I opened the door, revealing the only person, or pony, that I wanted to see. It was Princess Celestia. THANK GOD she's here to take the ponies back! She cleared her throat.
"Hello human," she said, "I am sorry to inform you, but have come for the ponies. I need to take them back to Equestria. I know this may be hard for you but–"
"Take them!"
"What?"
"Take them away, take them back to Equestria!"
"Well that's odd, the last time I was here on Earth retrieving a pony it was a lot more emotional. There were tears and–"
"Yes, yes, that's all good now take them back!"
"Why are you so eager to rid yourself of them?"
Hearing the voice of Princess Celestia, all the ponies had come to the door now. They stood by my feet and looked up at the princess.
"Well," I began, "Twilight is walking dictionary, Rarity has an odd affinity for toothbrushes, Rainbow Dash is a carnivore, Pinkie Pie is just, well, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack is obsessed with human pornography."
Princess Celestia eyed me skeptically. Half the things I had just said sounded crazy in my own mind.
"Well. We'll be going now. Come my little ponies." Celestia walked away from my house, and the ponies followed.
"Wait!"
Celestia turned her head.
"Before you go, I have just one request." I leaned close and whispered into the princess's ear. She nodded. I called Fluttershy over. Finally, after waiting all day, I would have the opportunity to pet Fluttershy. It wasn't anything creepy, her mane was just so flowing and fluffy, and she was so goddamn adorable. I just had to pet her.
I reached for her head slowly, preparing to stroke her mane. Finally, after all this time, I ran my hand through her mane, petting her.
"God damnit Fluttershy why does your mane feel like tree leaves!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Later that day.....
Celestia had taken off with the ponies and went back to Equestria. I spent the next couple hours cleaning up the messes in my house. The flooded bathroom and hall, the kitchen covered in pieces of meat, my room covered in clothing, and my living room with the TV all over the floor. It took a long while and a lot of hard work, but I was able to do it. The sun was setting when I was finally able to sit down on my couch and relax.
CRASH!
Pinkie Pie came straight through the roof, crashing into my living room and destroying my TV.
"GOD DAMNIT PINKIE PIE!"Image by Elif Ayiter | Some Rights Reserved
Often we need to create a table for our ASP.NET MVC web application with a checkbox next to each row, in order to allow the user to select one or more items from our list for additional processing. While the concept is not terribly challenging, it is not intuitive or obvious if you are newer to MVC.
Here is one way to do it.
The Example Project
For our example we will simply display a list of people as rows in a table, with checkboxes to the leftmost end of each row. The user may select one or more people from the list, click a submit button, and implement some sort of processing for the individual items selected.
Our example assumes that the business model requires server-side processing of the selected items, and therefore a direct server request instead of AJAX-style processing.
You can find the working source code at my Github repo.
If you clone or download the source from Github, you will need to Enable Nuget Package Restore in order that VS can automatically download and update Nuget packages when the project builds.
Editor View Models and Editor Templates
ASP.NET MVC affords us the ability to create custom editor templates for our domain classes and models. Similar to the convention-based relationship between Controllers and Views, there is a similar convention-based relationship between Editor View Models and Editor Templates.
The MVC framework already defines its own library of Editor Templates, made available behind the scenes through methods such as EditorFor(), DisplayFor(), LabelFor(), etc. For example, when you place code like this in your view:
<div class="col-md-10"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.LastName) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.LastName) </div>
MVC understands it is to retrieve the proper editor template from System.Web.Mvc.dll for a string to contain the model.LastName property on our page. The default display device will be a textbox.
Utilizing this convention, we can create a custom Editor View Template for Models or View Models within our domain which can then be used in our code. Employing an editable checkbox for each row in a table, the status of which can be sent to and from the server as a member in a list, is one case where we need to employ an Editor View Model and an Editor View Template to make things work.
How we do this becomes more clear as we step through the example code.
The Core Domain Model
For our example, we will start with a simple domain model, represented by the Person class:
The Person Model:
public class Person { public int Id { get; set; } public string LastName { get; set; } public string firstName { get; set; } }
Add Test Data
In order to keep our example simple, we will create a test data repository for our code to work with, so we can pretend we are working with a database. We will add the following to our Models folder:
Test Data for the Example Code:
public class TestData { public TestData() { this.People = new List<Person>(); this.People.Add(new Person() { Id = 1, LastName = "Lennon", firstName = "John" }); this.People.Add(new Person() { Id = 2, LastName = "McCartney", firstName = "Paul" }); this.People.Add(new Person() { Id = 3, LastName = "Harrison", firstName = "George" }); this.People.Add(new Person() { Id = 4, LastName = "Starr", firstName = "Ringo" }); } public List<Person> People { get; set; } }
The above will allow us to act as though we have a backend data store.
Adding the Editor View Model
Now let’s create an Editor View Model which will allow us to present each Person instance as a row in a table, and include a Selected status that we can present as a checkbox for each table row.
There are two important things to note about Editor View Models and their relationship to the Editor Template for which they are designed:
The Editor View Model class name must follow the convention ClassNameEditorViewModel
The Corresponding Editor Template must be located in a folder named EditorTemplates, within either the Views => MyClass folder, or the Views => Shared folder. We’ll see more on this in a moment. For now, be aware that the naming of the View Model and the associated View is critical, as is the location of the.cshtml View file itself.
Add the following class to the Models folder. In keeping with the above, we have named our View Model SelectPersonEditorViewModel :
The Select Person Editor View Model
public class SelectPersonEditorViewModel { public bool Selected { get; set; } public int Id { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } }
Looking over the code above, we see that we have included only the information required by our view, and in fact have provided only a single string property for Name. We could have included separate FirstName and LastName properties, but I decided for our list we would just display the concatenated First and Last names for each Person.
This Editor View Model will be used by MVC to render each row in our table. Now, we need to create a wrapper for the collection of rows data.
Adding the Wrapper View Model
We need a wrapper to contain a list of the EditorViewModels we wish to pass to and from our View. Also, we will include a method which gives us handy access to a list of the Ids of the items where the Selected property is true:
The People Selection View Model:
public class PeopleSelectionViewModel { public List<SelectPersonEditorViewModel> People { get; set; } public PeopleSelectionViewModel() { this.People = new List<SelectPersonEditorViewModel>(); } public IEnumerable<int> getSelectedIds() { // Return an Enumerable containing the Id's of the selected people: return (from p in this.People where p.Selected select p.Id).ToList(); } }
As convoluted as this may sound, what we do is use the PeopleSelectionViewModel to wrap an IEnumerable of SelectPersonEditorViewModel items, and pass this to out primary view. Now let’s take a look at the views we will need to make this work.
Create an Editor View Template
Here is where we start to bring this all together. As mentioned previously, we need a custom Editor View Template in order to pass our individually selectable row data to and from our main view. We can locate individual Editor Templates in a folder named EditorTemplates nested in either the Folder specific to the main view in question (in this case, Views => People => EditorTemplates) or within the Views => Shared folder (which then makes the Editor Template available to the entire application).
In the current case, we will add an EditorTemplates folder to the Views => People folder, since this is a rather special purpose template, specific to the People controller.
Add an Editor Templates Folder to the Appropriate Directory:
Now, let’s add our Editor Template View. Right-Click on the new folder, add a new View, and name it very specifically SelectPersonEditorViewModel, so that the name matches the name of the actual View Model we created earlier. Then add the following code:
The Select Person Editor View Model View:
@model AspNetCheckedListExample.Models.SelectPersonEditorViewModel <tr> <td style="text-align:center"> @Html.CheckBoxFor(model => model.Selected) </td> <td> @Html.DisplayFor(model => model.Name) </td> <td> @Html.HiddenFor(model => model.Id) </td> <td> @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit", new { id = Model.Id }) | @Html.ActionLink("Details", "Details", new { id = Model.Id }) | @Html.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = Model.Id }) </td> </tr>
The Editor Template View above provides display items for the relevant model data, as well as en editor for the checkbox, and a hidden element for the mode.Id property. We will use this Id property, and the value of the Selected property to determine which people the user has selected for additional processing when the list of View Models is returned from the view in an Http POST request.
Adding the Index View
Also in the Views => People folder, add a new Empty View named Index. This is the main View we will use to contain our table of People. Once the view has been added, add the following code:
The People Index View:
@model AspNetCheckedListExample.Models.PeopleSelectionViewModel @{ ViewBag.Title = "People"; } <h2>People</h2> @using (Html.BeginForm("SubmitSelected", "People", FormMethod.Post, new { encType = "multipart/form-data", name = "myform" })) { <table class="table"> <tr> <th> Select </th> <th> Name </th> <th></th> </tr> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.People) </table> <hr /> <br /> <input type="submit" name="operation" id="submit" value="Submit Selected" /> }
As you can see in the above, we have created a basic HTML Form, and within that have defined a table. The table headers are clearly laid out within this view, but we can see that where we would ordinarily populate our rows using a foreach() construct, here we simply specify @Html.EditorFor() and specify the the IEnumerable<SelectPersonEditorViewModel> represented by the People property of our Model.
Tying it all together – the People Controller
Of course, none of this means anything without the Controller to govern the interaction of our Views and Models. For our ultra-simple project, we are going to define an ultra-simple controller, which will include only two Action methods: Index, and SubmitSelected.
Add a controller to the controllers folder, appropriately named PeopleController, and add the following code:
The People Controller Class:
public class PeopleController : Controller { TestData Db = new TestData(); public ActionResult Index() { var model = new PeopleSelectionViewModel(); foreach(var person in Db.People) { var editorViewModel = new SelectPersonEditorViewModel() { Id = person.Id, Name = string.Format("{0} {1}", person.firstName, person.LastName), Selected = true }; model.People.Add(editorViewModel); } return View(model); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult SubmitSelected(PeopleSelectionViewModel model) { // get the ids of the items selected: var selectedIds = model.getSelectedIds(); // Use the ids to retrieve the records for the selected people // from the database: var selectedPeople = from x in Db.People where selectedIds.Contains(x.Id) select x; // Process according to your requirements: foreach(var person in selectedPeople) { System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine( string.Format("{0} {1}", person.firstName, person.LastName)); } // Redirect somewhere meaningful (probably to somewhere showing // the results of your processing): return RedirectToAction("Index"); } }
In our Index method, we pull a List of Person instances from our database, and for each instance of Person we create an instance of SelectPersonEditorViewModel. Note that for our example application, I have decided that the default value of the Selected property will be set to true, as it is most likely the user will process the entire list.
We then load each instance of SelectPersonEditorViewModel into our PeopleSelectionViewModel, and then pass this to the Index View itself.
Processing the Selection Results in the Submit Selected Method
When the user submits the form represented in our index view, the model is returned in the POST request body. Note the we needed to decorate the SubmitSelected method with the [HttpPost] attribute. We then use the getSelectedItems() method we added to our PeopleSelectionViewModel to return a list of the selected Ids, and use the Ids to query the appropriate records from our database.
In the example, I obviously am just writing some output to the console to demonstrate that we have, indeed, returned only the selected items from our View. Here is where you would add your own processing, according to the needs of your business model.
Adding a Select All Checkbox to Toggle Selected Status
Commonly in this scenario, we would want to afford our user the ability to “Select All” the items in the list, or “Select None” of the items. The JQuery code for this has been added to the project source, and you can read more about how to do this in Adding a Select All Checkbox to a Checklist Table Using JQuery.
Modifications to Make the Demo Project Run (not required)
In order make the example project work, I went ahead and made the following modifications to the rest of the standard MVC project. The following is not really related to creating a table with checkboxes, but might help if you are following along and building this out from scratch instead of cloning the project from Github.
Make the Index View of the People the Default Home Page
In the <body> section of the shared _Layout.cshtml file (Views => Shared => _Layout.cshtml) I removed the tabs for Home, Contact, and About, and added a tab for People, pointing at the Index method of the People Controller. The revised <body> section now looks like this:
Modified Body Section of _Layout.cshtml:
<body> <div class="navbar navbar-inverse navbar-fixed-top"> <div class="container"> <div class="navbar-header"> <button type="button" class="navbar-toggle" data-toggle="collapse" data-target=".navbar-collapse"> <span class="icon-bar"></span> <span class="icon-bar"></span> <span class="icon-bar"></span> </button> @Html.ActionLink("Application name", "Index", "People", null, new { @class = "navbar-brand" }) </div> <div class="navbar-collapse collapse"> <ul class="nav navbar-nav"> <li>@Html.ActionLink("People", "Index", "People")</li> </ul> @Html.Partial("_LoginPartial") </div> </div> </div> <div class="container body-content"> @RenderBody() <hr /> <footer> <p>© @DateTime.Now.Year - My ASP.NET Application</p> </footer> </div> @Scripts.Render("~/bundles/jquery") @Scripts.Render("~/bundles/bootstrap") @RenderSection("scripts", required: false) </body>
Update the Route Configuration
Also, I modified the Route.config so that the default route points to the Index method of the People Controller, instead of Home. The modified Route mapping looks like this:
Modified Route Mapping:
routes.MapRoute( name: "Default", url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}", defaults: new { controller = "People", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } );
Remove Unneeded Controllers and Views
For the demo project, I had no need for the extra controllers and views included with the default MVC project, so I removed them. We can delete the Home Controller, as well as the Home folder in the Views directory.
Additional Resources and Items of Interest
John on GoogleCodeProjectLANDOVER, Md. — Speaking to the media after a 27–20 loss to Washington, the worst game of his nascent career, Philadelphia QB Carson Wentz had every opportunity to spread the blame around. His offense, which managed just six points, had been outscored by the team’s defense (seven points) and special teams units (seven points), but he was far from the only ineffectual Eagle, though you might have guessed otherwise given his answers.
On the near-constant pressure he faced, including five sacks, two of which killed Philly’s final drive, Wentz said, "I should’ve made the right protection call and could’ve gotten the ball out in time.”
In regards to the previous possession, which stalled in the red zone when tight end Zach Ertz let a slant slip through his hands, "I threw it high on him and made it hard," Wentz said. "If I get it down and put it on his chest, it’s a walk-in touchdown."
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The defense did Wentz no favors either, surrendering 21 first-half points. But of course he wasn’t going to mention that. "Any time the offense has the chance to win at the end of the game and you come up short, it’s frustrating," Wentz said. "I put that on myself."
September’s gleeful press conferences—which came while Wentz piled up Rookie of the Week honors, in between earning comparisons to Peyton Manning and compliments from Brett Favre—felt like a fever dream. Now he was handling defeat like a vet. But as was the case last week in Detroit, Philadelphia’s struggles stretched far beyond its signal-caller.
Wentz faced challenges from the first snap of the game Sunday, when Ryan Kerrigan yanked him down for a sack, shredding Wentz’s jersey in the process. A new shirt didn’t solve his problems, as rookie right tackle Halapoulivaati Vaitai, who debuted this week in place of suspended Lane Johnson, consistently struggled to contain Kerrigan on the edge.
And when Wentz did appear to get going in the second half, a penalty negated what would have been a 38-yard pass play during which the QB evaded pressure and found Dorial Green-Beckham. Philadelphia finished with 13 infractions—hitting double digits for a third straight game. Despite playing one fewer contest than most other teams, the Eagles rank fourth with 49. "It’s frustrating as heck, honestly," Ertz said of the penalties. "It’s killing us."
Despite all of that, Wentz still seemed capable of pulling off a comeback when he connected with Green-Beckham and Ertz on consecutive deep throws with eight minutes to play. But then Ertz had a red-zone drop, Wentz was sacked twice on the following possession and Matt Jones found daylight on a 25-yard run that allowed the Redskins to kill the game’s final 90 seconds. Washington finished with more than twice as many yards (including 230 on the ground) and first downs as its visitors.
Today, the Eagles wake up in third place in a surprisingly tough division (the only other division boasting three winning clubs is the AFC West), with games against Minnesota, Dallas, Atlanta and Seattle looming over the next five weeks. Following two straight losses, Philly’s chances of making the playoffs according to FiveThirtyEight’s model have fallen from 67% to 36%. Comparing the current circumstances to where the then-undefeated Eagles sat after three games, atop Football Outsiders’ DVOA rankings and in the top five on both sides of the ball, one could think the team was Space Jam’d during its Week 4 bye—that its mojo was stolen and someone just needed to find it. That there’s a quick fix. But no. There’s “no magic pixie dust," receiver Jordan Matthews says. The real issue is certainly more serious.
Eagles coach Doug Pederson hinted at one possibility after the game, mentioning that opponents have film on the first-year coach and his rookie quarterback by this point. Other coordinators can now learn their tendencies and pinpoint their flaws. Yet the answer could be more discouraging still. Maybe it’s not that the league is figuring out who the Eagles are, but rather that Philadelphia is finally showing its true colors. Before Wentz got up to offer the media his home-cooked humble pie, Pederson took the mic to remind everyone that his quarterback is still learning, still growing. “He’s still a rookie.” The writers in attendance and fans back home might have needed that reminder a month ago. But after these two losses, it felt obvious.
That’s not a reason for the Philly faithful to fret, though—in fact it’s probably for the better. After being shown a glimpse of the potential future, the city now gets to come to terms with the fact that getting there requires a journey. Even if Wentz criticizes himself as if he’s an all-pro, he’s better off being judged with optimism rather than expectation. A couple come-back-to-Earth performances have helped ensure that’s the case. Just look at the questions he was asked Sunday, each seemingly hunting for the faults around him. On his way out, one scribe even gave Wentz a chance to blame the sun.
The first month of the season offered a chance to fall madly in love. Now the fan base needs to settle in for the long haul. Philadelphia seems destined for the rebuild it forecasted when Sam Bradford was shipped off for a draft pick. The No. 2 overall pick looks more like what we expected: a project, not a prophet. We should’ve known. Wentzylvania won’t be built in a day. September was doomed to end.
This article originally appeared onFeatures
Modernised, redesigned UI with all-new graphical elements and a flatter, fresher feel.
A true styles system, making it much easier to format headings, block quotes and more - all fully-integrated with Compile, so that you can reformat everything on the fly when you export or print.
Compile has been rebuilt from the ground up, making it much easier for novices while providing even more power for those who want to dive deep.
ePub 3 support and improved Kindle export, with fully customisable CSS for stunning ebooks.
View more documents alongside one another using the new "Copyholders" feature. You can even navigate your writing on one side of the UI and your research on the other.
Bookmark and then view and edit documents in the Inspector, right alongside whatever you're working on.
Enhanced outlining. Scrivener's corkboard and outliner are now more flexible, and show text previews for documents with no synopsis.
Writing Statistics: keep track of how much you write every day.
Track threads on the corkboard: Scrivener's new "Arrange by Label" corkboard mode allows you to arrange cards along coloured lines representing labels. Great for working out different storylines or themes.
Improved custom metadata: you can now create pop-up lists, checkboxes and date fields in Scrivener's Inspector and outliner.
Easy layout switching: quickly switch between useful UI setups using the new default layouts available from the Window > Layouts menu, or from the leftmost toolbar button.
Every single feature and UI element of Scrivener has been refreshed, overhauled and improved.
Scrivener is now 64-bit.
Much, much more.
More Info
Because of its extensive modernisation, Scrivener 3 requires macOS 10.12+ to run.
Don't worry, though: we'll continue to provide a download link for Scrivener 2 on our website for those on older systems or who do not wish to upgrade just yet. Not only that, but we'll be uploading a slightly updated version of Scrivener 2 that accepts a Scrivener 3 licence. So users on older systems can buy a Scrivener 3 licence and use it with Scrivener 2. For those working between a mix of platforms, Scrivener 3 can export to Scrivener 2 format (which is also useful for Windows users).
Scrivener 3 will cost $25 for existing users of Scrivener for macOS (Scrivener 1 or 2 macOS licences are valid for the update pricing). Anyone who purchased Scrivener 2 on or after 20th August 2017 will receive the update for free. To get the discounted upgrade pricing, simply visit our site, head to the store, and choose the "Upgrade from an older version" link. Here's a direct link to our store:
Visit Our Web Store
(This link will not work until release day - our site will be getting an overhaul on the same day.)
Note that you will need to have purchased direct from our web store (or from a reseller that required you to register via our store such as Amazon) to get the discounted pricing on our store. If you're a Mac App Store customer, please see below.
Free Trial
As always there will be a free 30-day trial available for Scrivener 3. Even if you've tried Scrivener before and run out of trial days, you'll be able to run the Scrivener 3 trial for a full thirty days of use.
Mac App Store Customers
Because Apple handles all sales through the Mac App Store and does not share customer information with us, we have no way of offering automatic discounts to Mac App Store customers via our web store. And because Apple provides no system for discounted paid updates through the Mac App Store itself, there is no way for us to offer discounted updates via the Mac App Store (Apple recommends subscriptions for this sort of thing, but we prefer to stick with the paid-update model rather than charge every year).
However, because we want to treat all customers equally, if you are a Mac App Store customer, if you send us proof-of-purchase for Scrivener 2 on the App Store, we will send you a discount coupon that you can use on our store. We just need you to email us your purchase receipt showing Scrivener 2 and the date. Please email these details to updates AT literatureandlatte.com on or after the day of release. Please bear with us, as we're a small team and expect to receive hundreds of emails. We will have to handle each discount for Mac App Store customers separately and personally, so it might take a couple of days to process.
Buying Scrivener 3 from the Mac App Store
As things stand at the time of writing this blog post, Scrivener 3 will most likely not initially be available on the Mac App Store. We will be removing Scrivener 2 from sale and Scrivener 3 should, we hope, be available on the Mac App Store soon after the release on our own store. I worked very hard to try to make sure that Scrivener 3 would be available on both stores at the same time, staying up into the early hours on Monday to ensure it was with Apple and had a whole week to get through the review process. Unfortunately that process is taking longer than hoped, owing to an obscure problem in Scrivener's metadata and having to wait a couple of days for clarification from Apple on what the problem is. I'll update this post if the situation changes.
When on November 20th?
Every time we announce a date, our eager antipodean users point out to us that we're late by their calendar, so let me clarify! We'll be releasing the update at some point during the 20th November UK time. We have a lot to do that day so cannot give a specific time. We'll be uploading the new version, switching over to the new site, ensuring all upgrade links still work after the switch, and much more. So please bear with us during the transition. There will no doubt be several hours where links and the store do not work as expected. We have nearly everything ready to go, but experience tells us that something always goes wrong no matter how much you prepare. In other words, if you're on the other side of the world from us, the release date for you is more accurately November 21st.
Other Updates
On the same day, we'll be releasing a minor update to Scrivener for iOS which fixes a number of iOS 11-related bugs and updates the application icon to fit in with our new, Scrivener 3 branding. We'll also be releasing an update to Scapple for macOS which fixes a number of bugs, has improved High Sierra compatibility and includes an enhanced Inspector.
What About Our Windows Users?
We understand that our Windows users are going to feel a little left out on Monday, but please rest assured that our dynamic duo of Windows developers is working its socks off on Scrivener 3 for Windows. (They'll also be working on a minor Scapple update soon too.) While we would have loved to have released Scrivener 3 for macOS and Windows on the same day, the only way we could have done so would have been by artificially holding back Scrivener 3 for macOS for a few more months.
The Mac version had a five year head-start on the Windows version, and as hard as our Windows developers have worked to catch up, I've been continually updating the macOS version as they did, providing them with a moving target. But the next major release of Scrivener for Windows will be jumping directly to version 3, because we are aiming for feature parity with the Mac version. So although our Windows users still have a little while to wait for their big 3.0 release day, we're working hard towards it. And in the meantime, the more intrepid and curious among you will be able to download an early beta of Scrivener 3 for Windows on Monday. (It is still a work in progress so we don't recommend it being used for major projects yet, but you will be able to see how beautiful it's looking and get an idea of what is in store for you in Q2 2019.)
We hope our Windows users can be happy for our macOS users on Monday rather than feeling neglected. After all, Microsoft always gives you the updates first!
Monday, Monday
We can't wait to get Scrivener 3 into our macOS users' hands. We hope you love it as much as we do.Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) The bereaved widower of a young Pakistani woman allegedly burned to death by her family says her relatives guaranteed her safety to persuade her to visit after she eloped against their wishes.
But after 18-year-old Zeenat Rafique arrived at her family's home in Lahore on Wednesday, her mother and brother tied her to a bed, poured gasoline and set her on fire, according to Punjab police representative Nabeela Ghazanfar.
An autopsy released Thursday said Rafique had traces of smoke in her respiratory tract, indicating she was alive when she was set ablaze, CNN affiliate Geo News reported.
Her mother, Parveen Rafique, has turned herself in to authorities and expressed no sorrow for her actions, police said. She's being held on suspicion of murder, while the brother, Ahmer Rafique, is on the run, police said.
Forbidden love
After Rafique was laid to rest Thursday, her tearful husband, Hassan Khan, 19, told CNN that the young lovers had been married only 11 days ago.
They spent three days together as husband and wife before her family persuaded her to return home temporarily, he said.
"Her relatives came and we told them that we're married now. They said, 'That's fine,' and asked us to send her home," he said.
"Her cousin gave the guarantee that nothing would happen to her. We were not sending her otherwise."
She was supposed to return Thursday but was killed the day before, he said.
"We went to her house, she was gone, she was finished and they had thrown her burnt body on the stairs," he said.
Allegations of earlier violence
Khan said his late wife's family had been violent toward her before over her wish to marry.
"The day we eloped she had been abused, there was blood on her nose and on her lips," he said. "She was in distress; she asked me to take her away and marry her."
He told police she had feared for her life after they eloped. But Rafique returned to visit her family because she thought a reconciliation was possible, police representative Ghazanfar told CNN.
The couple had known each other for five years, Khan said.
"She was unhappy, our marriage was the only way out that we had -- her family didn't approve."
'How could they be so heartless?'
Khan's mother, Shahida Khan, said that Rafique's family "had promised that not even one hair |
more than they were charging Americans — while piously explaining, when questioned, that "the markets are different."
The shearing of the Canadian flock provoked so much public anger at one stage that a Senate committee spent a good deal of time and money studying the matter before concluding there was really no clear reason for the huge price differentials (except, of course, plain greed).
Certain exceptions apply
But, having pushed prices in Canada to saturation levels and made out like bandits when the dollar was at par or better, it's difficult for manufacturers to jack prices up even further now to make up for the falling loonie.
Imagine if Honda Canada suddenly started trying to charge $43,000 instead of $30,864 for that mid-level Accord Sport? How many would they sell in a country where household debt now stands at record levels?
Mind you, there are exceptions: certain industries, like airlines and telecommunications companies and agricultural producers, enjoy largely protected markets. They have more freedom to charge what they like.
Air Canada, for example, embeds in its ticket price something called a "carrier surcharge," which is a new name for the old "fuel surcharge."
A little investigation will reveal that the surcharge for two randomly selected economy-class return tickets to Italy later this year amounts to $1,253.04, driving the total cost to $3,316.44, which includes an additional $242.44 in "taxes, fees, and charges," (as opposed to "surcharges," which are presumably different).
An Air Canada spokesman, asked to explain the big fuel surcharge at a time when the price of fuel has plummeted, said that most of the airlines costs are in US dollars, and therefore must be passed on.
But Dr. Gabor Lukacs, a Halifax-based academic who has sued the Canadian Transportation Agency over airline practices and won, several times, says the "real reason is there is no sufficient competition to force lower prices. It's not a free market."
Air travel is "a distorted market," he says. "It's a quasi-monopolistic market."
A better term for the carrier surcharge, he adds, would be "bigger-profit charge."
Expiry date
Alas, says Bruce Cran, president of the Canadian Consumers' Association, we shouldn't expect the relative price breaks in other areas to last too long.
Basically, he says, merchandise already in the pipeline, purchased at lower prices a year or more ago (like that nice cabernet at the LCBO, no doubt) is still moving through the system.
In a year or so, he suggests, Canadians can expect automakers to introduce different model names here, with different options packages, and then begin relentless, steady price increases.
He calls it the "mystification" process: corporations introduce specious variables and name changes to make strict apples-to-apples comparisons difficult, then issue bewildering statements about price inputs and the need to keep comparisons within the same market.
"Not only with cars, but with TVs and other goods," he says.
And the Canadian government, he predicts, will do nothing: "Canada is bad. Just absolutely bad. There is no consumer protection structure here nowadays."
So, happy 2016. You're actually getting a few deals, my fellow sheep. Enjoy them while they last.Jones Day, the United States' largest law firm, is threatening a parody website with litigation because of its use of the corporate logo deriding the firm.
"I write on behalf of Jones Day, a law firm with over 2500 lawyers in offices on five continents, regarding your unauthorized use of Jones Day's service mark on the website www.kevynorr.com..." begins the letter from firm partner Robert Ducatman to the anonymous blogger.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has come to the assistance of the blogger this week, said Jones Day's actions are one of several in which companies "have improperly" demanded that critics stop using their marks.
"The wise thing for them to do is simply accept somebody said something mean about them on the Internet and move on," EFF staff attorney Daniel Nazer said in a telephone interview Friday.
Ducatman did not respond for comment. But in his June 10 letter, he told the blogger that "Your conduct will be closely monitored."
Law360 in March announced that Jones Day was the biggest US law firm in terms of the number of attorneys, with 1,739. Greenberg Traurig came in second, with 1,558.
The parody site pokes at a former Jones Day partner, Kevyn Orr, who is serving as the emergency financial manager for the financially strapped city of Detroit. The site says Detroit's finances are being reorganized for the betterment of banks, not the public.
Nazer, in a letter to Jones Day, asks Ducatman to lighten up.
"The website fiercely criticizes Kevyn Orr, Jones Day, and other individuals and corporations that our client believes have acted against Detroit's best interests," Nazer wrote (PDF). "The placement of the Jones Day mark—under the tag line: 'Detroit's Economic Coup D'etat has been brought to you by'—is an obvious parody of corporate sponsorship."
Nazer added that "It is well-setled that the First Amendment fully protects the use of trademarked terms and logos in non-commercial websites that criticize and comment upon corporations and products."Cabinet has approved the submission of the films and publications amendment bill which is guided by policy that has been criticised for seeking to curb internet freedoms.
A cabinet statement released last week said the bill seeks to amend the films and publications act of 1996 by adapting it to technological advances.
These changes include catering for online and social media platforms “in order to protect children from being exposed to disturbing and harmful media content in all platforms (physical and online)”.
A draft policy drawn up by content classification body the Film and Publication Board (FPB) is expected to inform the bill.
Topics covered in the draft policy are preventing children from viewing, for example, pornography online. Hate speech and racist content have also been covered by the draft online policy.
“The bill strengthens the duties imposed on mobile networks and internet service providers to protect the public and children during usage of their services,” read a cabinet statement last week.
“The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) will not issue licences or renewals without confirmation from the Film and Publication Board of full compliance with its legislation,” the statement added.
The FPB was not available for comment on what exactly is contained in the amendment bill.
Spokesperson for the FPB, Janine Raftopoulos, told Fin24 that the board is “still going through all the many submissions” regarding the online regulation policy.
“Once we go through those, then only will be able to put forward that bill to the parliamentary portfolio committee and then on to the minister (Faith Muthambi),” Raftopoulos told Fin24.
Gavin Davis, the Democratic Alliance (DA) shadow minister for communications, also told Fin24 that the amendment bill has yet to be gazetted and that the communications portfolio committee would still need to “deliberate on it and amend it” before it is signed into law.
Concerns over bill
But while the bill is intended to protect children from harmful online content, concerns have been raised over the broad terms of the draft policy.
For example, the Film and Publications Board has said it wanted all internet material to be classified in South Africa, according to a government gazette released in March 2015 which outlined contents of the proposed online regulation policy.
“All online material will need to be classified, in much the same way as films are currently classified. Online pornographic material will be classified as such,” Davis told Fin24.
“The policy appears to apply to any person who uploads online content, be it via Facebook, Instagram, a blog, or any other online platform. This opens the door for the state to impinge on citizens’ constitutional right to freedom of expression and to impart information,” Davis explained.
Davis further said that if the bill is “based on the draft online regulation policy released earlier this year, it will certainly impact on freedom of expression”.
“According to clause 7.4 of the policy, the Film and Publications Board has the power to have any content deemed ‘potentially harmful and disturbing to children’ taken down.
“When read with the Film and Publications Act, the policy will empower the board to ban – by way of an ‘XX’ classification – any online content that is ‘degrading’ or ‘promotes harmful behaviour’.
“The broadness of these terms gives the government significant latitude to proscribe content that does not fit in with the governing party’s political agenda and worldview,” said Davis.
Press exempt
Previously, the policy’s reach was also expected to impact on online publishers by forcing them to apply to the board to have their content classified.
However, Fin24 reported last month that a key compromise was made in this regard as members of the Press Council are exempt from the policy.
This means that members of the Press Council will have their online content governed by the Press Code and not the online regulation policy.
“We’ve had positive confirmation from the Film and Publications Board CEO that the current exemption that applies to the press will be extended to general press content irrespective of the medium in which it is published,” Andrew Allison, head of the Regulatory Affairs for the IAB, told Fin24 last month.
Apart from public consultations possibly changing the board’s contents in the online regulation policy, final amendments to the policy can still be made in Parliament.
“Yes, the bill has not yet come before Parliament so there will be opportunity to amend it,” Davis told Fin24.
“Now it needs to come to Parliament before the communications portfolio committee. We will deliberate on it, and amend where necessary before it is passed in the national assembly and then signed into law by the president,” Davis said.
Source: News24
More about online censorship
Online censorship in South Africa – is it for the children?
Online content censorship in South Africa looms
14,000 sign petition against FPB online regulationsSometimes I’m amazed at how Swedish I have become. I love the wintertime and snowfall and the darkness doesn’t bother me that much. Laundry bookings prevent a run on the washing machines Saturday morning, and the despicable Systembolaget is clean and full of helpful information when buying wine.
There are some Swedish things I cannot live without. Perhaps I have truly lost my mind.
Kalle Anka önskar God Jul
Finally, a country that loves Donald Duck more than Mickey Mouse. Plus, you have to be drinking glögg and eating pepparkakor.
Inga Skor
No shoes in the house. Seriously, why would you wear shoes in the house? After steeping on concrete, rain, asphalt, shit, used papers, grass, stones, Americans will go home happily and put those nasty shoes on the couch. And you look at Europeans for double-dipping the salsa with disgust.
Fika
A special time, and it doesn’t matter what time, for coffee and sweets.
Allemansrätten
Known as “everyman’s right,” allemansrätten provides Swedes the ability to experience nature and the outdoors without restrictions. The main covenant of allemansrätten is “do not disturb, do not destroy.”
This allows you to camp on public and private lands (not restricted lands) for up to two nights without permission. When you leave, there should be no evidence that you stayed.
You also have the right to pick berries, mushrooms (not black truffles, they grow underground), and flowers for yourself.
It’s a wonderful right that promotes being neighborly, respecting the outdoors, and learning about nature.
Semlor
A soft bread bun filled with soft almond paste and delicious whipped cream. Who wouldn’t like it?
Matches
Gustaf Erik Pasch used a non-toxic red phosphorus in 1844 compared to the existing yellow phosphorus used to light the match. No idea why Solsticken’s baby logo looks just like the Water Babies’ sunblock baby.
No wonder Swedes love candles!
25 Days of Vacation
As a full time employee, 25 days is the minimum under Swedish law. Swedish law also states you have the right to take 4 weeks off in July. I never have, but I split 2-3 vacations throughout the year.
This makes me want to be a more productive employee – relaxed, refreshed, and happy to not fight for vacation days.
Systembolaget
I hate you, but I still need you.
Osthyvel
The most amazing thing since sliced bread, sliceable cheese!
photo by Rauenstein, Creative Commons Some Rights Reserved.
Skatteverket DIY Taxes
Doing taxes has never been easier and in a way, more fun! Skatteverket, the Swedish Tax Authority, sends you a massive yellow colored, 4-paged glued tax document with your earnings and taxes and then tells you if you need to pay or if you get taxes.
If you have deductibles, they’re so easy to fill out, you’ll beg the IRS to do the same.
Oh, and you can snail max, text message, phone call, or online submit your taxes. Winning!
Wafflar, Kanelbullar, Lussekatter
Basically all sweets are delicious in Sweden. Even those super marzipan, sugary tartlets. The exceptions to the rule are licorice ice cream and salty licorice. But then again, there are days I have licorice ice cream.
I am sure I will come up with more…In this article, I’ll describe the steps I usually take to troubleshoot the top four EMI issues, conducted emissions, radiated emissions, radiated immunity, and electrostatic discharge. Of these, the last three are the most prevalent issues, with radiated emissions typically being the number one failure. If your product or system (EUT) has adequate power and I/O port filtering, conducted emissions and the other power line-related immunity tests are not usually an issue.
For your convenience, I’ve developed a list of recommended equipment useful for troubleshooting EMI. The download link is listed in Reference 1.
Sponsor
Conducted Emissions
This is usually not an issue given adequate power line filtering, however, many low-cost power supplies lack good filtering. Some “no name” brands have no filtering at all! The conducted emissions test is easy to run, so here you go.
Set up your spectrum analyzer as follows:
Frequency 150 kHz to 30 MHz Resolution bandwidth = 10 or 9 kHz Preamp = Off Adjust the Reference Level so the highest harmonics are displayed and the vertical scale is reading in even 10 dB increments Use average detection initially and CISPR detection on any peaks later Internal attenuation – start with 20 to 30 dB at first and adjust for best display and no analyzer overload. Set the vertical units to dBμV
I also like to set the horizontal scale from linear to log, so frequencies are easier to read out.
Obtain a Line Impedance Stabilization Network (LISN) and position it between the product or system under test and the spectrum analyzer. Note the sequence of connection below!
CAUTION: It’s often important to power up the EUT prior to connecting the LISN to the analyzer. This is because large transients can occur at power-up and may potentially destroy the sensitive input stage of the analyzer. Note that the TekBox LISN has built-in transient protection. Not all do…you’ve been warned!
Power up the EUT and then connect the 50-Ohm output port of the LISN to the analyzer. Note the harmonics are usually very high at the lower frequencies and taper off towards 30 MHz. Be sure these higher harmonics don’t overdrive the analyzer. Add additional internal attenuation, if required.
By comparing the average detected peaks with the appropriate CISPR limits, you’ll be able to tell whether the EUT is passing or failing prior to formal compliance testing.
Ambient Transmitters
One problem you’ll run into immediately is that when testing outside of a shielded room or semi-anechoic chamber, is the number of ambient signals from sources like FM and TV broadcast transmitters, cellular telephone, and two-way radio. This is especially an issue when using current probes or external antennas. I’ll usually run a baseline plot on the analyzer using “Max Hold” mode to build up a composite ambient plot. Then, I’ll activate additional traces for the actual measurements. For example, I often have three plots or traces on the screen; the ambient baseline, the “before” plot, and the “after” plot with some fix applied.
Often, its easier to narrow the frequency span on the spectrum analyzer down to zero in on a particular harmonic, thus eliminating most of the ambient signals. If the harmonic is narrow band continuous wave (CW), then reducing the resolution bandwidth (RBW) can also help separate the EUT harmonics from nearby ambients. Just be sure reducing the RBW doesn’t also reduce the harmonic amplitude.
Another caution is that strong nearby transmitters can affect the amplitude accuracy of the measured signals, as well as create mixing products that appear to be harmonics, but are really combinations of the transmitter frequency and mixer circuit in the analyzer. You may need to use an external bandpass filter at the desired harmonic frequency to reduce the affect of the external transmitter. Although more expensive, an EMI receiver with tuned preselection would be more useful than a normal spectrum analyzer in high RF environments. Keysight Technologies and Rohde & Schwarz would be suppliers to consider. All these techniques are described in more detail in Reference 3.
Radiated Emissions
This is normally the highest risk test. Set up your spectrum analyzer as follows:
1. Frequency 10 to 500 MHz Resolution bandwidth = 100 or 120 kHz Preamp = On (or use an external 20 dB preamp if the analyzer lacks this) Adjust the Reference Level so the highest harmonics are displayed and the vertical scale is reading in even 10 dB increments Use positive peak detection Set the internal attenuation = zero
Sometimes I prefer setting the vertical units from the default dBm to dBμV, so the displayed numbers are positive. This is also the same unit used in the test limits of the standards. I also like to set the horizontal scale from linear to log, so frequencies are easier to read out.
I perform my initial scan up to 500 MHz, because this is usually the worst case band for digital harmonics. You’ll want to also record the emissions at least up to 1 GHz (or higher) in order to characterize any other dominant emissions. Generally speaking, resolving the lower frequency harmonics will also reduce the higher harmonics.
Near Field Probing
Most near field probe kits come with both E-field and H-field probes. Deciding on H-field or E-field probes depends on whether you’ll be probing currents – that is, high di/dt – (circuit traces, cables, etc.) or high voltages – that EMI is, dV/dt – (switching power supplies, etc.) respectively. Both are useful for locating leaky seams or gaps in shielded enclosures.
Start with the larger H-field probe (Figure 1) and sniff around the product enclosure, circuit board(s), and attached cables. The objective is to identify major noise sources and specific narrow band and broadband frequencies. Document the locations and dominant frequencies observed. As you zero in on sources, you may wish to switch to smaller-diameter H-field probes, which will offer greater resolution (but less sensitivity).
Remember that not all sources of high frequency energy located on the board will actually radiate! Radiation requires some form of coupling to an “antenna-like” structure, such as an I/O cable, power cable, or seam in the shielded enclosure.
Compare the harmonic frequencies with known clock oscillators or other high frequency sources. It will help to use the Clock Oscillator Calculator, developed by my co-author, Patrick André. See the download link in Reference 2.
When applying potential fixes at the board level, be sure to tape down the near field probe to reduce the variation you’ll experience in physical location of the probe tip. Remember, we’re mainly interested in relative changes as we apply fixes.
Also, H-field probes are most sensitive (will couple the most magnetic flux) when their plane is oriented in parallel with the trace or cable. It’s also best to position the probe at 90 degrees to the plane of the PC board. See Figure 2.
Current Probe Next, measure the attached common mode cable currents (including power cables) with a high frequency current probe, such as the Fischer Custom Communications model F-33-1, or equivalent (Figure 3). Document the locations of the top several harmonics and compare with the list determined by near field probing. These will be the most likely to actually radiate and cause test failures, because they are flowing on antenna-like structures (cables). Use the manufacturer’s supplied calibration chart of transfer impedance to calculate the actual current at a particular frequency. Note that it only takes 5 to 8 μA of high frequency current to fail the FCC or CISPR test limits.
It’s a good idea to slide the current probe back and forth to maximize the harmonics. This is because some frequencies will resonate in different places, due to standing waves on the cable.
Its also possible to predict the radiated E-field (V/m) given the current flowing in a wire or cable, with the assumption the length is electrically short at the frequency of concern. This has been shown to be accurate for 1m long cables at up to 200 MHz. Refer to Reference 3 for details.
Note on the Use of External Antennas
Note that there are two distinct goals when using external EMI antennas;
Relative troubleshooting, where you know areas of failing frequencies and need to reduce their amplitudes. A calibrated antenna is not required, as only relative changes are important. The important thing I that harmonic content from the EUT should be easily visible. Pre-compliance testing, where you wish to duplicate the test setup as used by the compliance test lab. That is, setting up a calibrated antenna 3m or 10m away from the product or system under test and determining in advance whether you’re passing or failing.
Pre-Compliance Testing for Radiated Emissions
If you’re desiring to set up a pre-compliance test, (#2 above), then given a calibrated EMI antenna spaced 3m or 10m away from the EUT, you can calculate the E-field (dBμV/m) by recording the dBμV reading of the spectrum analyzer and factoring in the coax loss, external preamp gain (if used), any external attenuator (if used), and antenna factor (from the antenna calibration provided by the manufacturer). This calculation can then be compared directly with the 3m or 10m radiated emissions test limits using the formula:
E-field (dBμV/m) = SpecAnalyzer (dBμV) – PreampGain (dB) + CoaxLoss (dB) + AttenuatorLoss (dB) + AntFactor (dB)
For the purposes of this article, I’ll focus mainly on the procedure for troubleshooting using a close-spaced antenna (#1 above) for general characterization of harmonic levels actually being radiated and testing potential fixes. For example, knowing you may be over the limit by 3 dB at some harmonic frequency means your goal should be to reduce that emission by 6 to 10 dB for adequate margin.
Troubleshooting with a Close-Spaced Antenna
Once the product’s harmonic profile is fully characterized, it’s time to see which harmonics actually radiate. To do this, we use an antenna spaced at least 1m away from the product or system under test to measure the actual emissions (Figure 4). Typically, it will be leakage from attached I/O or power cables, as well as leakage in the shielded enclosure. Compare this data to that of the near field and current probes. Can you now determine the probable source(s) of the emissions noted?
Try to determine if cable radiation is the dominant issue by removing the cables one by one. You can also try installing a ferrite choke on one, or more, cables as a test. Use the near field probes to determine if leakage is also occurring from seams or openings in the shielded enclosure.
Once the emission sources are identified, you can use your knowledge of filtering, grounding, and shielding to mitigate the problem emissions. Try to determine the coupling path from inside the product to any outside cables. In some cases, the circuit board may need to be redesigned by optimizing the layer stack-up or by eliminating high speed traces crossing gaps in return planes, etc. By observing the results in real time with an antenna spaced some distance away, the mitigation phase should go quickly.
Common Issues
There are a number of product design areas that can cause radiated emissions:
1. Poor cable shield terminations is the top issue Leaky product shielding Internal cables coupling to seams or I/O areas High speed traces crossing gaps in the return plane Sub-optimal layer stack-up
Refer to the references for additional details on system and PC board design issues that can cause emissions failures.
Radiated Immunity
Most radiated immunity tests are performed from 80 to 1000 MHz (or, in some cases, as high as 2.7 GHz). Common test levels are 3 or 10 V/m. Military products can go as high as 50 to 200 V/m, depending on the operational environment. The commercial standard for most products is IEC 61000-4-3, whose test setup is quite involved. However, using some simple techniques, you can identify and resolve most issues quickly.
Handheld Radio For radiated immunity, we generally start outside the EUT and use license-free handheld transmitters, such as the Family Radio Service (FRS) walkie-talkies (or equivalent) to determine areas of weakness. By holding these low power radios close to the product or system under test, you can often force a failure (Figure 5).
Hold the transmit button down and run the radio antenna all around the EUT. This should include all cables, seams, display ports, etc.
RF Generator
It’s very common that only certain frequency bands are susceptible and sometimes the fixed frequency handheld radios are not effective. In that case, I use an adjustable RF generator with attached large size H-field probe and probe all around at known failing frequencies. It also helps to probe the internal cables and PC board to determine areas of sensitivity. For smaller products, as in Figure 6, try using the smaller H-field probes for best physical resolution.
In place of the larger lab-quality RF generators, I also use a smaller USB-controlled RF synthesizer, such as the Windfreak SynthNV (or equivalent) with the near field probe. The SynthNV can produce up to +19 dBm RF power from 34 MHz to 4.4 GHz, so works well. This also fits into my EMI troubleshooting kit nicely. See Figure 7. You’ll find a list of recommended generators in Reference 1.
Electrostatic Discharge
Electrostatic discharge testing is best performed using a test setup as described in the IEC 61000-4-2 standard. This requires a test table and ground planes of certain dimensions. The EUT is placed in the middle of the test table. I usually suggest replacing floor tiles with copper or aluminum 4 x 8-foot sheets, which will fit right into the spaces of the existing tiles (Figure 8).
Testing requires an ESD simulator, which is available from a number of sources. See Reference 1. I use the older KeyTek MiniZap, which is relatively small and can be adjusted to +/- 15 kV. There are several other suitable (and newer) designs.
ESD testing is rather complex as far as identifying the test points, but basically, there are two tests – air discharge and contact discharge. Use air discharge for all points where an operator could touch the outside of the EUT. Use contact discharge for all exposed metal where an operator could touch and discharge into. Test both positive and negative polarities. Most commercial tests require 4 kV contact discharge and 8 kV air discharge.
The test setup also includes horizontal and vertical coupling planes. Use the contact discharge tip into the coupling planes. These planes need a high-impedance discharge path to earth. See the IEC standard for details and exact test procedures.
Summary
By developing your own EMI troubleshooting and pre-compliance test lab, you’ll save time and money by moving the troubleshooting process in-house, rather than scheduling time and the related cost and scheduling delays by depending on commercial test labs.
Most of the high-risk EMI tests are easily performed with low-cost equipment. The cost savings by performing troubleshooting at you own facility can mount up to hundreds of thousands of dollars and weeks or months of product delays.
References
Recommended list of EMI troubleshooting equipment – http://www.emc-seminars.com/EMI_Troubleshooting_Equipment_List-Wyatt.pdfIndiana will continue to ban Sunday carryout alcohol sales. (Photo: Thinkstock.com )
Hardin County will soon be legally producing bourbon for the first time since the 1890s.
The News-Enterprise reports the Boundary Oak Distillery will begin producing bourbon this year that will be aged two years and then sold.
The barrel to age the first batch of Boundary Oak bourbon was on display Thursday at a celebration marking the bourbon's official launch.
Brent Goodin, who owns the distillery with wife Melody, said that following the first barrel, they will age the bourbon for four years.
Goodin is also the master distiller.
He said Boundary Oaks has "the best spring water in the state," and it's the water that will make their bourbon special.
Goodin hopes the distillery will eventually be part of the Bourbon Trail, which attracts around 600,000 people annually.
Higher Education: UK proposes courses in brewing, distilling
Mitch McConnell: 'Bourbon summit' with Obama will happen
Read or Share this story: http://cjky.it/1uBO7RdChina‘s ever-expanding real estate bubble is spawning empty cities, abandoned resorts and other such “bridges to nowhere” but few of these white elephants are as eerie and gloomy as this unusual, unfinished and unoccupied village of empty villas.
Boom, Bust and Echoing Hallways
(image via: BBS.HSW)
China these days is awash with empty, abandoned and overbuilt housing, office and resort space. This is really saying something, considering China has a population of over 1.3 billion and overpopulation was so great a threat to future prosperity, the nation had to enact a draconian “one child law” to put the brakes on reproduction.
(images via: Caixin, Law.Dahe and 95191.com)
If there’s one thing modern China has more than people, however, it’s money… money that begs to be invested (some might say, laundered) in a virtual Pandora’s Box of get-rich-quick schemes. Many, if not most, of these investment “opportunities” are based on land speculation fueled by easy credit and a vast pool of nouveau riche who have been the prime beneficiaries of China’s great economic leap forward. Unlike many other nations, China’s financial system doesn’t provide many venues for cash investment – a concept that itself would be incomprehensible a generation ago. One might say that China’s financial infrastructure hasn’t yet caught up to the money-making machine that China’s economy has become.
(images via: XYBTV.com, Japanorama and Caixin)
In some ways, China’s construction boom is following in the footsteps of Japan’s real estate bubble – which, as we all know, ended rather badly. Even as Japan’s boom turned to bust, the nation’s government sought to cushion the construction industry by continuing to fund bizarre theme parks, unnecessary shoreline remediation and odd “musical highways”… projects that provided short-term employment only.
Villages of the Damned Speculators
(images via: Designerly Thinking and American News Post)
A similar wasteful pattern is being played out in China. Construction is funded for the sake of construction, regardless of any local need. Cities like Ordos sit virtually empty since without any accompanying manufacturing activity nearby, people have no reason to live there (and no income to pay for living space).
(image via: BBS.HSW)
China also suffers from a lack of regulation which has allowed pyramid schemes and official corruption to flourish. Take the unfinished resort complex at Lan Jia Village, in the Baqiao District of Shaanxi province, west of Beijing. The 160-acre complex sits on former farmland, thus depriving farmers of their occupation and markets of fresh and processed food.
(images via: ChinaHush and BBS.HSW)
On the face of it, the idea for a resort at Lan Jia Village isn’t a bad one and it wasn’t bad back in 1997 when developers first presented their plans to local authorities. Situated at the junction of three rivers (Ba River, Wei River and Jing River), the complex features a group of two-story, Mediterranean-style villas highlighted by a central domed conference center. Winding paths and canals weave amongst the villas and artful landscaping lent the resort a pleasing, pastoral vibe.
The Lost Resort
(images via: ChinaHush and ChariWeb)
So much for best intentions. Unbeknownst to the developers (or perhaps knownst, who can say?), regional authorities presented a plan for remodeling the shores of the Wei River, preserving wetlands and instituting a green belt along the shore. “The land belonged to Lan Jia Village at that time,” explained Yan Gaochao, an official from Ba Qiao District, to an independent reporter. “The developers had to apply to the homeland department for approval to nationalize the land before using it for other purposes, which began a series of processes. At that time, the developers took a short cut, signed the draft with the government and started the construction right away, never expecting the process to be stuck and/or contradicting with another government project. That’s why the villa cluster is left unfinished.”
(images via: Gaoling, BBS.HSW and ChariWeb)
One might expect the 160 acres to be cleared and returned to the farmers who originally occupied it but of course, that’s just too easy. While Yan assured the reporter that demolition of the villas “is inevitable”, he was unable to provide any further information. “There are no guidelines, no laws or regulations to follow through, or to decide whether or not to compensate the developers.” Indeed, nearly 15 years after construction began, the developers are nowhere to be found – perhaps they decided to cut their losses and move on to the next scheme.
(image via: Caixin)
In the meantime, the erstwhile Lan Jia Village resort continues to deteriorate. Windowless buildings offer ingress to sheltering wild animals, inclement weather and local children who play among the ruins. The village does have one tenant, however: a man named Li who lives in the domed conference center building. “I have been living here for 7 years,” stated Mr. Li, who said he was hired to oversee the buildings and do some light gardening. “My boss is only a project manager, I have never seen the real boss.” Odds are he never will.Screenshot Even though she doesn't have time for bronchitis, Oklahoma City resident Kimberly Wilkins—better known on the Internet as Sweet Brown—does have time to sue Apple.
She's suing over an iTunes song that sampled a few of her catchphrases, according to NewsOk.
Sweet Brown got her first fifteen minutes of fame when she told a local TV-news station that she fled a burning apartment building because she suffered from bronchitis, and "ain't nobody got time for that."
The video became a viral sensation, amassing 1 million views on YouTube within 48 hours. Sweet Brown is seeking to profit from her Internet fame by becoming a celebrity spokesperson—and that may actually bolster her case.
Sweet Brown is suing Apple, a radio program called The Bob Rivers Show, and a handful of other parties for unauthorized use of her likeness, according to court documents.
The basis of the lawsuit stems from a song called "I Got Bronchitis." The Bob Rivers Show, according to Sweet Brown's complaint, produced the song with samples from Wilkins' interview with the local TV-news station. The song sampled phrases like, "Ain't nobody got time for that," "Ran for my life," and "Oh, Lord Jesus it's a fire."
The suit claims that in April 2012, the defendants started selling the song on iTunes for profit. It also claims the radio program and its owner falsely advertised that Sweet Brown had given her consent for the radio station to use her voice and likeness in the song.
The suit was first filed in the District Court of Oklahoma County in June 2012. At that time, Wilkins sought a total of $15 million from the defendants. The suit has since moved to the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.
Lawyers for Sweet Brown recently petitioned the court to remove themselves from the lawsuit, so Sweet Brown and a co-complainant, Sparkell Adams, are currently representing themselves.
Adams has represented herself as an agent for Sweet Brown in response to inquiries from Business Insider.
The claim against Apple, at least, may not hold up in court. That's because The Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides protection for companies if they promptly take action to remove material whose copyright is disputed.
Apple has since removed the song from iTunes. But if you want to see the original news report in the form of music video, watch the video below—before it draws a lawsuit, too.Researchers have used ultra-short pulses of X-rays to film shock waves in diamonds. The study headed by DESY scientists opens up new possibilities for studying the properties of materials. Thanks to the extremely bright and short X-ray flashes, the researchers were able to follow the rapid, dynamic changes taking place in the shock wave with a high spatial as well as a high temporal resolution. The team around DESY physicist Prof. Christian Schroer is presenting its results in the journal Scientific Reports. "With our experiment we are venturing into new scientific terrain," says the first author of the scientific paper, Dr. Andreas Schropp of DESY. "We have managed for the first time to use X-ray imaging to quantitatively determine the local properties and the dynamic changes of matter under extreme conditions."
For their pilot study, the scientists analysed diamond samples with the world's most powerful X-ray laser, the Linac Coherent Light Source LCLS at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in the U.S. The researchers fixed a three centimetre long diamond strip, just 0.3 millimetre thick, in a specimen holder and triggered a shock wave with a brief flash from a powerful infrared laser that hit the narrow edge of the diamond; this pulse lasted 0.15 billionths of a second (150 picoseconds) and reached a power level of up to 12 trillion watts (12 terawatts) per square centimetre. The resulting shock wave shot through the diamond at about 72,000 kilometres per hour.
"In order to take snapshots of such rapid processes, you need to use extremely short exposure times," explains Schropp. The X-ray pulses produced by the LCLS last just 50 millionths of a billion |
-serving exploitive elites that control the credit money issued by central banks and states.
Crypto-currencies are revolutionary because they are independent of central banks and an easy medium of exchange. Gold and silver are independent forms of money, but other than silver coins, the precious metals don't lend themselves to acting as mediums of exchange in an increasingly digital world.
The key point here is the current financial system is highly centralized, while crypto-currencies are decentralized. Should a government decide to recapitalize bank losses with a bail-in, i.e. expropriating depositors' money to cover banks' losses, as was done in Cyprus, the depositors have no recourse: the state sends the order to the banks and the depositors' accounts are legally robbed.
While some people believe the government will be able to outlaw the use of crypto-currencies, or expropriate bitcoin just like it does with regular bank accounts, the decentralized nature of crypto-currencies makes this more difficult than in a system dominated by five Too Big To Fail banks and a central bank.
Another reason to follow the growth of blockchain applications (the technology underpinning bitcoin) is that these big banks have jumped on the blockchain and "smart contracts" technology of Ethereum. The politically potent banks recognize that they must either adopt these technologies or they will wither on the vine, and they will not look kindly on any government effort to outlaw the technologies that are their future.
The last reason to follow crypto-currencies is their potential to gain value. In a currency-swap, bitcoin acts solely as a medium of exchange between yuan and dollars. But due to the structural limit on the total number of bitcoin that can be created/mined (21 million, of which 17 million are in circulation), bitcoin is a store-of-value currency as well as a medium of exchange.
Global financial assets total $294 trillion.
All the gold in the world is currently worth about $7 trillion.
All the bitcoin in circulation total $8 billion--an order of magnitude smaller than gold. Were bitcoin to represent 1% of total global financial assets, i.e. $2.9 trillion, that would represent a 362-fold increase, suggesting a price per bitcoin of $172,000.
That sounds insane, so let's say bitcoin becomes a mere 1/10th of 1% of total global financial assets. That equates to a price of $17,000 per bitcoin.
Impossible? let's check back in 5 years in 2021, and in 10 years, in 2026, before we declare this impossible.
In June 2016, I wrote:
The point is that value is ultimately driven by demand, and demand is driven by utility. As bitcoin’s utility increases in a world of rising financial repression, capital controls and expropriations, devaluations, etc., the demand for bitcoin will likely rise as well.
And as bitcoin’s stability and valuation increase, the potential for a self-reinforcing feedback loop increases: as bitcoin’s value rises, it attracts more capital, which pushes prices higher, and so on.
Perhaps bitcoin will remain a financial novelty; perhaps it will suffer some fatal technological snafu. Maybe some new cryptocurrency will replace bitcoin. All of these are possibilities. But at this point, given the seven-year history of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, the regulatory acceptance of the technology in the U.S., the Gold Rush mentality of major corporations into these technologies, and the rise of financial repression globally, it seems like a reasonably safe bet that cryptocurrencies may not just be around in seven years--they might play a larger role in global finance.
* * *
If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Check out both of my new books, Inequality and the Collapse of Privilege ($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print) and Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print, $5.95 audiobook) For more, please visit the OTM essentials website.The return of the 'prince of pot' - Marc Emery to Canada has once again raised the important issue of the criminalization marijuana (legalization please).
Yesterday - while stuck at home still recovering from a tonsillectomy - I came across a Sun News TV spot where Justin Ling and Marissa Semkiw discussed the pot issue.
Maybe it was the pain killers - but Semkiw's comments on the criminalization of marijuana were simply shocking and irresponsible (here is a link to the video). Toward the end of the video Semkiw says:
"We are talking convictions here [...] Lets be clear Justin [...] Marijuana is defacto decriminalized - ok - you get nothing more than a slap on the wrist"
What?!?
Lets be clear Semkiw - it is a currently a crime to possess any amount - even a gram - of marijuana. It is an offence to grow pot. It is an offence to sell pot
You are a drug trafficker - according to our laws - when you pass a joint to a friend.
No Marissa - Marijuana is not defacto decriminalized and to call criminal sanctions as a'slap on the wrist' represents a gross misunderstanding of the consequences of simply being charged (leaving aside the possibility of being convicted) of a drug offence.
Last year approximately 50,000 people were arrested for possessing marijuana. Ultimately 25,786 charges for simple possession of pot were laid by Canadian police forces. The numbers fluctuate from year to year but since 2003 there has been a 60% increase in the number of possession charges laid by police.
Additionally, the rate of laying a charge following an arrest remains virtually unchanged - there has been no real increase in the use of police discretion divert marijuana charges.Victor Aureliano Martinez Ramirez was in the United States illegally and was allowed to remain despite a string of arrests, and now outrage is building after the 29-year-old Mexican national was accused of raping and murdering a 64-year-old woman.
Martinez has been charged in a fatal attack on Marilyn Pharis inside her Santa Maria home. Authorities say Martinez attacked the woman with a hammer after breaking into her home on July 24, sexually assaulting and ultimately killing her.
Now many are pointing fingers at the state of California for enacting policies that allow illegal immigrants to remain in the country, Fox News reported. Santa Maria police chief Ralph Martin called out state and federal lawmakers for not cracking down on illegal immigration, which allowed Martinez to avoid deportation after a string of arrests.
“I think this is a national issue – it starts with administration and their policies,” Martin said after Pharis died from the attack. “You can draw a direct line to this governor and Legislature.
“I am not remiss to say that from Washington, DC, to Sacramento, there is a blood trail to Marilyn Pharis’ bedroom,” he added.
The attack on Pharis was particularly brutal. Police say the woman was asleep in her bed when two men broke into her room at 9:45 a.m. on July 24, beating her in the head with a claw hammer, strangling and raping her with a foreign object. She survived the initial attack and called police, but died in a hospital more than a week later.
Police have arrested a second suspect, 20-year-old Jose Fernando Villagomez.
The illegal alien, also identified as Victor Aureliano Martinez, had been arrested six for times for minor crimes, including one this May.
As Fox News reported, authorities did not move to deport Martinez:
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement admitted in a statement it did not issue an immigration detainer, which would have led to deportation, for Ramirez following the most recent arrest. The agency said its decision was “based on the agency’s enforcement priorities after a thorough review of his case history showed he had no prior deportations or felony criminal convictions.”
The rape and murder of Marilyn Pharis came after another high-profile crime allegedly committed by an illegal alien. In San Francisco, Kathryn Steinle was gunned down in what appeared to be a random attack. Police arrested Francisco Sanchez, identified as an illegal alien.
At the time of his rape and murder arrest, Victor Aureliano Martinez Ramirez was on probation for an arrest for felony assault with intent to commit sexual assault while in possession of a controlled substance. He was convicted of a lesser charge, Fox News noted, the re-arrested in May for allegedly concealing a dagger and possessing drug paraphernalia.
[Image via Santa Maria Police Department]Arizona House committee advances discriminatory transgender bathroom bill Lawmakers approved a measure to shield businesses from lawsuits if they deny transgender people bathroom access
Arizona state Rep. John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills) faced a national outcry from transgender advocacy groups (and otherwise fairness-minded people) after introducing a bill to criminalize transgender people for using the correct bathroom. As a result, the Republican lawmaker backed away from language in the measure applying heavy fines and jail time to trans men and women who use the bathroom of their designated gender, and altered the bill to shield private businesses that deny bathroom access to transgender people from lawsuits.
Kavanagh introduced the measure in reaction to recent anti-discrimination protections passed by the Phoenix City Council, which he apparently did not like:
Advertisement:
The city of Phoenix has crafted a bill that allows people to define their sex by what they think in their head. If you’re a male, you don’t go into a female shower or locker room, or vice versa. It also raises the specter of people who want to go into those opposite sex facilities not because they’re transgender, but because they’re weird.
Addressing the crowds at the hearing, Kavanagh conceded that the original language of the measure went "too far," but remained unapologetic about his intent to target Phoenix's anti-discrimination policies, saying he wanted to "reset the clock to before Phoenix passed the law."
State Rep. Stefanie Mach and three other Democrats voted against the measure, calling it "an embarrassment to our state," while a parade of transgender and other witnesses testified against it.
But Kavanagh and six other Republicans quickly advanced the bill. The measure is now heading to the House for a full vote.British airstrikes are believed to have killed more than 1,300 Islamic State fighters in a 12-month period, according to figures released by the Ministry of Defence.
The figures were released after a written parliamentary question from Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron:
“How many Daesh militants have been killed or wounded by British forces in Iraq?”
Mike Penning, Minister of State for the Armed Forces, said in response:
“During the period in question it is assessed that there were a total of 111 enemy wounded in action and a total of 1,306 enemy killed in action as a result of UK airstrikes. The UK cannot visit strike sites and conduct detailed investigations on the ground in Iraq.
Therefore the number of combatants killed and/or wounded is an estimated figure only.”
What is the current status of the air campaign?
In December 2016, it was reported that the Royal Air Force is operating at its most intense for 25 years in a single theatre of operation which far outstripped the UK involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan – RAF jets have dropped 11 times more bombs (1,276 strikes) on Syria and Iraq in the preceding 12 months than they had in the busiest year of action in Afghanistan a decade previously.
The cost of the operations against Islamic State and other details of the campaign were revealed in a briefing paper. In March 2015 the MoD confirmed that the net additional costs of the military air operation would be met from the Treasury Special Reserve; while the costs of training and equipping the Iraqi and Kurdish security forces, and the provision of key enablers, would be met from the MOD’s Deployed Military Activity Pool (DMAP).
In answer to a parliamentary question in September 2016 the MoD set the costs of the operation, between August 2014 and the 31st of March 2016, at £265 million (£45 million in the 2014-15 financial year, and £220 million in the 2015-16 financial year).When Does a Word Become a Word?
“A shot of expresso, please.” “You mean ‘espresso,’ don’t you?” A baffled customer, a smug barista—media is abuzz with one version or another of this story. But the real question is not whether “expresso” is a correct spelling, but rather how spellings evolve and enter dictionaries. Lexicographers do not directly decide that; the data does. Long and frequent usage may qualify a word for endorsement. Moreover, I believe the emergent proliferation of computational approaches can help to form an even deeper insight into the language. The tale of expresso is a thriller from a computational perspective.
In the past I had taken the incorrectness of expresso for granted. And how could I not, with the thriving pop-culture of “no X in espresso” posters, t-shirts and even proclamations from music stars such as “Weird Al” Yankovic. Until a statement in a recent note by Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary caught my eye: “… expresso shows enough use in English to be entered in the dictionary and is not disqualified by the lack of an x in its Italian etymon.” Can this assertion be quantified? I hope this computational treatise will convince you that it can. But to set the backdrop right, let’s first look into the history.
History of Industry and Language
In the 19th century’s steam age, many engineers tackled steam applications accelerating the coffee-brewing process to increase customer turnover, as coffee was a booming business in Europe. The original espresso machine is usually attributed to Angelo Moriondo from Turin, who obtained a patent in 1884 for “new steam machinery for the economic and instantaneous confection of coffee beverage.” But despite further engineering improvements (see the Smithsonian), for decades espresso remained only a local Italian delight. And for words to jump between languages, industries need to jump the borders—this is how industrial evolution triggers language evolution. The first Italian to truly venture the espresso business internationally was Achille Gaggia, a coffee bartender from Milan.
In 1938 Gaggia patented a new method using the celebrated lever-driven piston mechanism allowing new record-brewing pressures, quick espresso shots and, as a side effect, even crema foam, a future signature of an excellent espresso. This allowed the Gaggia company (founded in 1948) to commercialize the espresso machines as a consumer product for use in bars. There was about a decade span between the original 1938 patent and its 1949 industrial implementation.
Around 1950, espresso machines began crossing Italian borders to the United Kingdom, America and Africa. This is when the first large spike happens in the use of the word espresso in the English language. The spike and following rapid growth are evident from the historic WordFrequencyData of published English corpora plotted across the 20th century:
The function above gets TimeSeries data for the frequencies of words w in a fixed time range from 1900–2000 that, of course, can be extended if needed. The data can be promptly visualized with DateListPlot :
The much less frequent expresso also gains its popularity slowly but steadily. Its simultaneous growth is more obvious with the log-scaled vertical frequency axis. To be able to easily switch between log and regular scales and also improve the visual comprehension of multiple plots, I will define a function:
The plot below also compares the espresso/expresso pair to a typical pair acknowledged by dictionaries, unfocused/unfocussed, stemming from American/British usage:
The overall temporal behavior of frequencies for these two pairs is quite similar, as it is for many other words of alternative orthography acknowledged by dictionaries. So why is espresso/expresso so controversial? A good historical account is given by Slate Magazine, which, as does Merriam-Webster, supports the official endorsement of expresso. And while both articles give a clear etymological reasoning, the important argument for expresso is its persistent frequent usage (even in such distinguished publications as The New York Times). As it stands as of the date of this blog, the following lexicographic vote has been cast in support of expresso by some selected trusted sources I scanned through. Aye: Merriam-Webster online, Harper Collins online, Random House online. Nay: Cambridge Dictionary online, Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries online, Oxford Dictionaries online (“The spelling expresso is not used in the original Italian and is strictly incorrect, although it is common”; see also the relevant blog), Garner’s Modern American Usage, 3rd edition (“Writers frequently use the erroneous form [expresso]”).
In times of dividing lines, data helps us to refocus on the whole picture and dominant patterns. To stress diversity of alternative spellings, consider the pair amok/amuck:
Of a rather macabre origin, amok came to English around the mid-1600s from the Malay amuk, meaning “murderous frenzy,” referring to a psychiatric disorder of a manic urge to murder. The pair amok/amuck has interesting characteristics. Both spellings can be found in dictionaries. The WordFrequencyData above shows the rich dynamics of oscillating popularity, followed by the competitive rival amuck becoming the underdog. The difference in orthography does not have a typical British/American origin, which should affect how alternative spellings are sampled for statistical analysis further below. And finally, the Levenshtein EditDistance is not equal to 1…
… in contrast to many typical cases such as:
This will also affect the sampling of data. My goal is to extract from a dictionary a data sample large enough to describe the diversity of alternatively spelled words that are also structurally close to the espresso/expresso pair. If the basic statistics of this sample assimilate the espresso/expresso pair well, then it quantifies and confirms Merriam-Webster’s assertion that “expresso shows enough use in English to be entered in the dictionary.” But it also goes a step further, because now all pairs from the dictionary sample can be considered as precedents for legitimizing expresso.
Dictionary as Data
Alternative spellings come in pairs and should not be considered separately because there is statistical information in their relation to each other. For instance, the word frequency of expresso should not be compared with the frequency of an arbitrary word in a dictionary. Contrarily, we should consider an alternative spelling pair as a single data point with coordinates {f +, f – } denoting higher/lower word frequency of more/less popular spelling correspondingly, and always in that order. I will use the weighted average of a word frequency over all years and all data corpora. It is a better overall metric than a word frequency at a specific date, and avoids the confusion of a frequency changing its state between higher f + and lower f – at different time moments (as we saw for amok/amuck). Weighted average is the default value of WordFrequencyData when no date is specified as an argument.
The starting point is a dictionary that is represented in the Wolfram Language by WordList and contains 84,923 definitions:
There are many types of dictionaries with quite varied sizes. There is no dictionary in the world that contains all words. And, in fact, all dictionaries are outdated as soon as they are published due to continuous language evolution. My assumption is that the exact size or date of a dictionary is unimportant as long as it is “modern and large enough” to produce a quality sample of spelling variants. The curated built-in data of the Wolfram Language, such as WordList, does a great job at this.
We notice right away that language is often prone to quite simple laws and patterns. For instance, it is widely assumed that lengths of words in an English dictionary…
… follow quite well one of the simplest statistical distributions, the PoissonDistribution. The Wolfram Language machine learning function FindDistribution picks up on that easily:
My goal is to search for such patterns and laws in the sample of alternative spellings. But first they need to be extracted from the dictionary.
Extracting Spelling Variants
For ease of data processing and analysis, I will make a set of simplifications. First of all, only the following basic parts of speech are considered to bring data closer to the espresso/expresso case:
This reduces the dictionary to 84,487 words:
Deletion of duplicates is necessary, because the same word can be used as several parts of speech. Further, the words containing any characters beyond the lowercase English alphabet are excluded:
This also removes all proper names, and drops the number of words to 63,712:
Every word is paired with the list of its definitions, and every list of definitions is sorted alphabetically to ensure exact matches in determining alternative spellings:
Next, words are grouped by their definitions; single-word groups are removed, and definitions themselves are removed too. The resulting dataset contains 8,138 groups:
Different groups of words with the same definition have a variable number of words n ≥ 2…
… where m is the number of groups. They follow a remarkable power law. Very roughly for order for magnitudes m~200000 n-5.
Close synonyms are often grouped together:
This happens because WordDefinition is usually quite concise:
To separate synonyms from alternative spellings, I could use heuristics based on orthographic rules formulated for classes such as British versus American English. But that would be too complex and unnecessary. It is much easier to consider only word pairs that differ by a small Levenshtein EditDistance. It is highly improbable for synonyms to differ by just a few letters, especially a single one. So while this excludes not only synonyms but also alternative spellings such as amok/amuck, it does help to select words closer to espresso/expresso and hopefully make the data sample more uniform. The computations can be easily generalized to a larger Levenshtein EditDistance, but it would be important and interesting to first check the most basic case:
This reduces the sample size to 2,882 pairs:
Mutations of Spellings
Alternative spellings are different orthographic states of the same word that have different probabilities of occurrence in the corpora. They can inter-mutate based on the context or environment they are embedded into. Analysis of such mutations seems intriguing. The mutations can be extracted with help of the SequenceAlignment function. It is based on algorithms from bioinformatics identifying regions of similarity in DNA, RNA or protein sequences, and often wandering into other fields such as linguistics, natural language processing and even business and marketing research. The mutations can be between two characters or a character and a “hole” due to character removal or insertion:
In the extracted mutations’ data, the “hole” is replaced by a dash (-) for visual distinction:
The most probable letters to participate in a mutation between alternative spellings can be visualized with Tally. The most popular letters are s and z thanks to the British/American endings -ise/-ize, surpassed only by the popularity of the “hole.” This probably stems from the fact that dropping letters often makes orthography and phonetics easier.
Querying Word Frequencies
The next step is to get the WordFrequencyData for all
2 x 2882 = 5764 words of alternative spelling stored in the variable samedefspair. WordFrequencyData is a very large dataset, and it is stored on Wolfram servers. To query frequencies for a few thousands words efficiently, I wrote some special code that can be found in the notebook attached at the end of this blog. The resulting data is an Association containing alternative spellings with ordered pairs of words as keys and ordered pairs of frequencies as values. The higher-frequency entry is always first:
The size of the data is slightly less than the original queried set because for some words, frequencies are unknown:
Basic Analysis
Having obtained the data, I am now ready to check how well the frequencies of espresso/expresso fall within this data:
As a start, I will examine if there are any correlations between lower and higher frequencies. Pearson’s Correlation coefficient, a measure of the strength of the linear relationship between two variables, gives a high value for lower versus higher frequencies:
But plotting frequency values at their natural scale hints that a log scale could be more appropriate:
And indeed for log-values of frequencies, the Correlation strength is significantly higher:
Fitting the log-log of data reveals a nice linear fit…
… with sensible statistics of parameters:
In the frequency space, this shows a simple and quite remarkable power law that sheds light on the nature of correlations between the frequencies of less and more popular spellings of the same word:
Log-log space gives a clear visualization of the data. Obviously due to {greater, smaller} sorting of coordinates {f +, f – }, all data points cannot exceed the Log[f – ]==Log[f + ] limiting orange line. The purple line is the linear fit of the power law. The red circle is the median of the data, and the red dot is the value of the espresso/expresso frequency pair:
A simple, useful transformation of the coordinate system will help our understanding of the data. Away from log-frequency vs. log-frequency space we go. The distance from a data point to the orange line Log[f – ]==Log[f + ] is the measure of how many times larger the higher frequency is than the lower. It is given by a linear transformation—rotation of the coordinate system by 45 degrees. Because this distance is given by difference of logs, it relates to the ratio of frequencies:
This random variable is well fit by the very famous and versatile WeibullDistribution, which is used universally for weather forecasting to describe wind speed distributions; survival analysis; reliability, industrial and electrical engineering; extreme value theory; forecasting technological change; and much more—including, now, word frequencies:
One of the most fascinating facts is “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,” which is the title of a 1960 paper by the physicist Eugene Wigner. One of its notions is that mathematical concepts often apply uncannily and universally far beyond the context in which they were originally conceived. We might have glimpsed at that in our data.
Using statistical tools, we can figure out that in the original space the frequency ratio obeys a distribution with a nice analytic formula:
It remains to note that the other corresponding transformed coordinate relates to the frequency product…
… and is the position of a data point along the orange line Log[f – ]==Log[f + ]. It reflects how popular, on average, a specific word pair is among other pairs. One can see that the espresso/expresso value lands quite above the median, meaning the frequency of its usage is higher than half of the data points.
Nearest can find the closest pairs to espresso/expresso measured by EuclideanDistance in the frequency space. Taking a look at the 50 nearest pairs shows just how typical the frequencies espresso/expresso are, shown below by a red dot. Many nearest neighbors, such as energize/energise and zombie/zombi, belong to the basic everyday vocabulary of most frequent usage:
The temporal behavior of frequencies for a few nearest neighbors shows significant diversity and often is generally reminiscent of such behavior for the espresso/expresso pair that was plotted at the beginning of this article:
Networks of Mutation
Frequencies allow us to define a direction of mutation, which can be visualized by a DirectedEdge always pointing from lower to higher frequency. A Tally of the edges defines weights (or not-normalized probabilities) of particular mutations.
For clarity of visualization, all edges with weights less than 10% of the maximum value are dropped. The most popular mutation is s→z->1, with maximum weight 1. It is interesting to note that reverse mutations might occur too; for instance, z→s->0.0347938, but much less often:
Thus a letter can participate in several types of mutations, and in this sense mutations form a network. The size of the vertex is correlated with the probability of a letter to participate in any mutation (see the variable vertex above):
The larger the edge weight, the brighter the edge:
The letters r and g participate mostly in the deletion mutation. Letters with no edges participate in very rare mutations.
Among a few interesting substructures, one of the obvious is the high clustering of vowels. A Subgraph of vowels can be easily extracted…
… and checked for completeness, which yields False due to many missing edges from and to u:
Nevertheless, as you might remember, the low-weight edges were dropped for a better visual of high-weight edges. Are there any interesting observations related to low-weight edges? As a matter of fact, yes, there are. Let’s quickly rebuild a full subgraph for only vowels. Vertex sizes are still based on the tally of letters in mutations:
All mutations of vowels in the dictionary can be extracted with the help of MemberQ :
In order to visualize exactly the number of vowel mutations in the dictionary, the edge style is kept uniform and edge labels are used for nomenclature:
And now when we consider all (even small-weight) mutations, the graph is complete:
But this completeness is quite “weak” in the sense that there are many edges with a really small weight, in particular two edges with weight 1:
This means that there is only one alternative word pair for e→u mutations, and likewise for i→o mutations. With the help of a lookup function…
… these pairs can be found as:
Thus, thanks to these unique and quite exotic words, our dictionaries have e→u and i→o mutations. Let’s check WordDefinition for these terms:
The word yarmulke is a quite curious case. First of all, it has three alternative spellings:
Additionally, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary suggests a rich etymology: “Yiddish yarmlke, from Polish jarmułka & Ukrainian yarmulka skullcap, of Turkic origin; akin to Turkish yağmurluk rainwear.” The Turkic class of languages is quite wide:
Together with the other mentioned languages, Turkic languages mark a large geographic area as the potential origin and evolution of the word yarmulke:
This evolution has Yiddish as an important stage before entering English, while Yiddish itself has a complex cultural history. English usage of yarmulke spikes around 1940–1945, hence World War II and the consequent Cold War era are especially important in language migration, correlated probably to the world migration and changes in Jewish communities during these times.
These complex processes brought many more Yiddish words to English (my personal favorites are golem and glitch), but only a single one resulted in the introduction of the mutation e→u in the whole English dictionary (at least within our dataset). So while there are really no s↔x mutations currently in English (as in espresso/expresso), this is not a negative indicator because there are cases of mutations that are unique to a single or just a few words. And actually, there are many more such mutations with a small weight than with a large weight:
So while the s→z mutation happens in 777 words, it is the only mutation with that weight:
On the other hand, there are 61 unique mutations that happen only once in a single word, as can be seen from the plot above. So in this sense, the most weighted s→z mutation is an outlier, and if expresso enters a dictionary, then the espresso/expresso pair will join the majority of unique mutations with weight 1. These are the mutation networks for the first four small weights:
As the edge weight gets larger, networks become simpler—degenerating completely for very large weights. Let’s examine a particular set of mutations with a small weight—for instance, weight 2:
This means there are only two unique alternative spellings (four words) for each mutation out of the whole dictionary:
Red marks a less popular letter, printed as a superscript of the more popular one. While the majority of these pairs are truly alternative spellings with a sometimes curiously dynamic history of usage…
… some occasional pairs, like distrust/mistrust, indicate blurred lines between alternative spellings and very close synonyms with close orthographic forms—here the prefixes mis- and dis-. Such rare situations can be considered as a source of noise in our data if someone does not want to accept them as true alternative spellings. My personal opinion is that the lines are blurred indeed, as the prefixes mis- and dis- themselves can be considered alternative spellings of the same semantic notion.
These small-weight mutations (white dots in the graph below) are distributed among the rest of the data (black dots) really well, which reflects on their typicality. This can be visualized by constructing a density distribution with SmoothDensityHistogram, which uses SmoothKernelDistribution behind the scenes:
Some of these very exclusive, rare alternative spellings are even more or less frequently used than espresso/expresso, as shown above for the example of weight 2, and can be also shown for other weights. Color and contour lines provide a visual guide for where the values of density of data points lie.
Conclusion
The following factors affirm why expresso should be allowed as a valid alternative spelling.
Espresso/expresso falls close to the median usage frequencies of 2,693 official alternative spellings with Levenshtein EditDistance equal to 1
equal to 1 The frequency of espresso/expresso usage as whole pair is above the median, so it is more likely to be found in published corpora than half of the examined dataset
Many nearest neighbors of espresso/expresso in the frequency space belong to a basic vocabulary of the most frequent everyday usage
The history of espresso/expresso usage in English corpora shows simultaneous growth for both spellings, and by temporal pattern is reminiscent of many other official alternative spellings
The uniqueness of the s→x mutation in the espresso/expresso pair is typical, as numerous other rare and unique mutations are officially endorsed by dictionaries
So all in all, it is ultimately up to you how to interpret this analysis or spell the name of the delightful Italian drink. But if you are a wisenheimer type, you might consider being a tinge more open-minded. The origin of words, as with the origin of species, has its dark corners, and due to inevitable and unpredictable language evolution, one day your remote descendants might frown on the choice of s in espresso.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Republican House Speaker John Boehner: "A good faith effort on our part to move halfway on what he has demanded"
Republicans in the US House of Representatives and President Barack Obama have met amid efforts to avert a looming debt crisis.
Both sides said the 90-minute discussion was useful but no decision was made. They agreed to keep talking.
Republicans have offered the president a short-term debt limit increase to stave off default.
A new survey suggests the majority of Americans blame the Republicans for the partial shutdown of government.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll suggests 53% of Americans fault Republicans for the crisis, compared with 31% who say the Democrats are responsible.
'Adult conversation'
"It was a very adult conversation," said Republican Hal Rogers of Thursday afternoon's meeting. "Both sides said they were there in good faith."
House Majority leader Eric Cantor called the meeting "very useful" and said the talks were continuing.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Senator Ted Cruz is heckled at a conservative summit in Washington DC
Mr Obama held a White House meeting on Friday with Republican senators, who said they would present options of their own for ending the budget standoff.
Officials have warned the US risks default on 17 October if the nation's $16.7 trillion (£10.5 trillion) borrowing limit is not increased.
Republicans have offered to extend the government's borrowing authority beyond the deadline, temporarily putting off a default.
In return they want Mr Obama to negotiate on the budget dispute that has partially closed the government - the first such shutdown for 17 years.
Earlier, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said: "It's time for leadership. It's time for these negotiations and this conversation to begin."
A spokesman for Mr Boehner told reporters the deal offered was a "clean" increase of the debt limit, with no additional policies attached, lasting six weeks - until 22 November.
But it is not clear if Republicans are willing to drop entirely their attempts to defund or delay Mr Obama's 2010 healthcare law.
Reacting to the offer, White House press secretary Jay Carney told a daily press briefing the president was glad that "cooler heads" seemed to be prevailing in the House.
But he added: "He will not pay ransom in exchange for the Republicans in the House doing their job."
Earlier on Thursday, Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid said the Senate would "look at anything" the House sent to them, but they would not engage in negotiations with Republicans prior to reopening the government.
Rattled US stock markets rebounded on Thursday on news of a possible breakthrough.
'Chaos'
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees have been out of work since the shutdown began, and private firms, from arms makers to motels, have begun to lay off workers.
About 15,000 private-sector employees have filed for unemployment benefits due to the shutdown, the US labour department said on Thursday.
And governors in at least four western states - Utah, South Dakota, Arizona and Colorado - have asked for authority to reopen national parks within their borders because of the economic impact of the closures.
On Thursday, Mr Obama signed legislation restoring death benefits to families of US troops who have died since the government closed. The shutdown prevented processing of the payments, typically made within days of the soldier's death.
The president met House Democrats at the White House on Wednesday and told them he would prefer a longer-term increase to the nation's debt ceiling, but was willing to accept a short-term fix.
Earlier, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told a Senate hearing that skipping a payment on US debt would trigger financial crisis"chaos".
Since the US hit its debt ceiling in May, the treasury has been using what are called extraordinary measures to keep paying the bills, but those methods will be exhausted by 17 October, Mr Lew has said.
US government shutdown - who's affected?SCP-631
Item #: SCP-631
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: Extermination procedures for SCP-631 are to remain in effect until further notice. Information regarding civilian disappearances in SCP-631's environment (urban and suburban areas of the United States) is to be monitored, with particular regards to the areas outlined in Document-631-T. Disappearances related or believed to be related to SCP-631 are to be filtered (standard media blackout procedures apply). Said incidents are to be investigated promptly, and should an instance of SCP-631 be identified, it must be terminated immediately. In the event that no SCP-631 are in Foundation custody, the instance must be captured instead. Agents involved in SCP-631 recovery or termination must be supplied with thermal imaging equipment.
Mobile Task Forces Nu-11 and Omicron-17 are to be regularly deployed to the areas outlined in Document-631-T. The airspace of these areas is to be thoroughly examined via thermal imaging for SCP-631 instances.
One instance of SCP-631 is to remain in containment for study and secured in a concrete cell. The instance must be restrained at all times and exposed to artificial sunlight. It is to remain pacified by Serum-631-Gamma and delivered sustenance |
. Fewer inhibitions:
This one was true for me, but might not be the case for all women. I wanted to try new things in the bedroom when I was married, I just didn’t know how to tell him. He was the type that would have assumed I was having an affair if I brought up any new sexual positions, so I just didn’t bring it up. But since my divorce, I have had no problem at all telling my partner(s) exactly what I wanted. It’s liberating to say what you want them to do and not have to worry about being questioned about it.
5. You feel like a teenager again:
Remember when you were 16 and the rush you felt when you were making out with your high school sweetheart? Remember the feelings of butterflies whenever you spotted your crush? I am excited to report that those feelings come back! The first time I kissed a guy after my divorce, I have to admit that I was nervous. Ok…beyond nervous! We were sitting on the couch watching a movie, and I thought to myself, “This is stupid! You’re an adult…kiss him already!” So I looked over at this big, gorgeous, hunk of a man, leaned toward him, and kissed him. The courage it took me to kiss him was well worth the make-out session that followed.
6. Fantasy fulfillment:
When you were married, did you ever have a sexual fantasy that didn’t get fulfilled? Was there something you wanted to try but never had the opportunity? Well, do I have news for you! There are tons of single men out there who would like nothing more than fulfilling your innermost sexual desires. We are sexual beings after all.
7. No more ruts:
No more sex on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays only. No more sex on a schedule. No more boring missionary position every single time you have sex. No more waiting until the kids are asleep. No more! Whatever kind of ‘sex rut’ you had while married is now officially over. You can now have sex whenever you want, with whomever you want, and in whatever position you should so desire.
8. Sexual knowledge:
Even though you were married and had sex with the same man for years, you are still more experienced than you were when you got married. You know what you are looking for in a sexual partner. You might prefer someone who isn’t afraid to take charge, tie you up, and ravage you all night long. Or maybe you would prefer to be the dominant one in the bedroom. Whatever your preferences are, make your experience work for you in finding the right sexual partner. Or at least, the right sexual partner for a night or two.
More from DivorcedMoms.com
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Debunking The Myth That Good Women "Choose" Bad Men
Hook, Line and Sinker: Why Do Women Fall For The Narcissist?
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Keep in touch! Check out HuffPost Divorce on Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our newsletter here.Today, a group of over 190 Internet engineers, pioneers, and technologists filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission explaining that the FCC’s plan to roll back net neutrality protections is based on a fundamentally flawed and outdated understanding of how the Internet works.
Signers include current and former members of the Internet Engineering Task Force and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' committees, professors, CTOs, network security engineers, Internet architects, systems administrators and network engineers, and even one of the inventors of the Internet’s core communications protocol.
This isn’t the first time many of these engineers have spoken out on the need for open Internet protections. In 2015, when the EFF and ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief defending the net neutrality rules, dozens of engineers signed onto a statement supporting the technical justifications for the Open Internet Order.
The engineers’ statement filed today contains facts about the structure, history, and evolving nature of the Internet; corrects technical errors in the proposal; and gives concrete examples of the harm that will be done should the proposal be accepted.
The engineers explain that:
"Based on certain questions the FCC asks in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), we are concerned that the FCC (or at least Chairman Pai and the authors of the NPRM) appears to lack a fundamental understanding of what the Internet's technology promises to provide, how the Internet actually works, which entities in the Internet ecosystem provide which services, and what the similarities and differences are between the Internet and other telecommunications systems the FCC regulates as telecommunications services."
The engineers point to specific errors in the NPRM. As one example among many: the NPRM tries to argue that ISPs, not edge providers, are the main drivers for services such as streaming movies, sharing photos, posting on social media, automatic translation, and so on. The NPRM also erroneously assumes that transforming an IP packet from IPv4 to IPv6 somehow changes the form of the payload.
The engineers explain how the Internet (and in particular broadband) has changed since 2002, when the FCC first explicitly classified broadband internet access service as an information service, and why that classification is no longer appropriate in light of technical developments. Drawing on this background information, they then respond to specific questions from the NPRM in order to correct the FCC's mistakes.
The statement provides nearly a dozen different examples of consumer harm that could have been prevented by the light-touch, bright-line rules—like when AT&T distorted the market for content by using its gatekeeping power to not charge its customers for its DIRECTV video service while charging third-parties more to similarly zero-rate data. It also gives several examples of consumer benefits that happened as a result of the 2015 Open Internet Order, like mobile service providers finally removing the prohibition that was stopping customers from tethering their personal computers to their mobile devices in order to use their mobile broadband connections.
The NPRM fundamentally misunderstands the basic technology underlying how the Internet works. If the FCC were to move forward with its NPRM as proposed, the results could be disastrous: the FCC would be making a major regulatory decision based on plainly incorrect assumptions about the underlying technology and Internet ecosystem that will have a disastrous effect on innovation in the Internet ecosystem as a whole.
TAKE ACTION
Stand up for net neutralityMr. Robinson is finally making his way to TV. More than two years after NBC first started working on a comedy vehicle for Office alum Craig Robinson, the actor-comedian's sitcom will finally premiere.
The network announced Thursday that Mr. Robinson will bow at 9 p.m. Aug. 5 — where it will be partnered with another comedy, Jerrod Carmichael's The Carmichael Show, airing at 9:30 p.m. It's a comparatively quick turnaround for Carmichael, who saw his vehicle get a six-episode commitment just a month ago.
Read More NBC Sets (Some) of Its Summer Schedule
NBC had been eyeing the two series as a block of programming. And given that both stars are black men, it fits in with broadcast TV's current push for diversity that's been further boosted by the success of Fox's Empire and ABC's Black-ish. The scripted pair will serve as a bit of a bridge from summer to fall, airing six episodes a piece, as the reality-heavy season dies down.
And there's no shortage of reality on NBC's summer lineup. The network previously set much of its summer schedule, including America's Got Talent and American Ninja Warrior, earlier in March. Also now confirmed for returns are newcomers The Island (May 25, 10 p.m.) and I Can Do That (May 26, 10 p.m.) — as well as returning series Food Fighters (July 2, 8 p.m.), Hollywood Game Night (July 7, 10 p.m.), Running Wild With Bear Grylls (10 p.m.) and Last Comic Standing (July 22, 10 p.m.).
Starting July 19, last summer's modestly performing comedy, Welcome to Sweden, will air back-to-back episodes on Sundays.
Timing of the Carmichael and Robinson premieres is especially interesting given NBC's summer success last year with scripted series Undateable and The Night Shift. Both performed well enough to get sophomore renewals and more exposure on the midseason lineup. Each recently premiered to relatively stable ratings.Peter FitzSimons may have touched a raw nerve with his anti-stadia rhetoric, but he did so by ignoring the sport that stands to benefit most – football.
FitzSimons is never shy of engaging in a spot of populist grandstanding, and in New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian’s announcement that her government would knock down and rebuild both Allianz Stadium and ANZ Stadium in Sydney, he found a foolproof subject.
Raging against the political machine with his usual chest-thumping verbosity, FitzSimons went so far as to start a petition that to date has raised more than 130,000 signatures in opposition to Berejiklian’s plans.
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Let no one say Australians aren’t engaged in the political process, especially if the only thing that’s required of them is to fill in an online form.
Yet by writing in such broad terms about the implications of knocking down the grounds, FitzSimons conveniently ignored mentioning the one sport that consistently out-draws all others at the two venues – football.
So let’s have a go ourselves, shall we?
When was the last sold-out game at ANZ Stadium? Last month, for the Socceroos’ decisive World Cup qualifier against Honduras.
Which fixture has attracted crowds of 26,176; 40,388; 40,285; 41,213; 40,539; 40,382; 40,143 and 36,057 to Allianz Stadium over the past five years? The A-League’s Sydney derby.
How many fans turned up to Allianz Stadium for last year’s sold-out A-League grand final? 41,546.
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But it wouldn’t pay to mention any of these statistics when your narrative is that “no one” ever shows up at either ground.
And that’s something that should ring alarm bells for football fans.
I was delighted to see Steve Mascord make his return to The Roar during the week, but not the least bit surprised to see he failed to mention the A-League when discussing the whys and wherefores of rebuilding the two grounds.
Why would he? Mascord is one of the best journos in Australian sport, but he’s also firmly entrenched in the rugby league camp.
And the line that knocking down and rebuilding ANZ and Allianz Stadium is for the exclusive benefit of the National Rugby League is one you see repeated in the mainstream media time and time again.
It’s not like football is given a second thought here – it doesn’t even enter the conversation.
It’s a good thing, then, that after years of being Allianz Stadium’s biggest drawcard, the SCG Trust has belatedly decided to instil some football nous into its 15-member board.
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According to the Daily Telegraph, the ABC’s W-League commentator and long-time friend of football, Stephanie Brantz, looks set to join former Sydney FC director Michael Crismale on the SCG Trust’s revamped board.
And not a minute too soon, if you ask me.
Having missed kick-off at the last Sydney derby because a set of turnstiles failed, there’s no doubt in my mind that the increasingly decrepit Allianz Stadium needs extensive renovations.
The only folks who seem to disagree are those who either never attend games at the venue, or sit in the climate-controlled comfort of catered boxes when they do.
FitzSimons is probably right in thinking that knocking down both Allianz Stadium and ANZ Stadium at a cost of $2 billion to taxpayers is an act of political suicide for Berejiklian’s government.
But on the eve of the latest Sydney derby – one where Football Federation Australia’s decision to cross-promote with Star Wars would have to rank as their dumbest marketing campaign to date – there’s another issue at stake for football.
It’s an issue of the game standing up for itself and having a voice in the mainstream media, instead of being wilfully overlooked by influential columnists who perhaps would prefer the A-League didn’t exist at all.
There are many reasons football fans should care about Sydney stadia being rebuilt – the addition of safe standing terraces among them.
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We shouldn’t be afraid of treading on anyone’s toes. Because unless we do, football will be doomed to play second fiddle to the other codes forever.I recently had the privilege of attending a lecture on Baroque music by Prof. Paul O’Dette, an award winning lutenist, conductor, and musicology expert (see Wikipedia). Prof. O’Dette’s informed advice completely changed the way I view early music. By focusing on the art and purpose of performance in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as different social trends, Prof. O’Dette was able to shed light on the richness of the Baroque era.
Prof. O’Dette characterized the Baroque era as an exciting time of art and experimentation by emphasizing the fact that performers in the 17th and 18th centuries were some of the best of the best. He explains that Baroque music served a dramatic role in people’s lives and was not placid. Performers wanted to create an emotional response in the audience members rather than just giving them something nice to listen to. In this way, Baroque performers took a very active approach towards entertaining.
As Prof. O’Dette clarified, Bach never intended that people follow his scores and markings literally. The composer excluded a lot of unnecessary notations because it was understood that the performer was allowed to improvise and embellish the music. As such, Baroque music is actually a flexible and fun art form, engaging both the performer and listener. Prof. O’Dette noted that it was in the 20th century and rise of Contemporary writing when musicians started taking a strict stance towards trueness to the score and following the composer’s intentions. This was necessary to accurately depict the musical and technical complexities of Contemporary writing. However, it was inappropriate to apply the idea of strict score reading to earlier genres, especially Baroque music. Again, the performer was in charge of “bringing the music to life.”
In light of this evidence, I have been rethinking my approach to studying Baroque music. Prof. O’Dette has inspired me to place myself in the shoes of a baroque performer, an approach I had never considered, to search for musical meaning, harmonic drive, and interesting melodic contour at all moments. Rather than taking an external and indifferent approach to playing Baroque music, I will strive to push the boundaries of dynamics and musical effects to harbor excitement in the listeners.
I really appreciated Prof. O’Dette’s use of video and audio samples to emphasize his appreciation and excitement for Baroque music and performance. We discussed the popularity of theater and drama in the Baroque era, as well as the unique orchestral sound effects and vocal techniques used by musicians. We even considered the dance elements of many of Bach’s pieces, in particular, his Suites, and how the performer should make the audience wish they were dancing! From solo recordings, to ensembles and even French Baroque orchestra samples, Prof. O’Dette masterfully rejuvenated my interest and excitement for the genre.
As musicians in an ever-changing world, we often view Baroque music as being antiquated and set in its traditional ways. However, Prof. O’Dette urges us to remember the obvious but often over looked fact that “these composers wrote the music when they were alive!” As I continue my musical studies, I aspire to bring Baroque music to life and rejuvenate a sense of thrill in the audience.
I’ll leave you with an exciting video clip that Prof. O’Dette recommended of French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and Ensemble Artaserse performing a Vivaldi aria:
Works CitedMELBOURNE’S instability has stifled the development of its first-round draft picks, new Cat Sam Blease says.
Blease, 23, was signed by Geelong on Monday as a delisted free agent after playing just 33 games in six years at Melbourne.
He was taken at No.17 in the 2008 AFL Draft, and along with a host of other high selections, has been unable to help lift the Demons from the doldrums during his tenure.
Click here for all the retirements and delistings
While admitting the players had to take responsibility for their performances, Blease told SEN the club also had a bit to answer for.
When asked whether they were developed adequately, the speedy midfielder was emphatic:
"I've had five coaches in six years. You can only imagine if your boss changes every year almost, it's hard to keep consistency," Blease said.
"I find it hard to believe that people write that (former Melbourne recruiting chief) Barry Prendergast stuffed up all the draft picks and picked the wrong players, I find that really hard to believe that 15 (or) 16 first-round draft picks could be no good.
"People forget how unstable the Melbourne Football Club has been at times and that's reflective of five or six coaches we've had.
"It's a shame it's that way, players have to take responsibility, but AFL footy's challenging at the best of times and when there's other obstacles in front of you, it makes it even more difficult.
“A lot of the players would be more mentally exhausted from their time (at Melbourne) than physically.”
Blease said the defensive side of his game had been under the most scrutiny, and believed it was something he could address at Geelong.
"Most of the time Roosy's game plan was based more around defence and I guess I lean more on the side of offence … and defence is something that hasn’t come natural to me," he said.
"It's certainly something I've been trying to work on over the journey of my AFL career.
"I just felt like anything I did I probably wasn't going to get an opportunity, I just wasn't in the plans at Melbourne.”
Geelong said it was delighted to pick up Blease.
“We see Sam as a player who can bring pace as well as a great ability in front of goal," Geelong football manager Neil Balme told the club's website.
“We hope Sam can find more consistency in his game and become a regular face in our side next year."
He was nominated as a Rising Star in the 2011 and 12 seasons, the latter being his standout campaign after he booted 19 goals from 16 games.
He played only five games in 2014 and agreed to part ways with the club at his end of season exit meeting.
Geelong has now added three players from other clubs this off-season, following the signings of another ex-Demon Mitch Clark and former Saint Rhys Stanley during the Trade Period.
Blease will kick-off his second life as a Cat when pre-season training begins later this month.The 69th Annual Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony was held over two nights on September 9 and September 10, 2017, and was broadcast by FXX on September 16.[1][2]
[3] The nominations were announced on July 13, 2017.[4] The ceremony is in conjunction with the annual Primetime Emmy Awards and is presented in recognition of technical and other similar achievements in American television programming, including guest acting roles.
Winners and nominees [ edit ]
Winners are listed first and highlighted in bold:
Governors Award [ edit ]
Programs [ edit ]
Acting [ edit ]
Animation [ edit ]
Casting [ edit ]
Choreography [ edit ]
Cinematography [ edit ]
Commercial [ edit ]
Costumes [ edit ]
Directing [ edit ]
Hairstyling [ edit ]
Hosting [ edit ]
Interactive Media [ edit ]
Lighting Design / Direction [ edit ]
Main Title Design [ edit ]
Motion Design [ edit ]
Outstanding Motion Design (Juried) Beyond Magic – Orion Tait (executive creative direction), Thomas Schmid (creative direction), Daniel Oeffinger (creative direction), William Trebutien (lead animation) (ABC)
13th – Angus Wall (co-creative direction), Leanne Dare (co-creative direction), Lynn Cho (design), Dan Meehan (animation), Ekin Akalin (animation) (Netflix)
Music [ edit ]
Picture Editing [ edit ]
Production Design [ edit ]
Sound [ edit ]
Special Visual Effects [ edit ]
Stunt Coordination [ edit ]
Technical Direction [ edit ]
Writing [ edit ]
Wins by network [ edit ]
Network Program Individual Total HBO 3 16 19 Netflix 1 15 16 NBC 0 9 9 ABC 2 5 7 FOX 1 4 5 Hulu 0 5 5 Adult Swim 0 4 4 CBS 2 2 4 FX 0 4 4 A&E 1 2 3 VH1 0 3 3 Amazon 0 2 2 BBC America 1 1 2 ESPN 0 2 2 Nat Geo 1 1 2 AMC 1 0 1 Cartoon Network 1 0 1 CNN 1 0 1 Comedy Central 1 0 1 Disney XD 0 1 1 Samsung / Oculus 1 0 1 Showtime 0 1 1 TBS 0 1 1 Viceland 1 0 1 Vimeo 0 1 1
Programs with multiple awards [ edit ]
Programs with multiple nominations [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ Mark MacEwen, Max Hug Williams, Jonathan Jones, Mateo Willis, Richard Wollocombe, Pete McCowen, Warwick Sloss, Paul Stewart, Derek Frankowski, John Shier, Tom Fitz ^ John Aitchison, Rob Whitworth, Kevin Flay, Mark MacEwen, Gordon Buchanan, Gavin Thurston, Mateo Willis, Michael Kelem, Mark Smith, Sandesh Kadur ^ Veronique Barbe, David Berman, Justin LaChance, Maxime Lahaie, Sylvain Lebel and Jim Vega ^ Julian Gomez, Ryan Leamy, Jennifer Nelson, Paul C. Nielsen, Eric Beetner, Tori Rodman andKatherine Griffin ^ Lisa Trulli, Eileen Finkelstein, Donald Bull, Julie Cohen and Darren Hallihan ^ Adrienne Salisbury, Darren Hallihan, Jensen Neil Rufe, Ryan Anthony Mallick and Scott Austin Hahn ^ David R. Finkelstein, Ed Martinez, Tom McGah, Andrew Oliver, Nick Staller, Matt Stevenson and Joel Watson ^ Mike Greer, Chad Bertalotto, Tim Atzinger, Evan Meduich, David Armstrong, James Ciccarello and Jacob Teixeira ^ Jarrod Burt, Jacob Lane, Stephanie Lyra, M'Daya Meliani, Paul Cross, Dave McIntosh and Ryan Rambach ^ Daysha M. Broadway, Dan Zimmerman, Jacob Lane, Jarrod Burt, M'Daya Meliani and Ryan RambachAnti-trash activists blocked on Tuesday several roads in Beirut to protest the authorities' failure to find a permanent solution to the waste crisis.
The demonstration was planned to coincide with a cabinet session which Prime Minister Tammam Salam adjourned to pave way for more consultations.
Tuesday's protest by "You Stink" activists at Riad al-Solh square near the Grand Serail was not the first. The same demonstrators held a sit-in in the area over the weekend to protest the mountains of garbage that had piled up in Beirut and its suburbs.
The protesters then blocked the road near Mohammed al-Amin mosque where the environment ministry is located, calling for the resignation of Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq.
They later moved to Beirut's Hamra thoroughfare chanting slogans calling on the authorities to resolve the waste problem.
At one point, the demonstrators surrounded the vehicle of Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas, who later severely criticized them, telling Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) that the protesters were on the verge of "smashing the car's windows."
They also threw trash bags near the Central Bank that lies in Hamra.
Later in the day, the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch arrested the activist Tareq Mallah after Derbas filed a lawsuit against him and other protesters, accusing them of attacking his car.
LBCI TV said the activists tracked dump trucks on Monday night and found out that the trash was being thrown in Beirut River and a parking lot in Sin el-Fil.
The Facebook page of "You Stink" has so far garnered over 6,700 likes.
Trash collection resumed on Monday evening after the waste management ministerial committee headed by Salam managed to agree on a preliminary solution to the garbage crisis.
The solution involves the “immediate resumption” of waste collection in Beirut, a “balanced distribution” of Beirut and Mount Lebanon's garbage to new locations and financial “incentives” to municipalities, Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq said following the committee's emergency meeting at the Grand Serail.
The trash crisis erupted on July 17 when the Naameh landfill south of Beirut was closed.
G.K.
D.A.'Is it, can it be, him?" I think, as a handsome young man with curly hair approaches, hand shyly outstretched. It isn't his good looks that are so startling, it's his size. Like everyone else who has watched the Harry Potter films, I am used to Harry Melling in the guise of Dudley Dursley, Harry Potter's lard-bucket cousin. But there's no trace now of the piggy eyes and double chins in the 20-year old who is playing his first professional theatre role, as Mother Courage's son at the National Theatre.
The transformation of Harry Melling is as magical as anything that ever took place within J K Rowling's books, and it comes as a great relief. As a mother, I found it hard to laugh at Dudley Dursley because I used to worry about the actor playing him. I feared that Melling was trapped in a Faustian pact: he could have all the fun and money that came from being in the Potter films but, in exchange, he had to be a bloated Bunter figure just to hang onto the part.
So what happened? "It was nearly two years ago," he says, refusing the offer of breakfast. "I was doing a show at the National Youth Theatre, playing an old man. Before that I had played fat clowns and I thought, 'If I want to have the career I would like, I am going to have to lose weight.' I was just starting drama school, and found I was moving around a lot. I also started to eat sensibly. The weight just dropped off. I went from 16st to 11st 5lb."
Looking back, he now sees that at the age of 11, when he landed the Dursley role, he ate "ridiculous amounts".
"Toffee Crisp was my downfall. I once ate five at a sitting." He wasn't fat, he says, because he was unhappy, just self-indulgent. "Do you really need that third helping, Harry?" his mother would say, but leave it at that. "My parents didn't overfeed me, nor did they make an issue of it. That's when things go wrong. It doesn't have to be a problem for children to be fat, but it does affect you: you aren't as happy in that skin."
His friends would joke about his weight, but it was never "spiteful". No doubt that has something to do with his sunny nature. Nevertheless, he did spend his earnings from the Potter films on paying his own fees for Mill Hill, the private school near his north London home. He wasn't happy at his previous school, a "tough" comprehensive in Hendon, largely, he claims, because he wanted to go to a school with a good drama department.
This focus on his career is, no doubt, the result of coming from a family riddled with actors. His grandfather, Patrick Troughton, was, for many, the greatest Dr Who. His uncles, Michael and David Troughton, and his cousin Sam, are all actors. His illustrator mother, Joanna Troughton, was keen to give Harry a chance, too. "She sent off my photos to the producers of the Potter films when I was 10, thinking I might be an extra. A year later I was asked to read for Dudley. When I got the part, I thought: 'Ooh, I'm in a film', not that I was cast as fat and ugly.'"
Wasn't being associated with the hateful Dudley a curse? "I kept quiet about it. Nobody ever recognised me."
He minded more about not being one of the Hogwarts' children. When people asked him about the films, and what Michael Gambon or Julie Walters were like, he would have to say, "Dunno, I've never met them." But, stuck in Privet Drive, he did get to work with Richard Griffiths and Fiona Shaw, who play Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, Dudley's parents. "Just watching them was an education. Fiona taught me a Caliban speech, which I later used to get into drama school."
Dudley doesn't feature in the sixth Potter film, so there was a long gap between playing the butterball bully in the fifth, aged 16, and shooting the seventh film, this year. In the meantime, he had changed almost beyond recognition, to the producers' alarm. "They did this double-take, 'Oh my God, we are going to have to do something,' and I felt very guilty. They could have recast, but instead they padded me out."
The seventh film, the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, won't be out until next year. But Melling has plenty of work to keep him busy as the simple-minded son of Mother Courage – and with Fiona Shaw as his fictional mother once again.
"I always thought he would be a marvellous character actor," Shaw says, "but he's turned into a marvellous leading actor. Suddenly I feel I'm looking at Hamlet."
Compared to Daniel Radcliffe, whom he once envied, Melling now realises that he was lucky not to be one of the Hogwarts' leads. His career got off to an early start, but without the irksome trappings of fame, or the danger of being typecast. "I can now shed the child-actor thing, like the fat, and start a new career, because no one sees me as Dudley."Billions to Bust—and Back: How I Made, Lost And Rebuilt a Fortune, And What I Learned on the Way. By Thor Bjorgolfsson with Andrew Cave. Profile Books; 244 pages; $29.95 and £20. Buy from Amazon.com; Amazon.co.uk
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IN MARCH 2007 Thor Bjorgolfsson celebrated his 40th birthday. He flew 120 friends to Jamaica on a Boeing 767 with business-class seating only. James Bond (really Sean Connery) delivered a video greeting. Jamiroquai, 50 Cent and Bob Marley’s son, Ziggy, provided the music.
Mr Bjorgolfsson partied as if he had money to burn. And why not? He was the 249th richest man in the world with a fortune of more than $4 billion. He was also a folk hero in his native Iceland: its first billionaire and the embodiment of the Icelandic economic miracle. Prime ministers called him Thor. Masters of the universe competed for his attention. He gave Mikhail Gorbachev a lift in his private jet.
Within 18 months the Scandi-hero had been reduced to an Icelandic zero. Ninety-nine per cent of his fortune had gone up in smoke. Seven major banks were on his heels. His personal debts were heading towards $1 billion. Many of his former friends shunned him. Icelanders treated him as a villain—a man who had tempted them with fool’s gold and then plunged the country into bankruptcy.
“Billions to Bust” is the story of Mr Bjorgolfsson’s business career. The book is far from perfect; it reads as if it were dictated by a busy man rather than carefully crafted. There are only so many times you can be told that Mr Bjorgolfsson put money into the Icelandic economy before the crash. And it spends too much time rehashing the details of long-dead business deals. For all that, Mr Bjorgolfsson provides one of the first insider’s accounts of the financial crisis. Journalists such as Andrew Ross Sorkin have provided first-rate blow-by-blow accounts of what went wrong. But as a participant Mr Bjorgolfsson does a better job of explaining why people who have more money than they can spend are tempted to spin the roulette wheel one more time.
Mr Bjorgolfsson has a remarkable story to tell. He made his first fortune in the wild east of post-Soviet Russia with Bravo Brewery. Selling alcohol to thirsty Russians does not sound like a challenge, but it is impossible to read about Mr Bjorgolfsson’s dealings with leathery thugs and corrupt politicians without thinking that he deserved the $100m he got for selling his company to Heineken. Over the next six years he multiplied it 40-fold by investing in telecoms (mostly in eastern Europe), building up Activis, a generic drugs company, and then, disastrously, by becoming the biggest investor in one of Iceland’s three largest banks, Landsbanki.
This story is made all the more intriguing by the local flavour: “Billions to Bust” is an Icelandic saga recrafted for the new gilded age. Mr Bjorgolfsson is full of anger for his homeland, a country of 320,000 people run by an inbred elite of politicians who profess socialist virtues but who are forever scratching each other’s backs. His mother was briefly married to George Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party; his father, a businessman and reformed alcoholic, repeatedly incurred the wrath of the authorities. Mr Bjorgolfsson fled this claustrophobic environment while still a young man and spent over a decade in Russia and eastern Europe. But he could not resist the temptation to stick it to the Icelandic establishment by turning himself into a mogul in his native land. Alas, the logic of the Icelandic sagas proved irresistible: the bank he bought imploded and the country turned against him.
Mr Bjorgolfsson has put his life back together. He took out a front-page advertisement in Iceland’s biggest newspaper apologising for his role in the crisis. His investment group, Novator, is flourishing again. He says he has learned from the debacle. Whether the global financial system has is moot. Mr Bjorgolfsson notes that two of the world’s biggest bankers—Jamie Dimon, the boss of J.P. Morgan, and Brian Moynihan, the boss of Bank of America—have recently phoned him offering help in any future deals. In a book about irrational exuberance that is a terrifying discovery.Sparks here! This week’s edition will be dedicated purely to nebulae.
We’ve done several articles dedicated to a certain subject in the past, but this is one subject we haven’t thoroughly covered. I hope you all enjoy it! Explore. Create. Inspire
Unlawful
Inside the halo of a ringed water world a nebula gleams in the background. It is our very own Colonia Nebula; glowing ominously, setting the mood for an eerie mining run. A lone Orca mining in a lawless district must work just to fly another day.
Eol Prou IW-W e1-2041
Photography credit: Cmdr Bob Dobilina
The Dark Wolf
Some believe that everything living and nonliving was once nothing more than dust in the vast vacuum of space. Out within the depths of the galaxy lies a nebula made up of this dust. Illuminating the sky in deep purple, an explorer readies his camera.
Agnainks XZ-S c6-3534
Photography credit: Cmdr Jason Thorpe
Jaded Ruby
When pursuing only the finest of metals, a metallic ring is your friend. A ringed water world, shrouded by the reddish-green glow of the nebula.
Myriesly QY-Q c18-6994
Photography credit: Cmdr Jason Thorpe
Peridot
A gem in space – the teal-hued nebula. In the center of the system a black hole tells the story of a dying star. It’s an explorer’s duty to discover; but it’s sights like these that really make us think.
DRYAA FLYI FH-U E3-9159
Photography credit: Cmdr Toska
Sapphire
Among every explorer’s worst fears is failing to see a black hole upon jumping into a system. In a nebula like this, where darkness engulfs you in every corner, you can only hope to be lucky enough to notice the lack of light before it’s too late. A black hole, hidden within a sapphire-coloured nebula.
EODGORPH PI-T E3-21
Photography credit: Cmdr Toska
This will be the last Starport Folio of 3302.
As for me, a long-awaited voyage awaits and I won’t be returning until mid January. In the meantime, I’d like to say thank you to all of you who read the Starport Folio every week, and I hope to see you all again!
Until next time, Sparks out.
AdvertisementsStory highlights Witness tell CNN affiliates a prisoner was on the witness stand, testifying about gang life
Woman says man who was shot appeared furious
Officials: Defendant -- alleged to be a gang member -- rushed at witness on first day of trial
Defendant charged with racketeering conspiracy, accused of several robberies
A U.S. marshal fatally shot a defendant in a Utah federal courtroom Monday morning after he rushed at a witness as his trial began, officials said.
Siale Angilau, an alleged gang member charged with racketeering conspiracy, was shot several times at a Salt Lake City federal courthouse after Angilau attacked someone who was on the witness stand, Judge Tena Campbell said in a court document about the incident.
He later died at a hospital after being shot in the chest, the FBI said in a news release.
"There were people yelling at him, telling him to stop, and he just didn't stop," Sara Josephson, who was in the courtroom, told CNN affiliate KSTU. "He kept going forward with his furiousness."
The station quoted FBI Special Agent in Charge Mark Dressen, who said Angilau grabbed a pen and charged a witness.
"I believe he was shot in the chest multiple times," Dressen told KSTU.
People were ducking |
".[10]
Dill Wedekind Dill, the Caucasian friend with the few bristles of hair, is possibly the most eccentric character in the strip, frequently making strange or unrelated statements. He is in the same class and neighborhood as Alice, as well as one of her best friends. A running joke is his reference to his unseen disreputable older brothers. He sometimes rides a yellow tricycle with blue wheels.
Beni Along with Dill, Beni is Alice's other best friend, the dark-haired and dark-skinned one. He appears to be technically minded and is skilled with tools; his grandmother "tells filthy jokes in Spanish" and he himself once used the interjection "Hijole!" implying he might be Hispanic. He is good at soccer.
Ernesto Lacuna Ernesto is a crossing guard that Petey met and initially thought existed only in his imagination. He wears glasses and is always well-groomed in a tie and vest. When he was fired from his crossing guard position, he blamed Petey. He declared his affection for Viola and claimed a super-power (putting people's feet to sleep). He speaks and acts like an adult and frequently chides Petey for his 'childish' pursuits or interests. Petey just wishes he would go away. Andre has told Petey definitively that Ernesto is imaginary, though he has yet to prove it; Mrs. Otterloop and Viola have both interacted with Ernesto, implying that he in fact exists.
Viola D'More Viola, a girl in Petey's school band, plays the marimba. She wears glasses and has curly hair. She calls Petey "Petey Potterpoop" (a nickname which had, in fact, been given to Mr. Otterloop when he was Petey's age) and seems to enjoy embarrassing him, although she is always friendly and has never been deliberately cruel. Their relationship remains ambiguous, Petey sometimes seems to like her and at other times is almost indifferent. Alice calls her Petey's "almost girlfriend". Viola has an over-sized backpack with many adornments, one of which (a purple unicorn) she gave Petey as a charm against Ernesto. It apparently worked since Petey did not see Ernesto for several days after. For a long time, her last name was uncertain; Ernesto called her 'Viola D'More' when he was claiming her as 'his love' (see Viola d'amore). The D'More surname was confirmed in a June 2010 strip.
Marcus DeMarco A classmate of Alice. Bespectacled and nerdy, Marcus is scared of his mother, who is always documenting him for scrapbooks.
Ms. Bliss The only teacher at Blisshaven Academy, a pre-school attended by Alice, Beni, Dill and Marcus. She loves education and is usually cheerful. She often becomes irritated with the children's constant antics. She has been engaged multiple times to Timmy Fretwork, the Banjo Man, although they have yet to wed. Thompson has admitted on several occasions that Bliss is her first name, not her surname.
Mr. Danders Blisshaven's pet guinea pig. Mr. Danders claims to be well read and has many literary opinions. He often speaks using eloquent, long words. A prominent character in the strip's early days, he last appeared in March 2012 when the strip featured guest cartoonists.
Andre Chang A heavyset boy Petey met at cartoon camp. He has bushy hair with thick bangs, coke-bottle glasses, and wears shirts with sound effects printed on the front. He likes reading comics with lots of action and noise. He gets along very well with Alice. He has four sisters.
Loris Slothrop A short girl who goes to cartoon camp with Petey. She has big eyes, although her right eye is usually covered by her hair. She has from two to three ponytails sticking from her hair. When asked what type of comics she prefers, she said she likes "little cute animal cartoons with big eyes who're also magic robot vampire ninjas, but sensitive," an example being "Squirrelly Shirley, the pink robot alien girl crime-fighter who’s a werewolf squirrel." Loris's self-made comic book, "Lulu Lightspeed," "deals realistically with issues facing blue, big-eyed robots with pointed ears." She has been shown to be very fast, being the first one to run out the door when a bee invaded the cartoon camp. The surname "Slothrop" is shared with Tyrone Slothrop, the protagonist of Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.
Nara A preschooler about whom few details have surfaced. She frequently brings duck-shaped potatoes for show and tell, much to Alice's chagrin. Nara is in ballet and has gone to watch a ballet before.
Sofie A girl who came to Blisshaven more recently. At first she seemed very timid, sitting silently in the corner. After Alice dubbed her "Weird New Kid", Sofie revealed her aggressive nature. Alice is also seemingly incapable of remembering Sofie's name, frequently calling her "Soapie" and/or "Sofa", but considers her her new best friend.
Kevin A preschooler with blond hair, prominent ears, and a "bucket head", according to Alice. He seems to have many anxieties and is a natural target for Alice's teasing.
Recurring themes [ edit ]
Mr. Otterloop's car This 'clown car' is tiny, hence the recurring visual and verbal gags about its size. Alice says it is "half cuisinart".
Manhole cover Alice and her friends use a manhole cover in a nearby vacant lot as a soapbox for performance art or to declare opinions.
Shoebox dioramas Petey is slowly documenting the history of man through the medium of shoebox dioramas which he keeps beneath his bed.
Big Shirley Big Shirley is a large, friendly dog that belongs to Alice's grandmother. Alice is completely terrified of Big Shirley, once even abandoning her precious toy bunny Polyfil to save herself from the dog's slobbering clutches.
Little Neuro A strip-within-the-strip, a parody of Little Nemo. Petey's favorite reading, a strip about a little boy who hardly ever stirs from his bed.
Sports On several occasions, Petey has reluctantly played soccer on his mother's insistence. His lack of athletic skill and social awkwardness has resulted in multiple out-of-body experiences.
Books [ edit ]
The first book collection of Cul de Sac strips, Cul de Sac: This Exit, was published September 1, 2008 by Andrews McMeel Publishing. It includes the pre-syndication Washington Post strips in color, as well as a foreword by Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes),[10] who praised Thompson's work:
I thought the best newspaper comic strips were long gone, and I've never been happier to be wrong. Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac has it all—intelligence, gentle humor, a delightful way with words, and, most surprising of all, wonderful, wonderful drawings. Cul de Sac's whimsical take on the world and playful sense of language somehow gets funnier the more times you read it. Four-year-old Alice and her Blisshaven Preschool classmates will ring true to any parent. Doing projects in a cloud of glue and glitter, the little kids manage to reinterpret an otherwise incomprehensible world via their meandering, nonstop chatter. But I think my favorite character is Alice's older brother, Petey. A haunted, controlling milquetoast, he's surely one of the most neurotic kids to appear in comics. These children and their struggles are presented affectionately, and one of the things I like best about Cul de Sac is its natural warmth. Cul de Sac avoids both mawkishness and cynicism and instead finds genuine charm in its loopy appreciation of small events. Very few strips can hit this subtle note.
A second collection, Children at Play: A Cul de Sac Collection, was published in 2009 by Andrews McMeel. It features a foreword by writer-artist Mo Willems. A treasury book, Cul de Sac Golden Treasury: A Keepsake Garland of Classics, was published July 6, 2010 by Andrews McMeel. It features strips from the previous two book collections along with the early strips from the original run in the Washington Post. The book also features captions with additional insight or commentary written by Thompson himself. Writer Charles Solomon praised the new book in his review for the Los Angeles Times, stating "Cul de Sac proves the comic strip remains a viable art form while bucking current trends".[11]
A third book of strip reprints, titled Shapes & Colors: A Cul de Sac Collection, was released on December 14, 2010. A fourth, The Mighty Alice, was released May 8, 2012, and features both the daily strips and Sunday installments in color. After the strip's run ended, a two-volume book collecting the entire run of the strip and selections of early Washington Post strips, The Complete Cul de Sac, was released on May 6, 2014.
Cul de Sac animated [ edit ]
A series of Cul de Sac animated shorts, produced by RingTales, are hosted by Babelgum.[12] These shorts are 30-second to minute-long animated versions of the comic strips. Thompson's wife provides the voice of Madeline Otterloop, Alice and Petey's mother.[13][14] Thompson has said that one of the kids is voiced by an adult.[15]
References [ edit ]Giant reptile is interrupted while mating and stalks explorer 400 yards across a Seychelles field; 'This is what you’d call dogged tortoise determination'
A giant tortoise presents an imposing figure when it becomes angry, mostly because of its sheer size.
But as National Geographic explorer Paul Rose discovered recently in the Seychelles, “The Tortoise and the Hare” is but a fable, and while an angry tortoise might be able to mount a formidable pursuit, it’s never really going to catch anything it chases.
<iframe width=”620″ height=”340″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/RjtCS0EEoCY?feature=player_detailpage” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
Rose, who was part of a "Pristine Seas" expedition on a small island in the Indian Ocean republic, became involved in what the network described as "the slowest chase ever" after being sniffed out by two giant tortoises that were mating.
The male didn't care for the intrusion–who would?–so it turned toward Rose and went after him, slowly but relentlessly, across the island landscape.
"This is what you'd call dogged tortoise determination," Rose says, while backing away during a chase that covered 400 yards. "[But] he hasn't seen my finishing sprint yet."
Once Rose was coaxed a safe distance away, the tortoise turned and beat a hasty retreat back to the female. Well, it wandered back as quickly as it could. Presumably, the female was still waiting in the bushes.
More from GrindTV
Shark scare for Spring Breakers in Florida
Tiger shark tries to bite photographer's head
Magpie befriends family that rescued itTravis Bishop has been working the past 13 years as a firearms dealer in West Virginia at Tannerman’s Weapon Systems. The store is not only his passion, but also a beacon of hope in his community.
He has put on four food drives in the past 10 years, he’s active in his church through ministry work, he has helped countless heroin addicts though outreach programs, and recently helped 25-year old Britney Bretfield, a customer at Tannerman’s and an avid shotgun trap shooter suffering from cancer, by raising $5500 to help offset her medical bills.
This man goes above and beyond, so when people heard he alerted authorities to break up a straw purchase in his store, it was no surprise. The surprise came after the individuals were spotted in a local liquor store only 14 hours after being arrested.
On December 10th, Travis was working in his store as usual, when two individuals entered his store looking for a handgun. After approaching the two, asking if there was anything he could help them find, the woman indicated she was looking for a “gun with a beam”.
After talking with them only a few short minutes, he alerted his store employees to go into “straw purchase” mode. This slows things down behind the counter and allows them time to further assess the situation and call law enforcement if necessary.
Continuing to press for information, Travis asked if they had ever owned or handled handguns before and they both indicated, ‘oh yeah. yeah, we have guns.’ but neither one was able to say what kind or model they were. After perusing the store talking about several options and deciding on a handgun, they said, ‘yeah, we’ll take that one.’
Confused, Travis asked, “What do you mean ‘you’ll both take that one’? Which one of you is going to be purchasing the gun?” to which she replied, “Oh, he’s gonna get it, I’m gonna pay for it.” So he takes them to the counter to start the process and asked, “Which one of you specifically is buying the gun?” Again she answered, “Well the gun is for him, but I’m gonna pay for it.”
Still in ‘straw purchase mode’, Travis instructs his staff to call it in to get an approval or denial and start the paperwork to ensure they have a completed and signed 4473. As you know, the questions beneath the personal information boxes are specifically intended to identify potential straw purchasers and individuals not allowed to own guns:
Let’s meet the woman in Travis’ store trying to buy a gun for her friend:
This is Curtessa Franklin of Canton, 21 years of age. She has a colorful background including shoplifting, credit card fraud, larceny, and stabbing a man who asked her and her friend to ‘stop rapping so loudly’. When arraigned in Boston Municipal Court on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for that last incident, Franklin already had an outstanding warrant for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Travis’ instincts were right, and as the man with Franklin completed the 4473, he called a local trooper to alert him that he had a straw purchase going down in his store. The trooper indicated that he would call local police to put a tail on the individuals to see where they went after they left his store, and Travis returned to the counter.
He informed the two that the 4473 had come back with a ‘delay’ and clarified that it was neither a denial or an approval, but Franklin got nervous and said, “Well then we’re backing out.” Travis said, “What do you mean ‘you’re backing out’, we didn’t receive an answer on it, it’s just delayed. You could be approved in a half hour, hour, day or four days, but after the five days, you can pick up your gun.”
“Well I can’t wait four days, I need a gun today,” Franklin told him.
Travis asked what the urgency was and she indicated that she was heading to Miami for vacation. He asked her for the $35/background check (which she paid on a stolen gift card from Walmart). Travis said if she was approved in the next two days, he would refund her the $35.
They left the store unhappy, but Travis went above and beyond to alert his local competitors, calling store owners and creating a post on Facebook.
No more than 45 minutes later, a friend of his who owns a local pawn shop called Travis back to tell him those same individuals had just left his shop where they were denied the purchase of a handgun. Within 15 minutes of that phone call, Franklin returned to Travis’ gun shop only this time, she not only came in with her accomplice, but also another woman willing to fill out a 4473.
She returned to the same case and pointed out the same handgun to purchase. At the same time, Travis was working with Raymond Fox, a friend of his who happens to also be a retired county officer. Playing it cool, Travis said loud enough for Franklin and her accomplices to hear, “You know Raymond, I just don’t think I have the space for this pistol right now, I’m gonna have to pass.”
Franklin immediately approached Fox trying to buy the pistol from him on the spot, saying, “You want to sell that gun, I’ll give you $500 right now, what do you want? I’ll buy your gun right now!”
Continuing to run the new purchaser’s 4473, Travis made the call to the state police to report Franklin’s return to his store and inform them of their stop at the pawn shop. Troopers arrived and parked in his garage, waiting for the right time to enter and apprehend Franklin and her accomplices.
During her arrest, troopers found a large amount of marijuana on her and thousands of dollars of stolen credit cards, plus a scanner which can capture credit card information at the register. Trooper Campbell informed Travis they were booking Franklin on the marijuana possession to hold her in custody and that Agent Smith with the ATF had been notified to handle the firearms charges from that point.
But here’s where gun laws and the bureaucratic red tape fail: 14 hours later, Franklin and her accomplices were spotted in a local liquor store. Although she had outstanding warrants in other states and several additional charges in West Virginia from her arrest at Travis’ store, she was a free woman.
How can this be? Admittedly, law enforcement and state agencies can only work within the existing laws, but that’s not working. Not because of a lack of effective laws, but due to the inability of agencies to enforce existing laws. In West Virginia, the ATF is the only agency allowed to prosecute these cases right now. They do their part and send their cases to the State Attorney’s office which takes about 2-4 weeks minimum to review. What happens in that time?
People like Curtessa Franklin are set free to continue their life of crime.
If we are going to fight politicians aiming to write new/more gun laws, then we need to step up and speak out how grossly any effective agencies are able to prosecute under existing gun laws. We owe it to people like Travis Bishop to do our part to make his efforts matter.
Until we can make a difference within the existing gun laws to ensure they are effective, functional, and user friendly, we will never hear the end of the call for ‘more gun laws’.That is the new, magisterial and explicitly Whiggish book by David Wootton, with the subtitle A New History of Scientific Revolution.
I wish there were a single word for the designator “deep, clear, and quite well written, though it will not snag the attention of the casual reader of popular science books because it requires knowledge of the extant literature on the history of science.” Here is one excerpt, less specific than most of the book:
My argument so far is that the seventeenth-century mathematization of the world was long in preparation. Perspective painting, ballistics and fortification, cartography and navigation prepared the ground for Galileo, Descartes and Newton. The new metaphysics of the seventeenth century, which treated space as abstract and infinite, and location and movement as relative, was grounded in the new mathematical sciences of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and if we want to trace the beginnings of the Scientific Revolution we will need to go back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, to double-entry bookkeeping, to Alberti and Regiomontanus. The Scientific Revolution was, first and foremost, a revolt by the mathematicians against the authority of the philosophers.
769 pp., recommended — for some of you.
I had to order my copy from UK, in the US it comes out in December and can be pre-ordered.KABUL (Reuters) - Afghans head to the polls on Saturday for a second round of voting to elect a successor to President Hamid Karzai in a decisive test of Afghanistan’s ambitions to transfer power democratically for the first time in its tumultuous history.
Afghan election commission workers move ballot boxes and election material in a warehouse in Kabul June 13, 2014. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail
The vote pits former anti-Taliban fighter Abdullah Abdullah against ex-World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani after neither secured the 50 percent majority needed to win outright in the first round on April 5.
As most foreign troops leave by the end of 2014, whoever takes over from Karzai will inherit a troubled country with an increasingly violent Taliban insurgency and an economy crippled by corruption and the weak rule of law.
The process has been fraught with accusations of fraud by both candidates and many fear a close outcome will make it less likely the loser will accept defeat, possibly dragging Afghanistan into a risky and protracted stand-off over the vote.
From windswept deserts on the Iranian border to the remote, rugged Hindu Kush mountains, 12 million eligible voters will start casting ballots at 7 a.m. (0230 GMT) amid tight security at 6,365 polling centers.
“The country is in a crisis... Only a strong leader can rescue it,” said Shukria Barakzai, a female member of parliament.
“Everyone - young, old, rich and poor - came out in unpleasant weather, despite threats, to vote in April and we hope it will be the same this time. This is Afghanistan’s spirit,” she said.
The Taliban may prove a formidable obstacle. The insurgents, now at the height of their summer offensive, have warned people not to vote in an election they have condemned as a U.S.-sponsored charade.
“This time the Taliban will try to compensate for what they couldn’t achieve in the first round of the election,” said Defence Ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi.
The high turnout of nearly 60 percent in the first round was a major defeat for the Taliban. Observers expect fewer than 5 million voters this time, partly because of concern about security.
ETHNIC LINES
Officials in Kabul are haunted by the prospect of a close outcome that could furnish the losing candidate and his supporters with an excuse to reject defeat, and, in the worst scenario, propel the country back into war along ethnic lines.
Both candidates set the stage for complaints with repeated attacks on electoral organizers, accusing them of incompetence and bias.
“Some of the teams openly played ethnic politics and that is not good for the country,” said Habibi Aminullah, former campaign manager to Qayum Karzai, the president’s brother, who was a candidate in the first round.
“I hope the election ends at a point in which no violence takes place. I hope the international community helps the country.”
The United Nations has appealed to candidates to refrain from attacking the organizers to safeguard the process.
“There’s a short-term gain only in trying to undermine or bully the institutions at the expense of their legitimacy,” said United Nations deputy chief Nicholas Haysom.
“It’s going to be the legitimacy of the elections which will give legitimacy to the new head.”
Abdullah polled 14 percentage points ahead of Ghani in the first round with 45 percent of the vote, but Ghani, who is ethnic Pashtun, stands to gain a portion of the Pashtun vote that was splintered in the first round.
Pashtuns are Afghanistan’s biggest ethnic group, making up about 45 percent of the population.
Abdullah is partly Pashtun but is identified more with the ethnic Tajik minority.
The chances of an equal split between candidates are hard to gauge because there are few reliable polls. ACSOR research center, asking respondents to choose between Abdullah and Ghani, predicted a 50:50 split shortly before the first round.
A more recent survey by Glevum Associates indicates that Ghani may have overtaken Abdullah, predicting 49:42 in Ghani’s favor.Grab your swimsuits and flip-flops — it’s summer in the South Sound. There’s plenty to keep you busy out and about during this beautiful season, but when you need to cool off, try splashing around in one of these popular lakes, located just south of Seattle.
At Steel Lake Park in Federal Way, you’ll find a sandy beach perfect for stretching out on a towel and catching a little sun. Cool off in the lake, where you’ll find lifeguards on duty from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Friday, and from noon to 7:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. An enormous wooden playground and skate park make this park friendly for kiddos who’ve had their fill of aquatic fun, and a concession stand has the essentials stocked if you forgot to pack any drinks or snacks.
Another park outside of Federal Way is Auburn’s Five Mile Lake Park. A nice sandy beach area surrounds this spring-fed lake. Here you can enjoy the views from land near the lakeside playground or any of the other spots a-plenty to plop down for a picnic. The lake is stocked with rainbow trout and largemouth bass for those looking to catch a little dinner while they’re out and about. Boating is permitted as well. While there’s no boat ramp, car-top crafts can be launched from the eastern shore.
In Lakewood, five-acre American Lake Park is popular in the summer for swimming along its north shore. There are lifeguards on duty during peak season and free swimming lessons offered some summers (be sure to call ahead at 253-589-2489 for details). Plenty of parking, a playground and boat launch with season passes available are a few other highlights of this serene spot.
In Kent, Lake Meridian is another rural swimming spot. Lifeguards are on duty around the beach during the summer to keep visitors safe all season long. Look for them from noon to 7:00 p.m. daily through September each year (or call ahead for more details at 253-856-5000). This is another spot with plenty of amenities to sweeten an already tempting oasis: picnic shelters equipped with electricity and running water, BBQ grills, a concession stand, showers and a changing area, public art and even lighted trails.
Swimmers as well as boaters love Lake Tapps North in Bonney Lake because it has lots of lunching spots and tables perfect for picnicking, a concession stand and boat launch. A sandy beach surrounds the lake on this 80-acre site, and incredible views of Mount Rainier make this a scenic spot to spend an afternoon when the mercury rises. Explore nearby trails, stroll along the 10,000 feet of sandy beach that surrounds the swimming area or spend a day on the water until this lake closes for public use after school starts in early fall.
The southern side of Lake Tapps is where you’ll find Allan Yorke Park. This site is equipped with a playground, plenty of public bathroom space and easy access to the ample swimming area. There’s nearly 1,000 feet of tails to explore around this park, plus fishing and a boat launch, too. If you feel like exploring, you’ll find some shy gnomes living nearby, too. Kids who aren’t interested in swimming can work on their grinds and flips at the nearby skate park, and, for weekends when you’re looking to make a day of it, this park is also the site of Bonney Lake Days, outdoor Movies in the Park and plenty of open-air concerts.
Spanaway Lake Park is an enormous recreation center with beautiful lake views. Two swimming beaches are just one part of what this impressive venue has to offer. There’s no shortage of places to set up camp for a picnic or family gathering, and there’s also more than one play area to choose from, so this popular park never feels too crowded. Boat rentals are another way to get out on the water without getting too wet, as well as a fishing pier and boat launch; call the boathouse at 253-531-0555 for details about renting a non-motorized boat. Explore three miles of trails surrounding Little Spanaway Lake after you take a dip if you like to air dry on the move.
Check out one or all of these fantastic lakes for swimming, fun and frolicking in the sun the next time the heat’s got you down. Our handy map below features a growing list of swimming spots uncovered by readers just like you.Hernandez (shoulder) retired the first 14 hitters he faced in Triple-A Tacoma's victory over Las Vegas on Sunday and gave up just one earned run on one hit over five innings, Michael Leboff of MiLB.com reports. "I knew it was going to be better today because it had been a while since I had been on the mound," Hernandez told reporters. "I had command of my fastball and all of my pitches, and it worked."
Hernandez also remarked that his mechanics were much improved as he cruised through four consecutive 1-2-3 innings on an efficient 44 pitches. His only mistake came on an RBI double that he allowed in his final frame, but the overall results were naturally very encouraging after Hernandez's struggles in his last outing. The right-hander is scheduled for one more rehab start with the Rainiers before his expected activation from the disabled list.Attention vinyl junkies.
A large stash of used LP records, squirreled away decades ago, has been donated to Whitehorse's community radio station for a fundraising sale this weekend.
Bill Polonsky, the volunteer manager of CJUC, calls it "the Yukon gold mine of vinyl."
In fact, it may be the mother lode.
"These records came from a hoard that was put under a porch in Tagish in the mid-'80s," Polonsky said. "We went out there, and he opened up under his porch for the first time in, god, 30 years."
The vinyl vault, under Rob Hopkins' porch in Tagish. (submitted by Bill Polonsky)
The donor is Rob Hopkins, a software developer who helped launch CJUC more than a decade ago. The records are leftover stock from Frontier Electronics, a store he ran in Whitehorse in the early '80s that sold used vinyl. Others he accumulated from yard sales and other stores as they went out of business.
"So he put all these records under his porch, all covered in plastic, a very dry area. And I would say about six months ago, he suggested that he would donate these to CJUC," Polonsky said.
Hopkins says he had originally stashed them away "for safe keeping," and to make room in his house for other things. Once they were safely stored, he just left them alone.
"I didn't want to break into them until I had a good home for them," he said. He also recently sold his house, and "part of the sale, of course, is get rid of all your junk."
Hopkins couldn't part with all his treasures, though, such as "my super-rare Electric Light Orchestra coloured vinyl, and inflatable E.L.O lightbulb... not a chance."
From 'Purple Rain' to 'Rock Lobster'. CJUC manager Bill Polonsky with a couple of modern classics. (Paul Tukker/CBC)
Moving the CJUC transmitter
Earlier this week, the records — about 3,500 of them, Hopkins says — were loaded onto a truck and delivered to CJUC's headquarters in Whitehorse. That's where they'll be up for sale this weekend.
The station, a non-commercial, volunteer-run operation, has been raising money to move its transmitter to Haeckel Hill and thereby expand its reach.
Some of the used records are in excellent shape, while others might have a few skips or scratches. Polonsky spent this past week going through the stash and figuring out how to price them.
More bulky than a hard drive, sure, but some say the sound is 'warmer'. (Paul Tukker/CBC)
"This is a fundraiser, so we're looking to make some money off this stuff," he said. "The prices are going to reflect what we believe people will pay for them.
"If someone comes in and they want to buy 100 records, we'll cut 'em a deal, for sure."
The sale is at Chambers House, CJUC's building in Shipyards Park, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday.A VET has shot a tranquilliser dart into a zoo employee dressed as a gorilla in a case of mistaken identity.
The 35-year-old zoo worker was shot on Monday at Tenerife’s Loro Parque Zoo.
Staff at the zoo were performing an emergency drill to practice procedures in the event of an escape when the incident occurred. The vet had not been told the exercise was taking place and shot the man with tranquilliser sufficient to down a 180kg gorilla. The worker suffered an allergic reaction to the narcotic and was taken to hospital, Spanish language newspaper La Opinion de Tenerife reports.
Zoo staff told MailOnline an alarm was set off as part of the simulation, and “one keeper in the wild mammals team was accidentally struck by the medical tranquilliser that vets use in these instances.”
They added that the worker has “recovered and is now in good health”.Sailfish OS has been ported to Google Nexus 4, and it can be installed either next to Android using MultiROM or to replace Android totally. Version Alpha 4 is still considered as an early adopters version, not everything works yet but it's quite usable already.
Jolla's Sailfish OS for Nexus 4
Release Notes:
This release is based on SailfishOS 1.0.8.19 (Tahkalampi). The Nexus 4 port is considered to be of alpha quality. Though depending on your usage it might be stable enough for daily use.
Download & installation instructions:
Install adb and fastboot
and Debian/Ubuntu:
"apt-get install android-tools-adb android-tools-fastboot"
"apt-get install android-tools-adb android-tools-fastboot"
Fedora:
"yum install android-tools"
"yum install android-tools"
Mac OS X:
Install Homebrew from http://brew.sh/, then:
"brew install android-platform-tools"
Install Homebrew from http://brew.sh/, then: "brew install android-platform-tools"
Windows:
Read this for instructions
Read this for instructions MultiROM ≥v28 ability is in the image.
See options of how to layout here
Alternatively, just have it as your primary ROM:
Install Android 4.2.2 (JDQ39) to your Nexus 4
Install Android 4.2.2 (JDQ39) to your Nexus 4 Instructions here
Download links can be found here
Download CyanogenMod 10.1.3 for your Nexus 4
Perform Factory Reset and wipe contents of the /data/ partition in case of leftovers from previous ROMs
The file you want to download is "cm-10.1.3-mako.zip"
Download links can be found here
Download the Sailfish OS for Android image for "mako"
The file you want to download is
http://releases.sailfishos.org/sfa-ea/sailfishos-mako-release-1.0.8.19-EA4.zip
Another flavour filled with demo content:
http://releases.sailfishos.org/sfa-ea/sailfishos-mako-release-1.0.8.19-EA4-demo-content.zip
Install CyanogenMod 10.1.3 on your Nexus 4. Follow the instructions at: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_mako
After flashing the "cm-10.1.3-mako.zip" file, flash the Sailfish OS.zip file in the same way ("on top of it")
Reboot bootloader, Sailfish OS should boot and be visible We recommend reading through
NOTE: This is considered as an early adopters release (EA4), please visit the XDA Developer forum for known issues and updates. You can also join the great work porters are doing with different devices at Freenode IRC channel: #sailfishos-porters This release is based on SailfishOS 1.0.8.19 (Tahkalampi). The Nexus 4 port is considered to be of alpha quality. Though depending on your usage it might be stable enough for daily use.We recommend reading through http://jolla.com/guide/ -- some parts may not apply to Nexus 4 ContentThis is considered as an early adopters release (EA4), please visit the XDA Developer forum for known issues and updates. You can also join the great work porters are doing with different devices at Freenode IRC channel: #sailfishos-porters
We're happy to publish the fourth Early Adopter Release of Sailfish OS (1.0.8.19) for Nexus 4 (mako) to you. We have also released the EA2 version of the Sailfish OS Hardware Adaptation Development Kit (HADK), as per earlier email.
This installation image is for early adopters only, meaning we know that some things are not functional or perhaps even broken -- please see the release notes below. We are excited to get all of you properly included in the early stages of the project. Do note that this Sailfish OS image is strictly for personal and non commercial usage only.
We've prepared a 'demo' version of the image which contains the kind of preinstalled'marketing' content and the core apps used for demonstrations - this helps you quickly get a feel for all the interactions that are avalable on a device that has been used for a while but isn't really what you want for personal use. You can however cleanly remove the demo content.
We want to build a community around Sailfish OS for Android devices that is based on mutual trust and respect for what we are all doing. Hence -- we ask that whenever you do screenshots, videos, forum or blog posts (and we're happy if you do!) or the like, you emphasise that this is work-in-progress and not a productised release. It is important for Jolla that correct expectations are set for those who might be users of the final product -- and that they understand what they see is not a released product. If you do demo videos, take advantage of our new 'demo content' image (check availability for your device) that has pre-set contacts/imagery/messages/etc to show full functionality of Sailfish OS.
WARNING: Modifying or replacing your device’s software may void your device’s warranty, lead to data loss, hearing loss, hair loss, financial loss, privacy loss, security breaches, or other damage, and therefore must be done entirely at your own risk. No one affiliated with this project is responsible for your actions but yourself. Good luck.
NOTE: You will lose your on-device data (including /sdcard), so make a proper backup and make sure to copy that backup to your PC.*
NOTE: Make sure to read all the release notes below. Please DO NOT contact Jolla Care nor |
parable to anything else. It anchors me in my land as a person in a way that nothing else does.
In Pakistan’s case, its early leadership saw the country’s distinctive ethno-cultural identities as a ‘menace’ and tried to replace them with religion, a shared value which cannot override people’s identities without engendering violence. Our leaders also used language as a tool to create a single cultural identity, an effort that failed in 1971 and continues to do so. This is because a language can become a means of connectivity between diverse cultures but cannot override them. The Punjabi elite and middle class of West Pakistan had voluntarily sacrificed their identity in 1947 and accepted the supremacy of Urdu. They could not understand why the Seraikis, Sindhis, Pakhtun and Baloch clung to their ethno-linguistic identity.
?I was born in the 1960s into a Punjabi-Seraiki household, and was denied the privilege of knowing both languages. In those days, being cultured meant speaking Urdu with the right accent. My mother was constantly on the lookout for an Urdu-speaking nanny for me so that I would speak Urdu with a Lucknow/Delhi accent. I grew up in the company of Urdu writers like Salahuddin Mehmood and Mukhtar Masood who hid their Punjabi identity behind their Urdu. While my parents spoke to each other in Seraiki, the entire household spoke to me in Urdu. Luckily, my mother could never find a reliable nanny and those we had from the village inadvertently cultivated the sapling of Seraiki in my subconscious. The down side was my initial social discomfort with the language. When it came to marriage, I was uncomfortable with the idea of romance in a language spoken with minions.
My mother’s issue was not to establish Punjabi dominance at home but like so many of her kind, she had accepted the supremacy of Urdu. She had accepted Seraiki language and culture like many Punjabi women married into elite Seraiki families, to the extent of speaking it occasionally. I was lucky that the two crucial Punjabis in my life, my mother and my husband both volunteered to learn the language. However, despite such sanctions my language reached out to me even when I didn’t go out searching for it – we connected before my teens, and we haven’t let go of each other since. I write in English and Urdu but it is Seraiki that touches the inner core of my being.
We now find that English is increasingly replacing Urdu as a preferred mode of communication. It is probably this abandonment of one’s own linguistic heritage for something foreign that instilled a lack of appreciation of primordial identity in an urban Punjabi-Lahori man like Mohsin Hamid, who considers people’s attachment to their ethno-linguistic bearing as symbolizing a lack of confidence. In the same speech in Lahore he was of the view that “once they (people) start believing in themselves they will not require additional identities.” One would like to remind the author that national identities matter all over the world. These are not crutches but a universe of imagination – stories and songs passed on to you that you then mix with your own harvest of experiences. So, when we say ‘lost in translation,’ it doesn’t just mean words but an entire galaxy of expressions, dreams and imagination.
Urdu literature suffers because it has been captured by a language elite that acts more like police than facilitator
I often wonder why Pakistan’s modern literature written both in English and Urdu doesn’t give you the zing that some of the best works coming out of other parts of the world do. In the last three decades some of the best experimentation resulting in fabulous fiction has come out Latin America, Eastern Europe, North East Asia and the Middle East that have experienced decades of violence or sociopolitical turbulence. Didn’t we have periods of intense agony in our history? We’ve suffered the breakup of the country, authoritarian rule, terror and torture – looking at most of the new Pakistani fiction, it seems we have missed the bus in terms of recording our diverse experiences despite having undergone them. This may be partly because (this applies to both India and Pakistan) the literature written in English comes from a certain class that remains on the edges of people’s lives. It is a pretense of egalitarianism and consciousness of political correctness that forces most to adopt an Orientalist approach in fiction, writing stories that sell in the international market.
Indeed, some of the poetry and prose written in the Indian Subcontinent’s numerous national languages have great gusto but we hardly get to hear of it. The approximately 1,500 poets that gather at Taunsa every year for three nights of rapturous sessions of singing and poetry recitation belong to a different world. They create works that are simple, complex, passionate, politically incorrect, rebellious or even wild. At all times, they are real and unfeigned.
This is unlike Urdu literature in Pakistan, which suffers because it has been captured by a language elite that acts more like police than facilitator. It suffers from an environment where those who critiqued literature and were inheritors of the Urdu language heritage adopted inflexible perimeters to judge. Incidentally, the measurement bar was not literature itself but ethnic identity. Therefore, no novelist and short story writer could ever surpass Quratulain Haider, or in later days, Intizaar Hussain. A huge contribution to Urdu literature was made by people who were not from the Ganga-Jamuna heartland and whose mother tongue was different, but this fact remains largely unrecognised. Their writings are not explored and presented to the younger generation because of an inherent ethno-linguistic (often mixed with gender) bias. It was after much drumbeating about writers and poets of a certain ethnic identity that some space was grudgingly created for the novelist Abdullah Hussain in his last years. Privately, the festival elite looked down upon his work for using Punjabi terms in an Urdu novel.
In a place where there is systematic gagging of voices, state torture, brutality, radicalism, love, passion, friendship and much more, how is it that great fiction is not being written? It’s because we have been alienated from our own languages, the words of our souls – we’ve become mute because we speak in false tongues. To find our voices again, we must let our diverse ethno-linguistic identities bloom, we must recognise our diversity and allow each group to sing and fly.
Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa is a civilian military scientist, author, former bureaucrat and political commentator. She tweets at @iamthedrifterYou’re here because you’ve either been struggling with porn addiction, porn-induced ED or chronic masturbation. If I told you that there’s an easy way to quit porn you’ll no doubt think that this is sensationalist marketing designed to tug at your insecurities until your wallet falls out, because you’ve tried to quit porn and it’s actually really f*cking difficult! I hear you, but with all due respect, your way is really difficult. Now it’s time to give my way a chance.
We do not provide medical advice.
Always consult your doctor regarding matters of your health.
The Usual Mindset When Quitting Porn
I don’t really want to stop, but I know I have to stop if I want to recover, so if I can just resist the urge long enough, eventually I will recover
Thinking like this sets you up for failure. It creates a sense of sacrifice, as if you are giving something up, rather than freeing yourself from the shackles.
No wonder relapse rates are so high!
It is not enough to just avoid porn for a while. A change needs to happen in the way that you think and feel, as well as deconstructing associations you have created around porn and how you see it fit in your life, otherwise you can expect years of relapsing.
What Happens to your Brain on Porn?
Compulsive use of pornography reconditions the way your brain responds to certain stimuli. In this case it is the release of dopamine, a chemical that is a key player in your brain’s reward circuitry, which changes the way it behaves.
Your brain’s reward system tries to control and regulate behavior by prompting pleasurable feelings via its complex brain structures. These rewards tend to reinforce the behavior that induced the reward to begin with, and as is the case in addiction, this can lead to a downward spiral as the addict struggles to flood his system with more dopamine, and his brain’s sensitivity slowly decreases, leading to a diminished pleasure response.
And while this desensitization is happening (which leads the addict to seek more and more ways to become aroused), certain pathways have become sensitized and are now established addiction pathways, responsible for the sufferer conditioning their sexual behavior.
Any of These Symptoms Sound Familiar?
It’s difficult to become aroused with a physical partner, but you can coax yourself with the use of porn.
It’s difficult to become aroused with a physical partner, but you can coax yourself with the use of porn. Struggling to maintain an erection (erectile dysfunction)
Struggling to maintain an erection (erectile dysfunction) Excessive masturbation, constant craving but little to no satisfaction
Excessive masturbation, constant craving but little to no satisfaction Social anxiety develops. If you already struggled with this, excessive porn can make social anxiety more severe.
Social anxiety develops. If you already struggled with this, excessive porn can make social anxiety more severe. Constantly feeling tired (fatigue) and lacking motivation
Constantly feeling tired (fatigue) and lacking motivation General anxiety and a feeling of uneasiness
General anxiety and a feeling of uneasiness Difficulty concentrating and pronounced worsening of short term memory
Difficulty concentrating and pronounced worsening of short term memory Needing more extreme porn, or porn that doesn’t fall within your sexual orientation
You Have a Problem With Pornography
The severity of the symptoms varies from one person to the next, and for many they’re still not initially convinced that their porn use is contributing towards or exacerbating their problems. This is because:
There’s a complete disbelief that porn, something we’ve been told all our lives is completely fine to indulge in, could actually have such devastating effects
There’s a powerful defense mechanism within us all called: DENIAL. We “protect” ourselves from the pain of the truth by pretending we don’t have a problem. At least until the effects become so pronounced that you can’t kid yourself anymore.
It took me a while before I could accept the truth. The sooner you do, the sooner you can recover.
A 2013 study by the University of Sydney said pornography addiction was on the rise. About 47 percent of the surveyed people said they watched pornography from 30 minutes to three hours every day:
They had severe social and relationship problems and had often lost their jobs or been in trouble with the law as a result of their addiction. Some users escalated their viewing to more extreme and often illegal material,”
Nationally recognized organizations have commented on the negative impact of pornography, too. Oprah.com unveiled the negative side effects of porn, calling it a “drug that leads to addiction.”
It gives you a hit, it gives you a high that cannot be sustained unless you have massive exposure to it,” – Rabbi Shmuley said to oprah.com.
What you can expect from this program
Experienced Knowledge Input from hundreds of successful rebooters spread over 16,000 posts on the Sexual Reboot forum have combined with authoritative sources to find the approach that works.
Reboot your Brain A sexual reboot consists of two parts. The first involves quitting porn and temporarily abstaining from masturbation. The second half involves reintroducing porn-free sexual stimulation and real sex.
Strengthen Weaknesses More often than not you are turning to porn because you lack the necessary coping mechanisms to deal with challenges. Before you remove porn you need to prepare yourself.
Channel your Energy This isn’t a New-Age thing, but if you don’t masturbate for a few weeks you are going to feel the dull ache of dormant sexual energy, which can be a source of discomfort. Don’t let it go to waste, use it.
Know the Path Now that you know you have a problem, you can focus all of your attention on the solution, which has been mapped out for you in its entirety. Recover, Reboot and Rewire as quickly and easily as possible.
Dispel Limiting Beliefs You can open your eyes to the damaging beliefs you have psychologically anchored to porn. Many people feel that they are sacrificing something when they quit because they don’t address this.
How Can Quitting Porn Really be Easy? Compared to the Willpower Method (aka The Hard Way), this IS the easy way. But let’s get real… there’s no magic pill you can take to beat porn addiction instantly. But there ARE methods, strategies and new ways of thinking that WILL make the process a far easier one. Whether you see yourself as an addict or just someone struggling with an intense compulsion, the fact remains that you have created all sorts of justifications for what you’re doing and why, whether you’re consciously aware of it or not. Once you change your beliefs you will automatically change your behavior, and such a change can only be brought about by deep reflection and increased awareness. This requires a level of complete honesty with yourself which is at the very foundation of a complete and long-lasting recovery.
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Porn Addiction is a Symptom of a Larger Problem The relapse rates are extremely high for anyone that manages to kick porn addiction/compulsion and chronic masturbation using the Willpower Method.
This is a big problem. Rationalizing with ourselves in the heat of the moment why it’s OK to continue on the path of self-abuse. Sexual Reboot is NOT anti-masturbation but it’s important to abstain for a period of time to make a full recovery. So why does it seem so difficult to stop and why are so many people falling right back into old habits even after managing to fight through 60+ days of abstinence? Because they’re not dealing with the reasons why they turned to porn to begin with, they’ve let their ability to cope with any adverse emotional state fall by the wayside, and they still believe, deep down, that porn provides some benefits for them. You will always struggle with porn compulsion if you do not deal with the root of the problem. The aim of the Sexual Reboot program is to help you do this effectively so that the new perspective you gain ensures that your desire to avoid porn outweighs your desire to indulge in it, bypassing the need to fight anything with willpower or suffer and struggle along the path to recovery. When you have successfully completed your sexual reboot I would really appreciate it if you would write me and share your success story. For now you can read some reviews from other sexual rebooters: I had been trying to recover on and off for almost a year now, so I really wanted this book to be good. It did not disappoint. I was able to understand the addiction and the mindgames we play with ourselves which made things much easier. I finished the book and simply did not look at porn. By June I had started masturbating every now and then, but without porn and without any chaser feeling afterwards. My sex drive is back and I’m feeling great! – Max, source Stop the Easy Way is actually hilarious in places. I didn’t expect it. The tone is playful at times but that doesn’t take away from how informative it is. I totally agree with the approach, it makes complete sense to try and understand why you are self-medicating (using porn as an escape) before you stop porn cold turkey, otherwise you have a load of new problems that you don’t know how to deal with.
I read it through twice before I started my sexual reboot and it went great. I didn’t look at porn. I did masturbate a few times early on but it didn’t effect my recovery (and the book actually says that it’s not a problem). – Steve, source Back in May I had already failed several times and I was feeling depressed. I didn’t believe that a book could help me. I just felt like a weak person. The only thing that gave me hope was the tagline “No Willpower Necessary”, which makes me the perfect candidate. The book flows effortlessly. Covers all the main points. There’s some good strategies and it helped me see some of the mistakes I was making in the way I thought about recovery and porn and my life. Great book 5/5 – Glenn, source The feeling to look at porn didn’t magically disappear when I finished the book, but I interpreted the feeling in a different way, which made it easy to resist. After a week I had no problems at all and knew I could complete my sexual reboot without relapsing. I think that’s called the Moment of Revelation It’s about 15 weeks later and I’m feeling awesome. I can’t believe it and I’m so happy that I’m free. Thank you very much!! – Stewart, source
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By achieving your sexual reboot you can become so much more receptive to real-world sexual experiences and enjoy greater levels of virility. I cannot emphasize enough how drastic and dramatic the change can be that you experience in yourself.
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There’s no doubt that some of you still find this hard to believe but don’t make the mistake of dismissing it just because you think I’m exaggerating. The method I described exists, you have the opportunity to learn it and I provide a 60 day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know this will work for me?
This program has been designed with first time rebooters as well as frequently failed rebooters in mind. I want you to achieve long-lasting success, not just a few weeks of porn abstinence. I am 100% confident that you will take away many useful concepts from this book and the extras that come with it. If you find that the program does not help you then email me (john@sexualreboot.com) and I will provide assistance. Failing that, I offer a 100% money back guarantee for 60 days. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking part in the Sexual Reboot program.
How can this help me more than the free information already available online?
I have thousands of pages of free information right on this website, and there’s nothing to stop you from overcoming Porn-Induced Sexual Dysfunction on your own. However, the Sexual Reboot program is not just an instruction manual. The process of changing your beliefs is far more effectively achieved by working through a comprehensive program, saving you time, alleviating stress, and leaving no room for error. There are over 15,000 posts on our forum, and many more across the internet, with people expressing their (often conflicting) opinions, and this program can make sure that your energy and focus in spent on your recovery, rather than on weighing up whether or not what you’ve read is accurate.
Who is this program for?
This program is for anyone that is struggling with Porn-induced Sexual Dysfunction, Sexual Exhaustion, Porn Addiction, Compulsive Porn Use or Chronic Masturbation. It has proven results to help you fully recover.
Who is this program NOT for?
This program is not for anyone that is not serious about making a full recovery. You need to be committed to wanting to recover.
What about privacy?
We take privacy very seriously. Your details will never be shared with or sold to any person, company, charity or entity of any sort. We do not retain the private information of customers. Your credit card bill will not show the purchase as being for Sexual Reboot. It will instead display either: CLICKBANK or CLKBANK*COM. Clickbank is a marketplace that sells thousands of digital products covering every subject, so no one will know what your particular purchase was for if they saw your credit card/bank statement. your email address is 100% confidential.
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The industry is strictly regulated, and most aspiring commercial actors are required to join the SAG-AFTRA union - Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Actors. The union ensures that members are paid benchmark rates by production companies
Many actors and actresses who are superstars today, began their careers by acting in commercials.
Certain actors struck gold in the commercial acting realm and haven't left yet. One person who instantly comes to mind - for many reasons - is Subway's former spokesman, Jared Fogle. Fogle had allegedly made $15 million from his Subway spots since 1999, but this summer he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for having sex with a minor and child pornography. Needless to say, we'll exclude him from the list.
Here are six people who are raking in cash from their commercial work:
1.) Paul Marcarelli
'Can You Hear Me Now?' Test Man
Verizon
Net Worth: $10 million according to CelebrityNetWorth.com
Yes, Paul, I can still hear you now.
In 2001, stage actor Paul Marcarelli signed a contract with Verizon for his 'Test Man' role. According to CelebrityNetWorth.com, he allegedly made $10 million during the 10 year period that he remained in this role. For this part, Marcarelli would film about 40 commercials a year, and was also required to attend many events.
Sounds pretty glamorous, right?
“There’s a price to pay,” Marcarelli said of his Verizon years in a 2011 interview with The Atlantic. “Don’t feel bad for me, but I’m definitely glad that chapter is over. Most people my age are now trying to trade in their street cred for money, and I kind of made my money. I still want to make something of value.”
A few years before the 'Test Man' gig, Marcarelli had acted in a 30-second Old Navy commercial, but his primary body of work was stage; that was the type of acting that gave him fulfillment.
Though many would argue that $10 million sounds like a reasonable amount to set your dreams aside for a few years, there was a darker side to Marcarelli's 'Test Man' gig.
The role impacted all areas of Marcarelli's life.
He told The Atlantic that at his grandmother's funeral - as her casket was being lowered into the ground - he heard someone whisper: "Can you hear me now?"
Verizon also gave Marcarelli a strict contract, which required him to not discuss the specifics of his role to 'protect the character' and inherently his paycheck. Marcarelli was scared to let the public know he was gay, and even didn't report homophobic harassment because he knew it would have to be logged by the police and thought it would affect his public reception.
Today, Marcarelli is using his financial comfort to make up for lost time.
He co-founded a production company, and now works creatively as a filmmaker. He co-wrote the 2011 movie, The Green, which tackles issues surrounding sexuality.
2.) Jonathan Goldsmith
The Most Interesting Man In The World
Dos Equis
Net Worth: $8 million, according to The Richest
Jonathan Goldsmith started his entertainment career as a young actor in the 1950′s. For nearly 30 years, he kept busy with hundreds of TV and film appearances.
As he grew older, he faced more rejection, and eventually left acting to enter network marketing. He initially became very wealthy from this endeavor, but when things went awry he decided to return to acting.
He was sent by his agent to the overcrowded Dos Equis audition. He caught the director's eye after ending his tryout with the improvised line, “And that’s how I arm wrestled Fidel Castro."
But, the director was not completely convinced that Goldsmith was the one to portray 'The Most Interesting Man in the World;' most of the other actors were half Goldsmith's age.
“How can the most interesting man in the world possibly be only thirty years old?” Goldsmith's agent challenged the director.
Her logic was well-received: Goldsmith got the part, and he's been thriving ever since.
Though it may not be exactly as glamorous as his experiences in Old Hollywood, according to The Richest, Goldsmith is now worth a cool $8 million thanks to the part.
3.) Stephanie Courtney
Flo
Progressive Insurance
Net Worth: $5 million, according to CelebrityNetWorth.com
Stephanie Courtney was a theater fanatic in her pre-Flo days. She spent her twenties touring with Theatreworks USA, a job that allowed her to earn an actor's card equity card. Courtney's stage work led to stand-up, and her stand-up led to representation from an agent who encouraged her to move to LA to pursue screen opportunities.
Once out west, Courtney turned to commercials as a means of making quick money.
"My first national commercial was a Bud Light commercial in 1999," Courtney recently told Cosmopolitan. "They played it during the Super Bowl. I had a little part in it, but when I got paid, I thought I had made it. I quit all my day jobs, and then six months later I was like, 'I need my job back, please.'"
Though she acted in Mad Men and The Comeback, cable shows didn't pay like network shows, and Courtney found herself focused on booking more commercials. She began doing more campaigns, appearing in spots for McDonald's, Quaker Oats, Wienerschnitzel, Skittles and Toyota.
"At that point, I don't think anyone noticed me in those commercials," Courtney told Cosmo. "It was never, 'Who is that girl?' I would be the girl in the back of the line looking annoyed. Commercials are great and I loved booking them for the money, but I was actually working more in TV."
Then, in 2006, when she was 38, Courtney got the role that has come to define her career: Flo.
Courtney told Cosmo she felt confident when she went into the audition because of all the recent commercial work she'd been doing.
She knew the campaign featured a Progressive girl who worked behind the desk, but she wanted to make her take on the role memorable.
"So I thought, She'll love them to a fault where she's walking the line of crazy. It's like the love just spills over and becomes a tiny bit inappropriate," she told Cosmo. "That's what I came up with in the audition room."
And that over-the-top interpretation of a passionate customer service representative paid off. According to CelebrityNetWorth.com, Courtney allegedly makes $800,000 per year and is worth $5 million.
4.) Carly Foulkes
T-Mobile Girl
T-Mobile
Net Worth: $3 million, according to CelebrityNetWorth.com
In 2010, Carly Foulkes took over as T-Mobile's memorable spokeswoman at the young age of 22. Her predecessor: Catherine Zeta-Jones.
The Canadian born model/actress, began modeling in Toronto when she was 13-years-old.
Before her contract with T-Mobile, Foulkes appeared in print campaigns for Abercrombie & Fitch, Artistry Cosmetics, Express, Gilly Hicks, Kohls, Macys, Neiman Marcus, Rugby by Ralph Lauren, and Tommy Hilfiger. She was once was even the cover girl for Elle Mexico.
Then, when she was 22, she got the job of a lifetime: 'The T-Mobile Girl.'
Foulkes told PC Magazine that she was grateful casting agents overlooked her heavy Canadian accent and gave her the role:
"We say "mo-bile" [rhymes with "smile"] in Canada so when I auditioned for the thing I said "T-Mobile" [in the Canadian way] and they had to stop me and say 'No, that's not how you say it!'"
According to CelebrityNetWorth.com, during her three years in the role, Foulkes was allegedly paid $1 million annually, and today, they allege, she has a $3 million net worth, thanks to this part,.
5.) Diane Amos
The Pine-Sol Lady
Pine-Sol
Net Worth: $2.5 million, according to CelebrityNetWorth.com
Comedienne Diane Amos started honing her craft a young age. Growing up in San Francisco, Amos started doing improv in high school, and later joined a local improv troupe, the National Theater of the Deranged. In 1986, she began doing her famous standup.
Before Pine-Sol, she had experienced a taste of airtime on TV, when in the mid-to-late 1980s she competed on gameshows to win extra cash. Amos won $14,750 on Wheel of Fortune, $13,000 and a trip to London on The $25,000 Pyramid and $18,400 and a La-Z-Boy recliner from Super Password.
But, Amos' most famous source of income is her longstanding role as 'the Pine-Sol Lady'. Since 1993, she's appeared in national print and television ads for the fragrant household cleaner. According to CelebrityNetWorth.com, Amos is allegedly now worth $2.5 million, though that's not the aspect of her role that she is most proud of.
"I am one of the few national black spokespeople in the country, and I have pride in that," she told the San Francisco Chronicle.
6.) Dean Winters
Mayhem
Allstate
Net Worth: $4 million, according to The Richest
Dean Winters had already starred in Oz and was a working actor when he was diagnosed with a bacterial infection in 2009. While working on the pilot for Happy Town he was pronounced dead in an ambulance. Though his vitals were restored, he had to spend three weeks in intensive care, and that was just the beginning of his nightmare.
“I got really sick and was told I was never going to walk again,” he told the Sioux City Journal. “I was out of the game for three years. I had 17 surgeries and nine amputations. It was the darkest period of my life.
Winters had originally said no the role, but he now sings a different tune calling the part “the best job I’ve ever had.” Through his role in the series of commercials, Winters gained a new recognizable on-screen identity, which helped him get back into acting after his traumatic experiences.
“I will do anything for those people,” he told the Sioux City Journal. “They came to me knowing I was in the gutter and they breathed new life in me and helped restore confidence in myself.”
Since becoming 'Mayhem,' Winters has acted in John Wick, and more recently landed a starring role on the new police drama Battle Creek, from Breaking Bad’s Vince Gilligan.
According to The Richest, Winters is now worth $4 million thanks to the Allstate campaign and the subsequent work it's brought
For more celebrity interviews and pop culture news stories follow @SeamusKirst on Twitter, and 'like' Seamus Kirst on Facebook. An archive of my older pieces for Forbes can be accessed HERE.Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
This is how hysteria is spread. As in the sketches on the political satire television program Eretz Nehederet (Wonderful Country), when the fake newscaster asks the reporter, “What’s your story?” television analysts and journalists create make-believe headlines.
On Sunday the IDF gave Israeli military reporters a tour of Mount Hermon on the Golan Heights and later there was a briefing with senior commanders of the Northern Command. As is usually the case with such briefings, facts and assessments were presented.
They were rather routine. There certainly was not anything dramatic in the IDF’s comments that suggested a change, an increased state of preparedness, or higher level of alert.IAF eliminates terror cell attempting to plant explosives near Syrian border, April 26, 2015 But to drive 200 km. from Tel Aviv in each direction and to go a whole day without filing news? No way. So after the tour and the briefings, journalists were filmed in a fighting stance with the northern Golan Heights border fence in the background, delivering reports on an IDF plan for a ground attack in Syria.Indeed, this possibility was also brought up, but it was a marginal piece in a presentation of a number of hypothetical scenarios.Imagine the response from media, politicians, or the public if the chief of staff or another senior officer were to say that the IDF has no plan and is not prepared for a worst-case scenario. Of course the IDF prepares for every possibility, even the most difficult. This is the role of the commanders: to prepare the IDF for every situation, scenario or eventuality.However, the few sentences uttered by the officers giving the briefing about the possibility of the IDF taking control of territory in Syria, and even conquering a village or two at the border, were on the margins of what was said. These sentences were intended to explain that this is only one scenario that was practiced in a wide-ranging exercise that was carried out recently by the IDF’s 210th Regional Bashan Division.The drill was to prepare for a situation in which a terrorist group, like the Nusra Front or Islamic State, would try to break through the Golan border to attack IDF soldiers, similar to what the Sinai Province of the Islamic State (formerly known as Ansar Bayit al-Maqdes) is doing to the Egyptian Army.In all actuality, the description of the current situation that was given shows that there is no change on the Golan Heights or on the Israel-Lebanon border. The quiet is being kept and one can confidently say that there is not a lot new happening in the North.In Syria, Assad continues to get weaker and lose territory. The Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, continues to control most of the border with Israel on the Golan Heights, but doesn’t dare attack and challenge the IDF. The closest ISIS forces in Syria are some 70 km. from the Israeli border. The danger to Syria’s Druse population has not increased.Iran, through Hezbollah, continues trying to establish terrorist cells in the Golan Heights and we can already talk about a “forward command” of the Revolutionary Guard’s Al-Quds Force.In Lebanon, amid the threats from the Nusra Front and ISIS, the cooperation between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army has gotten stronger, and the latter is being armed with French and American military equipment. However, this is a relationship whose purpose is to block the Sunni terrorist organizations and it is less aimed at Israel.In short, according to all estimates from Military Intelligence and senior officers in the Northern Command, war is not on our doorstep. What will continue are the aggressive headlines in the media, especially during the long, hot summer.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>How has your Bollywood experience been so far?
It must be distressing to deal with the cases and complaints that have been filed against you in the recent past?
Sunny Leone in a still from Kuch Kuch Locha Hai.
Have you become used to the constant media attention, rumours and stories about your life?
Keeping in mind your background, has it been challenging for you to makeinroads into B-Town?
You recently said in an interview that some people from the industry want you to leave…
Do you think it is because of your image that you are only being offered glamorous roles?
Has the industry been warm to you?
How eager are you to work with them?
Is it true that the wives of several actors feel insecure when their husbands work with you?
Recently, there were reports that actor Celina Jaitly asked you to leave her house that you were renting. Is it true that you now plan to buy a house in Mumbai?
How true were the reports that claimed no one wanted to rent out flats to you?
She calls her journey in Bollywood a "roller coaster ride". But adult film star-turned-Bollywood actor Sunny Leone admits that while she has been dealing with a lot of negativity of late, several nice things have also happened to her since she has come to India. Here, she opens up about the "random" cases filed against her, dealing with insecure actors’ wives, her wish to work with big production houses, and more.It has been something that I had never imagined. Every day, there’s some crazy news or something amazing happening. And on top of all things that aren’t so nice, there are many superb things too |
legg was asked why he had not made the EU referendum one of his red lines. “We choose the red lines that we think are most important for our future,” he said.
He argued that voters were more concerned about the Lib Dems’ other priorities than an EU referendum.
Clegg is thought to have judged that a deal with the Conservatives would be impossible if he ruled out a referendum and it was therefore better to concede the principle of the EU referendum, but then be involved in the negotiations from within government.
Earlier, Clegg added to the sense of constitutional uncertainty by saying that Britain would face a second election by the end of the year if Labour or the Tories sought to govern alone as minority governments without the support of the Lib Dems.
Speaking at a rally in Cardiff, he said: “The last thing Britain needs is a second election before Christmas. But that is exactly what will happen if Ed Miliband and David Cameron put their own political interest ahead of the national interest. The only party that will ensure stability is the Liberal Democrats.”
But Cameron also ratcheted up the pressure before polling day by questioning the legitimacy of a multi-party government led by Miliband.
He said the Labour leader would have a “massive credibility problem” if he tried to enter No 10 without winning the largest number of seats.
The intervention by the prime minister, as he intensified his warnings of a post-election deal between Labour and the SNP, marked a challenge to the constitutional convention that the sole qualification for a prime minister is to command the confidence of the House of Commons.
Cameron’s remarks directly contradicted Lord O’Donnell, the cabinet secretary during the coalition talks in 2010, who has said it was wrong to assume that the leader of the largest party would automatically be prime minister.
Cameron told LBC radio on Tuesday: “I just think that there’s a massive credibility problem with this idea that you can have a Labour government, backed by the SNP, only fighting for part of the country … the concerns of voters that I’m hearing about that are very, very strong.”
The uncertainty over the election was heightened when the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, Peter Robinson, criticised the Tories on Tuesday for “punishing” Scottish voters planning to vote SNP.
In a sign of the deep unease within the DUP over the Tory tactics – building up the threat of the nationalists as a way of damaging Labour in Scotland – Robinson said in Belfast: “The parties of the union shouldn’t be punishing Scotland because they may choose to vote SNP. Those pro-union parties in Scotland should be considering why their policies and vision are not garnering support. During any post-election negotiations, we will want to see this addressed.”
Robinson was highly critical of the SNP and said it must be resisted through a new commission on the future of the UK that would be a “non-negotiable requirement” if the DUP holds the balance of power in a hung parliament.
The Northern Ireland first minister said: “We would expect the leaders of all the pro-union parties at Westminster to enter into such a commission on a non-partisan basis and with only the interests of the United Kingdom being paramount.”
O’Donnell pointed out earlier this year that Clegg was constitutionally wrong to say that the leader of the largest party in the Commons should have the first chance to form a government.
The former cabinet secretary, who drew up the first draft of the cabinet manual that will be used to guide negotiations for a hung parliament, said: “The one thing we need to be aware of is people thinking that what Nick Clegg said last time constituted an iron law that only the biggest party, somehow defined either by seats or votes, gets to have the first say. That is not true.”
Asked whether the prime minister is simply the person who can command the confidence of the House of Commons, O’Donnell said: “Precisely.”SOFIA, Bulgaria — A cartoon in the latest issue of Prass Press, a new satirical newspaper in Bulgaria, depicts leaders “in charge of the global circus”: President Trump straddling a missile; Kim Jong-un of North Korea preparing to launch a warhead with a slingshot; and the prime ministers of Bulgaria and Hungary under the label “baby dictators.”
On the cover, the Bulgarian prime minister, Boiko Borisov, is seen holding hands with an ally, Volen Siderov, who is the head of an extreme-right party known for its rhetorical attacks on migrants and on the Turkish and Roma minority groups.
Satire that pushes the boundaries of taste is nothing new in the West, but in Bulgaria — the European Union’s poorest country, and ranked by Reporters Without Borders as the worst in the 28-nation bloc when it comes to press freedom — Prass Press has quickly found readers. It offers a satirical lens on issues like corruption, the region’s right-wing turn and the growing pains of an economy that remains underdeveloped a decade after joining the European Union.
Although cartoons, comic strips and collages are at the heart of the newspaper, it also offers political commentary and Onion-style news parody. Readers have likened its tone to that of Charlie Hebdo in France.Spotify has started pushing out an update for its desktop client with a new aesthetic. We've tested out the refreshed app, and the starkest difference from the current version is a new darker theme; it's very dark, almost black in places, and the deep grays are accompanied by larger text across the UI, rounded graphics, and filtered artwork. The result of all the changes is a cleaner look for the app, but one that generally shows you less information.
Artist pages, for example, work in much the same way as they did before. By default they'll show you less tracks on a single page, a dark filter has been applied to the 'cover' image, and each artist now has a circular avatar, but all the same information will be available to users — there's no massive interface change, just a fresh coat of paint. The changes give more of a Google+ feel, perhaps reinforcing Spotify's desire to be a'social network' for music.
Similar tweaks have been made throughout the app, with larger fonts and more empty space added everywhere. The Discover tab has been reconfigured to display a grid of suggestions, rather than an organic mash of different-sized boxes; track sharing options have been replaced with attractive graphics; and the playback controls also have a new look. The changes make the app perhaps less intuitive than before — a square box saying'share' is clearer than the three abstract dots that replace it — and the new look will likely take some getting used to.
Spotify has yet to detail the update — labeled as version 0.9.8 — in full, but we're hearing from a few readers that the new version is making its way to users. There's a possibility this could be a limited test before a full release, and we reached out to Spotify before writing this article to ascertain the scale of the rollout, with no reply as of yet. If this is to be a full update, the changes will be rolled out slowly to users, and there's no way — short of searching for an installer online — to manually force your app to update.
So far we've only seen the update arrive for the Mac version of the app, but we'd imagine that Windows users will see a refreshed interface soon, as the two are generally updated at the same time.
Update: As noted by Verge user Armand G, an updated Windows version of the Spotify app also appears to be on its way.
Thanks, Artem!Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has maintained her lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders ahead of the New York Democratic primary Tuesday, a YouGov/CBS poll released Sunday indicated. While some people surveyed by CBS described Sanders as more likable and authentic, others said Clinton was both more specific in her policy plans and electable in the fall.
Clinton leads Sanders with a spread of 10 percentage points in New York, seeing 53 percent support compared to the Vermont senator’s 43 percent, the poll indicated. The spread between the candidates has narrowed in the state in the past several weeks though Clinton leads by 12.5 percentage points, according to an average of available polling data provided by Real Clear Politics.
The New York primary has taken on symbolic significance for the Democratic candidates in the historically blue state. Sanders was born in Brooklyn and Clinton served as New York's U.S. senator, leading both campaigns to cast the primary election as something of a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party.
“I think we have to do well here in New York, but there are plenty of events between here and California and Washington, D.C., at the end for us to make up the difference,” Sanders senior campaign strategist Tad Devine told reporters after the Democratic debate in Brooklyn Thursday, adding, “We’ve shaved a third off of her advantage by winning eight of the last nine contests.”
Where the avowed socialist Sanders has spoken of a “revolution,” campaigning for free college and healthcare, Clinton has touted her record of incremental change, pointing to victories in the charter school system and local hospitals in her eight years as a senator. “Together, we won’t just make promises we can’t keep,” she said at Thursday night’s CNN debate, adding, “We’ll deliver results that will improve the lives of the people in New York and in America.”
The CBS/YouGov poll was conducted with 2,050 registered voters in New York April 13-15, and it had a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.Nap Anywhere head support
I already can (and do) nap anywhere, but the Nap Anywhere looks like it would make it more comfortable to do so. Here's a video demo. (Thanks, Tanya Schevitz!)
Noise-cancelling pillow for bedmates of people who snore Northern Illinois University researchers have designed a noise-cancelling pillow for people who sleep near loud snorers. It works using the same principle as noise-cancelling headphones but with an adaptive algorithm that changes with the snore. Noise-cancelling headboards have been available for some time, but according to electrical engineering professor Lichuan Liu who led this new […] READ THE REST
Review: Bose's Noise-Masking Sleepbuds would be great if my brain would let me enjoy them Even with the drugs I take for my PTSD, I’m still hyper alert than the average person–the car is always kept running, just in case I need it. This makes it hard for me to get to sleep, most nights. Small noises, like our home contracting as the night draws colder, animals outside and passing […] READ THE REST
Nap lounge opens in New York City Mattress company Casper opened The Dreamery in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. For $25, you get a 45 minute session in one of the nap pods. You can even borrow a pair of pajamas for your snooze. And of course after you pay for this demo of Casper mattresses, you can buy your very own at their […] READ THE REST
Get certified online in machine learning and data science As big companies wrangle an ever-increasing amount of data, the applications for deep learning grow – and so do the job opportunities. If you’ve got a working knowledge of Python, all you need are the tools to start making data work for you. Get up to speed on the science and code behind the field […] READ THE REST
Listen to vinyl anywhere with this extremely portable record player Anyone who really listens to vinyl knows the medium is far from dead. But convincing others of its appeal can be an uphill battle. For one thing, there’s the gear: A quality record player takes up a lot more space than, say, a smartphone packed with thousands of streaming songs at the ready. But here’s […] READ THE RESTWith shooting already well underway on Daredevil, Marvel is getting the ball rolling on its next two Netflix shows. Testing has begun for the lead role in Jessica Jones, with Krysten Ritter, Alexandra Daddario, Teresa Palmer, and Jessica De Gouw in the mix.
Meanwhile, Lance Gross and Mike Colter are being looked at to play Luke Cage, the character who will appear on Jessica Jones before going off to headline his own series. Hit the jump for more details on the Luke Cage and Jessica Jones casting.
Deadline got the scoop. Jessica Jones is being spearheaded by Dexter alum Melissa Rosenberg, and already has a 13-episode order from Netflix. The title character (in comics, at least) is a superhero suffering from PTSD. She subsequently hangs up her cape and opens her own detective agency, where she helps civilians and superheroes alike.
The current plan is to have Luke Cage appear in 6-7 episodes of Jessica Jones before breaking out onto his own show. Both shows are part of the four-title deal struck by Marvel and Netflix last year. Daredevil will be the first one out of the gate, followed by Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and finally Luke Cage. All four leads will then band together for a miniseries event.
Ritter has a strong comedy background thanks to projects like Don’t Trust the B- in Apartment 23. However, she has demonstrated that she can do more dramatic work as well, as in her guest stint on Breaking Bad. De Gouw already has major superhero cred from her recurring role as Helena Bertinelli / The Huntress on The CW’s Arrow. She also previously starred as Mina Murray / Ilona on NBC’s short-lived Dracula.
Daddario has two Percy Jackson movies under her belt, as well as recurring parts on True Detective, White Collar, and Parenthood. And Palmer’s credits include Warm Bodies, I Am Number Four, and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
As for the Cage hopefuls: Gross last starred on the NBC drama Crisis, which was cancelled earlier this year in the middle of its first season. Previously, he was a regular on Tyler Perry’s House of Payne. Colter currently recurs on The Good Wife and will star in the digital series Halo: Nightfall.AHMEDABAD: The quota stir by Patels has led to the emergence of new leaders on the political scene of Gujarat, posing a threat to the established leadership of the ruling BJP and main opposition Congress.In the last three months, the Patel reservation stir has brought to fore leaders like 22-year-old Hardik Patel, who is spearheading the agitation for OBC quota of his community, OBC youth leader Alpesh Thakor and also Sardar Patel Group (SPG) leader Lalji Patel, who had originally started the Patel quota movement about a year back.They have challenged the established leadership and shaken up the political equations of last 25 years.The Patels, one of the biggest communities in the state which had been an ardent supporter of the BJP, now on the call of their leaders Hardik and Lalji, are disrupting the party and government functions.The Patel-dominant villages have banned the entry of politicians in their societies and their leaders are pressing the community members to use Nota (none of the above) option while voting in the forthcoming civic polls."It will be difficult for the BJP in the upcoming civic polls," Hardik has cautioned, while adding that he has asked his community members to use the Nota option.Alpesh Thakor, the 38-year-old convener of 'OBC Ekta Manch', has been uniting the other backward class communities against Patels' quota demand by organizing public meetings in different parts of state.The 'OBC Ekta Manch' is an umbrella body of the 146 communities in Gujarat that was formed after Patels raised the demand for inclusion in the OBC fold.Thakor has also warned that if the demand of Patel community is met, they will throw the BJP government out of power even before the 2017 polls."Patels are just 1.5 crores, while the OBC population in the state is 3.5 crores. If they will give reservation from our share to Patels then we will not allow this government to complete it's turn," Thakor told PTI.Another Patel leader who has gained prominence is SPG head Lalji Patel, who after disassociating himself from Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti last month owing to differences, recently joined hands with PAAS head Hardik.Lalji (in his 40s) has asked his community people in the US to demonstrate against Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his upcoming visit there.He also called for "economic non-cooperation," after which Patels recently started withdrawing money from banks.Incident: Qatar B788 at Durban on Aug 29th 2016, bird strike
By Simon Hradecky, created Wednesday, Aug 31st 2016 22:49Z, last updated Wednesday, Aug 31st 2016 22:49Z A Qatar Airways Boeing 787-800, registration A7-BDB performing flight QR-1367 from Johannesburg to Durban (South Africa), was on approach to Durban's runway 06 when a bird impacted the nose of the aircraft. The aircraft continued for a safe landing on the runway.
The aircraft remained on the ground for 31 hours, then departed as positioning flight QR-3272 to Qatar and remained on the ground for another 6 hours before resuming service.
A7-DBD at the gate:
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Interview: The human factor named "Simon Hradecky" and the team of man and machineEd. note: This post has been updated to reflect Pudzer’s withdrawal as Trump’s labor secretary pick.
Welcome to the nightmare in which “secretary for labor” means “but actually, secretary for management.” Starring player: Andew Puzder.
Puzder’s confirmation was scheduled for Thursday, before he withdrew — and it wasn’t looking great for him, even six members of the GOP were on the fence about his nomination. His withdrawal is great, because Puzder is literally a Disney villain, if Disney were a leftist feminist and his villains evil misogynist capitalists. But before we celebrate the would-be GOP absconders, let’s consider the broader picture of why Puzder was a terrible pick for labor secretary— and why GOP reservations remain nevertheless fishy. And above all, let’s remember that workers’ struggle against Puzder and against anti-labor picks more generally is fundamentally a feminist issue—not only because low-wage workers are disproportionately women, but because intersectional feminism fundamentally requires economic justice.
To understate, the American government doesn’t have a stellar record on labor, let alone labor organizing, and it’s done everything in its power to quash leftist aspirations (anyone else forced to read Ayn Rand in high school?). As a boss, Trump himself has epitomized this anti-labor stand, coupling a general antipathy with workers with mind-boggling sexism—as we can see from stories of women he’s harassed in professional settings to his White House dress code (barf). And he’s been countered by truly awesome (and hilarious) mobilization from his own employees and beyond.
So no surprise, the Tangerine Monstrosity’s pick for labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, was possibly worse than Trump himself. As CEO of CKE restaurants (owner of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s), Puzder’s workers say his company has cheated them of their wages; he’s literally argued against federal labor regulators in court; he believes machines are better workers than people because they don’t, writes the New York Times, “take time off for lawsuits”; and he was sued for labor violations literally last week. Meanwhile, Puzder has a longstanding history of misogyny: He was an anti-abortion activist; he was previously accused of physical abuse by his ex-wife (she retracted the allegations, but they’re worth at least being aware of in light of the pattern of misogyny demonstrated by this administration). And of course, he’s responsible for those Carl’s Jr. Ads. You know, the ones that make you feel like boycotting all men forever.
“I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it’s very American,” Puzder is quoted as saying in this Bloomberg article.
“How do you pay somebody $15 an hour to scoop ice cream? How good could you be at scooping ice cream?”, Puzder is quoted as saying in The New York Times.
So why were several GOP members on the fence about Puzder?
Not because he showed himself fundamentally unfit to protect the interests of American workers by literally taking legal action against the interests of workers. Not because he believes women are not human beings but rather animated cavities in which to stuff meat (that was gross to write, but come on — you don’t have to do much of a semantic analysis of these commercials to get it). Nope: Because he employed an undocumented person.
The Washington Post reports that Puzder’s past employment of an undocumented person figured among the reasons for GOP reservations. Let’s make an important distinction here. Undocumented laborers face the struggle of low wage labor without the (if-limited) safeguards that state recognition provides. Their position is particularly precarious and it’s doubly incumbent on all who employ undocumented people to guarantee a living wage, equal pay and safe working conditions (including, btw, workplaces free of sexual harassment).
But if we look deeper, we can see that conservative aversion to Puzder having hired someone undocumented wasn’t about labor rights. It wasn’t about whether this person received adequate wages, good working conditions, and good-faith assistance in legal matters from their powerful employer. For those on the right, the underlying talking point here was the normal xenophobic, racist crap: That undocumented people are living off American tax payers and stealing our jobs.
The GOP took offense at Trump’s sexism during the election by appealing to the hyper-conservative notion of women as mothers, sisters, daughters, and general repositories of propriety—not because women are human beings with dignity and autonomy. In the same way, conservative aversion to Puzder’s hiring of an undocumented person dis not come from a commitment to social justice, to the rights of immigrants, and to the rights of labor — clearly, they don’t give a shit about any of these. Rather, it stemmed from Republican fear-mongering about immigration.
So let’s remember, when we talk about contesting Trumpism: It doesn’t only matter that we fight back—why we fight back is important, too.
And in lambasting the GOP, let’s not let the Dems off the hook here; it’s not like they’ve brought in the Communist Manifesto. The real heroes of the day are workers themselves, who led the struggle against not only Puzder but will continue to lead the way against the whole range of anti-labor Trump tomfoolery. In cities across America, restaurant workers and labor supporters — many affiliated with Fight for $15 — protesed the guy, many of them at his very own restaurants.
So please, whatever you’re wearing, workers and women of America, ditch the hamburgers and raise your fists high—we have the world to gain and nothing to lose but our chains. And creepy labor secretaries.
Image credit: Fight for FifteenThe Oscar-winning director talks about his Edward Snowden biopic as the film premieres to mixed reviews at the Toronto film festival
Oliver Stone has taken aim at the US government for deceiving people about the levels of surveillance that exist in the country.
The Oscar-winning director was speaking at the Toronto film festival as his new film Snowden, about the controversial NSA informant Edward Snowden, received its world premiere. The drama, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead role, tells of the former CIA employee’s discovery that the agency had constructed a system to spy on the public.
“Americans don’t know anything about it because the government lies about it all the time,” Stone said at a press conference. “What’s going on now is pretty shocking. This story not only deals with eavesdropping but mass eavesdropping, drones and cyberwarfare. As Snowden said himself the other day, ‘It’s out of control, the world is out of control.’”
The film also features a cameo from Snowden himself, who still resides at an undisclosed location in Russia while he searches for asylum elsewhere. Stone hopes that he may return to US ground but is doubtful.
Snowden review: Oliver Stone turns true thrills into dated Hollywood fodder Read more
“Obama could pardon him and we hope so,” he said. “But he has vigorously prosecuted eight whistleblowers under the espionage act, which is an all-time record for an American president, and he’s been one of the most efficient managers of this surveillance world. It is the most extensive and invasive surveillance state that has ever existed and he’s built it up.”
The film-maker, known for the politically charged dramas Nixon and JFK, finds the current situation, which he likens to a George Orwell novel, to be at odds with the world that he grew up in.
“I grew up in a world where I never thought this could happen,” he said. “But from 2001 on, it’s very clear that something radical has changed. There’s more to it that meets the eye and whatever they tell you, you’ve got to look beyond.”
Gordon-Levitt met with the real Snowden in preparation for the film and believes that it’s his love of America that led him to leak classified information.
“I was interested in his patriotism,” he said. “He was doing what he did out of a sincere love for his country and the principles that the country is founded on. There are two different types of patriotism: there’s the kind when you’re allegiant to your country no matter what and you don’t ask any questions, but there’s another type which I really wanted to show in this character. The privilege of being from a free country like the US is that we are allowed to ask those questions and to hold the government accountable.”
When asked about Snowden’s future, Gordon-Levitt said: “I know he would love to come home and I hope for that.”
The film has premiered to mixed reviews at the festival, with Variety’s Owen Gleiberman calling it “the most important and galvanising political drama by an American film-maker in years” yet the Hollywood Reporter’s Stephen Farber labelled it “a lackluster opus”.A Texas woman is criticizing the two-year sentence an illegal immigrant received for killing her husband and two youngest children in a car crash last year.
Courtney Hacking told “Fox & Friends” Saturday that the sentence in a Texas state court doesn’t compensate her for the loss of her 36-year-old husband Peter, a volunteer firefighter, 4-year-old daughter Ellie and 22-month-old son Grayson in the accident.
“People think his crime and his punishment seem to fit because he was an illegal immigrant,” she said, referring to Mexican Margarito Quintero Rosales who pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide in connection with the crash. “But to me being illegal in the country was a crime on its own so I don’t understand how he did get only two years.”
She added, “To me I take it offensively. I take it personally.”
Cops say Quintero swerved into Hacking’s vehicle which was coming the other way when he fell asleep at the wheel, WFAA-TV reported.
The sentencing took place Sept. 29. The sentence was the maximum under state law, the station reported.
Quintero has been jailed since the accident. He will complete the sentence in about another 110 days.
He is serving that sentence as he serves a two-year federal sentence for reentering the U.S. illegally after being deported. Court records show he was charged with that crime after the accident and sentenced last month.
Quintero was also arrested after the crash for having no driver’s license, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Peter Hacking was driving Ellie and Grayson home after picking them up at the babysitter, according to the paper.
“I want our laws enforced,” Hacking said on “Fox & Friends.”
“The message needs to be put across to them that when you come to this country you need to do it legally because when they come here all they’re getting is…they’re committing crimes, they’re getting a slap on the wrist and they’re going back to Mexico or they’re going back to whatever country they came from.”
Her husband was a legal immigrant from England, she said.
Hacking is now caring for her other four children alone.
She said she each day she sees Ellie and Grayson’s beautiful faces from the moment she wakes up to the moment she goes to bed.
“I miss their kisses,” she said. “I miss everything about them on a daily basis.”Buy Photo Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken opened last week in the Cass Corridor. (Photo: Melody Baetens / The Detroit News)Buy Photo
This time around, the latest cluster of new restaurant openings in and around downtown Detroit are largely casual chains.
The most auspicious opening is the official debut of Wahlburgers last week at 569 Monroe in Greektown.
There has consistently been at line of at least a few people outside the restaurant. The fact that people were willing to wait, even less than 30 minutes, with all the other options in Greektown is a testament to the star power of the Wahlberg brothers. The Wahlberg family and their restaurant business is the centerpiece of the A&E series “Wahlburgers.”
Since actor Mark Wahlberg announced in December that he would be opening one of his restaurants in Detroit, I have written about five articles mentioning chain, which has locations in Toronto, New York and throughout Massachusetts. Many readers confused my tagline — the info below my articles that explain how to reach me — as the number for the Greektown Wahlburgers. It was lovely to hear from so many of you (those that didn’t hang up on me upon hearing say “Detroit News” on the other line). At the height of Wahlburger’s frenzy, I got 30 calls in one day.
Say what you will about the questionable necessity of another burger restaurant downtown, but I’ve never received such a response from an article. By the way, here’s Wahlburger’s number: (313) 209-4499.
Currently the restaurant doesn’t accept reservations, and you can’t call your order in ahead of time.
Cass Corridor Chicken
Another notable opening last week was the first Detroit outpost of Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken. Brought to town by chef and restaurateur Zack Sklar (Social Kitchen, MEX, Au Cochon, etc.), Gus’s opened softly at 4101 Third last week with limited hours while the staff gets trained.
The chain was founded in Tennessee in the 1980s with a recipe that goes back even decades earlier. The piece of chicken I tried last week had a crispy, slightly spicy outside that wasn’t over-battered. What took me by surprise was how much I enjoyed the creamy cole slaw that comes with the combo meal and can also be ordered as a side.
Other sides include baked beans, potato salad, fried okra, greens, mac and cheese and seasoned fries. Chicken can be ordered as individual pieces ($1.95-$3.45), as plates with baked beans, slaw and white bread, or as meals. They also sell fried green tomatoes and fried pickle spears.
Detroit’s Gus’s has about seating for about 50 plus 10 stools at the bar (a liquor license is on the way). To me, it’s a good addition to this neighborhood, which has a mix of new and old spots. Iconic dive bar Jumbo’s is down the street and acclaimed hot spot Selden Standard is around the corner.
The carryout-friendly spot is open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sun.-Thurs. and 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Call (313) 818-0324.
Pizza Science
Further adding to Detroit’s growing reputation as a top destination for pizza, Pie-Sci opened in the Woodbridge neighborhood last last month at 5162 Trumbull.
This carryout spot with a small dining area is not a chain like the others mentioned here, but is the brainchild of local dudes Jeremy Damaske and AJ Manoulian. They started out making their garlic-and-cheese loaded pies in the kitchen of the nearby Woodbridge Pub, and now have their own space where they make white or red sauce pizza with toppings as varied as oven-roasted cauliflower, pulled pork, fennel or strawberries.
Simplicity can go a long way, though, and I find their margherita pie with garlic oil, cherry tomato, basil and fresh mozzarella to be all that I need in a pizza. Anything on the Pie-Sci menu can be given a gourmet flourish with the addition of a flavorful “drizzle” like herb mayo, Sriracha, balsamic glaze, buttermilk ranch or Vegenaise (vegan “mayo”).
Speaking of vegan, Pie-Sci also offers a vegan version of most of their pizzas and any large pizza can be made gluten-free for a $3 upcharge. Place your order at (313) 818-0290.
From gyros to tacos
The first Calexico chain location outside the Big Apple opened in Detroit this month where Olga’s Kitchen used to be at One Campus Martius.
The concept, which pays homage to the city bordering California and Mexico, started out as a food truck in New York City. It was named by Zagat as the No. 1-rated Mexican restaurant in the city in 2011. It’s brought to Detroit by Randy Dickow, who also owns Lunchtime Global and Freshii in downtown Detroit and Sweet Lorraine’s Mac n’ Cheez in the Renaissance Center.
It’s a fun spot, especially for tequila lovers, with a Mexican-fusion menu that makes fun of itself with items like the “gringo beef” (ancho-cumin ground beef). The tostada salad doesn’t scream “authenticity” either, but with romaine lettuce, avocado, salsa, roasted corn, black beans and a tostada decorated with a black bean spread and sour cream for $11, it does the job of a salad and then some. Add some gringo beef for an extra $3.
The interior has been redone from the Olga’s days, with modern lighting, exposed brick walls and light wood trim. The vibe is similar to Ferndale’s Imperial, which also serves a great tequila selection to pair with California-style street tacos.
Now Calexico is open for dinner and drinks only: 3-11 p.m. Mon.-Wed. and 3 p.m.-1 a.m. Thurs.-Sun. Call (313) 638-1998. Reservations not accepted.
mbaetens@detroitnews.com
(313) 222-2402
Twitter: @melodybaetens
Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/2bnt3t2Kim Seung-jin is photographed shortly after taking off on his around-the-world voyage last Oct. 18. Provided by Kim Seung-jin
Captain Kim Seung-jin, who set off on a round-the-world sailing trip from Port Uimok in Dangjin, South Chungcheong, on Oct. 18, is returning to Korea after 210 days at sea.Using only wind power, the 52-year-old seaman sailed 41,900 kilometers (26,035 miles) around the world, passing by Fiji, Cape Horn in Chile, Cape of Good Hope in South Africa and Indonesia’s Sunda Strait.The journey makes him the sixth person ever to have sailed solo without making a single stop or seeking assistance. He is also the first Korean to have achieved the feat.When the Sewol ferry sank in 2014, Kim decided to sail around the world to “spread hope.”Kim is said to be in good health and is navigating his yacht, Aparani, at an optimal speed to make a timely return home.“There were times when I was fearful about the boat - of it tipping over. But I persisted as I wanted to give hope to Koreans who still mourn the ferry sinking,” Kim said in a satellite phone interview with the Joongang Ilbo.Kim is currently sailing in the sea near Port Pyeongtaek and is expected to arrive at Port Uimok by 3 p.m. today.A welcome ceremony will be held upon his arrival, with Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Yoo Ki-june and South Chungcheong Gov. Ahn Hee-jeong giving him a personal welcome at the port. A celebratory concert will also be held.After graduating from Hansung University with a fine arts degree in 1989, Kim started off as a broadcast producer of environmental programs.He has enjoyed swimming since college and has often swum across the Han River. He first learned yachting in New Zealand in 2001 and has continued honing his sailing skills since then, taking a trip from Croatia to Korea in 2010 and 2011, and later from the Caribbean Sea to Korea in 2013.On the yacht, he ate only rice, dried fruit and seeds. When rough waves brought him squid and flying fish, Kim was able to feast.“I sailed as much as I wanted to each day, enjoying small happiness everyday along the way,” Kim said.“Men become humble before nature. I would like to share the wisdom I learned from nature through lectures and broadcasting activities,” he said.Using his skills as a former documentary producer, Kim has meticulously recorded his journey.By KIM MIN-SANG, PARK JUNG-YOUN [park.jungyoun@joongang.co.kr]The closely fought seat has been keenly watched in the past week and a half. Sophie Mirabella, pictured with her supporters in Wangaratta on election night, has conceded in the battle for Indi. Credit:The Border Mail Ms McGowan, who pulled off the unusual outcome of defeating a major party member as an independent, had a lead of 389 votes over Mrs Mirabella following the distribution of preferences on Wednesday morning. Mrs Mirabella said representing the people of Indi in the Federal Parliament since 2001 had been ‘‘a high honour and a |
to the Obama administration 442,000 Floridians opted for a plan through Obamacare as of March 1, the Herald noted.
Scott had not been directly questioned by reporters about the ads until Wednesday when he was pressed at the Armando Badia Senior Center in Florida during a meeting with senior citizens. Scott did add some nuance in his statements on Wednesday about the cancellations claim.
“We were already told last fall that 300,000 Floridians were going to lose their insurance,” Scott said.
When pressed about the ads’ 300,000 plans claim, Scott just pivoted back to railing against Obamacare.
“If you look around the state, Obamacare has had an impact on a lot of people’s plans,” Scott said. “They’re losing their doctors. And they’re losing the plans.”
Watch video of Scott addressing the claim, via American Bridge:
Below are two ads from the Rick Scott’s Let’s Get To Work re-election campaign effort that include the 300,000 plans lost claim:A sheriff’s deputy (R) talks to an immigration detainee (L) in a jail in Orange County, California. Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images
The executive order on domestic immigration policy that President Trump signed on January 25 contained a few proposals that seemed awfully ambitious for the executive branch.
One was to cut federal funding from sanctuary jurisdictions. On Tuesday, a district court judge in San Francisco issued an injunction against that section of the order.
Another was the hiring of 10,000 additional immigration officers, a request made “to the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations” that would have nearly tripled the number of ICE agents that initiate deportations in the American interior.
That, of course, would have required a big chunk of money from Congress. But the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Friday that the Department of Homeland Security has found a way around that issue, by mandating that Homeland Security Investigations, a 6,200-person unit within ICE that has typically focused on cross-border criminal activity like drug smuggling, sex tourism, and human trafficking, also arrest individuals suspected of violating immigration law.
An ICE spokesperson said that HSI retained discretion over whether to make “collateral” arrests, and said that any change in HSI protocol stemmed from the January order, which eliminated the Obama administration’s concept of “priority” enforcement.
Deportations have traditionally been a very small part of HSI’s work. Though HSI agents outnumber ICE agents tasked with enforcing immigration law, they accounted for only 4 percent of ICE deportations in 2013. Their focus on combatting more serious crimes has earned them the trust of local police departments, a benefit their colleagues at ICE don’t always enjoy. Many local police chiefs say immigration enforcement detracts from police work by discouraging immigrants from calling 911 to report crimes or serve as witnesses.
The relationship between local cops and HSI may be changing under the new protocol. In February, HSI conducted raids in Santa Cruz, California, to combat gang activity, but wound up arresting 10 bystanders suspected of immigration violations. Local politicians were outraged. “We can’t cooperate with a law enforcement agency we cannot trust,” said the city’s police chief, Kevin Vogel.
According to the Chronicle report, ICE-style arrests are now part of HSI’s mission. “If HSI has shifted or expanded its mission … you have effectively doubled immigration enforcement officers in the U.S.” Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, told the paper. “That is a significant increase without having to seek another congressional appropriation.”
It’s of a piece with the general push at DHS to try to get more agents working on deportations. One reason that sanctuary jurisdictions are a high priority for the Trump administration is that local jails—and in the cases of 287(g) agreements, local police in the field—were a huge contributor to the deportation pipeline during the Bush and Obama years. Between 2011 and 2013, for example, detainer requests from federal authorities to local jails accounted for about 40 percent of all interior removals. The administration has also attempted to loosen border patrol hiring requirements.
*Update, April 29, 2017: This article has been updated to include a response from ICE.The contents of the NSLs themselves don't actually tell us much (though it does specify exactly what Yahoo was to provide: service dates, names, addresses and header information, but absolutely no email content), but the announcement shows us how difficult it still is for companies to tell us how many requests they get per year. Yahoo is allowed to disclose the content of these three NSLs, for instance, but still has to report NSLs in intentionally vague lots of 500 in transparency reports. Bringing that number up to three, however allows Yahoo to list this statistic as between one and 500, rather than between zero and 500. Still pretty vague, but marginally better.
It takes some doing to get permission to acknowledge the receipt of a letter, too -- Yahoo says that the FBI needs to review if the nondisclosure provision is still necessary for each specific NSL before allowing a company to publish it, and even then certain information needs to be redacted before being made available to the public. Still, when companies do get these gag orders lifted, it allows them to notify the investigated parties that the FBI was looking into their data, and it's a big win for transparency overall. Want to see Yahoo's NSL data for yourself? Check it out at the source link below.The Singapore culinary world recently reacted with shock after hearing that one of the country’s best restaurants will be closing down, with its restaurateur walking away from the culinary distinction achieved after winning two coveted stars in Singapore’s Michelin Guide.
Taiwanese-born chef Andre Chiang of Restaurant Andre wants to be stripped of the honor and plans to focus on new projects in his home country.
Those who haven’t had a chance to check the restaurant out will have till Feb 14, 2018, to dine in at Asia’s second best restaurant. Oh, and you’ll also have to cough out over $800 just to dine and sup at the Bukit Pasoh eatery for its final meals.
The restaurant’s “Farewell” Octaphilosophy menu is available for lunch and dinner, and will include beverage pairing to go along with a meal that costs double than usual.
Charging patrons through the nose is quite a way to bid farewell to Singapore and the Michelin Guide, but the steep price is not scaring anyone away. According to the eatery’s website, it’s been inundated with a high volume of requests and can’t respond to everyone at this time.
A full prepayment of the menu will also be required to confirm reservations, and there’s a strict no refund policy due to the menu being exclusive and all.
Amongst all the well-wishes and bittersweet goodbyes to Chef Andre, folks aptly pointed out the absurd price point for its send off.Lamb of God singer Randy Blythe was reportedly arrested today (June 28) in the Czech Republic on apparent manslaughter charges that date back to a 2010 incident.
The Czech news website Novinky reports that Blythe engaged in a fight with a fan during the band's show at the Prague club Abaton in May 2010, and that the fan later died of his injuries. Today, with Lamb of God back in the Czech Republic to perform a show that was scheduled for tonight, police brought the musician in for questioning upon his arrival in the city for the gig. As a result, tonight's show has been canceled.
Loudwire spoke with Lamb of God's representatives, and they told us that the singer has been wrongly accused. They added that lawyers are currently dealing with the situation and that they expect Blythe to be fully exonerated.
Lamb of God have been touring the world in support of their 'Resolution' album and have been filming a documentary capturing the sights and sounds of the trek.
Loudwire will continue to follow this story as more details emerge.
[Thanks to Loudwire reader Kristian for the news tip.]Death of Iconic Steakhouse Founder 'An End of an Era' View Full Caption
EDGEBROOK — Phil Freedman, who helped create the iconic Myron and Phil steak and seafood restaurant beloved by generations of Northwest Siders, has died, bringing an "end of an era," family members said Wednesday.
Freedman, 90, suffered from dementia and was living in Arizona when he died Tuesday, said Mark Freedman, his nephew.
"It comes to a point when it is time to say when," said Mark Freedman, who took over the famed eatery at 3900 W. Devon Ave. when his father, Myron, and uncle retired. "The end of an era has officially come... with the passing of my uncle."
Heather Cherone says the former steakhouse will live on in a new location soon:
Reservations at Myron and Phil's — founded in 1971 — were once among the most sought after in town, and nearly every diner was greeted by Phil Freedman and his signature line: "Nice to see your smiling face."
"He taught us the meaning of kindness and generosity," Mark Freedman said of his uncle. "He treated everyone with respect and a kind heart. When you dined with him, you were treated like royalty."
Without any experience in running a fine dining restaurant, Myron and Phil Freedman turned their namesake restaurant into a destination for Chicago's rich and famous — many of whom were happy to contribute a signed photo to the restaurant's walls.
"They both went to the school of hard knocks for their culinary skills," Mark Freedman said. "He and my father were pioneers."
Known for its chopped liver pate, whitefish, skirt steak and salad dressing, Myron and Phil's was the most glamorous place on the Far Northwest Side for decades.
Myron Freedman died in May 2013, on the same day an electrical fire in a storeroom forced the restaurant to close. Myron Freedman, who was 95, also suffered from dementia.
While Mark Freedman vowed to reopen his father and uncle's restaurant, a protracted battle with the insurance company after extensive smoke and water damage, as well as a desire for a fresh start, prompted him to close the Lincolnwood restaurant for good.
Myron and Phil's spirit will live on in at the Wildwood Tavern, which will pay homage to the Chicago neighborhood, Mark Freedman said.
Mark Freedman said he plans to finalize the purchase of the new restaurant at 7201 N. Caldwell Ave. in Niles this week, with an opening planned for some time in the spring.
Some of the dishes that made Myron and Phil's a neighborhood institution will live on at Wildwood Tavern, including the chopped liver, which will be part of an appetizer plate, Mark Freedman said
Wildwood Tavern's menu will focus on burgers, salads and sandwiches, as well as smoked barbecue, Freedman said.
Services for Phil Freedman will be private, Mark Freedman said.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:The composition of the Earth-Moon system indicates that the Moon probably formed from a collision between the proto-Earth and a Mars-sized body. That collision was incredibly violent, and left the Earth hot enough that its atmosphere would primarily consist of vaporized silicate rock. Once it solidified, those conditions would have left the planet very dry, with our current water largely delivered by smaller bodies that have impacted the Earth since. So far, only a single type of meteorite has been found to have hydrogen and oxygen isotopes that matched those found in the oceans. But researchers have now checked a comet derived from the Kuiper belt, and showed that it also is a good match for the Earth's oceans.
Most hydrogen comes in a form in which its nucelus consists of a single proton, but there's also an istope called deuterium that contains both a proton and a neutron. In the Earth's oceans, only about 1.6 in every 5,000 water molecules contain deuterium, so if we're looking for sources for our planet's water, we need to find bodies that have a similar ratio. We've looked at six comets that originate in the Oort cloud (the distant-most bodies associated with the Sun), and they have ratios about double that found on Earth. That left enstatite chondrites, a type of meteorite, as the best match for Earth's water.
Now, using the ESA's Herschel observatory, researchers have gotten a good reading on the comet 103P/Hartley 2, which orbits near Jupiter but probably got its start in the Kuiper belt, just outside the orbit of Neptune. And it turns out that the deuterium/hydrogen ratio is nearly an exact match for that in Earth's oceans. That means a large population of comets have just become candidates for seeding our planet with water.
That's the good part of the results, but there's a confusing part as well. The models of the dynamics of the early solar system indicate that we should see higher D:H ratios as we get further from the Sun, but 103P/Hartley 2 has a ratio that looks similar to that of the inner planets. The authors suggst that the best way to explain this is through a model in which material in the disk around the young Sun was more thoroughly mixed than we thought. We'll have to wait and see if the people who model the formation of the solar system agree.
Nature, 2011. DOI: 10.1038/nature10519 (About DOIs).Share:
WASHINGTON - Edward Snowden’s disclosures about American spy powers directly led to the end of a critical programme in Afghanistan, the nation’s top spy said on Wednesday.
By forcing the end of the programme that recorded practically every cellphone call in the country - as well as scuttling other efforts - Snowden “has done untold damage” to US intelligence, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said.
“Terrorists, particularly, have gone to school on the revelations caused by Snowden,” Clapper said at the Intelligence and National Security Summit. “Particularly a programme in Afghanistan, which he exposed and Glenn Greenwald wrote about, and the day after he wrote about it, the programme was shut down by the government of Afghanistan,” Clapper said.
The spy chief appeared to be referring to a May 2014 story on The Intercept - the online news outlet spearheaded by Greenwald - outlining how the National Security Agency (NSA) was “secretly intercepting, recording and archiving the audio of virtually every cellphone conversation” in two nations.
The Intercept said that the programme was taking place in the Bahamas and another country, which it declined to name because of concerns that doing so could lead to violence. The Washington Post reported a similar story based on Snowden’s leaks outlining the depths of the NSA’s phone spying ability in a foreign country, which it also declined to name. Days later, WikiLeaks publicly identified the country as Afghanistan.
The programme “was the single most important source of force protection warning for our people in Afghanistan,” Clapper said.
The programme in Afghanistan is one of the few instances in which US intelligence officials have publicly detailed how Snowden’s disclosures led to a specific loss in meaningful intelligence or assisted the country’s opponents.
Snowden has become an object of scorn among much of the intelligence world, where his disclosures are believed to have severely damaged the country’s national security and global reputation.
“On the one hand, it forced some needed transparency, particularly on those programmes that affected civil liberties and privacy in this country,” Clapper said on Wednesday.
“But he exposed so many other things that had nothing to do with so-called domestic surveillance or civil liberties and privacy in this country,” he added.Major construction along the Lachine Canal is expected to limit access to bike paths until December 2019.
The north side of the path will be closed between the Sir-George-Étienne-Cartier footbridge and Lock No. 4.
Cyclists will be able to use the south side of the canal as a detour.
READ MORE: Montreal wants new rules for trucks to make things safer for pedestrians and cyclists
Further west in LaSalle, both the north and south sides of the bike path will be off-limits between de la Côte-Saint-Paul and du Musée roads.
People who use that path to get to work will have to find another way as no alternative has been proposed by Parcs Canada.
The federal government agency owns the land.
READ MORE: Family honours 18-year-old cyclist killed on Mount Royal
“I think I’m going to have to stop biking because I have no idea how I’m going to get to work,” said Julie Santaguida, who bikes 23 km from Pointe-Claire to the city each day.
“At least give us an alternative route or something to help us get through. It’s frustrating.”
Closures are already creating some potentially dangerous situations.
One part of the bike path is blocked by a fence, pushing riders toward the street.
READ MORE: Ghost bike ceremony held in honour of dead Montreal cyclist
“There are a lot of cars on the road and they don’t really like bikes near them, so it’s a bit scary,” said Santaguida.
Parcs Canada was not available for comment by deadline.
The LaSalle borough told Global News it has dispatched a team to make sure things are safe for cyclists near the construction sites.
Construction by Parcs Canada on the Lachine Canal sends cyclists right off the bike path and into the street. pic.twitter.com/vFcUfYZcPm — Dan Spector (@danspector) October 16, 2017
“When we found out there were no signs indicating to cyclists what they should do, we were a bit surprised,” said Lasalle assistant city manager Pierre Dupuis.
“We contacted Parcs Canada to give them some advice.”
Over 1 million people use the paths along the canal each year.
READ MORE: Debating ways to make Montreal streets safer for cyclists
The federal government is spending $170 million over five years to re-do the lights, aging walls and more.
Hydro-Quebec will have to move poles and cut down some trees.
Lasalle tells me they've called Parcs Canada to "offer some advice" on better signage to warn cyclists. pic.twitter.com/cN0HANnKnh — Dan Spector (@danspector) October 16, 2017
Commuters say they understand the short-term pain will lead to long-term gain.
“I’m an engineer, myself. I understand, sometimes you have to close things to work on them to make it better,” said cyclist Mathieu Gagné.A migrant worker in Beijing has been sentenced to nine months in prison for making a joke about ISIS on messaging app WeChat.
The 31-year-old worker, whose name was not revealed, used a picture of deceased Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden as his profile photo when he was talking in a chat group last September, according to state media the Worker’s Daily.
After another person in the chat group said: “Look, it’s the big man,” the worker said: “Join ISIS with me,” the paper reported. There was no further discussion of the topic after he made the statement.
“One joke brought so much trouble – I really regret it,” he told the paper.
According to the paper, he was summoned by police last October and tried in May. The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate Court said that the defendant had a weak understanding of the law, and his actions of propagating terrorism and extremism by sending messages in a chat group with over 300 people constituted a crime.
It found him guilty of “propagating terrorism and extremism,” and sentenced him to nine months in prison and a fine of RMB1,000 (HK$1,185).
The crime of “propagating terrorism and extremism” was added in the ninth amendment of the criminal code, passed in 2015. It has a maximum penalty of five years, or more in serious cases.
Another person surnamed Wang uploaded a video with terror and violent content on their QQ account which received many comments and reposts in January, according to Workers’ Daily. He was sentenced to eight months and fined RMB1,000 for the same crime.
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Shi Fumao, a lawyer at the Beijing Zhicheng Migrant Workers’ Legal Aid and Research Center cautioned the public to watch what they say online.
“Everyone should take warning [from] the above cases,” he told the Workers’ Daily. “In public places, public online platforms, [you] must watch your words and actions, or there may be a risk of violating the law or even committing a crime.”
New regulations were recently introduced in China, making chat group administrators responsible — and even criminally liable — for messages containing politically sensitive material, rumors and violent or pornographic content. They also require all chat room users in mainland China to verify their real identity.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
NEW YORK (PIX11) -- The MTA approved a mass transit fare hike plan Thursday that will take effect March 22, 2015.
“The MTA has been able to limit these fare and toll increases to the equivalent of 2% a year thanks to our continued aggressive cost-cutting, while still adding service and improving service quality for our growing number of customers,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Tom Prendergast.
The MTA Board approved an additional 25-cent raise of the base subway fare from $2.50 to $2.75.
It also more than doubles the bonus that regular riders get from 5 percent to 11 percent.
It is said that the subway fare in New York City is tied to the cost of a slice of pizza. Click to the video below to hear about that and a estimate on what the increases will cost commuters.
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"The combination of the increased fare and the increased bonus creates an effective fare increase of 4.1%, or 10 cents, for the Bonus MetroCard, which is used for 43% of trips," said a news release from the MTA.
A monthly card goes up to $116.50 from $112 and the weekly card increases one dollar to $31.
LIRR and Metro-North riders will see about a 4% increase on their monthly tickets.
E-Z Pass drivers will see about between a 21 and 25 cent increase.
Riders say they understand the need for improvements to the system, but wish salaries and paychecks kept up with inflation.
The MTA reports it has cut $1.1 billion from its annual spending, with more cuts planned every year to bring annual savings to $1.6 billion by 2018.
“Our Financial Plan assumes modest biennial fare and toll increases, and the Board has chosen options with lower increases for our most frequent customers,” said Prendergast.
Visit mta.info for the complete structure.
#MTA chairman supports raise base fare to $2.75 from $2.50 & double bonus discount to 11%. Also campaign telling riders how to maximize $ — Greg Mocker (@gregmocker) January 22, 2015Enes Kanter is one of the most outspoken activist-athletes in the NBA. (AP)
The NBA released a memo last week reminding all 30 franchises that it’s a requirement for team personnel to stand during the national anthem. However, Turkish big man Enes Kanter has no qualms with bucking authority and facing consequences, whether he’s standing up for equality or kneeling.
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Following his New York Knicks preseason debut, Kanter disclosed that he was in favor of kneeling during the anthem, regardless of whether he would have faced The Association’s wrath as a result. Instead, his new teammates chose to lock arms during “The Star-Spangled Banner” as a show of unity.
“If they would’ve left it up to me, yes, I would’ve taken a knee,” Kanter said after scoring 17 points off the bench in a loss to the Brooklyn Nets, via the New York Daily News. “But as a team, we decided not to take a knee. The most important thing in America is equality and justice. If you don’t see these two things in America, I feel really bad, I feel really sad inside.”
[…]
“I was just talking with one of my teammates, saying, ‘If you’re going to do it, I’ll do it.’ I understand that the NBA just put out a statement saying nobody is taking a knee or whatever. But I’m really feeling bad for people out there that’s fighting for what’s right. I think what they’re fighting for is what’s right. I have problems with my own country. I feel like whatever we believe, fight for it. Because if you look at America, there’s freedom of speech, and you can protest peacefully.”
The next time somebody implies that someone voicing dissent within the United States should “find another country,” think about Kanter, who’s already paid a price for his activism internationally.
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Kanter was detained at a Romanian airport in May. It was there he learned the Turkish government had branded him as a member of a terrorist organization in response to negative comments he made comparing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Adolf Hitler. In addition, Kanter’s activism and support of opposition leader Fethullah Gülen resulted in being left off the Turkish national team since 2015.
In response to their players’ decisions to link arms during the anthem, the Knicks public relations office released a toothless statement to temper potential backlash to their show of unity:
It was a perfectly crafted, yet spineless kumbaya statement, and Kanter’s resolute postgame comments speak for themselves. Given his status as a Muslim and green card holder on U.S. soil, his mentions will probably become a reservoir for jingoism and ultra-nationalism. However, he has had no problem standing up to President Erdoğan on Twitter, so we know he can stick up for himself.
More from Yahoo Sports:
• How the Yankees bullpen pulled off a wild-card miracle
• Mark Cuban considering a presidential run
• Soccer star apologizes for ‘rowdy’ incident at Disney World
• Coach kicks players off team for protestBritish-born astronaut Piers Sellers believes it is only ‘a matter of time’ before extraterrestrial life is found in the universe.
We could be seeing ET soon, according to one astronaut
He predicts we will soon have telescopes to look at planets that might harbour other beings.
Speaking at the 350th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Society later today, Mr Sellers will say: ‘I’m certain there is life out there somewhere in our universe. I think it’s just a question of time before we find it.
‘We know that many of the stars around us have their own solar systems, perhaps with planets like ours.’
The 55-year-old, who has been on Nasa space missions, adds: ‘Within our lifetimes, we will probably have space-based telescopes that can actually see some of these planets and tell us more about what they’re like.’
Mr Sellers is one expert addressing 12 areas of the future of science to mark the Royal Society’s anniversary.
Other topics include the web and climate change. The Royal Society is Britain’s national academy of science and was formed in London in 1660.The Buffalo Bills surprised a lot of people when they selected EJ Manuel 16th overall in 2013 draft. It was a weak class overall, but Manuel wasn’t viewed as NFL-ready and had several flaws he needed to correct in order to be successful.
He was the starter from Day 1, and his NFL career began on a high note. He threw two touchdown passes with no interceptions in a close 23-21 loss to the Patriots, looking the part of a professional quarterback. Then things began going south as his passer rating dropped in each of the next three weeks. He started 10 games as a rookie, then four in his second season with the Bills turning to Kyle Orton and eventually Tyrod Taylor.
Manuel signed with the Raiders this week, ending his brief, disappointing tenure in Buffalo. However, he didn’t leave without taking a shot at the Bills after he didn’t believe they gave him one.
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“It was very surprising,” Manuel said, via New York Upstate. “You know, obviously being 2-2 and after losing to Houston, Coach (Doug) Marrone made the change and it was something I never dealt with as a competitor, as an athlete. So, it was definitely one of those things that I had to humble myself and understand that this could happen to anybody, you know what I mean?”
Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images
Manuel doesn’t believe the Bills gave him the opportunity to succeed in Buffalo.
“It was obviously a turbulent time in my life, and in my career, and it was only my second year,” Manuel said. “So, just like, wow. Sometimes young guys continue to get a chance to grow and fight through those growing pains and I just wasn’t afforded that opportunity. I just kind of had to roll with it and just keep rolling.”
With Manuel departing, the Bills’ 2013 draft class is now completely gone. They don’t have one player left from their pool of picks that year, putting into perspective just how bad of a group it was.
Manuel will go down as one of the biggest draft busts in Bills history, having started just 17 games in his career with a 6-11 record.By Paul Emerald
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Abstract
As systems extend and expand the exploitation of the latest power semiconductors (IGBTs, MCTs, etc.) that manifest the very relentless advance in power output limits, a prerequisite (and parallel) demand for sensing these escalating current levels is (increasingly) very apparent. Hall-effect ICs provide 'non-intrusive' current sensing techniques and safe, isolated detection of high current levels without dissipating the sizable amounts of wasted power (and the resultant heating) associated with resistive current-sensing methods. Further, Hall-effect current sensing provides electrical isolation of the current-carrying conductor; hence, a safe environment for circuitry, operators, etc.
The proliferating current-sensing applications for Hall-effect sensor ICs continue; become even more diverse; plus expand and grow as other designers endeavor to protect systems, create more reliable 'bulletproof' equipment, and reconcile any safety issues. The prime applications for cost-effective Hall-effect sensor ICs for current sensing include:
Current Imbalance
Current Monitoring
Operator/User Safety and Security
Overcurrent Detection/System Protection
System Diagnosis and Fault Detection
Test and Measurement
Background and Introduction
The discovery of the Hall-effect originated back in 1879; however, any meaningful application of this Edwin H. Hall finding awaited semiconductor integration that first occurred in the late 1960s. Subsequently, further advances (particularly those of the 1990s) have evolved further, more fully functional integration plus an expanding series of application-specific Hall sensor IC types. Yet the relentless progress of magnetic sensor electronics continues to proliferate an increasing demand for low-cost, reliable, and 'non-contact' Hall-effect circuitry for sensing/detecting motion, direction, position, and measuring/monitoring current.
Hall-effect sensor ICs (especially the ratiometric linear types) are superb devices for 'open-loop' current-sensing designs. However, there are limits to the operational range, accuracy and precision, frequency response, etc. that may be realized. Because many prospective users are ignorant of and/or oblivious to either the benefits or shortcomings of current-sensing techniques using Hall-effect ICs, this paper endeavors to provide a comprehensive discussion of the essential, basic techniques of 'non-intrusive' current sensing with silicon Hall-effect devices (HEDs) now available.
Most Hall-effect current-sensing requirements do not develop adequate magnetic fields without the use of a slotted toroid to concentrate (and focus) the induced flux field. Low-to-modest currents (<≈ 15 amperes) require winding sufficient turns on the slotted toroid (core) to induce usable flux strength and develop a suitable signal voltage. A higher current level (>15 to 20 amperes) induces field intensities that allow passing the current-carrying conductor straight through the center of the toroid (no turns necessary at these higher currents).
Designs requiring a broad (or continuous) current range mandate utilizing linear Hall-effect sensor ICs. However, overcurrent protection and/or fault detection designs can be accommodated by digital HEDs. Examples and particulars of the essentials of current-sensing techniques, device parameters, temperature stability, and other relevant concerns of Hall-effect current sensing are covered in this treatise on HEDs for sensing AC and DC currents.
Rival, Competing Technologies
Although there are many current-sensing methods, only three are commonplace in low-cost, volume applications. The others are expensive laboratory systems, emerging technologies (magnetoresistive is an example), or seldom used. The commonly used techniques include: (1) resistive, (2) Hall effect, and (3) current transformers.
Resistive sensing is very widely used, low-cost, and understood with little difficulty. However, the shortcomings are its insertion loss (heating and wasted power) and lack of isolation. Also, the series inductance of many power resistors constrains the frequency range with low-cost components; hence, resistive sensing is classed as either a DC or AC application per the categories in table 1. Low inductance, high-power resistors for high frequency are more expensive, but allow operation beyond 500 kHz. Further, signal amplification is (usually) required with resistive current-sensing techniques (either a comparator or operational amplifier is needed).
Table 1: Commonplace, Inexpensive Current-Sensing Techniques Widely Used Sensors Power Consumption
Circuit Isolation Frequency Range Size Accuracy Relative Cost Insertion Loss External Power Sense Resistor + Op-Amp High Low Low DC to 10 MHz Medium ±3 to 5% Low Standard Open Loop Hall-Effect Low Low High DC to 50 kHz Small ±5 to 10% Medium Hall-Effect Closed-Loop Low Medium High DC to 1 MHz Medium to Large < ±1% High Allegro Open-Loop Hall Effect Current Sensor ICs Low Low High DC to 120 kHz Small ±2 to 3% Medium Current Transformers Medium (AC) None high 60 Hz to 1 MHz* Medium to Large ±3 to 5% High * Current transformers usually operate over a limited frequency range but can be designed for use from low to high frequencies.
Hall-effect sensor ICs (open- and closed-loop) represent the next tier of commonplace solutions. Insertion loss (and related heating, etc.) are not an obstacle. However, frequency range, cost, DC offset, and external power represent the potential disadvantages of Hall-effect IC technology when compared to the resistive-sensing methods.
Current transformers close out the last low-cost technology, and (as the term transformer should imply) are only useful with alternating currents. Most low-cost current transformers are designed for narrow frequency ranges, are more expensive than resistive or Hall-effect, and cannot be used for DC currents. However, current transformers avoid insertion loss, offer electrical isolation, do not require external power, and exhibit no offset voltage at the zero (null) current level.
Because this treatise focuses upon Hall-effect ICs, understanding the elements of linear, ratiometric HEDs is imperative to open-loop current sensing.
Linear Hall-Effect Sensor ICs
As the term implies, linear Hall sensor ICs develop an output signal that is proportional to the applied magnetic field. Normally, in any current-sensing application, this flux field is focused by a'slotted' toroid to develop an adequate field intensity, and this magnetic field is induced by current flowing in a conductor. A 'classic' transfer curve for a ratiometric linear is illustrated in figure 1. Note that, at each extreme of its range, the output saturates.
Figure 1. Linear Hall Sensor IC Transfer Curve
Most recent linear Hall ICs provide a ratiometric output voltage. The quiescent (i.e., null) voltage is (nominally) 50% of the applied, stable supply. This quiescent output voltage signal equates to no applied magnetic field and, for current sensing, is equivalent to zero current flow. A south polarity field induces a positive voltage transition (toward V CC ), and a north polarity results in a transition toward ground (0 V). Output saturation voltages are (typically) 0.3 V (high/sourcing) and 0.2 V (low/ sinking) and are measured at ±1 mA. [Ed. Note. output voltages are now in the multivolt range.]
Each linear Hall-effect IC integrates a sensitive Hall element (also called a 'plate'), a low-noise (bipolar) amplifier, and sink/ source output stage. Any systems problems associated with low-level signals and noise are minimized by the monolithic integration of magnetic Hall element, amplifier, output, and allied signal processing circuitry.
Existing very stable, linear HEDs exploit dynamic quadrature offset cancellation circuitry and utilize electronic switching to change the current path in the Hall element. Switching the current paths, from 0° to 90°, at a high repetition rate offers a new answer to the (intrinsic) DC offset that has long plagued linear sensor IC operation and stability.
Sample-and-hold circuitry and a low-pass filter are exploited to properly'recondition' the internal dynamic signals of these innovative linear HEDs.
Linear Hall-effect ICs can detect small changes in flux intensity, and are (generally) more useful than digital Hall ICs for current sensing. Linear HEDs are often capacitively coupled to op amps, or DC connected to comparators, to attain system design objectives. Also, microcontrollers (µCs) and microprocessors (µPs) are being exploited to detect small signal changes from linear Hall ICs, and are very suitable (with proper software) for sensing/measuring either AC or DC currents.
Inducing a Magnetic Field
As mentioned, Hall-effect current sensing usually necessitates the use of a slotted toroid (made of ferrous materials). The toroid both concentrates and focuses an induced magnetic field toward the location of the Hall-effect element within the IC package. Figure 2 typifies a classic example of 'non-intrusive' current sensing exploiting a slotted toroid. The conductor current flows through the turns wound upon the toroid, and the induced flux field is concentrated on the sensor IC in the gap (or slot) in the toroid. Usually, this gap is made to closely match the Hall IC package thickness ( approx. 0.060" or 1.52 mm), and this provides optimal magnetic coupling. The current flow (with this 'tight' magnetic coupling) induces a flux intensity per the formula
B (gauss) ≈ N (turns) × 6.9 gauss/ampere
[Ed. Note: 6.9 gauss/ampere is updated from the earlier 6 gauss/ampere.]
Figure 2. Current Sensing with |
large numbers of birds. King mackerel, Spanish mackerel, mullet, ladyfish, speckled trout, and other fish are congregating in massive numbers amid the sharks.
There are a number of patches of submerged oil 40 to 100 feet off the beach, apparently collecting along rip currents and sandbars. The carcasses of sand fleas, speckled crabs, ghost crabs, and leopard crabs are spread throughout the oil, a thick layer of the material caking the bodies of the larger crabs – their claws looking as if they been turned into clubs made of oil.
Collecting in pockets and troughs in waist-deep water, the underwater oil is looser and stickier than the tarballs that cover the beach. The consistency is more like a thick liquid, albeit one made up of thousands of small globs. Unlike tarballs, which can often be picked up out of the water without staining the fingers, the submerged oil stains everything that it touches. If you passed your hand through the material it would emerge covered in oily smears.
A two-inch layer of submerged oil is coating portions of the Gulf seafloor off the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge: a week after a smothering layer of floating crude washed ashore there. This scenario is being played out all along the Gulf shoreline.
A researcher captured this image. A discarded flag (or one that has fallen from one of the many vessels in the area) rests on the ocean floor amid the oil and the bodies of dead crabs.
Gulf Coast Residents Hit Hard
It’s not just the sealife.
Gulf coast residents are being hit hard as well.
David Kotok of Cumberland Advisors estimates that one million jobs will be lost permanently in the Gulf coast oil services and supporting industries.
The House Judiciary Committee has found:
As of … Tuesday, June 15th, BP had paid less than 12 percent ($71 million dollars out of an estimated $600 million) of outstanding claims submitted by individuals and businesses. Two weeks after the disaster, BP had not paid a single dollar to the individuals or businesses harmed by the explosion and the oil spill. As of May 18th (four weeks post-disaster), BP had only paid $11,673,616. In apparent response to congressional oversight and the efforts of the federal government, BP began increasing their payments to affected individuals and businesses in the past few weeks. Although the oil spill disaster occurred on April 20th, BP has only begun to compensate individuals for their full loss of income in the past two weeks. We understand individuals continue to experience delays in the receipt of full income awards. BP has not paid a single bodily injury claim. As of Friday, June 18th, there were 717 claims submitted for bodily injury, including claims for respiratory issues, headaches, and skin irritation. BP has not paid a single claim for the diminishment in value of homes in the affected areas of the Gulf South, out of a total 175 claims submitted. Out of the 267 claims submitted, BP has paid only $169,371 in loss of income claims for affected restaurants. However, the lack of data from BP on the damage amounts requested by the affected restaurants or the number of claims paid makes it impossible for the Committee to determine if restaurants and other Gulf Coast businesses are being properly compensated. “I remain concerned that BP is stiffing too many victims and short-changing others,” [Committee Chairman John] Conyers said.
Reuters notes that BP is paying only a fraction of what the fishermen think they’re entitled to.
CNBC points out that BP is only paying fishermen one month’s pay – pegged to pay from their slowest season.
USA Today notes:
State officials in Louisiana and Florida say the payouts, so far, have been small and often too slow and that BP hasn’t given them the data they need to adequately monitor the process.
WDSU reports:
Some people claim the payout process is unorganized, and other said there is no system in place to account for how many days the fishermen have worked and no clear time frame for when they’ll see the money they’ve earned.
CBS notes:
Some businesses have been asked to file 1,700 pages of documents before they can get a check.
The L.A. Times notes that:
BP’s request for tax records poses a problem for some residents of fishing communities in southeastern Louisiana — the nonconformists who haven’t kept records or reported their cash income.
Time Magazine makes a similar point:
Fishing can bring in a lot of money in a very short period of time during the right season, but fishermen might be hard-pressed to provide evidence — bank statements, pay stubs — that can back that up. The same goes for many other businesses: if receipts are dwindling at a restaurant, or guests are cancelling at a resort, how is it possible to prove that the spill alone is responsible? “We’re stuck in the middle,” says Chris Camardelle, whose seafood restaurant in Grand Isle has been badly hurt by the oil spill. “So it’s a tricky situation.”
Jane Hamsher notes that fishermen harmed by the Exxon Valdez oil spill have had to wait 20 years to see any money, and – for many fishermen – all of that money was been swallowed up by government fees and taxes.
But as bad as it is for fishermen, it’s worse for everyone else. For example, AP notes:
BP PLC says 90 percent of the compensation checks it has issued so far have gone to fishermen.
Those who provide goods and services to fishermen are receiving next to no compensation.
Given that the oil spill is killing not only fish and crabs – but the American dream for millions of Gulf Coast fishermen, shrimpers, tourist industry workers and others – the image in the photograph above is very powerful indeed.
Update: A reader points out that Ben Raines of the Press-Register, and not Alex Kearns, gets credit.Palmyra citadel is seen as a Russian vehicle blocks a road leading to the ancient city of Palmyra in central Homs province. (Hassan Ammar/Associated Press)
Russia and Syrian forces have shifted troops and artillery back toward northern Syria in recent weeks, the latest sign that a fraying cease-fire in the country could collapse completely, U.S. defense officials said Tuesday.
The troop movements, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, come after forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad retook areas around the city of Palmyra from the Islamic State late last month. The Syrian troops, backed by Iranian ground troops and Russian airstrikes, achieved a strategic and political victory over the terrorist group, an indication that Assad and his allies were shifting military resources to fight the Islamic State, rather than Syrian opposition groups, after the cessation of hostilities announced in February.
[Pro-government warplanes bomb a rebel town that hates al-Qaeda, killing scores]
A defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said that the Pentagon had monitored equipment used in the Palmyra offensive being sent back toward areas around Aleppo as well as near the borders between Idlib and Latakia provinces. While al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, is active in these regions and is not included in the recent cease-fire, the official believes the buildup of equipment could be used in renewed offensives against areas held by Syrian opposition forces that are considered more moderate.
Before the February cease-fire, Syrian troops, alongside Iranian forces and supported by Russian artillery and airstrikes, made significant gains in northern Syria, nearly encircling opposition fighters in Aleppo. A defeat in Aleppo, one of the last strongholds for the rebels, would be a significant setback in their battle against Assad. In recent days, opposition groups have gone on the offensive in the area. The cease-fire, despite daily violations, has held far longer than initially expected and has reduced violence throughout the country. More than 250,000 have died in the five-year-old conflict.
Although Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to withdraw Russian forces from Syria last month, a large contingent of Russian aircraft, including advanced helicopter gunships, still remain. Aside from the air support, Russia has also lent heavy artillery to Syrian troops and their proxies, including howitzers and rocket artillery. Additionally, Russian Special Operations forces are still on the ground, acting in an advisory role and coordinating airstrikes.
[How Russian special forces are shaping the fight in Syria]
As fighting intensifies, diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict have started to break down. On Monday, the main body of the opposition groups withdrew from peace talks in Geneva, relegating their participation to informal discussions. That day, President Obama talked on the phone with his Russian counterpart in a discussion that White House press secretary Josh Earnest characterized as “intense.” Earnest said that Obama implored Putin to “use his influence with the Assad regime to live up to the commitments they’ve made.”Forget about Marc Rich. If you want news about a far more controversial presidential pardon or commutation, go to the National Archives and listen to Richard Nixon cutting a deal to free Teamsters legend Jimmy Hoffa.
Previously undisclosed Nixon tapes leave no doubt that the Christmas 1971 commutation of Hoffa was heavily influenced by self-serving Nixon political considerations involving his 1972 re-election campaign and an obvious quid pro quo with Hoffa's successor as leader of the union.
For starters, the tapes prove that former Atty. Gen. John Mitchell lied to Watergate prosecutors in denying any political considerations in the Hoffa action. In addition, they bolster long-held, never-proven conspiracy theories about a deal between Nixon and Frank Fitzsimmons, Hoffa's successor, who wanted to make sure that his mentor would not be able to get his old job back.
They show Nixon and Mitchell agreeing not to release Hoffa before making sure that White House Counsel John Dean crafted a "conditional commutation" by which Hoffa would face clear restrictions on any return to the union. In the process, as Dean recalled Friday, they bypassed the normal Justice Department process, avoiding the department's pardon attorney.
It was all part of a Nixon payback to the clearly duplicitous Fitzsimmons, who was secretly trying to undermine the same Hoffa who engineered his nominal stewardship of the union while Hoffa was in prison. In return Nixon would get Teamsters political and other support.
And this all happened as Fitzsimmons was a member of the Pay Board, a key federal advisory panel making recommendations on wage and price controls to an independent Price Commission. Nixon needed labor members' votes on the board, but many were opposed to his desired wage restrictions.
While the tapes don't provide unequivocal evidence that the Teamsters union illegally funneled six-figure, perhaps seven-figure contributions to Nixon, as was conjectured, Nixon is curiously halting and discrete as he alludes in hushed tones to how Fitzsimmons had "been damn good in all of his private, ah, he's, you know, he's, he's, I know, he's done some things privately that are very helpful."
At bare minimum he is alluding to Teamster help like providing goons at anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. Is he referring to illegal financial help too?
"Do you insist that he [Hoffa] get out of labor and stay out of labor?" Mitchell is heard declaring to Nixon. "No. 2, do we want any commitment, whether confirmed or a tacit understanding, with respect to political help in '72? Both of them are available from what I understand. I'm sure we are all aware that we've had lots of communications on both sides of the fence."
In response to each Mitchell question, the answers prove to be an unequivocal yes.
One conversation took place in the Oval Office on Nov. 1, 1971, and involved Nixon, Mitchell, top Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman and George Shultz, then head of the Office of Management and Budget, later labor secretary and secretary of state. It came as the legendary Hoffa was in a federal prison serving concurrent, 13-year terms on separate jury tampering and pension fraud convictions.
He had been in prison since 1967 but had still been making most of the union's big decisions, while leaving day-to-day operations to Fitzsimmons, who had been a Hoffa lap dog. In June 1971, Hoffa formally resigned the Teamsters presidency, allowing the union's board to make Fitzsimmons the official candidate in its upcoming election.
Hoffa assumed that his action would win him points with his parole board. He was wrong. Two months after the union convention in Miami Beach elected Fitzsimmons, the board spurned Hoffa. A household name, Hoffa was admired by many unionists who also saw him as a victim of Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy's crusade to put him behind bars.
As acerbic Mitchell enters the Oval Office, a Hoffa deal is the topic.
Nixon: Well, you've got a parole problem?
Mitchell: It's known as executive clemency, unfortunately.
Nixon: You mean the pardon problem?
Mitchell: Well, it's not a complete pardon, but there is an executive clemency aspect of it, where you would reduce the sentence enough so that he could get out of the clink. The pardon would be considered at a later date which probably would be better to hold over his head, to see what commitments he'll undertake and how he'll act in the matter.
Nixon: Executive clemency has the same problems.
Mitchell: Fitzsimmons, of course, has been pushing this thing for years and years.
Nixon: He wants executive clemency.
Mitchell: He wants Hoffa out of there. And he has had substantial troubles with his union because he isn't out of there, for whatever reason, or whatever conversations or commitments.
Nixon: And, there's the way it works, ah, who would recommend it?
Mitchell: Who would recommend it?
Nixon: Executive clemency. The attorney general? Or who does it? The pardons board or, ah....
Mitchell: It's an absolute power with you, Mr. President. It can be scheduled any way you want to... We, of course, have this batch that's sitting, waiting for the Christmas season or whatever season you want to put them in the normal flow.
Nixon: Thanksgiving?
Mitchell: Whatever season you want to put it in, Thanksgiving or otherwise."
The attorney general says it would be more politically advantageous for Nixon, rather than a parole board, to free Hoffa and that clemency "might be related to the help of the Teamsters and Fitzsimmons on the Pay Board."
Keep in mind, the board was supposed to be totally independent from the White House. As Jack Grayson, the head of the Price Commission back then and now in charge of a Texas business group, informed me Friday, AFL-CIO President George Meany had extracted written assurances from Nixon that there would be no White House meddling.
Nixon asks Mitchell how they would "position," or "spin" in current parlance, a commutation. He urges accentuating how long Hoffa had served and "that he not be discriminated against because of his being a labor leader."
But Nixon, ever obsessed with the Kennedys, frets that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) might criticize a commutation. Mitchell responds that "it could be terribly significant if Teddy turned out to be the candidate" for the Democrats the next year.Infowars is announcing the launch of a new $20k contest seeking the best cover version of Nick Lutsko’s song based on Alex Jones.
The contest aims to expose the UN’s plan to bring down the nation state through open borders and mass migration.
The cover song should be a creative rendition of artist Nick Lutsko’s viral folk song – based on some of Alex Jones’ best rants – which has been seen by millions worldwide.
It can be in the musical style of metal, rap, country, pop, folk, indie — whatever style you choose. Submissions can be anything from an acoustic version filmed with a cellphone to a highly-produced music video.
Everyone take a few moments to go outside and TGIF @RealAlexJones @superdeluxe pic.twitter.com/N9d1v7SJGx — Nick Lutsko (@NickLutsko) July 14, 2017
Three separate rewards will be given to whoever produces:
(1) The best cover – $10,000
(2) Filmed from the best location – $5,000
(3) Best audience participation – $5,000
Contest rules are as follows:
– Video and audio must be posted to FaceBook, YouTube or Periscope
– “Infowars.com” must be featured in the video
– Participants must sing the entire song as written
– The song must use instruments or have a musical backing
Send a link of your entires to [email protected] with “Folk Cover Song Contest” in the subject line. Submissions must also include contact information including name and email or phone number.
All winners will be payed via PayPal. Infowars will choose three winners after 2 weeks.
Watch the original below:
Song lyrics:193-vehicle pileups shut down I-94 for 2 days Copyright by WOODTV - All rights reserved Crews work to remove the wreckage from I-94 after two major crashes. (Jan. 9. 2015) [ + - ] Video
BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (WOOD) — Massive pileups involving nearly 200 vehicles closed a portion of I-94 west of Battle Creek for about 43 hours.
Around 9:20 a.m. Friday, whiteout conditions on the highway between exits 88 and 92 (Galesburg and Climax) contributed to wrecks in both the east and westbound lanes involving an estimated 193 vehicles. One person was killed and 22 more hospitalized, Michigan State Police said.
The person killed has been identified by MSP as Jean Larocque, a 57-year-old truck driver from Saint-Chrysostome, Quebec in Canada.
Westbound lanes reopened Saturday night, but eastbound lanes remained closed as semis were cleared and the Michigan Department of Transportation checked the road. In a news release around 4:30 a.m. Sunday, MSP said MDOT had inspected both the westbound and eastbound lanes of I-94 and determined they was safe for vehicle traffic.
In the eastbound lanes, 26 semis and 34 cars were involved in the pileup. In the westbound lanes, 50 semis and 83 cars wrecked. That's a total of 76 semis and 117 passenger vehicles.
4 Photos Copyright by WOODTV - All rights reserved A massive pileup on I-94 near Battle Creek. (Jan. 9, 2015)
193-vehicle pileups shut down I-94 for 2 days Gallery 1 A massive pileup on I-94 near Battle Creek. (Jan. 9, 2015) A crash involving multiple vehicles including a semi-truck on I-94 in Kalamazoo County. (Courtesy Kathryn Dennis/Jan. 9, 2015) Emergency responders on the scene of a massive pileup on I-94 near Battle Creek. (Jan. 9, 2015) Crews work to remove the wreckage from I-94 after two major crashes. (Jan. 9. 2015)
One of the semi-trucks was carrying 44,000 pounds of formic acid, a hazardous material. Another was full of fireworks.
One of the pileups caused a fire that spread to multiple vehicles in the center of the crash. Among the vehicles that caught fire was the truck carrying fireworks. Video sent in to 24 Hour News 8 by viewers shows the fireworks exploding with whizzes and crashes reminiscent of Independence Day and smoke rising.
The hazardous material was one reason it took crews so long to reopen the highway. Cold weather hampered the removal of the material and delayed the reopening of the road. While the cleanup continued, hazmat crews are continuously checking the air quality to make sure no chemicals have been released into the air. The cold weather did help to stabilize some hazardous material contained in the damaged tanker.
Metro Transit's transportation director, Sean McBride, told 24 Hour News 8 on Friday that buses were sent to the scene to help keep stranded passengers and emergency workers warm. They also transported people Galesburg-Augusta Primary School, where the Red Cross set up a respite location and shelter for first responders and displaced motorists. Warm meals were provided and mental health support was available. The shelter stayed open overnight.
Borgess Hospital told 24 Hour News 8 it treated at least six patients who were injured in the crashes. A hospital spokesperson told 24 Hour News 8 one of those patients was in serious condition and the five others were in fair condition. Bronson Healthcare facilities in Kalamazoo and Battle Creek also treated at least 10 patients.
Initially, emergency responders believed around 90 vehicles were involved in the crashes. That number then grew to an estimated 115 and again to an estimated 150 before MSP had a closer count of 123 around 2:45 p.m. Friday. Friday evening, that number was updated to 193.
>>Photos: 193-vehicle pileup on I-94
"Response to this event required a massive coordinated effort between state, local, and private entities. All response partners will be meeting in the very near future to debrief this incident, develop an after-action report, and compile lessons learned to better serve the community," MSP said in the Sunday release.
Authorities said eastbound I-94 at mile marker 90 sustained some minor pitting in the cement from vehicle fires. While the highway is open, the pitting in the roadway will cause the surface to be rough, according to MSP. Crews are posting signs to warn drivers.
State police are stressing driving with caution as they travel on winter roadways to help avoid similar wrecks.
"We cannot stress enough for people to drive with caution as they travel on winter roadways. Slower speeds and more distance is needed to respond to situations that may occur in front of drivers. Please drive careful and arrive safely at your destination," the release said.
In a separate incident, eastbound I-94 at Sprinkle Road in Kalamazoo was closed due to a crash for a time, according to MDOT. In a third incident, westbound I-94 at M-37 (Columbia Ave) Exit 92 was closed due to a crash, per Calhoun County Dispatch. Both crashes have since cleared.The road to the release of Deftones‘ eighth full-length album “Gore” has been a rocky one as far as the press is concerned. There were missed release dates thanks to issues with mixing. Then the details for the album were leaked months in advance thanks to a journalist’s screencap, forcing the band to readjust their rollout strategy. And of course, there was the elephant in the room: the negative comments guitarist Stephen Carpenter made about his initial lack of interest in taking part in the writing sessions.
A solid listen to “Gore” is all it takes to assure you that Carpenter did indeed show up on the effort. His crushing input populates a number of the included songs, and not just here and there. He may be somewhat underutilized to a small degree, but he certainly makes his presence felt. What stands out most about “Gore” though isn’t his aggression or frontman Chino Moreno‘s melancholic shades of new wave and sparkling alt rock. No, it’s the spacious room to breathe and fine attention paid to the smaller details in each song.
For “Gore” the band decided to write at their own pace, getting together numerous times over the period of a few months to put the effort together. You can tell there was no looming deadline or clock ticking on studio time. Sure they may have traded some parts back and forth via a Dropbox or the like, but refreshingly you can feel that these songs were worked on in a room together. It’s this unencumbered style of songwriting and freedom to analyze and refine things over time that makes up the connective tissue of this release.
Because on “Gore” the Deftones feel more like an actual band than they have in years. A scrappier, almost happier version of themselves, flush with gnarled guitars, emotional outbursts and intricate details. No one element or idea pervades the album. It’s a diverse collection of songs, that often at their core, sound like a mutated strain of 90’s space rock that somehow got mixed up with chunky modern metal.
There’s gnawing guitar parts, big looming riffs, a deeper oomph thanks to Sergio Vega‘s utilization of a Bass VI and some understated—yet no less crucial—work by drummer Abe Cunningham and sampler/programmer Frank Delgado. Indeed it’s the little things that shine brightest this time out, be it the hushed drumming techniques Cunningham opens “Hearts/Wires” with, the guitar squeals that pop up in “Xenon” or Delgado‘s ever jittering ambiance regularly hovering just out of reach.
There’s even times, such as on album highlight “Rubicon“, where the band can feel like a busier, more embittered version of Failure. It’s all Deftones to be sure, but more confident and substantial. Thanks to the wealth of organic interplay, it doesn’t feel Frankensteined together like so many other albums these days.
So much of “Gore” has a nervous pulsing energy. Be it spacey and majestic or gleefully destructive, the band have delivered a scratchy guitar-filled opus that captures the better traits of their past few albums and adds a humbling amount of gravity and excitement. They’re trying out new things and the results are interesting and heady. From obtuse ethereal riffs to Vega‘s drifting bass on “Phantom Bride” sounding like he took cliff notes from Glassjaw‘s “Coloring Book“.
That track in particular also features a soaring guest appearance from Alice In Chains‘ Jerry Cantrell, who emerges mid-song, cutting through the ethereal haze with some tastefully soulful licks that could have sprung out of the fingers of Satriani or Vai. What’s interesting in particular about his cameo isn’t just the sense of levity and contrast it brings to the track. It’s that it almost goes to war against Carpenter‘s sinister chug that comes like an approaching thunderstorm near the end.
As with any Deftones release, “Gore” isn’t an album that you’ll easily digest. It’s something you’ll likely be dissecting and finding new puzzle pieces for with each listen for weeks to come. A brave display of just how far this band have come since their nu metal days and definitive proof that the creative flame they share is still burning bright.Zootopia, Disney Animation Studios’ animated family film, has amassed another $200M in only a week’s time and is set to cross the $500 million mark globally today. It is now in its third week in the U.S., China and Russia. Zootopia marks the third consecutive title from the Animation Studios to reach this milestone following Frozen and Big Hero 6.
Zootopia has so far grossed $164M domestically and $327M internationally for a worldwide total of $491M through yesterday. Internationally, it’s already Disney’s biggest animated release ever in China, Russia, and Thailand. The Byron Howard/Rich Moore-directed film is about an earnest bunny cop and a con artist fox who team to uncover a conspiracy.
Following an opening gross of $75M in its first weekend out in the U.S., the film continued its No. 1 spot for two weeks and dropped a mere 32% in its sophomore frame. Thanks to that film, the overall box office in the states ran past the $2B mark.
Internationally, its biggest markets to date are China ($134.8M), France ($24.3M) and Russia ($22.2M). The film bowed in China and Russia when both countries were celebrating Women’s Day, which helped to boost its grosses there. It sailed past $100M in China in only 10 days of release to blow past Disney Animation’s previous record-holder in the territory — Big Hero 6, which had an $83.5M crown.
Major markets still to come include the UK on March 25 and Japan on April 23.It’s time for a new conversation about building pipelines in this country – a conversation about how Canada can get full value for its oil production while at the same time addressing environmental concerns, including climate change. This dialogue needs to take place with the type of constructive, interest-based, problem-solving approach that Canadians expect.
Getting Canadian oil production to market safely and in a manner consistent with the environmental values we all share is foundational to the pipeline discussion. We know that addressing climate change is part of that focus. The federal government recently announced additional principles it will consider, along with the recommendation of the National Energy Board, before approving a pipeline project. One of the principles involves an assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions from pipeline projects, including emissions associated with the production of the oil the pipelines will carry.
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We believe Alberta’s new climate plan will be strong evidence in the federal government’s assessment. The development of the Alberta climate plan benefitted from consultation with a broad range of stakeholders. The plan reflects a fundamental shift, acknowledging that polarization and conflict is not constructive.
Currently, we are all focused on the proposed expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline system, now in the final stages of regulatory review. If approved, this project would provide a vital link between Canada’s vast oil resources in northern Alberta and world-class marine facilities in British Columbia. As producers and refiners of Canada’s oil resource, we believe approval of this pipeline project would launch a new era in export opportunities for the country and its energy industry.
Overdependence on the United States as our only major customer has forced Canada to sell its oil at discounted prices for years. With access to Asia and other global markets, where prices are typically higher, we will have the opportunity to receive full value for Canadian energy exports. Approval of the Trans Mountain expansion project will benefit more than just the producers who plan to ship oil on the pipeline. It will provide significant economic potential for the entire country. The construction and long-term operation of this key infrastructure project will provide lasting benefits for all Canadians.
Assessments from a number of independent financial institutions have concluded that Canada is missing out on billions of dollars a year in revenue because of our lack of access to overseas markets for our oil. Investment dollars go to wherever they can get the best returns. That’s why openingup West Coast marine access for Canadian oil is crucial to the long-term success of the country’s energy industry and to the strength of the Canadian economy overall. The latest research from the Conference Board of Canada projects the Trans Mountain expansion project would generate more than 800,000 person years of employment over the next 20 plus years and nearly $47 billion in government revenues, which would help pay for services such as health care, schools and infrastructure to transition to a lower carbon economy. Those are benefits that would be realized across the country.
The Trans Mountain expansion proposal is undergoing a rigorous review by the National Energy Board, which has already placed 150 draft conditions on the project that must be met by Kinder Morgan Canada before construction or operations can begin. The company has spent thousands of hours consulting with and listening to local residents, stakeholders, landowners and Aboriginal groups. The project will adhere to the highest operational and environmental performance standards.
Furthermore, Kinder Morgan has committed to continue to work with communities, stakeholders and the province to ensure a world-class response to potential marine spills. And, of equally great importance, Kinder Morgan Canada has an outstanding record of operating excellence.
As a nation, we need to make progress on pipeline project approvals. Together, we need to find solutions to local concerns and work to ensure the benefits of new pipelines can be realized. Preventing pipelines from being built in Canada will not reduce global oil demand, but it will prevent Canadians from receiving the benefits of supplying oil to fill that growing demand. And it will mean customers around the world won’t have access to Canadian oil that is produced with stringent safety and environmental laws – including those that address climate change – and a rigorous regulatory system.
And that is why we, a group of seven companies that directly employ more than 27,000 people in Canada, believe we can work together with everyone who has a voice in the pipeline discussion to foster that new conversation focused on finding solutions together to overcome the deadlock that’s holding up pipeline projects. We are ready to engage in this dialogue and to see projects such as the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion built and we hope other Canadians are as well.
Submitted by Murray Edwards and Brian Ferguson on behalf of: BP Canada, Canadian Natural, Cenovus, Devon, Statoil, Suncor, Total.Pope Francis Blesses Melania Trump’s Rosary, Liberal Snowflakes Have a Meltdown (VIDEO)
President Trump and First Lady, Melania arrived at the Vatican as a part of their first foreign trip. President Trump had a brief meeting with Pope Francis discussing ‘climate change’ and the Middle East crisis.
Pope Francis then blessed Melania Trump’s rosary and the left went crazy.
First Lady, Melania looked exquisite in all black as she respectfully wore a veil in the presence of Pope Francis. She shunned Islamic law by refusing to wear a hijab in Saudi Arabia, so the liberals had a meltdown over this. Leave it to the liberals to turn something this beautiful into something negative.
Reminder to all liberals: Melania Trump isn’t Muslim and doesn’t need to wear a hijab!
VIDEO via ABC News:
Pope Francis meets First Lady Melania Trump at the Vatican, blesses rosary. https://t.co/kgnKxk2YQrpic.twitter.com/abyUhApfmw — ABC News (@ABC) May 24, 2017
President Trump also expressed what an honor it was to meet Pope Francis:
Honor of a lifetime to meet His Holiness Pope Francis. I leave the Vatican more determined than ever to pursue PEACE in our world. pic.twitter.com/JzJDy7pllI — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2017
First Lady Melania Trump tweeted, “Today’s visit with His Holiness Pope Francis is one I’ll never forget. I was humbled by the honor. Blessings to all.” The Daily Mail reported that Melania Trump’s spokesperson confirmed that she is a practicing Roman Catholic. We haven’t had a Catholic First Lady since Jackie Kennedy. God Bless our beautiful First Lady.
Today’s visit with His Holiness Pope Francis @Pontifex is one I’ll never forget. I was humbled by the honor. Blessings to all. pic.twitter.com/NiomkFQqJb — Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) May 24, 2017
Liberals had a complete meltdown after our beautiful First Lady met Pope Francis at the Vatican:
@ABC DONALD: Oh that’s great, you’ll hold his hand but you won’t hold mine. — Julian Abbott (@JulianBAbbott) May 24, 2017
@ABC So now she wears a head scarf lol. Go figure. — Prue Blackmore (@PruesSoapbox) May 24, 2017
@ABC Oh HERE she’s modest and covers her head? — NotTelling (@Makeawish3) May 24, 2017
@ABC “Please forgive me Your Holiness for the orange buffoon you’re about to speak with... “ — Jennifer (@JenniferSpaw) May 24, 2017
@ABC Now she’s got something on her head! Wow! What a super animated couple!! Just stranger and stranger with each wasted day in the Whitehouse!! — Roosevelt George (@rooseveltgeorge) May 24, 2017
@ABC She held the Rosary with one left hand???????????? No!!!!!! — Wasike Dennis (@Wasike_Dennis) May 24, 2017Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
March 9, 2016, 5:28 PM GMT / Updated March 10, 2016, 12:03 AM GMT By Corky Siemaszko and Krista Brunson
A gun-loving Florida mom was accidentally shot in the back by her 4-year-old son with a.45-caliber pistol he found on the floor of her pickup truck, police said Wednesday.
Jamie Gilt, 31, was driving to a relative's home on Tuesday afternoon to pick up a horse when the boy, who was sitting in the seat behind hers, pulled the trigger, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department said in a news release.
A deputy noticed Gilt's truck and horse trailer and "observed an adult female in the driver’s seat motioning to him as if she needed assistance," the release said. "The deputy ran to the vehicle and quickly determined that the driver had been shot."
Gilt was rushed to hospital in Gainesville, Florida, where she was in stable condition. Her boy, who was not harmed, was turned over to relatives, the release said.
The Florida Department of Children and Family Services is investigating how Gilt's son got his hands on her pistol.
"The firearm was legally owned by the victim and the child came to possess the firearm without the victim’s knowledge," the news release stated.
But under Florida law, "it a misdemeanor for a person to store or leave, on a premise under his or her control, a loaded firearm in such a manner that it is likely a child can gain access to the firearm."
Gilt lives in Jacksonville, Florida. A woman by the same name ran a Facebook page called "Jamie Gilt for Gun Sense," where she posts pro-gun pieces and articles critical of politicians who back gun control like President Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Among them is a posting that reads, "My right to protect my child with a gun trumps your fear of my gun." The page was live until Wednesday.Asus, the company which made netbooks popular is getting ready for something bigger now. After taking a hit from the growing smartphone and tablet PCs, its time for them to re-think their netbook business model.
Digitimes, is reporting that they are planning to bring the prices down to $200, and take advantage of either Android 3.0 or Chrome OS.
Affected by tablet PCs, a 10-inch single-core Atom netbook with a price below US$280 has already appeared in the retail channel, while dual-core models’ ASPs are only at around NT$12,000 (US$405), and as more tablet PCs are set to launch in the near future, market watchers are conservative about netbook’s future. However, as Asustek will launch a model with a price of US$200-250, it should help the company avoid direct competition from tablet PCs, which are priced at around US$299-499. The sources believe that Asustek’s new netbook should either adopt Google’s Android 3.0 or Chrome OS in order to achieve such a price level, and the new model is expected to attract consumers who |
be borrowing at 4 per cent and the poor who may not get bank loans will have to pay 18 per cent,” he told Malay Mail Online in a phone interview.
Regardless of the type of property or the location, no property purchase would appreciate in value enough to be able to exceed the value of the 18 per cent loan, he stressed.
Bailout?
Given the high interest rates of between 12 and 18 per cent that the developers would be allowed to charge, the HBA feared the government might have to one day rescue developers when buyers default on their loans.
The association pointed out that Malaysians are already struggling to pay their mortgages.
“Property developers will be driven by greed to approve loans to borrowers who do not meet their minimum lending criteria just to close the sale and there will be a very high chance that these borrowers will default on their loan, especially given the high fixed interest rates of 12 per cent to 18 per cent.
“There may be a possibility that eventually housing developers may approach the government for bailout money, claiming that this loan scheme was a form of ‘National Service’,” it said.
Alternatives
Unlike the HBA, Siva did not think Malaysia would experience a subprime crisis at the levels faced by the US in the mid-2000s, expressing confidence that the government would have learnt from the superpower’s mistakes.
However, he felt the government would do better to brainstorm for other ideas with stakeholders to help Malaysians afford their own homes than proceed with this latest plan.
He suggested the government implement other forms of financial assistance to complement the current system rather than allow developers to provide loans to buyers.
“Rather we should relax our lending laws a bit. Banks may consider ways to become less stringent.
“We need to help first-time buyers, young couples and the lower, middle class maybe by offering high 100 per cent loans instead of 80 per cent or maybe have longer repayments,” he said.
Another consideration was for the government to revive the Developer Interest Bearing Scheme (DIBS) abolished in 2014 due to excessive property speculation and enforce stringent regulation this time around.
“It didn’t work last time because it wasn’t properly regulated. If they regulate it this time, it will really help first-time buyers,” Siva said.
Yesterday, the Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Ministry announced the introduction of an initiative that enables property developers to give out loans to buyers at an interest rate of between 12 and 18 per cent.
Its Minister Tan Sri Noh Omar said that the move is intended to assist Malaysians who are unable to get a full housing loan from banks or those who may only be given a partial housing loan.
The number of unsold units in both residential and commercial properties also rose by 16 per cent in the first quarter of this year, according to the National Property Information Centre.
The Real Estate and Housing Developers Association (Rehda) Institute chairman Datuk Jeffrey Ng attributed the increase of unsold homes to Bank Negara Malaysia’s strict policies on banks to rein in growing household debt.
The central bank’s annual report for 2013 — the most recent figures available — showed household debt levels overall have increased to 87 per cent, a steady climb from 60 per cent in 2008. Of that figure though, more than 40 per cent of household debt went into loans for property purchases.Even before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the Black Sea resort of Sochi last Wednesday for his sixth consultation in two years with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Moscow’s representative in Tel Aviv laid out a soothing if improbable vision of a Syria free of Iranian troops and Shiite militias.
“We agree that there should be no foreign forces in Syria, including the Iranian army,” Russian ambassador Alexander Shane Russian told Israel’s Channel One News. “But at this stage we must support the peace process, the current [Assad] government, and the struggle against terror.”
If the Russians and the Israelis agreed that ISIS and al-Qaeda are the only “terror” groups operating in Syria, Tel Aviv might be placated with the ambassador’s assertion that Moscow “always takes into account Israel’s security interests when it is conducting its counter-terrorism operation in Syria and trying to bring peace to the region.”
After all, the regime’s army has been depleted by battlefield casualties and dwindling recruitment, the territory of the Syrian state is on course to be diminished in the northeast by some form of Kurdish autonomy, and the nationwide destruction of basic infrastructure should leave Assad with very little to challenge Israel.
So far Putin and Netanyahu have avoided a direct clash as their air forces hit different targets—the Israelis bombing Hezbollah and Shiite militias, and the Russians targeting ISIS and rebel-friendly population centers. Still Netanyahu and the Israeli security establishment are clearly ill at ease.
The Russian control tower in Latakia maintains a hotline with the Israeli defense ministry, and it is acknowledged that the Israeli air force has conducted over 100 raids on Iranian and Shiite militia targets, but there are scores of these assets too close to Russian installations for Tel Aviv to hit without triggering a crisis with Moscow.
Meanwhile, Iran is building missile factories adjacent to regime bases in Tartus, and intensifying coordination with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The Israeli leadership is concerned that Tehran’s support for the “axis of resistance” is as robust as ever. Assad’s government underscored its commitment to the alliance with Tehran and the struggle against Israel even as its state-run media largely ignored the Putin-Netanyahu summit.
“Syria and its allies, Russia and Iran, remain firm in their support of Arab and Palestinian rights despite all plots woven by the Americans, the Israelis, and the Arab Gulf regimes,” declared Assad advisor Bouthaina Shaaban in June. “What is happening in Syria, Iraq, and across the Arab nation is linked to the Arab-Israeli conflict as it seeks to divide Arabs and distance them from their allies in Iran and Russia,” she added.
Curtailing Iranian power in Syria would demonstrate Russia’s commitment to its espoused goal of advancing regional security and quell increasing domestic dissent over support for Assad—especially among its own large Sunni Muslim minority. But Damascus was already deeply intertwined with the Iranians prior to the Syrian uprising. The Syrians were reluctant to downgrade its relationship with Iran in exchange for peace with Israel, and it’s unlikely that Assad would be willing, or even able, to show them the door now.
Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro recalls an early effort by former President Barack Obama to engage the Assad regime on curtailing Iran’s presence in Syria. “I drew the conclusion that the odds of an agreement between Israel and Syria were exceedingly low, and it’s not because Israel wasn’t ready to consider the price,” Shapiro told me.
“There were serious discussions with a land for peace formula that’s familiar from earlier negotiations. But there was never an indication that I saw, and it also affected our own engagement strategy with Syria, that Assad was prepared to significantly reduce his ties to Iran and Hezbollah,” said Shapiro, now a visiting fellow at the Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies. “That reliance was such a central pillar of his own regime’s ability to maintain control in Syria and maintain influence in Lebanon. As late as 2011, there were people in the U.S. and in Israel who thought such a deal would be possible, but I was not one of them.”
Assad’s commitment to the alliance with Iran has swelled as the current American administration has functionally abandoned the moderate Sunni rebels and partnered with the Russians on de-escalation arrangements in southern Syria—an effort that has also brought the Jordanians closer to Moscow.
With the Trump administration moving quickly toward Putin’s managed stability stance on issues including constitutional and security arrangements, disappointed Sunni opposition figures are criticizing the Israelis for not embracing the anti-Assad cause.
“There are influential entities in Israel that want to protect Assad,” said Fahad al-Masri, a former Free Syrian Army spokesman who now leads an opposition group based in Paris called the National Salvation Front.
In an attempt to shape the Syria policy of the incoming administration, the Masri’s group issued a detailed “road map” for Syrian-Israeli peace just five days before Trump’s inauguration declaring friendship with Israel, a call to expel all Iranian military advisers and Hezbollah troops from Syria, and a “fair settlement on the Golan issue that satisfies both the Syrian and Israeli peoples.”
Israel’s ambivalence to advance the cause of the F.S.A., and Netanyahu’s “realism” on Assad dashed Masri’s hopes. “Our initiative was aborted by some parties inside Israel still interested in a no peace, no war status,” said Masri.
Pro-Assad Syrians are gloating at Tel Aviv’s diminished room to maneuver with the Russians now in place. “It’s not the same Syria as two or three years ago,” Wael al-Hussaini, a Syrian-Lebanese blogger and a contributor to Russia Insider, told me. “Damascus can increasingly defend itself against Israeli airstrikes and I think both Putin and Assad could agree to remove the Iranians and Hezbollah, if the Israelis leave the Golan.”
No matter how frequently Netanyahu visits Russia, Israel is facing a grim outlook along its northern border. Iran and Hezbollah are expanding their influence in Syria, increasing Assad’s dependence on them for survival. Netanyahu’s tough talk can’t diminish the reality that Israel stands, for the moment, in a weakened position as a postwar Syria begins to emerge.Bethesda's new mobile game Fallout Shelter has become a roaring success since its release last month on iOS, but the big question since has been when will Android users get to play? For week's now, Bethesda has maintained that an Android version of the free-to-play mobile game is in development, but estimates that it won't be out for at least "a few months." Thanks to Bethesda's VP of Marketing and PR, Pete Hines, we now have a more specific release window.
While he doesn't have an exact date, Hines revealed on Twitter yesterday that Fallout Shelter should release on Android in August.
@kolos_kovacs coming along nice. haven't announced a date, but should be out next month. we'll let you know when we have specifics — Pete Hines (@DCDeacon) July 1, 2015
Again, this isn't confirmation by any means as that'll likely come from Bethesda when it's official; but, it at least gives us a better idea as to how far along the game is on Android.
Related: The Easy Peasy No Hack Guide to unlimited lunch boxes in Fallout Shelter
For those unfamiliar, Fallout Shelter is a new, free-to-play mobile game inspired by Bethesda's Fallout franchise. Announced at Bethesda's E3 press conference last month, the game is a mix of SimCity, XCOM, FTL, and This War of Mine, putting you in control of a Vault. As Overseer, it's your job to ensure the survival of your fellow Vault dwellers, keeping them happy, managing resources, and exploring the post-apocalyptic world outside.
Earlier this week, Bethesda released a new Legendary Dweller for Fallout Shelter — Preston Garvey of the Commonwealth Minutement. He is the first character from Fallout 4 to arrive in the mobile game.Not your imagination: Traffic is getting worse Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved A real-time traffic sign along an Oregon road, undated (KOIN, file) [ + - ] Video
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- It's not your imagination. Traffic around the Portland area is getting worse, and the Departments of Transportation in both Oregon and Washington are well aware.
"The peak periods are starting earlier, and they're lasting longer," said WashDOT spokesperson Bart Treece. "There are slower travel speeds as people are heading through some of these major corridors like I-5 and I-205."
"Traffic congestion is worse everywhere in the Portland area," said ODOT Spokesperson Don Hamilton. "It's been true for a couple of years."
Hamilton says this is a problem essentially caused by good things: a growing economy, more tourism and cheap gas. Population is also a huge factor, too.
The recently signed Oregon Transportation Package is expected to help over the next decade, particularly in developing ways to reduce crashes and speed up clean up after crashes do happen.
One example is on OR 217, where ODOT introduced real-time signs to alert drivers of slow downs.
"When we put this in on Highway 217 we saw a 21% drop in crashes in the first year," Hamilton said. "That's a significant improvement in the efficiency of the roadway."
In Washington, WashDOT is trying things like ramp metering on I-5 entrances to try to ease congestion wherever they can.
Ultimately, though, in this economy with continued population growth, traffic is something is seems we'll need to learn to live with.
"It's not perfect," Treece said. "These area lot of different things that could work, but there's not one solution that's going to cure everything.""The Samaritans" redirects here. For the ethnoreligious group, see Samaritans. For other uses, see Samaritan (disambiguation)
Not to be confused with Samaritan's Purse
Samaritans is a registered charity aimed at providing emotional support to anyone in emotional distress, struggling to cope, or at risk of suicide throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, often through their telephone helpline. Although Samaritans is a secular organisation, the name is derived from the Biblical Parable of the Good Samaritan.[6]
Its international network exists under the name Befrienders Worldwide, which is part of the Volunteer Emotional Support Helplines (VESH) with Lifeline International and the International Federation of Telephone Emergency Services (IFOTES).
History [ edit ]
Samaritans was founded in 1953 by Chad Varah, a vicar in the Church of England Diocese of London. His inspiration came from an experience he had had some years earlier as a young curate in the Diocese of Lincoln. He had taken a funeral for a girl of fourteen who had killed herself because she feared she had contracted an STD. In reality, she was menstruating.[7] Varah placed an advertisement in a newspaper encouraging people to volunteer at his church, listening to people contemplating suicide.[8]
The movement grew rapidly: within ten years there were 40 branches and now there are 201 branches across the UK and Ireland helping many, deliberately organised without regard to national boundaries on the basis that a service which is not political or religious should not recognise sectarian or political divisions.[9] Samaritans offers support through over 21,200 trained volunteers (2015) and is entirely dependent on voluntary support. The name was not originally chosen by Chad Varah: it was part of a headline to an article in the Daily Mirror newspaper on 7 December 1953 about Varah's work.[10]
In 2004, Samaritans announced that volunteer numbers had reached a thirty-year low, and launched a campaign to recruit more young people (specifically targeted at ages 18–24) to become volunteers. The campaign was fronted by Phil Selway, drummer with the band Radiohead, himself a Samaritans volunteer.
Chad Varah breaks with Samaritans [ edit ]
In 2004, Varah announced that he had become disillusioned with Samaritans. He said, "It's no longer what I founded. I founded an organisation to offer help to suicidal or equally desperate people. The last elected chairman re-branded the organisation. It was no longer to be an emergency service, it was to be emotional support".[11] One in five calls to Samaritans are from someone with suicidal feelings.[12] Samaritans' vision is that fewer people will die by suicide.[13]
Services [ edit ]
The core of Samaritans' work is a telephone helpline, operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Samaritans was the first 24-hour telephone helpline to be set up in the UK. In addition, the organisation offers a drop-in service for face-to-face discussion, undertakes outreach at festivals and other outdoor events, trains prisoners as "Listeners" to provide support within prisons, and undertakes research into suicide and emotional health issues.
Since 1994, Samaritans has also offered confidential email support. Initially operating from one branch, the service is now provided by 198 branches and co-ordinated from the organisation's head office. In 2011, Samaritans received over 206,000 emails, including many from outside the UK, and aims to answer each one within twelve hours. In 2009, Ofcom introduced the first harmonised European numbers for harmonised services of social value,[14] allocating 116 123 to Samaritans. This number is free to call from mobiles and landlines. From 22 September 2015, Samaritans has promoted 116123 as their main number, replacing the premium rate 0845 number previously advertised.
In 2014, Samaritans received 5,100,000 calls for help—almost one every six seconds—by phone, email, text, letter, minicom, Typetalk, face-to-face at a branch, through their work in prisons, and at local and national festivals and other events.[15]
Samaritans volunteers are given rigorous training, and as such they are non-judgmental, empathic and congruent. By listening and asking open questions, the Samaritans volunteers help people explore their feelings and work out their own way forward.
Samaritans does not denounce suicide, and it is not necessary to be suicidal to contact Samaritans. In 2014, nearly 80% of the people calling Samaritans did not express suicidal feelings.[15] Samaritans believes that offering people the opportunity to be listened to in confidence, and accepted without prejudice, can alleviate despair and make emotional health a mainstream issue.
Media guidelines [ edit ]
In 2013, following extensive consultation with journalists and editors throughout the industry, Samaritans produced a set of guidelines outlining best practice when reporting suicide. Since its publication, the organisation has received many awards in recognition of its work influencing the way in which suicide is reported.
Samaritans Radar [ edit ]
On 29 October 2014, Samaritans launched the Samaritans Radar app, which Twitter users could activate to analyse tweets posted by people they followed; it sent an email alert to the user if it detected signs of distress in a tweet. However, because Twitter users were not notified that their account was being monitored in this way, concerns were raised that the service could be abused by stalkers and internet trolls, who would instantly be made aware that an intended victim was potentially feeling vulnerable.
Following concerns, the service was suspended on 7 November 2014, nine days after launch. Joe Ferns, policy director for Samaritans, said in a statement: "We have made the decision to suspend the application at this time for further consideration". He added: "We are very aware that the range of information and opinion, which is circulating about Samaritans Radar, has created concern and worry for some people and would like to apologise to anyone who has inadvertently been caused any distress. This was not our intention".[16][17] The app was later withdrawn completely.[18]
Confidentiality [ edit ]
Samaritans have a strict code of caller confidentiality, even after the death of a caller. Unless the caller gives consent to pass on information, confidentiality will be broken only in rare circumstances, such as when Samaritans receives bomb or terrorism warnings, to call an ambulance because a caller appears to be incapable of making rational decisions for him or herself, or when the caller is threatening volunteers or deliberately preventing the service being delivered to other callers.[19]
In November 2011, the Board of Trustees UK agreed a motion breaking with confidentiality in the Republic of Ireland by agreeing, “To provide confidential support to children but report to the Health Service Executive any contacts (from either adults or children) where it appears a child is experiencing specific situations such as those that can cause them serious harm from themselves or others.” In 2011, Facebook collaborated with Samaritans to offer help to people in distress. This led to 'cold case' calling, which some believed was an infringement on people's privacy. An Irish journalist wrote of her experience of receiving such a communication.[20]
International reach [ edit ]
Through its email service, Samaritans' work has extended well beyond the UK and Ireland, as messages are received from all around the world.
Samaritans' international reach is through Befrienders Worldwide, an organisation of over 400 centres in 38 countries offering similar activities. Samaritans took on and renamed the Befrienders International network in 2003, a year after it collapsed. Some members of Befrienders Worldwide also use the name Samaritans; this includes centres in the United States, India, Hong Kong, Serbia and Zimbabwe, among others.
The Volunteer Emotional Support Helplines (VESH) combines Samaritans (through Befrienders Worldwide) with the other two largest international services (IFOTES & Lifeline), and plans a combined international network of helplines. In their roles as emotional support service networks, they have all agreed to develop a more effective and robust international interface.
See also:
Similar charities [ edit ]
A number of other helplines exist that offer a similar service to Samaritans. These are often aimed at a specific sector/group of people.
One example is Nightline—student-run listening and information services, based at universities across the country, offer a night time support service for students. Each service is run specifically for students at a particular university/geographical area, and most Nightlines are members of the Nightline Association, a registered charity in England and Wales.
The NSPCC's ChildLine service is similar to Samaritans in some ways. NSPCC (National Service of Prevention of Cruelty to Children) offers support for children only, but Samaritans supports both children and adults alike. The NSPCC does not usually support adults.
Another example is Aware—a national voluntary organisation, based in Ireland, which provides supports to individuals who experience depression with their families and friends. It provides a Helpline service, as well as nationwide Support Groups and monthly lectures, which seek to educate and increase awareness of depression.[23]
See also [ edit ]STAFFORD, England, March 11 (UPI) -- A British family said they had to abandon their home for three days when hundreds of baby spiders hatched from a bunch of bananas.
Jamie Roberts of Staffordshire, England, said he initially thought the bananas he purchased from his local One Stop store had mold on them, but he soon discovered the white spots were not mold when hundreds of baby spiders started crawling out, the Independent reported Tuesday.
"It was like something out of a horror film because suddenly the window sill was moving with hundreds of these spiders," Roberts said.
Roberts, who suffers from arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, said he, his wife and their two children were put up in a hotel for three days by One Stop, which also paid for a pest control company to fill the home with toxic fumes to take care of the spiders.
The spiders were too young for the pest control workers to accurately identify, but Roberts and his wife said they are concerned the creatures could have been Brazilian wandering spiders, a species believed to have been involved in a similar incident last November.
Brazilian wandering spiders are listed by Guinness World Records as the world's most venomous spiders.
"I looked up different types of spiders online and found they looked identical to Brazilian wandering spiders," said Roberts' wife, Crystal.
One Stop released a statement following the incident.
"As soon as our customer contacted us about this issue we took all necessary precautions, including organizing pest control to visit the house and arranging for our customer and his family to stay in a hotel while the fumigation took place," the statement said. "We'd like to reassure all our customers that such instances are extremely rare and we are carrying out a thorough investigation into how this happened."Once you have Windows 8 up and running, the first thing you'll want to do is start installing the apps you need to get things done. Thankfully, Microsoft's new Windows 8 store offers quick access to a number of the applications you'd normally have to go hunt down anyway, but it also has some real treasures worth downloading. Here are some of the best.
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Mail, Calendar, People, and Messaging - You probably already have these apps pre-loaded with WIndows 8. If you don't grab them first. As their names imply, they give you quick access to your email, calendar and contacts right from the Start Screen. Mail and Calendar support multiple account types, including Microsoft and Outlook.com accounts, Google accounts, and others. People can connect with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Outlook. Messaging gives you access to MSN and Facebook friends.
- You probably already have these apps pre-loaded with WIndows 8. If you don't grab them first. As their names imply, they give you quick access to your email, calendar and contacts right from the Start Screen. Mail and Calendar support multiple account types, including Microsoft and Outlook.com accounts, Google accounts, and others. People can connect with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Outlook. Messaging gives you access to MSN and Facebook friends. Kindle - While the Kindle app for Windows 8 works especially well on Surface tablets, it works just as well on your Windows 8 desktop or laptop. Sign in with your Amazon account to get access to all of your Kindle books, and you can even pin them to the Start Screen to get right back to a book you're reading. All of the features you would expect in a Kindle app—highlighting, dictionary lookup, text and background colors, font size, and more—are all available in the app.
- While the Kindle app for Windows 8 works especially well on Surface tablets, it works just as well on your Windows 8 desktop or laptop. Sign in with your Amazon account to get access to all of your Kindle books, and you can even pin them to the Start Screen to get right back to a book you're reading. All of the features you would expect in a Kindle app—highlighting, dictionary lookup, text and background colors, font size, and more—are all available in the app. Google Search - If you still prefer Google to Bing, the Google Search app for Windows 8 puts Google in a nice big tile right on your home screen. The app gives you a nice, simple search bar, but also lets you voice search, gives you quick access to Google services like Gmail, Google News, Google Drive, and Google Reader, and more. It'd be nice to have a Google Search bar right on the Start Screen, but maybe in the next update.
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Evernote - If you're a heavy Evernote user, the Evernote app for Windows 8 lets you browse, edit, organize, and manage your notebooks and notes right from the Start Screen. The app doesn't do anything that the webapp doesn't do, but it's a fast and free way to get to all of your notes without going to the Desktop, opening your preferred browser, and logging in. The Windows 8 app saves you more than a few steps, and gets you working right away.
- If you're a heavy Evernote user, the Evernote app for Windows 8 lets you browse, edit, organize, and manage your notebooks and notes right from the Start Screen. The app doesn't do anything that the webapp doesn't do, but it's a fast and free way to get to all of your notes without going to the Desktop, opening your preferred browser, and logging in. The Windows 8 app saves you more than a few steps, and gets you working right away. MetroTwit - Our favorite Twitter client for Windows, MetroTwit for Windows 8 looks just as good on the Start Screen as it does on the desktop. You can view your streams side-by-side, browse user profiles, update your own stream, view and manage lists, everything you would expect from a solid Twitter client. The free version is ad-supported and only lets you manage one account. If you shell out $5 for the Pro version, you can manage multiple accounts and remove the ads.
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TuneIn Radio - For those of us who enjoy a little streaming music or internet radio while we work, TuneIn Radio, one of your favorite internet radio services, has a Windows 8 app and live tile that gives you complete access to the service's massive catalog of streaming music stations, terrestrial radio stations that simulcast on the internet, and global stations with live streams. Once you hit play, the live tile shows you what you're currently listening to, and you can open other apps, go to the desktop, or get to work without having to go all the way back to the app to quickly check what you're listening to. You can even pin your favorite stations to the Start Screen.
- For those of us who enjoy a little streaming music or internet radio while we work, TuneIn Radio, one of your favorite internet radio services, has a Windows 8 app and live tile that gives you complete access to the service's massive catalog of streaming music stations, terrestrial radio stations that simulcast on the internet, and global stations with live streams. Once you hit play, the live tile shows you what you're currently listening to, and you can open other apps, go to the desktop, or get to work without having to go all the way back to the app to quickly check what you're listening to. You can even pin your favorite stations to the Start Screen. Skitch - Skitch for Windows 8 puts all of the tools of the desktop app on the Start Screen, including the ability to annotes and decorate images, manage uploads to your account, browse images you've already uploaded, and more. You can use the app to take photos from your webcam and upload that, or you can use Skitch to edit pictures already saved to your computer before sharing them.
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FlightAware - One of the nice things about the Start Screen is that it gives you quick access to useful information, often through live tiles. If you travel, or have to pick someone up who's on their way to you, FlightAware tells you more than you could possibly want to know about your flight. Its arrival time, date, current position, even its altitude and speed are all available, and if you need to know when someone's landed, you can create notifications for specific flights so you'll know when to leave for the airport. You can even track national flight delays, so you know if you're in for a rough time when you get there.
- One of the nice things about the Start Screen is that it gives you quick access to useful information, often through live tiles. If you travel, or have to pick someone up who's on their way to you, FlightAware tells you more than you could possibly want to know about your flight. Its arrival time, date, current position, even its altitude and speed are all available, and if you need to know when someone's landed, you can create notifications for specific flights so you'll know when to leave for the airport. You can even track national flight delays, so you know if you're in for a rough time when you get there. XBox SmartGlass - Even if you don't have a Windows 8 tablet, we think that XBox SmartGlass is worth installing if you do have an XBox 360 in your house. Since you can use your computer as a second screen for your XBox through SmartGlass, you can control the browser on your 360 to bring up web pages, you can redeem codes and download games, and if you have downloaded music and video on your Windows 8 PC, you can push them to your 360 to display on the big screen effortlessly. Plus, as more XBox 360 games incorporate SmartGlass features, anyone with a Windows 8 desktop or laptop in your house will be able to interact with the people playing on the TV in the living room.
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Windows 8 Cheat Keys - The Start Screen and all of the changes to Windows 8 are difficult to get used to, we understand that. Windows 8 Cheat Keys is an app that helps you get the hang of it quickly. The app offers multiple tips, time-saving hints, and shortcuts every day to help you navigate Windows 8 like a pro. In no time, you'll be old hat and wondering, "Windows 7 what?"
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The Windows 8 Store is surprisingly large and full of useful apps for an OS and product this new, so don't hesitate to try something new if it looks like it'll be useful for you. There were plenty of apps we didn't cover here because they were either really geared towards Windows 8 tablets like the Surface, or because they came from developers we weren't terribly familiar with. Just like with mobile apps, make sure you take a look at the developer and the permissions an app requires before you install it, and a good glance at the reviews won't hurt either, although you should always take those with a grain of salt.
We should also note that reading news and browsing headlines on the Start Screen was a joy—and there are plenty of apps for newspapers, magazines, and even some tech blogs. Most of the apps just reformat the top stories and articles for comfortable tiled viewing, but it's definitely a fun and interesting way to surf the headlines. With more apps coming to the Windows 8 Store every day, if you don't find an app specifically for your favorite web site or service, just stay tuned—it'll likely appear quickly.Young Indigenous filmmakers tackle crime and its consequences
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The NSW Aboriginal Legal Service is trying to change the high incarceration rate among young Indigenous people by helping them make films about the consequences of crime.
Young Indigenous people are 24 times more likely to be in custody than non-Indigenous youths.
Last night young people travelled from Wagga Wagga, Bourke and Moruya for the premiere of their work in Redfern, Sydney.
The short films were made by people aged 12 to 17.
The project was funded by the Law and Justice Foundation to help educate young people about the legal system.
Fourteen-year-old Kade Dixon from Bourke in the state's north-west made a film about a group of young people who steal some scooters.
I realised if I want to do something good with my future, that means putting myself first and not just hanging around with my mates that do wrong. Peaches, young Indigenous filmmaker.
"The first one we made was Think Twice Before you Steal and it's a story about some kids stealing another kid's scooter from the wharf," he said.
Twelve-year-old Katie Brooksen was in another film about domestic violence in Bourke.
"I pretty much did everything, I did some filming, I helped write the script and I played a role in the video," she said.
"There's heaps of domestic violence so we're trying to give the message, and I think they might listen because it's local people in our community."
Young people just 'going down the wrong track'
Young people from Moruya on the far south coast made a film about three young footballers who are ready to play before a NRL scout.
One of the boys steals a pair of boots at the local sport shops and gets arrested.
Seventeen-year-old Peaches said the group from Moruya wanted to show the consequences of crime.
"Young kids with a lot of opportunities that can do great in life and just going down the wrong track," she said.
"They have a lot of opportunities and a lot of people that can help them be put in their right places, so they can provide a better future for themselves."
Peaches said the story had a personal resonance for her.
"To be honest I've been down that track," she said.
"I've done a lot of crime in my past, for my age, my young age, break and enters, doing shops over, hotties [stolen cars], all the bad stuff."
She said she stopped offending last year when she made a promise to her grandfather.
"Last year, my pop passed away and he wanted me to do something good with my future," she said.
"So I realised if I want to do something good with my future, that means putting myself first and not just hanging around with my mates that do wrong."
Gary Oliver, the CEO of the NSW and ACT Legal Service, said projects like these were trying to change the high detention rates among young Indigenous people.
"I think engaging people at this stage in their life is what's important," he said.
"I think engaging with them and making use they're aware of their rights as well and it gives people the thought that there are other paths for them.
"So it isn't always the path of following others, but the path of doing what you're passionate about.
"Hopefully this is one of the paths people can follow."
Topics: indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, crime, youth, redfern-2016, wagga-wagga-2650, bourke-2840, moruya-2537Buy Photo Fort Collins is changing its Land Use Code and policies regarding the management of prairie dogs. (Photo: Coloradoan library)Buy Photo
Prairie dogs have scored a victory in Fort Collins, or at least their advocates have.
The City Council on Tuesday gave initial approval to a set of changes to the city’s Land Use Code aimed at giving prairie dogs more protection from development than they have enjoyed during the last 20 years.
The changes don’t guarantee that prairie dog colonies on private property would not be disturbed by development or that they would be allowed to stay in place. But the new rules would establish standards for better treatment of the animals as a valued natural resource.
The biggest code change would decrease the colony size threshold for when a developer must take steps to protect the animals or mitigate the impacts to them from development.
The current standard is 50 acres. If a colony is smaller than that, a developer is free to do whatever it chooses with the colony, including fumigation, without oversight from the city.
The new standard, if approved on final reading in the coming weeks, would be 1 acre.
The size difference matters in that the 1-acre standard would cover the majority of remaining prairie dog colonies on private property within the city, according to a staff report.
A prairie dog colony would be considered a special feature during the city’s development review process, meaning it must be addressed. That could mean protection or mitigation.
Mitigation would be considered on a case-by-case basis, as it is now. Requirements could include on- or off-site improvements, relocating the animals or making a payment in lieu of relocation if eradication turns out to be the preferred option.
A developer also would be required to document the timing and methods used for moving or eradicating prairie dogs.
The city may not regulate fumigation under state law, but staff would encourage the use of the most humane method, which at the moment is carbon monoxide, when it’s done.
CLOSE Receiving site sought for colony at Buckingham and Lemay
The changes come after more than a year of work by the local Prairie Dog Relocation Group to encourage the city to review its policies regarding prairie dogs on private land as well as city-owned property, such as natural areas.
The group successfully lobbied for moving hundreds of prairie dogs from near the intersection of Buckingham Street and Lemay Avenue to Cathy Fromme Prairie Natural Area. The move, which was privately funded, was |
across the board among Democrats, Republicans and Independents is plumbing new depths, as reflected in a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll and a Pew Research survey.
Story Continued Below
More than 60 percent of those questioned believe the country is on the wrong track. About the same number think every member of Congress should be replaced — including their own representatives. Most Americans seem to subscribe to Shakespeare’s “plague on both your houses” sentiment, as the poll revealed no preference for either party controlling Congress. Only 12 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing – about the same number as approve of Washington political pundits. (Americans have a higher opinion of colonoscopies, root canals, and used car salesmen than they do Congress, although they hold lobbyists, telemarketers, and the Kardashians in lower esteem.)
And the mainstream political parties are taking a hit, too. Forty-six percent of voters now identify themselves as independents according to Pew – that’s as many as Democrats and Republicans combined and the highest percentage ever.
“Those are staggering numbers,” Olympia Snowe, who resigned from the Senate last year, citing Congress’s increasing inability to actually do anything, said in an interview. “If that isn’t attention-getting, what is?”
“We should be individually and collectively embarrassed by the low esteem in which we are held, but I don’t think embarrassment even occurs to many of them,” Snowe said of her former colleagues. “They just can’t get their act together on any major question.”
Polarization and dysfunction have come to define government. Just look at the depiction of Washington in movies and television, with self-serving and corrupt politicians featured in series like “Scandal” and “House of Cards.” Martin Sheen’s idealistic portrayal of President Josiah Bartlet in “The West Wing,” which aired on television from 1999-2006, would be considered a parody today.
But what are Americans really willing to do about the situation, and does the public deserve a share of the blame for the state of our dysfunctional politics?
“We citizens have a responsibility for a lot of the partisan gridlock, because we don’t vote in primaries,” former Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell told me. Voter turnout in primary elections is much lower than in general elections. Since it is typically party loyalists and activists on the left and right who show up to vote in primaries, centrist candidates who help to forge compromise are disappearing from Congress. Rendell, who considers himself a centrist Democrat, cited former Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware and retired Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, who were defeated in GOP Senate primaries in 2010 and 2012, as examples of the public’s penchant for punishing figures who work across the aisle.
Rendell puts it bluntly: “The voters bear some of the responsibility. They need to turn out. Don’t just complain about Washington: Get off your duff and do something.”
Robert Ehrlich, a Republican former member of Congress and governor of Maryland from 2003-2007, said that the growth of gerrymandered districts – a trend accelerated by the redistricting process that followed the 2010 census — are a big part of the problem. “The seats are safe. Congress can have a single digit approval rating and it doesn’t matter. The center is non-existent.”Update: In March 2018 we computed the shortest tour to nearly every pub in the UK. That is 49,687 pints, more than twice the number we had in the 2016 tour.
Nearly everyone in the UK knows by heart the best path to take them over to their favorite public house. But what about jotting down the shortest route to visit every pub in the country and return home safely? That is what we set out to do.
Okay, maybe every pub is overstating the goal. Pubs in the UK are closing shop or starting up, fresh and new, all of the time. Any route would be out-of-date by the time it was created. So we set a more modest goal: find the shortest route to visit some 24,727 stops found on the great Web site Pubs Galore - The UK Pub Guide.
This is a concrete target. But still an overstatement. Only a real local could possibly know every shortcut, slipping between buildings and along dark allies, to find the absolute best way to reach The Fiddler's Elbow or The Bald Faced Stag. This is well out of reach for a humble team of mathematicians.
Here we rely on the fantastic service provided by Google Maps. Ask Google for the shortest way to walk from The Elbow over to The Stag and it will respond with excellent step-by-step directions. The level of detail covered by Google Maps is amazing.
So this is our challenge. Using geographic coordinates of 24,727 pubs provided by Pubs Galore and measuring the distance between any two pubs as the length of the route produced by Google Maps, what is the shortest possible tour that visits all 24,727 and returns to the starting point?
Well, almost. We need to make one final assumption. It sounds like something only a mathematician would consider, but we have to assume that the route Google suggests for walking between The Fiddler's Elbow and The Bald Faced Stag is no shorter than the route a smart crow would fly. This makes it conceivable to solve the problem without actually asking Google for the distance to travel between each pair of pubs, an important consideration since there are 305,699,901 pairs and Google puts a cap of 2,500 distance requests per day.
This is the problem we have solved. The optimal tour has length 45,495,239 meters. To be clear, our main result is that there simply does not exist any pub tour that is even one meter shorter (measuring the length using the distances we obtained from Google) than the one produced by our computation. It is the solution to a 24,727-city traveling salesman problem (TSP).
The UK Pubs tour is easily the largest such road-distance TSP that has been solved to date, having over 100 times more stops than any road-distance example solved previously by other research groups.
The Big Picture
The work was carried out over the past two years. We, of course, did not have in mind to bring everything mathematics has to bear in order to improve the lot of a wandering pub aficionado. Rather, we use the UK pubs problem as a means for developing and testing general-purpose optimization methods. The world has limited resources and the aim of the applied mathematics fields of mathematical optimization and operations research is to create tools to help us to use these resources as efficiently as possible.
For general information on mathematical modeling and its impact on industry, commerce, medicine, and the environment, we point you to a number of societies that support mathematics research and education: American Mathematical Society, Mathematical Association of America, Mathematical Optimization Society, INFORMS (operations research), London Mathematical Society, and SIAM (applied mathematics).
Research Team
William Cook, Combinatorics and Optimization, University of Waterloo, Canada
Daniel Espinoza, Gurobi Optimization, USA
Marcos Goycoolea, School of Business, Universidad Adolfo Ibanez, Chile
Keld Helsgaun, Computer Science, Roskilde University, Denmark
The Tour
It is not easy to convey the structure and complexity of the optimal tour. A list of the 24,727 pubs, one after the other, in the correct order, resembles a good-sized phone book. Perhaps the best way to get a quick view is to look at a line drawing, where the solution is displayed without indicating the many destinations.
Click image for a larger view.
You see that we obviously cannot walk several of the indicated routes: to reach the Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, and the islands of Scotland, the tour uses scheduled passenger-ferry routes provided by Google's direction services.
To show a detailed view, we make use of the Google Maps drawing tools to display an interactive version of the tour, where you can zoom in and pan from one region to another. The link is given below, but first a word of warning: the map contains a great deal of information and it can take a minute or so to load. We provide tips for using the map on the tour page.
Click image for an interactive map.
If the map refuses to load for you, please have a look at the tour page for high-resolution screen shots, as well as further information about the route.
Optimality
How do we know the tour is the shortest possible? Clearly we did not check every tour, one by one by one. Indeed, the first thing you learn about the TSP is that it is impossible to solve in this way. If you have N cities, then, starting from any point, you have N-1 possibilities for the second city. Then N-2 possibilities for the third city, and so on. The total number of tours is obtained by multiplying these values: N-1 x (N-2) x (N-3) x... x 3 x 2 x 1. Now this is a big number. For the pubs problem, it is roughly 1 followed by 100,000 zeroes. That is in an unimaginably large number of possibilities. Even for 50 cities, the world's fastest supercomputer has no hope of going through the full count of tours one by one to pick out the shortest.
But this by itself does not mean we can't possibily solve an example of the TSP. If you have 50 words to put into alphabetical order, you don't worry about the 50 x 49 x 48 x... x 3 x 2 x 1 possible lists you could create. You just sort the words from first to last and build the one correct list among the huge number of possibilities.
For the TSP we don't know of any simple and fast solution method like we have for sorting words. And, for technical reasons, it is believed that there may be large, nasty TSP examples that no one can ever solve. (If you are interested in this and could use an extra $1,000,000, check out the P vs NP problem.) But if you need to plot a 50-point route for a holiday or to compute the order of 1,000 items on a DNA strand, then mathematics can help, even if you need the absolute shortest-possible solution.
The way to proceed is via a process known as the cutting-plane method. If you have twenty minutes to spare, there is a video explaining the method and how it is used to solve the TSP (in the pleasing voice of Siri). If you are in a hurry, here is how I try to describe the process in a short piece in Scientific American
The idea is to follow Yogi Berra's advice "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." A tool called linear programming allows us to do just this, assigning fractions to roads joining pairs of cities, rather than deciding immediately whether to use a road or not. It is perfectly fine, in this model, to send half a salesman along both branches of the fork. The process begins with the requirement that, for every city, the fractions assigned to the arriving and departing roads each sum to one. Then, step-by-step, further restrictions are added, each involving sums of fractions assigned to roads. Linear programming eventually points us to the best decision for each road, and thus the shortest possible route.
Our pubs computation used a beefed-up version of the Concorde implementation of the TSP cutting-plane method. Even if you are in a hurry, you might want to see for yourself how the process solves smaller examples on an iPhone or iPad by downloading the free Concorde App.
In working with road data, we were faced with the additional challenge of finding the correct TSP solution even though we could not possibly ask Google for all 305,699,901 pub-to-pub distances. To handle this, we ran the cutting-plane method in tandem with a beefy variant of Keld Helsgaun's LKH code.
LKH combines a powerful local-search technique with a genetic algorithm to produce a high-quality tour, say of length U. Along the way, LKH discovers pairs of pubs that look promising to include in any short tour, so for these pairs we ask Google for the correct walking distances.
While this is going on, Concorde's cutting-plane method finds a fractional tour of value L. From the way this is constructed with linear programming, we know for sure that no TSP tour can have value less than L. During this process, Concorde also discovers pairs of pubs that look promising, in this case for fractional solutions, so we ask Google also for these distances.
Any new data obtained from Google is shared between LKH and Concorde, while both codes continue to look for better results. That is, we aim to decrease the value of U by finding better tours, and we aim to increase the value of L by adding further restrictions to the fractional linear-programming model. At any point, we know the optimal tour length is trapped between L and U, that is, we know the difference between the length of our tour and the length of an optimal tour is at most U - L. The name of the game is to reduce this gap U - L as quickly as we can.
Eventually, in the pubs computation, the algorithms inside LKH and Concorde became satisfied that they had an adequate collection of Google distances, LKH could find no further improvements in its tour, and the cutting-plane method in Concorde could only produce tiny improvements in the value of its fractional tour. At this point, we had L = 45,492,247 and U = 45,495,239, and thus a gap of 2,992 meters.
To finish off the problem, we then turned to Concorde's branch-and-bound search procedure. In this process, the collection of tours is repeatedly subdivided and the cutting-plane method is applied to the resulting TSP subproblems. The simplest form of the division is to select a pair of pubs, say The Black Dog and The Duke of Cornwall in Weymouth, and consider first only tours where the two pubs are visited consecutively, then consider only tours where, between the stops at The Dog and The Duke, we drop in on at least one other pub along the way. This selection divides the set of all tours neatly into two subsets.
In this this final phase of the computation, we processed a large, but manageable, collection of 4,231 subproblems. The total amount of computer time was 305.2 days on a single processor core of a Linux server. We didn't actually have to wait the full 10 months for the results, since we ran the search in parallel on up to 48 cores.
Click here to see a drawing of the search tree, where the position of a subproblem corresponds to the value of its fractional tour. For a closer look, here is a pdf file for the tree.
The computing time was reasonable enough to allow us to run the branch-and-bound phase a second time, using different settings to test the selection rule for the subdivisions. This second run processed a total of 5,687 subproblems in a total of 1381.1 days. Of course, it again produced the same optimal value of 45,495,239 meters.
Data
If you are interested in creating your own local pub tour, the best bet for data is to go back to the original sources, Pubs Galore for locations and Google Maps for up-to-date walking distances. But the information provided by these sources changes over time. Therefore, to document the 24,727-stop TSP instance we have solved, we provide the raw data needed to reproduce the travel distances on the data page.
Tour-Finding History
Early computational studies focused on the most natural class of salesman problems: select an interesting group of cities, look up the point-to-point distances in a road atlas, and have a go at finding the shortest tour. Record-setting solutions were found by legendary figures in applied mathematics and computer science.
The first reference, in particular, is widely viewed as the most important paper in the history of the broad fields of discrete optimization and integer programming. The links are to technical research papers. For lighter viewing, have a quick look at a slide show of these record-breaking results
In the late 1970s, the focus switched to geometric examples of the TSP, where cities are points drawn on a sheet of paper and travel is measured by straight-line distances. The reasons were twofold. First, with over 100 stops it became difficult to obtain driving distances along road networks: printed road atlases included distances only for major cities. Second, there were classes of industrial problems that neatly fit into the geometric TSP setting. Indeed, the next world record, set in 1980 by Harlan Crowder and Manfred Padberg, consisted of locations of 318 holes that had to be drilled into a printed-circuit board.
Geometric TSP instances, arising in applications or from geographic locations, were gathered together in the TSPLIB by Gerhard Reinelt. This collection became the standard testbed for researchers. The largest of the instances, having 85,900 points arising in a VLSI application, was solved by Applegate et al. in 2006.
The geometric data sets are worthy adversaries, but the large industrial instances have points clustered into straight lines. These examples are punching below their weight, likely missing aspects of the complexity of the road TSP problems.
So, why not take advantage of the modern day atlas provided by Google Maps? One of the first people to put together a TSP challenge instance with Google data was Randal Olson, who found a good tour to visit 50 USA landmarks. His tour was the subject of one of the most heavily reported math stories in 2015, including an article in the Washington Post and a radio interview on NPR's Weekend Edition. See our discussion of the 50 landmarks problem.
Following Olson's work, a number of people created similar touring problems in the US and abroad. The largest of these was a route through the 200 Tesla Superchargers in the United States. When I wrote that the UK pubs problem was a factor of 100 larger than previously solved road-TSP examples, it was in reference to this work by Mortada Mehyar.
Okay, the factor of 100 is not really true. While building up the expertise, algorithms, and software to tackle the UK pubs example, we solved a number of smaller instances along the way. The largest of these has 3,100 points in the US. But these were solved with the bigger target in mind.
Our final goal is even larger: a shortest-possible walking tour through 49,603 stops from the US National Register of Historic Places. This problem is quite a beast. We currently have a tour of length 350,201,525 meters. That is a little less than the distance to the moon. But we don't know if this is actually the shortest tour. All we can say at this point (October 19, 2016) is that there you definitely have to walk at least 350,201,329 meters to reach all 49,603 stops. So there might possibly be a tour that is 196 meters shorter than our tour. Ouch! Close is just not good enough.
Update: It took 178 years of total computing time, but have finally solved the 49,603-stop US History Tour.
Acknowledgements
Google Maps provided the interface between the real world and the abstract mathematical model of the TSP. The engineers at Google do all of the heavy lifting in dealing with paths, roads, traffic circles, construction sites, closures, detours, and on and on.
Pubs Galore - The UK Pub Guide is the source for the locations of the stops on our TSP tour. No matter where you are in the UK, the Pubs Galore site will help you find a cozy place for a meal and a drink.
The huge number of linear-programming models that arose in the computation were solved with the IBM CPLEX Optimizer. Many thanks to IBM for making their great software freely available for academic research.
This research was carried out in part during the Combinatorial Optimization trimester program at the Hausdorff Research Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, Germany.
Other Road Trips
Further ReadingI used to work in a restaurant, and we’d make these Thai-style fishcakes (using smoked salmon) that everyone would rave about. Obviously I couldn’t taste them because I don’t eat fish, so I thought I’d make my own veggie version – Thai-style corn and potato cakes. My corn and feta potato cakes went down a storm, but since I’m trying to force myself not to put cheese in everything (believe it or not), I thought I’d make this version vegan.
Before anyone leaves me a million messages telling me how un-Thai these are, let me state for the record: I have no idea how authentically Thai these might be. Probably not very. I can’t imagine they make potato cakes too often in Thailand. Don’t go making these if you want something that tastes like it’s been made by a little old lady in Phuket. There’s a reason I called these ‘Thai-style’ not just ‘Thai’.
That said, these do include all of my favourite Thai-style flavours: lime, coriander and chilli. The basis of this recipe is just mashed potato, but these added flavours makes these potato cakes seem really special. There’s just enough chilli to give a nice gentle heat. I used one fairly small red chilli, but it was quite a mild one – you can see the type I used in the photos. Remember, these potato cakes are only cooked for a few minutes each side in a pan, so you don’t want to choose a chilli that’s too strong, even if you like things spicy.
The mixture for these potato cakes sticks together really well – the potato makes a great glue. Remember, though, that they’re quite soft, so you need to be fairly delicate with them in the pan. Pick them up with a spatula and flip them gently. Their softness is actually one of the things that makes these potato cakes so gorgeous to eat – they have a nice crispy top and bottom, but inside they’re smooth and creamy like normal mashed potato. The hint of lime adds a perfect tangy flavour.
We had these on their own for lunch (they’d be great with a dollop of spicy salsa or a drizzle of sweet chilli sauce), but they’d also be the perfect great side dish to have alongside a Thai curry or stir fry.
Thai-style corn and potato cakes Print Prep time 15 mins Cook time 10 mins Total time 25 mins Author: Becca @ Amuse Your Bouche Recipe type: Side dish Yield: 2 Ingredients 425g potato (around 2 medium potatoes)
1 small red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
3tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
Juice of half a lime
Salt
Black pepper
100g tinned sweetcorn kernels (drained)
3tbsp oil, for frying Instructions Chop up the potatoes (I left the skins on) and cook them until tender - I did mine in the microwave (in a covered bowl with a dash of water - it took about 9 minutes), but you could boil or steam them if you prefer. Be aware that if you boil your potato, it might end up being a little wetter than if you use one of the other methods, so you might want to add a little less lime juice or your mixture might be too wet. When the potato is cooked, mash it well. If you left the skins on like I did, you might need to use a knife to break up the skins a little. Add the chopped chilli, coriander, lime juice and seasonings, and mash together. Add the corn, and mix to combine. With clean hands, shape the mixture into four patties. Heat the oil in a pan until it sizzles when a tiny piece of the mixture is added. Carefully add the potato cakes (use a spatula to help them stay together), and cook over a medium heat until the underside of each potato cake is golden brown (it should just take a few minutes). Carefully flip the patties over, and repeat with the other side. If they look at all greasy, drain them on kitchen paper before serving. 3.2.1255
More potato side dish recipes:
Garlic and parsley fries
Cheesy herbed potatoes anna
Asparagus and goat’s cheese potato salad
Brie and mushroom potato gratin
Crispy potato mojos from Pinch of Yum
Mom’s mashed potatoes from Cooking Classy
Tunisian-inspired chickpea and potato salad from Fat Free Vegan KitchenDESTIN, Fla. -- If Florida coach Will Muschamp and athletic director Jeremy Foley have their way, both LSU and Florida State will stay on the Gators' schedule regardless of how many SEC games are on Florida's slate.
It's a good call by Muschamp and Foley because both games are big for the program, and big for the money pot. Anyone who knows anything about Florida football recognizes the bitterness and enthusiasm the Gators' rivalry with the Seminoles, which dates back to 1958, exudes.
"The Florida State game is very important to us," Foley said. "I don't see that changing."
FSU's Jimbo Fisher (left) and Florida's Will Muschamp are good friends and have a lot in common, but this year they have seen their programs head in opposite directions. AP Photo/Phil Sears
Keeping Florida State on the schedule is a no-brainer for the Gators, but there has been plenty of talk about potentially ending the Florida-LSU series, especially from LSU's camp. This game has been played for 42 consecutive years, and the two became permanent cross-division opponents when the SEC split into divisions in 1992. But LSU coach Les Miles and athletic director Joe Alleva have been very public this week about getting rid of permanent crossover opponents.
Muschamp understands LSU's stance on moving from the current 6-1-1 format to a 6-2 format, which has two crossover rotators and no permanent opponent, but he believes this game is too important to scrap.
"It's a great game for our league," Muschamp said. "I've been on both sides of it as a coordinator and now as a head coach. It's a national game for our league.
"At the end of the day, a 6-2 format is probably the fairest format -- if you want to be honest -- but I do enjoy the rivalry."
Miles, whose Tigers already share a division with Alabama and Texas A&M, doesn't want to have to continue playing one of the East's top teams every year if other squads don't face similar challenges.
"I think you play your division, rotate two teams [from the other division]," Miles said. "Everybody in the country can honor and visually see that that's the honest, straightforward way to do it."
I understand where Miles is coming from. Alabama and Georgia are dealing with permanent opponents who have fallen in recent years, while LSU played 11-win teams in Florida and South Carolina last year, going 1-1 against them. This fall, the Tigers host Florida and play at Georgia, both of which will probably be top-10 teams entering the fall.
Alabama's East opponents are Kentucky and Tennessee (permanent), which both have new head coaches.
“I'm totally opposed to permanent opponents," Alleva said. "It has nothing to do with Florida. I think it’s a competitive disadvantage to every team in the league to have a permanent opponent. I think they all should rotate. It’s better for our fans, it’s better for our players. We have players who never get to play against some SEC teams. So from a competitive standpoint, from a student-welfare standpoint, from our fans' standpoint I think we should just play six in our division and rotate the other two.”
It's going to be tough for LSU to get rid of Florida because of other more historical crossover rivalries, such as Alabama-Tennessee and Georgia-Auburn. SEC commissioner Mike Slive has been adamant about not getting rid of those games and said a hybrid format with only some teams having permanent crossover opponents hasn't been discussed.
"The rivalry games are important," Slive said. "Otherwise I would have given you the [scheduling] format last Monday."
One rivalry the Gators aren't high on is the one against Miami. This fall, Florida will play Miami for the fifth time since 2002, but Foley doesn't consider the rivalry, which was hot before the 1990s, much of a priority -- especially if the SEC moves to nine conference games.
"You never say never, but that's not high on the agenda right now," Foley said. "For me to sit here and say, 'Well, we'll do that down the road,' there's too many unknowns in scheduling right now. If you're at nine conference games plus Florida State, I'd probably tell you it's unlikely. There's been no conversation between us and the University of Miami."By EVAN REAM
A vital three points are at stake Saturday as the struggling New York Cosmos and Atlanta Silverbacks meet in a rematch of the 2013 NASL Soccer Bowl at Hoftstra Stadium.
Coming off a loss to then bottom-of-the table Indy Eleven, the Silverbacks desperately need a result as they sit five points behind fourth place Tampa Bay for the final playoff berth in the combined Spring and Fall table.
Loanee Danny Mwanga will look to continue his song start to his NASL career for the defending-champion Cosmos where the former MLS No. 1 overall draft pick opened his scoring account in the previous week, scoring the winner against Fort Lauderdale.
The Cosmos currently hold the third seed in the playoffs, but have compiled just a 3-3-4 record, while scoring just four goals in five games at home during the Fall Championship.
Here’s a look at the rest of the action taking place in the NASL Saturday:
CAROLINA RAILHAWKS vs. SAN ANTONIO SCORPIONS
First place San Antonio travels to North Carolina looking to extend their stranglehold on the Fall Championship and the automatic playoff berth that comes with finishing first.
The teams are coming off results from opposite ends of the spectrum as the Scorpions easily defeated Edmonton at home, while the Railhawks gave up a controversial goal in the last play of the game to merely draw Ottawa.
Currently struggling in the fall season, Carolina can still make a push towards the NASL playoffs as a win could put the Railhawks into a playoff position if Tampa Bay and Fort Lauderdale fail to garner results.
INDY ELEVEN – EDMONTON
Nineteen games into club history, Indy Eleven has failed to give its strong group of fans what they want most – a win at home.
The Midwestern club has a chance to finally please its home fans, and procure the first winning streak in franchise history, when they take on the Canadian side in Indianapolis Saturday.
Edmonton will be shorthanded for the match as Eddies defender Eddie Edward and midfielder Cristian Raudales are both suspended due to red cards they received in their blowout loss to San Antonio last week.
TAMPA BAY ROWDIES – OTTAWA FURY
Since joining the league this year, Ottawa has struggled to compile good results, with just three victories in the spring season and just one thus far in the fall.
That single victory though, came two weeks ago at home against Tampa Bay, who are win-less in their last three games after starting the season 5-1-0.
Both teams received solid signs last week in grinding out draws: the Fury scored a last-second goal to tie it and 2013 NASL MVP Georgi Hristov looked to finally be rounding himself into his great form of last year as he found himself on the score sheet for just the sixth time of the season.
MINNESOTA UNITED – FORT LAUDERDALE STRIKERS
The final match-up of the night could end up proving the most meaningful. While Minnesota has already clinched a playoff spot thanks to their 6-1-2 record in the spring season, United has fallen one point behind San Antonio for the top spot in the combined season.
Minnesota will look to regain that spot, but host the Strikers who are just one point out of a playoff spot themselves.
Both teams are coming off of disappointing results and will look for a quick turnaround at the National Sports Center in Blaine, Minnesota.Quetta, where ISIS militants attacked +
wake of the Panama Papers leaks +
responsible if a "third-force" stepped in +
ISLAMABAD: Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan on Tuesday claimed that India was trying to "implode" Pakistan and sabotage moves against corruption.The 64-year-old Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman also accused Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of being a "security risk" to the country."A new doctrine has originated in India which aims to implode Pakistan because they have failed to defeat us militarily," Imran told reporters outside his residence here before leaving fora police training centre."...to make Pakistan descend into chaos without any reforms," he said, adding that India did not want an inside political reform movement to succeed.Noting that corruption and militancy funding in Pakistan "run side by side", Imran also called Sharif a "security risk" for the country as the Prime Minister was only interested in saving himself from the accountability in the"His only aim is to save himself from the repercussions of the revelations regarding his corruption in Panama leaks," he said.The PTI leader also demanded the government highlight the names of those government officials who were involved in leaking crucial information regarding a high-level security meeting in Islamabad.Two days ago, the PTI leader had warned that Nawaz Sharif would beas a result of his party's lockdown of the Pakistani capital next week to press the demand for Sharif's resignation on corruption charges after the publication of 'Panama Papers'.Though the cricketer-turned-politician did not name the "third force", his statement seemed to refer to the powerful military establishment, a key player in Pakistani politics.Imran Khan accused the government of defaming the Pakistan Army on the pretext of PTI's protest.'Panama Papers' are not accusations but evidence of the Prime Minister's corruption, Imran claimed.According to the Panama Papers, three of Sharif's four children - Maryam, Hasan and Hussain — were owners of offshore companies and "were owners or had the right to authorise transactions for several companies."Sharif and his family have dismissed the allegations of money laundering and denied any wrongdoing but the opposition is demanding an independent probe.The Wheel Inn truck stop and diner along the 10 Freeway in Cabazon has suddenly closed. Along with giant dinosaur statues, the diner was famous for home-cooking and pies.
The late Claude Bell created the dinos to keep watch of his Wheel Inn restaurant, which opened in 1958.
We will soon know if Dinny the dinosaur has his own following or if he was fed tourists of the Wheel Inn restaurant.
According to the Press-Enterprise, the manager of the restaurant says the building needed improvements and busy weekends weren't enough to pay the bills.
For a lot of us, the dinosaurs bring back feelings of nostalgia.
"We got to come out and see the dinosaurs and take pictures and play on them. It was always a highlight as a child to come to this area," said Stacy Wulkan of San Jose.
It's possible Dinny, along with the Tyrannosaurus rex, will still attract their own fans even without the home-cooking, but only time will tell.
"All the old landmarks, unfortunately, seem to be going by the wayside, which is really sad. I stopped here today because this was a remembrance of my childhood," said Wulkan.
No one knows what will become of the Wheel Inn restaurant, but maybe the dinosaurs are not quite yet in danger of extinction.
The Wheel Inn restaurant may be closed, but you can still go visit the dinosaurs. They're still standing in Cabazon and they're pretty hard to miss.I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about purely functional programming lately. There’s a lot of exciting stuff going on in the domain lately, mostly thanks to Haskell, which is the only purely functional programming language anyone cares about nowadays. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with this in and of itself but there’s a disturbing trend that naturally comes about as a result: tending to view Haskell as a “baseline” for type systems and programming language features. /u/tactics describes this well:
The issue is that any type system will simultaneously be too weak to express some constraints and strong enough to keep you from getting your job done.
There’s a fallacy in presuming that because Haskell (or more generally, any language) has some feature, it should be considered the baseline.
Haskell is littered with good examples of its own limitations (as is any language). Need a version of liftM which will work with two parameters? No problem, we have liftM2. Need one that will work with 6? No can do. Pretty much any library that works with arbitrary tuple types suffers from the same problem that you can’t write code generically over n-tuples.
Similarly, Haskell has no straightforward, culturally-standardized way to prevent users from entering negative numbers into a function, and many basic functions (length, foldl) are partial, with no indication at the type level (and frankly, at the documentation level) that their inputs should not be infinite.
That’s one person’s words, with some specific examples. I agree with the spirit of that comment which I would summarize simply as “Haskell hasn’t necessarily done everything right”. Sometimes, people default to thinking that Haskell’s approach is “the right one” for purely functional programming languages, first of all because it’s the only purely functional programming language that is remotely mainstream, and secondly because there is so much that Haskell did right, but make no mistake: the conversation isn’t over because Haskell had a say. (See the conversation about typeclasses vs. ML-style modules, lazy vs. eager evaluation, first-class records vs. whatever it is that Haskell has, etc.) This fallacy isn’t good for functional programming in general, and it doesn’t only affect people who are already functional programmers. I’ve heard people insist they dislike functional programming when, in fact, what they dislike is some particular choice that Haskell made which perplexed or frustrated them. In this post I’m going to describe one of those choices and I’m going to describe an alternative which I, personally, think is undisputably better. Here it is:
IO
Somewhat predictably, I’m writing about IO here. IO and functional programming have somewhat of a contentious relationship because, in a way, they’re sort of diametrically opposed: functional programming isn’t functional programming if it doesn’t make an effort to control and greatly limit side effects. So figuring out how to make IO “work” with Haskell back in the 90’s was awfully confusing until someone proposed the IO type. This has been explained to death in other posts so just google “mon |
2. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)
Duncan spoke negatively about Starr to de Blasio in a discussion about a number of candidates, people familiar with the discussions said. Duncan did not return phone calls seeking comment. Duncan spokesman Massie Ritsch, asked about Duncan’s conversations about the chancellorship and his objections to Starr, said he “declined to comment on private conversations between the mayor and secretary.”
“Secretary Duncan looks forward to working with Mayor de Blasio, Chancellor Farina and their team,” Ritsch said in a statement. “He wants to do whatever he can to support continued progress for students in New York City.”
Starr referred requests for comment to Montgomery County Schools spokesman Dana Tofig, who released a statement Tuesday from Starr indicating that he is dedicated to his current job.
“I appreciate that my name was among those mentioned for the Chancellor’s position in New York City,” Starr said in the statement. “I am very happy as the Superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools and look forward to working with the staff and community to provide all students with the skills and knowledge that will prepare them to succeed in their future.”
Phil Kauffman, head of the Montgomery County Board of Education, said he did not want to comment on Starr’s candidacy for the position in New York.
Several people familiar with the New York selection process said that Jim Shelton, the assistant deputy secretary of education for innovation and improvement, also expressed to de Blasio’s team that he opposed Starr, although he was not speaking for the department or for Duncan. Shelton, asked about his comments, said in an e-mail that he did have conversations about the chancellor selection process, but Shelton did not answer specific questions relating to Starr.
“I have a number of decades old relationships in New York and when asked by friends and former colleagues I shared my personal impressions on the unique demands of the Chancellor role and at times specific candidates,” Shelton wrote. “I am excited to work with and support Carmen Farina, whose prior experience working in New York will surely be an advantage as she takes the helm of one of the country’s most complex and diverse school systems.”
De Blasio could not be reached for comment.
It is unclear whether Duncan’s views had any effect on the outcome of de Blasio’s search, but it is unusual for a U.S. education secretary to get involved in the selection of a district school superintendent.
But Duncan, seen by many as the most activist leader of the 35-year-old department, has done so before.
In January 2011, while D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) deliberated on who would succeed Michelle A. Rhee as D.C. schools chancellor, Duncan said publicly that he hoped Kaya Henderson, Rhee’s deputy, would get the job. She did.
Starr was one of three current or former schools leaders in the Baltimore-Washington region whose names surfaced in connection with the New York job, considered one of the premier education posts in the nation.
The others were Henderson and Andrés Alonso, former chief executive officer of the Baltimore City public school system, suggesting that the region is a hot spot for education reform and a training ground for education leaders.
Get updates on your area delivered via e-mailThe American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois on Wednesday continued the push for reforms in the Chicago Police Department by filing a lawsuit claiming it mistreats people with disabilities in black and Latino communities.
In August, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan sued the police department for alleged discrimination of black and Latino residents. The AG’s action followed on the heels of a damning Justice Department report on police brutality in the city released in January.
The federal lawsuit filed on Wednesday by the ACLU and four community groups comes as Attorney General Jeff Sessions has moved away from an Obama-era policy to prosecute and monitor troubled police departments. Sessions was skeptical of the Justice Department report, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in August that talks for monitoring have ground to a halt.
The community groups said they filed the lawsuit to ensure that CPD reforms are long-term and not abandoned as “political winds shift.”
Equip for Equality, Community Renewal Society, Communities United, Next Steps and ONE Northside joined the ACLU as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Related | Battlefield America: We’re Not In Mayberry Anymore
The groups said they also want to make sure that the concerns of people with disabilities are on the table.
In addition to focusing on reform efforts on how force is used against black and Latinos in Chicago, the groups say the city has failed to train and monitor officers to make sure that they safely interact with people of color with disabilities.
“Racism embedded in the CPD’s policing tactics results in the CPD having more contacts with black and Latino residents, during which officers use…unnecessary force,” the lawsuit states. “This brutality is also magnified for people with disabilities, who disproportionately interact with and are more likely to experience violence by the CPD.”
In the United States, one-third to one-half of fatal police incidents involve someone with disabilities, according to the lawsuit, and a quarter of victims of police violence are people with a mental illness.
“The City of Chicago deploys CPD officers armed with guns and Tasers but not deployed with critical de-escalation skills, and in doing so subjects residents, police officers, and bystanders to harm. When people with disabilities are subjected to CPD’s use of force, the role that their disability played is often either ignored or cited to blame the victim,” the 53-page complaint states.
The Justice Department has said CPD was not doing enough to train officers for interactions with people with disabilities, according to a statement from the ACLU.
Barry Taylor, vice president of civil rights at Equip for Equality, said that he had heard stories of “frightening, dangerous interactions” between Chicago police and citizens with disabilities.
“Police need the training and preparation necessary to ensure that these interactions do not occur in the future. This must be a part of police reform in this city,” Taylor said in a statement.
The Justice Department report exposed a police department where racism has become ingrained in the culture, according to the groups, who say that has created a pattern of excessive force, cover-ups, and a failure to embrace community policing.
Even though the Justice Department concluded that a consent decree with an independent monitor is needed to reform the department, there is still nothing on the table, the ACLU said.
Mayor Emanuel promised in August to work with the Illinois Attorney General to settle her lawsuit, but the community groups said they felt compelled to file their own complaint because the city continues to seek dismissal of a lawsuit filed in June by black civil rights groups.
“The City of Chicago cannot negotiate this agreement behind closed doors. True oversight must involve impacted communities,” Roxanne Smith of Communities United said.
Attorney General Madigan has said she will leave office in early 2019. The ACLU says that raises “the prospect that her office’s commitment to a decree could disappear with a new attorney general.”
“Plaintiffs bring this action to ensure that public safety – and particularly the safety of people of color and people with disabilities – does not continue to be compromised as political winds shift,” the complaint states.
The groups seek a declaratory judgment that Chicago is violating the federal and state constitutions, a permanent injunction, and an order for the city to create a plan outlining how it will reform its policies and train, supervise and discipline its officers.
They are represented by Karen Sheley of the ACLU of Illinois.
CPD spokesman Michael Carroll declined to comment on the pending litigation.
Read the full text of the ACLU complaint
Download the PDF file.
Top photo | In this Nov. 24, 2015, file photo, Chicago police officers line up outside the District 1 central headquarters in Chicago, during a protest for the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. (AP/Paul Beaty File)
© Courthouse News ServiceSo, judging from the traffic coming in this past day, people are very interested in the Dresden Files Role Playing Game preview sent to the playtesters a couple of days ago. I’m still working my way through the books (did I mention it’s almost 700 pages?), but I figured I’d do two things to help satisfy the desire for information.
First, I’m going to invite questions. Want to know something about the game? Leave a question in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer it. One proviso: I’m working from the preview and, while it’s fairly complete, there may still be some last-minute changes. From what I’ve seen, I doubt it, but you should know.
Second, I’m going to put a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the two books below, with a brief comment on what’s in each chapter. That’ll give you some idea of what to expect when the book comes out and you go buy it.
Because you are going to buy it, right? Right.
Volume One: Your Story
This book is about playing the game. It’s a combination of player book and GM book; the co-operative nature of setting up the game advocated in the book makes this a natural choice.
Chapter One: Harry’s World
This chapter gives a short overview of default game world, based on the Harry Dresden books by Jim Butcher. It lays out some important concepts that you need to understand about the underlying assumptions of the world and game, including a section on Maxims of the Dresdenverse.
Chapter Two: The Basics
Here you get the bones of the FATE system, the modified version of FUDGE that’s the engine driving the game. It covers the mechanics of your character sheet, the dice you roll, what they mean, and how to use Fate Points.
Chapter Three: City Creation
Part of the fun of playing DFRPG is creating the city to be a home base for the game. This chapter walks you through the steps, including showing you where in the process you create the PCs. The system is more structured and focused than the playtest version, and you wind up with a nice collection of aspects and NPCs for your city, as well as some good dynamic situations for your players to deal with.
Now, there’s a sidebar in this chapter that talks about how you don’t really have to do this step as a group with your players. They recommend doing it as a group, though, and so do I. Why? because that way you make sure that the city you build has all the pieces for the kinds of stories and conflicts that your players are interested in dealing with. And it’ll give you some interesting surprises throughout the process.
Chapter Four: Character Creation
In the previous chapter, they recommend that you do the character creation as part of the city creation, to help tie the characters more tightly into the setting. This is a good idea. They also recommend doing character creation as a group. I think this is essential for any FATE game. The novel phase of character creation pretty much demands it.
They also mention the idea of having the GM create a character, and I found this to be a great idea in the playtest. We had multiple playtest character generation sessions, and I created a number of NPCs this way. It gave me a nice stable of NPCs with ties to and history with the PCs. I’m going to go one step farther than their recommendation, though; I’m going to suggest holding a couple of extra character creation sessions to have your players help put together some NPCs.
Chapter Five: Types & Templates
This is where they list the different types of characters available, and what powers and stunts you need. The options outlined here are:
Pure Mortal
Champion of God
Changeling
Emissary of Power
Focused Practitioner
Knight of a Faerie Court
Lycanthrope
Minor Talent
Red Court Infected
Sorcerer
True Believer
Were-Form
White Court Vampire
White Court Virgin
Wizard
There’s also a discussion about what to do if you don’t want to play one of these archetypes, but instead want to play something different, like, say, a Ghoul. Really, it’s pretty easy and flexible.
Chapter Six: Advancement
I haven’t looked closely at this section yet, but along with the standard information about how the characters advance, there’s also a section on how your city advances, which I think is a brilliant idea.
Chapter Seven: Aspects
Aspects are the meat of the system. They’re what makes FATE work. The discussion in this chapter spells out everything you need to know about them, including the kinds of things that make good Aspects, and what I call the Aspect Trick – picking Aspects that do double or triple duty for you.
Chapter Eight: Skills
Not much to say about this chapter. It’s skills -Â the list of them, how to use them in different situations and for different purposes, stuff like that.
Chapter Nine: Mortal Stunts
Stunts are what give mortals their edge in the game. The way things balance, mortals will be the ones with the most stunts available to them. These are usually special ways to use some skills, or a different thing you can spend a Fate Point on, little things like that. Nothing huge, but stunts can really add flavour and variety to a character.
The chapter consists of three pages of rules for creating your own stunts, and then about nine pages of example stunts. This is very nice; one of the things my group had asked for during playtest was an expanded list of example stunts. And Evil Hat came through in spades.
Chapter Ten: Supernatural Powers
The counterpart to the stunts of the previous chapter, supernatural powers are the extra gravy you get for playing a supernatural character – the things that set you apart. These are expensive, and really cut into the Refresh Rate of Fate Points. This is the primary balance mechanic between mortal and supernatural characters, the thing that lets you play a Karin Murphy alongside a Harry Dresden. There’s about thirty pages of these, and it covers a wide enough range to let you build just about anything you want.
Chapter Eleven: Playing the Game
This section covers pretty much the entire mechanics of the game – it’s about thirty pages (well, twenty-eight), and handles actions and physical, mental, and social conflicts. Except for spellcasting, this is all the system you need. The system is great for running very cinematic, action-packed scenes, and we found that physical conflicts were threatening enough that the players were worried every time one came up that their characters would die. This is, I think, important for a game – there needs to be some risk, or success and failure stop mattering. It also led to some great roleplaying, as players (and characters) did their best to figure out ways to avoid the risk of combat, sometimes even just running away.
Chapter Twelve: Living With Magic
Here’s where the nature and flavour of magic in the Dresdenverse are laid out. Here, you find out about things like hexing, The Sight, soulgazing, the Laws of Magic, Thresholds, and Wizard biology and senses. The next chapter tells you how magic works, but this is the chapter that tells you how magic feels.
Chapter Thirteen: Spellcasting
It’s a game about modern magic, based on a series of books with a Wizard for a main character. You better bet that spellcasting gets some love, here. I’ve already talked a little about how the system has been changed to bring spellcasters into balance with the other character types. There have been a couple of other things added that really fill in some gaps: first, along with Evocation and Thaumaturgy, they’ve added a section on Sponsored Magic, which is essentially what you get when you make a bargain with a demon or a god. Second, they’ve included a nice list of examples of all the different things discussed in the chapter: evocations, thaumaturgical rituals, focus items, enchanted items, and potions. Very useful, because this is the most complex part of the game.
Chapter Fourteen: Running the Game
This is the GM chapter, and covers the GM side of all the things spelled out in other parts of the book. As is usual with Evil Hat stuff, it’s solid, useful, and detailed. The advice is practical and insightful, everything focused on telling a good story with the game.
Chapter Fifteen: Building Scenarios
One of my favourite bits of Spirit of the Century is the section on building adventures. This chapter does at least as good a job, showing how to build the kinds of situations and events you see in the Dresden Files books. It’s all about connections, in this game, tying you into the city and characters you’ve already created, so that everyone has an emotional investment in what’s going on.
Chapter Sixteen: Nevermore/Baltimore
All through the city-building chapter, they use the example of Dresdenifying the city of Baltimore. Here, they give you the results of of the fleshed-out example, a ready-to-play city for your use.
After this, there follows a glossary and index, as well as copies of the various forms and sheets used in the game. The index isn’t filled in, yet, but the rest of the stuff is complete and useful.
Volume Two: Our World
This is the setting book for the game, though some of the setting elements are covered in Volume One. As I said previously, you cold probably play the game without this book, but I think you’re really going to want it. Especially if you’re a fan of the books.
It looks like the book is going to open with a new story by Jim Butcher; for now, they have the short story Restoration of Faith as a placeholder.
Chapter One: Old World Order
Here we’ve got the low-down on the various power groups in the Dresdenverse and how they relate to one another. There’s a detailed discussion of the Unseelie Accords, as well as a lovely little section called Supernatural Conflicts That Could Kill You RIGHT NOW. Fun stuff.
Chapter Two: What Goes Bump
This chapter has a complete, detailed, statted roster of monsters, spellcasters, animals, and mortals. This does double-duty, both as a section of adversaries, and as a blueprint for building characters. It also has a very useful little list of how the various different supernatural baddies stack up against each other, so you can answer that vital question, “Who would win in a fight between a Faerie Queen and a Dragon?”
Chapter Three: Who’s Who
And this is where you find all your favourite characters from the Dresden Files. And the ones you love to hate. And the ones you’ve completely forgotten about. This section is amazingly complete – even if you never play the game, if you’re a fan of the Dresden Files, this book is a wonderful guide to the world.
Chapter Four: Occult Chicago
Carrying on in that theme, here we have Harry’s city: Chicago, in all it’s supernatural glory. Yeah, that’s right. Between the two books, you get two, fully-worked up cities, in case you don’t want to create your own, or if you need some inspiration. Because of the wealth of source material in the series, Chicago is a little more fleshed-out than Baltimore, and it’s got a lot of good information for play.
That’s it. After that, you get the index.
So, there’s the look at the two volumes of the game. I gotta say, it’s impressing me more and more as I read through it. It’s good stuff. I can’t wait to buy my hard copies this summer.
But that’s enough out of me. What are you folks interested in? What questions can I answer? Let me know, and I’ll do my best.Malaysian Christians must obey rules forbidding them from using the word "Allah", the country's leader was quoted saying Friday, breaking his silence in a festering row that has raised fears of religious conflict.
Najib Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia, addresses the 9th World Islamic Economic Forum in London on October 29, 2013
The comments by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak met with immediate dismay from Christians, who have called the issue an example of growing Islamic intolerance that threatens to tarnish the Muslim-majority country's moderate image.
Muslim conservatives including the country's king have recently stepped up demands that Malay-speaking Christians not use the Arabic word to refer to the Christian God, saying it is reserved for Muslims.
"Allah" also is used by the Muslim ethnic Malay majority in Islamic worship.
The issue sparked a spate of attacks in 2010 on places of worship, mostly churches.
Mr Najib's government in 2011 announced a compromise that allowed limited use of the word by non-Muslims.
But on Friday he said the so-called "10-point agreement" was subservient to other laws and royal decrees.
"The 10-point agreement is subjected to federal and state laws," Mr Najib was quoted saying by news portal Malaysiakini.
As tensions have resurfaced in recent weeks, Christians have called on Mr Najib -- who portrays himself as a moderate -- to speak out in support of minorities' constitutionally guaranteed freedom to worship as they see fit.
"Of course we are extremely disappointed," Rev Hermen Shastri, general secretary of the Council of Churches of Malaysia, said of Najib's comments.
Malay-speaking Christians say they have used "Allah" to refer to their God for hundreds of years.
Rev Shastri told AFP churches would continue to do so in their services and in Bibles.
"We are going to take it up with the government again, that they are going back on their word."
Malay Muslims make up 60% of multi-ethnic Malaysia's 28 million people. About 2.6 million people are Christians.
Malaysia has an array of state-level laws and religious decrees against non-Muslims using the word, but they have historically not been strenuously enforced.
The current dispute was sparked in 2007 when Mr Najib's Muslim-dominated government ordered a Catholic weekly newspaper to stop printing the word.
The Herald has challenged the order in a long-running court battle.
For decades, the 57-year-old authoritarian regime has touted Malaysia as a multi-ethnic melting pot, while leashing potentially destabilising radical Islamists.
Minorities, however, have long complained of discriminatory policies favouring Muslim Malays, while conservatism Islam has gained more say over the past decade as political controls have eased.
A court in October struck down the Herald's challenge. It has appealed.
As debate raged over the issue, Islamic officials on Jan 2 sparked concern by confiscating more than 300 Bibles because they contained "Allah".
Days later, police began investigating the newspaper's editor, a Catholic priest, for sedition after he said church sermons would continue using the word.BAGHDAD - On the last day of the official U.S. combat mission in Iraq, there was no dancing in the streets, no celebratory gunfire and no sense that a milestone had been reached.
U.S. troop levels have dropped to just below 50,000, fulfilling an Obama administration pledge to move from combat to stability operations. But as the United States prepares to declare the end of its seven-year-long war, Iraqis are bracing for uncertainty.
On Tuesday, Interior Minister Jawad Bolani said that the country is on high alert and that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has created two security crisis cells - one for Baghdad and one for the rest of Iraq. The cells would respond in case violence escalates in coming days.
Bloodshed has already increased as Iraq nears the end of its sixth month without a government since national parliamentary elections. Many Iraqis also say they worry that another country could fill the vacuum left behind by the United States and that the security gains of the past two years could erode.
"Right now we are in a state of emergency. Our brothers in the Ministry of Defense are sleeping in the ministry until this stage is finished," Bolani told reporters Tuesday.
Maliki met Tuesday morning with Vice President Biden, who is making his sixth visit to Baghdad on behalf of the Obama administration. At the start of the meeting, Biden questioned media reports of an increase in violence.
"It's much safer," Biden said. Reporters following the vice president Monday were asked to wear body armor and helmets, and Biden was heavily guarded throughout his trip.
Outside the heavily fortified Green Zone, where many of Biden's meetings took place, Iraqis expressed fear and frustration.
"We wanted change, and nothing's changed," Mohammed Imad, 21, said, leaning against a wall covered in old election posters.
Despite the fears voiced in the streets, Maliki declared Tuesday a day of "celebration."
"This is a day that will remain in the memory of all Iraqis. Today, Iraq has become a sovereign and independent country," the prime minister said on state television. "Unfortunately, we are facing a campaign of doubt."
"Whose celebration is this?" asked Ibrahim Abdul Wahab, 57, a resident of Haifa Street in downtown Baghdad, where Sunni insurgents were in control more than two years ago. "It's his, not Iraq's. Where are the promises of the planned democracy?"Earlier today rumors started floating around that Google is somehow now blocking Windows Phone users from accessing Google Maps through Internet Explorer. Well, it turns out that that was totally false and untrue. As it turns out, the mobile browser version of Google Maps was built for Webkit-based browsers, and the mobile version of Internet Explorer is not based on Webkit. So that's why it doesn't work. Now go on about your business.
Update: Google confirmed it with us. A Google Spokesperson said:
The mobile web version of Google Maps is optimized for WebKit browsers such as Chrome and Safari. However, since Internet Explorer is not a WebKit browser, Windows Phone devices are not able to access Google Maps for the mobile web.
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Update 2: A Microsoft spokesperson has responded to Google saying that:
"Internet Explorer in Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 use the same rendering engine."
It appears that http://maps.google.com worked fine on Windows Phone until Google started blocking it. In fact it is still working on the Lumia 920 if I go to http://maps.google.co.uk as it looks like they forgot to redirect that one. Are there differences between how it works on Windows Phone and on webkit based mobile browsers? Yeah but to say that "Since Internet Explorer is not a WebKit browser, Windows Phone devices are not able to access Google Maps for the mobile web" is simply not true. Internet Explorer on the desktop is not a WebKit browser and it works fine with Google maps.
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It seems as though the reason that Windows Phone can't access Google Maps is that Google decided (for reasons they would need to explain) to start blocking Windows Phone users. It has worked, because the browser on Windows Phone is the same as the browser in Windows 8.Hillary Clinton has opted out of an invitation to debate challenger Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) on Fox News Channel prior to the June 7th primary in California.
As John Sexton pointed out Monday night, Sanders had agreed to the debate which would have been the first and only exchange between the Democratic Party’s contenders this primary season. Clinton’s campaign released a statement yesterday suggesting that rather than take up another debate opportunity with her rival on the left, she’d instead focus on her general election foe, Donald Trump.
That kind of attitude will hardly come as welcome news to Sanders supporters who feel like Clinton and her allies at the DNC have rigged the nomination process in her favor. As Sanders promises a “messy” convention in Philadelphia this Summer, Clinton’s high-handed behavior actually fuels the fire already smoldering within the party.
Fox News responded in a statement of their own. Bill Sammon, Fox News VP and Washington Managing Editor said:
“Naturally, Fox News is disappointed that Secretary Clinton has declined our debate invitation, especially given that the race is still contested and she had previously agreed to a final debate before the California primary.”
Not only did she previously agree to a final debate before the California primary, back in 2008 when she was fighting from behind to defeat then-Senator Barack Obama in a hotly contested primary battle, Clinton was indignant at the thought that her opponent would not agree to a debate prior to the Golden State contest.
In fact, exactly eight years ago, to the day, Clinton said this about Obama’s plan to not debate her:
“Honestly, I just believe this is the most important job in the world. It’s the toughest job in the world. You should be willing to campaign for every vote. You should be willing to debate anytime, anywhere. “
It’s nice to be a Clinton, isn’t it?.By
Hopefully you were following on twitter Friday night when we passed along tons of news and notes live from the charity hockey game that took place at the Kings training facility in El Segundo. On the ice were members of the Ducks, Islanders, Maple Leafs, Sabres, Stars – plus Stanley Cup champions Jeff Carter, Kyle Clifford, Davis Drewiske, Colin Fraser, Matt Greene, Trevor Lewis, Dustin Penner, Brad Richardson, Rob Scuderi, Jarret Stoll, Justin Williams and many more.
Yesterday we posted a few articles with post-game quotes from several of the Kings players. Now, here’s a look at some exclusive photos taken for MayorsManor by David Sheehan…
[UPDATE: to view a second set of photos see the link added down below]
Follow @mayorNHL
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Jarret Stoll opens up about the CBA talks and he’s depressed
A frustrated Rob Scuderi looking to take some people out in the corners
Carter, Richardson and Williams doing some chipring – largely at the expense of Shane O’Brien
Second set of photos from NHLPA charity gameKenny Miles created a significant stir among the Cheetos finger-stained, bonus-room dwelling, 7th-year junior, CTU fan set this week when he posted the above photo on his twitter feed. The picture, which purports to show the Gamecock running back inside of the Copycat Imitation Death Valley (as most know, the real one is in Baton Rouge, the real REAL one is in California) flashing three fingers in an apparent reference to the three consecutive victories South Carolina now enjoys over the hapless Tigers.
As we have often mentioned in this space, the acrimony between the fanbases of our State Flagship University and its junior neighbor is often overblown and based on senseless misunderstandings. We have, as always, determined that the best path forward is to patiently explain occurrences such as these to our CTU friends annoying unemployed brother-in-laws in hopes of diffusing the situation. We also find that such discussions are best conducted in simple sentences and with the aid of primary-colored visual aids, but I digress...
Our point is this: Calm down, Tigers. We realize that your steady diet of Mountain Dew and pork rinds has you a little wired at present, and the fact that your university is apparently no longer able to defeat the State Flagship School in ANY SPORT WHATSOEVER may be exacerbating your condition. Regardless, we would like to offer some further commentary on the photo that might serve to place it in proper context. And if in doing so we bring a little peace between the school in the premier collegiate athletic conference and the school that’s – ahem – NOT in a premier collegiate athletic conference, then all the better.
So here you are, context and explanation of the Kenny Miles, Faux Death Valley, three finger salute:
– He’s not actually making a reference to the three consecutive football wins. Instead, Miles is flashing his jersey number, but wise discretion prohibited the photographer from showing the other hand and #31’s method of conveying the other digit.
– The three fingers could also represent the number of Clemson locals that said “Hey buddy, that green thing hangin off your collar is the smallest bib I’ve ever seen!”
– The photo is not actually taken in Clemson, SC. Since the Gamecocks now completely own the Tigers, this stadium is kept inside the weight room in Williams Brice Stadium.
– Speaking of weight rooms, here’s a little known fact: Tiger Strength and Conditioning Coach Joey Batson thinks “weight rooms” are the little places with plastic chairs where he lingers before seeing his chiropractor.
– If you look closely, you can see that the photo was taken just prior to the last Tiger home football game. CTU Sports Information Director Tim Bourret reported attendance as “83,001.”
– Miles is a secret Mountineer fan, and went to the stadium because he heard the best place to find West Virginia players was in the Clemson endzone.
– You see Tillman Hall in the background? It was named after former Senator “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman. If you get a minute, Google ‘Pitchfork Ben Tillman’ and then tell why they would name a building after that clown. Yeah, I don’t get it, either.
– For reasons that underscore the inadequacies of Clemson men, all Clemson women cry bitterly when they see that large towering cylindrical structure in the middle of campus.
– You see the scoreboard ad for Fatz? That’s not a reference to the local restaurant chain, instead its referring to Assistant AD, Brad Scott. And yes, that’s how they think it’s spelled.
– Miles IS holding up his fingers to represent the number three, but only as he delivered the punchline to the following joke:
You know how to make Clemson Cookies? Easy, just put some dough in an orange bowl and beat it for this many hours.”
– OR, Miles is holding up the three fingers because that was CTU Honor Graduate C.J. Spiller’s Wonderlic score.
– OR, Miles is holding up the three fingers because that’s how many years Dabo Sweeney slept in his mom’s bed during college. Really sweet story, btw.
There you go, Fanboys. Hope this helps.I’m doing a bit of work on Abenomics, which will surface in a week or so. One thing I discovered along the way is that nobody much likes any of the existing measures of inflation expectations, as this New York Fed post by Mandel and Barnes explains. In particular, the Japanese market in inflation-protected securities is considered too thin to rely on.
Mandel and Barnes, building off work by Goldman Sachs, suggest an ingenious workaround: they use inflation expectations inferred from US TIPS, then adjust by the forward exchange rate. The idea is that relative purchasing power parity more or less holds in the long run, so you can assume that Japanese inflation equals US inflation plus change in the exchange rate. And since the forward premium is basically equal to the interest-rate differential, this in turn means inferring Japanese inflation expectations as equal to the US TIPS spread minus the difference between US and Japanese rates.
It’s a clever idea, but I think incomplete. There is strong evidence that real exchange rates are mean-reverting (pdf), and you should take that into account too. Estimating the rate of mean-reversion is tricky, but we can more or less sidestep this by looking at long-term expectations: after a decade, we can expect the bulk of any deviation from the norm to be eliminated.
You may ask, what is the long-run equilibrium real exchange rate? Interesting question, but not one we need to answer if we’re just trying to assess the impact of Abenomics, where what matters is the change in inflation expectations on Abe’s watch.
So here’s what I did: I took the implied 10-year breakeven inflation rate from US TIPS, minus the 10-year interest rate differential, plus the real appreciation Japan would experience if the real exchange rate against the dollar 10 years from now were to return to its level in January 2010. You can adjust this as you like with whatever your estimate of the difference between the 1-2010 rate and the equilibrium rate is; it will just shift the line up or down. Here’s the result:
Photo
I have my doubts about the apparent decline in recent months. It’s being driven not by events in Japan but by the taper scare, which drove up US rates. There is a question about why that rise in US rates didn’t produce a lot more yen depreciation, but something seems off here.
The main point, however, is that this measure does suggest a substantial rise in expected inflation since Abenomics began, which is good news.White nationalists and other fringe racists have come out in droves to support Donald Trump, whose candidacy has been building steam since his victory in New Hampshire. Far-right figures like David Duke, Jared Taylor, Matthew Heimbach, Roosh Valizadeh, and Richard Spencer.
Over at Stormfront, the world’s largest online white nationalist community, users have mainly been supportive — although every now and then there’s still grumbling over his opinions on Israel and the Jews.
In one very popular thread, Stormfronters declared Donald Trump to be a harbinger of a new Fourth Reich. The thread, which spans some 62 pages (as of this writing), was started by user vikaryan who posted a picture of Trump and wrote:
>First Reich was the Holy Roman Empire
>Second Reich was the German Empire
>Third Reich was Nazi Germany
>Fourth Reich will be Anglo-Saxon America
He also explained that, should America “go full-on Reich mode,” then “literally nobody could stop us”:
Anyone who is in-tune with the average American knows that, if any nation will declare that it’s “Reich Time,” it’s America for a multitude of reasons. >Americans view their nation similarly to the way that Germans used to view their nation. They saw Germany as “above everything in the world.” Hell, that proclamation is literally the title of the German national anthem: Deutschland über Alles. >Americans tend to be xenophobic whether most want to openly admit it or not. The massive hordes of third world immigrants only increases this sentiment. >The Left is increasingly losing control of the SJWs. This wouldn’t be a problem if people outside of SJWs actually liked SJW. As more millennials graduate college, more SJWs will enter the ranks of the Left. As they grow in numbers, more people will turn away from the Left and into the embrace of this “charismatic figure” that Chomsky talks about. >If America decided to go full-on Reich mode domestically, literally nobody could stop us. The American military, when unleashed, is the most lethal killing machine in human history. Our military wasn’t cucked by a World War. You can be sure that this “charismatic figure” would use our military to its full potential if the American people were ever threatened.
Antonio Fini replied, calling it an “Excellent post” and adding that Donald Trump “is attacking the very underpinnings of White genocide which are third world invasion and political correctness.” T3, on the other hand, chastised vikaryan for his optimism, writing, “At least you could wait till you got rid of the Negro president before declaring the coming of a 4th reich [sic].”
The Eye of Horus was similarly hesitant:
Trump is not the Fuhrer. The System could stop the rise of nationalism if they promoted Trump, but they seem drunk with the false hope their mulatto messianic monkey has given |
Xi is helping me.” “Oh, wow, she sounds busy…”); and—from linguist Mike Phelan—the ever-problematic, “She thought we were talking about Plato. I thought we were talking about Play-Doh.”
But these examples are more than slapstick fodder. It’s not surprising that confusions arise. But, I think, the extent to which confusions persevere is surprising. Our preferred method for integrating incongruous information is not to revisit a faulty premise, it seems, but to squeeze and stretch the existing premise in ever more convoluted ways to fit the new information.
Which pretty much sounds like human behavior more generally. Even scientists are not immune. Thomas Kuhn has theorized that “normal science” builds on past findings: Discovery A is refined by Discovery B. But still there are gaps and contradictions, mismatches between puzzle and solution. So the existing scientific framework is plugged and patched until, inevitably, the mismatches are too numerous or important to be explained away. Then and only then is the framework itself ever questioned.“Kochi Metro Yadharthyamaakiya Pradhanamantri Narendra Modikku Abhivadyangal” (Salutations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who made Kochi Metro a Reality”)
This was the claim made by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kochi through posters ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the city to inaugurate the Kochi Metro on June 17, 2017.
Rachit Seth of Congress tweeted:
So here is "BJP Lie of the Day" for Today! Kerala BJP claiming- #KochiMetro is reality because of Modi ji,Reality: MMS made it one #LiarBJP pic.twitter.com/zF0GqjMAQo — Rachit Seth (@rachitseth) June 15, 2017
From the Archives: Dr Manmohan Singh laying the foundation stone of #KochiMetro (September 13, 2012) UPA built Metro in a dozen cities pic.twitter.com/ahtl4GNeWe — Rachit Seth (@rachitseth) June 14, 2017
The project was approved during the second term of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh from May 2009 to May 2014.
The 13-km Aluva–Palarivattom section of the 27 km Line-1 of Kochi Metro project, which will be by PM Modi, received the union cabinet nod on July 4, 2012, according to this release by the Press Information Bureau.
The foundation stone of the Kochi Metro was laid by Dr Singh on September 13, 2012.
The Kochi Metro is estimated to cost Rs 5,181.79 crore. It is being built by the Kochi Metro Rail Ltd, a special purpose vehicle of the central and state governments, equally owned by both.
Kochi Metro Rail Funding Project Funds Sanctioned During (2013-16) Funds Released and Utilised During (2013-16) Sanctioned Funds in (2016-17) Amount Released and Utilised in Current year* Kochi Metro Rs 1329.95 crore Rs 1309.95 crore Rs 450 crore Rs 434 crore
Source: Lok Sabha; *up to 25.01.2017; Figures in Rs crore
The Kochi Metro project has been commissioned in a record 45 months, faster than India’s other metro projects, Mint reported on June 16, 2017.
Up to 80% of the Kochi Metro’s employees are likely to be women, again, likely to be a national landmark. The company has already hired 23 transgenders across 11 metro stations at different posts.
Metro rail lines now operate in seven cities—Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Jaipur Mumbai and Gurgaon — with a combined length of 326 km.
Metro projects with a combined length 546 km are under construction in 11 cities and being planned in 13 additional cities.
India has great metro rail opportunity, as the projects, once implemented and operationalised, will help bring down traffic, accidental deaths and fuel consumption, IndiaSpend reported on January 20, 2015.
(FactChecker.in is fact-checking initiative, scrutinising for veracity and context statements made by individuals and organisations in public life.)
First Published: Jun 17, 2017 08:12 ISTA poster alerting customers that the digital currency bitcoin is accepted as payment sits behind the counter inside the Old Shoreditch Station cafe in London earlier this month. BLOOMBERG
NBC won’t recognise bitcoin
Cambodia's central bank won’t recognise bitcoin as a form of payment, making the Kingdom the latest Asian country to reject the digital currency.
National Bank of Cambodia director-general Chea Serey confirmed the regulator’s stance on the issue on Wednesday, citing the absence of any e-commerce law in the Kingdom as one of the main reasons.
“NBC will not recognise a currency that is not issued or backed by a government. Bitcoin’s issuer is not a central bank of any jurisdiction,” Serey said.
Serey said that the lack of pertinent regulations means consumers aren’t legally protected in case of fraud, “which has proven to be a daily occurrence in the virtual world”, she added.
The NBC is the only organisation in Cambodia with authorisation to issue legal tender under the direction of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
The NBC’s statement comes one day after the Bank of Thailand (BOT) issued a stern warning against buying bitcoins. The BOT yesterday said tracking the virtual money could pose difficulties, especially during legal proceedings.
Bitcoin continues to be traded in Thailand, however, despite the BOT stating that the government would not and cannot regulate the digital currency.
Last month, Vietnam’s banking regulator banned commercial banks and vendors from using or allowing bitcoin as a legitimate form of payment or trade. Prior to that, China, Japan and Russia took similar steps to discourage the digital currency’s official use.
Singapore, meanwhile, is reportedly investigating ways to regulate the so-called crypto-currency, of which there are an estimated 11 million in circulation worldwide.
On March 1, local Cambodian businessman Ki Chong Tran submitted a grant proposal to the Bitcoin Foundation asking for $100,000 of the digital currency in order to establish a local market in Phnom Penh, including two bitcoin ATMs.
The 26-year-old 3D-printing business owner and martial-arts trainer said the NBC’s comments would have no effect on the success of bitcoin in Cambodia.
“The purpose of bitcoin is to operate outside of government regulation and be self-regulated by its users. The NBC’s stance on bitcoin will not have an effect on its popularity here in Cambodia,” he said.
Anthony Perkins, CEO of Cambodia’s largest third-party electronic payments firm, Wing, said the NBC’s concerns were justified and that much more is at stake than just an alternate means of payment.
“Anything that affects the money supply outside of their (NBC’s) control could lead them to make a wrong decision on money supply, which in turn affects the nation’s interest rates, output, inflation, unemployment and so on. So there is a lot at stake if bitcoin usage becomes widespread in a country,” Perkins said.
Citing the bankruptcy of Japan’s Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange last month, Perkins said users face considerable financial risks, and that the digital currency fails to address tax evasion, money laundering and counterterrorism financing laws.
“The bottom line is, consumers want a payment solution that is simple to use, safe, and universally accepted. Bitcoin does not tick any of those boxes in Cambodia yet,” he said, adding that things could change if regulators start to embrace bitcoin.
“But I honestly cannot see that happening anytime soon.”
The Ministry of Economy and Finance could not be reached for comment.The European Commission today accused Google of abusing its dominant position in the search engine market to benefit its own advertising services at the expense of competitors. But rather than launch "formal proceedings," Europe is giving Google a chance to settle the matter.
EC Vice President Joaquin Almunia outlined European concerns today in a statement and letter to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. Almunia outlined four areas where the EC believes Google is violating competition laws:
"In its general search results, Google displays links to its own vertical search services differently than it does for links to competitors," Almunia said. "We are concerned that this may result in preferential treatment compared to those of competing services, which may be hurt as a consequence."
"Our second concern relates to the way Google copies content from competing vertical search services and uses it in its own offerings. Google may be copying original material from the websites of its competitors such as user reviews and using that material on its own sites without their prior authorization. In this way they are appropriating the benefits of the investments of competitors. We are worried that this could reduce competitors' incentives to invest in the creation of original content for the benefit of internet users. This practice may impact for instance travel sites or sites providing restaurant guides."
"Our third concern relates to agreements between Google and partners on the websites of which Google delivers search advertisements. Search advertisements are advertisements that are displayed alongside search results when a user types a query in a website's search box. The agreements result in de facto exclusivity requiring them to obtain all or most of their requirements of search advertisements from Google, thus shutting out competing providers of search advertising intermediation services. This potentially impacts advertising services purchased for example by online stores, online magazines or broadcasters."
"Our fourth concern relates to restrictions that Google puts to the portability of online search advertising campaigns from its platform AdWords to the platforms of competitors. AdWords is Google's auction-based advertising platform on which advertisers can bid for the placement of search ads on search result pages provided by Google. We are concerned that Google imposes contractual restrictions on software developers which prevent them from offering tools that allow the seamless transfer of search advertising campaigns across AdWords and other platforms for search advertising."
The investigation comes after complaints "from smaller Web businesses and from Microsoft that Google downgraded their sites in its search results to weaken potential competitors for advertising," the New York Times notes. The EC told Google it has "a matter of weeks" to propose remedies to the four concerns, or face formal proceedings that could end in a fine or remedies imposed by European regulators.
When reached for comment, Google told Ars that it disagrees with the allegations and that competition is already increasing in the search engine market.
"We've only just started to look through the Commission’s arguments," Google said in a statement. "We disagree with the conclusions but we're happy to discuss any concerns they might have. Competition on the web has increased dramatically in the last two years since the Commission started looking at this and the competitive pressures Google faces are tremendous. Innovation online has never been greater."
Globally, Google controls 78.64 percent of the desktop search market, down from 83.19 percent a year ago, according to NetMarketshare. Google still has more than 91 percent share in mobile search.OBJECTIVE:
To determine the effect of soy germ pasta enriched in biologically active isoflavone aglycons on gastric emptying in type 2 diabetic patients with gastroparesis.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS:
This randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study compared soy germ pasta with conventional pasta for effects on gastric emptying. Patients (n = 10) with delayed gastric emptying consumed one serving per day of each pasta for 8 weeks, with a 4-week washout. Gastric emptying time (t1/2) was measured using the [(13)C]octanoic acid breath test at baseline and after each period, and blood glucose and insulin concentrations were determined after oral glucose load.
RESULTS:
Soy germ pasta significantly accelerated the t1/2 in these patients (161.2 ± 17.5 min at baseline vs. 112.6 ± 11.2 min after treatment, P = 0.009). Such change differed significantly (P = 0.009) from that for conventional pasta (153.6 ± 24.2 vs. 156.2 ± 27.4 min), without affecting glucose or insulin concentrations.
CONCLUSIONS:
These findings suggest that soy germ pasta may offer a simple dietary approach to managing diabetic gastropathy.Thousands of Hungarian demonstrators protested against Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest on Monday, a day ahead of his visit to the capital city of Hungary. This is the first time that the Russian leader is visiting a European Union member state since the conflict between Kiev forces and pro-Russian rebels escalated in eastern Ukraine about a year ago.
Nearly 2,000 protesters took to the streets of Budapest and marched between the Eastern and Western stations, the city’s two main train depots, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. The Hungarians reportedly want to remain rooted to the West, and not Russia, which grew increasingly isolated from other EU states due to Moscow’s alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis.
“I lived most of my life under communist rule, I don't want this country to fall under Russian influence again,” AFP quoted a protester, who was holding a banner saying: “Putin Nyet (No)! Europe Yes!” as saying.
One of the organizers of the protest also told AFP that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is making a fool out of his countrymen by inviting Putin to sign secret deals while there is a war going on “next door in Ukraine.”
While Kremlin said that Putin’s Hungary visit was aimed at “a mutually beneficial partnership” in the field of natural gas, political analysts believe the trip is an effort by Putin to show that Russia still has an ally inside EU and NATO, despite Europe’s supposedly united stance on Moscow.
“This trip is clearly more important for Putin than for Orban,” Andras Racz, analyst at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, told AFP. “Putin can demonstrate to other Western countries that he has an ally which is an EU and NATO member, that European unity is not that strong after all.”
Although Hungary supported the EU sanctions on Russia, Orban had also talked about the negative impacts of the move. He had said earlier that Hungary cannot turn its back on its main energy supplier, adding that Moscow-based Gazprom -- the largest extractor of natural gas in the world -- has supplied the majority of Hungary's gas for the past two decades, Reuters reported.
“There is always a peculiar psychological tension in the relationship with Russia, but we need to overcome that and I also strive for that,” Reuters quoted Orban as saying on public radio last week. “We need to serve our country's interests, and therefore seek orderly ties with the Russians as well.”Spread the love
The Weekend of Resistance, part of Ferguson October‘s four days of uprising for Michael Brown, wrapped up on Monday with a day of many demonstrations, direct actions, and arrests.
It was named “Moral Monday”, and was organized as a day calling for mass uprising all over St. Louis. Hundreds of activists traveled from around the country to participate in the resistance.
The civil disobedience began with a march from Wellspring Church to Ferguson Police Department lead by religious leaders, including scholar and activist, Dr. Cornel West.
As the leaders and activists marched through the rain and cold to the station they read out the names of those we have lost to police brutality nationwide.
Upon arriving at the station, the peaceful protestors were met by a line of 40-50 officers, who they marched right up to- demanding they repent for their sins of killing black youth.
Soon after, Rev. Osagyefo Sekou- organizer of the march, along with Dr. Cornel West crossed the police line.
“I didn’t come here to give a speech, I came here to go to jail!” Dr. West declared at an event on Sunday evening.
Many more followed their lead, breaking through the police line in a beautiful act of defiance.
Ultimately 43 people were arrested at the station.
This was only the tip of the iceberg for the day’s events.
Protesters were popping up everywhere, blocking streets, dropping banners, and shutting down traffic- including in front of the headquarters of Emerson Electric.
Later in the afternoon, another group of approximately 100 demonstrators entered City Hall to voice their demands, which include civilian review boards, independent investigations into all fatal police involved shootings and body cameras for all officers. They have promised to return in two days if their demands are not met. There was one arrest.
HUGE banner drops at STL City Hall – Mayor's Chief of Staff just came out to talk to #FergusonOctober protestors. pic.twitter.com/D2AcEubM3l — MORE (@organizemo) October 13, 2014
Demonstrators also marched through Plaza Frontenac, an upscale shopping mall.
Around 7pm, demonstrators gathered at a political fundraiser and blocked the doors, demanding those inside speak out on where they stand. Approximately a dozen people were dragged away and arrested at this event.
Banners were dropped at the Rams game, protestors marched through the stands as well as demonstrated outside.
The action also continued by the clock tower at St. Louis University, where an occupation was declared on Sunday evening.
Not one, but three Walmart stores in the area were shut down, one after another, throughout the evening for John Crawford, the young man executed inside a Walmart for holding a toy gun.
The amount of arrests at these actions is still unclear.
"Y'all might want to call some more officers" https://t.co/bPfuQbCPtR — Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) October 14, 2014
Each time the police snagged all the people willing to be arrested, demonstrators moved onto the next Walmart, keeping law enforcement scrambling and on their toes. The goal seemed to be to run the officers ragged, and make good on their promises to shut this city down if they don’t see justice.
After the third Walmart was shut down, activists gathered in a circle to decide the next location. They decided on a QuikTrip and once again- shut it down.
There was a quick flashmob style protest, unlike the one at the QT by Shaw in which the thug officers pepper sprayed and tear gassed peaceful protestors and journalists on Friday night.
As soon as the cops arrived, a new location was decided and everyone hopped in cars in a caravan to once again, to stay a step ahead of the police and keep them busy. The next stop was the Hollywood Casino.
The protest beat the police to the location, and to say security seemed shocked would be a massive understatement.
Almost as soon as police arrived the crew was back on the move.
This time however, the police seemed to be taking down license plate numbers and following us not only in cars, but with a helicopter as well. We began to be tipped off that they were giving out plate numbers over the scanner and the pack began to disperse.
Police now directing traffic at Hollywood Casino. Helicopter overhead. Police now following protestors. #MoralMonday — deray mckesson (@deray) October 14, 2014
As we were driving we received word through social media that one of the people in the group had been pulled over, and when others from the pack pulled over to film the police, Officer Blake of the St. Louis County Police approached them and demanded they leave, while toting a rifle.
You can view the incident here:
An eye witness recounts the scene:
There may have been even more actions than the ones we mentioned here, it was impossible to keep up with what was happening. This city has mastered the art of divide and conquer protesting, and the activists on the ground certainly live up to their “we shut sh%t down!” chants.
While most mainstream media is stating that there were 49 arrests, it is important to note that this number only reflects those who participated in the civil disobedience outside of the Ferguson Police Department and a handful of demonstrators who blocked traffic.
There were many more arrests throughout the other locations and the latest number being reported is 76 arrests. The number may actually be much higher.Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Police waited at the home of a family after someone called in seeing the parents “put a child in the trunk” of the car — someone who clearly wasn’t aware that the Tesla Model S can be equipped with a third row of seats for children.
I stumbled upon this video after comments veteran and Twitter tweeter @_McMike_ tweeted it.
With what little context we have, it seems the family were coming home from shopping, and startled some good samaritan enough to phone the cops when they put their child in the back row seating of their Tesla Model S.
When they arrived home, the cops were waiting to investigate what sort of dangerous activity was at play when they discovered the magical-innovative-machine that is the Model S and its nifty rear-facing third row.
I see why the cops were called, I guess. Putting kids in the trunk is always going to look a little funny.
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Also, what a fantastic surveillance set up these people have - we’ve got audio from the car, video from the car, and video from the house. They know what’s up.
Glad to see the everyone involved act so calm about it. The more reason everyone should have a Tesla. Right? Right..?Preseason basketball is one big science experiment. Coaches value building consistency and familiarity but also want to use all sorts of lineups and sets just to see what fits. They juggle controls and variables, and the results tend to be all over the place. Everyone is searching for answers, which is exactly what this time of year is for.
Amidst all the experimentation, you also need to see exactly what you expected to see.
The pick-and-roll with Chris Bosh and Goran Dragic has been anticipated since Dragic was acquired last February. Even though that opportunity was robbed from all involved at the time, that hasn’t stopped anyone from projecting it as a centerpiece of Miami’s offense. Every team in the league probably assumed they would some day have to stop something they hadn’t even seen.
You couldn’t call it the team’s worst-kept secret because it wasn’t a secret, but after months of waiting we’ve finally seen the Bosh-Dragic pick-and-roll. Sparse few pick-and-rolls, but enough to know what was missed.
As they are wont to do, Charlotte was generally fairly aggressive against ballhandlers along the sidelines – yes, yes, it’s preseason – but you can see just how much space the threat of a Dragic drive creates. Just by being close to Bosh, Dragic brings two to the ball and Bosh ends up in the left slot with space to operate. The actual shot Bosh gets isn’t the easiest in the world, but the larger point is that a very simple action gets the defense to shift. If Bosh didn’t want to shoot, he had two players sucking to his side of the paint while Udonis Haslem (filling in for the injured Hassan Whiteside) ducks in, Dwyane Wade cuts and Luol Deng sits open for three.
Two really good basketball players stand next to one another, and options abound. A couple quarters later, the requirements for a good opportunity were again remarkably low.
Bosh moves to set a pick and that’s all it takes to get two on Dragic and Bosh back into space. This time he gets an open three – the same sort of look Channing Frye enjoyed for a year with Dragic – but again the defense is rotating. If the shot isn’t there for Bosh, he has Deng to ping it to.
“Tonight they were jumping really hard on me [on] pick-and-rolls and I hit [Bosh] a couple of times on pick-and-pop,” Dragic said. “He missed one three, but those are all good shots. I take that shot everyday. If he’s going to be open 20 times, he can shoot it 20 times.”
That second play was in a bit of a scramble situation, but the spacing on each of these plays – with Deng, Wade and Haslem clearing out in the second – is exactly what Dragic was talking about last week with regards to creating room to operate without a ton of traditional three-point shooters on the floor. Two on the ball-side, three on the weak-side, get the defense rotating and the ball will find space.
As above, so below.
For those of you that watched the game, you might be wondering why the HEAT didn’t run more pick-and-rolls if they were creating such good looks. In short, it’s probably too easy. Not easy easy, but easy in the sense that running ten miles becomes easy if you’re training for a marathon. The team is going to need to be able to execute some timing-intensive sets in order to capitalize on all their talent. Building up those habits, even if they lead to a fair amount of turnovers in the early going, is more important to the long-term success of the team.
“We’re trying to build that chemistry,” Dragic said. “That’s the smart thing to do, especially now. Try to run plays until the end and try to see all the options. Then when the real games come, you know where you can look because the first option is not going to be always there so you need to go to the second, the third option and then you always can finish with the pick-and-roll.”
“It’s easier because we’re both intelligent guys,” Bosh added. “We’re both unselfish guys and I think with an aggressive point guard and an aggressive power forward, you have a lot of room for improvement and good things can happen. Especially with my ability to pop. That’s always going to be there.”
If this all seems a little mundane, that’s because it is. Spoelstra isn’t going to be reinventing the wheel by running two-man game with two talented players, but the uncomplicated wins games every night in this league.
As far as trial runs go, Sunday night offered a few choice results that mattered. Now we get to look forward to a couple thousand more tests.
“We feel really confident that that can become a huge, huge part of our game,” Bosh said.Track unavailable
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Vocal recording sessions start long before your singer turns up to work. Through this tutorial, we'll look at all the factors that contribute to a successful vocal recording session, focusing on preparation as well as the technical aspects of a session. To stress, we'll only focus on recording vocals here; we'll look at vocal mixing techniques in an upcoming feature.In terms of preparation, ensure that your recording setup is ready in as many ways as possible before your vocalist arrives. This means making sure that your microphone is plugged into your audio interface or recording channel and that this signal is, in turn, being sent on to your computer. If you're working with a condenser microphone, you'll need phantom power to be enabled. So an hour or so before your singer arrives, make sure everything is working well, as this will give you time to trouble-shoot any problems.One of the issues you might discover when testing your own voice this way is latency. Latency is the lag between a computer receiving an input signal and then playing it back as an output signal. As computers have the capacity to buffer the sounds they play, this lag can be substantial. During mixing, if you're running lots of CPU-sapping plug-ins in a larger session, turning the buffer size up to maximum can be beneficial, as the increased thinking time for a computer can reduce CPU overload. But during a vocal session, singing is extremely difficult if a performance is complicated by an audio time delay. So while recording, keep buffer sizes low and, if your DAW has one, enable its low latency mode, too, which may even more significantly reduce latency issues. Again, you can test this before the singer arrives by monitoring short percussive sounds like finger clicks; if you can hear a lag before the click plays back, try to find more latency reduction in your system.This also has implications for the backing track to which your vocalist will perform. If you have a busy session with lots of software instruments and effects, your computer will need a larger buffer size to generate the sounds required. In preparation for a vocal recording session, it's worth bouncing your backing track to a single stereo file or a small number of audio stems, complete with all effects. Importing these into a new session specifically for the recording will save CPU power, and once the session is complete you can import the vocals from it back into your host project. Usually, bouncing a single stereo file will suffice, but if you think your singer will want more flexibility, create a few stems covering drums, bass, harmony elements and so on. The volumes of these can then be balanced to the singer's taste.Below these stems, create a number of audio tracks for the vocals you're going to record, all set up with the correct microphone input number. If this sounds like overkill, know that inadequate preparation is one of the main factors in derailing sessions. Your singer will want to feel as though he or she can focus exclusively on singing, and every time you say, "Hang on, let me just set up another audio track," or "Sorry, that channel was muted," the performance bubble is popped.Having stems and audio recording tracks ready are one consideration, but make other preparations, too. Singing is thirsty work, so have a jug of water to hand so that you don't have to keep running off to refill a glass. On the subject of drinks, avoid choices that could impact on singing quality or concentration levels. Caffeinated drinks aren't a great idea, as the initial buzz these provide gives way to fatigue, and it's worth avoiding anything too carbonated for obvious reasons. If possible, encourage your vocalist to stick with water until the session is over.The goal of the recording environment should be to produce as dry a recording as possible. In professional studios, acoustic treatment is used to ensure minimal reflections, and you can bring some techniques from these into your space, too. sE Electronics' Reflexion Filters are a useful starting point for helping to isolate a vocal. Equally, creating a "dead zone" in one part of your recording space, either with dedicated acoustic panels or soft furnishings, can make a huge difference. It might look unprofessional to build a tent around a microphone with duvets and blankets, but it'll make a big difference to the sound you record, particularly if your studio is full of reflective surfaces.Microphone choice will also be critical. If you're intending to do a fair amount of vocal recording, investing in a quality mic is essential. The good news is that good quality is now available for a fraction of the cost of a decade ago. For studio recording, a large-diaphragm condenser microphone will serve you best. It should be held on a microphone stand, ideally with a shock-mount and fronted by a pop shield. Shock-mounts act as shock absorbers to prevent reflections from carrying to the microphone; pop shields break up plosiveandsounds to prevent the mic from receiving quick bursts of air that turn into explosive bangs. Even if you decide to record with a dynamic microphone (traditionally used for live recording rather than used during studio sessions), mount the microphone so the vocalist doesn't have to hold it.It's also worth considering that some producers like to record vocals with a little compression. This will only be possible if you have a hardware compressor either built into the channel strip through which you're recording, or if you're working through an interface that features a software compressor whose output can be recorded as well as monitored. If you're recording a singer with a wide volume range this can be an advantage, but be warned that it's extremely difficult to remove compression from a recorded sound once it's printed. So err on the side of caution and either record without compression at all or, if you do use some, go gently. You can always add more when mixing later. Otherwise, don't record other effects as part of the vocal recording session if you can help it, steering clear of spatial effects like reverb and delay completely.This leads on to an important consideration: vocalists often feel safer if they can hear reverb while recording. Fortunately, most DAWs allow you to set up an auxiliary reverb to which you can send your vocal recording channel while tracking, without this effect being captured as part of the session. To do this simply route the input channel in your DAW to a reverb and check with the vocalist how much of this effect they want to hear while recording. Both the send level from the recording channel and the auxiliary effect return fader will allow you to control reverb level. Effects used this way—heard while recording but not captured as part of the recording process—are called monitor effects. Using the native effects that ship with your DAW rather than (usually) more CPU-taxing third-party plug-ins should prevent latency resurfacing.All of the above can be considered before your vocalist arrives for the session, and addressing all of these points should ensure that you're not faced with too many surprises once recording starts. To ensure that only the vocal is captured (and not the backing track to which the singer is performing), make sure your singer is wearing headphones and that your studio monitors are switched off. To hear what she's singing, you'll need headphones as well, so either a headphone splitter or an audio interface with more than one headphone output will be useful. When your singer arrives and you're running the track through, simply arm the recording channel initially, so that the microphone is heard live through that channel. Press play rather than record, and the singer can practice against the backing track.When switching from practice mode into the beginning of the recording process, start by capturing a test take. So that the pressure is off, stress to your singer that you're recording this for your sake only to check levels. As this vocal is recorded, listen carefully and watch the levels going into the computer. With digital recording you're looking to capture the best signal-to-noise ratio you can, which equates to the loudest performance you can capture without the vocal tipping over the upper volume threshold into distortion. If the peaks in a vocalist's performance are reaching -3 or -4 dB that's an optimum level, but do bear in mind that through the first few minutes of a session, as the singer's voice warms up, he or she is likely to get louder, so keep the input gain dial at hand. There's one critical point here: to adjust vocal recording levels, the mixer inside your DAW won't help you. This controls the volume of the vocal on the wayof your computer after it has been recorded and doesn't in any way adjust thevolume. If the vocal starts looking a little loud, turn down the input gain on your interface rather than the volume fader in your DAW.Some DAWs only allow you to record one vocal performance per channel, whereas others allow you to build multiple takes on a single track. If you can only record one file per channel, make sure you set up multiple audio tracks in advance so that you don't have to make a new track for each recording. However, if your DAW creates take folders, you'll only need a single track, as each new one will be stacked on top of the previous one. The advantage of this is that you'll be able to choose your favourite parts from each performance to build up a "comped" take once recording is complete.The session started with printed lyrics waiting for our singer. As she hadn't previously heard the track, we sang the song through together a few times until she was comfortable with the melody and then, to set up levels and check that she knew the song from start to finish, we recorded a first take. Capturing one of these is always a useful transition from the practice of running a song through to switching into a recording mentality. While it's unlikely you'll use this take, it serves as a check of recording level and allows the singer to request any changes to levels, reverb amount and overall headphone balance.Having recorded this first pass, we agreed that breaking the song down into three sections would help focus on each one individually. We started with Verse 1, which we wanted to sound breathy and quite fragile. For this, a new audio track was used, and several takes were recorded. Between each one, if required, some constructive feedback was provided, either suggesting how a particular word might be approached or how long the tails on the end of each phrase might last. You don'tto talk between each take, and quite often a singer will want to get into his or her stride by recording several takes in a row. On the flip side, setting a loop around a phrase is rarely a good idea, as a singer might not understand why she is being asked to record the same part over and over again. So press stop between each phase and, unless longer feedback is required, offer a couple of words of encouragement before recording the next pass.When you're confident that, across your takes, you have each line captured, move on to the next stage of the song. Make this a positive transition, resisting all temptation to say, "That one's OK and will sound fine once I've tuned it," or words to that effect. Choose your words carefully, as the quality of your track will depend on your singer's confidence.This leaves us in great shape to contemplate a mix of these vocals, which is where we'll pick up in the next feature. In the meantime, remember that a successful vocal recording session is dependent not only on your ability to run your computer's audio recording capabilities as second nature, but also on your communication skills. Any seasoned engineer will tell stories about nightmare recording sessions, and often these stem from one poorly worded sentence that caused offence, from which recovery proved impossible. Get a session right, and your vocal takes will provide a great platform for the rest of your production and mix.Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton are seen in Washington in 2013. Clinton had spent nearly two years tiptoeing around a decision that much of the political world assumed was a done deal, a calculated next act in what critics saw as the Clintons’ master plan. She felt bad that her candidacy would crowd out Biden, a longtime friend who was also toying with a White House run. (Photo: AP)
The day after Hillary Rodham Clinton officially entered the 2016 race for the White House, Vice President Joe Biden said he still has "plenty of time" to make up his own mind about running.
Biden, making a surprise appearance at a White House briefing for regional reporters, said it's possible he's "dead wrong" about delaying a decision.
"But there's a lot the president and I care about that has to get done in the next two to three months," he said. "When you run for president you've got to run for president, and I'm not ready to do that, if I'm ever going to be ready to do that."
Sunday's announcement by Clinton, the former secretary of state and former first lady, may be soaking up Democrats' attention. But a smaller "Bidenista" movement still exists to draft the vice president into the 2016 race.
The Draft Biden 2016 super PAC, launched last month by former staffers and campaign veterans, is offering " |
put off mainstream acceptance. So it could take even longer for them to catch on than hybrid vehicles, which after a decade still account for less than 3 percent of new car sales in the United States. Cities that want to promote electric vehicles should work with dealers to make installing fast-chargers both fast and cheap.The Rev. Charles E. Coughlin, founder of the union for social justice, in Cleveland, July 17, 1936, attacking the Roosevelt administration before the Townsend National Convention. AP
Since former White House adviser Steve Bannon and his Breitbart News leapt from the bowels of the internet to the forefront of America's national political discourse, things have become darker, more racist, and more violent.
Breitbart made its name by using the internet to distribute a worldview that combines fear-induced manias and prejudices of the far right with spurious echoes of populism. In a country where many feel like they've been forgotten by those in power, it's a heady combination. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that the US has seen this before.
We have already had a Bannon, a man who mastered the medium of mass communication of his day to tote a particularly American breed of nationalism that manipulates by preying on the fear that power from above and encroachment from below will squeeze hardworking Americans in the middle. It divides and it intoxicates.
The last Bannon was a man named Father Charles Coughlin. He was a Catholic priest who led the National Shrine of the Little Flower Church in Royal Oak, Michigan. He was also a radio-show host who, at his show's peak in the early 1930s, captivated a quarter of the country with his Sunday-afternoon broadcasts.
Coughlin's America was much darker than ours. At the beginning and end of the 1930s, almost 25% of the country was unemployed. War was brewing in Europe. Hitler was rising. And Coughlin's authoritative air and mastery of what was then a new, relatively unregulated form of communication made him a political force. In 1932 he told his as many as 30 million listeners that it was "Roosevelt or ruin," according to historian Don Warren, who wrote the book "Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio."
That power led to wealth and status. He built a megachurch. He was friends with Joe Kennedy, the bootlegger father of JFK, Bobby, and Ted. He hid his wealth through a tangled web of charities and bank accounts. He staged massive rallies that sometimes turned violent. He published the widely circulated weekly Social Justice Magazine.
But in 1936 Coughlin overstepped his bounds in his quest for political power. "Roosevelt or ruin" turned into "Roosevelt and ruin," as he turned against the president, embraced Hitler and Mussolini, and became ever more shrill about the Jewish international banker conspiracy that he claimed threatened America. Coughlin, after a spellbinding rise, was ultimately muzzled by the Catholic Church shortly after the US entered WWII. He was essentially a prisoner of his own parish until he died in the 1970s.
But his legacy remained. There is a direct line between Coughlin's rhetoric and what you'll hear on the polarizing conservative talk-radio shows Bannon and Trump's team mined to build a political platform — between those radios shows and what Breitbart distributes on the internet. Seemingly coming from nowhere, both Bannon and Coughlin fed the country a toxic mess of conspiracy theories, bigotry, and lies, and we swallowed it.
But then we spit it back up.
First the airwaves
Henry Morgenthau, right, former American ambassador to Turkey addresses a mass meeting in defense of President Roosevelt's sound-money policy on November 27, 1933, at the Hippodrome, New York City. Father Coughlin, left, the keynote speaker, applauds. AP Coughlin's rise was mythical. According to legend, he decided to launch his radio show in the late 1920s because the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross in front of his then humble church. Ultimately he grew his radio network to 60 stations around the country including all the major metro areas. His listeners sent small-dollar donations to his church, and with that he financed the building of his media empire.
"In his approach to anything he was larger than life," Warren said in an interview with C-Span in 1996. Of course he was also incredibly inconsistent.
Like Bannon, who cultivated a close relationship with Wall Street billionaire Robert Mercer and worked at Goldman Sachs, Coughlin played the market while warning his followers against it. He built wealth alongside the superrich while telling his listeners that the wealthy were the enemy. Both men share a hatred for establishment politicians and convinced their followers that both main parties had failed them.
"We have endeavored to teach you time and again that there can be no coming out of this Depression until what you earn goes to sustain your wife and your children," he once told his followers. "But somehow or other, you're satisfied to sustain the wives and children of those who do the coining and regulating of money, who live in their palaces and travel in their yachts. You want that. You voted for that. You herald that. And it's time that you take that."
Any mention of coining and regulating money was a clear dog whistle for anti-Semitism, but Coughlin also made more direct comments about his hatred of Jews and communists. After some of his rallies, some of his followers were known to rove in packs beating up Jewish people in the streets.
Hate speech, as we know, has always been a feature of Bannon's Breitbart News, not a bug. And when violence broke out between neo-Nazis and protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past summer, Bannon stood by President Trump's statement that there were good people on "both sides."
Contradictions with conviction
Examining Coughlin's beliefs in 1960, historian James P. Shenton wrote in The Wisconsin Magazine of History that Americans have always had a difficult time naming their far-right movements. Often fascism has been seen as a movement that came to us from abroad. Both Coughlin and Bannon complicate that notion. Theirs is a distinctly American nationalist, isolationist authoritarianism that borrows from the populist left, but mostly the right.
For example, both Bannon and Coughlin dreamed of massive, ambitious government programs to help their followers, but not building a government that could support those programs.
In November 2016, Bannon told The Hollywood Reporter that he was the man "pushing the trillion-dollar infrastructure plan" in which the government would "throw things at the wall." Ambitious to be sure. But Bannon is also a proponent of limited government.
Coughlin's ideology had the same inconsistency. When he turned against the New Deal, he railed against it as an agent of communism, while at the same time saying it didn't go far enough to help his followers.
This was after President Franklin D. Roosevelt, once supported by Coughlin, didn't make Coughlin feel as if he had enough influence in the White House. That's when Coughlin turned against the FDR, forming the National Union for Social Justice Party to field a presidential candidate against him. It went nowhere.
After that the Catholic Church started to sour on Coughlin, seeing him as more than a nuisance. The church's US head, Boston's Cardinal O'Connell, called Father Coughlin's speeches "demagogic stuff." Pope Pius XI didn't like that he called Roosevelt a liar. Other priests started speaking out against him and Coughlin's listenership started falling. By the end of the decade, only a few million were listening.
What's more, the government was starting to take sides in the war in Europe. Coughlin had made overtures to Hitler and Mussolini, offering his help. A member of his staff worked for the Japanese and a few made contacts with the Germans. In 1938 the government passed a law forcing people engaged in such activity to register as foreign agents.
To avoid an ugly public confrontation, President Roosevelt essentially told the Catholic Church to handle its own. It did, and Coughlin was muzzled completely by 1942. At that point, America, unified after Pearl Harbor and sick of his hate speech, had had more than enough of him for years anyway.
First as tragedy, then as farce
Coughlin, like Bannon, believed that his ideology came before the nation. This is a characteristic that led some of Coughlin's supporters, even the Wall Street millionaire and Nazi enthusiasts, to question his sincerity. Did he really believe in fixing America or did he believe in his own fame? Was he a brilliant political tactician or merely drunk with his own power, flailing about for any source that could add to it?
And so now we are back in 2017, a year when the economy is doing much better, though inequality has hollowed out the middle class and left the poor in worse shape than they've been in decades. In 2017, Bannon still has Breitbart News, which looks less like a news page for nationalists and increasingly more like a fan page chronicling his glad-handing of global leaders.
Steve Bannon, the former adviser to President Trump and executive chairman of Breitbart News. Scott Olson/Getty Images
The research company he founded, Cambridge Analytica, is under scrutiny by the US government for its role in influencing the 2016 presidential election. White House adviser Stephen Miller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, early supporters of Bannon's work, have both been caught in the crosshairs of that same investigation.
Bannon's former patron, Robert Mercer, wrote an open letter to Wall Street distancing himself from Breitbart and its work — especially its incendiary, hate-speechifying columnists. Breitbart is a talk-radio fever dream come to life on the internet, a Coughlin legacy if there was one.
And then there's his unwavering support for Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore. At this point, almost a dozen women have accused him of sexual harassment or assault, some as young as 14.
Privately, people close to Bannon will tell you that he does have something to fear here. Just as Coughlin needed the church's blessing to speak, Bannon needs the blessing of the Republican donor class to achieve his dream of creating a viable political machine. They need to see him as effective, and if he fails in Alabama in such a splendid matter — by losing to a Democrat in a religiously red state because he insisted on backing a man who has a reputation for preying on young women — then he's ineffectual.
The Republican donors will think: At least Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, Bannon's nemesis, didn't lose a seat in Alabama of all places on God's green earth.
Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul who spoke with Bannon frequently when he was in the White House, recently renounced him.
And Trump, as we well know, is no fan of losers, either. Meanwhile, in defending Moore, Breitbart editors have taken to telling Trump's favorite child, Ivanka, to shut up.
A rift between Bannon and the president would be fatal for Bannon. If there's anything that everyone in this miserable band of an administration has in common, it's their insistence that they — more than anyone else — have the president's interests in mind. You hear it from everyone. They alone are the most loyal, they'll tell you. They are the most Trump in the Trump administration.
Bannon has backed himself into a corner where he must show America that he's bigger than that — bigger than loyalty to Trump, bigger than the Republican Party establishment, bigger than American decency.
This is the stuff that comes before the fall.Abstract
BACKGROUND: Mature ovarian cystic teratomas, which are commonly observed benign ovarian tumors, consist of ectodermal, mesodermal, and endodermal components that are generally disorganized. In this report, we document a case in which the solid portion of an ovarian teratoma demonstrated considerable differentiation, forming a doll-like structure.
CASE: A 25-year-old virginal Japanese woman underwent surgery for an ovarian tumor that was diagnosed as a mature teratoma. A solid mass within the tumor was found to have a head, trunk, and extremities. Consequently, this mass was diagnosed as a mature fetiform teratoma (homunculus). Brain, eye, spinal nerve, ear, teeth, thyroid gland, bone, bone marrow, gut, trachea, blood vessels, and phallic cavernous tissue were confirmed microscopically. Distinctive features were the clear anterior-posterior, ventral-dorsal, and left-right axes, with a spatially well-organized arrangement of the organs. An eye was located on the front of the head, a spinal nerve lay dorsal to the spinal bones, the thyroid gland was anterior to the trachea, and the gut was deep inside the trunk.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that the information necessary for organization of the body plan may be conserved and transmitted, even with parthenogenesis. Mature cystic teratomas of the ovary are mostly benign and do not always attract detailed attention. However, precise analyses of such tumors may significantly enhance our understanding of both parthenogenetic and normal human development.
Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Get notified as soon as a new playlist is released!
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Ever wanted to suffer a horrible death? Well, how about being part of the Game of Thrones? Thanks to a new campaign by the best selling author, George R. R. Martin, you get both! Sort of.
Martin is offering fans of his ‘Song of Fire and Ice’ series the chance to have a character in the book series named after them and it’s all for a good cause. The first two people to pay $20,000, which will be given to the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary and The Food Depot in Santa Fe, get to choose the royal (or peasant) ranking of their character, who will suffer a terrible, grisly death. The weapon of choice will be up to Martin but either way the donor’s character will join the likes of (spoiler ahead) Eddard Stark and Joffrey Baratheon in a mind blowing bloody death.
For the other donors who are not so quick there’s the guarantee of signed memorabilia, a hat worn by Martin and a chance to have dinner with the man himself. All donors will be entered in a drawing to win the opportunity of being flown from anywhere in the world to Santa Fe, the author’s hometown, for a dinner and a helicopter ride with Martin to get an aerial view of the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary.
While taking in the sights of the reserve that saves and protects the lives of wolves, dingos and coyotes, the big winner will be able to ask Martin any and all burning questions they might have. There’s no guarantee that Martin will tell them how the series ends but, hey, you never know.
Via PeopleKey to the Stars
Series: The Fourth Dimension, Book 1
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Key to the Stars is Volume I of The Fourth Dimension, a science fiction/fantasy series that follows the journeys of a young man named Arus whose tragic disfigurement leads him to discover that even the harshest storms can be conquered by courage of the heart. More
A fourteen year old boy.
For nearly a decade, the race of sorcerers known as the Kyrosen lived in seclusion beneath the sands of the Mayahol Desert. After the death of his father during the Vermillion War, Sartan Truce rose to power as the rightful heir to take the reigns of his battered warriors. Although the planet's natives did their best to drive the Kyrosen to extinction, Truce's technological advancements served to both sustain his people and aid them in their fight for survival.
And now his greatest weapon is a fourteen year old boy.“What I’m about to tell you requires a deep breath,” Gary Bettman told reporters, “and a level of precision that I am requesting because I don’t want it misunderstood.” He was in Boca Raton, Florida, addressing the media following an NHL Board of Governors meeting last Monday. It looked like he was pinching a grain of sand between thumb and forefinger, universal press conference sign language for level of precision. Bettman has a lawyer’s keen sense of anticipation, and he knew that what he was about to announce was the kind that tends to take on a life of its own.
“We gave the Board an update on expressions of interest from cities and people interested in expansion teams,” Bettman began. And then he may as well have spoken in the adult-babble from Peanuts, because all anyone really paid attention to were his last five words: “… professional team in Las Vegas.”
Vegas, man. Never mind visiting the place. Just hearing its very name turns us all — hockey fans, writers, even players — into amateurs. We quote Swingers and make Britney Spears jokes and parrot tourism marketing catchphrases. We joke about the fix being in and suggest team names like High Rollers or Gamblers and wonder if there will be a Cirque du Soleil intermission. (Now that I’m thinking about it, a Cirque du Soleil intermission would kick serious ass.)
Yes, the city of a little more than two million residents has been part of the NHL conversation, in fits and starts, for years. A 1991 outdoor game between the Rangers and Kings at Caesars Palace featured Wayne Gretzky and a grasshopper infestation. In 1999, Bettman said thanks but no thanks to Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman when he came to New York to woo the NHL or NBA to his town. In 2007, Jerry Bruckheimer was the marquee name attached to a purported franchise bid that ultimately wasted away amid the financial meltdown. The league moved its annual awards ceremony from Toronto to Las Vegas in 2009. The Kings play preseason games in town.
And if there’s some niche bookie out there who accepts people’s money on items like “an actual NHL team will be based in Las Vegas within the next three to five years,” he’s probably had to adjust his betting lines lately.
♦♦♦
For years, the party line on expansion to Vegas (and to Quebec and Seattle, two other cities most often brought up in these conversations) has been mostly dull and unchanged, simply variations on We do occasionally hear from interested parties, but there are no plans for anything at this time. “We’re not looking to expand right now,” Bettman said in September. “No teams will be relocating. I know people think I have this list tucked away in a vault. I don’t.”
Last week, though, Bettman admitted the league was moving forward ever-so-slightly in the direction of Las Vegas. “There is no formal expansion process,” he stressed. “There is no vote that was taken today. There is no vote that was contemplated. We don’t have an agreement to sell anybody an expansion franchise.” But he also indicated that he’d given the go-ahead to a potential investor to do some hands-on market research.
As with so many development projects on and around the Vegas Strip, the concept of an NHL franchise in town has been, for a long time, confined mostly to grandiose spitballing and theoretical renderings. But lately things seem to be proceeding to some actual next steps: the back-room conversations, the wine-cellar partnerships, even the shovels in the ground. Usually the words “expansion team” go hand in hand with “taxpayer dollars,” but Las Vegas is noteworthy in that there is already an arena under construction, NHL or no NHL, and the building is privately financed.
On Saturday’s Hockey Night in Canada, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman sat down and strolled around with Bill Foley, the billionaire chairman of the board of Fidelity National Financial and the potential moneyman behind a future Vegas organization. (He also has the distinction of being named, in 2004, one of the top five executive golfers in the world.) The conversation was notable for being an ostensibly league-sanctioned one-on-one in which Foley shared numerous specifics.
He confirmed remarks made earlier in the week by Bettman that the NHL had allowed him to proceed with a campaign to test the local waters and see what kind of season ticket commitments he could stir up. He said that if he were granted a team he would ultimately hold a naming contest, as one does, but as an Army man he personally leans toward calling the franchise the Black Knights. (One of Fidelity’s underlying companies is Black Knight Financial Services.)
Foley pressed a button on a sparsely decorated bookshelf and it swung open, revealing stairs to a basement with a framed Wayne Gretzky jersey hanging overhead. Gretzky, he told Friedman, is a friend. Foley Family Wines grows grapes for Gretzky’s wine label. Friedman pointed out that Gretzky has been looking to get back into hockey lately (following a disastrous tenure with the Phoenix Coyotes) and Foley said that while he didn’t want to get ahead of himself, the Great One was already an adviser.
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As silly as it sounds, there are some legitimate reasons to set up shop in Las Vegas. The splash and notoriety factor would be huge, no small thing for a hey-guys-wait-up league like the NHL, which would have a first-mover advantage as the only major professional team in the city. (The NBA currently plays its summer league in town, and MLS is pushing an arena built partly on taxpayer funds.) The mild taboo against having professional teams in a gambling town has continued to break down, with NBA commissioner Adam Silver even writing a New York Times editorial about legalizing sports betting. And, of course, the league would probably seek an expansion fee of $400 million — zero of which would have to be allocated to the players.
Hannah Foslien/Getty Images
And it also ties in with the strategy of putting — then stubbornly keeping — hockey in nontraditional American markets that Bettman has favored for quite some time. Whenever the topic of expansion or relocation comes up, it’s hard for people to understand why a market like Quebec City or Hamilton, Ontario, wouldn’t be an obvious choice — a franchise there would mint money, after all.
But Bettman’s NHL seems to be focused on expanding to new U.S. markets; this is a path that has its ugly moments (embarrasingly populated arenas, cheapskate owners, angry Northerners) but its payoffs as well. Talk to anyone who follows young hockey prospects and they’ll tell you that American players, who once came almost exclusively from Minnesota or Massachusetts, are emerging from all over. The U.S. National Development Under-18 Team has players from Scottsdale, Manhattan Beach, and Ojai.
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You can tell a lot about a person by their reaction to the news that Vegas might get an NHL franchise in the near future. If they’re all “SWEET, it’ll actually be cheaper for me and my buddies to fly in for a game and have some fun on the side than to get decent tickets on StubHub in our own city,” they’re probably a Chicago Blackhawks fan, for example. If they scream “WHAT ABOUT QUEBEC CITY?!!” they may reside in Quebec. If they speak in horrified tones about Foley’s partners in a potential deal — Joe and Gavin Maloof — they were probably scarred for life by the brothers’ gross behavior in torpedoing and selling the Sacramento Kings just a year ago.
Las Vegas residents themselves have varying opinions on the attractiveness and feasibility of the idea. Many approve of the arena’s location, which is convenient for tourists but also close to a freeway that locals often use. Some note how excited they’d be for any professional franchise in town to support, though others question the logistics — how would the team expect to build a local fan base when so many people work weekends and nights? It’s a point in Vegas’s favor that there is already an arena being built, and with private money no less. (Seattle’s venue, by contrast, has always been hypothetical.) But the arena’s owners are MGM and AEG, not Foley and the Maloofs. Plenty of other NHL franchises have learned the hard way that it’s pretty difficult to make money if you’re just a tenant in someone else’s building.
This is why Bettman doesn’t want anyone getting ahead of themselves — the ticket drive could be a big dud, Foley or the Maloofs could lose interest, and this could all be one more anecdote in a history full of them. No decisions have been made.
Still, the NHL has been dabbling in the market for long enough that you assume it’s got some sense of how the numbers ought to pan out. And the league typically remains pretty cryptic on these matters; that they’re talking about it at all is a sign that things might be getting pretty serious — unless, of course, all of this has just been one giant bluff.Ancient forest revealed 1,000 years after being 'entombed' in gravel as Alaskan glacier melts
Scientists found well preserved tree stumps at Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska
Based on the size of their trunks trees are either hemlock or spruce
Ancient forest: Logs and stumps can be seen underneath the thawing 37 square mile Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska, with some of the trees still bearing roots and bark
An ancient forest which is thought to have been hidden for at least 1,000 years has been discovered beneath a melting glacier.
Logs and stumps can be seen underneath the thawing 37 square mile Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska, with some of the trees still bearing roots and bark.
Remnants of the forest have been protruding from the river of ice, which flows into a lake near the city of Juneau for around five decades.
But scientists from the nearby University of Alaska Southeast have noticed more tree stumps popping up in the past year.
The researchers are particularly excited about the discovery because most of the trees are so well preserved with some still in their upright position.
The forest is said to have been shielded from the ice by a tomb of gravel which most likely encased the forest as Initial carbon dating tests suggest that the gravel tomb, which is around 5ft high, may have been formed at least 1,000 years ago.
As glaciers develop they often emit summer meltwater streams which produce aprons of gravel.
Cathy Connor, a professor at the university, told LiveScience: 'There are a lot of them, and being in a growth position is exciting because we can see the outermost part of the tree and count back to see how old the tree was.
'Mostly, people find chunks of wood helter-skelter, but to see these intact upright is kind of cool.'
The trees are thought to be either spruce or hemlock, based on the size of the trunks and existing vegetation in the area.
But while the find has excited scientists, locals are concerned about the prospect of glacial melting.
They are worried about the threat of rising sea levels and the loss of freshwater sources relied upon for drinking water.Rob Carr/Getty Images
To say the 2016 season hasn't gone according to plan for the Cincinnati Bengals is one whopper of an understatement. A campaign that began with hopes of a sixth straight playoff trip and first postseason win in over two decades sits in tatters at 3-7-1.
As disappointment sinks in in the Queen City, so has the realization that the team needs a new plan. Things that seemed inconceivable only a few short months ago are now real possibilities.
Odds are as good as not that Marvin Lewis will be shown the door at season's end. While the Bengals are mulling whether the NFL's second-longest-tenured head coach is the man to lead the team from the sidelines, there's something else they need to consider:
Maybe quarterback Andy Dalton isn't the guy to do so between the lines either.
After the Bengals fell 19-14 in Week 12 (the fifth loss in their last seven games), Lewis allowed to reporters that every Cincinnati player is undergoing an evaluation as the team plays out the string this year.
"I think with professional football, the players realize their jobs are never really secure," Lewis said. "That's why they are what they are. They have to perform each and every time out. They're always being evaluated. Their job is to play as well as they can and win football games."
A year ago at this time, had I mentioned that Dalton was potentially playing for his supper, the comments section of this article would have been filled with suggestions that I seek professional psychiatric help—among other things.
Dalton signed a six-year contract extension in August 2014, and he posted the best season of his NFL career in 2015. His completion percentage, yards per attempt and yards per completion were all career bests. So was his 106.2 passer rating—nearly 20 points higher than his career average.
Andy Lyons/Getty Images
More importantly, the Bengals won their first eight games and spent much of the season looking like the AFC's best team.
Then disaster struck. In a Week 14 tilt with the Pittsburgh Steelers (because of course it had to be the Steelers), Dalton broke his right thumb. Just like that, his season and any real hopes the Bengals had of a deep playoff run were dashed.
Dalton hasn't been the same player since.
Playing under a new offensive coordinator in Ken Zampese and behind an offensive line that took a significant step backward this season, Dalton's production has plummeted in 2016. His numbers are down nearly across the board, and the 29-year-old has thrown only 12 touchdown passes in 11 games.
Andy Dalton 2015 vs. 2016 Year G Comp. % PYPG TD INT Rating QBR 2015 13 66.1 250.0 25 7 106.2 73.1 2016 11 63.5 276.6 12 6 89.7 64.5 Per Pro Football Reference
At this point Dalton's defenders will point to a line that's allowed the fourth-most sacks in the NFL, a new offensive scheme and the injuries that have hit players like wideout A.J. Green, tight end Tyler Eifert and tailback Giovani Bernard as reasons for Dalton's drop-off. Call him a prisoner of a bad situation. Say it's not all his fault.
That was essentially the argument Zampese made while speaking with reporters this week:
He's played pretty well. This past game, we had our ups and downs through the course of the game. I just know that he battles and he works so hard and he wants to be so right all the time. So when you've got it like that, you know you're going to get the best out of the guy every week. What we do get is we get the best effort out of that guy every week. Not every week goes the way we planned. But what he puts in goes exactly how he planned.
The thing is, in the land of so-called "franchise" quarterbacks, everything is their fault. It's the flip side of getting the huge paycheck and all the credit when things are going well.
Dalton's critics have long said Green has held him up throughout his career. Last week at least, with Green out with a bad hamstring, it's an argument that appeared to have merit. And in the early part of 2016, with Eifert on the shelf, Dalton and the Bengals had all sorts of problems in the red zone.
Franchise quarterbacks like Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers have the ability to put a team on their backs and will them to victory if that's what it takes. We're seeing flashes of that from youngsters like Derek Carr and Marcus Mariota in 2016.
This is Dalton's sixth NFL season, and we're still waiting.
Franchise quarterbacks also put up their best performances in the most pressure-packed games.
Dalton, to this point in his career, has done the exact opposite.
Cincinnati's Week 10 loss to the New York Giants dropped Dalton's career record in prime-time games to an abysmal 5-10. He's completed less than 60 percent of his passes once the sun goes down and posted a passer rating south of 80.
Dalton's numbers in the playoffs are even worse.
Much worse.
Andy Dalton Playoffs G Comp. % PYPG TD INT Rating 4 55.7 218.3 1 6 57.8 0-4 Career Record
In four career postseason starts, Dalton has a passer rating of less than 60. He's thrown one touchdown pass against six interceptions. And the Bengals have been unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs each and every time.
The cold, hard truth with Dalton is this: He's a good NFL quarterback. You can even make the argument he's a very good NFL quarterback. But he isn't great. He's never going to be great.
In the opinion of former NFL executive Jeff Diamond, writing for Sporting News, that leaves the Bengals with tough choices to make as this disappointing season winds down:
If the Bengals are out of contention with two or three games to go, I suggest they give [AJ] McCarron another audition so they have a better idea if he's a viable candidate to lead the team in 2017. In the final analysis, if Mike Brown and his executive team decide to move on from Dalton, they will be making the call that Dalton can only take the team so far; that he will never do what Ken Anderson and Boomer Esiason did for the Bengals in leading them to the Super Bowl. And, ultimately, that's what it has to be all about for teams in judging their quarterbacks.
Will the Bengals go the bold route and sever ties with Dalton in the offseason? Almost certainly not, even with his contract configured in a manner that makes it relatively painless for the team to do so. It just isn't GM/owner Mike Brown's style. Given Brown's apparent love of all things continuity, it's only an even-money bet that this year's disaster will cost Lewis his job.
There's also the inherent desperation NFL teams all feel about the quarterback position. Teams that don't have one will do anything to get one. Teams that have one will do anything to keep him...including convincing themselves the signal-caller they have is |
it because he is rich and America has been so good to him. I don’t know his life story, so I will not debate whether America has been good to him or not, but he has achieved a level of success that most Americans will never reach. Though the argument that being successful requires that you not speak out against injustice would be laughable if it weren’t so stupid and pervasive.
As if we listen to the people most harmed by America’s history of inequity.
As if we value input from kids in overcrowded and underfunded schools.
As if we respect the opinions of convicts.
As if we give press conferences to single moms.
In an America where many of the most powerful people use their power and influence to gain further advantages, widening the gap between their children and ours, Kaepernick has risked more than most people to speak up for you. Yes, he speaks for you, too, white folks. Whether he intends to or not. Yes, he speaks for soldiers who have died in defense of this country and veterans of war who suffer back at home without the support they have more than earned. He even speaks for the police whose actions prompted his nonviolent demonstration.
Sitting during the national anthem is a statement that gives voice to more than his postgame comments. A demonstration during the national anthem is a call for us to fulfill the promises we pledge. I have never better understood the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. quote, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” than I do now. Though those words seem lofty and poetic, today they seem grounded and practical. The rash of black men killed by police, the epidemic of homicides in Chicago and other urban areas, and the police being killed by civilians are not separate issues to be addressed in isolation, but symptoms of the same illness.
Like a possessed Rube Goldberg machine, those injustices exist because of a dearth of opportunities for many black Americans. And that scarcity is a direct descendant of injustices from slavery, Jim Crow laws, housing discrimination, to the exclusion of blacks from benefits offered to white Americans through the New Deal, the original GI Bill, etc.
And throughout history, rather than making the appropriate sacrifices, the most powerful among us sent police in to cure issues of poverty and the first lack of opportunity with arrests and guns. And today we see the result. Saddest of all is rather than Kaepernick’s stance pushing us to work for a cure to the root of these problems, we will just put on the jersey of our team and root for either side to win a game that can’t be won.At least seven people have been killed in a series of coordinated bomb and gun attacks in central Jakarta, Indonesia's police told Al Jazeera, as blasts rang out of the capital's downtown area.
An unknown number of people were injured in the security operations at the Sarinah shopping complex on Thamrin Street in Jakarta's central district on Thursday.
Police said the attack has ended and that security forces are in control of the area.
Earlier police reports said five gunmen were killed and that another five policemen and seven civilians were also dead. Police later revised the toll to a total of seven, including four attackers.
All six blasts occurred about 50 metres apart in the central business district, which also houses a United Nations office.
Earlier, tweets from the account of Jeremy Douglas, regional representative of the UN office on Drugs and Crime for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, described a bomb and "serious" exchanges of gunfire on the street outside his office.
Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen, reporting from Jakarta, said a police post was destroyed in a grenade blast and that sporadic gunfire was heard in the downtown area of the capital.Children in Science Fiction
The following is a transcription of a panel about children in science fiction held at ConFuse 93. The transcription was done by Tommy Persson. To make the text more readable it was edited by Tommy Persson in some respects. Hopefully, not too many errors were introduced in this process. Panel participants were Carina Björklind (CB, moderator), Nancy Kress (NK), Mary Stanton (MS) and Jan Wallenius (JW).
CB: We are going to talk about children in science fiction or rather the lack of children. It is usually very hard to find children in science fiction books and as Nancy has phrased it, they are usually treated as furnitures with diaper. You talked about that in an interview in Locus. Could you say something?
NK: Okay, by the age forty, ninety percent of American women will have had a child. I don't know what the statistics is in Sweden but it's probably not that much different. And yet, to read science fiction, you get the impression that the entire race is not reproducing itself. Everything interesting that is being done in science fiction and fantasy is inevitably being done by people who are unencumbered by children. And as all of you who are parents know, having a child is an inconvenient thing. Just as you are about to track the villain the child wakes up and you have to nurse it.
You can't leave town because... Even in fantasy the same thing comes up in real life. Here you are, you are off and you are slaying barbarians or dragons or whatever and the truth is that you got to stay home and do your farming because your daughter is going to need a dowry next month or she will never be able to marry anybody decent and she will have to be a serf for the rest of her life. And when you look at science fiction and fantasy you would think that the race is not reproducing itself. Look at some of the important books of the last say ten or twenty years. Consider for instance Neuromancer by William Gibson, a remarkably influential science fiction book that pretty much launched the whole cyberpunk movement. Not only has it no children to speak of, you can't even imagine children in this world. The world is an underworld, it is a down and dirty underworld.
It has got a lot of criminal activity, people are moving very fast, they are busy laundering money through several capitals of the world, they are busy stealing software from each other and plugging things in and out of their brain. There is a lot of activity and nobody wants to interrupt it because the baby has got diarrhea. My objection to this is that real life includes children and real life is more complicated than science fiction makes it in terms of family structures and finding places to put... When was the last time you saw a starship with a day care center? And yet you can't really assume that all these people, going around space, on a five year mission, where no man has ever gone before are going to be completely child free for the whole time. I object to this and the reason that I object has to do with an assumption about what science fiction should be doing. My assumption, that I am making about science fiction is that it should be a real literature and what a real literature does, whether it is set in the past, the future, an alternate reality, a fantasy reality or whatever, is show us ourselves, show us human beings and all of our complexity, all of our messiness, all of our dreams, all of our mixed motivations, all of our total irrationality at some times and incompetent rationality at others. It shows us ourself and it gives us models to live by. I don't necessarily mean utopian models. Neuromancer is a good book, yet nobody wants to go slipping away becoming Case, the hero of that book. But it shows us a world that is at least as complex, at least as real, at least as contradictory as our own and that means it should include the complexity and the contradictions, and the mixed emotions, and the mixed motivations, and the accommodations that people's lives have to make for the presence of children.
CB: In your books you actually put in children and usually relationships between mother and daughter and things like that. But how is it with you Mary? You are also a writer, have you put in this aspect?
MS: Just for the sake of argument I'll take the opposite side of the fence here and argue that not only science fiction, which I have written in the past, but mysteries, which is what I am now writing as my main field of interest, and other types of genre literature are written to challenge the reader and make him think about new ideas but also as a matter of escape. I would pass it, just for the sake of the argument: why would you want to read about the complexities of diapers and diarrhea when what you would like to do is lose yourself in a universe where these kinds of things have been set aside for a higher adventure and a higher purpose? Not that having children and bringing them up isn't a higher purpose. Why do you need children? Why do you need children's presence in any kind of fiction?
NK: Because I don't think science fiction is an escape or should be an escape. I think that it is more important than that. Television is an escape. Look at how bad it's gotten, at least in the United States, and it's getting worse. Nobody looks at television or at least sitcoms and dramas because they think that they are going to learn something important about the way the world functions. If you want to escape have TV. Literature is too important for that to happen and I do consider science fiction to be literature. And again, I repeat, we need a model of the way the world works. This doesn't mean there have to be kids in every single book, but I am talking about the genre as a whole. We don't reflect the reality of the human situation which is that ninety percent of people will have children and children are a tremendous commitment of resources. All of you parents out there, you know how much time and energy and money and planning goes into kids. And any world that lets us escape into the possibility where that does not exist for everybody all the time is falsifying it and I don't think that is much of a useful escape or even much of an interesting escape.
MS: Well, lets define the term escape then. Nancy has two children and I have three and I really sympathize with the demand of time that children make on you and it seems to me -- I kind of hesitate to say this -- that real work in the sense of making new scientific discoveries, even real adventure, even real business, doesn't include children. There is much of the real world where the raising of children has to be shut into a particular segment of the population. Traditionally women and servants have been the ones to raise children. And it seems to me that while you are talking about integrating children into the real world of literature, that integration doesn't seem to exist in our existing world.
CB: What do you say about that Jan? You are a scientist and you are a father as well. Do you recognise children in science fiction more after you became a father?
JW: Well, I actually haven't thought about it but when you asked me to join this panel my first recollection was Aldous Huxleys Brave New World where children are grown in bottles. Some authors have treated the subject this way. They have got rid of the child problem by arranging for the society to take care of the children. They are grown in machines or they are born grown up or something like that.
NK: Let me say about that, that I think that is valid. How a society treats its children is an important component of what that society is like. In Brave New World where the children are being grown in bottles and then raised in... That says something about a society. How a society chooses to address the raising of its children is something important about a society and that is another reason for including it in a book.
Let me answer what Mary said. It is true that business and scientific discoveries and international espionage do not of themselves include children. Probably, IBM and Xerox and Mitsubishi have not got kids scampering through the halls in their headquarters. Probably, international spies and terrorists are not logging their children along while they are doing what it is they have to do. And I will agree with you, and especially in a short story or a novelette or a novella where you are focusing on one aspect of the world (that is what makes it a short story). There you've selected and rearranged the world into a convenient pattern for the story and leaving out something as important as how the society handle children is certainly valid for that. But a novel is something else again. One of the functions of a science fiction novel is to give us an overview of the whole society, whatever it is, of that novel. And an important part of this society is how it raises its children which are essentially the future. Politicians are always saying that our children are our future and it is the truth, they are. And how a society treats children as a whole says something very important. Those scenes in Brave New World of decanting and the bottles going down the line as they are treated mechanically are a very important part of it. And in some of the best science fiction novels, or what I consider to be the best ones, of the last twenty-five years the question of how the society as a whole treat children (not necessarily the individual characters in the book, they may be childless, some people are) is an important component in the whole thing. For instance look at Ursula K. LeGuins The Dispossessed. Possibly one of the finest science fiction novels ever written. She spends a lot of time explaining how the planet Anarres has integrated child raising into the rest of its social structure. Children live in their own separate dorms or creches, they go to school and they learn many different things, any facet of the society. It is not a formal academic rigid program and they work as apprentices in various different things. So they find a niche for themselves as they move on and they became adapt in this work. And this says something about the fact that work in Anarres is undifferentiated, that everybody does pretty much a little bit of everything except those jobs that require highly differentiated skills like music and physics where you have to study for years. And because children are integrated in all of the wide spectrum of jobs it reflects the integration of the whole society into a wide spectrum of jobs, where you might make soap one day and lay pipes the next day and go out to do some farming the next day, unlike our society which is highly specialized. And it is an important component and the same is true of many good novels. I don't think you can leave it out in a novel.
CB: I think it reflects the society and science fiction is supposed to maybe predict the future.
Audience (Calle Dybedahl): Two years ago Stableford likened science fiction to a moral laboratory. A place where the author can experiment and research moral choices and ethics in situations which does not occur in normal society. I think that is a reason why children normally don't show up because if an author is experimenting with the morality of something that does not concern children, his book will not contain children. And most authors are men which traditionally, in our culture, does not have very much contact with children so they will naturally choose areas where there are no children, to write about.
NK: I like the phrase ''a moral laboratory''. I like that a lot. But I also think it carries some implications. Morality implies that you are looking at something larger than just what you are doing right there. For instance, it is possible to look at say genocide, say invent a virus that is capable of wiping out an entire country's worth of population. It is possible to look at it only scientifically saying I engineered the virus to do this and I engineered the virus to do that. If I am going to look at it morally though I have to look at all aspects of what that virus is going to do and all consequences. The idea of fiction as a moral laboratory, seems to me, only reinforces the fact that you need children, because children do represent a society's future and surely any aspect of any moral issue is its consequences on the future. And frankly, I think that if the majority of writers in science fiction that are men, and in the United States about sixty-five percent of SFWA are male, are leaving out children in this grand moral design because they have not had much contact with them themselves, then I don't think that it is a strength. I think it is weakness. I think it is an indictment not only of science fiction but also of the way children are raised and the way work is differentiated in effect that fathers are not sufficiently involved. I don't want to make blanket statements because I know some very involved fathers, but it is the system that isolates men from there children.
CB: But isn't there a problem if the men write science fiction about technology and the female authors write science fiction which involves emotion and children and all this? Then we preserve the traditional pattern that men take care of all the technical stuff.
MS: First of all I think I would take issue with the distinction -- perhaps it's a real one as science fiction is evolving -- with men simply addressing the technological scientific breakthrough issues and women looking at the more intuitive side of things. I think that Nancy's own work is an example of scientific and technological forecasting being integrated with the intuitive character driven novels as opposed to plot driven novels. The writer in me really says wait, it isn't that there are gender specific ways of addressing fictional tasks. On the other hand, Carina, you are probably stating a reality which is that in the United States science fiction in the thirties and forties was written predominantly by men who had as their task intellectual and scientific issues. And I can't think of one story up until Nancy began writing in the early eighties, except for Ursula K. LeGuin who predated her, where the author addressed full universal human issues integrating science, technology and family into one thing. What you are expressing is a reality which I hope is a reality of the past.
CB: Me too.
NK: My guest of honor speech tomorrow night is on women in American science fiction and I am going to touch on some of these issues so I do not want to say too much on those issues right now. But let me back up a little to something you said before. I think another reason (I just feel like I am fighting alone here) that I think it is important to include depiction of how children are handled in a society in science fiction novels
is because I think science fiction should be character driven. What I mean by that is that I think the people in science fiction, whether they are male or female, should be as fully realised as complete real human beings, as characters in mainstream writing or as any of you are, characters in real life. For example, a person has a child and he is a man who only goes home and sees his children very briefly a few times a week, just think of an extreme case, the 1950 American male who leaves completely the raising of the children to his wife and sees them perhaps at dinner and a maybe a few hours on Saturday and has very little to do with them until they are grown up at which point he realises that he never knew his children and regrets it bitterly. Even in that case a large portion of energy, his financial resources, his planning will be for his children. He will plan to send them to university, he will plan how they are going to have a career, he will plan on what it is that he can do for them, he will be spending a large portion of his income on raising them and all of this will change his thinking. I don't mean that every character in every science fiction novel has to be a mother or a father. I know a lot of people who don't have children. For writers especially, the percentage is much higher than it is for the normal American population. I would say fully half of the writers I know are childless by choice. So I am not saying that every person in a novel has to be a parent but when no important characters in the novel are parents, then what you have done is you have falsified the human condition and you have missed the chance to develop a really full characterization of the society and of the people, because when we become parents we change as all of you who have children know. Over time you find that you are thinking for two people or three people or four people and not just for yourself, and that changes the way you look at the world, it changes the way you look at the future. And to leave that out of all the major characters in a science fiction novel is not to reproduce human reality in a way that is as fully, as rich, as it can be and as it needs to be. Just because science fiction is about science or adventure or whatever, which it is, I am not denying that, does not excuse writers from using it as a moral laboratory which means that you have to include all of the important aspects of being human and certainly parenthood is one those.
Audience (Holger Eliasson): Why stop at children, why not create perfect description of a future society? Why not include environmental issues? Why not include law? Crime?
NK: A really good science fiction novel will include those things. It will be done by implication. The environmental issues will be there because we will see people moving around the planet and you can't not put the environmental issues in. For instance, can they breathe or do they have to put on an oxygen mask when they go outside. Is there enough food or is it severely rationed. Those are all environmental issues and they will be there. Is it a highly technological culture or are there plants. And if there aren't any plants, how are the animals eating and how are the people eating? You can't not include environmental issues. You can't not include law because for one thing you have to imply whether or not people are breaking the law. Even the simplest adventure novel has got to include that. Is what these people are doing legal or are they likely to take heat for it? You got to by implication include these things. That doesn't mean you stop the story dead for paragraphs of explanation because if you do, you are probably dead as a writer. But it is there by implication. Law, how people go to the bathroom -- you may not actually see anybody doing this and in fact I'd rather not. How is waste handled and what technological level is there? I remember one of the most interesting and telling little details in 2001, the movie, which I saw when it came out in 1969, and was blown away with. This guy goes into a low gravity toilet and there is a long list of explanations, because when you think about it you realise this is going to be tough without gravity. It was just a little detail but it added a richness.
CB: A good example, which you mentioned in the interview, is Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net. What you said was that before he became a father there were no children in his books. But after he became a father this changed. In Islands in the Net they are tossing this baby all around.
NK: Yes, I like Islands in the Net very much. I like almost anything Bruce writes, but particularly Islands in the Net for this reason. The couple which gets involved in international espionage does have a baby along for the first third of the book. And it is very inconvenient. They are touring an enormous former battleship which has been converted into a floating food station. It is using algae and other food from the sea, and converting them into something that is edible for human beings. And they tour this food station, and while they do this they got the baby in its infancy and it has to be changed, and they got to take turns carrying it, and there wasn't enough diapers brought along, and one thing and another. It lended a level of realism, and then one of them has to go to Africa on a really dangerous mission and the question comes up: which one? Somebody has to go back to Texas with the baby and somebody has to go ahead and go to Africa. They can't go together because nobody in there right mind would lug a baby along on an international terrorist mission. So it is a real decision and there are real consequences. It's the woman Laura who goes on the mission and when she comes back, considerably later than she expected, a matter of years, her daughter who is no longer an infant doesn't know her, doesn't recognise her, and in fact has been raised by her husband who has grown away from her and her mother and has become somebody different then Laura would have raised her herself. And it's heartbreaking, it's the most heartbreaking scene in the book, and it's also a very real scene, and it lends a depth to the scientific part and the adventure part that a lot of other books like Neuromancer completely lack. I think Islands in the Net is a much better book. It didn't get the attention, it's not flashy like Gibson's Neuromancer, but I think it's a much better book, probably for that reason. Of course you are certainly free to disagree with me.
MS: I think your question really raises something that perhaps we should just comment on. In current fiction which is set in the present, such as mystery or horror or mainstream fiction, there is a whole lot of assumptions that you can make about the society that you know the reader is going to understand. Among those things are: what is the legal system, how are the ecological issues handled and how are children handled? When you are reading fiction not concerning the future then there seem to me that the mark of a high quality novel is that all of those things have been taken into consideration, in the novelist mind if nowhere else. We are not talking about having a large proportion of science fiction containing scenes containing children. Just that a science fiction novel of the future in addition to considering what's the law and all these things that make a real universe also includes how you talk about the kids and what you do with the kids, because nobody can create a universe without children, it isn't a real universe.
CB: I think an illustrative example is Aliens where there is a child which Ripley has to save. In the original film, before they cut it, in the beginning we see the base where the marines go, but we see it bustling with life. People are working there and there are lots of children because there are families there. You see small kids on three-wheeled bicycles and they are in the computer room and someone comes in and say: ''you can't have the children here'', and that is just marvelous. Here are really happy families and then they find this crashed space ship with the monster in it and the next scene is when Ripley is contacted because they have lost contact with the base. The film as shown in the cinema starts with Ripley returning and she is contacted because they have lost contact with the base. And then this child turns up from nowhere because they arrived at an empty base. There are no people there and because we never saw this base bustling with life we didn't get the shock effect that you get when you see the un-cut version. It wasn't so important with children and all this so they just cut it out.
NK: I think it is changing though. Look at the two Star Treks. In the original Star Trek with Captain Kirk and Mr Spock there were almost never any children and there certainly weren't any on the Enterprise. They went around doing their thing around the galaxy. You hardly ever saw a child unless it was on a planet where they happened to put in. The current Star Trek series Deep Space Nine -- it has just started on television this past season -- is a Star Trek show and it has that Star Trek look and that Star Trek feel although there are different characters. It takes place on a space station which once belonged to aliens who have abandoned it. The federation is taking it over and the person who is in charge of running it is Captain Benjamin Ciscoe. A lot of alien races come here to re-fuel and then they pass on so it is sort of a crossways of the galaxy. The commander of the space station, Captain Benjamin Ciscoe, has a son eleven year old. His wife is dead and he is raising this son himself on the space station. There are other children on the space station too. As a result there is a school and there is day care arrangements and although this is in the background it makes the Deep Space Nine feel more like a future the human race might eventually have than the original Star Trek. It is true that the Enterprise in the original Star Trek was a military ship and you don't generally have children running around a military ship. However it's also true that we don't assign our military to one ship without getting them off for five years, without them coming back to their families for five solid years. It seems to me that if you have people out there for five solid years, people are going to get married, children are going to be born and families are going to be formed. None of that was happening on the Enterprise. On Deep Space Nine it is. And I think that it is a better show for that. So I think it is starting to change. Hallelujah!
Audience: In the American series V, the solution was that there were two children born. One was defective or dead and the other was alive. It was a girl with some paranormal powers and that was, I think, a very unusual solution to the series so I wonder if you think it was a difficult way to solve the problem or... How do you think about that as a writer? You have to solve the problem that you have sex between different races, that must work, and you have this idea of having a child born that ended the series so my idea was that it was not a very easy way...
NK: I didn't see V. I saw the first few couple of episodes and I didn't like it. So you have to ask Mary because she saw it.
Audience: Do you think there was a lot of argument before they come up with this solution?
MS: Did you think it was a cheap solution an easy solution? I thought it was a good one.
Audience: No, I think it was a quite complicated way to end.
MS: This baby was the merging of the two races and I thought that...
Audience: There were two babies. One was defective in some way. The other one was a girl and she sort of saved the whole Earth.
MS: That is sort of a Christian theme in the sense that there is a child that shall solve the conflict and bring the races forward together. I thought it was a good conclusion. I don't think that that is using children in quite the way that we have been discussing up until now because up until now we have been discussing the lack of children in the creation of science fiction novels as being a vulnerability. It isn't a real world until you consider the children. But this seems to me as an example where like the biblical phrase ''and the little child shall lead them''. This was, a little child shall lead them to a better, happier resolution of this conflict. I liked this series very much because I like that kind of adventure science fiction and I saw it all the way through. A friend of ours wrote the novelisation and I bought it and read it and liked it very much. I though it was good, I thought it was a worthwhile resolution, and I thought it was a good use of the child. I don't like to see science fiction novels where children are held in threat because I think that is a cheap and easy way to get the readers' interest. But that is a third issue altogether, where you have some innocent kid who is being held in jeopardy just to keep the action going. I think that is tacky. Well, did I answer your question?
Audience: Yes.
MS: I frequently don't.
CB: We mentioned earlier that men haven't much to do traditionally with the children so male authors may have a tendency to just ignore children in their writing. But actually, there have been a lot of novels and short stories which have touched on the theme in Brave New World where they try to get rid of the replication. Either they try to produce children without a woman in an artificial womb or you try to clone people or something. That is another question of course. That seems to have been one way of trying to deal with this, we don't want children and how could we get rid of the process altogether? As a technical problem.
NK: I think that is a legitimate use of science fiction though. If it is a moral laboratory it is also a laboratory for the limits of science. Things we can't do yet but we probably will be able to do eventually. If we can do these things, how will we use them in terms of reproduction, is certainly a valid approach for science fiction to take. One of my favourite science fiction novels is Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang which is about cloning and in this version most of the population of the United States has been wiped out. Of what is left, a lot of the population is sterile. They expect that eventually the entire population will be sterile. To ensure that the race doesn't die out, they are trying to develop cloning so babies can be cloned from existing people. And they do do this. They develop cloning and it goes through I think six or seven generations where they will clone three or four of you and then from each of those they will clone three or four. But what happens is, as she develops the novel, something is lost. Without the mixing up of the genes you don't get the regrouping that leads to individuality and without the high level of individuality that human beings have you loose originality and creativity and diversity. And by the time they are in their seventh or eighth generation they have a real problem. I wont give it away because I want you to read the book because it is wonderful. And that is a valid approach, that is scientist cautionary tale. If we do this, if we depart from what is normal for human beings, disaster lies ahead. That's one message science fiction has.
I think the opposite when I write. These kinds of things are inevitable and it may be that there are better ways to reproduce and improve the race than we currently are using and maybe there is not. But whether they are better or not, they are on their way so we might as well accept them. For instance, genetic engineering. My novel Beggars in Spain just came out a few months ago in the United States from Avon. The novella version came out three years ago, and the novel version takes the story through another two or three generations. The premise here is that in the future it is possible, using in vitro fertilisation, to choose the genes for your children for some characteristics. Not everything of course because the human gene obviously is very complicated but you can choose some appearance characteristics. If you for instance want your child to be tall and have blue eyes and red hair, this is easily arranged. You can have a predisposition towards musical ability, you can't guarantee the child to be musical but a predisposition towards it can be arranged. If you want a high IQ -- this is genetically controlled, at least largely genetically controlled -- it can be put into the genes. What comes out in the novel is that a new genetic modification has just been developed which is that people don't have to sleep at all, ever. There are some evolutionary theories that say that sleep may in fact not be necessary to the human brain. We may sleep because it is a holdover from a time when it kept us safe, when there were a lot of predators around and to be able to be out of the way during the nocturnal hour,s when most of those predators were roaming, was an advantage to us. And the reason that we dream is that it wouldn't be an evolutionary advantage to go in too deep a sleep because when a predator comes up and starts gnawing your arm off you want to be able to be awake and notice this so that you can stop it. So we dream so that the brain can be bombarded from the limbic system and from the brain stem. It bombards the cortex to keep us only lightly asleep so that if you are attacked you will wake up. That means that the whole thing can be eliminated without causing any real damage. One theory says you sleep because a chemical accumulates in your brain that forces you to sleep. If you don't, and sleep deprivation experiments show this, sleep for a long enough time you start to have psychotic episodes. But it could be that this is because of accumulation of a certain kind of neural transmitters in the brain that we haven't yet identified. So if you genetically engineer people so this doesn't happen, they never have to sleep. Now what happens to my people who never have to sleep? First of all they gain an extra third of life, an extra eight hours over all the rest of us. Secondly they have a boost in intelligence because -- this is my theory now remember, I can do it anyway I want -- they are not having their brain stems bombarded for eight hours by irrelevant messages while they are dreaming. So this as a side effect turns out to boost intelligence. There are other side effects too. But what happens essentially is that you create a race of genetically superior people, not quite super-men but they certainly are genetically superior to us norms and the next generation gets even more so and the one after that even more so. And you can see this is going to cause trouble, and it does, because for one thing it is a very expensive genetic modification, so the only people that can have it built-in in vitro are those who have enough money or enough connections with the scientific establishment in order to do it. And since these children are already advantaged by having parents who have got some money and some connections you eventually end up with a gap between the haves and the have nots which the United States is already suffering from at a tremendous amount. And you end up with political unrest and you end up with all kinds of social consequences. The reason I told you the whole plot of my novel is not because I think you should all read it, although of course I do think you should all read it, it is because children are used in this novel not because they are cute and not because they are important, although they are important to a society, but because when you are writing about the projection into the future, children are often the way you get there whether it's through cloning or genetic modification or whatever. And so I think that is another legitimate use of children in science fiction. It is the next generation that has to deal with this or the one after that or the one after that. How will they do it?
CB: I think it is very important that authors address these questions because even today it is possible to discover inherited diseases and I know that in some countries they dispose of female foetuses and things like that. I think in the future it's very possible that it will be hard to get insurance and things like that if you have an inherited disease. And we might have the opposite problem that only the rich are able to produce children if they have a disease in their family.
It's very hard to know what will be possible in the future with genetic engineering because we don't know where the limits are yet. I think it is very good that authors explore this as you have done.
NK: Twenty years ago, twenty-five years ago, Larry Niven said, maybe it is as much as thirty years ago, he said to -- not to the science fiction audience which already knew it -- the audience of the larger |
Boilen: Tell me if this is a true story, now, because I've carried this around in my head and it makes me smile — and this may explain your attraction to craftspeople, as well: You were a craftsperson. You did furniture, you did upholstery. Your furniture place was — what? Was it Third Man...?
White: Third Man Upholstery.
Boilen: Its slogan was?
White: "Your furniture's not dead."
Boilen: And Third Man Records' slogan is?
White: "Your turntable's not dead." I don't know what I'll do if I open up a funeral home.
Boilen: "Your brother's not dead."
White: "Your mom's dead, man."
Boilen: Well, don't do that, then.
White: Okay.
Boilen: "Your sandwich is not dead" might work. Or "Your dry cleaning's not dead" might work. So I was told you would write either things that you heard on NPR or poems you would write on scraps of paper while you were doing upholstery, and stuff it into furniture. Is that a true story?
White: Yeah. [Though] most of the stuff I'd write was on the wood frame in the furniture. 'Cause I thought — something hit me as a teenager while I was apprenticing in Detroit at an upholstery shop. I said to the guy, Brian Muldoon, was teaching me — I said, "How come we don't write notes to each other? Upholsters. We're the only ones who see the insides of this furniture. We should have so many inside jokes and things we could write." You know, "This guy was a jerk. He wouldn't pay for this." We should be telling each other what was the story on these couches. I started to write a little bit about, well, this is where I got this chair and the person who hired me to do it — a little bit of that. [And] maybe on the other side, underneath, I'd hide a poem or something like that.
And then we started to — the zenith of that [was when] Brian and I had a band called The Upholsterers [and] for the 25th anniversary of his shop, we made a hundred pieces of vinyl. We made a record we stuff into furniture that you could only get if you ripped the furniture open. We even made it on clear vinyl with transparency covers — we thought you couldn't even X-ray it to see if it was in there. I'm talking about — really, you could rip open a couch and think it's not there 'cause it's inside the foam — sliced inside the foam and slid in there. I mean, we really went to great lengths to make sure possibly no one would ever hear our record! But it's there. It's so great. It's there. There's a hundred pieces of furniture out there that have those records, and maybe one day someone will find them.
Boilen: No one's found one yet?
White: No one's found one yet, no.
Boilen: How would they even know to begin to look?
White: They could say if they knew the name of the upholstery shop — his was Muldoon Studio. I don't know if — but they could rip open something that's totally... there's no record in there. They would be very unhappy. My guess is, what's gonna happen is it's going to be passed down a generation and some upholster will reupholster it 40 years from now and pull the record out and throw it away. That's probably what's gonna happen.
Boilen: That's so sad.
White: But there's a beauty to it, too! It's just a really compelling idea.
Boilen: Do you ever miss working with your hands that way? Do you ever want to go back and do craft? Is there something day-to-day in your life...?
White: I just rebuilt my upholstery shop last year. I saved all my tools in storage — my cutting table, my sewing machine — so I rebuilt my shop, finally. So I'm doing it again.
Boilen: Wow. Now, would you do this for hire? For yourself? Would you take just your own furniture?
White: I'd like to do a couple things — I'd like to just do it for myself and for people I know. It's be hard to sort of put an ad out there. I don't have the time to do it for a living anymore, but maybe [I could] just do it for people I know.
I'd be nice to do a project. We did a record with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and I asked her about the settee she always sits on — that famous couch. I said, "Man, I'd really, really love to upholster that thing for you." And she said, "Ah, come on, Jack. If you'd've met me a month ago. I just had that thing reupholstered for the first time ever." I got so mad. I almost wanted to tell her, "Can I just redo it? Can I rip it off and redo it?"
Boilen: Did they do a nice job?
White: Um, yeah, they did a good job. It was okay, yeah. I offered to upholster Conan O'Brien's chair for his new TV show, but they didn't want to use an upholstered chair. I think they wanted something different. But, yeah, it would be nice to do some projects like that.
Boilen: Robin Hilton, any thoughts?
Robin Hilton: Hey, Jack. You know, something I thought was really interesting that you included in the recordings with Amy Walker and Jerry King... we're listening to you talk to them, and it sounds very much like an interview. And I think I'm hearing news, just a factual news interview. But you end the interviews by asking if everything that they told you is true. And it suddenly made me go back and question everything that I just heard, and it sort of turned it into art more than an interview. Was that your intent? Or, what were you thinking when you asked them that?
White: That was just a question that I threw out at the first Green Series record did with this guy, BP Fallon. I said, "Is everything you said today true?" It wasn't the last question I asked him. It was in the middle. And he said — it was like a second pause — like he was thinking about it, he said yes. And I thought, that's a great way to end the record. It's just become a tradition now. I ask that to everybody, because it's amazing how you'd think that the response [would be] that everyone would quickly say yes, yes, yes, yes. But they don't. I mean, people question themselves. And Amy Walker, who does all the accents, I said, "Is everything you said today true?" And she said, [in an Australian accent] "Oh, it's all true, darling." It's great. And she's not telling me the truth — she's putting on a fake accent to tell you it's all true. How beautiful is that, you know? So it's a nice thing to see with people. Jerry King, Southern gentleman, [I asked] him, "Is everything you said true today?" He said, "Yessir." But it's a nice question to be able to ask.
Boilen: So, Jack White. Has everything you said today been true?
White: Hmm. I think so. I'll say I think so.The latest USA Team Handball Board of Director’s Meeting Minutes from December 12 of last year include a short paragraph regarding a reality TV show concept centered around team handball. Below is the text of the minutes:
Reality Concept – Bob (Djokovich) reviewed his attached document which goes back 20 months when the organization was approached by directors about a Reality Show. The goal is to find ex-Pro and D1 athletes who learn the sport, win the Pan Am Games and then go on to do well at the Olympics. The directors contacted USATH again six months ago and NBC also approached us about a similar process. Since Rio, we have connected the producers and have pitched to NBC Execs and have a soft go. We are currently looking for sponsors with the goal of starting to shoot the show in the February/March timeframe. They want to attend our current events. The Board received the original slides, which now have been updated and capture more of the intent. When IHF President, Hassan Moustafa was given a preview of the slide deck on the project, he wanted the directors to come to Paris to see the finals of the Men’s World Championships in late January in Paris at his expense. We are moving cautiously to make this happen and the USOC is aware of this project.
An NBC Executive Producer did in fact attend the recent World Championships and efforts are ongoing to get formal NBC approval to proceed. The timeline, however, has been moved back to starting this summer at the earliest. And, as with most TV projects, a number of steps are involved between the development of a concept and it’s airing on TV. But, make no mistake: This is a real effort with a solid chance of eventually making it on TV.
Commentary: I, for one, am skeptical as to whether this show could accomplish the stated goals of winning the PANAM Games and qualifying for the 2024 Olympics. Brazil, in particular, would be a really tough foe to beat for a bunch of handball newbies, even if they are very athletically gifted. That being said this reality show would surely be very entertaining to watch. If they get some good athletes they might not be able to beat Brazil, but given some solid training for a month or two they could beat every club team in the U.S. and probably our current national team. It would depend on the athletes participating and it would depend on how seriously they take their training.
Setting aside the practicality of the show’s premise the real story is the potential impact the show could have in terms of promotional value. A television show about team handball in prime time on a major TV network! We get excited every four years during the Olympics when handball is discovered by thousands of people on secondary TV channels at odd hours of the day. This exposure would dwarf that Olympic exposure and if the show is a success ratings wise it could trigger a grass roots explosion.This article is about the psychological disorder. For other uses, see Arrested development (disambiguation)
The term "arrested development" has had multiple meanings for over 200 years. In the field of medicine, the term "arrested development" was first used, circa 1835–1836, to mean a stoppage of physical development; the term continues to be used in the same way.[1][2] In literature, Ernest Hemingway used the term in The Sun Also Rises, published in 1926: On page 51, Harvey tells Cohn, "I misjudged you [...] You're not a moron. You're only a case of arrested development."[3]
In contrast, the UK's Mental Health Act 1983 used the term "arrested development" to characterize a form of mental disorder comprising severe mental impairment, resulting in a lack of intelligence. However, some researchers have objected to the notion that mental development can be "arrested" or stopped, preferring to consider mental status as developing in other ways in psychological terminology. Consequently, the term "arrested development" is no longer used when referring to a developmental disorder in mental health. [4]
In anthropology and archaeology, the term "arrested development" means that a plateau of development in some sphere has been reached. Often it is a technological plateau such as the development of high temperature ceramics, but without glaze because of a lack of materials, or copper smelting without development of bronze because of a lack of tin.[5]The first operating system for a quantum computer has been developed by researchers in Cambridge, signalling a significant step towards creating a practical version of the ultra powerful machines.
The t|ket> operating system was developed by Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQCL) using a proprietary custom designed high speed supercomputer to accurately simulate a quantum processor.
What is quantum computing? Quantum computers replace traditional bits that are used in digital communications with quantum bits, or qubits. Potential applications can be found in a variety of fields, from medicine to space travel. Qubits exist in a state of superposition, meaning they can be in both states at once, rather than restricted to either binary state as traditional bits function.
The Cambridge firm believes that the software will aid the commercialisation of the emerging technology by facilitating users in controlling what operations a quantum computer can perform.
"CQCL is at the forefront of developing an operating system that will allow users to harness the joint power of classical super computers alongside quantum computers," read a statement from the company.
"The development of t|ket> is a major milestone. Quantum computing will be a reality much earlier than originally anticipated. It will have profound and far-reaching effects on a vast number of aspects of our daily lives."
Quantum computers have been widely touted as holding revolutionary potential in a variety of fields due to their immense processing power.
Governments, companies and organisations are currently developing the technology in the belief that it could be the future of computing, capable of sating the world's ever-growing technological needs.
The CIA, Google and NASA have all set up labs to explore the nascent technology, while earlier this year the UK government outlined a £270m strategy into quantum technology growth through the UK National Quantum Technology Programme.Under mounting pressure to rein in mammoth budget deficits, President Obama will propose in his State of the Union address a three-year freeze on federal funding that is not related to national security, a concession to public concern about government spending that could dramatically curtail Obama's legislative ambitions.
The freeze would take effect in October and limit the overall budget for agencies other than the military, veterans affairs, homeland security and certain international programs to $447 billion a year for the remainder of Obama's first term, senior administration officials said Monday, imposing sharp limits on his ability to begin initiatives in education, the environment and other areas of domestic policy.
Although the freeze would shave no more than $15 billion off next year's budget -- barely denting a deficit projected to exceed $1 trillion for the third year in a row -- White House officials said it could save significantly more during the next decade. They described the freeze as a critical component of a broader deficit-reduction campaign intended to restore confidence in Obama's ability to control the excesses of Washington and the most lavish aspirations of his own administration.
"You can't afford to do everything that you might have always wanted to do. That's the decision-making process that the president and the economic team went through," said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the speech the president will deliver on Wednesday night. "We're not here to tell you that we've solved the deficit. But you have to take steps to control spending."
The announcement comes less than a week after Massachusetts voters sent shock waves through the Democratic establishment by handing Republicans a crucial 41st seat in the Senate, endangering Obama's agenda and fueling GOP attacks on Obama's stewardship of the budget and the economy. After spending much of his first year in office pursuing expensive initiatives such as a far-reaching overhaul of the health-care system, Obama has pledged to devote much of the next year to reducing record budget deficits, which have forced the Treasury Department to increase borrowing, driving the accumulated national debt toward levels not seen since World War II.
The spending freeze would affect only about one-eighth of the nation's $3.5 trillion budget, the bulk of which is devoted to entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which are responsible for much of the future increase in spending. It would not restrain funding for the $787 billion economic stimulus package Obama pushed through Congress early last year, nor would it apply to a new bill aimed at creating jobs, which Democrats have identified as their top priority in the run-up to November's congressional elections.
The House has approved a $156 billion package intended to lower the nation's 10 percent unemployment rate, while the Senate is drafting an $80 billion package that includes tax cuts for businesses that hire new employees as well as aid for cash-strapped state governments and the unemployed.
It is also unlikely to affect the approximately $900 billion health-care bill, which has been on life-support since the Massachusetts vote. In an interview with ABC News on Monday, Obama vowed to press ahead with health care and other first-year agenda items, even it means jeopardizing his reelection chances in 2012.
"I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president," he said in the interview, according to an excerpt posted on ABC's Web site.
Obama also defended his top economic advisers in the interview, saying Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers have provided "sound, steady economic leadership" and are likely to stay with the administration despite rumors to the contrary.
Obama's commitment to cutting deficits will be an important theme of his address to Congress, administration officials said, and will be fully detailed in the budget he is due to submit to lawmakers early next week. Administration officials have declined to say specifically how the president plans to reduce deficits projected to add more than $9 trillion to the national debt during the next decade. But he has endorsed several measures aimed at meeting that goal, including the adoption of stringent pay-as-you-go budget rules that would bar lawmakers from passing programs that increase deficits and the creation of a bipartisan commission to work toward a balanced budget.
The Senate is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a plan to create a budget commission, though supporters say they lack the 60 votes needed for adoption. Obama has told lawmakers that if the measure fails, he will issue an executive order creating such a task force with broad power to change the tax code and spending on entitlement programs..(CNN) -- Mexican immigration to the United States has dropped sharply since 2005, but the flow of migrants returning to Mexico remains steady, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pew Hispanic Center.
Plaques mark the U.S.-Mexico border near Laredo, Texas.
Immigration from Mexico to the United States slowed at least 40 percent between mid-decade and 2008, according to the analysis, based on national population surveys in the United States and Mexico, as well as Border Patrol apprehension figures.
The Mexican survey estimated that 1 million Mexicans left for the United States in a 12-month period beginning in 2006. Three years later, that number decreased to 636,000.
"The size of the drop has been quite remarkable in such a small span of time," Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center and author of the study, told CNN.
The recession and enhanced border enforcement are factors that may explain the decrease in apprehensions of unauthorized immigrants in the United States, according a Department of Homeland Security bulletin released last month.
But if diminished job prospects in the United States have kept would-be immigrants in Mexico, employment worries haven't increased the number of Mexican migrants leaving the United States, the study found.
An estimated 433,000 Mexican migrants returned home between 2008 and 2009, a number not significantly different than the 479,000 who returned three years earlier, Passel said.
While the number of Mexican migrants entering the United States remains greater than the number returning, the study shows that the gap is closing to the point of nearing a balance between migrant inflows and outflows.
Don't Miss Hispanic population boom fuels diversity
"My guess is you have to go back at least 40 years or 50 years to see that," Passel said.
It is too early to tell, however, if either trend "points to a fundamental change in U.S.-Mexico immigration patterns or is a short-term response to heightened border enforcement, the weakened U.S. economy or other forces," the study states.
The economic downturn has certainly affected work opportunities for immigrants in the United States, said Alfredo Reyes, a day laborer who does construction and yard work in Atlanta area.
"There are weeks where I have three days of work and the other four without work," the Michoacan, Mexico, native told CNN.
Despite the reduced availability for work, Reyes plans on staying put because the economic downturn is global.
"I think things are more difficult there (in Mexico)," he said.
The two trends found in the Pew study should not be surprising, Rodolfo de la Garza, a professor at Columbia University and an expert on immigration, told CNN.
For those in Mexico, it remains expensive and risky to be smuggled into the United States, especially in a weak economy, he said.
"Things are worse in Mexico than they are here," de la Garza said. "The job you have here is better than what you have there. If you go back, what do you go back to?"
Another reason that Mexicans living in the United States might stay is that they feel at home, he said.
Despite the stereotype of the United States as an anti-immigrant destination, "at local levels, there is very little harassment," de la Garza said. "By and large, people are accepting of immigrants."
Another day laborer in Georgia, who declined to give his name, said that the current economic crunch left him without the resources to return to his native Oaxaca, Mexico, even if he wanted.
But even during these tough times, he is content.
"It's simple, we like living here in the United States," he said.
All About Immigration • Mexico • Hispanic and Latino Issues(CNN) -- With its gull-wing doors and 15-meter long (50 feet) chassis, the Superbus looks like the result of an amorous automotive liaison between a DeLorean and a stretch limo.
But rather than catering for champagne-quaffing party goers, its Dutch developers at the Delft University of Technology are aiming to transform the humble commute in the 21st century.
With a top speed of 155 mph (250 kph) and capable of carrying 23 passengers, the six-wheel Superbus attempts to marry the convenience and flexibility of traveling by car with the speed and comfort more often associated with rail journeys.
"The strength to the concept is that the Superbus can drive everywhere where a normal bus can drive. It has adjustable height, rear-wheel steering and a turning circle of roughly 10 meters," general manager of the project, Wubbo Ockels said.
Furthermore, Ockels imagines a network of "super tracks" -- essentially dedicated two lane highways linking one city to another -- running alongside traditional road networks enabling the Superbus to switch between the two, depending on the destination of passengers.
A prototype of the electric vehicle recently went on show at the 2011 World Exhibition of the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) in Dubai in the hope of attracting investment for development of a test infrastructure.
"At the moment we have a prototype. The next phase is an industrial prototype and the third level is the actual implementation," Ockels said.
He's hopeful that Dubai, with what he calls its "visions of sustainability" will give the green light to a pilot project.
So far, it's been a long and expensive road for Ockels and his team. The project started in 2004 and has cost around €13 million ($19 million) to date using technology developed in Formula One racing and the aerospace industry.
But a production model would be considerably cheaper, Ockels says, costing around €2 million ($2.9 million).Cats can be finicky about their bathroom habits, so unless you want to be dealing with a regular mess at home, keeping your cat's litter box up to their standards is very important. The following suggestions should keep your cat from "thinking outside the box."
Boxes & litter
How many?
The general rule of paw is one litter box for each cat in the home, plus one more. That way none of them will ever be prevented from eliminating in the litter box because it's already occupied.
Litter Box Items on Amazon.com
It's not possible to designate a personal litter box for each cat in your household, as cats may use any litter box that's available. That means a cat may occasionally refuse to use a litter box after another cat has been in it. In this case, you'll need to keep all of the litter boxes extremely clean, and you might even need to add additional boxes. However, it's best not to place all the boxes in one location because your cats will think of them as one big box and ambushing another cat will still be possible.
Covered boxes
Some people prefer to provide their cats with a covered litter box. While covered boxes can increase privacy and decrease the amount of litter that flies from the box when your cat buries their business, there are some potential downsides. An “out of sight, out of mind” little box is easy to forget about, which may lead to a dirty box with odors trapped inside (which is even less likely to be appealing to your cat). Covered boxes can also be difficult for larger cats to turn around and position themselves in, and may lead to easier ambushes upon exit.
Ultimately, if your cat doesn't like a covered box, they won't use it. To find out which type your cat prefers, you may want to experiment by offering both types at first.
Self-cleaning boxes
There are a wide variety of litter boxes available that offer convenience and automation in cleaning your cat’s litter. Buyers beware: some of these features may prevent a cat from wanting to use their litter box, so if your cat is used to a traditional box, it’s best to stick to what they know.
Pick of the litter
There are several different types of cat litter on the market. The most popular ones are traditional clay litter, scooping/clumping litter, crystal-based/silica gel litter and plant-derived/biodegradable litter.
Most cats prefer fine-grained litters, presumably because they have a softer feel. Newer scoopable and “clumping” litter have finer grains than typical clay litter and are very popular because they keep down the odor. But high-quality, dust-free clay litters are fairly small-grained and may be perfectly acceptable to your cat.
Once you find a litter your cat likes, stick with it. Switching litters constantly could result in your cat not using the litter box.
If your cat has previously been an outdoor cat and prefers dirt, you can keep them out of your houseplants by placing medium-sized rocks on top of the soil in the pots. You can also mix some soil with their regular litter to lure them in. A cat who rejects all types of commercial litters may be quite happy with sand.
Many people use scented litter or air freshener to mask litter box odors, but often times, these odors can be offputting to cats. A thin layer of baking soda placed on the bottom of the box will help absorb odors without repelling your cat.
Set up
Most people tend to place the litter box in an out-of-the-way spot to minimize odor and prevent cat litter from being tracked throughout the house. But if the litter box ends up in the basement next to a creepy appliance or on a cold cement floor, your cat may be less than pleased, so you may have to compromise.
Keep the litter box in a spot that gives your cat some privacy but is also convenient. If the box is too hard to get to, especially for a kitten or an elderly cat, they just may not use it.
Avoid placing litter boxes next to noisy or heat-radiating appliances, like the furnace or the washing machine. Noises can make a cat nervous, while heat from a dryer or furnace can magnify the litter box smell, which could make them stay away from the litter box.
Put the box far away from their food and water bowls. Place at least one litter box on each level of your house. That way your cat has options if access to their primary box is blocked (the basement door is closed or your dinner party has them holed up in the bedroom.) If you have more than one cat, provide litter boxes in several locations so that one cat can't ambush another cat using the litter box.
If you keep the litter box in a closet or a bathroom, be sure the door is wedged open from both sides to prevent your cat from being trapped inside or locked out. Depending on the location, you might consider cutting a hole in a closet door and adding a pet door.
Cleaning
To meet the needs of the most discriminating cat, you should scoop feces out of the litter box daily. How often you actually replace the litter depends on the number of cats you have, the number of litter boxes and the type of litter you use.
Twice a week is a general guideline for replacing clay litter, but depending on your circumstances, you may need to replace it every other day or only once a week. If you clean the litter box daily, you might only need to change clumping litter every two to three weeks. If you notice an odor or if much of the litter is wet or clumped, it's time for a change. Scrub the box every time you change the litter. Use mild dish detergent to clean it, as products with ammonia or citrus oils can turn a cat off, and some cleaning products are toxic to cats.
Liner notes
Box liners are strictly a convenience for the owner; supposedly, the liner can be gathered together and tied just like a garbage bag, but the truth is that most cats shred it to bits while scratching in the box. However, it might work if your cat doesn't work too hard to bury their waste.
Depth of litter
Most cats won't use litter that's more than about two inches deep. In fact, some long-haired cats actually prefer less litter and a smooth, slick surface, such as the bottom of the box. Adding extra litter won’t reduce the amount of cleaning necessary for a litter box.
Training
There's really no such thing as "litter training" a cat in the same way one would housetrain a dog. You actually don't need to teach your cat what to do with a litter box; instinct will generally take over. You do need to provide an acceptable, accessible litter box, using the suggestions above.
It's not necessary to take your cat to the litter box and move their paws back and forth in the litter. If you move to a new place, however, you will need to show your cat where the box is.
If problems begin
If your cat begins to go to the bathroom outside the litter box, your first call should always be to your veterinarian. Many medical conditions can cause a change in a cat's litter box habits. If your veterinarian examines your cat and gives them a clean bill of health, your cat may have a behavior problem that needs to be solved.
Punishment is not the answer, nor is banishing your cat outdoors. For long-standing or complex situations, contact an animal-behavior specialist who has experience working with cats.
Adapted from material originally developed by applied animal behaviorists at the Dumb Friends League, Denver, Colorado. All rights reserved.WEST HARTFORD, Conn. – -(Ammoland.com)- Often considered the manufacturer that saved the 10mm round from obscurity in the 1980’s, Colt readies yet another offering in that powerful chambering with the new Delta Elite Rail Gun.
Aimed toward the outdoorsman who requires a sidearm stout enough for midsized game who prefers the proven 1911 platform, the Delta Elite has always been a top choice. With its recent redesign, it didn’t seem that the model could get any better, but Colt found a way to improve upon the design again by offering the Delta Elite with an accessory rail.
Colt Delta Elite Rail Gun
“The Delta Elite® started its life as tactical option for 1911 enthusiasts who required more stopping power than your tradition.45 ACP,” said Justin Baldini, Product Director for Colt. “In that world, an accessory rail makes a lot of sense. What we’ve seen, though, is that this is a great platform for hunting pig or other medium sized game. In those types of scenarios, proper illumination is critical, so I think hunters will really appreciate the ability to add on their favorite rail-mounted lighting.”
All of the enhanced features from the newly redesigned Delta Elite are present on the Rail Gun version, including the upswept beavertail grip safety, extended thumb safety, all stainless steel construction, composite stocks with Delta medallions, and Novak white dot sights.
The SKU is O2020RG, and the MSRP is $1,299
About Colt’s Manufacturing Company LLC
Colt’s Manufacturing Company LLC is one of the world’s leading designers, developers and manufacturers of firearms. The company has supplied civilian, military and law enforcement customers in the United States and throughout the world for more than 175 years. Our subsidiary, Colt Canada Corporation, is the Canadian government’s Center of Excellence for small arms and is the Canadian military’s sole supplier of the C7 rifle and C8 carbine. Colt operates its manufacturing facilities in West Hartford, Connecticut and Kitchener, Ontario. For more information on Colt and its subsidiaries, please visit www.colt.com.User-space out-of-memory handling
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Users of Linux sometimes find themselves faced with the dreaded out-of-memory (OOM) killer, an unavoidable consequence of having overcommitted memory and finding swap completely filled up. The kernel finds itself with no other option than to abruptly kill a process when no memory can be reclaimed. The OOM killer has claimed web browsers, media players, and even X window environments as victims for years. It's very easy to lose a large amount of work in the blink of an eye.
Occasionally, the OOM killer will actually do something helpful: it will kill a rogue memory-hogging process that is leaking memory and unfreeze everything else that is trying to make forward progress. Most of the time, though, it sacrifices something of importance without any notification; it's these encounters that we remember. One of my goals in my work at Google is to change that. I've recently proposed a patchset to actually give a process a notification of this impending doom and the ability to do something about it. Imagine, for example, being able to actually select what process is sacrificed at runtime, examine what is leaking memory, or create an artifact to save for debugging later.
This functionality is needed if we want to do anything other than simply kill the process on the machine that will end up freeing the most memory — the only thing the OOM killer is guaranteed to do. Some influence on that heuristic is available through /proc/<pid>/oom_score_adj, which either biases or discounts an amount of memory for a process, but we can't do anything else and we can't possibly implement all practical OOM-kill responses into the kernel itself.
So, for example, we can't force the newest process to be killed in place of a web server that has been running for over a year. We can't compare the memory usage of a process with what it is expected to be using to determine if it's out of bounds. We also can't kill a process that we deem to be the lowest priority. This priority-based killing is exactly what Google wants to do.
There are two different types of out-of-memory conditions of interest:
System OOM: when the system as a whole is depleted of all memory.
when the system as a whole is depleted of all memory. Memory controller OOM: when a control group using the memory controller (a "memcg") has reached its allowed limit.
User-space out-of-memory handling can address OOM conditions for both control groups using the memory controller and for the system as a whole. Either way, the interface is provided by the memory controller since the handler should be implemented in a way that it doesn't care whether it is attached to a memory controller cgroup or not.
A brief tour of the memory controller
The memory controller allows processes to be aggregated together into memcgs and for their memory usage to be accounted together. It also prevents total memory usage from exceeding a configured limit, which provides very effective memory isolation from other processes running on the same system. Processes attached to a memcg may not cause the group as a whole to use more memory than the configured limit.
When a memcg usage reaches its limit and memory cannot be reclaimed, the memcg is out of memory. This happens because memory allocation within a memcg is done in two phases: the allocation, which is done with the kernel's page allocator, and the charge, which is done by the memory controller. If the allocation fails, the system as a whole is out of memory; if that succeeds and then the charge fails, the memcg is out of memory.
As your tour guide for the memory controller cgroup, I must first offer a warning: this functionality must be compiled into your kernel. If you're not in control of the kernel yourself, you may find that memcg is not enabled or mounted. Let's check my desktop machine running a common distribution:
$ grep CONFIG_MEMCG /boot/config-$(uname -r) CONFIG_MEMCG=y CONFIG_MEMCG_SWAP=y # CONFIG_MEMCG_SWAP_ENABLED is not set # CONFIG_MEMCG_KMEM is not set
Ok, good, this kernel has the memory controller enabled. Now let's see if it's mounted:
$ grep memory /proc/mounts cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/memory cgroup rw,memory 0 0
It is, at /sys/fs/cgroup/memory. If it weren't mounted, we could mount it if we had root privileges with:
mount -t cgroup none /sys/fs/cgroup/memory -o memory
At the mount point, there are several control files that can be used to configure the memory controller. This memcg itself is the root memcg — the control group that contains all processes in the system by default. Memcgs can be added by creating directories with mkdir, just like any other filesystem. Those memcgs will include all of these control files as well, and you can create children in them as well.
There are four memcg control files of interest in current kernels:
cgroup.procs or tasks : a list of process IDs that are attached to this memcg.
or : a list of process IDs that are attached to this memcg. memory.limit_in_bytes : the amount of memory, in bytes, that can be charged by processes attached to this memcg.
: the amount of memory, in bytes, that can be charged by processes attached to this memcg. memory.usage_in_bytes : the current amount of memory, in bytes, that is charged by processes attached to this memcg.
: the current amount of memory, in bytes, that is charged by processes attached to this memcg. memory.oom_control : allows processes to register eventfd() notifications when this memcg is out of memory and control whether the kernel will kill a process or not.
My patch set adds another control file to this set:
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human or degrading treatment or punishment,” and that the detention of children “shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.”
The government of Bahrain should open thorough, independent and impartial investigations into all allegations of torture and ill-treatment, including of child detainees. In addition, the Bahraini government should stop its widespread detention of children and only detain anyone under 18 as a last resort. Child detainees should be separated from adults in all cases, and authorities should immediately notify their families of their location, and provide prompt access to legal counsel.
“Bahraini authorities need to investigate urgently the allegations that children are being arrested arbitrarily and mistreated, and put a stop to it,” Stork said.The dream of using the sun's abundant energy 24/7 took a major step closer to reality recently when utility company Tucson Electric signed a power purchase agreement last week for solar plus storage at a price of less than 4.5 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) over 20 years. That's less than half the price of retail electricity power and a price low enough to compete with natural gas, coal, and nuclear power head to head in wholesale markets for what some might call "baseload" power.
It's hard to overstate what a big deal this is for solar energy, energy storage, and disruption in the grid overall. This makes the market for solar exponentially larger, married with a massive storage market, and could eventually lead to a fundamental change in the way we think of the electric power industry. Investors need to make sure this trend is a tailwind and not a headwind, because the solar-plus-storage train is coming faster than anyone expected.
Solar plus storage is no flash in the pan
The Tucson Electric power deal was already surprising because it had a price of $0.03 per kWh for solar, meaning the energy-storage portion added about a penny and a half to the bid. But what was especially surprising about the Tucson Electric Power announcement is that it was signed with NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE), a major U.S. utility. This isn't a crazy developer just hoping to offload the project to someone else or a product company looking for a good headline. This utility isn't going to be doing deals it doesn't think are profitable and has no interest in building solar plus storage for the sake of building solar plus storage. It's building this project because the economics work.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) has shown a path forward for solar plus storage in the past, with an $0.11-per-kWh contract in Hawaii earlier this year, but having a utility building these projects gives them more credibility financially. It could also mean we'll solar companies such as SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR) and First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) including storage with projects in the future, something both have discussed and have designed into their power-plant designs. And no matter who is providing the equipment, this makes the solar and energy-storage markets much bigger overall.
This makes the solar-plus-storage market exponentially bigger
If solar plus storage can compete with coal, natural gas, wind, and nuclear on a cost basis -- and remember that both solar and storage are getting cheaper every year -- it's hard to overstate how big the opportunity is. The Energy Information Administration estimated last year that by 2040 the world will consume 36.5 trillion kWh of electricity annually.
If we assume that solar power plants produce energy 20% of the time -- the sun isn't out 24/7, after all -- then there would need to be 20,833 GW of solar power production globally to meet global demand and tens of thousands of GWh of energy storage. To put that into perspective, GTM Research predicts that at the end of 2017 there will be 306 GW of solar installed. In other words, the industry could grow cumulative installations 68 times over in the next 23 years if we got 100% of our energy from solar power.
It may seem like a pipe dream to get all of our energy from solar, but the economics are what matters here. If a unit of solar energy can be produced and stored for less than the cost to produce energy from any other energy source, there's nothing stopping solar growth. And this might change everything for solar companies as well as utilities.
Utilities are now in serious trouble
The threat to utilities short-term is that low solar-plus-storage prices will lead to a lower asset base from which to charge customers. On the monopoly utilities side, companies require a growing base of power plants, transmission lines, and distribution assets so they can charge customers for them and generate guaranteed profits. If customers are making and storing their own energy, or if solar and storage mean fewer major grid and power plant upgrades, there would be less money to be made, even for monopoly utilities, unless they can convince regulators to allow them to rate base the assets, which may bring higher costs to customers.
In wholesale markets, low solar-pus-storage costs could make existing natural gas, coal, and even nuclear power plants obsolete on the open market, exacerbating current struggles for wholesalers. Natural gas has already decimated the coal fleet, and this could bring down the market opportunity for fossil fuels across the board. On the bright side, utilities who make the transition to solar and storage quickly and manage to keep their borrowing costs low -- as NextEra has done through its yieldco NextEra Partners -- could develop a competitive advantage long-term.
The existential threat to utilities long-term is that distributed energy resources -- energy generation and storage that consumers can own, such as rooftop solar and batteries -- become economical. This would make leaving the grid feasible for millions of households and effectively make utilities as we know them obsolete. This could be the biggest news in electricity since the light bulb.
Where does energy go from here?
Tucson's energy contract is a leading indicator of where energy is going, because it has very strong solar resources. So it may be a while before less solar-friendly locations can get solar plus storage for 4.5 cents per kWh. But the fact that costs that low are here, and that large, well-run utilities are bidding prices that make solar plus storage competitive with fossil fuels, is a huge development for the energy industry. And it makes the financial opportunity for solar and energy storage almost unfathomable around the world.It seemed like an unbeatable formula: a brilliant concept, dazzling designs, rave reviews and a plan to share the costs. Stefan Herheim’s acclaimed staging of Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,” which wowed audiences at the Salzburg Festival in 2013, was headed to the Metropolitan Opera.
But on the road from Austria to New York, things hit a snag in Milan.
For that, you can thank the impossibility of creating one-size-fits-all sets for the world’s leading opera houses, muddled administrative leadership and a strained friendship. While the opera world is now flatter than ever, because of the growing number of global coproductions, taking shows on the road is rarely simple.
Coproductions are increasingly how leading opera houses do business, allowing them to share costs while presenting their audiences with a steady stream of shows that are new to them, even if not new to the world.
“In the old days, it was a badge of honor to have the premiere and have the production uniquely in your theater,” said Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Met, who has increased the company’s annual number of new productions, many of them coproductions. “And I think that has evolved over the years for economic reasons. But from my perspective, it’s not just economic. I’d rather be better than first.”Every year, the FBI releases its National Gang Threat Assessment List, which examines "emerging gang trends and threats posed by criminal gangs and communities throughout the United States." In 2011, Juggalos were added to the list. You already know about Juggalos, those zany, slap-happy, face-painted faygo-swillers who have made the Insane Clown Posse their religion. Well, now they're all members of a criminal gang, and Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope from ICP are gang leaders.
Well, ICP is about to start fighting back, and they're reacting by suing the FBI. Let me say that again and make it clearer. Insane Clown Posse is suing the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Last night, I was chilling with Joseph Bruce, AKA Violent J of ICP, in his bus at the 13th annual Gathering Of The Juggalos (I'm so happy I get to write that—thanks, VICE!). He told me that "ICP is going to do something huge for our fans, and the world. We're suing the FBI to be taken off their list. They're trying to kill our band, and we have to fight back."
In the weeks leading up to this year's Gathering of the Juggalos, ICP's attorneys warned that "there's no telling what's gonna happen at the Gathering this year. This is the first time we had the festival now that we're a 'gang.' According to the FBI, we're all at a gang rally, and our merchandise is gang apparel."
Although currently only considered a gang in four states, law enforcement in 21 states have identified and logged criminal Juggalo subsets. In those states, if an ICP fan is on probation, and he or she wears an ICP hat to a parole meeting, that's a violation of probation for wearing gang apparel.
"Let's get this straight," he continued, "a Juggalo is not a gang member. Consider a Juggalo that, 15 years ago, got a hatchet man tattoo or something. Now they've got a family, they're working in real estate or something, and they're driving home and get a speeding ticket. Next thing you know, he's in the gang file, and that will be taken into consideration in any trial. Suddenly, it ain't just somebody who fucked up, it's a gang member who fucked up, and they're getting a heavier sentence."
Violent J explained how the FBI's ruling has affected ICP's business in a major way: "When we made that list, stores like Hot Topic stopped carrying our shit because they don't want to be selling gang apparel."
"This lawsuit isn't just for the fans. It's also for the good people who work at Psychopathic Records. There are 30 employees. Some of these people started off when we were 18 years old, but now some of them have been working here for 20 years. That's their career now. They have kids, and wives, and husbands. Next thing you know, they're working for a gang."
NOISEY's Ben Shapiro is currently at the Gathering of the Juggalos. Look for his complete report soon over at NOISEY.
@b_shap
Read more:
In the Land of the Juggalos
We Interviewed Insane Clown PosseA federal judge in Los Angeles has given Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios the green light to boldly go where no lawyer has gone before – before a jury to stop production of a Star Trek fan film.
The legal drama started a year ago when CBS and Paramount filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the producers of a full-length motion picture called Axanar, which takes its name from a famed battle on the planet Axanar, as described in the original TV series. Alec Peters, a longtime Trekkie, first produced a 21-minute film called Star Trek: Prelude to Axanar, which Paramount and CBS let slide, as it has with many other such fan videos. But that wasn’t enough for Peters – he wanted to follow up with a full-length feature film.
In an opinion handed down today, U.S. District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner, who apparently is something of a Star Trek fan himself, wrote that Peters, in “going where no man had gone before in producing Star Trek fan films, sought to make ‘a professional production … with a fully professional crew, many of whom have worked on Star Trek itself,’ and raised over a million dollars on crowdsourcing websites.”
That was just too much for CBS and Paramount, however, which then asserted the infringement of “innumerable copyrighted elements of Star Trek, including its settings, characters, species, and themes.”
Peters and his Axanar Productions filed a motion to dismiss the suit, claiming that the court shouldn’t allow the case to go to trial because the infringement claims are premature given that the motion picture is not completed. And without a completed film, Peters argued, the court cannot make the necessary comparisons to determine copyright infringement.
“The court disagrees,” the judge wrote, noting that “there is no dispute” that Paramount and CBS “have ownership of copyrights to the Star Trek copyrighted works.” The infringement claim, he wrote, “can live long and prosper if the Axanar works are substantially similar to the Star Trek copyrighted works.”
He then ruled that the Axanar works have “objective substantial similarity to the Star Trek copyrighted works. The court leaves the question of subjective substantial similarity to the jury.”
Quoting from a 9th Circuit Court ruling, the judge noted that the jury will have to determine if “an ordinary, reasonable person would find the total concept and feel of the two works to be substantially similar.”
The judge’s ruling was not a total victory for CBS and Paramount, however. They’d asked the court for declaratory and injunctive relief, which would have halted any further production of the fan film. But the judge wouldn’t go along with that, writing that they must “motion the court for such relief if the jury finds subjective substantial similarity.”
This is the lawsuit that J.J. Abrams, who produces the current Star Trek reboot film franchise and directed the first two installments, said in May that Paramount would drop. “This wasn’t an appropriate way to deal with the fans,” he said at the time.These Banana Split Bites are a healthy dessert or a fun after school snack for kids that is full of fruity flavour!
Banana Split Bites
INGREDIENTS:
3 Bananas
1/4 lb Cored Pineapple
6 Strawberries
1 cup Dipping Chocolate
1/4 cup Chopped Peanuts
12 Popsicle Sticks (or skewers)
DIRECTIONS:
Cut strawberries in half.
For each strawberry half, cut an equal size piece of banana and pineapple.
Place pineapple on first, then banana and lastly strawberry.
Place in freezer for 10 minutes.
Line a tray with wax paper or parchment paper.
Put chopped nuts in small plate to use for dipping.
Melt chocolate by heating in microwave for 30 seconds, stirring and repeating until melted and smooth.
Dip cold fruit in chocolate, then into nuts, then place on prepared tray.GOODYEAR, Ariz. - Nick Swisher and Brandon Moss will not run with the rest of the Indians position players Tuesday morning when they conduct a series of sprints to officially welcome them to spring training.
The pitchers did it Friday with Nick Hagadone emerging as the last-man-sprinting after outlasting Zach McAllister.
Swisher and Moss have an excuse for their absence.
In August, Swisher had surgery on both knees. In October, Moss had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right hip. The Indians said last week that both players could be playing in games by mid-March.
The Cactus League season starts March 3 with the Indians breaking camp April 4.
"We talked to Brandon and Swish in the one-on-one meetings," said manager Terry Francona. "We want them to get healthy and not push it for an artificial deadline.
"We're going to go off of them so when they do come back they have a chance to stay out there and be productive instead of limping around.''
The Indians medical staff meets with GM Chris Antonetti and Francona every morning to update them on the injured players in camp.
"They tell us what they can do that day in terms of volume and intensity," said Francona.
Swisher has been cleared to hit and throw. He's on a structured running and agility program.
Moss has been hitting off a tee and intensifying his running. He could be hitting on the field by the end of February or early March.
Ouch: Francona served as a baserunner during bunt drills Sunday morning. When he met with reporters later in the day, he was sore.
"I stood out there (at second base) for an hour and I'm hurting," said Francona, who lost 20 pounds over the winter. "Isn't that a shame?"
Francona, with two artificial knees, has had surgery of his knees at least 19 times.
"I came up with the bunt plays and I wanted to make sure we ran through them like I wanted," said Francona. "But I think I'll let somebody else be the runner from now on."
On schedule: The Indians are going to let Gavin Floyd, recovering from right elbow surgery, work into spring training at his own pace. Right now that pace is the same as every other healthy pitcher in camp.
"He's in really good shape," said Francona. "He's on the same scheduled right now as everyone else. He's throwing his bullpens at the same time as everyone else.
"Whether a guy throws the first exhibition game rather than the 10th, we're trying to look at the big picture. If you lose sight of the big picture, you have a chance of making some mistakes."
The Indians signed Floyd to a one-year $4 million deal on Dec. 16. He can make another $6 million in incentives."
Floyd, 32, made nine starts with Atlanta last year before fracturing his right elbow on June 19 against Washington.
What's the cure? Carlos Santana had the worst start in his career last season, but ended the season with 27 home runs, 85 RBI and a MLB-high 113 walks.
When asked what he could do to avoid hitting.151 in April and.168 in May, Santana had no answers.
"I don't know," he said. "I'm just going to try and start normal. I'm going to try and keep it the same all year.
"Last year I struggled the first two months, but in the second half I finished strong. This time I'm going try and do the same thing all year."
Francona said it's impossible to project how a player is going to start a season.
"I say it every year," he said. "Some guys are going to start hot. Some guys are going to start slow."
Francona said the key is for those players to somehow equal the track record they've already forged in the big leagues.
Santana did visit a church before he left the Dominican Republic for spring training. Perhaps that will help.
After yearly visit to the Basilica for prayers and offerings, off to Goodyear today, ready for new #MLB season [?][?][?] pic.twitter.com/SNw8a06KZa -- Carlos Santana MLB (@TheRealSlamtana) February 18, 2015
Finally: Position players were expected to report Sunday. Francona said all players were accounted for. The first full-squad workout is Tuesday.City-Parish President Joey Durel, whose longtime right-hand man, Chief Administrative Officer Dee Stanley, is running to replace him and has been the subject of the nastiest of nasty campaign tactics by operatives close to Joel Robideaux, has evidently had enough.This reporter was copied on an email moments ago in which Durel instructed his executive aide, Cydra Wingerter, to provide local media with details about a robo call to Lafayette Parish residents she made last week under the auspices of Lafayette Consolidated Government. The call, according to Durel’s email, concerned the Unified Development Code.
But supporters of Stanley’s competitor, Joel Robideaux, have been insinuating and outright lying that a robo call made the next day by Stanley’s wife criticizing the ugly push poll that week targeting her husband was actually issued through LCG. That would be a criminal offense. But Blue Rolfes’ robo call in support of her husband was conducted through an out-of-state firm, yet the lies and innuendo from Robideaux’s supporters on social media continue, prompting Durel to act.
“Unfortunately, unscrupulous Robideaux campaign supporters seem to be accusing LCG of aiding another candidate of using LCG resources for a campaign Robo call,” Durel writes to Wingerter. “This is basically accusing LCG of what would seem to be a criminal act. I apologize for you being dragged into a campaign, but we have been put into a position to have to defend LCG.”
Durel concludes the email: "What a sad time for Lafayette!"
The Advertiser’s Claire Taylor and Richard Burgess, The Acadiana Advocate’s bureau chief, were also copied on the email.
[Update: Just after 3 p.m. Friday Wingerter responded: "Two robo calls were placed from our system on October 8-9, 2015; the subject being notification of an upcoming Zoning Commission meeting. The first call was placed on Thursday, October 8th at 6:15 pm to all numbers in the database within Lafayette Parish. A second identical call was sent to the Lafayette City-Parish Councilmen on Friday, October 9th at 8:15 am as a follow-up measure."]
Below is the receipt Stanley provided to The IND showing that he used an Oregon company for the robo call recorded by Rolfes.A police operation was launched in the Mediterranean city after a car crashed into people waiting at two different bus stops on Monday, killing one pedestrian. Another was left seriously injured.
The first crash occurred about 8:15 a.m. (0615 UTC) in the city's northern 13th district, the second about an hour later in the city's 11th district.
Regional police took to Twitter, warning people to avoid an area around the city's waterfront that is popular with tourists.
"#Marseille, police operation taking place. Avoid the Vieux-Port area, Charles Livon boulevard."
The suspected driver, a 35-year-old man, was arrested in the waterfront area.
"At the moment we have no information on the motives of this individual," a police official told news agency Reuters. French news agency AFP later cited public prosecutor Xavier Tarabeux as saying investigators saw no "element pointing to a terrorist attack."
"We are leaning toward treating it as a mental health case," Tarabeux said.
The incident comes days after dual attacks in Barcelona and the Spanish seaside town of Cambrils, in which vehicles were used as weapons to kill 14 people. Police across Europe are searching for the 22-year-old man they say drove a the van involved in the Barcelona attack.
se/msh (dpa, AFP, Reuters, AP)I thought I'd try to save everyone from typing.
Macs are overpriced underspec'd poncey toys for people with too much money. Macs are great value for money - you couldn't get the same spec for the same money elsewhere. OSX is great Windows is shit. Windows is great OSX is shit. 2GB is nowhere near enough memory these days. 2GB might not be enough for Vista but Macs run fine with it. OSX copied Vista. Vista copied OSX. Some boring shit about the finer points of Intel processor technology that's the equivalent of showing everyone how big your willy is except nobody is interested whatever. OSX is shit and Windows is shit; I run Ubuntu blah blah blah. I hate Steve Jobs he eats babies. Bill Gates eats the babies and their mothers. I run Cock-Rot Linux and it's the best in the world and I don't know why everyone uses Ubuntu when you can do everything using Vi and the terminal feature of my obscure mobile phone (which nobody ever rings 'cause I've got no friends). Some other boring comment about processors from someone who wants to show the world that his willy is bigger than the other processor posters (okay, one person read the whole post). Apple hardware is overpriced I hate anyone with an iPhone. Actually BSD is much better than Linux or Windows or OSX, that's why such a large percentage of people have it installed on their home machines. Doh, didn't you know that OSX is Unix and runs BSD. Actually it's not Unix 'cause Apple won't pay for the certification. Yes it is. No it's not. Fanboi something. Don't you know the whole fan-boy thing is old and so juvenille, just like your spelling. I still use a Lisa and it does everything I need it to. I use a Commodore 64 with a hard-drive and it's better than the Lisa. I don't know what I'm talking about and haven't read the article but I'm going to chip in with something irrelevant and wrong anyway. OSX sucks. OSX rocks. Bootcamp. DRM. iTunes. Steve Jobs is on first name terms with Satan. Bill Gates is Satan. I've got an iPhone and I love it. It really pisses me off that Apple has to put i in front of everything. Something about PPC versus Intel. Something completely without evidence comparing Apples and Oranges (pun intentional) proving PPC is and always will be better than x86. Something completely without evidence comparing Apples and Oranges proving x86 is and always will be better than PPC. GPL. Google. Linux. QNX. My Dad's harder than your Dad. My Nan's harder than your nan. Something anti-American. Angry riposte proving anti-American point. Thoughtful welll thought out riposte clearly disproving anti-American point that nobody will ever read because there's so much uninformed chaff above it.Will Smith will try to prove he’s still one of the brightest lights in the entertainment industry this weekend when “Focus,” his heist romance with Margot Robbie, hits theaters.
Early tracking suggests that reports of the “Men in Black’s” star’s demise as a bankable leading man appear to be premature. The Warner Bros. film should open to $21 million when it debuts in 3,323 locations, capturing the top spot in what is shaping up to be an otherwise lackluster week at the box office.
“Focus” cost $50.1 million to produce and is leaning heavily on Smith’s charisma in its television spots and posters. At 46, the actor is definitely at a career crossroads, but his recent rap as a faltering box office draw is unearned.
Yes, “After Earth” bombed with $60.5 million domestic on a $130 million budget, but it did do $183.3 million overseas, where Smith remains popular. Take that out of the equation and there’s 2012’s “Men in Black 3,” which made $624 million worldwide on a $225 million budget, 2008’s “Seven Pounds” with $168 million worldwide on a $55 million budget and “Hancock” that same year with $624.4 million on a $150 million budget. It’s not so much that Smith’s films haven’t opened big. It’s that he hasn’t made many to open.
“He’s in the pantheon of actors and leading men that can open a movie,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak. “When you raise the bar as high as he has, all of the sudden when you have a movie that doesn’t do well, it’s ‘Houston, we have a problem.’ This guy can still open a movie.”
Of course, Smith has himself partly to blame for the skepticism. His recent comments that box office isn’t as important to him as it once was have only fed the perception that his power is waning.
The weekend’s other new release, Relativity’s “The Lazarus Effect,” should make between $12 million and $14 million when it bows in 2,500 theaters. The micro-budget horror film was produced by Blumhouse and sounds like a spin on “Flatliners,” with Mark Duplass and Olivia Wilde playing researchers who figure out a way to bring the dead back to life. Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t end well. Relativity bought the film for $3 million and has had some success with the shock and scares genre with “The Woman in Black 2” and “Oculus.”
For the first month and a half of 2015, ticket sales have been robust, with “American Sniper” and “Fifty Shades of Grey” driving the box office up 10% over the previous year. Look for that to change. The current crop of releases will have difficulty matching the prior-year period when “Non-Stop,” “Son of God” and “The Lego Movie” all did more than $20 million worth of business.
“January and February were so big, it makes sense that things are going to slow down a little,” said Phil Contrino, vice president and chief analyst at BoxOffice.com.
The rest of the top five will likely be rounded out by holdovers. “Kingsman: The Secret Service” and “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water” should duke it out for third and fourth position on the charts, earning about $11 million apiece.
Look for “Fifty Shades of Grey,” which opened to record-breaking numbers before dropping more than 70% in its sophomore weekend, to continue its fast fade. The erotic drama should pull in $10.5 million and capture fifth place.
In terms of milestones, “American Sniper” has made $321.7 million so far and is closing in on the $336 million mark set by “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.” If it hits that figure, it will be the highest grossing release of 2014.
A number of Oscar winners will try to capitalize on last weekend’s awards. Newly minted best picture victor “Birdman” will be in over 1,000 theaters, but the film debuted on DVD and on-demand on Feb. 17, so it shouldn’t see a big boost in ticket sales.
“From a box office bump perspective, I would say it’s pretty de minimis,” said Eric Handler, an analyst with MKM Partners. “It more about the home entertainment window and that’s where they should benefit from the publicity.”
Other films such as “Still Alice” with its lead actress win for Julianne Moore will expand from 765 runs to over 1,300 screens, while “Whiplash” will try to exploit J.K. Simmons’ supporting actor nod by moving from 440 theater to over 500 screens. “Boyhood,” which features a supporting actress winning performance from Patricia Arquette, will hold steady on 40 or 50 screens. The coming-of-age drama has been on home-entertainment platforms for months.OSLO (Reuters) - Britain should stay as closely connected to Europe’s single market as it can after it leaves the European Union, the trade minister of non-EU member Norway said on Tuesday.
The Nordic country, which pays hundreds of millions of euros to access the European internal market from outside the bloc, has been held up by some, especially Brexit supporters, as a potential model for post-Brexit Britain to follow.
“Britain is perhaps our most important economic partner. We want the future cooperation and trade conditions to be as good as today,” Trade and Industry Minister Monica Maeland said in a statement.
“The best for Norway is a ‘soft Brexit’, which would keep Britain as closely tied to the common market as possible,” she added.
Maeland’s comments came after a meeting on Monday of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which includes Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
Switzerland’s president said on Monday his country would consider letting Britain join the association after Brexit..
But Maeland told Reuters that the association had not discussed the idea at a meeting on Monday as Britain had not asked to join.
“Britain has not given any signal that it wishes to become a member of EFTA or that it wants to be part of the EEA agreement,” Maeland said in an emailed statement, referring to the European Economic Area, which includes the EU countries as well as Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
“Should Britain wish to apply, this would of course be discussed by EFTA. Any state can apply for membership but it requires consensus from the member-states.”
British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she is hoping to negotiate a “bespoke” deal with Brussels - one that would allow Britain to control immigration while maximizing trade.Dallas Stars left wing Jamie Benn (14) levels Chicago Blackhawks right wing Ryan Hartman (38) as they mix it up in front of the benches in the first period during the Chicago Blackhawks vs. the Dallas Stars NHL hockey game at the American Airlines Center in Dallas on Saturday, November 5, 2016. (Louis DeLuca/The Dallas Morning News)
In a summer of big moves, the Stars got everything they wanted. They added a veteran coach in Ken Hitchcock, a top-10 goalie in Ben Bishop, maybe the most talented player available in free agency in Alexander Radulov and a versatile two-way center in Martin Hanzal.
And so, as training camp is set to begin Friday in Cedar Park, the Stars have constructed a team they believe can win the Stanley Cup. That's right, a team that finished 24th in points in 2016-17 at 34-37-11 honestly believes it can win it all.
"We're not rebuilding, we said that right from the end of last season," said Stars president and CEO Jim Lites. "We've been rebuilding for the better part of a decade. We're through with that."
The Stars have been driven to make a run at a championship this year, in part because they have won one playoff series in the last nine seasons, and in part because they are coming off one of the most frustrating campaigns in franchise history.
After finishing 29th in goals against and 30th in penalty kill last season, this group should be much better when it comes to team defense. Yes, they will sacrifice offense by bidding adieu to the high-flying circus run by former coach Lindy Ruff, but they should be able to keep the puck out of their net with significantly more consistency.
"When you look at what we needed to do, fix the goaltending, improve the penalty kill, we were able to get the pieces to do that," owner Tom Gaglardi said. "I think we had a great summer. You usually don't get all of the things you want, but I think we did this year. I think we were able to target key people, and we were able to get them."
The first step was the coaching staff, and the acquisition of Hitchcock and assistant coach Rick Wilson will certainly change how things are done. Hitchcock runs a structured system that focuses first on preventing goals and then attacks with an aggressive mind-set of battling for puck possession. Wilson has a history of developing young defensemen with an eye for simple, smart play, which should fit perfectly with what the Stars have on the blue line.
"Wils is one of the best ever at helping a younger player understand how to play the game," Hitchcock said. "You look at [Joel] Edmundson and [Colton] Parayko in St. Louis last year, and both of them took huge steps forward. I think he'll do the same thing here."
Dallas has an abundance of defensemen who need guidance. In addition to rookie Julius Honka and second-year blue-liner Esa Lindell, Wilson should be able to help with John Klingberg, Stephen Johns, Jamie Oleksiak and Patrik Nemeth.
"Last year, I think you can say had we kept [pending free agents] Alex Goligoski and Jason Demers that we probably would have been better," Gaglardi said. "But I like where we are now on defense. I really do think we should be in great shape going forward on defense."
And by not spending money on Goligoski and Demers or Kris Russell, the Stars had the money to spend on goaltending and forwards this summer. By buying out Antti Niemi and signing Bishop to a six-year deal that averages $4.9 million, Dallas has $12.3 million committed to the goaltending position for this season.
Radulov signed a five-year deal that averages $6.25 million and Hanzal a three-year contract that averages $4.75 million, and that pushed the Stars right up to the $75 million salary cap.
"We have always talked about leaving cap space, but we changed that this year," Gaglardi said. "We knew what we wanted."COURTESY OF JIKAI LIU
Over the course of 30 summers, as seasonal rains drenched the verdant highlands of Yunnan province in southwest China, here and there a villager would suddenly drop dead. The killer, which became known as Yunnan Sudden Death Syndrome, took roughly 400 lives over the course of 3 decades, but never revealed its identity. As the cases piled up, the Chinese government became increasingly anxious. Then, spurred into action by a TV documentary that aired in 2005, officials dispatched an elite investigative unit from the Chinese Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention to scour the hills for clues.
“Otherwise healthy people would suddenly faint, go into a coma, and die,” says Robert Fontaine, an epidemiologist at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was part of the investigative team. “So this was a major concern for the government.”
In Yunnan, remote villages are scattered among mountains and valleys, and people speak in various dialects, which made the first epidemiological studies difficult. Nevertheless, investigators soon came up with a couple of hypotheses. Most of the villagers where clusters of these sudden unexplained deaths (SUDs) occurred drank water from local streams, so perhaps barium, a heavy metal known to seep into the water supply and soil, and capable of causing cardiac arrest, was to blame.
The team also came to suspect that mushrooms could be involved, because the vast majority of SUDs occurred in July and August, when entire villages head out to harvest the diverse array of fungi for which Yunnan is famous. “But there was no known mushroom capable of causing this kind of death,” says Fontaine.
Between 2006 and 2009, the Chinese CDC stepped up its surveillance efforts. Rushing to the homes of recent victims, on most occasions they found that the residents had eaten curious white, flower-like mushrooms. These specimens turned out to be a new species, named Trogia venenata by scientists at the Kunming Institute of Botany (KBI), but commonly known as the Little White. It turns out that T. venenata grows in abundance on fallen trees in Yunnan but has no commercial value, so when collected, it’s usually eaten, rather than exported to Japan as most Yunnan fungi are.
By the end of 2009, investigators had established that the majority of families that suffered SUDs had eaten T. venenata, whereas not one of the unaffected families living nearby had consumed it. Moreover, the mushroom was common in the vicinity of 75 percent of |
whole bunch of radishes right away.
These are not really pickles, but super easy to make and great on lots of things. Obviously, they are great on Tacos, but I also put some on Turkey sandwiches and in a bowl of ramen.
Ingredients
Radishes
Jalapeno
Carrots (these were from our garden so I really wanted to preserve what we could)
Celery (I added this because I love celery)
Cilantro
Apple Cider Vinegar or other vinegar (2 parts)
Sugar (1 part)
Pinch of Salt
Process: I thinly sliced up all my veggies and mixed them together in a jar with a seal-able lid.I added the Cilantro on Top with a pinch of salt.
Then I mixed up 2 parts apple cider vinegar (1 cup) with 1 part sugar (1/2 cup). you can bring this to a boil and then let it cool before adding, but I am lazy and can’t figure out the exact amount needed to cover the veggies. (You can see in the picture the amount was not enough. Anyways I stirred until dissolved, and added. then I made another batch of vinegar and sugar. (I also ran out of Apple Cider vinegar so I used plain distilled vinegar to reach the proper amount), Once it was dissolved again, I added it to the jar and stuck it in the Fridge.
It should be ready to eat by tomorrow on some tacos!With rivers providing an abundant supply of fresh water, the upper layers of the Black Sea are less dense than its saltier lower layers. A permanent boundary between the two prevents any vertical mixing. The oxygen, derived from the atmosphere and photosynthesis, remains restricted to these surface waters. However, this precious gas is essential to the development of the majority of living species. Recent research, carried out by the MAST (Modelling for Aquatic Systems) group at the University of Liège, has shown that this oxic boundary shoaled from 140 to 90 metres between 1955 and 2015. A compression of almost 40 % of the habitable space in the Black Sea, directly linked to its eutrophication and global warming. This phenomenon could be accompanied by major ecological and economic consequences. Furthermore, a high concentration of hydrogen sulfide, an extremely toxic gas, lies dormant in the deepest layers of the Black Sea. For the moment, there is no evidence of a correlation between the compression of the oxic zone and this gas rising. But if the stratification of the water column weakens, even locally, an imbalance could endanger the aquatic life in the surface layer.
Of all the planet's seas, the Black Sea has a very particular profile. Surrounded by land, it could even be mistaken for a great lake if it weren't for the fact that it is directly connected to the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosphorus Strait, a small one-kilometre-wide waterway. A sea surrounded by land that determines its special characteristics. "The main supply of water to the Black Sea comes from rivers. Especially the Danube," explains Arthur Capet, the first author of the publication on the decline of oxygen in the Black Sea and researcher at MAST, led by Marilaure Grégoire, FNRS research director. "This fresh water, which is less dense than sea water, colonises the upper layers of the water column without mixing with the lower layers." Because the lower layers are far more saline. The origin is to be found to the south-west of the Black Sea, in the Bosphorus. "Here, there is an exchange with the Mediterranean Sea in two layers. The fresh water at the surface flows out, and lower down, the salt water flows in and sinks directly towards the denser levels."
The permanent stratification linked to salinity, the halocline, deprives the deep waters of oxygen. The marine food chain therefore develops above this boundary below which the waters are devoid of oxygen. "All the same, the Mediterranean inflow supplies a small amount of oxygen to the intermediary layers. Not only does it contain oxygen, but as it descends, it entrains surface water with it. However, this oxygen is very rapidly consumed as the organic matter decays." What happens is that the organic matter (plankton, algae, etc.), produced on the surface by photosynthesis, breaks down or is consumed and expelled by other species in the trophic chain. In both cases, this eventually sinks. Since it requires oxygen to break down, the few reserves that exist in the lower layers are exhausted.
"The oxygenated and therefore habitable area of the Black Sea is a very restricted space. This is the case horizontally, because the basin is almost completely closed, and also vertically, owing to this permanent stratification. Compared with other seas, this restricted volume is exposed to major external influences. It is therefore more sensitive and capable of evolving rapidly," Arthur Capet explains. It is this type of evolution that the researcher was able to observe. By compiling the data gathered over the past 60 years, he noted that the oxygen-rich top layer of the Black Sea had shrunk from 140 metres to 90 metres deep. Impressive figures that correspond to a more than 40 % decrease in the habitable volume.
Permanent stratification compared with seasonal stratification
The salt content favours the permanent vertical stratification in the Black Sea. In addition to this permanent stratification is a seasonal stratification due to the temperature of the water. "In winter," Arthur Capet continues, "lower temperatures accompanied by higher winds make the surface water colder and richer in oxygen. However, cold water is denser than warm water. Therefore, this cold water sinks and takes the oxygen it contains with it. This creates a ventilation effect." It is this periodic phenomenon that supplies the deeper layers with oxygen. In the case of the Mediterranean, the surface waters cooled in winter sink to the bottom, supplying the entire basin with oxygen. However, in the Black Sea, these waters are blocked in the permanent halocline, even though they are colder than the deep waters. In terms of density, salt eventually wins over temperature. The cold waters end their journey here, and retain their oxygen. In summer, the surface waters warm up and no longer sink, thus creating a new stratification of the water column, the thermocline.
Several diagnostics to check the presence of oxygen
To diagnose this shrinking of the oxygen-rich top layer, Arthur Capet had to take into account two sources of variabilities that had to be distinguished to avoid biased conclusions. On the one hand, temporal variability, providing a view of the evolution in time of the presence of oxygen in the sea, and on the other hand, spatial variability. "Oxygen penetration isn't consistent in all areas. Especially close to coastlines, where the interaction between the current and the seabed induces increased vertical mixing, or close to the Bosphorus Strait. It was necessary to take into account every place where the measurements were taken to get a clear image of this evolution in time. And then there was another difficulty: the dominant currents in the Black Sea create forces that lift the vertical structure in the middle of the basin and lower it in the periphery. This mean that at the same depth, the water will be less dense close to the coast than in the middle of the basin." In other words, rather than forming a horizontal boundary, the halocline resembles a dome. To overcome this additional difficulty, the researcher quantified the oxygen concentration by expressing the depth in metres on the one hand, and in terms of density on the other. Which then made it possible to find a consistent average for the whole of the basin and establish an accurate overall vertical profile for the water column.
The drivers behind this astonishing decline
Several historic databases contained information, collected during a number of campaigns, on oxygen distribution in the Black Sea. By compiling these figures and those collected by the ARGO buoys, which drift freely and send satellite information on the evolution of the temperature, salinity and oxygen, it was possible to compare more than 4000 profiles, taken between 1955 and 2015. By proposing an average of all these diagnostics and by inventorying the quantity of oxygen in the Black Sea, the final observation was very accurate and unequivocal. The oxygen penetration declined throughout the second half of the 20th century, shrinking from 140 metres in 1955 to a mere 90 metres in 2015.
There were two successive causes behind this gradual drop. A greater abundance of nutrients initially, then global warming. Up until the 1990s, the intensity of ventilation linked to the dynamics of the cold waters didn't decrease. It even increased in certain years, during harsher winters. Therefore, there should have been a larger quantity of dissolved oxygen. However, its concentration continued to fall in the entire water column. It was necessary to look for the cause elsewhere than in the physical reaction linked to the climate. "In reality," Arthur Capet contextualises, "this shortage can be explained by the extensive eutrophication of the basin during this period. It corresponds to a major economic boom in the USSR, when huge farms and extensive cattle breeding were developed. What's more, this boom wasn't accompanied by environmental considerations." Fertilisers and organic waste linked to breeding found its way into the rivers and ended up in the Black Sea. They had a very high nitrate and phosphate content which encouraged the primary production. "Just as the fertilisers encourage plants to grow, they also influence the production of algae. These algae consume oxygen when it decays or is consumed. A greater biomass therefore leads to a greater consumption of oxygen." In 1990, this influx of nutrients fell significantly. Once again, it seems that it was associated with a geopolitical and economic context, since it coincided with the fall of the Soviet empire and the economic difficulties encountered in the region. It is also the moment when the first wide-scale environmental measures were applied.
And yet, the level of oxygen didn't increase again. On the contrary, it remained the same for several years, when the winters were particularly cold, before decreasing again. This time, global warming was the culprit, by influencing ventilation. If the winters are warmer, a lower volume of dense water is generated, which reduces the oxygen content when these waters sink down to the halocline. "The phenomenon could well get worse. Before, this formation of cold water took place every year. And yet, the figures collected over the past ten years bear witness to an increasingly intermittent formation of cold water. We are currently in the process of analysing our results, but it would seem that this once annual ventilation now only takes place every two or three years. We still can't determine the consequences of this phenomenon, but in any case, we are witnessing a changing system."
Besides a less extensive and occasional mixing, this warming masks another effect leading to deoxygenation. One of the chemical properties of cold water means that it becomes saturated less quickly than warm water. The colder the water, the more it can contain dissolved gas, which obviously includes oxygen. As it heats up, the surface water is increasingly unable to accumulate oxygen. Subsequently, not only does oxygen no longer colonise the Black Sea at depth, but moreover, its concentration decreases in the entire water column. The deoxygenation caused by the increase in the water's temperature is a global problem that concerns all the oceans. Today, the problem is taken very seriously by the scientific community.
Implications to be quantified
The study aims above all to quantify the physical processes linked to the water column by collecting and analysing the data. The dynamics seem to be properly understood now, in terms of both space and time. The big unknown remains the influence that these variations will have on the ecosystem. The models that enable the study of the different scenarios in the Black Sea must now be integrated with this new halocline, thermocline and oxycline data, so that their real impact can be more precisely predicted. However, several avenues can already be explored. "The Black Sea is clearly facing significant compression of its habitable area. The whole ecosystem is formed in this layer, from phytoplankton to predators, which evolve in the deeper waters. The entire trophic chain is organised in the water column according to the presence of light or nutrients. Previously organised over a depth of 140 metres, the interactions between these trophic groups must now find a new balance over a depth of 90 metres. There will be an ecological and economic affect. Fishing, which is one of the major activities in the region, will probably have to adapt to this reorganisation."According to the FAO, the catch amounted to 376,000 tons in 2013. Barely two times less than for the whole of the Mediterranean.
A toxic outsider
One final process deserves to be monitored. As previously mentioned, biomass consumes oxygen as it decays. When there is no more oxygen, this biomass continues to decay, leading to the consumption of sulfates by the bacteria and the production of hydrogen sulfide (H2S), a highly toxic gas. The permanent stratification of the Black Sea acts as a lid over the deep waters, in which this hydrogen sulfide has accumulated and reaches now unprecedented concentrations. Nothing currently proves that the shoaling of the oxygen penetration depth directly correspond to a shoaling of the hydrogen sulfide onset depth. "The depth at which the H2S appears doesn't exactly correspond to the depth at which the oxygen disappears. There is a whole series of intermediary processes in a median zone that is suboxic and devoid of hydrogen sulfide. We focused on oxygen and our study revealed a rise in the upper boundary of this zone, but not the lower one. We can assume that the stratification of the Black Sea will remain stable overall. But it's possible that if the H2S were to rise up, unstable climate or geological conditions would cause the hydrogen sulfide to pierce through the oxygenated layer. This could have major repercussions on aquatic life. In order to determine the situation and to solve the dynamics of the H2S, we must now model these processes, and quantify and inventory its concentration."The Band's first album, Music from Big Pink, seemed to come out of nowhere, with its ramshackle musical blend and songs of rural tragedy. The Band, the group's second album, was a more deliberate and even more accomplished effort, partially because the players had become a more cohesive unit, and partially because guitarist Robbie Robertson had taken over the songwriting, writing or co-writing all 12 songs. Though a Canadian, Robertson focused on a series of American archetypes from the union worker in "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" and the retired sailor in "Rockin' Chair" to, most famously, the Confederate Civil War observer Virgil Cane in "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." The album effectively mixed the kind of mournful songs that had dominated Music from Big Pink, here including "Whispering Pines" and "When You Awake" (both co-written by Richard Manuel), with rollicking uptempo numbers like "Rag Mama Rag" and "Up on Cripple Creek" (both sung by Levon Helm and released as singles, with "Up on Cripple Creek" making the Top 40). As had been true of the first album, it was the Band's sound that stood out the most, from Helm's (and occasionally Manuel's) propulsive drumming to Robertson's distinctive guitar fills and the endlessly inventive keyboard textures of Garth Hudson, all topped by the rough, expressive singing of Manuel, Helm, and Rick Danko that mixed leads with harmonies. The arrangements were simultaneously loose and assured, giving the songs a timeless appeal, while the lyrics continued to paint portraits of 19th century rural life (especially Southern life, as references to Tennessee and Virginia made clear), its sometimes less savory aspects treated with warmth and humor.President Donald Trump’s hurdle to getting a health care bill passed in the House right now is a bloc of relatively moderate Republicans — and in his desperate bid to get a plan, any plan, moving through Congress, he is leaving those lawmakers with no good options.
Conservatives are already attacking them for blocking the long-sought goal of (partially) repealing Obamacare, raising the specter of primary challenges. But if they vote for the unpopular House bill, they could be vulnerable to Democratic opponents in 2018, putting the GOP’s House majority at risk.
The latest version of the American Health Care Act, which House leaders and the White House are pushing to bring up for a vote this week, includes an amendment that lets states opt out of some of Obamacare’s core insurance rules. The amendment was enough to win over the conservative Freedom Caucus, which had opposed earlier versions of the bill.
That puts the magnifying glass squarely on the Tuesday Group, a group of 50 or so comparatively centrist House Republicans. Many of them were already uneasy with the AHCA because it would lead to an estimated 24 million people being uninsured, and deeply cut the Medicaid program.
And the bill became even more conservative after the latest changes, which allow states to waive some of Obamacare’s protections for people with preexisting medical conditions. Those are among the law’s most popular provisions.
Based on public whip counts, the moderates make up the bulk of the remaining opposition to the bill. Now that the Freedom Caucus has dropped its resistance, those lawmakers are under increasing pressure to come on board.
“The problem was the Freedom Caucus, and now who’s got the hot potato? The Tuesday Group. Again. Again,” Congress member Chris Collins, a New York Republican who does support the bill, said last week. “Again and again and again, the tough votes come back to the Tuesday Group.”
Trump’s desire to force a health care bill through the House, and his willingness to move the bill to the right to appease the Freedom Caucus in his pursuit, has left these Republicans with an impossible choice.
The Tuesday Group is essential to the GOP’s control of the House
Control of the House is decided by swing districts, the ones that lean only narrowly toward Democrats or Republicans, and the GOP’s grip on power is more tenuous than the numbers — 238 to 193 — might lead you to believe. Twenty-three House Republicans represent districts that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. If Democrats win those districts, they’ll almost certain to regain control of the House.
Experienced House Republicans are well aware of that risk. The Democratic congressional committee’s list of Republican incumbents that it’s targeting next year matches nearly name for name with the “No” or undecided votes on the AHCA.
“I do think, sometimes, some of our colleagues forget the Tuesday Group is the group that holds the toughest seats for us,” Congress member Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who is close to leadership and once ran the House Republican political committee, said last week. “They really are the difference between us being in the majority and the minority. So what they have to say is extremely important for everybody to listen to, because that’s where our losses will tend to come in a midterm.”
A lot can happen between then and now, of course. But the president’s party usually loses seats in off-year elections — and we have a very recent example of a party seeing historic losses after a contentious health care debate.
Democrats lost 63 seats in the 2010 midterms. Not all of that can be attributed to Obamacare, but the newly minted health care law played a central role in Republican campaigns against Democratic incumbents.
Voting against the Affordable Care Act couldn’t even inoculate some more centrist Democrats — Michael Arcuri of New York and Zack Space of Ohio among them — from losing their seats that year.
“It became a bigger tide,” Brendan Daly, who was an aide to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the Obamacare debate, told me, “Health care was one big driver.”
Now Trump, his approval rating already historically low for a presidency so young, is pushing the House to pass a bill that only 17 percent of Americans support.
Voting against the AHCA puts them at risk of primary challenges from the right
But voting against the Republican bill, and against the president’s wishes, isn’t a foolproof plan either. Outside conservative groups are already attacking the Tuesday Group for wanting to keep Obamacare — a cardinal sin for much of the Republican base, which still wants Congress to repeal the law. They’ve even gone on the air with campaign-style ads to pressure moderates to back the health care bill.
And while Trump is pretty unpopular with the American public, he maintains solid support among Republicans: 86 percent, according to the latest Gallup poll. Defying Trump could be risky if conservatives are so mobilized by a “No” vote on the AHCA that they seek out a more conservative primary challenger to run against the moderate holdouts.
“He's still popular with a strong majority of those who voted for him. That's what the moderates have to factor in,” a Republican health care lobbyist told me.
“You can't win a general if you lose in a primary,” the lobbyist said, “so the moderates are going to have to make individual political calculations on the likelihood of getting primaried, and by whom.”
Some of the “No” votes on the AHCA already have primary opponents in waiting. Congress member Mark Amodei of Nevada is being challenged by Sharron Angle, a far-right Republican who shocked the world when she won the GOP nomination for US Senate in 2010 — though she went on to lose.
For now, Amodei doesn’t seem fazed. His opposition to the AHCA’s deep Medicaid cuts outweigh concerns about an opponent running to his right.
.@MarkAmodeiNV2 @SharronAngle "If I were really concerned about that I’d probably be trying to find a way to kick all these people off Medicaid instead of going on MSNBC" — Simone Pathe (@sfpathe) April 27, 2017
But his predicament still illustrates the way that the White House’s insistence on forcing the AHCA through could put the holdouts in a political bind. Angle is basing her campaign on the need to give Trump a more conservative Congress that will pass his agenda.
House leaders are taking a similar tack: The real risk for lawmakers is not repealing Obamacare like they promised.
“I think people’s seats are at risk if we don’t do what we said we’d do,” Speaker Paul Ryan said last week. “We promised that we would do this. If you violate your promise, if you commit the sin of hypocrisy in politics, that’s the greater risk.”
Voting for the AHCA puts them at risk of losing to Democrats in 2018
For some of the holdouts, a primary challenge might sound far-fetched. Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, one of the moderates most stridently opposed to the AHCA, has held his seat in the Allentown area for 12 years now. It’s tough to overcome the inertia of political incumbency, and these are districts that elected moderate Republicans in the first place.
But as Rep. Cole observed, when it comes to the general election, these Tuesday Group lawmakers are unquestionably the most at risk. If the Democrats end up taking the House, the wave will start in the swing districts moderates represent.
“When they tell me something is unpalatable politically, I listen because my gavel depends on them coming back,” Cole said. “I think everybody in our conference ought to realize that.”
Democrats are already running campaign ads against the swing district incumbents over the health care bill.
Early returns on the special House elections this year — an admittedly imperfect barometer, but a data point nonetheless — can’t be encouraging for the vulnerable lawmakers. Two solid Republican districts in Georgia and Kansas swung 20 points or so toward Democrats from their last congressional election.
And the more Democrats like their chances, the stronger the candidates they can recruit to challenge these swing-district incumbents.
Congress member Tom MacArthur, a New Jersey Republican and member of the Tuesday Group, negotiated the new amendment to the AHCA that won over the Freedom Caucus. He supports the bill and is already one of the Democratic targets. Last week, a former Obama administration official and veteran announced he would explore a run against MacArthur over his role in shaping the GOP health care plan.
Yesterday Rep Tom MacArthur became TrumpCare 2.0 author. Today I’m exploring run against him Congress NJ03. Join me https://t.co/UO5MBcFa1D pic.twitter.com/xvfJPz1H5b — Andy Kim (@AndyKimNJ) April 27, 2017
The Republican holdouts are well aware of all this. That’s why they’re balking at legislation that will lead to an estimated 24 million more people being uninsured — at least.
The latest version of the AHCA hasn’t actually been evaluated yet by the Congressional Budget Office yet, and it probably won’t be before the House votes. But if the House passed the bill, you can bet Democrats will ask the CBO for a score, which could come back with even deeper coverage losses and more ammunition for Democratic ads against the vulnerable Republicans.
So these lawmakers are being asked to take a tough vote, without a full picture of what the bill would do — and without knowing how the Senate would change the bill and whether their conservative counterparts in the Freedom Caucus would agree to any such compromise with the Senate.
A tough vote, then, on a bill that’s moved to the right and without any guarantees of getting an actual law out of it. All because Trump refuses to accept failure on health care.
It’s clearly weighing on them.
“The business model around here is to load the bill up, make it as conservative as possible, send it to the Senate, and then have the senate clean it up and send it back,” Dent told reporters last week. “Then the very people who were placated on the first launch won’t be there anymore on the final.”
“That dog isn’t hunting anymore,” he said.Warning, sensitive MSNBC viewers may want to look away. That’s essentially what Rachel Maddow told liberal watchers on Wednesday night before showing a picture of anti-Hillary Clinton buttons at the Republican convention. Considering the hateful rhetoric that’s come out of MSNBC for years, perhaps that viewer warning should have appeared in the past.
The buttons included ones that read “Hillary for prison” and “Vote no to Monica’s ex-boyfriend’s wife in 2016.” Maddow informed viewers, “You may find it uncomfortable. And so, you may not want to look at this stuff. But these are some of the pins that are being sold at the venue.”
Maddow continued, “But from calling Hillary Clinton a bitch, to the KFC special referring to her breasts and thighs and left-wing and all of those other things. That's part of the merchandise of the RNC.”
Certainly, using bad language towards people in public life or making vulgar comments is inappropriate. But that’s never stopped the journalists on MSNBC. Former network anchor Martin Bashir in 2013 wished that someone would defecate and urinate on Sarah Palin.
In 2008, then-anchor Keith Olbermann accused George W. Bush of “murderous deceit” and told the Republican to “shut the hell up.” In 2016, Chris Matthews slimed that Ted Cruz “operates below the level of human life.”
A transcript is below:Think the TSA is a little too touchy at the airport? They have the power to pat you down and search your luggage when you board trains and boats, too, says Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., who wants to pass legislation that reins them in.
Garrett on Tuesday introduced a bill that would end the Transportation Security Administration’s authority to randomly search non-airline transportation passengers.
Garrett said the TSA can even search people traveling on the highways and that the “thousands of unannounced and random sweeps” don’t reduce the threat of terrorism according to the TSA’s own accounting.
Garrett’s bill comes on the heels of complaints by civil liberty groups against random searches by the TSA in subways and rail stations.
“This legislation would protect the Fourth Amendment rights of citizens by denying the TSA the authority to conduct random searches of surface transportation passengers.”
Garrett said the TSA should instead keep its focus on airline safety and let local law enforcement handle the rest of the transportation industry.
The TSA reported earlier this year that in 2012 there were 27 “enforcement actions” taken by surface transportation security inspectors, mostly against the railroad industry.There is something about sliders that I love. I am not sure if its the novelty of the mini burger or what, but I love them. I recently had a potluck at work and was excited about bringing a plant based dish to share. My fellow employees who are not vegans or even vegetarians loved them!
The recipe can come off looking difficult, but they are pretty easy to make. I got a few questions on what type of rolls to use. Really you can use any type of dinner roll that is big enough to slice in half, and small enough to fit a slider patty. You can also get creative with what you top it with. I used a sweet onion, and tomato. But you can also throw an avocado on there or even romaine slices. I also topped mine with a raspberry chipotle sauce. The sweet and spicy sauce really complemented the cajun taste of the slider.
Let us know what you top yours with!
Ingredients
1 Large Sweet Potato or 2 Medium Size
2 Cans of White Cannellini Beans, Risned and Drained
1/2 - 3/4 Cups of Bread Crumbs
25 Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls
2 Tablespoons of Tahini
2 Teaspoons of Maple Syrup
2 Teaspoons of Cajun Seasoning
Box of Panko Bread Crumbs
2 Tomatoes
1 Sweet Onion
Method
Step 1 Preheat oven to 400f. Step 2 Place sweet potato in oven for 45 minutes - 65 minutes. Remove from the oven when you can pierce through with a fork easily. Step 3 Place cooked sweet potato in fridge to cool for 10 - 15 minutes. Remove from refrigerator and remove skin. If the potato is still hot, put it back in the refrigerator. Step 4 After potato is cool, place in a bowl with the beans and mash them. Step 5 In a separate bowl, mix the tahini, maple syrup, and Cajun seasoning. Step 6 Pour the tahini mix into the mashed beans and potato mix. Step 7 Stir in 1/2 cup of bread crumbs. Continue to add bread crumbs slowly until the potato and bean mixture is sticky enough to form patties. Step 8 Preheat oven to 375f. Step 9 While oven is preheating, form your slider patties. You will want them to be about 2 - 2 1/2 inches so they fit on your dinner rolls. Step 10 Pour panko crumbs onto a plate. Roll patties into the crumbs so they stick. Step 11 Place patties on a non stick baking sheet and bake for 7 minutes, flip and bake for 7 more. Step 12 Slice rolls in half and place patty on roll. Top with tomato and onion slice.
Estimated Cost Per Serving: $1.25This year marks the City of Seattle’s 30th Annual “Night Out Against Crime” celebration on Tuesday, August 5th. Recently, Mayor Murray laid out a comprehensive public safety plan for Seattle that underscores the importance of providing opportunities for youth and community members to enjoy their streets and public spaces citywide. The Mayor believes Night Out is a great example of the types of opportunities that exist for reconnecting community to Seattle streets. Night Out, an annual national event hosted locally by the Seattle Police Department, shows that residents and City government can mobilize resources and energy together to move toward a safer and more connected Seattle. We hope you’ll join in making this Seattle’s best Night Out yet.
Sign your block up for Night Out:
Register your event and add it to the map. (When you register your event in Seattle, most non-arterial streets can be blocked off—without a fee—so you and your neighbors can take over the street.) Invite your neighbors by printing off the materials on our website and distributing around your block. And finally, help us promote Night Out around Seattle by liking the Night Out Facebook Page, sharing updates, and inviting others do the same.
If you have any questions, you can email NightOut@seattle.gov or call your Precinct Crime Prevention Coordinator.
Find a Night Out event:
View the public Night Out map to see events in your neighborhood.
Attend a Picnic in the Precinct:
Another key element of safer communities is when we all know our local police officers. Coming up are several opportunities for you to get to know the Seattle Police Officers who protect your neighborhood. Meet the new Chief of Police, Kathleen O’Toole, your local police officers, and other community members at one of four upcoming Picnics in the Precincts:
Tuesday, August 5 th : West Precinct Picnic / National Night Out
Occidental Square in Pioneer Square, 5pm – 8pm
Occidental Square in Pioneer Square, 5pm – 8pm Saturday, August 9th: Southwest Precinct Picnic
Delridge Community Center (4501 Delridge Way SW), 11 am – 4 pm (More info)
Saturday, August 16th: South Precinct Picnic
New Holly Campus (7058 32nd Ave S), 1pm – 4pm
Sunday, August 24th: North Precinct Picnic
University Heights Center (5031 University Way NE), 1pm – 4pm
Saturday, August 30th: East Precinct Picnic
Cal Anderson Park (1635 11th Ave), 1pm – 4pm
Whether it’s getting to know your neighbors better or building a stronger relationship with the officers in your neighborhood, a safer Seattle takes all of us organizing and working together. Take a moment to register a Night Out event on your block and put your local Picnic in the Precinct on your calendar. We hope you’ll take some of these important opportunities to build public safety across the city.Boots Riley’s Sorry To Bother You has found its stars.
Deadline reports that Tessa Thompson (Creed, Dear White People, Thor: Ragnarok), LaKeith Stanfield (Get Out, Straight Outta Compton) and Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead, Okja) will be starring in Boots Riley’s upcoming drama Sorry To Bother You.
The film’s premise consists of “a black telemarketer with self-esteem issues” who “discovers a magical key to business success, propelling him to the upper echelons of the hierarchy just as his activist comrades are rising up against unjust labor practices. When he uncovers the macabre secret of his corporate overlords, he must decide whether to stand up or sell out.” This will be Riley’s first time directing a film and is set to reunite Thompson and Stanfield, who previously starred in Selma together.
Additionally, according to Indiewire, Sorry To Bother You won the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) and Kenneth Rainin Foundation (KRF) grant in 2015. The SFFS/KRF program has given grants to other amazing films such as Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station and Ira Sachs’ Love is Strange.
Production will begin filming this month in Oakland, CA.
Sources: Indiewire, DeadlineThe stakes are high in the main event of Titan FC 34 as two former UFC lightweights will compete for the Titan FC Lightweight Championship. Pat Healy and Mike Ricci both have made impressive runs after being released from the biggest MMA organization in the world.
For Mike Ricci, he believes there isn’t much more he can do in terms of proving to the UFC that he’s worthy of a second chance.
“What else do you want me to do? Since I’ve been released I’ve headlined three cards. All three fights were on national TV, now I’m fighting for a title. If after this win I don’t get back into the UFC, I guess I might just have to accept the fact that I’m probably never going to be in the UFC.” Mike Ricci says.
Mike Ricci spoke to A Gentleman’s Fight Podcast about his title fight with Pat Healy, knowing that an impressive win on Fight Pass would do a lot to help his career (16:00).
Even if Ricci doesn’t get a call from the UFC to make a return, the Montreal native insists that it won’t impact his motivation for success in the sport.
“I just haven’t made the UFC my priority anymore. It use to be when I was younger. Now that I’ve been there and I’m back here, for sure from a career standpoint and a financial standpoint it’s the place you want to be, but I can’t really keep fighting and not be motivated, or else I’ll end up getting my ass whooped.”
Ricci was a finalist on The Ultimate Fighter 16, knocking out current UFC Top 15 welterweight Neil Magny in the semi-finals before losing a decision to Colton Smith in the finals.
Ricci’s TUF season was better known for its knucklehead characters than its fighters, most notable being Julian Lane, who coined the term, “let me bang bro.” Ricci was an easy target for the other housemates due to his quiet demeanor and sense of style.
“Yeah they were ripping into me in that house. I like to dress, I like to look good. I never think you can be too dressed up. I’m a mature guy and so I can handle people making fun of me.”
The 29 year old is use to taking criticism for the way he dresses. He insists that growing up in Montreal, dressing up shows professionalism.
“I feel like when you dress up, it’s a form of manners. It shows politeness. I think people think that I dress nicely because I think highly of myself or that I’m a snob. I’ve had people go as far as call me homosexual. I guess it comes with the territory.”
Ricci’s focus is firmly planted on winning the Titan FC Lightweight Championship. Teammate Rory MacDonald is also fighting for a championship within the same month, meaning that business at Tri-Star is picking up.
“The gym is competitive right now. Both us having 5 round fights, sparring is lasting longer and it’s bringing out the best in everyone. The gym is packed and full of studs.”
When it comes to his opponent,the current Titan FC Lightweight Champion Pat Healy, Ricci knows that a drawn out game-plan won’t suffice, and that the goal will ultimately be to hurt Healy.
“My gameplan is to just hurt Pat Healy. He’s so tough. He’s the kind of guy who will just stand right in front of you no matter what, unless you hurt him.”
Titan FC 34 takes place on July 18th in Kansas City, Missouri and features four championship fights. The entire event will be streamed live on UFC Fight Pass.
Main PhotoUPDATED: The documents also reveal that the actress and singer is a relatively frugal spender.
Move over Suze Orman. Hollywood has an new budget balancer, and it's... Zooey Deschanel?
The New Girl actress and singer filed to divorce rocker-husband Ben Gibbard on Dec. 27 |
kind of competitive hiring advantage shared by the likes of Zappos or 1-800-Got-Junk.
Walker and McKee offer three strategies for companies to create a workplace that encourages friendships.
Go Deep, Not Wide
“Our research is clear,” says Walker, “that people don’t want more connections. By more than 2-1, we crave deeper relationships.” Instead of planning large-scale company outings like a trip to play laser tag, think small: try cross-functional retreats or 1-1 programs, like peer mentoring, which can help bring people together.
V Is For Vulnerability
Sharing who we are - our hopes, dream, fears, values - is inherently risky and can seem doubly so at work. Yet it's the keystone to forming bonds, and part of what social scientists call the "dance of disclosure." Says McKee, “Our experience is it won't happen without role modeling from those in charge.” This doesn't mean bosses should break out the tears during company calls. But, she says, “by sharing their own vulnerabilities, leaders can show that those opening up won’t be disciplined, taken advantage of, or seen as weak.”
Break Inertia
By nature, we tend to befriend people similar to ourselves. It's a phenomenon known as "homophily or “love of the same.” Yet much of the reward of friendship is the learning and growth that comes from colliding with different experiences. To encourage these types of collisions, try mixing up your teams in terms of age, gender, skills or nationality. Consider job-trade weeks or encourage cross-departmental projects. (These all depend, of course, on hiring diverse teams in the first place.)
Do you agree with Lifeboat that embracing friendship in the workplace can give your company a competitive edge? What's your experience with friends at work? Do you agree that friends and work can mix?
Dorie Clark is a marketing strategist who teaches at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She is the author of Reinventing You and Stand Out, and you can receive her free Stand Out Self-Assessment Workbook.H&R Block’s new advertising campaign is one of the more ambitious in the company’s 62-year history. It hired the actor Jon Hamm for his first on-camera spokesman role, a significant coup. And the company ditched its “Refund Season” slogan in favor of a more aggressive pitch: “Get your taxes won.”
The ads obviously target Intuit’s do-it-yourself Turbo Tax. More subtle is how much the campaign was really influenced by critical words from one heavy-hitting personality: Donald J. Trump.
It was August 2015, still the early days of the presidential campaign, when Mr. Trump first mentioned that he hoped to “put H&R Block out of business” with his plan for a simplified tax code.
Sixteen months later, the leading tax preparer is still feeling the effects.
“We got kicked around a little bit last year,” Kathy Collins, chief marketing and strategy officer, said. “We realized this was the time to do this.”At yesterday’s keynote, Scott Forstall discussed many of the cool features in the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 update, chief among them support for MMS and data tethering. Support for those 2 technologies, however, are wholly dependant on carrier approval, and noticeably absent from the list of cooperating carriers was AT&T.
AT&T recently stated that MMS support for the iPhone will officially be supported on their network later this summer, even though 29 other carriers worldwide will be adding MMS support immediately. And as for data tethering, you’re almost better off not even asking. AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel recently had this to say about what the future holds for data tethering on the iPhone – “Typically there’s a monthly charge associated with that. We have not announced what that will be.“
Or when it will be for that matter.
Annoyingly, data tethering is already supported by AT&T on a host of other phones, but the iPhone remains the odd man out. Whats confusing about AT&T’s sluggishness on the matter is that people are more than willing to pay a few extra bucks a month for data tethering.
So what’s the hold up? Why is AT&T so willing to act in a way that conjures up so much ill-will towards it?
One possible explanation is that AT&T knows that the iPhone will not be an AT&T exclusive for much longer. While precise details of AT&T’s exclusivity contract remain unknown, it is widely believed that it is set to expire at the end of 2009, opening up the possibility of the iPhone hitting other networks such as Verizon in 2010.
If AT&T knows that there’s nothing it can do to keep Apple away from other carriers, then perhaps it has no incentive to do anything to keep iPhone customers happy. Perhaps it’d rather not have iPhone users using up their bandwidth with MMS videos and data tethering. Perhaps its simply trying to make as much money as it can while keeping bandwidth usage as low as possible before the iPhone moves on to greener pastures in just a few months.
Or maybe AT&T is just incompetent and short-sighted. Take your pick.Wake Up America - Share Pat's Columns!
In July of 1967, after race riots gutted Newark and Detroit, requiring troops to put them down, LBJ appointed a commission to investigate what happened, and why.
The Kerner Commission reported back that “white racism” was the cause of black riots. Liberals bought it. America did not.
Richard Nixon said of the white racism charge that there is a “tendency to lay the blame for the riots on everyone but the rioters.”
The Nixon-George Wallace vote in 1968 was 57 percent to Hubert Humphrey’s 43. In 1972, Wallace was leading in the popular vote in the Democratic primaries, when he was shot in Laurel, Maryland. In November of 1972, Nixon and Agnew swept 49 states.
Among the primary causes of the ruin of FDR’s great coalition, and the rise of Nixon’s New Majority, was the belief in Middle America that liberals were so morally paralyzed by racial guilt they could not cope with minority racism, riots and crime.
And so they lost the nation for a generation.
That same moral paralysis is on display in the aftermath of the grand jury conclusion that Officer Darren Wilson acted in self-defense when he shot Michael Brown on Aug. 9 in Ferguson, Missouri.
When initial reports came in, that a police officer had confronted an unarmed black teenager on a main street at noon and shot him six times, it seemed like a case of a cop gone berserk.
But, day by day, new facts emerged. The “gentle giant” Brown had, 15 minutes earlier, pulled off a strong-arm robbery, grabbing a store clerk half his size by the throat while stealing cigars. And Brown was in the middle of the street, and maybe high on marijuana, when he refused an order to move onto the sidewalk.
Then came leaks from the grand jury that the 6’4″, 292-pound, 18-year-old punched the officer in the face in his patrol car and went for his gun, which fired twice, wounding Brown in the hand.
Wilson got out and told Brown to get on the ground, as Brown walked away. After this, what happened is in dispute.
Several grand jury witnesses perjured themselves by testifying that Wilson shot Brown in the back. All of Brown’s wounds were in the front. Others said Brown turned and faced Wilson, with four of them saying Brown moved toward or charged the officer.
The pattern of shells from Wilson’s gun indicates he was backing away while firing at Brown.
The grand jury concluded that not only did most witnesses support Wilson’s version, but the forensic evidence was consistent with what Wilson said had happened, and contradicted Brown’s lying companion.
Hence, no indictment, and wisely so.
AD FEEDBACK
No jury, based on the known evidence, would conclude “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Wilson committed murder or manslaughter.
St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch concluded he had no case and would not prosecute unless a grand jury, which had seen and heard all the evidence, concluded otherwise. It did not.
Yet, Michael Brown’s death, whatever the grand jury decided, is an irreversible tragedy, horrible for his mother and father.
But what happened last week was not a tragedy but a national disgrace, a disgusting display of adult delinquency.
Monday night we witnessed in Ferguson a rampage of arson, shooting, looting and vandalism, with police and National Guard ordered not to interfere. Stores and shops, the investments of a lifetime for their owners and the livelihood of their employees, were firebombed and pillaged as police looked on.
For a week, mobs blocked highways, bridges and commuter trains from New York to Oakland. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade was disrupted. On Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, moms and their kids at malls had to climb over unruly protesters to do their Christmas shopping. The civil rights of law-abiding Americans were systematically violated.
And where were the president and his attorney general?
Neither Barack Obama nor Eric Holder has yet to stand up and declare, unequivocally, that, in America, the full force of law will be used to halt, prosecute and punish those guilty of mob violence, no matter the nobility of the “cause” in which it is being committed.
America is a democratic republic, a free society of 320 million. That society and that republic will not survive if a precedent is set that masses of people can organize and attempt to shut it down when what happens within that system displeases them.
Make no mistake. The Ferguson riots of recent months were like neighborhood cookouts compared to Watts in ’65, Detroit and Newark in ’67, and Washington, D.C., and a hundred other cities after the 1968 assassination of Dr. King. But the reaction of our political, media and moral elites seems even more irresolute than that of the liberals of the 1960s.
Only three weeks in office, Eric Holder called us “a nation of cowards.” Observing his and his boss’ performance in the wake of the Ferguson riots and other rampages, the same word comes to mind.Locals ‘save’ soldier from PKK militants in Turkey’s southeast
ANKARA – Anadolu Agency
A specialized sergeant was reportedly saved from outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in the southeastern province of Şırnak with the efforts of locals nearby.The unnamed soldier, along with his children, had taken his ill wife to a hospital and was returning home. While on his way, the soldier and his family faced four PKK militants who intercepted the car in a central square.The soldier first attempted to draw his gun but refrained, considering his family’s safety. The wife of the soldier vowed to “die together if they needed to” and resisted the militants as they pulled her husband out of the car. The children, however, watched the events unfold inside the car.Meanwhile, locals who were watching the events nearby intervened to protect the soldier and his family from the militants. A group of citizens then began to resist the armed militants as they fired a gun into the air in an attempt to scare the locals. Taking advantage of the chaos created by the gunfire, the locals successfully moved the soldier and his family away from the square with a car.In response, the militants opened fire on the car from behind, slightly injuring the soldier. The locals also moved the militants away from the scene in defiance of their arms.Security and gendarmerie forces arrived at the scene in the aftermath of the incident and a wide-scale operation has been launched to apprehend the fleeing militants responsible for the incident.It is rare that we do a Saturday post on the Reality Liberation Front…but there is something worthy of everyone’s attention…and simply letting it fade into the next news cycle would be irresponsible.
On Thursday, we wrote of the outrage from conservatives and the right-wing media over President Obama’s 18 hour trip to Copenhagen, Denmark…so that he could lobby for the 2016 Summer Olympics to be held in Chicago, Illinois…
On Friday, we mentioned in our regular “Chaos Theory” edition that Chicago lost out in the first round of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) voting, and that the Olympics would instead be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We also wrote that conservative commentators and bloggers were rejoicing that Obama had failed in his attempt to bring the event to America…
And then…this clip was released on the internet:
First reaction to seeing this…disgust. This is a gathering of the so-called “Americans For Prosperity,” cheering at the announcement that the Olympic games would not be held in America. They obviously believe that they are cheering because “Obama failed“…but without realizing it, they are also cheering that:
- America…during a time of financial crisis…will NOT receive the projected $22 billion dollars in revenue.
- The 300,000 new jobs the Olympics would have created over the next seven years, starting immediately…gone.
- The $11 billion dollars in new income the jobs would have injected into our system…gone.
For them, as long as Obama “fails“…it is acceptable that people stay unemployed…it is acceptable that those hundreds of thousands of people continue to struggle and suffer, it is acceptable that the economy still struggles…it is acceptable that another country’s prestige and economy benefits, instead of OUR country.
Now expand this deeply calloused, and fundamentally flawed thinking to other items on the national agenda…why is it that they are hoping that Obama fails to reform health care…why is it that they are praying that he fails in addressing problems in the Middle East…why is it that some of them seem to hope for a terrorist attack, in order to somehow prove Obama has made us “less safe“…why is it that they openly admit that they hope Obama stumbles in attempting to resurrect the economy? It’s simple: as long as Obama fails, for these people, they are indifferent to the loss of American life, American jobs, and American safety and security.
And then, as if to say “we are not all like that,” morning show host and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough wrote the following in his column on The Huffington Post titled “Thank You, Mr. President,” which I offer here in its entirety:
“Count me as one conservative who is disappointed that President Obama’s hometown will not be hosting the 2016 Olympic Games.
Chicago is a beautiful city that would have made a perfect backdrop for the Olympics. The President was right to fly to Copenhagen to try to land the games, not for the sake of his city, but for the good of his country. The fact President Obama failed makes me respect him more for taking the chance, and the fact many right-wing figures opposed the President’s mission shows just how narrow-minded partisanship makes us all.
For the better part of 20 years, a bitterness has infected our politics that has weakened our country.
We Republicans spent eight years trying to delegitimize Bill Clinton.
Democrats spent the next eight years doing the same to George W. Bush.
Now that a Democrat is in the Oval Office again, it is the GOP who is trying to delegitimize a sitting president.
When I try to talk to Republicans about the need to break this cycle of viciousness, some cite the chapter and verse of every hateful left wing attack against George W. Bush.
Whenever I attempt to have a conversation with some Democrats about the need for us respect our president– whether he be an Obama or a Bush– I am told that Bush deserved whatever he got because he was a lying war criminal who hated the Constitution and loved torturing people.
Fortunately, there are a growing number of Americans who believe we cannot continue going on this way.
You and I may disagree on how the CIA handled terror suspects. But that does not mean that you are soft on terrorism anymore than it means that I hate the Constitution.
You and I may have a different approach to Afghanistan. But just because you want to stay there another five years doesn’t mean you are an imperialist. And if I believe a decade in that forsaken land is more than enough, that doesn’t mean I’m soft on al Qaeda or the Taliban.
It just means that we view the world differently.
That creative tension–that intense give and take–has been what has kept America strong since Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton fought like hell in George Washington’s White House.
Hamilton wanted a strong centralized government while Jefferson believed that the government that governed least governed best.
Both men were frustrated by the checks and balances that stood in the way of their agendas, but that debate shaped America for years to come.
But something has gone terribly wrong.
Today on Morning Joe, NBC News Legend Tom Brokaw remarked to Pat Buchanan about how the level of partisanship is even more intense today than during the depths of the Watergate crisis. Brokaw was commenting on Congressman Grayson’s comments, but he could have easily been talking about Joe Wilson or death panels or the bizarre claim that the President “hates all white people.”
Some of the rhetoric is dangerous. But what we saw from some conservative corners regarding the President’s failed Olympics bid was just plain stupid.
I’m happy for Rio and think it is past time that South America got a chance to host the Olympic Games. But put me down as one conservative who is glad my president flew across the ocean to try to bring the 2016 Games to America.
Nice try, President Obama. And thanks for taking time away from your young girls for the sake of your hometown and your country, Michelle. I know that’s never an easy thing to do.“
Good for you, Joe. And he’s right: I, myself, am at times guilty of ascribing the most depraved qualities to those I disagree with…when really all that exists is a difference of opinion and/or perspective. But Joe…when people cheer for America’s loss, simply because it is also Obama’s loss…what attributes am I supposed to ascribe to them?Video Shows Man Being Delivered From 'Homosexual Demon' That Refused to Release Him at T.B. Joshua's Church
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A young Nigerian businessman who reportedly got possessed by a "homosexual demon" after going swimming with a group of men in Nairobi, Kenya, is seen on video being delivered from the "evil spirit" in a powerful swoop at The Synagogue Church of All Nations led by popular African preacher, T.B. Joshua.
The video, which was posted to YouTube in May, shows the young man, identified as Tedus, being confronted by a preacher called Wise Man Christopher who apparently forced the demon to manifest itself.
"You cannot hide," Christopher said in what was understood to be a conversation with the demon living inside the man.
"He belongs to me. He is mine and you know it," the demon replied during the exorcism which took place in January 2014.
When Christopher asked who he was to Tedus, the demon replied that "he is my friend" and noted that there were many demons inside the young man's body before revealing: "I made him gay. I made him love men instead of loving women."
Christopher eventually commanded the demon to leave the man in the video and he fell to the floor. When he got up he could not recall what was said to the preacher.
He later revealed that the night after he went swimming with a group of men he met on the Kenya trip he had a strange dream where he was swimming in a pool filled with naked men. When he woke up the next morning he was a different man.
A summary of the 21-minute video notes that Tedus, who worked as a translator at a popular church in Cameroon, developed "an unusual affection for men" when he awoke from the dream.
He also "inexplicably" broke up with his fiancée and began feeding his lust for men by "downloading gay pornography on the Internet.
"Tedus considered being gay as 'normal,' not realizing a spirit was behind his sudden change in affection," noted the description on the video.
Realizing his change, his pastor sent him to Joshua's church in Nigeria for deliverance.
The report also noted that 15 months later, Tedus remains free of the demon and is now seeking to get married.
"Fifteen months after his deliverance, the story of Tedus has radically changed! All homosexual activitie — both physically and spiritually — have come to a complete end as the affection for men disappeared as quickly as it came," said the report from the church.
"To cap off the remarkable transformation, Tedus did not come to The SCOAN alone! Accompanied by a young lady he introduced as Jessy, the beaming young man told the congregation that this was the lady he planned to marry, adding that he had come to seek God's opinion before going ahead with nuptials," the report continued.
"His [Tedus'] advice was simple. 'If you are living such a life, you must understand that it's not normal. There is a spirit behind such acts. Deliverance is the answer!'" the church added in the report.
WATCH THE DELIVERANCE OF TEDUS BELOW:I never expected to ever say, "Poor Ann Coulter." But - poor Ann Coulter. I really feel badly for her, in a manner of speaking. But not for the reason you think. Not because Barack Obama was re-elected President of the United States. Rather, I feel bad for her because of her responsibility in that victory.
Remember the famous video where Ms. Coulter says, "If Chris Christie doesn't run we'll nominate Mitt Romney and we will lose"?
Now, I'm sure that many people, Ann Coulter included, think that this statement was prescient and shows her to be oh-so wise in her election prediction. Except that it doesn't. It shows her culpability.
Mitt Romney probably came closer to winning the presidency than any Republican could have this election. If Chris Christie ran, he could never have gotten the Republican nomination in this Republican atmosphere -- compared to today's radical far right, Chris Christie is a moderate. That wasn't going to fly with today's Republican electorate. So, Chris Christie wasn't getting the GOP nomination if he ran, despite whatever the weeping Ann Coulter postured.
However, what Ann Coulter did do was help build up the pedestal of Chris Christie among Republicans who didn't really know him. She helped make Chris Christie seem to Republicans that he was The Republican Savior. She helped make Chris Christie's voice so deeply important to Republicans that he became the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention.
So, when it turned out that Chris Christie wasn't exactly what Ann Coulter suggested he was, nor what she tried to get Republicans to believe, and Chris Christie then publicly and repeatedly and powerfully embraced the strong leadership of President Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, it made Gov. Christie's actions all the more significant to voters.
Ann Coulter was not prescient in her election prediction. Ann Coulter helped in her own inimitable, thoughtless, empty, soulless way to help get Barack Obama elected. She created her own self-fulfilling prophecy.
Poor Ann Coulter. She must be so pissed off. The heart bleeds.
Mitch McConnell must be so pissed off, too. After doing one of the most irresponsible things any Senate party leader has ever done by declaring that his Number One priority was not working to help America but rather to make sure that Barack Obama wasn't re-elected, he spent four years shirking his sworn duties and working instead to defeat the president. And after all of that effort, he wasn't able to do it. Despite his great efforts of his Number One priority, President Barack Obama was re-elected. Mitch McConnell must be so pissed off.
In fact, the whole Republican Senate must be so pissed off. When President Obama nominated Elizabeth Warren to be head of the Consumer Protection Agency, an important but reasonably piddly bureau, GOP senators fought her with the fervor of missionary crusaders and wouldn't approve her for the job. And so, what Elizabeth Warren did next was announce her candidacy for the Senate in Massachusetts. If the Republican senators had simply approved Elizabeth Warren to head a simple bureaucratic job, she never would have run for the Senate, and Republican Scott Brown would have been re-elected. Republican senators must be so pissed off. Your heart really goes out to them. In a manner of speaking.
And I know that Donald Trump is pissed off. After gathering all this evidence that Barack Obama wasn't born in America and never showing it to anyone, and then having Mr. Obama re-elected to office anyway, it must be so galling to him.
Imagine how pissed off Karl Rove, the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson must be, having spent all that money to defeat Barack Obama -- hundreds of millions of dollars -- and having absolutely nothing to show for it. I spent ten bucks yesterday for lunch, and at least I got a sandwich and bowl of soup.
All those people who'd been slamming Nate Silver must be incredibly pissed off seeing how remarkably accurate he was with his statistics. Again.
Paul Ryan must be really pissed off, too. He had been a Rising Star Congressman in the Republican Party, and now he's a losing vice-presidential candidate -- only one of whom has been elected president in 172 years. That must sting.
I suspect that Mitt Romney might be pissed off, though I've never quite had any idea how or what he feels about anything. For all I know, he's just glad that he never had to reveal what was in his tax returns.
Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock must be so pissed off at opening their mouths.
But most of all, I suspect that the election results must be other-world mortifying to those radical far right Republicans who are so pissed off that everything they stand for has been repudiated. In a terrible economy, with 7.9 unemployment, a $16 trillion national debt and a $1 trillion budget deficit, Barack Obama still beat Republicans and won re-election. After lambasting Barack Obama for four years as a Socialist, Nazi, Muslim, terrorist Kenyan; calling him "retarded," "lazy" and "stupid;" using racist innuendos to surreptitiously demean him, and making defeating him the Number One priority for four years, the Republican Party still couldn't defeat Barack Obama. After all this, after all they've been doing for four years to enrage the American public... the American public wasn't enraged. In fact, for all that, the mere fact that Barack Obama actually got re-elected President of the United States is one of the more remarkable victories and testaments of support (and renunciation of conservative agendas) as we've seen in America.
And we haven't even touched on Claire McCaskill, Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, Tim Kaine and the rest of the Democratic and progressive agenda victories, all of which point strongly to a rejection of the far right social agenda and support of the president's leadership. Well, I guess that affordable health care won't be dismantled now, the day after inauguration...
The radical far right must be so pissed off. But they only have themselves to blame. Because they've built this rejected, Tea Party-ish bed for eight years.
The rest of American -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- they see this as democracy. The way America goes. Differences of opinions, different issues, and you accept it and move on.
Forward.
But mainly, Ann Coulter must be really pissed off.A small survey of young black men from the South who tested positive for H.I.V. in their teens and early 20s found that most had engaged in risky sexual behaviors but thought it unlikely they would be infected, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More than half of the 29 gay or bisexual men surveyed said they had engaged in unprotected anal sex in the year before they were infected and had had sex with slightly older men, the survey found. Both are risky behaviors, yet the vast majority of the young men said they had not thought that they would ever be infected.
Young black gay and bisexual men are becoming infected with H.I.V. at alarming rates, particularly in the South, and health officials are trying to analyze their risk factors in order to refine education and intervention strategies.
“We need to make sure that H.I.V. infection does not become a rite of passage for young black men who have sex with men,” said Dr. Alexandra Oster, one of the authors of the survey published last week in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
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After the Mississippi State Department of Health notified the C.D.C. in late 2007 that the number of new H.I.V. diagnoses had spiked at a sexually transmitted disease clinic serving Jackson, Miss.,, the agencies teamed up to do the survey. The number of newly diagnosed H.I.V. cases among all black men in the Jackson area had increased 20 percent between 2004-2005 and 2006-2007, but infections among those ages 17 to 25 had jumped 45 percent.A Phoenix judge on Friday found a transgender woman guilty of a prostitution-related offense based on a city ordinance that the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona has deemed unconstitutional.
Monica Jones, 29, was arrested in May as a part of a Phoenix police prostitution-sting operation.
Jones, an activist for sex-worker rights, was charged with manifestation of prostitution, which police can enforce based on a number of qualifiers: repeated attempts to engage a passer-by in conversation, attempts to stop cars by waving at them, inquiries as to whether someone is a police officer or requesting that someone touch his or her genitals.
She pleaded not guilty and challenged the constitutionality of the law she allegedly violated. She subsequently asked that the case be dropped. Attorneys for Jones filed a memorandum in March stating that the ordinance targets transgender women by its interpretive nature and violates the First Amendment.
"Even assuming the government has a compelling interest in prohibiting prostitution, a measure that criminalizes a broad range of legal speech surely cannot be the 'least restrictive' means to furthering such an interest," the document states.
In an interview with The Arizona Republic on Thursday evening, Jones said she felt she was targeted because of her race and gender.
"You never see a heterosexual transgender man (accused of manifestation of prostitution)," she said. "It targets women, especially women in poverty, and women of minority."
Jones returned to court Friday with reinforcement.
Dan Pochoda, legal director of the ACLU of Arizona, argued on behalf of Jones. He said the ordinance is a "classic example of criminalizing protected speech" and said courts in other states have vacated similar statutes.
Assistant City Prosecutor Gary Shupe argued that the ordinance contains an element of intent and said that there appears to be a split between how courts have dealt with comparative laws.
Two witnesses were called to testify during the trial before Phoenix Municipal Judge Hercules Dellas: Jones for the defense and an undercover Phoenix police officer for the prosecution.
Their stories about what happened the night the officer picked up Jones in his truck diverged on a key factor: Although Jones agreed that she accepted a ride from the officer, she maintained that he was the one who approached her.
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The courtroom gallery was spilling over with supporters for Jones and transgender and sex-worker rights, many of whom protested the charges outside the courthouse just before the trial. An audible moan rang throughout the courtroom when Dellas announced his guilty verdict.
The case underlines a rift among some activists who work with sex workers. Many advocates work within the bounds of existing anti-prostitution laws to offer other life alternatives. Others, like the Sex Workers Outreach Project, aim to decriminalize the profession altogether. Jones is an advocate for the Sex Workers Outreach Project of Phoenix.
Jones' crusade shone a spotlight on Project Rose, a Phoenix initiative that aims to divert prostitutes away from jail and toward social-service providers.
Through an interagency collaboration, the project offers those picked up for prostitution-related offenses a chance to sidestep the charge upon the completion of a diversion program and provides health and housing services immediately after police contact. If the person does not complete the program, the arrest is filed.
Other prostitution-diversion programs require suspects to plead guilty, with a promise to dismiss the conviction once the program is completed.
Jones was arrested in one of the Phoenix police stings that involved Project Rose. She said she had been protesting the project just one day before her arrest.
Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, director of Arizona State University's Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research, who evaluates Project Rose, said that of the 367 people who were offered diversion under the project, 366 chose it over jail.
She said there is a 28 percent success rate in the diversion program. But Roe-Sepowitz added that it's important to note that it often takes multiple tries for sex workers get out of the profession. She said a first chance is offered through Project Rose and a second chance through traditional plea agreements.
Jones said that even with the diversion program, Project Rose is helping to criminalize sex workers. She said resources would be better spent talking to sex workers and offering services without criminalization.
Jade McKenzie, a transgender woman and Project Rose volunteer, said Jones' opinions do not represent the entire transgender community.
McKenzie said she worked with Jones when she was arrested in May.
McKenzie, a former sex worker, went through the Dignity diversion program a few years ago.
Dignity is the program partnered with Project Rose.
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/PZOR1qCarrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City (HBO)
According to a columnist for Fusion, nameplate necklaces are “a cultural touchstone of black and brown urban fashion,” and so it’s very, gravely offensive that white girls sometimes also wear them.
“Nameplates have always leapt off the chests of black and brown girls who wear them; they’re an unequivocal and proud proclamation of our individuality, as well as a salute to those who gave us our names,” Collier Meyerson writes in a column titled “Nameplate necklaces: This s*** is for us,” which Fusion posted on its Facebook page using the alternate title “White girls: Stop wearing nameplate necklaces.”
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“The necklaces are a response to gas-station bracelets and department-store mugs emblazoned with names like Katie and Becky,” Meyerson continued. “But most of all, they’re a flashy and pointed rejection of the banality of white affluence.”
That’s right — the whole point of putting your name on a necklace was supposed to be that it was some kind of protest against how boring rich white people are, and now the boring white people are sometimes wearing them. Ugh. As if that’s not bad enough, Meyerson explains that “[f]or black Americans, names can be a form of resistance to white supremacy,” and so how dare white people wear necklaces with their names on them, too:
“Plucked from our homes in West Africa and forced into chattel slavery, bodily autonomy wasn’t the only thing stolen from us,” she writes. “Our names were stolen, too.”
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So, basically, if you are white and wear a nameplate necklace, you’re kind of minimizing how terrible slavery was. Not cool!
Meyerson then references a podcast about the history of nameplate necklaces, in which hosts Marcel Rosa-Salas and Isabel Flower “interviewed American fashion experts, who traced the nameplate we know back to hip-hop culture.”
According to the podcast, the necklace style “was always a cultural touchstone of black and brown urban fashion” — until Carrie Bradshaw wore one on Sex and the City. Meyerson writes that she noticed the exact same thing, that she “first began to encounter white girls wearing nameplates in the early 2000s” once the show became popular, and that she really, really didn’t like it.
“White girls and women have other stories, but they don’t have ours,” Meyerson writes.
“It never feels like a homage to me when I see a white woman rocking a nameplate,” she continues. “Instead, it comes across as nothing more than an awkward replica—true ‘biters’ of our s***.”
Cultures and trends are shifting all the time, and elements from outside sources are always inspiring mainstream fashion.
Now, to be fair, I’d totally agree that white girls wearing nameplate necklaces really aren’t doing it as a “homage” to anyone but themselves, evidenced by the fact that they are literally wearing necklaces of their own names. Unlike Meyerson, however, I don’t think it’s such a big deal. Cultures and trends are shifting all the time, and elements from outside sources are always inspiring mainstream fashion. I’m wearing a leather jacket, which is a look that I “stole” from World War I military culture. That’s right… the leather jacket started as a protective layer for World War I fighter pilots, and I’m just sitting here appropriating the hell out of it without ever having to have known the horrors of active combat. Does that make me a “biter” of WWI veterans’ “s***”? Or does Meyerson need to chill the hell out?
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Thinking logically, the answer to me seems clear — but maybe that’s just because I’m a loathsome white person myself. Maybe there is a very serious cultural-necklace crisis going on in this country, and I’ve just been too privileged to understand how painful it is. After all, Meyerson is apparently not the only person concerned about it. In her article, she recounts a time she asked one of her friends, writer Judnick Mayard, whether or not she “thinks nameplates are appropriative.”
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“I don’t mind white girls wearing nameplates. Where I grew up [in south Brooklyn], it just meant they weren’t wasps,” Mayard responded, according to Meyerson. “Now that there are more of them trying to look like pale Latinas, I’ve become sensitive to it because I’m so used to it being a sign of lower-classness.”
#related#Meyerson then closes her article with another quote from Mayard:
“I’m not tryna march or impose a ban, I just see you wack hos for what it is. It’s a look and a look we did to be outside, and now they realized they are boring, so they’re copying.”
Got it. So, it’s not like they’re saying I shouldn’t legally be allowed to wear a nameplate necklace; I just have to recognize that I am a “wack ho” if I do. I guess, given that, it’s probably a good thing that don’t wear one — but I am a little concerned that I did wear one when I was 10. Does this mean I was a “wack ho” only when I was ten, or will I always be a “wack ho” because I have that transgression in my |
it means—when, in fact, it’s not obvious at all what nonviolence means for Gandhi. His collected works come—you’ll be surprised, I think, to learn they come to 98 volumes. And that’s about 500 pages per volume. When I first started checking out the works at NYU Library, New York University Library—and NYU is a prominent research library—I think you’ll be surprised also to learn, even though they acquired the collection in 1984, apart from one volume, I was the first person who ever checked out any volume of Gandhi’s 98-volume collected works. I went through about half, 47 volumes, about 25,000 pages.
I was curious to know, what did Gandhi mean by nonviolence, because, you know, on reflection, it’s not so obvious. And the first thing to say about it is Gandhi was not the kind of nonviolent pacifist that, for example, was depicted in Sir Richard Attenborough’s film on Gandhi. Gandhi valued nonviolence, no question about it. But he attached equal value, and in some places you could say more value, to courage. Not just nonviolence, but courage. And he found nothing more despicable than cowardice. It wasn’t violence that, for Gandhi, was the most repellent of human instincts; it was cowardice.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to read a quote, that you quote in What Gandhi Says. Gandhi says, quote, “My nonviolence does not admit of running away from danger and leaving dear ones unprotected. Between violence and cowardly flight, I can only prefer violence to cowardice. I can no more preach nonviolence to a coward than I can tempt a blind man to enjoy healthy scenes. Nonviolence is the summit of bravery. And in my own experience, I have had no difficulty in demonstrating to men trained in the school of violence the superiority of nonviolence. As a coward, which I was for years, I harboured violence. I began to prize nonviolence only when I began to shed cowardice.” Norm Finkelstein?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, you know, it’s a—first of all, it’s a great quote, and there are many quotes like that in Gandhi. And it’s hard sometimes for a person to understand the logic, because a lot of people on the left, they take nonviolence to be sort of wimpish, and they want violence because it’s more, you know, macho and so on and so forth. But Gandhi comes along, and he says, “I think nonviolence takes more courage than violence.” So, at the beginning, when I read that, I thought he was just saying it for rhetorical effect. But then, when you read what he actually means, it’s actually sensible. He says, if you believe in violence, and say there’s a war, your enemy, your opposite, has a weapon, and you have your weapon. So, at any rate, yes, you’re risking your life, but you have something to protect yourself: your weapon. And you may survive the encounter. But Gandhi says, “Nonviolence means you’re supposed to march into the line of fire” — and now I’m quoting him — “you’re supposed to march in the line of fire, smilingly and cheerfully, and get yourself blown to bits.” That’s what nonviolence means for Gandhi. You’re supposed to get yourself blown to bits. During the nonviolent activities known—the various campaigns, he would say to his followers, “Don’t be a coward and go to jail, because you’re afraid to get killed. Don’t use jail as a pretext to get away from getting killed. You better” — and I’m quoting him — “You better get your skulls cracked. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear from you.” So, the irony is, even though Gandhi is attacked by people on the left for being wimpish, the fact is, he set such a high standard. I couldn’t meet it. I mean, I have to be honest about those things. I wish maybe, if I’m thrust into circumstances like that, I’ll find the courage to do it. But sitting here, no, I couldn’t honestly—I couldn’t honestly say I can meet that standard.
I’ll give you an example. A couple of days ago, a friend of mine, my webmaster, Sana Kassem, she sent me a video of a fellow, an American Jew, protesting in the Occupied Territories. And every time the Israelis fire the tear gas, he’s of course running in the opposite direction. Of course. And it’s being filmed. And I’m thinking to myself, but Gandhi says he’s supposed to march—go right into it. And you’re supposed to get killed.
AMY GOODMAN: But, I mean, he was very strategic. He wanted to achieve an end. He didn’t want just to have people killed. He—most importantly was to accomplish what he was driving for: Indian independence.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Yeah, well, India independence. But we have to be clear about Gandhi. Sometimes he’s reduced to India independence. But no, he had a whole program of Hindu-Muslim unity, about—and he led many campaigns. I mean, it was news for me also. I’m not pretending as if it’s common knowledge. But Gandhi was very careful. He would only take on public campaigns where, he said, the public already recognized the wrong.
So let’s take one example. In the 1930s, he led a major campaign against alcoholism, which was a big problem in India. And people said, “But Mr. Gandhi, why do you focus on alcoholism? There are many other problems. We have a problem with people who are addicted to racetrack betting. And they’re addicted to the cinema,” which, you know, Gandhi thought was a sin. So he said, “Why do you choose” — excuse me — “Why do you choose to focus on alcoholism?” And Gandhi’s answer was very straightforward. He said, “Because Indians already recognize alcoholism is a problem. But they don’t recognize that racetrack betting or the cinema is a problem.” And then he said, “It’s wasting time.” Gandhi always said, “I’m a man of action. I want to get things done.” And so, he wants to start with where public opinion is at. You see, for Gandhi, politics was not about bringing enlightenment to the masses. No, that’s sort of like the Marxist tradition: “We’re the vanguard. We know the science, the science of Marxism” — or in my day, the science of Marxism-Leninism. “We have the science, and we have to bring enlightenment to the benighted masses who suffer from false consciousness and all sorts of other, you know, maladies.” Gandhi is not that.
Gandhi is sort of like the Occupy movement. Yes, he’s very much like the Occupy movement, because the Occupy movement started from where people were already at. The Occupy movement comes up with a slogan: “We are the 99 percent.” The basic point being, 1 percent are hoarding it all, and 99 percent are getting nothing. And it immediately struck a responsive chord with Americans because that’s how we already felt. They started—what made the slogan so successful is they tapped into a sentiment that was already there. They started from where the consciousness of the American people already was. Nobody had to educate us that the system was unfair. It had been rolling before our eyes for the last several years, or more. And so, what made their movement so successful was, I think, the Gandhian tactic: they found the perfect slogan that embodied the consciousness of the American people at that moment. If they had gone a little further in their slogan, they may have lost the people. And that, I think, was a real—for me, it was a real insight in Gandhi that politics is not about enlightening people. Politics, for Gandhi, to use an expression, is to quicken the conscience of the public to get them to act on what they already know is wrong.
And actually, it worked in my own case. You know, personally, I’m a person of the left, have always been, and always railing against the capitalist system, the unfairness of the distribution of wealth and so forth. When I started to hear about these folks in Zuccotti Park, it resonated for me. But then I heard they’re camping there. I said, “All right, Norm, you’re heading toward 60. You’re not going to Woodstock. You’re past your prime. This is not for you.” And so, I just was an observer, a sympathetic observer, but an observer. And then, when I heard about—I’m from Brooklyn, New York, and I heard 800 people were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. I said, “OK, Norm, it’s time to do something.” Now, nobody had to tell me the system was wrong. What people had to do was quicken my conscience to act. And that’s what Gandhian nonviolence is all about, getting people to make the kinds of personal sacrifices which will force the bystanders to say, “OK, I really have to do something now. If they do it, why aren’t I doing it?” And that’s what Gandhianism was about.
But also, as I said, you have to enter a thousand caveats, qualifications, about his commitment to nonviolence, because it was not nonviolence that for him was the ultimate sin. Actually, I’ve read through about half of his—as I said, half of his collected works. He uses—I know it’s a paradox—he uses the most violent language, not against those who commit violence. Actually, he says he was an admirer of Sparta, because he admired the courage of the warrior. And he always used military metaphors. It was “the army of the nonviolent.” He was “the general.” He always used martial metaphors. But he said—as I said, he reserved his most violent language for cowards. He literally says they don’t deserve to live. A coward does not have a right to live.
There is where he gets—you know, Gandhi was very strict about nonviolence. He had to be nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But you could say he sort of verges on violence—violent language, thought and word when it comes to cowards. And I have to say also, probably in his classification, I would rate a coward. I mean, I’m not proud to say that. But he had such a high standard of what political commitment was about and the sacrifices you were obliged to make, if you want to be morally consistent with your values, it’s a tough act.
AMY GOODMAN: A thumbnail sketch of who Gandhi was, since you’ve studied him. For people who, as you said, have a very sort of scant—a sort of caricature of who he is, explain where he was born, why he came to adopt the views he did.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, I’ll tell you—I mean, I’d like to always be honest. I didn’t look too closely at the biographical data. I mean, I know as much as, you might say, a Wikipedia entry might say. I was more interested in the theory. I was interested—I began the whole project because I said to myself, well, you know, India under Gandhi—under Gandhi’s influence, it faced the same sort of challenges as Israel-Palestine. First of all, Gandhi wanted to end an occupation, like the Palestinians. Second of all, Gandhi was confronting the great power of his day, the superpower of his day, namely the British Empire. Similarly, the Palestinians have to face a formidable regional power, namely Israel, and right behind it, the superpower of our day, namely the United States. And thirdly, the Palestinians don’t really have a military option. The only way they’re going to succeed is if they try these tactics that Gandhi pioneered in India. And so, I felt, for those three reasons—trying to end an occupation, facing a superpower, and the only tactical option is really nonviolence—it would be interesting to see, OK, how did Gandhi reason the whole thing through? And that was my impetus. I don’t know the history better than sort of a generalist, or, for that matter, Gandhi’s personal biography.
He was a—you know, there were—many things about Gandhi were very eccentric and also very autocratic. You know, Gandhi was, “you do it my way, or go the highway.” He was very, very autocratic. And he said that what he decides to do is not based on reason. Reason comes later. It’s what his inner voice tells him to do. Well, obviously you can’t rationally argue with an inner voice. Either you agree, or you don’t agree and you leave. I did have a good opportunity when I was in South Africa a couple of years ago. I went to see his granddaughter, Ela Gandhi. And I remember her saying to me, and it just came out in conversation, she said he had great confidence in that inner voice, which is—you know, nowadays we would say—we would call it, he had good political instincts. But you can’t argue with an instinct. Instinct tells you, “Do this at this moment.” But you can’t really argue with it. And so, it was very hard. You know, reading him, there’s that streak of autocratic—that autocratic streak, which is very unpleasant.
On the other hand—and, you know, I sort of get emotional—you can’t but admire that man. I mean, the kind of moral force he had, it was just terrifying at the end, in '47, you know, Egypt—excuse me, Israel—ah, India erupts in this horrible bloodletting, the Partition. They estimate like a million people were killed. You go into streets of Calcutta, literally 10,000 bodies in the street. All the blood is literally flowing in the streets. And Gandhi comes in, and the first thing he does is he goes to the Hindu temples. Now remember, this is where the intercommunal hatred has reached a fever pitch. And he goes into the Hindu temples, and he insists, “I'm going to begin each religious—each service, prayer service—I’m going to begin it with a passage from the Koran.” The Hindus were going mad. “What do you mean, the Koran?” And he is adamant. “I am beginning with the Koran.” And there would be the hecklers and the people who were worse than hecklers. He would stay with them in the temple the whole night. He said, “I’m going to sit and reason it through with you why I’m beginning with the Koran.” And when he went on the hunger strikes during the terrible bloodletting, you know, to his credit—you can take it away—they stopped. OK, it’s true they stopped killing each other temporarily. You can even say they stopped briefly. But for the Mahatma, for Gandhiji, they stopped. You know, that’s—it’s very impressive. Of course, the downside is, that kind of moral power came and went with Gandhi. There was nobody else commanding that kind of moral authority. But it was a very impressive show. It really was. And it gets me a little bit angry when people on the left, who I like, you know, and they’re very harsh on Gandhi. No, there were a lot of problems, no question about it. But there, there went a man.
AMY GOODMAN: Author, scholar, activist, Norman Finkelstein. He has just written the book, out this week, What Gandhi Says: About Nonviolence, Resistance and Courage.Halfway to living up to its moniker with over 250 startups, 500 Startups held a series of demo days this week and last, where a group of 33 scrappy startups presented their wares to investors in both New York and San Francisco. As we are wont to do with these things, we visited the 500 Startups offices in Mountain View and interviewed the seven that we thought were the most interesting, from both an investor and consumer standpoint.
The startups chosen spanned all sorts of market territory, from a novel take on media-based eCommerce to a SaaS for farmers, but what they all had in common was a unique approach to the problem they were trying to solve as well as an inkling of that other indeterminate thing that makes a startup great.
Also, I’m pretty sure Switchcam, a startup that allows for a combining of different camera angles on video, should be on here.
Most amazing moment: When ‘Love With Food’ founder admits to following me into the bathroom to tell me about her food related startup, of all things!
72Lux
Ever wish that you could buy whatever product/outfit/gadget/whatever as you were reading about it online. Well you’re one step closer with startup 72 Lux, which provides publishers with a widget that allows readers to shop directly from whatever web page they’re reading, without taking them off the page. Nifty.
Tiny Review
“Instagram for reviews” Tiny Review allows people to express what they feel or think via mobile in three lines or less. After a little over three weeks in the iOS app store, the modest startup has about 25k users, and that’s with almost no coverage from press. Hmm … wonder what will happen when they do finally get some coverage. ;)
HighScore House
Definitely one of the buzziest startups at Demo Day, HighScore House gamifies the process of doing chores, giving kids parent-set rewards like “ice cream for breakfast” whenever they complete assigned tasks. This just smells like the future.
SafeShepherd
SafeShepherd logs who is tracking your data (like browser cookies) across the web and then acts like an intermediary, asking them to remove it from their database — Saving you hassle at the least. Hence the name.
Fitocracy
Fitocracy cofounders Brian Wang and Richard Talens used to be total chubs. Now they’re both buff and ready to bring a bunch of out of shape nerds with them on their quantified fitness platform Fitocracy (which has so much reach online it was the subject of a XKCD cartoon). Props to Wang for taking his shirt off after the demo.
Farmeron
Farm management startup Farmeron helps farmers track their livestock and livelihood, charging by the animal. “Main Cowboy in the Saddle” Matija Kopić came from a family of farmers in Croatia, but ended up going up against his parents wishes and became a coder. Enough said.
LoveWithFood
At first glance LoveWithFood seems like a Foodzie clone. Luckily founder Aihui Ong chased me into the bathroom to explain to me how exactly they differ; For every box of bite-sized gourmet food samples you receive, LoveWithFood donates a meal to a homeless shelter. And yes, I wish the name was FoodWithLove, but you’ll take what you can get, especially if it’s for a good cause.Large-scale military exercises have been held in both North and South Korea over the last five days.
In the South, US and South Korean forces obliterated targets painted on a hillside with fighter jets, tanks, and attack helicopters.
In the North, hundreds of long-range artillery pieces lined up along a beach, pummelling the sea beyond.
The pictures were released on the same day, but the exercises actually took place several days apart - on Friday, 21 April, in South Korea and on Tuesday, 25 April, in North Korea.
Image: South Korean Army K1A1 and US Army M1A2 tanks fire live rounds during a joint military exercise Image: The drill took place at a training field near the demilitarised zone in Pocheon Image: US Army's AH-64 Apache helicopters fire Image: South Korean fighter jets Image: South Korean Army soldiers rappel down from a helicopter. Continue through for more pictures /
Washington and Seoul say their drills are defensive in nature, the culmination of annual join exercises on the peninsula, with no particular enemy in mind.
Pyongyang is not convinced, generally referring to them as a rehearsal for invasion, and regarding them as a provocative act.
Meanwhile, Kim Jong-Un has been photographed overseeing his own military manoeuvres, to mark the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Army.
It was said to be the country's largest ever live-firing drill, involving 300 to 400 large calibre artillery pieces, capable of hitting the South Korean capital, Seoul.
The accompanying text described submarines submerging rapidly in the distance to simulate torpedo attacks on enemy ships, while bombers fly overhead.
Image: Kim Jong Un is surrounded by photographers at a military parade
The images are difficult to verify, North Korea does have some form for enhancing such photographs after the event.
But regardless, the message was clear - this was intended as a show of force, to answer what they see as a show of force from the other side.
In recent days, North Korea has threatened to sink the approaching US carrier strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson, which is finally expected to arrive in the waters off the peninsula by the end of the month, and to "cut the windpipe of US imperialists" with an almighty sword.
All of which is taking place against the backdrop of President Donald Trump summoning the entire Senate to the White House for a briefing on North Korea, and the arrival of the USS Michigan - a nuclear-powered submarine equipped with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles - in Busan, South Korea, on what is described as a "routine visit".
Donald Trump and North Korea: Five options
This all looks, and sounds, very dramatic, but a couple of quick points to bear in mind.
First, North Korea's very formidable-looking live-firing exercise is not the worst thing that could have happened yesterday.
There was speculation that the regime would use the anniversary to test a longer range missile, or carry out another nuclear test - either of which the Trump administration has signalled would carry a more significant response.
This didn't happen.
Second, and perhaps most importantly - this all makes for spectacular pictures, but if this situation could be solved by impressive shows of force, it would have been by now.
Both sides know that actually using any of this weaponry would have catastrophic consequences.We don’t want to tell you how to live your life but you might want to put on a tie or a string of pearls or BOTH before listening to this very classy podcast.
The results of the inaugural Pearple’s Choice Awards are in and noteworthy hosts Paul Dean and Quintin Smith discuss the games that won Best Expansion of 2016, Best Reprint and (of course) Best Game. They chat about some old classics they’ve played over the festive season, like City of Remnants and Galaxy Trucker. Finally, they want to tell you about a folk game that’s come all the way from Peru.
2016 has been a spectacular year for board games and once again, next year looks even more exciting. This can’t be sustainable. Or can it?CHICAGO (Reuters) - Scientists have identified the Godzilla of fungi, a giant, prehistoric fossil that has evaded classification for more than a century, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
Prototaxites, a giant, prehistoric fossil, originally thought to be a conifer, is uncovered in Saudi Arabia in an undated photo. A chemical analysis has shown that the 20-foot-tall organism with a tree-like trunk was a fungus that became extinct more than 350 million years ago, according to a study appearing in the May issue of the journal Geology. REUTERS/University of Chicago/Handout
A chemical analysis has shown that the 20-foot-tall (6-metre) organism with a tree-like trunk was a fungus that became extinct more than 350 million years ago, according to a study appearing in the May issue of the journal Geology.
Known as Prototaxites, the giant fungus originally was thought to be a conifer. Then some believed it was a lichen, or various types of algae. Some suspected it was a fungus.
“A 20-foot-fungus doesn’t make any sense. Neither does a 20-foot-tall algae make any sense, but here’s the fossil,” C. Kevin Boyce, a University of Chicago assistant professor of geophysical sciences, said in a statement.
Francis Hueber of the National Museum of Natural History first suggested the fungus possibility based on an analysis of the fossil’s internal structure, but had no conclusive proof.
Boyce and colleagues filled in the blanks, comparing the types of carbon found in the giant fossil with plants that lived about the same time, about 400 million years ago.
If Prototaxites were a plant, its carbon structures would resemble similar plants. Instead, Boyce found a much greater diversity in carbon content than would have been expected of a plant.
Fungi, which include yeast, mold and mushrooms, represent their own kingdom, neither plant nor animal. Once classified as plants, they are now considered a closer cousin to animals but they absorb rather than eat their food.
Samples of the giant fungi have been found all over the world from 420 million to 350 million years ago during a period in which millipedes, bugs and worms were among the first creatures to make their home on dry land. No animals with a backbone had left the oceans yet.
The tallest trees stood no more than a couple of feet (a meter) high, offering little competition for the towering fungi.
Plant-eating dinosaurs had not yet evolved to trample Prototaxites’ to the ground. “It’s hard to imagine these things surviving in the modern world,” Boyce said.‘Our practice doesn’t support his actions’ says police chief, amid revelations of a 2007 civil rights lawsuit against five McKinney officers, including Eric Casebolt
'Out of control' Texas officer who threw girl to ground at pool party resigns
Eric Casebolt, the Texas police officer who threw a black girl to the ground and waved a gun at other teenagers during a pool party incident that quickly went viral and led to protests, has resigned from the police force in McKinney, Texas.
Officials were quick to place full blame on Casebolt as “out of control”, seeking to quell international attention on this small Dallas suburb after video footage spread and protesters descended upon the town at a time when relations between police and communities of color are under increased scrutiny.
“Our policies, our training, our practice doesn’t support his actions,” McKinney police chief Greg Conley said at a press conference. He described Casebolt’s actions as “indefensible” – even though Casebolt had been accused of racial profiling before, according to a withdrawn civil rights lawsuit filed against the police department.
Casebolt will retain his pension and benefits.
The police chief added that Casebolt “resigned on his own” without pressure from the department, and that the police will continue to investigate “all the allegations that are presented to us”.
No one was charged in the aftermath of the pool party, and the case against the only person arrested there has been dropped, Conley said.
Mayor Brian Loughmiller also blamed Casebolt, saying he was “not indicative of McKinney as a whole” and that “the actions of any one individual cannot define our community”.
Texas pool party video tells African Americans they are intruders in suburbia Read more
But the incident at the party was not the first time that Casebolt, a 10-year veteran of the McKinney police, had come under scrutiny for aggressive behavior.
A man named Albert Brown, after being imprisoned in the county jail on drug charges, filed a civil rights lawsuit against five McKinney officers, including Casebolt, after a traffic stop in 2007. He accused Casebolt of “unreasonable searches and seizures, excessive force, racial profiling, racial animus”.
Brown alleged that Casebolt approached him saying he was going to issue a parking ticket, then claimed to have seen marijuana seeds and alcohol and asked to search the car. He then, the withdrawn suit says, “made some comments about me, the white girls that were with me and my clothes” and conducted a body search that including pulling down Brown’s pants below his ankles. Brown was arrested for possession of crack cocaine.
Casebolt said in a court filing that the car’s three occupants “seemed extremely nervous and were attempting to be overly friendly, a behaviour that I have witnessed many times by people involved in criminal activity”.
The civil rights suit was filed in 2008. The following year, Casebolt, who joined the department in 2005, was named McKinney patrolman of the year. Brown withdrew his suit in 2009, saying that he needed more time to prove his case.
The officers involved denied any wrongdoing, and the case was dismissed with the court insisting that Brown could not proceed on the civil-rights action unless his conviction or sentencing had been reversed or otherwise called into question. They have not.
Texas pool party incident raises questions about wealth and race Read more
McKinney Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #107, the union that represents city police officers, insisted in a statement that the pool party incident was not an example of racism: “The McKinney FOP assures that this was not a racially motivated incident and can say without a shadow of doubt that all members of the McKinney FOP and McKinney PD do not conduct racially biased policing.”
The union also clarified that it does not condone officers cursing at juveniles or adult citizens.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in McKinney on Monday in support of the black community and called for improved accountability and reform of the police department.
Casebolt had been suspended before his resignation, which the White House on Tuesday said was “the prudent thing” to do. The National Bar Association, the largest group of black attorneys and judges in the US, had called for his dismissal. The NAACP has called for a full investigation of the McKinney police department.
“Casebolt came to call out of control and his actions on the call were out of control,” the McKinney police chief said.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest McKinney police chief Greg Conley says the actions of Corporal Eric Casebolt were ‘indefensible’
Maurice Gray, whose wife and five children were at the party, said he is “hoping this will heal the neighborhood, the officer doing the right thing”.
He attended a protest rally and march in McKinney on Monday night where many demonstrators called for Casebolt to be fired and to face criminal charges. Gray, who is black, said that a prayer vigil was being planned to take place at the pool.
Several of the young people who are seen coming into contact with Casebolt in the video are believed to be considering followup lawsuits.
The former officer and his lawyer were scheduled to hold a press conference on Wednesday.It has almost been a year since the rise of the Islamic State (IS) group last June. Since then an international coalition has been formed to defeat IS. This US-led coalition has all the material requirements of success. It has complete air superiority - the enemy has no air power and no air defence of any significance. The coalition also has an assortment of actors on the ground.
In Iraq, the coalition enjoys the support of the Iraqi army (US-trained and equipped), various Iranian-backed Shia militias, and the Peshmerga. In Syria, it relies on various Syrian groups, and the Kurdish PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and YPG (People’s Protection Units). Indirectly, the coalition benefits from the activities of the Syrian army, such as the aerial raids against IS’s targets, especially in and around Dir al-Zur. Yet with all these forces combined, the coalition can only boast of small victories, such as the takeover of the still-contested town of Tikrit, and Kurdish advancements in areas adjacent to Sinjar. Even the most symbolic example of the coalition’s victories, such as the recapture of Kobani, came at a great cost. The scale of destruction in Kobani speaks for itself.
The irony is that the coalition’s major achievement is not in the number of villages and towns it helped liberate, but rather the number of towns and cities it prevented from falling to IS. The fall of Baghdad didn’t seem unthinkable last summer, and Erbil was only hours away from being encircled by IS. For now both towns appear safe. And the swift US intervention was indeed the reason.
But even these achievements remain reversible, and recent fighting in the Anbar and at the Beiji oil refinery are reminders of the fragility of the Iraqi army and the tenacity of IS. These facts also demonstrate the optimistic, if not illusory, nature of the maps released recently by the US Department of Defense (DOD), claiming that IS is steadily losing territory.
Although IS has indeed lost some territory and hundreds, if not thousands, of its soldiers, its ability and appetite to open new fronts and to inflict heavy losses on its enemies has not been curtailed. The central objective of defeating IS remains uncertain, and no one speaks anymore of IS’s quick collapse.
Given all the odds against the nascent state, it is worth asking how has IS managed to survive, and why have the results of the combined aerial bombings and ground forces working with the coalition against IS been dismal?
To answer this question one must evaluate the two sides’ tactics, morale and commitment to the war.
In war, two elements are extremely critical: intelligence and surprise. The two components are very interrelated. The more one side knows about its adversary, the better it is able to determine which type of resources to deploy and how. This very knowledge is also vital in determining when and where to surprise the enemy.
It has been clear from the beginning of the war that IS has both these elements on its side. In contrast, its opponents - despite aerial superiority and numerical advantage on the ground - appear to lack both. Before the war started, IS had not only predicted the US intervention but also provoked the US to precipitate it.
IS’s central intelligence weakness regarding the US intervention was about the narrow timeline in which airstrikes would begin and their geographical scope, not about whether they were coming. Hence, IS’s goal was to narrow the time frame and the geographical zone in which American strikes would take place.
IS’s attacks on Kurdish areas in Iraq and Syria precipitated these strikes and to some extent limited them. After the Kurds retook Kobani, IS’s spokesperson, Muhammad al-Adnani, opined that the battle in Kobani absorbed 70 percent of the coalition’s daily strikes. Whether that figure was accurate is secondary to the fact that Kobani did in fact receive the bulk of the aerial raids despite its small size and marginal location. The military wisdom was that IS was self-destructing by investing too much in the city.
But the ability of IS to continue to fight effectively after the recapture of Kobani suggests that its mission in the city was more than just a self-destructive move on the part of drug-crazed lunatics.
While the fighting raged last fall around Kobani, IS was solidifying its gains elsewhere, and more importantly, securing the time to build its institutions in Mosul and Raqqa, with minimum disturbance as the war raged far on the frontiers. IS’s videos continue to show massive meetings between IS outreach officers and tribal leaders in Syria and Iraq wherein the latter pledge allegiance to al-Baghdadi.
While this alliance-building and converts-winning strategy proceeded in earnest, the advance toward Erbil kept the coalition’s eyes focused on the Kurdish areas. IS’s attacks on Iraqi checkpoints were carried out with relative ease and minimal challenge from the air.
The progress of the war clearly demonstrates that IS was prepared for a prolonged war with not simply its neighbours, but with the US as well. That preparation is clear in the tactics it has adopted since. To minimise the impact of the aerial bombing and to wisely use its ammunition, IS has relied on small mobile units, which either attract little attention from the air or seem a wasteful use of the expensive aerial surveillance and aerial ammunitions deployed by the coalition to the battlefield.
However, to compensate for this shortage on the battlefield, IS has made sure that these small units are lethal. They only attack targets which have been thoroughly surveyed from the ground by collaborators or from the air by IS’s cheap drones, and sometimes by both. This gives IS’s fighters a clear view of the theatre of action and minimises unwanted surprises. However, for Iraqi soldiers and Kurdish fighters, IS’s attacks feature speed, severity and surprise. To ensure the surprise element and reduce the visibility of aerial reconnaissance, IS often takes advantage of bad weather.
But IS also selects its targets carefully. To support its major offensives on key urban centres, which requires committing considerable time and resources and exposing its military assets to aerial raids, IS often attacks the far-flung posts, which, although exposed and vulnerable, tend to have considerable stocks of weapons to in theory help their defenders stand their ground until reinforcements arrive from urban centres. This allows IS not only to obtain more weapons, but also to cut supply roads and secure border crossings to generate cash by imposing fines and levies on the movement of people and goods.
Furthermore, these attacks provide a steady source of propagandistic materials, which enable IS to uphold its image as a lethal adversary who could be anywhere at any time. The effects of these attacks on the morale of IS’s enemies is - judging by the massive desertion of the battlefield by Iraqi and Syrian soldiers - quite deleterious. When those defending major urban centres see or hear the lethal impact of IS’s hybrid war - suicide bombers driving tons of explosives, frontline stormers racing to certain death and contentious shelling from speeding pick up trucks, mortar squads and occasionally heavy artillery, all acting in a demonic unison - their resolve breaks.
Recently, the US DOD noted that IS now carries out mostly small “harassment” attacks, a fact DOD interpreted as a sign of its IS’s weakening. DOD is correct that IS relies on small attacks, but DOD’s assessment of the reasons and objective are quite flawed. IS is not unable to carry out large-scale attacks: IS knows they are of little significance and quite risky given the complete American dominance of the air. The small attacks, which DOD deemed to have only propagandistic value, have lethal accumulative psychological and military effects. Not only do these attacks on isolated border posts and checkpoints on main roads create a sense of insecurity throughout the country, but they also keep these posts in a constant state of alert. This forces governments to disperse resources on a wider scale, thus limiting the ability to concentrate resources in one area to win a major battle against IS.
These attacks also force these actors to remain on the defensive. IS has so far had little to fear of a surprise attack from the Peshmarga and far less so from the Iraqi army. The lethargic and public nature of military efforts by any of these parties give IS ample time to decide the tactics necessary to defend a given area from an impending attack, including relying on asymmetric tactics, deploying small units with the more manageable goal of obstructing and prolonging, rather than defeating the assault. This contributes to the larger strategy of |
& Johnson subpoenaed by DOJ and SEC, company says MORE (Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, listed Perry’s comments among other “deeply misinformed” actions by Trump officials with regards to sexual assault.
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“Hopefully Secretary Perry has now been informed that sexual assault in our country and around the world can’t simply be solved with more ‘fossil fuels,’ " Murray said. “And as Secretary [Betsy] DeVos weighs rolling back critical sexual assault protections for students, his bizarre comment is unfortunately just the latest example of the Trump administration’s dismissive, deeply misinformed approach to a threat that people across the country, especially women, face and live with every day.”
Perry is facing backlash for saying that using fossil fuels to push power into remote villages in Africa can help prevent sexual assault. The Sierra Club called for his resignation over the comment.
“From the standpoint of sexual assault,” Perry said Thursday. “When the lights are on, when you have light that shines, the righteousness, if you will on those types of acts.”
The Department of Energy said Perry’s statement was meant to highlight the way electricity will improve the lives of people in Africa.
“The secretary was making the important point that while many Americans take electricity for granted there are people in other countries who are impacted by their lack of electricity,” said Shaylyn Hynes, an agency spokeswoman.
Murray’s statement also refers to Education Secretary DeVos’s reversal of Obama-era guidelines for dealing with sexual assault on college campuses, a move that many have slammed as harmful to sexual assault survivors.Answering a single written question from a Liberal MP cost the federal government $117,188 in staff time, according to information tabled this week in the House of Commons.
The right to ask departments for written answers is a key tool for MPs – primarily on the opposition benches – to dig up information that can later be used against their political rivals.
The answers can lead to news stories on the details of government expenses, revealing everything from how often cabinet ministers use government jets to how much the RCMP spends destroying marijuana crops.
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The process – officially known in Parliament-speak as answers to questions on the order paper – can also provide insight into the impact of public-policy decisions.
But Conservative MP Mike Wallace weighed in with a question asking how much departments spend on answering these types of questions.
Over less than a four-month span up to Jan. 29, 2014, the total was more than $1.2-million.
In an interview, Mr. Wallace said he simply wants MPs and the public to be aware of the costs of these questions.
"I think it's just important that it's on the record," Mr. Wallace said. "I think government and Parliament could run more efficiently and effectively in a lot of areas and this is just one little tiny example of where, are we sure we're getting value for the dollar?"
The fact that one question cost more than $117,000 might lead the public to ask questions, he said.
"'Ok, you spent a salary for a person and a quarter for a year. What are you doing with that answer?" he asked.
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Plenty, insists Liberal MP John McCallum, who made the request. The MP had asked for a list of all briefing notes provided to all deputy ministers in government. The responses were then divided up among Liberal MPs, who then filed questions under Access to Information – a separate process available to the public – to obtain briefing notes that may be of interest.
"I think those cost numbers are totally inflated," he said, noting that the answers would have been in an existing database. "It's inconceivable to me that it would cost anything on that order. But the more important point is this is the cost of democracy. The government spends millions of dollars hiring communications people to keep information from us … So we're obliged to use the tools that we have available to ask the questions that Canadians want answered."
The answer to Mr. Wallace's question was provided by individual departments and compiled by the Government House Leader. The estimate is based on how much it would cost for a public servant with a salary and benefits of $116,160 – equivalent to $60 an hour – to produce the answer.You’ve led your armies to the Traxis sector, and they only await your command to make planetfall and launch the attack. You can fight the battles of Warhammer 40,000: Conquest in an entirely new way with the Unending War Two-Player Playmat, now available for purchase at your local United States retailer and online through our webstore!
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Whether you’re brand new to the conflicts of Warhammer 40,000, or you’re a grizzled veteran of countless battles, the Unending War Two-Player Playmat is the ideal surface for playing the game. Featuring clearly demarcated places for the planet cards, both players’ decks and discard piles, headquarters zones, victory displays, and plenty of room for battling units, this playmat helps organize your cards while evoking the brutal atmosphere of the far future with stunning artwork.
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Order your copy of the Unending War Two-Player Playmat today.Ford is creating an off-road version of its Expedition SUV, the largest one in the lineup (Photo11: Ford)
Ford will add an FX4 off-road version of its big Expedition SUV when the version goes on sale later this year.
The FX4 trim level is popular on Ford’s F-150 pickup. The automaker expects it to account for 5% to 10% of Expedition sales when the new, aluminum-body model goes on sale in late fall.
The idea of giving off-road capability to the full-size SUV began in the Middle East, where the Expedition is popular for driving through the soft, deep sand of the Arabian Peninsula. Ford created the FX4 model for that region and then decided some American buyers will also want it.
Ford will announce prices and fuel economy ratings for the 2018 Expedition closer to when sales begin.
The Expedition’s heroic proportions -— the short-wheelbase 2017 Expedition was 16.2 inches longer than a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and the Ford family didn’t get rich by shrinking their SUVs from one generation to the next -— preclude off-roading on trails like the famously twisty and grueling Rubicon, but Expedition owners tend to be more interested in towing capacity than exploring the backcountry.
Buyers are more likely to choose the Expedition FX4 to be admired on the road than to leave it. They take trailer towing seriously, though, and the 2018 Expedition’s 9,300-pound towing capacity is up 100 pounds from the steel-bodied 2017.
The FX4 package includes:
•An electronic limited-slip rear differential that varies power between the right and left rear wheels for low-traction surfaces like fine, deep desert sand.
•Off-road shocks tuned stiffly to keep the wheels planted on the ground in aggressive driving.
•All-terrain tires with thicker sidewalls to soften the ride despite the stiff shocks.
•Seven skid plates and sand shields to keep sand from clogging the radiator, transmission cooler, and turbocharger intercoolers.
•Unique 18-inch metallic painted cast aluminum wheels.
•Chrome running boards,
•FX4 badges.
•Removable rubber floor liners.
All Expedition models will have the 10-speed automatic transmission that debuted on the 2017 F-150 pickup. The Expedition’s 3.5L twin turbo Ecoboost V-6 engine gains 10 horsepower on XL, XLT and Limited models. Output increases 35 horsepower using premium gasoline in the top Platinum trim level. Ford builds the Expedition in Louisville, Ky.
The F-150 pickup also gets some engine upgrades this fall. The 10-speed transmission will be available with more engines. A 3-liter diesel V-6 will join the F-150 lineup next spring.
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2sDJD2jSenator Robert Byrd (D-WV), the longest-serving member in the history of the U.S. Senate and the oldest current member of Congress, announced today that he will resign his chairmanship of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee effective January 6.
"A new day has dawned in Washington, and that is a good thing," said Byrd in a statement. "For my part, I believe that it is time for a new day at the top of the Senate Appropriations Committee."
"I want to stress that this is a decision I made only after much personal soul searching, and after being sure of the substantial Democratic pickup of seats in the Senate. I am now confident that stepping aside as Chairman will not adversely impact my home state of West Virginia."
Byrd, who also served as Senate Majority leader for 12 years, has been in the Senate for 50 years and has been a member of the Appropriations Committee that entire time.
Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), who has also served a lengthy term on the committee, is Byrd's obvious replacement as chairman and the West Virginia Senator strongly endorsed that move.
"Senator Daniel Inouye has stood in line for many years and now his time has come," said Byrd. "He is my friend. He is a genuine American hero. He will be a skillful and fair Chairman of the Appropriations Committee because he is a man of outstanding character and great wisdom."
And Byrd took the time in his announcement to say how thrilled he is with the results of Tuesday's presidential election and to continue serving in the Senate.
"To be serving in the Senate at such a momentous time in our history fills me with enormous pride. I endorsed President-elect Obama because I believed that we had taken the wrong course both at home and abroad. I am delighted with his victory," he said"
"I thank God for the long life He has granted me and for the opportunity He has given me to assist this great country through long service in this magnificent institution, the United States Senate. I look forward to the years ahead and to making a contribution to a better, stronger America."Begsy Karaki says there is ‘no threat’ or panic as 600 men prepare to spend third night without water, food or power
Manus navy will remove detainees by force if necessary, base commander says
Papua New Guinean defence forces will take no “arbitrary action” against the men who refuse to leave the detention centre inside Lombrum naval base, its commanding officer has said.
But the base’s commanding officer, Begsy Karaki, said the group would be forcefully removed if necessary.
The Australian-run detention centre closed on Tuesday evening. Refugees and asylum seekers were ordered to move to alternative accommodation units built in the nearby town of Lorengau but they refused, citing fears for their safety outside the compound.
Karaki told the Post-Courier and confirmed to the Guardian the men were still under the care of the PNG immigration office and Australia, and his officers would not take action against them unless instructed to by headquarters.
The refugees are in a state of terror on Manus | Behrouz Boochani Read more
He said there was “no threat” or panic. “This is Australia’s problem now being brought in here, and we are getting blamed for issues we did not create,” Karaki said.
“We cannot get involved, we have no say in this, but because they are placed here at our military camp, we hope there are some solutions quickly, so we carry on with our duties and tasks.”
Lawyers acting for the men are seeking to have a legal application heard before the PNG supreme court. The application alleges the men’s human rights – as protected by PNG’s constitution – are being breached.
The Guardian understands there are also attempts to meet with PNG government lawyers to find a resolution to the current standoff.
It is hoped a meeting between the two parties would find a mutually agreeable outcome, which ends the impasse peacefully and restores shelter, food and security to the detainees within the next day or two until a more long-term plan is developed.
The acting chief migration officer, Solomon Kantha, said the men were free to leave the centre but anyone who did would not be allowed to return. Buses for people who volunteered to leave had been on standby since Wednesday morning, he told the Post-Courier.
In an apparent move to address the detainees’ main concerns about safety in the new accommodation, Kantha said he was speaking with contractors about installing fences and security at the new sites, and was exploring curfew options. “Manus is a peaceful place but we have to have these measures in place.”
About 600 men remain in the detention centre after two nights without electricity, food or water. They collected some rainwater and, overnight on Wednesday, some of them dug a well.
“They were digging for hours and finally found water,” reported the Kurdish Iranian journalist and refugee Behrouz Boochani. “I don’t know if this water is clean enough to drink or not, but the refugees are drinking from it.”
Boochani said the men were supporting each other but the health of many was deteriorating, including an epileptic man who experienced a medical incident, one man who self-harmed, and two others who had infections.
“We are asking international organisations like Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders to take action and help us,” he said.
“This is not a hunger strike. It is a situation that the Australian government has created, forcing people into starvation and these harsh conditions by refusing to offer a safe place for resettlement.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A water-collection system built by detainees inside the centre. Photograph: Reuters
The PNG and Australian governments are also in a standoff, as Australia refers all queries and responsibilities to PNG, but PNG maintains it has fulfilled its processing and resettlement obligations. The remaining refugees and unsuccessful asylum seekers are for Australia to deal with, it says.
Kantha said he had urgently requested a meeting with Australian government officials to discuss “a clear way forward”.
A longstanding offer by New Zealand to take 150 refugees from Australia’s offshore processing centres has resurfaced, after the country’s newly elected prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, revealed she would raise the issue when she meets Malcolm Turnbull on Sunday.
“I think anyone would look at a situation like that and see the human face of what is an issue that New Zealand is in the lucky position of not having to struggle with, [as] Australia has,” Ardern said on Thursday.
“I am looking forward, though, to having a conversation directly with the prime minister on Sunday about some of those issues – and New Zealand’s role and view on Manus Island in particular.”
The refugees and asylum seekers have repeatedly said they are not safe in the Lorengau community. Attacks by locals have been detailed by Human Rights Watch, including violent robberies by groups of men wielding knives and other weapons.
But the detainees also have support among Manusians. Hundreds attended a protest and signed a petition calling on the Australian government to respect human rights and resettle the refugees rather than leave them in PNG.
Boochani said he appreciated the locals’ protest. “Local fear is logical because their small community has not this capacity to accept 600 foreign men and if the government sends the refugees into the communities, it will be dangerous and we will see conflict between locals and refugees.”
Ron Knight, a former MP for Manus province, said local people’s main grievance was with the Australian government, not the refugees and asylum seekers.
“The perceptions is they’re quite disappointed with Australia for creating the mess in the first place,” Knight told the Guardian. “They can’t understand how a country can abandon people like that.”
But Knight added that Manusians were “adamant” they didn’t want the refugees living in their community, citing criminal allegations ranging from minor offences to sexual assault, and sexual relationships with local women resulting in pregnancies.
He said most of the men now holed up in the centre rarely came to town but locals were fearful of what would happen when 600 more men joined the Lorengau community.
“On the other side we have the asylum seekers – I’ve heard horror stories,” Knight said. “Some have been chopped up by idiots, attacked.
“We don’t know the cause, some are spontaneous, some have reasons. They don’t want to come here either, they want to live somewhere safe.”
Behrouz Boochani wins Amnesty International award for writing from Manus Read more
Knight suggested that an expanded and “beefed up” East Lorengau transit centre, which is fenced in and next door to a medical clinic but now only has capacity for about 300 people, could provide a solution.
He said fears the 600 would be attacked were unnecessary. “The issue is with the authorities, not with the asylum seekers.”
The Australian immigration minister, Peter Dutton, accused refugee advocates of encouraging the men to stand their ground.
“I want to close Manus Island as quickly as possible,” he told Channel Nine. “It doesn’t help when you have got the Greens telling people not to engage and move. It makes a difficult situation even worse.”
Boochani denied Dutton’s claims. “Peter Dutton can’t blame advocates who support innocent people in Manus. Refugees themselves are fighting for their rights.”
Dutton’s office has been contacted for comment.
The United Nations refugee agency said it is Australia’s responsibility to stop the “humanitarian emergency” emerging on Manus.
The UNHCR, which has staff on the ground in Manus, said there was not sufficient accommodation for the men from the Lombrum base to move to, and construction of planned new housing has been hampered by rain.
“If all 600 individuals were to leave immediately, many would not find adequate or sufficient accommodation elsewhere,” a UNHCR spokeswoman said. “There is no security fence at West Lorengau Haus or Hillside Haus in the Ward 1 area of Lorengau. UNHCR observed on 30 October that construction of West Lorengau Haus is incomplete. Containers are surrounded by mud and do not have electrical or water connections as yet.”
The situation on Manus is “increasingly tense and unstable”.A senior Police Scotland officer was given £67,000 of public money to move house and £53,000 to settle a personal tax bill, according to a damning audit that lambasted the “unacceptable” spending.
Deputy Chief Constable Rose Fitzpatrick was given the sums after they were authorised by John Foley, the former chief executive of the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), who stood down from the force watchdog last month.
Auditor General Caroline Gardner published a report stating that large relocation payments "do not represent a good use of public money" and called the SPA's spending "unacceptable". She added they were not properly disclosed in the organisation's annual report and accounts.
She also singled out the decision to appoint three temporary senior staff at a cost of more than £344,000 as one that "did not demonstrate value for money in the use of public funds".
Although the officer given the payments was not identified in the report, the SPA confirmed she was Rose Fitzpatrick, one of three deputy chief constables who each earn £175,000 per year. She is responsible for local policing.
The SPA said Mrs Fitzpatrick had acted in “good faith” and payments were made in line with her appointment and regulations. However, it is the latest in a series of scandals to envelop the national force and its watchdog, which overspent its budget by £16.9 million last year.Survivor Kaoh Rong Exit Interview with the winner Michele Fitzgerald, Aubry Bracco and Tai Trang
Rob Cesternino talks with the final 3 players from Survivor Kaoh Rong. First, Rob talks to the winner of Survivor Kaoh Rong, Michele Fitzgerald. Michele became the sole Survivor after a 5-2 vote in her favor in the final tribal council on May 18, 2016.
Then at 16:40, Rob talks with the 2nd and 3rd place finishers, Aubry Bracco and Tai Trang.
Unfortunately, Cydney Gillon was not available for press interviews today and we’ll try to track her down in the future.
Hope you join us again for our next podcast when Josh Wigler answers your feedback about the finale….
Watch this Week’s Post Survivor Finale Know-It-Alls:
Watch the Video on Youtube | Listen to the Podcast VersionJustin Volpe grew up as part of a small New Jersey community that believed the world was about to end. Its leader, Justin’s grandfather, suffered from the delusion that he was a reincarnation of the Prophet Jeremiah and would soon become one of the rulers of the world to come. But after Justin’s older brother complained about abuse within the group, his family was expelled and Justin went into public school for the first time.
The trauma Justin experienced as a result of the event went unaddressed. In his freshman year in high school, after the loss of his best friend, he started drinking and experimenting with drugs -- marijuana, nitrous oxide, ecstasy, cocaine, LSD. When Justin’s brother arose the morning after Justin’s 19th birthday party and found his brother and friends still up doing drugs, he persuaded Justin to make a fresh start by moving to Miami to live near him.
The year was 2003. Justin ended up working in and around Miami Beach. It was a surreal place -- a place where it was easier to find drugs than a stable job. Eventually, one of Justin’s employers introduced him to crystal meth. “Two hits of that and my life changed forever,” he says.
The combination of crystal meth and Justin’s unaddressed trauma proved to be a toxic pairing. Memories of his grandfather’s teachings began to run obsessively through his mind. Gradually paranoia set in: CIA agents were looking through his trash; container ships were flashing messages to him. He stopped buying food, stopped showering. Eventually, Justin became convinced, like his grandfather, that Armageddon was coming and that he too was a prophet. He stopped sleeping. Instead, he walked the streets aimlessly.
Finally, in April 2007, Justin experienced something that befalls up to 40 percent of people with serious mental illnesses: He was arrested on petty theft charges. In Miami, that meant a trip to the Pre-Trial Detention Center. Justin was identified as someone with a form of schizophrenia and was sent to the psychiatric ward on the ninth floor.
Justin was locked in a cell with a schizophrenic who had stabbed his wife with a pair of scissors. At first Justin couldn’t sleep. Then he was put on suicide watch. An officer came by every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day to tap on the window. Justin had to show his face in response. Now he couldn’t sleep even though he wanted to. One day, a person in the cell next door flipped a corrections officer the bird. “They pulled him out and beat him so bad, it haunts me to this day,” says Justin.
His hellish experiences in the detention center were not unique. In the early 2000s, some 113,000 people were arrested in Miami-Dade County every year. An estimated 20 percent suffered from a mental illness. As a result, at any given moment in time, some 1,700 individuals with mental illnesses were in the county lockup. Until recently, they were housed on the upper floors of the Y-shaped, 10-story detention center, making it the largest psychiatric facility in Florida.
The fact that Florida’s largest mental health facility was -- and is -- a county jail isn’t unusual. The Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles is California’s largest psychiatric facility; Chicago’s Cook County Jail is Illinois’. Both incarcerate about 3,000 mentally ill occupants at any given time. State prisons house large numbers of people with mental illnesses too. Indeed, prisons today contain more than 10 times the number of people with mental illnesses than all state psychiatric hospitals combined.
That’s partly the result of decisions taken by governors and lawmakers during the most recent recession. Between 2009 and 2012, states cut funding for the mentally ill by slashing spending on so-called behavioral health services by some $4.35 billion, even as demand for those services was rising. Not surprisingly, the number of people with mental illnesses in jails surged. According to the Council of State Governments, jails in this country now report that between 20 and 80 percent of their inmates suffer from a mental illness.
Miami-Dade County has long had a more acute problem than most. By one estimate, more than 9 percent of Miami residents suffer from a mental illness -- a rate that is approximately three times higher than the national average. It also has a large homeless population, most of whom have mental health issues and substance abuse problems. Yet over the course of the past decade, Miami-Dade County has emerged as a national model for how a county can develop strategies to combat the criminalization of mental illness.
Every locality, of course, has behavioral health programs. Some have outstanding programs. But what makes Miami different, says Dan Abreu of Policy Research Associates, a think tank focused on behavioral and mental health issues, is that “they are really moving toward having a continuum of services.” In short, the county is trying to build a comprehensive system. That’s due largely to the efforts of one person, Judge Steve Leifman.
Since joining the bench in 1996, Leifman has pushed police to adopt a pre-arrest diversion program that keeps thousands of people picked up by police agencies across the county out of jail. He’s created a model postbooking diversion program that offers people charged with misdemeanors and second- and third-degree felonies an opportunity to get out of jail and go into treatment. Leifman has also developed a network of case managers and peer specialists to support people with mental illnesses who enter the postbooking diversion program, and worked with researchers, corporations and pharmaceutical companies to develop innovative ways to identify and address the needs of the neediest members of this population.
In addition, he’s been one of the leaders of an effort that has brought the legislature to the brink of passing the first major overhaul of the laws governing treatment of the mentally ill in 41 years, while also convincing the state and county to sign over a 180,000-square-foot facility to serve as a comprehensive treatment center. (View photos of it here.)
Conditions in metro Miami certainly aren’t perfect. For one thing, the U.S. Justice Department continues to monitor the Pre-Trial Detention Center closely. Yet Miami-Dade County’s experience also suggests something hopeful: When local government thinks in terms of systems rather than programs, dramatic improvements can result -- even with a problem as difficult as dealing with people with mental illnesses who encounter the criminal justice system.
Judge Steve Leifman has led the effort to overhaul Miami-Dade County's approach to criminal offenders with mental health issues.
Leifman is one of about 120 judges serving the 2 million people in Florida’s 11th Judicial Circuit, the nation’s fourth largest circuit court. He has been working actively on mental health issues since 2000. But his first exposure to the problems posed by the way government handled people with mental illnesses came much earlier -- in 1973, when he was interning in Tallahassee for a state senator.
“I had grown up in a very nice, sheltered, middle-class family” -- in north Miami Beach -- “and had never seen anything bad in my life,” he says. That changed when the editor of the Miami Herald contacted the state senator in whose office Leifman was working. The newspaper had received a letter from one of its readers claiming that her son was being held inappropriately at the South Florida State Hospital in Broward County. Leifman’s boss asked him to check it out.
When Leifman arrived at the hospital, the staff showed him to the patient’s room. There Leifman found the young man tied to the bed; both his arms and his legs were in restraints. He was enormously overweight: Hospital staff had been injecting him with Thorazine, an antipsychotic medication that caused weight gain. Thorazine had been hailed as a wonder drug when it was released in the U.S. in 1953, and for good reason. Among other things, it significantly reduced psychosis. But the bloated young man strapped to the bed before Leifman was not psychotic. He was autistic.
Leifman was deeply shaken. As he was preparing to go back and brief his employer, an advocate showed up and offered to give him a tour of the hospital. He led Leifman down the hallways. The light grew dimmer, the temperature colder. Eventually they got to a metal cage. The door was open. A guard was hosing feces off several naked men. “It was one of those experiences that you never forget,” says Leifman. “The only thing I could think of while I was standing there was, ‘We treat animals better in the zoo.’”
[click_to_tweet]“We treat animals better in the zoo [than people in mental health facilities].”[/click_to_tweet]
The state senator Leifman worked for was able to arrange for the autistic man’s release. Across the nation, however, scenes like the ones Leifman had witnessed were leading to sweeping changes in the ways state governments handled people with mental illnesses. States were shutting psychiatric hospitals down, as well as other facilities that housed and treated the mentally ill. This process is often called “deinstitutionalization.” The term, however, is misleading. What was really happening was more akin to a transfer -- out of hospitals and into jails. In the mid-1950s, more than 500,000 people were held in state psychiatric hospitals. By the 1980s, that number had fallen to around 70,000. During this period, the number of people with mental illnesses who were arrested and ended up in local jails surged.
Today fewer than 40,000 people with mental illnesses are in state or civil psychiatric hospitals or facilities. Yet last year, 1.5 million people with serious mental illnesses were arrested in about 2 million incidents. Instead of being committed to state psychiatric hospitals, they are sent to jail. Instead of being offered treatment, they are turned into criminals.
By the early 1990s, when he was an assistant public defender in Miami, Leifman was seeing this process every day at work. He and his colleagues had to represent clients who had been arrested, mainly for misdemeanor charges that stemmed from their mental illnesses. Some of these people had once been in the very hospital that Leifman toured as an intern.
In 1994, when Leifman became acting chief of the county court division, he decided to call attention to the problem. He sent out letters inviting the state attorney (who serves the same function as a traditional district attorney for Miami-Dade County), the chief judge and several area police chiefs to a meeting to discuss the issue. Not one replied, and when the day of the event arrived, not a single person came. “I showed up,” Leifman recalls, “and there was nobody there.”
Two years later, in 1996, Leifman was appointed to the bench as a county court judge. Four years after that, he presided over a case that involved parents attempting to require their son -- who suffered from schizophrenia and who was also a Harvard-educated psychiatrist -- to get help. His frustrations with the case inspired him to dig into the problems posed by the intersection of mental illness with the criminal justice system.
At a national conference in Miami, Leifman met Hank Steadman, the co-founder and president of Policy Research Associates. Steadman had federal funding, and after hearing Leifman describe his hopes to tackle this problem in Miami-Dade County, he offered him a grant. Leifman reprinted his old letter on judicial letterhead and sent out another invitation to local stakeholders. This time, people came.
Leifman and his partners decided to use their grant money to engage in what is called “sequential intercept mapping” -- basically, documenting existing services and gaps in programming. The first opportunity they identified was a postbooking diversion program. With one staff person from the county and another staffer from Jackson Memorial Hospital, Leifman launched what he called the Criminal Mental Health Project (CMHP). Initially, it targeted people with serious mental illnesses who had been arrested for misdemeanor offenses, such as trespassing, loitering, petty theft and other quality-of-life charges. These were defendants who typically spent months locked in the Pre-Trial Detention Center awaiting hearings -- four to eight times longer on average than people without mental illnesses.
The postbooking diversion program offered an alternative. To start, people who had been arrested for misdemeanor offenses and identified as having acute mental illnesses would be transported from jail to an offsite crisis stabilization unit, typically within 48 hours of their arrest. After defendants began to receive treatment and regained some clarity, one of the CMHP staff members would visit and offer a choice: If they opted to receive treatment, the program would help them find housing and see that treatment continued. The court would agree to hold open their case, meaning that as long as they complied with the program they would stay out of jail. State attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle and public defender Carlos Martinez also agreed to cooperate. Rundle encouraged her prosecutors to downgrade or dismiss charges for misdemeanants who completed the program.
If, on the other hand, defendants chose to reject the opportunity to participate in the diversion program, they would return to jail and, if competent, stand trial.
Not surprisingly, seeking treatment proved to be a popular choice. About 80 percent of people offered the chance to participate in the program accepted it. What was surprising was how many people stayed out of the system afterward. An evaluation conducted soon after the program began found that recidivism rates one year out among participants who complete the program was just 20 percent. In contrast, 72 percent of peers who did not participate in the program were back in jail within one year of their release.
The next -- and greater -- challenge was to avoid arresting the mentally ill in the first place. That meant changing the way Miami-Dade’s 36 police departments interacted with people with mental illnesses. Some 175,000 adults in Miami-Dade County have a serious mental illness. Yet only 24,000 of them are receiving treatment in the public mental health system at a given time. As a result, police across the county encounter people with serious mental illnesses on a daily basis. These encounters have often gone poorly. Between 1999 and 2005, police in Miami-Dade County shot and killed 19 people with mental illnesses.
Leifman believed that metro area police could reduce arrests, deaths and injuries by adopting the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) program developed in Memphis, Tenn., in the late 1980s. The program taught officers how to distinguish between different types of mental illnesses and respond accordingly. It introduced officers to families struggling with mental illnesses and to providers in the community who could offer help.
It’s a model that seems to work. Police departments that adopted it generally saw meaningful reductions in the use of force and in officer injuries. But getting buy-in was difficult. In the CMHP’s first three years of existence, its staff managed to train only about 60 officers a year.
Thanks to better training, Miami’s two biggest police departments have greatly reduced arrests of the mentally ill.
MORE PHOTOS: What a Real Police Ride Along Is Like in Miami
In 2003, Leifman’s program got a grant from the federal government that allowed it to hire a program director and a handful of additional staffers. Gradually more police departments adopted CIT training. But the single largest police department in the area -- the Miami-Dade police -- continued to resist. Leifman urged the department’s director, Carlos Alvarez (the equivalent of a sheriff in other parts of the country), to sign on. Alvarez told Leifman he’d look into the matter but denied that his part of the county had a problem with mental health arrests.
But Leifman knew that Miami-Dade police were probably dealing with thousands of calls. The two men’s disagreement eventually went public, prompting stories in the local press. In 2004, Alvarez ran for mayor and won. Just months after Alvarez’s election, the county grand jury released a report on the criminalization of mental illness, along with a comprehensive set of recommended reforms.
To Leifman’s surprise, Alvarez embraced all the recommendations and asked Leifman to co-chair a group charged with overseeing implementation of the reforms. “Those recommendations,” Leifman says, “have been the blueprint for everything that has happened since.”
Every police department in the county now offers its officers CIT training. Some 4,500 officers in all have gone through the training. In 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, Miami and Miami-Dade County police responded to 10,626 mental health calls. Prior to CIT, these responses would have resulted in hundreds if not thousands of arrests. But that year those departments made only nine arrests in response. Instead of booking mentally ill offenders into jail, police officers took these people to crisis stabilization centers. The reduction in arrests was so significant that last year the county was able to close one of its five jail facilities.
The CMHP has also assigned four employees to help people going through the postbooking diversion program to obtain Social Security benefits. In effect, says Program Director Cindy Schwartz, this has turned people who were once seen as “these criminals with mental health problems into attractive, paying customers.” The program’s first client was none other than Justin Volpe.
After 46 days in the Pre-Trial Detention Center, Justin was offered the opportunity to leave as long as he agreed to enter the postbooking diversion program. From Justin’s perspective, this was an easy decision. He immediately signed on and was sent to Jackson Memorial Hospital. There he got treatment and got back on medications for his illnesses. Eventually he was placed in an assisted living facility in Opa-Locka. Its costs were covered by the monthly Social Security disability check that Schwartz’s office had secured for him.
But it turned out Justin wasn’t ready to get clean. Within two months, he was living in Liberty City with a woman and her four kids, smoking crack. Eventually, the woman’s boyfriend came home and kicked him out. As Justin began the 10-mile walk back to his assisted living facility in Opa-Locka, he had a realization. “By the time I got home,” says Justin, “I felt physically and emotionally sick. I had had enough.” When his caseworker called, Justin said he wanted to go back to Jackson Memorial. He promised that this time he would comply with the treatment protocols. And he did.
Schwartz realized that Justin needed something else to sustain his recovery -- a job. In November 2007, Schwartz offered Justin |
least the following can be reasonably drawn from that account. The Zoramites
worshipped some idols 130
practiced a faith which involved a craft 131
did not keep the commandments and ordinances according to the law of Moses — at least, according to orthodox Nephite understanding — though their worship in synagogues suggests that they aspired to do so 132
did not practice daily prayer, but had established a set liturgical prayer which they recited individually once each week 133
did not believe it was legitimate to pray other than in a synagogue 134
worshipped weekly in synagogues, but their synagogue differed from the pattern familiar to Alma 2 because it featured a raised praying stand called the Rameumptom 135
because it featured a raised praying stand called the Rameumptom allowed guest preachers in their synagogues 136
may not have believed in the need for repentance137
The theology behind their set prayer liturgy also appears to have justified the following beliefs:
[Page 207] that God had elected them alone to be his saved “holy children” 138
that God had elected them alone to be his saved “holy children” that everyone who did not belong to their synagogue would perish 139
and that there was no harm in either the accumulation or public display of wealth140
The Zoramites also claimed the specific revealed knowledge, contrary to Nephite orthodoxy, that there should be no Christ,141 or that He would come among men.142
While it is not clear what Alma 2 meant when he called the Zoramites “our brethren,”143 his similar observation that “many of them are our brethren” in his prayer at the beginning of the mission,144 implies either that the Zoramites had been members of the orthodox Nephite church until recently or that they were Nephite, as opposed to Mulekite or Lamanite in ancestral origin.145
To easily compare the differences between Nephite orthodoxy and the Zoramite and Nehorite heresies, a table has been provided below.
Subject Nephite Orthodoxy Nehorite Beliefs Zoramite Beliefs The need for a Savior Yes146 No147 No148 The coming of Christ Yes149 No150 No151 The atonement/
redemption Yes152 No No The gift of prophecy Yes153 No No The foundation of salvation Personal
righteousness154 No information Being chosen155 The need for
repentance Yes156 Perhaps not157 Perhaps not158 Accountability for sin/crime and final judgment159 Yes160 No161 No
information The foundation for temporal prosperity Obedience to
commandments162 Not clear but likely personal
achievement163 Personal
achievement164 The resurrection Yes165 No166 No167 Definition of
blasphemy No information Reviling religious authority168 No information Punishment for
blasphemy Death penalty?169 Death penalty170 No information [Page 208]Precedent
for slapping No information Yes171 No information Precedent for
spitting No information Yes172 No information Precedent for
stoning No information173 Yes174 Yes175 Observance of law of witnesses Assumed Yes176 No information Accepted Mosaic commandments Yes177 Yes178 No179 Attitude toward sign seeking Signs proved
credibility of
prophets180 Signs proved
credibility of prophets181 No information182 Speech against the established order a crime Yes183 Yes184 Yes185 Penalty for sedition Death, but
remittance on
repentance186 Death187 Unclear188 Theistic Yes189 Yes190 Yes191 Monotheistic Yes192 Yes, but idols seem to have been allowed193 Yes, but idols
allowed194 Worshipped idols No195 Maybe196 Yes197 Religion included “a craft” No No information Yes198 Ethno/political
connections Not required Mulekite and maybe Jaredite Zoramite Worshipped in communities Yes Yes Yes Worshipped in synagogues Yes Yes199 Yes200 Accepted guest preachers No information Yes201 Yes202 How should
religious teachers
be temporally
sustained? Support themselves except in cases of illness or
misadventure203 Supported by
followers204 Supported by
followers
In my article entitled “Who was Sherem?” I suggested that
[Page 209]Zoramite practice and theology … in the Book of Mormon has a distinctly Deuteronomist and even rabbinical flavor … that many of the anti-Christian threads in the Book of Mormon likely also have Zoramite origins. I also suggest that those anti-Christian connections may be the reason why Korihor died among the Zoramites, and why many Zoramites denied the Christ.205
This supposition is based on my suggestion that Sherem was a son or grandson of Zoram206 and because “Sherem was completely wedded to the idea that the Law of Moses was an end in itself and did not include any concept of an atoning Messiah to come.”207
I also noted Welch’s observation that “if Sherem … was a Zoramite, then the rift between the Zoramites and the Nephites that erupted into warfare in the days of Alma 2 had roots as far back as the contention between Sherem and Jacob.”208
In Part IV, I seek to draw together all this information to compare the theological difference of all three religions. As I do so, I recognize that there is significant speculation in my suggestions. Nonetheless, I hope that generous readers will find the exercise provocative, thoughtful and maybe even helpful.
Part IV: The Three Israelite Religions
in the Book of Mormon Compared
The theological comparison enabled by the table above suggests that Nehorite and Zoramite theology were more like each other than they were like Nephite orthodoxy. Indeed, both rejected the core Nephite teaching that there would be a Messiah who would redeem mankind from temporal and spiritual death on conditions of repentance, and who would bring to pass the resurrection of the dead.
If we accept that the priests of King Noah were early Nehorites, then even though they rejected Nephite scriptural interpretation that found the Messiah laced through everything recorded on the plates of brass, they still purported to follow the Law of Moses. If the Zoramites were heirs of Sherem’s religious practice, then they also followed the Law of Moses.209 By the time of Alma 2, however, maybe 400 years later, the commandments under that law were not as important210 as the fact that they were chosen or elected by God for salvation, while everyone else was destined to be “cast … down to hell.”211
Of course, the possibility that the priests of King Noah were some of the earliest Nehors or the supposition that the Zoramites were the heirs of [Page 210]Sherem’s theology cannot be conclusively established. First, the Nehorite religion is named after Nehor, who appears among the Nephites around 91 bc, nearly 60 years after Abinadi’s trial in the court of King Noah. Second, the Law of Moses does not seem to have been as important to the Zoramites around 74 bc as it was to Sherem just one generation after the landing of Lehi’s party in the New World. However, these theological differences ought not surprise us, particularly the difference between Sherem’s theology and later Zoramite religion. Christian and LDS history suggest that the details of religious theology change significantly over time even while core beliefs remain constant. For example, Protestant Christianity has held on to the reformation idea of salvation by grace, even though the details of the election and predestination doctrines have shifted. Perhaps then, Sherem’s insistence that there would be no Christ remains important in later anti-Nephite theology, even though the Mosaic performances have dropped off in importance — and were even replaced in Zoramite theology by an election doctrine.
Nor should it surprise us that these three religions seem to divide down tribal lines. Tvedtnes has suggested that the “descendants of Lehi’s colony were calling themselves Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites, after the founders of their lineage groups”212 from “as early as the[ir] second generation in the New World.”213 I suggest that a distinctly Zoramite strain of Israelite religion developed from the beginning, although it went largely unrecorded. That contention between the Nephites and the Mulekites after the formation of the judicial republic led to the descendants of Mulek forming their own church is consistent both with human nature and what Tvedtnes suggests is a tribal division habit among the descendants of Lehi. It also added to what Reynolds and Sturgess might have called a theological justification for their right to rule.214 As noted above, Larsen takes this even further. He says:
the Amlicites and Amalekites … were motivated by a desire to restore the Davidic monarchy after the Nephite royal line that began with Mosiah 1 and ended w[hen] Mosiah 2 renounced power.215
Larsen admits his thesis is unstated in the Book of Mormon text, but it clearly implied that:
when Mosiah 2 died without a royal successor, the right to rule reverted by virtue of the Davidic covenant to the Mulekite royal line that had governed prior to the arrival of Mosiah 1 … [Page 211]This conflict between incompatible Nephite and Mulekite ideologies is the unstated rationale for the civil war during the reign of King Benjamin (Words of Mormon 1:15–10), and it pervades the Book of Alma, from the appearance in chapter one, verse two of Nehor, the spiritual leader of the Amlicites (Alma 2:1, 24:28), to a final great battle in the last three verses of the book as the dissenters again stir up anger and send forth yet another army that must be repelled (Alma 63:14–17).216
Larsen’s interpretation also squares with Conkling’s view that:
it was the Nephite apostate groups — Amlicites, Amulonites, and Zoramites — who were responsible for most of Alma’s problems with the Lamanites. As already noted in Alma 21:3, these apostate groups were “still harder” than the Lamanites.217
For Conkling, Nephite apostates were the “truly vicious villains”218 in the Book of Mormon. They took their venom and stirred up reluctant Lamanites to go to battle to avenge their common grievance — that the religiously orthodox Nephites had usurped the right to rule. This understanding explains the “and thus we see” passages spread through the Book of Alma.219
I suggest, based on the analysis of the three worship traditions according to the Law of Moses found in the Book of Mormon, that Sherem provided the foundation from which both the Zoramite and Nehorite religions evolved. I have previously suggested that Sherem was a descendant of Zoram, or what Tvedtnes might have called the Zoramite tribe of Nephites. The theology of that tribe remained true to Sherem’s original teaching that the Law of Moses had nothing to do with a Christ to come — indeed, that there should be no Christ — but it developed an elitist strain which shocked the Nephite missionaries under Alma 2 in the first century BC.220 I also suggest that the Mulekites, who appear to have had only oral traditions when the Nephites under Mosiah 1 came to rule them, accepted the Nephite religion because it resonated with their collective memory but then adapted it to justify their own nationalism when the Nephite republic was established. In part, those adaptations resonated with the Zoramite and Lamanite tradition that the Nephites were usurpers and had no hereditary right to rule. Larsen makes this case most strongly when he suggests their argument revisited the historic wrestle between Judah and Joseph, since the Mulekites could claim Davidic origins.221 I suggest the Mulekite religion was named for [Page 212]Nehor simply because he was such a passionate and articulate advocate of their cause.
Conclusion
In this article, I have suggested that the Zoramites in the time of Alma 2 were the heirs of a theological tradition that began with the Anti-Christ Sherem in the sixth century BC. I have also suggested that the Nehorite religion was developed to provide theological justification for the Amlicite sedition subtext that runs through the Book of Alma.
If these suggestions have any validity, it is not surprising that the Zoramites and the Nehors found common cause with the Lamanites in opposing the Nephite aristocracy. It is also not surprising that the Nephite idea of religious liberty was culturally and politically unpopular. These cultural and political conflicts the Nephites faced after the Nephite/Mulekite merger have modern coordinates. The culture wars of the twenty-first century are creating new alliances that threaten the faith of modern saints in similar ways, and they are seeding the same kinds of apostasy against which ancient and modern prophets have warned.Picture (top left): Jakob Owens
Climate change was almost certainly responsible for a marine heatwave off Tasmania’s east coast in 2015/16 that lasted 251 days and at its greatest extent was seven times the size of Tasmania, according to a new study published today in Nature Communications.
The marine heatwave reduced the productivity of Tasmanian salmon fisheries, led to a rise in blacklip abalone mortality, sparked an outbreak of Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome and saw new fish species move into Tasmanian waters.
At its peak intensity, waters off Tasmania were 2.9°C above expected summertime temperatures.
Lead author from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS) Dr Eric Oliver said marine heatwave events of this kind were likely to increase in the future because of climate change.
“We can say with 99 per cent confidence that anthropogenic climate change made this marine heatwave several times more likely, and there’s an increasing probability of such extreme events in the future,” Dr Oliver said.
“This 2015/16 event was the longest and most intense marine heatwave on record off Tasmania.”
The research team led by scientists from ARCCSS and the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) at the University of Tasmania, in collaboration with the CSIRO and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, found the heatwave was driven by a surge of warm water in the East Australian Current, which has been growing stronger and reaching further south in recent decades.
The area off the east coast of Tasmania is already known as a global warming hotspot with temperatures in this region warming at nearly four times the global average rate.
Co-author Associate Professor Neil Holbrook from IMAS said it was vital to monitor and research these marine heatwaves because if identified early it would allow fisheries and aquaculture industries to adapt and manage their resources.
“The evidence shows that the frequency of extreme warming events in the ocean is increasing globally,” Associate Professor Holbrook said.
“In 2015 and 2016 around one quarter of the ocean surface area experienced a marine heatwave that was either the longest or most intense recorded since global satellite-records began in 1982.
“Studying these events plays an important role in helping industries, governments and communities to plan for and adapt to the changes and their growing impacts on our environment and ecosystems,” Associate Professor Holbrook said.Hillary Clinton, who yesterday vowed to stay in the race for the Democratic nomination until the bitter end, is apparently engaging in a deliberate strategy of not paying her bills:
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months — freeing up cash for critical media buys, but also earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small business circles.
A pair of Ohio companies owed more than $25,000 by Clinton for staging events for her campaign are warning others in the tight-knit event production community — and anyone else who will listen — to get their cash upfront when doing business with her. Her campaign, say representatives of the two companies, has stopped returning phone calls and e-mails seeking payment of outstanding invoices. One even got no response from a certified letter.
Their cautionary tales, combined with published reports about similar difficulties faced by a New Hampshire landlord, an Iowa office cleaner and a New York caterer highlight a less-obvious impact of Clinton’s inability to keep up with the staggering fundraising pace set by her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
(…)
The New York senator’s presidential campaign ended February with $38 million in the bank, according to a report filed last week with the Federal Election Commission, but only $16 million of that can be spent on her battle with Obama.
The rest can only be spent in the general election, if she makes it that far, and must be returned if she doesn’t. If she had paid off the $8.7 million in unpaid bills she reported as debt and had not loaned her campaign $5 million, the cash she would have had available at the end of last month to spend on television ads and other up-front expenses would have been less than $2 million.
By contrast, if you subtract Obama’s $625,000 in debts and his general election-only money from his total cash on hand at the end of last month, he’d still be left with $31 million.I have a teenage son who loves team sports. You’ve read about him in an earlier post about sedentary athletes. He hasn’t met a team sport he doesn’t like. He also likes tackling so his fave sports are football and rugby. He loves basketball too but it’s the other two I get the most grief about from friends, relatives, and other parents.
They’re dangerous sports. I’ve read lots about the risks. My partner and I exchange journal articles on the subjects of concussion and the long term impact of head injuries. You might think we’re making a bad call letting him play. But it’s an informed bad call at least.
For me, I compare it to what his friends who don’t play sports are up to, computer gaming and television mostly. I think about the risks of not getting enough physical activity. I know there are other sports but he won’t play them. I know some kids prefer music and theatre. I have some of those kind too. But that’s not him.
In fact, I’m thinking about dangerous sports and risk while drafting this post at a coffee shop near the try outs for the Ontario rugby team on which he hopes to play. I even called up one of my favorite philosophy papers on this subject to remind myself of the “pro-risk taking” arguments. If you’re interested in the value of dangerous sports for children, read “Children and Dangerous Sport and Recreation” in the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport Volume 34, Issue 2, 2007 by J.S. Russell.
It’s behind a journal pay wall so you won’t be able to read it unless you have access to a university library. (Insert rant about the need for open access publishing here.) But here’s a sample of Russell’s exploration of a view he dubs the “uncommon sense view.”
The uncommon sense view “asserts that at a certain point in child development physical risks should be tolerated, and children’s choices (and adults’ choices on their behalf) to engage them should frequently be respected, even if the risks of such activities are greater than necessary to promote the developmental goods sought by the common sense view—and thus represent unnecessary threats to the goods that the common sense view aims at securing. I call this “the uncommon sense view” because although I think it is pretty obviously correct, it would appear to take uncommon philosophical sense to recognize it, for the most prominent official and philosophical positions about obligations to raise and care for children oppose it in principle. The uncommon sense view, however, is reflected widely in our institutions and practices of children’s sport and recreation. Consider popular but risky young persons’ sports and recreations such as American football, rugby, horse jumping, gymnastics, cheerleading, freestyle skiing, skateboarding, wakeboarding, hockey, diving, motocross, and the like.”
When I heard Russell give an earlier version of this paper as talk at the International Philosophy of Sport meeting one of the things that struck people in addition to the arguments were the injury rates of sports such as gymnastics, figure skating, and cheerleading. Lots of head injuries, no helmets. It’s a familiar theme.
And then today while waiting for my son’s try outs to end, this news story came across my Facebook news feed, Doctors to vote on whether cheerleading is a sport.
You might wonder why the American Medical Association cares whether cheer leading is classified as a sport or just a physical activity. It’s a good question. And here’s the answer.
“Cheerleading has become a competitive activity in its own right, and there’s a considerable risk of serious injury, including concussion, spinal damage and broken bones. So it ought to get the same attention to health consequences as other sports, including the training of coaches to minimize injury risks for cheerleaders, proponents say. A 2011 report from the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research found that “high school and college cheerleaders account for approximately two-thirds of the catastrophic injuries to female athletes.”
Yes, you read that right: High school and college cheerleaders account for approximately two-thirds of the catastrophic injuries to female athletes.
I don’t know if this is correct but I once heard someone claim that the head injury rates for figure skaters were worse than that of hockey players at the junior level. I can sort of see why they don’t compete wearing helmets, grace and beauty and all that. But why don’t they practice wearing helmets?
I think there are a whole host of gendered assumptions in our collective worries about danger in sports. Why are we so concerned about football players but not cheerleaders, hockey players but not figure skaters? I think part of the story is that the public face of one set of these activities is all beauty and coordination, grace and team work, while the others are more combative and injuries result from athletic competition and conflict that’s built into the game.
Head injuries in figure skating and cheer leading result from mistakes, from accidents and failed moves. In football, rugby, and hockey they happen as part of the game played well. But that doesn’t make the former injuries less real. It just means we tend not to think about them as they’re not part of the ideal of the sport.
And I’m not claiming that sports such as rugby, football, and hockey aren’t dangerous. I know they are. But I think we ought to worry too about some of the sports more traditionally associated with girls, though of course I know girls who play rugby and loads of boys who do gymnastics.
I especially worry that some of the beautiful sports such as cheer leading and figure skating don’t get protective gear because to do would a)remind those watching of the risk and danger involved and b)take away from the beauty of it all. I think not seeing the danger is connected to our view that these activities aren’t really sports at all.
I was persuaded of cheerleading’s athleticism watching Western’s Mustang Cheer Squad. They’re amazing. They’ve won the Canadian Championships 1985 through 2012. I’ve seen them often at Western football games (much prefer rugby, less downtime). There’s a lot of footage of them on YouTube. The one below is from the 2011 championships. Visible ab trigger warning!
I also love the segment Rick Mercer did with them a few years ago, in 2006. It’s very funny about Western, about cheer leading, and about Mercer’s potential to make a spot on the squad.Will Smith has branded US politics “embarrassing”.
The Suicide Squad actor hit out at the current political landscape, but insisted he is confident that the public “will make the right choices”.
Speaking about the race for the White House he told Sky News: "I don't think it's morally murky, it's morally very clear. There is no murk whatsoever.
"There are certain things that in terms of humanity and human rights and just common human decency that people shouldn't say or do.
"There are people in America that are saying and doing a lot of things that are quite embarrassing.”
He finished: "But I feel very confident that the American people, as we have done in history, will make the right choices."
Smith was speaking at the European premiere of Suicide Squad where he was joined by Margot Robbie, Cara Delevingne, Jai Courtney.
Smith’s comments come after fellow actor Clint Eastwood praised Republican candidate Donald Trump for blasting America’s politically correct “pussy generation”.
Suicide Squad London premiere - in pictures 29 show all Suicide Squad London premiere - in pictures 1/29 Margot Robbie and Will Smith bump into each other on the red carpet Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA 2/29 Cara Delevingne checks her phone as fans scream Dave Bennet 3/29 Jay Hernandez, Joel Kinnaman, Will Smith, Ezra Miller, Margot Robbie, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Karen Fukuhara, Jai Courtney and Cara Delevingne arriving for the Suicide Squad European Premiere Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA 4/29 Will Smith, Jay Hernandez, Joel Kinnaman, Karen Fukuhara, Margot Robbie, Cara Delevingne, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jai Courtney and Jared Leto pose for a selfie Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA 5/29 Suicide Squad selfie @WarnerBrosUK 6/29 Cara Delevingne attends the European Premiere of "Suicide Squad" Dave Benett 7/29 Karen Fukuhara, Margot Robbie and Cara Delevingne attend the European Premiere of "Suicide Squad" Dave Benett 8/29 Margot Robbie and Will Smith share a joke in front of the crowd Dave Bennet 9/29 Margot Robbie and Will Smith share a big hug Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA 10/29 Henry Cavill, Joel Kinnaman, Jay Hernandez, Ezra Miller, Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Karen Fukuhara, Jai Courtney, Cara Delevingne, Jared Leto, Ben Affleck and Jason Momoa Dave Benett 11/29 Cara Delevingne hits the red carpet Richard Young/Rex 12/29 Will Smith chats to fans in Leicester Square Yui Mok/PA 13/29 Margot Robbie and Will Smith pose for pictures together at the London premiere Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA 14/29 Margot Robbie shows off the back of her dress Dave Bennet 15/29 Margot Robbie and Will Smith wave to the huge crowd Dave Bennet 16/29 Jared Leto looks like he's come in character as The Joker Dave Benett 17/29 Ben Affleck makes a surprise appearance Dave Benett 18/29 Ben Affleck aka Batman surprises fans on the red carpet Dave Benett 19/29 Margot Robbie poses for photographers Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA 20/29 The British actress poses in black leather Dave Bennet 21/29 Cara Delevingne makes her way into the Odeon cinema Dave Bennet 22/29 Squad member Joel Kinnaman looks dapper Dave Benett 23/29 Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje who plays Killer Croc in the film Dave Benett 24/29 Jason Momoa jumps on Henry Cavill Dave Benett 25/29 Karen Fukuhara attends the European Premiere Dave Bennet 26/29 Cara Delevingne all in black Richard Young/Rex 27/29 Cara Delevingne David Fisher/Rex 28/29 Cara is supported by sister Poppy and James Cook Dave Benett 29/29 Deborah Snyder and Zack Snyder Richard Young/Rex 1/29 Margot Robbie and Will Smith bump into each other on the red carpet Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA 2/29 Cara Delevingne checks her phone as fans scream Dave Bennet 3/29 Jay Hernandez, Joel Kinnaman, Will Smith, Ezra Miller, Margot Robbie, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Karen Fukuhara, Jai Courtney and Cara Delevingne arriving for the Suicide Squad European Premiere Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA 4/29 Will Smith, Jay Hernandez, Joel Kinnaman, Karen Fukuhara, Margot Robbie, Cara Delevingne, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jai Courtney and Jared Leto pose for a selfie Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA 5/29 Suicide Squad selfie @WarnerBrosUK 6/29 Cara Delevingne attends the European Premiere of "Suicide Squad" Dave Benett 7/29 Karen Fukuhara, Margot Robbie and Cara Delevingne attend the European Premiere of "Suicide Squad" Dave Benett 8/29 Margot Robbie and Will Smith share a joke in front of the crowd Dave Bennet 9/29 Margot Robbie and Will Smith share a big hug Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA 10/29 Henry Cavill, Joel Kinnaman, Jay Hernandez, Ezra Miller, Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Karen Fukuhara, Jai Courtney, Cara Delevingne, Jared Leto, Ben Affleck and Jason Momoa Dave Benett 11/29 Cara Delevingne hits the red carpet Richard Young/Rex 12/29 Will Smith chats to fans in Leicester Square Yui Mok/PA 13/29 Margot Robbie and Will Smith pose for pictures together at the London premiere Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA 14/29 Margot Robbie shows off the back of her dress Dave Bennet 15/29 Margot Robbie and Will Smith wave to the huge crowd Dave Bennet 16/29 Jared Leto looks like he's come in character as The Joker Dave Benett 17/29 Ben Affleck makes a surprise appearance Dave Benett 18/29 Ben Affleck aka Batman surprises fans on the red carpet Dave Benett 19/29 Margot Robbie poses for photographers Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA 20/29 The British actress poses in black leather Dave Bennet 21/29 Cara Delevingne makes her way into the Odeon cinema Dave Bennet 22/29 Squad member Joel Kinnaman looks dapper Dave Benett 23/29 Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje who plays Killer Croc in the film Dave Benett 24/29 Jason Momoa jumps on Henry Cavill Dave Benett 25/29 Karen Fukuhara attends the European Premiere Dave Bennet 26/29 Cara Delevingne all in black Richard Young/Rex 27/29 Cara Delevingne David Fisher/Rex 28/29 Cara is supported by sister Poppy and James Cook Dave Benett 29/29 Deborah Snyder and Zack Snyder Richard Young/Rex
The 86-year-old said people are tiring of ‘walking on eggshells’ and hailed Trump for “saying what’s on his mind”.
Speaking to Esquire he said: “Secretly everybody’s getting tired of pol-itical correctness, kissing up. All these people that say, ‘Oh, you can’t do that, and you can’t do this, and you can’t say that.’ I guess it’s just the times.”
Follow @StandardEnts for more entertainment news.For those who have not read my journal entry:
I am hosting a Secret Santa for bronies this year! I really love this community and I really would like to spread the christmas spirit.
Please note that anyone and everyone can join. It doesn't matter the skill level or talent! Were just looking to have a great time and show some love c:
Plus, it's really easy to enter!
Just post a journal saying (link that journal to mine so I have your name! balloons504.deviantart.com/jou…
What I want:
References:
What I can do:
by December 5th. On December 8th, I will note you with whose secret santa you are.
but no telling until you post the picture on December 23rd!
For more info please see my journal found at this link: balloons504.deviantart.com/jou…
Really can not wait to see all the gifts. I know we are all going to totally rock this <3
Hello Everypony!Share:
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan on Saturday said it has evacuated 11 Indians along with 148 Pakistani citizens from strife-torn Yemen’s southeastern city of Mokallah, which is now almost entirely under control of Al-Qaeda fighters.
The PNS Aslat has set off for Pakistan after successfully evacuating 148 citizens and 35 foreigners, including 11 Indians, from Mokallah, the Foreign Office said in a statement here.
The PNS Aslat, dispatched earlier, arrived in Mokallah on Friday. The roads leading to the port had been closed.
“Therefore, through a discreetly planned exercise, the operation was switched to nearby Ash Shihr port and 148 Pakistanis have been safely evacuated, earlier Saturday. 35 other foreign nationals also requiring emergency evacuation are also on board. These include eight Chinese, 11 Indians and four British citizens. The ship will arrive at Karachi on April 7,” the Foreign Office further said.
Mokallah, the capital of Yemen’s south-eastern Hadramawt province, was now almost entirely under control of militants of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), after they stormed a jail and freed 300 inmates a day earlier.
Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam on social networking site Twitter said, the Navy vessel had sailed from Mokallah for Karachi.
The government has been making efforts to safely bring back stranded Pakistanis home amid rising tensions in the conflict-ridden state.
On Friday, 176 stranded Pakistanis arrived in Islamabad from Yemen in a special flight.
Tasnim Aslam in a statement said “before the September 2014 events in Sana’a, Pakistan’s Embassy had an estimated figure of 3,000 Pakistanis residing across Yemen.
She said following the rapid deterioration of the security situation and as a consequence of advisories issued by Pakistan Embassy to community members, a large number left Yemen.
By the Embassy’s reckoning, around 1800 of expatriates gradually exited the country, she added. The spokesperson said after further deterioration of the security situation in February 2014, and UNSG’s pronouncement that “Yemen is collapsing before our eyes”, the embassy ascertained willingness of community members for emergency evacuation.
She said only 278 expressed their willingness initially. However, following the March 27 air strikes in Sana’a and other cities, the number jumped to 912.
The spokesperson said in keeping with the instructions and guidance of the prime minister for immediate evacuation of all stranded Pakistanis in Yemen by all available means, a Crisis Management Cell (CMC) was set up in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on March 28, to chalk out and implement an emergency evacuation plan for safe return of compatriots.
The plan envisaged air, naval and land evacuation through third countries for the entire community in Yemen, she added.
The spokesperson said given the extremely delicate security situation in Sana’a, and the partial damage to the airport, Pakistanis living in the capital were brought to Al Hudeida port by road.
She said from there they were airlifted by a special flight operated, after obtaining an exemption of No Fly restriction from Riyadh. The Boeing 747 flight brought back 503 compatriots on March 31.
The spokesperson said while two Pakistan Navy ships had been despatched to the area to assist the evacuation mission on March 29 and 30, and were expected to arrive in 5-6 days in Aden, the eruption of fresh clashes in the city necessitated alternative plan.
She said Chinese support was enlisted since their ships were available close to Aden, undertaking an evacuation operation for their citizens. Subsequently, evacuation of 186 Pakistanis from Aden to Djibouti, through a Chinese vessel, and from Djibouti to Islamabad by a special PIA flight was undertaken on April 2-3. A special camp office was set up in Djibouti to facilitate the transit and transfer.
“Meanwhile, situation in Mokallah, where we had the third big cluster of Pakistanis in Yemen, and which had been relatively safe earlier, became critical following an Al-Qaeda jail break,” she said.
The spokesperson said assistance is also being provided, through Pakistan’s embassy in Oman, to 12 Pakistanis for evacuation across the land border with Oman.
She said two clusters of Pakistani community in Yemen still await evacuation; 174 compatriots who could not, or did not, want to move to Al Hudeida for the planned airlift on 31st Match and are now stuck in Sana’a; and 34 community members who are gathered in Al Hudeida.
A special PIA flight has been planned for Sana’a on Sunday to bring back the 174 stranded compatriots. An aircraft is on standby, ground clearances have been obtained, while exemption of “No Fly”restriction is expected shortly.
The spokesperson said as for Al Hudeida, a Pakistan Navy vessel will arrive there Sunday morning to evacuate the 34 Pakistanis.LeBron James endorses Hillary Clinton for president. "We need a president who understands our community and will build on the legacy of President Obama. So let’s register to vote, show up to the polls, and vote for Hillary Clinton," the NBA star writes. LeBron James Family Foundation
Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. Below is the op-ed he has written about his decision, which he has exclusively provided to Business Insider. The op-ed will also be published in the print edition of the Akron Beacon Journal on Monday.
Two years ago, I told you I was coming home to Northeast Ohio — where I was born and raised. When I came back, I had two missions.
In June, thanks to my teammates and all your support, I accomplished my on-the-court mission. We came back from being down 3-1 in the NBA Finals to finally grab what we've waited 52 long years for: a championship in Northeast Ohio.
Holding that trophy was beyond words. It still hasn't hit me. But for me, coming home was never just about basketball.
As a kid, I didn't have much money. It was just my mom and me, and things were rough at times. But I had basketball. That gave me a family, a community, and an education. That's more than a lot of children in Akron can say. There are a lot of people who want to tell kids who grew up like me and looked like me that they just don't have anything to look forward to |
BitFury Unveils Fastest Bitcoin Mining Chip Ever Created
The Bitcoin mining game has undergone several evolutionary steps over the past few years. As mining chips became smaller and smaller, the question became whether or not hardware manufacturers could keep on improving certain aspects. BitFury seems to have cracked the code, as they recently announced the mass production of the fasted – and most effective – 16nm ASIC chip the world has ever seen.
Also read: Code To Inspire: Connecting Afghan Women To The Global Economy
Making Bitcoin Mining ASIC Chips More Effective
One of the most often heard arguments is how the Bitcoin mining ecosystem uses up far too much electricity, and all of the heat generated during the process is going to waste. Truth be told, this is only partially true, as several miners use the generated heat to warm their houses throughout the year, reducing the “resource waste.”
That being said, reducing the electricity requirements when mining Bitcoin is at the top of the priority list for every hardware manufacturer. BitFury is the first company to come up with a new 16nm Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chip that will make the Bitcoin network more efficient than it has ever been before.
In its original concept, this new BitFury ASIC mining chip was designed to reach a total capacity of 40 gigahash per second, while keeping the power efficiency around 0.06 joules per gigahash. After thorough testing, it turned out the energy required to power these new chips varies between 0.055 and 0.07 joules per gigahash, making the BitFury 16nm ASIC chip the most energy-efficient so far.
But there is more to this new BitFury 16nm ASIC chip, as it only takes 0.35V of power supply voltage to operate this hardware. In fact, the voltage is even lower when putting the chip into a static mode, as it only requires 0.28V power supply voltage. Other companies have tried to achieve this low level of voltage required, but their efforts have been unsuccessful so far.
BitFury CEO Valery Vavilov stated the following:
“We are very excited to launch mass production of our super 16nm ASIC Chip. The final results of our hard work have fully met our expectations. We understand that it will be nearly impossible for any older technology to compete with the performance of our new 16nm technology. As a responsible player in the Bitcoin community, we will be working with integration partners and resellers to make our unique technology widely available ensuring that the network remains decentralized and we move into the exahash era together. BitFury warmly welcomes all companies interested in joining our integration and reseller program.”
Technical Details And Minimizing The Carbon Footprint
What makes the new BitFury 16nm ASIC chip so impressive is how it will deliver a minimum computing power of 100 gigahash per second, and the average output sits around the 140 gigahash per second. Keeping in mind these speeds can be achieved while using traditional air cooling, it goes to show how stable the BitFury chips are.
The biggest gain to be made is when immersion cooling comes into the picture, which results in hashpower of up to 184 gigahash per second per chip. BitFury becomes the first custom-made silicon ASIC chip manufacturer to achieve such a computational efficiency per unit of silicon area.
With the “Exahash era” drawing closer, BitFury positions itself as the first transaction processor to support the growing increase of computing power required to power the Bitcoin network. Comparing the new generation of chips to their previous 28nm counterparts, BitFury can now deliver up to four times the amount of computing power at a given energy level.
These impressive numbers only tell part of the story, as BitFury stays true to their commitment regarding a minimal carbon footprint. Making the company’s data centers more energy-efficient – by relying on renewable energy sources – a major step in the right direction. That being said, the company continuously seeks new ways to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
As a direct result of these efforts, BitFury has deployed its propriety immersion cooling technology in its Tbilisi data center in Georgia. Further advancements in the field of immersion cooling will help BitFury reduce their carbon footprint even more in the future.
What are your thoughts on this new 16nm ASIC chip? What will be next for the Bitcoin mining sector? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: Business Wire
Images courtesy of BitFury, ShutterstockJune 23, 2016 | 4:51pm
Getting fired by Donald Trump in real life is not...
CNN has hired former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a commentator on the campaign, only days after he was fired by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee
A network spokeswoman, Barbara Levin, confirmed the hiring but offered no other details on Thursday. The move was first reported by Politico
CNN has used a handful of Trump surrogates as commentators in its political coverage, most prominently Jeffrey Lord during prime-time primary nights.
Lewandowski may be limited in what he can say on the air. The Associated Press has reported that Trump requires nearly everyone working in his businesses and presidential campaign to sign nondisclosure agreements preventing them from releasing confidential or disparaging information about him.This weekend, two very different holy days converge, as Easter and 4/20 both fall on Sunday - Weedster, if you will. Some Christians and marijuana smokers are taking advantage of the coincidence to do some interfaith outreach - pastors are planning 4/20-themed sermons for Sunday, inviting new congregants to try getting high with God instead of drugs. Online, on the other hand, you can learn how to roll a cross-shaped joint with Seth Rogen and make a pot-friendly Easter basket.
All of which got me wondering - just how often does Easter fall on 4/20? The computation of the date of Easter is incredibly complicated and used to be a subject of fierce debate among theologians. But nowadays it's easy enough to boil down to a few lines of computer code or an Excel formula.
In the next 1,000 years, Easter will fall on 4/20 a total of 33 times. This puts it right in the middle of the pack of dates that Easter could fall on. At the top end of the date spectrum is April 6, with 45 Easter occurrences, while at the bottom is April 24, with seven.
The last time we had a 4/20 Easter was in 2003, and it will happen again in 2025. But after that it won't occur again until 2087, which means that this is the penultimate Weedster most of us will experience in our lifetimes.Obama DOE Picked More Energy Winners Than Silicon Valley VCs
October 21st, 2011 by Susan Kraemer
With just 1.4% of its Recovery Act clean tech investments in “losers”, it looks like the Obama administration is batting a much better average in “picking winners and losers” than the private Venture Capital (VC) market itself.
The US government guarantee of a private loan to Solyndra, at $535 million, represented a minuscule 1.4% of the Department of Energy investment in all renewable technologies. By contrast – VCs (who were out $1 billion to Solyndra, for example) expect much higher failure rates. Richard Stuebi, who advises VCs on expected green energy failure rates, says that just 3 in 10 successes represents a successful VC investment strategy. That is 70% losers – not 1.4%.
The argument against “picking winners and losers” that Republicans in congress have long cited to avoid clean energy investment got a poster boy in Solyndra, and they are flogging it to death. They have pounced on one startup bankruptcy as yet another excuse to shut down all clean energy investment by the Democrats.
Republicans argue that “government should not pick winners and losers” because “the invisible hand of the marketplace” should be allowed to (continue to) decide the winners and losers in energy supplies. It is no coincidence that the invisible hand favors the dirty energy lobby that funds their seats in congress.
The market will pick dirty energy because it is cheaper (for now) since it is already in place, and the capital costs have been absorbed, and it did not pay a dime for the pollution it caused. All the market knew was that it was cheap. But the market did not know that in fact there will be a much larger payment due for that cheap dirty energy.
The market thus conspires with their dirty energy benefactors. Dirty energy has been successful in avoiding paying for the pollution it has already caused, because it made us pay for it instead, at the emergency room, every year: For example, the “230,000 premature deaths, 200,000 cases of heart attacks, 2.4 million cases of asthma attacks, 120,000 emergency room visits, and 5.4 million lost school days” is just the portion prevented annually by the Clean Air Act. And dirty energy will similarly not pay for the future costs that we will bear, with the effects of climate change.
The Department of Energy had hired a clean tech VC to help with picking winners, while the Recovery Act had Department of Energy investment dollars for investing in getting clean energy costs down. He has just left, as there will be no more need for expertise in picking winners. The program ended on September 30th.
The renewable energy loan guarantee program that invested in Solyndra, as part of a historic investment resulting in 16,000 megawatts of clean energy coming online under the Democrats’ brief Recovery Act, could have been renewed when it expired at the end of September. But this Republican congress needs all the energy it can put together just to keep its lights on for each ensuing month.
Now Republicans have shut down the Democrats’ pick – a historic investment in clean energy – rivaling the Manhattan Project, and we will stick with their pick: dirty energy.
Susan Kraemer
CopyrightA prominent gay porn star has offered Justin Bieber a cool $2 million to shoot an X-rated scene with him.
Johnny Rapid, who shoots exclusively with the popular adult site Men.com, released a short video in which he makes the "incredible, insane" offer to Bieber.
"It'll be easy," Rapid says. "I'll do most of the work, [you] can come in for a few hours and then you're out of here with $2 million dollars. Hope to see you soon!"
No word from the Bieber camp just yet. At the time this story was first published, a spokesperson for the 20-year-old pop star and newly-minted Calvin Klein underwear model had yet to respond to The Huffington Post's request for comment.
Earlier this week, a member of a prominent gay Republican organization claimed that Bieber had accidentally crashed his group's Jan. 12 social gathering at West Hollywood's State Social House.
The pop star and his entourage were said to have been given a seat in the private area where the Los Angeles chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans were listening to a talk by Peggy Grande, who had served as former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's personal assistant.“This week I’d like to give a shout out to a person who changed skateboarding but never got the respect or much deserved credit from first rate mags like Transworld and Thrasher Magazine. Its takes a kick ass site like Jenkem to pay respects to people who’ve been overlooked. So with out further adieu… The person in mind in this weeks column is Dan Peterka.
He has single handedly changed skating and most people don’t even know it. With his innovated move, The Crooked Grind, he some how invented a trick that is so commonly copied, it’s up there with the ollie and the kickflip. Peterka took it even further with combination’s like half cab crook’s pop out, nollie crook’s pop out and nollie nose blunts slides. Peterka had such an impact on skating that not only have skaters come to love the Crooked Grind but top pro’s like Eric Koston have built their careers around this move. Unfortunately Eric gets the credit amongst youngsters cause, well you know…K grind, Koston Grind, but we know better. The inventor of the crooked grind deserves a second viewing. Watch his part and pay homage to style and innovation.” – Danny Gonzalez
Dan Peterka in “Next Generation” (1991):One cannot but note the "miraculous" nature of the events in Egypt: something has happened that few predicted, violating the experts' opinions, as if the uprising was not simply the result of social causes but the intervention of a mysterious agency that we can call, in a Platonic way, the eternal idea of freedom, justice and dignity.
The uprising was universal: it was immediately possible for all of us around the world to identify with it, to recognise what it was about, without any need for cultural analysis of the features of Egyptian society. In contrast to Iran's Khomeini revolution (where leftists had to smuggle their message into the predominantly Islamist frame), here the frame is clearly that of a universal secular call for freedom and justice, so that the Muslim Brotherhood had to adopt the language of secular demands.
The most sublime moment occurred when Muslims and Coptic Christians engaged in common prayer on Cairo's Tahrir Square, chanting "We are one!" – providing the best answer to the sectarian religious violence. Those neocons who criticise multiculturalism on behalf of the universal values of freedom and democracy are now confronting their moment of truth: you want universal freedom and democracy? This is what people demand in Egypt, so why are the neocons uneasy? Is it because the protesters in Egypt mention freedom and dignity in the same breath as social and economic justice?
From the start, the violence of the protesters has been purely symbolic, an act of radical and collective civil disobedience. They suspended the authority of the state – it was not just an inner liberation, but a social act of breaking chains of servitude. The physical violence was done by the hired Mubarak thugs entering Tahrir Square on horses and camels and beating people; the most protesters did was defend themselves.
Although combative, the message of the protesters has not been one of killing. The demand was for Mubarak to go, and thus open up the space for freedom in Egypt, a freedom from which no one is excluded – the protesters' call to the army, and even the hated police, was not "Death to you!", but "We are brothers! Join us!". This feature clearly distinguishes an emancipatory demonstration from a rightwing populist one: although the right's mobilisation proclaims the organic unity of the people, it is a unity sustained by a call to annihilate the designated enemy (Jews, traitors).
So where are we now? When an authoritarian regime approaches the final crisis, its dissolution tends to follow two steps. Before its actual collapse, a rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only that the regime loses its legitimacy; its exercise of power itself is perceived as an impotent panic reaction. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice but goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down …
In Shah of Shahs, a classic account of the Khomeini revolution, Ryszard Kapuscinski located the precise moment of this rupture: at a Tehran crossroads, a single demonstrator refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman withdrew; within hours, all Tehran knew about this incident, and although street fights went on for weeks, everyone somehow knew the game was over.
Is something similar going on in Egypt? For a couple of days at the beginning, it looked like Mubarak was already in the situation of the proverbial cat. Then we saw a well-planned operation to kidnap the revolution. The obscenity of this was breathtaking: the new vice-president, Omar Suleiman, a former secret police chief responsible for mass tortures, presented himself as the "human face" of the regime, the person to oversee the transition to democracy.
Egypt's struggle of endurance is not a conflict of visions, it is the conflict between a vision of freedom and a blind clinging to power that uses all means possible – terror, lack of food, simple tiredness, bribery with raised salaries – to squash the will to freedom.
When President Obama welcomed the uprising as a legitimate expression of opinion that needs to be acknowledged by the government, the confusion was total: the crowds in Cairo and Alexandria did not want their demands to be acknowledged by the government, they denied the very legitimacy of the government. They didn't want the Mubarak regime as a partner in a dialogue, they wanted Mubarak to go. They didn't simply want a new government that would listen to their opinion, they wanted to reshape the entire state. They don't have an opinion, they are the truth of the situation in Egypt. Mubarak understands this much better than Obama: there is no room for compromise here, as there was none when the Communist regimes were challenged in the late 1980s. Either the entire Mubarak power edifice falls down, or the uprising is co-opted and betrayed.
And what about the fear that, after the fall of Mubarak, the new government will be hostile towards Israel? If the new government is genuinely the expression of a people that proudly enjoys its freedom, then there is nothing to fear: antisemitism can only grow in conditions of despair and oppression. (A CNN report from an Egyptian province showed how the government is spreading rumours there that the organisers of the protests and foreign journalists were sent by the Jews to weaken Egypt – so much for Mubarak as a friend of the Jews.)
One of the cruellest ironies of the current situation is the west's concern that the transition should proceed in a "lawful" way – as if Egypt had the rule of law until now. Are we already forgetting that, for many long years, Egypt was in a permanent state of emergency? Mubarak suspended the rule of law, keeping the entire country in a state of political immobility, stifling genuine political life. It makes sense that so many people on the streets of Cairo claim that they now feel alive for the first time in their lives. Whatever happens next, what is crucial is that this sense of "feeling alive" is not buried by cynical realpolitik.
• Slavoj Žižek is co-editor of The Idea of Communism, published by Verso Books.Under the Radar Blog Archives Select Date… January, 2019 December, 2018 November, 2018 October, 2018 September, 2018 August, 2018 July, 2018 June, 2018 May, 2018 April, 2018 March, 2018 February, 2018
State secrets showdown looms
The Obama Administration and a federal judge in San Francisco appear to be headed for a showdown over the controversial state secrets privilege in a case about the U.S. government's 'no-fly' list for air travel.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup is also bucking the federal government's longstanding assertion that only the executive branch can authorize access to classified information.
The disputes arose in a lawsuit Malaysian citizen and former Stanford student Rahinah Ibrahim filed seven years ago after she was denied travel and briefly detained at the San Francisco airport in 2005, apparently due to being on the no-fly list.
(Also on POLITICO: Terror suspect: 5 legal questions)
In an order issued earlier this month and made public Friday, Alsup instructed lawyers for the government to "show cause" why at least nine documents it labeled as classified should not be turned over to Ibrahim's lawyers. Alsup said he'd examined the documents and concluded that portions of some of them and the entirety of others could be shown to Ibrahim's attorneys without implicating national security.
"After a careful review of the classified materials by the Court, this order concludes that a few documents could potentially be produced with little or no modifications to them," Alsup wrote in an April 2 order (posted here). "This order independently determines that in addition to correspondence between the parties, the two internal training documents are eligible for production to plaintiff’s counsel without implicating national security."
If the judge persists in his ruling, it would be highly unusual since most judges are loath to override the executive branch's conclusions that certain information needs to be classified on national security grounds. It has happened on a few occasions (see here, here, and here), but such decisions are very rare.
(Also on POLITICO: Boston lockdown: The new normal?)
In a separate order Friday (posted here), Alsup ordered the disclosure of about 60 other unclassified documents to Ibrahim's lawyers, largely rejecting the government's arguments that the records were protected from disclosure by a statute or covered by legal privileges that apply to government decisionmaking and to information about sensitive law-enforcement techniques.
"There is some risk that disclosure of these documents would hinder frank and ongoing discussion regarding contemplated visa decisions. Nevertheless, these documents are highly relevant to plaintiff’s claims and are not available from any other source," Alsup wrote. "The other factors that outweigh the government’s assertion of the [eliberative process privilege] likewise play a substantial role here. Plaintiff has properly pled constitutional claims challenging alleged government misconduct. This creates a strong interest in accurate fact-finding for plaintiff and for society, and a strong interest in the enforcement of the constitutional protections asserted in plaintiff’s complaint."
Alsup said most of the records from around the time when Ibrahim was denied air travel in 2005 were "stale" and therefore unlikely to disclose current law enforcement techniques. He did allow the government to withhold a few documents that pertain to "terrorist screening and watchlist procedures" from 2009 to now. "Because of their more recent vintage, they present a greater risk of harmful disclosure, and the government’s interests are magnified," he wrote
Alsup also said the government was deeming some correspondence between Ibrahim and the government classified, which he said could not be the case.
Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have filed declarations in the case, apparently in a bid to support the state secrets claims. Those and other supporting filings are off limits to the public, but at a hearing on Thursday Alsup ordered the Holder and Clapper declarations turned over to Ibrahim's lawyers, according to the court's docket.
Lawyers for the government asked that Thursday's hearing be closed, but Alsup denied that request, the docket indicates.
During the 2008 campaign, President Barack Obama and supporters like Holder decried President George W. Bush's Administration's use of the state secrets privilege to defeat lawsuits over national-security related issues. After taking office, Holder instituted a process that he said would limit use of the privilege, but the Obama administration has continued to deployed it to block litigation over the so-called warrantless wiretapping program, renditions of terrorism suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency and other matters.
The Justice Department's handling of the state secrets privilege in Ibrahim's case could be seen as a product of the reforms Holder announced. Government lawyers have not asked that the case be dismissed outright on those grounds, but have instead asked that certain evidence they deem to be state secrets be kept from her attorneys. The impact, if any, of Holder's order is a bit hard to ascertain since the lawsuit was in litigation for three years under Bush.
Alsup, a Clinton appointee, is riding the government pretty hard in recent rulings. However, it's hard to argue that he's exhibiting an anti-government bias. He twice dismissed Ibrahim's claims against federal agencies, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed his decisions. Now, Alsup seems determined to move the case forward. A trial is currently scheduled for November.
Follow @politicoElectronics Arts thinks it can bring Battlefield's military gunplay home. It's not that easy.
Battlefield Hardline moves the Battlefield series from international battlegrounds to a realistic domestic setting: As tricked out police, the player in Hardline uses heavy weaponry, armor and vehicles to kill criminals in Los Angeles. Despite the move, the series' fetishization of military weaponry, gear and lethal combat remains.
Cops and soldiers are not the same thing. They serve different purposes. Soldiers often serve in war zones, in direct conflict with our nation's enemies. The police serve in our cities, protecting and policing our nation's civilians.
And so Hardline is an uncomfortable role play within a role play: the player pretending to be a cop pretending to be a soldier.
At war at home
You used to be able to tell the difference between a cop and a soldier by how they looked. Soldiers had fancy gear, camouflage and heavy weaponry. Cops had a badge with their name and officer number. Times have changed, and now cops at a peaceful protest can look like the soldiers saving Gotham from a nuclear weapon.
The creators of Battlefield Hardline, while researching the militarization of the nation's police force, understandably began to view the devices used by Americans against Americans as novel and fun. After all, they look identical to those being used in their previous games against fictional terrorists.
Cops and soldiers are not the same thing
Polygon spoke with Hardline's Executive Producer and Vice President of Visceral Games Steve Papoutsis at E3. EA did not provide a response to recent follow-up questions about Papoutsis' answers.
"We did some research on the [internet]," Papoutsis said, "and we found out law enforcement have a lot of cool, kick ass stuff. These heavily armored BearCat-like attack trucks. They've got cool motorcycles. And they've got helicopters. They even have police planes. They have all this cool stuff depending on where you're at in the country. So they have some pretty awesome gear. And then like SWAT guys. Come on, who doesn't like all the stuff SWAT guys load up in? They look pretty sweet."
Everything you liked about Battlefield, the weapons of war, are now available in the United States. That's the terrifying subtext of Papoutsis' quote. They did the research. And like Papoutsis said, "[The police] have all this cool stuff."
In fact Los Angeles county law enforcement agencies have received three grenade launchers, 15 helicopters, three mine-resistant vehicles, four "other" armored vehicles, one plane, and thousands of assault rifles, pieces of body armor, and night vision gear. If anything the game is realistic; the latest battleground is domestic.
But glamorizing this militarization of the police force, creating a game in which police are allowed to kill people as often as they arrest them, is problematic, to say the least. The goal of the police is to protect liberty and property under due process. It's to protect people and the lives they built. It's to prevent harm, ease tension and — this should be obvious — avoid the act of killing. Even the police who face the most dangerous situations in the country don't have a higher number of kills than arrests. Nor do they track their kill count.
While Battlefield Hardline includes a a number of non-lethal options, they are not the point, as displayed by the hours of footage from the beta, in which the cops' weapons and vehicles are used to annihilate criminals. In the Gamescom single-player demo, non-lethal weapons are used to emphasize the game's stealth sequences, at least until shit hits the fan, and at least a dozen criminals are shot in the head.
The justification here is that the cop was forced to murder criminals, to guard his life, but that ignores the fact that the scenario is pre-determined, that Visceral created a scenario in which the cop has to kill so many people. Even if the plot of the game is about killing a bunch of racists, which it appears to be from the demo, that doesn't justify a game in which a cops best tool is lethal force.
THE THRUST OF THE GAME
At E3, Polygon asked Papoutsis about the game's announcement happening at almost the same time as a police chase in downtown Los Angeles, a short distance from the convention center.
"Those events are unfortunate, " said Papoutsis. "As an industry, video games are often held up as you can't do that …But we're an entertainment business, we're making entertainment. If you think about what you see on TV and film, they approach different themes and settings. That's part of the experience people are creating."
The trouble is games aren't like television or film. Just for the sake of the comparison, let's compare raw numbers for television, film and games. The number of people killed on screen in a televisions episode or movie might be in the single digits, the double digits if the work is extreme. In a shooter, the number of people killed will be in the triple, if not quadruple digits. John McClane is one of the deadliest cops on film. In the original Die Hard trilogy he kills 43 terrorists.
Film, television and games are simply different mediums with very different purposes and effect. The thrust of a movie is its story; the thrust of a game — specifically a shooter — is its action.
And the action in Hardline, the thrust of this game, is killing people as a cop. On the flip side is a multiplayer mode in which you have the option to play as a criminal and shoot cops. So in Battlefield Hardline you're either a lethal cop or you're an abject monster.
A cop game can't hide under the already prejudiced notion of previous Battlefield games: that the enemy is an international terrorists motivated by pure evil. No, the villains in a cop game are American citizens with American rights. And the heroes are enforces of the law and protectors of our rights.
We're becoming so accustomed to the image of the police as domestic soldier that we're selling the fantasy to ourselves as entertainment: That cops can behave like soldiers and treat citizens like terrorists.
The gentleman on the left has more personal body armor and weaponry than I did while invading Iraq. pic.twitter.com/5u6TxyIbkk — Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) August 14, 2014
We asked Papoutsis about the cops and their Los Angeles setting at E3, too.
"I think with Battlefield in general, it's intended to be realistic … what we try to consider is what areas could potentially relate for people, what's familiar to them, and what would be a fun place to play a game … I think its important to understand it's a video game," he said.
The police invading and occupying American cities with armored vehicles is certainly becoming familiar. Is anyone thinking that would be a fun place to play a game? The answer may be, for many people, yes. And again, that's the problem. That this is appetizing to any American citizen, let alone the thousands who've already pre-ordered the game, is proof of our cultural myopia. We've been conditioned to think lethal, super cops are the norm. That they're an aspirational fantasy.
Cops, the ones that don't parade down streets in tanks, aren't bad. Cops, when they serve their true purpose, protect our nation. Cops are supposed to be heroes. The trouble is when our culture — games, but also music, television, film and even the news — perpetuates an image in which the police enforce the law, but live above it. Real cops are heroes. The cop caricatures in a first-person shooter are not.
This is a developer having it both ways: The game is real. But it's fiction. Take the story seriously. Just not too seriously. We're all about the authenticity and respect of our police force. But also having a kick ass awesome time.
Worse, these statements are hollow. Fiction can and often does support negative stereotypes, promote toxic viewpoints and make political statements — even when it doesn't intend to. A game about cops killing people, even criminals, is inherently political and loaded. It's not "just" fiction. It's the fantasy of the death of due process.
Law enforcement as violent occupying force
Both the fiction and the press speak are convoluted and disingenuous: In Battlefield Hardline, you play as someone meant to protect people, who spends much of his time killing people. It furthers and empowers an image of cops as bad asses who choose who gets a trial and who gets a funeral. The image of the friendly neighborhood police man in pop culture is being replaced by the faceless, heavily-armed paramilitary force shooting tear gas into crowds.
"We're not making fun of those things you mentioned," said Papoutsis, in reference to the real world police chase in downtown Los Angeles. "It's unfortunate. I think there are a lot of people that put their lives on the line whether they're soldiers or law enforcement to protect us, and I appreciate them and respect them for doing that. But on our side, we're trying to create entertainment and fun for people so they don't feel compelled to do those things in real life."
The problem is cops shooting people because of a culture
The problem isn't civilians shooting people because of a video game. The problem is cops shooting people because of a culture. The problem is media — with games at its center — fetishizes that violence, machismo and "pretty awesome gear" of our law enforcement.
And because of that, cops have militarized with minimal resistance. And because of that, Visceral and Electronic Arts are making a mainstream, multi-million dollar game in which a cop who kills hundreds of people is the fucking hero.
Big-budget shooters celebrate the ugliest parts of our culture, and at the center of these shooters is Battlefield Hardline.ES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account
A French waitress was allegedly assaulted by two Muslim men for serving alcohol during Ramadan.
The woman, a practising Muslim of Tunisian origin, was working on the terrace of the Vitis Café in Nice when she was reportedly insulted by two passers-by on Wednesday.
The men are said to have started to abuse her when they saw she was serving alcohol to customers, The Times reported.
She said one of the men screamed she was a “whore” and slapped her across the face, leaving her with a black eye after she was knocked to the ground.
The incident has been seized upon by the far-right as proof of the spread of radical Islam despite attempts to impose secular principles that underpin the French state.
Police said they had identified the men using CCTV but had yet to locate them.
The waitress, who did not give her name for fear of reprisals, said: “One of them said to me in Arabic: 'You should be ashamed of yourself for serving alcohol during Ramadan if I was God I would hang you'”.
She replied: “You're not God and you cannot judge me."
The woman added she felt “degraded, humiliated and sullied” following the incident and noted she had previously served alcohol in Tunisia without any issue.
She said: “I didn't think that in France, the country of liberty, you could be attacked for that.”
Earlier this week it was reported that Vimto sales were set for a huge spike during Ramadan as Muslims make it a drink of choice thanks during the holy month.
Find out everything you need to know about the Islamic holy month.The new deal envisages nearly C$30 million (£16.3 million) being spent on a major revamp of the track and paddock infrastructure at the ageing Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, considered one of the championship's most out-dated.
Montreal mayor Denis Coderre told reporters ahead of qualifying at the island track that the agreement, yet to be signed off by municipal, federal and provincial authorities, was a formality.
"If we had the authority to announce the agreement it is because we have the full support of our people," he said. "Regarding Mr. Ecclestone and ourselves, everything is OK.
"Because it is taxpayers' money we have to go through the political process but for us it is a formality."
Three levels of government will invest $187 million over the next 10 years to keep the race in Montreal with the Government of Canada and Tourism Montreal each throwing in $62.4 million, Quebec $49.9 million and Montreal $12.4 million.
The City of Montreal will also pay for the renovations.
The Canadian Grand Prix has been held in Montreal since 1978 and become one of the most popular events on the F1 calendar for fans, drivers and teams.
It is also one of the most successful sporting events in Canada, pouring an estimated $70 million annually into the local economy.
"You can feel the passion all over the place. It is not just a business deal. This is the place of Gilles Villeneuve, Jacques Villeneuve. It is part of our DNA and everybody feels that," said Coderre.
"We're not talking about expense, we are talking about investment. We are seeing that it is a window to the world."
Sunday's race is the last on the current contract and the new deal ends months of tense negotiations and speculation.
"I am delighted with the agreement reached between the commercial rights holder, Formula One World Championship Limited and the governments of Canada and Quebec and the City of Montreal and Tourism Montreal," said promoter Francois Dumontier.Ian Rankin on a new investigation by his much-loved detective John Rebus; a review of the TV dramatisation of the Bible; recording engineer Ken Scott on working with the Beatles.
With John Wilson.
Ian Rankin talks to John about the latest investigation by his much-loved detective, John Rebus - who has returned to the Edinburgh CID, but at a lower rank. The story is set amidst the current reform to the structure of the Scottish police - and Rebus finds himself in the middle of a culture clash between his fellow old-hands, and younger officers who use social media and what Rebus calls "touchy-feely policing methods".
The Bible is an epic, 10 hour mini-series that dramatises the Old and New Testaments - from Genesis to Revelation. Each episode is action-packed: the first one, for example, includes Eden, Noah, Abraham and Isaac, and Moses parting the Red Sea. Natalie Haynes considers whether the series has mass-appeal, or is strictly for viewers interested in religion.
The Beatles, David Bowie and Pink Floyd have all had their music mixed in the studio by legendary producer and engineer Ken Scott. He discusses working in Abbey Road, why The Beatles' White Album proved to be pivotal in his career, and the techniques he developed to create a distinctive sound.
Stephen Shore is a pioneer of contemporary photography; after developing his style at Andy Warhol's Factory in the 1960s, he was the first living artist to have a solo exhibition of colour photography at the Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York. Shore continues to focus on the |
of Dr Farid, Hajji Farid and Uncle Farid. Uncle Farid is an Israeli-Greek dual national in his fifties. He is usually accompanied by two strong-built men in a black Jeep Cherokee. Once inside Turkey, IS oil is indistinguishable from oil sold by the Kurdistan Regional Government, as both are sold as "illegal", "source unknown" or "unlicensed" oil. The companies that buy the KRG oil also buy IS-smuggled oil, according to the colonel.
Now obviously that's a remarkable degree of detail, but regardless of whether you believe in "Uncle Farid" and his black Jeep Cherokee, the main point is that there are smuggling routes into Turkey and once the oil is across the border, it might as well be Kurdish crude because after all, it's all "illegal", "unlicensed" product anyway, just as we said above.
Next, Al-Araby al-Jadeed says a handful of oil companies (which they decline to identify) ship the oil from the Turkish ports of Mersin, Dortyol and Ceyhan to Israel.
Here's the alleged route:
While the graphic shows the crude going directly from Ceyhan to Ashdod, it's worth asking whether ISIS crude is also "laundered" (as it were) through the same Malta connection utilized by those smuggling "illegal" Kurdish crude (which also ends up in Israel). We ask that because as it turns out, Bilal Erdogan owns a Maltese shipping company. "The BMZ Group, a company owned by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's son Bilal alongside other family members, has purchased two tankers in the last two months at a total cost of $36 million," Today's Zaman reported in September. "The tankers, which will be registered to the Oil Transportation & Shipping company in October -- an affiliate of the BMZ Group set up in Malta -- were previously rented to the Palmali Denizcilik company for 10 years."
Here's a look at recent port data from Ceyhan and Ashdod via Fleetmon.com (Malta-flagged oil vessels are highlighted).
Ceyhan
Ashdod
To be sure, all of this is circumstantial and there's all kinds of ambiguity here, but it seems entirely possible that Erdogan is knowingly trafficking in ISIS crude given what we know about Ankara's dealings with illegal Kurdish oil. Consider this from al-Monitor:
Details of the energy deals struck between Turkey and the KRG remain sketchy amid claims that Erdogan and his close circle are financially benefiting from them. According to Tolga Tanis, the Washington correspondent for the mass circulation daily Hurriyet who investigated the claims, Powertrans, the company that was granted an exclusive license to carry and trade Kurdish oil by Erdogan’s Cabinet in 2011, is run by his son-in-law Berat Albayrak. It didn’t take long for the notoriously litigious Erdogan to file defamation charges against Tanis. Several Iraqi Kurdish officials who refused to be identified by name confirmed that Ahmet Calik, a businessman with close ties to Erdogan, had been granted the tender to carry Kurdish oil via overland by trucks to Turkey.
In other words, Erdogan is already moving illicit crude from the KRG (with whom Ankara is friendly by the way, despite the fact that they are Kurds) via a son-in-law and in large quantities. What's to say he isn't moving ISIS crude via the same networks through his son Bilal? Or perhaps through his other son Burak who Today's Zaman reminds us "also owns a fleet of ships [and] was featured in a report by the Sözcü daily in 2014 [when his] vessel Safran 1 was anchored in Israel's port of Ashdod." Here's a picture circulated on social media that purports to show Bilal Erdogan with ISIS commanders (because we do try at all times to be unbiased, we should also note that the men shown below could just be three regular guys with beards with no connection to any black flag-waving desert bandits):
Recep Tayip Erdogan's son "BILAL ERDOGAN" with his ISIS brothers #StopTurkeySuppportOfISIS pic.twitter.com/5IBfXeFo9w — Dilxaz Sofiyan (@Dilxazsofi) September 20, 2014
Russian media claims the men are "ISIS leaders who it is [thought] participated in massacres in Syria’s Homs and Rojava, the Kurdish name for Syrian Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan."
One person who definitely thinks the Erdogans are trafficking in ISIS oil is Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi who said the following on Friday:
“All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip] Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. This really got on Erdogan and his company’s nerves. They’re importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artefacts as well."
And then there's Iraq's former National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie who posted the following to his Facebook page on Saturday:
“First and foremost, the Turks help the militants sell stolen Iraqi and Syrian oil for $20 a barrel, which is half the market price."
Meanwhile, the US is preparing for an all-out ISIS oil propaganda war. As WSJ reported on Wednesday, "the Treasury [has] accused a Syrian-born businessman, George Haswani, who his a dual Syrian-Russian citizen, of using his firm, HESCO Engineering and Construction Co., for facilitating oil trades between the Assad regime and Islamic State." Why Assad would buy oil from a group that uses the cash at its disposal to wage war against Damascus is an open question especially when one considers that Assad's closest allies (Russia and Iran) are major oil producers. Of course between all the shady middlemen and double dealing, there's really no telling.
Ultimately we'll probably never know the whole story, but what we do know (and again, most of the evidence is either circumstantial, anecdotal, of largely qualitative) seems to suggest that in addition to providing guns and money to the FSA and al-Nusra, Turkey may well be responsible for facilitating Islamic State's $400+ million per year oil enterprise. And as for end customers, consider the following bit from Al-Araby al-Jadeed:
According to a European official at an international oil company who met with al-Araby in a Gulf capital, Israel refines the oil only "once or twice" because it does not have advanced refineries. It exports the oil to Mediterranean countries - where the oil "gains a semi-legitimate status" - for $30 to $35 a barrel. "The oil is sold within a day or two to a number of private companies, while the majority goes to an Italian refinery owned by one of the largest shareholders in an Italian football club [name removed] where the oil is refined and used locally," added the European oil official. "Israel has in one way or another become the main marketer of IS oil. Without them, most IS-produced oil would have remained going between Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Even the three companies would not receive the oil if they did not have a buyer in Israel," said the industry official.
Finally, you'll note that this is all an effort to answer what we called "the most important question about ISIS that no one is asking" - namely, "who are the middlemen?" As we noted more than a week ago, "we do know who they may be: the same names that were quite prominent in the market in September when Glencore had its first, and certainly not last, near death experience: the Glencores, the Vitols, the Trafiguras, the Nobels, the Mercurias of the world." Consider that, and consider what Reuters says about the trade in illicit KRG oil: "Market sources have said several trading houses including Trafigura and Vitol have dealt with Kurdish oil. Both Trafigura and Vitol declined to comment on their role in oil sales."
Similarly, FT notes that "both Vitol and Trafigura had paid the KRG in advance for the oil, under so-called 'pre-pay' deals, helping Erbil to bridge its budget gaps."
Indeed, when Kurdistan went looking for an advisor to assist in the effort to circumvent Baghdad, the KRG chose "Murtaza Lakhani, who worked for Glencore in Iraq in the 2000s, to assist finding ships."
"He knew exactly who would and who wouldn't deal with us. He opened the doors to us and identified willing shipping companies to work with us," Ashti Hawrami (quoted above) said.
Indeed. And given everything said above about the commingling of illegal KRG crude and illicit ISIS oil shipments, it's probably a foregone conclusion that these same firms are assisting in transport arrangements for Islamic State.KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A U.S. seabed exploration firm has offered to take on the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, families of passengers and a Malaysian government minister said on Wednesday, in a bid to solve one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.
FILE PHOTO: A woman leaves a message of support and hope for the passengers of the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 in central Kuala Lumpur March 16, 2014. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj/File photo
The Boeing 777 disappeared in 2014 en route to Beijing from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur with 239 people aboard. Analysis of radar and satellite contacts suggested someone on board may have deliberately switched off the plane’s transponder before diverting it thousands of kilometers out over the Indian Ocean.
Australia, Malaysia and China called off a A$200 million ($159.16 million), two-year search for the plane in January, amid protests from families of those onboard.
Grace Nathan, a Malaysian lawyer whose mother Anne Daisy was on the plane, told Reuters the U.S. company, Ocean Infinity, had offered to resume the search for free, and had asked for a reward only in the event that the aircraft was found.
Deputy Malaysian Transport Minister Aziz Kaprawi confirmed in a text message to Reuters that authorities had received the offer, but said no decision had been made on whether it would be accepted.
A spokesman for Ocean Infinity declined to comment. The company, on its website, said it had the world’s most advanced fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles for use in seabed mapping, survey and search.
Last year, Australia and Malaysia rejected investigators’ recommendations to extend the hunt by 25,000 sq km (9,653 square miles) north of the original search area in the southern Indian ocean, saying the new location identified was too imprecise.
But Voice370, a support group for MH370 passengers’ next-of-kin, said that Australian researchers had recently narrowed the likely search field to less than 25,000 sq km after extensive modeling and review.
The families, which launched a campaign to privately fund their own search in March, said they had suspended their plans, hoping that governments involved “would respond favorably and expeditiously” to Ocean Infinity’s offer.
“In light of the narrowed search area and free of cost willing search party, the lack of communications from governments involved is very distressing for family members whose agony festers,” Voice370 said in a statement on Tuesday.
Since the plane went missing, there have been competing theories over whether it was hijacked and whether it was under the control of anyone when it finally ran out of fuel.If Police Officials Won't Hold Officers Accountable, More Cameras Will Never Mean More Recordings
from the more-$$$-spent,-but-nothing-changes dept
Cameras have been referred to as "unblinking eyes." When operated by law enforcement, however, they're eyes that never open.
Dash cams were supposed to provide better documentation of traffic stops and other interactions. So were lapel microphones, which gave the images a soundtrack. Officers who weren't interested in having stops documented switched off cameras, "forgot" to turn them back on, or flat out sabotaged the equipment.
Body cameras were the next step in documentation, ensuring that footage wasn't limited solely to what was in front of a police cruiser. Cautiously heralded as a step forward in accountability, body cameras have proven to be just as "unreliable" as dash cams. While some footage is being obtained that previously wouldn't have been available, the fact that officers still control the on/off switch means footage routinely goes missing during controversial interactions with the public.
The on/off switch problem could be tempered with strict disciplinary policies for officers who fail to record critical footage. Or any disciplinary procedures, actually.
Chicago, Dallas, Denver, New Orleans, New York, Oakland and San Diego are among the cities that don't specify penalties when officers fail to record, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law.
Body cameras aren't just for big cities anymore, which means countless smaller towns are just as lax when it comes to ensuring body cameras are rolling during stops and arrests.
Samuel Walker, a retired criminal justice professor, notes the problem isn't just limited to body cameras. It's any camera an officer controls.
[Walker] pointed to a study that showed across-the-board low compliance rates of officers in one high-crime Phoenix neighborhood between April 2013 and May 2014, the most recent information available. Officers only recorded 6.5 percent of traffic stops even though the department's policy required cameras to be activated "as soon as it is safe and practical," according to the study, conducted by Arizona State University's Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety.
With body cameras, the default mode of operations for police officers was supposed to be "always on," with a few exceptions for privacy concerns. Instead, the default mode appears to be "only when an officer feels like it."
The Alameda County Sheriff's Department changed its body-camera policy following a highly publicized incident last November where two deputies were caught on surveillance video using their batons to beat a car theft suspect in the middle of a street in San Francisco's Mission District. Eleven officers in all responded and 10 failed to turn on their body cameras. The one who did activate his did so by accident.
The problem is endemic. Law enforcement agencies have long felt no one should need more evidence than an officer's word and, for far longer than that, have felt that deployments of force shouldn't be second-guessed by outsiders. Recorded footage far too often runs counter to police reports and official narratives. The problem that needs to be fixed, apparently, is the recording devices.
During a six-month trial run for body cameras in the Denver Police Department, only about one out of every four use-of-force incidents involving officers was recorded. Cases where officers punched people, used pepper spray or Tasers, or struck people with batons were not recorded because officers failed to turn on cameras, technical malfunctions occurred or because the cameras were not distributed to enough people, according to a report released Tuesday by Denver’s independent monitor Nick Mitchell.
What happens when disciplinary procedures are in place for failing to activate cameras? For one, compliance with camera policies goes way up.
According to data from the Oakland Police Department, of the 504 use of force incidents last year, 24 were not captured on camera. That puts the department a 95 percent success rate of recording use of force incidents.
The other thing that happens is better quality policing.
The Oakland Police Department has seen a 66 percent decrease in use of force incidents since the department started issuing body cameras to all of its officers in 2011.
Agencies that aren't willing to hold officers accountable aren't just (often literally) hurting the public they serve. They're also hurting themselves. They may not care what the public thinks when spokespeople deliver the news that all nine dash cams coincidentally malfunctioned during the beating of an arrestee, but they've also got legislators to answer to -- many of whom are tiring of dumping public funds into lawsuit settlement sinkholes.
Filed Under: accountability, bodycams, police, recordingsPlease enable Javascript to watch this video
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- The U.S. health care debate has produced no results despite months of debate, and the existing law has a number of parts that need addressing, so Huntsville Hospital CEO David Spillers has a suggestion.
“I would like to see the politics removed from this, and a bipartisan plan come together,” Spillers told WHNT News 19.
He says there’s already an existing model, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, BRAC, which figures out which military bases to close and where to move commands and personnel.
“I tend to believe and independent commission of Republicans, Democrats and other people who understand health care should get together and create a health care plan that Congress either votes up or down on, the same way we did BRAC,” he said. “BRAC worked really well because we took the politics out of it. It was a bipartisan decision.”
The passage of the Affordable Care Act by Democrats and the long-running repeal effort by Republicans has left little consensus for the two political parties. But Spillers says it’s clear a one-sided approach won’t work.
“I think there were numerous flaws in the previous health care reform bill,” Spillers said. “I think there were a lot of flaws in the Republican plan. I think the plan that ultimately works for this country, all of us are going to look at it and go, ‘Um, that’s going to be tough, that’s going to hurt a little bit.’”
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Spillers says Americans have decided that we’re not going to leave people to die in the street or suffer needlessly, so the next step is to work out a system to provide health care for everybody.
With that in mind, he said he favors a single-payer model. The basic idea is that it’s like Medicare – which covers Americans 65 and older – for everybody.
The government would be the insurer. People would pay their premiums, likely through a payroll deduction, and the government would set reimbursement rates for doctors and hospitals and negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.
“I’m a fiscal conservative who believes a single-payer system would probably be a lot more efficient and beneficial to this country than the system that we have in place today,” Spillers said.
For many Americans, the idea of government-run health care is non-starter. But Spillers argues 70 percent of medical costs are paid by the federal or state governments, so the U.S. is already most of the way there.
“I do presentations in the community a lot, we’re a very conservative community here, most times I’ll say, ‘What y’all think about a single-payer system,’ nobody, very few people will raise their hands,” he said. “Well, I ask people, ‘How many of you of you are on Medicare?’ Bunch of hands go in the air.
“‘How many of you like Medicare?’ Bunch of hands go in the air. Medicare is a single-payer system for people over 65. Most people on Medicare like it.”
Spillers is not in favor of a closed health system, like the Veterans Administration – which he said many people assume is the model of a single-payer system – but rather an open system, which is competitive.
“You’re seeing independent hospitals, independent physicians, etc., etc., we’re all competing for your business on cost and quality and service and all those types of things,” he said. “There’s still a market. The difference is, rather than having hundreds of different insurance companies, with hundreds of different plans, there’s one insurance company negotiating everything.”In 2013, the case for Rand Paul’s presidential bid went something like this: His father, Ron, was able to create a grassroots movement by appealing to people—many of them young—who thought the government was too involved in their lives and too eager to wage war at the expense of American futures and dollars. But Ron Paul, folksy little thing that he was, was the wrong guy to deliver the message. Rand Paul, younger and slicker, could carry on his dad’s legacy while also drawing in people who might have backed away slowly if Ron tried to talk to them about the Gold Standard.
It was the perfect time, it seemed, for an antiwar message to stick. Americans whose whole lives had been spent with the country at war would be voting in 2016, and polls indicated that when Ron and Rand voiced skepticism about military intervention, they were speaking for a majority. A New York Times/CBS News poll from June 2013 found that six in 10 people did not want the U.S. to take a lead role in solving conflicts in the Middle East.
But two years later, the world has changed. And what Paul is offering voters provides little comfort to Americans who are scared.
The polls conducted in the wake of the Paris terror attacks (Reuters/Ipsos, Bloomberg, NBC News/SurveyMonkey, ABC News/Washington Post) indicate two things: The public, in general, is ambivalent about putting boots on the ground to destroy ISIS, but Republicans support it overwhelmingly.
So what does that mean for a Republican presidential candidate whose identity as a politician is about, in large part, trying to avoid deploying soldiers at all costs?
For Paul, it could mean being condemned to obscurity where he now resides—polling at just 2.5 percent—indefinitely.
Paul was campaigning against endless wars before he was ever a candidate. On Jan. 26, 2008, he was on stage in Montana, dressed in a tan blazer and black turtleneck, speaking on behalf of Ron, who was then running for president.
He told the audience to go home and look up a “great YouTube clip” of Dick Cheney in 1995, explaining why the U.S. didn’t intervene in Baghdad under George H.W. Bush. “His arguments are exactly mirroring my dad’s arguments for why we shouldn’t have gone in this time: It would be chaos, there’d be a civil war, there’d be no exit strategy, it’d cost a blue, bloody fortune in both lives and treasure,” Paul said. “And this is Dick Cheney saying this!”
What changed, Paul said, was that Cheney made “a couple hundred million dollars” working for Halliburton, the oil company. When he was back in the White House under George W. Bush, Paul claimed, suddenly war in Iraq seemed like a profitable venture.
Paul used the anecdote to make the case that sometimes wars were fought for the gain of Big Business and at the expense of the American people.
Entering the Senate and mulling a presidential campaign didn’t seem, at first, to change Paul much. Even with the rise of the so-called Islamic State, four years after Rand’s election, he was still worried about an overreaction with permanent consequences.
Just after a video of journalist James Foley’s beheading was released by ISIS in August 2014, I asked Paul if he was concerned that the threat ISIS posed to the United States was being overstated.
“I think that emotions do run high,” he said. “And I admit, frankly, that I’m like anyone else—susceptible, to a certain degree, to the emotions of seeing Americans beheaded.”
He said he didn’t watch the video, but he was aware of it, and aware that ISIS needed to be taken seriously. “I think they are potentially a threat,” he said. “I think it’s a weighing of the facts at any particular time, whether or not someone’s a threat to the United States.”
But he seemed worried, too, about politics. Paul started to make compromises that felt designed to make him more electable to non-libertarians. The assumption was that he would retain his dad’s supporters while bringing new ones into the fold.
First, he announced he would support bombing ISIS in Iraq and Syria, then he rebranded himself as a “conservative realist” modeled after George H.W. Bush, and finally, he signed the Iran Letter despite claiming to favor negotiations with the country, and ultimately came out against the Iran Deal itself (Ron Paul supported it).
The strategy proved politically stupid. Libertarians were unhappy that Paul had, as the libertarian Cato Institute’s David Boaz put it, “rounded off the libertarian edges,” and more establishment conservatives still didn’t take Paul seriously as someone they could support—certainly not as terrorism was fast becoming more important an issue than the economy.
Justin Raimondo, the co-founder of Antiwar.com, has gone from loving Rand Paul to hating him to thinking he’s not so bad again. “Rand wanted to be the insider,” he said. “He was auditioning for that part and he didn’t get the role.”
As Raimondo sees it, Paul’s fatal mistake was that “early on, he muddied the picture” by backing away from the identity that got him elected. “He tried to strike this middle ground,” he said. “This is not a campaign of middle grounds. They want either/or, black or white—for good or bad.”
As heightened concerns about ISIS have taken center stage since the Paris attacks, Paul has stood by his assertion that the U.S. shouldn’t send troops overseas to fight, but he has also deflected from that position by introducing what Politico called a “dead-on-arrival bill” to deny visas to anyone from a country with a “jihadist movement.”
Boaz said that, as a libertarian, “personally I think he’s being too harsh on the refugee issue,” but “one of the reasons he wants to be seen talking tough about the refugee crisis is because it makes it harder to paint him as a pacifist or isolationist or unconcerned about what happened [in Paris].”
But for hawkish Republicans, no tough talk will ever be enough to distance Paul from charges of isolationism—the label Paul’s been (unfairly, in his view) branded with for years, most recently by Marco Rubio during the last debate. And nothing Paul says to make the case that the U.S. should be cautious about deploying troops is likely to convince those who aren’t already inclined to such a worldview. “The best time to listen carefully to non-interventionists is when you’re about to rush into war in a panic,” Boaz said. “Unfortunately, it’s the least likely time to do so.
In New York City last week, as he slurped tomato soup, Lindsey Graham—a proud neocon and one of the only candidates polling behind Paul, at 0.8 percent—conflated his foreign policy with Obama’s (“In many ways he’s less robust than Obama”) and blamed the two for the rise of ISIS (“The Ron Paul approach, Rand Paul approach—‘leave the world alone, fortress America’—is the worst possible approach.”)
Paul has often said that toppling “secular dictators” like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi has contributed to the chaos in the Middle East. Graham scoffed at the idea.
“The bottom line is the Arab Spring is real,” Graham said. “Young people in the region, starting in Tunisia, are not gonna live in dictatorships for Rand Paul’s convenience. He yearns for the days of Saddam and Gaddafi. Would he raise his kids in those spaces? Young people—and he’s supposed to be a champion of freedom and liberty—well, freedom and liberty is just not a Western concept. It’s just not for us. So young people are not gonna live in Gaddafi’s Libya, Saddam’s Iraq, and Mubarak’s Egypt.” (Paul’s campaign declined to respond to Graham’s statements).
Not that Graham’s worldview is helping his campaign much either, but that fact seems owed more to his overall weaknesses as a candidate than anything else.
Donald Trump—whose response to the Paris terror attacks has included claiming he witnessed New Jersey Muslims cheering on Sept. 11, 2001—is the only candidate to have received a bump in the polls as the focus of the primary has shifted to national security, suggesting that either voters don’t care about candidates having specific plans to combat terror, or nativist shouting is comforting in times of heightened distress.
But it’s worth noting that Trump’s narrative about the Middle East is much more appealing to Republican primary voters than Paul’s.
Trump proudly declares he was against invading Iraq—making it harder for Paul to stand out for saying the same thing—but he’s also eager to point out that Obama made a mistake by pulling troops out too soon. His position is basically: We shouldn’t have gone in at all, but since we did go in, we shouldn’t have left when we did.
Whether or not that makes any sense is beside the point. What matters is that Trump can loudly criticize Obama’s foreign policy. Paul, on the other hand, has taken a different approach—the approach of his 2008 speech.
When Cheney criticized Obama for how he handled Iraq, in 2014, Paul responded by saying the questions Cheney raised about the president “could be asked of those who supported the Iraq war.”
“You know, were they right in their predictions? Were there weapons of mass destruction there? That’s what the war was sold on. Was democracy easily achievable? Was the war won in 2005, when many of these people said it was won?”
People like Cheney, he said, “didn’t really, I think, understand the civil war that would break out. And what’s going on now—I don’t blame on President Obama. Has he really got the solution? Maybe there is no solution.”"She's brilliant and we don't want to lose her." Ms Robertson has become the public face of the Abbott government's decision to restrict the funding of the program to faith-based chaplains from next year, an edict that will cost hundreds of student welfare officers nationwide their jobs. Victoria will be the worst hit. It has secular welfare officers working in 246 schools - more than any other state or territory. The tiny Campbells Creek Primary community - distraught at the prospect of losing Ms Robertson - started a petition saying it should be up to principals and school communities to decide who to employ. The petition, which has more than 1500 signatures, was raised in the Victorian Parliament by the Labor MP for Bendigo Lisa Chesters.
All states and territories have agreed to administer the chaplaincy program next year, despite some previously expressing disquiet about the conditions imposed on the funding. In a letter to South Australian schools on October 2, seen by Fairfax Media, Education Minister Jennifer Rankine said legal advice suggested it may not be possible to require schools to discriminate in their employment selections based on religious backgrounds. "Ultimately, it will be a decision that schools make, as they have autonomy of decision making in this area," she wrote. But when contacted by Fairfax Media, a spokesman for Ms Rankine would only say: "The South Australian government has agreed to administer the program and is currently considering the detail of the proposal put forward by the Commonwealth." Queensland has solved the conundrum by using state government money to employ the student welfare officers currently funded by the Commonwealth.
The ACT has said it does not wish to see people lose their jobs and would seek to employ the 14 student welfare officers in state schools (another 11 are in private schools). However, the student welfare officers at 246 schools in Victoria and 163 in NSW are to lose their jobs at the end of this year. "These qualified welfare officers who already have trusted relationships in our schools, and the students they support, will be the ones paying the price for this radical move to impose ideology on school communities," said federal opposition education spokeswoman Kate Ellis. A spokeswoman for Victorian Education Minister Martin Dixon said in addition to chaplains, schools had access to state government-funded psychologists, speech pathologists and social workers. "The Napthine government has delivered on our 2010 election commitment of an additional 150 primary welfare officers to work with and support students in 800 primary schools," she said.Review Fix chats with writer and comedian Scott Thompson, who discusses the newest volume of his original graphic novel series “Husk.”
A member of the legendary sketch comedy troupe, “The Kids in the Hall,” Thompson’s relatable, but wacky everyday man Danny Husk continues his adventures in comic book form, joined by a talented and energetic creative team consisting of Stephan Nilson (The Pound, Smallville: Justice and Doom, Batman Strikes), Kyle Morton (Husk: The Hollow Planet, Shots in the Dark), Romulo Fajardo Jr (The Pound, G.I. Joe, Witchblade), Charles Pritchett (The Pound, Krampus and Harvey Pekar’s “Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me.”)
Check out the first volume of Thompson’s “Husk,” here.
To contribute to the Kickstarter for the new volume or to learn more about the series, click here.
Click the Link Below to Listen In:
Review Fix Exclusive: Scott Thompson Talks ‘Husk: Vol 2’: Sneak Peek
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PrintA former top CIA official has reportedly become the most senior agency figure to say he is "comfortable" with using the word "torture" to describe so-called enhanced interrogation techniques deployed against al-Qaeda suspects in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks.
Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard, who was Executive Director of the CIA, the agency's third most senior position, between 2001 and 2004, was asked if he thought waterboarding and painful stress positions amounted to torture.
He told BBC's Panorama programme: "Well, let's put it this way, it is meant to make him (the suspect) as uncomfortable as possible. So I assume for, without getting into semantics, that's torture. I'm comfortable with saying that."
President Barack Obama said some of the actions detailed in the report "constituted torture" and were "contrary to our values".
But senior CIA officials, present and former, have maintained that the techniques used were legal at the time and should therefore not be called "torture".
In the wake of the Senate report Michael Hayden, CIA Director from 2006 to 2009, told The Telegraph the report had been "politicised" by Democrats and was "designed to shock".
John Brennan, the current CIA director, has admitted a small number of officers used “abhorrent techniques” which should be "repudiated by all" but has vehemently defended the agency against allegations of torture.
At the time of the report he said: "They (CIA officials) carried out their responsibilities faithfully and in accordance with the legal and policy guidance they were provided. They did what they were asked to do in the service of their nation".
Katherine Hawkins, National Security Fellow at OpenTheGovernment.org, a leading transparency group that has demanded more government accountability on the CIA's torture programme, welcomed the latest development.
She said: "It's obvious that it was torture but CIA leadership has until now refused to use that word, even under the Obama administration. So this is a small step towards candor."BAYPORT, NY - A pilot and passenger were injured when a small plane crashed in Bayport Sunday night, police said.
The crash occurred on 3rd Avenue near the Bayport Aerodrome around 7 p.m.
Photos from the scene show parts of the single-engine Piper plane on fire in the street at the corner of 3rd Avenue and 2nd Street.
Plane Crash Update from Police Commissioner Sini:A single engine Piper aircraft crashed into a residential... Posted by Suffolk County Police Department on Monday, April 11, 2016
Policce identified the pilot as 35-year-old Scott Clifford and the passenger as 65-year-old Michael Rome. Both men were airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital, where Clifford is in serious condition. Rome suffered non-life threatening injuries.
The plane took off from the aerodrome and was headed to Orange County, N.Y., where Clifford and Rome both reside, Newsday reported.
" It appears they attempted to return to the airport after take-off possibly due to engine issues," police said. "As the plane was coming down, the wing clipped a utility pole."
The plane is registered to Henderson Lynn, of Minnesota, according to Federal Aviation Administration records.
Photo by Steven Jensen
Scene of #Bayport plane crash.2 people taken out. Neighbors, including Bayport fighters rescued them. #Newsday pic.twitter.com/MiwMjp8rBy — Darran Simon (@darransimon) April 11, 2016
Bayport, NY- 2 seriously injured in small plane crash in residential neighborhood. pic.twitter.com/zoM3Xgo3um — Stringer News (@Stringernews) April 11, 2016See the opening of ABC World News Tonight last night….
NO WARNING? Get a clue. This event was forecast days in advance, and the average lead times for the entire event were 20 to 30 minutes. That is plenty of time to get to a safe place.
We were on the air non-stop from about midnight until almost 8 a.m. It has been our policy at ABC 33/40 to provide long form, uninterrupted severe weather coverage if ANY county in our market goes under a tornado warning.
No warning?
Here is the NWS warning for the tornado as it was approaching Jefferson County, issued at 3:02 a.m.. There was a warning for this storm for the entire duration across Alabama.
BULLETIN – EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BIRMINGHAM AL
302 AM CST MON JAN 23 2012
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BIRMINGHAM HAS ISSUED A
* TORNADO WARNING FOR…
NORTHWESTERN JEFFERSON COUNTY IN ALABAMA…
NORTHEASTERN TUSCALOOSA COUNTY IN WEST CENTRAL ALABAMA…
SOUTHEASTERN WALKER COUNTY IN ALABAMA…
* UNTIL 345 AM CST
* AT 257 AM CST…THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WAS TRACKING A
CONFIRMED TORNADO 7 MILES SOUTHWEST OF BANKHEAD LOCK AND DAM…OR
11 MILES NORTH OF HOLT. DOPPLER RADAR SHOWED THIS TORNADO MOVING
EAST AT 45 MPH. SEVERAL REPORTS OF DAMAGE HAVE BEEN
REPORTED…THIS IS A DANGEROUS SITUATION!
* LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE…
FAIRFIELD…BIRMINGHAM…BANKHEAD LOCK AND DAM…BULL CITY…OAK
GROVE…SYLVAN SPRINGS…WEST JEFFERSON…QUINTON…MAYTOWN AND
MULGA.
THIS INCLUDES…
INTERSTATE 65 EXIT NUMBERS 261 THROUGH 275…
US 78 EXIT NUMBERS 78 THROUGH 91…
INTERSTATE 20 EXIT NUMBERS 118 THROUGH 128…
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
TORNADOES ARE DIFFICULT TO SEE AND CONFIRM AT NIGHT. TAKE COVER NOW.
And, the next warning as the tornado approached Center Point/Trussville/Clay…
BULLETIN – EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BIRMINGHAM AL
|
and interesting problem to solve, and is the focus of this paper.
HTTPS Made Easy
TLS is not a simple protocol and it has a lot of important steps. Obscuring the needlessly technical details, HTTPS essentially works like this:
At the very beginning, your server generates a pair of related cryptographic keys (RSA, ECDSA, EdDSA): One private key and one public key. When deploying HTTPS, you submit your public key and some identifying information to a trusted Certificate Authority to give you a digitally signed certificate, which contains the information you provided (including your public key), that you present to your customer's web browsers. When a customer visits your website, their browser will process the certificate your server offers and verify that the digital signature is legitimate and provided by a trusted certificate authority. If all is well, your customer's browser will initiate the remainder of the handshake protocol, which only a server in possession of the appropriate private key for the certified public key can participate in without causing errors. Once a TLS session has been established, your customers' communications with your front-end server can promise confidentiality and authenticity, barring any unknown vulnerabilities in the TLS protocol or the software on either endpoint.
HTTPS is Fast and Free
The performance implications of HTTP over TLS are best answered by the website, Is TLS Fast Yet? (Yes, and it has been for quite some time.)
Additionally, the added cost to acquire a TLS certificate signed by a Certificate Authority trusted by all major browser vendors can be as low as $0, from one of these certificiate providers:
Universal SSL by CloudFlare working with GlobalSign
Let's Encrypt (arriving later this year) by the Internet Security Research Group
StartSSL by StartCom
Wosign
Next-generation webserver software, such as Caddy Server, will transparently and automatically provide end-to-end encryption by integrating with LetsEncrypt.
HTTPS is Essential to Developing Secure Business Solutions
You need HTTPS in order to be secure. Entire classes of vulnerabilities related to session management in PHP and other web programming languages are only possible in plaintext protocols and only remediable by strong end-to-end cryptography like TLS offers.
Secure Cryptographic Storage in PHP Applications
Whether you're striving for compliance requirements (HIPAA, PCI-DSS, FIPS, Sarabnes Oxley, etc.) or just want to be sure you're providing the highest level of protection for your customers, using the proper cryptographic solution for your storage requirements is essential.
Secure Password Handling and Storage
The safest way to handle passwords is with a slow, salted one-way hashing function designed specifically for passwords. Namely:
Argon2 (winner of the Password Hashing Contest, still pending final tweaks)
(winner of the Password Hashing Contest, still pending final tweaks) bcrypt (current default for password_hash() and password_verify(), PHP 5.5+)
(current default for and, PHP 5.5+) scrypt (only available in PHP through PHP extensions in PECL)
At minimum, all of these functions take a password, a salt, and a cost factor, then applies a sophisticated one-way transformation of the password and salt (repeatedly, based on the cost factor). Refer to our blog post on the subject to learn more about the technical ins and outs of password hashing and user authentication in PHP.
Hashing passwords is not a bulletproof solution, especially for users with extremely weak password choices. However, properly implemented password hashing does slow attackers down significantly and gives your customers time to change their passwords to prevent further compromise.
On-Demand Encryption and Decryption
If your server-side application needs to be able to access information on-demand, but keep it encrypted at rest, the typical solution is to employ symmetric-key encryption.
A common choice for symmetric-key encryption in PHP is to use the AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) block cipher. AES is a good choice, provided the following considerations and precautions be taken by the encryption library developer:
1. What block cipher mode does the library use? Don't ever use ECB mode. ECB mode (the default mode) is a build block for other, more secure encryption modes; it should not be ever be used directly and by itself to encrypt information. The weakness of ECB mode is not obvious: because of the way block ciphers work, if you have any 16-byte (in the case of AES) block of plaintext repeat and encrypt your message with ECB mode, your ciphertext will repeat. A clever attacker can abuse this property of ECB mode to learn more about the contents of your message. CBC mode (Cipher Block Chaining), unlike ECB mode, requires an additional input aside from the plaintext message and the encryption key. This input is called an Initialization Vector (IV). The IV must be unique per message and unpredictable. It is not considered a secret (you can send it with the ciphertext), but you should still use a CSPRNG to generate the IV. CTR mode (Counter mode) is similar to CBC mode, except the IV is called a nonce and, instead of generating 16 bytes of random data for each message, you can safely start at 00000000 00000000 and increase it for each message, so long as you never use the same nonce twice for the same encryption key. A block cipher in CTR mode behaves like a stream cipher, which is for many use cases (e.g. file encryption) more ideal than block ciphers. 2. How is the plaintext padded? When working with block ciphers (i.e. AES in CBC mode but not AES in CTR mode), you need to pad your plaintexts prior to encryption, in order to make your message size a multiple of the block size. If you use OpenSSL instead of mcrypt, this will be done for you. From our experience, the two most popular padding schemes in PHP applications are: Null padding, which appends 00 bytes until the plaintext reaches the end of the current block (mcrypt's default).
bytes until the plaintext reaches the end of the current block (mcrypt's default). PKCS#7 padding, which looks like this (OpenSSL's default for CBC mode; XX denotes a byte of plaintext): XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX 0c0c0c0c 0c0c0c0c 0c0c0c0c XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX 10101010 10101010 10101010 10101010 XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX01 XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX0202 XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XX030303 The number of padding bytes is used to determine the padding character that every byte should contain. If the plaintext message lines up precisely to the block size, then an entire block of padding is added to the message.
denotes a byte of plaintext): The number of padding bytes is used to determine the padding character that every byte should contain. If the plaintext message lines up precisely to the block size, then an entire block of padding is added to the message. When in doubt, go with a stream cipher (such as ChaCha20, XSalsa20, or AES in CTR mode); otherwise, PKCS#7 is the conservative choice. 3. Message Authentication. We have written about this topic before, but it bears repeating: Encryption without message authentication is NOT secure. Two reliable choices for message authentication are HMAC (keyed hash message authentication code) and Poly1305. Authenticated encryption modes such as Galois/Counter Mode do not require a separate MAC. Always calculate a MAC (hash-based or otherwise) of the ciphertext, not the plaintext (and the IV/nonce if you transmit it with the ciphertext), and attach it to your message. Encrypt then MAC, verify the MAC before decrypting. A short list of authenticated encryption options (ignoring key-size) that can be secure: ChaCha20 + Poly1305
XSalsa20 + Poly1305
Salsa20 + Poly1305
AES-GCM
AES-CTR + HMAC-SHA2 (e.g. SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512)
AES-CBC + HMAC-SHA2 Note that the above list explicitly excludes naked AES-CTR and AES-CBC modes, but does include naked AES-GCM mode. This is very important and a common oversight that can completely undermine the security of your application. 4. Cryptographic Side Channels Does your cryptography implementation leak information that an attacker could use? For example: timing information on MAC validation, cache-timing attack vulnerabilitiess on the S-boxes in AES, or even monitoring the power usage of the physical device performing the encryption can all cripple the security guarantees of your cryptosystem.
The security of a cryptography feature depends not only on the security guarantees of the cryptographic primitives (the AES block cipher, the SHA-2 hash function family, etc.), but also how each of these building blocks are used. Unless you are attempting novel cryptanalysis, focusing on the cryptography building blocks can weaken the security of your system by ignoring the weak parts of your implementation.
PHP Symmetric Cryptography Library Recommendations
In order of preference:
Libsodium (available in PECL) Libsodium is a portable, cross-compilable, installable, packageable fork of NaCl, the industry standard for high-speed and side-channel resistant cryptography. Libsodium is available to PHP developers through a PHP extension in PECL. Unless you have some insurmountable obstacle preventing you from installing PECL libsodium into your project, this should be your first and only choice for new cryptography development in 2015. Relevant functions: \Sodium\crypto_secretbox() - authenticated symmetric key encryption with Xsalsa20 + Poly1305
- authenticated symmetric key encryption with Xsalsa20 + Poly1305 \Sodium\crypto_secretbox_open() - authenticated symmetric key decryption with Xsalsa20 + Poly1305
- authenticated symmetric key decryption with Xsalsa20 + Poly1305 \Sodium\randombytes_buf() - cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator, for nonces Defuse Security's Authenticated Cryptography Library (PHP 5.4.0+) Rather than reinvent the wheel, we recommend using defuse/php-encryption by Defuse Security. In addition to offering this library intense scrutiny, we have also contributed a new file encryption API for version 2.0.0 (not yet released), among other features. Relevant functions: \Defuse\Crypto\Crypto::encrypt() - encrypt a string (will have version tagging in 2.0.0)
- encrypt a string (will have version tagging in 2.0.0) \Defuse\Crypto\Crypto::decrypt() - decrypt a string (will have version tagging in 2.0.0) Relevant functions (coming in v2.x): \Defuse\Crypto\Crypto::legacyDecrypt() - decrypt a string before version tagging was implemented
- decrypt a string before version tagging was implemented \Defuse\Crypto\File::encryptFile() - encrypt a file
- encrypt a file \Defuse\Crypto\File::decryptFile() - decrypt a file OpenSSL (PHP 5.4.0+) If you're stuck deciding whether to use OpenSSL or mcrypt for symmetric key encryption, go with OpenSSL. It provides more intelligent defaults (i.e. PKCS#7 padding on AES in CBC mode), better performance and cache-timing resistance (thanks to OpenSSL's support for AES-NI). Relevant functions: openssl_encrypt() - encrypt (with "aes-256-ctr" mode)
- encrypt (with mode) openssl_decrypt() - decrypt (with "aes-256-ctr" mode)
- decrypt (with mode) hash_hmac() - calculate a MAC of the ciphertext
- calculate a MAC of the ciphertext hash_equals() (PHP 5.6+ or hash-compat) - verify the MAC in constant-time
(PHP 5.6+ or hash-compat) - verify the MAC in constant-time random_bytes() (PHP 7.0+ or random_compat) - generate IVs/nonces and encryption keys
Indexing Encrypted Information
An uncommon problem that many companies encounter is, "How can we encrypt information in a database and still index it for fast retrieval?" For example, if you need to be able to retrieve patient records by social security number in a health care application.
If you have millions of records, decrypting each record one-by-one to perform a simple record lookup would be expensive for both the application and the database server. And storing such a sensitive record is a no-go (unless you enjoy apologizing to your customers and offering them one year of free identity theft protection).
Instead, create a blind index of this information for indexing purposes. First, encrypt the information and store it in one field (say: ssn ). Then, store a separate HMAC of the plaintext with a separate key in another field (e.g. ssn_lookup ) and create the database index on the second field. (This idea was proposed in an MSDN blog post by Raul Garcia. If you are developing a.NET / SQL Server solution to this problem, Raul's blog post is probably more relevant.)
The key for HMAC indexing purposes should be only available to the application server that needs to query the database, which should be on separate hardware, and never checked into version control.
Online Encryption, Offline Decryption
As cool as symmetric cryptography is, there are many situations where performing encryption online but only being able to decrypt it with a key that the server does not possess is more desirable. For example, backing up your application or security notification logs.
The solution is to use asymmetric cryptography, also known as public key cryptography.
Specifically, we want to use a sealing API: encrypt information with a public key such that only the private key can decrypt it.
PHP Asymmetric Cryptography Library Recommendations
In order of preference:
Libsodium You definitley want Libsodium here, not OpenSSL, for two reasons: Simplicity Security PHP's bindings for the OpenSSL seal API only supports RSA + RC4 encryption, whereas the Libsodium implementation uses the much safer Extended Salsa20 (Xsalsa20) stream cipher with a Poly1305 authentication tag, negotiated with Curve25519 public keys. Relevant functions: \Sodium\crypto_box_seal()
\Sodium\crypto_box_seal_open() Further reading: Documentation for \Sodium\crypto_box_seal()
Using Libsodium in PHP Projects (free technology ebook)
Libsodium Online Documentation OpenSSL As stated above, OpenSSL should be considered a last resort here. The PHP documentation for OpenSSL seal API isn't great and the API itself wasn't designed for simplicty or clarity. Complicated APIs lead to increased risk for mistakes. Relevant functions: openssl_seal()
openssl_open()
Where to Learn More about Developing Cryptography Features
Even though we have restricted the scope of this paper to the narrow use case of encrypting and decrypting messages in a server-side PHP web application, we managed to cover a lot of ground. There are, of course, numerous other use-cases for cryptography that we did not address.
In addition to maintaining a curated list for learning about application security on Github, we frequently publish new posts on our blog concerning security engineering and in particular cryptography.
If you have a specific encryption or authentication requirement for your company's infrastructure, our team of application security experts offers technology consulting services and we can assist you in the design and implementation of cryptography features.This is awesome.
PULS 4, a TV station in Austria, made a Star Wars-themed opening for this weekend’s NFL championship games. It’s just as good as we hoped it would be.
To recap, Tom “Lord” Brady is Darth Vader going up against Peyton “Commander” Manning (Luke Skywalker leading the resistance). In short, Brady is the bad guy and Manning is the good guy.
Darth Vader died in Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi.
Luke Skywalker has yet to die in the Star Wars trilogy.
Meanwhile, Cam Newton is a storm trooper and Carson Palmer is Obi-Wan Kenobi.
PULS 4 must really like Manning and Palmer.
The latest Star Wars film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, has broken more than a dozen box office records, but it wasn’t quite entertaining enough to keep Von Miller awake until the end.
The Broncos will host the Patriots on CBS at 1:05 p.m. MST Sunday. The Panthers will host the Cardinals on FOX at 4:40 p.m. MST.
(Special H/T to PULS 4’s Walter Reiterer for this video.)Photodisc / Getty Images
Gen Y is in a bind. This group of 18- to 29-year-olds has been told they must go to college in order to find a decent job. Yet upon graduating, few jobs are available to young people — and those that are open often don’t require a college degree.
Earlier this year, The Atlantic pointed to data indicating that 53% of recent college grads were either jobless or underemployed. Underemployment is of course better than unemployment, but many of the jobs new grads are taking don’t pay well enough to make much of a dent in student loan debt. The average college graduate owes roughly $25,000 in debt, and the total student loan debt is now greater than a trillion dollars.
Graduates are being forced in large numbers to take non-professional jobs until they can find ones tied to the career they’d been preparing for. A new study by my company, Millennial Branding, and the on-demand compensation data and software firm PayScale gives a good indication of how underemployed Gen Y truly is. We gathered information related to where Gen Y workers were most likely employed, what skills they were likely to have, where they aspire to work, what majors had the best (and worst) choice of jobs, and more.
(MORE: 5 Best Places for the Rich and Single)
Here are the study’s major findings, which shed light on the state of today’s young workers:
They are graduating into poor-paying retail jobs. Our study found that over 63% of Gen Y workers have a bachelor’s degree, but the most commonly reported jobs for Gen Y don’t necessarily require a college degree. What’s ironic is that in order to compete for professional jobs in this economy, a B.A. is usually required, yet when everyone has one, it’s hard to stand out. The most common jobs for Gen Y workers include Merchandise Displayer, Clothing Sales Representative, and Cell Phone Sales Representative. You can bet that Gen Y would much rather have a professional job linked to their major than settle for a job at the mall that, in theory, a teenager could do.
They love working at technology companies. We found that the top-ranked companies for Gen Y are all tech companies that offer a high degree of job satisfaction, low job stress, high pay, flexibility, and meaningfulness of job. Qualcomm, Google and Medtronic were at the top of the list. Gen Y has not only demonstrated a propensity to use loads of technology as consumers, but young people today also like how tech companies treat their employees. Many of them offer telecommuting, they are fast paced, always innovating and allow them to work on meaningful projects that have an impact on society. High salaries don’t hurt either.
(MORE: Outwitting the Recruiting Black Hole)
They prefer working at small companies over larger ones. Millennials bristle in work atmospheres that are rigid and bureaucratic, which is how many big companies operate. Gen Y tends to be attracted to smaller companies because the environment is more flexible, and they are more likely to be given additional responsibilities and feel like they are part of something in high-growth mode. The highest concentration of Gen Y workers are at small companies with less than 100 employees (47%), followed by medium companies that have between 100 and no more than 1,500 employees (30%), and the fewest work in large companies with more than 1,500 employees (23%).
They are social media savvy. To no surprise, Gen Y are masters of the social media universe. The most common Gen Y skills are focused on online marketing and social media, such as blogging, social media optimization and press releases. While most Gen Ys have profiles and are actively on social media, many don’t understand how to use the tools for business purposes. Despite this, they are very interested in working in social media for companies because they are passionate about the tools.
They are very entrepreneurial. Gen Y sees successful entrepreneurs, such as Mark Zuckerberg, and want to emulate their success. They see the best path to a successful career as starting a business that has a purpose. Relative to other generations, Gen Y is 1.82 times more likely to major in Entrepreneurial Studies, which was rarely ever offered as a major a few decades ago. More and more colleges are offering entrepreneurship classes in order to take advantage of Gen Y’s entrepreneurial ambitions.
(MORE: The Power Within: Why Internal Recruiting & Hiring Are on the Rise)
For the time being, however, when many of these entrepreneurial young people graduate, they are more likely to be collecting a meager hourly wage from behind a cash register than they are to be starting businesses.Paul Sakuma/Associated Press
Bausch & Lomb, the eye care company, agreed on Monday to sell itself to Valeant Pharmaceuticals International of Canada for about $8.7 billion, sidestepping the lengthier process of an initial public offering.
Under the terms of the deal, Valeant will pay $4.5 billion to the investor group that owns Bausch & Lomb, led by the private equity firm Warburg Pincus. It will also spend about $4.2 billion to repay Bausch & Lomb’s debt.
The agreement continues the flurry of deal-making in the health care industry, as companies seek to buy the growth they are hard-pressed to generate on their own. Announced merger volume in the sector this year is up 14 percent from the period a year earlier, even as takeovers have fallen 8 percent.
Related Links Document: Joint news release
Valeant, based in Laval, Quebec, has made acquisitions a core part of its growth strategy as it has become a big specialty drug maker. The Bausch & Lomb deal is the company’s biggest, over three times the value of its $2.6 billion purchase of the skin care company Medicis Pharmaceutical last year.
Adding Bausch & Lomb, a giant maker of contact lens solution and surgical devices, will significantly bolster Valeant’s offerings in the sector. Bausch & Lomb will absorb its new parent’s existing ophthalmology operations, creating a business that is expected to generate more than $3.5 billion in net revenue this year.
“We believe it’s a great move for the company,” J. Michael Pearson, Valeant’s chief executive, said in an interview by phone.
While Bausch & Lomb’s products don’t necessarily include home runs, Mr. Pearson said, “there’s an opportunity for a lot of singles and doubles here.”
Brent Saunders, the chief executive of Bausch & Lomb, said in a statement: “Our companies have a shared commitment to providing innovative and high-quality products and exceptional service to customers.”
The takeover also means a tidy payday for Warburg Pincus, which led a $4.5 billion leveraged buyout of Bausch & Lomb in 2007. The firm already benefited from a $772 million special dividend that Bausch & Lomb paid out in March, the bulk of which went to its controlling investor group.
Through the deal, Warburg Pincus is expected to reap a return of as much as three times its original investment, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Warburg Pincus began exploring a sale or initial public offering for Bausch & Lomb late last year and held preliminary talks with a number of potential bidders. Among them was Valeant, though Mr. Pearson said that at the time he and his board could not justify paying the more than the $10 billion that Warburg Pincus was seeking.
Instead, Bausch & Lomb filed in March for an initial public offering.
Until last month, Valeant was pursuing a takeover of a different company, the generic drug maker Actavis, in what would have been a deal worth over $13 billion. When those talks collapsed, Valeant then turned to Bausch & Lomb. Mr. Pearson said the bulk of the work on Monday’s transaction took place over the last week, with much of the initial due diligence already completed.
Though Valeant’s offer was lower than the valuation that Bausch & Lomb would have fetched in an initial offering, it allowed Warburg Pincus to exit its investment quickly. Taking the company public would have meant a more gradual sale over two to three years.
The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter, pending regulatory approval.
Mr. Pearson said that while integrating Bausch & Lomb would take some time, Valeant would continue to pursue what he described as smaller “tuck-in” acquisitions. But deal-making will remain a core part of the company’s growth plans.
“Our strategy is our strategy,” he said. “Our aspiration is to become the most valuable pharmaceutical company in the world.”
Valeant was counseled by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt. Bausch & Lomb was advised by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.On Wednesday, a coach carrying a group of young students, travelling along a Greek motorway near Malgara, collided with a truck. Many were injured, two women died. Angeliki Granitsa, 21, and Irini Triantafyllou, 23, two smart, involved young people were taken from their families and friends [Greek-language report]. The brighter the candle, the thicker the darkness that follows it being extinguished seems.
Irini (which, in Greek, means "peace") wrote an essay about the situation in Greece when she was 18 – just before the crisis hit properly – which appeared in a local paper. I have translated an abridged version of her piece. Few listened while she was alive. Will we listen now?
"My dreams are the basis of my revolution. So, allow me to dream. In any case, the reality you offer is not very tempting.
"Trapped by exaggerated demands, unnatural ambition and consumerism, you have forgotten the value and power of a human touch, a word of praise, a chat with a mate. When was the last time you really communicated with a friend? When was the last time you spoke, without shame, about your problems?
"You have become introverted, in order to protect yourselves from others' troubles. Because you have so many of your own, you cannot take more weight. You have become lonely people looking for electronic friendship. Your schedule consists of work and solitude on weekdays; then forcing yourself into superficial pleasure on a Saturday. You strive to improve your external appearance in gyms and health farms, then undo your work by eating and drinking excessively. You feel little responsibility or solidarity toward friends and family. You reduce your political activity only to that which benefits you.
"And in the midst of this confusion you have the time – and nerve – to criticise us. In your eyes, we are the selfish, lazy, thoughtless generation. In your eyes, we are ignorant of history and devoid of ideals. In your eyes, we do not show proper respect for national holidays and do not understand your revolutionary past. We are the ill-fated 'tomorrow' of this country, in the care of which you fear to hand over the world. (Since when could anyone hand over or receive total chaos?)
"So, while you crown yourselves with the libellous congratulations of your past, allow me to dream.
"I dream of neighbourhoods with narrow streets and warm people. Joy and sorrow and hands that embrace you and make the smallest things seem large and the largest things seem small. I dream of educating myself, 'becoming a person' like my grandmother says; educating myself so I can open my mind and open my soul's eyes and look at the world and people through them.
"I dream of exercising my chosen profession on merit, without having to kiss dirty hands or beg politicians. I dream of having my own family and passing to them the principles and values that my parents gave me.
"I dream of having around me people who love me and whom I love freely and by choice.
"I dream of not being ashamed to be a citizen, not bowing to anyone, loving beauty easily and living without suspicion.
"I dream of using language to call a spade a spade, rather than hide behind my words.
"I dream of using those co-ordinates to create my very own world, which will be both tiny and great. I have closed my ears to accusation and sympathy, to your pretend revolutions. And I work – I work to make my dreams a reality.
"My revolution has begun … Can you hear it?"
Irini's family donated her organs. "Take whatever you need, with all my heart," said her mother [Greek-language report]. A series of life-changing operations are being hastily arranged: two young people suffering from keratoconus, a condition that slowly destroys eyesight, will receive Irini's corneas. Maybe, when they open their eyes, they will see the world with as much clarity and courage as she did. Maybe, when we open ours, we will too.A while ago, a twenty-something geek we'll call Martin arranged a meeting with some potential clients in an an unusual place: the sidewalk across the street from a police precinct on Manhattan's West Side.
"I do a lot of shit in front of precincts cause I feel a lot safer," Martin told me in an interview recently.
There were four of them, members of a Bronx drug trafficking crew. "It was like one of those TV special multinational shows," Martin said. "You got a white guy, a black guy, a Latino guy."
The leader of the crew believed he was under surveillance, and Martin made them leave their phones in the car for safety. He recalled the phones with disgust. "They had all smart phones, and I told them: Bad fucking idea. You have to scale down two generations, at least. There's too much information on a smart phone." That's where Martin could help.
Standing on the sidewalk, Martin explained the snoop-resistant system he had devised: a makeshift private cell phone network built around prepaid phones, dozens of SIM cards and plastic pill organizers—the kind seniors use to keep their meds in order.
"It keeps your comms [communication] internal from prying eyes," he assured the leader. "If someone's on your case, it trips up their investigation." All he needed was $7,000 and he could set them up with ten phones in a week.
Martin left with the cash, stacks of hundred dollar bills in his backpack, and got to work.
***
Martin is a digital fixer. He wants me to call him a "mercenary hacker," although "renegade IT guy" probably better represents his skillset. Through a long history of hanging out with hackers, selling surveillance gear, and laboring on the fringes of the tech industry, Martin has developed a combination of technical skill and lack of scruples that makes him perfect for dirty jobs involving electronics.
Many of Martin's clients are what he refers to, reverently, as "HNIs": High Net-worth Individuals. They're ambitious, wealthy New Yorkers for whom the Internet has amplified the status anxiety that has always haunted the kind of person who might be flattered by the label High Net-worth Individuals. A lot of what Martin does is sort of blackhat online reputation management. His HNIs want someone to burnish their online image by any means necessary, to game the algorithms and stats of the web like a skilled publicist greases reporters in the real world.
A businessman might ask Martin to bury an incriminating newspaper article deep in Google's search results; a small-time entertainer wants a few tens of thousands of illicit views on his new YouTube music video. Martin said he was once asked to artificially boost the popularity of a nightclub on the location-based social network Foursquare. He couldn't figure out a way past the location-based aspect of the service, so he hacked together a program on a laptop, lugged it in a backpack to the venue and automatically checked more than a dozen of fake people in.
When Martin first started, he would hang out at nightclubs and hand out his card to high-rollers. But now he's passed around by word-of-mouth. "I've got a reputation as a fixer and a problem solver," Martin said. "It's like, ‘do you use Martin?'"
Unsurprisingly, one of the more common requests from these guys—they're almost all guys—is access to a woman's Facebook or email account. They expect Martin to sit down at his laptop, type a magic keystroke and lay out the intimate communiqués of their lady friend. If only it was that easy.
"They have a lot of these fucking expectations like it's fucking Hollywood," Martin said. "I'm like, ‘Look, let me knock some reality into you. If someone tells you they can fucking do this you're being duped and you'll never see the money again.'"
After running down the delicate legalities, he'll tell them their best bet is installing a simple piece of software called a keylogger on their computer, which can secretly catch the password as the target enters it. For $3,000, Martin will install a full suite of surveillance software on phones and computers.
Martin's familiarity with keyloggers dates to when he sold them while working at a surveillance gear shop soon after graduating from college in the mid 2000s. He hawked tiny microphones to jealous lovers and hidden cameras to Muslim parents worried about where their daughters went at night. After his boss retired, Martin inherited an expensive bug sweeper and connections to a lucratively paranoid clientele, many of whom became his first clients in his current gig.
Most of Martin's clients, if not all of his tactics, are above board. But it was inevitable the drug dealers would come calling. They had been some of his best clientele at the surveillance gear shop, after all.
***
Martin showed me some of his gear the other day and explained the system he'd set up for his drug trafficker clients. He speaks with a thick New York accent and deftly picked tiny electronics out of his backpack with big hands, like a fisherman in a tackle box. He carries a leather organizer filled with SIM cards and business cards.
Martin laid a couple ancient Motorola flip phones with busted screens on the table. These were the first phones he'd given the crew, but they hadn't been thrilled with downgrading from iPhones and Blackberries to something a high school girl might decorate with Hello Kitty stickers.
"They were like, ‘I look gay in this shit, son," Martin said. So he upgraded them to the newer, sleeker Motorola i465. "It's contemporary, it doesn't look like a fake Blackberry and it's not a flip phone where they'll get laughed at the club," Martin said.
If you've seen that episode of The Wire, you know principle behind Martin's system: "Burners," prepaid cell phones drug dealers use for a short time then abandon to thwart wiretaps. Prepaid phones have become so associated with drug trafficking and crime that New York Sen. Chuck Schumer wants to require an I.D. to buy one. (Martin said if I.D.s were required he could still run his business "but I would probably charge triple because I'd have to make fake I.D.s")
But burners can be a pain. For maximum security, phones need to be switched as often as possible—a top Cali cartel manager was once reported to use 35 cell phones a day. Martin's system makes it easy for a crew to switch all their phones rapidly.
With Martin's system, each crewmember gets a cell phone that operates using a prepaid SIM card; they also get a two-week plastic pill organizer filled with 14 SIM cards where the pills should be. Each SIM card, loaded with $50 worth of airtime, is attached to a different phone number and stores all contacts, text messages and call histories associated with that number, like a removable hard drive. This makes a new SIM card effectively a new phone. Every morning, each crewmember swaps out his phone's card for the card in next day's compartment in the pill organizers. After all 14 cards are used, they start over at the first one.
Of course, it would be hugely annoying for a crewmember to have to remember the others' constantly changing numbers. But he doesn't have to, thanks to the pill organizers. Martin preprograms each day's SIM card with the phone numbers the other members have that day. As long they all swap out their cards every day, the contacts in the phones stay in sync. (They never call anyone but each other on the phones.) Crewmembers will remind each other to "take their medicine," Martin said.
Not only does Martin's system make wiretapping difficult, Martin claims it can protect the group if a phone gets compromised. If authorities snatch or tap a phone from Martin's system, they'll have access to only 1/14th of the entire network. The crew can just replace their SIM cards from that day in the pill organizer, assured that the other 13 of their SIM cards are still secure. (Update: for more information on what Martin's system is—and isn't—good for, check out this discussion in the comments.)
Martin said he had first thought up the pill organizer system while working briefly for a company that specializes in cellular forensic tools.
So far, managing cell phones for drug dealers is a tiny fraction of Martin's work. He's set up two crews with his cell phone system. After a set-up fee of a few thousand dollars, he charges around $600 a month to manage it, which mostly consists of taking a couple hours every month or so to top off the airtime on the SIM cards he keeps track of on an Excel spreadsheet.
***
I did eventually get up the nerve to accompany Martin to the restaurant in the boroughs he said was a drug front owned by his trafficker client. I am not 100% sure it wasn't just a normal restaurant run by, say, a guy who had once dealt drugs. On the way there, the rising urge to vomit all over the subway car in fear was definitely real. I thought of a thousand creative ways I'd be tortured to death after being discovered to be a reporter, not at all comforted by the paper-thin cover story Martin suggested. (I was a friend from high school helping him out. He gave me some fake last name, which I instantly forgot.)
But when we got there, torturing me seemed unlikely. Martin said the purpose of the visit was to check out a new surveillance system, which his client wanted to be able to view on his cell phone. Instead the restaurant guy mainly wanted to talk to Martin about some negative Yelp reviews the place had received, unable to understand why he couldn't simply delete them. "These are just haters," the annoyed co-owner complained of the one-star reviews. High Net-worth Individuals and drug dealers: United by an obsession over their Google results.
The restaurant was nice enough, and the only drug I saw for sale was alcohol. But the fact that the dinnertime rush consisted of Martin |
pitched the soundtrack as theatrical and video game-inspired, capturing the show’s contrast between down-to-earth moments and grand fantasy set pieces. Both Rebecca and Ian Jones-Quartey, our supervising director at the time, collaborated with us to establish a lot of the show’s musical canon from the start, like the use of motifs for characters, objects, and locations.
How much room was left for you to shape that original vision?
We had a lot of creative freedom to fill in the details and nuances, and to develop the show’s music style.
Each of the characters is represented by specific sounds. How did you settle on those instruments and sounds?
We chose the Gems’ instruments by what we thought represented each Gem’s personality, and how they all sounded together as an ensemble. The crew pitched specific ideas at us, like Garnet’s bass being inspired by Michael Jackson, Pearl’s piano having ragtime elements, and Amethyst’s drums being loose and wild.
As we began writing more for the show, we gradually developed rules for each of the Gems’ instruments. For example, Pearl’s piano is often written in minor, with blocked chords and gentle jazz influences. We use a lot of piano throughout the show, but only a certain type of playing constitutes “Pearl’s sound."
Additionally, each Gem has one main instrument within a larger instrumental palette. Garnet is synth bass, but when we need to make “Garnet music,” we also utilize synth bells and pads that we specifically designed for her. Amethyst is an eclectic drum kit, with electric bass and some of her own synths. Pearl’s instrument is the easiest of the main Gems to pick out because it’s the most melodic--she’s represented by piano, with harp and some pads.
How you go about combining those themes for fusions?
When the Gems perform a fusion dance, the dance song is a duet between their instruments. For example, in Amalgam—Amethyst and Pearl’s fusion dance before becoming Opal—both characters are distinguishable in the music. After Gems fuse, the result is a completely new song that showcases the nature of the fusion. For example, in Sardonyx’s theme—Pearl and Garnet’s fusion—Garnet’s presence has influenced Pearl’s piano to become confident and bombastic, while Pearl’s presence has influenced Garnet’s bass and synth sounds to become theatrical and jazzy.
Since Garnet herself is a fusion, we reverse-engineered her sound to create Ruby and Sapphire’s instruments in the episode Keystone Motel. Ruby is a crude waveform in between a square and a saw wave, and Sapphire is a gentle synth pad.
I know video game music is a huge influence on the style of your work. Anything in particular?
Aivi loves Nintendo soundtracks, especially Super Mario Galaxy, the Zelda series, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and Bomberman 64. She’s a big fan of Koji Kondo, Kazumi Totaka, Yasunori Mitsuda, Michiru Oshima, and Masashi Hamauzu, who heavily influenced her piano style.
Surasshu’s biggest influence in game music is Shoji Meguro, composer of Persona 3 and 4. Other favorites that inform his work include anything by the SuperSweep team (Shinji Hosoe, Ayako Saso, Takayuki Aihara and others), Shadow of the Colossus by Kow Otani, and Hideki Naganuma. Also, Tsunku made a big impact with his Rhythm Heaven series of games.
Outside of videogame music, we draw inspiration from a variety of genres for the show’s soundtrack. We’re often influenced by jazz, musicals, film soundtracks, anime, pop, prog metal, classical, and electronic genres like future, trap, and drum ‘n’ bass.
At what point in production do you come in to an episode?
We are one of the last stops in the production chain. We receive animatics in advance, so we know what to expect, but we don’t start composing until the timing of the animation and dialogue are finalized. We work simultaneously as the sound effects team, so we try to keep in mind how we’ll share space with sound effects when we’re composing. For example, if we see things exploding in the animation, we know that the sound will be loud and dominating, so we’ll ease up on the music in those moments.
How in the loop are you about where the show is going, plot-wise? (And does that change any of the music at all?)
Rebecca keeps us in the loop, but she doesn’t spoil us unless it’s important for the music! We often feel like we’re special fans who get to watch the episodes first, and we get to have our theories about the story confirmed with the source! We guessed that Garnet was a fusion the second the concept of fusions were introduced to us. Though Rebecca doesn’t always give us a straight answer…
Rebecca usually tells us when a character, location, or object might return. In these situations, we make sure to save our instruments for future use and compose the music to be flexible and malleable.
Have you ever had to scrap a piece for the show and go back to square one?
The crew is excellent at communicating what kind of music they’re looking for, so we generally don’t do this! But occasionally, we’re asked to make a major revision. For example, in the episode "Fusion Cuisine," the restaurant music originally sounded fancy and pretentious. We were asked to scrap the idea and compose a new piece that sounded intimate and sweet. This worked out much better—in hindsight, the original song would’ve colored the conflict between Connie and Steven’s families as a class difference, while the new song better portrayed two loving families having an awkward time.
Does your work change at all for the full songs you've worked on?
Absolutely, when it’s not our composition. Most of the full songs are written by other crew members (except for “Love Like You”), so our role changes from composer to arranger and producer. Sometimes we’re given fairly complete demo tracks to work with, like "Steven and the Stevens" by Jeff Liu and Ben Levin—we used Jeff’s guitar performance since it was excellent! And sometimes we’re given a rough ukulele track by Rebecca with vocals by the voice actors, that we compose the instruments for, like "Do It For Her." Our main goal is to bring out the songwriter’s intentions, while keeping it in line with the show’s production values and musical canon.
What was your creative process for the full song, "Stronger Than You"?
“Stronger Than You” from "Jailbreak" was a huge collaborative effort! Rebecca wrote the song with some help from Estelle, the voice of Garnet. Jeff Liu arranged a demo version, which we used as inspiration for the final production in the show. When the song reached us, we gave it the “Garnet Treatment,” rebuilding the arrangement with Garnet’s signature sounds and Garnet’s musical rules. We also worked with the crew to integrate it with the events in the actual episode, like slipping into a darker tone when the ship goes down. After the composition process, we worked with Jeff Ball to record the string melodies, and we mixed the song.
What are the guiding principles of the show's music? For example, I always feel like the music that backs the fight scenes serves to make them beautiful instead of tense, or at least both at the same time.
The music is made primarily from Steven’s point of view. Since Steven thinks most things are awesome, we bring out his positivity in the soundtrack. We’d forgotten that it’s unusual for a fight scene to sound beautiful—we just see this as “normal” now.
A lot of things change slowly over time in the show, including the music. By giving most of the characters instrumental palettes instead of strict melodic motifs, their songs can be more transient. In the same way that a photograph of a person reflects one moment in time, not a complete picture of who that person is, the Gems don’t have “true versions” of songs that encompass who they are. This gives the soundtrack a bit of a jazz improv element, where the music expresses feelings more freely.
When a character goes through a major change, we sometimes modify their palette as well. For example, when Peridot loses her limb enhancers, she loses a lot of the effected mechanical sounds in her music.
Which track are you proudest of?
That would be the full version of “We Are the Crystal Gems,” the theme song of Season 2! Rebecca Sugar composed the melody and lyrics, and we had the honor of composing and arranging instrumental parts. We drew from the complete musical canon that we had established up to that point. It’s one of the longest, most narrative songs in the show, and we loved having the opportunity to showcase many different sides of Steven Universe’s music.
Can you walk me through the process of writing that track, from assignment to inception to instrumentation?
Rebecca sent us a ukulele draft of the song with the voice actors’ performances. She walked us through the whole song, explaining her thoughts about each section and what emotional moments we should emphasize. Between the two of us, we divided the sections of the song according to whose skillset was most suited. For example, Aivi handles most of Pearl and Steven’s music, while surasshu handles Garnet and Amethyst’s music. Once each one of us had laid down the musical foundation for their section, we swapped and built upon each others’ parts, and workshopped everything together.
After we finished the track, we ran it by the crew for feedback and incorporated their suggestions. We then contracted musicians to record instruments—for this song in particular, Jeff Ball on violin and Stemage on electric guitar, two top-tier musicians from the videogame music scene! Finally, we mixed the song and shipped it to Tony Orozco and Melissa Waters, the show’s sound team.
And... what else do you wish fans knew about your work that they don't already?
Steven is triangle wave!
Eric Thurm can show you how to be strong in the realest way. Follow him on Twitter.This article is over 4 years old
Proposed laws that would imprison protesters who disrupt businesses are probably in breach of human rights, say experts
Tasmania's anti-protest laws would have chilling effect on freedom, says UN
A team of United Nations experts has expressed concern to the Australian government over tough new anti-protest laws in Tasmania that it says would have a “chilling effect” on freedoms.
The Tasmanian legislation, which is being considered by the state’s upper house, would impose mandatory fines and prison terms on protesters who are deemed to interfere with the operations of a business.
Protesters could face a three-month jail term for a second offence.
A group of experts appointed by the UN’s Human Rights Council has told the federal government the laws would probably breach Australia’s international human rights obligations.
David Kaye, the special rapporteur to the UN on freedom of expression and opinion, told Guardian Australia the laws were so broad that protesters would find it hard to know when they were breaking the law.
“There are also very harsh penalties that criminalise expression,” he said. “Ultimately it will chill expression and people speaking out. In a democratic society like Australia you want to encourage expression and peaceful protest.
“On the face of it, the law has problems that really raise concerns over the obligations that Australia has had to uphold for many years. I’m not sure how the government intends to use this power, but even without a crackdown it is likely to chill behaviour.”
Kaye said the Australian government had yet to respond to the concerns raised by the human rights experts.
Last month, a coalition of 13 legal, Indigenous and environmental groups wrote to the UN to express their dismay at the anti-protest laws, which are seen to be largely aimed at anti-logging activists.
The Tasmanian government dismissed the UN experts’ concerns, calling them “incorrect and founded upon false information”.
Tasmania’s minister for resources, Paul Harriss, said the UN had not been given the full story and that the bill sought to protect businesses from harassment, rather than curtail peaceful protest.
“Unfortunately, it appears the critique is based solely upon misinformation being peddled by the Community Legal Centres Tasmania,” he said.
“Its letter to the UNHCR was co-signed by radical protest groups including the Wilderness Society, Markets for Change and the Bob Brown Foundation.
“It would seem that the special rapporteurs have only heard one side of this debate. Ill-informed criticism serves no purpose except to inflame ignorant debate rather than douse it with fact.”
Harriss said the bill would protect the “right to work” enshrined in the UN’s declaration of human rights.
Ben Bartl, policy officer at Community Legal Centres Tasmania, said trespass laws already in place were there to protect businesses.
“These proposed laws are unnecessary and the UN has confirmed that,” he told Guardian Australia. “This is a damning critique by the UN, they definitely haven’t minced their words. This bill is simply a breach of human rights.
“It’s likely the bill will silence protest. It seems to be part of a trend by the states and territories to crack down on protesters and peaceful assembly. The UN has drawn a line in the sand to say this isn’t acceptable and I’d urge the legislative assembly [Tasmania’s upper house] to consider the findings of the UN rapporteurs.”Ryan Keur, general manager of the Burlington Royals, has been named the Appalachian League’s Executive of the Year for an unprecedented third consecutive season, the league announced.
Keur, who finished his third season as general manager and his sixth year overall with the team, is an Elon graduate.
“It is a testament of what he and his staff accomplished and it has much more meaning coming from his peers,” league president Lee Landers said. “This is an organization that has fun together and that was seen throughout the year.”
The Burlington team also received the league’s Promotional Organization of the Year distinction that goes to the club that demonstrates unique marketing ideas, in-game and on-field promotions and creative work within the community. The Royals also won the award in 2015.
“All these are full organization awards,” Keur said Tuesday night. “It’s the Burlington Royals at the end of the day.”
First-year assistant general manager Miranda Ervin and director of operations Mikie Morrison also factor into the awards, Keur said.
“She was excited because she was involved and she was the new (person) in the whole operation,” Keur said of Ervin.
Keur, 27, said regular enhancements at city-owned Burlington Athletic Stadium have continued a strong partnership between the team and the city.
The Royals had average announced attendance of 1,492 for 33 openings for a total of 49,227 (third-highest in the league). That’s the highest total for Burlington since the 1993 championship season of the Burlington Indians.
Total attendance increased by about 7 percent from 2015 despite one less opening (because of a postponement), charitable contributions exceeded $25,000, and community appearances numbered close to 100. The team reports that revenues were at an all-time high.
“We had a lot of fun at the ballpark,” Keur said. “It’s definitely a good thing to head into 2017.”
On the field, the Royals were the Appalachian League runners-up for the second time in five seasons. The 42-26 regular-season record marked the most wins in the 10-season affiliation with the parent Kansas City Royals.
The team’s promotions might have been highlighted by the Social Media Weekend when players and staff wore “emoji jerseys.”
According to the team, between-innings activities that in larger venues might have been on display on a jumbotron or video board — such as a “kiss cam” and “hidden ball scramble” — were executed in other manners with positive responses.
The league’s awards were voted on by general managers, umpires and the league office.
Awards will be presented at the league’s fall meetings. By winning the awards, Keur and the Royals will be nominees for Minor League Baseball honors that are presented at the winter meetings, which will be held in December in National Harbor, Md.
Other Appalachian League awards went to the Blair Hoke, general manager of the Pulaski Yankees (Female Executive of the Year), the Greeneville Astros (community service) and the Danville Braves (Patriot Award for commitment to military veterans).National Security Agency employees improperly eavesdropped on the phone calls of girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, wives and spouses and engaged in other “intentional” abuses of their authority on 12 occasions since 2003, according to a newly released letter by the agency’s inspector general.
The agency has two open investigations into alleged misuse of its eavesdropping authorities and is reviewing a third one for possible investigation, according to a letter by NSA inspector general Dr. George Ellard.
Ellard’s letter–in response to an inquiry by GOP Sen. Charles Grassley–was prompted by media reports that NSA employees at times have been been caught in what is informally known as “loveint”–collecting intelligence on love interests. But until now, the specific examples and the frequency of such cases have never been disclosed by the NSA.
In one case revealed by Ellard, an NSA employee for five years snooped on the phone calls of nine female foreign nationals “without a valid foreign intelligence purposes.” In another, 2011 instance, an NSA employee admitted it was “her practice” to eavesdrop on foreign phone numbers “she obtained in social settings” in order to ensure she was not talking to “shady characters.” Both employees resigned before any disciplinary action could be taken.
Among other examples cited in Ellard’s letter:
In 2011, an NSA employee acknowledged that “out of curiosity” he had tried to listen in on the phone calls of his girlfriend, a foreign national. The agency’s system blocked him from doing so, but the employee did retrieve “metadata”– records of time, date and duration of the girlfriend’s phone calls. The subject’s actions were referred to the Justice Department, which declined prosecution.
In 2005, the NSA discovered that another NSA employee eavesdropped for a month “without an authorized purpose” on the phone calls of his foreign national girlfriend. The employee was trying to determine if she was “involved” with any foreign officials or engaged in other activities that “might get him in trouble.” The employee retired before the investigation into his activities was finished.
In 2004, a NSA employee retrieved data on a foreign telephone number she had discovered on her husband’s cell phone. The case was referred to the Justice Department for prosecution, but the employee resigned before any NSA discipline could be imposed. The letter does not address whether there was a prosecution effort.
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander said of allegations of agency abuses: “The press claims evidence of thousands of privacy violations. This is false and misleading. According to NSA’s independent Inspector General there have been only 12 substantiated cases of willful violations over 10 years, essentially one per year. “
This story was originally published on NBCNews.comFugitive 'cannibal' porn star arrested in Berlin internet cafe... looking at news stories about himself
Luka Magnotta arrested after he was recognised in Berlin cafe
Armed police carried out raid - he surrendered without struggle
Magnotta is accused of murdering and dismembering student Jun Lin
He is believed to have fled from Canada to Paris on May 26...
... before going on to Berlin by night bus on Friday evening
Magnotta is a gay porn star who also worked as male escort called 'Angel'
Has had plastic surgery to make himself look more like James Dean
Under arrest: Suspected killer Luka Magnotta was finally tracked down to an internet cafe in Berlin
The international manhunt for the gay porn star and suspected murderer dubbed the Canadian Psycho has ended with his arrest in the German capital Berlin.
Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, was seized in Helin Tele and Internet Cafe on Karl-Marx-Strasse in the working class Neukoelln district of the city this morning.
The café was raided by armed police shortly after 11.30am after he was recognised by Kadir Anlayisli
Magnotta was pinned to the floor and handcuffed without offering any resistance.
It is understood he was searching the internet for articles about himself and his alleged crimes when he was caught.
Eyewitnesses said armed officers asked the suspect ‘Are you the wanted man?’ and he responded ‘Yes, that’s me,’ he said.
The arrest brought to an end an international trawl spanning thousands of miles and hundreds of police officers across two continents.
A man at the internet cafe who described himself as the ‘boss’ but who would not give his name, confirmed Magnotta had been there.
‘Then the cops came and it was all over for him,’ he said.
‘It all happened very quickly, in a blur. Everyone is beating a path to my door. But the police have told me not to say too much.’
The arrest – which took place in an area known for its gay bars and sordid sex joints – brought an end to an international trawl spanning thousands of miles and two continents.
It began after Magnotta, branded the 'Canadian Psycho', allegedly murdered and dismembered his former gay lover Jun Lin, 33 in his flat in Montreal on the night of May 24.
The university student’s torso was found in the apartment while parts of his body were posted to political offices in Ottawa, including the prime minister’s party headquarters.
A ten minute videotape purporting to record the horrific crime was posted online, showing a man stabbing his naked and bound victim with an ice pick.
The attacker then hacks him to pieces and eats part of his flesh. He is also seen performing sexual acts on the corpse.
One member of the investigative team said the murderer ‘tears the victim apart like a doll’.
Internet Cafe: The Spatkauf cafe in Neukoelln, a suburb of Berlin, where Magnotta was arrested Terminal 25: Inside the internet cafe, at the cubicle where Magnotta was discovered by police. A cafe employee spotted him looking at stories about himself Witness: Kadir Anlayisli recognised Magnotta at the cafe and called police
The video, entitled One Lunatic, One Ice Pick, was set to the soundtrack from American Psycho, earning the suspect his nickname.
Magnotta, who has worked as a bisexual porn star and a gay prostitute called Angel and often dresses as a woman, apparently fled to France on May 26.
Police have reluctantly admitted their suspect, who has also used aliases Eric Clinton Newman (his birth name) and Vladimir Romanov, should have been stopped on arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport.
But instead he passed through customs unchallenged and was able to spend several day at large in the French capital.
Witnesses came, claiming to have spotted him in the trendy Bastille district in the east of Paris, an area of the city highly popular with young British expats.
Parisian officers said the suspected killer stayed for two nights with a gay man he met in a nightclub before his terrified host spotted his photo on the internet.
Magnotta, who has worked as a bisexual porn star and a gay prostitute called Angel and often dresses as a woman,, apparently fled to France on May 26.
Police have reluctantly admitted their suspect, who has also used aliases Eric Clinton Newman (his birth name) and Vladimir Romanov, should have been stopped on arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport.
But instead he passed through customs unchallenged and was able to spend several day at large in the French capital.
Witnesses came, claiming to have spotted him in the trendy Bastille district in the east of Paris, an area of the city highly popular with young British expats.
CCTV: Interpol issued this undated photo of Magnotta passing through an unnamed airport security checkpoint
Closing the net: Interpol had notified authroities in 190 countries to be on the lookout for Luka Magnotta, who was arrested in Germany on Monday
Sick posting: An online animation shows a bloody hand print and the phrase 'It was Luka Magnotta'
Parisian officers said the suspected killer stayed for two nights with a gay man he met in a nightclub before his terrified host spotted his photo on the internet.
One bar owner told police: 'He came into my bar and sat drinking and chatting. He seemed very excited.'
A police source said another man had put Magnotta up in his flat for two nights early last week after meeting him in a gay nightclub.
The police source said: 'After he left, the man realised who he had had staying and contacted us.
'It is then thought he went out in the evenings drinking in the Bastille district and staying in a cheaper hotel in the east of the city.'
A receptionist at a four-star hotel near the Champs-Elysees also said she believed Magnotta had stayed there the same night.
The Paris police source said: 'She later identified him from a photo.'
Police eventually traced Magnotta, who had had plastic surgery to look more like James Dean - through mobile phone calls and closed in on the hotel where he was stayed. But he had left before officers arrived.
Some of his belongings – including pornographic magazines and air sickness bags - were recovered from the room and are undergoing DNA testing.
It is unclear how Magnotta managed to slip through the net, despite Interpol having issued a Red Notice wanted-persons alert to its 190 member countries last Thursday.
But he was next seen calmly boarding a Eurolines bus at Bagnolet coach station in the eastern suburbs of the French capital at 7.30pm on Friday night.
Despite Magnotta buying a £100 ticket for the journey – and the fact the station is covered by 20 CCTV cameras – police did not trace his escape route until three days on.
He arrived in Berlin 14 hours after boarding the service at 9.15am on Saturday and has managed to avoid detection until today. The one-time porn star is likely to go before a judge tomorrow.
Sightings: Witnesses say they saw a person matching Bagnotta's description at Parisian bars, such as Le Petit Batignolles bar. Police in the French capital had lost Bagnotta before he turned up in Germany
Victim: Jun Lin, 33, was a Chinese student who had moved to Montreal to study. He dated Magnotta Hotel raid: The La Soummam hotel in Bagnolet, outside Paris, in which fugitive Luka Magnotta was believed to be staying. He fled before police arrived
He will face a range of charges, including murder, defiling a corpse, threatening the Canadian prime minister and using the mail system for delivering 'obscene, indecent, immoral or scurrilous' material.
During Magnotta’s time on the run, he spent time on the computer playing war games and also made a number of disturbing postings.
Once included a short animation that involved a bloody hand print and the phrase 'It was Luka Magnotta'. Police say he was enjoying his notoriety.
Six months ago, Magnotta was living in a £40-a-night room above the Fusilier Inn in Wembley, north London, while sightseeing in the capital.
He was confronted by journalists after posting an Internet film showing a live kitten being fed to a snake.
In an email to The Sun in December, he supposedly said: ‘You will be hearing from me again. This time, however, the victims won’t be small animals.’ He sent a similar warning to the BBC.
At the same time, he appears to be denying that he is the person in the kitten-killing videos, writing on his own website: ‘Once and for all, I will set the record straight. Many hoax websites are created using my image and name, posing as me to seem more believable...
'I feel I don't need to list them specifically but people need not be told, not to believe what they read and to take it as fact.’
Magnotta is said to have once dated Karla Homolka, a notorious Canadian sex killer who slaughtered schoolgirls
FROM THE ANGEL TO CANADIAN PSYCHO, HOW LUKA MAGNOTTA BECAME THE WORLD'S MOST WANTED
The murder suspect dubbed the 'Canadian Psycho' has worked as a bisexual porn star, as a gay prostitute called 'Angel,' and is an alleged kitten killer with a string of fraud convictions.
Luka Rocco Magnotta, accused of chopping up his lover and filming the attack before mailing body parts to a series of addresses in Canada, was arrested on Monday in Berlin after initially fleeing to Paris and setting off an international manhunt.
In addition to having had plastic surgery on his face -- apparently to look more like James Dean -- he often wears lipstick and make-up, has dyed his hair and worn wigs, and sometimes dresses up as a woman.
Changeable image: Police suspected that Magnotta was disguising himself as a woman to evade capture, having been on the run for almost two weeks. A sketch of what he may look like was released
Described as handsome but narcissistic, the 29-year-old, who naturally has black hair and blue eyes, has also changed his name and used several aliases. He was convicted under his birth name Eric Clinton Newman for defrauding several retailers and with stealing $16,900 from a woman in Toronto, culminating in a suspended sentence and probation in 2005. A series of judge imposed conditions reportedly banned him from owning or using a camera or a computer, and from accessing the Internet. Born in Toronto, family members told reporters they lost contact with him some time ago. For years Magnotta built a profile through blogs, escort adverts in which he searched online for sex partners, and posted photographs showing himself as a trim, pouty-lipped model whose travels included Paris and other cities. He used the name 'Angel' when working as a prostitute and stripper at Remington's, a well-known gay bar in Toronto, according to transsexual performer Nina Arsenault, who claims to have had a relationship with him. The one-time supporter of white supremacists posted a video online of two kittens being suffocated in a plastic bag, according to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, ending an online hunt for the so-called 'Vacuum Kitten Killer.'
The Fusilier Pub in Wembley, North London, where Luka Manotta has previously stayed At the same time, profiles he reputedly posted on online dating services conveyed an altogether different persona -- on one website he listed beach volleyball as a hobby and stated that finding a long-term relationship was his priority. He was granted a license to work as a stripper in Toronto in 2005 and also worked as a male escort.
Pierre Bonhomme, a Canadian filmmaker who recalled a meeting with Magnotta in Toronto in 2007 or 2008, told the Ottawa Citizen it was a 'creepy' experience that he quickly decided to escape from. 'I left within about five minutes. It was a really uncomfortable, awkward situation. He was in the shady, druggy, gay-sex prostitution world. He was on a lot of the gay hookup sites,' Bonhomme said. Magnotta used Russian names, including the alias Vladimir Romanov, on such sites, according to Bonhomme, who also attested to the suspect's willingness to use fraud and deception. 'He was a hustler,' Bonhomme said. 'He was definitely not a gay village kind of guy. He was more of a suburban guy on the Internet, scamming married guys, that kind of thing.' Psychologist Gilles Chamberland told Radio Canada that Magnotta exudes 'narcissistic, anti-social,' behaviour, having described himself as being 'incredibly beautiful.' In 2009, he ironically posted advice on the Internet about how to vanish and never be found. 'A minimum of four months is really necessary to carry out the heroic actions necessary to leave your old life behind,' he reportedly wrote. He said a person must withdraw from all social circles, possess two sets of false identification papers, convert all assets to cash and then take a bus to a chosen destination, after selling a car somewhere else to mislead police. Magnotta did not do such a good job of staging his own disappearance: investigators believe he boarded a France-bound plane on May 26 in Montreal and police traced his cell phone signal to the suburb of Bagnolet, Paris on Saturday. He was eventually tracked down by German police on Monday in an Internet cafe in Neukoelln, a working-class district of Berlin.
Friendly: This video, posted online two years ago, shows a man who looks like Magnotta appearing to be caring for the cats (he disguised his face)
Sickening: The thug places both of the cats inside a plastic bag and films them suffocatingPublished by Steve Litchfield at 13:52 UTC, October 10th 2016
Did you know that your Lumia smartphone had an equaliser built-in? Possibly. But did you know that a) it doesn't only work with Groove Music, it works system wide, and b) it also works with the speaker on your phone and not just headphones? While this wouldn't be that notable on phones with a decent enough speaker, the Lumia 950 XL, in particular, has an unpleasantly tinny component (I went into detail here ). Begging the question, can a little tweaking save the day?
In fact, it certainly can, and I should note that similar (though perhaps less drastic) tweaking can probably help with the speakers on the some other Lumias. I also tested this on the 950, 930 and 640 XL, on various Windows 10 Mobile software builds, with similar 'improvements'. (Note that Windows Phone 8.1's equivalent function only worked on connected gadgets such as headphones.)
I've demoed this below, make sure you turn up your playback device speakers or plug in headphones, though the difference in fidelity is so striking that you should be able to hear for yourselves either way:
The difference the EQ tweak makes is even more pronounced when you switch backwards and forwards between your new custom preset and the 'none'/flat EQ as shipped by Microsoft. It's not 100% clear whether the 950 XL's speaker properties are designed by Microsoft to give cutting middle frequencies that will work well in, for example, a car, for Maps instructions or phone calls, or whether the speaker is simply not very good. Let's give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt, anyway, in the knowledge that we now have a decent workaround for speaker fidelity.
Diving into Settings/Extras on a Lumia; (right) a drastic EQ change for the Lumia 950 XL speaker!!
Of course, all the EQ fiddling in the world won't get a speaker more than a few percentage points up in the overall scheme of things, but every little helps, especially if, like me, you've decided that the 950 XL is the device to stick with for now, steadfastly on the Fast Insiders Ring, but keep getting put off by the tinny speaker. No longer quite as tinny, then!
Some notes:
The 'preset for speakers' has no effect on the preset setting for headphones, they're kept entirely separate. So you're not going to mess up your preferred headset set-up with this tweak. I've referred to 'Lumias' above because Windows 10 Mobile, out of the box for OEMs, doesn't include a system-wide equaliser, unless I'm mistaken? Comments welcome if you can suggest other equaliser utilities - what limits do they have under Windows 10 Mobile?
(Thanks to Jason Snowden for the nudge to write this up!)Photo
Klaatu barada nikto, indeed.
Seeking the ultimate red carpet, or perhaps a chance to get a good word in for humanity to whoever might be Out There watching, the makers of the new movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” have arranged for it to be beamed into space on Friday, on the same day the movie opens here on planet Earth.
The movie, starring Keanu Reeves as the alien Klaatu, who comes to warn mankind to change its warlike ways or be destroyed, is of course a remake of the 1951 classic starring Michael Rennie. No official translation of them exists, but the words “Klaatu barada nikto” were sufficient in the original movie to save the Earth, or at least postpone its day of judgment from Klaatu’s robot enforcer Gort. And they have been a touchstone of science fiction and alien sociology ever since.
So what better words to broadcast to the stars?
The movie will be broadcast in real time, starting at noon on Friday, by Deep Space Communications Network, a Florida company that has beamed whale songs and the Craigslist Web site, among other things, into space in the three years of its existence. According to its Web site, the company will transmit a five-minute signal into space for anyone for $299.
In this case, Jim Lewis, Deep Space’s director, said the company had to satisfy 20th Century Fox, the film’s producers, that the transmission could not be intercepted and pirated on Earth or in the air. The movie will be beamed in the direction of Alpha Centauri, a triple star system about four light-years from here. That means it will take four years for it to get to Alpha Centauri. (There is plenty of time to get popcorn, whoever you are.)
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The reviews will take longer to come back, if they ever do, and we could hope they are kinder than Klaatu’s.DALLAS — Mavs GM Donnie Nelson and Magic GM Orlando GM Rob Hennigan visited last week about a Dwight Howard trade and “will probably talk again,” Nelson tells FOXSportsSouthwest.com. Meanwhile, Dwight and the Magic seem done visiting. Does this move Dwight-to-Dallas closer to the front burner? Or is is simply a step towards Dallas becoming the favorite to sign the disgruntled superstar center next summer?
The Magic’s dealings with Dwight Howard continue to swirl downward, with various outlets reporting that last week he reiterated to management his desire to escape Orlando.
And the Dallas Mavericks are in position to accommodate him. Sometime.
But while Howard has allegedly been assured by some inside the Orlando organization that his wish will be granted — with the Nets, Lakers and Mavs topping his wishlist — the Magic are wisely showing no urgency to make a bad deal.
And in their minds, offers from the Nets and Lakers — offers that went very public and therefore were portrayed as “close” — were also “bad.”
Meanwhile, FOXSportsSouthwest.com has learned that Nelson and Hennigan visited last week about a Dwight Howard trade. But …
“There’s just not much there (in terms of a Mavs-Magic trade to be done in 2012),” Nelson tells us.
Nelson suggests that there are offers on the table for Dwight that “trump” what Dallas can present now or in the near future, which includes expiring contracts, the promise of cap space, and maybe the willingness to take back contract ballast.
An NBA source tells DallasBasketball.com that Orlando believes its offer from the Lakers is the superior one (it can involve Andrew Bynum). But if it was sufficient enough |
ids); one such parasite is Oculophryxus bicaulis, which was found on the krill Stylocheiron affine and S. longicorne. It attaches itself to the animal's eyestalk and sucks blood from its head; it apparently inhibits the host's reproduction, as none of the afflicted animals reached maturity.[47]
Plastics [ edit ]
Preliminary research indicates krill can digest microplastics under 5 mm (0.20 in) in diameter, breaking them down and excreting them back into the environment in smaller form.[48]
Life history and behavior [ edit ]
Euphausia pacifica hatching, emerging backwards from the egg nauplius ofhatching, emerging backwards from the egg
The life cycle of krill is relatively well understood, despite minor variations in detail from species to species.[13][22] After krill hatch, they experience several larval stages—nauplius, pseudometanauplius, metanauplius, calyptopsis, and furcilia, each of which divides into sub-stages. The pseudometanauplius stage is exclusive to species that lay their eggs within an ovigerous sac: so-called "sac-spawners". The larvae grow and moult repeatedly as they develop, replacing their rigid exoskeleton when it becomes too small. Smaller animals moult more frequently than larger ones. Yolk reserves within their body nourish the larvae through metanauplius stage. By the calyptopsis stages differentiation has progressed far enough for them to develop a mouth and a digestive tract, and they begin to eat phytoplankton. By that time their yolk reserves are exhausted and the larvae must have reached the photic zone, the upper layers of the ocean where algae flourish. During the furcilia stages, segments with pairs of swimmerets are added, beginning at the frontmost segments. Each new pair becomes functional only at the next moult. The number of segments added during any one of the furcilia stages may vary even within one species depending on environmental conditions.[49] After the final furcilia stage, an immature juvenile emerges in a shape similar to an adult, and subsequently develops gonads and matures sexually.[50]
Reproduction [ edit ]
Nematoscelis difficilis with her brood sac. The eggs have a diameter of 0.3–0.4 millimetres (0.012–0.016 in) The head of a female krill of the sac-spawning specieswith her brood sac. The eggs have a diameter of 0.3–0.4 millimetres (0.012–0.016 in)
During the mating season, which varies by species and climate, the male deposits a sperm sack at the female's genital opening (named thelycum). The females can carry several thousand eggs in their ovary, which may then account for as much as one third of the animal's body mass.[51] Krill can have multiple broods in one season, with interbrood intervals lasting on the order of days.[23][52]
Krill employ two types of spawning mechanism.[23] The 57 species of the genera Bentheuphausia, Euphausia, Meganyctiphanes, Thysanoessa, and Thysanopoda are "broadcast spawners": the female releases the fertilised eggs into the water, where they usually sink, disperse, and are on their own. These species generally hatch in the nauplius 1 stage, but have recently been discovered to hatch sometimes as metanauplius or even as calyptopis stages.[53] The remaining 29 species of the other genera are "sac spawners", where the female carries the eggs with her, attached to the rearmost pairs of thoracopods until they hatch as metanauplii, although some species like Nematoscelis difficilis may hatch as nauplius or pseudometanauplius.[54]
Moulting [ edit ]
Moulting occurs whenever a specimen outgrows its rigid exoskeleton. Young animals, growing faster, moult more often than older and larger ones. The frequency of moulting varies widely by species and is, even within one species, subject to many external factors such as latitude, water temperature, and food availability. The subtropical species Nyctiphanes simplex, for instance, has an overall inter-moult period of two to seven days: larvae moult on the average every four days, while juveniles and adults do so, on average, every six days. For E. superba in the Antarctic sea, inter-moult periods ranging between 9 and 28 days depending on the temperature between −1 and 4 °C (30 and 39 °F) have been observed, and for Meganyctiphanes norvegica in the North Sea the inter-moult periods range also from 9 and 28 days but at temperatures between 2.5 and 15 °C (36.5 and 59.0 °F).[55] E. superba is able to reduce its body size when there is not enough food available, moulting also when its exoskeleton becomes too large.[56] Similar shrinkage has also been observed for E. pacifica, a species occurring in the Pacific Ocean from polar to temperate zones, as an adaptation to abnormally high water temperatures. Shrinkage has been postulated for other temperate-zone species of krill as well.[57]
Lifespan [ edit ]
Some high-latitude species of krill can live for more than six years (e.g., Euphausia superba); others, such as the mid-latitude species Euphausia pacifica, live for only two years.[5] Subtropical or tropical species' longevity is still shorter, e.g., Nyctiphanes simplex, which usually lives for only six to eight months.[58]
Swarming [ edit ]
A krill swarm
Most krill are swarming animals; the sizes and densities of such swarms vary by species and region. For Euphausia superba, swarms reach 10,000 to 60,000 individuals per cubic meter.[59][60] Swarming is a defensive mechanism, confusing smaller predators that would like to pick out individuals. In 2012, Gandomi and Alavi presented what appears to be a successful stochastic algorithm for modelling the behaviour of krill swarms. The algorithm is based on three main factors: " (i) movement induced by the presence of other individuals (ii) foraging activity, and (iii) random diffusion."[61]
Vertical migration [ edit ]
Krill typically follow a diurnal vertical migration. It has been assumed that they spend the day at greater depths and rise during the night toward the surface. The deeper they go, the more they reduce their activity,[62] apparently to reduce encounters with predators and to conserve energy. Swimming activity in krill varies with stomach fullness. Sated animals that had been feeding at the surface swim less actively and therefore sink below the mixed layer.[63] As they sink they produce feces which implies a role in the Antarctic carbon cycle. Krill with empty stomachs swim more actively and thus head towards the surface. Vertical migration may be a 2–3 times daily occurrence. Some species (e.g., Euphausia superba, E. pacifica, E. hanseni, Pseudeuphausia latifrons, and Thysanoessa spinifera) form surface swarms during the day for feeding and reproductive purposes even though such behaviour is dangerous because it makes them extremely vulnerable to predators.[64]
Experimental studies using Artemia salina as a model suggest that the vertical migrations of krill several hundreds of metres, in groups tens of metres deep, could collectively create enough downward jets of water to have a significant effect on ocean mixing.[65]
Dense swarms can elicit a feeding frenzy among fish, birds and mammal predators, especially near the surface. When disturbed, a swarm scatters, and some individuals have even been observed to moult instantaneously, leaving the exuvia behind as a decoy.[66]
Krill normally swim at a pace of 5–10 cm/s (2–3 body lengths per second),[67] using their swimmerets for propulsion. Their larger migrations are subject to ocean currents. When in danger, they show an escape reaction called lobstering – flicking their caudal structures, the telson and the uropods, they move backwards through the water relatively quickly, achieving speeds in the range of 10 to 27 body lengths per second, which for large krill such as E. superba means around 0.8 m/s (3 ft/s).[68] Their swimming performance has led many researchers to classify adult krill as micro-nektonic life-forms, i.e., small animals capable of individual motion against (weak) currents. Larval forms of krill are generally considered zooplankton.[69]
Human uses [ edit ]
Deep frozen plates of Antarctic krill for use as animal feed and raw material for cooking
Harvesting history [ edit ]
Krill have been harvested as a food source for humans and domesticated animals since at least the 19th century, and possibly earlier in Japan, where it was known as okiami. Large-scale fishing developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and now occurs only in Antarctic waters and in the seas around Japan. Historically, the largest krill fishery nations were Japan and the Soviet Union, or, after the latter's dissolution, Russia and Ukraine.[70] The harvest peaked, which in 1983 was about 528,000 tonnes in the Southern Ocean alone (of which the Soviet Union took in 93%), is now managed as a precaution against overfishing.[71]
In 1993, two events caused a decline in krill fishing: Russia exited the industry; and the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) defined maximum catch quotas for a sustainable exploitation of Antarctic krill. After an October 2011 review, the Commission decided not to change the quota.[72]
The annual Antarctic catch stabilised at around 100,000 tonnes, which is roughly one fiftieth of the CCAMLR catch quota.[73] The main limiting factor was probably high costs along with political and legal issues.[74] The Japanese fishery saturated at some 70,000 tonnes.[75]
Although krill are found worldwide, fishing in Southern Oceans are preferred because the krill are more "catchable" and abundant in these regions. Particularly in Antarctic seas which are considered as pristine, they are considered a "clean product".[70]
In 2018 it was announced that almost every krill fishing company operating in Antarctica will abandon operations in huge areas around the Antarctic Peninsula from 2020, including "buffer zones" around breeding colonies of penguins.[76]
Human consumption [ edit ]
Although the total biomass of Antarctic krill may be as abundant as 400 million tonnes, the human impact on this keystone species is growing, with a 39% increase in total fishing yield to 294,000 tonnes over 2010–2014.[73] Major countries involved in krill harvesting are Norway (56% of total catch in 2014), the Republic of Korea (19%), and China (18%).[73]
Krill is a rich source of protein and omega-3 fatty acids which are under development in the early 21st Century as human food, dietary supplements as oil capsules, livestock food, and pet food.[70][72][77] Krill tastes salty with a somewhat stronger fish flavor than shrimp. For mass-consumption and commercially prepared products, they must be peeled to remove the inedible exoskeleton.[77]
In 2011, the US Food and Drug Administration published a letter of no objection for a manufactured krill oil product to be generally recognized as safe (GRAS) for human consumption.[78]
Krill (and other planktonic shrimp) are most widely consumed in Southeast Asia, where it is fermented (with the shells intact) and usually ground finely to make shrimp paste. It can be stir-fried and eaten paired with white rice or used to add umami flavors to a wide variety of traditional dishes.[79][80] The liquid from the fermentation process is also harvested as fish sauce.[81]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]After months of silence, former Democratic Presidential candidate and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley re-emerges at the Democratic National Convention and he is outraged that Americans are shrugging off the email hack by Russians on the Democratic party.
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"I'm outraged that the Russians would be happy burglarizing the emails of a major party to try to affect the outcome of our Presidential election. That's what I'm really outraged about. And, I think that all of us should be. This is very serious and an unprecedented development in our country. I think we should be outraged by the Russian behavior," O'Malley tells FOXBusiness.com.
While the content of the emails doesn't surprise him, he is shocked by the reaction of the American people.
"We all shrug of Russian dirty tricks being interjected into our Presidential race. That outrages me as Americans, we can't take this lying down," he adds.
O'Malley is scheduled to take center stage Wednesday night to show his support for Hillary Clinton.
"I'm going to work my tail off for Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine," he adds. "I believe our country is in a very vulnerable spot. All around the world, we see people expressing their angers in ways with the electoral systems that hurt their own countries. We saw that happen in Britain and that could happen there."
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O'Malley suspended his Presidential campaign in February after finishing third in the Iowa caucus.
"I'm going to be doing a little teaching in the fall and I'm also leading the Smart Cities Initiative. There is so much good that is happening in local governments and city governments."
As for 2020, O'Malley says that he hasn't made any plans to run just yet.
"I hope to work for Hillary's re-election."The first step has been taken to demolish Haiku Stairs, also known as Stairway to Heaven.
The stairs have been closed for nearly 30 years, but people still hike it illegally.
"I'm told it's a beautiful hike, but it isn't core to our mission of providing safe drinking water to our community," said Ernest Lau, manager for Board of Water Supply.
The Board of Water Supply's board of directors agreed to spend half a million dollars to figure out how to remove Haiku Stairs. Money would be released in the upcoming fiscal year, and the study would include an environmental assessment.
"To have people go up into these watershed lands and do all kind of things in the watershed lands, it isn't helping the quality of our water," Lau said.
KHON2 learned the Board of Water Supply spends $167,000 a year on security guard service, trying to keep people off the trail, and officials say up to 150 people a week are caught illegally hiking there.
The Board of Water Supply says the property is a liability and has become more dangerous since last week's strong winds uprooted trees on the trail.
"Our preference would be to transfer the stairs and that parcel where the stairs sits on to another government agency that is better equipped to handle the managed access," Lau said.
Board of Water Supply officials say they asked DLNR and the National Parks Service to take over the stairs, but both agencies declined.
Officials say they will proceed with this first step of demolition, but still welcome any agency to take over the stairs and the parcel under it.
But they would like to see interest in writing, along with a plan on how to manage access to this trail, a plan that would not impact the community.
It could take one to two years to figure out the best way to remove the stairs.
When the plan is complete, officials will go back to the board to get the final green light to demolish the trail.The Oklahoma Capitol, in the early morning, on the last day of the regular legislative session on May 26, 2017 (Phil Cross KOKH)
The Oklahoma Supreme Court has ruled an automobile sales tax bill passed by the legislature is constitutional
In a decision issued August 31, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that HB 2433 was constitutional. The Oklahoma Automobile Dealers Association brought the suit against the state saying that the bill was a revenue raising measure and passed unconstitutionally by the Oklahoma Legislature during the final five days of the session when revenue bills are not allowed to be passed.
The court argued that the bill just eliminated an exemption and was not the same as creating a new tax. HB 2433 removes an exemption on the automobile sales tax at 1.25 percent. Lawmakers estimate it will raise $100 million in the first year.
Senate President Pro Tem Mike Schulz was pleased by the decision.
“As the Senate has maintained, this measure is constitutional and it’s gratifying to know that the Oklahoma Supreme Court agrees. With the decision finalized, we now know the full extent of the revenue picture that needs to be addressed during a potential special session." Schulz said. "The Senate will continue to work closely with the Governor and the House to finalize a plan to make up the $215 million in revenue lost in an earlier court decision.”
House Speaker Charles McCall's office said he would not be commenting on the decision Thursday.
The Supreme Court earlier ruled that a fee raising the cigarette tax was unconstitutional, leaving a $215 million hole in the state budget. Governor Mary Fallin was pleased with the decision but kept the state's budget in mind.
"This ruling provides us with clarity in dealing with this fiscal year’s budget. While pleased with today’s ruling, it’s important to keep in mind we must still deal with the immediate problem of the loss of $215 million from the earlier high court ruling that struck down the proposed smoking cessation fee. The $215 million represents just state funds, but with the loss of matching federal funds state agencies estimate the total is nearly $500 million.” Fallin said.The Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association is urging the provincial government to reveal its plans for regulating marijuana, saying municipalities can't prepare for the change until they know the provincial approach.
SUMA issued a news release Tuesday calling on the province to start consulting and provide a legislative framework.
President Gordon Barnhart said municipalities are on the front lines of controlling cannabis production, sales and consumption.
"Municipalities have to worry about where they will allow cannabis producers and retailers to set up shop, and how we will enforce bylaws on buildings, production, and consumption," said Barnhart.
"We can't even begin some of that work until we know what kind of regulatory system the province will put in place."
He said municipalities expressed their concern during seven regional meetings two weeks ago.
Wall says review underway
Premier Brad Wall said in his 2017 throne speech last week that the provincial government was in the midst of a review process that includes an online public consultation. So far he said it has received almost 35,000 responses.
Wall said the review is guided by four objectives: preventing the growth of the underground marijuana market, restricting access to minors, ensuring road and workplace safety and protecting public health.
But Barnhart suggested Saskatchewan is lagging behind other provinces.
"Already, I'm hearing from members who have producers and retailers interested in their communities," said Barnhart.
"July 1, 2018 will be here before we know it — whether we are ready or not."
SUMA wants to share tax profits
SUMA wants the legislation to include provisions for some tax profits to go to municipalities to help pay for enforcement.
Premier Brad Wall has previously said he thinks money brought in through taxes should go towards education and preventing impaired driving, but not to mayors.
His government has pushed to delay the date of legalization but the federal government has maintained the July 1, 2018 deadline.
With eight months until the planned change, Barnhart said the province needs to act now.
"We're just really saying, let's have consultations, let's make sure that we meet these deadlines that seem to be looming, and time goes by quicker than we realize," said Barnhart.Victor Ponta / FOTO: Facebook
”Suntem exact ca în gluma "cu şapcă, fără şapcă". Dacă nu vreau să renunţ, de ce nu renunţ? Dacă vreau să renunţ, de ce renunţ? Deci din punctul meu de vedere discuţia este clar închisă, orice vrei să faci tot nu va fi bine”, a spus Victor Ponta, potrivit Mediafax.
Întrebat dacă renunţă şi la calitatea de avocat, Victor Ponta a evitat să răspundă, menţionând: „Repet, când nu am vrut să renunţ, mi s-a spus să renunţ. Când am vrut să renunţ, mi s-a spus că nu. Daţi-mi voie să nu cred în buna credinţă a celor care mă întreabă aceste lucruri”.
Premierul a fost întrebat, pe de altă parte, de ce a fost nevoie de OUG 94/2014 şi de ce prevederile din acest document nu au fost supuse unei proceduri parlamentare.
„După cum dumneavostră ştiţi - dacă vreţi să ştiţi, dacă nu vreţi, oricum ne pierdem timpul - acea Ordonanţă are multe prevederi referitoare la sistemul de educaţie. Una dintre ele se referea la faptul că pe 6 februarie un număr important de cadre didactice din învăţământul universitar trebuia să-şi piardă statutul, ceea ce se întâmpla în timpul anului universitar. De asemenea, cum v-a explicat ministrul Educaţiei, dacă aţi fi vrut să-l ascultaţi, e vorba de şase prevederi care ţineau de urgenţa desfăşurării activităţii”, a spus Victor Ponta.
Etichete:
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,The flower-hat jellyfish
1. Jellyfish first appeared about 650 million years ago and are found in every ocean, from the surface to the deep sea. Some are also found in fresh water
2. Medusa (plural medusae) is another word for jellyfish. Medusa is also the word for jellyfish in: Greek, Finnish, Portuguese, Romanian, Hebrew, Serbian, Croatian, Spanish, French, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Russian and Bulgarian
3. Since jellyfish are not actually fish, some people consider the term jellyfish a misnomer, and American public aquariums have popularized use of the terms jellies or sea jellies instead
Photograph by TRINKO
4. A group of jellyfish is called a bloom or swarm
Jellyfish Bloom – Photo by DAVID DOUBILET
5. Jellyfish do not have a respiratory system since their skin is thin enough that the body is oxygenated by diffusion
6. Jellyfish do not have a brain or central nervous system, but rather have a loose network of nerves, located in the epidermis, which is called a “nerve net.”
The Australian Spotted Jellyfish
7. Jellyfish are composed of more than 90% water. Most of their umbrella mass is a gelatinous material (the jelly) called mesoglea, which is surrounded by two layers of cells which forms the umbrella (top surface). The subumbrella (bottom surface) of the body is known as the bell
Nomura Jellyfish (Yomiuri Shimbun/AFP/Getty Images)
8. Jellyfish are dioecious; that is, they are either male or female. In most cases, to reproduce, both males and females release sperm and eggs into the surrounding water, where the (unprotected) eggs are fertilized and mature into new organisms
9. Box jellyfish venom is the most deadly in the animal kingdon and has caused at least 5,568 recorded deaths since 1954. Each tentacle has about 500,000 sindasites which are harpoon shaped needles that inject venom into the victim
10. The lion’s mane jellyfish is the largest known species of jellyfish. The Arctic Lion’s mane jellyfish is one of the longest known animals and the largest recorded specimen had a bell (body) with a diameter of 2.3 m (7 feet 6 inches) and the tentacles reached 36.5 m (120 feet). It was found washed up on the shore of Massachusetts Bay in 1870
Sources
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellyfish
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_jellyfish
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion%27s_mane_jellyfish
If you enjoyed this article, the Sifter highly recommends: The Largest Animal EverJNS.org – In his annual Christmas message, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted the common bonds that Jews and Christians share, as well as the thriving Christian community in Israel.
“To all of our Christian friends around the world, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” Netanyahu said in a video message on Thursday from the courtyard of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), one of the world’s largest pro-Israel Christian ministries with branches in over 85 nations and supporters in 160 countries worldwide.
Netanyahu added that he is “proud” of Israel’s relationship with the Christian community and “the bond with you because we all know that this land of Israel is the land of our common heritage. It changed the story of humanity, it changed civilization.”
At the same time, Netanyahu noted that Christians and Jews are under threat from the “forces of intolerance” and “barbarism” and that he’s proud Israel is the only place in the Middle East where Christians are thriving.
“I’m proud of the fact that in Israel, this is the one place in the Middle East that the Christian community not only survives but thrives and it’s no accident. It’s because of our commitment to religious freedom; it’s because of our embrace of our heritage; it’s because of our embrace of our common future,” Netanyahu said.
ICEJ Executive Director Dr. Jürgen Bühler responded to Netanyahu’s statement by wishing the Jewish people a “Happy Hanukkah” and giving the Israeli leader a silver Hanukkah dreidel as a gift.
“It was a great honor to host the Prime Minister at our Embassy headquarters and to receive his good holiday wishes for Christmas,” said Bühler.
“This indeed is a season when both communities can celebrate the triumph of light over darkness. And this timely display of solidarity shows once more that Israel is a country where religious freedoms are not only safeguarded but even encouraged.”Oasis
Haha, you gotta give it to those Canadians, they really know how to crash a party. During Oasis‘ set on last night’s Toronto Virgin Festival, right in the middle of “Morning Glory,” a dude from the crowd came from out of the nowhere and put a good shuv on Noel Gallagher, causing him to fell off the stage. The band took some good 10 minutes to recover and then returned to complete their set.
In all seriousness now, this is one fucked up thing to do. I mean no band, no matter how terrible or hated it may be, deserves this. Noel could’ve broken a leg or something, or even worse. Still, it was funny, right?
P.S. Here’s a great guide, from the folks down at Cracked, on how to properly punch Noel Gallagher in the face.No one starts out wanting to build a monolith. There are no design meetings where the architect or developers say "you know what? I think it'd be a great thing if we built something that will be hard to evolve and maintain." I think it's also fair to say that conversations like "we've got a great architecture for our system that has helped us be successful, so we need to be sure that it evolves towards a big ball of mud" rarely happen!
And yet monolithic applications do exist. Probably less than many people might want to admit, but they are there nonetheless. So the question has to arise: why? I suppose there's another related question: how? As with so many things in this life, there's no one straight answer; it's a combination of things including:
- Expediency; far too often it's just too easy for developers to hack solutions into an otherwise good architecture without spending time to understand whether that breaks the architecture. What starts as a simple, small hack can also then grow, acting as a catalyst, and a small break in the architecture then turns into a fracture.
- Lack of architect (leadership); the original architect(s) leave the project and those who come in to replace them (if they are replaced) can't control the developers or perhaps don't understand the architecture enough to ensure it remains "pure". Likewise, different developers coming into the project to either add to or replace those there already, can dilute the group knowledge and understanding of the architecture, leading to unforeseen and accidental divergence from the original plan.
- Natural evolution; any system than can be said to be architected has a point at which it's simply impossible to evolve and retain the original architecture. Take a look at any (historic) building which may have once been considered an architectural marvel and if it was left mainly alone (not extended) once complete then it's likely still something to behold and admire. But if it had extensions, new wings etc. then it's likely to be a monstrous carubuncle, unless the original architect was involved, or someone who appreciated/understood the original. Sometimes it's just easier to start from scratch and approach the problem afresh, than try to tack on new features.
- Related to the above, sometimes people try to extend software systems (services) to do more than they really should and in doing so break the architecture or create monoliths.
- Poor tools with which to visualise the software system/architecture, leading to making it harder to track changes and ensure they don't move the system towards an unmanageable monolith.
Now nothing I've mentioned so far has been specific to localised applications. It's just as applicable to distributed systems and in fact in a distributed environment the architectural issues can become even more important to understand and track. If you've arrived at a monolith then trying to fix that may involve breaking it into components/services/microservices which reside in a distributed environment, but that's not necessarily the only way, or the best way, in which to resolve the monolith problem. In fact if you don't understand the architectural issues which have resulted in the monolith then breaking it into components is more likely to result in a distributed monolith (or micromonoliths) than to fix the problem!
Yes, I mentioned the microservices word above for the first time and this is really an article about them again. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I believe in and understand the need for distributed systems composed of (micro) services. However, what worries me about some of the current emphasis around microservices is that somehow they will naturally result in a better architecture. That's simply not the case. If you don't put in to place the right processes, design reviews, architecture reviews, architects etc. to prevent or forestall a local monolith then you've no hope of achieving a good microservices architecture. And if you don't keep them in place then there's a good chance you'll evolve towards a distributed monolith.Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park The Kruger National Park is the largest game reserve in South Africa. It is roughly the same size as Israel or Wales, and covers some 20,000 square kilometres. It extends approximately 350 kilometres from north to south and approximately 60 kilometres from east to west. To the west and south of the Park are the provinces of Mpumalanga and Limpopo. In the north is Zimbabwe, and to the east is Mozambique.
The Kruger National Park is now part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (with a total area of 35 000 square kilometres). This peace park links the Kruger with Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe, and with the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique.
Other areas of incorporation are Manjinji Pan Sanctuary and Malipati Safari Area in Zimbabwe, as well as the area between Kruger and Gonarezhou, the Sengwe communal land in Zimbabwe and the Makuleke region in South Africa. The Park is part of the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere, an area designated by the United Nations Education and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) as an International Man and Biosphere Reserve.
It is roughly, and covers some 20,000 square kilometres. It extends approximately 350 kilometres from north to south and approximately 60 kilometres from east to west. To the west and south of the Park are the provinces of Mpumalanga and Limpopo. In the north is Zimbabwe, and to the east is Mozambique.The Kruger National Park is now part of(with a total area of 35 000 square kilometres). This peace park links the Kruger with Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe, and with the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique.Other areas of incorporation are Manjinji Pan Sanctuary and Malipati Safari Area in Zimbabwe, as well as, the Sengwe communal land in Zimbabwe and the Makuleke region in South Africa.The Park is part of, an area designated by the United Nations Education and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) as an International Man and Biosphere Reserve. The memorandum of understanding for the creation of the peace Park was signed on 10 November 2000 as the Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou Transfrontier Park. In October 2001 the name was changed to the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park.
By the Fifth World Parks Congress held in Durban, South Africa in 2003 the treaty had yet to be ratified by Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Fences between the Parks have started to come down allowing the animals to take up their old migratory routes that were blocked before due to political boundaries.
On the October 4 2001 the first 40 (including 3 breeding herds) of a planned 1000 Elephant were translocated from the over-populated Kruger National Park to the war-ravaged Limpopo National Park. It took 2½ years to complete the translocation.March 2004 saw the start of the construction of the Giriyondo Border Post between South Africa and Mozambique. The establishment of the Transfrontier Park is the first phase of creating a bigger Transfrontier conservation area measuring a staggering 99,800 km² (36,000 sq. mi.).
The creation of the Transfrontier Park is a milestone in terms of conservation, and cooperation between countries. However, this is merely the culmination of over a hundred year's worth of work and debate, the history of which is worth further study. Indeed, the entire area of the Kruger National Park has a history that goes back to early man.
What we now know as the Kruger National Park has long been associated with wildlife, and as a reserve of groundbreaking research and management practices. Few however realise the rich cultural and historical importance of the Kruger National Park, and the surrounding Lowveld.
Within the boundaries of the Park, are more than 254 historical and cultural sites, with others still in need of exploration. The sites cover an immense period, starting from the Stone Age, and continuing into the 20th Century.Photo: Ford The EksoVest is designed to reduce worker fatigue and injuries due to overhead assembly tasks.
“Built tough”: That’s the slogan used in ads for Ford trucks, which are shown hauling massive loads, towing equipment, and roaring across rugged terrain.
But the workers who assemble those trucks in Ford’s manufacturing plants are subject to human frailties. They can suffer from back and shoulder pain as a result of carrying out the repetitive tasks required by their jobs, particularly as they work on chassis suspended above them. Ford estimates that some assembly workers lift their arms about 4,600 times per day, or about 1 million times per year.
So workers on Ford’s assembly lines in two U.S. factories are getting some extra help. In a pilot project, the workers are suiting up with the EksoVest, an upper body exoskeleton from the Bay Area company Ekso Bionics. Ford plans to expand the test to factories in Europe and Latin America.
Ekso Bionics is primarily known for its work in the medical sector: The company sells a lower-body exoskeleton that enables paraplegic people to walk again.
But Russ Angold, cofounder and CTO of Ekso Bionics, tells IEEE Spectrum that he’s also found significant demand in the industrial sector for exoskeletons. “In 2015 we started getting a lot of inquiries, cold calls coming in, with people asking, ‘Where’s our construction exoskeleton, where’s our industrial exoskeleton?’” Angold remembers. “They’d say, ‘You guys are helping paralyzed people walk, can you use the same tech to make our workers stronger?’”
The company had a lot of relevant technology “sitting on the shelf,” Angold says. He notes that the company’s origins lie in a DARPA research project in the early 2000s that sought a full-body exoskeleton to help soldiers carry heavy loads.
Photo: Ford
The upper-body EksoVest ended up being much simpler than other Ekso technologies. The vest is unpowered and doesn’t have any robotic smarts to predict the user’s movements. Angold says the vest evolved into this form as the company worked with Ford to test prototypes. “It took a while to get to a product that makes sense, that’s comfortable for all-day usage,” he says.
The EksoVest elevates and supports a worker’s arms while the worker is performing overhead tasks, and provides adjustable lift assistance of five pounds to 15 pounds per arm. “We want to make the arms feel weightless,” says Angold, comparing the “neutral buoyancy” to the way a swimmer’s limbs feel in water. “Usually workers are pushing up with about 15 pounds of force, depending on the weight of their arms," he says. "So we take that 30 pounds of upward force, and transfer it down to the user’s hips.”
Angold says Ekso may design a powered upper-body exoskeleton in the future for industrial applications, but right now the company is happy to keep it simple. “There are no batteries to deal with, no sensors,” he says. “The |
his vitals were fine and he was alert."
The mother learned of the bullying and the surveillance video after her attorneys obtained a Cincinnati police investigative file over her son's death. The file included a copy of a Feb. 3 email from a homicide detective to an assistant principal at Carson Elementary School and other Cincinnati school officials describing what he saw on the video obtained from the school district's security department.
Cincinnati Public Schools, in a statement issued Thursday, did not address the allegation that officials at the elementary school didn't tell the boy's mother what had happened. School district spokeswoman Janet Walsh said the detective "mischaracterized the events in the video," the existence of which was first reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Leader said she watched the surveillance video and that it shows another boy acting aggressively toward students. When the 8-year-old approached him and tried to shake his hand, the boy threw him against the wall, knocking him unconscious, Leader said.
Other students stepped over the boy while others poked him with their feet as he lay unconscious for 7½ minutes before an assistant principal and then a school nurse came to his aid, Leader said. The mother came to get the 8-year-old after the school called her.
The mother took him to a hospital that evening after the boy vomited and complained of stomach pains. Doctors said he had a stomach virus and sent him home. Neither doctors nor the boy's mother knew what had happened earlier that day, her attorneys said.
The ages of the other children involved or present at the attack were not immediately available. The elementary school's website shows that it serves children from prekindergarten through the sixth grade and has 750 students.
The Cincinnati Public School statement provides a different version of events. It says that "while we are concerned about the length of time that (the boy) lay motionless and the lack of adult supervision at the scene," school administrators followed protocol by having the nurse evaluate him. The boy's mother was asked to pick him up and take him to a hospital "to be checked out," the statement said.
The mother's attorneys said her sister, who was caring for the boy while she was at work that night, called to tell her the boy had been vomiting.
Leader described the boy as a "happy-go-lucky kid" who had shown no signs of mental issues. Leader said the boy came home from school on Jan. 26, spoke with his mother and went into his bedroom. She later discovered him hanging from his bunk bed.
The email from the homicide detective, which was shared with The Associated Press, describes what he saw in the surveillance video. The detective said it appeared that the "primary agitator" hit one child in the stomach, sending him to the floor on hands and knees. The 8-year-old then approached the aggressor and tried to shake his hand but was pulled to the floor, the detective wrote.
The aggressor "appears to celebrate and rejoice in his behavior as (the boy) lay motionless. For many minutes, many students step over, point, mock, nudge, kick" the boy, the email said.
The detective told school officials that while he had concerns about the bullying, which could be considered a criminal assault, he added that the school would be better suited to handle the situation because of the children's ages.The night before Super Bowl XLVII, the NFL will salute its best players and plays from the 2012 season with "NFL Honors," a star-studded football and entertainment event at the Mahalia Jackson Theatre in New Orleans. Just like last year, Alec Baldwin will host the proceedings, which will be broadcast on CBS at 9 p.m. ET on Saturday night.
One of the awards that will be presented at "NFL Honors" is the 2012 Play of the Year. There are 20 official nominees available for viewing here, but what is your pick?
Adam Schein NFL.com
NFL.com Rice's fourth-and-29 miracle gave Baltimore a game it had no business winning I have to go with Ray Rice scampering for 30 yards (barely) on a fourth-and-29. Or, as Rice phrased it, "Hey diddle diddle, Ray Rice up the middle." That gave the Ravens a victory over the San Diego Chargers in a game they had no business winning.
Gregg Rosenthal NFL.com
NFL.com I'll never forget when Jenkins saved the day for New Orleans With all due respect to the plays on the official list, my pick for best play of the year is a little off the radar.
I'll remember New Orleans Saints safety Malcolm Jenkins chasing down Tampa Bay Buccaneers receiver Vincent Jackson from behind on a 95-yard gain for as long as I watch football. The play showed Jenkins' hustle and athleticism, and it made a huge difference in a game that the Saints won by seven points. The ensuing goal-line stand just made Jenkins' effort sweeter.
Charley Casserly NFL.com
NFL.com Ravens aren't AFC North champs without Rice's conversion Isn't the obvious call a check-down to your running back when the down and distance is fourth-and-29? On the run, Rice eluded five tacklers and powered through two more defenders to deliver the do-or-die first down. The play led to a game-tying kick from Justin Tucker as regulation expired, and the Ravens went on to win in overtime.
Remember, the Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals both finished the season at 10-6, with Baltimore taking the AFC North crown on a tiebreaker. What happens if Rice manages just 28 yards on that play?The recently leaked Android 4.3 firmware version has already been rooted, before actually being officially rolled out by Google.
The news comes from xda-developers – where else? – which reports that xda Elite Recognized Developer Chainfire has managed to adapt his SuperSU root app for Android 4.3.
The root works on the Galaxy S4 Google Edition version running the Android 4.3 OS that leaked a few days ago (JWR66N.S005.130625) and is the first Android 4.3 root out there, Chainfire said in a detailed explanation on Google+.
According to the developer, it’s not clear whether the protections in place are Android 4.3 defaults or “Samsung’s doing,” but the root required “quite a few mods to SuperSU:”
[quote qtext=”It remains to be seen if all of the protections that have been circumvented have been Samsung’s doing (as is normal for Samsung pre-release leaked firmwares), or if some of them are actually normal for Android 4.3.
For example, Android processes have their binding set of capabilities 0’d out. I’ve not personally seen that before on other firmwares, so I’m not sure if that’s Samsung’s doing or something 4.3. It prevents processes from performing certain actions – evenif the process manages to execute code as root user – like mounting the system read/write. Just to be clear, this root does not suffer from this issue.” qperson=”” qsource=”” qposition=”center”]
However, all features are “fully operational,” so if you have a Galaxy S4 and want to install the Android 4.3 leak you’ll be happy to know it can also be rooted.
Like always with root and/or custom ROMs, we’ll remind you that you’re the only person responsible for whatever happens during such procedures with your smartphones and/or tablets. However, since you’re entitled to do whatever you like to your devices, make sure you back up your data and follow the available instructions closely (links in the Source section following the post).
That said, Android 4.3 is still not official, so we’re back to waiting for Google to actually announce and release it.Via Mark Jeftovic of EasyDNS.com,
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of…. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.”
– Edward Bernays, Public Relations
I’ve been trying not to write this post, because really, who needs a bunch of shrill, hysterical snowflakes calling you a racist nazi for committing the egregious sin of pointing out the many contradictions in the #deleteshopify boycott and the wider witch hunt mentality that pervades social discourse these days?
The main factor holding me back is not cynicism but actually fear. For the first time in my life I’m afraid to speak my mind. The possible ramifications of exercising my inalienable right to free speech frighten the crap out of me. So much so that I really don’t want to do it. I’ve become known as the type of person who speaks candidly and frankly about some tough issues and I’ve never had a problem doing that in the past. I’ve gone up against some pretty intimidating forces such as the City of London IPCU and the US FDA, but I’ve never been as scared as I am now to speak out. For that reason I’m just going to have to suck it up and do it.
There is a cultural purge in progress.
It is directed against not only those who are perceived as “pro-Trump” (which as a card carrying Libertarian I am not. I think that he’s no friend to free speech, privacy or the internet), but targeting even those who are not “anti-Trump enough”.
This cultural purge has a two-pronged approach, from one side, from elements within the corridors of power (or those recently ejected from it) who have successfully floated the concept that free speech is not inviolable and that it would be a good thing for “truth” to be curated by “somebody” who knows better:
“We are going to have to rebuild within this wild-wild-west-of-information flow some sort of curating function that people agree to… There has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard, because they just don’t have any basis in anything that’s actually happening in the world…That is hard to do, but I think it’s going to be necessary, it’s going to be possible,”
— Barack Obama in speech at Frontiers Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, Oct 13, 2016 (emphasis added)
The other half comes from the trenches, comprised of manic flashmobs directing enmity against, literally, anything remotely connected to those deemed responsible for the greatest political upset of our time.
The mainstream media, outlets like Washington Post and the New York Times, among others, are complicit, providing the glue or the lubricant between this pincer movement and its chilling effects. The combination gels into an echo chamber drowning out all rationality and renders differing philosophies and legitimate dissent as blasphemous.
Let me explain my choice of title for this post and how it captures what I see going on here:
This post title is obviously a riff on Gil Scott-Heron’s song ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’, and the backstory behind this song is quite instructive to times like these:
Gil Scott-Heron saw first hand how altruistically motivated social activism can turn ugly when a campus protest action he initiated went horribly overboard. After the death of one of Gil-Heron’s schoolmates, he started a grass roots movement with the goal of improving the medial conditions on his campus, including making the college infirmary operate 24×7, something he felt would have saved his friend’s life.
The laudable aim of improving conditions on campus with the possibility of saving future lives derailed into a menacing fracas. A mob congregated on the front lawn of the infirmary’s doctor’s home where they proceeded to burn him in effigy:
“The protest grew angry, culminating with some students hanging the doctor in effigy from a tree in his front yard and setting it on fire. The doctor came out of his house and swore that he wasn’t responsible for the deaths. As he proclaimed his innocence, he had tears in his eyes. When Gil arrived at the protest, he stood between the students and the doctor, looking at the doctor’s children staring out the window in fear. ‘A cold flash scampered across the back of my neck, ‘ wrote Gil later to describe his sudden fear that events could spiral out of control into violence, a fear which was allayed only when the students went back to their dorms. The realization that radical action sometimes leads to unintended consequences and violent overreactions haunted Gil, and that image of a distraught Dr. Davies lingered in his mind for months to come. The experience reinforced Gil’s instinct to avoid violence and militant action in the struggle for social change.”
One should easily concede that today there are many reasons to petition for change. Our governments still have us all under wholesale surveillance, we are still involved in numerous unsanctioned wars, continue to provoke toward new ones, and the government continues to methodically destroy the economy via financial repression.
But we should all take Gil Scott-Heron’s lesson to heart and try to keep in mind that we are all human beings. We all have rights, we should all be secure in our ability to speak and associate freely.
But that isn’t what’s happening.
Today, the mainstream media, rather than objectively and rationally report on facts, are instead complicit in a sustained, wide-ranging campaign of demonization of “all things non-Democrat”. There is blanket categorical denial of any valid basis for why the citizenry worldwide are rejecting what they increasingly see as an “Establishment Elite” agenda.
Greece, Brexit, Trump and quite possibly soon, Marine Le Pen in France are all continuations of a theme. These events are referendums unto themselves and those “Global Elites” are on a losing streak. Instead of trying to understand the basis of these rejections (that the populace are sick and tired of having a two-tiered society in which their civil rights are eroded and they get saddled with all the debt, while the elites get to operate under a different set of rules and gobble up all the assets); they have mounted a concerted campaign of outright propaganda and mind-numbingly nonsensical narratives to dismiss away these acts of “defiance”.
As alt-market.com’s Brandon Smith commentary observes:
“One of the most favored propaganda tactics of establishment elites and [those] they employ … is to relabel or redefine an opponent before they can solidly define themselves. In other words, elites [and their media] will seek to “brand” you (just as corporations use branding) in the minds of the masses so that they can take away your ability to define yourself as anything else.” (emphasis added)
And this is exactly what’s happening. For example, when you say “Breitbart”, your average person is so inculcated from the repetition of the words “white supremacist”, “racist”, and “ nazi” that people just assume that’s what it is. From there people think that it’s ok to #boycottshopify simply for supplying basic online ecommerce services to them (where does it stop? Btw, Breitbart derives 100% of it’s revenues from the internet, perhaps everybody in a twist about it should do us all a favour and boycott that too).
Is Breitbart really white supremacist, racist nazi hate site? Actually, no it isn’t. Most people think it is however, because they’ve been conditioned to believe it, and they’ve never actually gone there to see for themselves.
How do I know that Breitbart isn’t really the white supremacist, neo-nazi hate-site that we are incessantly brainwashed to believe it is? Well for one thing, I’ve seen the real deal. They look like this:
This place is called “Shitskin Plantation”. They wound up on easyDNS (my company’s system ) for about a week by the time we kicked them. The fact that we did eject a real honest to god racist, neo-nazi hate site doesn’t bolster the #boycottshopify movement for three reasons:
#1) Shitskin is clearly racist and contains actual language condoning violence toward an identifiable group. It was right there for anybody to see. Here in Canada such material is codified into law as “hate speech” under the Criminal Code. #2) We chose. We assessed our AUP, found them in violation and kicked them. Specifically we found them in violation of “the Non-Aggression Principle” in our plain english Terms of Service. The NAP has grey areas and subjective rabbit holes. Libertarians debate it relentlessly. But the important thing is that nobody else forced us to do it in the absence of due process. We made our own determination, and that’s important. Sacrosanct, in fact. And #3) Breitbart is an ultra-conservative, hard-right political opinion site. That’s all. They seem also have a penchant for inflammatory, click-bait headlines (who doesn’t these days?) You may not like it, I may not like it, but they absolutely have the right to be online and to publish.
That anybody who has even the most tenuous affiliation with them is fair game for having their rights curtailed, their livelihood sanctioned or sabotaged is indefensible. The only legitimate mechanism for these people to suffer in their fortunes is through the failure of their ideas in the marketplace of thought. By being rejected, not through being repressed (see below).
It is entirely reasonable for Shopify, or any other vendor to keep supplying services to Breitbart (at present they have no services with easyDNS)
It is also reasonable for any of those vendors to choose not to supply services to them of their own volition (you can’t have it both ways folks, you can’t force Shopify to dump Breitbart and simultaneously force some Bible-thumping redneck to bake a cake for a gay wedding).
What isn’t reasonable is to coerce or compel anybody else to take any action they would not themselves take under their own judgement. It’s truly frightening that there is a growing sentiment that this is acceptable behaviour.
Do you really want to live in a world where people sever business and personal relationships because a literal flash mob demands it? Where mobs get to pick and choose who you are allowed to associate with?
Shopify has over 300,000 customers. You honestly expect them to sort through those and kick out the ones that you think are morally objectionable?
In 2010, when easyDNS was itself embroiled in the Wikileaks debacle I was absolutely appalled when ranking politicians applauded the vendors for severing ties with them. Senator Lieberman congratulated Amazon and Paypal by name for “breaking their contracts”, he literally used those words. A ranking politician applauding behaviour that should rightly get you sued. The public backlash then was huge and pro-Wikileaks. In our own small way, we stood up for Wikileaks then, we maintain a congruent position now. I applaud Shopify for standing firm and refusing to sever their ties for the same reason.
The “Right Side” of History
Whenever I hear a lot of activists whining about the current situation I frequently hear references to being “on the right side of history”. Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of that. Actually that’s a nonsensical statement since history is amoral, or as Winston Churchill famously observed, “One damned thing after another”.
However there is one rule of thumb I’ve formulated over the years which I think can keep one onside of the grand currents sweeping through time and society and helped me understand my sympathy with Libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism. That is to know the fine line between rejecting an idea that one finds immoral, unethical, obsolete or otherwise objectionable and repressing it.
Morality is largely subjective. Very few people act in a way they themselves consider immoral. Almost everybody thinks that whatever they’re doing, they’re on the side of the angels. The tiny sliver of participants who are fully cognizant of their own immoral action and proceed anyway are criminals and sociopaths (the majority of them gravitate into politics).
When enough people’s ethical compasses align you get a cultural or societal norm. One of the cultural norms that we fought hard for over the ages was that people have a right to free speech and free association. You can disagree with what I have to say but respect my right to say it.
These rights were so hard won that they were codified into universal laws and into the very Constitutions that govern most civilized nations. I believe one of the more well-known words for it was “inalienable”.
Until now. Now people are putting conditions around “free speech” and “free association”.
The idea that free speech has its limits somewhere around the point where it hurts somebody’s feelings is beyond idiotic and dangerous.
Tweet of person exercising her free speech to encourage economic harm to others…
The world is not one big foam insulated, bubble wrapped safe space. This may come as a shock to you but there is a widespread sentiment, a backlash dare I say, against the idea that a Saviour State should watch over everything and smooth out all the world’s sharp edges.
Besides…
Boycotts usually backfire.
Back in the mid-90’s, Bob Rae was the Premiere of Ontario and I was in a failed metal band out of London, Ontario. Mr. Rae wrote a nice song about multiculturalism called “Same Boat Now” and submitted it to various record labels who promptly rejected it and told him not to quit his day job. My band recorded a power-pop version of his song and released it on 7” vinyl. Our label put an open letter to Mr. Rae on the back sleeve that was highly critical of his socialist political platform (albeit quite tame by today’s standards). I was mortified, fearing a media backlash but felt trapped. I called Jack Richardson, my former college prof from Fanshawe College’s Music Industry Arts program and widely credited with having single-handedly created the Canadian music industry and asked his advice.
Before I finished relaying the details he was laughing. “Mark”, he said, “The only thing that truly matters is that they spell ‘Landslide’ right. That’s it”.
This has been bourne out countless times since that event. I could list them here but the point is, boycotts usually invoke The Streisand Effect and actually bolster the target of the boycott. We can cite a couple brief examples:
During the Bob Parsons era of Godaddy, when he shot the elephant, or when he aired some super-sexist Super Bowl commercial, Godaddy numbers, in terms of net-new domains-in or registered usually went up not down, in the face of consumer outrage and boycotts.
Wikileaks, again – when we did help their mirror sites get back online there was a counter-reaction against that. Every once in awhile I check the emails from the customers who sent me extremely hostile emails telling me they were leaving, and almost all of them remained (and some still do) customers to this day.
Shopify itself, who is publicly traded, has been on a tear in share price for most of the year, and it’s continued unabated since #deleteShopify began.
So what can you do? You can only govern yourself. Your only recourse is whether to associate or disassociate with somebody. Yes, you are perfectly within your rights to #boycottshopify but as I’ve outlined, you’re being naive doing so and will likely have the exact opposite effect if you’re enough of a loudmouth about it.
But if this Cultural Purge proceeds we will actually, for real, lose what used to be inalienable rights. Our right to free speech, our right to free association and our rights to our own minds. If something you say is considered “hurtful” (which will more closely resemble dissent or criticism of the Official Narrative than anything else) you will be sanctioned. You will tow the line or you will be penalized – contracts severed, vendors disassociate themselves, boycotts ensue. Whatever you do, just don’t say or think the wrong thing, because not going along with the crowd will make you a pariah.
If you want to prevent that:
1) you have the duty to look at the issue first hand and decide for yourself if it has any merit. Don’t ever come to me and tell me “XYZ is white supremacist, neo-nazi hate speech” unless you can show me an article that has the hate speech in it. Show me the white supremacist rhetoric. If you tell me you believe it simply because that’s what Wapo told you then you are a fool. You are Wapo’s useful idiot. A Wapobot.
2) you have to be prepared to call b/s whenever some whining snowflake demands safety from any contrary opinion, whenever some pundit robotically repeats the “white supremacist, hate speech, homophobe, Russian hackers” mantra, and whenever you’re asked to jump on some witchunt bandwagon against someone who dares to dispute the Official Narrative.
3) you have to be able to take the heat. Guess what? You’ll be next. Speak out against this nonsense and you’ll be subjected to hysterionics, character assassination, guilt by the most tenuous of associations, distortions of fact and a co-ordinated piling on by mobs of unquestioning ideological berserkers.
You’ll be Peter Thiel (there was a popular outcry to remove him from Facebook’s board, why? Because he endorsed Trump.)
You’ll be Scott Adams (his crime? Correctly predicting that Trump was going to win)
You’ll be Ivanka Trump (facing a co-ordinated attack on her livelihood for her transgression of being born a Trump).
That is a cultural purge.
Hell, I’m probably next just for writing this piece. So be it. My credibility as a non-racist, free-speech Libertarian are unassailable and am categorically unaffiliated with Russian intelligence. My duty is to speak out precisely because it is becoming more dangerous to speak out.
“In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”. — UnknownGet the biggest rugby stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Gareth Bale and his Dragons team-mates are set to be rewarded for their magnificent Euro 2016 exploits by recording Wales’ highest position in FIFA rankings history.
Wales are set to rocket up to 22nd in the world when the new figures are revealed on Thursday.
If the position is rubber-stamped, it will eclipse our previous best of 27th which was achieved almost 22 years ago just after the FIFA ratings were first introduced.
It was under Terry Yorath, when Ian Rush, Mark Hughes and Ryan Giggs took a Welsh nation to within a penalty kick of the 1994 World Cup, that Wales recorded that previous high.
But Wales’ unbeaten start to their Euro campaign, which included a 3-0 thrashing of Israel a week ago, should see Coleman’s current Class usurp Yorath’s team of the 1990s.
Israel v Wales: The best of the images
A website which works out the complicated points system which FIFA use to determine the rankings predicts that Wales will rise 15 places to 22nd when the announcement is made next week.
Coleman’s jubilant No2 Osian Roberts, aware of the likely outcome, tweeted: “Wales ranked above Denmark and Russia for first time. Above USA and Greece for first time in 21 years.”
MORE: How Wales are outgunning European superpowers in race for Euro 2016
The new boost to Coleman’s side comes less than 24 hours after the FAW announced a Cardiff City Stadium sell-out for the top of the table June clash with Belgium.
Under the formula used for the FIFA ratings, it is anticipated Belgium will arrive in the Welsh capital ranked as the third best team in the world, behind only Germany and Argentina and ahead of Colombia and Neymar’s Brazil.
It is only four years ago that Wales dipped to a record low of 116th when Gary Speed was manager. He admitted it was embarrassing and said it was time to right the wrong, helping to lead the side back up to 48th in double-quick time.
Whoever has been in charge, Wales have had a rollercoaster ride with the rankings.
Under Mark Hughes, the team dropped as low as 109th before rising to 52nd in 2002, the year when Italy and Germany were defeated at the Millennium Stadium.
John Toshack took the team from 73rd in the ratings up to 57th, before poor results against Bulgaria and Switzerland under Brian Flynn and the first few months of the Speed tenure saw the side down to 116th.
Wales quickly rose a record 68 places before Coleman took over. During the initial stages of his management Wales dipped back down to 82nd, but recently rose as high as 34th and are expected to soar to within a whisker of breaking into the top 20 next week.Your hotel news today begins with a surprising revelation: the government shutdown brought some unexpected business to Grand Canyon area hotels. With the unfortunate closure of several national parks, visitors are having to rethink their plans. Many Arizona hotels have been overflowing with visitors, having to detour to several nearby lodging options due to full booking. An unexpected but semi-fortunate turn of events for sure. Let’s hope the shutdown is resolved soon.
New York City Hotels Are Booming, But Beware Overexposure
New York City is not complaining either. With an occupation rate of 85% for the last 12 months, NYC’s hotels are doing quite well thank you very much. Not quite in pre-2007 levels yet, but the effects of the 2008 crisis seem to be slowly but constantly fading.
Sexy Hotels!An expert traveler reveals: sex is better at hotels. Tell us something we don’t know! And here’s a bit of the action:
I met my husband, who travels constantly for work, in the lobby of a hotel — the Chateau Marmont, in LA. Our first, second and third dates were all in hotels: the Hotel Cipriani in Venice, the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur and the Gran Hotel de Milan in Italy. He first told me he loved me in a hotel (again the Chateau Marmont); I realized I loved him at the Peninsula in Hong Kong. We had two years of a blissful home life — all in hotels.
Can’t stop reading? Continue here 😉 (Totally SFW, CNN link)Hotel Cocktails
You need a drink. Now.
Opening Night at the Flemings Cocktail Bar, Mayfair
Photo: FlemingsMayfair @ Flickr
The Huffington Post’s Hipmunk brings us yet another delightful list with six great cocktail bars at hotels. It’s a image-post, several “thousand words” long. Enjoy.Tweet
Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal:
Geoffrey Manne rightly applauds Facebook’s offering of Free Basics (“a ‘zero-rated’ service that allows users to access Facebook – and other useful websites – without incurring data charges”) which has given Internet access to millions of poor people (“Since When Is Free Web Access A Bad Thing?” Jan. 29). Yet as Mr. Manne explains, ‘net-neutralicists’ object; they demand that service providers be forced to charge one, flat price for access to all of these providers’ services and content.
Mr. Manne’s essay prompts me to imagine what the world would look like if ‘food-neutralicists’ were similarly on the loose:
A hungry woman dying of thirst in the desert is approached by an entrepreneur who offers her unlimited quantities of bottles of water and a selection of snacks, all at a price of $0. No strings attached. The entrepreneur also informs the woman that, if she wishes, he’ll sell to her a seven-course meal (champagne included) for $100. A moment later an armed regulator shows up. Offering nothing to anyone but diktats, the regulator orders the entrepreneur to cease and desist this practice of differential pricing. Unless the entrepreneur offers to the woman access at one, flat price to all that he sells, the entrepreneur must not offer the woman anything.
Uncertain of the woman’s willingness to pay enough for a seven-course meal (champagne included) – and unable to afford to supply such a meal free of charge – the entrepreneur leaves the scene, giving the woman nothing. The woman soon dies as the regulator boasts of his magnanimity at having protected her access to “food-neutrality.”
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030Hi everyone, I wanted to give you guys a heads up on some of the new content that will be showing up in the next day or two on PBE. We'll be doing some cool things with Missions and Loot and we've got two awesome new skins for Yasuo and Riven. Below I'll describe whats coming and I'll also be updating this post with any issues that come up. Remember that this content will be turning on over the next day or two and that as always with PBE, things could change before it hits LIVE. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **Missions:** We’re testing out new missions themed toward Chaos and Order. Complete missions to earn exclusive rewards and to unlock new missions. **Loot:** We are introducing limited-time loot we’d like you to test. Earn Order and Chaos Tokens by completing missions (or purchase them in the Store) to unlock special Icons, Borders, Emotes and Orbs. You can also purchase passes themed toward Order or Chaos, which grant you a Hextech Chest & Key, an Orb, a unique Ward, a multiplier that doubles the amount of tokens you earn on missions, and mission lines exclusive to the passes. Orbs contain a guaranteed Legacy skin shard and a 50% chance to get a bonus drop. If your orb triggers a bonus drop, you’ll have a chance to get either a random amount of Tokens, two Gemstones, or a loot-exclusive skin shard. Completing the special mission lines rewards you with Hextech Chests, Hextech Keys, Tokens, and even Gemstones. **In-game content:** **Dawnbringer Riven** Cast aside your shadows; all paths lead to the light! Let Order guide your blade when you take to the Rift as Dawnbringer Riven! New model, with a model-swap for her ult (a golden, radiant embodiment of Order) All new animations! (very fluid and elegant, with turn-tech on her wings) All new VFX! (extra golden effects for Q & W in ult form) All new VO and SFX! (heavenly and crystalline) **Nightbringer Yasuo** The truest path is the darkest. Destroy this world with Chaos and pave the way for a dark, new age as Nightbringer Yasuo! New model with an initial model-swap when your whirlwind is up and a second swap after ulting an enemy (A dark, raging embodiment of Chaos) All new animations! (New monstrous spikes that pierce out on spellcast) All new VFX! (Shadows, fire, and brimstone) All new VO and SFX! (Sounds of hellfire and dark power plus new lines! His ult VO gets considerably fiercer. **“SORYE GE TON!”**) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **Known PBE Issues:** **Missions** **Loot** * There are several items that will be missing art assets in the Loot Crafting menu. We are aware of the ‘missing’ assets, but please let us know if you see mismatched or incorrect assets. **Skins** Thanks, -Ponts-
Title
Body Cancel
SavePOLITICO's James Hohmann reports from Atlantic, Iowa:
Ron Paul said Thursday that he’s eager to find out how much gold the United States really owns.
A supporter at a town hall meeting asked about Fort Knox: “Would you reveal as president whether there’s actually gold there?”
Here is Paul’s full response: “Yes, and if I couldn’t accomplish that then there’s big trouble in this country. I may need to get some help for you. I tried for years to do this…I never went to Fort Knox. I made a request when the gold commission came up in the early 1980s. We had a study of the role of gold in the monetary system. There were 17 members, and I couldn’t get one other person to endorse the principle that we ought to go to Fort Knox and find out if there’s gold.”
“Gold is in more places than Fort Knox. There’s some in New York City, as well as at West Point. And there’s already admission by our government: ‘Well, that gold in New York City, we haven’t been able to verify that for a long time.’ And we all know, and that’s why the audit of the Fed is important, because there’s a lot of shenanigans that go on. They’ll loan the gold, and they’ll use it as collateral on these international transactions. So there’s so much that we have to know about. But that should be on high priority. So I will continue to do that. I think I’ll have a little more clout as president, and I thank you for the question.”
Many in the crowd of about 150 at the community center applauded energetically.
Crusading for the gold standard helped boost the Texas congressman politically, but of late he’s been trying to broaden his message to appeal to more traditional Republican voters ahead of the Jan. 3 caucuses. So the answer took him a little off message and reminded voters of his unorthodox views on issues other than Iran.Over 100 thousand Egyptians have authorized Wael Ghoneim to represent the January 25 uprising.
The authorization process took place after Ghoneim appeared on TV on the popular talk show “Al Ashera Masaan” (The 10 o’clock show). Mohamed Garhy founded a Facebook page titled “I authorize Wael Ghoneim to speak on the behalf of the January 25 revolution”.
Garhy states that he came up with the idea because of Ghoniem's efforts in influencing and encouraging Egyptian youth to speak their minds and unite against the regime of Honsi Mubarak.
Garhy is encouraging more Egyptians to subscribe.
Ghoneim is Google’s regional marketing manager in the Middle East, founder of the “Kolona Khaled Said” (We are all Khaled Said) Facebook page and one of the masterminds behind the January 25 revolt in Egypt.
Ghoneim was detained on January 27 and was set free yesterday.
Short link:When Ryan Seacrest finishes the countdown on New Year’s Eve, the calendar won’t be the only thing changing.
Boy Scouts will switch to a new set of requirements at each rank — Scout through Eagle — beginning Jan. 1, 2016. You can see all the requirements, old and new, in this PDF.
But when are Scouts required to use the new requirements? What about Scouts who are |
7, the Labour Force Survey has included reasons for working part time. In 2016, the majority of young adults in the labour force who worked part time did so because of school attendance (72.1%), followed by unfavourable business conditions (11.3%) and inability to find full-time work (7.0%). Sources: "Unemployment Dynamics Among Canada's Youth" in Economic Insights (Catalogue number11-626-X); "Youth Labour Force Participation: 2008 to 2014" in Economic Insights (Catalogue number11-626-X); and CANSIM tables 282-002, 282-0014, 282-0095, and 282-0219.
Chart 3
Labour force participation rates of youth aged 15 to 24, Canada, 1976 to 2016
Chart 4
Proportion of youth aged 15 to 24 working part time, Canada, 1976 to 2016
Sustainable development goals On 1 January, 2016, the world officially began implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development—the United Nations' transformative plan of action that addresses urgent global challenges over the next 15 years. The plan is based on 17 specific sustainable development goals. The Labour Force Survey is an example of how Statistics Canada supports the reporting on the Global Goals for Sustainable Development. This release will be used in helping to measure the following goals:
Note to readers The Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates for September are for the week of September 10 to 16. The LFS estimates are based on a sample and are therefore subject to sampling variability. As a result, monthly estimates will show more variability than trends observed over longer time periods. For more information, see "Interpreting Monthly Changes in Employment from the Labour Force Survey." Estimates for smaller geographic areas or industries also have more variability. For an explanation of the sampling variability of estimates and how to use standard errors to assess this variability, consult the "Data quality" section of the publication Labour Force Information (Catalogue number71-001-X). This analysis focuses on differences between estimates that are statistically significant at the 68% confidence level. The LFS estimates are the first in a series of labour market indicators released by Statistics Canada, which includes indicators from programs such as the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (SEPH), Employment Insurance Statistics, and the Job Vacancy and Wage Survey. For more information on the conceptual differences between employment measures from the LFS and SEPH, refer to section 8 of the Guide to the Labour Force Survey (Catalogue number71-543-G). The employment rate is the number of employed people as a percentage of the population aged 15 and older. The rate for a particular group (for example, youths aged 15 to 24) is the number employed in that group as a percentage of the population for that group. The unemployment rate is the number of unemployed people as a percentage of the labour force (employed and unemployed). The participation rate is the number of employed and unemployed people as a percentage of the population. Full-time employment consists of persons who usually work 30 hours or more per week at their main or only job. Part-time employment consists of persons who usually work less than 30 hours per week at their main or only job. Seasonal adjustment Unless otherwise stated, this release presents seasonally adjusted estimates, which facilitate comparisons by removing the effects of seasonal variations. For more information on seasonal adjustment, see Seasonally adjusted data – Frequently asked questions. Chart 1 shows trend-cycle data on employment. These data represent a smoothed version of the seasonally adjusted time series, which provides information on longer-term movements, including changes in direction underlying the series. These data are available in CANSIM table 282-0087 for the national level employment series. For more information, see the StatCan Blog and Trend-cycle estimates – Frequently asked questions. Next release The next release of the LFS will be on November 3.
Products
A more detailed summary, Labour Force Information (Catalogue number71-001-X), is now available for the week ending September 16.
More information about the concepts and use of the Labour Force Survey is available online in the Guide to the Labour Force Survey (Catalogue number71-543-G).
The updated Labour Market Indicators dashboard (Catalogue number71-607-X) is now available. This new, interactive dashboard provides easy, customizable access to key labour market indicators. Users can now configure an interactive map and chart showing labour force characteristics at the national, provincial or census metropolitan area level.
Contact information
For more information, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca).
To enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Vincent Ferrao (613-951-4750; vincent.ferrao@canada.ca), Andrew Fields (613-951-3551; andrew.fields@canada.ca) or Client Services (toll-free 1-866-873-8788; statcan.labour-travail.statcan@canada.ca), Labour Statistics Division.Arsene Wenger has revealed the latest team news ahead of Sunday's Premier League clash against Everton:
on Aaron Ramsey…Aaron and Nacho Monreal are back training with the squad, so that is good news. Hopefully they will be available for Sunday. Diaby is back on the pitches, so that is good news.
on any others…At the moment that is all because the other injured players are not back, not Wilshere, not Ozil. Everybody else is alright.
on Laurent Koscielny…He is still out. The earliest [he will be back] is next week, the latest is the week after.
on Wilshere and Walcott…They are alright, they are doing well. It is still early for them, of course for Theo the season is finished and Jack is progressing well.
on Mesut Ozil…The FA Cup will be too soon for him, but he will hopefully be back soon after that.I'm not surprised Glenn Beck is kind of freaking out over the fact that Media Matters continues to remind people that the Fox News host's ratings are swooning in 2010, and that he's lost one-third of his audience this year, as well as hit a couple low-water marks on the Nielsen scorecard. I'm not surprised he's taking it personally and lashing out because Beck is, at heart, a radio guy and radio guys are wired when it comes to ratings. Ratings are how they judge people and how they themselves are judged. ("Great spring book!")
So I'm sure it's painful for Beck to see the numbers go down, to know that people are noting the precipitous drop, and there's no doubt a mounting fear that people are judging him because of his sliding Nielsen numbers. And so yes, that's why he's been spinning the story pretty hard.
I get it. However, I also understand that the Nielsen numbers don't lie. But after watching Beck last night talk about his ratings, I'm pretty sure he does. Or at least that Beck likes to play loose with the numbers [emphasis added]:
It was Media Matters, by the way, who first started the lie that we could read in, I think, the LA Times and then The Washington Post... the little story came from Media Matters that my ratings were down on this program. Well, now we can tell you 'cause the official ratings are out, May to May, and it's weird. They're down so far that they are actually up 22 percent. Sounds like a smear campaign with no facts at all.
Trust me, if my claim that Beck had lost one-third of his audience this year was a fact-free smear campaign, Fox News would have buried Media Matters, as well as every TV industry reporter and blogger, in a blizzard of press releases detailing exactly how Beck's ratings were not down -- they were up! Fox News, like every major cable outfit, has an entire division of its communications/research team that does nothing but churn out press releases to prove just how amazing and fantastic its ratings are.
But I wrote a story detailing how Beck's ratings were down 33 percent this year, and the story, as Beck mentioned, was widely circulated and got picked up in the press -- yet it was crickets from Fox News. The pushback, aside from Beck's own mini-temper tantrums, was non-existent. Nada. Zilch.
Why? Because the numbers don't lie. Beck can go on TV every night and repeat "George Soros" 25 times if he wants (or however else he thinks he's going to cast doubt on Media Matters with his viewers), but that's not going to change the Nielsen numbers. And guess what? Glenn Beck has lost one-third of its TV audience since January. Even though he's supposed to be the all-powerful media leader of a political revolution.
But let's take a closer look at Beck's claim about his May-to-May ratings. Is it true? Is Glenn Beck up 22 percent, as he host seemed to suggest last night?
Not really. Because what Beck does in order to produce that 22 percent jump is take the first two-plus weeks of ratings for May 2010 -- when Glenn Beck only appears Monday through Friday -- and compares them to the first two-plus weeks of May 2009 -- when Beck's show appeared Monday through Saturday, and when his Saturday show recorded ratings significantly lower than his weekday shows. In other words, Beck is cooking the books. The May 2009 ratings are weighed down by his dismal Saturday numbers, which means that when compared with Saturday-less May ratings from 2010, the 2010 numbers look better. In this case, 22 percent better.
What if you factored out the poorly rated Saturday shows from May 2009? In that scenario, Beck's audience has grown more like 8 percent, May-to-May.
And I mean, c'mon, could Beck have picked a smaller window of ratings (two weeks in May?) to focus on in order to manufacture an increase? So no, that modest May boost doesn't mean Glenn Beck is flying high. Moreover, if you look at the ratings for an April-to-April comparison, those numbers were down:
Interestingly, for the first time since he debuted on Fox News, Glenn Beck did not grow year-over-year: in fact, his show was down 7% in total viewers and 6% in the [age 25-54] demo.
And I return to my central point, which Beck refuses to acknowledge: Since the beginning of this year Glenn Beck ratings are off by one-third. Think about that for a minute.
Think about all the magazine covers, the massive amount of media coverage and free publicity that Beck generated over the past 12 months. Think about the fact that Beck is supposed to be at the forefront -- the media point person -- for a burgeoning political, right-wing revolution that's unfolding across the country. Beck is the anointed leader of the almighty Tea Party movement. And what does he have to show for it one year later in a nation of 300 million people? About 100,000 more television viewers.
Yikes.
Meanwhile, by stressing the May-to-May comparison, Beck is probably hoping people just skip over what happened rating-wise during the months in-between. And what happened was that Glenn Beck did blow up as a ratings phenomena, there's no denying that. And that Nielsen peak was reached in late January and early February when the show averaged nearly three million viewers each night. And even for the months surrounding that, Glenn Beck routinely drew in 2.5 million viewers.
But since then? Well since then Beck has basically lost all the new viewers he picked up over the last twelve months (blame in on the Massa Moment?), which is why in May of 2010, he's pretty much back where he started in May of 2009. After twelve months of hype, Beck has not significantly grown his TV audience.
And that fact, he just can't spin.When the United States threw off the British crown to become one of the world’s first republics, it also jettisoned the belief that some people are destined to rule over others because they were born or married into a particular family. Some two hundred and forty years later, the wife of a former President is vying for the country’s top job against a field that includes one candidate whose father and brother were President, and another whose father spent sixteen years in Congress and made three Presidential runs of his own.
Indonesia, which ranks just below the U.S. as the world’s third-largest democracy, has been trying to protect itself from this sort of dynastic succession. (India, the most populous democracy in the world, has its own struggles with dynastic politicians, although their numbers may be declining.) In March, the Indonesian parliament passed a law that prohibits anyone with one degree of separation from an incumbent, by blood or marriage, from running for one of the country’s more than five hundred mayoral, district-head, and provincial-governor seats until at least one five-year term has passed.
There is good reason for this law. Since 2005, when direct elections were introduced for these positions, some areas of Indonesia have become family fiefdoms. Ratu Atut Chosiyah, who was until recently the governor of the western Java province of Banten, worked directly with her late husband, a member of the national parliament representing her district. One of her sons served in the second chamber of parliament, the regional representative council; his seat was taken by his sister when he filled his father’s place in the national parliament. Atut’s brother, sister, and a sister-in-law are the heads or deputy heads of districts within her province. A son-in-law and a daughter-in-law both sit in the provincial parliament, which is supposed to oversee the governor’s work.
Last year, Atut was convicted of bribing the head of the Constitutional Court to rig the results of a district election, and was sentenced to four years in prison. The judge who took the bribe was convicted and imprisoned, too, and the reputation of the highest court was severely damaged. The court further undermined itself last week when it struck down the clause of the new election law that was aimed at curtailing political dynasties. The challenge to the law had been brought by a twenty-nine-year-old provincial legislator who wanted to run to replace his father as head of Gowa District, in South Sulawesi. The father had succeeded his own elder brother, when the brother was elected provincial governor. Another nine family members hold important elected posts in South Sulawesi.
The Constitutional Court ruled that the clause must be removed from the election law because it violates the constitutional right of every Indonesian to stand for election. (The following day, it struck a clause forbidding people who have served prison terms for serious crimes from seeking office.) In fact, that same idea of the right to run for office is probably the very reason that Americans don’t object more vigorously to politics as a family business. In a country based firmly on individual rights, you can’t stop Jeb Bush from running for President just because his father and brother once held the job. It’s up to voters to decide if they want to elect him as well.
There’s no doubt that a constant stream of Bushes, Clintons, Cuomos, and Daleys (and before them Kennedys, Roosevelts, and so on) sucks up bandwidth that otherwise might have carried the messages and perspectives of new and different political hopefuls. Still, dynastic politics do much less damage in the U.S. than in developing democracies like Indonesia. That’s because the U.S. has other institutions, among them an independent and credible judiciary, to check the active abuse of power both during electoral campaigns and after them. It’s hard to imagine ten family members being elected to key positions in a single state, and downright inconceivable that an elected official would appoint at least twenty-one relatives to senior management posts in local government agencies, as was reportedly the case in Banten.
As Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the governor of Jakarta, told reporters last week, the problem in Indonesia may not be political dynasties in and of themselves, but rather the ability of the particular dynasties that currently dominate the country to govern fairly and effectively. (Basuki, who is widely regarded as one of the most incorruptible figures in Indonesian politics, was previously the governor of East Belitung District. That post is now held by his younger brother.) “The Kennedys were a dynasty, but they were chosen because people know they work themselves to death for the citizens,” Basuki said. “With us [in Indonesia] most dynasties just work together at corruption and at using their power to stay in power.”
It’s possible that a stronger judiciary and more mature political institutions could control the grubbier aspects of politics by succession more effectively than a simple five-year ban. But those will take many years to develop, and the outcome is by no means certain. Ordinary Indonesians are much more clannish than their American counterparts. To them, elaborate networks of exchange are the lifeblood of a functional society. When modern democratic politics are grafted onto these networks, the possibilities for patronage are obvious. As long as enough resources trickle down to enough voters, they will continue to vote large “name-brand” clans into office.
Since the autocratic President Suharto was pushed from office seventeen years ago, local elections have played a critical part in building a functional modern democracy, but they also threaten to destroy it by allowing family fiefdoms to blossom across the nation. These imply a return not to the bad old days of the centralized autocratic state, but to a more distant past, when the nine hundred inhabited islands that now make up Indonesia were beads in a necklace of independent Sultanates, governed by people whose right to rule was granted by an unaccountable deity to a bloodline.
Another Clinton or Bush in the White House might make some Americans reëxamine the foundational myth of equal opportunity, but it will not call into question the integrity of the State. In Indonesia, family-run political machines might just pull at enough loose ends to start unravelling the nation. It may not be possible to abolish political dynasties, but they are feared for good reason.With a Turkish general election scheduled for 1st of November due to no party having the won a majority to form a government in the June 2015 elections and coalition talks ended abruptly by the President of the Republic Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (AKP; Justice and Development Party), Turkey is currently ruled by an interim government led by the AKP party of Erdoğan with Ahmet Davutoğlu (AKP) remaining as prime minister until the elections are completed. The AKP’s loss of their majority for the first time in 13 years since they came to power in 2002 was a blow to Erdoğan’s aspirations to alter Turkey’s constitution to become a Presidential republic with himself as the main beneficiary gaining additional executive powers. As an understatement, he is not at all happy about the election result, following the loss of his majority, he increased attacks against the Turkish Kurds and against trade unions themselves. As such, the attack in Ankara should be seen in the context of the political situation in Turkey and the role that the Turkish government has been playing in the region.
The HDP
What brought an end to AKP’s majority and ruling the country on its own was the creation of HDP which passed the 10% threshold (earning 13.12% and gaining 80 seats) at the last general election this past June. The creation of HDP united several left wing Turkish groups, The Peace and Democracy Party (Kurds), see also Democratic Regions Party, Greens, trade unions, feminist groups, LGBT groups and ethnic initiatives of the Alevi, Armenians and Pomaklars.
The HDP was described by its founding chairpersons as a party that aims to eliminate the exploitation of labour and to fundamentally re-establish a democracy in which honourable and humanitarian individuals can live together as equal citizens. It was further described as a party aiming to bring about fundamental change to the existing Capitalist system though uniting a wide range of left-wing opposition movements. Gök claimed that any political movement with similar aims to the HDK that had not merged with the party was more than welcome to do so. However, Önen claimed that the HDP would be entering elections as an individual party and not as part of a wider electoral alliance, adding that the party is itself formed of a wide coalition of political forces in the first place (https://en.wikipedia.org/...).
Photo by Steve Eason, London demo. 11th October, 2015
The importance of a party likecannot be understated, it cuts across the ethnic divides in Turkey, it unites various groups on the left and some social liberals; it tries to address the great divide between Turks and Kurds. It is a direct challenge to theand it cost them a majority. It could actually work towards unity in an increasingly divided country, whose divisions have been intensified under Erdoğan’s rule since 2011.
Responses to the Bombing
The co-leaders of the HDP (Selahattin Demirtaş & Figen Yűksekdaǧ) released the following statement which can be read in full here:
“Regarding this chain of massacres, we have a number of expectations and clear demands from the international community and from political leaders. In making this call, we wish to underscore that the Ankara massacre and the aforementioned previous attacks are international in scope, and to make clear that we see the potential for such events to open the way to regional insecurity. AKP’s policy of relying on radical groups as proxies, which began with President Erdogan’s support of, and even channeling through the intelligence organization MIT, the activities of such groups as ISIS, Al-Nusra, and Ahrar Al-Sham—used particularly against Kurds in Rojava—is at the heart of today’s tragedy. […] At a time when the extreme nationalist and polarizing policies are implemented in Turkey, the safety of the general elections (November 2015) is a vexing question to be considered in a serious manner. Our electorates feel under constant threat in every social space and political activity they attend. In order to maintain stability in the region, it is crucial to prevent the devastating effects of the conflict from spreading over a wider geography. For this very reason, it is extremely important for the international community to take a firmer stance against President Erdogan and the AKP government that have already lost legitimacy in the eyes of the public in Turkey. Hereby, we encourage international community who stand in solidarity, to extend their condolences directly to the peoples of Turkey– not to the state representatives who are politically and administratively responsible from the massacre (http://kurdistantribune.com/...).”
Within a short period of time after the bombings, the Turkish government claimed that the bombings were done by either PKK or Daesh. This seems to be a ritual, blame outsiders and try to pin the violence upon outsiders calling for “national unity” and then crackdown upon Kurds and the Left in Turkey. The government called for 3 days of national mourning …
“Thousands had gathered near the city's main train station to call for an end to the fighting between the Turkish state and PKK when the bomb exploded on Saturday morning.
Mr Davutoglu said that identifying the attackers would lead to the discovery of which group was behind the attack but insisted that officials were looking at other groups including the Kurdish guerrilla group, Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and the far-Left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) as "potential suspects" (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...).”
Claims that the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) was responsible are risible. When atrocities like these are committed one needs to stop and ask who would benefit from said atrocities. Since the demonstration was calling for peace between the PKK and the Turkish government and HDP has been accused of having far too close relations with the PKK, why would the PKK bomb this demonstration? This leads a large number of people to ask if it is Daesh, how could any group possibly bomb in the heart of the Turkish capital of Ankara where Turkish secret service (the national intelligence organisation, MIT) presence is strong as its headquarters is located there. The conclusion drawn by many is the obvious one; they couldn’t possibly carry this out without the knowledge of the Turkish secret police.
Photo by Steve Eason, London Demo, October 11th, 2015
Moreover, this attack is a similar to two previous ones, that in Suruç in which 22 students (members of Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) Youth Wing and the Socialist Youth Associations Federation (SGDF) were killed and 104 wounded; these students were planning to help go and rebuild the town of Kobani across the Syrian border and the attack on an HDP rally in Diyarbak (Amed) on June 5th 2015, two days before the June elections in which 2 people were killed and 100 wounded.
So again, the question arises how could this have happened without the Turkish secret police knowing about it? Even more so, why was this demonstration not given police protection and even worse, why did the Turkish police gas the demonstrators and their families with tear gas and prevent assistance by ambulances following the explosion? To add further insult the Turkish policed gassed protestors and mourners the day after the Ankara bombing. This is what is leading to accusations that the government itself is responsible at least indirectly for this atrocity.
According to the KCK:
"Claims that these massacres have been perpetrated by ISIS or some other organizations would mean ignoring the AKP's mindset, policies and practices, and distorting the truths. The fact that these massacres target the societal circles which the AKP point as a target, also reveal who actually are behind them. By using the names of some organizations as a mask, the AKP government wants to eliminate all the opposition circles one by one."
Pointing to the undemocratic character of the AKP and its lack of a sense to respect and accept the results of elections, KCK emphasized that the AKP regards any method or practice as allowable in order not to leave the power. "This massacre must be seen as a conspiracy conducted by the AKP government to remain in power, and a kind similar to the massacre it perpetrated before the June 7 election after seeing that it was going to lose the election", KCK said (http://anfenglish.com/...).”
To add credence to the accusations against the government, the father of one of the suspected bombers has reported his son to the police repeatedly. Some have raised the possibility that the attack was carried out by the Turkish “deep state.” Accusations against the Turkish government for collaborating with Daesh abound and this is not only in allowing future Daesh fighters to pass through to Syria through its borders, allowing weaponry though, and literally standing by and watching while Kobani was under attack and preventing other Kurdish fighters to cross the border to help.
So the question remains, what does the AKP gain from this? It introduces fear and violence into the election process. The bombings can be used to stall the elections (the results will probably be the same leaving Erdoğan without a total majority again), they could argue that in such a violent situation that elections cannot be held in certain areas (e.g., where the Kurds are the majority). Erdoğan and the leaders of the AKP have been sowing lies, talking about the equivalence between Daesh and the PKK as “terrorist groups” trying to drum up fear of the PKK even as they were engaged in discussions around a cease-fire (following the attack in Ankara, the PKK called a cease-fire to ensure that the elections were not conducted in an atmosphere of violence and intimidation as long as they were not attacked first).
This would not be a deviation from previous practice of the AKP:
“This is not a new tactic. After the Suruç massacre, the state blamed various “terrorist organizations” of conflicting ideologies. Under this pretext, the state systematically hunted down left-wing and Kurdish groups. It will come as no surprise if the Turkish state blames ISIS for the bombing and then suppresses the progressive forces which stand against ISIS. All of this while the available evidence suggests that the Turkish state, a client of the United States, has been working hand in glove with ISIS (http://kurdishquestion.com/...).”
Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish Noble Laureate in Literature argued that the increased violence was a result of Erdoğan’s anger at not being able to rule the country alone following the June elections and his knowledge that he now needs other parties to form a government; for this he has brought the country to the verge of civil war yet again, this time with not only the Kurds, but with Daesh.
Umut Ozkirimli argues that the actions of the AKP have threatened the Turkish republic itself. Turkey is a country in which there are a multitude of peoples of various ethnic and religious groupings, of differing political beliefs and that Erdoğan’s attempt to concentrate power in his hands has not only alienated the Kurds, it has managed to anger other groups both political and ethnic against its actions and that may actually destroy that Turkish republic.
Following the bombings in Ankara, impromptu solidarity demonstrations were held in Istanbul in opposition to both the bombings and media censorship of journalists opposed to Erdoğan following the attacks (10th of October), Izmir and Ankara, the trade unions that were organisers of the Ankara march (DiSK, KESK, TTB, and TMMOB) called for a general strike on the 12-13th of October. Solidarity demonstrationswere held around the world in opposition to the Ankara bombing …
What did the Turkish government do, irrespective of the offer of a cease fire from the PKK? They bombed them … it suspended Kurdish mayors in Batman provinceleaving the AKP in control of the municipalities and detained and remanded into custody Kurds and left-wing members of the political opposition.
Will terrorising the population cause them to vote for him? It has worked in a number of countries in the past, but the killings in Ankara may actually work against him …
Photo from Turkish demo: Turkey is on strike (12th October)
For those on the international left, our role is to stand in solidarity with the Turkish and Kurdish left, the trade union movement and those fighting for peace and democracy in Turkey! And if you want to sign a petition in solidarity, here is one from Day-Mer, the Turkish and Kurdish solidarity centre (UK).
Where should the international left be? Marching besides our Turkish and Kurdish comrades … try to get your union to send a solidarity message, like Unite the union did... let our comrades know that they are not alone and we stand with them!
Photo by Steve Eason, London Demo, October 11th 2015The Lady Mary Memorial Tournament is one of my favourite events in Ealdormere. Yes, there’s thwackery and thwockery, but it’s not just ‘cos folks like hitting each other with sticks. The entire point is to do honour to the individual who inspires you. You’re not competing to win, to prove your prowess, you’re fighting to exemplify the knightly virtues and to do honour by your chosen patron/inspiration. It’s kind of magical. It’s also usually the first event of the year that has archery -and- a thrown weapons range set up, so axes can be flung! Wheee!
This past weekend was the 30th annual Lady Mary tournament. That’s Lady Mary XXX. Roman numerals, people. We’re not competing with Vin Diesel, and it was absolutely not any other kind of event that might have had three X’s.
Naturally, the day started with a selfie. #HowIRoll
Assorted nobles approached the Kingdom and Baronial thrones and presented themselves and spoke of their inspirations.
They say the measure of a man can be taken in the floppiness of his boot cuffs.
“What did she mean when she said your floppiness was subtle but commendable?”
“I’m not sure, my heart’s delight. Maybe she was talking about my sleeves, sugar plum.”
One of the highlights was Steinnar fighting for the honour of his son. Batman T-shirts are totally period.
One of my favourite power couples.
Lostie MortymerXT – or, ya know, Jorgen, rocking the electric strawberry tunic!
Twangery tournaments for the day celebrated the revival of Ealdormere’s ranged weapons group, the Yoemen of the Wolf, by shooting at targets over silly distances.
Many sent arrows flying, and it was all in all a grand day to hear the whistling of arrows as they sought their targets.
Elsewhere there was stabbery…
… and the apple that came with my lunch had a butt on it.
“Don’t ask me what that smell was… Don’t ask me what that smell was…”
“Did you let one rip?”
“Crap.”
“Crikey, Strewth! Who cracked open the pickled eggs?”
“Why, hello, good gentles… might one of you assist with my dangly bits?”
You’d think by now he’d have learned how to dress himself 😉
Meanwhile, Thwockery!
The relationship between Knight and Squire is an interesting one. The Knight serves the Squire, just as the Squire serves the Knight. The thing about your Knight making you a new shield, though…
… is they’re generally keen to hit it really hard!
One of the highlights of the day for me was hearing a little voice while Steinnar was fighting….
D: “Dad! Dad! Daaaaad!”
S: (*pauses fighting*) “Yes?”
D: “I love yoouuuu”
It wouldn’t be a Lady Mary event if I didn’t end up teaching someone kumihimo at some point…
“Good Gentles, welcome to Court! I would like to present a magic trick.”
“Please note, I have nothing up my sleeve.”
“He does, indeed, appear to have nothing up his sleeve…”
“BAM! Check out this totally awesome sword! Definitely wasn’t in the background of the other pics, totally magic!”
Seriousness for a moment. The grand tradition of the Lady Mary Memorial Tournament is that the Ladies of Worth – the Queen, present Baronesses and Duchesses and the like, present favours to those who have inspired them this day. I was blessed to receive one year, and can attest that it’s a very special honor indeed. This year the favours were red with a white swan crowned with three red x’s (again, XXX = 30) and adorned with a string of glass beads. Each one was unique and a wonderful symbol of the day and a reminder to all of what we strive to be in this silly little reenactment game.
Recognizing the youth of the kingdom can yield hugs. Well, if you’re a baroness, at least.
Meanwhile, their Majesties were still doing the sword thing…
… so some of the lads came forward to help hold it up. Or, ya know, swear fealty, whatever.
Her Majesty tried to do the disappearing thumb trick, but exuding the very best of British tradition, tried it with her pinky instead. Much classier that way.
When your Award of Arms includes a personalized, engraved metal mug, you risk the king taking a liking to it…
… and offering you a mug covered in googly eyes instead.
Merewen and Cesare were inducted (along with three others) into the Queen’s Guard. Cesare very kindly shut his eyes so that we wouldn’t be dazzled by their brilliance.
Martin received one of the Lady Mary favours for his work creating a wonderful atmosphere all day long through music.
And dinner after the event at a local food place with some of the Kwakistani’s… so we officially end the event as we opened, with a selfie.
A huge thank you to the event staff and to everyone who made the day such a wonderful one. It was great to just be, to saunter around and relax and just have a nice day in the beautiful weather, surrounded by the good people of Ealdormere. I look forward to my next visit to the Barony of Rising Waters.In this Tuesday, Aug 13, 2013 photo, members of labor unions at Hyundai Motor open ballots after they voted to decide on unions to go on strike at their firm's plant in Ulsan, south of Seoul, South Korea. Labor unions at Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors said workers voted to strike after talks with management for increased pay and benefits collapsed. Hyundai union spokesman Kwon Oh-il said Wednesday that management refused all demands by the union during three months of annual talks. (AP Photo/Kim Keun-ju, Yonhap) KOREA OUT
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Labor unions at Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. said workers voted to strike after talks with management for increased pay and benefits collapsed.
Hyundai union spokesman Kwon Oh-il said Wednesday that management refused all demands by the union during three months of annual talks.
The union wants workers to get improved benefits, including 10 million won ($8,900) support to help children of unionized workers seek jobs if they don't go to college, a 130,000 won ($116) increase in monthly base income, bigger bonuses and full reimbursement of medical expenses if workers are diagnosed with cancer.
Kwon said 46,000 Hyundai workers will determine the extent of the strike early next week. Kia's 30,000 workers are taking a similar step.
Hyundai said it had offered to resume talks with the union on Friday.
"We regret that the union has begun preparations to strike despite the company's proposal to outline its offers in the next round of talks. There are also many aspects of the union's demands that are hard to accept from the company's point of view," Hyundai said in a statement.
Kwon said Hyundai's proposal was insincere and short of a full response to the union's demands.
Hyundai and Kia, which together form the world's fifth largest automaker, have been plagued by disputes with their unions for the past two years.
Hyundai's latest earnings were hit by its union's refusal to allow overtime for three weeks earlier this year and by the rising popularity of foreign cars in South Korea. European and U.S. carmakers lowered prices after free trade deals took effect. The maker of the Elantra said the industrial action resulted in lost output of 83,000 vehicles worth 1.7 trillion won ($1.5 billion).
The company estimated it lost production of 82,000 vehicles worth 1.7 trillion won due to 92 hours of walkouts by workers in 2012.
With labor strife at home and waning demand from Korean consumers, South Korea's largest automaker has increasingly looked abroad to ramp up production. Hyundai is considering increased production in China, its chief financial officer said last month.Newfoundland and Labrador's opposition parties are criticizing the military's decision to allow troops to use a helicopter for a fishing trip.
The trip occurred June 8 but only |
appearing naively supportive of a volatile country at a time when Europe’s own public has become inward-looking? More generally, the government’s argument—put forward for more than a decade—depicting Turkey as a strategic addition to the EU has now largely vanished.
The EU—and the United States as well—has said clearly that it has no interest in the government’s justifications of these measures. Prime Minister Erdoğan has defended the steps as necessary to thwart “international conspirators” working together with a “state within the state”—that is, the Fetullah Gülen community, not a political party, but an influential religious sect whose ideas are not necessarily EU-compatible. The government’s narrative that the EU understands why these steps are being taken does not reflect the reality. The frank and robust exchange between Prime Minister Erdoğan and the leaders of all the political groups in the European Parliament in Brussels on January 21 is a testament to this situation.
Technically, as things stand now, it can be argued that the country no longer sufficiently fulfills the political criteria of the EU accession process. It remains to be seen how the European Commission will play its cards when issuing its next annual progress report on Turkey in October 2014. Prior to this, in March or April, the outgoing European Parliament will adopt its own annual resolution on Turkey, which is widely expected to be strongly critical of Ankara.
On several occasions in recent weeks, Turkey’s new EU minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, signaled that the government intends to continue with its current legislative proposals, even if they are contrary to EU standards. He said that Turkey is an “independent state” that is contemplating no more than “an exchange of views” with the EU. This amounts to tearing apart the mutually agreed “negotiating framework” that governs the process of aligning Turkish legislation with that of the EU—the very core of the accession negotiations.
Worries have surfaced about the predictability of Turkey’s foreign policy course in other areas as well. For example, the Turkish government announced that it has agreed in principle to purchase a Chinese missile defense system that is blatantly incompatible with Turkey’s commitments as a member of NATO. Turkey has long pursued an “open-door policy” along its border with Syria, allowing jihadists fighting in the Syrian civil war to come and go at will. And it is hard to predict what course Turkey will choose to settle its differences with Israel and Armenia or to support the reunification of Cyprus.
In an ideal world, it is not difficult to sketch out the moves Turkey would need to make to construct a NATO-compliant missile defense system, settle its differences with Israel, restart a dialogue with Armenia, or push for a UN-sponsored deal to reunify Cyprus. But in practice, none of these moves is likely to offer electoral kudos for a prime minister who has opted for a narrative based on conspiracy theories. The recurrent anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic discourse adopted by the highest levels of the Turkish government has created permanent irritation in Washington and elsewhere.
Economic Blowback
But it is in the economic arena where the prime minister’s heavy-handed tactical inclinations in view of the forthcoming elections are most clearly taking precedence over international considerations. Moves on the home front are completely and utterly at odds with the country’s international interests. In fact, the two approaches are mutually exclusive.
The economic consequences of the political crisis have already been felt in a drastic way. The Turkish lira has depreciated significantly, ratings agencies have become more cautious, and there are fears of a slowdown in foreign direct investment. When the Turkish Central Bank decided on January 28 to raise interest rates, the prime minister claimed he had “alternative plans” if the hike failed to stem the lira’s recent losses. That fueled panic among bankers and investors: What if the prime minister places the central bank under government control or introduces restrictions to capital flows?
Undoubtedly, such measures, coupled with the sharply deteriorating state of the rule of law, would badly dent Turkey’s image as an investment-friendly country, with immensely negative consequences on foreign direct investment flows and perhaps even on domestic politics. The mere fact that such steps have been mentioned at the highest level of government is in itself hurting the Turkish lira and the country’s standing.
Prime Minister Erdoğan’s actions and the subsequent blowback are causing a significant rift between the government and powerful business elites. One of the most potent symbols of the new Turkey that has emerged under AKP rule is a sizable conservative business class often dubbed the “Anatolian Tigers,” a cluster of companies active in the construction sector as well as in the energy and manufacturing sectors. These firms’ fortunes depend on alliances with foreign businesses, on borrowed hard currencies, and on Turkey’s standing in international markets. They also rely on a stable lira and on government support for their new foreign ventures.
The current crisis is wreaking havoc for this segment of the conservative establishment. It was striking that, in July 2013, when the government unleashed its ire against a large secularist industrial conglomerate by carrying out fiscal inspections and canceling contracts for purely political reasons, it was a prominent voice of the conservative business establishment that came to the rescue. No surprise there: no businessman likes unpredictability or discretionary moves from the government.
In a country like Turkey—so heavily dependent on its international connections for trade, investment, research and technology, and education and security—a sharp deterioration in relations with partner countries is not a benign occurrence. Rather, it is a cause for serious concern, especially in view of the lack of alternatives.
Even a cursory analysis of Turkey’s imports and exports, short-term finance and foreign direct investment, technology inputs, or education partnerships reveals how much the country depends on its strong connections with the EU and, to a lesser extent, the United States. Economists in the Turkish government are acutely aware of these fundamentals. Yet, they have to toe the party line.
Given the drastic deterioration of the rule of law, there is a distinct risk that Turkey could go from being a land of opportunity for European investors to a country where they think twice before investing. Turkey retains many attractive assets: a young and dynamic population, competitive cost factors, a strategic geographical location, and a modern infrastructure. Yet with the courts under the government’s rein, the Internet under strict surveillance, a vastly reinforced intelligence service, an inconsistent narrative on the central bank, a muzzled media, and the worsening situation of individual liberties, Turkey is quickly becoming a hard sell on international markets.
What Next?
Against this rather gloomy background, one wonders what future lies ahead for ordinary citizens in Turkey. They may have benefited from the country’s economic progress in recent years in the form of better highways, airports, and hospitals. But now they are worried about their economic future, the value of their currency, their individual rights, and, more importantly, harmony within their diverse society. The notion sometimes found in the press that the AKP’s core electorate values only material progress, accepts corruption as normal, and buys into conspiracy theories is not a reflection of the electorate’s wisdom.
At the same time, voters have a long historical memory. They remember the 1970s and 1980s, decades of recurrent military coups, permanent high-double-digit inflation, ephemeral political coalitions, political assassinations, and corruption scandals. For many Turks, twelve years of AKP rule has meant stability, prosperity, and, simply, a better life.
If AKP supporters see twelve years of success being wrecked by political feuds and massive corruption cases, will they start to shift their political allegiance? Prime Minister Erdoğan is betting on a negative answer to this question in Turkey’s upcoming elections. That explains his determination to stop the ongoing corruption inquiries at all costs. In such a context, the almighty battle between the AKP and the Gülen movement might not be voters’ central focus. They are probably more attached to political stability and economic prosperity than anything else.
From a foreign observer’s point of view, it is striking that the corruption revelations were obtained through phone intercepts outside the law, while the government’s response was to quickly change the relevant legal framework and shift thousands of officials to other positions.
The visible trends on the Turkish political scene point to further degradation of the rule of law; greater controls on the judiciary, the press, and the citizens at large; more worries from financial circles; and a widening gap with EU standards. The artificial way the current crisis has been engineered makes it difficult to reconcile Turkey’s domestic political games with its global interests, particularly vis-à-vis the EU.
There is a chance that the European Union will decide to call a spade a spade and, according to the accession negotiations’ ground rules, state that Turkey’s dismantling of fundamental freedoms, elimination of almost all key components of the separation of power, and authoritarian tendencies are not EU-compatible. As a result, the EU could suspend accession negotiations at the end of 2014 until the rule of law is restored. That would be the most logical scenario under the mutually agreed rules of the accession process.
But Turkey is perhaps counting on realpolitik to carry the day. Ankara may assume that EU member states have enough economic interests in Turkey to decide to weather the storm, while leaving the heavy political lifting to the European Commission and the European Parliament. In short, EU countries could wait for better times, see what comes out of the elections, and keep doing business. That would preserve the economic interests of individual member states while letting Turkey’s politicians bring an end to their infighting. This is perhaps a more likely scenario, considering that Turkey is also involved in a host of other sensitive issues in the region, such as those related to Cyprus, Syria, Iraq, and Armenia—not to mention its relations with Israel.
But this does not give any assurance that Turkey will come back to a rule-of-law architecture resembling that of Western countries. It may well be that Turkey will have irreversibly slid toward the “Russia model.” In addition, there is another consideration on European minds: jettisoning the accession negotiations now may well reinforce Prime Minister Erdoğan’s authoritarian inclinations and leave Turkey’s liberals in the cold, leading to a more polarized and unpredictable country.
In the short term, muddling through may well be the most convenient way out for both Turkey and Europe. After all, in foreign policy, the worst outcome is not always a certainty. One thing is certain, however: It has taken Turkey over a decade to build stability, economic success, and diplomatic respectability. It has taken only a few weeks in 2013 and 2014 to shatter that hard-earned image. Climbing out of the hole again will be long and painful.KARACHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed a Saudi diplomat in the Pakistani city of Karachi on Monday, police and the Saudi ambassador said, the second attack on the mission since the killing of Osama bin Laden increased tension in the region.
A policeman is reflected in a window of a car shattered by bullets in which a Saudi diplomat was travelling in, in Karachi, May 16, 2011. REUTERS/Majid Hussain
Pakistan’s Taliban claimed responsibility, and warned the United States against attacking its close ally al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda has waged a bloody campaign to topple the royal family and government of Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of its leader bin Laden. The group has also vowed to avenge his killing by U.S. special forces in a Pakistani military town on May 2.
Four people riding motorcycles opened fire on the Saudi diplomat’s car, a Karachi police official said. The diplomat, a low ranking security official, was on his way to the consulate when the assailants struck.
Pakistan’s interior minister condemned the attack and ordered Karachi authorities to provide “complete security” to Saudi nationals stationed in the city, where analyst say militants generate funds through extortion and robberies.
“We condemn this attack. No one who carries out this kind of attack can be a Muslim,” the Saudi ambassador, Abdul Aziz al-Ghadeer, told Reuters. Four bullets were fired and one struck the diplomat in the head, said senior Karachi police official Iqbal Mehmood.
The Saudi state news agency named the diplomat as Hassan al-Qahtani and described his killing as a “criminal attack.” It said Saudi officials would investigate the shooting alongside the Pakistani authorities.
The shooting, which a Saudi embassy official said occurred about 60 meters (200 feet) from the consulate, came days after unidentified attackers threw two hand grenades at the consulate in Pakistan’s commercial hub. No one was hurt in that attack.
Saudi Arabia, one of the United States’ most strategic allies, is the world biggest oil exporter and any signs that its security is threatened could move global oil prices.
A Saudi Interior Ministry official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters in Dubai that security would be stepped up to protect Saudi diplomats living in “dangerous” areas.
FUNDING EXTREMISM?
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have long been close allies and Islamabad needs all the support it can get after the discovery of bin Laden embarrassed the South Asian country.
“We trust the Pakistani authorities and hope they will identify the terrorists and bring them to justice,” ambassador al-Ghadeer said.
Before claiming responsibility for the shooting, Pakistan’s Taliban had described Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as American “slaves” and hailed the attack as a “very good job.”
Saudi Arabia has its own internal security to worry about, not just the safety of diplomats who may be targeted.
Militants swearing allegiance to al Qaeda attacked Western targets, government sites and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, between 2003 and 2006.
The operations included suicide bombings at Western housing compounds, the Saudi Interior Ministry headquarters in the capital Riyadh and petrochemicals companies.
Saudi Arabia responded with a largely successful security crackdown in 2007 and 2010, arresting more than 170 suspects, including some trainee pilots preparing for suicide attacks.
Analysts, however, suggested Saudi policy in Pakistan backfired.
Related Coverage Pakistani Taliban claim killing of Saudi diplomat
Saudi Arabia, which is home to the fundamentalist Wahhabi brand of Islam, is seen as funding some of Pakistan’s hardline religious seminaries which churn out young men eager for holy war, posing a long-term threat to the stability of the region.
“The Saudis have led a pretty successful campaign to root out al Qaeda and its extremists in Saudi Arabia over the last decade or so,” said Salman Shaikh, director of Brookings Doha Center, a policy research institute.
“I have to say that Saudi Arabia has had a mixed history in Pakistan as well. Many have accused it or certainly elements of its religious establishment of financing extremist education (in Pakistan) over the years.”Shutterstock
Revisiting Ernest Callenbach's controversial portrait of a more sustainable America.
Twenty years after Oregon, Washington, and Northern California seceded from the U.S. to form the ecologically-focused nation of Ecotopia, a New York journalist visits the hermetic nation for the first time. He quickly notes the downshifted economy; all corporate capital that was remotely portable fled the new country at secession, but Ecotopians are content with a slower, humbler pace, including a 20-hour work week that halved incomes but doubled the number of jobs. He notes the friendly, laid-back culture. Despite his prejudice against the new state, he soon admits he’s having a good time. But his first big shock is the Ecotopian city. Here’s what the new regime has done with San Francisco’s Market Street: Market Street, once a mighty boulevard striking through the city down to the waterfront, has become a mall planted with thousands of trees. The “street” itself, on which electric taxis, minibuses, and delivery carts purr along, has shrunk to a two-lane affair. The remaining space, which is huge, is occupied by bicycle lanes, fountains, sculptures, kiosks, and … little gardens surrounded by benches. The bucolic atmosphere of the new San Francisco can perhaps best be seen in the fact that, down Market Street and some other streets, creeks now run. … So now on this major boulevard you may see a charming series of little falls, with water gurgling and splashing, and channels lined with rocks, trees, bamboo, ferns. There even seem to be minnows in the water … This is the future of urbanism as Ernest Callenbach imagined it in his 1975 classic novel, Ecotopia. Private cars are gone, as you'd expect from Ecotopian planning, but what happened to all the transit? Here it is: Scattered here and there are large, conical-roofed pavilions, with a kiosk at the center selling papers, comic books, magazines, fruit juices, and snacks. … The pavilions turn out to be stops on the minibus system, and people wait there out of the rain. These buses are … battery-driven contraptions, resembling the antique cable cars that San Franciscans were once so fond of. They are driverless, and are steered and stopped by an electronic gadget that follows wires buried in the street. (A safety bumper stops them in case someone fails to get out of the way.) … To enable people to get off quickly, during the 15 seconds the bus stops, the floor is only a few inches above ground level … These buses creep along at about 10 miles an hour, but they come every 5 minutes or so. Doesn't this sound like an ideal street in an ideal city? Apart from some details of the minibus, this vision is almost identical to many of today's proposals to turn urban streets into pedestrian space. Even the transit – very pleasant and very slow -- reflects a popular strain of Disneyland-inspired urbanism espoused by architects like Darrin Nordahl, reflecting a conscious valuation of slowness that's become an important undercurrent in ecological thought.
But this happy vision of Market Street is designed for a dying San Francisco, in a nation that plans to scatter its population to "minicities" of 50,000 or less. What will be the fate of the existing cities as these new minicities come into existence? They will gradually be razed, although a few historic districts will be preserved as historic museum displays. … The land will be returned to grasslands, forest, orchards, or gardens. Market Street can be a bucolic village green only because San Francisco itself is shrinking to village scale. A few pages later, a happy band of hunters arrives on Market Street (by minibus!) carrying a freshly killed deer. Urbanists take note! If you’re remodeling busy streets into village greens, and you want to integrate local eating into your design values, consider including communal butchering space. Be sure to provide drainage for the blood. Nearly 40 years old, Ecotopia remains a powerful book on choosing an ecological life, partly because it’s an easy and lively read. To reread it now is to discover two essential things: First, what we know about ecological living has barely changed since the 1970s. Second, the contradictions in what we now call "sustainability" are as raw as ever – especially around the question of cities and their infrastructure. There are ideas here to excite a Tea Partier, not just an ecologist. Let's start with how little has changed. Most of what we know now about how to live "sustainably" is laid out in Callenbach's book. Remarkably little of it sounds dated. We have newer buzzwords, but the technologies and concepts invented since 1975 are minor elaborations on a theme. Callenbach's Ecotopians oppose all processes and products whose production, use, or decomposition degrade the biosphere or are harmful to health. Like Bhutan, they have abandoned Gross Domestic Product, which values economic activity regardless of its destructiveness, and live instead for forms of joy and engagement that fit with our nature as finite creatures in a finite world. Most Ecotopian practices are exactly what we see promoted now for a happy and "sustainable" life: cycling, recycling, eating locally grown and recognizable food, and seeking energy from wind, sun, earth, and sea. The book purrs (like its minibuses) with these familiar guides to ecological virtue. Callenbach's speculations about social organization will raise more eyebrows, though they are drawn mostly from other successful cultures. Households may contain a mix of blood-related families and friends, sharing duties including parenting. The society remains peaceful by creating vast space for safe but intense conflict. Arguments are considered spectator sports, where onlookers intervene only if they move toward violence. Ecotopians believe that younger men in particular need a certain amount of competition and risk; they have invented a mildly dangerous "war game" ritual for the purpose, also a spectator sport. See full coverage The most profound Ecotopian innovation, however, is the rule of the local. Taxes are paid to your town or region, which then forwards some of the revenue to the nation. Decisions are made as locally as possible, and all things giant – both corporations and governments – have been banned or minimized. The national government is small: a coordinator and inspirer rather than a ruler, making decisions only on the few things that must be done at national scale. National defense seems to be based mostly on bluffing, but the Second Amendment's "well-regulated militias" are a key part of it; people own guns for that purpose as well as for hunting. There are ideas here to excite a Tea Partier, not just an ecologist. Ecotopians love competition but they want all companies to be worker-owned and no bigger than 300 employees. Government should not do anything that the private sector can do better with correct incentives, but they reach surprising conclusions about which functions are which. Mass transit, intercity and urban, is a government function because of the efficiency that arises from integrated networks and the need to manage big environmental impacts. Education, on the other hand, has been fully privatized into teacher-owned cooperative schools with tuition grants for low-income kids. Local schools compete vigorously for the parental dollar, with outcomes controlled by just a few standardized tests. Ecotopians figure out what works regardless of whether we would call their solution "liberal" or "conservative." Buzzwords rarely constrain their thinking, perhaps the most utopian of all their ideals.March 4, 1849
On a statue in Plattsburg, Missouri, an inscription reads, "David Rice Atchison, 1807-1886, President of the U.S. [for] one day." The day of President Atchison's presumed presidency occurred on March 4, 1849.
A proslavery Democrat, David Atchison served in the U.S. Senate from 1843 to 1855. His colleagues elected him president pro tempore on 13 occasions. In those days, the vice president regularly attended Senate sessions. Consequently, the Senate chose a president pro tempore to serve only during brief vice-presidential absences.
Until the 1930s, presidential and congressional terms began at noon on March 4. In 1849, that date fell on a Sunday, causing President Zachary Taylor to delay his inauguration until the next day. For some, this raised the question of who was president from noon of March 4 to noon of March 5. Of course, we now know that Taylor automatically became president on the fourth and could have begun to execute the duties of his office after taking the oath privately, a day before the public inauguration.
In 1849, the Senate president pro tempore immediately followed the vice president in line of presidential succession. That era's ever-present threat of sudden death made it essential to keep an unbroken order of succession. To ensure that there was a president pro tempore in office during adjournment periods, the vice president customarily left the Senate chamber in an annual session's final days so that the Senate could elect this constitutional officer. Accordingly, the Senate duly elected Atchison on March 2, 1849. His supporters, to the present day, claim that the expiration of the outgoing president's and vice president's terms at noon on March 4 left Atchison with clear title to the job.
Unfortunately for Atchison's shaky claim, his Senate term also expired at noon on March 4, thereby denying him the chance to become president. When the Senate of the new Congress convened the following day to allow new senators and the vice president to take the oath of office, with no president pro tempore, the secretary of the Senate called members to order.
No one planning to attend Taylor's March fifth inauguration seems to have realized that there had been a "President Atchison" in charge. Nonetheless, for the rest of his life, Atchison enjoyed polishing this story, describing his "presidency" as "the honestest administration this country ever had."Share. Hopefully not for too long. Hopefully not for too long.
Gone Home is out today on console, however only in North America.
According to the game's official Twitter page, in Europe and Australia the game has been delayed "due to last-minute complications with ratings/cert."
Exit Theatre Mode
"EU/AUS versions are on fast track," however the game will "likely not [be released] this week." The hope is that Gone Home will be out in these regions "not later than the following [week]."
For those of you in North America, Gone Home will be out on PS4 later today, January 12, and on Xbox One after midnight.
In IGN's review of the PC version of Gone Home, we said that it is "a remarkable first-person adventure" that tells "one of the finest stories" in games.
Matt Porter is a freelance writer based in London. Make sure to visit what he thinks is the best website in the world, but is actually just his Twitter page.The Miami Dolphins have two games to figure out whether Kenyan Drake is the real deal.
Since taking over the starting tailback role, Drake has thrived, becoming the NFL’s fifth most productive tailback per start based on the yardage he produced in his four starts this season.
Drake, who was made a starter after the midseason trade of Jay Ajayi to Philadelphia and Damien Williams' shoulder injury nearly a month ago, has averaged 123.5 total yards in his four starts this season.
The only tailbacks who have been more productive as starters this season are New England’s Dion Lewis, who is averaging 137.3 yards per game in his six starts, Pittsburgh’s Le’Veon Bell, who accounts for 132 yards per game in his 14 starts, Rams tailback Todd Gurley (129.8) and Dallas’ Ezekiel Elliott (124.1).
In the past three games, where Drake has been utilized as the featured back because of Williams’ absence, the former Alabama standout produced 312 rushing yards on 54 carries, and 134 receiving yards on 15 catches.
That means he’s averaged 148 yards per start. Drake, who averages 4.8 yards per carry, has also scored three of his four touchdowns in those three games.
When told about how Drake’s production level stacks up with the rest of the league, coach Adam Gase responded with, “I’ll take it.”
Even offensive coordinator Clyde Christensen, who has been one of Drake’s biggest critics since Miami selected him in the third round of the 2016 draft, seems to be buying in.
This week Christensen pointed out how pleased he’s been with Drake’s ball security, which was an issue earlier this season when he fumbled twice. Christensen also praised Drake for the pass protection he’s provided the past few games, which was viewed as his weakness by Miami’s coaches.
“It’s progress. He just continues to grow,” said Christensen, who claims the maturity Drake has shown this season is a “night and day” improvement from his rookie season. “I was kind of teasing him, it’s not that painful to kind of be mature, and he said, ‘No, it really isn’t.’
“But he hasn’t quite arrived yet,” Christensen warned.
The next two games will help Miami determine whether Drake’s success is an aberration or whether he can consistently produce 100-plus yards of offense, which could affect Miami’s offseason plans.
Christensen wants to know how Drake will perform now that he’s become a “marked man,” and defenses give him extra attention.
“You remember last year, Jay [Ajayi] had the two 200-yard games and then all of a sudden, people are tattooing [him],” Christensen continued. “You get a mark on you and they’re after you. It gets harder and harder to just keep repeating it. This league doesn’t let you just roll on through.”
Despite Drake’s productivity, don’t be surprised to see Miami decrease his workload when Williams is healthy enough to play. Despite practicing all week on a limited basis he’s listed as doubtful for Sunday’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs because is shoulder isn’t fully healed.
Gase was turned off by his experience with Ajayi earlier this season, and last month he vowed to never again rely solely on one tailback. So expect Williams to at least resume his role as Miami’s third-down back if he’s cleared to play in the Dec. 31 season finale against the Buffalo Bills.
“If you look at the duration of the season, we’re talking about three games, and what if this is Game 12 for him?” Gase said referring to Drake’s heavy workload this month. “That’s why both of those guys are valuable because they both have very similar traits to where they can do everything. If you mix those two guys up and it’s just a little bit of a change in each guy as far as whether it’s their running style, what they like to run, some of the routes that they run….It’s fun to call plays for [them] and they’re dangerous for the defense.”
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On Twitter @omarkelly
Click here to go to “X’s and Omar”A woman claiming to be Kate Middleton sped the wrong way down a one-way street this morning before rolling her car on State Highway 45 in Taranaki.
Police Senior Constable Grant Kennard said the 44-year-old woman was mentally unwell and had refused to let emergency services help her after she crashed about 7am.
"She thinks she's Kate Middleton. She was saying: 'You can't touch me because I'm royal'."
Earlier this morning the woman had been reported driving more than 80km the wrong way along Courtenay St in New Plymouth.
"It's lucky there was nobody coming the other way."
Before the woman crashed near Tataraimaka on SH45 between Oakura and Okato she had been weaving across the road, Kennard said.
"A car had to swerve to miss her. It was a close shave."
Her car landed on its roof after hitting a bank and rolling.
The woman was not injured.
"She's obviously someone who is not in a fit state of mind to be driving."
Kennard said the woman was being assessed by mental health professionals and it was unknown if charges would be laid.To the Editor:
Michael Grabell’s personal and informative essay, “The Simple Test That Saved My Baby” (Sunday Review, Sept. 22), says it well. We have come far in our ability to treat congenital heart conditions.
Today, there are actually more adults than children living with congenital heart disease.
It’s incredible that infants who might benefit from early treatment are not identified in their first days of life through a simple, effective, inexpensive and noninvasive test. In combination with other measures, pulse oximetry screening can reduce the chances of missed critical congenital heart disease in newborns to 2 percent.
Two years ago, at the urging of the American College of Cardiology and many others, the federal Department of Health and Human Services recommended adding pulse oximetry to routine newborn screenings across the country.
Today, a growing number of states are stepping up to require this test, offering another tool for early diagnosis of our country’s No. 1 birth defect. It’s time for the rest of the country to follow suit.dCorsi Chart (from @MimicoHero)
Positives
Brown was an effective two-way player. He posted good possession numbers on Kopitar's wing (59.4%) and also did quite well with Jarret Stoll on the third line (57.7%). One of the huge benefits of the Gaborik trade was that it allowed Brown (and later Justin Williams) to reinforce what had been a lackluster bottom six. Brown generated 9.35 shots/60, the third highest rate on the team and the third best mark of Brown's career (trailing only 2008-09 and 2012-13).
Brown's 37 penalties drawn and +11 penalty differential were both first on the Kings. As impressive as those numbers are, they're not what Brown has produced in the past, and I suspect referees are starting to give him less benefit of the doubt. Brown drew an ungodly 60 penalties for a +35 differential two years ago - to put that in context, the NHL leader this season in penalty differential (Matt Duchene) was just +24. For the record, I don't think it's all diving. Plenty of players take every opportunity to dive, and none of them come close to matching Brown's penalty-drawing track record over the past several years. His utter shamelessness is of course part of it, but his agitation, speed, and willingness to try fancy stickhandling moves are all factors. Anyway, he continued to help the Kings out by drawing 13 penalties while taking only 7 in the playoffs. He's very good at this.
Brown's zone entries numbers show an involved and effective neutral zone player. His 50% carry-in rate exceeds the team average of 44% and compares well to fellow wingers Carter (48%), Toffoli (48%), and Williams (46%). Brown did have a relatively high number of failed entries (23%) - probably a consequence of frequently trying to stickhandle into the zone rather than dump the puck in.
After receiving his first suspension in 2012-13, Brown did not get into trouble with the Department of Player Safety this year. He also avoided ruining the rookie season of any of the NHL's bright young stars, which is always a plus.
Negatives
Well, Brown didn't really score. Which is awfully concerning, considering that his mammoth contract extension doesn't actually start until next year. Some of the scoring decline is attributable to a decrease in ice time, especially on the power play, as the team around him improves. But if we look at just his 5v5 points/60, we can correct for that. It's not a pretty picture. (For context, 2.07 pts/60 is a median first liner, 1.72 a median second liner, 1.46 a median third liner.)
Dustin Brown 5v5 pts/60, 2009-2014 5v5 Pts/60 2009-10 1.78 2010-11 1.80 2011-12 1.61 2012-13 1.18 2013-14 1.25
That looks bad. But the good news is this is probably a shooting luck blip. As I mentioned above, the underlying numbers are strong; the shot rate is still high and his lines are controlling play. But Brown shot a much lower percentage than he usually does (6.6%), and his linemates shot a much lower percentage than they usually do (5.9%), and when those things combine it looks pretty ugly.
I wouldn't bet on Brown quite returning to his scoring prime, given what we know about forward aging, but a reasonable bounceback to a decent second line scoring level seems likely. See this article for more on Brown's scoring.
A Highlight
Lundqvist's confidence never recovered after this goal. He conceded the cup-winning goal to Martinez just two days later. Not a coincidence.
Roman Emperor Comparable: Caracalla
It's debatable which of Rome's many terrible emperors did the most long-term damage to empire, but I have little doubt that Caracalla (ruled 209-217) was the worst human being ever to occupy the throne. Caracalla murdered his brother in front of their own mother to gain sole rulership over the empire. He then used that power to terrorize his people. His penchant for traveling the empire spreading cruelty led the 18th century historian Edward Gibbon to call him "the common enemy of mankind." In one famous incident the citizens of Alexandria put on a play satirizing the Caracalla's brutality, and the emperor responded by ordering his soldiers to slaughter the city's inhabitants. In another underhanded move Caracalla offered to marry the king of Parthia's daughter, only to have the unsuspecting Parthian wedding party massacred upon arrival.
Anyway, this all sounds like the kind of stuff Dustin Brown would do. The Alexandrians know your pain, Tomas Hertl.
Looking Forward
Brown's contract means he's going to be in LA for some time. His scoring is likely to recover from his recent slump so I'm not worried about the next one or two years. Beyond that, though, this contract is probably going to start looking bad and LA would do well to move it (ideally after his shooting luck rebounds a bit) should the opportunity arise.
Grade
I'll give him a B, which is probably higher than most. But I like his underlying numbers and I don't want to penalize him too much for what was basically bad luck. If his lines keep putting up extremely low shooting percentages in the future I'll start to worry; as it is, this was probably just an unfortunate blip for a pretty decent player.Position: Center
Age: 18
Date of Birth: May 19, 1992
Place of Birth: Chelyabinsk, Russia
Ht: 6-0 Wt: 175
Shoots: Left
Kuznetsov is a highly talented Russian center currently playing for Traktor Chelyabinsk in the KHL. He is the exact definition of high-risk, high-reward. First, there's the threat of either not coming over or bolting back to Russia if he doesn't get his way. Then, there is the fact that he is one of the most inconsistent players in the draft. When he's on- he's explosive and can put up gobs of offense. The problem is, he's not "on" as often as he needs to be. A team could get a superstar if he slips.
2009/2010 Regular Season Stats:
GP G A PTS +/- PIM 35 2 7 9
N/A 10
Scouting Report (The Scouting Report):
With a talent like Kuznetsov potentially lurking in the middle of the first round, he could be an absolute gem to pick up. The 17 year old Russian has spent the season getting limited ice time in the KHL with Traktor, before having a solid showing at the World Juniors, scoring two goals for the Russians. He’s one of the most raw talented players available in this draft, and has the ability to make plays in the |
fondle her. He also allegedly forced her to masturbate him. JW Teen #2 eventually told her Psychologist about the sexual assault, who encouraged that such be reported to the police. Again, Married JW Male was never prosecuted.
It was not until the early 2000s that these two former Jehovah's Witness Females took the witness stand and told their stories during Married JW Male's later prosecution and conviction for having sexually assaulted a youthful non-JW co-worker. Does anyone else suspect that there is more to these accounts, and that the lack of the two earlier prosecutions were not the fault of the local police or the local Prosecutor's office? Me suspects that the local JW Elders did not become anxious to nail Married JW Male until after he was disfellowshipped after being publicly charged for sexual assault by his non-JW co-worker.
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<<<------PREVIOUS PAGE----------HOME PAGE----------NEXT PAGE ------>>>With the year's most anticipated tournament one day away, we take a look at the ESL One Cologne 2014 field of competitors.
With each group starting on Thursday and being spread over the course of two days, we have decided to include all sixteen teams in one massive preview for the $250,000 major.
We have divided the teams into four groups titled the top dogs, the second tier, the challengers and the underdogs. You can find the groups for ESL One Cologne 2014 on the event page.
Our official ESL One Cologne 2014 viewer's guide is available here. Two teams will advance from each GSL-style group, and the playoffs will be played in a single elimination format.
In case you've missed it, we've also been conducting interviews with most ESL One Cologne participants, and you can find them all below:
We recommend reading through all the interviews as they give a good idea of what to expect from each team, and maybe more importantly, what they expect of themselves.
Continue reading for full previews on all sixteen teams who will be eyeing the $100,000 first place check, to be handed out on Sunday evening in Cologne, Germany.
Who will play on the main stage on Sunday? (Photo: ESL)
The top dogs
NiP (f0rest, Fifflaren, friberg, GeT_RiGhT, Xizt)
Though NiP's last two tournaments have been grand disappointments, failing to crack the top four at both - excluding the practically two-team IronGaming event - they remain my number one favorites to win it all in Cologne. Group A may look somewhat tough at first glance, as they have lost against both HellRaisers and Epsilon in the past, but looking at how it will play out shows there's practically no way they will not make it to the quarter-finals.
NiP will beat Indian Wolf in the opening round, and then face one of their two competitors for a playoff spot. They will not have to win the first battle to advance, which means they effectively only have to win one of the two games -- not an easy task, but one that should be easily done by NiP. They seem full of motivation after their vacation and a poor G3 performance, and bootcamping for these final days should be exactly what the doctor ordered for the team still missing that elusive major title despite coming into each of them as favorites.
In the best-of-three playoffs NiP should once again thrive, though the loss against dignitas certainly proved even the team who has been world's number one for the majority of the two years CS:GO has been out is vulnerable to early exits now. NiP have been publicly very receptive to the new maps, and their skill-heavy playing style should translate well to maps no one has much experience on, assuming their heavyhitters Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg and GeT_RiGhT are back in shape. Besides, Faruk "pita" Pita will be able to help the team out in his new role as a strategy adviser.
Expect NiP to get out of group A on Friday morning with a first seed, and get a favorable quarter-final match-up. It won't be easy for NiP to claim that elusive major title on their third try, but it's hard to see how you should not consider the Ninjas favorites to once again reach the grand final. If they get knocked out in the quarter-finals it will be interesting to see how they deal with another disappointment, but for now, expect to see NiP playing on Sunday.
GeT_RiGhT wonders whether NiP can get back on top
Virtus.pro (byali, NEO, pasha, Snax, TaZ)
Together with NiP, Virtus.pro are one of the main favorites to win it all at ESL One Cologne. They're fresh off a victory at Gfinity 3 in London, despite only having less than a week to prepare for the event. This time they will be well prepared thanks to a bootcamp between the two events, and with over five times more money, and an even higher multiplier for prestige, on the line, you can bet the Poles will have done their all to try to defend their Katowice title.
This time Virtus.pro won't be playing in front of a supporting crowd on their home-soil, but it won't matter too much, seeing as no one else will be either. In group C the team now led by TaZ will start off in a match against dAT, who despite upsetting mousesports and ESG to qualify for the event, are massive underdogs and shouldn't be a problem for such an experienced team at a major event. The two other teams, fnatic and iBUYPOWER, will be tougher though.
Still, neither team should be good enough to take down Virtus.pro at such an important stage. The Poles' core is known for elevating their level of play at major events, as proven by TaZ and Filip "NEO" Kubski's ridiculous track record at major events across the different Counter-Strike versions. Expect Virtus.pro to cruise through what looks like a really tough group C, and advance to the playoffs where they'll be well suited to make a deep run.
Traditionally this Virtus roster has had different players shine at different times, and whenever they've had three of them on at the same time, they've been near unstoppable. If Jarosław "pashaBiceps" Jarząbkowski shows up in his early 2014 shape, the two veterans do decent, and both Paweł "byali" Bieliński and Janusz "Snax" Pogorzelski have some good games, expect the Poles in at the semi-finals, if not further. They should still be competing on Sunday.
Virtus need pasha's A-game to defend their Katowice title
Natus Vincere (Edward, GuardiaN, seized, starix, Zeus)
Though they've had this roster since early December 2013, Na`Vi didn't break through until May. At the previous major they crashed out in the group stage - the same fate they had to deal with at DreamHack Winter - and now on their third try they will need to finally make it out to the playoffs, especially being considered the favorites to win their group. Na`Vi looked good in the summer, but recent online results have made some question their form.
It's worth remembering Na`Vi aren't a great online team, but a more worrysome fact is they've always done better against clear top teams, and struggled against underdog challengers they aren't as well prepared for. In Cologne their group B is basically filled with teams they would've likely prefered to change for teams most of us would consider stronger. They face some tough competition, though this time they should be much better prepared.
The biggest problem Na`Vi have going into ESL One is the map rotation. They've never played de_nuke - not since the team was founded in 2010 - and that means they had to prepare both de_cobblestone and de_overpass. Additionally they never liked de_cache, so instead of simply keeping their form from earlier in the summer, they've had to get good on three new maps. That's a tall order, and likely too much for any team. Na`Vi therefore would have to be godly good on the standard maps to win in Cologne.
Copenhagen Wolves aren't going to be well prepared, and London Conspiracy will regress in Cologne. LDLC are a real threat and in great shape, so Na`Vi will have a tall talk going through them for a top finish in group C. The team led by Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko should be well enough prepared to do just that, and are favored to make the final four, but they are by no means guaranteed advancement. Na`Vi are a good team at grinding out wins, and the work will start for them tomorrow.
Can Na`Vi return to the podium this Sunday?
dignitas (aizy, device, dupreeh, FeTiSh, Xyp9x)
Though I expected dignitas not to have weakened too much over their summer vacation due to their counter-terrorist heavy playing style being easy to maintain with individual skill, their level of play surpassed all of my expectations at G3. Until the final two maps of the Virtus series they looked untouchable, but ultimately they fell short just at the wrong time - in the semi-finals - as so many times before, including their previous two international tournaments in the spring before adding Philip "aizy" Aistrup.
The Danes have emerged as favorites in a group where months ago you could have talked me into them going out early, as their stellar play combined with Titan and Cloud9's struggles have seen their ranking skyrocket ahead of the two. dignitas is known for very consistent play, and that should be enough for them to get out of this, admittedly very tough, group. Assuming they defeat Vox Eminor first, a single win over either Titan or Cloud9 will do it for the Danes.
Finally taking down NiP, albeit a wounded one, at G3 showed dignitas no longer have an opponent they can't beat. It's questionable whether this team still has enough to get past the semi-finals -- the individual skills of Nicolai "device" Reedtz and Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen can only get you so far. The team lacks unique terrorist side play, and if they aren't hitting their shots, they can run into a brick wall against a strong defensive team.
That being said, dignitas are one of the four best teams attending ESL One Cologne, and therefore should be treated as a favorite to go into the semi-finals. They have also been the most consistent team of all the favorites in 2014, which certainly helps their case. Results will be somewhat random overall due to the new map selection process, and it remains to be seen whether that is enough to knock dignitas' consistency out before the top four.
device is dignitas' most important player
The second tier
Titan (Ex6TenZ, kennyS, NBK, ScreaM, SmithZz)
Before G3 Titan likely would have belonged in the next group of teams, but a strong performance in London has seemingly reinvigorated the team. Though they were one of the better prepared teams going into the event, together with fnatic, they've always had the capacity to achieve deep playoff runs and beat any team in the world, so simply gaining the confidence of getting to the finals, and beating NiP online before, means the world to them.
ESL One Cologne will truly show us how good Titan now is -- another poor performance would obviously make us forget about G3, and should make the team question its personnel once more. Add in the fact they share a group with two teams they've historically struggled with, and Titan face a ton of early pressure just to get to the playoff portion of the $250,000 tournament. Another group stage exit simply isn't an option for Kévin "Ex6TenZ" Droolans and company.
In the opening round Titan will face off with Cloud9, who should be underdogs considering their poor preparation and recent roster change. dignitas rocked Nathan "NBK-" Schmitt's team in London, but this time the French-Belgians will have the new maps on their side. Having bootcamped for so long must mean Titan benefit from the new maps being added, and it should help them get out of this group. Especially Cloud9 are at a huge disadvantage with the maps.
I fully expect to see Titan playing come Saturday, though from there on out it depends a lot on just how well the other teams are playing, and what kind of bracket draw they get. They came very, very close to beating NiP at DreamHack Summer, so the potential has always been there -- it just remains to be seen if kennyS can carry Titan once more, and the rest of the team can execute well enough to return to the podium, or the grand final, once more.
Titan should return to the playoffs in Cologne
fnatic (flusha, jw, KRiMZ, olofm, pronax)
fnatic were good at G3. That's both a compliment and a negative. They bootcamped before the event and were one of the most active teams in the time leading up to the $45,000 tournament at the Olympic Park. Having just recruited Freddy "KRIMZ" Johansson and Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer forced them to do that, and it will have made them more prepared in general, but most of that advantage is now gone with other teams having also bootcamped before ESL One.
For the black and orange team to return to the grand finals of a major, olofmeister would have to show up as himself, and not the player we saw in London, and both JW and Robin "flusha" Rönnquist would have to once again have events of their lives, as they did at DreamHack Winter. The team's advantage in their unorthodox, at times, playing style is now long gone, and Markus "pronax" Wallsten will have to figure out other ways to gain advantages over other teams.
In group B fnatic will face iBUYPOWER in the opening round. They played each other in London, and tied. This time it is the North Americans who will be better prepared, ceteris paribus, as they will be fresh off a bootcamp and precious practice against European teams. The Swedes should get out of that match-up alive, and to the playoffs, especially seeing as their main opponents aren't well prepared on the new maps -- something pronax should have made fnatic.
We won't know until ESL One is over just how good this team really is, but it's clear their likeliest destination would be a quarter-final exit. Virtus.pro should be able to take care of business against fnatic, who should be better than both dAT and iBUYPOWER. This team could peak on Saturday and even make the final four, but for now, their goal is to secure a spot in the quarter-finals.
olofm struggled in his fnatic debut at G3
HellRaisers (AdreN, ANGE1, Dosia, kucher, markeloff)
If not for the new map system and de_cobblestone and de_overpass, I probably would have expected HellRaisers to crash out in the group stage this time around. Instead, they've publicly expressed their happiness with the new maps, and considering their style as a team, new maps seem like a good fit. HR aren't well coordinated, but they have tons of firepower -- a recipe for success on maps no one is very well prepared on.
Mihail "Dosia" Stolyarov hasn't been the superstar HR needs him to be in ages, and if they were to ever win a tournament, he'd have to return to his 2013 peak of powers level of play. He was the NiP killer then, and he needs to be that once more. Yegor "markeloff" Markelov has continued improving as a player, and Emil "kUcheR" Akhundov has been a pleasant surprise, as he had an amazing tournament at DreamHack Summer, where HellRaisers came within a few missed shots of taking down NiP in the semi-finals.
HellRaisers' big problem has always been inconsistency. I assume the new maps will give them a big enough advantage over Epsilon to get out of group A, and they're actually a good match-up to potentially even upset NiP for the top seed. HR should have beat Epsilon in Valencia, and if they still can't do it, it probably means we will never see their considerable potential unleashed. They will continue to be around, but how many disappointing finishes can they really take?
Playoffs will come down to how well HR have prepared, and whether they'll get to play the new maps. They're a huge dark horse candidate if they're in shape and get to play the new maps, but you could just as easily talk me into seeing HR exit their third major in a row in quarter-finals. I sense this time will be different, powered by the new maps, but they already have to overcome a sizable obstacle in the group stage, first.
Dosia has been good, but not nearly a superstar, in 2014
LDLC (apEX, Happy, KQLY, Maniac, Uzzziii)
LDLC are probably one of the most underrated teams in the scene. They aren't very flashy, they're generally consistent, and nothing about them screams for attention -- save for maybe Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian's AWP highlights. They're one of the world's best teams, but in a weird sense they probably also have one of the lower ceilings out of all the top ten or so teams. That, and their group, should put them in the quarter-finals yet again, but probably not much further.
The Frenchmen are in group B together with Na`Vi, London Conspiracy and Copenhagen Wolves. This is an ideal group for LDLC who are capable of beating Na`Vi, and whose consistency should be enough to push them over the top against both LC and the Wolves; two weaker teams with massive upset potential. LDLC also skipped G3, which allowed them to better prepare for ESL One, despite KQLY and Dan "apEX" Madesclaire going to ASUS ROG Summer on the same weekend.
As mentioned in the Na`Vi section I expect LC to regress in Cologne, and LDLC should pick up their opening win in that match. They aren't favored to beat Na`Vi, but their consistency, and strong play by their two stars apEX and KQLY should power them to the playoffs. From there though, the going really does get rough for the recent DreamHack Valencia winners.
There are certain teams LDLC could very well beat for a top four finish -- teams like dignitas and fnatic, for example. For Happy's team their final finish at ESL One will largely come down to good old dumb luck, thanks to the random draw that will determine playoff match-ups. I expect them to go out in the quarter-finals -- no matter how tired Happy is of it.
KQLY shoulders a lot of weight in LDLC
The challengers
Cloud9 (Hiko, n0thing, Semphis, sgares, shroud)
Cloud9 come into the event with high hopes, having just acquired the services of Mike "shroud" Grzesiek as their fifth player, and secured backing from the Cloud9 organization. They most recently upset NiP, Na`Vi and Virtus.pro at ESEA Invite Season 16 Global Finals in Dallas, but that was with a different fifth in Todd "anger" Williams, and all those teams less prepared than they should be now.
I expect the North Americans to be disappointed with their showing in Germany, but only because they've put in a very tough group with two top teams in dignitas and Titan. Both have more individual skill than Cloud9 does, and both should also be better prepared on the new maps, which could make a huge difference in the best-of-one group stage, combined with the random map selection system.
For Cloud9 to make the playoffs, shroud must play like he does online, and both Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert and Hiko need to be in top shape. They also need Kory "SEMPHIS" Friesen to prove to be a good in-game leader in the long run -- so far we only know his on-the-fly calling worked in Dallas. That's a lot of if's, but on the other hand, they're all as likely to pan out, as they are not to.
Playing the odds I have to guess Cloud9 won't make the playoffs here -- there are just too many obstacles to overcome. Their bootcamp wasn't great due to poor PCs, their roster is new, they had to switch gear with their new sponsorship, and there's two world class teams in their group. Don't be surprised if they go out in groups, and don't be surprised if they make the playoffs.
Everyone talks about shroud but n0thing is the key to Cloud's performance
iBUYPOWER (AZK, DaZeD, Skadoodle, steel, swag)
I wrote in my post-G3 article that I think iBUYPOWER's window for a top four placing has closed with the event in London ending. I stand by it. Though Sam "DaZeD" Marine's team weren't prepared as well as possible before G3, and were able to bootcamp for ten or so days after the event ended, neither were their opposition. Now everyone is in top shape, and it will be much harder to cause upsets.
Pending the performances of Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham and Braxton "swag" Pierce the team has the potential to go through to the playoffs and potentially even upset someone there, but as we all know there's a huge gap between potential and reality. And the reality is that they have two teams in their group - namely fnatic and Virtus.pro - who are better than them, and favored against them. Even dAT could cause them issues.
Expect iBUYPOWER to be knocked out in the decider game in their group, after putting up a decent fight. They are a very good team, but they've been put in a group with two better ones. iBP is certainly capable of beating fnatic - as proven by their tie at G3 - but they also showed their indecisiveness in close games, and that's a problem that will eat teams alive at the majors -- even if fnatic shares it, too.
iBP face a tall task of getting out of their group
Epsilon (fxy0, GMX, kioShiMa, Sf, shox)
Epsilon have the best chance out of all four teams in the challengers group to advance to the playoffs. They have two legitimate top players in shox and Joey "fxy0" Schlosser - including arguably a top two player in the whole world - and solid players around them. They share a group with NiP, HR and Wolf, but have beaten NiP two weeks ago, and HR the week before at DreamHack Valencia.
shox showcased his ridiculous abilities in that already legendary 30/3 performance against HellRaisers on the deciding map in Valencia, and fxy0 proved to be a top level performer at G3. They were robbed of a playoff spot in London, and shox was ill, playing his worst tournament in his career. Epsilon will be better - but so will both HellRaisers and NiP.
Working against Epsilon is the map rotation, which favors the skill-heavy teams they go up against. Wolf shouldn't be a factor, but getting wins over HellRaisers and NiP is no easy task. I expect Epsilon to miss the playoffs by a hair, only because they recently beat both teams -- they'd be better served coming in as a pure underdog. Still, don't count shox out just yet - it's never a good idea.
Epsilon having a good time
Epsilon could wind up sending NiP or HR home
London Conspiracy (Polly, prb, rain, RUBINO, Skurk)
If you read through all of our pre-event interviews, you must have noticed one thing - close to everyone named these Norwegians as the potential surprise performer at ESL One. That means their performance wouldn't actually be a surprise anymore, and likely is the reason we won't be hearing much of LC in Germany, where they share a group with Na`Vi, LDLC and Copenhagen Wolves.
They surprised everyone in the ESL One qualifier by beating Na`Vi, and even at G3 not many took them seriously. Now everyone will, and that's going to be the death of this team, I think. LDLC are far too consistent to lose to LC, who would then have to get two wins against Copenhagen Wolves, Na`Vi and LDLC. It's a tall task for a team reliant on team work - without much individual skill aside from Håvard "rain" Nygaard - who will have been scouted.
I expect London Conspiracy to regress slightly, though they could still easily beat the much more skilled Copenhagen Wolves squad. Na`Vi and LDLC are too good to fall for them now that they're a known threat, and that should mean an early exit -- though one consistent with their place among the world rankings. If they were to make the final eight, it'd be a huge surprise, again.
London Conspiracy
London Conspiracy are no longer in the shadows
The underdogs
Wolf (Ace, aStarrrr, RiTz, RiX, sMx)
We know next to nothing about Wolf, aside from the fact they won the Indian ESL One qualifier, have some long-standing top Indian players from the Counter-Strike 1.6 ATE days, and recently hired Aleksandar "kassad" Trifunović as their coach to get them ready for ESL One Cologne.
They were one of the two teams not to get back to us on an interview to give us more information to go by, but our job was made easier by their group draw. Wolf face NiP in the opening round, and either HellRaisers or Epsilon in round two. Those are two unwinnable matches for an unknown quantity like Wolf, even with kassad helping them out.
Had Wolf bootcamped extensively in Europe and had they had kassad working with them for a longer time, and had they been placed in an easier group, something could have been possible. For now, I think they will gladly settle for the experience of being at a major, and hopefully improving for a second go-around in the future.
kassad is coaching Wolf at ESL One Cologne
Vox Eminor (AZR, havoc, jks, SPUNJ, topguN)
Vox Eminor come into their third major event now, though they only attended the BYOC qualifier at the first one. In Katowice they came close to upsetting LDLC in their group, but were ultimately knocked out by the Danes of 3DMAX. Since then they've played in Australia, where they remain number one, as proven by their qualifier win.
Since Katowice the team has added Justin "jks" Savage, who has in domestic competition proven to be a valuable addition, and was praised by SPUNJ in our interview for seemingly adjusting well to playing against the world's best in Europe. They face a tall task in a super tough group D though, which likely means they will once again leave Europe disappointed.
Expect Vox to put up a better fight than the average fan expects -- I wouldn't be surprised if they took Cloud9 to their limit. Still, they have three of the world's ten or so best teams in their group, and that's a death sentence to a team from Australia, who can't get the kind of preparation that's needed to overcome such an obstacle.
Vox hope to finally beat a top team in Cologne
Copenhagen Wolves (cajunb, gla1ve, karrigan, Nico, Pimp)
Clearly the best team in the underdogs group, Copenhagen Wolves have a monstrous task ahead of them due to lack of preparation going into ESL One. They've only practiced for about a week due to various vacations, and the playing style Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander's teams are so famous for - and successful due to - takes a lot more time to implement properly.
What the Danes do have going for them is their firepower. Nico has carried teams like this before, and comparing to Western Wolves rosters with the same trio in Nico, gla1ve and Jacob "Pimp" Winneche, René "cajunb" Borg is a huge upgrade over either of the final two players. Even Finn "karrigan" Andersen has recently started improving in CS:GO and could be valuable asset in Germany.
It's possible the Wolves may gel quickly and knock out LDLC or Na`Vi, and I'm inclined to bet they will because I have so much faith on gla1ve, but smart money says they won't -- those are two of the world's best six teams after all. Nevertheless, Copenhagen Wolves will be one of the most entertaining teams to watch during the group stage of ESL One Cologne.
The mastermind behind Copenhagen Wolves
dAT (B1ad3, bondik, flamie, ub1que, WorldEdit)
dAT could really mess up the entire group C. They are huge underdogs in the group with Virtus.pro, fnatic and iBUYPOWER, yet if they can replicate the kind of success they had in the online qualifier, they could potentially take down one of them. I don't expect Egor "flamie" Vasilyev to be the kind of overnight success to help dAT advance, but don't rule out ruining someone else's day.
Virtus.pro should be untouchable - they're too consistent, too deep in their roster, and too good. Both fnatic, and especially iBUYPOWER though, are beatable teams for dAT. I don't think Andrey "B1ad3" Gorodenskiy and company can take down two of them to advance, but even a single win would make this trip a success for a team who had to crowd-fund just to make it to Cologne.
B1ad3 has had success abroad before with teams such as A-gaming, UNiTED and KerchNet, and it's not inconceivable that his leadership skills could help dAT become a strong team in the future. However, now is too early for the team, even if flamie is every bit as good on LAN as online, to crack the final eight.
B1ad3 from UNiTED
B1ad3 is one of the most experienced Ukrainian players in CS history
ESL One Cologne 2014 will begin tomorrow at 09:00. You can find the rest of the schedule on our official viewer's guide, which also features information such as prize distribution, and more.
We will be releasing a second preview for the playoffs at the end of Friday, when the group stages are done and playoff pairs have been drawn. We may also release a day three preview on Saturday.
Follow HLTV.org's @lurppis_ on Twitter.For my design, I made a simple design that was easy on the eye that still had a fun look, but also gave it a small amount of advertising. By that, I used the Waterside color palette that was given, and since the two primary colors were orange and the lighter of the blues, I used those the most. I also made sure to use the logo, and did minimal line designs that flowed with the shape of the mermaid. I put the Waterside logo in the middle of the mermaid, because people’s eyes tend to go toward the middle of an object, along with if there is more going in a certain area. That is why I put the objects, the glass and the music notes next to the logo, so it helps give your eye somewhere to go to. Those objects are there to also help advertise what Waterside will deliver, but in a minimal way. I kept the orange and red areas simple so it wouldn’t get cluttered and so it wouldn’t take away from the logo, which is the main focal point. In conclusion, my design is a fun and simple way to help advertise. I hope my design has met up to the requirements of what Waterside is all about.Instant Pot Chickpea Potato Curry is a delicious, satisfying vegetarian dish. This is an easy to make Indian curry. Chickpeas and potatoes are pressure cooked and simmered in tomato puree and are served with hot India bread Bhatura or poori.
Weekends are special why if you ask? Its the time we get together as family to eat all meals together. I grew up in Delhi where chickpea potato curry and bhatura is special weekend treat. Mom used to make this as a special weekend treat for us.
Chickpea potato curry is a famous Indian dish and is cooked in many variations like no onion no garlic version, dry to semi or curry version. The signature Delhi version of chickpea potato curry is where the curry is dark brown in color. This dark color comes as chickpeas are soaked with tea bags and dry goose berries. The curry is cooked in iron skillet which further enhances the dark brown color.
When I attempted to make Instant Pot Chickpea potato curry, my thoughts were on making this as a complete one pot meal. I had no intent of using the skillet for getting the dark brown color. Yes, color is very important for us. We relish this dish a lot for both flavor and color, true Delhi style. We love eating this curry so much that whenever we visit Delhi. We make sure we visit our favorite restaurant and eat this curry.
I made this Instant Pot Chickpea Potato curry some time back. Since today is Friday, I am planing to make this curry again on weekend. This is an easy, delicious one pot meal served with hot Bhatura, vegetable raita and mango pickle. Yum is the word. Try it and am sure you will nod yes with me.
I hope you enjoy this recipe. If you give this recipe a try, do let me know. Leave a comment,Pin it, or take a picture and tag it #cookingyoulove on Instagram. I would love to know how it turned out for you.Weight Loss
30 Ways to Cut 100 Calories
Did you know that if you shaved just 200 calories a day from your diet, you could lose 22 pounds in a year? Start with one or more of these easy ways to cut calories and you won’t even notice that you’re working towards weight loss.
1 / 30 How to Cut 143 Calories A Smart Sundae Substitute Sensible eating doesn’t mean you can’t indulge in sweet treats. Instead of a strawberry ice cream sundae (267 calories), for instance, try 250 mL of strawberries (110 calories), topped with two tablespoons of whipped cream from a can (14 calories).
2 / 30 How to Cut 100 Calories Become an Egg-Poacher Poach two large eggs (150 calories) instead of frying them in one tablespoon butter (250 calories).Gold futures prices pushed to a new all-time record high of $1,247.70 an ounce, basis nearby Comex futures, Wednesday. Safe-haven buying, increased demand from general investors and bullish technical momentum drove prices farther north and into uncharted territory Wednesday. June Comex gold closed up $22.80 at $1,243.10 an ounce. While world stock markets have stabilized following recent news of a $1 trillion financial aid package for debt-distressed European Union countries, investor demand for gold as a safe-haven asset has increased this week. Holders of European currencies are buying gold in strong fashion as a hedge against further European currency weakness. Gold also set new record highs Wednesday when priced in Euros and the British pound. Gold prices have become de-coupled from the U.S. dollar's value recently, as the greenback has also rallied to multi-month highs. The fact that gold has become de-coupled from the U.S. dollar is another bullish clue for the precious yellow metal. The London P.M. gold fixing was $1,237.50 versus the previous P.M. fixing of $1,222.50. Technically, June gold futures bulls have the strong near-term and longer-term technical advantage. There are no early technical clues to suggest a market top is close at hand. Prices are in a three-month-old uptrend on the daily bar chart and are in a nine-year-old uptrend on the longer-term monthly chart. Bulls' next upside technical objective is to produce a close above psychological resistance at $1,300.00. Bears' next downside price objective is closing prices below technical support at $1,200.00. First resistance is seen at Wednesday's all-time high of $1,247.70 and then at $1,250.00. Support is seen at $1,235.00 and then at Wednesday's low of $1,227.40. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 9.5. July silver futures closed up 36.9 cents at $19.663 an ounce Wednesday. Prices closed nearer the session high and hit a fresh 22-month high. Silver is now trading on the coattails of gold's powerful rally. The silver bulls have gained good upside near-term technical momentum recently and have the strong overall near-term technical advantage. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid technical support at this week's low of $18.215. Bulls' next upside price objective is closing prices above major psychological resistance at $20.00 an ounce. First resistance is seen at today's high of $19.735 and then at $20.00. Next support is seen at $19.50 and then at $19.25. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 8.5. July N.Y. copper closed down 185 points at 318.80 cents today. Prices closed near mid-range. Prices are still in a four-week-old downtrend on the daily bar chart and the bears have the overall near-term technical advantage. A bear flag pattern has formed on the daily bar chart. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid technical support at last week's low of 300.55 cents. Bulls' next upside objective is pushing and closing prices above solid technical resistance at last week's high of 336.35 cents. First resistance is seen at 320.00 cents and then at Wednesday's high of 324.40 cents. First support is seen at this week's low of 312.85 cents and then at 310.00 cents. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 3.0. By Jim Wyckoff, contributing to Kitco News |
that body resides must also be important. These parallels may in places be broad, to be sure, but the nature of Catholic thought is such that its themes echo throughout many different issues, and so I offer these comments as starting points for reflection on both Laudato si’ and the Theology of the Body.
In the Beginning
Both Francis and John Paul want to understand just what humans were created to be, and so they examine the creation stories in Genesis. John Paul is most explicit; in his first audience of the many that constitute the Theology of the Body, he reflects on what it means for Jesus to say that in the beginning, divorce was not part of God’s plan. In his exploration of what it means to be “in the beginning,” he concludes that it is an appeal to reflect on how humans were originally created and how we existed in a state before sin, when we were not separated from God and could stand before each other without shame. In seeing how God originally intended man and woman to relate to each other, John Paul believes that we can see how man and woman should still relate to each other. This knowledge is essential because masculinity and femininity are so closely tied to the basic meaning of human existence; being able to understand what it means to be a man or a woman does not simply provide us with a correct way of living one’s life, but a way of fulfilling our nature as human beings.
Francis similarly wants to get at “the heart of what makes us human.” Like John Paul, he turns to Genesis in order to understand the primordial elements of human nature, but his focus is the original relationship between the first humans and the earth itself. Ultimately, he says, “We were created with a vocation to work.” Work, especially care of the earth, is fundamental to being human. In knowing the original human vocation, and seeing how the first humans were told to keep the earth, Francis believes that we can see the standard by which our present relationship with the earth should be judged, but again, this standard is not merely the recommended course of action. Understanding this standard provides a way to be most fully human. By appealing to the creation stories, Francis and John Paul emphasise that they are not only concerned with how we should act, but how we should be.
Human Dignity
What, exactly, might this right human existence look like? In part, it will involve a concern for the dignity of others. As John Paul says, “Each of them, the man and the woman, is not only a passive object, defined by his own body and his own sex, and in this way determined ‘by nature.’ On the contrary, precisely through being man and woman, each of them is ‘given’ to the other as a unique and unrepeatable subject, as ‘I,’ as person.” As humans, we are not merely members of a species, but are persons who can choose to give ourselves to another. We are created in the image of God, Who is love, Who gives Himself to us, and so we are like Him. Sexuality involves us in the mystery of creation, allowing us to rationally and lovingly participate in the ongoing process of new life coming into the world, and therefore grants us an unimaginable dignity amongst other creatures. Moreover, it compels us to recognise other beings as being precious and individual persons bearing the image of God and possessing the same dignity we do.
Much of Francis’s concern for how humans treat the world is in fact tied to his concern for human dignity; he immediately notes that “the destruction of the human environment is extremely serious… because human life itself is a gift which must be defended from various forms of debasement.” He describes how the poor bear the greatest burden of environmental degradation, and how they are frequently victims of a throwaway culture that disposes of used things and useless persons, even though we should “see each human being as a subject who can never be reduced to the status of an object.” When persons live in an environment that is damaged by various sorts of pollution, for example, they may not be able to grow food or find drinkable water, and thus must struggle merely to exist.
The danger in the cases of both the environment and the body is that, because they are so rich with goodness, we will become motivated by the desire to just consume them. We can be overcome by the want to extract every resource, and every ounce of pleasure. In these cases, we see ourselves as having dominion over the world, instead of being its keepers, or cease to see others as “thou,” but merely as “it.” The relationships at the foundation of our humanity become disordered, and we begin to take instead of receiving gifts, or giving ourselves. The world is not something that has no meaning save than which we impose upon it, or an empty stage on which we can display our powers. As Marc Barnes of Bad Catholic writes in America Magazine,
Sexuality and the land both have a life of their own. The cycles of the land, determined by soil, weather and biology, exist quite apart from the decisions of the farmer. Nor do we control the cycles of sexuality, which are governed by desire, fertility and menstruation.
It is therefore actually quite appropriate to link the body and the earth, as they are both others which give to us, and with which we must cooperate in order for them to bear fruit most effectively. The very nature of a sexual body implies another being. Barnes describes a farmer who “uses what is given, and only because it is ‘already going on’ can he use it at all. His is a work of cooperation with the land, not sheer mastery over it.” As co-creators, we cannot ourselves bring things into being, but must instead allow ourselves to understand and accept how creation already functions.
Furthermore, it is in fact essential to associate the earth and the body because John Paul highlights how the body is what manifests the person in the world. We are not merely spirits who will one day be liberated from the material; in our creed, we profess looking forward to the resurrection of the dead, which underlines just how essential to our being we believe our bodies to be. Therefore, the environment in which our bodies reside should be used in such a way so that we may thrive.
Finding God in all Things
We do not believe in a watchmaker deity who designs a universe and steps away from it, but in a God in Whom all things live, move, and have their being, and both Popes emphasise the structures of sexuality and creation reflect this. When it comes to the nature of the human body John Paul argues that “man became the image of God not only through his own humanity, but also through the communion of persons, which man and woman form from the very beginning.” He then goes further, saying, “The theology of the body, which is linked from the beginning with the creation of man in the image of God, becomes in some way also a theology of sex, or rather a theology of masculinity and femininity.” Just as the Trinity is a communion of persons giving themselves to each other and giving life, humans, bearing the image of God, give themselves to each other and play the role of co-creators, bringing about new life. The sexual nature of a body is not something that only points to another body, but also helps us to understand, however inadequately, something about God’s nature.
Along these lines, Francis approvingly quotes the Canadian bishops, who call nature “a continuing revelation of the divine,” and himself says that “the contemplation of creation allows us to discover in each thing a teaching which God wishes to hand on to us.” Creation is a way of encountering God. One example of this is natural law, the idea that the right use of things is knowable by understanding for what end they are made, and so the correct moral use of things is written into the very structure of creation.
When we are not able to actually see creation, and feel awe at its vastness, or at the profundities of love, but can see only the things that we have built, and believe that we can (or will be able to) describe every last natural happenstance in the most minute detail and thus can say we understand the universe, we can forget that God is the true Creator, and that we are only using what He has given us, and that we have limited powers. Personally, it still surprises me that this Jesuit pope never cites the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, famous for his poems about how the world reveals God through His boundless creativity, about how the “world is charged with the grandeur of God.”
In Laudato si’ and the Theology of the Body, Francis and John Paul are concerned with how God is visible in the world and right human existence. In a world without God, we are no longer co-creators, but creators, and we must decide for ourselves how to be, even though we cannot assign to the environment or our bodies any lasting meaning. A true humanism, therefore, cannot stand without good theology. Secular humanism can only appeal to a randomly created universe populated by a species whose history is one of sin, while a Catholic humanism has a more sure foundation: a nature which reflects the Creator.- Advertisement -
Sony was hacked and hacked hard. Recently a cybercriminal group by the name of "The Guardians of Peace" (or GOP as they call themselves) hacked Sony Pictures leaving them crippled for a time, temporarily turning to faxes and avoiding email. They're not the only ones, the file cloud Dropbox and financial advisor JP Morgan were also hacked this year. Considering the many mistakes that company employees make that make it easier on hackers, it's no surprise that cybercrime is only getting worse.
The recent hack of Sony by the GOP saw the release of sensitive materials that are damaging to Sony, like the contract info of stars, the personal emails of executives, even unreleased movies with the threat to release more. The GOP uploaded the unreleased movies to Pirate Bay, leading to the arrest of the co-founder and the shutdown of the main site. There are those that, of course, consider piracy to be cybercrime. It makes sense; it's illegal, and it's perpetrated through the internet so the label would seem to fit. The questions are though, how much does piracy actually damage the economy? Should internet piracy be illegal? Is it even worth spending millions of dollars to prevent it?
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The Figures
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Finding the exact cost of piracy to the economy is difficult to say the very least. According to The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), "the total costs to the U.S. economy of copyright piracy are estimated to exceed $58 billion in lost output, 373,375 lost jobs." These numbers however, have come under scrutiny because the methodology in obtaining these figures was unclear.
The main problem with these numbers is the fact that their origins are ridiculously hard to track. An investigation done by the United States Government Accountability Office came to the conclusion that, "estimating the economic impact of IP infringements is extremely difficult, and assumptions must be used due to the absence of data." They go on to say, "despite significant efforts, it is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the net effect of counterfeiting and piracy on the economy as a whole." Figures provided by the IPI are pure conjecture and simply the most recent claims.
What is readily available is the fact that in 2011, the US lead the world in internet piracy, with a staggering 96.7 million illegal downloads, with the UK coming in second place with 43.3 million. While that is a huge number, when you consider that there are 313.2 million of internet users in the US that leaves us with less than a third of people with internet access illegally downloading copyrighted material. Even that figure is problematic, as to come to that conclusion, the pirates would have had to only download one file each for the entire year. Considering people download entire seasons of shows, the number of pirates has to be even smaller than that.
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Then you have the efficacy of measures taken to curb piracy, specifically digital rights management (DRM) to consider. The intent, of course, is to make sure that only legitimate purchasers can enjoy the product, but more often than not DRM is a roadblock for legit users. Meanwhile, pirates laugh at DRM as it provides only the briefest of obstacles. There are even a few developers who decry DRM as the 'worst thing in the gaming industry', and complaining that "[i]t can punish players who actually bought the game."
The Bright Side
Next Page 1 | 2Play 01:44 Play 01:44 Brettig: Recent form worked in Burns' favour
Joe Burns and Usman Khawaja have been preferred to the younger Cameron Bancroft in Australia's 12-man squad for the first two Tests against New Zealand. Burns is set to be the new opening partner for David Warner following the retirement of Chris Rogers at the end of the Ashes, while Khawaja's most likely position is at No.3 if Steven Smith moves down to No.4 as expected.
There was no room for either Bancroft or Shaun Marsh, both of whom were part of the squad for the abandoned tour of Bangladesh. Not surprisingly, four fast men have been named - Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Peter Siddle - with one of them likely to be made 12th man for the first Test at the Gabba starting on Thursday.
It will be Australia's first Test since the post-Ashes retirements of Rogers, Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin and Shane Watson, but the inclusion of Burns and Khawaja means that no new baggy greens will be handed out. Khawaja played the most recent of his nine Tests on the 2013 Ashes tour, while Burns scored twin half-centuries in the second of his two Tests against India last summer.
National selector Rod Marsh said Burns had earned his place through weight of runs over the course of his first-class career, and that he had been unlucky to be dropped after the Indian series last season.
"He's got more runs than the other contenders," Marsh told reporters in Adelaide. "He averages more than the other contenders. He got two fifties in his last Test match, extremely unlucky not to be going to the West Indies and England, he was chosen to go to Bangladesh, would have opened the batting there. Any other explanation?"
Bancroft, 22, is expected to feature in future Test squads and impressed last summer with 896 runs in the Sheffield Shield, making him third on the competition tally. However, the selectors hope Bancroft might benefit from some more time in the Shield before he wins a baggy green.
"He's a good young player, he's as tough as nails, and we all think he has got what it takes to play Test cricket," Marsh said. "But we think he's a few runs shy at the moment; he's a few hundreds shy. And we'd like to pick him when he's in sparkling form and getting first-class hundreds, that is when we'd really like to pick a young player.
"What we tried to do was pick the best side. We know New Zealand are going to be very, very worthy opponents. In fact they're a damn good side. And it's very important for Steve Smith and David Warner, the two leaders of our group, it's very important they get off to a good start.
"And I don't personally think it was time for just wild experimentation. I think we had to be very measured in what we did with this team to allow the new captain the best chance of getting off [to a good start]. It's all very well saying `pick youth and go with youth all the time' but you have got to pick the best side."
Khawaja, 28, and Burns, 26, now have the chance to make long-term positions in Australia's top order their own, while the older Adam Voges, 36, is viewed as an important leader with plenty of first-class experience during this period of changeover. Voges has retained his spot at No.5, while the allrounder Mitchell Marsh is set to stay at No.6 as what Rod Marsh called a batting allrounder.
"Harking back to England, the thing we were most worried about was his bowling, but now because he hasn't made many runs recently I think everyone is worried about his batting," he said. "I've got faith in him. He's a good young bloke, with a good technique and a desire to play well for Australia.
"He played beautifully [on debut last year] and he backed it up in the second innings in conditions that were difficult and conditions he wasn't used to. The Gabba and Perth pitches should suit his batting. That's where he was brought up in Perth with a bit of bounce, and he should be well suited to those two pitches."
Peter Nevill will play a Test match at home for the first time after he replaced Haddin during the Ashes series, and the make-up of the attack remains the main question leading into the Gabba Test. Hazlewood was dropped for the final Ashes Test at The Oval, where Siddle performed well as his replacement, and it is likely that one of them will be the bowler to miss out.
"We are pleased with how our bowling unit is going at the moment," Marsh said. "Both Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood had fantastic performances in the Matador Cup and Mitchell Johnson looks ready to fire after a decent break. Off the back of a great bowling performance in the last Test Peter Siddle earns his selection with Nathan Lyon, a proven performer in the side rounding out our attack."
Australia squad David Warner, Joe Burns, Usman Khawaja, Steven Smith (capt), Adam Voges, Mitchell Marsh, Peter Nevill (wk), Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc, Peter Siddle, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood
Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. @brydoncoverdale
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.German Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt looks on during the cermony of appointment at Bellevue Castle in Berlin February 17, 2014. REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany has initiated a move to stop the growing of genetically modified crops under new European Union rules, documents seen by Reuters showed on Monday.
German Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt has informed German state governments of his intention to tell the EU that Germany will make use of new “opt-out” rules to stop GMO crop cultivation even if varieties have been approved by the EU, a letter from the agriculture ministry seen by Reuters shows.
A new EU law approved in March cleared the way for new GMO crops to be approved after years of previous deadlock. But the law also gave individual countries the right to opt out by banning GMO crops even after they have been approved as safe by the European Commission.
Widely-grown in the Americas and Asia, GMO crops have divided opinion in Europe. Britain is among those in favor of them, while France and Germany are among those opposed.
Previously, when the EU approved crops as safe to produce they had to be permitted for cultivation in all EU states.
In the letter, the ministry stressed that Schmidt is continuing a previously-announced policy to keep a ban on GMOs in Germany.
Under the new EU rules, countries have until Oct. 3, 2015, to inform the Commission that they wish to opt out of new EU GMO cultivation approvals, the ministry letter said.
Schmidt has asked German state authorities to say by Sept. 11 whether their region should be included in the opt-out, the letter said.Spread the love
Parkersburg, WV — A disturbing video was submitted to the Free Thought Project this week which shows the courageous actions of one woman, and the cowardly actions of a West Virginia State Trooper.
The incident began after a neighborhood argument escalated to the point of a man calling the police to prevent further turmoil. The homeowner, Cliff, called the police after his neighbor allegedly threatened him. However, when the police showed up, they were more interested in Cliff’s dog than preventing any disturbance.
Randall Hupp, the man who gave us the video, explains that after the cops had arrived, the situation was calm, but then they quickly got out of control.
Things were going fine and my son decided to film for posterity sake in case anything should happen. There were two dogs present in the area at the time of the video, a black dog which was the neighbors dog that was running loose…and Cliffs dog, which was chained up.
Cliff’s dog, which was on a chain, merely barked as the officer walked up to the home. His tail was still wagging, and he seemed to calm down immediately. However, the fact that this dog was on a chain, not growling, nor posing any threat whatsoever, was of no consequence to the state trooper who quickly pulled out his service pistol, took aim, and almost killed the dog.
Before the state trooper could shoot the dog, however, Hupp’s daughter, Tiffanie courageously stepped in between the dog and the officer to prevent the puppycide.
The state trooper, seemingly offended by the woman’s attempt to thwart his dog killing, then proceeded to attack Tiffanie. Hupp explained to the Free Thought Project what happened next,
The trooper approached with gun in hand, grabbed her by the arm and slammed her to the ground. After the troopers realized that they had been filmed, they entered the home illegally without warrant or probable cause and confiscated all digital devices including my 4-year-old grandson’s tablet. We only recently received the devices back and released the video.
For stopping the trooper from killing her dog and getting slammed to the ground in front of her 4-year-old son, Tiffanie was charged with misdemeanor obstruction.
To add insult to assault, the city is attempting to railroad Tiffanie by forcing her to use their public appointed defender, with obvious conflicts of interest.
Hupp explains,
The courts appointed her an attorney whom actually is married to a state trooper, and they have denied her request for new legal counsel. We have a hearing set for Thursday 9 am, the 13th of August. We have been informed that we have no legal grounds for a lawsuit, due to lack of physical injury. Although my 4-year-old grandson is now terrified of police, I’m told at every door, there will be no justice.YUKON, Okla. – A sixth grader in Oklahoma wrote letters to the owners of 32 NFL team asking why he should be a fan. The 12-year-old, Cade Pope, had formerly been a St. Louis Rams fan, but was looking for a new team to root for.
According to News On 6 in Oklahoma, Pope’s mother, Heather, said her son hand wrote the letters two weeks ago and mailed them to the team owners.
Last week, Pope received a single response from one of the most powerful NFL team owners, Jerry Richardson, who founded the Carolina Panthers over 20 years ago.
According to News On 6, Richardson reportedly wrote:
“Cade we would be honored if our Carolina Panthers became your team, we would make you proud by the classy way we would represent you.”
With his hand written response, he listed several players he wanted Pope to watch for. Richardson also included a replica team helmet for Pope.Fifteen-year-old Larry Prout Jr. is a man of few words.
Tuesday, when a reporter asked him how long he had been a Michigan football fan, he said only “the whole time.” When another wondered what he thought of the Wolverines’ 78-0 victory at Rutgers on Saturday, Larry called it “pretty crazy.”
His mother, Kathy, who doubles as his homeschool teacher, once asked him what scared him about the hospital, a place where he has spent countless hours fighting for his life.
The answer, Larry said, was nothing.
When Larry was born with several birth defects, his presence at Schembechler Hall this week was inconceivable. Doctors did not know if he would survive birth. They certainly did not expect him to last more than two weeks outside of the womb. And yet on Tuesday, Larry became a member of the Michigan football team in a special ceremony.
As the fourth-ranked Wolverines took a break from their bye week amid a promising season, Larry — not football — was the talk of the evening. He was born with several chronic conditions, including spina bifida (which limits the development of the spinal cord) and choacal extrophy (which caused him to be born with some of his major organs outside his body). Those and other health problems, such as an opening on his abdomen called a massive omphalocele, have required 93 surgeries during his life.
“I have been cut open and sewed back up many, many times,” Prout said in a prepared statement. “Not all of the surgeries were a success, but this didn’t stop my family from bringing me back to the University of Michigan Mott Children’s Hospital. This didn’t stop my team from drawing up another play and to hopefully go on to win another day.”
Michigan drafted Prout onto the football team as part of the Team IMPACT program, an organization that seeks to improve the lives of chronically ill children by setting them up with college athletic teams. The Wolverines welcomed him to their team Tuesday, as coach Jim Harbaugh and several players walked out into the public area at Schembechler Hall and shook his hand. He then appeared with his parents, Harbaugh, redshirt junior quarterback John O’Korn and Team IMPACT executive director Seth Rosenzweig at a press conference.
A few minutes into the press conference, Kathy Prout handed the prepared statement to her son, who removed his sweatshirt to reveal a blue sweater that matched Harbaugh’s.
“I stand here before you today as just one of the stories that can be told regarding the patience at the great university’s Mott Children’s Hospital,” Larry said. “I also stand here as just one of the stories that could be told about many sick children and their families across the country. My heart goes out to all families of children with chronic illness.”
This isn’t Michigan’s first experience with a child like Larry. Two years ago, the men’s lacrosse team similarly welcomed Brendan Randolph, a child with medically intractable epilepsy. Randolph signed a National Letter of Intent with the Wolverines on Nov. 24, 2014, at age 14.
This past summer, Randolph’s parents told Prout’s parents about the IMPACT program and helped to connect them with Michigan. For Larry, a lifelong fan, joining the Wolverines was a dream.
“It’s just unbelievable,” said Larry’s father, Larry Sr. “Around every corner, there seems to be something really cool that’s happened. In spite of everything, we just keep going.”
Since the younger Larry began his relationship with Michigan, he has met a few of the current players. One of the first was O’Korn, a transfer from Houston, who also had a similar experience at his old school. At Houston, O’Korn met 15-year-old Jacolby Rogers, who was on dialysis with renal disease.
O’Korn, whom Larry called one of his favorite players along with senior running back De’Veon Smith, awarded Larry with some new Michigan gear such as T-shirts and football gloves.
“It’s a special relationship, and if we can be that source of hope and positivity for Larry, that’s something that makes us really happy,” O’Korn said afterward. “He’s somebody, as you saw today, that just flows with positivity, flows with grace and dignity.”
Team IMPACT hopes Larry could spur a new wave of teammates like him. According to Rosenzweig, the organization has a list of more than 600 teams who are interested in helping but have not yet been connected with a child.
The hope is that those teams could have the same experience as Michigan’s players, who said that Larry’s toughness has worn off on them.
“It’s easy to look after a long practice or a long day of camp or a workout, you might be sore or tired, you might be injured,” said senior tight end Jake Butt. “And you might let that thought creep into your head where you want to feel sorry for yourself, or you want to find an excuse.
“And you look at a kid like Larry and his family and the way they’re facing such great adversity and still up there smiling, and still up there so grateful just to be a part of this team. We’re grateful to have him on our team, and we’re grateful for the example that he’s setting for us.”
As for Larry, he hopes kids like him can learn the same lesson. Asked what he would tell others going through the same issues, the boy who has overcome so many of them spoke briefly but meaningfully again: “Not to be afraid.”West Virginia lawmakers have introduced a bill that would ban drivers from using Google Glass from behind the wheel.
The bill specifies that the use of any “wearable computer with head mounted display” while operating a vehicle would result in a fine.
“I actually like the idea of the product and I believe it is the future, but last legislature we worked long and hard on a no-texting-and-driving law,” state Delegate Gary G. Howell, a Republican, told CNET. “It is mostly the young that are the tech-savvy that try new things. They are also our most vulnerable and underskilled drivers.”
“We heard of many crashes caused by texting and driving, most involving our youngest drivers. I see the Google Glass as an extension,” Mr. Howell, a self-described Libertarian, continued. “[W]hen I choose to use the Google Glass and cross the center-line of the road because I’m reading a text, then my actions affect someone else.”
Google Glass, which hasn’t yet made its debut, displays information in a smartphonelike format hands-free, can interact with the Internet via voice commands and uses Google’s Android operating system.
Other issues that have been addressed regarding Google Glass is privacy. Earlier this month, a Seattle dive bar — the 5 Point — became the first to ban the high-tech, augmented-reality spectacles.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Judy Mozes, an Israeli talk-show host and the wife of the country’s interior minister, tweeted a racist joke about President Barack Obama on Sunday morning.
She then quickly deleted it and apologized.
Mozes, who is married to Silvan Shalom, a Likud party member and currently vice prime minister and head of the Ministry of the Interior, tweeted a joke she said she heard that compared Obama's skin color to a weak cup of coffee.
She has nearly 75,000 followers.
This is the wife of the Israeli Interior Minister pic.twitter.com/qazwM8altJ — Tom Gara (@tomgara) June 21, 2015
Mozes, 57, then deleted the tweet and posted an apology.
I apologize, that was a stupid joke somebody told me. — Judy Mozes (@JudyMozes) June 21, 2015
President Obama I shouldnt have written the inappropriate joke I heard. I like people no matter about their race and religion. — Judy Mozes (@JudyMozes) June 21, 2015
Sorry if I caused any offence to anyone. I hope I will stay married when my husband will land and hear what I did. — Judy Mozes (@JudyMozes) June 21, 2015
Yair Rosenberg, a writer and commenter on Israeli affairs, offered context for Mozes' remarks, saying that she has become known for “her weird outbursts on many subjects.” Her comments have also plagued her husband’s political career, Rosenberg added.
The joke comes at a fraught time in the US-Israeli relationship, as differences on an array of policy and security issues have frequently set the Obama administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud government at odds.
At times these differences have led Israeli leaders to stake out positions on American politics, as when Netanyahu appeared to voice support for Mitt Romney ahead of the 2012 presidential election.
obama netanyahu More
Moreover, as noted by The National, “Israeli politicians across the political spectrum are increasingly comfortable using the domestic American political arena as a stage where elections back home are won and lost.”
Racial issues have also played a factor in US-Israeli relations. Tensions between the White House and Tel Aviv reached a peak in March, when the Obama administration criticized the alleged race baiting deployed by Netanyahu in the days before a close election.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said unprompted at the time that the White House would share with Israel its “deep concern about the divisive rhetoric used to marginalize Arab Israeli citizens.”
Race is also a controversial topic in Israel. At numerous rallies, Israelis have condemned and attacked migrants from Africa and other non-Jewish or non-white Israelis.
These tensions have sometimes led to violence. A clash in early May ended with dozens of arrests, scores of wounded, and police use of tear gas and stun grenades to disperse protestors.
NOW WATCH: An Israeli Company Just Solved Solar Energy's Single Most Mystifying Problem
More From Business InsiderKeeping spirits up
I'd like to introduce you to my shop by letting you know that all of the materials that I use are from local (Philadelphia) small businesses and independent retailers or are recycled, rescued, or found. For example, some of the yarn in my wrapped beer bottles was rescued when a fellow teacher was going to throw it out while cleaning her supply closet. The maroon and black fold over clutch is made from upholstery fabric from an old fabric shop that has since closed (not sure if it was going out of business or a retirement).
I got started crafting so many years ago, it's hard to describe the roots of my shop. More recently, I have been unemployed and turned to jewelry making and sewing to stay busy. My shop is just a way to share what I make with a wider audience (of course, getting all of these projects out of my home and into yours is a main motivation behind the shop as well).
My prices are low because I just want to make up some of the funds that go to the raw materials that I use to keep my spirits up while looking for a teaching position. I would be a Spanish teacher, which is part of the explanation behind my shop's name. "Alguna Cosa" is Spanish for "some thing," and I chose that phrase because of the variation in the items I make and sell.Onefootball March 24, 19:36 UTC
Yaya Toure: Defending is annoying
Yaya Toure is yet to find out which team he will play for next season – but he has made it clear he does not want it to be a defensive one.
The Manchester City midfielder says he finds defending an annoying part of the game and is glad to be part of a team managed by Pep Guardiola, who prefers an expansive attacking style.
"We all want to play like this," Toure told the club's official website. "Myself, I don't want to be in a defensive team. Defending is something difficult.
"As a player who likes football, it is annoying to defend all the time.
"The style we play now is the best style. Of course, we try to do our best, we always have chances to score, clear chances.
"We missed them against Liverpool [the 1-1 draw last Sunday] but sometimes you have to accept that because we have been playing a lot of games this month, every three days, and maybe this cost us a little bit."
Toure, 33, is out of contract at the end of the campaign and wants to sign a new deal, but is yet to find out whether he is in Guardiola's plans for 2017-18.
He has been linked with Inter, while his agent Dimitri Seluk revealed earlier this month his client would be open to a shock move to rivals Manchester United.
Toure's immediate focus, however, is on helping third-placed City seal a top-four spot in the Premier League and Champions League qualification, with United only five points behind in fifth and possessing a game in hand.
City have a crucial league double-header away to Arsenal and Chelsea in a four-day span after the international break, with Toure – who is retired from international duty with Ivory Coast – taking the chance to get ready.
"We have to prepare now for the next game," said Toure of his plans for the international break.
"I will breathe, sleep, run a little bit and be good because Arsenal and Chelsea are massive games.
"We have an opportunity if we want to finish in the top four. What we have to do when we come back is get these six points and try to do our best because we know it is going to be tough.By Withered Vine, Our London Fashion Correspondent (and Daily Mail reader)
"Scottish independence could make it easier for Russian submarines to loiter off the north British coast, eavesdropping on our security services", says a Whitehall expert.
Lord Hennessy, a Crossbench peer who is a historian and former journalist, knows more about the country's secret cubby-holes than most people.
This week he made a deservedly little-noticed parliamentary speech that urged politicians to wake up to the spy-world implications of an independent Scotland.
Would a free Scotland bother to run an intelligence network?
"Would it want its own security agency with a 'McC' in Edinburgh?", he asked (C being the traditional codename for the head of MI6).
"Would we see aerials and antennae springing out of the Cheviot Hills (straddling the English-Scottish border)?
"Would those old, Cold War listening stations on the north-east coast of Scotland crackle back into aural life? In submarine terms, who would warn the Scottish government of a Russian Akula lurking in the Minches (two straits off the West Coast of Scotland)?
Would a Scottish intelligence officer from the Scottish High Commission in London take his or her place every week at the Joint Intelligence Committee alongside the American, Canadian and Australian representatives?"
When my colleague, Quentin Letts, spoke to him, Hennessy said he was deadly serious about the threat of subs prowling off the northern shores.
"The Russians are putting out their subs more than they used to. They have some very sophisticated submarines. People forget about the underwater aspect of intelligence", he said.
"The only way to counter such snooping is to deploy subs of one's own (such as the Royal Navy has). Would a Scottish navy run to such vessels?
The threat to English and Welsh national security is not an idle one, says Lord Hennessy, who notes that some of our finest spies have been Scottish.
He fears that politicians have not started to contemplate these serious matters. Or, as he puts it, "The secret world is not thought about because it does not go round with bagpipes, swinging kilts."
Head of Intelligence at the Russian Embassy, Ivan Offybigwanski (known to us girls as "Bunny Wabbit") took time after the Burns supper he was hosting, and escorted me to a'safe house' where we had long and intimate discussions about the |
to bring the truth to light about the person who pretends to be their eternal benefactor. It will not be easy or agreeable, but the danger behind what Prometheus hides within is a threat to all. Stopping Demetrio Watts is in the hands of a group of unknowns. Depends on Arcturus.Go get your freak on, because athletes can officially have sex before the big game without feeling guilty. A new study from researchers published in Frontiers in Physiology claims that there “is no robust scientific evidence to indicate that sexual activity has a negative effect upon athletic results.”
This is a huge deal for athletes. As you’ve probably heard before, famous competitors like Muhammed Ali and even entire World Cup teams have implemented no-sex rules before big matches, hoping it would make them more focused and competitive. In recent years, this myth has been called into question, with researchers noting the lack of scientific evidence to support its claims. A new study aims to close the book on this debate and finally declare: athletes can bang before the big game.
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“We clearly show that this topic has not been well investigated and only anecdotal stories have been reported,” researcher Laura Stefani said in a news release about the new study. “In fact, unless it takes place less than two hours before, the evidence actually suggests sexual activity may have a beneficial effect on sports performance.”
Researchers reported their findings after sifting through hundreds of studies and whittling down the list to the nine most reliable studies that examined impact of sexual activity on performance. The new study points out that male athletes have been more frequently investigated than females, and there are no comparisons of the effects across genders.
The big takeaway: the findings mean athletes can go back to wearing dirty clothes, talking to inanimate objects, and all of the other weird superstitions they’re already doing anyways—but at least they can have sex before all that.
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[Frontiers in Physiology]The past few weeks have seen reports that a top Chinese official visited Japan to discuss how to alleviate tensions in the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute. Beijing’s secret envoy is said to have met with a high-level official from the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Rumors suggest that the two governments may have exchanged envoys on the islands dispute several times over the last few months.
Beijing and Tokyo had, apparently, hoped to work towards a bilateral summit on the Senkaku/Diaoyu, although they failed to find sufficient common ground to make that possible in their last exchange. But the fact that the two states are not proceeding quickly to a more public forum should not distress us too mightily: there are at least three good reasons why we should hope that secret diplomacy between China and Japan continues, and why it may be particularly crucial in a conflict like the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute.
First, as has been obvious since 2010, the dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyus engages nationalist sentiment about as much as a limited-stakes conflict could. It is difficult to make the case that either Beijing or Tokyo claims sovereignty over the islands for their inherent value. Rather, each side’s claims are informed by a long history (see here for a brief rundown of that). The last serious flare up of this dispute in 2012 resulted in energetic demonstrations, trade retaliation, and any number of other reactions that are not commensurate with the material object in dispute. We were reminded of this nationalist sentiment just last week when the Japanese Foreign Ministry posted to its website videos of its maritime claims, prompting outcry in both Beijing and Seoul.
Under these circumstances, private diplomacy is particularly important, as it allows Tokyo and Beijing to probe each other’s positions for some common ground without enraging their domestic audiences. China claims that the Diaoyus are part of its “inherent” territory and Japan, who administers the islands, has traditionally claimed that there is, in fact, no dispute at all. For an arrangement to be reached, each state will have to give some ground. It seems a lot more plausible that this could happen behind closed doors and in hushed tones, disengaged from domestic audiences and their reactions.
Second, recent evidence suggests that Tokyo and Beijing are not new to secret diplomacy where this dispute is concerned, and that they recognize the value of using private channels to keep nationalism at bay. Earlier this week, a former Japanese cabinet minister revealed that in 2012, former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihko Noda reached out to Beijing before telling his cabinet about the plan to purchase several of the disputed islands. Noda hoped to preempt Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara from buying them, and specifically did so to assuage Beijing.
According to this narrative, Tokyo was unable to reach sufficiently senior officials in Beijing to communicate the details of the plan before it became public, and those Chinese leaders who were inclined to accept Noda’s policy were sidelined as the CCP’s National Congress approached. Assuming this narrative is true, even the failed plan demonstrates that there was some inclination on both sides to find a modus vivendi. If mutual interest existed before, it should again, at least in theory.
Finally, secret diplomacy may be an important tool because of what an agreement on the Senkaku/Diaoyus might look like. Once upon a time, Japan and China were content to agree to disagree on the islands’ status. But with tensions flaring up in the last several years, and both sides’ increased patrols around the area, it seems highly unlikely that Beijing and Tokyo will agree to shelve the dispute again. It also seems unlikely that they will solve it cleanly and in its entirety. A small set of islets is not particularly easy to divide. This is all the more true given that the islands’ worth is determined more by nationalism and history than by any inherent value, which might be resolved through side-payments.
More likely is that Tokyo and Beijing may be able to develop a code of conduct for the disputed area. Ideally, they would also implement some form of information exchange that would give each side some predictability about the movements and locations of the other’s aircraft and maritime vessels. This could reduce suspicion on both sides, as well as prevent unpleasant surprises, such as accidental clashes. But this type of agreement would naturally be quite detailed and require concessions from both parties. If arrangements are not simple or binary, however, it makes a great deal of sense to work out the broad contours of a deal in private.
Many countries in the East Asia, and certainly the United States, would be thrilled to see overt signs of real dialogue on the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute, both because the issue itself is such a thorny one and because of what it would signal for the prospects for regional cooperation more broadly. In this particular conflict however, progress—at least in its early stages—may be best kept secret.Once again, Silicon Valley’s oligarchs have been summoned to Donald Trump’s golden table, this time to assist the Jared Kushner-led American Technology Council in “modernizing” the government, a goal which is at once vague and arguably antithetical to every promise the president ran on.
The guest list includes the top brass of Facebook, IBM, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. The closest any of these companies have come to backing out is Facebook, which has merely not replied to its invitation yet, according to Bloomberg. Notably, all of these companies have at some point condemned Trump’s actions or threatened not to collaborate with his administration. Perhaps they’re due for a reminder.
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Last week, a litany of businesses came out against Trump’s baffling withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, including Microsoft, IBM, Google, Facebook, and Apple. Back in April, a prosaic amicus brief opposing Trump’s second attempt to ban people from several majority-Muslim countries from entering the US was endorsed by 162 tech companies. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Facebook signed that one too. And two months before that, the initial Muslim ban prompted its own amicus brief, which had backing from Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and 92 other companies in the tech sector.
In fact, stretching back to July of last year, when the possibility of a Trump administration still felt utterly improbable, Silicon Valley’s biggest companies had already co-authored an open letter calling the Republican candidate “a disaster for innovation [whose] vision stands against the open exchange of ideas.” Facebook, Google, and Apple got in on that one early, and, like every bit of public posturing since, proceeded to do nothing about their supposed disgust and outrage. Notably, none of these consumer-facing letters or filings have contained any actionable commitments from these companies—just tepid disapproval of this country’s most unpopular president of all time.
But the nauseating repetition of hideous White House policy proposal followed by impotent posturing from the Valley is worse than useless, it’s outright hypocritical. The contents of an FEC filing revealed Microsoft, Amazon, and Google chipped in over $800,000 toward Trump’s electoral college victory party. And of course, Facebook’s own role in swaying the election continues to be deliberated in the court of public opinion—and in the minds of the highly-qualified analysts the company has hired to draft its white papers.
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While the appearance of opposition benefits these companies, so does working alongside the present administration, and this new counsel represents a potential boon: According to Bloomberg, the concerns of the newly-minted counsel will include “tech sales to government agencies.” Asked to explain his attendance at the very first tech summit held at Trump Tower in December, Apple CEO Tim Cook told employees last year, “personally, I’ve never found being on the sideline a successful place to be.”
[Bloomberg]White House Spokesman Josh Earnest then went on to throw the State Department under the bus for admitting the $400 million given to Iran was used as “leverage” in return for American hostages.
REPORTER: “He has offered a fundamentally different interpretation of this transaction. The United States does not pay the ransom. You talked about the benefits but you did not talk about the detriments.”
EARNEST: “It is foolish in thinking so because the United States does not pay ransom. It has been the policy of this administration, that was the policy of previous administrations. There are those because of the value that we place on human life. It was the same conclusion really — reached by democratic and others. That is why the United States won’t pay ransom, even for Americans unjustly detained overseas. We do actually have a quite strong record of securing the release of unjust detained. I just Iran but other places around the world. It’s a process the administration has overhauled to make it more effective. The safe return of U.S. citizens is something the president has made a priority and we made significant progress.”There have been countless rumors over the past couple of months that the Galaxy S8 might feature a 4K display but we’re now hearing from our sources that this may not be the case. Our sources reveal that the Galaxy S8 display retains the 2K resolution of its predecessor but since the Super AMOLED panel will be made out of a new material, it’s going to be all about quality over quantity with the next flagship.
The new Super AMOLED display of the Galaxy S8 is going to have the standard RGB arrangement, it will consume less power and will have a longer service life. We performed a detailed screen analysis of the Galaxy S7 edge earlier this year and found that it has the exact same pixel layout as the Galaxy S6 edge – the Diamond PenTile layout with 7,372,800 pixels.
That’s not going to be the case with the Galaxy S8 display which will have a Standard RGB arrangement with 11,059,200 pixels. It retains the 2560×1440 pixel resolution of its predecessor, though, so it’s going to be called a 2K display. The RGB array is going to provide a noticeable improvement in virtual reality environments.
Samsung may have decided against a 4K display for the Galaxy S8 because either it deems it too early or finds it to be a bit too expensive at this point in time. The company appears to be favoring quality this time around and you can’t really fault it for that. Better to have a display that feels like it has actually been improved than one that can merely be marketed as being 4K.
We’ve also heard that Samsung is going to ditch the home button in its next flagship. The screen-to-body ratio is going to be very high and the design will be similar to that of the Galaxy Note 7. The fingerprint sensor will be embedded within the display itself making the Galaxy S8 the first handset to feature proper optical fingerprint identification.RIYL: Bonobo, Boards of Canada, DJ Shadow, Thievery Corporation
Label: SlyVinyl Records
All purchases of the new releases will be entered into a random drawing for fabulous prizes!
Sly Vinyl Records is incredibly pleased to announce our eighth exclusive release!
Coming at you from the far reaches of the space is A Cosmic Gift‘s third full album ‘Hologram‘, aptly named due to the holographic etchings present on both Side A & Side B of the disc.
A Cosmic Gift is a collaboration between artists Brandon Burger (Parallel) and Richard Houghten (Bloomypetal) of Southern California. Together they manifest music that’s meant to be listened to while traveling the galaxy and exploring the mind.
As always, SlyVinyl has put all the bells and whistles on this limited edition release:
Sly Vinyl Records 8th Official Release (catalog #: SVR08)
100 Copies on ‘Cosmic Haze’ Vinyl (180g) | Silver Foil Stamped Numbering (#001 – 100)
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Holograms (A & B Side) hand-etched by Richard Houghten
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Price $22.99August 3, 2016
With the prosecution of the cops who killed Freddie Gray dropped, brian bean looks at why the epidemic of police violence is continuing two years after the Ferguson revolt.
ALL OF the remaining charges against the Baltimore police officers responsible for the death of Freddie Gray in April 2015 were dropped after three of the cops were acquitted on all counts in the first trials held in recent months.
Gray's horrific murder--he was handcuffed and thrown in the back of a police van that was driven erratically so that Gray would be thrown around, causing his spine to be nearly severed--sparked a week-long uprising in the streets of Baltimore that the governor called in the National Guard to suppress.
Under intense pressure from the protests, Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby took the rare step of charging six officers with causing Gray's death. But after one mistrial and three acquittals, Mosby dropped all of the remaining charges--leading those who have marched and rallied against police violence in Baltimore and beyond to wonder: What will it take to hold the killer cops accountable for their crimes?
Mosby's decision came weeks after the murders of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana, captured on video, once again stirred huge protests. The demonstrations in over 80 U.S. cities represented probably the largest national wave of mobilizations since December 2014 when two grand juries refused to indict the officers who murdered Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York City.
(Todd St Hill | SocialistWorker.org)
Nearly two years after Brown's murder in Ferguson and the rebellion that followed, protests continue, sporadic but volatile--but so does the epidemic of police murder.
As if to highlight their continued impunity from any accountability, days after the charges were dropped, Baltimore police killed a 23-year-old woman and wounded her 5-year-old son after a several-hour-long standoff. Police are accused of deleting Korryn Gaines' social media accounts to hide videos she might have taken of them during the standoff.
AFTER TWO years, the bipartisan political establishment of this country not only has no answer to the epidemic of police violence--they won't admit it exists.
Instead, we hear political leaders bemoan the "crisis of trust" between police departments and Black and Brown communities or conflate the violence of police terror with "gun violence" more broadly in poor communities.
The outcome of the Freddie Gray indictments in Baltimore--which was an exception because there were indictments--is further evidence of the failure of the "justice" system to produce anything resembling justice.
This case should have been clear. The state medical examiner ruled Gray's death a homicide due to "acts of omission" by the police. So the state determined that Gray was murdered, but the prosecutor's decision to drop the charges is a statement that no one committed the crime.
This kind of logic would be farcical if it wasn't the common response when police kill. Officers are described as being "involved" in deaths, never responsible for them. Those who took a life avoid blame, though the victim is routinely slandered in the media and depicted as a criminal, even before their body grows cold.
And then we're told there's a "crisis of trust." What reason is there to trust the police, or any other part of the justice system?
In response to the protest movement that erupted after Ferguson and came to be known as Black Lives Matter, there have been meetings between political leaders and activists at the local and national level, a presidential task force, various Department of Justice investigations and firings of police chiefs and resignations of local officials. Yet the killings by police go on.
Not only have no police been sent to jail for their behavior, but activists are more likely to be arrested and incarcerated than the cops. In Pasadena, California activist Jasmine Abdullah was given a jail sentence for trying to stop a fellow demonstrator from being arrested--the charge against Abdullah more accurately describes what the cops themselves do: lynching.
A teenager in Baltimore was given a jail sentence for breaking the window of a police cruiser during the protests after Freddie Gray's death--while the police who killed Gray went completely free, as we know now. In Chicago, prominent activist Ja'Mal Green is facing five felony counts on trumped-up charges related to a protest earlier this month.
THE LATEST police murders captured on video--of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling--underline a fact that goes against all the rhetoric about the tough job that police have.
These killings, like so many before them, can't possibly be seen as police making mistakes in a difficult and threatening situation. Alton Sterling was selling CDs, and Philando Castile was pulled over for a traffic stop. Likewise, Freddie Gray "made eye contact" with a cop--that was all that was needed for a death sentence.
Sandra Bland also was driving, Eric Garner was selling cigarettes, Tamir Rice and Rekia Boyd were hanging out in parks, Michael Brown was walking in the street, and Trayvon Martin--killed by a self-appointed vigilante--was walking home from the convenience store.
These are not examples of conflicts that police had to intervene in. There was no wrong to a member of the community that had to be righted. Virtually all these killings were the result of racially profiled routine stops, suspicion of drug possession or distribution, and so-called "quality-of-life" offenses.
We don't need alternative methods for the cops to use in these circumstances. We just need them to stop.
Likewise, we don't need dialogue between poor communities and police departments, as if the problem were a lack of communication between victims and perpetrators. The problem is simply police killing people indiscriminately.
One example of how the "crisis of trust" approach derails a clear understanding of police violence is the recent statements of New York Knicks basketball star Carmelo Anthony.
Anthony is known for having spoken out in defense of Black Lives Matter and marched in Baltimore after Freddie Gray's murder.
After the killings of Castile and Sterling, followed by the mass shooting of Dallas police officers a few days later, he released an Instagram post that referenced Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, and called on fellow athletes to "take action" and "demand change."
But his statement, alongside three other NBA stars, at the ESPY athletic awards ceremony was more ambiguous about the source of violence and what to do about it. He has also taken part in organizing a community forum with police officials and youth--with the stated aim of sharing perspectives and building trust.
Then there's Michael Jordan, the legendary star who has long rejected taking political stands. Jordan likewise made a statement against "the deaths of African Americans at the hands of law enforcement, but also against "the cowardly and hateful targeting and killing of police officers." He also donated to the Institute for Community-Police Relations, a group organized by the International Association of Chiefs of Police--not exactly a bastion of advocacy for victims of police violence.
AT THE same time, there has been an attempt to conflate police violence specifically with "gun violence" generally.
This was a strategy at the Democratic National Convention in July, when a group known as the Mothers of the Movement who have lost family members to violence--both at the hands of the police, self-appointed vigilantes and gang-related--took the stage.
Their suffering is palpable and moving. But it has to be said that the Democratic Party used their grief to push its agenda.
With chants of "Black Lives Matter" echoing through the convention hall, the mothers of Sandra Bland, Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin expressed their support for Hillary Clinton, stating that Clinton's compassion and willingness to "say the names" drove their support, as well as her "commonsense gun legislation."
Obviously, gun violence is a major issue in many poor communities, but conflating that with police murder only serves to obscure the necessity of holding the police accountable--particularly considering that the typical solution presented to prevent violence is more police.
The Mothers of the Movement episode during the Democratic convention sought to portray Hillary Clinton as a defender of Black lives, but it was notable that the word "police"--the culprits behind the murders that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement--was absent.
But police chiefs sure weren't. They were featured speakers throughout the Democratic convention, including shortly before the Mothers of the Movement spoke, when Pittsburgh Chief Cameron McLay decried the recent shootings of officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge as "assassinations" while calling killings committed by cops "controversial officer-involved shootings."
After hundreds- and thousands-strong protests occurring, despite ebbs and flows, for two years, all we get from the Democratic Party--I won't even mention the Republicans--is talk about "communication" and "trust" without justice.
The protests to make Black lives matter have been inspiring and resilient. But they are not enough by themselves. We need a movement that draws in even wider numbers of people who are outraged by this injustice.
In Selma, Alabama, in 1965, 25,000 people marched to demand voting rights. The goal of limiting the monopoly of violence used by the state in the form of police is far more difficult one to attain.
Thousands of people have led the way in the early waves of the movement for Black lives. We now need to organize so that movement numbers in the tens of thousands and beyond.0 Fitzgerald: County is exploring possibility of issuing same-sex marriage licenses
PITTSBURGH - Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald told Channel 11’s Joe Holden Tuesday during a one-on-one interview that the county is exploring the possibility of issuing same-sex marriage licenses.
According to Fitzgerald, Allegheny County has been out in front on many issues of equality, and he thinks it should be no different when it comes to same-sex marriage.
Fitzgerald said they’re “sorting through what it will take to start issuing licenses.”
“It’s a strategy we’re looking at with our legal department with some of the folks in the county. We’re working with some folks in the community to try to see a way to make this happen,” Fitzgerald said.
According to Fitzgerald, he’s recently been in talks with Gary Van Horn, of Pittsburgh’s Delta Foundation, which advocates for those in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
“We see people’s hearts and minds changing. We’re advocating for Rich to issue same-sex marriage licenses here in Allegheny County,” Van Horn said.
Holden reported that the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year and a hearing involving same-sex marriage licenses in Montgomery County on Wednesday sparked much of the conversation.
Unlike the Register of Wills in Montgomery County, who has issued dozens of licenses to same-sex couples, Fitzgerald said he won’t break the law. He’ll instead advocate to change it, he said.
“How do we make this happen? How do we get our state legislature, the governor, the folks in Harrisburg to create the statewide law?” Fitzgerald said.
The Pennsylvania Family Institute on its website has condemned efforts by the Montgomery County Register of Wills in issuing same-sex marriage licenses – calling it willful defiance of the law.
Joe Holden will be in Harrisburg Wednesday for the landmark hearing in the same-sex marriage debate in Pennsylvania.It has been suggested that the contents of this page be split into two or more separate articles. Discuss The topics presented on this page may be diverse enough to warrant distinct pages.
"Construction" redirects here. For a tutorial on constructing, see "Construction" redirects here. For a tutorial on constructing, see Tutorials/Construction
Every specific group of blocks purposefully formed in Minecraft based on coding is part of a natural structure.
The Overworld [ edit ]
The Overworld contains numerous generated structures, at a wide variety of scales.
Terrain [ edit ]
Biomes dictate the shape and height of the world. At this stage, the ground is made mostly of stone and stone variants, with water filling in most empty spaces below layer 63, with exception for structures.
Mountain [ edit ]
"Mountain" redirects here. For the biome, see "Mountain" redirects here. For the biome, see Mountains
Mountains are hills with extreme slopes and cliffs. Mountains can sometimes have caves through them. On an amplified world, mountains are extremely common in all biomes except ocean and swamp biomes.
A picture of a mountains biome.
A large overhang, occasionally found in mountains biomes.
A mountain overhang with a floating island.
Floating "island" [ edit ]
Floating "islands" are structures that float in midair that are not connected to the ground, the sea, hills or cliffs. Floating "islands" are normally just random pieces of floating dirt and stone found near cliffs, but on rare occasions they can be large, floating structures that even have springs and trees on them. Floating Islands are most frequently found in mountains biomes (and its variants), along with the "hills", "mountains", and "modified" variants of most biomes, especially shattered savannas.
A small floating "island".
It is rare to see a naturally occurring, large, floating "island".
A Large Floating "Island".
Hollows [ edit ]
Hollows are the opposite of floating islands. They look like caves, but they have nothing to do with cave generation (although they may intersect with them). When there are many overhangs, they close together and create a hollow. They have exactly the same floor as the terrain above, depending on the biome that they are located in, unlike caves. Hollows have no specific floor. Grass blocks can generate inside too, and interestingly will survive without light. When they generate under the sea level, they are filled with water. They are extremely rare in the default world, but can be found far more commonly in certain customized worlds.
A hollow in a customized world.
Another hollow connected to a cave.
Hill [ edit ]
Hills are randomly generated pieces of land in the map. Like stairs, hills are always traversable to their lowest point by virtue of the algorithm which generates them; there is almost always a place on each level from where the next level can be accessed, meaning that the player can climb a hill one level at a time until they reach the top. Cases where this is not true are rare.
A randomly-generated hill with some tall grass and trees.
Surface [ edit ]
Surface layer [ edit ]
The uppermost layers of the terrain are converted to a biome-dependent material: usually grass blocks and dirt, or sand in deserts and beaches. Podzol is found in giant tree taiga, mycelium in mushroom field biomes, and red sand is found in the badlands biome. Sandstone is generated under sand.
Basin [ edit ]
Occasionally, instead of being converted to dirt or sand, the top layer is stripped away, leaving a 'basin' of bare stone. They bear some resemblance to a geological'shield' (an area of tectonically stable rock that has been exposed to prolonged erosion due to its very old age; it is distinct from the geological term "basin"). They seem to be more common in forest or plains, and are occasionally seen filled with water. Commonly, minerals can be found in these, generally coal ore and iron ore. If generated in a Badlands biome, gold ore can also be seen.
A naturally generated basin landform.
Water bodies [ edit ]
Lake [ edit ]
Lakes are small bodies of liquid. Water lakes, which are small pools of water springs, can generate above sea level or inside caverns. They can also generate isolated underground, connected to no other structures whatsoever. When in a winter biome, these small lakes are never initially frozen but will turn to ice if exposed. The lakes can also be composed of lava; however, lakes of lava are much rarer. Lava lakes found at the surface are surrounded by stone (which can be replaced by ore veins such as dirt, gravel and coal). Both types of lake generate with a small air pocket above them, which may result in floating sand, floating snow cover or even the top 2/3rds of trees above the lake. Lava lakes may cause trees to burn away.
A lake in a plains biome.
A lake in a taiga biome, which is freezing.
A lava lake in a badlands biome.
A waterfall naturally generated on top of a lava lake, turning it into obsidian.
Coral reef [ edit ]
Coral reefs are structures that generate in warm ocean biomes. They consist of multiple clusters of coral blocks, coral and coral fans. These clusters come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, ranging from a few blocks of brain coral on the ground to large tree-like structures of fire coral.
You can manually load every piece of coral reef structure using structure block in folder coralcrust, example: coralcrust/outcropping1 will load one of coral reef variant structure
A coral reef viewed from above.
A coral reef that generated in a ravine.
A view of a coral reef close-up.
A coral reef as of snapshot 18w14b.
Large structures [ edit ]
Cave [ edit ]
Cave are caverns and tunnels that are automatically generated under the ground in various places, composed of primarily stone and ores. Flooded caves are also able to generate in ocean biomes.
A dark cave with a zombie.
A large underground cavern. A tree grew with the light provided by the lava.
A circular cave that generated exposed to the sky.
A cave that generated in an ocean.
Ravine [ edit ]
Ravine Biome(s) Any Consists of Air Can generate in
existing chunks No
Ravines are tall, thin trenches that generate either underground or at the surface, and extend 30 - 50 blocks downwards or to bedrock level in the Bedrock Edition. Ravines can spawn in the ocean making it look like underwater trenches.
Two ravines joined together underground.
A ravine that is open to the sky.
Two ravines open to the sky that generated next to each other, with a river biome between them.
An underwater ravine.
A ravine that exposed a mineshaft.
Mineshaft [ edit ]
Mineshafts are structures generated underground (partially above ground in badlands biomes) which consist of branching mining tunnels with wooden supports and broken rails passing through it. They are the only places where cave spider spawners and minecarts with chests can be found naturally.
An abandoned mineshaft with wooden bridges crossing over a ravine.
A large cubic dirt room found in a mineshaft.
An exposed mineshaft in a badlands biome.
A mineshaft that is packed probably due to intersecting itself or another one.
Stronghold [ edit ]
Strongholds are underground structures made up of stone bricks, monster eggs, and iron bars. They consist of many rooms, most notably libraries and end portal rooms. Although they are very rare, they can be found much more easily by using an eye of ender.
The end portal room located within a stronghold.
A pillar room in a stronghold, intersecting with other tunnels, notice that one of them is a dead end.
A library inside a stronghold.
Small structures [ edit ]
The quantity of most of these features (aside from dungeons, mineral veins, and springs) is biome-dependent; not all features can be found in every biome.
Dungeon [ edit ]
Dungeons are small, mostly underground, one-room spaces bordered by moss stone and cobblestone, and typically contain chests with rare items, and a monster spawner in the center, which will spawn zombies, skeletons, or spiders.
A dungeon with a spawner in the center and two chests. The torch was placed by the player.
A desert dungeon, exposed to the surface and mostly covered with sand.
The loot found in a dungeon chest.
Mineral vein [ edit ]
A mineral vein is a natural deposit of ores. Players can come across these veins in caverns or anywhere where there is natural stone. Underground deposits of dirt and gravel are generated in this step, followed by the more precious ores: coal, iron, gold, redstone, diamond, emerald (in mountains biomes) and lapis lazuli. They can only form in stone, and do not replace each other or any other block. However, there is one exception: other ores can replace andesite, diorite and granite. Note that two or more mineral veins can form next to each other and make it look like a mineral vein made of more than one material.
Tree [ edit ]
Trees are common structures created both during world generation and by players (grown from saplings). They are made of wood and leaves, and in Bedrock Edition and Legacy Console Edition, might have vines or mushrooms (as dying trees and fallen trees respectively).
A variety of tree types: From left to right, oak, birch, spruce, and jungle.
A snowy spruce forest on the right.
The two types of giant trees.
Huge mushroom [ edit ]
Huge mushrooms are structures made up by mushroom blocks in the shape of a mushroom. They naturally generated in mushroom fields, swamps[Bedrock Edition only], and dark forests, and will also generate if the player uses bone meal on a mushroom.
Red and brown huge mushrooms seen on a mushroom field.
Huge mushrooms generated in a dark forest biome.
Spring [ edit ]
Springs are randomly generated blocks of either lava or water that act as a source of their respective material. While both can be found on the vertical side of stone blocks above the surface, lava springs are more often found underground beneath layer 32 in caverns and mineshafts. They do not generate above a certain Y altitude.
A water spring falls from a cliff.
A lava spring fall from a mountain side.
A double lava stream fall (The wildfire is on the left).
Desert well [ edit ]
These well-like structures built of sandstone blocks and slabs generate only in the desert biome. They have a 1/1000 chance to be generated in any desert chunk, which makes them a rare sight. It is possible for a well to generate around a cactus. The well structure will still generate with the "Generate Structures" option disabled. In Bedrock Edition, it is common to find two desert wells spawning in the same chunk.
The well structure.
The well structure found near a caved-in dungeon.
An excavated well.
Moss stone boulder [ edit ]
Moss stone boulder Biome(s) Giant Tree Taiga Consists of Moss Stone
These structures are meant to represent boulders, made entirely of moss stone. The arrangement of these structures varies greatly. They can be found dotted around areas of the giant tree taiga biome. Moss stone boulders are quite rare, due to the giant tree taiga biome's rarity.
The first image of the giant tree taiga featuring moss stone boulders.
A moss stone boulder generated in a ravine.
Many moss stone boulders in water.
Ice spike [ edit ]
Ice spike Biome(s) Ice Spikes Consists of Packed Ice
Ice spikes are tall spires made of packed ice that can only be found in the snowy tundra biomes. There are two variants of ice spikes: one is short and thick, and the other is extremely tall and thin.
An area largely covered by ice spikes. Both types of ice spikes are visible.
A small group containing only short spikes.
Fossil [ edit ]
Fossils represent the remains of giant extinct creatures, and are composed of bone blocks, with random blocks removed and some of them replaced with coal ore.
A fossil that generated inside a cave.
All skull and spine structures, excluding those made of coal ore.
Buried treasure [ edit ]
Buried treasure structures consist of a single chest buried in the beach sand or gravel, with random loot in it.
A dug-up chest in a buried treasure structure that generated on land barely.
An open buried treasure chest, revealing lots of loot.
A buried treasure naturally generated in a Village.
Shipwreck [ edit ]
Shipwreck Biome(s) Ocean (all variants), Deep Ocean (all variants), Beach (sometimes), River (rarely) Consists of See Shipwreck § Structure
Shipwrecks are structures that generate on the floor of oceans or beaches. They are made up of wood materials, and contain 1-3 loot chests. They can generate sideways, upside-down, or upright.
An upside-down shipwreck close to some underwater ruins.
An undamaged Shipwreck generated entirely on land.
A shipwreck in an ocean with its masts sticking out above the water.
A collection of shipwreck varieties.
Iceberg [ edit ]
Icebergs are structures that generate in frozen oceans and their deep variants. They consist primarily of packed ice with a little bit of ice and blue ice, and will often be topped with snow. They are the only place where blue ice can be found naturally. Icebergs generate in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, ranging from small "islands" to giant mountain-like ice structures. They can also generate with "cave-like" holes in them, which sometimes reach to the other side of the iceberg. Polar bears can also spawn here, much like other cold biomes.
First screenshot of an iceberg.
A naturally generated iceberg.
An aerial view of a frozen ocean with |
RNC Chairman Michael Steele just appeared on the Neil Cavuto show, where he endorsed Sarah Palin’s accusation that President Obama will set up “death panels” to decide who is worthy or not of medical care.
“Well I think it’s proper,” said Steele, when Cavuto asked him about Palin’s remarks, “because it’s in the context of what people are seeing in some of the legislation that’s floating around out there. When you’re talking about panels that are gonna be imposed, that will be making life-and-death decisions, that will be making decisions about whether or not you get health care or don’t receive health care, I think that’s perfectly appropriate.”
Now how you characterize it is a matter of interpretation,” he then added, “but it doesn’t change the fact that buried within a lot of this legislation is stuff that’s fairly onerous.”
As an example of another onerous provision, he said that the government will have access to people’s financial information. For more information on this other right-wing talking point, check out Zack Roth’s debunking of it.1 | Milk Venom Any good antivenom starts with its opposite. Herpetologists do the milking, forcing the snake to bite down on the lip of a jar so that venom drips from its fangs. Manufacturers buy individual snake venoms from suppliers and mix them together to create a supervenom.
2 | Inject Horse On the Ojo de Agua ranch in Puebla, horses live pleasant lives—except for the regular supervenom injections. Scientists start with just a few micrograms of the mixture and gradually increase the dose over six months. With every injection, the horse develops more antibodies capable of fighting off each of the venoms included in the mix.
3 | Draw Blood Every four weeks over the horse’s 25-year life, it receives a booster shot of supervenom to spur antibodies. About 10 days later, workers tap the horse’s jugular vein and draw 5 liters of blood.
4 | Separate Plasma The venom-targeting antibodies live in the horse’s plasma. Equine red blood cells sink to the bottom of a blood bag, leaving the plasma floating above. Technicians return the blood, minus plasma, to the horse to prevent anemia.
5 | Add Enzyme Doctors used to inject rattlesnake-bite victims with unprocessed horse antivenom, which caused a reaction almost as unpleasant as the bite. Now scientists use the enzyme pepsin—found in stomach acid—to “digest” away everything but the antibodies.
6 | Dehydrate & Bottle A freeze dryer dehydrates the antibody into a powder. When doctors inject the antivenom into a victim, symptoms can subside in just hours, and bitees often walk out of the hospital just a day later.Welcome back to Puck Drop: NHL Preview 2013-14, where our hockey department gives you a detailed look at each team from around the NHL leading to the start of his hockey season. Check back often as new teams are added to our Puck Drop page. Today we take a look at the 2013-14 Philadelphia Flyers:
Last Year
To say that last season was a disappointment would be an understatement for the Philadelphia Flyers fans. Missing the playoffs was not something anyone expected.
What went wrong?
Well, first let us start with the good and the emergence of Jakub Voracek, who was a point per game player playing next to Claude Giroux. Wayne Simmonds also had a breakout year and was on pace to hit 30 goals in a full length season. We also saw Steve Mason put up very good numbers in the seven starts he got with the Flyers at the end of the year. The power play was very effective and was ranked 3rd in the league with 21.6 percent conversion rate. Penalty kill was excellent as well with 85.9 percent and good for 5th in the league. Flyers also finished the season with a nice record of six wins in the last seven games. Big wins against playoff teams like the New York Rangers, Boston Bruins, New York Islanders and Ottawa Senators.
So, the good was good, as in there is a lot offensive upside in this team with its young talent. The bad? Well, there was a lot more of it than the good. We had Scott Hartnell score only 8 goals, Danny Briere looked like he completely ran out of gas and only scored 6 goals with a horrid minus 13. There was also the defensive corps that was torched for 139 goals as only seven other teams let in more goals. Well, whomever fault that was, it sure did not help that the Flyers 51 million dollar goalie had a save percentage of.900 and with that kind of a number you will be hard pressed to win games.
Really, it all came down to five on five play for the Flyers last season, something that they might of straightened out over a long season, but during 48 game season every mistake is magnified. When you expect to be a playoff team and you finish outside, there tends to be collateral damage. This year for the Flyers the collateral damage ended up being two buyouts. Danny Briere and Ilya Bryzgalov were bought out with Briere signing in Montreal while Ilya still a UFA. Flyers pretty much labeled Bryzgalov as the scapegoat for the lost season and his stats really did not help argue otherwise.
Offseason
Offseason is a busy time for the Flyer fans as they certainly, by now, expect big moves by their GM Paul Holmgren. He sets the tone with big signings and big trades and surely is starting to get a reputation for being fairly ruthless guy. The Shea Weber offer sheet as well as Mike Richards and Jeff Carter trades come to mind. This offseason was no different.
Besides the two amnesty buyouts that were used on Bryzgalov and Briere, Mr. Holmgren brought in an aging and recently a buyout himself superstar at a reasonable price, especially after his previous contract in Vincent Lecavalier. Vinny has a cup under his belt, has the talent and is very good at the faceoff dot. What he could not do though is be the offensive powerhouse he once was and that is exactly why he got bought out.
The addition of Ray Emery is a nice one as well. Ray posted spectacular numbers while playing for the Hawks and really wants a starting job but he simply could not steal it away from Corey Crawford. The addition of Steve Mason at the trade deadline has created a two goalie rotation system that will be fun to watch and monitor. It is clear that Emery can thrive under this system and Mason really needs to prove himself all over again.
Mark Streit decided to walk away from Long Island, but did not have to travel very far. Flyers were in desperate need of another solid defenseman that has high offensive upside. Streit is that guy. Pronger will no longer play and Timonen is really really old.
Other Free Agent signings:
JUL 10 D Oliver Lauridsen Philadelphia JUL 9 D Erik Gustafsson Philadelphia JUL 5 G Yann Danis Philadelphia
Story Lines To Watch
The goaltending situation is the number one story any Flyers fan really cares about. Having two goalies is great but the issue here is that both are unproven over an 82 game season. The Steve Mason saga continues as the ex Calder Trophy winner has not been able to stay consistent and shore up his game. Many suggested a change of a scene and that is exactly what happen. Now on the Flyers, Mason will enjoy a bit more offense but I am not so sure on better defense. He has posted an impressive save percentage in the short time with Philly last year, but it will be interesting to watch if he can finally get back to the high level of play that he started his NHL career with.
Ray Emery on the other hand had an epic season with the Hawks. He only lost once in 19 games and had 1.94 GAA with.908 SV%. That is impressive, but some suggest that it was more of the team that was in front of him than his skill. He has a chance to prove the naysayers wrong. While this will not be the first time Emery is playing for the Flyers, the 30-year-old journey man will be competing for the number one spot instead of being more of a back up goalie that is suppose to push the other goalie to play better as he was in Chicago. This is his real chance to become the numero uno as they say, something that he has not been able to do in a long time.
Both goalies career stats seem fairly identical, but Emery does have this Tim Thomas late bloomer vibe about him. Mason will have to rely on his size and youthful exuberance to become a number one goalie, but my bet is that both goalies will play as they win. There might not be an even 50/50 split between the pipes, but the hot goalie will ride it out as long as he can.
Players To Watch
Matt Read is itching to become a 30 goal scorer. He has shined at times but would find insane cold streaks. The fact that he is 27 years old may suggest that he has reached his peak, but if you watch him play you would think otherwise. The injury slowed him down last season and while his shooting percentage was on pace from a year ago with 15% he can definitely pop in a few more. With locked in top six minutes and more power play this year, he may be able to bump Vincent Lecavalier from the spot playing with Giroux and this will surely guarantee a career best year.
Andrej Meszaros is another player to watch for the Flyers as he had a bad injury that sidelined him for almost an entire short season (11 games played). He has shown offensive upside and has in him to put up 30/35 points with a good plus/minus rating to boot. This guy does not get much power play time, but makes up for it with solid defensive minutes that he turns into decent offense. Another upside to him is that he is not afraid to shoot the puck.
Jakub Voracek exploded offensively for the Flyers once placed on a line with Claude Giroux. He finished the season with 43 points in the last 40 games and that would make him a great bargain for the salary cap strapped Flyers. There is doubt that he will continue to play this well. His shooting percentage went from eight percent average to 17 percent this year. That is an awfully high number to carry over a full season. Playing with Giroux does have its benefits but I just do not see Voracek as a 40 goal scorer. Time will tell, but this young guy is 24 years old with five years under his belt. He could ripe in time for the Flyers to reap the benefits and with Giroux in the middle it is a perfect storm.
Final Word
Flyers are facing a very tough Atlantic..errr Metropolitan division. In my eyes the Division and Conference only got harder with addition of Red Wings to the East and Columbus Blue Jackets to the Metropolitan. There is uncertainly in net and can Streit and Timonen stay healthy for an entire season? There might not be enough offense to make up for goals they let in, but if they can improve just a bit in that department while carrying over last seasons special teams, playoffs might be in sight again. I see this team fighting for the last wild card spot in the East and probably missing it by a few points.
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Interested in writing for LastWordOnSports? If so, check out our “Join Our Team” page to find out how.Lots has been written about how high health care costs in the US are, and how mediocre outcomes are relative to those high costs. The American Health Care Paradox: Why Spending More Is Getting Us Less offers a new way of looking at the issue.
Health reform efforts have emphasized health insurance and medicine, sidelining social service programs like nutritional support and housing assistance — programs that can be influential for keeping people healthy and producing health, instead of just reacting when people fall ill, like the health care system often does.
Ignoring the social side of health is a problem, and it's a problem that's been plaguing the United States for decades.
Elizabeth Bradley, a professor at Yale University, and Lauren Taylor, a Presidential Scholar at Harvard Divinity School, examined this at length in their book. I spoke with the authors about the issues they see in the current system, what lessons we might draw from other nations, and what policymakers should think about next.
What follows is a transcript of our conversation, edited for clarity and length.
Adrianna McIntyre: Can you start by summarizing the core message in your book — what is the "paradox" in American health care, and how do you start to unravel it?
Lauren Taylor: The paradox that we outline is one that a lot of readers will be familiar with: that the United States has very high health-care costs, and in many cases middling — and sometimes lousy — health outcomes when you look at certain metrics. These are metrics — like infant mortality and life expectancy — where, when you look across developed nations, we're really at or near the bottom.
"maybe 'health spending' isn't telling us the whole story."
People cited this paradox before our book, and tried to explain it in any number of different ways. That included rationales like, "Well, U.S. health outcomes are bad because too few people have insurance" or "because prices are just high."
What our book tries to do is offer another reason that hasn't been talked about much in health policy: maybe "health spending" isn't telling us the whole story. Maybe we need to look at a broader summary of what resources nation puts in to support population health.
To do this, we included social services spending in our study, which captures things like housing, food assistance, and job training. The ratio of health to social-service spending was more predictive of several outcomes than health spending alone. This led us to suggest that social-service spending — and, more broadly, attention to the social determinants of health — could be a missing piece in the health reform discourse.
AM: This all started with a New York Times editorial that you two co-authored, and the preface of your book talks about the title of that editorial. Can you explain why To Fix Health Care, Help the Poor is overly simplistic?
Elizabeth Bradley: As the writer, you don't select the title; the editor does. While we were delighted that the New York Times wanted to cover this, the title made us step back a bit.
That title laid this whole problem at the feet of "the poor." In some ways, I think that narrowly portrayed our work as implying that this is all about people who are low-income. It suggested that if we could get those people — people who are homeless, drug users, the unemployed — if we could fix that piece, we would be done.
Although that is clearly important, our point is broader than that. The root of the problem we're talking about applies to the middle-class, the upper-middle class, to everybody.
"the issue plays itself out in all levels of our society."
Think about shoulder pain or back pain. It's very common in the American public to think "What kind of MRI do I need? What kind of specialist should I go to?" as opposed to thinking "Hm, maybe the briefcase I've been carrying around is too heavy. Maybe I'm not sleeping well. Maybe I haven't hit the gym for the last three weeks."
The issue of not appreciating the non-medical side of health plays itself out in all levels of our society. It's just that when you're middle-class or upper-middle class, you can afford to pay out-of-pocket to resolve these problems. When you're in a lower income bracket, that sometimes falls to the state.
To address the problem of over-medicalization of health we need to actually get to the way people relate to their own health, no matter how wealthy they are.
AM: You interviewed dozens of professionals who work in both health care and social services sectors for this book, and you say that the message you heard from them was quite consistent: the disconnect between health care and social services frustrated them. Was this surprising?
LT: We asked these providers about their experiences at the front lines: what kind of interactions they had with each other, how their work crossed the boundary between the two sectors, and what challenges exist in working across that boundary. How does the current system support them in that cross-boundary work, or how does it impede them in that sort of thinking?
Having done qualitative work before, we're used to really having to dig to pull out these emergent themes that fit the data set. But here, it was just so clear. People said on both sides,"Yes, we're treating the same populations, and it's incredibly frustrating to feel like I don't have contact with people who work in the other sector."
"my caution is that we've been here before."
EB: It was clear as a bell that we were capturing something that was already ingrained in the experience of front-line providers. There's sort of a moment in time with the ACA, among other things, that may put us on a platform to really shift in how we think about health care and our investment in health.
My caution is that we've been here before. There have been times — in the late '60s, the early '70s, the '90s — where the country put together plans and legislation to try to make providers think about the social determinants of health. And each time, through complicated cultural, economic, and social pressures, we have veered back into our comfort zone of medicalization.
I'm eager to watch what's happening right now, but if history is predictive, it's possible we'll go right back down that road.
AM: What are some of the most important lessons we can take away from other nations on how to bridge this gap between health care and social services?
EB: I would pick out three lessons. The first is that a lot of our current situation is related to root cultural values underlying the history that has brought us to this place.
"culture and values are Pieces of this puzzle."
Looking elsewhere, we thought the ideas in Scandinavia were very interesting. But can we really staple those into the United States? Maybe not, because it's not just the strategy they're using today; that strategy is sitting on a historical bedrock of greater collectivism. Culture and underlying values are pieces of this puzzle.
The second lesson is perhaps less depressing. There are interesting tactics that have been used in other countries that I think we can do something with. For example, one that I think is most important is joint budgeting and joint planning for both health services and housing, education, employment support, and other social services. This is something we saw again and again in Scandinavia, and it makes sense. It forces people to say, "Here's all of the money we have to spend, here are all of the services we could get. How can we maximize the impact on health?"
We don't do that in the United States. We could, but we don't.
The last lesson is maybe the most hopeful. While Scandinavian nations are often seen by the United States as very socialized, the truth is that they run on localism. All of this joint budgeting and planning happens at a local, county level. That gives great hope to the United States that there can be great experimentation at the local level.
There's a huge amount of potential for the private sector to be quite innovative with this, and I'm really excited to see what they do. I do have some pause because the money and the previous responsibility has always been with the health care sector; it seems natural for them to take a leadership role. What's the balancing force that will ensure that that leadership doesn't tip us back into the medicalization problem? That will be our challenge.
"in scandinavia, it's very clear who should lead. here, we're not really sure."
LT: In Scandinavia, there's a sense of accountability for population health at the local level. I think that's part of the concern here. In Scandinavia, the local government really takes the lead and they're the arbiter of different interests. They make sure the process is moving forward, and that the planning and the budgeting is responsive to public needs.
Who's going to play that role in the United States? Someone needs to hold the reins. In Scandinavia, it's very clear who should lead. Here, we're not really sure who plays that role.
AM: I know you don't presume to have all of the answers for solving our health care system's problems, but what should we look to do in the short term? What are some immediate next steps that we can point policymakers toward?
"the fear I have is that 'culture of health' will become a piece of jargon."
LT: The excitement around the "culture of health" concept and shared accountability is fantastic. We're so pleased to see it, and to see so many big names and big funders coming on board. The fear that I have in that is that "culture of health" will become a piece of jargon and the health economists will roll their eyes and dismiss it as "fluffy" or pie-in-the-sky.
I think the research agenda should move quickly to identify a few things: who will lead, how will accountability be measured, and what are the metrics of shared accountability or integration across structural boundaries that we want to be testing in a rigorous empirical way.
EB: We also really need to change the dialogue for "everyman" on the street. We need to promote an actual understanding of what creates health and how dangerous it can be — and how expensive it can be — to not pursue the most effective things to promote health. To have that more in the fabric of everyday life in America, that's what's needed.
AM: Something you explore in your book that I haven't seen much elsewhere is trying to understand why our welfare system looks so much different than that of other nations. I thought you put forward a really interesting theory about how the USdoesn't have a history of feudalism that many other nations share.
LT: This hypothesis came from some of the interviews we did in Scandinavia, where we asked people why they thought their nations had such confidence and trust in government. We would joke with them about Reagan and how he said the nine most frightening words in the English language are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." They would just kind of giggle and say "We have none of that attitude here."
When we pressed some people on why they think that is, this emerged. For them, the state has just been around for so long and has always been seen as a provider.
The government grew out of a feudalist system where the feudal lords really had an interest in caring for people we might call "serfs." The underprivileged were seen as an integrated part of the economy. There was an interest on the part of those who had means to care for those who didn't.
"THERE WAS AN INTEREST ON THE PART OF THOSE WHO HAD MEANS TO CARE FOR THOSE WHO DIDN'T."
There's another interesting hypothesis that is somewhat connected to this: they don't have a very vibrant church community in Scandinavia. There was never this organic religious community to spawn a nonprofit system where responsibility for the underserved could be outsourced. The state could not be let off the hook in that way.
These are hypotheses, but they're historically grounded — it's interesting to think about how deep some of these attitudes toward government can run.Amid doubt, disappointment and division, the world's governments came together in Rio on Friday to declare "a pathway for a sustainable century".
At the close of the Rio+20 Earth Summit, heads of state and ministers from more than 190 nations signed off on a plan to set global sustainable development goals and other measures to strengthen global environmental management, tighten protection the oceans, improve food security and promote a "green economy".
After more than a year of negotiations and a 10-day mega-conference involving 45,000 people, the wide-ranging outcome document – The Future We Want – was lambasted by environmentalists and anti-poverty campaigners for lacking the detail and ambition needed to address the challenges posed by a deteriorating environment, worsening inequality and a global population expected to rise from 7bn to 9bn by 2050.
But the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon said the document would guide the world on to a more sustainable path: "Our job now is to create a critical mass. The road ahead is long and hard."
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said it was a time to be optimistic. "A more prosperous future is within our reach, a future where all people benefit from sustainable development no matter who they are or where they live."
However, civil society groups and scientists were scathing about the outcome. Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo called the summit a failure of epic proportions. "We didn't get the Future We Want in Rio, because we do not have the leaders we need. The leaders of the most powerful countries supported business as usual, shamefully putting private profit before people and the planet."
Rio+20 was intended as a follow up on the 1992 Earth Summit, which put in place landmark conventions on climate change and biodiversity, as well as commitments on poverty eradication and social justice. Since then, however, global emissions have risen by 48%, 300m hectares of forest have been cleared and the population has increased by 1.6bn people. Despite a reduction in poverty, one in six people are malnourished.
While the problems have grown, the ability of nations to deal with them has diminished because the EU is distracted by economic crisis, the US is diverted by a presidential election, and government power has declined relative to that of corporations and civil society.
With Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and David Cameron absent, the BRICS nations dominated proceedings.
Brazil artfully – and, according to some delegates, aggressively – pushed through the compromise text, thereby avoiding the conflict and chaos that marked the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009. But that also left heads of state and ministers with little but a ceremonial function, wasting an opportunity for political leaders to press for a more ambitious outcome.
"Our final document is an opportunity that has been missed. It contributes almost nothing to our struggle to survive as a species," the Nicaraguan representative Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann at the conference. "We now face a future of increasing natural disasters."
Other delegates expressed disappointed, but said the agreement could be built upon. "The document does not entirely match our ambition or meet the challenge the world faces. But it's an important step forward … That's why we support it. That's why we must engage with it," said Janez Potočnik, European commissioner for environment.
The main outcome of the conference is a plan to set sustainable development goals (SDGs), which Brazil described as the "crown jewels" of the conference. But the gems have not yet been chosen, let alone cut, polished and set. Negotiators at Rio were unable to agree on themes, which will now be left to an "open working group" of 30 nations to decide upon by September 2013. Two years later, they will be blended with Millennium Development Goals.
The new goals look set to be the focus of tussles between rich and poor nations over the coming years. The G77 group of developing countries is adamant that the goals must include strong social and economic elements, including financing and technology transfer.
"When the EU, US say land, water – they usually emphasise environment. The G77 insist that it also has strong economic and social pillars. It needs to be better and bolder than the millennium development goals," said Bhumika Muchhala, of the Third World Network.
The 49-page document contained many other – mostly loosely defined – steps.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), long a poor relation of other UN organisations, will get a more secure budget, a broader membership and strong powers to initiate scientific research and coordinate global environment strategies. Rio+20 also established a "high-level" forum to coordinate global sustainable development, though its format is still to be defined.
Achim Steiner, head of UNEP, said it was an agenda for change: "World leaders and governments have today agreed that a transition to a green economy – backed by strong social provisions – offers a key pathway towards a sustainable 21st century."
Hopes that Rio would commit the world to move towards a green economy were diluted by suspicions among some developing nations that this was another way for wealthy nations to impose a "one-model-fits-all" approach. Instead, the green economy was merely named as an "important tool" that countries could use if they wished.
Nations agreed to think about ways to place a higher value on nature, including alternatives to GDP as a measure of wealth that account more for environmental and social factors, and efforts to assess and pay for "environmental services" provided by nature, such as carbon sequestration and habitat protection.
Among the many vague, but potentially promising developments, was a recognition by all 192 governments that "fundamental changes in the way societies consume and produce are indispensable for achieving global sustainable development". This appeared to mean different things to different people. EU officials suggests it could lead to a shift of taxes so workers pay less and polluters and landfill operators pay more. Hillary Clinton said it should be reflected in the way products are advertised and packaged. All nations "reaffirmed" commitments to phase out harmful fossil fuel subsidies.
Such changes will cost, but nobody wanted to put money on the table, which was cited by the G77 as a major cause of the weak outcome.
Developing countries wanted a $30bn per year fund to help in the transition to sustainability, but in the midst of a financial crisis in Europe, nobody was willing to say how much money they would contribute. Instead, there was a promise to enhance funding, but by how much and by whom were left to future discussions.
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff said rich nations had not kept Copenhagen promises on "green funding" and so were in no position to criticise others for a lack of ambition: "All countries must take responsibility. Nobody can point the finger."
There was frustration that Rio+20 did not do more to guarantee the reproductive rights of women or to protect the world's oceans. A plan to rescue the high seas – which are outside national jurisdictions – was blocked by the US, Nicaragua, Canada and Russia. Instead, leaders say they will do more to prevent over-fishing and ocean acidification. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature called the decision a "deep disappointment".
The strongest initiatives were made outside the negotiating halls, where significant agreements have been struck on investing in public transport, commitments made to green accounting by corporations and strategies agreed by cities and judicial bodies on reducing environmental impacts. The dynamism has been found in a 10-day "People's Summit" and campaigns to reduce plastics in the ocean and create a new sanctuary in the Arctic.
"There are real solutions to the problems governments have been unable to solve and those solutions have been on display all week in Rio, just not at the conference centre," said Lidy Nacpil, director of Jubilee South – Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development.
The weak leadership shown in the conference halls has prompted many in civil society to rethink their strategies.
Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, said a "red/green alliance was the only way forward". If the current development model doesn't change, "we are going to see economic dislocation greater than we're facing now," she said.
"There will be more wars around water and energy, so we need labour and environment walking hand in hand."LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) — Californians Thursday dove under desks and tables in an annual earthquake survival drill.
Nearly 10 million Californians took part in Thursday’s drill at 10:17 a.m.
Students at Rosement Avenue Elementary School were told by intercom to drop, cover and hold on before they were evacuated, KNX1070’s Jon Baird reports. Firefighters searched for “missing” students and helped those with pretend injuries while others took part in a simulated fire exercise.
“It’s estimated some 1,500 fires are going to break out in Los Angeles alone,” Todd Leitz of MySafeLA said.
Millions Take Part In 'Great ShakeOut' Earthquake Drill
Millions more in earthquake-prone regions elsewhere around the world also conducted so-called “drop, cover, hold on” drills.
Known as the Great Shakeout, the drills began in California in 2008.
The Great ShakeOut was first held in California in 2008 and participation has since spread around the globe. This year, Japan, Canada, Italy and Guam planned to join the U.S. in the drill.
“Everyone everywhere should know how to protect themselves during an earthquake,” lead organizer Mark Benthien said.
Participation has exceeded last year’s level despite a government shutdown that prevented the Federal Emergency Management Agency from doing last-minute promotion of the drill on social media sites, Benthien said.
Southern California has not experienced a devastating quake since the 1994 Northridge disaster that killed 60 people and injured more than 7,000.
In recent weeks, parts of the world have been rattled by powerful quakes, including a magnitude-7.1 jolt that killed more than 100 people in the Philippines and damaged historic churches.
Drill organizers said this year’s focus is on fires that may be sparked by ruptured utility lines after a quake.
“Each individual should have enough water. You want to make sure that you have a flashlight, batteries and backup batteries, maybe a couple days worth, a change of clothing,” Laurie Newquist with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services told KNX1070 Megan Goldsby. “You should have three kits; you should have one in your home, in your car and in your place of work.”A proposal to amend Detroit's city code to decriminalize small amounts marijuana will finally appear on the city's ballot this November after being held up in court for almost two years.
Proposal M, if passed, would amend a 1984 Detroit city ordinance in order to exempt adults over the age of 21 from being prosecuted for the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana on private property.
The Detroit election commission voted 3-0 to block the referendum in August 2010, arguing that possessing marijuana still violated state law. In June Michigan's Supreme Court denied a motion by the city of Detroit to appeal an earlier court decision ordering city officials to place the measure on the ballot.
Tim Beck is the chairman of the Coalition for a Safer Detroit, the group that put the put the proposal on the ballot. He said under the measure, Detroit police would still be able to charge people under state law, but would no longer be able to collect fine or forfeiture money from those arrests. That money would go to the State of Michigan.
Although Beck believes philosophically there should be no legal difference between smoking a joint and drinking a vodka martini, he also thinks there is a practical reason to support the proposal.
"The city of Detroit is in some very, very deep financial problems. It is on the verge of bankruptcy. The police force is stretched as thin as it's ever going to get," he said. "We've got to get out of the business of dealing with victimless crime and refocus our scarce resources on crimes that have actual consequences to other people."
Beck said his coalition hasn't done any serious campaigning on the issue because they believe voters already strongly support the issue. He notes that the issue has received endorsements from mainstream sources like the Detroit Free Press, Michigan's 13th Congressional District Democratic party organization and the Fannie Lou Hamer Political Action Committee.
Lawrence Kenyatta is a member of the advocacy committee of the Partnership for a Drug Free Detroit, a coalition of faith groups and substance abuse prevention and treatment organizations that opposes proposal M.
In an effort to stop the proposal, members of Kenyatta's organization have been speaking out at candidate forums, town hall meetings and local barbershops. Kenyatta believes passing the measure will have detrimental consequences for the city of Detroit. He argues that a more permissive attitude towards marijuana could lead to increased rates of domestic abuse, encourage the use of harder drugs and make it more difficult for people to find work due to drug testing.
"If you want a healthy city, you need healthy citizens," he told The Huffington Post. "You do not need citizens walking around intoxicated. We don't want citizens walking around here high from drugs, high from marijuana, high from anything!"
Beck of the Coalition for a Safer Detroit told The Huffington Post that he believes anybody who wants to use marijuana in the city of Detroit is already doing so because it is so readily available in the city.Interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome (IC/PBS) is a major challenge to treat. We studied the effect of targeted and localized expression of enkephalin in afferent nerves that innervate the bladder by gene transfer using replication-defective herpes simplex virus (HSV) vectors in a rat model of bladder hyperactivity and pain. Replication-deficient HSV vectors encoding preproenkephalin, which is a precursor for Met- and Leu-enkephalin, or control vector encoding the lacZ reporter gene, were injected into the bladder wall of female rats. After viral vector injection, quantitative polymerase chain reaction showed high preproenkephalin transgene levels in bladder and dorsal root ganglia innervating the bladder in enkephalin vector-treated animals. Functionally, enkephalin vector-treated animals showed reductions in bladder hyperactivity and nociceptive behavior induced by intravesical application of capsaicin; however, vector-mediated expression of enkephalin did not alter normal voiding. This antinociceptive effect of enkephalin gene therapy was antagonized by naloxone hydrochloride administration. Together, our results with HSV vectors encoding preproenkephalin demonstrated physiological improvement in visceral pain induced by bladder irritation. Thus, gene therapy may represent a potentially useful treatment modality for bladder hypersensitive disorders such as IC/PBS.Global sports leader Under Armour adds NASL as first soccer league partner
The NASL and Under Armour announced their official match ball partnership today. Beginning this spring, the global sports brand’s custom-designed ball will be used on pitches across the league.
"Under Armour has quickly become a major player in the global soccer scene, and we believe that this partnership will benefit all who are involved in the game both here and abroad,” NASL Commissioner Bill Peterson said. “When our players and coaches got their feet on the Under Armour Desafio ball for the first time, the responses were great. It's a fantastic ball."
With Under Armour as the Official Match Ball Partner of the NASL, clubs will exclusively use the Under Armour ball in all training sessions |
of the United States,” he said.
Obama’s remarks were his first about the growing scandal. The Secret Service placed the men on administrative leave pending an internal investigation. The agents — who were removed from Cartagena on Thursday and replaced with a new team shortly before Obama’s arrival Friday — were returned to Washington and interviewed by the Office of Professional Responsibility, the agency’s internal affairs unit.
Meanwhile, the Defense Department has ordered its own inquiry after determining that five of its personnel, who were staying at the same hotel as the Secret Service agents, violated curfew on Wednesday night. All of the U.S. personnel were part of Obama’s advance team that was preparing logistics and security for his arrival.
The alleged misconduct came to light after one of the agents became involved in a dispute with a woman Thursday morning over a payment, and Colombian police reported the matter to the U.S. Embassy.
The controversy has shifted some attention away from Obama’s trip to the economic summit, at least in the United States, where the media have focused on the accusations of heavy drinking and womanizing.
Obama was asked about the matter by a reporter in his joint news conference with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. Obama made a point to praise the Secret Service in general, emphasizing that the agency does “very hard work under very stressful circumstances.”
“I’m very grateful for what they do,” he said. “I will wait until the full investigation [is completed] until I pass final judgment.”
Lawmakers in Washington were pressing Sunday for more details about the investigation.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), whose panel maintains jurisdiction over all federal agencies, said he has reason to believe that more than 11 agents were involved.
“We think the number might be higher, and we’re asking for the exact amount of all the people who, quote, were involved,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Issa did not elaborate on that statement, and his office did not respond to follow-up questions from The Washington Post.
On the talk show, Issa also said: “This kind of a breach is a breach in the federal workforce’s most elite protective unit, and they don’t just protect the president, of course; they protect the Cabinet members, the vice president, the first family, candidates. So when you look at this, you realize if you can have this kind of breakdown, one that could lead to blackmail... then we’ve got to ask: Where are the systems in place to prevent this in the future?”
The Secret Service agents allegedly involved are a mix of special agents, who provide personal protection for the president and other high-level officials, and members of the uniformed division, who handle logistical support and building security, officials briefed on the investigation have said.
Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said a lawyer representing the agents did not want to discuss the matter with reporters until it had been adjudicated.
Staff writer Joe Davidson contributed to this report.It’s the beginning of a new year, which means we’re all overwhelmed with lists telling us all about the great games and media we missed for the entire year, plus what we can expect ahead—we’ve got a few of those, as well. But you don’t need to look very far to find interesting new Mac games: In fact, we’ve got 10 more here that just debuted within the past month!
The chaotic blasting of Nuclear Throne, frantic bomb-diffusing teamwork of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, and sharp racing action of GRID Autosport lead our latest look at new Mac game releases, but we’ve also got an old strategy classic, a free (and hilarious) narrative experiment, and no less than two games starring birds in unfamiliar roles. If somehow you don’t find what you’re looking for here, be sure to hit November’s listing as well.Canada will have to pay – both in terms of money and reputation – for a decision to ditch the launch of its satellite by a Russian rocket, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Friday.
MOSCOW, April 25 (RIA Novosti) – Canada will have to pay – both in terms of money and reputation – for a decision to ditch the launch of its satellite by a Russian rocket, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Friday.
Commenting on the Canadian media reports that the government’s hard line on sanctions against Russia has scuttled the launch of what was described to be a “key Canadian military satellite,” Rogozin wrote in his Twitter that Canada will “certainly” have to pay the forfeit.
In addition, the Canadian government exposed the true military purpose of its satellite, claimed to be a civilian one, he said.
“The Canadians screwed things up. They refused to launch the satellite and admitted that it was a military one, despite earlier assurances of its civilian purpose,” Rogozin said.
The M3MSat was to be launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on June 19. The spacecraft is intended for sea surveillance and was to operate jointly with the RADARSAT-2 orbiter.
Canadian media said the government was currently looking for another state or private space contractor to carry out the launch.
Canada was among the first to join targeted sanctions, including asset freezes and visa bans, imposed on a number of senior Russian officials and businessmen whom the West accuses of involvement in Crimea's reunification with Russia.
A number of Western officials have since been calling for even tougher sanctions on Russia, including against key sectors of its economy – such as space, defense and energy.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper earlier said that Ottawa could impose sanctions targeting Russian banks.
On Tuesday, Moscow expelled the first secretary of the Canadian embassy in Moscow in response to the recent expulsion of a staff member of the Russian embassy in Ottawa, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told RIA Novosti.The Conservatives' spring budget made headlines two months ago with plans to save billions by cutting public sector jobs, speed up major industrial projects by streamlining environmental reviews and kill the penny.
But details of those and many other changes are still trickling out as Parliament picks apart the legislation meant to implement the budget's promises.
Bill C-38 goes beyond tax and monetary measures to make major changes in dozens of policy areas, including the environment, natural resources and human resources. It seeks to amend or create dozens of laws, while repealling others entirely, and has been called an omnibus bill as a result.
The opposition is incensed with the size and scope of the bill. The NDP tried — unsuccessfully — to negotiate with the government to split it into smaller bills.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says it's big because it was a big budget and the measures are needed to create jobs and grow the economy.
The opposition parties say they shouldn't be asked to vote on legislation that lacks specifics and grants cabinet the power to make regulatory changes.
Bill C-38 has passed second reading and is now being studied by several Senate committees and the House of Commons finance committee, while a finance subcommittee is set to study the environmental review changes.
Here's a look at some of the measures in the bill's 400-plus pages. It's not an exhaustive list, so be warned: there will be another budget bill in the fall.
Environmental overhaul
The government wants a "one project, one review" environmental assessment system, so it is repealing the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and replacing it with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012. It allows the federal government to designate an assessment to another jurisdiction, such as a province, and for another jurisdiction's assessment to substitute for a federal one. It sets out time limits for the completion of reviews and the minister will have the power to shut down a review panel if he thinks it won’t finish on time.
E-I, E-I – oh? 'Suitable work?'
Employment insurance claimants are required to demonstrate they are actively seeking "suitable work" in order to receive payments. C-38 removes definitions of "suitable work" from the Employment Insurance Act and gives the federal cabinet the power to create new regulations about what constitutes suitable work and reasonable efforts to find work. The budget bill gives no details about what the new criteria will be. It also makes changes to how payments are calculated, to pay claimants based on their "best 14 weeks" of employment.
Lighter load for the auditor general
Auditor General Michael Ferguson will no longer be required to annually audit several agencies, including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Northern Pipeline Agency and the Canadian Polar Commission. The agencies must submit annual financial reports to the minister instead. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says this move was made at the request of the auditor general.
Auditor General Michael Ferguson will have a lighter load once the budget bill passes because it removes the requirement for him to audit certain government agencies and councils. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
Charity rule changes
C-38 proposes amendments to the Income Tax Act's rules around political activities of charities. Charities aren't supposed to spend more than 10 per cent of their budgets on political advocacy. Under C-38, donating to a charity could be considered a political activity if the donation can "reasonably be considered" to be for the sole purpose of supporting political activities. So, if one charity gives money to another charity for political purposes, it would count toward the donor's 10 per cent limit, not just the recipient's total. It also gives the minister of national revenue the power to withhold tax receipts from a charity or association if it devotes resources to political activities in excess of the limits.
Backlogged immigration applications eliminated
Among the amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is a move to wipe out a backlog of 280,000 applications under the Federal Skilled Worker Program. Applications made before 2008 would be deleted and the application fee refunded.
Fisheries changes
Legislation currently protects fish habitats that are defined as "spawning grounds and nursery, rearing, food supply and migration areas on which fish depend directly or indirectly in order to carry out their life processes." Bill C-38 would instead protect fish based on their use: bodies of water that support commercial, recreational and aboriginal fisheries or fish that support such fisheries. It rewrites the Fisheries Act's rules against work that can cause the destruction of a fish habitat. The bill also would allow the federal government to transfer Fisheries Act responsibilities to a province with equivalent laws.
Mini tax breaks
There is some good tax news in the budget bill. It expands the list of goods and services free of GST and HST, adding some prescription drugs and more medical devices to currently exempt items like false teeth and hearing aids. The bill would also allow literacy organizations to claim a GST rebate or the federal component of HST paid on books they give away for free.
The GG gets a raise and a tax return
The bill increases Gov. Gen. David Johnston's salary from $137,500 to $270,602 starting on Jan.1, 2013 — but he's no longer exempt from paying income tax. His salary was hiked to offset the taxman's bite.
Gov. Gen. David Johnston is getting a raise in the budget implementation bill, but he's no longer off the hook with the Canada Revenue Agency and will have to start paying income tax. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)
A new cross-border law
The budget bill creates a new law to implement the Framework Agreement on Integrated Cross-Border Law Enforcement Operations that was signed between Canada and the United States in 2009. It applies to joint operations between authorities in both countries on the seas.
Bye-bye at the spy agency
The budget bill scraps the office of the inspector general at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The office is meant to be the public safety minister's eyes and ears overseeing CSIS. It also makes other changes on how CSIS reports to the minister.
Closing doors
Bill C-38 shuts down several government-funded groups and agencies, including the National Council of Welfare, the Public Appointments Commission, Rights and Democracy, the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal and Assisted Human Reproduction Canada.
Opening doors
It creates a new Social Security Tribunal to hear appeals of decisions made on Old Age Security, employment insurance and other benefit programs, and creates the new Shared Services Canada Department.
Not a penny more
The government announced in the March budget that the penny will no longer be made and the last ones were produced in early May. Don't fear, however, the budget implementation bill will allow you to keep using the ones stored in your piggy banks as legal tender. (John Woods/Canadian Press)
The government is phasing out the penny but is changing the law so pennies can still be used as legal tender even though they are being removed from circulation. The current law says a coin that's been "called in" is not legal tender.
See ya SIN cards
The government wants to phase out the plastic card that displays your social insurance number, and Bill C-38 makes the necessary changes to existing laws so it is no longer required. Canadians will still have SINs, they just won't be carried on a plastic card.
Older Age Security
The age of eligibility for OAS will rise gradually to 67 from 65 starting in 2023. C-38 lays out a complicated chart showing how that change will be phased in.LAKEWOOD, Ohio – Residents voiced mixed opinions Thursday night about developers' plans to turn a Birdtown-neighborhood church into a brewery and restaurant.
However, at the end of the evening, city Planning and Development Director Dru Siley said he believed concerns could be addressed and the city eventually could support the project.
The developers need city approval to operate a business in the residential neighborhood.
Developers Tom Leneghan, Sean Fairbairn and Jake Hawley, who are involved in running the Barrio restaurants in Lakewood and Cleveland's Tremont area, presented their proposal to the city's Planning Commission for opening the Lakewood Brew Works and Restaurant. The three plan to purchase the closed St. Gregory the Theologian Byzantine Catholic Church, built in 1925, and convert it into a small brewery and pizza restaurant. The church has been vacant since 2012.
Leneghan said they would spend about $2 million purchasing the property and renovating it. They also would renovate a parish home next door in which one of the owners would live.
The developers said they would respect the existing church architecture, incorporating stained glass windows and ceiling paintings by local artists into their plans for the brewery.
Leneghan has experience renovating historic buildings, including the Treehouse Restaurant in Tremont.
More than 15 members of the public, mostly Lakewood residents, also addressed the planning commission. Some supported the project, saying they would be glad to see the church renovated rather than sit vacant and fall into disrepair. However, others raised concerns about increased traffic in the residential neighborhood and customers of the brewery using scarce on-street parking on which residents rely.
St. Gregory's is at the intersection of Quail and Thrush streets. Its neighbors include North Coast Baptist Church, Harrison Elementary School and residential houses.
The brewery would be open Monday through Thursday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., Friday from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m., and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. The hours are designed to have a limited impact on neighbors, including the school, the developers said.
However, some residents expressed multiple concerns, including whether a parking lot would be outfitted with lights that would shine on neighbors' houses, whether there would be loud music, and the issue of protecting on-street parking for residents.
The Rev. John Lutz, of the neighboring Baptist church, expressed concern about whether serving alcohol in the neighborhood would result in an increase in crime.
"Anytime alcohol is involved, crime goes up," he said.
He also disagreed with the idea of turning a former church into a brewery. He said the proposal would be better suited for a commercial area on Madison Avenue.
"This is not a wise proposal," Lutz said. "I think there are much better locations than across from a school and across from a church."
Other residents expressed concern about the safety of children with additional traffic in the area.
Mark Snyder, a Dowd Avenue resident and real estate broker, voiced support for the project.
"I am familiar with what vacancies can do to a neighborhood," he said. "It can be detrimental."
Refurbishing the vacant church, which has been broken into and vandalized, should improve property values, Snyder said,
"I think this would be a great asset to our community," he said.
The developers said they were not surprised by the mixed reaction, but that they plan to work with neighbors to address their concerns. The brewery and restaurant plans to use valet parking to increase the number of cars their lot could accommodate from 22 to 44, they said. In addition, they are working with the city to find off-street parking at nearby churches or commercial businesses that customers could use in the evenings. They also said they would install directional lighting at the parking lot that would not bother neighbors and avoid loud nighttime entertainment.
Siley said the city was happy with the track record of the developers and their apparent willingness to address residents' concerns.
"They are working in earnest to address those issues," Siley said. "If they continue in that manner, I think they'll have a project the commission can approve."
The Planning Commission plans to resume discussions about the brewery proposal at its June 5 meeting at 7 p.m. at City Hall.Hoping to capitalize on the government shutdown by making the American public feel the effects of the government shutdown, the Obama Administration — through the National Park Service — has closed the most popular parks, memorials and monuments around the country. The World War II Memorial has became ground zero for this particular part of the narrative last week when veterans visiting Washington were temporarily barred from visiting the memorial built in their honor.
But Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), who is known for his strong stand in 2011 against public-sector unions, has refused the order and will keep state parks that receive some federal funding open to the public:
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is defying orders from Washington, D.C., to close down several state parks that receive federal funding. Despite receiving a closure directive from the National Park Service, Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has decided instead that parks partly funded by the federal government would stay open to the public. In the wake of this week’s federal government shutdown, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also placed barricades by a boat launch on the Mississippi River because it was on federal land. Wisconsin’s natural resources agency reopened it.
[…]
Wisconsin has also decided to not fully follow a Fish and Wildlife agency’s directive that hunting and fishing be prohibited on federal lands during the shutdown. Hunting access would be allowed in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, state officials said.
Though Wisconsin did receive a small amount of federal funding for its parks, they are still mostly funded by the state government, which calls into question the federal government’s authority over the directed closures. It also shows the perils of states taking money for funding of parks, given that they can become a political football in tumultuous times; like a government shutdown, for example.
This story is also important because Walker, who is up for re-election next year, could be a dark horse candidate for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2016. Polls currently show Walker running in the low single digits, but that could change if he successfully positions himself as an outsider and reformer.MONTPELIER, Vt. — Gov. Peter Shumlin on Wednesday signed into law the nation’s first ban on a hotly debated natural gas drilling technique that involves blasting chemical-laced water deep into the ground.
The Democrat, surrounded at a Statehouse ceremony by environmentalists and Twinfield Union School students who pushed for the ban, said the law may help Vermont set an example for other states. The ban may be largely symbolic, though, because there is believed to be little to no natural gas or oil beneath the surface in Vermont.
The gas drilling technique, called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves the high-pressure injection of water and chemicals into the ground to split rock apart and release natural gas or oil.
It’s being used extensively in the rapidly expanding natural gas industry in several states. Critics have blamed the practice for contaminating drinking water wells of some residents living near the drilling operations, but natural gas industry officials dispute those claims.
Shumlin said the increased amounts of natural gas obtainable through hydraulic fracturing were not worth the risk to drinking water supplies.
In the coming generation or two, “drinking water will be more valuable than oil or natural gas,” Shumlin said.
“Human beings survived for thousands and thousands of years without oil and without natural gas,” he said. “We have never known humanity or life on this plant to survive without clean water.”
Shumlin then appeared to contradict himself, saying other states should emulate Vermont’s ban on hydraulic fracturing but also should be the “guinea pigs” for testing the process.
“I hope other states will follow us,” he said. “The science on fracking is uncertain at best. Let the other states be the guinea pigs. Let the Green Mountain State preserve its clean water, its lakes, its rivers and its quality of life.”
The Vermont Public Interest Research Group’s executive director, Paul Burns, who spoke at the bill signing, said that he had traveled Tuesday to a rally in Albany, N.Y., put on by critics of hydraulic fracturing and that the crowd there was buoyed by the Vermont action. New York is one of the states, along with Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, where gas drillers have flocked because of the Marcellus Shale, a massive underground rock formation estimated to contain 84 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas, enough to supply the nation’s gas-burning electrical plants for more than a decade.
Industry groups panned the Vermont ban.
The American Petroleum Institute said Vermont was pursuing an “irresponsible path that ignores three major needs: jobs, government revenue and energy security.”
America’s Natural Gas Alliance said the Vermont law was “poor policy that ignores fact, science and technology.” It said natural gas is being produced “safely and responsibly.”"And I know that every moment that passes in this war, more parents lose their beautiful, sweet, innocent children. Yes, I am scared. I cannot fall asleep. But more than that, I am angry."--Gaza Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, formerly a doctor at the Israeli Sheba Hospital, who lost his three daughters and niece from an Israeli shell shot at his home during Operation Cast Lead, writes to Israelis in Yedioth.
Reporters Without Borders condemns Israeli strikes on building housing media outlets - The attacks on the two high-rise buildings in Gaza wounded six Palestinian journalists Sunday and damaged the equipment of foreign media outlets. (Haaretz+)
The attacks on the two high-rise buildings in Gaza wounded six Palestinian journalists Sunday and damaged the equipment of foreign media outlets. (Haaretz+) IDF bombs Gaza soccer stadium - IDF says long-range rockets fired from stadium in Gaza Strip, multiple weapons hidden under grass. (Ynet)
IDF says long-range rockets fired from stadium in Gaza Strip, multiple weapons hidden under grass. (Ynet) Ambassadors on the Internet - In 15 'war rooms' across the country, youths aged 13-17 are working to "prevent the blackening of Israel's face." They are responding to articles on foreign news websites and they are operating blogs and working on the PR front for Israel. "There are many anti-Israeli writings and we are here to fight that." ( Maariv, p. 12)
- In 15 'war rooms' across the country, youths aged 13-17 are working to "prevent the blackening of Israel's face." They are responding to articles on foreign news websites and they are operating blogs and working on the PR front for Israel. "There are many anti-Israeli writings and we are here to fight that." (, p. 12) McCain: Without Iron Dome, Israel would be in Gaza - US diplomats comment on Gaza op, support Israel's right to defend itself, but stress need for negotiations: 'No one wants ground war.' (Ynet)
US diplomats comment on Gaza op, support Israel's right to defend itself, but stress need for negotiations: 'No one wants ground war.' (Ynet) Kim Kardashian regrets Israel-Palestine tweets - Reality show star apologizes for two tweets she posted found offensive by followers. (Ynet)
For the full News from Israel.Cary Feldman was astride his motor scooter, three cars back at a stoplight in Chicago Heights, Ill., last June when a car bumped him from behind. “It was nothing,” the 71-year old said. “I fell off and got right back up. As I was getting up I noticed a fire truck slow, look at me, and pull away. It never stopped and I didn’t think anything of it.”
But five months later, Feldman received a bill for $200, to cover the cost of the fire truck showing up at the scene of his accident. For months, he argued the charge with the fire department while he fought with his and the other driver’s insurance companies to pay it.
He gave up when a collection agency called. "There was no way to fight it. No court to appeal to," he complained. "It was extortion."
Feldman paid the bill, but he is still angry. "They are despicable thieves,” he says.
As local governments strain against declining revenues, many have turned to a controversial -- and legally dubious -- way to raise money: They're charging accident victims for municipal services that are already covered by taxes. And the biggest proponents of these “Accident Response Fees” -- also known as "crash taxes" -- often are not good government groups and economists, but debt collection agencies looking to expand their business.
The increasingly popular revenue-raising plans generally work like this:
Every time a local public safety service (police, fire, ambulance, hazmat) responds to an emergency call, a bill gets sent to the person who receives aid. In most places, only non-residents get a bill; but in others, everyone does. And in a few places, only those found to be at fault are billed.
The idea is to make up for lost tax revenues by turning municipal workers into on-call contractors. But as often as not, these taxpayer-paid public servants wind up adding to the grief of accident victims by charging for their services at the scene.
The bills can be huge. A simple response to an accident usually costs just less than $500, but the bottom line can quickly soar. In Florida, if a fire chief shows up at your accident, it'll cost you an extra $200 an hour. Need a Jaws of Life rescue in Sacramento, Calif.? Add $1,875. In Chico, Calif., going into a ditch could cost as much as your car, because a complex rescue goes for $2,000 an hour, plus $50 per hour for each rescue worker. And if there is gas or oil to clean up, the hazmat team will bill another $100 per hour per team member. In San Francisco an ambulance ride will cost $1,642 under a new proposal there. A Pennsylvania man recently complained that his bill for an accident on his motorcycle included charges for “mops and brooms.”
Though variations of the plan have been around for a long time, the recession has given it new life. More than 40 towns and cities in California alone are currently considering adopting crash tax measures, according to Property Casualty Insurers Association of America. And 33 other states have begun adopting or studying accident response fees, according to Mary Bonelli of the Ohio Insurance Institute, who has studied the growth of the accident fee industry for the past seven years. That is a 600 percent increase from when she began looking at the industry six years ago.
While the popularity of "crash taxes" is rapidly growing in cash-starved city council chambers, the fees have sparked strenuous opposition from insurance companies, small businessmen, tourism associations and outraged citizens, who see the bills as a double tax.
Many also see an unholy alliance between local governments and the chief backers of the practice: debt collection companies, who they say often try to collect on debts in a heavy-handed and threatening manner -- even though most of the enabling statutes involving accident fees make them uncollectible from all but insurance companies.
According to Bonelli, the current surge of interest started “six or seven years ago,” when an Ohio bill collection company, Cost Recovery Corporation, began approaching government agencies with a “one-stop shopping plan" that would generate a great stream of income at no cost by billing out-of-town accident victims. Their take: 10 percent.
Today dozens of companies are competing for business in places like Tempe, Ariz.; Quincy Mass, and Huntington Beach, Calif.
“They would come into a town and promise to do everything," Bonelli explained. "It was free money. The collection companies would do a simple calculation that promised thousands of dollars a year in extra revenue.”
But there's a catch, Bonelli said: Most of that money does not get collected. Insurance companies refuse to pay the bills, claiming the charges aren't a covered expense. That means the bill winds up in the driver's hands -- and that, Bonelli says, is where the practice goes from repugnant to indefensible.
Drivers do not realize that they almost never have to pay the bills, she said, because most ordinances that create these programs do not provide for the collection of fees from drivers. The ordinances provide for billing the insurance companies only -- but collection agencies, after getting rejection letters from insurance companies, pursue the drivers anyway. They are allowed to ask, but drivers generally do not have to pay. It is called "soft billing," and it is not legally enforceable.
“If you get a bill, ask to see the ordinance and see if there is a'soft billing' provision," Bonelli said. "If there is, you can throw the bill out.”
As an example, she cited the case of Stow, Ohio, which implemented crash taxes in 2006 after being told by a billing company that it would generate $95,000 a year in fees for police personnel and equipment. After a few months, she said, the city had collected only $3,000. And virtually all of it came from drivers, not from insurance companies.
Swamped with citizen complaints and saying she was misled, Mayor Karen Fritschel canceled the program and refunded all the money the city had collected.
Backlash against the practice is building, as many communities lured by easy cash back out of the deals. Last year Radcliff, Ky., dropped the program after finding most insurance companies refused to pay the bills and harassed drivers complained and took legal action. By the time it was closed down, the city had actually lost money on the project. In Cleveland, Ohio, the fire department has been accused of sending its biggest trucks to fender benders to increase fees. And in April, Alabama became the 10th state to outlaw the practice completely.
But Regina Moore of Cost Recovery Corporation, which handled Stow, says the fee system is a public service that will benefit everyone because it allows tax dollars to be used more effectively and increases the proficiency of emergency services. She says the fees allow communities to decrease response time in emergencies and help a public sector that is being decimated by budget cuts.
She said, for example, that in Live Oak, Fla., the fees enabled the town to buy a new fire truck and cut response time in emergencies.
“Even if I wasn’t in the business I would still be supporting the fees because it is a public safety issue above all else,” she said.
Critics say they don't dispute that more money helps police and fire departments, they say the argument is over how the money is raised.Dive Brief:
Impossible Burger is moving into university and company cafeterias, as well as cultural venues, according to the company.
The rollout started last week and is being coordinated with Bon Appétit Management Company, which runs more than 1,000 cafes for universities, corporations and museums in 33 states. It's also working with Restaurant Associates, which operates about 160 foodservice locations, including museums, performing arts centers, aquariums, corporate dining and educational facilities.
Impossible Foods' restaurant customers have been seeing double-digit same-store sales growth, CFO David Lee told Bloomberg. The Impossible Burger is expected to be in retail outlets at prices competitive with commodity beef in the near future.
Dive Insight:
This is a significant development for Impossible Foods because foodservice represents about half of U.S. ground beef consumption, according to Bloomberg. An estimated 7.3 billion pounds of ground beef were purchased by foodservice operators and sold by stores in 2016. But for the plant-based burger company to attract and retain the average carnivore, the product has to look, smell and taste like the real deal.
"For us to have the impact, we have to appeal to meat consumers — and that's been the target from day one," Nick Halla, chief strategy officer of Impossible Foods, told Food Dive. "The connection of people and where their meat comes from I think will change over time. Right now, people aren't really tied to their meat coming from an animal — they just want it to taste good."
Impossible Foods' outreach strategy differs from its main competitor — Beyond Meat of El Segundo, California — whose Beyond Burger is available at hundreds of Whole Foods and Safeway retail locations. It's also in the process of being distributed to Kroger's outlets — its namesake stores, Fred Meyer, King Soopers and Ralphs.
Beyond Meat is working the foodservice advantage by recently partnering with Sysco to add the Beyond Burger to a program designed to spotlight and offer new products to customers based on emerging food trends.
It's not easy to replicate animal protein with plant-sourced materials, but somehow the Impossible Burger won over many skeptics when its "beef" patty debuted in some U.S. markets last year. The company spent a lot of time and money telling — and showing — how the product mimics a real beef hamburger patty down to the last detail, including "bleeding" while it cooks.
Since then, the Impossible Burger has become available at a growing number of upscale restaurants around the country, and the company intends to expand into the retail marketplace over the next few years as it creates greater manufacturing efficiencies. It has a new plant in Oakland, California, where it can produce one million pounds of its plant-based burger patties every month.
Beyond Meat has its admirers with deep pockets, among them actor Leonardo DiCaprio, Humane Society of the United States, General Mills and Tyson Foods, which acquired a 5% stake in the company last fall. The plant-based meat producer is hopeful to someday expand the partnership with Tyson beyond an investment, and the company remains optimistic it can tap into the meat giant's extensive distribution network to get its plant-based product into more stores and restaurants.
Tyson remains pleased with its investment in Beyond Meat, though CEO Tom Hayes declined to say recently whether it has considered increasing its stake. “We like what they’re doing," he told Food Dive. "We have a great relationship with the management steam, so we’ll continue to stay an investor."
These two plant-based burger startups have been successful by using different marketing strategies and distribution channels to get where they are today. Both have enjoyed consumer acceptance and continue to innovate with new partnerships and products in an increasingly welcoming environment. With the most recent figures showing the plant-based meat market up 6% this year compared to 2016 and refrigerated plant-based meat products are up 20% over last year, the future for this sector looks strong.
The trick is whether Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods will be able to convince enough meat eaters to ditch their favorite burger for one made from plants.This is pretty sweet: a statement from President Obama blasting Republicans for defending the low liability limits that protect oil companies from paying for the economic damages caused by spills, costs that would instead be borne by taxpayers.
I am disappointed that an effort to ensure that oil companies pay fully for disasters they cause has stalled in the United States Senate on a partisan basis. This maneuver threatens to leave taxpayers, rather than the oil companies, on the hook for future disasters like the BP oil spill. I urge the Senate Republicans to stop playing special interest politics and join in a bipartisan effort to protect taxpayers and demand accountability from the oil companies.
As President Obama points out, if oil companies don't pay for the damage they cause, taxpayers will be left on the hook. That's effectively a big oil bailout, allowing oil companies to enjoy unlimited profits while accepting only limited risk. It's what Sarah Palin might call big oil bailout socialism -- if she weren't a flaming hypocrite.
Obama's statement comes as Republicans once again filibustered Democratic efforts to move forward on raising the liability limits. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are rejecting a Republican counter-offer because they say it is doesn't hold oil companies accountable. Sam Stein outlines the GOP proposal:
On Monday, the Republican Party, led by Sens. David Vitter, R-La., Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. and Roger Wicker, R-Miss put out the first GOP counter-proposal. Under its design, a company responsible for a spill would have to pay either the last four quarters of its profits or double the current cap ($150 million) -- whichever one is greater -- to help with economic damages caused by the spill.
The GOP plan is absurd. On paper, it seems to establish a fairly high cap for companies like BP who have multi-billion dollar profits, it's completely arbitrary. Moreover, with all the accounting games one can play, you'd have to be crazy (or bought by big oil) to support something like this.
Harry Reid has come forward with the best plan of all: he wants to abolish the cap altogether.
Reid told reporters that a proposal pending before the Senate to lift the liability from the current $75 million to $10 billion is inadequate because the $10 billion figure is "too small." "We're told that the damage from the oil spill in the Gulf now is $14 billion already," Reid said, referring to the BP spill off the coast of Louisiana. "I'm for no cap."
In other news today, Democrats are continuing to push for accountability. Eight Senate Dems have joined together, calling for a criminal inquiry into BP's disaster. They feel BP may have knowingly misled the government about its ability to handle a disaster like the one unfolding int he Gulf.
The most important thing here is to get good legislation passed and to hold BP accountable, but let's not forget that there are political implications at stake.
Right now, Republicans are demonstrating what things would be like if they were returned to power. Democrats have their problem spots (see Landrieu, Mary), but the GOP is bought and paid for by big oil. There's no question we need change in DC, but we need change for the better -- and Republicans are once again proving they are incapable of delivering it. Democrats can, as long as they proceed with boldness and stay true to the mission of the Democratic Party: to represent the people.Before Shoojit Sircar’s Vicky Donor, |
trouble with Miss Powell again like you have the last three weeks in a row.
However, he’s not the friend you want around when you’re going to the park to drink cider and make out with the girls in your neighbourhood, because he will TOTALLY tell his mum, and then you would TOTALLY get busted and your Mega Drive would get consfiscated so you couldn’t play Shining Force for THREE WEEKS.
Thankfully he is MUCH more useful as a giant robot – say, for smashing his way into the Working Men’s Club down the road to steal cigarettes so you and your friends can look more dangerous when hanging around street corners. Thanks Piglett.
This is Rabbit. I honestly have no idea what to say bout this guy because, as you probably guessed, I have ZERO interest in the world of Winnie The Pooh. However, I am reliably informed by my work colleagues (who are wondering why the hell I’m doing this rather than my actual day job) that Rabbit is a ‘bit grumpy’.
Well of course he is. Still, those Rabbitey robo-curves ARE kind of hot. ALMOST SEXUALLY SO. Yes, he’s a man robot – BUT THAT HASN’T STOPPED ME BEFORE.
It always fascinated me how Christopher Robin never went out of his way to help Tigger. He clearly suffers from ADHD-style problems. Maybe dyspraxic? Possibly autistic – all perfectly manageable with the correct support framework and friends around him.
Christopher Robin is always portrayed as this great kid, this lovely little boy – but all of his friends are completely dysfunctional, and at no point does he seek professional help for any of them. Maybe tell a teacher or a trusted adult? Tigger would clearly benefit from freely available prescription medication and firm boundaries.
This laissez-faire attitude to his friend’s mental well-being is probably because he comes from a background of privilage and, frankly, doesn’t really give a shit about anyone other than himself.
Here he is look. Here he is with all of his so-called ‘friends’.Child abuse royal commission: Former Victorian wards of the state to appear at inquiry
Updated
The voices of Victoria's wards of the state will be heard at a highly anticipated two-week hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Melbourne.
The fourth public hearing of the inquiry in Victoria will examine three state-run institutions that operated between the 1960s and 1990s - Turana Youth Training Centre and Baltara Reception Centre in Parkville, and the Winlaton Youth Training Centre in Nunawading.
It is estimated tens of thousands of boys and girls may have passed through the gates and potentially into the hands of sexual predators.
Norman Latham will be one of the first to give evidence at the hearing.
The 69-year-old left primary school in year 4 and was later put into Turana.
He does not have any photographs of his childhood.
"I was only 14 at the time when the rapes first started," Mr Latham said of his alleged abuse at the hands of two staff members.
Mr Latham said he was threatened when he tried to speak up about his treatment.
After more than 50 years, police charged one of his alleged abusers and the case proceeded through the courts.
But the case was abandoned last year, just days away from the start of the trial.
Mr Latham said he was "devastated".
Instead, he will tell his story from the witness box at the royal commission.
"I'm looking forward to getting the story out there, getting his name out there," he said.
"Hopefully, other victims will come forward."
Time people received 'justice and fairness': Premier
Mr Latham said he hoped the hearing would produce new leads for the specialist child exploitation police taskforce, or "SANO".
He said his abuse in state care had followed him around for his entire adult life, and had become more difficult to bear since his wife passed away in 2006.
"The pressure would get to me that much I'd just go missing for three four five weeks at a time on alcohol," he said.
"Then I'd wake up and wonder where I was... then I'd do the same again."
Victoria's wards of the state were not included in the State Government's landmark Betrayal of Trust report released two years ago.
Premier Daniel Andrews said it was time their voices were heard.
"It's central to them getting justice and fairness and decency," he said.
"It's something they've been denied for far too long."
Wards of the state 'abandoned' by government
Leonie Sheedy of the victims and survivors' advocacy group CLAN (Care Leavers Australia Network) agreed.
"We were the children of the government," she said.
"The government has a lot to answer for.
"We got abandoned. A lot of our people have committed suicide, a lot of them live on the fringes of society and a lot of them will never speak out.
She said those excluded from the betrayal would be able to their say "at long last".
"The lack of care towards children who had no-one to turn to...our country needs to be ashamed of what happened to us."
The hearing is scheduled to run for two weeks.
Topics: royal-commissions, child-abuse, community-and-society, states-and-territories, sexual-offences, vic
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Need some extra cash? Then good news! Google is offering $1,000 to people who can hack popular Android apps. In a partnership with HackerOne and several popular Android developers, Google has launched the Google Play Security Program. The tech giant has offered similar bounty programs before, but this is the first time that it has partnered with individual developers. Currently, 13 of the most popular app developers are part of the program. The program includes Tinder, Duolingo, DropBox, Snapchat, Head Space, MyMail, and several others.
The rules for the program are fairly simple. Once you discover a bug or vulnerability in one of the participating apps, you simply report it to the developers and work with them to fix the issue. Once the issue has been resolved, the app developers will pay you, and then Google will chip in a $1,000 bonus on top of whatever you were already paid.
In addition, Gooogle will be collecting data and sharing it with other app developers in order to help them address similar issues. This does mean that the rewards will be handled on a first-come-first-serve basis. If multiple people discover a problem, Google will only reward the first person to submit the issue.
Currently, this program is only available to 13 app developers, but if it proves successful, Google may expand it to others.
Bug bounties such as this are nothing new and so-called “white hat” hackers can make a decent living working with tech companies to resolve security issues. Both tech and video games companies are offering rewards to those who are able to hack their services and hardware. Such programs provide a way for hackers to make a living while helping to keep people’s personal data safe.
One of the largest bug bounties was offered by Microsoft. In 2015, the company increased its bug bounty reward from $50,00 to $100,000. If you want to make similar money while still helping out Google, then you’ll be glad to know the company is offering $100,000 to those who can pull off a major Chromebook hack. The stipulation that the hacker pull off a “persistent compromise” of a Chromebook in guest mode.Taking his lead from Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who famously threw his shoes at George Bush last year, Jarnal Singh, a reporter with Dainik Jagran, a local newspaper, fired a shoe at home minister P Chidambaram in protest at the acquittal of a Congress leader accused of leading anti-Sikh riots in 1984.
The shoe narrowly missed the minister, who appeared briefly startled, before regaining his composure and asking guards to "Take him away, gently."
Mr Singh launched his attack in a fit of anger after the minister dismissed his interjections over the recent acquittal of senior Congress politician Jagdish Tytler, who had been accused of leading Hindu mobs in communal attacks on Sikhs following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. They had killed her in protest against her decision to order an Indian Army attack on Amritsar's Golden Temple, the centre of the Sikh faith.
More than 3,000 Sikhs, mainly in Delhi, were tortured and murdered in a four day confrontation in which mobs were allegedly directed to the homes of Sikhs selected from voters' lists by politicians.
Mr Chidambaram had just answered Mr Singh's question on the acquittal of Jagdish Tytler when the shoe was thrown. He had explained that the decision had been taken by the Central Bureau of Investigation, but that the court had not yet ruled on whether the investigation should continue.
A spokesman for the Hindu nationalist BJP said Mr Singh had been wrong to throw a shoe, but his actions reflected widespread anger in the Sikh community over the government's failure to bring those responsible to justice.
Mr Singh later defended his action. "How can he (Chidambaram) be happy when one community faces injustice? They were stopping me from talking. I don't think I have done the right thing but the issue called for it."Alan Pardew: Far from happy with his team
Pardew cancelled a planned day off for his squad after their latest defeat which saw them comfortably beaten 4-0 at home by Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday.
Pardew was far from happy after his side's defeat to Spurs - their first win on Tyneside for a decade.
"We're in at 9.45am," said Pardew.
"They had better get the message because they are going to get it loud and clear this week."
Because they are already out of the FA Cup, Newcastle do not have a game until February 23 when they face Aston Villa.
The North East club have lost three times in February alone without scoring a single goal and have conceded 10 in the process.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the Spurs defeat, Pardew thought his team were second best throughout.
He said: "The opposition completely dominated us almost from start to finish really and I felt that the team didn't look balanced or right.
"I will certainly have to make changes for the Aston Villa game and expect us to do better."
The home side were without the suspended Loic Remy but Pardew insisted that the Frenchman's absence had no bearing on the result.
He added: "Obviously Loic hasn't been available because of suspension but I don't think that had a major impact on tonight.
"We looked a little bit unsure at the back and nervous and for the first time for a long time we didn't look confident so I have got a bit of work to do.
"It's certainly a worry because of the manner of the defeat. We have got to have a lot more fight on the pitch for these fans."Bag sizes:
Small bag;
Is made to contain one 50 grams yarn ball with a set of circular needles. Ideal to knit socks or small projects. If you use DPN, they may stick out a little. This bag is perfect to put in you purse when your done, it is small. It's light on the arm, you don't even feel it. It makes the perfect gift for new knitters, sock knitters or even kids!
Medium bag;
It can contain 2 X 50 grams balls. Perfect for knitting a hat or scarf. It is versatile. You have enough space to put a project, the needles and a pattern. It is a good choice for a first bag. It's also a good size to bring on a trip or to use in a long car ride. It's not to small, and not to big.
Large bag;
You can put two chunky yarn balls and still have enough space to put a needle case and even those socks your knitting that are in the small bag... It is great for knitting a sweater, you will have enough space to put it in. Compared to the extra large, it's about 1" smaller on each side and bottom. It is made in the same way then the small and medium. Great for bigger projects, but remember, the more you put in, the heavier...
Extra Large bag;
This is the deluxe version. The only bag I make with pockets. It has one made of leather to put in small things or cell phone and on the opposite side, another pocket to put some notions. It's the only one that has darts on the bottom and is made to stand on it's own. It's the one shown in my shop picture at the top. If you are knitting a baby blanket, a chunky sweater and want to carry along your needle case, phone, car keys and diapers for your kid, this is the one to get!
All bags are designed and made by me.
I use high quality fabrics and my bags are made to last!In the wake of Angelina Jolie Pitt’s announcement that she had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed to reduce her risk of ovarian cancer doctors are urging women to proceed cautiously before following her example. She shared her story in an op–ed piece published in The New York Times on Tuesday.
The procedure makes sense for relatively few women, says Noah Kauff, director of Ovarian Cancer Screening and Prevention at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He and others say it is worth considering mainly for those who have inherited a particular genetic mutation known by their associated genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, particularly if they have a strong family history of breast or ovarian cancer. Jolie Pitt has both. She inherited the BRCA1 mutation, and her mother, grandmother and aunt all died of cancer.
The recent operation is her second surgery to avoid cancer. In May 2013 she reported that she had undergone a double mastectomy to prevent breast cancer. She had both the mastectomies and the newest procedure in part because BRCA1 elevates cancer risk substantially. For women with the mutation, the chance of developing breast cancer can be as high as 65 percent. In contrast, the risk for the general population is 12 percent, according to the National Cancer Institute. The mutation can also increase ovarian cancer risk to 39 percent whereas it is only 1.4 percent for the general population. BRCA2 gene mutations can increase risk similarly. BRCA genes code for tumor-suppressor proteins; when they have deleterious mutations, cancers can arise more readily.
But only 1 percent of women carry one of these mutations. For that reason, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends (pdf) that only women with a family history of cancer receive a genetic test for the mutations, which can cost several hundred to several thousand dollars depending on insurance coverage. Public health experts suggest that women consult their doctors to understand their personal risk. What they do not want to see is a repeat of what happened after Jolie had her mastectomies: Many women rushed out to get genetic tests and the procedure, when relatively few of them needed to do either. Three quarters of Americans knew of Jolie Pitt's story, a study found, but fewer than 10 percent could accurately identify how her risk compared with that of women without her mutation.
Some women, like Jolie Pitt, end up having to resort to extreme measures because waiting until ovarian cancer is detected can be too late. The disease does not have obvious symptoms and current detection methods do not work very well. Of the more than 21,000 women who are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every year, more than 14,000 die from it. Screening, through transvaginal ultrasonography and CA-125 protein testing (which Jolie Pitt says she received), is so unreliable that the task force even recommends against them unless women are at high risk. Meanwhile signs of the disease resemble symptoms that women commonly experience during menstruation or other less serious afflictions, such as stomach pain, vaginal bleeding, weight gain or loss, gas, nausea and a heavy feeling in the pelvis.
Credit: National Cancer Institute
For women with a BRCA mutation, preventative surgery can be a lifesaving solution. One study found that women with the mutation who had salpingo-oophorectomy—where the fallopian tubes and ovaries are removed—reduced their risk of getting ovarian cancer by 80 percent and their risk of getting breast cancer by half. Removing the ovaries reduces breast cancer risk as well because they secrete estrogen, which can promote the growth of breast cancer cells.
In a salpingo-oophorectomy (pdf) small incisions are made in the stomach, and a thin camera guides the removal of the ovaries and fallopian tubes with a surgical tool. The patient is under general anesthesia during the procedure and can make a full recovery within a couple weeks. Although the surgery itself is rather simple, its effects can be far-reaching. Removing the ovaries triggers menopause and all of the symptoms that come with it. For women under 45, removing the ovaries can also result in bone thinning and increased risk of heart disease because of reduced estrogen levels. Women who have the procedure often have to undergo hormone therapy to reduce these effects. And although having a salpingo-oophorectomy does reduce the risk of developing cancer, it does not remove it completely. Fortunately, nearly all insurance companies cover the full cost of risk-reducing surgery if doctors recommend it, Kauff says.
Other options to prevent ovarian cancer besides salpingo-oophorectomy include taking birth control pills, which can reduce the risk for all women by half after five years of use. Women could also have just the fallopian tubes removed and leave their ovaries, which Jolie Pitt mentioned in her article, in order to postpone menopause. Kauff says there is some evidence suggesting a proportion of ovarian cancers actually originate in cells from the fallopian tube, so just removing them could be an effective prevention strategy but there is not enough data to know for sure yet. Karen Lu, chair of the Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, says she considers removing only the fallopian tubes as an intermediary step to ward off menopause before later removing the ovaries, and recommends it only as part of a clinical trial.
Kauff says there is still some misinformation on the issues, such as the recommended timing of the surgery. (Jolie Pitt said 10 years before the age her mother was at diagnosis but doctors say it should occur by age 40 and when childbearing is complete.) He adds, however, that her announcement is helpful in encouraging more women to talk about cancer risk. "She is causing discussion of this issue," he says. "And then, hopefully, women will go to their gynecologists and say, 'What can we do to reduce risk? What can't we do to reduce risk?'"When a Loved One Says, "I'm Gay"
by Anita Worthen as told to Bob Davies
When my 16-year-old son Tony began staying out all night, I became very concerned. When I confronted him, we argued for several minutes, then he dropped the bombshell. "Well, you know I'm gay, don't you?"
My mind froze. Tony began filling the awkward silence with horrifying details. Three months before, he'd been hitchhiking home when a school guidance counselor had picked him up and seduced him. Now he accepted his "new" identity and was getting to know other homosexuals.
"Mom," he concluded, "I've found the man of my dreams. Everything's going to be all right now!"
In the days following, I was haunted by every mistake I had ever made as a mother. I had no knowledge at all of how to deal with this situation. After all, didn't God protect Christian families from the really big sins--like this one?
"Finding out about a gay child is agony," says Barbara Johnson. "It's almost like having a death in the family. But when someone dies you can bury that person and move on with your life. With homosexuality, the pain seems never-ending."
Life seems out of control. Suddenly you feel like you are talking to a stranger, as this unfamiliar aspect of your loved one's personality is revealed. The sense of betrayal can be devastating.
Typically, family members and friends go through days and weeks of deep grief and mourning. "I wished I was dead," recalled one father, "and I wished that my son was dead too." Stress-related symptoms may appear: nausea, migraines, sleeplessness. It's common to feel fear and even panic about others finding out.
Often, family members--especially parents--feel overwhelming guilt. "Where did we go wrong?" is a common question. Soon they are stuck in the "if only" syndrome: If only they had been a better parent... if only they had become a Christian earlier in life... if only they had lived their faith more consistently... this list is endless.
"I caused my child's homosexuality" is probably the biggest lie a parent must stand against. No one person has the power to cause another's homosexuality. At worst, a parent-child relationship may be one factor in a whole complex group of influences.
Despite media claims, homosexuality cannot be primarily genetic. If that were true, it would have disappeared long ago--most children are born to heterosexual parents. But Christian counselors who specialize in this area of ministry have seen common life patterns in their counselees.
Typically, men and women struggling with homosexuality have felt "different" from early childhood. This situation can lead, in turn, to peer rejection and name-calling like "sissy" and "fag." A majority of lesbians--and a significant number of gay men--have been victims of sexual abuse. In women, abuse can lead to a deep fear of men; in men, it can lead to profound confusion about their masculinity. These and other factors disrupt a person's security and sexual identity, and open the door to same-sex temptation. Once these temptations are acted upon, they grow only stronger--and typically lead to the assumption of a "gay" identity in adulthood.
Some people resolve their sense of guilt by revising their beliefs about homosexuality. Parents--even Christians--begin to question the biblical position that homosexual behavior is sin (see Lev. 18:22; Romans 1:24-27). But the Bible consistently forbids sexual activity outside of a lifelong heterosexual commitment. So
Dealing with the truth of my son's reasons for getting involved in homosexuality has been a great challenge for me. I made many mistakes as a young single mother. In my private times with God, I can release the hurt, guilt and sorrow. Then I experience His comfort.
Once I have confessed my past sins, forgiveness is a spiritual reality for me, whether or not I feel forgiven. Sometimes it takes our mind and emotions a long time to catch up to what has occurred in our spirit and soul.
After Tony's confession of homosexual involvement, I cried out to God, asking His forgiveness for all the things I had done wrong in the past. But I would leave my prayer time feeling heavy with condemnation. Then I read a precious Scripture in Micah 7:19, "You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl our iniquities into the depths of the sea." As I claimed this verse, I had an easier time putting my past behind me.
It's appropriate to let your rebellious loved one know that you hurt for them. Let them know why you think their choices are unhealthy. Let them know that you will always continue to love them. And let them know that you will be praying for them. In dealing with my son, I have learned the difference between acceptance--acknowledging what is true in his life--and approval, which means affirming his behavior as good and right.
Separate your loved one's personhood from his or her behavior. Many people involved in homosexuality push aggressively for acceptance of their immorality. "If you reject my homosexuality, you're rejecting me." This attitude is based on their inability (or unwillingness) to distinguish between who they are and what they do.
In deciding your actions in a particular situation (such as their desire to spend time in your home), it can be helpful to take homosexuality out of the picture for a moment. How would you respond if this person was a heterosexual who was pursuing sex outside of marriage?
Perhaps most important, let your loved one know that God can bring freedom from homosexuality. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, the Apostle Paul mentions those Christians in the church at Corinth who had been involved in homosexual sin. But they had ceased, and God had declared them clean and righteous in His sight. This is good news for men and women seeking change.
Here are some additional suggestions to cope with this devastating situation:
* Find your own support system. Don't bear this burden alone. Find others who can listen to you without judgment, then pray for you consistently.
* Seek insights on the past. Pray for the right timing and situation to ask your gay loved one about his or her childhood. Discussing the whole situation with other family members or a Christian counselor can bring additional insights.
* Learn about homosexuality. There are many Christian books to help you, such as Someone I Love is Gay by Anita Worthen and Bob Davies (InterVarsity Press). Understanding the underlying "root" emotional and spiritual issues will give you insights into your loved one's life.
* Resist false guilt. You cannot control your loved one's choices--only your reaction to their choices. You cannot be guilty for things over which you have no control. And you have no control over the moral choices of others.
Today, my son has AIDS. He has not yet turned away from a homosexual identity. I still experience deep sadness over my son's situation, but my joy and peace run even deeper. Because of painful experiences in my own life, I have been able to reach out with empathy to other people in deep pain. Does that make my pain worth it? No. But it has made my pain worthwhile.
I don't know what the future holds, but I know Who holds the future. For today, His grace is sufficient.
Anita Worthen is involved in ministry to family members and friends as a staff member at New Hope Ministries in San Rafael, Calif.
Bob Davies is the former executive director of Exodus International, North America in Seattle, Wash.
This material is adapted from the book, Someone I Love is Gay: How Family & Friends Can Respond by Anita Worthen and Bob Davies (published by InterVarsity Press, 1996; used by permission).
You can order this book on-line. Go to our Book Resources section for ordering information.We all know that Taylor Swift is a fab singer/ songwriter/ all-round person, but in our exclusive new video you can see that she makes a pretty fantastic host as she tries her hand at interviewing emerging artist, Alessia Cara.
In case you didn’t know, Taylor has been championing Alessia for quite some time, and even invited the singer to join her on stage at the Tampa, Florida date of her 1989 world tour, and after they went out in front of thousands and thousands of fans, they took the chance to have a little chinwag.
Thankfully, they had the foresight to film their chat as Taylor quizzes Alessia on everything from music to self-acceptance.
Needless to say, these two have quickly become our ultimate #SquadGoals
Keep an eye out for part two of the interview, which will be debuting tomorrow afternoon!Photo by Kate Gardiner via Flickr
In the wake of the massacre at Charleston's African Methodist Episcopal Church last month, gun rights advocates have been quick to seize the opportunity to evangelize on the merits of gun ownership, insisting that tragedy could have been avoided if only the victims had been carrying firearms during their Bible study that night.
"The one thing that would have at least ameliorated the horrible situation in Charleston would have been that if somebody in that prayer meeting had a conceal carry," Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee remarked in an interview just days after the attack. Charles Cotton, a board member for the National Rifle Association, went further, writing in an online discussion forum that South Carolina state senator Clementa Pickney, one of the nine victims who died in the attack on Emanuel A.M.E. Church, was directly responsible for the shooting because he had voted against concealed-carry legislation.
"Eight of his church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead," Cotton wrote. "Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue."
Comments like these have become familiar pablum in the wake of mass shootings, echoing the "more guns, less crime" theory that gun-rights activists have been pushing for decades. Following the 2012 rampage in Aurora, Colorado, for example, gun advocates like John Lott blamed the movie theater's "no-gun policy" for the massacre, insisting that the attack and others like it are further proof that there are too few guns in the US, rather than too many.
Evidence, however, suggests that mass shooters are not strategically targeting gun-free zones—and that rather than making us safer, gun ownership increases crime, while also making it much more lethal. In one recent study, public health experts from Boston Children's Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health found that states with higher levels of gun ownership have significantly higher rates of violent crime than those lowest levels of gun ownership, even after controlling for numerous demographic and social characteristics.
Another recent study, which examines the relationship between concealed-carry laws and violent crime, found that the rate of aggravated assault actually increased in areas where "right-to-carry" laws had been implemented, and that those laws did not correlate to a reduction in crime. This is in keeping with a tremendous amount of research that shows gun ownership increases the risk of homicide, suicide, and fatal accidents while providing negligible protective benefits from the "bad-guys-with-guns" that the gun lobby is perpetually warning against.
Curiously, another recent study, by political scientist David Fortunato of the University of California, Merced, shows that "bad guys" may not even be sensitive to the possibility of meeting armed resistance—a conclusion that suggests gun-rights advocates may be vastly overstating the deterrence benefit of carrying guns.
This seems to have been the case with Aurora shooter James Holmes, who left behind a personal journal detailing his plan of attack that contains no mention of the movie theater's status as a "gun-free zone." If Holmes had any fears about the possibility of facing a "good guy with a gun," he failed to note it over the course of 36 handwritten pages. In fact, Holmes seemed more concerned with finding an optimal parking spot than with the possibility that he might face resistance.
What the journal shows instead is how America's lax gun laws directly played into the hands of a psychopath who saw firearms as the easiest tool for carrying out mass murder. It shows that Holmes decided against using a bomb because the materials were "too regulated & suspicious" and saw guns as an easier option, making a note to research "gun laws and mental illness." In the end, he was able to purchase two handguns, a shotgun, an AR-15, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition—because in America, there is nothing suspicious about a man with a history of mental illness buying a small arsenal.
Watch Click, Print, Gun: The Inside Story of the 3D-Printed Gun Movement
Still, the myth that guns act as a defense and deterrent against violent criminals and mass murderers continues to dominate the gun policy debate in the US. While gun control supporters have mostly fallen silent since the Charleston shooting, the massacre—which occurred during Wednesday night Bible study at one of the South's most storied black churches—has energized gun supporters, igniting a nationwide push to arm pastors and churchgoers, and to loosen restrictions on carrying weapons in places of worship.
And as federal prosecutors decide whether to file hate-crime charges against the shooter— 21-year-old white supremacist Dylann Roof, whose manifesto lays out his plans to start a "race war"—some gun-rights advocates have argued that new gun control laws would disproportionately hurt black Americans and other minorities, claiming that similar laws have disproportionately targeted these communities and contributed to the already-massive racial disparities in the US prison system.
But these arguments also tend to ignore the devastating consequences that weak gun laws have had for minority communities. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, black Americans are twice as likely as whites to be victims of gun homicide. According to a report from the Center for American Progress, in 2010, 65 percent of gun murder victims between the ages of 15 and 24 were black, despite making up just 13 percent of the population. Gun homicide is also the leading cause of death for black teens in the US, a group that also suffers gun injuries 10 times more frequently than their white counterparts.
The numbers may help explain why an overwhelming majority of black Americans—75 percent according to a 2013 Washington Post/ABC News poll—support stronger gun control laws. Yet even in areas where local governments have enacted gun control measures, lax regulations elsewhere have sustained a robust network of unregulated private transactions that allow gun dealers to look the other way while supplying gangs and other criminals with a vast assortment of weapons.
This network leaves a place like Chicago, which remains crippled by violence despite relatively strict gun laws, hard-pressed to keep weapons off the street—as this New York Times map illustrates, anybody in the city who wants a gun need only take a short drive outside Cook County to get to a jurisdiction with much weaker regulations.
A similar situation has arisen in Maryland, which despite having some of the country's most stringent gun laws, has been plagued by violent crime in urban areas. Amid finger-pointing over the rioting that ravaged Baltimore earlier this year, it's worth pointing out that the majority of crime guns are trafficked in from outside the state. So while the gun policies Maryland has implemented—including a policy requiring individuals to pass a background check and obtain a permit prior to buying a firearm—have been shown to reliably reduce gun violence, neighboring states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia have much looser requirements, making it easy for weapons to flow across the border.
RELATED: Gun Control Will Not Save America from Racism
This haphazard patchworks of state and local gun laws has enabled many private gun dealers to effectively exploit gang violence and crime to boost sales. Chuck's Gun Shop, for example, which operates just outside Chicago, is responsible for selling at least 1,300 crime guns since 2008, and one study found that 20 percent of all guns used in Chicago crimes recovered within a year of purchase came from the store, because existing gun laws allow the store to sell firearms to criminals who would undoubtedly fail a background check if it were required.
The same is true for Realco, a Maryland gun shop on the outskirts of Washington, DC: Between 1992 and 2009, law enforcement agents from Maryland and DC traced 2,500 crime guns back to Realco, four times more than were traced to second most prolific crime-gun dealer in Maryland.
The disastrous effects of these policies has overwhelmingly been borne by minority communities. In Chicago, for example, 76 percent of murder victims between 1991 and 2011 were black, 19 percent were Hispanic, and just 4 percent were white. The cause of these deaths was overwhelmingly gun violence.
Across the country, the evidence suggests that weak gun laws not only play into the hands of mass murderers looking for the easiest way to commit atrocity, but also exacerbate the tragic, everyday violence that disproportionately cripples minority communities. The solution is not to pretend, as has become fashionable among gun advocates, that gun violence is simply the unavoidable cost our of constitutional freedoms, but to instead support commonsense policies of the sort implemented in nearly every other industrialized nation.
Evan DeFilippis and Devin Hughes are the founders of ArmedWithReason.com and writers for the gun violence magazine The Trace.Exclusive: Official Washington is in deep umbrage over Russia’s intervention in Ukraine after a U.S.-backed coup overthrew the democratically elected president. Some top neocons want a new Cold War, but they don’t want anyone to note their staggering hypocrisy, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Since World War II and extending well into the Twenty-first Century the United States has invaded or otherwise intervened in so many countries that it would be challenging to compile a complete list. Just last decade, there were full-scale U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, plus American bombing operations from Pakistan to Yemen to Libya.
So, what is one to make of Secretary of State John Kerry’s pronouncement that Russia’s military intervention in the Crimea section of Ukraine at the behest of the country’s deposed president is a violation of international law that the United States would never countenance?
Kerry decried the Russian intervention as “a Nineteenth Century act in the Twenty-first Century.” However, if memory serves, Sen. Kerry in 2002 voted along with most other members of the U.S. Congress to authorize President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was also part of the Twenty-first Century. And, Kerry is a member of the Obama administration, which like its Bush predecessor, has been sending drones into the national territory of other nations to blow up various “enemy combatants.”
Are Kerry and pretty much everyone else in Official Washington so lacking in self-awareness that they don’t realize that they are condemning actions by Russian President Vladimir Putin that are far less egregious than what they themselves have done?
If Putin is violating international law by sending Russian troops into the Crimea after a violent coup spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias ousted Ukraine’s democratically elected president and after he requested protection for the ethnic Russians living in the country’s south and east then why hasn’t the U.S. government turned over George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and indeed John Kerry to the International Criminal Court for their far more criminal invasion of Iraq?
In 2003, when the Bush-Cheney administration dispatched troops halfway around the world to invade Iraq under the false pretense of seizing its non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. touched off a devastating war that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and left their country a bitterly divided mess. But there has been virtually no accountability.
And, why haven’t many of the leading Washington journalists who pimped for those false WMD claims at least been fired from their prestigious jobs, if not also trundled off to The Hague for prosecution as propagandists for aggressive war?
Remarkably, many of these same “journalists” are propagandizing for more U.S. wars today, such as attacks on Syria and Iran, even as they demand harsh penalties for Russia over its intervention in the Crimea, which incidentally was an historic part of Russia dating back centuries.
The WPost’s Double Standards
A stunning example of the U.S. media’s double standards is the Washington Post’s editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt, who pushed for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 by treating the existence of Iraq’s non-existent WMD as “flat fact,” not an allegation in dispute. After the U.S. invasion and months of fruitless searching for the promised W |
to an address on Southeast Isabelita Avenue for a trespassing incident, an arrest affidavit states.
Deputies spied Gloria Havens, 60, in a long fur coat and a hospital gown “yelling in the street at (a woman) for refusing to allow her on the property,” an affidavit states.
Gloria Havens (Photo: CONTRIBUTED PHOTO BY MARTIN COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE)
Deputies told Havens repeatedly not to remove the coat “due to the hospital gown exposing her buttocks and vaginal region as the wind would blow the gown up.”
But Havens took off the coat anyway, evidently throwing caution to the wind.
According to the affidavit, a neighbor noticed Havens’s hindquarters and private area as Havens walked down the street.
It’s unclear whether Havens was having a second wind or breaking wind.
Deputies didn’t shoot the breeze with Havens.
Instead, they jailed the New Jersey woman on a breach of peace charge.
CLOSE Off the Beat with Will Greenlee is your stop for strange stuff on the Treasure Coast. Wochit
Read or Share this story: https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/blogs/off-the-beat/2017/10/26/bob-dylan-lyrics-may-give-answer-stuart-arrest/776094001/<!--[if gte mso 9]> 0 0 1 142 813 Metro Media Publishing 6 1 954 14.0 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-AU JA X-NONE <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <![endif]--><!--StartFragment-->Police are searching for a man believed to have sexually assaulted a 21-year-old passenger while on a bus between Ballarat and Melbourne earlier this month.
Victoria Police spokesman Leonie Johnson said the victim was on a bus that was replacing train services about 4.30pm on Saturday, December 3.
An image of a man who may be able to assist with police inquiries. Credit:Victoria Police
He told police when he got onto the bus, the offender moved seats so he was seated next to him before making inappropriate comments.
The offender then began touching him, he said.BRISBANE Roar players and staff remain in limbo ahead of Saturday’s deadline for wages to be paid.
Owners the Bakrie Group are desperately trying to sell the club to ensure debts are cleared and wage commitments are met.
However, time is all but up, with Football Federation Australia poised to take over the running of the Roar not for the first time since the inception of the A-League in 2005.
With this month’s payday falling on a Saturday, FFA will wait until at least Monday to allow any potential wage payments to be processed.
But with the Bakrie Group having reportedly told FFA officials it will not put another cent into the club, FFA will almost certainly soon be in control unless Roar chairman and Bakrie senior vice-president Chris Fong – who has been in France negotiating with mooted investors – manages to sell the club in the next few days.
Professional Footballers Australia is closely monitoring the situation and remain deeply concerned by the club’s failure to pay superannuation and players being forced to contribute to injury-related medical bills under the previous administration.
Having last week been cautiously optimistic that the Roar would pay this month’s wages on time, PFA officials were on Thursday night fearing the worst.
Should wages not be paid, the Roar could also be in danger of losing contracted playing talent under FIFA regulations.
The Roar squad will train on Friday ahead of Wednesday night’s trial against A-League champions Melbourne Victory at Southport.
The John Aloisi-coached Brisbane were this week knocked out of the FFA Cup by Western Sydney Wanderers, losing 1-0 in Penrith.An Air France flight bound for Los Angeles from Paris made an emergency landing in Canada on Saturday after one of the jumbo jet’s four engines exploded in midair, passengers said.
Passengers aboard the double-decker Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger airliner, described hearing a loud noise about five hours into the flight. The plane, which had just crossed the southern tip of Greenland, vibrated for several minutes.
(ERIC PIERMONT / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
About two hours later, the plane landed at Goose Bay Airport in Labrador, on the far northeast edge of Canada.
Photographs and videos shared by passengers on social media showed tattered metal surrounding the exposed interior of an engine, its white covering blown away. One fragment, dangling from the main body of the engine, bobbed in the wind.
Article Continued Below
Air France said in a statement that the engine had suffered “serious damage” but that the plane landed safely. “The regularly trained pilots and cabin crew handled this serious incident perfectly,” the statement said.
The company did not address a possible cause for what happened.
A passenger, John Birkhead, said he and his wife had just stood up to stretch when they heard the explosion.
“We were just stretching and talking, and suddenly there was an enormous bang, and the whole plane shook,” said Birkhead, 59, who was returning home to California after a two-week vacation. “We were lucky we weren’t tossed to the ground.”
Sarah Eamigh, another passenger, said she had been dozing when she felt her stomach plunge as the plane momentarily dropped, then lurched back up.
Eamigh, 37, who was returning from a business trip, described the sensation that followed as a pervasive humming feeling, entirely unlike the side-to-side motion of turbulence.
“Of course, we were all anxious,” she said. “We had a quick drop, and that obviously made someone yell, and we were white-knuckling our chairs.” The cabin remained relatively calm, she said.
Pamela Adams, a travel writer and family therapist from southern California, said she and her husband were on their way home from a trip in France, when six hours into the flight, they got up in the aisle to stretch their limbs.
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“We heard this tremendous bang. It was like the plane hit a Jeep at 35,000 feet,” Adams said in a phone interview. “It was a whiplash moment. We grabbed onto something and then we sat down, and the plane righted itself fairly soon.”
Passengers nervously joked to one another as they tried to make sense of the commotion, Adams said. She figured the plane had struck a bird, but then, it became clear that the situation was more “dramatic.”
The pilot came on over the loudspeaker and said the plane had “lost” one of its engines and would be attempting to land in Canada, said Adams.
About 20 minutes after the disturbance, the captain, whom Eamigh described as sounding shaken, announced that an engine had exploded.
Several hours after landing at Goose Bay Airport, passengers were just getting off the plane.
Birkhead said he had heard the reason for the delay was that the small airport — which is home to three air carriers, a coffee shop, a gift shop and three car rental agencies — was not prepared to accommodate the number of passengers on a jet the size of an A380. (Even the world’s biggest airport, in Atlanta, has had trouble accommodating planes of that model.)
“Nobody’s told us why, but the speculation is they’ve got nowhere to put 500-plus people — that’s probably the whole population of Goose Bay,” he said in an interview.
Air France said it was working to reroute passengers through one of its connecting sites in North America.
Eamigh said she was content, for the time being, on the tarmac.
“You make friends in a situation like this,” she said.
She added, with a laugh: “It looks pretty cold outside, so we’re actually OK here.”
With files from The Canadian PressChinese journalists were not allowed into the Kennedy Space Center for the May 16th space-shuttle launch as the result of a little-noticed provision in the federal budget approved by Congress in April.
Ironically, Chinese scientists were responsible for building key parts of the Endeavor's $2 billion payload, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.
A spokesperson for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration told ScienceInsider that the agency was simply following instructions in last month's spending bill, which prohibited NASA from using any resources to host Chinese officials at any NASA facility.
The Chinese journalists were considered government employees and thus subject to the ban because they worked for an official Chinese news agency, Xinhua.
An editorial on Wednesday in China Daily attacked the policy as insulting and counterproductive:
China's scientists have played a crucial role in designing and manufacturing some core parts of the device. However, Chinese journalists who hoped to cover the launching of Endeavor were denied entry to the site by a ban initiated by Frank Wolf, chairman of the Committee of Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies in the House of Representatives. The United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) revoked the media passes granted to journalists from China due to the ban, or the 'Wolf Clause', which was regarded as 'discriminative' by even Americans themselves.
The ban -- also known as the 'Wolf clause' because it was sponsored by Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) -- also prohibits scientific collaboration between Chinese and U.S. scientists. For a more detailed history of the ban, please read a previous my previous post on the issue here.A Wyoming woman who lost her husband of 28 years to brain cancer last year was shocked to receive a special gift from him this Valentine's Day.
Shelly and Jim Golay of Casper, Wyoming, met at church in 1984. They had a "fairy tale romance" and even went to Disneyland in California for their honeymoon, Shelly Golay told ABC News today.
Her husband was "very much a family man," Golay, 52, said, adding that they have two children, now 27 and 25.
The family has owned Rocky Mountain Industrial Supply, an industrial and safety distribution company, since 2007.
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"Jim was just an amazing man. Everybody that ever met him loved him. He was always just my rock. And the whole family's rock. And he just had this unwavering faith that was just inspiring. Always had a positive attitude," Golay added.
Jim was diagnosed with brain cancer on Easter 2012.
"Had a strength that was just contagious. He was tough as nails," Golay said. "When he went through his chemo, he didn't look like a chemo patient, didn't act like a chemo patient."
In February 2014, they learned the cancer was inoperable. Jim was given four months to live and he died in June 2014 at age 53.
"They usually give you 12 months to live and he lived 26 months," Golay said. "That was just a blessing."
This Valentine's Day, eight months after Jim's death, Golay says she received flowers with a card that read, "Happy Valentine's Day Honey. Stay Strong! Yours Forever Love Jim."
"My first thought was my kids gave it to me," Golay said.
But when she asked her son and daughter, they both denied sending the gift.
Golay spoke with a co-worker, who suggested the flowers may have been from Jim. When Golay looked on the back of the card, she found her husband's cellphone number. "That was very emotional," she said. "I knew it was him."
"I went back to my son and said, 'You have to call the flower shop and confirm Dad sent these. I'm too emotional.' Sure enough, he had come in that last Valentine's Day and had said, 'Just send her flowers for the rest of her life.'"
Their daughter, Ashley Wisroth, was at the grocery store when she found out who the flowers were from, and "just started bawling," she told ABC News today.
"I was so excited to know he had done something so sweet. It was just like my dad to do something like that. At the same time, it was bittersweet, because we knew in order for him to set something like that up, he must have known at one point he wasn't going to make it."
Golay said the flowers "means to me that his love never ends."
"He set up such an amazing gift for me to receive that," Golay said. "That act of love to me is just true love in its purest form."MIAMI — Latino leaders believe the party's November reckoning should have serious consequences — starting, for two dozen of them, with Chairman Reince Priebus's resignation.
Ahead of the final debate in Las Vegas next week, prominent Republican Latinos will meet at the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino. That meeting will officially be about charting a way forward for Republicans and Hispanics after what they expect will be Election Day carnage caused by Donald Trump, but there's another major item on the agenda.
"We're calling for the head of Reince Priebus," said Artemio Muniz, chair of the Texas Federation of Hispanic Republicans, and one of the organizers of the conclave. "Someone has to pay for the death of Santino, like in the Godfather."
In interviews, the Republicans said they feel "betrayed" by Priebus, who in meetings after the much ballyhooed but ultimately abandoned Growth and Opportunity Project in 2012, said he would be an ally in accomplishing immigration legislation.
"Reince told us he would call out whoever used extreme rhetoric on immigration, of course we feel betrayed," Muniz said.
The line the Latino conservatives repeated as their argument for Priebus's failures is that while Trump calls for "extreme vetting" of immigrants, the party was unable or unwilling to vet a candidate whose candidacy is in danger of falling apart after a damaging video was released that showed him bragging about forcibly kissing women and sexually assaulting them.
A new NBC News–WSJ poll, the first major poll released after the tape, showed Trump behind Clinton a whopping 11 points, after the race had previously tightened.
The group, whose members hail from 10 states including Texas, Colorado, California, New Mexico, and Nevada, will also discuss the creation of Project 44, an effort to embrace the inclusive values and policies that helped George W. Bush win 44% of the Latino vote.
The nascent initiative is seen as a repudiation of the traditional way the party has engaged Latinos, with members of the group arguing that outreach has been very superficial, focused on elections, and not breaking through to local communities.
"Too many Hispanics are doing piñata politics," said Alfonso Aguilar, who briefly endorsed Trump before abandoning him after his speech on illegal immigration in Arizona and will attend the meeting. "Here's the mariachi, here’s the candidate, 'Yeah, viva Bush!' We need more substantive conversations."
The group says they want to work more closely with donors to educate them on where their resources are going when it comes to reaching Hispanics but much of it, ultimately, will come down to securing a "reasonable solution to immigration and understanding that mass deportation is not an answer," Muniz said.
The conversation will undoubtedly have its awkward moments, with current and former members of Trump's floundering Hispanic advisory council at the meeting.
One of the former members, Jacob Monty, who was at the center of some controversy after he said Trump had indicated openness to some form of legalization for undocumented immigrants, also left after the Phoenix speech and is one of the organizers of the Vegas confab.
When Stephen Miller, with the Trump campaign, told the New York Times that the council, created by the RNC, was stocked with some "professional amnesty lobbyists," Monty hit back saying that he has been a Republican longer and donated more to the party.
Monty stressed that this group is not calling for amnesty — he said he believes in vetting immigrants — and that his message to the party is that doing nothing is effectively amnesty.
He too called for Priebus's dismissal, also in colorful terms. ("If we were in Japan after a debacle like this, he would have to go and do something to himself.")
The group is ready for criticism from the left in an effort to work on a conservative solution to fixing immigration issue, Monty said, suggesting an ID card for immigrants so the government knows who they are.
"In an era where people are blowing backpacks up, having an ID card is not crazy," he said, alluding to homegrown terror threats.
The immigration solution is tied to the third idea the group will discuss, which is the prospect of circulating an "immigration pledge" for congressional members to sign.
With the transition to the new administration coming after the election and as a former federal appointee by George W. Bush, Monty said Latino conservatives are in danger of being shut out for too long.
"That’s the reason why we’re calling for the meeting now, what we’re going to miss is a whole generation of political appointees," he said. "We've been gone for 8 years, now it's going to be 12, so the next generation of Latino Republican political leaders, we've lost them."
Still, the group will face difficulty garnering support for their plans, with a post-Trump Republican Party deciding how much of his nativist and restrictionist ideas it wants to incorporate.
Ruth Guerra, the RNC's former Hispanic media director who left to work on down-ballot races for the Congressional Leadership Fund partly because of discomfort in helping to elect Trump, said targeting Priebus would be unwise.
“I think that it would be a mistake to criticize and to place the blame on someone who has made the unprecedented effort of having Hispanic staff working in Hispanic communities across the country and on a year-round basis," she said. "It’s not something that’s easy, it’s not something that’s cheap, but he knows it’s important."
But Aguilar said that while the status of Priebus is an issue that will be discussed, no decisions have been made.
He wants Hispanic Republicans to be brought into the fold and listened to as the party decides the direction it wants to go in — beyond immigration. He doesn't want to water down its conservative message and become the "Democratic Party lite," nor does he side with some on the right "that just think immigration is bad for the country."
So why should the party listen to a group of Latino leaders that are starting trouble and being critical of the party? It's a matter of surviving, Aguilar argued.
"The danger is that we don’t have a winning coalition, it’s as simple as that," he said, calling Hispanics today’s Reagan Democrats. While immigration may not be the most important issue to Latinos, it's a gateway issue, he added.
"We have to be constructive — if we’re able to address immigration in a constructive way we can become competitive with Hispanics and bring them into the fold," he said, but recalled former California Governor Pete Wilson, whose anti-immigrant policies are credited with turning the state's Latinos against Republicans for good.
"What’s happening right now doesn’t need to be permanent," Aguilar warned.Leipzig
Als der Stargast Björn Höcke den Saal auf der Alten Messe in Leipzig am Sonnabend betritt, bricht minutenlanger Jubel los. Als "die Stimme Deutschlands" hat Compact-Konferenz-Moderatorin Leyla Bilge den thüringischen AfD-Chef bezeichnet. Höcke fühlt sich sichtlich wohl im Ambiente des Eventpalasts mit seinen roten Samtvorhängen, Muschelkalk-Säulen, Kronleuchtern und goldgerahmten Spiegeln. "Wie im römischen Senat" komme ihm der Saal vor. Andere denken eher an das Ambiente eines Edelpuffs.
Björn Höcke lobt Wagenknecht und Lafontaine bei Compact-Konferenz in Leipzig
Höckes einstündige Rede vor gut 250 Anhängern ist rhetorisch brillant, streckenweise erschreckend - und in viele Richtungen interpretierbar. Ausführlich bewirbt Höcke die AfD als "Partei des kleinen Mannes", als "neue Arbeiterbewegung" und dockt an alten antisemitischen und verschwörungstheoretischen Klischees an. "Die Letztverantwortlichen" seien eine kleine Gruppe, die die multinationalen Konzerne leiteten. Höcke spricht von "Globalisteny" und "globalem Finanzkapital", die "Funktionseliten" wie Politik und Medien seien nur "deren Büttel". Der Saal tobt. Er lobt Sahra Wagenknecht und Oskar Lafontaine und rät Ihnen zur Gründung einer nationalistischen linken Partei.
ZPS ist stolz auf Höckes Empörung über Kunstaktion
Höcke wendet sich in seiner Rede auch in Rachephantasien gegen den Leiter des Zentrums für politische Schönheit (ZPS), Philipp Ruch. "Natürlich könnten wir Gleiches mit Gleichem vergelten. Wir haben die Mittel, auch ihn und seine Familie zu observieren. Wir könnten sofort damit beginnen", sagt er unter Beifall. "Aber das ist etwas, was wir nicht tun dürfen", ergänzte er dann.
Das ZPS hat kündigt unterdessen an, nicht mehr auf einem Kniefall Höckes vor dem Mahnmal-Nachbau zu bestehen und stattdessen bald belastendes Material zu veröffentlichen. "Unverbesserliche können wir auch nicht ändern." Gegen die Bezeichnung des ZPS als "Terroristen" will Ruch nicht juristisch vorgehen. "Wir werden damit werben. Wenn Höcke uns für eine terroristische Vereinigung hält, haben wir alles richtig gemacht. Das ist ein Gütesiegel", teilt Ruch dem RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND) mit.
Höckes Rede: Schulterschluss der AfD mit Pegida und den Identitären
Die AfD müsse Bewegungspartei bleiben, sagt Höcke, Kern einer "breiten Bewegung zur Rettung Deutschlands" sein. "Wir sind vielfältig und bunt, das Establishment ist einfältig und grau", sagt Höcke. Dann zitiert er sogar die Mao-Losung "Lasst tausend Blumen blühen".
Höcke zeigt sich so in mehrere Richtungen anschlussfähig. Seine Rede ist sowohl der endgültige Schulterschluss mit den Protest- und Aktionsgruppen des rechtsextremen Spektrums wie Pegida und den Identitären. Deren Anführer Lutz Bachmann und Martin Sellner sprechen nach Höcke. Es könnte aber auch eine Bewerbung für den Bundesvorstand der AfD sein - in einer Woche ist Parteitag in Hannover. Sucht Höcke hier gleichzeitig den Schulterschluss zu den Konservativen in der AfD, die ihn bisher noch verhindern wollen?
jps/RNDWASHINGTON (Reuters) - New applications for U.S. unemployment benefits hit a seven-year low last week while consumer prices recorded their largest increase in 10 months in April, pointing to a firming economy.
A man grabs his briefcase as he waits in line to speak with employers at the UJA-Federation Connect to Care job fair in New York, March 21, 2012. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
Factory activity in New York state expanded at its quickest pace in nearly four years in May, but the otherwise bright growth picture was dimmed by another report on Thursday showing a surprise slump in industrial output last month.
“It’s still consistent with the view that the economy is going to show stronger growth in the second quarter. The underlying momentum is improving but it’s not definitive,” said Josh Feinman, chief global economist at Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management in New York.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits declined 24,000 to a seasonally adjusted 297,000 last week, the Labor Department said. It was the lowest reading since May 2007 and suggested a recent pick-up in job growth could be sustained.
In a second report, the department said the Consumer Price Index increased 0.3 percent last month as food prices rose for a fourth consecutive month and the cost of gasoline surged.
It was the biggest rise since June last year and added to March’s 0.2 percent rise.
The combination of a strengthening jobs market and an uptick in inflation pressures should comfort the Federal Reserve as it scales back its monetary stimulus. However, it did not alter views the U.S. central bank will wait until at least the middle of 2015 before raising overnight interest rates from near zero.
The data failed to lift the spirits of U.S. stock investors, who focused on unexpectedly weaker earnings from Wal-Mart Stores Inc.. The dollar hit an 11-week high against the euro. Prices for U.S. government debt rose.
INFLATION STIRRING
In the 12 months through April, consumer prices rose 2.0 percent after gaining 1.5 percent in March. The increase was the
biggest since July last year and in part reflected prices coming off last year’s low base when energy costs decreased.
Stripping out food and energy prices, the so-called core CPI rose 0.2 percent after advancing by the same margin in March. In the 12 months through April, the core CPI increased 1.8 percent, the biggest gain since August last year.
“By no means does the U.S. have an inflation problem in the traditional sense, but it doesn’t feel as though ‘lowflation’ is dogging the economy either,” said Michael Feroli, an economist at JPMorgan in New York.
The Fed targets 2 percent inflation, but it tracks an index that is running even lower than the CPI. Policymakers have worried that inflation is too low.
As for initial jobless claims, they have been volatile in recent weeks because of difficulties adjusting the data around the Easter and Passover holidays and school spring breaks.
The labor market is strengthening after wobbling in December and January because of an icy-cold winter, and economists expect a quickened pace of hiring to boost economic growth.
Growth braked sharply to a 0.1 percent annual rate in the first quarter as a very cold winter and businesses ordering fewer goods weighed on output. Second-quarter growth is forecast to top a 3 percent rate.
In a separate report, the Fed said output at the nation’s mines, factories and utilities fell 0.6 percent in April after advancing 0.9 percent in March. It was the biggest drop since August 2012.
Related Coverage Foreign demand for U.S. Treasuries falls but Belgium strong buyer
The decline reflected a decrease in factory production after two healthy monthly gains, and a plunge in utilities output as demand for heating moved back toward normal levels.
Better times may be ahead, however. A gauge of factory activity in New York state compiled by the New York Federal Reserve Bank jumped to 19.01 this month, the strongest reading since June 2010, as new orders surged. It was at 1.29 in April.
While manufacturing activity in the mid-Atlantic region slowed a bit in May, firms were upbeat about the outlook for the next six months, a report by the Philadelphia Fed showed.Over the past 2 decades, dozens of studies have explored the relationship between exposure to economics and antisocial behavior. With a few exceptions, these studies find the economists and economics students are more likely to exhibit a range of “debased” moral behavior and attitudes, both in the controlled environment of the laboratory and in the outside world. This article presents a review of these studies. It draws on the various studies to address the question of whether the found differences are due to a selection effect—that is, those with antisocial tendencies tend to study economics—or an indoctrination effect whereby exposure to economic theory causes antisocial behavior. The article suggests there is evidence that both effects play a role in explaining the debased behavior of economists and students of economics.
Introduction Neoclassical economics has been criticized for being unrealistic, generating poor predictions, and engendering flawed public policies. This article examines a fourth charge: that teaching the subject has a morals‐debasing effect. The charge holds that neoclassical economics’ focus on self‐interest, pleasure, and, hence, consumer goods—what critics refer to as its hedonism and materialism—renders those influenced by its teachings less moral and more antisocial. This issue has been particularly relevant in recent years, when a societal focus on individualism and deregulation are said to have contributed to the near‐global financial and economic crisis that has led hundreds of millions of people—across the world—to lose their jobs, homes, and lifelong savings.1
Typical findings One of the first experiments to test the “debasement” hypothesis is one conducted by Marwell and Ames (1981). In this study, the social scientists designed a prisoner's dilemma–type game where participants were given an allotment of tokens to divide between a return‐generating private account and a public fund. If every player invested all of their tokens in the public fund, they would all end up with a greater return than if they had all put their money into their respective private accounts. However, if a player defected and invested in the private account while the other players invested in the public fund, s/he would gain an even larger return. In this way, the game was designed to promote free‐riding: the socially optimal behavior would be to contribute to the public fund, but, with respect to economic theory, the dominant strategy would be to defect. Marwell and Ames found that most subjects divided their tokens nearly equally between the public and private accounts. Economics students, by contrast, invested only 20% of their tokens in the public fund, on average. This tendency toward free‐riding was accompanied by a divergence between the moral views of the economists and noneconomists. While three‐quarters of noneconomists reported that a “fair” investment of tokens would necessitate putting at least half of their tokens in the public fund (with 25% reporting that only putting all of the tokens in the public fund would qualify), over one‐third of economists didn't answer the question or gave “complex, uncodable responses” (Marwell and Ames 2001:309). The remaining economics students were much more likely than their noneconomist peers to say that “little or no contribution was ‘fair,’” or to indicate that notions of fairness did not influence their decisions (Marwell and Ames 2001:309). Following Marwell and Ames, a broad range of studies have found economics students to exhibit a stronger tendency toward antisocial behaviors relative to their peers. For example, Carter and Irons (1991) had both economics students and noneconomics students play the “ultimatum” game—a two‐player game where one player is given a sum of money to divide between the two. The other player is then given a chance to accept or reject the offer; if s/he accepts it, then each player receives the portion of money proposed by the offerer; if s/he declines, then neither player gets any money. Carter and Irons found that relative to noneconomics students, economics students were much more likely to offer their partners small sums, and, thus, deviate from a “fair” 50/50 spilt. Similarly, Frank, Gilovich, and Regan (1993) found that economics majors were significantly more likely than their peers to defect in a standard prisoner's dilemma game—with a much higher proportion of economics students justifying their choice simply in terms of the rules of the game rather than via appeal to notions like “fairness.” Furthermore, these social scientists found that such antisocial behavior persists outside of the laboratory: they conducted a survey revealing that economics professors were both twice as likely to give no money to charity than were their peers and were “among the least generous in terms of their median gifts to large charities” (Frank et al. 1993:162).2 Finally, these researchers had both economics and noneconomics students fill out two “honesty surveys”—one at the start of the semester and one at the conclusion—regarding how likely they were to either report being undercharged for a purchase or return found money to its owner. The authors found that after taking an economics class, students’ responses to the end‐of‐semester survey were more likely to reflect a decline in reported honest behavior than students who studied astronomy. While 23.3% of exiting astronomy students were recorded as being less likely to report a billing error where they were undercharged, 38.25% of exiting economics students were recorded as being less honest in this respect. And while 10% of astronomy students recorded less‐honest responses regarding whether they would return found money, 27.2% of economics students reported that they were less likely to return the money than they were at the start of the semester (Frank et al.1993:169).3 Other studies supported these key findings. Frey, Pommerehne, and Gygi (1993) report that economics students are less likely to consider a vendor who increases the price of bottled water on a hot day to be acting “unfairly.” Cadsby and Maynes (1998) find that economics and business students are more prone to defect, even in games that have been tweaked to create an efficient equilibrium that can be reached by cooperating. Selten and Ockenfels (1998) find that economics students who played a lottery game were willing to commit less of their potential winnings to fund a consolation prize for losers than were their peers. Frank and Schulze (2000) find that economics students were significantly more corruptible in that they were more likely to accept bribes than other students. A survey conducted by Gandal, Roccas, Sagiv, and Wrzesniewski (2005) find that economics students valued personal achievement and power more than their peers while attributing less importance to social justice and equality. Rubinstein (2006) reports that economics students were much more likely to favor profit maximization over promoting the welfare of workers when faced with a business dilemma. Faravelli (2007) finds that economics students were significantly less likely to favor egalitarian solutions to problems than their peers outside of economics. Haucap and Just (2010) find that a survey of economists revealed they were more likely than their peers to consider the allocation of scarce resources in accordance with who can afford to pay the price set by supply and demand to be a fair method of rationing and distributing resources. And Bauman and Rose (2011) report that economics majors are less likely to donate to local social programs.
Selection effect? One may ask whether studying economics is a cause of moral debasement. The findings cited so far could reflect not an indoctrination effect of teaching economics, but rather, a selection effect whereby students prone to immoral behavior are more likely to choose to study economics than more moral students. Carter and Irons (1991:174), for example, note that selfish behavior exhibited in the ultimatum game was already present in entering economics first years, contending that “economists are born, not made.” The general consensus among researchers is that if there is an indoctrination effect, it ought to manifest itself in the form of students with greater exposure to economics expressing more pronounced antisocial behavior. Frey et al. (1993) note no difference in evaluations of the fairness of a price increase between beginner and advanced economics students, thus endorsing the selection hypothesis. Frank and Schulze (2000) find that older and younger economics students are equally corruptible, suggesting a selection effect rather than indoctrination. And Gandal et al. (2005:1237) find that entering economics students’ tendency to endorse more self‐interested normative values did not intensify after completing a year of economics education—findings that provide “support for a self‐selection process.” In contrast, a set of other studies do find evidence of an indoctrination effect. Frank et al. (1993) report that, while defection—that is, playing a “dominant” strategy that will leave a player better off independent of his or her opponent's strategy but, if chosen by both players, will leave him or her worse off than if both had chosen a different strategy—by noneconomics students in the prisoner's dilemma game steadily declines with education, the rate of defection for economics students remains constant. More convincing is the researchers’ analysis regarding how honesty surveys reveal an indoctrination effect. Their study compared the percentage of students who expressed more “dishonest” attitudes after exiting an economics course with the percentage of astronomy students who exhibited a similar moral slide—their finding being that economics students were significantly more likely to experience such moral decline. More importantly, however, the researchers also compared the results from the students of two different economics classes. One class was taught by a professor who focused upon game theory and prisoner's dilemmas with an emphasis on “how survival imperative often militate against cooperation.” The other was taught by a professor who did not focus on these topics. The result? Although the entering economics students for both classes reported similar levels of dishonesty scores at the start of the class, but by the end, those in the class with a focus on game theory reported significantly higher levels of dishonesty scores than their peers. Such results show that it is not just selection that is responsible for the reported increase in immoral attitudes. Later studies support this conclusion. Faravelli (2007) finds that there are measurable ideological differences between lower‐level economics students and upper‐level economics students that are similar in kind to the measured differences between the ideology of economics students as a whole and their peers. He finds that upper‐level students are even less likely to support egalitarian solutions to distribution problems than lower‐level students, suggesting that time spent studying economics does have an indoctrination effect. Finally, Bauman and Rose (2011) compare donations to social programs over time relative to exposure to economics and find a combination of selection and indoctrination effects: while senior economics and younger majors who had taken far fewer classes were equally unlikely to give money to social causes—suggesting selection rather than indoctrination is to blame—nonmajors who were exposed to economics were less likely to donate money than their peers who did not take economics courses. This suggests that, although those drawn to economics already have more “debased” orientation compared to their peers, exposure to economics adds a debasing effect.
Qualifications It should be noted that the debasing effect is often significant but far from total. |
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Further reading [ edit ]Stephen Carrie Blumberg (born St. Paul, Minnesota) is best known as a bibliomane who lived in Ottumwa, Iowa. After being arrested for stealing more than 23,600 books worth USD $5.3 million in 1990, he became known as the Book Bandit and was recognized as the most successful book thief in the history of the United States.[1]
Early life [ edit ]
Blumberg lived on a $72,000 annual family trust fund. His compulsion to collect books developed in childhood when he became interested in many of the beautiful, but run-down Victorian homes in St. Paul he walked past on his way to school. Blumberg began removing doorknobs and stained glass windows from the old houses that were slated for destruction as part of a revitalization project in St. Paul. Blumberg amassed hundreds of these items during the course of his collecting years in addition to the books. His initial interest in Victorian architecture brought him into the rare-books stacks at the University of Minnesota. Blumberg initially took items as a way to create a reference collection for his own use.[1][2]
Arrest and trial [ edit ]
At 2:00 a.m. on March 20, 1990 Stephen Blumberg was arrested for stealing more than 23,600 rare, valuable and assorted other books from 268 or more universities and museums in 45 states, 2 Canadian provinces, and Washington, D.C. Their value was placed at about $20 million, but was later changed to $5.3 million, the largest book theft in US history. In 1991, Blumberg was found guilty and sentenced to 71 months in prison with a $200,000 fine. On December 29, 1995, he was released from prison. The collection has been referred to as the "Blumberg Collection." The Rare Books and Manuscripts division of the Association of College and Research Libraries as well as Library Security expert William Andrew Moffett helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation to capture and convict Stephen Blumberg and identify the rare items he had stolen.[1][2][3]
Blumberg's arrest came as a result of his "friend" Kenneth J. Rhodes turning him in for a $56,000 bounty he negotiated with the Justice Department. Rhodes and Blumberg had known each other since the mid-1970s. A known criminal, Rhodes accompanied Blumberg on several of his "road trip" collecting sprees.[1][2]
During Blumberg's 1991 trial, Dr. William S. Logan, director of the Law and Psychiatry Department at the Menninger Clinic and a nationally recognized authority on forensic psychiatry, revealed that Blumberg had undergone psychiatric treatment for schizophrenic delusions and tendencies. He was hospitalized numerous times during his adolescence where twelve psychiatrists diagnosed him variously as schizophrenic, delusional, paranoid, or compulsive. Dr. Logan also revealed that a history of psychiatric illness was in Blumberg’s family.
Dr. Logan reported during the trial that Blumberg’s thought was to preserve or rescue the materials he stole from what he believed was destruction. Blumberg believed that the government was plotting to keep the ordinary person from having access to rare books and unique materials, and so sought to liberate and release them in an attempt to thwart the government plot. Blumberg admitted that he saw himself as a custodian of the things he took.[1] He said he would never sell them because he thought that would be dishonest. He envisioned the items would be returned to the rightful owners after his death, or at least to another repository that could care for them. Despite these findings, Blumberg was convicted in 1991 as guilty, without reason of insanity. After serving a 4½-year sentence, Blumberg was released and continued his collecting and stealing habits.[1][2]
Upon meeting Blumberg in the FBI's stacks after his arrest, John L. Sharpe III from Duke University's library commented about his brief conversation with Blumberg that,
"What I felt...was that we in libraries have to operate on a trust system every time we bring a book to someone's table. This is what I think is so sinister about the whole thing. This man chose to debase that, to debase that commodity that is so essential in gathering information in an open institution. And I think he betrayed everything that we try to represent in making information available as freely and as uninhibitedly as possible. And I think that’s what really just enraged me, to think that this man took advantage of that kind of access."[1](511)
In 1997, Blumberg was convicted again of burglary of antiques. He was again arrested in July 2003 for burglary of a house in Keokuk, Iowa. He was subsequently convicted in early 2004. He was again arrested in June 2004 for burglary in Knoxville, Illinois. This violated his probation for the 2004 conviction in Keokuk, Iowa for which he was again arrested.
Collection [ edit ]
Some of the more precious objects Blumberg stole include a first edition copy of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin; A Confession of Faith, the first published book in Connecticut in 1710; 25 boxes of rare materials outlining the early history of Oregon including the Webfoot Diary; and the Bishops' Bible, a 16th-century volume. Blumberg claimed he put together 100 incunabula in three years, including the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle bound in ivory calfskin. He also collected the Zamorano 80, a list of rare books established in 1945 by a group of prominent book collectors in a Los Angeles book club named after Don Augustin Zamorano, California's first printer.[1]
References [ edit ]During a Monday morning interview on MSNBC, Neera Tanden expressed serious concerns that Donald Trump will use his elected office to pad his own bank account.
WATCH:
“We can’t have conflicts of interest with foreign governments,” the Center for American Progress president told host Stephanie Ruhle. “You can’t have a president with conflicts of interest with foreign governments.”
Tanden argued that Trump’s “amazing array of conflicts of interests” are evidence he is trying “to profit” off of winning the White House.
“Trump told the American people he was going to work for them, and he’s looking at the presidency as an opportunity to make a buck,” she continued. “And that’s outrageous, and it’s not just a personal outrage. It is actually was part of the Constitution.”
“A lot of people are raising fundamental concerns about whether this is … a constitutional violation. And I think that conversation is going to keep on going. A lot of people are worried about it, and I expect that at some point there will be litigation on issues like this.”
Tanden, a longtime Hillary Clinton supporter, sang a notably different tune during the general election, when reports of Hillary Clinton’s own pay-for-play politics effectively derailed her presidential campaign.
Follow Datoc on Twitter and FacebookRyanair has announced that it will cut routes and jobs in Italy later this year as a result of a 40% increase in passenger departure taxes.
Ryanair said that from October it would drop 16 routes and 600 jobs after the Italian government this year raised departure taxes to €9 from €6.50 to help subsidise layoffs at former flagship carrier Alitalia.
"Ryanair had no choice but to close two of its 15 Italian bases, Alghero and Pescara, and move its aircraft, pilots and crews to countries that have lower tourism costs," David O'Brien, Ryanair's chief commercial officer, said in a statement issued in Italian.
Cutting eight routes from the Sardinian city of Alghero, five from Pescara on Italy's Adriatic coast and all of its current service in the southern city of Crotone will cause 600 job losses and 800,000 client losses, Ryanair said.
The tax increase will "seriously damage Italian tourism," O'Brien said, appealing for the government to eliminate the tax that "will hand a golden opportunity for growth to destinations in Spain, Portugal and Greece that have lower tourism costs".
Earlier this week, Ryanair announced a massive share buyback of €800m because record passenger numbers will allow it to hit its profit target even as fares fall.
Meanwhile, Ryanair also said it would add four new routes for the winter of 2016 from Rome to Sofia in Bulgaria, Nuremberg in Germany, Prague in the Czech Republic and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.
Ryanair today announced the appointment of Shane O’Toole as its Head of Investor Relations.
Mr O'Toole will move from his current role as an accountant in the airline's Finance team. He will oversee Ryanair’s growing Investor Relations function.Since posting thatarticle about peniseslast week, I've resurrected my 'Things in games that look a bit like penises' folder. Thanks to your help, there are already a few new pictures in there, so a 'Part 2' could be a reality. Together we can make it happen.
In the meantime, I thought this penile submission from GamesRadar user 510BrotherPanda deserved its own special mention. As you can see, our man BrotherPanda has crocheted himself a pretty bad-ass Metroid arm cannon. Everyone tells him that it looks like 'a big green dick'. I'd have to agree. But that just adds to its charm. Good work.
Observe it from three different angles:
And if anyone else has handicraft skills and has made something that is both game-related and vaguely reminiscent of a penis, feel free todrop me a message.
April 27, 2010Replacements for some diabetics’ missing insulin-producing cells might be found in the patients’ own pancreases, a new study in mice suggests.
Alpha cells in the pancreas can spontaneously transform into insulin-producing beta cells, researchers from the University of Geneva in Switzerland report online in Nature April 4. The study, done in mice, is the first to reveal the pancreas’s ability to regenerate missing cells. Scientists were surprised to find that new beta cells arose from alpha cells in the pancreas, rather than stem cells.
If the discovery translates to people, scientists may one day be able to coax type 1 diabetics’ own alpha cells into replacing insulin-producing cells. Type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes, results when the immune system destroys beta cells in the pancreas. People with the disease must take lifelong injections of insulin in order to keep blood sugar levels from rising too high.
&ldquTurkey's Air Force carried out intensive air strikes on Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq in the early hours of Friday, Turkey's NTV television said citing military sources.
ANKARA, May 2 (RIA Novosti) - Turkey's Air Force carried out intensive air strikes on Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq in the early hours of Friday, Turkey's NTV television said citing military sources.
NTV said at least 30 F-16 Fighting Falcon multirole fighters had hit the Qandil Mountains, believed to harbor the main bases of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), for more than an hour. Other media reports said the strikes lasted three hours.
Turkey's General Staff has not confirmed the bombings. No casualties have been reported.
The Turkish Air Force last carried out strikes on northern Iraq April 25-26.
The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous ethnic Kurd state in southeast Turkey for nearly 25 years, killing more than 40,000 people in that period. The PKK uses northern Iraq to stage attacks on Turkey.
In February, the Turkish army held a large-scale cross border operation against the PKK, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and EU, killing, according to official data, 240 militants.Existing Users User Name: Password: Login automatically Forgot your password?
Click here New Users Featured Resources Middle Tennessee State University
General | Campus & Students | Academics | Tuition & Fees | Articles | Community Graduate Schools / Middle Tennessee State University Table of Contents 1. In Brief 2. Enrollment 3. Admission Standards 4. Academics 5. Campus information 6. Athletics 7. Distinguished alumni 8. Trivia 9. Contact information 10. External links Athletics The (Murfreesboro) Daily News Journal with his winning entry "Blue Raiders", which he later admitted borrowing from Colgate University, whose teams were known as "Red Raiders" at the time. No official nickname existed prior to 1934, when teams were called "Normalites," "Teachers," and "Pedagogues". Contrary to popular belief, the "Blue Raiders" nickname is not related the American Civil War, in which Union soldiers, wearing blue, raided Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1863.MTSU athletic teams participate in NCAA Division I (I-A for football) in the Sun Belt Conference. MTSU competed in the Ohio Valley Conference until 2000.MTSU's mascot is a pegasus named "Lightning". MTSU's original mascot was a student dressed as Ku Klux Klan founder and Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Due to sensitivities within the African-American community, the mascot was changed to a blue-colored scent hound dog named "Ole Blue" in the 1970s. The current "Lightning" mascot was adopted in 1998, when the athletics department updated its image in preparation for the 1999 move to Division I-A football and subsequent transfer to the Sun Belt Conference.NCAA-sanctioned athletic teams include:MEN: Baseball
Basketball
Cross Country
Football
Golf
Tennis
Track WOMEN: Basketball
Cross Country
Golf
Soccer
Softball
Tennis
Track
Volleyball MTSU also fields teams in club sports such as Rugby and Ice Hockey. These "club sports" are not sanctioned by the university, though each team does receive funding as a student organization. They are also authorized to use school logos, wordmarks, and identities. These teams do not compete at the NCAA level, though they do compete against other colleges and universities within unofficial intercollegiate organizations.The university's main athletics building (which houses the basketball arena and athletic department offices and was built in 1973) is named in honor of Charles M. Murphy, standout MTSU athlete in the 1930s. The basketball arena is named in honor of local sports writer and broadcaster Monte Hale, though it is more commonly called "Murphy Center", the name of the building that houses it. The football stadium is named in honor of Johnny "Red" Floyd, former MTSU football coach.The athletic facilities, including Murphy Center and Floyd Stadium, are located in the northwest corner of campus.Murphy Center features an indoor track, and is regularly home to the Sun Belt Conference indoor track championships.The university's athletic teams simply refer to the school as "Middle Tennessee" or "MT", abandoning the words "State University". This is being done in case the university changes its name to "University of Middle Tennessee", as has been long-rumored.Floyd Stadium features 31,000 seats and an AstroTurf playing surface. The stadium has never been filled to capacity since its expansion (from 15,000 seats) in 1997.Football and Men's Basketball are broadcast on two flagship radio stations: university-owned 89.5 WMOT, and Salem Communications' 104.9 WBOZ. Women's Basketball is broadcast on university-owned 88.3 WMTS.Chief football rival is the University of North Texas Eagles. Chief basketball rival is the Western Kentucky University Hilltoppers.MTSU has won only one National Championship in a team sport: Golf, 1965. However, seven individuals have won national championships. All were in Golf or Track. The most recent was 2003. Middle Tennessee State University's colors are Royal Blue (PMS Uncoated 300) and White. Its nickname is the Blue Raiders. Female teams are known as the Lady Raiders. The nickname's origin goes back to a 1934 newspaper contest. An MTSU football player, Charles Sarver, won $5 fromwith his winning entry "Blue Raiders", which he later admitted borrowing from Colgate University, whose teams were known as "Red Raiders" at the time. No official nickname existed prior to 1934, when teams were called "Normalites," "Teachers," and "Pedagogues". Contrary to popular belief, the "Blue Raiders" nickname is not related the American Civil War, in which Union soldiers, wearing blue, raided Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1863.MTSU athletic teams participate in NCAA Division I (I-A for football) in the Sun Belt Conference. MTSU competed in the Ohio Valley Conference until 2000.MTSU's mascot is a pegasus named "Lightning". MTSU's original mascot was a student dressed as Ku Klux Klan founder and Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Due to sensitivities within the African-American community, the mascot was changed to a blue-colored scent hound dog named "Ole Blue" in the 1970s. The current "Lightning" mascot was adopted in 1998, when the athletics department updated its image in preparation for the 1999 move to Division I-A football and subsequent transfer to the Sun Belt Conference.NCAA-sanctioned athletic teams include:MEN:WOMEN:MTSU also fields teams in club sports such as Rugby and Ice Hockey. These "club sports" are not sanctioned by the university, though each team does receive funding as a student organization. They are also authorized to use school logos, wordmarks, and identities. These teams do not compete at the NCAA level, though they do compete against other colleges and universities within unofficial intercollegiate organizations.The university's main athletics building (which houses the basketball arena and athletic department offices and was built in 1973) is named in honor of Charles M. Murphy, standout MTSU athlete in the 1930s. The basketball arena is named in honor of local sports writer and broadcaster Monte Hale, though it is more commonly called "Murphy Center", the name of the building that houses it. The football stadium is named in honor of Johnny "Red" Floyd, former MTSU football coach.The athletic facilities, including Murphy Center and Floyd Stadium, are located in the northwest corner of campus.Murphy Center features an indoor track, and is regularly home to the Sun Belt Conference indoor track championships.The university's athletic teams simply refer to the school as "Middle Tennessee" or "MT", abandoning the words "State University". This is being done in case the university changes its name to "University of Middle Tennessee", as has been long-rumored.Floyd Stadium features 31,000 seats and an AstroTurf playing surface. The stadium has never been filled to capacity since its expansion (from 15,000 seats) in 1997.Football and Men's Basketball are broadcast on two flagship radio stations: university-owned 89.5 WMOT, and Salem Communications' 104.9 WBOZ. Women's Basketball is broadcast on university-owned 88.3 WMTS.Chief football rival is the University of North Texas Eagles. Chief basketball rival is the Western Kentucky University Hilltoppers.MTSU has won only one National Championship in a team sport: Golf, 1965. However, seven individuals have won national championships. All were in Golf or Track. The most recent was 2003. << Previous Article | Next Article >> Interesting Fact While scores on the Math portion of the SAT have remained fairly consistent over the past 40 years for men, their average Verbal scores have dropped about 30 points. Did you know... The MyPlan.com Complete Test Package gives you access to all our renowned assessment tests for only $19.95!EMANUELE BONINI
La testimonianza storica della diplomazia, l’esempio millenario della costruzione di pace. Nel giorno della conferenza sugli aiuti per la Siria, la sede del Consiglio europeo ospita il trattato internazionale più antico della storia dell’umanità. Si tratta della tavoletta di terracotta su cui è inciso l’accordo di buone relazioni tra Ebla (antica città del III millennio a.C., i cui resti si trovano a circa 60 chilometri a sud-ovest di Aleppo) e Abarsal, città che gli archeologi non sono riusciti a identificare e che ritengono si trovasse sulle rive del fiume Eufrate.
Il reperto risale al 2.350 a.C. circa, ed è stato portato a Bruxelles per una mostra inaugurata oggi alla presenza dell’Alto rappresentante per la politica estera e di sicurezza dell’Ue, Federica Mogherini, in una pausa dei lavori della conferenza. “Gli stessi che oggi hai riunito attorno al tavolo, 4.300 anni fa facevano la pace”, le parole rivolte a Mogherini da Francesco Rutelli, presidente dell’associazione “Incontro di civilità” promotrice dell’iniziativa.
L’accordo internazionale più antico della storia vuole offrire un messaggio simbolico, e la scelta di aprire l’esposizione (ospitata fino al 21 aprile) con la riunione a livello ministeriale sulla Siria non è stata un caso. “Ebla, una nuova cultura, un nuovo linguaggio, a nuova storia”, questo il titolo della particolare esposizione, vuole offrire un contributo alla scrittura di una nuova pagina di storia siriana dopo sei anni di guerra civile.
Il trattato internazionale sottoscritto tra Ebla e Abarsal inizia con la definizione dei due territori, contiene disposizioni relative al rifornimento d’acqua per le carovane, alla consegna delle merci, al controllo sul transito di viaggiatori stranieri nel territorio di Abarsal, con l’obbligo di informare la città di Ebla di ogni attività ostile, al commercio. Sulla tavoletta del III millennio a.C. è scritto anche che il re di Abarsal non poteva prendere i beni di cittadini di Ebla morti su suolo di Abarsal. La tavoletta venne rinvenuta all’interno delle sale degli archivi reali di Ebla, sito archeologico i cui scavi iniziarono nel 1964 dall’equipe guidata dall’italiano Paolo Matthiae. In Consiglio è stata ricostruita in scala 1:1 la sala dove è stata rinvenuta, così come trovata dai ricercatori.
© Riproduzione riservataFormer "News International" chief executive Rebekah Brooks on June 23 in London. (Photo11: Rob Stothard, Getty Images)
LONDON — Former British tabloid editor Rebekah Brooks was cleared in a London court of all charges related to a phone-hacking case that raised serious questions about the news-gathering conduct of journalists working for the media empire of Rupert Murdoch.
Andy Coulson, her former colleague and an former tabloid editor himself, was found guilty of one charge of conspiring to hack phones. Coulson was previously British Prime Minister David Cameron's communications chief.
MICHAEL WOLFF: How Murdoch won phone-hacking case
Both had denied any involvement in taking part or authorizing phone hacking — an illegal activity that involves listening in on voice mails — while working at the Murdoch-owned News of the World and Sun tabloids.
REM RIEDER: A guilty verdict for sleazy journalism
Dozens of high-profile celebrities and even the royal family were targeted by the practice while the pair were employed at the publications.
Reports from inside the trial at London's Old Bailey court said that Brooks was overcome by emotion as the not guilty verdict was read out and that she appeared to mouth a "thank you" to the 11-member jury. Coulson showed little reaction.
STORY: Why you should care about U.K. phone-hacking case
The scandal led Murdoch, who also owns the Times of London and the Sky News broadcast service in the U.K., to shut down the 168-year-old News of the World. Murdoch's News Corp. also owns the New York Post.
"We said long ago, and repeat today, that wrongdoing occurred, and we apologized for it. We have been paying compensation to those affected and have cooperated with investigations," said News UK, the United Kingdom operation of News Corp, in a statement issued Tuesday. "We made changes in the way we do business to help ensure wrongdoing like this does not occur again."
Dozens of journalists and officials have been arrested and questioned as part of the probe, and the trial has been going on for over eight months. Jurors will resume deliberations Wednesday on two charges still pending against Coulson and former royal editor Clive Goodman.
In a statement broadcast after the verdict, Cameron apologized for hiring Coulson as his communications director — a post he held after he left journalism. "It turned out to be a bad decision," Cameron said.
Brooks' husband Charles, her former secretary Cheryl Carter and News International security chief Mark Hanna were acquitted of charges related to attempting to hide evidence from police. Stuart Kuttner, formerly managing editor of News of the World, was found not guilty of phone hacking.
Neither Brooks nor Coulson has yet to make a statement.
The prosecution and defense both accepted that phones were hacked on a large scale and News U.K., the publisher of the-now disbanded News of the World, admitted that wrongdoing had occurred and has been paying victims compensation.
"I was surprised because of the extent of the evidence that became public," said Katharine Sarikakis, professor of media governance at the University of Vienna in Austria who has studied the British press. "In terms of the law, evidence in front of (the jury) wasn't convincing enough. This doesn't mean she has behaved ethically."
With the case stirring headlines worldwide and frank public discussions about the powers of the U.K. media, the tabloids in the country will tamp down on some "extreme" measures of gathering information, Sarikakis says.
British tabloid editors underwent a similar period of reckoning following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997, but their aggressive, ethically questionable practices eventually reemerged, she says.
"But I'm not sure how long this would last," Sarikakis says. "The crisis has been a good thing in the sense it made people ask difficult questions. But in the long term, I don't think this by itself will change fundamentally what goes on."
Contributing: Roger Yu
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1mifziCIt's Tuesday morning and the streets of Bangalore are, as always, jammed with traffic and saturated with smog. A young tech worker and his pregnant wife navigate the dusty roads on a tiny scooter, a 125-cc Hero Honda. Srinivasan Chandra's hands sweat onto the handlebars as he waits for the light to turn green. The journey from home to office is only 6 miles, but road conditions and rush hour have turned the four-lane highway into a cross between a parking lot and a demolition derby. Still in her first trimester, his wife sits sidesaddle on the vinyl seat and adjusts her sari so it won't get caught in the wheel. Srinivasan eyes the Yamaha alongside him and calculates his next move. If he guns the throttle just before the light turns green, he might get a jump on the other guy and swerve around a nasty-looking pothole ahead to make the next light. But if he's too slow off the mark, or if the Yamaha doesn't give ground, he might bottom out on the pothole. "One mistake and we lose our baby to the road," he says. This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. Contact wiredlabs@wired.com to report an issue. Too proud to ride a bus, too poor to buy a car, risking life and limb to keep moving forward — Srinivasan is the perfect reflection of modern India. Yes, he's enjoying the tech boom that is slowly boosting the country's standard of living. But the promise of middle-class comforts — or even a safe morning commute — remains a distant dream for him and most other people here. For more, visit wired.com/video Promotional video from Tata Motors. Now that dream may be closer to reality. In January, at New Delhi's Auto Expo, Tata Motors introduced a bubble-shaped car called the Nano. Integrating sleek curves, a roomy interior, and a small but powerful engine, the vehicle has a shockingly low price: less than $3,000. When the Nano arrives at dealerships in India late this year, it will be the cheapest car ever made, a four-seat family ride for the price of an upmarket laptop. Middle-class household incomes in India start at roughly $6,000 a year, so a $3,000 car is the kind of innovation that could create millions of new drivers. Eight million Indians currently own cars, according to the Mumbai-based credit-rating agency Crisil. Another 18 million have the means to buy one. However, the Nano could increase that pool of potential auto owners by as much as 65 percent, to 30 million, the organization reports. "This goes beyond economics and class," says Ravi Kant, managing director of Tata Motors. "This crosses the urban-rural divide. Now a car is within the reach of people who never imagined they would own a car. It's a triumph for our company. And for India." India is just the beginning. Tata Motors is the fifth-largest manufacturer of medium and heavy trucks in the world, boasting an international distribution network and $7.2 billion in revenue last year. The global market for the Nano and similarly low-priced cars could be immense — the World Bank counts more than 800 million people who earn between $3,600 and $11,0000 annually. In India, the new vehicle could change the taxi business overnight and energize a cadre of small-time entrepreneurs by providing new levels of mobility, carrying capacity, and social status. At the same time, the prospect of a flood of additional cars terrifies city planners and environmentalists. Metropolises throughout the developing world are expanding at breakneck speed. In many places, the crumbling roads are already crammed beyond capacity. Traffic fatalities are on the rise, and air pollution threatens to choke remaining pockets of green space. Sure, a single Nano is a step toward independence, security, and social mobility — but to some observers, millions of Nanos spell apocalypse.
It takes almost an hour for Srinivasan to negotiate the traffic to his wife's office. By the time he arrives at the IT center where he manages a small team designing ads for mobile phones, his white shirt is gray with dust. He shows his ID badge to the security guards and makes his way through a sea of cubicles to his desk. He boots up his computer and taps an email to coworkers: He wants to know how to join the waiting list to buy a Nano. Girish Wagh is a short, unassuming man, but the 500 people on his team give him a wide berth in the hallway of the Tata Motors factory in the western city of Pune. The lead engineer on the Nano project, he's not accustomed to talking to the press. He clasps his hands nervously as he acknowledges that it won't be easy to convince potential customers that a car can be both ridiculously inexpensive and seriously solid. Early reports erroneously said the body would be made of plastic. "Can you believe it?" he says. "At the expos, people actually began tapping on it to see if it was made of metal." I cross the word plastic off of my list of questions. The Tata Group is the General Electric of India, a sprawling conglomerate with a commanding presence in media, telecom, outsourcing, retailing, and real estate. Started in 1868 as a textile wholesaler, the company branched out into luxury hotels after, as legend has it, founder Jamsetji Tata was turned away from a posh establishment because of his skin color. In 1945, a few years before the British left India, Tata started producing locomotives and, eventually, autos. In 1998, Tata Motors introduced the country's first indigenously designed car. The homegrown Indica, which now sells for around $6,000, became ubiquitous as a taxi. Meanwhile, the Tata Group has been expanding globally. It bought the tea company Tetley in 2000 and acquired Anglo-Dutch steel giant Corus last year. It maintains Tata Consultancy Services offices in 54 countries and owns hotels in Boston, New York, and San Francisco. In March, Tata Motors bought Jaguar and Land Rover. Division head Ravi Kant says the company will start exporting Nanos "in the next few years," possibly sooner if the car gets an enthusiastic reception domestically. Where to? He's not saying, but Africa, South America, and Europe are probably on the short list. Ratan Tata, the company's chair and the great-grandson of Jamsetji, got the idea for the Nano when he was — what else — sitting in traffic. One morning a few years ago, he was battling Mumbai's gridlock when he noticed a single scooter carrying an entire family. Suddenly it struck him: The poor driver and his passengers represented not just a vast social need but an immense market opportunity. The success of the Indica gave him the confidence to try to tap it. The Nano wholesales for 1 lakh, or 100,000 rupees (roughly $2,500 plus taxes and shipping, which dealers are expected to mark up to around $3,000). The number carries a symbolic weight as the minimum amount for a major life purchase, and that's the price Ratan envisioned when he set out to build the world's most affordable automobile. India's next-cheapest car, the bare-bones Suzuki Maruti 800, is twice the price at 2.1 lakh. Even India's iconic auto-rickshaw, a three-wheeled death trap made of metal and canvas, costs roughly 1 lakh. When it comes to keeping the price down, Tata Motors starts with major advantages. Labor, raw materials, facilities — all cost far less in India than in Detroit. And it doesn't hurt to be part of the country's most powerful industrial combine. Tata Steel's plant is just a couple of hundred miles from Tata Motors' West Bengal manufacturing plant — a proximity that further cuts costs. But Wagh says the supply chain is only part of the equation. His team scrutinized every detail with expense in mind. They quickly dispensed with AC, radio, and passenger-side mirror. "We calculated every bolt fitting and sheet metal casing," he says. "We had multiple variations for every aspect of the car and calculated them against the price." While every automaker factors cost into the equation, overruns are common. For Tata, intent on hitting the 1 lakh price point, overruns weren't an option.
A major factor was weight. The final design stands at 1,322 pounds, 528 pounds lighter than the flyweight Honda Insight. To power it, the engineers settled on a 33-horsepower, 623-cc, two-cylinder engine housed in the rear; to service it, the mechanic must remove a set of bolts in the 5.4-cubic-foot trunk. The payoff: an uncommonly efficient 47 miles per gallon running at top speed (65 mph). But that doesn't mean Nano owners won't spend a lot of time pumping gas — the minuscule tank holds just 3.9 gallons. Wagh's team is also examining the way cars get to dealers. One plan is to export Nanos as kits that snap together like Legos, a strategy that might save money by multiplying the number of vehicles that fit into a shipping container. Cars would then be assembled and spot-welded on arrival. Wagh tries to convince me that local workshops can put together Nanos without sacrificing quality, but when I continue to ask questions, he gives up. "Perhaps it's time we see the car," he says. The Engineering Research Centre is a megawarehouse that holds most of Tata Motors' test equipment. The building is off-limits to outsiders; employees are forbidden to talk about what happens inside, even to one another. Wagh leads me down a wide corridor past the Thermocube, a car-sized chamber that replicates the extremes of India's climate. Then he pushes open the door to a garage containing a small white vehicle, the same prototype displayed at the auto show in Delhi. It looks like a cross between a Smart car and George Jetson's rocket pod. Wagh tells me it's about to take a spin on the Buzz, Squeal, and Rattle Machine, a device that simulates India's pothole-riddled byways by pounding the wheels with hydraulic pistons. "Too long on the Buzz, Squeal, and Rattle and a poorly constructed car will fall to pieces," he says. This one looks as though it has already been through a few rounds of testing. The rearview mirror rests on the dashboard. Sections of the interior have been dissected and hastily reassembled. The engineers won't let me take it for a test run, but I'm allowed to settle into the driver's seat. The pedals feel good under my feet, and I imagine working them as I dodge Pune traffic. Since the engine is tucked next to the rear axle, I can comfortably fit my 6' 2" frame behind the controls. That's unusual for any Indian car, let alone a cheap one. And that's when it hits me. I had expected something like a matchbox with a motor. But this is a real vehicle. More than that, it's a cool machine. My reaction is visceral: I want one. And that's precisely the response the Tata Group is counting on. The Nano is the |
these episodes made economic anxiety and promoted racial resentment a dual-headed political weapon, and Donald Trump grabbed it.It's an intriguing paradox--the success of a film as technologically elaborate and ambitious as James Cameron's Avatar will come down to a simple question: Will audiences marvel at the movie's groundbreaking production methods enough to forgive Cameron's curious choice to frame everything on a script that is, almost above all else, obsessed with the evils of technology in the wrong hands?
Not only did Cameron wait more than a decade to make his more than $300 million passion project, but he spurred the invention of the cutting edge equipment to make his creation possible read our January issue's feature on Avatar's 3-D tech here. The construction of a new dual-lens 3-D shooting system and the development of an ever-improving motion capture and virtual camera system allowed Cameron to take his audience to the distant inhabited world of Pandora without compromising his ambitious vision for the place.
The film stars Sam Worthington as Jake Scully--a disabled corporate military veteran recruited to command a remotely controlled alien body--his avatar--in the hope of infiltrating Pandora's native humanoid species, the Na'vi. At first, his mission is a peaceful one--intended to help negotiate a peaceful settlement between the natives and the human colonial settlers. The evil techno-corporate types came to Pandora to dig up a priceless natural element, Unobtanium. Curiously, the audience is never let in on what it does, but the villains need it and they'll commit genocide to get it. Scully is the only hope to fend off what looks like unavoidable war.
Fortunately, he meets a Na'vi princess (Zoe Saldana) able to train him in the ways of her tribe. It's only a matter of time before he falls in love with his new blue teacher--a love that leads him to question his allegiance.
The soulless keepers of the bullets and bulldozers are led by Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), a one-dimensional, cliche-spouting parody of a modern Marine. If adventure films are as good as their villains, Avatar falls woefully short.
There's no point to investing too much more on plot "spoilers." Suffice to say, anyone who's seen Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, A Man Called Horse, Soldier, Pocohantas, Enemy Mine, or a host of other outsider stories should be able to call every plot point Avatar offers. In fact, it's astounding how similar Avatar's plot plays when compared to Kevin Costner's Oscar-winning Wolves.
But no such lack of creativity plagues the film's action sequences, art design and 3-D effects. Every penny Cameron left unspent on story development poured into the film's richly detailed world. And the details are essential as the high-def 3-D is ultimately unforgiving.
Unlike traditional 3-D techniques that allowed foreground objects "extend" out toward the audience's perspective, Avatar's image offers depth between the focused foreground and the surrounding environment. The battle scenes are packed with rapidly moving visual pieces--almost to the point of incoherence. But the 3-D invites the eye to roam the frame for its element of choice.
The CG characters are painstakingly rendered, but movie magic makers still haven't found a way to make CG players look less like finely drawn cartoon characters. When CG-dominated films can create onscreen creatures indistinguishable from real-world humans and animals (without toeing the uncanny valley), a wall will come down. For this reason, Avatar remains visually impressive but not as groundbreaking as, say, George Lucas' Star Wars, which pushed traditional special effects techniques to the next level.
Unlike Lucas' more playful science fiction epic, Cameron reaches for a heavy environmental message. Avatar is every militant global warming supporter's dream come true as the invading, technology-worshiping, environment-ravaging humans are set upon by an angry planet and its noble inhabitants. But the film's message suffers mightily under the weight of mind-boggling hypocrisy. Cameron's story clearly curses the proliferation of human technology. In Avatar, the science and machinery of humankind leads to soulless violence and destruction. It only serves to pollute the primitive but pristine paradise of Pandora.
Of course, without centuries of development in science and technology, the film putting forth this simple-minded, self-loathing worldview wouldn't exist. You'd imagine Cameron himself would be bored to tears on the planet he created.
There are no movies on Pandora, so he'd be out of a job. The Na'vi rarely visit a multiplex. They sit around their glowing trees, chanting; they don't build and sink titanic ocean liners, and they don't construct deep-sea mini-subs enabling certain filmmakers to spend countless days exploring said cruise ships.
Even with this confused message, Avatar should make a healthy profit. International audiences love spectacle, and Cameron lathers it lustily into his comeback project. But, he (and 20th Century Fox) better hope those same audiences don't think too much on the way out of the theater lest bad word of mouth does more damage to Pandora than the corporate marines.Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to allow Israel to annex all but one of the settlements built in occupied East Jerusalem in the most far-reaching concessions ever made over the bitterly contested city. The offer was turned down by Israel's then foreign minister as inadequate.
Palestinian Authority leaders also privately discussed giving up part of the flashpoint Arab neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, according to leaked documents. And they proposed a joint committee to take over the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem – the highly sensitive issue that, along with refugee rights, sank the Camp David talks in 2000 and triggered the second Palestinian intifada.
The unprecedented offer on the East Jerusalem settlements, made in May 2008, is revealed in confidential Palestinian records of negotiations with Israel in the year before the Gaza war of 2008-09.
Ahmed Qureia, the lead Palestinian negotiator, proposed that Israel annex all Jewish settlements in Jerusalem except Har Homa (Jabal Abu Ghneim) – and hammered home the significance of the concession.
"This is the first time in history that we make such a proposition," he said at a meeting in the city's King David hotel. "We refused to do so in Camp David," he said, referring to the talks where the two sides had come closer than ever to an agreement.
For many Palestinians it is anathema to agree to give up or even swap prime parts of the city they hope to make their capital. The settlements are regarded as illegal in international law and Israel's 1967 annexation of East Jerusalem has never been recognised internationally, though it is supported by a large majority of Israeli Jews – including many who back a West Bank withdrawal.
But the Israeli negotiator Tzipi Livni is recorded as dismissing the offer out of hand because the Palestinians had refused to concede Har Homa, as well as the settlements at Ma'ale Adumim, near Jerusalem, and Ariel, deeper in the West Bank. Israel's position was fully supported by the Bush administration.
"We do not like this suggestion because it does not meet our demands, and probably it was not easy for you to think about it, but I really appreciate it," Livni said.
The Palestinians agreed that Israel could annex French Hill, Pisgat Ze'ev, Neve Ya'akov, Ramat Shlomo and Gilo near Bethlehem – all routinely described as "neighbourhoods" by Israel.
Construction has continued rapidly in East Jersualem in defiance of Barack Obama's call for a freeze. Palestinian Authority leaders have publicly denounced the building work in areas it is now revealed they had agreed in principle to give up. Only last week the Israeli authorities gave the go-ahead for 1,400 new homes in Gilo.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation's chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told the Israeli minister: "It is no secret that … we are offering you the biggest Yerushalayim [the Hebrew word for Jerusalem] in history. But we must talk about the concept of al-Quds [Jerusalem in Arabic]. We have taken your interests and concerns into account, but not all. This is the first time in Palestinian-Israeli history in which such a suggestion is officially made."
The same document reveals that Qureia raised the possibility of the Palestinians conceding part of the predominantly Arab East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in return for land swaps in line with the pre-1967 map of Israel. The area has been a focus of conflict in recent months because of internationally condemned attempts by rightwing Israeli settlers to take over Palestinian homes.
"So for an area in Sheikh Jarrah, I have to see [an] equivalent area," Qureia is recorded telling the Israeli negotiator Tal Becker in June 2008.
On the most sensitive issue of the Old City's Muslim and Jewish religious sites, Erekat – then chief Palestinian negotiator – told US officials in October 2009 that he was prepared to consider "creative ways" to solve the problem of control of the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. For Muslims across the world, the area is the most important in the conflict and Yasser Arafat's refusal to compromise over its sovereignty triggered the final breakdown at Camp David.
"Even the Old City can be worked out except the Haram and what they call Temple Mount. There you need the creativity of people like me," he explained to US state department official David Hale, emphasising he was speaking in a personal capacity. "It's solved... there are creative ways, having a body or a committee."
The Palestine papers reveal the twists and turns of feverish talks throughout 2008, with the US closely involved. Condoleezza Rice, Bush's secretary of state, declared in mid-June that an agreement was possible by the end of the year. But the Palestinians complained that Israeli settlement activities were a "deadly" problem. "If they continue they will embarrass us before Palestinian public opinion and the Arab world," Qureia told her.
The documents show how the negotiations were complicated by a private channel between the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who met without aides. In August 2008, Olmert offered Abbas a "package deal" that fell short of Palestinian demands, but it went beyond his negotiating brief and he was forced to resign the following month because of corruption allegations.
Abbas's colleagues complained that they didn't know what happened in the leaders' talks. He was not even allowed to keep the map that accompanied the Israeli offer, the documents reveal.In 1997, at 3.10am in the morning, British politics saw its "Portillo moment" - when Michael Portillo, once tipped as a future Conservative leader, lost his Enfield Southgate seat to the unstoppable Labour tide. (Watch a video here.)
In the 2015, most political nerds remember where they were when the "Balls moment" happened - I was waiting to go on the Today programme when we got the news that Ed Balls had lost his seat of Morley and Outwood to the Conservatives by 422 votes. The consensus within Labour was that the shadow chancellor had done sterling work criss-crossing the country in support of his colleagues, to the detriment of his own backyard.
So which seats could give us a Portillo Balls moment this year? And when in the night could that happen? Below, I've given a rundown based on PA's guide to declaration times - if the contests are especially close, at Morley and Outwood was last time, recounts could delay these.
Some of these seats are Big Beasts, others are grudge matches - where the contest has got personal - and a couple will indicate a wider trend.
I've interspersed it with pictures of Portillo and Balls's post-politics careers to remind you that, while losing a seat can be devastating, it's also a chance to embark on a new career of looking suspiciously at camels and wearing sequins.
One door closes, another opens.
2am Amber Rudd, Hastings
One of the eye-catching predictions in YouGov's first "seat prediction" was that Home Secretary Amber Rudd would lose Hastings to Labour. She has a majority of under 5,000. If she falls, then it's a seriously good - like, overall majority good - night for Labour.
3am Angus Robertson, Moray
The SNP's deputy leader has a majority of 9,065, with the Tories in second place, so Moray is the test bed for whether pro-Unionist tactical voting can reshape Scotland's political landscape. The Conservatives would prize Robertson's scalp as highly as they did that of Ed Balls last time. Read Jason's visit to Moray here.
3am Tim Farron, Westmorland and Lonsdale
Tim Farron is one of the few MPs who can plausibly claim a strong personal vote. He first won the constituency in 2005 by 267 votes (having come second in 2001), then increased that to 12,264 in 2010. Just as impressively, he kept his majority above 8,000 even as the Lib Dem tide went out in 2015, post-coalition. So an upset here would be a real shocker. Observers will also be watching his face for signs that the Lib Dems are doomed elsewhere.
3am Ben Bradshaw, Exeter
Bradshaw is the last splodge of red in an otherwise true blue south-west of England. Even at the last election, as the Lib Dems fell across the region, he held on. Can the last of the Blairites continue to do so?
3.30am John Nicholson vs Jo Swinson, Dunbartonshire East
File this one under Grudge Match. The outspoken SNP candidate, a former journalist and avid tweeter, gets right up unionist noses, and his opponent is the well-liked former Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson. There are murmurings that if she takes the seat, she would be a strong contender for next Lib Dem leader. (Admittedly, there is likely to be a fairly small pool to choose from.)
3.30am Kate Hoey, Vauxhall
Another contest driven by intra-left beef. Even many Labour tribalists have not forgiven Hoey for getting on a boat with Nigel Farage during the EU referendum, leading to a picture which looked like a terrible reboot of Lovejoy. (Read Julia's report from Vauxhall here.) The Lib Dems feel that they have run a strong and plausible campaign here, but they have a mountain to climb. In 2015, Hoey got more than 25,000 votes, and a 12,000 majority and the yellows were in fourth, behind the Tories and the Greens.
3.30am Tom Watson, West Bromwich East
This seat looked sketchy to some earlier in the campaign, although the noises emanating from Labour there are now fairly positive. Labour had a 9,470 majority in 2015 but Ukip came third with 7,949. So a small Tory swing and a total Ukip collapse would spell trouble for Labour's deputy leader.
4am Tania Mathias vs Vince Cable, Twickenham
If there is even the slightest whiff of a #LibDemfightback, it would be here. Vince Cable held the seat from 1997 to 2015, and Mathias now has a 2,000 majority. Twickenham also voted Remain.
4am: Clive Lewis, Norwich South
A couple of months ago, when Labour types were really fretting over the possibility of a wipeout, Clive Lewis's seat was one of those they feared would fall. On paper, it should be immune to all but the strongest Tory swing, with a Labour majority of 7,654. The Conservatives are in second, as the Liberal Democrats went from winning the seat in 2010 to fourth place behind the Greens in 2015.
4am: Sarah Olney vs Zac Goldsmith, Richmond
Grudge Match, round two! This is the seat the Lib Dems unexpectedly took in last year's by-election, helped by the total collapse of Labour. (Which got fewer votes than there were Labour members in the constituency.) It's widely expected to go back to the Tories this time, depriving Stephen of the pleasure of watching Zac Goldsmith lose three elections in a row.
4.30am Nick Clegg, Sheffield Hallam
It comes to something when the Daily Mail is urging people to vote Lib Dem. But that's exactly what the paper did, in its guide to tactical voting - because Labour are second here and Clegg has a majority of only 2,353. Read Anoosh on the campaign trail with him here.
4.30am Dennis Skinner, Bolsover
It seems nuts that the 85-year-old Labour veteran could lose this seat, which he has held since 1970. He has a majority of 11,788, but Ukip got more than 9,000 votes last time and there have been occasional Tory whispers about taking it.
5am Paul Nuttall, Boston and Skegness
Having lost Douglas Carswell (and his seat of Clacton, which is expected to go blue), this is Ukip's only real hope of getting a seat. And it's not a very strong hope. Ukip were second here by 4,000-odd votes in 2015, but observers expect that Theresa May's Brexit bombast will eat much of the Kipper vote and thus increase the Conservative majority. If it's been a terrible night for the left, watching Paul Nuttall, no doubt dressed like Toad of Toad Hall, lose this seat could be a rare ray of sunshine.
For the full list of declaration times, here is Stephen's comprehensive guide.Colossus Piano sets a new standard in terms of realism, detail and overall quality of piano sounds on your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. There are currently 3 piano models available as 3 individual in-app purchases with this app, together those 3 piano models make up 24 Gigabyte of sound material. All keys of all piano models were recorded in full length with a recording quality of 24 bit and 96 kHz stereo.
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³ Important: the dark brown „Colossus Grand” piano model requires a large amount of main memory, so we only recommend this piano model for device models mentioned as „recommended” above.
Colossus PianoThe bombs had killed his grandfather and his cousin, and injured his father, but still Hassan Ali stayed on in Aleppo. Then his own street came into range.
The barrel landed next to his house, and destroyed his neighbours' dwelling.
When they fall, there is silence - as the barrels simply drop, unguided - until the explosion. Then the smoke and dust goes up and the shock-waves go sideways.
This blast went over the head of his nine-year-old brother Adam, who was playing on the street up the road but said he saw the shrapnel clatter into the side of his home.
The family tried to help their neighbours, but it was impossible.
Twelve people were dead. "We tried to find the mother and her daughter," Mr Ali said. "We couldn't find a single piece."
A three-month bombardment, unparalleled even in this war, has levelled large parts of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city and one of the world's most resonant historical names.
Children play on swings amongst the debris of Aleppo close to the front line (WILL WINTERCROSS)
Away from the cameras that have documented so much of the fighting, as journalists and local activists have been driven out, the onslaught of barrel bombs has continued since before Christmas.
In some neighbourhoods, half of all homes have been left in rubble.
The streets have emptied. A year ago, Aleppo, where rebels and regime troops had fought each other to a stalemate, became a magnet for refugees from elsewhere, the population swelling to more than three million. Now it is a ghost town.
One by one, since the first big protests of the Syrian uprising on March 15, 2011, cities and suburbs have come to encapsulate the revolution: first Dera'a, in the south, where they began, later Baba Amr, in Homs, and Qusayr, the site of a key victory for the regime.
But Aleppo is the biggest prize, a symbol of the country that reflected its history and make-up: a hub of Sunni commerce since time immemorial, home to a vibrant Christian minority, and also a centre for conservative Islam.
Seeing the rebels weakened by infighting, the regime seems to have decided to soften up the city's rebel-held half for an assault by driving out the inhabitants. A group of Aleppan lawyers and civilian activists in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, two hours' drive away to the north, estimates that between December and the beginning of March more than 1,000 barrel bombs were dropped.
No-one knows why the regime chooses this makeshift device, a crude container packed with up to half a ton of TNT and shrapnel normally just unloaded from the back of helicopters. It may be it is running short of its Russian-made missiles, or that it wants to save them for military rather than easy civilian targets.
But the group calculates that 4,000 people have been killed, of which 2,600 have been identified. Others, like Mr Ali's neighbours, were simply incinerated. At one point in January, up to 30 barrels were dropping a day.
The suburbs hit are a roll-call of the poorer, Sunni Muslim districts, previously a magnet for people from the countryside seeking work: Tareq al-ban and Qadi Askar, once locations of rebel headquarters; Marjah, now 80 per cent in ruins; Bab al-Nayrab, Ansari and Sukkari.
Sara and Adam Ali who had escaped barrel bombing with their families in Aleppo pictured in their make shift home (WILL WINTERCROSS)
In the latter, leaflets fell first, telling people to leave. It was then hit by 40 bombs.
The group says that 90 per cent of the residents of these areas have now fled the city, some to tent encampments in the countryside, some east to neighbouring Raqqa province, which is now almost entirely in the hands of the violent al-Qaeda offshoot, Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, but mostly to Turkey.
With its better provision of refugee camps than Lebanon, Turkey had previously suffered less visibly from the influx. That has now changed. The streets of the border town of Kilis are lined with children begging for cash and food. By the time they finally gave up their homes, many families had already run out of money.
Hassan Ali and the 13 other members of his family now live under concrete brieze blocks in an unfinished building, three tarpaulins dividing up the space into makeshift homes. Spring is just arriving, but the rain lashed down outside as he showed us around.
Mr Ali, a hairdresser in pre-war life, and his cousin, Ali Ali, a car mechanic, go to the town square every morning to seek casual labour.
If they get 10-20 Turkish lire - three to six pounds - for a day's work they are happy. Mostly they do not, and said they were now considering joining the Free Syrian Army.
But they have shelter. Other families are sleeping rough, or on the floor of the town's bus station. One man, a father of six, had just arrived there, walking across the muddy border after his cousin's family were killed. Umm Mohanna, 50, a widow, brought out eight of her eleven children after their home suffered a direct hit. Luckily no-one was inside at the time.
Mahmoud Badenjki, one of the lawyers, said he thought the bombing was an attempt to sabotage the "peace talks" that took place in Geneva in January and February. "This wasn't an accident," he said. He claimed the plan was to force the opposition to quit the talks.
Now they have been abandoned anyway, and in the last week there has been a pause in the bombing too. "It has dropped dramatically," said Abdulrahman Alafy, an Aleppo doctor speaking by telephone who said he had treated 100 children so far.
No-one fully understands how this regime works, whether there are factions pursuing different agendas - some a military solution, others a compromise. The regime may have been driving out potential opponents, because on Thursday it announced plans for "elections" this year.
Under the rules, those living abroad for more than ten years are banned from standing, which includes most of the exiled opposition. In any case, President Bashar al-Assad has been elected twice before - last time with 97 per cent of the vote.
Mr Assad may feel he can win militarily, though the opposition's Gulf backers have started to increase arms supplies once again. Aleppo may be the next big target for his troops and their Hizbollah allies. After the bombing, the land war may resume.
In any case it is unlikely, as Hassan Ali said, that the refugees will be able to return safely any time soon.
Adam, the nine-year-old, says he has become a regular at a Turkish soup kitchen. It is three years since he has been at school, but he is getting used to his new home in the garage. "I don't miss Aleppo because I am not afraid here," he said. "But otherwise, I miss Aleppo."There are many proposed methods for combating fascist ideologies; however, most of them have mixed rates of success.
From a historical perspective, the most commonly employed methods of protesting in the streets and engaging in public debates failed to stave the fascist tide that emerged in the wake of World War I. Nonetheless, there is still hope for overcoming fascism without recourse to violence.
And Zizek has the solution.
An Approach to Combating the Fascism
In the film, “The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology,” the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek details a provocative method allegedly employed by the German rock group Rammstein for combating Fascist ideologies. Specifically, Zizek contends that Rammstein purposely flirts with fascist imagery in their songs and concert performances with the unstated goal of undermining Nazism from within.
Rammstein’s frequent usage of fascist symbols, Nazi-like militaristic attires, and Nazi cultural references has led various news outlets to accuse the band being Nazis themselves; however Zizek contends that this is not the case.
Instead, he alleges that the band’s flirtations with fascist imagery has a purposive character. He further claims that it is precisely this purposive presentation of fascist imagery in the form indistinctive gestures, lyrics, and chorus chants that facilitates the articulation of fascist elements free of their ideological significance.
According to Zizek, Rammstein unveils the ridiculousness of Nazism by having listeners experience the emotional aspect of Fascism via musical compositions, whilst associating such emotional states with something divorced from Nazism altogether: a concert performance. This shows listeners how Nazism works and undermines its claims that peoples’ emotional states can be stirred up for some greater cause.
The successful employment of this methodology provides one means of combating Nazism and its modern derivative, the “Alt-Right.”
What is the Alt-Right?
The Alt-Right (or Alternative Right) is a loose association of individuals with far-right political ideologies who collectively reject mainstream conservativism in the United States.
The term “Alt-Right” was first coined by Richard Bertrand Spencer in 2010 to identify his particular brand of white nationalism; however, it recently entered popular lexicon during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election when Steve Bannon, CEO of Breitbart News (an Alt-Right news syndicate), joined Donald Trump’s electoral campaign.
In a Brietbart News article published in March 2016 by Milo Yiannopolous and Alum Bokhari, it was alleged that the Alt Right had its intellectual origins in the workings of Oswald Spengler, H.L Mencken, Sam Francis, and other anti-democratic/fascistic individuals as well as various paleoconservatives affiliated with the Pat Buchanan’s circle. The article further alleged that most modern-day Alt Right media outlets have coalesced around Richard Spencer as its intellectual figurehead.
Richard Bertrand Spencer: The Public Intellectual
Appearing in mainstream media outlets, Spencer adopts a mild disposition, explicitly rejecting violence as a means of achieving political aims and appearing capable of modifying his own ideological positions during debates.
To someone unfamiliar with Bertrand Spencer’s rhetoric, he may come across as an amicable individual; however, this is a deliberate misrepresentation of the person he actually is. The strategic evasions he employs during public debates and media appearances allow him to back pedal and mask the more repugnant aspects of his Fascist ideology.
Given the importance of his position in the Alt-Right, it is imperative that Richard Spencer’s cloak of ambiguity be removed so that the public is not mislead into following his modified version of fascism.
Following the methodology for combating Fascism outlined by Slavoj Zizek, the principle goal of the following report is to provide readers with information related to the subject “Richard Bertrand Spencer.” Information about Spencer is presented in a transformative manner free of any Fascist meta-narrative, such that readers are not mislead by the subject’s amicable public persona and instead come to know not Richard Spencer the public intellectual, but rather Richard Bertrand Spencer the Fascist.
Richard Bertrand Spencer: The Fascist
Taken from the subject’s Facebook profile(s)
Taken from the subject’s Twitter profile(s)
Taken from the subject’s Disqus profile(s)
Taken from the subject’s Google+ profile(s)
Taken from the subject’s Scribid profile(s)
Taken from the subject’s Reddit profile(s)
Epilogue
The images depicted above contain aspects of Richard Bertrand Spencer’s “real” political ideology. He is an anti-democratic white nationalist who believes that race is “biologically real” and that white people are inherently more intelligent than people of color. Using this perspective, he contends that racial segregation was a good thing and the United States would prosper if it were to reinstate policies aimed at maintaining racial segregation.
As indicated by his Twitter posts, Bertrand Spencer believes that the social consequences of race entail that multiculturalism will fail. He supports the notion that races should be segregated from one another and favors programs restricting the social mobility of citizens on the basis of their race.
Bertrand Spencer uses his ideology to justify support for Nazi-esque political programs such as mass deportations, sterilization, and racial exclusion. In the long term, he wants to create an ethno-state where citizenship is based on whiteness; however, in the short term he has taken on an amicable public persona, encouraging white men to rediscover their white identity. To this end, he supports the donning of KKK robes and the usage of Nazi swastikas.
Spencer should not be mistaken for being a public intellectual. He is a fraud who uses myth to justify social policy and employs quotes from Nietzsche and Hegel as mere ornaments to cloak the shallowness of his thinking. He is a dangerous individual who exploits the economic marginalization of white men who, guided by the power of myth, flock to Richard Spencer’s ideology and coalesce around the Alt-Right.
The threat of fascism must never be taken lightly. For this reason, Bertrand Spencer and his acolytes must be fought and challenged. By exposing Nazism as a comic sham, we can combat the tide of fascism and route it before it takes hold.The Blue Jays have released outfielder Andy Dirks, according to Sportsnet.ca’s Ben Nicholson-Smith. Dirks has recently undergone back surgery and will likely be sidelined for the entire 2015 season.
This is the second back operation in as many years for Dirks, as his prior surgery (and a couple of hamstring injuries during rehab) limited him to just 14 minor league games during 2014. Dirks hit.276/.332/.413 in 1063 plate appearances with the Tigers from 2011-13, hitting slightly better against right-handed pitching (career.751 OPS) than lefty pitching (.721 OPS).
The Jays claimed Dirks on waivers from the Tigers in October then non-tendered him to avoid paying him a projected $1.6MM (as per MLBTR’s Matt Swartz) in his first year of arbitration eligibility. Toronto then re-signed Dirks to a minor league deal in January. Were it not for his back problems, Dirks looked like a solid contender to win a part-time role with the Jays this season as a left-handed bat who could contribute in left field, DH or in a pinch-hitting role.If the above document does not display use this link! cdc vaccine ingredients You will need the updated Adobe Reader if you don’t already have it.
By: Megan Pond
So what does the above document mean?
To find out the question to that, let’s dissect just a few of the ingredients on the list.
Aluminum:
Aluminum is present in many things around us. It’s in food, air, water, and soil and is said to be harmless when swallowed because it doesn’t absorb into the body when consumed. Aluminum is put into vaccines as an adjuvant to help them “work better” or to “enhance” them. So what is the concern about injecting aluminum into the blood stream?
According to the FDA:
“Aluminum may reach toxic levels with prolonged parenteral administration [this means injected into the body] if kidney function is impaired... Research indicates that patients with impaired kidney function, including premature neonates [babies], who received parenteral levels of aluminum at greater than 4 to 5 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day, accumulate aluminum at levels associated with central nervous system and bone toxicity [for a tiny newborn, this toxic dose would be 10 to 20 micrograms, and for an adult it would be about 350 micrograms]. Tissue loading may occur at even lower rates of administration.” [Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, Document NDA 19-626/S-019, Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for Dextrose Injections.]
And also:
“Aluminum content in parenteral drug products could result in a toxic accumulation of aluminum in individuals receiving TPN therapy. Research indicates that neonates [newborns] and patient populations with impaired kidney function may be at high risk of exposure to unsafe amounts of aluminum. Studies show that aluminum may accumulate in the bone, urine, and plasma of infants receiving TPN. Many drug products used in parenteral therapy [injections] may contain levels of aluminum sufficiently high to cause clinical manifestations [symptoms]... parenteral aluminum bypasses the protective mechanism of the GI tract and aluminum circulates and is deposited in human tissues. Aluminum toxicity is difficult to identify in infants because few reliable techniques are available to evaluate bone metabolism in... infants... Although aluminum toxicity is not commonly detected clinically, it can be serious in selected patient populations, such as neonates [newborns], and may be more common than is recognized.” [Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, Document 02N-0496, Aluminum in Large and Small Volume Parenterals Used in Total Parenteral Nutrition. Available online at: http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/98fr/oc0367.pdf]
So basically from those documents we learn that if a premature baby receives more than 10 mcg of aluminum in an IV, it can accumulate in their bones and brain, and can be toxic.
The FDA maximum requirements for aluminum received in an IV is 25 mcg per day. The suggested aluminum per kg of weight to give to a person is up to 5mcg. (so a 5 pounds baby should get no more than 11mcg of aluminum.) Anything that has more than 25 mcg of aluminum is *supposed* to have a label that says:
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speakers frequently use the term and consider the term non-derogatory. Also, some members of the Hong Kong community with European ancestry, particularly the younger generation, embrace the term.[9] Gwailou has now been recognised as simply referring to foreigners, especially westerners, in South East Asia and now appears in the Oxford Dictionary defined as such,[10] although most foreigners are not gwáilóu and not all gwáilóu are foreigners. While gwáilóu is commonly used by some Cantonese speakers in informal speech, the more polite alternative sāi yàn (西人; 'Western person') is now used as well.[11] While "gwai" can be misinterpreted as derogatory, it can also be used to describe something that is foreign. Many times, this word is misinterpreted as something with a more negative connotation by Western culture.
Related terms [ edit ]
Gwailou is the most generic term to refer to a Caucasian foreigner, other Cantonese terms for foreigners include:[11][12]
Mandarin Chinese [ edit ]
Guizi (鬼子; pinyin: guǐzi) is a Mandarin Chinese slang term for foreigners, and has a long history of being used as a racially deprecating insult.
Riben guizi (日本鬼子; pinyin: rìběn guǐzi ; literally: 'Japanese devil') or dongyang guizi (東洋鬼子; pinyin: dōngyáng guǐzi ; literally: 'east ocean devil') - used to refer to Japanese.
(日本鬼子; pinyin: ; literally: 'Japanese devil') or (東洋鬼子; pinyin: ; literally: 'east ocean devil') - used to refer to Japanese. Er guizi (二鬼子; pinyin: èr guǐzi ; literally:'second devil') - used to refer to the Korean soldiers who were a part of the Japanese army during the Sino-Japanese war in World War II. [13]
(二鬼子; pinyin: ; literally:'second devil') - used to refer to the Korean soldiers who were a part of the Japanese army during the Sino-Japanese war in World War II. Yang guizi (洋鬼子; pinyin: yáng guǐzi ; literally: 'Western/overseas devil') or xiyang guizi (西洋鬼子; pinyin: xiyáng guǐzi ; literally: 'west ocean devil') - used to refer to Westerners.
However, xiaogui (小鬼; pinyin: xiǎoguǐ; literally: 'little ghost') is a common term in Mandarin Chinese for a child. Therefore, some argue that gui (鬼) in Mandarin is just a neutral word that describes non-expectable or something hard to predict.
Laowai (老外; pinyin: lǎowài; literally: 'old foreigner/outsider'), is the word most commonly used for foreigners, and is a less pejorative term than guizi. Although laowai literally means "old foreigner", but depending on context, "old" can be both a term of endearment and one of criticism. The pejorative aspect of the term laowai comes from conjoining the words old and outsider, suggesting the described person to be a visibly aged and unfamiliar, characteristics usually associated with apparitions or ghosts.
In popular culture [ edit ]
Comics [ edit ]
Larry Feign's Lily Wong comic stories, about the buildup to the handover of Hong Kong to China, frequent uses the term, often in a derogatory sense used by Lily's father.
Film [ edit ]
Games [ edit ]
In the video game Alpha Protocol (2010), the main character Mike Thornton is referred to as "gweilo" by the Chinese triad leader Hong Shi.
(2010), the main character Mike Thornton is referred to as "gweilo" by the Chinese triad leader Hong Shi. In the computer game Deus Ex (2000), when the player embarks on the Hong Kong mission he is often disparagingly referred to as "gweilo" by locals when attempting to talk to them. The phrase is also used by the harvester leader and a weapons merchant in the 2011 prequel Deus Ex: Human Revolution (other characters in the China chapters use laowai).
(2000), when the player embarks on the Hong Kong mission he is often disparagingly referred to as "gweilo" by locals when attempting to talk to them. The phrase is also used by the harvester leader and a weapons merchant in the 2011 prequel (other characters in the China chapters use laowai). In the video game Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb (2003), Kai's Chinese men often say 'Kill the Gwai lo!' when they see Indy.
(2003), Kai's Chinese men often say 'Kill the Gwai lo!' when they see Indy. In the video game Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days (2010), some Shanghai gang members refer to Kane or Lynch as gweilo.
(2010), some Shanghai gang members refer to Kane or Lynch as. In the video game Mafia II (2010), the protagonist Vito is derogatively referred to as "gweilo" by Chinese characters.
(2010), the protagonist Vito is derogatively referred to as "gweilo" by Chinese characters. In the video game BioShock Infinite (2013), Booker DeWitt is called a "gweilo" by a Chinese prisoner in Finkton.
Literature [ edit ]
Television [ edit ]
CFMT-TV in Toronto had a cooking show named Gwai Lo Cooking (1999) hosted by a Cantonese-speaking European chef, who was also the show's producer and the person who named the show. In response to some complaints, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled[14] that
... While historically, "gwai lo" may have been used by Chinese people as a derogatory remark concerning foreigners, particularly European Westerners, the persons consulted by the Council indicate that it has since lost much of its derogatory overtone. The Council finds that the expression has also lost most of its religious meaning, so that "foreign devil" no longer carries the theological significance it once did. Based on its research, the Council understands that the expression has gone from being considered offensive to, at worst, merely "impolite."
According to CFMT-TV, "Gwei Lo" was used as "a self-deprecating term of endearment".[15] Others, however, particularly foreigners living in Hong Kong, and non-Chinese subjected to the term in Vancouver and Toronto, find it to be demeaning or racist. However, it is also used by some non-Chinese (sometimes jocularly) to address themselves in the context of experiencing discrimination by Chinese towards them.
In the HBO drama Deadwood (2004–2006), Chinese settler Mr. Wu frequently applies the term gwai lo to various white men.
Theatre [ edit ]
"Gweilo: The rite of passage of a golden boy in colonial Hong Kong" was the title of the one-man show performed by Micah Sandt in Hong Kong (2016) adapted from the memoir by Martin Booth.[16]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]The longstanding joke about fusion—that it’s the energy source of the future, and always will be—may be the field’s biggest problem.
The quest to bottle the power of the sun has led to countless starry-eyed predictions of an imminent clean energy revolution. But the expectations for fusion have always been outsized, the trail of broken promises has grown long, and public perception has soured.
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While our cynicism about fusion may feel justified, it’s also unfortunate. Because, despite tepid support and constant funding peril, researchers are making progress toward this futuristic energy source. Scientists will eventually solve fusion’s immense technical challenges, if society can commit to the journey.
Last week, I visited the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory to tour the recently-upgraded National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX-U), the most powerful “spherical tokamak” fusion reactor on Earth. An 85 ton beast of a machine shaped like a giant cored apple, the NSTX-U uses high energy particles to heat hydrogen atoms to temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius, hotter than the core of the sun. To contain this super-hot plasma, winding copper coils generate a magnetic field 20,000 times stronger than that of the Earth. All of this so that for a few magic seconds, atomic nuclei will collide, fuse, and release energy.
The experiment is a step along the path toward a fusion plant that would run constantly, powering entire cities on mere grams of seawater.
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“It almost sounds too good to be true...But the nuclear physics says that it’s not.”
It’s easy to see why the field of fusion energy is prone to grandiose claims—this stuff just sounds epic. But what struck me the most from my trip to the PPPL was not the science wizardry taking place inside its giant reactor, or the Houston-style control center where dozens of (white, male) scientists crunched data and ran supercomputer simulations. It was the balance of optimism about the fusion energy future, and realism about the hard physics and engineering problems that need to be solved to get us there.
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“It almost sounds too good to be true: this concept that we’re going to have a limitless, carbon-free energy source,” Clayton Myers, a plasma physicist working on the NSTX-U, told me. “But the nuclear physics says that it’s not. It is proven that fusion reactions are real and that we can make them.”
The basic challenge, as physicists first learned in the 1950s and 60s, is that fusion plasmas—free-flowing soups of protons and electrons in which atomic nuclei collide and release energy—do not like to be contained. They want to splatter everywhere, and yet, we need to contain them, at high enough pressures and for long enough time intervals that we can produce more energy than we put in.
Our sun contains plasma with its immense gravity, but here on Earth, we need powerful magnets or lasers to do so. And the margins for error are miniscule. A teensy amount of escaped plasma can scar the wall of a fusion reactor, causing the machine to shut down.
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The field plasma physics blossomed out of a desire to bottle the stars. Over the past few decades, that field has expanded in myriad directions, from astrophysics to space weather to nanotechnology.
As our general understanding of plasmas has grown, so has our ability to sustain fusion conditions for more than a hot second. Earlier this year, China’s new superconducting fusion reactor was able to contain a 50 million degree Celsius plasma for a record 102 seconds. The Wendelstein X-7 Stellarator, which fired up in Germany for the first time last fall, is expected to blow that record out of the water with runs of up to 30 minutes at a time.
The NSTX-U’s recent upgrade sounds modest by comparison: the experiment can now keep a fusion plasma cooking for five seconds instead of one. But this, too, marks an important milestone.
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“Making a fusion plasma that lasts for five seconds may not sound like a long time, but the physics [of plasma] at five seconds is comparable to its physics at steady-state,” Myers said, referring to conditions in which the plasma is stable. (The ultimate goal is a steady-state “burning plasma,” one that can sustain fusion on its own with only a small input of external energy. No experiment to date has managed to achieve this.)
The NSTX-U will allow Princeton researchers to fill in some of the gaps between what is known of fusion plasma physics now, and what will be needed to build a pilot plant capable of reaching reaching that steady state burn and generating net electricity.
For one, in order to find the best materials for containment, we need to better understand what’s going on between the fusion plasma and the reactor wall. Princeton is exploring the possibility of replacing its current reactor walls (made of carbon graphite) with a “wall” of liquid lithium in order to reduce long-term corrosion.
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“Our view is that, if fusion is going to make a difference to global warming, we have to go faster.”
More generally, the NSTX-U will help physicists decide whether the spherical tokamak design is one that’s worth pursuing further. Most tokamak reactors have a much higher aspect ratio, meaning they are less cored apple-shaped and more donut-shaped. The unusual shape of the spherical torus allows it to use the magnetic field from its coils more efficiently.
“In the long run, we want to figure out how do you optimize the configuration of one of these machines,” said Martin Greenwald, the deputy director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. “To do that, you have to know how the performance of the machine depends on things you can control, like the shape.”
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Myers was loathe to estimate how far out we are from commercial fusion power, and you can hardly blame him. After all, it’s decades of excessive optimism that have harmed the field’s reputation and fueled the perception that fusion is a pipe dream—and that has had real funding consequences.
In a major blow to MIT’s fusion program, the feds recently pulled support for the Alcator C-Mod tokamak reactor, which produces one of the strongest magnetic fields and has yielded some of the highest pressure fusion plasmas in the world. Much of the NSTX-U’s expected research will depend on sustained federal support, which, Myers admitted, is “year to year.”
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Of course, we need to spend our research dollars carefully, and some fusion programs have racked up staggering bills. Take ITER, an enormous superconducting fusion reactor currently under construction in France. When the international collaboration began in 2005, it was billed as a $5 billion, 10 year project. After years of setbacks, that price tag has risen to roughly $40 billion. Optimistically, the facility will now be completed by 2030.
But where ITER seems destined to swell like a tumor until it runs out of resources and kills the host, MIT’s stripped-down fusion program is showing what can be done on a budget. Last summer, a team of MIT graduate students unveiled plans for ARC, a low-cost fusion reactor that would use new, high temperature superconducting materials to generate the same amount of power as ITER in a device a fraction of the size.
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“The challenge with fusion is finding a technical path that makes it economically attractive and that’s something we can do soon,” Greenwald said, adding that the ARC concept is now being pursued through MIT’s Energy Initiative. “Our view is that, if fusion is going to make a difference to global warming, we have to go faster.”
“Fusion is really the ultimate energy source—it’s the way we want to do things eventually,” said Robert Rosner, a plasma physicist at the University of Chicago and co-founder of its Energy Policy Institute. “In the meanwhile, the question really devolves to how much do we want to spend now. And if we drop funding to the point where the next generation of really smart kids do not want to go into the field, we’re going to put ourselves out of the business.”On Aug. 25, 2016, China’s Xinhua News Agency posted a short film on Twitter about the construction of a pipeline between Fujian province and Jinmen. Once finished, the pipeline will divert water from China to help this "Islet of Taiwan" overcome shortages. In just 44 seconds, a powerful narrative was established: Taiwan has problems; and Jinmen must depend on the People's Republic of China (PRC), not Taiwan’s elected government, to solve those problems.
Where was the official response from the government of Taiwan? By its silence, Taipei deferred control of the story – and of audience perceptions – to the PRC’s news agencies. China has a major presence in social media: On Twitter alone there is, in English, Xinhua, the People’s Daily, the Global Times, CCTV, and CCTV America. Other foreign ministries in East Asia, including Japan and Korea, are present in an official capacity in the social media: Where is Taiwan?
For twenty years, I have been researching and writing about Taiwan’s external communications – it’s propaganda, public diplomacy, cultural relations, and what is now called “soft power.” I remain committed to understanding how a state with few diplomatic allies and omission from the most important international organizations can use external communications to project globally its values and ambitions, and thereby further its political and diplomatic agenda. Taiwan, locked in an international environment that limits its manoeuvrability, is a perfect example. My first comprehensive study of this subject was published in 2000 as Taiwan’s Informal Diplomacy and Propaganda, and subsequently translated into Chinese.
As the political culture on the island continues to develop, as its democratic system deepens and matures, and as external communications turn away from political warfare and propaganda, it is time to revisit the subject. Taiwan’s so-called "soft power" – a term I try to avoid if at all possible – is rooted in the appealing story of the island’s political transformation since the late 1980s. As an American diplomat told Shelley Rigger: “Taiwan has grown into a society that represents most of our important values that we try to promote elsewhere in the world."[1]
This is clear recognition of Taiwan’s “soft power,” an intangible attraction based on the ideals and principles an actor – a government, country, organization, or individual- values, stands for, projects, and how the actor behaves at home and abroad. So the question driving my research in this area remains: If the American diplomat quoted above is correct in correlating Taiwan’s values with those of other liberal-democracies, why is Taiwan still unable to connect with international audiences? Taiwan’s external communications are failing to help the island transit from the invisible to the visible.
Even though the information landscape has transformed beyond recognition since 2000 thanks to the universal adoption of mobile “smart” phones, and digital platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Weixin, Line etc., Taiwan’s external communications – its public diplomacy – has changed little in response. And the more research I do, the more I understand the reasons why.
It is customary in writing about international communication to focus on platforms, content, message, and audience: what you say, how you say it, and to whom you say it. Now, our approach to public and cultural diplomacy is turning away from the message to understand more fully the messenger. Reflecting on the fieldwork I have undertaken for this research since 2011, including interviews with representatives of government ministries in Taiwan responsible for external communication as well as prominent NGOs (such as the Tzu Chi Buddhist Foundation), I have reached the conclusion that the key to understanding, if not offering solutions for overcoming Taiwan’s public deficit, lies with the government bureaucracy.
Interviewees in 2015 and 2016 defended the lack of a single, coherent digital diplomacy strategy by referring to the hierarchical and deferential nature of Taiwan’s bureaucracy: while speed is clearly the defining characteristic of the modern media environment, all official statements and releases within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) have to be scrutinized and approved before their publication – by which time the story has moved on and Taiwan’s position has been defined by other users in social media.
Moreover, the dissolution in 2012 of the Government Information Office (GIO) and the division of its responsibilities into the MOFA and a new Ministry of Culture means that Taiwan has lost a central body that can coordinate the design and communication of a consistent message across all branches of government. Moreover, my interviews reveal a sharp discrepancy in the culture and working practices of the GIO and MOFA, with their different world-views, audiences, time horizons, and above all, priorities preventing the creation of a single and credible public diplomacy strategy. It is clear that the function of Taiwan’s public diplomacy is the distribution of messages crafted about policy made further up the chain of command; relevant members of MOFA express frustration that they are unable to be in on what Ed Murrow, the Head of the USIA under President Kennedy, called the “take-offs” of policy and not just the “crash landings.”
Cynthia Schneider described public diplomacy as “all a nation does to explain itself to the world.”[2] However, Taiwan does not yet have the luxury of trying to explain. Its public diplomacy must first be oriented around the constraints of the environment in which it functions, including the need to capture attention in an over-crowded information space. It is difficult to explain if no one is listening.
Of course, more attention or familiarity does not necessarily translate into more influence. External communications, including public and cultural diplomacy, will not change other governments’ minds to establish diplomatic relations with Taiwan. If skillfully designed and executed, a program of external communication activities will contribute to the creation of an environment in which people may become familiar with Taiwan, and therefore more willing to engage with Taiwan in some form.
It is impossible to expect to “influence” another state or foreign public without prioritizing familiarity as a first crucial step in any communication strategy. Clearly, this is where Taiwan remains: In a survey conducted in five countries (Japan, the U.K., the U.S., France and Germany) in 2005, the Gallup polling organization found that in each “only minorities of the general population – from 15% in France to 44% in the U.S. – claim to know “some” or “a great deal” about Taiwan.[3] Other polling data reveals how “Just 29% of Americans are even aware that Taiwan has a democratic political system. The results are similar in the U.K. (27%), France (23%) and Germany (33%).”[4]
Clearly, Taiwan faces an uphill struggle in communicating with the world; it is essential that the appropriate bureaucratic structures are put in place to make facing that struggle a little easier.
References
Gallup 2005, Made in Taiwan: positive global impressions, viewed 19 November 2015, http://www.gallup.com/poll/20431/made-taiwan-positive-global-impressions.aspx.
Rigger, S 2011, Why Taiwan matters: from small island to global powerhouse, Rowman & Littlefield, New York.
Schneider, CP 2004, Culture communicates: US diplomacy that works, discussion papers in diplomacy, no.94, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingendael.
[1] Rigger 2011, 189.
[2] Schneider 2004.
[3] Gallup 2005.
[4] Ibid.
This article was originally published in CPI Analysis.
First Editor: J. Michael Cole
Second Editor: Olivia YangIt’s time to move on from derby names
This will undoubtedly be the most unpopular post I’ve ever made on this blog. But, if I didn’t feel it, I wouldn’t say it. It’s time to move on from derby names.
Picking out a tough derby name has been a long standing tradition in our sport. Newbies look forward to it more than even playing in their first bout. I’ve seen people take more time picking their name than they do the protective padding that will ultimately save them from terrible injuries. Derby names need to go the way of old school derby. Back when our sport was fake, overly theatrical, and at best, a sideshow.
There’s been lots of talk in derby PR circles about players taking names that are sexually suggestive, gross, or a just not family-friendly. Why should this be something that derby needs to concern itself with? Leaders of teams shouldn’t have to spend any time deciding whether a skater’s name is appropriate for the masses. It’s just wasted time.
If you’re a skater, wouldn’t you rather get recognition for yourself and not your derby persona? It’s YOU putting the work in every practice. It’s YOU sacrificing your body for the good of our sport. Wouldn’t you rather young kids come up to you and say “I love you Susie Smith!” rather than “I love you Killer Krusher!”
During the 2011 WFTDA Championships, a jammer for the Kansas City Roller Warriors was called by her real name. The jammer formerly known as Snot Rocket is now just Kelley Young. And it sounded awesome. It sounded right. It sounded legitimate.
Lots of people talk about roller derby needing to be taken seriously as a sport. Let’s be honest, aside from derby’s past, the other great hurdle that people use to discredit derby is the use of derby names. You want to be called a real athlete, but you don’t use a real name? What are we then, pro wrestling? Pro wrestling gets tens of thousands of fans to come to events. They use fake names. So clearly, they’re doing something right, right? No. People walk into a pro wrestling match knowing that the events they are about to watch are not only predetermined, but they are carefully choreographed. Pro wrestling is fake, roller derby is not.
Let’s lift up the women that make this sport what it is to a higher level. Let’s make them stars by their birth names. Let’s stop performing incredible athletic feats behind fake names. Let’s take a page from Race City in Charlotte and use our real names when competing.
Even though I’m not a player, I will still practice what I preach. From this day forward, I’m retiring my derby name, “ExploSean.” I will no longer use it as part of my activity in roller derby. I’m proud of my name and proud of this sport. I’m no longer going to hide behind a false name just because “it’s what we’ve always done.” I hope that the rest of derby can some day follow suit.
AdvertisementsRomney, however, is not going to let you feel sorry about this, gentle reader. Every time you feel the least twinge of sympathy for him, he’s going to start screeching about immigrants again. “That’s not your money. That’s the taxpayers’ money!” he cried when Huckabee explained why he did not want to exclude the children of illegal immigrants in a state scholarship program for top Arkansas high school graduates. “Illegals are not going to get taxpayer-funded breaks.”
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“In all due respect, we are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did,” Huckabee retorted, winning the moral high ground just before he raced off to denounce the progressive income tax.
Taxing people based on their ability to pay got a brief, sensible defense from McCain, just before he denounced Ron Paul’s opposition to the invasion of Iraq. (“We allowed Hitler to come to power with that kind of attitude of isolationism and appeasement.”)
It’s no wonder the Republican voters are veering back and forth, rejecting one candidate after another. Fred Thompson, who was supposed to be likable once upon a time, has gotten so desperate that he submitted a four-minute candidate profile that was composed almost entirely of attacks on Romney and Huckabee. Lately, Thompson has also been busying himself attacking the Fox network for bias against his alleged campaign.
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McCain and Huckabee, the candidates who seemed to speak from the heart did best, even though their hearts occasionally seemed to be completely nutty. McCain absolutely dismembered Romney on the question of torture. (Mitt refused to denounce waterboarding because he said he didn’t want the terrorists to know what we were up to.) “It’s in violation of the Geneva Convention... how in the world anybody could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted by Americans on people who are held in our custody is absolutely beyond me,” he said. Having whipped his opponent good, McCain then turned right around and started refighting Vietnam. (“We never lost a battle... ”)
It was suspenseful, waiting for the next shoe to drop, for the next candidate to go whacky. Rounding out the field was Representative Duncan Hunter, who has — well, he has a grandson who says cute things to his teacher. Hunter appears to have done his hardest campaigning in Florida, which means he has made approximately as many stops over the last six months as a low-energy tourist on a single weekend.
Every sign points to the party nominees being chosen by the first week in February. (If given the choice, would you prefer to see your Christmas stocking filled with a lump of coal or 10 months of Clinton vs. Romney?) But on the Republican side, it’s not hard to imagine the poor voters veering from one to the other. (Him? — Oh, god no. How about — him! No, wait, what were we thinking? )
Maybe they’ll vacillate until the bitter end, leaving it all up to the final primary in South Dakota in June. And that would be great. Finally, instead of allowing a few thousand corn farmers to decide the fate of the nation, we could place the power where it rightfully belongs, with a few thousand wheat farmers.Tipping in the U.S. is deeply ingrained in American culture, dating back hundreds of years. And although it was met with opposition initially, tipping has stuck around for all these years.
But, of course, everything has its heyday — and tipping in the U.S. just might be at its downfall, particularly in the restaurant scene where many establishments are choosing to adopt a no-tipping policy. Here’s a look at why a no-tip policy might become the new norm in the near future.
1. Tipping Is an Outdated Practice
For much of the world, tipping has become an outdated practice. For example, in countries such as China, Japan, Switzerland and Brazil, tipping is not really expected.
On the other hand, tipping in the U.S. continues to be part of the American psyche: People who work harder should be rewarded — even if it feels obligatory.
But enacting a no-tipping policy could quickly change that logic, as “it provides certainty up front about the amount of the bill, and customers don’t have to calculate the amount of the tip,” said Phil Hofmann, the tax senior director at BDO United States, a tax, audit and consulting firm. Plus, customers won’t have to worry about a guilty conscious if they decide to tip less than the standard 15 to 20 percent.
2. No-Tip Policies Are Becoming More Popular in the Restaurant Industry
According to TIME Money, there are at least 21 restaurants in the U.S. that have gotten rid of their no-tipping policy. Leading the latest no-tipping wave is famed restaurateur Danny Meyer of Union Square Hospitality Group in New York. The hospitality group plans to drop tipping at all 13 of its restaurants in New York throughout 2016.
Other restaurants that have also adopted a no-tipping policy include Bar Marco in Pittsburgh and Public Option in Washington, DC. And in November 2015, Joe’s Crab Shack became the first major chain to start testing a no-tip policy.
Joshua Ostrega, COO and co-founder of WorkJam — an employment engagement technology company — said businesses are choosing to eliminate tipping “because they see an alternative way to enhance their businesses by improving the quality and conditions of their staff and the experience of their customers.”
Related: How to Eat at Five-Star Restaurants on a Two-Star Budget
3. No Tipping Could Mean Higher Wages for Employees
For those who rely heavily on tips, like restaurant workers, earnings can fluctuate from day-to-day. But for some, their earnings are consistently low even with tips included. For example, the average hourly pay of a server in the Los Angeles area is $11.81 including tips, reports the Los Angeles Times.
But, a no-tipping policy “suggests an attractive increase in wage stability” for employees, said Ostrega. By eliminating a tipping policy, employers will likely provide a more livable wage that doesn’t require an employee to earn tips in order to make up the difference.
4. Higher Wages Could Create a Better Workforce
Some people feel tipping creates an incentive for better service, but likely every person has experienced bad service at least once or twice — even when tipping was at stake.
But service just might be improved with a no-tipping policy, according to Joseph Camberato, president of National Business Capital financial firm. “I think if servers made more hourly, they would be more confident and positive even on slow nights as they know they are still going to make a paycheck,” he said.
This could be a good move for servers in particular, as a 2014 survey conducted by consumer research firm VourcherCloud.net found Americans are tipping less than five years ago, with many not tipping the standard 15 to 20 percent tip.
5. No-Tipping Could Lead to Other Incentives for Workers
“Tipping is that incentive that encourages employees on even the worst of days to put their personal life aside and provide top-tier service to make customers happy,” said Ostrega. Although an incentive is a nice reward for any line of work, some businesses are realizing that it doesn’t have to be in the form of a tip.
According to a recent Chicago Tribune article, one Chicago restaurant with a no-tip policy decided to base employee pay on tenure and responsibilities. Those who take on additional work, such as scheduling and orders, are rewarded with higher pay. This system has two benefits: It gives employees a guaranteed pay and encourages them to move up the ladder.
6. Chip-and-PIN Credit Cards Encourage People Not to Tip
Tipping could be doomed with the rise of chip-and-PIN credit cards, which might eliminate the ability for some customers to write in a tip on paper. According to CardFellow.com, some chip-and-PIN cards “will not allow adding a tip after the card has been run.” Choosing whether to add a tip will have to be decided before the card is processed.
With these microchip cards, “you’ll have to do that electronically from a machine basically held by your server,” said David Bakke, a financial expert at Money Crashers. “What does that mean for tipping in and of itself? It might mean that consumers tip more because of the additional pressure — or that they won’t tip at all.”
7. A No-Tip Policy Makes Taxes Easier for Business Owners
A no-tip policy could eliminate the confusion that comes with tipping in the workforce. For example, when employees under report tips, that can cause problems for employers when it comes to taxes, said Hofmann.
“With a no-tipping policy, theoretically all tips are eliminated — some customers may tip anyways until the policy is clearly established — meaning that all compensation is reported to the server by the employer,” explained Hofmann. “This results in all income being reported, which reduces burden on the restaurant and eliminates an audit area that the IRS spends a significant amount of time on.”
He added, “Overall, IRS compliance burden for both the employee and the restaurant is reduced when tips are eliminated, resulting in a simplified process for reporting income.”
8. Customers Can Simply Enjoy Their Meal or Service
Let’s face it: When you eat out or receive a service, such as a haircut, you’re secretly rating the provider’s performance to gauge how to tip. Then comes the daunting task of actually calculating the amount of gratuity. But a no-tipping policy can eliminate all this work and stress. As Ostrega put it, business owners could expect happier customers who will “enjoy taking the whole transactional tipping interaction out of those last few minutes of their meal.”
And because today’s culture is all about instant gratification, no one really wants to stick around, tally a bill and do math after a meal. Research has shown that this mentality has made people less patient — and patience might be running thin with tipping. As Hofmann said, the tipping practice might not be fully eliminated until there is dissatisfaction from both the restaurant and customer perspective. However, that could be here before you know it.
9. Tipping Can Be Unfair
Tipping as a system of payment has been notoriously flawed for several reasons. For one, not everyone tips the same or what is deemed appropriate. Additionally, tipping can be sexist, racist and simply unfair. For example, something as simple as drawing a smiley face on a check has been shown to raise a tip — but only if you’re a woman.
New York City chef Amanda Cohen told CBS News last fall that she reopened her vegetarian restaurant with a no-tip policy because of the unfair system. As she explained, the system of tipping creates the risk of employees not getting properly paid. But a no-tipping policy would put everyone on an even playing field.
Keep Reading: 5 Mobile Apps That Cut Your Restaurant Bill in Half
10. ‘Hospitality Included’ Is in Your Future
In its report on the “2016 Top Ten Trends,” the Food Channel predicted a no-tipping future. Kay Logsdon, editor in chief of the Food Channel, said, “We’ll see more restaurants displaying signs that say, ‘Hospitality Included’ or ‘We Pay Our People Like People.’ Some of that is because a no-tipping future is driven by demands for wages that aren’t tied to a customer’s whims.”
According to Logsdon, some might hate this idea because they believe in rewarding good customer service. But, she predicts “it will probably move forward simply because it takes away a decision that the customer has to make, and restaurants are doing everything they can to simplify the customer experience.”
But just be aware that a no-tipping future might mean an increase in the cost of services and products. So if your favorite restaurant adopts a no-tip policy, don’t be surprised if its menu prices go up. These adjusted prices for included service might have you rethinking the value of eating out, said Logsdon.The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday warned airlines transporting passengers to the Sochi Winter Olympics to be on lookout for a new kind of threat: explosives contained in toothpaste tubes.
The warning, which contained no further information or specifics of a potential plot, is only the latest threat—real or perceived—targeting the games.
Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov has called on terrorists to disrupt the Winter Olympics using “any methods,” and Russian security officials have been reportedly hunting “black widow” suspects who authorities fear want to carry out a suicide attack sometime during the next two weeks. Another group, Vilayat Dagestan, warned Russian president Vladimir Putin, “If you hold these Olympics, we will give you a present for the innocent Muslim blood being spilled all around the world: in Afghanistan, in Somalia, in Syria.”
While the spectre of a tube of toothpaste taking down an airliner may seem like only the latest half-brained attempt from terrorists hell-bent on sneaking |
Institute. Notes 1We used 2014 national population predictions available from the US Census Bureau. These files give population projections by race, ethnicity, and sex of all ages from 2012 to 2060 based on estimated birth rates, death rates, and net migration rates over the time period. Using the “Table 1, Middle Series” file (which has a 2014 projected population of 318,892,103), we summed the 2014 population projections for all 18–64 year-olds to arrive at 198,461,688 nonelderly adults in 2014. See US Census Bureau, “2012 National Population Projections: Downloadable Files,” US Department of Commerce, last revised May 15, 2013. For more information, see Long et al. (2014). 2See, for example, Levy, Jenna, “U.S. Uninsured Rate Holds Steady at 13.4%,” Washington, DC: Gallup, June 5, 2014, http://www.gallup.com/poll/170882/uninsured-rate-holds-steady.aspx, which provides estimates of uninsured rates for adults over the same time frame. Caution should be taken in comparing recent estimates of coverage changes, however. For example, a recent analysis released by the Commonwealth Fund is not comparable to the findings presented here, because that estimate counts changes between different types of coverage (e.g., a change from one nongroup insurance plan to another is counted the same as a change from being uninsured to having Medicaid), whereas the estimates provided here compare the number uninsured in the prior period with the number uninsured in the most recent period, thus estimating the net change in uninsurance over the period (Blumenthal and Collins 2014).THE Gaza Strip, an enclave tucked between Egypt and Israel that is still ruled by Hamas, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is once again caged in. Egypt’s ruling generals, fearful that what they see as an Islamist tumour on their north-eastern flank might grow back into a Brotherhood cancer, want to contain it, if not cut it out. So they have sent bulldozers to demolish the houses along the border with Gaza that covered the tunnels providing Gaza’s 1.8m people with half their basic needs and most of their fuel and building material.
Of some 300 tunnels that operated before Egypt’s army overthrew Muhammad Morsi, the Muslim Brother who had been president for a year, only ten are said now to function. Above ground, movement across the border has dwindled to a trickle.
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At Rafah, on the Gaza side of the main terminal into Egypt, hundreds of people have been waiting to cross for days. A flustered Gazan official, besieged by scores brandishing papers with hospital appointments or flight tickets for onward travel from Cairo, calls out names one by one through a tannoy, and hands out green cards to the few allowed by the Egyptians to board buses on their side of the border.
Among Gazans a sense of crisis is growing. One of the two turbines that power their sole electricity plant has been turned off owing to a fuel shortage. Power cuts last more than half a day. Drivers leave their cars outside petrol stations, waiting for the day they might reopen. In the past few weeks, cigarette prices have tripled. Unemployment, already rife, has risen, with 19,000 building workers being laid off. “Egypt’s rope around Gaza’s neck”, reads the headline of a newspaper run by Hamas, above a photograph of two Egyptian battleships said to be heading Gaza’s way.
Hamas is in trouble. Dues from the tunnels, worth $1m a day, used to provide half of its budget. Its key sponsors—Syria, Iran and Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood, which once promised a free economic zone and a motorway linking the strip to Egypt—have fallen away. The first Islamist movement to take power on the Mediterranean now talks of making a last stand. Gazans are beginning to wonder if Hamas will stay in charge. “Without Egypt, Gaza is like a branch of a tree cut off at its roots,” ventures a Gazan supporter of Mahmoud Abbas, whose rival Fatah party runs the West Bank, the bigger part of a would-be Palestinian state.
In recent weeks armed men from Islamic Jihad, Hamas’s smaller Islamist rival with stronger ties to Iran, have skirmished with their Hamas counterparts for control of mosques. But Hamas is not about to bow out. Its security men have been putting up checkpoints at night. News agencies have been closed down. Suspected opponents of Hamas are being arrested.
“The showdown has begun,” says the head of an Egyptian community centre who was taken in for questioning by Hamas people after praising the Egyptian army. Hamas’s military wing has been holding defiant parades in view of the Egyptian army across the border. A Hamas firebrand has told people planning protests against the movement that they should “bring their shrouds”.
If it is to survive as Gaza’s ruler, Hamas will have to rely on its old foe, Israel. While Egypt has choked off access to Gaza, Israel has loosened it, with 400 lorries recently entering the strip from Israel via the Kerem Shalom crossing in a single day, the liveliest such traffic for many years. “If they increase demand, we’re ready to step up,” says an Israeli military spokeswoman.
At Friday prayers, some Hamas preachers curse Egypt more than Israel. Hamas border guards arrest and even shoot anyone trying to break the ceasefire with Israel. The 300,000-odd Israelis living in easy rocket range of the border with Gaza are enjoying a rare bout of calm. “Egypt’s closures make us insist more on keeping things quiet with Israel,” says the editor of a Hamas newspaper. Israeli security officials seem to reciprocate. “We’re not doing anything to cause instability to the [Hamas] regime right now,” says an Israeli army man on the border.
Yet Israelis still loathe Hamas, which carried out scores of suicide-bombings against Israelis in the early 2000s. Hamas, meanwhile, reviles Israel for its assaults on Gaza and its leaders. It plainly cannot bank on Israel to keep it going for ever. Nowadays it is unusually lonely.A popular Pakistani television journalist who incurred the Taliban's wrath by criticising it for trying to assassinate the schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai vowed on Monday to continue "speaking the truth" after a bomb was found planted under his car.
Police in Islamabad said the remotely controlled device was defused by bomb experts. It was discovered shortly after Hamid Mir, one of the country's best-known television presenters, returned to his parked vehicle from a hair appointment.
"This was a highly sophisticated device containing around half a kilogramme of high explosives," said Bani Amin Khan, Islamabad's inspector general of police, who was in no doubt that the bomb could have killed.
"It was in a metal box attached by magnets to the bottom of the car, under the seat where Mr Mir usually sits."
Although bombings and assassinations by militant groups are a near daily occurrence in Pakistan, car bombs are rare.
The drama on Islamabad's suburban streets played out on Geo TV, the hugely popular private channel that employs Mir as one of its star political talkshow hosts.
Rehman Malik, the country's interior minister, rushed to Mir's house and promised television viewers that the celebrity presenter would receive all the police protection he required.
Mir already has three police guards, who have been provided by the government for the past few months. Khan said one of the guards spotted the box under the car, which was given away by a piece of plastic bag trailing out of it.
No group has yet taken responsibility for planting the bomb, although Mir reportedly received threats from the Taliban earlier this year following the shooting of Malala, the 15-year-old girl who campaigns against attempts by militants to shut down girls' schools.
The attempt to kill Malala prompted a storm of outrage from a Pakistani media that is normally careful about directly criticising the Taliban and other militant groups.
On one edition of his show Capital Talk shortly after the shooting of Malala, Mir concluded his programme by pointedly saying he rejected the Taliban's claims that the attack on the schoolgirl was justified under Islamic law.
But some journalists said Mir had other enemies besides the Taliban. His programmes on Baluchistan, the province where the military has been accused of extra-judicial killings and "disappearances", are thought to have angered the country's powerful army establishment.
Mir's status as a hate figure for militants is a marked change from an earlier period in his career when he had a good working relationship with both Pakistan's military establishment and militant groups, becoming one of the few journalists to interview Osama bin Laden.
But in 2010 a tape recording of a conversation believed to be between Mir and a Taliban spokesman showed the journalist apparently urging the movement not to release a hostage who was later executed.
Although Mir has always strenuously denied his voice was on the tape, some of his colleagues in the media believe the row prompted him to join the country's embattled band of so-called media "liberals" who dare to criticise the security establishment.
Pakistan is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists, according to Reporters without Borders, which last month said eight journalists had been killed in Pakistan this year. In 2011 the country's spy service was implicated in the killing of the investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad.
Another Geo TV star, the journalist Najam Sethi, is so fearful that his outspoken nightly commentary has made him a target that he rarely leaves his house and broadcasts from a special studio erected in a spare bedroom.
"We are with you Hamid!" Sethi tweeted to his tens of thousands of followers on Monday. "We must be strong [and] united. We will not be intimidated by state or non-state terrorists and extremists."Please enable Javascript to watch this video
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - A mother told reporters that a Chattanooga school bus driver asked the kids onboard if they were "ready to die" prior to the crash that killed at least five children and left six others hospitalized in an intensive care unit in Tennessee Monday.
Woodmore Elementary School bus driver Johnthony Walker has been arrested and charged with multiple counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving, according to Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher.
The mother, who had three children on the bus, including one who was killed in the crash, told a reporter the bus driver spoke to the children moments before the collision, according to television station WWJ-TV.
“The mother says that in the moments before the crash, the bus driver said something to the effect of ‘Are you all ready to die?’ and then seconds later, the bus was on its side and five kids were killed,” the reporter said, according to WWJ-TV.
The bus driver, identified as Johnthony Walker, 24, has been arrested and charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving.
"Five is a cursed number in our city right now. We are... dealing with an unimaginable loss," Mayor Andy Berke said. "The most unnatural thing in the world is for a parent to mourn the loss of a child."
Authorities arrested the bus driver, 24-year-old Johnthony Walker, charging him with vehicular homicide. But investigators are still working to pinpoint what caused the crash.
Police chief: Investigators focusing on speed
There's one key possibility authorities have already homed in on: speed.
The school bus, which had dozens of children onboard, was barreling down a narrow and winding road Monday afternoon, according to an arrest affidavit.
"Mr. Walker lost control of the bus and swerved off of the roadway to the right, striking an elevated driveway and mailbox, swerved to the left and began to overturn, striking a telephone pole and a tree," the affidavit says.
Witness statements and physical evidence showed that Walker was traveling "at a high rate of speed, well above the posted speed limit of 30 mph," according to the affidavit.
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Driving conditions were clear and dry, Chattanooga police Chief Fred Fletcher said, and no other vehicles were involved in the crash.
Walker has been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving. He could face more charges as the case proceeds to a Hamilton County grand jury, the police chief said.
Investigators are interviewing witnesses, but they'll also have other evidence at their disposal, including video and an informational box from the bus.
A National Transportation Safety Board team arrived in Chattanooga on Tuesday morning. Among the questions investigators will be weighing: What was the driver's history? What was the history of his employer, Durham School Services? And can anything be done to stop crashes such as this from happening in the future?
"We certainly send our condolences to the parents of those children. My daughter rides a school bus every day. I understand that," safety board Chairman Christopher Hart told reporters earlier. "We will do everything we can to try to prevent this from happening again."
Bus driver's mother: 'He was terrified'
After the crash, Walker's mother says she got a phone call from her son, who told her he'd been in a "drastic accident" and tried to explain what had happened before police took his phone away.
"When he talked to me, he was terrified," Gwenevere Cook said.
"He was trying to get them (children) off the bus -- all the bodies were limp. There was blood everywhere. He has been cooperating with the police. He texted me minutes later saying the kids are dead," she said.
Cook expressed condolences for the victims' families and asked for compassion for her son, describing him as a respected man and a father of a 3-year-old son who worked two jobs and had never been in trouble before.
"It is a horrible nightmare," she said. "I feel bad for my son, and I am torn up for the (victims') family members."
'Unanswered questions'
Of the five children confirmed dead after Monday's crash, three were fourth-graders at Woodmore Elementary School, one was a first-grader and one was a kindergartner, according to Kirk Kelly, interim superintendent for Hamilton County Schools. Six students remain hospitalized in the intensive care unit, and six are in regular rooms at the hospital, Kelly said.
"There are still some unanswered questions at this time, but our priority remains with our students," Kelly said Tuesday morning, adding that counselors would be at the school for anyone who needs to talk.
"There are no words that you can say," Kelly said. "This is something that you'll never get over... but we're just doing what we can and reaching out and offering words of comfort and support to the families."
Durham School Services, a company that transports more than 1 million students daily at schools across the United States, said it was working with police and school officials to investigate.
The company's website -- which normally depicts smiling children and bright yellow school buses beside a pledge about getting students to school safely -- was black on Tuesday, greeting visitors with a somber statement about the Chattanooga crash.
"Our entire team at Durham School Services is devastated by the accident yesterday that tragically claimed the lives of Chattanooga students," the statement said.
'I just heard a big boom'
A woman who lives near the crash told WDEF the impact was so powerful it knocked her power out.
"I just heard a big boom," the woman said.
Distraught parents rushed to the site, searching for their kids. Parents were heard screaming, "That's my baby," CNN affiliate WTVC-TV reported.
A tweet from the Chattanooga Fire Department showed the bus on its side against a tree as emergency officials extricated the last passenger through the back door.
'Hundreds and hundreds' of donors giving blood
Blood Assurance, a local blood bank, extended its hours at three locations as "hundreds and hundreds" of donors flocked to give blood to treat crash victims, spokeswoman Mindy Quinn said.
"We have had people who were refusing to leave until they give blood," Quinn said.
Rebekah Bell said she arrived to donate Monday night and saw the line out the door, "full of college students, older people, and police officers who dropped everything to give blood."
She waited three hours for her chance.
"My community rallies in the face of tragedy," she said on Instagram.A week into the Trump administration and things are going swimmingly with a brewing trade war with Mexico and a terrifying window into Donald Trump's deranged psychology. Trump is already backtracking on campaign promises to leave Social Security and Medicare alone and not to just rip health insurance away from the tens of millions of Americans who gained it with Obama, letting the GOP-dominated Congress have their way with those life-saving programs.
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On the other hand, as Paul Krugman pointed out in Friday's column, Trump "appears serious about his eagerness to reverse America’s 80-year-long commitment to expanding world trade." When the White House said it was considering a 20 percent tariff on imports from Mexico Thursday, it signaled a whole new level of willingness to violate all of the country's trade agreements.
"Why does he want this?" Krugman asked rhetorically. "Because he sees international trade the way he sees everything else: as a struggle for dominance, in which you only win at somebody else’s expense."
It was all there in his menacing inaugural address, in lines like,“For many decades we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry,” the threats to impose tariffs and the Steve Bannon's turn of phrase about “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape.”
Krugman isn't buying it.
Unfortunately, as just about any economist could tell him — but probably not within his three-minute attention span — it doesn’t work that way. Even if tariffs lead to a partial reversal of the long decline in manufacturing employment, they won’t add jobs on net, just shift employment around. And they probably won’t even do that: Taken together, the new regime’s policies will probably lead to a faster, not slower, decline in American manufacturing. How do we know this? We can look at the underlying economic logic, and we can also look at what happened during the Reagan years, which in some ways represent a dress rehearsal for what’s coming. Now, I’m talking about the reality of Reagan, not the Republicans’ legend, which assigns all blame for the early-1980s recession to Jimmy Carter and all credit for the subsequent recovery to the sainted Ronald. In fact, that whole cycle had almost nothing to do with Reagan policies. What Reagan did do, however, was blow up the budget deficit with military spending and tax cuts. This drove up interest rates, which drew in foreign capital. The inflow of capital, in turn, led to a stronger dollar, which made U.S. manufacturing uncompetitive. The trade deficit soared — and the long-term decline in the share of manufacturing in overall employment accelerated sharply.
The Rust Belt was born under Reagan, in fact. And Saint Ronnie, supposed lover of free markets, was also a fan of protectionism, Krugman noted, citing his quota on Japanese car exports as having cost American consumers dearly.
Trump is Reagan on steroids, and to extend the metaphor, the steroids are affecting Trump's mood as well. Reagan did not out and out violate existing trade deals as Trump is poised to do. Tax cuts for the rich are coming and the deficit will surely grow as a result, which suddenly does not seem to bother all the hypocritical deficit scolds of the last eight years. Trumpian levels of protectionism may help some American manufacturers, Krugman conceded, but "it will also drive the dollar higher, hurting others."
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There is also the fact that the world economy has become so globalized in the intervening years that the parts complex products like cars and planes are made in various countries. Krugman thinks taking a "meat ax to the agreements that govern international trade" will result in "huge dislocation: Some U.S. factories and communities will benefit, but others will be hurt, bigly, by the loss of markets, crucial components or both."
Who will be most hurt by the coming Trump shock? Lots of folks, but especially the white working-class voters who bought the snake oil Trump was selling.Continue Reading
But the cat's cries continued throughout the next day. Another worker, Kimberly Killebrew, told McGill about the trapped cat. McGill told her he'd "handle it," according to an affidavit in the case. But the crying wore on. McGill just kept telling employees he'd take care of it.
Munoz was torn. He loved animals, and his job as a cruelty investigator allowed him to be on the front lines, saving them from horrible situations. But he also loved his family and couldn't risk his job by going over his bosses' heads and cutting the cat out of the wall. That just wasn't the way things were done at Animal Services.
"If he had kicked that wall in, he'd have been fired," says Arlington animal rights attorney Don Feare, whom Munoz retained. "[Munoz] had three small children to feed. He just had to deal with it."
As the days went on, and the cat continued to claw at the wall, the shelter workers wondered when their supervisors were going to take action. According to the affidavit, the workers reported pleading with McGill: Couldn't he do something?
Court records claim that McGill lifted a few ceiling tiles up, but did nothing more to save the cat. Calls were made to McGill's supervisor, Kent Robertson, the shelter division manager and a former SPCA director who had been lauded by animal rights activists in the city for his dedication. But he was out of town, dealing with a family emergency.
More days elapsed and the cat stopped crying. That's when the stink began. Not the stink made by shelter workers furious with supervisors, but the literal stink from the cat's decomposing body. It was so bad that workers couldn't eat their lunches in the break room.
On May 18—more than two weeks after the cat's cries were first heard, McGill cut a square hole in the wall—about a foot across, in precisely the location Munoz had identified. After the day shift ended, McGill and a few other workers pulled the cat's decomposed body out of the wall.
Animal deaths are nothing unusual at the shelter, which receives $6.6 million annually from the city's general fund. Up to 26,000 dogs, eight or nine thousand cats and several hundred exotic animals, livestock and wildlife come through DAS each year. The smallest percentage of those—for example, 1,510 cats and 5,308 dogs for the last fiscal year—will be adopted, rescued or returned to their owners. The vast majority will be euthanized.
But imagine: animal services workers terrified of getting fired for attempting to save an animal's life. Yet at Dallas Animal Services, that's how things worked, say animal rights activists like Jonnie England and shelter employees such as Domanick Munoz, for whom the culture of intimidation at DAS became so bad he had to hire a lawyer after he blew the whistle on McGill. Even Humane Society of the United States auditors found that toeing the party line and maintaining the favor of supervisors often has taken precedence over animal care and safety.
According to a HSUS report released in November, DAS has been suffering from a "morale crisis." Auditors reported that "staff repeatedly expressed alienation from managers and supervisors who used retaliatory disciplinary actions." This, they surmised, was "reflective of ineffective leadership in the management ranks."
Clock in, obey orders, keep your head down. Don't question the bosses. Clock out. If a cat dies in the wall? Hope the press doesn't get wind of it. And in the end, of course, it's the animals who suffer most.
The past year has been disastrous for DAS: Once-lauded animal shelter division manager Kent Robertson resigned and shelter manager Tyrone McGill was indicted on felony animal cruelty charges, though his attorney, Anthony Lyons, adamantly denies his client did anything wrong. Two other employees were put on paid leave pending internal investigations into mistreatment of animals, and a cop—a cop!—was brought in to manage the department in anticipation of a damning audit by the Humane Society that was strikingly similar to the one it issued a decade earlier. Over the last 10 years, seemingly endless shake-ups in upper management and a new state-of-the-art animal shelter costing taxpayers millions can't seem to set DAS straight.
DAS itself has been trapped between two opposing attitudes toward its work: The old dog catcher mentality of "catch, cage, kill," which focuses on rounding up strays, keeping them a short time and euthanizing them quickly, and a more animal welfare-influenced philosophy that focuses on humane treatment, adoption and live release. Animal rights activists blame city managers and city council members for sending out conflicting messages about what it wants the shelter to be. But when city leadership is predominantly concerned with street sweeps and numbers, viewing animals as they would high weeds or graffiti, compassion gets lost in the mix.
"This has come full circle a couple of times," says Andy Allen, a former chairwoman of the Animal Shelter Commission, a city council-appointed citizens advisory panel that oversees the shelter. She recalls the shelter suffering from the same problems a decade ago. "We have to stop this circle."
The interim shelter division manager, Lieutenant Scott Walton—a Dallas police fix-it guy who was assigned to restructure the DPD property room in the wake of the fake drugs scandal nearly a decade ago—is preaching a gospel of "compassion" to employees, but is that really all that's missing at the shelter?
Critics, including current and former members of the Animal Services Commission, say Assistant City Manager Forest Turner, who oversees the Department of Code Compliance under whose purview the shelter falls, has mismanaged his position, putting golf buddy Tyrone McGill in a job he was unqualified to fill; also, Turner has refused to provide the commission with straight answers about city shelter operations. For the past three years, under Turner's leadership and that of City Manager Mary Suhm, relationships between shelter workers, the commission and management have become, according to one former ASC member, "very adversarial."
Turner says the city "strives for continual improvement" and has placed the best employees in positions for which they are well suited. But critics wonder why Suhm, who declined to be interviewed for this story, hasn't gutted the department. They believe City Hall has forgotten that even though the animal shelter is under the Department of Code Compliance, dogs and cats can't simply be dealt with like bulk trash and unmended fences.
Most of all, some past and present commission members wonder why it has been ignored when they have been calling for reform and offering concrete solutions for years. The only answer they can come up with: Bad politics trumps good policy in code compliance.
With its $16.3 million price tag, courtesy of a late-'90s bond election, the new municipal animal shelter that opened in 2007 at the corner of Westmoreland Road and Interstate 30 in West Dallas was supposed to solve many of the problems that stalked previous shelters.
A decade ago, when Dallas Animal Services was called Dallas Animal Control, it didn't fall under the purview of the Department of Code Compliance but under Streets and Sanitation Services. Former commission chairwoman Andy Allen calls that organization structure "a terrible idea."
"That sent the wrong message to the public," she says, "that the job of animal control is to pick up dead animals off the streets." At the time, Dallas actually had two shelters, one in Oak Cliff near the zoo and another on Forney Road in Far East Dallas. Both shelters were aging dank, dark places with leaky roofs and serious rodent infestation problems.
Workers at the time seemed to have little knowledge of progressive animal control philosophy and procedures. At the adoption desk, for example, Allen says "there was no screening all around," neither for the animals chosen to be put up for adoption nor for the citizens who came into the shelter looking for a pet. Quality of life for the animals housed at the shelter was poor at best.
In fairness, workers at animal shelters can develop a hardened attitude toward their work just to survive it. Daily, they must deal with aggressive dogs, clawing cats, emotional owners who have lost their pets or can no longer control them and irate owners who have been cited for anything from dog-tethering complaints to animal cruelty. Some staffers suffer from "compassion fatigue," which sets in when people are asked to deal with trauma—like the euthanization of dozens of animals a day, for example—on a consistent basis.
"The people in this business are some of the most compassionate that I have ever met," Allen says, "but they can be beaten down." In order to deal with the reality of an 80 to 90 percent euthanasia rate, one current kennel worker, Eddie Hopper, says he reads the Bible every morning. "You've got to get your mind right or it can get real bad."
The call for the first Humane Society of the United States audit came in 2000, not as the result of any isolated incident, but from a general sense that the department was in terrible shape.
"Overall mismanagement would be an understatement," Allen recalls. When HSUS released its first report in December 2001, it confirmed what many had known for a long time: "The DAC has been a ship adrift for years," HSUS auditors wrote. In the eyes of both city government and community members, the report continues, "DAC is considered little more than a kennel or 'dog pound.'"
The report took then-Dallas Animal Control to task for egregious handling of euthanasia procedures, calling the selection process for euthanized animals "arbitrary and subjective." Workers sometimes poked animals several times in different sites on their bodies, causing unnecessary pain. After the injection, any given animal would be "thrown into a cart on top of other euthanized animals."
Relationships between staff and management were troubled, according to the report. Field and kennel workers told HSUS auditors that "rules are not enforced, that some staff are abusive and are not held accountable."
"[The report] was just as bad as everybody thought it would be," remembers England, then a new member of the Animal Shelter Commission, who says that even to her it was "very clear that relationships were bad between management and staff. There was a lot of contention there."
Dallas Animal Control was in need of a total overhaul, reported the HSUS. That meant a new building—which was already in the works thanks to a bond election—with proper dedicated space for receiving, lost and found, and adoptions. Also needed was a single shelter director, onsite, overseeing both field and shelter operations.
Taking the advice of the HSUS report, in 2003, the city hired a new division manager, Kent Robertson, a former vice president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Texas, who was respected for his managerial skills and animal know-how. He was hired to work under Kathy Davis, a director of Code Compliance who, former ASC members say, allowed him to make needed changes at the shelter. ASC members describe being "thrilled" at having an animal welfare professional put in the division manager position.
"The ship was about to crash into the iceberg and he got it turned around in time," England says. Robertson uncluttered the euthanasia lab, making it "a more peaceful place." Allen remembers his insistence that shelter workers make responsible adoption decisions rather than giving any animal to the first would-be owner who walked through the door.
Robertson also ushered in the name change from Dallas Animal Control to Dallas Animal Services. Allen says a change in attitude is what matters, but the re-branding signaled Robertson's emphasis on service over control—a change that was "a long, long time coming," she says.
Yet in 2006, just as England, Allen and the ASC thought things were finally turning for the better, Robertson left to take a job in Houston with its animal services department. His resignation came on the heels of Davis being transferred out of Code Compliance and into a new department. Davis and Robertson did not respond to repeated interview requests.
Davis had spent years dealing with the uproar generated by her decision to lay off employees who she accused of improperly ticketing citizens and inconsistently enforcing code law. She had disciplined 40 percent of her workforce and fired 28 people, many of whom got their jobs back after appealing their terminations. Some former commissioners recall Davis telling them that city officials wanted the entire Department of Code Compliance, starting with the animal shelter, revamped. But these commissioners suspect that she was transferred for doing her job too well. "There really was nothing that went wrong under Kathy Davis," Allen says.
The '07 transfer was not a demotion, City Manager Mary Suhm told the The Dallas Morning News at the time, but rather was due to the fact that the new Building Inspections Department needed "more attention." Davis has since moved to Los Angeles where she works in animal services.
Two people, whom ASC members said worked well with each other and the commission, were suddenly gone. With the new city shelter set to open in late 2007, says England, "we were without a director who had been so supportive and been so understanding of the issues."
October 20, 2007, was a beautiful autumn day that brought city council members, Mayor Tom Leppert and the animal welfare community out to celebrate the opening of the new Dallas Animal Services facility. Leppert cut a long green ribbon in front of the environmentally friendly, LEED-certified building's shiny, welcoming glass doors.
Right off the bat, the first animals were adopted at the new shelter. The new $16.3 million building, mostly paid for by two different bond programs, provided more than double the combined capacity of the two old shelters. It was a clean, well-ventilated workplace for the 120 full-time shelter employees, who would perform a range of functions like animal and kennel cleaning and care, investigating animal cruelty, dispatching field officers to calls about stray dogs and coordinating with rescue groups that foster animals about to be euthanized.
Earlier in 2007, a second nationwide search for a shelter division manager brought in California animal shelter professional Willie "Mac" McDaniel. But despite his background in animal welfare services, he was coming into a department that was being increasingly micromanaged by City Hall.
"He was a very caring person," England recalls. But he was not allowed to manage what needed to be done at the animal shelter. He couldn't even get simple things done like ordering office supplies on his own authority. Employees such as veterinarians and shelter managers were instructed to either not report to him or bypass him altogether, England says.
During this same period, July 2007, Forest Turner was appointed to an interim director position at Code Compliance, and that's when England says things began going sour, and hit a peak in late 2008 after Turner became the full-time director of Code Compliance. Communication between city staff and the Animal Shelter Commission became strained, and a previously smooth working relationship turned hostile.
Of the increasing acrimony, says England, "I attribute it to a change in leadership at Code."
While the physical plant of Dallas Animal Services had been transformed dramatically for the better, what went on inside the facility and at City Hall remained unchanged.
In early 2008, complaints surfaced in the press about urine pooling in inoperative drains in the facility and the mistreatment of dogs, including workers dragging them from cages to the euthanization lab. During McDaniel's term as division manager, two temporary workers were fired for mishandling shelter dogs. By the late spring of 2008, after a little more than a year on the job, McDaniels was reassigned to another city department. He could not be reached for comment.
For a second time, and after a third national search since the 2001 HSUS report, former shelter director Kent Robertson was brought back to oversee DAS.
"We were thrilled," says England of the ASC. "He did great before, and we [could] work with him." But with all the shake-ups, relationships had deteriorated among shelter managers, the city and the ASC. In 2008, the commission worked with the city council and enacted stricter, more progressive ordinances regarding the spaying and neutering of pets and the tethering of dogs, and conflicts arose over how to best disseminate this information to the public—shelter workers themselves were poorly educated about these changes.
Things the ASC—and the HSUS, in some cases—had wanted were not implemented, such as improved communications with the public and social networking through Facebook and the shelter website.
Maintenance issues were repeatedly noted by the ASC, especially dealing with the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system. Current ASC chairman Skip Trimble recalls Robertson assuring the commission that the problems were being dealt with. But when the HSUS report came out, those auditors also saw HVAC problems.
"Our advice was good advice and has been proven to be good," Trimble says, "because it's pretty much the same thing as the HSUS recommended in their [2010] report."
The commission, which meets regularly with DAS representatives, felt it was being ignored, even with Robertson, someone they respected, leading the division. Recommendations and changes were "talked about and thought about and ignored," England says. Nothing seemed to stick over the two years Robertson held the division manager position for a second time.
More than anything, commissioners felt that Suhm and Turner, who would become Assistant City Manager, were trying to impose their will on the ASC as well as the shelter. In October 2008, the commission was told in a mass e-mail from Assistant Director of Code Compliance Lynetta Moore that it was scheduled to participate in an Animal Services Halloween retreat, though no one bothered to ask anyone on the commission for input. "It was like, please report for duty," England recalls. "Many of us found that very offensive."
Commission members contend that Robertson was physically present at the shelter but seemed less hands-on than before. His job as shelter division manager included supervising Tyrone McGill, who much to the dismay of commission members admitted he had never even owned a pet. He was close friends, however, with Robertson's boss, Forest Turner, so managing him was somewhat tricky, says animal rights attorney Feare. "Cronyism doesn't make for good management."
The cat death and resulting criminal prosecution of McGill was not the only instance of animal shelter abuse to get negative play in the press in the last 18 months.
In July 2009, 27 dogs were returned to an owner who had demonstrably neglected them. And that was after the new 2008 ordinances had put a cap on pet ownership at six animals. The city looked as though it was violating its own legislation.
In August 2010, field worker Donnie Jones, who had been disciplined in 2009 after leaving two severely burned dogs to suffer alone in kennels inside DAS without notifying anyone, was accused of handling a cat roughly with a catch pole. Then in September, when a Dallas police officer was called to |
a great deal of respect.
"Nor did his management, and that's why we moved on."
Bennell's manager is Perth-based Colin Young.
Bennell was cut from the Suns after an off-field incident in September, when he allegedly slapped a cigarette out of the mouth of a bouncer outside a nightclub.
He was charged by police and then later settled a public nuisance charge out of court.
The September 6 incident was the last straw in Bennell's troubled time with the Suns.
In July he was given a fine and a three-game suspended ban by the Suns after photos of him appearing to use illicit drugs at a Tasmanian hotel in 2013 were published nationwide.
Bennell was drafted at No.2 in the 2010 NAB AFL National Draft.
His talent has never been in doubt, with arguably his best performance coming in a win against Geelong in 2014 when he had 27 disposals and kicked six goals.
"He's now a Fremantle player," Richardson said.
"Maybe that's the way it was going all along, which is the reason why it transpired with us the way that it did.
"He's obviously a very talented young player.
"I don't want to be disrespectful.
"(The Dockers) are a strong club and I'm sure they're as good a chance as anyone to turning his life around and getting the most out of his footy.
"It just wasn't meant to be with us."Pakistan’s Uncertain Future
Pakistan has no shortage of divisive leaders, but the most controversial is General Zia ul-Haq. Although he presided over a decade of relative stability and prosperity, the late President is frequently criticized for allowing an aggressively conservative Islamism to take center-stage in Pakistani society. This is in addition to weakening Pakistani democratic institutions through his 1977 coup d’etat, and extending military control in many areas of society.
Zia ul-Haq based his regime’s legitimacy on two forms of fundamentalism that neatly complemented one another. Right-wing Islamism, and corporate militarism, were the essence of his rule.
It’s crucial to understand the type of religion that Zia practiced. Left-wing Pakistanis often argue that Zia ul-Haq deployed Islam (specifically Wahhabi Salafism) cynically in order to secure his power. This is true, though it was a bit more subtle than that.
Islam was argued to be the best means for protecting Pakistani society (even though it was already highly religious) and Zia advertised himself as delivering on his social responsibilities by acting on behalf of it. Pakistan needed Islam to be institutionalized, and for that to happen, it needed Zia to realize it in state governance. Ul-Haq claimed that he was only giving the public what it wanted, and desperately needed.
Zia outlined his plan for moving Pakistan towards becoming a “true Islamic Republic” through a platform known as Islamization. Beyond the obvious aims of adding spiritual legitimacy to his rule, and especially his economic program, it is likely that Islamization was also quite personal for him. The general was a diehard religious conservative, and eager to see hardline Islam widely practiced in the country.
The rhetorical function that Islamization served under Zia’s leadership was made obvious during a 1979 interview, in which he fiercely criticized the social democrat he deposed, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto:
“Mr. Bhutto’s way of flourishing way of Pakistani was by eroding its moral fiber. Mr. Bhutto eroded the moral fibre of the society by pitching students against teachers, children against their parents, landlord against tenants, workers against mill owners. Pakistan is not incapable of economic production. It is because Pakistanis have been made to believe that one can earn without working. We are going back to Islam not by choice but by the force of circumstances.“
Student and peasant movements, labour organizations, and inter-generational clashes are all referred to by Zia, as proof that Pakistan requires a strong-handed revival of values. This type of rhetoric is tried and tested. It offers vague details about a crumbling social structure, and then argues that its strength can be restored by falling back on something older: Islam.
With Islamization, all Zia ul-Haq really accomplished was to find a Pakistani way of arguing that the left was ruining society. Needless to say, his efforts were extremely successful, and inspired a legion of supporters. Islamization worked, because it tapped into a feeling of national weakness that was fueled by economic stagnation, a fractured social fabric, and fresh wounds from the humiliating 1971 war of Bangladeshi independence.
Still, it was nothing new. Zia’s era saw the rise of many similarly-minded conservatives, making the exact same sorts of arguments, both in the Islamic world, and in the West. It is no wonder that he carried so much favor abroad. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Kings Khalid and Fahd ibn Saud, and even Ayatollah Khomeini were all nominal allies. His rule was a Pakistani articulation of their general worldview, and this added to his domestic legitimacy.
Ul-Haq’s economic policies, though conservative, were not strictly Thatcherite. In Pakistan, although conventional wisdom has it that Zia reacted to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto‘s failed nationalization initiatives by re-privatizing industry and education, this isn’t in fact what happened. Large-scale privatization only started to be explored in 1987, and didn’t become widespread until after his death, in 1988.
Rather, ul-Haq’s initiatives took such forms as “Islamizing” the economy, by instituting an interest-free economic cycle. Still, many industries weren’t returned to their previous owners. Instead, Zia relied on Pakistan’s armed forces to ensure maximum efficiency. In a manner not too dissimilar to China, the military kept an iron grip on much of the country’s economic activities, controlling both the public and private sectors.
Much of the support that ul-Haq extended was logistical, as the military proved itself the most efficient national institution in Pakistan. However, it was frequently more bloody than that. For instance, striking workers could expect to be met by armed soldiers, and often, many deaths. Zia also re-positioned Pakistan as an important anti-Soviet force in South Asia, resulting in a purge of leftists within the country’s Punjabi and Sindhi heartland, as well as increased support for far-right elements of the Afghan mujahideen.
Ul-Haq reinforced the latter push with a successful transformation of the country’s independence-minded frontier into hotbeds of Salafi jihadism, focused on fighting in the Afghan civil war. This was done through a variety of methods, such as supporting early Salafi jihadist factions, tripling the country’s madrassahs with an emphasis on Salafi education, establishing state sponsorship of madrassahs for the first time, and encouraging a growth of Saudi religious influence in areas like Balochistan and the Northwestern Frontier Province.
While many of these policy choices had long-term consequences for terrorism, at the time, they strengthened Zia ul-Haq’s religious clout while also ensuring that the Pakistani economy could be kicked into overdrive without disruptions. As a result, it prospered. Between 1977 and 1986, the years of Zia’s military-corporatism, Pakistan’s GNP grew by an average of 6.8% annually.
This was one of the highest GNPs in the world at the time, and was substantially driven by enthusiastic Western governments and investors. Unsurprisingly, this growth made Zia very popular among Pakistan’s feudal and industrial elites, including the current Prime Minister, billionaire mogul Nawaz Sharif. These dramatic economic gains also went a long way towards cementing support for military rule in the general population.
Pakistani critics of Zia ul-Haq often describe a “long shadow” that he has left over the country. This is more an ideological observation than it is an economic one. It reflects a recognition of the fact that the political processes Zia set in motion need to be fundamentally altered if Pakistan is to ever become a reliably democratic state. The military, for example, needs to fully divest itself from politics, as well as from the economy, and the public sphere requires a degree of secularization.
The religious element of democratization cannot be over-emphasized. Far-right Islamists have a disproportional say in Pakistan’s affairs. Coupled with Zia’s Salafization of the frontier, their promotion has resulted in many of the region’s current problems with terrorism. The myths about free enterprise that are linked to his rule have similarly resulted in high levels of inequality, which continue to inhibit necessary economic reforms.The combination of legacies is deadly.
Zia ul-Haq implemented such initiatives because he believed that it would bolster the military’s legitimacy in running Pakistan. Unfortunately, it worked. The general fundamentally altered the trajectory of civilian governance in the country, and weakened democratic institutions to such an extent that many Pakistanis are currently awaiting the next coup d’etat.
It is very unlikely that Pervez Musharraf, and military leaders like him, would enjoy nearly the same amount of popularity if they weren’t inheritors of Zia’s legacy. Although Pakistan has recently had its first transfer of power between two democratic parties, the legacy of military governance remains a pressing problem. It’s difficult to speculate whether or not things would have turned out differently without Zia ul-Haq. However, Pakistan would certainly benefit from his influence waning.
Unfortunately, there is no neat period of Pakistani history that can be neatly sectioned off as “The ul-Haq Era.” Twenty-six years after his death, Pakistan is still living in that period. The long shadow lingers on. The country remains, for lack of a better name, Zia Land.
Photographs courtesy of Satbir Singh, junairdrao, and John Milton. Published under a Creative Commons License.POLICE will be given 150 new mobile fingerprint scanners this year and may be given the power to test people in the street.
It is part of a potential legislative change that the State Government is considering.
The Advertiser can reveal the Government has budgeted more than $2.6 million for the new fingerprint scanners this financial year.
But amid privacy concerns, police and the Government have refused to say how the technology may be used.
The devices can scan and in 90 seconds match a person's fingerprints against the national database of more than 3.3 million records.
Similar devices have been used in New South Wales since 2009, while they have also been rolled out in the UK and United States since 2006.
Police Minister Jennifer Rankine has forecast changes to existing legislation that would enable the scanners to be used on the street.
Under current legislation, unless someone volunteers, police can obtain finger- prints only once the suspect is charged.
SA Police Inspector Kym Hand told The Advertiser police were preparing a submission on the matter.
"Portable fingerprint-scanners have the capability of rapidly confirming the identity of individuals who are recorded on the national fingerprint database while officers remain on patrol in the field," Insp Hand said.
"The tips of fingers are scanned, the device transmits the scans to the national fingerprint database and a result is returned within about 90 seconds.
"Police cannot provide a final timeframe (as to when the devices will be issued) as yet but will progress this as quickly as possible."
However, when questioned about whether police want the power to obtain the fingerprints of anyone on the street or only of those suspected of a crime, Insp Hand would not elaborate.
In a Budget Estimates Committee meeting last month, Ms Rankine said: "I am advised that regulatory issues are being worked through to ensure police are able to legally obtain and cross-check fingerprints on the street. In order to match the speed of the technology, legislative changes may be considered," she said.
"The Government is seeking further advice from SA Police about these potential legislative changes."
Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Ms Rankine told The Advertiser: "No specifics have been put forward to the minister yet and the legislation has not been drafted."
There are already 29 of the hi-tech mobile fingerprint-scanners in police stations across the state.
Law Society of South Australia president Ralph Bonig urged caution on any legislative changes. "Fingerprints and DNA are probably the two most personal methods of identification available," he said. "You should be entitled to protect that material.
"The law currently protects that by allowing fingerprints to be taken only under certain strict conditions.
"The Law Society does not see that any of those conditions should be watered down merely to accommodate the use of hand-held or mobile fingerprinting units."
- with Doug RobertsonImage copyright EPA Image caption The 'Hitler phone', which Brigadier Sir Ralph Rayner brought home with him at the end of World War Two
It was billed as arguably the most destructive weapon of all time when it went up for sale last week.
Adolf Hitler's personal telephone, into which he was said to scream his orders from his bunker in Berlin, inscribed with his name and the Nazi swastika, is undoubtedly a much-prized collector's item.
But then, the story was questioned.
The material was wrong. The rotary dial was suspect. Why would it have been made by a British company?
For Major Ranulf Rayner, the doubts - levelled by a telephone museum in the US, and a telephone expert in Germany - were a shock.
After all, the relic had been in his family since 5 May 1945 - handed to his father, Brigadier Sir Ralph Rayner, by Soviet soldiers after he became the first Allied officer to enter the Fuehrerbunker, and quietly brought back home to Devon, along with an Alsatian dog statue that previously took pride of place on the dictator's desk.
"I'm just extremely angry," Maj Rayner told the BBC, following the publication of the claims in a British newspaper.
So how did the phone end up in Devon?
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A similar telephone can be seen in this picture of Adolf Hitler's bunker after the fall of Berlin (far left)
Both Maj Rayner, then aged 10, and his sister Fleur can clearly remember their father's return from World War Two with the two extremely unusual items in his bag.
And there was an equally remarkable story to go with how the items came to be in the family's possession.
On 5 May 1945, Sir Ralph - then second-in-command of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's communications in 21st Army Group - was asked to make contact with his Soviet counterpart.
After making the difficult journey through Berlin, Sir Ralph arrived at what remained of the Reich Chancellery.
Here, he found a Soviet officer who, after agreeing that his general would meet Field Marshal Montgomery as soon as possible, offered to show him the bunker they had discovered three days earlier.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A Russian soldier using Eva Braun's phone in her bedroom in Hitler's shelter in 1945
It was here, with the smell of burning flesh still hanging in the air, that he was shown to the private quarters of Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun.
And then the Soviet officer - apparently eager to please his new friend - offered the black telephone which had sat on Braun's bedside table.
However, Sir Ralph was more enthused by the red telephone near Hitler's bed, noting red was his favourite colour as he accepted the "gift", much to the delight of the Soviet officer.
But that was not the only memento with which he left: he was also given a 12-inch model of an Alsatian by the Russians, taken from Hitler's desk after he told them he had an Alsatian at home.
Why was it kept secret?
Image copyright Alexander Historical Auctions Image caption Sir Ralph's obituary in the local paper ran with a picture of him and the phone, taken in 1963
No one outside the immediate family was allowed to know about what Sir Ralph had brought back for many years. While Sir Ralph was in Berlin, Montgomery had decreed that anyone caught looting would be court martialed.
It was only years later that Sir Ralph, Conservative Member of Parliament for Totnes from 1935 until 1955, felt he could show it off to the wider world.
There is mention of it in German magazine Der Spiegel as far back as 1963.
What are the doubts?
The family has spoken regularly of the telephone over the years. Indeed, the picture chosen for his obituary in the local newspaper in 1977 was one of Sir Ralph and the "Hitler telephone".
However, when news of its auction broke two weeks ago, a number of people came forward to say they did not believe it was the real thing.
Frank Gnegel, of the Frankfurt Museum of Communications, told the Daily Mail the fact the telephone had been painted red, instead of being made from red plastic, was suspect.
Image copyright AFP Image caption The phone had Adolf Hitler inscribed on it
He also queried why the handset had been made in Britain, and not by Siemens in Germany.
Separately, The Telephone Museum, based in Lincoln, Massachusetts, raised its own concerns about the authenticity of the phone, as did a Dutch blogger.
What does the auction house say?
But Bill Panagopulos, who owns Alexander Historical Auctions, which sold the phone to an unnamed buyer for $243,000 (£195,744) last week, has dismissed their claims.
"Needless to say, we stand by the telephone's authenticity," he told the BBC, adding that the claims otherwise were "insulting to the reputation and memory of a distinguished British officer and his family".
"The only people who are making any claims about it are this guy in Frankfurt, a guy who runs a blog and a little museum in a shed," Mr Panagopulos said.
"Nobody else in the world has questioned it."
They cannot be certain about some things, but, most of the doubters' claims have been debunked by his or Maj Rayner's investigations.
It has to be noted, both of them had a stake in the sale of the relic. But their arguments appear convincing.
For example, when the phone was taken apart, it was revealed that even inside of had been carefully painted - indicating that it had been carefully crafted.
Maj Rayner's own research - asking Peter von Siemens if he knew anything more about the phone - found Siemens did not produce a red phone at that time, perhaps explaining why it was painted.
Image copyright EPA Image caption A porcelain figure of an Alsatian dog, which was owned by Hitler and later given to Sir Ralph
He also asked a friend to write to Rochus Misch, who was a telephone operator in the Fuehrerbunker, to see if he recognised the phone in 1985. He did, saying it accompanied the Nazi leader everywhere for the last two years of the war.
However, Mr Panagopulos concedes that, due to the passing of time, no one will ever be able to prove it beyond all shadow of a doubt.
But, he says, the provenance of the phone and the sheer length of time it had been within the family, on top of the other evidence, helped him feel sure it was the real thing.
"Did it smell right to me? Absolutely," he told the BBC.Dundee United's financial results for the year to June show the club posted a profit of £1.45m, with bank debt and directors' loans having been reduced.
Revenue suffered a 3% fall to £5m and the percentage of wages to turnover ratio increased from 74% to 76%.
The SPL is very interesting this year. Everyone's beating each other Stephen Thompson Dundee United chairman
But the sales of David Goodwillie and Scott Allan boosted the club's income with a profit of over £2m in transfers.
And United chairman Stephen Thompson feels the Scottish Premier League is "thriving" despite Rangers' absence.
This season's top flight is the first not to feature the Ibrox side, who were relaunched and placed in Division Three following financial problems.
"It has not had a huge effect on us I must be honest," he told BBC Scotland.
"It's certainly not had the Armageddon scenario that was predicted. In fact we had a game here on Saturday versus Aberdeen, I thought it was a great atmosphere, open football, a great game and a great advert for Scottish football.
"Things move on in the world. The SPL is very interesting this year.
Allan, a product of United's youth system, left the club to join West Brom in January
"We all expect Celtic to win the title, but after that there is not a lot between any of the teams. You win a couple of games you jump four, five or six places in the league. Everyone's beating each other."
However, speaking on United's website, Thompson cautioned "that the current and forecast economic situation continues to present challenges and whilst the board remains committed to ensuring a team capable of producing performances on the park and entertaining the supporters, we must also ensure that a prudent fiscal policy is maintained".
"Our supporters have responded to the recent challenges in magnificent fashion, culminating in a significant increase in season ticket sales," he added.
United's bank debt was down from £5.4m to £3.93m and United say that a further £225,000 reduction was made in July.
And the club said: "Since the end of the financial year, the club has made progress in significantly reducing its overall wage costs and this will be reflected in the next financial statements."1. NATURE BRACELETS
For Ages: 1-5
You can start your little one’s exploration and appreciation of nature with this game of making a masking tape nature bracelet. They’ll notice all the lovely color and shape variations there are in petals and leaves and adorn their wrists with beauty.
MATERIALS:
Masking tape
Leaves and flower petals
DIRECTIONS:
Wrap a piece of masking tape around your child’s wrist, sticky side up, and then go exploring to find wonderful leaves, beautiful flower petals and other interesting things to attach to the bracelet.
Before bedtime, snip the bracelet off and attach it next to his bed or somewhere in view so he can admire his work and remember his fun time.
2. RING OF STRING
For Ages:3-10 years
In this game, children are encouraged to really look closely at one spot and see all there is to see. There is a lot of pleasure to be had from noticing the tiny wonders of nature that are in our own back yard.
MATERIALS:
String
Magnifying glass or jar with water in it (optional)
DIRECTIONS:
Make a small circle on the ground with the string. Look carefully at the enclosed area with your child and notice what is growing there. Pull out a weed or blade of grass and see what the roots looks like. Is there a seedpod in the area? What’s inside?
Poke a hole and see if there are any insects around. What are they? What are they doing? Use a magnifying glass or a jar with water in it and look at different things up close.
Gather small things to examine and collect such as pinecones, acorns, petals, seeds, bark, leaves and pretty pebbles.
3. A SPOTLIGHT IN THE DARK
For Ages 1-5 years
Babies are fascinated with anything new. It’s fun for us to be with a little one when she discovers something for the first time. In this game it’s the delight of a flashlight in the dark
MATERIALS:
One or two flashlights
DIRECTIONS:
Keep the lights off in the room that you are in and scan the room with a flashlight, spotlighting different familiar things. “Look there’s the television. Here is the table and there is your high chair.”
You know your little one is going to want a chance to hold the flashlight. Let her. She can shine it wherever she wants or she has to find, with her flashlight, an object you name.
As she gets older and more coordinated, continue this game, but this time you both have flashlights and you encourage her to “catch” your spotlight. You move your spotlight around the room and she has to move hers so it “catches” yours by covering your spotlight with hers.
Your turn to chase next.
4. THE KNOCKING GAME
For: All Ages
Listening to and identifying the different sounds objects make when you knock on them is a game that can be played at any time. When you want to change the focus of fussing children, try saying: “Hey, let’s play a game. Close your eyes and see if you can tell what I’m knocking on. No peeking”
MATERIALS:
Common objects found around the house
DIRECTIONS:
Ask your player to close her eyes and turn her back to you. Then see if she can guess the object you are knocking on with your fist (or a spoon). Start with easy things such as a table and a window, and work towards sounds that are harder to identify, such as knocking on a book or lamp.
Take turns being the identifier and the “knocker”.
5. TOOTHPICK ART
For: All Ages
There are many ways to teach the hands to have more finesse. This is one of them that you can play together.
MATERIALS:
Toothpicks, plain or colored
DIRECTIONS:
Make an abstract design by laying toothpicks out on a table or floor, with each player adding their toothpick to the design. The first player puts down one toothpick. The next player adds his at just the angle that seems pleasing to him. The next person then adds theirs to that design and so on and so on until an interesting design is formed.
Instead of an abstract design, you can make a specific scene. For example, make a house with a picket fence and trees.
!It takes concentration to pick up a skinny toothpick and decide the best place to put it. Placing each toothpick down carefully and trying not to jiggle the design encourages awareness of hand movements.
It also develops the pincer grasp, the small muscles that control the index finger and thumb.
But mainly, it’s fun to make art together.
6. TOE STEPPING
For: All Ages
Here’s a fun and silly game that requires concentration and quick movement. Try it sometime at a birthday party gathering, when you want to redirect excess energy, or when the kids are bored and want something quick and new to do.
MATERIALS:
None but fancy footwork
DIRECTIONS:
Two people, both barefoot or in stocking feet, face each other and hold hands. Each person tries to step on the others toes while at the same time keep their toes from being stepped on.
You might remind the players to step lightly on each other’s toes so that others will do the same to you. In other words, follow this game’s Golden Rule: Step on others as you would want to be stepped on.
Concentrating on both keeping out of the way and going for the goal is a kind of trial by fire. Pressure on their foot lets them know when they weren’t paying close enough attention!
7. BALLOON BASEBALL
For Ages: 1-5
Baseball may be fun but those balls can hurt and are hard to hit. For young ones, use a balloon!
MATERIALS:
Balloon
Bat: Make a bat out of anything handy, such as the inside cardboard tube of a paper towel roll or a rolled up section of yesterdays newspaper secured with tape
DIRECTIONS:
. Give the bat to your player and toss the balloon to her. The slow movements of a balloon floating towards her gives her plenty of time to line up her bat, swing at the ‘ball” and get the satisfaction of “connecting.”
If there is just the two of you, take turns being the pitcher/catcher and the batter.
If there are other players, their job is catching the “ball” as it leisurely floats down. Who ever catches it can have the next turn at batting or give it to someone who hasn’t had enough turns.
After everyone gets all the turns they want, you can change the game to “Golf”. Use boxes turned on their sides as “holes” and players see how many strokes it takes to hit the balloon in the box.
8. BACK WRITING
For Ages: 5-12 years
Writing invisible letters on a child’s back a fun way to write a secret message.
MATERIALS:
Paper
Pencil
DIRECTIONS:
One person sits with his back to another and a pad of paper and pencil in front of him.
The other person, using his finger, “draws” a letter on the person’s back.
At the same time, that person draws on the paper what he thinks is being drawn on his back.
Keep writing letter by letter until a whole message is given. The message could be a clue to where a treat is hidden!
Take turns so both the writer and the person written on get to experience what it feels like.
Have an older child play this game with a younger sibling as a fun way to help him learn his letters.
9. SELF PORTRAITS
For Ages: Teens
Many teenagers go through a phase where they become fascinated with their reflection in the mirror, especially during the period when their faces make that change from a child’s to a young adult’s.
In this activity, you and your changing child can take advantage of this fascination by drawing your mirror reflection
MATERIALS:
Mirror
Felt tip marker
Paper (optional)
DIRECTIONS:
Both of you sit facing a mirror and draw your reflection directly on the mirror using a felt-tip marker.
You can also draw each other’s on paper but don’t look at the paper until the drawing is done. This often gives a kind of Picasso look to the work
10. SHOE MOUNTAIN
For: All Ages
When the kids are bored but antsy with energy, here is a quickie that is guaranteed to win the hearts of all ages. Your twelve year old will l be just as excited to play this game as your two year old.
MATERIALS:
Shoes
DIRECTIONS
Pile all the shoes you can readily find in a pile in a large cleared out space in the room. Tell the kids that this is not a pile of shoes (silly them to think that!) but is actually a huge mountain and they have to start from a distance away and run towards the mountain and then with one gigantic leap, make it over the top of the mountain to the other side.
It adds to the thrill if the others provide a drum roll–slapping their hands on the floor or on a table or on their knees as the next Leaper makes her run and then when that person is in the air, call out her name!New coins released from 8:00am (AWST) Tuesday 5th March 2019
Mini Roo 2019 0.5g Gold Coin
Barbie 60th Anniversary 2019 2oz Rose Gold Proof Coin
Graduation 2019 1oz Silver Coin
Bird of Paradise 2019 1oz Silver Proof Coin
Bird of Paradise 2019 1oz Gold Proof Coin
150th Anniversary of the Periodic Table 2019 1oz Silver Proof Coin
50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing 2019 1oz Gold Proof Coin
50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing 2019 1oz Silver Proof Coin
50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing 2019 2019 5oz Silver Proof High Relief Coin
The Simpsons - Homer 2019 1oz Silver Proof Coin
Australian Wedge-tailed Eagle 2019 1oz Silver Proof High Relief Coin
The February 2019 Collectable Coin Bulletin is nothing short of gigantic in terms of new coin releases:
You can peruse these electronic catalogues at your leisure, or visit the Recent Releases or Gifts section of our website.
Please note prices were correct at the time of release and some coins may no longer be available. For current availability and pricing refer to the recent releases page.Bronco Golden Anniversary
Golden anniversaries are special. Unlike a 50th birthday, which is congratulatory celebration making it to a certain point after a born-on-date, a golden anniversary evokes a much deeper and reflective look at the most memorable highlights of the journey to reach such a benchmark. The Bronco’s golden anniversary this year certainly garners that respect.
Like a couple celebrating their golden wedding anniversary, off-roaders who have one (or more) Broncos in their stable have a true passion for this unique 4×4. Brought to market in August 1965 as a 1966 model to compete against the Jeep CJ-5s and International Scout 800s of the time, Ford advertised it quite simply: Bronco All-Purpose-Vehicle.
Ford’s new offering was love at first sight for those seeking a more civilized, smoother riding, more powerful, two-door alternative to the CJ-5s and International Harvesters of the day. Ford sold more than 35,000 Broncos during the first two years.
Brochure advertising the 1966 Ford Bronco line evokes the new 4×4 offering’s outdoor appeal. (Photo Courtesy Ford Motor Company)
Ford touted the compact 4×4’s maneuverability, ride, comfort, and outdoor appeal, but it was the push in the off-road racing circles that really heated up the romance with the “little” Bronco – a romance that still remains strong today. The most popular model was the wagon, followed by the half-cab with its short bed, and a rag-top roadster. Although the basic models came with a 170cid straight-six and three-speed, it was the optional 289-cid V-8 (and a long list of other accessories) that excited the off-road enthusiasts and four-wheeling crowd.
The popularity of the Bronco kick-started the advent of the sport-utility vehicle (SUV). By the early ‘70s SUVs such as the Chevy Blazer, International Scout II, and Jeep Cherokee were all trying to get their piece of a new, fast growing automotive niche.
Off To The Races
But it was the off-road racing scene that really put the spotlight on the early Bronco. The Ford-backed Holman-Moody-Stroppe (HMR) racing team started winning races with the bobtails in 1965, even before some dealers had them on the lot.
1977 was the last year of the “bobtail” Bronco. It was offered in 18 different colors, with either a 3spd manual or 3spd automatic behind the 302 V-8. It was the classic Bronco’s best sales year.
Stroppe’s early race-winning Bronco was powered by a 200cid straight-six topped with a supercharger designed for the Cobra 289. It made 315hp and sounded like “the high-pitched whine of a bumblebee in flight” according to a 1968 Ford press release. By 1969 however, the team’s entries were running V-8s.
The publicity garnered from winning the longest and most prestigious off-road events of the time (Mint 400, Baja 500, Mexican 1000/Baja1000) with legendary drivers like Larry Minor, Rod Hall, Parnelli Jones and Bill Stroppe leading the charge, cemented the Bronco name in automotive history books.
That early racing glory also lead to Stroppe offering a very limited-production, special-edition “Baja Bronco” through Ford dealers from 1971-’75. The Broncos came right from the Ford plant to Stroppe’s Southern California shop where they were customized with double shocks at all four corners, fender flares, roll cage, heavy duty suspension, swing-away tire carrier, auxiliary fuel tank, extra cooling, and off-road tires on wide wheels.
Stroppe’s Baja Broncos were also available with a C-4 automatic and power steering, which Ford didn’t offer until 1973, along with the option of competition racing harnesses, high-performance 302 and a Detroit locker in the rear. Today Baja Broncos are rare and very coveted by Ford Bronco aficionados.
Lydia Maine’s 1967 “roadster” is rare as Ford only offered the ragtop during the first two years of the Bronco’s production.
Winning such high-profile off-road events also had another effect that’s still going strong 50 years later: Bronco owner clubs. A Ford press release in 1970 says: “Burgeoning interest in off-road vehicles such as Ford’s Bronco created an entirely new field of enthusiasts who wanted to enjoy their sport more fully as members of an organized group.”
A Strong Lineage
By now sales of the little Bronco were being overrun by the Blazer and Cherokee, which appealed to a broader range of 4×4 buyers seeking even more power, room and comfort than Ford’s two-door bobtail offered.
The classic first Gen Bronco had a good 12-year production run. Even though total sales only topped 230,00, it played a big role in blazing the trail for not only the SUV market but also the compact SUV market of today. Ford hadn’t made any major changes to it other than upgrading the V8 and automatic, so big changes were made to keep the Bronco competitive in the ever-changing SUV market.
In 1978-’79 a new 106-inch-wheelbase Bronco emerged, sitting on a shortened F-100 chassis and sharing its drivetrain. A dozen years later one of these Broncos, a ’79 called “Project Deepwoods,” was one of Off-Road magazine’s project truck builds in 1991. Deepwoods generated more interest from readers than any other project build up to that time.
Future Off-road Hall of Famers Rod Hall and Larry Minor on their way to a first overall in the 1969 Mexican (Baja) 1000 driving in a Stroppe-built Bronco in the production 4×4 class. (Photo courtesy Stroppe Performance)
Ford kept to the same game plan from then on, staying with a bigger body based on whatever they did to the F-150. In 1980 the 3rd generation Bronco emerged, sharing the 104-inch platform and looks of the F-150. The Bronco was growing up and becoming a lot more sophisticated and refined.
The short wheelbase, roomy interior, and better suspension made the full-size Bronco popular for Ford-living families and those who wanted a very capable 4×4 truck with an enclosed cargo area. Off-roaders and outdoorsmen took to modifying the big Broncos in the same way they did the F-150s.
In 1987 Ford made another big facelift, still following the changes made to the F-150. More safety features are added and more bells and whistles to meet the demands of consumers. That 4th Gen Bronco lasted through 1991 when Ford once again made a major facelift to the 1992 F-150, and hence, emerged the 5th generation Bronco.
On June 14, 1996 the last Bronco rolled off Ford’s Wayne, Michigan, assembly line – accompanied appropriately by a 1970 Bobtail. The two-door Bronco was put out to pasture, replaced by the four-door Expedition.
Bill Stroppe and |
supraordinal taxon are now scattered throughout the molecular phylogeny, placed within many of the newly found clades with high bootstrap support. For example, the pygmy sunfishes (Elassoma) are back with the other sunfishes (centrarchids), as suggested by earlier classifications and recently confirmed by molecules30. Centrarchids plus elassomatids are placed here in the resurrected order Centrarchiformes (within Percomorpharia, Fig. 9). Mugiliforms (mullets) and atherinomorphs (silversides, needlefishes, halfbeaks, guppies and allies) are placed within Ovalentariae (Fig. 8). The swamp eels and spiny eels (order Synbranchiformes, suborders Synbranchoidei and Mastacembeloidei) are placed with confidence in Anabantomorphariae (Fig. 5), together with armored sticklebacks (Indostomidae), one of the 11 families previously included in the order Gasterosteiformes. The polyphyly of Gasterosteiformes (another large clade assigned to Smegmamorpha) was first pointed out by mitogenomic evidence12. Our results place the sticklebacks, tubesnouts and sand eels (previously assigned to Gasterosteoidei) in our newly defined Perciformes (suborder Cottioidei; Fig. 10) and the rest of the families previously assigned to the suborder Syngnathoidei were relocated to our newly defined order Syngnathiformes within the Scombrimorpharia (Fig. 4, see below).
Phylogenetic resolution within five newly discovered clades, however, will require additional study. Relationships within Syngnathiformes, Scombriformes, Carangimorphariae, Ovalentariae, and Percomorpharia may be challenging to recover given the rapid radiation and diversification of these clades.
Gobiomorpharia: sweepers are out (Fig. 3)
Based on a phylogeny estimated with four mitochondrial markers, Thacker33 resurrected the order Gobiiformes, to accommodate three suborders: Gobioidei (gobies and sleepers), Kurtidoidei (nurseryfish), and Apogonoidei (including apogonids and pempherids). Previous molecular studies have shown affinities between gobioids, apogonids, kurtids and, to some extent, pempherids and dactylopterids8,11,16. There is also morphological evidence supporting a close relationship between gobids and apogonids108,109 as well as between kurtids and apogonids110. Our results provide partial support for the Gobiiformes sensu Thacker33 but we treat it here as a supraordinal group (Gobiomorpharia). A major difference is that our hypothesis segregates the family Pempheridae (sweepers) to its own order (Pempheriformes, together with Glaucosomatidae), within Percomorpharia (Figs. 1, 3, 9).
Fig. 3: Detailed relationships among orders and families of Gobiomorpharia (see also Fig. 1). Fish illustrations were obtained from Fishes of the World (Nelson [2]) and are reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Scombrimorpharia: sea horses and tunas are close relatives (Figs. 1, 4 and 5)
One of the most unanticipated new percomorph clades is the Scombrimorpharia, grouping such disparate fishes as seahorses and tunas. This clade includes the newly circumscribed orders Syngnathiformes (Fig. 4) and Scombriformes (Fig. 5). Not surprisingly, a close relationship among taxa contained within this group, including syngnathids, mullids, callionymids, dactylopterids, scombrids, stromateids, an others, has never been proposed on morphological grounds. The Syngnathiformes, as defined here (Fig. 4), comprises mostly tropical marine reef-dwellers, traditionally placed in three distinct percomorph orders, including Gasterosteiformes (syngnathids), “Perciformes” (mullids and callionymids) and “Scorpaeniformes” (dactylopterids). Recent molecular studies have emphasized the non-monophyly of Scorpaeniformes74. We have noted above the dissolution of Gasterosteiformes12 and, as discussed below, we provide a restricted definition for Perciformes that includes many scorpaeniform taxa (Fig. 10).
Fig. 4: Detailed relationships among families of Syngnathiformes (see also Fig. 1). Fish illustrations were obtained from Fishes of the World (Nelson [2]) and are reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Our new order Scombriformes (Fig. 5) includes most of the families previously grouped in the perciform suborder Scombroidei2 or the order Scombriformes5, except for the barracudas (Sphyraenidae) and the billfishes and swordfishes (here placed in their own order, Istiophoriformes). Sphyraenidae and Istiophoriformes are now firmly placed within Carangimorphariae (Fig. 7) together with disparate taxa such as remoras (Echeneidae), archer fishes (Toxotidae), jacks (Carangidae), flatfishes (Pleuronectiformes), and others (see below). Because billfishes and tunas are not closely related as previously suggested by anatomical studies83 (Fig. 2), the new hypothesis implies that endothermy has evolved at least twice independently in teleosts111,112. This new circumscription of Scombriformes also comprises families belonging to multiple orders in previous classifications, such as Stromateiformes (Centrolophidae, Nomeidae, Ariommatidae, Stromateidae), Trachiniformes (Chiasmodontidae), Icosteiformes (Icosteidae), and Perciformes (Bramidae, Pomatomidae, and Caristiidae). Despite the disparate morphology among members of Scombriformes, most are offshore fishes that inhabit pelagic and/or deep-sea waters.
Fig. 5: Detailed relationships among families of Scombriformes (see also Fig. 1). Fish illustrations were obtained from Fishes of the World (Nelson [2]) and are reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Anabantomorphariae: freshwater and air breathing (Fig. 6)
Another major percomorph group proposed here is the series Carangimorpharia, including three subseries: Anabantomorphariae, Carangimorphariae, and Ovalentariae (Fig. 1). Species in Anabantomorphariae include representatives placed in three separate orders by Wiley and Johnson5: Synbranchiformes (swamp eels), Gasterosteiformes (Indostomus, the armored stickleback), and Anabantiformes (gouramis) (Fig. 6). While the first two orders belonged to the Smegmamorpharia4,5, the Anabantiformes were placed as incertae sedis in Percomorphacea5. The monophyly of Anabantomorphariae has also been supported on the basis of mitogenomics8,11,12 and nuclear markers28. A remarkable condition shared by members of this novel grouping is their mostly freshwater origin and restriction to Africa and South East Asia (although some members in the family Synbranchidae occur in Mexico, and Central and South America). Most are able to occupy marginal, stagnant waters due to their capacity to tolerate anoxia and to obtain oxygen directly from the air. Anabantiforms have a suprabranchial organ and synbranchids have suprabranchial pouches with respiratory function.
Fig. 6: Detailed relationships among orders and families of Anabantomorphariae (see also Fig. 1). Fish illustrations were obtained from Fishes of the World (Nelson [2]) and are reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Carangimorphariae: flatfishes and unlikely relatives (Fig. 7)
A close affinity between other seemingly disparate groups, including barracudas, swordfishes, jacks, flatfishes, and others, has been well established by recent molecular studies10,16,19,24,27,28,112 (Fig. 7). This higher-level group has been referred to as ‘‘clade L’’ sensu Chen et al.19 or Carangimorpha by Li et al.24 (see also27,28). In looking for possible anatomical synapomorphies uniting flatfishes, billfishes, and carangids, Little et al.112 found that most taxa share a relatively low number of vertebrae, have multiple dorsal pterygiophores inserting before the second neural spine, and lack supraneurals, among others. However, according to Friedman113, some of these characters are symplesiomorphies while others are absent in the remaining carangimorph groups. It thus seems paradoxical that despite the apparent lack of morphological synapomorphies for carangimorphs there is a strong molecular signal supporting their monophyly, whereas the opposite is true for pleuronectiforms28. For additional insights and discussion on Carangimorphariae we refer the reader to recent studies24,27,28,112,113.
Fig. 7: Detailed relationships among orders and families of Carangimorphariae (see also Fig. 1). Fish illustrations were obtained from Fishes of the World (Nelson [2]) and are reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Ovalentariae: sticky eggs (Fig. 8)
Ovalentariae is one of the most spectacular percomorph radiations, including more than 5000 species in some 44 families, grouping seemingly distinct groups such as cichlids, mullets, blennies, and atherinomorphs (atheriniforms, beloniforms, and cyprinodontiforms). This clade was first found on the basis of mitogenomic evidence8,12 and later confirmed with nuclear sequence data23,24,26,31. Our results suggest that this group can be divided into four subgroups (superorders), two of which already existed (Atherninomorphae and Mugilomorphae) and two that are new: (i) Cichlomorphae (Cichlidae plus Pholidichthyidae) and (ii) Blennimorphae (blennioids plus clingfishes, jawfishes and basslets). Many families in Ovalentariae, however, remain incertae sedis (e.g., Embiotocidae and Pseudochromidae). Two different studies have coined a name for this group; first Stiassnyiformes by Li et al.24 and, more recently, Ovalentaria by Wainwright et al.31 for their characteristic demersal, adhesive eggs with chorionic filaments (lost secondarily in some groups). An interesting implication of this phylogenetic hypothesis is that the pharyngeal jaw apparatus (pharyngognathy), present in many members of this clade (e.g., Cichlidae, Pomacentridae, Hemiramphidae), has evolved multiple times in percomorphs31. We refer the reader to Wainwright et al.31 for additional discussion on Ovalentariae.
Fig. 8: Detailed relationships among orders and families of Ovalentariae (see also Fig. 1). Fish illustrations were obtained from Fishes of the World (Nelson [2]) and are reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Percomorpharia: the new bush at the top (Fig. 9)
Percomorpharia is by far the largest percomorph clade, including 11 orders with some of the most prominent ones such as Perciformes, Labriformes, Lophiiformes, and Tetraodontiformes. At least 151 families (105 examined) belong in Percomorpharia, including three of the top ten most diverse families of fishes (i.e., Labridae, Serranidae, and Scorpaenidae)2. More than one third (514) of the species in our bony fish phylogeny are placed in this clade. Previous molecular studies obtained monophyletic groups with a combination of taxa here assigned to Percomorpharia, but with far more limited sampling (e.g., 8,11,16,74). Although most family-level and ordinal groups within Percomorpharia receive high bootstrap support, interrelationships among them are largely unresolved (hence, the new bush at the top; Fig. 9). Several of these groups are newly proposed or resurrected orders under new circumscription (e.g., Uranoscopiformes, Ephippiformes, Pempheriformes). Our new arrangement removes anglerfishes (Lophiiformes) from Paracanthomorphacea, as was suggested by previous classifications78, and places them close to tetraodontiforms, caproids, acanthuriforms, chaetodontids, pomacanthids, ephippids and others (see also 87,114,115). The largest group within Percomorpharia is the order Perciformes.
Fig. 9: Detailed relationships among orders and families of Percomorpharia (the new bush at the top; see also Fig. 1). Fish illustrations were obtained from Fishes of the World (Nelson [2]) and are reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Perciformes: no longer a taxonomic waste basket (Fig. 10)
For the first time, a monophyletic definition of Perciformes can be recovered from phylogenetic analysis of a comprehensive taxon sampling. The new circumscription of Perciformes reduces significantly the number of included taxa, while retaining remarkable diversity that can be organized into several suborders and infraorders. Nelson’s classification2 included 160 families in Perciformes, making it the largest order of all vertebrates. Our definition indicates unambiguous membership for 38 families and uncertain membership for an additional 42 that were not examined in our study but that have been assigned to either “Perciformes” (10), “Scorpaeniformes” (14), Cottiformes (8), or Trachiniformes (1) in previous classifications2,5. Hence, the maximum possible number of families in the newly defined Perciformes is reduced to 71. This number is closer to the 90 families proposed by Wiley and Johnson5 for their Perciformes, but with a very different composition.
For a long time, Perciformes has been regarded as a “taxonomic waste basket”2,5 with ‘‘percoids’’ scattered throughout Percomorpha and no clear phylogenetic distinction among Percoidei, Perciformes, and Percomorpha74. Earlier molecular studies lacked sufficient sampling to resolve phylogenetic questions among “percoids,” but close relationships among groupers (Serranidae), perches (Percidae), sticklebacks (Gasterosteidae), searobins (Triglidae), icefishes (Notothenioidei), sculpins (Cottoidei), eelpouts (Zoarcoidei) and scorpionfishes (Scorpaenoidei) have been obtained in one form or another, and in different combinations, by several authors16,19,20,23,24,29,74,116. All of these taxa are included in our definition of Perciformes (Fig. 10).
Within Perciformes, we tentatively propose suborders (Notothenioidei, Scorpaenoidei, Trigloidei, Cottoidei) for clades with high support that also represent some well-established groups, but two incertae sedis (Percophidae and Platycephalidae), and several unexamined families remain unclassified. Additional taxon sampling and more data are needed to resolve interrelationships among these taxa. Four suborders/infraorders were recognized as separate orders by Wiley and Johnson5: Percoidei, Scorpaenoidei, Cottioidei, and Gasterosteales (an infraorder of Cottioidei).
The composition of Perciformes obtained from our phylogeny is remarkably similar to a group named “Serraniformes” by Li et al.24. This choice of name is misleading, given that Percidae is included and serranids have historically been considered a family within Perciformes. Adoption of Serraniformes would obliterate the long ichthyological tradition of defining higher taxa with the prefix “perco” for hierarchical groups that contain perciforms (preserved in our classification). Most recently, the same team of researchers (Lautredou et al.116) presented a detailed analysis of this clade using seven nuclear markers and obtained phylogenetic relationships that are generally congruent with our results (Fig. 10), albeit they support a close relationship of Percophidae with notothenioids and divide platycephaloids into three groups. We refer the reader to this paper, as well as others (e.g., Smith and Wheeler16; Smith and Craig74), for more details on taxonomic issues.
Fig. 10: Detailed relationships among families of Perciformes (see also Figs. 1 and 9). Fish illustrations were obtained from Fishes of the World (Nelson [2]) and are reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
A New Timescale of Bony Fish Evolution
In addition to the novel insights regarding the interrelationships of teleost fishes, our study provides the most comprehensively sampled time-tree of bony fish evolution based on 60 calibrations points (Figs. 1, 11). Recent studies that estimated divergence times using multi-locus nuclear approaches had more restricted taxonomic focus and implemented fewer (<36) fossil calibrations29,66. The time-calibrated phylogeny for bony fishes provided here should stimulate macroevolutionary studies of fishes using phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs).
Fig. 11: Time-calibrated BEAST phylogeny based on a subset of 202 taxa, indicating the placement for the 59 calibrations used.
Although our approach for calibrating the molecular phylogeny is based on a set of common fossil constraints used by the cited studies and others64,65, some differences in the results are evident (Fig. 12). Our estimates of mean divergence dates for early actinopterygian lineages tend to be younger and the divergence of neoteleosts and subtending clades are substantially older relative to those in Near et al.29 (although 95% probability distributions overlap in many cases). Sensitivity of molecular calibrations to different combinations of taxa, molecular markers, and fossil constraints have been discussed extensively by several authors, suggesting that development of better statistical methods and best practice approaches should decrease disparity among estimated ages of clades43,118,119. Compared to earlier studies reporting divergence times among teleost lineages35,36,37,120,121,41, estimates based on multi-locus data and denser taxonomic sampling tend to converge (Fig. 11), suggesting that the current trend to analyze larger data sets with well established fossil constraints will result in robust time trees in the future.
Fig. 12: Comparison of mean (triangle) and 95% highest posterior credibility intervals (horizontal bars) of divergence dates for selected clades (see also Figs 1, 11).
The date estimates presented herein (Figs 1, 2-11, and the OneZoom tree) confirm the notion that divergences of major ray-finned fish lineages are considerably older than the oldest known fossils for their respective groups29,66. Our estimate of 425 Ma for divergence of crown Osteichthyes places the origin of Sarcopterygii and Actinopterygii in the Middle Silurian, with the sarcopterygian crown group evolving in the Early Devonian (409 Ma) and the actinopterygian crown group evolving at the Middle-Late boundary of the Devonian (383 Ma), both of which correspond to the “Age of Fishes”. Although the oldest teleost fossils are from the late Triassic (e.g., †Pholidophorus latiusculus, Norian122), the molecular hypothesis suggests that the initial divergence of crown group Teleostei occurred long before in the Early Permian (283 Ma). Appearance of the three major teleost lineages (Elopomorpha, Osteoglossomorpha and Clupeocephala) took place in a narrow temporal window of 13 million years during this period. Paleoecological conditions surrounding the end Permian mass extinction, which resulted in extinction of up to 96% of all marine species of that time123, might have shaped the evolutionary history of early teleosts.
Recent work suggested that a major burst of teleost diversification, predominantly within Otophysa and Percomorphacea, took place in a relatively short time span between the late Mesozoic and early Cenozoic29,124. Patterns in the fossil record corroborate this idea, revealing an explosive morphological diversification of percomorphs in the aftermath of the end-Cretaceous extinction125. According to our estimates, however, the major lineages within Percomorphaceae (Ophidiiformes, Batrachoidiformes, Gobiomorpharia, Scombrimorpharia, Carangimorpharia, Percomorpharia and Perciformes) originated between 132 Ma and 82 Ma, before the end of the Cretaceous. The same is true for the diversification of many lineages within each of these groups, but explicit analyses using robust PCMs would be necessary to assess rate shifts of lineage diversification through time.
Remaining Challenges and Unresolved Issues
The new shape of the tree of life of bony fishes and the classification reflecting this structure offered by this study leaves many questions unanswered and suggests several directions for future sequencing efforts. Many families not included in the present analysis are listed in the classification and many groups defined as incertae sedis or sedis mutabilis clearly deserve additional study. Relationships for many terminal taxa, such as those within the rapid percomorph radiations, are often poorly resolved, have low bootstrap support, or have dubious resolution due to the combination of missing data, taxon sampling, and or other sources of systematic error. The relatively high proportion of missing data in the 3+ dataset (59%) is likely to have a stronger topological impact at the fine scale (towards the tips); e.g., two sister taxa with little or no genetic overlapping may not be resolved as closely related. Another major factor that may severely compromise phylogenetic inference is compositional heterogeneity (non-stationarity), in particular for gene trees, as suggested by a recent study that examined a fraction of the taxa and markers included here28. Unfortunately, efficient non-stationary approaches to analyze large and heterogeneous multi-locus data sets such as the one presented here currently are not available. Fish orders with dubious internal relationships include the Characiformes, Gymnotiformes, Lophiiformes, Pleuronectiformes, Carangiformes, among others.
Several parts of the fish tree that require additional study include (i) resolution of the relationships among coelacanths, lungfishes and tetrapods46,47,66; (ii) the basal divergence of euteleosteomorph groups and circumscription of Protacanthopterygii, in particular interrelationships of argentiniforms, galaxiiforms, osmeriforms, salmoniforms, esociforms, stomiatiforms and neoteleosts; (iii) interrelationships among components within Scombrimorpharia, Carangimorphariae, Ovalentariae, Percomorpharia, and Perciformes; and (iv) the ordinal status of 55 percomorph families examined (as well as many others unexamined) that remain with uncertain ordinal affiliation (incertae sedis). We predict that these difficult challenges in ichthyology will find renewed sources of evidence with the advent of next generation sequencing approaches and phylogenomics (e.g., 126,127). Reinterpretation of morphology and new studies of developmental patterns will be necessary to reconcile the molecular phylogenetic hypothesis with existing and expanding phenotypic data sets (e.g., 128,129).For all the time we spend thinking about the ideal diet — not to mention consuming it — we know relatively little about the best way to eat. It’s pretty clear that losing weight requires burning more calories than we consume. We know that leaving some nutrients — vitamin C, for example — out of our diet can lead to serious problems. And the evidence increasingly suggests that something other than a standard diet may be better for you. For example, a study last year showed that following a Mediterranean-style diet, which includes lots of fish, some wine, olive oil and vegetables, led to a large reduction in heart disease.
But when it comes to whether specific foods are healthful, we know a lot less. The evidence behind so-called super foods — such as blueberries, broccoli and pomegranates — is pretty flimsy. After all, the kinds of people who eat a lot of blueberries are healthy in other ways, too, so it’s pretty hard to put it all on the berries.
Nuts are one such food that’s gotten a lot of attention. A casual perusal of food-related health articles in the last year would lead you to believe that if you just ate a ton of nuts, you’d live forever. These findings are appealing: Nuts are tasty, and most of us would probably be happy to eat a handful of them every day, especially if they lower mortality risk.
But, as usual, it’s worth asking if these effects are real. Studies of eating nuts are possibly subject to the same issues we have with studies of eating blueberries: The kinds of people who eat nuts are different from everyone else.
Let’s start with what we know from randomized trials, which assign some people to eat nuts — a handful or so every day — and others to eat whatever they’d like. In these trials, the concern that nut-eaters may be different is lessened because the consumption of nuts is randomly assigned, rather than a choice that may be correlated with other behaviors, like exercising.
Based on trials like these, nuts certainly appear to have some health benefits. Consumption of nuts seems to lower levels of bad cholesterol and triglycerides, and increase good cholesterol. And in one small study, nuts seem to improve sperm quality (a positive note for those of you who were scared by my last article).
Things like cholesterol and triglycerides are intermediate outcomes when it comes to health. We worry about them not because they are problematic per se, but because high levels of cholesterol and triglycerides correlate with stroke, heart attacks and mortality in general. We have a lot less randomized evidence on the impact of nuts on these final outcomes, and the evidence that does exist is more mixed.
That study of the Mediterranean diet, for example, provides some evidence. It compared three groups: people on a standard diet (the control group), people on a Mediterranean diet with added olive oil and people on a Mediterranean diet with added nuts. The Mediterranean-diet-with-nuts group had fewer strokes than the standard-diet group but didn’t look any different from the Mediterranean-plus-olive-oil group. In other words, it looked like the overall diet was delivering benefits and the nuts weren’t adding much.
There are no randomized trials looking at the outcome we care most about: mortality. So learning anything about nuts’ effect on longer living requires looking at non-randomized data, that is, data where the differences in nut consumption are driven by different choices people make, rather than by random assignment. And when we do that, nuts start to look pretty magical.
Among the most striking results comes from a paper in The New England Journal of Medicine last year, which argues that greater nut consumption decreases risk of mortality. (Just to be clear: No matter how many nuts you eat, you’ll eventually die; these papers evaluate the timing of mortality.) The effects are big: In following up with the studied population over 30 years, researchers found that people who ate nuts at least seven times a week lived longer. Specifically, they were 20 percent less likely to die compared to those who didn’t eat any nuts.
There are some very nice things about this paper. The sample sizes are big — 76,000 women and 42,000 men — and the populations are very similar. The women are all nurses and the men are all health professionals. As a result, some of the concerns you might have — say, that nut-eaters are more educated than others — are lessened by the fact that everyone has similar training and jobs.
Also great is that this paper takes the issues of causality very seriously. The authors are aware of the concern that those who eat more nuts may also have healthier diets in other ways. As a result, they spend a lot of time in the paper discussing other patterns in the data that help bolster their causal argument that nuts are what’s driving the health benefits, not just the participants’ overall healthy diet or active lifestyle.
One pattern they focus on is the “dose-response” relationship, that is, the more nuts you eat, the larger the effect on mortality. They show that people who eat nuts every day have lower death rates than those who eat them just once a week. It is common to argue — as the authors do — that this supports a causal relationship between nut-eating and longer life. And it is certainly true that if nuts were causing a reduction in mortality, you would expect to see such a relationship.
But I don’t think this is especially helpful at fixing the causality concerns. The main problem is that people who eat nuts have a better diet in other ways. And this is clear from the data: Nut-eaters are thinner, exercise more, eat more fruits and vegetables and are less likely to smoke than those who don’t eat nuts.
In order to prove the causal relationship — that nuts, and nuts alone, are helping people live longer — you have to show that there are no differences in these other variables among nut-eaters.
What really appears to be happening is that people who eat nuts also have better overall diets and health behaviors. You can see this in the charts below, with data taken from the paper. The more nuts people eat, the less likely they are to smoke, the thinner they are, the more exercise they get and the more fruits and veggies they eat. In effect, there is a “dose-response” relationship in the confounding variables, so the fact that we see such a relationship between nuts and mortality doesn’t tell us much.
The clearest way to prove that nuts lower mortality risk is to try to control for the other components of diet. The authors do adjust for these diet measures, but the problem, as they note, is that these measures aren’t very precise. For example, the people in the study self-reported how many vegetables they ate per day, but not what kind of vegetables. The authors also employ a neat argument (based on this paper) about how important the unobserved components of diet would have to be in order to explain away their results (this is methodologically related to some of my own work).
In the end, the argument in this paper isn’t perfect, but it’s hard to completely dismiss it. The fact that randomized data shows that nuts lower cholesterol and the paper here shows a reduction in heart disease does line up in a nice, tidy story. But it’s important to note that in both the Mediterranean-diet study and the randomized data on cholesterol and triglycerides, the effects seem to be bigger for people who are thinner and generally have a healthier diet. What this suggests is that adding nuts to your diet may be most effective if you’re already a pretty healthy eater. No one study closes the book on the topic, but the evidence does appear to suggest that eating nuts has some value. They won’t help you live forever, but subbing a handful for your afternoon cookie may be worthwhile.Many youngsters have heard, and perhaps even fallen for, the classic teaser: "Which is heavier: a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?"
The juxstaposition of the words "brick" and "feather," in the context of weight, serves as perfect misdirection. It catches a lot of people out the first time they encounter it.
Yet if we want to get really picky, the answer is trickier than it seems at first (OK, second) sight: The sheer bulk of a mountain of feathers is hard to get on any balance to compare with a house of bricks. The two proposed collections of objects are, in a very real sense, incomparable. Moreover, it seems unlikely that anybody has ever amassed the required tonnage of feathers.
Closer to earth, and ignoring gravitational variations due to extreme volume variation, we pose the following two questions relating to U.S. coinage:
Which is heavier: a pound of quarters or a pound of dimes? Which is worth more: a pound of quarters or a pound of dimes?
The first one seems unambiguous and straightforward, right? Bear in mind, however, the difficulty one experiences in real life when trying to purchase exactly one pound of bananas or peaches.
Presumably the second one can be settled if we can get our hands on the relevant figures. It certainly isn't an apples-and-oranges comparison.
If you're feeling brave, you could use these questions as the basis for a bar bet or two, perhaps wagering $20 on the correct outcome. But read to the bitter end here first, so you'll be well-prepared to argue your case if the need arises.
Let's have the U.S. Mint weigh in with key information about the coins in question.
According to their coin specification webpage, a dime weighs 2.268 grams, and a quarter weighs 5.670 grams.
(OK, technically, that's just for brand-new, shiny, "legal tender coins presently in production for United States Mint Annual Sets." Who knows what's in circulation from previous releases, or what state the coins in our pockets are in. We're going to work in good faith with the Mint data. If you seek inspiration, try this video of nickel-plated quarters being struck at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia.)
Let's focus on one dime at a time. According to Wolfram Alpha, a single gram is 0.002205 pounds, or about the weight of a dollar bill (or paper clip), from which it follows by multiplication that 2.268 grams is 0.00500094 pounds.
Curiously, as we go to press, Wolfram Alpha gives a more rounded 0.0050001 pounds when asked that directly. (Less accuracy on a larger scale? That's odd.)
It's also noted there that this is 91 percent of the weight of a penny (a penny weights 2.500 grams), but we saw no mention of the fact that it's the weight of a dime.
Based on the first calculation, a pound of dimes seems to contain 199.9624070 dimes (we just divided 0.00500094 into 1). That's close to 200 dimes, which is exactly $20. So would 200 dimes actually balance a 1-pound weight exactly on a scale, if push came to shove?
Is the 199.9624070 vs. 200 mismatch the result of a less-than-perfect metric-to-pound conversion?
Meanwhile, Wolfram Alpha converts the Mint figure for the weight of a quarter to 0.0125 pounds, and also records that this is 1.00002 times the mass of a quarter. Whoa! This suggests that a Mint quarter is heavier than what Wolfram Alpha thinks a quarter weighs.
Had we gone with 5.670 times 0.002205, we'd have obtained a more precise (but is it more accurate?) 0.0125023 pounds. Wolfram Alpha appears to think that a quarter has a mass of 5.7 grams, which is strange, as that's noticeably heavier than a Mint quarter.
If we go with the 0.0125-pounds-per-quarter conversion, then a pound of dimes contains 1/0.0125 = 80 quarters, which is exactly $20. However, if we go with the 0.0125023-pounds-per-quarter conversion, then a pound of quarters contains 1/0.0125023 = 79.985282708 quarters, which comes out to $19.996320677.
The first surprise is that a pound of dimes and a pound of quarters are essentially worth the same amount of money, namely $20, a coincidence on two levels that isn't so well-known.
The value of large quantities of dimes and quarters, either individually or mixed, can thus be assessed using the same conversion factor. Banks, of course, have known about this "silver" standard all along.
Moreover, isn't it remarkable that 1 pound of these coins is worth $20? Magic or coincidence? Keep reading.
Let's take a closer look. It appears that 200 dimes slightly overshoots a pound, so if there is a strictly enforced weight limit of 1 pound, then you'll have to settle for 199 dimes, which is only $19.90. Similarly, it seems that 80 quarters either weighs exactly a pound or overshoots it. Again, if there is a strictly enforced weight limit of 1 pound, then you'll have to settle for 79 or 80 quarters, depending on which conversion you believe is accurate. That comes out to either $19.75 or $20.
So if Question 2 above really meant "which is worth more: the contents of a jar of quarters or the contents of a jar of dimes, given a weight limit of one pound?" then in one sense it could go either way.
On the other hand, if somebody asked you for a pound of dimes, they'd be disappointed if you shortchanged them. So if Question 2 really meant "which is worth more: the contents |
for the sudden closure, due to extenuating safety hazards," she said. "It is not a decision I argue with but the city administration, the BJCC, the council transportation committee, ALDOT, and other interested parties should have been called to a joint meeting to begin work on mitigating the loss of the 700 parking spaces."
Rafferty said she is seeking more details and will discuss the issue at her July committee meeting.
"Hopefully we will be better informed over the next two weeks to be able to offer options and action going forward," she said.
The city has about 6,000 metered parking spaces spanning downtown and Southside.Lottery shuts down 'All or Nothing' game
"All or Nothing," the newest Texas Lottery game, is kaput. For now, at least.
The Texas Lottery Commission "temporarily suspended" sales just before noon on Monday. The game was halted after GTECH, the state's lottery operator, notified the commission of a design flaw.
"It was brought to our attention that there is a game design issue with 'All or Nothing' and while there are more than 2 million possible number combinations, some of our players were gravitating to a smaller subset of number combinations and we saw the potential of unusually high prize payouts," commission spokeswoman Kelly Cripe said Tuesday.
She denied that the game was stopped because of too many winners or because too much money had been won.
"We took this step as a precautionary measure to protect the state from unexpected financial liability," Cripe said. "The game has performed as intended and the prizes awarded to players are what we expected."
Despite the game's temporary demise, all prizes on winning tickets will be honored by the lottery.
The shutdown is a stunning contradiction of comments last month from Texas Lottery Executive Director Gary Grief who praised "All or Nothing" as the lottery industry's "best draw game innovation in the last several years."
The game, which began on Sept. 9, is relatively simple. Players pick 12 numbers from 1 to 24. Each ticket is $2.
There are four drawings daily - morning, day, evening and night - Monday through Saturday.
The way to win the largest payout - $250,000 - is to hit all dozen numbers or none at all. The hourglass prize scheme offers nothing to those who choose 5, 6, or 7 correct numbers. The smallest reward, $2, is won by choosing 4 or 8 matching numbers. Those with 3 or 9 correct digits win $10. Ten or two correct? Fifty bucks. There's $500 for those who pick just one correct number or 11.
Lottery officials are considering limits on the number of tickets that can be bought per drawing for each combination of 12 numbers. "The practice of setting liability limits is common in the lottery industry for games that offer guaranteed prizes," a news release said.
In its first eight months, the game generated sales of $62.5 million and paid $36.7 million - or 59 percent of sales - in prizes. Of the leftover $25.8 million, an estimated $19.7 million - or roughly 32 percent - went to the Foundation School Fund, which supports public education in Texas.
Putting "All or Nothing" on ice challenges Grief's recent accolades. According to a transcript of the May 7 commission meeting, he said the game "has proven to be extremely successful" as were its four daily draws.
"The sales and revenue for that game have exceeded our wildest expectations," he said. "We have already matched the full year sales projection."
Longtime Texas Lottery watchdog Dawn Nettles of Garland said she believes "All or Nothing" was pulled because of sluggish sales.
"This is a bad game," she said. "They haven't lost money, per se, but their bottom line on this game is not what it should be."
Nettles, who publishes The Lotto Report online newsletter, agreed that "All of Nothing" was poorly designed.
"There are really not enough numbers in the game," she said. "The school fund should see 38 percent. By offering all these guaranteed prizes, the state is losing."Dave Re has a demanding job. He heads the photography team within the media department of one of the fastest growing sports in the history of sports. CrossFit (CF), a topic that I wrote about last month, is a fitness regimen that has gained extreme popularity in just a short time. Although Re never planned going to work every day as head staff photographer for CF Media, he has embraced it with open arms.
I had the chance to attend the California Super Regional CF Competition a few weeks ago in Del Mar, California. After some correspondence with Re, we connected in between heats during the last day of the event and he made it very clear that anything I wanted to know he’d be happy to answer to the best of his ability. And why wouldn’t he, he’s one of our subscribers and was happy to give back. Re has a warm demeanor, prefers the Beatles to the Stones, and shoots incredibly beautiful images. His grandfather showed him how to use a 4x5 film camera. He won a competition, and eventually bought a 35mm and learned the mechanics to photography.
© Dave Re
To give you a little back story on how Re ended up working for a such a forward-thinking company, you need to know a few things. CrossFit was started in 2001 in Santa Cruz, California. It has grown by leaps and bounds since then. Early on, the founders decided that it would be a good idea to have a competition. An event where all the CrossFitters around the world could come together and crown fittest person on earth. Fast forward a few years to 2009, the CrossFit games were being held at the now famous Castro Ranch in Aramos, Calif. Re, after being involved in his local CF affiliate in Texas, was asked to join a small media team to cover the event consisting of 4,000 fans and a small number of participants. “The long hours I’d spent at my affiliate learning how to time and shoot all the staple CrossFit movements immediately paid off in that environment, and I quickly became one of the go-to photographers on the team to provide coverage of crucial moments," said Re. “One of my favorite moments was shooting eventual two-time Games winner Annie Thorisdottir achieving her first muscle-up during the last event of the competition.”
© Dave Re
CrossFit Media is interesting for many reasons. Most importantly because they are completely self-contained. The business acts as its own media outlet. If you were to go to a professional tennis event, you would see photographers in the pit from many different wire services like Getty, AP, or Reuters. You won’t find any of those shooters at these CF events.
How does one get a job as a CF photographer? Well this falls under the umbrella of Re's job description. Because they are self-contained, they hire from within the community. People that CrossFit and shoot CrossFit photography generally get the gig. Re explains, “Before I’ll consider someone for those events, I need to see in their work that they get the timing of the movements, and that they know how to compose effectively in multiple ways. I also need to see that their images are well exposed and sharp, and don’t need a large amount of post-processing to make them 'cool.' Photographers that we work with on an ongoing basis are folks that can reliably deliver an assignment, and are easy to work with.” Other jobs that lie with Re include editor and archivist.
© Dave Re
Because the sport of fitness is fast-paced and involves a lot of complex movements, gear and speed play a crucial part. For gear, Re uses a pair of Canon 1DX bodies. “[It's] such a great camera!” said Re. “I still shoot the same non-IS 70-200/2.8 that I bought in the early 2000s. That lens is a war horse. The other go-to lens is my 24-70mm f/2.8 Mk II. In the past six months, I’ve also shot the 15mm fish, 11-24mm f/4, the 16-35mm f/2.8 Mk II, and the 300mm f/2.8. It just depends on the event and the venue it’s being held in. For the CrossFit Games specifically, I add some longer super telephoto stuff to that mix for the large field events.”
© Dave Re
On any given day at a CF event, photographer numbers can range from few to many. This means that getting those images uploaded and onto media outlets tends to move slower than desired. I had noticed that his shooters were using wireless technology. The media team has adopted wireless shooting methods used at the Sochi Olympics and the results have been great.
“Because of the nature of the CrossFit Games, we don’t have the luxury of knowing exactly where on the field we’ll be shooting from like many other sports do. Running Ethernet cables to our photographers becomes very difficult when they’ll also have to manage dragging those cables around over 100 yards of field space with a scrum of other people in the way. So, during our Open and Regional events that comprise the lead up to the CrossFit Games this year, we’ve been running a larger scale test using Canon and Nikon’s Wi-Fi transmitters for the 1DX, 5D MkIII, and Nikon D4(S) cameras,” said Re.
The testing has gone very well, and Re is looking forward to rolling it out across the whole staff at the CrossFit Games this year. With this system in place, they are able to post high-quality imagery to various outlets less than five minutes after it’s been shot with the camera. It’s a powerful tool in their arsenal for reporting on the events as they occur this year.
One of Re's staff photographers shoots with the new wireless technology. © Carmine Sarazen
It’s hard to say where CF will be in five years. Re's images will undoubtedly get better, his team will get sharper, and the content to cover will get more exciting. You can follow the CrossFit photography feed on their website.Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernard (Bernie) SandersPush to end U.S. support for Saudi war hits Senate setback Sanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' MORE’s policy plans will cost an estimated $18 trillion over ten years, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. His single-payer healthcare system alone would cost $15 trillion.
Sanders’s supporters say not to worry: Americans already spend trillions of dollars each year on health care, considering both our public and private spending. A single-payer system, they argue, would relieve Americans of private health costs and give everyone equal access to government-funded care.
Americans should reject this argument. How we pay for healthcare—whether we pay out of our own pockets or have government use our taxes to cover the tab—is extremely important. If we want a less costly and more user-friendly healthcare system, we should head in the opposite direction of Sen. Sanders’s proposal, toward less government involvement, not more. Only individual responsibility and market competition will truly improve how our healthcare system works.
It’s understandable why so many people are frustrated with today’s healthcare payment system. ObamaCare could accurately be described as crony capitalism: It uses big government to support big health insurance businesses by mandating that everyone must buy comprehensive insurance coverage and subsidizing the related costs with taxpayer dollars.
As a result of ObamaCare regulations and other bad healthcare policies, Americans don’t have a meaningful choice in health insurance plans, and their insurance plans often dictate which providers they can see and what treatments are covered.
This insurance-centric approach means that most Americans overpay for insurance and would be better off paying individually. A helpful analogy compares this payment system to a group lunch: If everyone is splitting the tab equally, people will be less careful about what they order and how much it costs. This kind of payment system encourages overconsumption and overspending.
There is, of course, a place for health insurance. Like other types of insurance, it should be used to protect us from catastrophic costs that threaten our assets. If someone is in a terrible accident or faces a terrible disease, he or she ought to insure against the related costs. But coverage for a regular check-up makes little sense.
If instead Americans paid for routine health care without a third-party (insurance company or the government), we would see enormous changes. Providers would have to compete, meaning they’d have to share pricing information with patients upfront. And patients would not be tethered by insurance-dictated networks, so they could select providers that provide the best value.
Price competition means lower prices. Lower prices mean greater access.
Sadly, we seem so far from a commonsense system like this. Today, government-supported (and government-mandated) insurance is at the heart of our system. It’s no wonder that so many Americans feel powerless, and therefore might be willing to give up what little choice they have in favor of socialized medicine.
But the solution to crony capitalism isn’t socialism: it’s free markets.
Margaret Thatcher famously said that the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money. This is true of socialized medicine, and even Bernie Sanders could not come up with enough tax increases to cover the cost of his healthcare proposal.
But socialism costs far more than dollars. There’s a cost in the form of lost choice.
In any competitive market, when consumers are unhappy with the goods or services they receive, they can take their business elsewhere. If Americans do not like their insurance company or healthcare provider, they should be free to go to a competing firm that offers something meaningfully different, not another version of an overregulated government standard.
On the other hand, when the government is the sole provider of a good or service, consumers certainly do not have this choice. They must accept what the government is offering and settle for the level of customer care we associate with the DMV.
There’s a basic principle that he who pays the bill holds the control. Government-controlled health care in other nations has resulted in wait lists, rationing, and poor outcomes. And patients in these nations have little recourse.
Americans should resist turning over this kind of control to the government. It may seem that ObamaCare has put us on a slippery slope toward government-run health care, but rather than continuing on this path, we should reverse course and put control in the hands of individual patients.
Manning is director of health policy at the Independent Women’s Forum.To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Timberwolves star, Kevin Love, will be traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers. In return for Love, Minnesota receives this year’s top prospect, Andrew Wiggins, as well as Anthony Bennett and a future first round pick.
The trade will not become official until August 23 (30 days after Wiggins signed his rookie contract)…so maybe there’s hope Adam Silver will pull a David Stern and veto the trade? Just kidding, but I was hoping that Love would find his way into a Warriors jersey. Ultimately, the Warriors front office—along with new head coach, Steve Kerr—was not willing to separate the Splash Bros, and that put a halt to the trade talks between Flip Saunders and Bob Myers.
Kevin Love wanted to move to a team that had a chance to win now, and any team that has LeBron James has that potential. The Cavs lucked into the past two number one overall picks, Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett. Winning the lottery twice proved to be enough potential (along with a future first rounder) to acquire one of the league’s top-10 players
And it makes sense for Minnesota, because that was the best offer that they were going to get. As Zach Lowe mentioned on the Lowe Post podcast about a week ago, even if Wiggins gives the T’wolves no more than the average return of the number one pick, it’s a great trade. Teams usually have to trade a quarter for five nickels—rarely is there the opportunity to get someone like an Andrew Wiggins when you are a seller.
Whispers around the league question Wiggins ability to handle and shoot, but I still think the expectation is that he will be an All-Star, if for nothing else, because of his defense. While Bennett was anemic offensively for the majority of last season, he did show signs of life toward the end of the year. And Minnesota did not want to end up like the 2013 Lakers, where Dwight Howard ended up walking and they got nothing in return. This was clearly the best move for the T'wolves.
possible franchise player for a proven 26-and-12 player? The co-author of The main debate in Cleveland: is it worth giving up a potential perennial All-Star andfranchise player for a proven 26-and-12 player? The co-author of LeBron’s coming home letter, Lee Jenkins, phrased the question best in a Grantland podcast : is the goal to keep your window open as long as possible or as wide as possible? There certainly is a happy-medium, but with LeBron James in the prime of his career, the goal should be win right now. LeBron has at least two or three more years as the best player in the NBA, and you want to take full advantage of that. You get a big window that's open for a while, the best of all worlds.
may become an All-Star after LeBron’s prime. It took Kevin Durant two full seasons in the NBA to become the player we now know him to be…a player that’s better than Love. If we assume (and it’s a big assumption), that Wiggins even has the ability to get to KD-level, and it takes him three years to get there, that’s too late. At that point, It makes no sense to keep a player whobecome an All-Star after LeBron’s prime. It took Kevin Durant two full seasons in the NBA to become the player we now know him to be…a player that’s better than Love. If we assume (and it’s a big assumption), that Wiggins even has the ability to get to KD-level, and it takes him three years to get there, that’s too late. At that point, LeBron will probably need to further re-invent himself from the north-south train mentality that he is still known for.
Kevin Love can be to the Cavs what Kevin Garnett was to the Celtics: the missing piece to a championship contender. In KG’s first season in green, he won a championship. The argument will inevitably arise that the new Big 3 in Cleveland has not played together before so they can’t win now…but the proof is in the trade of a former Kevin from Minnesota.next Image 1 of 3
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The first joint training exercises in Poland for U.S. troops and their Polish counterparts are underway.
A U.S. armored brigade of 3,500 troops from Fort Carson, Colorado deployed this year to Zagan, southwestern Poland, as a deterrence force on NATO's eastern flank.
Exercises that started Monday at the Zagan Military Training Area involved land troops from the U.S. and Polish armies, tanks and armored vehicles.
Poland's President Andrzej Duda and the U.S. ambassador to Poland, Paul Jones, observed the training.
They stressed that the U.S. troops' presence was strengthening the region's security and also bilateral ties.
Duda said: "God bless Poland, God bless America, God bless American soldiers."
The force comes as reassurance to nations in the region that are nervous about Russia's growing military activity.“Mr. Disorderly Conduct.” That’s what Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler dubbed the lovably verbose lyricist who made up half of the legendary songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller.
Jerry Leiber passed away on August 22 after suffering cardiopulmonary failure at the age of 78, but left us with a cache of classics penned with his writing partner of 61 years, Mike Stoller. It’s a songbook that includes “Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Stand By Me,” “Yakety Yak,” “Charlie Brown” and hundreds more that are so enduring they feel like they simply sprouted from the musical landscape.
I was lucky enough to spend a little time with Leiber and Stoller when I was asked to moderate a panel on collaboration at the ASCAP Expo in 2006 with the two of them, Marilyn and Alan Bergman (“The Way We Were,” “Windmills of Your Mind”) and Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly (“True Colors,” “Like a Virgin”). I remember that I feverishly worked on the panel’s outline and questions that centered around a serious discussion about what happens when two people are in a room together trying to write a song. But it didn’t take long for me to realize there was no way that panel was going to be a serious discussion on anything when, much to everyone’s delight, it turned into the Leiber and Stoller comedy hour. And as much as I feebly tried to get things back on track, the train had already left the station.
With Stoller playing straight man to Leiber’s rat-a-tat delivery, the hour turned into a wild ride of side-splitting stories that was, in reality, the history of rock ‘n’ roll. We heard about their first meeting in 1950:
Stoller: Jerry Leiber called me up and said, “Hey, let’s get together and write songs.”
Leiber: And he said, “No.”
Stoller: That’s true, but he said, “Well, why not meet and talk about it?”
Leiber: And he said, “No.”
Stoller: But he came over anyhow.
They told us about writing “Hound Dog” for Big Mama Thornton and then Elvis Presley covering it, adding the lyrics: “You ain’t never caught a rabbit, and you ain’t no friend of mine.” (Leiber: “I would never write such a dumb line.”). When the song became a hit, Stoller happened to be on the Andrea Doria when it collided with another ship off Nantucket. Leiber met him at the NYC dock after he was rescued and yelled up to him that “Hound Dog” was all over the radio.
Stoller: By Big Mama?
Leiber: No. By some white guy.
And then there was the story of being hired to write songs for Elvis Presley’s movie Jailhouse Kid which was renamed Jailhouse Rock:
Leiber: Stoller and I were in the Gorham Hotel in L.A., and we were supposed to have finished the score to the movie, but we hadn’t. We were running around, going to all the clubs. One afternoon the guy from the studio came over and pushed the couch up against the door of our room and said, “You guys are not getting out of here unless I get my score.” So we wrote four out of the six songs in one afternoon. One of them was “Jailhouse Rock.” They liked it so much they changed the title of the film.
This is pretty much the way the hour went, with the entire room in hysterics and Leiber and Stoller high-fiving each other after particularly good lines. Then, with only a few minutes left, I drove the train completely off the rails when I decided it would be fun to play my version of The Newlywed Game with these collaborators. I asked each of them to write down how their partner would answer a question, and then after their partner had answered they would have to hold up their board to show what they had written.
The question to Jerry was, “What would Mike say was the hardest song you had to write.” Jerry got it wrong, and waved it off by leaning in and saying, “Do we have time for a story?” Since I had, yet again, lost complete control as a moderator, he launched into a long, meandering and hilarious story with a buildup and punchline that had everyone giddy with laughter. It was, to say the least, a day I’ll never forget.
I ran into Leiber and Stoller several times after that at different events, and my face always broke into a huge smile. One time, after saying hello and giving them a big hug, I said “You know, that panel I moderated with the two of you is one of the highlights of my life.” Leiber looked at me with his mismatched pair of brown and blue eyes, grinned and said, “So, you don’t get out much, do you.”
Thank you, Jerry Leiber, for a lifetime of lyrics and laughter. And our thoughts and hearts are with Mike Stoller who shared these words: “He was my friend, my buddy, my writing partner for 61 years. He had a way with words. There was nobody better.”
—By Lydia Hutchinson
Note: Please do yourself a favor and watch this wonderful 45-minute Biography episode on Leiber & Stoller—their whole story is beautifully presented, with appearances by colleagues like Carole King & Gerry Goffin, Mann & Weill, Burt Bacharach, Ben E. King and more. And the interviews with Jerry and Mike are not to be missed … they even throw in another high-five.
Category: In Case You Haven't HeardJoan Rivers’ personal doctor snapped a selfie while the comedian was under anesthesia and the physician was about to perform an unauthorized biopsy that led to her fatal cardiac arrest, a report said Tuesday.
The doctor took the photo in the procedure room at Manhattan’s Yorkville Endoscopy before performing the procedure on Rivers’ vocal cords, according to CNN.
A staffer at the clinic told investigators about the doctor’s behavior, the cable-TV network said.
Rivers was at the clinic for an endoscopy to be performed by gastroenterologist Dr. Lawrence Cohen.
Cohen and the clinic’s medical director finished their work on Rivers before her unidentified personal physician took it upon himself to perform the biopsy, CNN said.
But before performing the unauthorized procedure, the doctor allegedly pulled out his camera to snap a picture of himself with the legendary star while she was unconscious, according to the network.
It was during the biopsy that Rivers suddenly went into cardiac arrest.
Investigators believe that her vocal cords began to swell during the biopsy on Aug. 29 and the flow of oxygen to her lungs was cut off, CNN said.
She died a week later.The May long weekend is the unofficial start of summer in Canada, and the tourism industry in Alberta can't wait for the season to start in the mountains.
By all accounts, the resort town of Banff and the national park that shares its name are both expected to be overloaded with tourists this summer, taking advantage of the free park pass and the celebrations for Canada's 150th birthday.
"Weekends from now until the end of September are pretty much fully booked," says Harvie 0:33 Canada's oldest national park will be so busy that hotels, restaurants and shops throughout the surrounding region are already cashing in on the spillover of tourism activity.
Mount Engadine Lodge, nestled away about 65 km south of Banff, said its reservations are up about 10 per cent compared to last year. For a family of five looking to stay at the secluded lodge for a weekend this summer, it's already too late.
'Jump on the waiting list'
"Jump on the waiting list. Weekends from now until the end of September are pretty much fully booked," said Simon Harvie, general manager of the lodge. "So far we've filled up quicker, and we expect to see that the rest of the summer."
Hotels and restaurants throughout the Bow Valley have high expectations for a big tourism season this summer because of the Canada 150 celebrations. Besides those reserving rooms and cabins, the lodge expects more people to come for afternoon tea or dinner in the evening.
National parks across the country are free to access this year, which is the main reason Banff will be a top destination. However, the park is usually bustling during the summer months anyway, which is why the rest of region could benefit, from Calgary to Field, B.C.
On top of the free national park pass, he thinks Canadians want to travel more within the country to celebrate the 150th anniversary and because of the low value of the loonie compared to the U.S. dollar. 0:53 "Last year, Banff was pretty much at capacity. It was one of the best seasons they've ever had, so probably not a lot more capacity this year, especially through the summer," said Dave Kaiser, president of the Alberta Hotel and Lodging Association, who says the shoulder seasons may be busier as a result.
A perfect storm for tourism
Campground reservations are also up about 10 per cent so far at Calaway Park, located on the western edge of Calgary. Season passes to the adjacent amusement park are also higher compared to this point last year.
"We're hoping the summer shapes up to be one of our best summers ever," said Bob Williams, general manager of the park.
Williams said there is a perfect storm for the tourism industry: the free park pass, Canada's 150th anniversary and the low value of the loonie compared to the U.S. dollar. Some research has also suggested some Canadians, especially women, may avoid travelling to the U.S. because of President Donald Trump.By Richard McCarty
After nearly a year in office, President Donald Trump has established an enviable record of restoring opportunity and unlocking the nation’s potential. One of his most obvious areas of success has been in the energy sector. For years, US leaders have talked about energy independence or energy security, but Trump thinks much bigger and advocates for “energy dominance.”
Earlier this year, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt wrote an op-ed explaining what energy dominance means.
“An energy-dominant America means a self-reliant and secure nation, free from the geopolitical turmoil of other nations that seek to use energy as an economic weapon. An energy-dominant America will export to markets around the world, increasing our global leadership and influence. Becoming energy dominant means that we are getting government out of the way so that we can share our energy wealth with developing nations.”
Interior Secretary Zinke has a key role to play in Trump’s efforts to increase US energy production. As Interior Secretary, he is responsible for managing hundreds of millions of acres of public lands and well over a billion acres offshore. According to the Department, 30% of the nation’s energy is produced in areas under its management. Fortunately, for consumers, the unemployed, and the underemployed, Zinke is intent upon implementing Trump’s energy and jobs agenda.
Shortly after his confirmation, Zinke lifted a moratorium on new coal-mining leases on federal lands, which had been put in place by the Obama Administration. This past summer, Zinke rescinded a rule that would have increased costs for companies that mine coal in federal lands. In October, the Interior Department announced the largest oil and gas lease sale in US history will take place next spring.
In addition to the work of his subordinates, Trump is personally taking action to move our country toward energy dominance. Responding to the wishes of Utah’s leaders, Trump slashed the size of two national monuments designated by two of his Democrat predecessors reducing the size of Bears Ears National Monument by over 80% and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by nearly half. Both monuments contain vast quantities of natural resources.
Bill Clinton’s sudden designation of the 1.88 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996 enraged many Utahns. One of the reasons for this anger was that a company had been planning to create hundreds of coal-mining jobs there, which were, unsurprisingly, killed by the designation.
Barack Obama designated the 1.35 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument in the waning days of his Administration. As was the case with Grand Staircase-Escalante, elected officials in Utah disapproved of the establishment of Bears Ears.
Under Obama, leftists descended on North Dakota to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Administration delayed its construction. Shortly after Trump was sworn in, he signed a memorandum expediting the approval process for the pipeline. Within days, the US Army Corps of Engineers granted the necessary easement for the completion of the pipeline. Several months later, the pipeline was completed, tested, and opened for commercial operation.
Furthermore, Trump’s signature on the recently-passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act bill will finally deliver another energy policy victory. For two decades, Republicans have fought to develop some of the energy resources in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and one of the provisions of the tax cut bill paves the way for that to occur.
Whether it can be tied directly to Trump’s policies or not, the energy sector is certainly seeing growth. For example, coal production is up 8%, and coal exports are up 68%. Domestic oil production is also up over last year, the International Energy Agency expects that US production will increase further next year, and oil exports are up by more than 56% over last year.
The past year has been filled with energy policy wins as Trump and his Administration have worked to deliver on his promises; and the best part is that the Administration is just getting started.
Richard McCarty is the Director of Research at Americans for Limited Government FoundationNow that McDonald’s has started playing Christmas music, it is time to start thinking about Santa. The second-to-last paragraph of “Diagnostics and Therapeutics in Political Economy” by Robert Higgs offers a seasonally appropriate comparison:
Many Americans now believe many things about their government that are false, and they expect much from the government that the rulers cannot provide. The public at large embraces myths about what the government can do, what it actually does, and how it goes about doing it. Only people enamored of such myths can support, for example, a gigantically expensive health-care “reform” at a time when the present value of the government’s promised future Social Security and Medicare benefits alone amounts to several times the current GDP. (I am disregarding here the interested parties who expect to reap short-run pillage from an intrinsically doomed system.) Until more people come to a more realistic, fact-based understanding of the government and the economy, little hope exists of tearing them away from their quasi-religious attachment to a government they view with misplaced reverence and unrealistic hopes. Lacking a true religious faith yet craving one, many Americans have turned to the state as a substitute god, endowed with the divine omnipotence required to shower the public with something for nothing in every department – free health care, free retirement security, free protection from hazardous consumer products and workplace accidents, free protection from the Islamic maniacs the U.S. government stirs up with its misadventures in the Muslim world, and so forth. If you take the government to be Santa Claus, you naturally want every day to be Christmas; and the bigger the Santa, the bigger his sack of goodies. This prevailing ideology constitutes probably the most critical obstacle to reductions in the government’s size, scope, and power. Getting rid of this ideology will be diabolically difficult, if possible at all.
The author has a Ph.D. in Economics from Johns Hopkins (compared to my meager collection of econ courses taken), but I believe him to be wrong about Social Security and Medicare benefits. As pointed out in my blog postings on While America Aged, Congress has the authority to change the Social Security age of eligibility to 75 or 80 or to adjust Medicare so that anesthesia returns to the good old days of whiskey and a bullet to bite. It is states and local governments that are truly stuck with their pension and health care promises.
For Americans who don’t pay income tax, perhaps the government truly is Santa Claus. According to the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, roughly 47 percent of Americans either pay no tax or a negative tax (i.e., the government sends them money every year through such programs as the Earned Income Tax Credit). So you’d think that any new government spending program would attract at least 47 percent of potential voters. On the other hand, millions of people who do not suffer the scourge of income tax still get hit with assorted other taxes at both the state and federal level.
What am I telling people that I want from Santa this year? World peace, of course (because I want to win the Nobel Prize after Sandra Bullock gets hers). And that I want Barack Obama to become immortal and then to be elected President-for-Life.I still remember the words of a friend who was by my side in the ER after I attempted suicide. It was seeing me there, he later told me, my mouth still black with charcoal and my eyes raw and red with tears, that he realized everything he had done to take care of me in my darkest hour still wasn’t enough to stop me from hurting myself.
Truth be told, he was exactly right: There is no single cure-all for depression.
Treatment for mental illness requires more than empathy and support. Even the most supportive friends and family lose loved ones to mental illness, and even the best therapists lose patients to suicide.
In 2012, President Obama challenged Congress to reform the national mental health care system. More than two years later, nothing has been done.
The death of Robin Williams reignited, if only momentarily, conversations around mental health reform. I was surprised in the days following his death by the remarks I saw and heard, even from my own friends.
“If only he knew how loved he was. If only he’d reached out for help.”
“ Being sick is not selfish, and knowing you’re loved, even reaching out for help, isn’t always enough. I know, because I’ve lived it.”
I struggle to understand how people can’t see that mental illness isn’t something you can just will away. Being sick is not selfish, and knowing you’re loved, even reaching out for help, isn’t always enough. I know, because I’ve lived it.
Before moving to Louisville, I attended Brigham Young University. BYU, respectfully, didn’t offer me an environment for positive personal growth. Admittedly, it took me too long to realize that.
BYU is a private Mormon college, and I hold the value of its education in high regard. But as my 22-year-old self struggled to make sense of a confusing collision of religion and sexual identity, the weight of my depression, paired with a series of toxic relationships, became too much to bear.
I knew I was loved and I sought out help. And even though I was going to therapy and taking my medication, I couldn’t get out of bed. I called out of work and skipped my classes. I couldn’t eat, but still went on seven, eight, sometimes nine mile runs at 4 in the morning, just to prove to myself that I still maintained some control.
My deteriorating emotional and mental state seeped into every facet of my life: falling behind in classes, losing credibility at work, extreme weight loss.
I had friends, some of whom I have since lost, who were the most generous, patient and understanding people I have ever met. Friends who would lie with me night after night, sometimes without exchanging a word, just so I knew I |
accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.
Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.The Gibbons twins spoke their own language, hated each other, took up arson and wound up in Broadmoor. Perfect stuff for opera, says librettist April de Angelis
The following corrections was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Monday July 2 2007
Broadmoor was mistakenly described as a prison at one point in the article below. It is a hospital, more particularly a secure psychiatric hospital, as an earlier description in the article made clear.
On June 20 1982, Jennifer and June Gibbons, troubled teenage twins, British-born of Barbadian parentage, each began what were to become 11-year sentences for petty theft and arson at Broadmoor, the secure psychiatric hospital in Berkshire. They were prolific diary-keepers. "Sick. Mental. Psychopathic," June wrote, with characteristic verve. "Imagine how I felt. Me? A mental psychopath? I only heard about things like that in Alfred Hitchcock..."
The tale of the Gibbons girls is one of sibling rivalry that seemed in danger of turning murderous, featuring a baffling childhood pact of silence that propelled them, via educational exclusion, to become teenage outcasts who responded to dashed literary ambitions and bungled sexual adventures with a life of petty crime that would lead them ultimately to Broadmoor.
Their story had begun 18 years earlier at a drab RAF base in Haverford West, Wales, where their father Aubrey was stationed as a pilot. Gloria, their mother, kept house and looked after the twins and three siblings. Even as babies, Gloria noticed the twins wanted to do everything together - even struggling to be breastfed simultaneously. Other more troubling signs emerged: at school, June and Jennifer weren't speaking, although they were reading and writing fluently. Yet their parents would hear them chattering endlessly to each other while playing with their dolls; it was as if they had distorted their speech into a secret code only they could understand. Surely, Aubrey and Gloria comforted themselves, their twins would grow out of it.
Anne Treherne, an expert on elective mutes, met the twins and became convinced a game was going on: that by secret eye signals Jennifer was stopping June speaking, controlling her as if she were a robot. The twins spooked her colleagues: moving extremely slowly in perfect time, they seemed inhuman, like "zombies", drinking cups of tea or taking off their coats in eerie unity. A head teacher even called Jennifer "evil".
Cathy Arthur, another expert, secretly recorded the twin's private language; playing it back slowly, she discovered it to be everyday English spoken at enormous speed. Equally striking was the strength of will that lay behind their mutual mirroring: they were taken horse-riding in an attempt to encourage individual freedom of movement - but if one fell off, the other would immediately fall off, too.
Errollyn Wallen, a composer, and myself, a librettist, came across their story in Marjorie Wallace's brilliant book, The Silent Twins. Wallace deciphered the reams of their minutely written journals with the aid of a magnifying glass, finally unlocking the secret, passionate outpourings of the twins. What emerges is a very modern British story, with recognisable heroes and villains: parents in denial about the weirdness of their children, local lads who took turns having sex with the twins in a church, befuddled experts, a narrow-minded judge. Not a legendary German saga, to be sure, or the story of a 19th-century Parisian courtesan - but the misunderstood nature of the twins and the deathly struggle for supremacy taking place between them assured us we had enough tormenting passion for an opera.
Jennifer, born 10 minutes after June, imagined her older sister to be cleverer, prettier, more beloved. Jennifer feared she would be left behind. Later, June would write of Jennifer: "She wants us to be equal. There is a murderous gleam in her eye. Dear lord, I am scared of her. She is not normal... someone is driving her insane. It is me."
This vicious circle would eventually erupt into violence. June writes: "I feel like suicide, but will that help? I have fresh marks on my face to prove how distressing life is becoming with my twin sister. Have I the strength to kill her?" Yet separation was unthinkable. Each pined and took ill without the other. It was as if they were bound by some terrible spell.
The twins were interested in writing, which provided them with some release from their unhappy existence. June wrote:
Here where the traffic roars I think of the country
give me the little things
give me the mountains for the city
the hereafter for the brambles
An old farmhouse for these grey puddings
Give me seagulls for the crows
But once inside Broadmoor, they were treated with high doses of medication that made it difficult for them to concentrate and their passion for poetry and story-writing faded. Living alongside such inmates as Myra Hindley and Peter Sutcliffe, they were bitterly aware of their youth wasting away.
It was the twins' extraordinary creativity that drew us to their bleak chronicle. They always had a rich fantasy life, in which their dolls took on gruesome, dramatic roles; and now these became the seeds of literary authorship. They read prolifically, including the novels of Jane Austen, and enrolled in a correspondence course with the Writing School. The girls were advised "what not to write about", such as lunatics, drug addicts, prostitutes and American settings.
The twins, with unerring instinct, splendidly ignored this advice, producing a novel each; June's Pepsi Cola Addict (the story of a high-school hero seduced by his teacher and sent to a cruel reformatory, now a hot property on eBay) and Jennifer's Discomania (an equally prized tale about a young woman discovering that a local disco incites patrons to acts of insane violence) are written with narrative flair. Gloria could hear the frantic tapping of typewriters deep into the night. June wrote to the publishers at New Horizon, who had accepted her book on a vanity publishing basis, explaining that she didn't have the money but hoped that eventually royalties would cover the cost. If not, she wrote to them, "then ring the police and I will gladly be arrested". Eventually, the twins managed to strike a deal.
Authorship did not bring the expected results. This plan, like so many of the twin's strategies to break free and make an exciting life for themselves, failed. These two girls were full of frustration and the desire for self-expression, struggling to find an identity in a world, which, in their words, considered them "black and daft". New feelings, longings for sex and love, flooded them. And they must have looked weird, struggling with bottles of brandy and extravagant wigs, binoculars swinging from their necks as they went hunting the attractive American brothers whose father worked on the base. But losing their virginity in a church in an act of double folly did not bring the escape they had hoped for.
June reflects: "I have no feelings for sex. I think it's mean and cruel. I just lie back and let it happen. I want romance and emotional attachment; boys just use my body." As romance failed them and no jobs materialised, cut off from their peers, bored, they sought thrills in crime. June writes: "A lousy day. Broke into Portfield special school, nicked a few Jackie mags. Really fantastic. Why do this? No friends. Nothing else to do. Nothing to fill the cold hour."
If they couldn't be famous writers, they'd be famous criminals. They decided to burn down a tractor shed. They were caught. Once inside the criminal justice system, when their history of "silence" was taken into consideration, they were pronounced to have severe personality disorders, labelled psychopathic and handed an indeterminate sentence, to be released only after significant improvement of their condition. Their bitter struggle intensified in the confines of Broadmoor. The day of their eventual release, 11 years later, brought another extraordinary event: Jennifer's death. She fell ill on the bus that drove them away from the prison and died that night in hospital. Sudden inflammation of the heart was given as the reason, but there was no evidence of drugs or poison, and no cause of death has ever been established.
Wallace believes that, during their stay in hospital, they began to believe that in order for one of them to be free the other must die.
For Errollyn and I, it is the transcendent qualities in the twins - their imagination, guts, talent and humour pitted against the confining effect of each other and a world that was at best indifferent and at worst hostile - that makes their struggle, with its tragic denouement, a gripping story that we wanted to tell in music and words. The story of the twins is also a love story: can't live with her, can't live without her. Why make it an opera? Why sing it? Because the drama requires music to take us to a place words can't reach alone. The twins, with their ceaseless fight to the death and their love that knew no bounds, are perfect opera material.
"You are me," Jennifer would intone to June as June screamed back, "I'm June, June." I put this exchange into the libretto; simple words that suggest big musical emotions. What was always compelling to me were the elements of magic in their story - the unexplained nature of their pact of silence, the uncanny effect they had on those who encountered them and Jennifer's mysterious death.
It seemed inappropriate to speak for the twins - so in the libretto only words they spoke or wrote are used, as well as occasionally an imagined reconstruction of their invented language.
The glorious and sad paradox of the silent twins is that they weren't silent at all: they were adventurous and passionate communicators who, in novels, journals and poetry, recorded their responses to the world with perception and originality. It's just a shame there was no one there to hear them. Another reason to celebrate them loud and clear in music.
The twins get under your skin. I had a text from Errollyn one day saying: "Jennifer is dead." I went icy cold. Jennifer who? Then I realised Errollyn was setting the denouement. Afterwards she said: "I'd been dreading it, because I knew it would be so sad. When you write the music, you have to get right inside the twins - but I steeled myself and did it. I shed some tears".
· The Silent Twins is at the Almeida, London, July 5-16. Box office: 020-7359 4404.Enlarge Drawing courtesy of Sarah Williams, Virginia Cooperative Extension; drawing modified by the author Tooth and jaw structure of cattle: a top dental pad instead of top front teeth and a large gap between the pad and the back molars. Enlarge Courtesy of Chris Seaton and Wikipedia "Through a looking glass, darkly..." [Lewis Carroll]. Enlarge The figure (left image) shows a green-eyed man looking at a bronze ball. He sees the ball because a ray of light reflects from the ball to his eye, as indicated by the arrow showing the line of light travel. The right portion of the figure shows what happens when the green-eyed man places the ball in front of a mirror. Light reflects again from the ball to his eye, so he sees the ball, but the light follows a broken path. It reflects from ball to mirror, bounces off the mirror with the same angle that it came in, and reflects to the green-eyed man. The man sees the ball as if it were behind the mirror, as shown by the dashed line to the ball image. Enlarge Drawing by author. Minding p's and q's through a mirror. Toothless cud chewers, To see ourselves as others see us... Q: Why don't cows, sheep, and goats have their top front teeth? (Shannon, World) A: Not just cattle, sheep and goats, but all 192 living species of ruminants — antelopes, giraffes, pronghorn antelopes, deer, musk deer and tiny chevrotains (mouse deer) — lack top incisors. All these animals have a tough dental pad below their top lip instead of front teeth, and a huge gap between the dental pad and the back teeth. This dental arrangement helps ruminants gather great quantities of grass and fibrous plants. A cow, for example, wraps her long, rough, dexterous tongue around a big wad of grasses, pulls the green stuff into her mouth, fits the wad into the huge gap (between front pad and back teeth), pinches the strands about six inches from the ground between her bottom incisors and her top dental pad, and, by swinging her head, neatly cuts a big swath of grass. Ruminants have a complicated four-chambered stomach that allows them to regurgitate their food as a cud, grind it more thoroughly at their leisure, and, thereby, get a maximum amount of nutrients from a given amount of food. But ruminants' early ancestors did have all their teeth, just as pigs do now. The earliest known ruminant (Archaeomeryx) looked like a small deer, but had fully functioning front incisors. Archaeomeryx lived about 50 million years ago (during the Eocene epoch) in what is now Mongolia. Over the eons, the creatures lost their front teeth. Interestingly, these deer are still around today in much the same form, dwelling in forests by streams of Southeast Asia and West Africa. Speculating why the ancestral ruminants lost their top cutting teeth (replacing them with a tough dental pad) takes us into unmapped country. "I think nobody has a good answer," says paleontologist Christine Janis, professor at Brown University. But her "best guess" is "it has something to do with ruminants being highly selective feeders." They are picky about what they jam in their stomachs, because whatever they eat goes through many lengthy, digestive processes. They choose food of value, where they get their money's worth for the time investment. Moreover, ruminants use their tongues to select good food (leaves over stems, for example), treating their tongues with respect. "I can imagine natural selection acting on loss of the upper teeth, so as to not bite and injure their tongue," says Janis. "However, that's pure speculation, not a testable hypothesis." Her guess makes sense, though, because camels select food with tongues, have a three-chambered stomach, regurgitate their food and chew their cud. Thus, they almost qualify as ruminants. Moreover, they have some reduction of upper incisors. Horses — on the other hand, who use lips, not tongues, to select food — have big, fat, front teeth. Further Reading: Dental anatomy of ruminants by Melissa Rouge and Richard Bowen, Colorado State University Digestive System of the Cow by John B. Hall, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech and State Universities The osteology and relationships of Archaeomeryx, an ancestral ruminant by Edwin H. Colbert, American Museum of Natural History Motility of the gastrointestinal tract of ruminants by Dr A.L.R. Findlay, University of Cambridge Q: Is the image we see of ourselves in the mirror really what we look like? (Mreason, World) A: Robert Burns didn't think so. A mirror rarely, if ever, depicts us as we encounter life — thoughtful, terrified, contented, curious — ways showing what we "really look like." Instead, it returns a bland, slightly bored look, as we check our reflection. But, aside from such philosophical matters, does a mirror accurately reflect an object placed before it? Yes, a good plane mirror does, with minor distortions (indicating slight imperfections) we don't even notice. We can easily check this out, though few would doubt it. I hold up my right hand, and look at my palm carefully. My thumb sticks out to the right. Now I turn it the other way to face the mirror, and check the reflected image of my palm in the mirror. It looks the same, except it's turned about the vertical axis, because I turned it about the vertical axis to see my palm in the mirror. My thumb in the mirror sticks out to the left. More about this "mirror image" phenomenon in a moment. Back to the other image characteristics: They look the same and, consequently, my palm looks the same because we sight along lines of light to see. The figure (fourth image) to the left shows a green-eyed man looking at a bronze ball. He sees the ball because a ray of light reflects from the ball to his eye, as indicated by the arrow showing the line of light travel. The right portion of the figure shows what happens when the green-eyed man places the ball in front of a mirror. Light reflects again from the ball to his eye, so he sees the ball, but the light follows a broken path. It reflects from ball to mirror, bounces off the mirror with the same angle that it came in, and reflects to the green-eyed man. The man sees the ball as if it were behind the mirror, as shown by the dashed line to the ball image. Comparing the left with the right portion of the figure, illustrates the fact that the man sees the mirrored ball exactly as he sees the ball directly, because the mirror reflects light to his eye in a special way. That special way is the law of reflection (click for cool animation), first discovered by Claudius Ptolemy in about 115 AD: A light ray incident upon a reflective surface will be reflected at an angle equal to the incident angle. And that is the physics behind why a plane mirror shows us, maybe not as we really are, but as if we could see ourselves directly (but behind the mirror). Now, let's return to the "mirror image" problem. I hold up a card, facing me (much as I did my palm), and I read q p Then I turn the card about a vertical axis (as I did my palm) so it's facing the mirror, read the card in the mirror, and I see the mirror image — a left-right reversal (see fifth image): p q as the heavy black letters in the mirror of the figure show. But I notice something cool. Looking through the card (by holding it up to the light), I can simultaneously see the same letters (illustrated by the light gray letters) as I see in the mirror. I read the same thing through the card and in the mirror. Thus the so-called "mirror image" is strictly a matter of rotation. With no rotation (seeing through), there's no mirror image (I read the same thing). Moreover, I can change the "mirror image" from left-right reversal by changing the axis of rotation. If I rotate about the horizontal axis (instead of vertical) I get b d an upside-down reversal instead of left-right. Almost all readers who responded to this question commented on the fact that the mirror image is reversed. That's why. I must rotate the card some way or other to face it into the mirror. When I rotate it, I reverse left and right, or up and down. Unless, I just look through the card with light shining through it. Then nothing gets reversed, because I didn't turn the card. The same thing happens with us when we look in the mirror, as my palm example shows. I am indebted to MathPages.com for the card example. Readers' Answers: • It's a reflection image, not altered in color, shape or any other element that may distort it. So, in that sense, it's the same. But, when we see ourselves in the mirror, it's backwards, and backwards is by definition, not the same as the original. So, no. Kriste, Belchertown, Massachusetts • Yes, the image we see of ourselves in the mirror is really what we look like, only it is inverted. Shane Seby, Muscat, Oman • No — what you see in the mirror is not the same image others see when they look at you. What you see is a reverse image, literally a "mirror-image," of yourself! Crystal Ferguson, Allen, Texas • Yes, because it looks like you and, no, because if you had raised your right-hand thumb, your mirror image would have raised its left-hand thumb. Gee Waman, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India • Some mirrors distort features, so the quality of the mirror has some bearing on just how much you actually resemble the image you are seeing of yourself. Lori Godby, McConnelsville, Ohio • No, the image in the mirror has different direction or orientation. The left hand with the watch, becomes the right hand in the mirror. The left-right reversal depends on how you look at it. If you choose an absolute direction, instead. Say you stand facing North in front of the mirror; your image faces South. It's just perception. Hitesh Sachan, Seattle, Washington • I sure hope not. Galen, Maynardville, Tennessee Further Reading: What mirrors do MathPages.com Law of reflection (animation) by Michael W. Davidson, Florida State University Reflection and the line of sight by Tom Henderson, Glenbrook South High School, Glenview, Illinois Conceptual Physics by Paul G. Hewitt (Answered Sep. 5, 2006) April Holladay, science journalist for USATODAY.com, lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A few years ago Holladay retired early from computer engineering to canoe the flood-swollen Mackenzie, Canada's largest river. Now she writes a column about nature and science, which appears Fridays at USATODAY.com. To read April's past WonderQuest columns, please check out her site. If you have a question for April, visit this informational page. Enlarge Courtesy of Melissa Rouge of Colorado State University, used with permission A veterinarian bares a goat's dental pad.Page Content
Montréal, 6 October 2016 – Government, industry and civil society representatives have agreed today on a new global market-based measure (GMBM) to control CO 2 emissions from international aviation.
The historic move came as the Plenary Session of the UN aviation agency’s 39th Assembly agreed to recommend adoption of a final Resolution text for the GMBM.
“It has taken a great deal of effort and understanding to reach this stage, and I want to applaud the spirit of consensus and compromise demonstrated by our Member States, industry and civil society,” remarked ICAO Council President Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu. “We now have practical agreement and consensus on this issue backed by a large number of States who will voluntarily participate in the GMBM – and from its outset. This will permit the CORSIA to serve as a positive and sustainable contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions reduction.”
ICAO’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) is designed to complement the basket of mitigation measures the air transport community is already pursuing to reduce CO 2 emissions from international aviation. These include technical and operational improvements and advances in the production and use of sustainable alternative fuels for aviation.
Implementation of the CORSIA will begin with a pilot phase from 2021 through 2023, followed by a first phase, from 2024 through 2026. Participation in both of these early stages will be voluntary and the next phase from 2027 to 2035 would see all States on board. Some exemptions were accepted for Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS), Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) and States with very low levels of international aviation activity.
“I would like to thank all those who have been part of this process”, said Dr. Fang Liu, Secretary General of ICAO. “This Resolution is the reflection of the spirit of cooperation and tremendous efforts. The ICAO GMBM endorsed today is an important addition to the basket of measures aviation is pursuing to address CO 2 emissions.”
Resources for Editors
ICAO's 39th Assembly
GMBM FAQs
Contact
Anthony Philbin
Chief, Communications
aphilbin@icao.int
+1 (514) 954-8220
+1 (438) 402-8886 (mobile)
Twitter: @ICAO
William Raillant-Clark
Communications Officer
wraillantclark@icao.int
+1 514-954-6705
+1 514 409-0705
Twitter: @wraillantclarkIt would be easy to write some clichés about the match this past weekend that would put a positive spin on a disappointing display of soccer. I am not going to insult our fans by doing that. I am also not going to belabor how we got to this point of the season. The simple fact is that the results are not good enough. We have to do better. We are the defending Supporters’ Shield Champion and a club with a storied history, and we are stuck near the bottom of the table. That is unacceptable.
We have an opportunity in the transfer window to make changes that can not only bring in additional talent but also evaluate our tactics in order to field a club that can compete for an MLS Cup Championship. We also have some huge CONCACAF Champions League matches in the second half of the season, and we do not want to get bounced out of that prestigious tournament in the same way we were shown the door of the US Open Cup this past weekend in Charleston. There is rarely one silver bullet in these situations that solve all the problems. It will take the collective efforts of our player acquisition team, coaching, management, and of course our players to work together to get the team back on track.
I know it is frustrating to see the club perform this way especially after the joy of last season. All I can ask for is your trust as we develop and execute our plan. In 2011, we faced similar hardship on the pitch. We responded with some key player acquisitions and a new style of attacking soccer that gave us only oursecond Supporters’ Shield Championship in franchise history. We have our work cut out for us. But I am confident that we will make the necessary changes to get us back to our winning ways.
In more positive news, there has been a ton of activity at the new stadium site. They are removing the deep foundations from the old FMC site. You have to check out these amazing photos of the excavators and our construction team digging up and crushing the deep foundations. The site evidently had a bunch of vaults and even sub-basements that we have had to remove so we can put our foundation in place. It would be cool if anyone who had a connection to the old FMC plant could contact me. We are compiling a history of the site and I want to collect not only photos, but also an oral history of some of the unique aspects of the FMC era. Folks can contact me at President@sjearthquakes.com or via Twitter at @QuakesPrez.
Finally, we have a great Fireworks Four-Pack back for the Stanford match on June 29 against the LA Galaxy. There are a limited number of four upper corner seats for $20 each - perfect for families who want to catch the sporting event of the summer and the biggest fireworks show in the Bay Area. It will be once again an amazing day at Stanford, and I look forward to seeing everyone there for a great afternoon and evening of Quakes soccer.A man has died after an officer-involved shooting in Belmont.Authorities with the Attorney General's office have confirmed to News9 the suspect involved has died. He is Joseph Mazzitelli, 46, of Belmont.The shooting took place at an Irving gas station on Plummer Hill Road and Route 106.Authorities said a Belmont police officer pulled into the gas station around 2:50 p.m. and recognized Mazzitelli as having outstanding warrants. Officials say after an encounter, Mazzitelli showed a gun. The Belmont police officer opened fire. Mazzitelli was taken to Lakes Region General Hospital in Laconia where he later died."The exact circumstances of the officer's discharged of his weapon remain actively under investigation. Pursuant to protocol, the name of the officer involved in the incident is being withheld pending the officer's formal interview," New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon MacDonald said.The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will conduct an autopsy at 9 a.m. Monday.The officer has also been placed on administrative leave during this investigation.The officer was evaluated at Lakes Region General Hospital and released. No one else was injured.The Attorney General's office said the officer was not wearing a body camera and the cruiser is not equipped with a video camera. But there are surveillance cameras at the gas station.Belmont and Laconia police were assisted at the scene by New Hampshire State Police's Major Crime Unit.
A man has died after an officer-involved shooting in Belmont.
Authorities with the Attorney General's office have confirmed to News9 the suspect involved has died. He is Joseph Mazzitelli, 46, of Belmont.
Advertisement Related Content AG: Death of Belmont man ruled suicide in officer-involved shooting investigation
The shooting took place at an Irving gas station on Plummer Hill Road and Route 106.
Authorities said a Belmont police officer pulled into the gas station around 2:50 p.m. and recognized Mazzitelli as having outstanding warrants.
Officials say after an encounter, Mazzitelli showed a gun. The Belmont police officer opened fire. Mazzitelli was taken to Lakes Region General Hospital in Laconia where he later died.
"The exact circumstances of the officer's discharged of his weapon remain actively under investigation. Pursuant to protocol, the name of the officer involved in the incident is being withheld pending the officer's formal interview," New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon MacDonald said.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will conduct an autopsy at 9 a.m. Monday.
The officer has also been placed on administrative leave during this investigation.
The officer was evaluated at Lakes Region General Hospital and released.
No one else was injured.
The Attorney General's office said the officer was not wearing a body camera and the cruiser is not equipped with a video camera.
But there are surveillance cameras at the gas station.
Belmont and Laconia police were assisted at the scene by New Hampshire State Police's Major Crime Unit.
AlertMeAn Ottawa man is hoping police can find three teens he says dropped a chunk of snow and ice on his windshield as he drove along Highway 417 this weekend.
Jeremy Beaumier was driving along the 417 on Saturday afternoon when he saw the teens standing on the Pinecrest/Greenbank overpass and dropping snow onto cars.
He said when he slowed down to warn them, they dropped a chunk of ice on his Jeep.
"Guess they thought I was a good target so they threw a piece of ice down on the car and basically broke the windshield, (causing) panic on the highway," said Beaumier.
Beaumier took the next exit and stopped his vehicle to assess the damage while his girlfriend, who was with him in the vehicle, called police.
Damage could have been worse
Neither was hurt, but Beaumier said he's concerned the next person it happens to won't be so lucky.
Beaumier said he believes the teens should be held accountable for their actions. (CBC)
"I'm sure they weren't looking to cause damage but at the same time they did, and even if they didn't cause damage they really could have caused some issues on the highway if they had surprised somebody," said Beaumier.
"It's extremely dangerous, (with) people on the road travelling at 100 km/h it can come through a windshield and hit and kill someone driving," said Const. Rheal Leval of Ontario Provincial Police.
"(There's) no reasoning behind that."
Levac said they investigate around five such incidents per year, but many others aren't reported.
Two teenagers were convicted of mischief endangering life in 2008 after a rock thrown from a Maitland Avenue overpass came through a vehicle's side window and injured three children.
Focus on education rather than pay for protection, councillor says
Fences could be installed by the Minsitry of Transportation to prevent something like this from happening, but both police and the city said that would likely be too expensive.
Coun. Marianne Wilkinson said it could cost millions of dollars to install fencing at all Ontario overpasses.
"For one or two incidents, you're better off to try and use that money to inform people about the dangers of doing things like this," she said.
"If kids realize how dangerous it is, they wouldn't do it."
Beaumier said he hopes police can find the people who were responsible and hold them accountable.
"I would love to get a $500 cheque in the mail of course, but I don't really expect that," he said.
"I do expect that the kids have to do something to make up for what they've done."The potentially detrimental effects of cancer and related treatments on cognitive functioning are emerging as a key focus of cancer survivorship research. Many patients with central nervous system (CNS) or non-CNS tumours develop cognitive problems during the course of their disease that can result in diminished functional independence. We review the state of knowledge on the cognitive functioning of patients with primary and secondary brain tumours at diagnosis, during and after therapy, and discuss current initiatives to diminish cognitive decline in these patients. Similarly, attention is paid to the cognitive sequelae of cancer and cancer therapies in patients without CNS disease. Disease and treatment effects on cognition are discussed, as well as current insights into the neural substrates and the mechanisms underlying cognitive dysfunction in these patients. In addition, rehabilitation strategies for patients with non-CNS disease confronted with cognitive dysfunction are described. Special attention is given to knowledge gaps in the area of cancer and cognition, in CNS and non-CNS diseases. Finally, we point to the important role for cooperative groups to include cognitive endpoints in clinical trials in order to accelerate our understanding and treatment of cognitive dysfunction related to cancer and cancer therapies.
Long-term cancer survivors are steadily increasing and many patients may develop cognitive dysfunction that can result in diminished functional independence. In this paper that focuses on cognitive functioning in cancer patients, we summarise the knowledge on the incidence and determinants of cognitive dysfunction in both patients with CNS and non-CNS cancers, the neuropsychological pattern and structural brain changes associated with various anti-cancer treatments, risk factors for developing neurotoxicity, as well as current treatment options to prevent or diminish adverse effects on cognition. Important knowledge gaps are discussed and future directions are presented. Specific attention is paid to the key role research cooperative groups hold to advance our understanding of cancer and cancer therapy-associated cognitive dysfunction – an understanding that forms the basis of preserving and enhancing cognitive function.
Compared to classical oncological outcome measures such as time to progression and survival, the importance of cognitive functioning in cancer patients has only recently been recognised. In patients with tumours either inside or outside the central nervous system (CNS), cognitive functioning is a critical outcome measure because cognitive dysfunction can have a large impact on the daily life of patients [1,2]. Even mild cognitive difficulties can have functional and psychiatric consequences – especially when persistent and left untreated. Deficits in specific cognitive domains such as memory, attention, executive function and processing speed may profoundly affect quality of life. For example, cognitive impairment negatively affects professional reintegration, interpersonal relationships and leisure activities. In addition, fear of future cognitive decline may also negatively affect quality of life.
Clearly there is a great need and opportunity to more fully understand the cognitive risks and benefits of these therapies that are being specifically directed at the brain, which may have ‘off target’ adverse effects on normal brain tissues, resulting in cognitive decline. Furthermore, we have relatively limited insight into the risk factors and time course of cognitive dysfunction in patients treated for CNS cancer, as not all patients develop this neurotoxicity and not everyone experiences these symptoms at the same time points. Linking cognitive outcomes with the correlative biological and imaging science within clinical trials will help enhance our understanding of the mechanisms accounting for cognitive decline and resilience, and inform future therapeutic trials designed to preserve or enhance cognitive function in this patient population.
However, routine formal cognitive testing was not performed in these studies. Cognitive assessment carried out with a small cohort of long-term survivors of the EORTC study showed that 30% were severely cognitively impaired [27]. The number of patients, however, was too small to determine the impact of the addition of PCV chemotherapy over RT alone on long-term cognitive functioning. The neuro-oncology community remains torn about the use of PCV as it is believed to be more toxic than temozolomide. Unfortunately, we have a very limited understanding of the cognitive effects of PCV and perhaps an equally limited understanding of the effects of temozolomide, which has been the standard of care chemotherapy for the largest group of primary brain tumour patients studied in clinical trials for almost the last decade. With the arrival of many new targeted agents and immunotherapies it is unclear if these will have greater or less cognitive effects.
While radiation therapy is a critical component of treatment for many brain tumour patients, and is delivered in relatively homogeneous doses at this time, it is unclear if the dose is optimal and safest for all patients. For example, some patients may be able to tolerate dose-escalated radiation without adverse effects, while others may receive equal tumour control and a better toxicity profile from a lower dose schedule. Different forms (e.g. photons versus protons) and delivery methods (e.g. intensity modulated, radiosurgery, whole brain with or without critical structure avoidance), as well as the use of radiosensitisers and neuroprotectants, have offered some promise in preventing or reducing cognitive decline associated with radiotherapy. However, we are only at the beginning stages of understanding and evaluating these issues.
Small case series reports have identified differences in the cognitive sequelae from low- and high-grade brain tumours. However, we have a limited understanding of why these differences are present and how this may relate to therapies that maximise tumour control while minimising patient morbidities such as cognitive dysfunction. For example, do low-grade tumours exclusively offer an opportunity for the brain to reorganise, providing impetus for delayed or staged resections in patients at risk for surgically induced cognitive dysfunction? Are patients with IDH1-mutant tumours also good candidates for delayed or staged interventions? Can we identify who is at risk for surgically induced cognitive decline? Is it possible to predict who is most likely to experience functional re-organisation? Are there active approaches (i.e. cognitive training) that may facilitate reorganisation and/or restoration? Similarly, what patient factors (e.g. genetics, cognitive reserve) serve as protective factors that allow subsets of patients to tolerate therapies better than other patients? If we were able to identify comprehensive clinical–molecular phenotypes that predicted response and toxicity we would be better equipped to offer the most effective and safest therapy to our brain tumour patients.
During the |
CaffeNet model. These are average times over 200 training iterations for Forward, Backward, and Update and 1000 testing iterations for Testing. The benchmark was measured with CUDA 6.5, driver version 340.42, a K40c with ECC off and boost clock on, and data prefetching. Caffe Caffe + cuDNN Speedup Training 1325 ms 960 ms 1.38 Testing 100 ms 66.7 ms 1.50
Brew Your Own Deep Neural Networks with Caffe and cuDNN
Here are some pointers to help you learn more and get started with Caffe. Sign up for the DIY Deep learning with Caffe NVIDIA Webinar (Wednesday, December 3 2014) for a hands-on tutorial for incorporating deep learning in your own work. To start exploring deep learning today, check out the Caffe project code with bundled examples and models on Github. Caffe is a popular framework with an active user and open source development community of over 1,200 subscribers and over 600 forks on GitHub. It is used by universities, industry, and startups, and several participants in this year’s ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge built their submissions on the framework. Subscribe to the caffe-users mailing list for questions on installation, examples, and usage. Welcome to brewing deep networks with Caffe!
References
[1] S. Chetlur, C. Woolley, P. Vandermersch, J. Cohen, J. Tran, B. Catanzaro, and E. Shelhamer. “cuDNN: Efficient primitives for deep learning”. arXiv preprint arXiv:1410.0759, 2014.
[2] J. Donahue, Y. Jia, O. Vinyals, J. Hoffman, N. Zhang, E. Tzeng, and T. Darrell. “DeCAF: A deep convolutional activation feature for generic visual recognition”. ICML, 2014.
[3] K. Fukushima. “Neocognitron: A self-organizing neural network model for a mechanism of pattern recognition unaffected by shift in position”. Biological cybernetics, 1980.
[4] R. Girshick, J. Donahue, T. Darrell, and J. Malik. “Rich feature hierarchies for accurate object detection and semantic segmentation”. CVPR, 2014.
[5] Y. Jia, E. Shelhamer, J. Donahue, S. Karayev, J. Long, R. Girshick, S. Guadarrama, and T. Darrell. “Caffe: Convolutional architecture for fast feature embedding”. arXiv preprint arXiv:1408.5093, 2014.
[6] A. Krizhevsky, I. Sutskever, and G. Hinton. “Imagenet classification with deep convolutional neural networks”. NIPS, 2012.
[7] Y. LeCun, L. Bottou, Y. Bengio, and P. Haffner. “Gradient-based learning applied to document recognition”. IEEE, 1998.
[8] M. Zeiler and R. Fergus. “Visualizing and understanding convolutional networks”. ECCV, 2014.President Trump criticized Senate Republicans on July 24 for not passing a bill to repeal Obamacare, but said they were "very close" to doing so. (The Washington Post)
America could lose more than a million jobs if the Senate votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act on Tuesday.
That’s according to a report from George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health and the Commonwealth Fund.
“This legislation could single-handedly put a big dent in health care job growth,” said Leighton Ku, the lead author of the report and the director of the Center for Health Policy Research at George Washington University.
Repealing the law, also known as Obamacare, would dramatically scale back federal funding for health care, especially Medicaid. That translates into job losses as hospitals, retirement homes and other health facilities get fewer dollars.
“We're talking about one out of every 20 health care jobs disappearing by 2026. That's a lot,” Ku said.
Much of the debate over the “repeal and replace” of Obamacare has centered on how many Americans would lose insurance. The bill that Senate Republicans proposed would lead to 22 million fewer Americans with health insurance in the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The House Republican bill would leave 23 million fewer people covered, and a straight repeal of Obamacare would bring the most losses of all: 32 million off insurance, according to the CBO.
Job losses, however, get much less attention, despite the fact that health care has been a booming field for job growth. Even during the Great Recession, health care jobs continued to grow. A third of all jobs created in the United States in the past decade have been in health care.
According to the Labor Department, 15.7 million Americans have jobs in health care today — roughly 1 in 9 workers. And a lot of the job growth Trump has heralded so far in his tenure has also come from health care.
Trump says the Senate is “very close” to having the votes to pass, but it's clear the job impact is one of the concerns weighing on some Republican senators' minds. These senators are worried about what their home states would lose if they repeal Obamacare and enact the alternatives under consideration. Federal health dollars would drop, more people would lose insurance and many good-paying jobs would go away.
Since Obamacare went into full effect in 2014, 1.2 million people have gained employment in health care. Most of the jobs have come in hospitals and outpatient care where people are treated for non-emergencies. Many hospitals, such as Harris Medical Center in Newport, Ark., have seen their “bad debts” drop substantially since more patients have been able to pay since Obamacare was enacted. At Harris, bad debt has been cut in half. That has allowed hospitals to expand services — and jobs.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is one of the GOP senators who has come out strongly against the Senate's Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA). BCRA “would also jeopardize the very existence of our rural hospitals and our nursing homes, which not only provide essential care to people in rural America, but also are major employers in the small communities in which they are located," Collins said on ABC's “This Week.”
["You destroy the Medicaid program and you can kiss your nursing homes goodbye.”]
The CBO didn't calculate job losses, but the health experts at George Washington University did, using a similar economic model to the CBO's. “Our analyses shows that almost every state ends up being a loser on jobs,” Ku said.
The report finds that every state would lose health care jobs almost immediately as federal health care funding is cut, especially for Medicaid. The 31 states that expanded Medicaid funding, including West Virginia and Ohio, would be especially hard hit.
In total, nearly a million jobs in health care would be lost by 2026 under BCRA, as well as another half a million jobs in other sectors from the cutbacks in spending by health organizations and employees who are laid off.
The job losses under the House bill are similar, although slightly less (924,000 in total). Ku and his team didn't look at what would happen if the Senate just does a straight repeal of Obamacare without replacing it with anything, but Ku told The Washington Post the job reductions would likely be similar to the 1.45 million under BCRA.
As with any study, these are estimates. Assumptions had to be made and no one knows what the future will hold, especially in a field like health care that is experiencing innovative technological advances. Still, there's widespread agreement among economists that health jobs would likely decline in coming years under the GOP plans. The disagreement is over whether other sectors would gain or lose jobs.
“Congress definitely should be considering the impact of the Obamacare repeal on job growth in health care,” said Gary Young, director of the Northeastern University Center for Health Policy and Healthcare Research. “The question is does the repeal have a positive impact on job growth in other sectors of the economy?”
Young hasn't run his own models, but he points out that President Barack Obama helped sell his health reform by telling the business community that his plan would reduce health costs overall and thus spur growth in other industries. Job growth did pick up in Obama's second term, although it's debatable how much of a role health care costs played in that. Health care costs still grew, albeit at a slower pace.
For senators weighing whether to vote yes on Tuesday, a key factor is what Collins said: Many of the job losses would hurt communities that can least afford them.
“The groups that will get hit the most are rural hospitals and inner city teaching hospitals,” said Stuart Altman, a professor of national health policy at Brandeis University.
Many of those rural areas voted heavily for Trump. The president has said he wants to be the “greatest jobs producer that God ever created,” but the bills he is supporting in the Senate would likely slash jobs.I think I’m really narrowing in on it. I have a scene setup using only a cube object which can, of course, have tiling textures applied to the three visible faces. Here’s a screenshot of my set-up:
Pretty much all of the relevant information should be in that shot (along with the world’s ugliest brick texture image), but here’s a breakdown of the important stuff:
Under render tab / dimensions, X is 128 and Y is 256. Keeping it to powers of two.
Note that the camera has been positioned at X 10 and Y 10. The Z value was done pretty much by eye to get the bottom corner of the cube slightly past the camera border. The camera’s orthographic scale was set so that the sides of the cube are very slightly outside the borders of the camera as well.
The above camera settings are dependent on the notion that the cube will be scaled to 2 Blender units on all axes. I did it this way so that I could have the X and Y of the cube at 0, 0 and extended one unit front, back, and side-to-side. The origin of the cube has been set to the center of the bottom four vertices so that it extends two Blender units along Z. Obviously, my handling of the cube’s scale and origin are a matter of personal preference, but if you want to set this scene up for yourself, the math is already done for you with the cube as I’ve made it.
Next is the matter of handling two problems caused by anti-aliasing: semi-transparent pixels along the edges of the cube and the color bleeding caused by the Gaussian pixel filter. Go to the “film” settings on the render tab and check “transparency” to begin.
You can get away with setting the Gaussian width to.001 (the minimum value) to get rid of all anti-aliasing, but this will almost definitely lead to unsightly artifacts in the cube’s texture. Unfortunately, we can’t keep it set to the default of 1.5 either as this will cause the edges of your cube to be darkened due to bleed after we’ve boosted the contrast in the alpha channel. The best compromise I’ve found so far is to set this value to.4, which is enough to keep the invisible darkness outside of the rendered pixels from bleeding in and still have some smoothing within said pixels. However, this isn’t quite low enough to get rid of all of the semi-transparent pixels around the edges.
That’s why I used this very simple node set-up:
You can see that the black slider is set to.499. The white slider is set to.5, which leads to a smack-in-the-middle, full-contrast alpha channel which can then be plugged in to the appropriate slot on the composite node. Easy peasy.
Now let’s talk materials. A diffuse shader with a sun lamp on scene should work, but I want full control and no variance to the lighting across my faces, so I opted for an emission shader with some trickery to fake a shadow:
The mapping node can be adjusted if you wish to make your scene appear to be lit from a different angle, of course. It’s hard to tell from the screenshot, but that untextured emission shader’s color is actually 0, 0,.01 so that it will have a blue tint. A very little bit of color here goes a surprisingly long way.
Below I’ve put together an image of the resulting render. The top-left part of the image shows a render of the cube by itself. The rest is a screenshot taken from a stock-standard code that I wrote in Love2D to display the cubes as a 6x6 tile map. No editing was done other than to remove the background color from the Love window.
It was a lot of work getting here, but this should go a long way toward speeding up the process of making isometric tiles for use in 2D games. If you have any questions, suggestions, or just plain know a better way of doing this, I’m all ears. I hope that this helps at least someone.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich tussled over integrity on Monday night's NBC debate in Florida
US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney expects to pay about $6.2m (£4m) in taxes on income of $42.5m in the last two years.
That makes for a tax rate of 13.9% in 2010 and an expected rate of 15.4% in 2011, his campaign said.
His income places him among the top earners in the US, and his tax history has become a campaign issue.
Mr Romney was an early favourite in state primaries but lost the latest, in South Carolina, to rival Newt Gingrich.
Mr Gingrich released his tax figures on Saturday, saying he paid nearly $1m last year, a rate of about 31%.
On the same day he won a striking victory in the South Carolina vote, beating Mr Romney with more 40% of the vote.
President Barack Obama is expected to highlight economic inequality in his annual State of the Union address later on Tuesday.
'Not a dollar more'
Mr Romney is a multi-millionaire businessman and former Massachusetts governor with three homes.
He lives mainly on income derived from his investments, for which only 15% tax is payable. Earned income is taxed at up to 35%.
Analysis The reason Mr Romney pays a lower rate than say President Obama (26%) or Newt Gingrich (over 30%) is because there's a different tax rate for income and investments. That raises a much wider argument, and one that will be central to the election in November. It is precisely why the billionaire investor Warren Buffet said the tax rate was unfair and should be changed because he paid a smaller proportion of his income than his secretary. Mr Obama has taken up that call with enthusiasm, even naming his proposed rule after Mr Buffet. It plays in to a national debate on wealth and fairness that could be critical to Mr Obama's re-election or defeat. The president will make the idea of a fairer society, where the rich do more to help the struggling middle classes, a centrepiece of his state of the union speech tonight.
On Monday, before he released his income and tax figures, Mr Romney defended his tax record at a Republican presidential debate in Florida.
"I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more. I don't think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes," Mr Romney said.
On Tuesday, Mr Romney's campaign released his 2010 tax papers and estimates for his 2011 taxes, for which he has not yet filed a return.
He and his wife Ann reported income of $21.6m in 2010 and $20.9m last year, almost all it from investments. There were no declared wages on the 2011 estimate.
They gave $7m to charity in the same period, about half of it to the Mormon Church.
President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle released their 2010 tax return in April last year, showing an income of $1.7m. They paid about $450,000 in federal tax, a rate of about 26%.
Tax debate
Mr Romney had promised to release the figures, saying the question of tax had become a distraction for his campaign, and he wanted to re-focus on the main issues.
However, he had initially refused to release the returns, saying the financial disclosure reports that all federal candidates must provide should be enough.
But the reluctance allowed his Republican rivals and Democratic critics to focus on his record at private equity firm Bain capital, painting him as a wealthy businessman who cut jobs and shut down firms.
Mr Romney's supporters have leapt to his defence, equating attacks on his business practices with criticism of American capitalism itself.
Republican candidates' taxes Mitt Romney (2010). Income $21.6m. Tax paid $3m. Donated to charity $3m.
(2010). Income $21.6m. Tax paid $3m. Donated to charity $3m. Newt Gingrich (2010). Income $3.1m. Tax paid $0.99m. Donated to charity $81,000. Source: Washington Post Romney and Gingrich taxes compared Profile: Mitt Romney
But the issue has reignited the debate in the US over how investment income - in particular carried interest, the profits that private equity managers make - is taxed.
President Obama has said such income should be taxed at a higher rate, and that wealthy Americans and corporations should pay more tax to help trim the country's deficit.
Republicans are opposed to any tax hikes, saying they would harm the economy.
Gingrich surge
Mr Romney had led the Republican field since November and appeared to have won the first two contests of the campaign, in Iowa and New Hampshire.
But the Iowa caucus result was overturned in a recount which gave a narrow victory to Rick Santorum.
Media reaction For the Washington Post, the storm that blew up over Mitt Romney's tax returns is a spectacular example of campaign mismanagement, fraught with "political danger" write Chris Cilizza and Aaron Blake. That storm is not over yet, many commentators predict. "There are certain to be more nuggets of interest revealed - like the fact that he had a Swiss bank account that was closed in 2010," says Dashiell Bennett in the Atlantic Wire. And that continuing debate does not bode well for Romney, Paul Blumenthal in the Huffington Post agrees. "It isn't as though Romney is the first very wealthy man to run for president, but he has a way of highlighting his wealth in a way that brings to mind the famous quip by the former Texas Gov Ann Richards about President George HW Bush: 'He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.'" For Bloomberg's David J Lynch and Steven Sloan, the issue has ignited a debate over the fairness of "so-called carried interest provision, which provides a relative handful of investment executives with preferential tax rates". They expect the Democrats to seize on the issue, perhaps as soon as President Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday, which is expected to revolve around a theme of "economic fairness".
Mr Gingrich, who polled poorly in both Iowa and New Hampshire, won a convincing victory over Mr Romney in South Carolina after attacking Mr Romney over his business and tax records.
Mr Romney has called on Mr Gingrich to release documents related to his involvement with mortgage giant Freddie Mac.
Freddie Mac, a federally backed mortgage guarantor, required millions in government aid after in 2008 financial crisis.
In latest debate, Mr Romney said Mr Gingrich was doing business with Washington's "chief lobbyists".
Mr Gingrich said he served as a historian and consultant for the company, not a lobbyist.
Earlier on Monday, Mr Gingrich released his 2006 contract with Freddie Mac, but the document did not cover most of his multiple-year working relationship with the company.
The candidates are now campaigning in Florida, which holds its primary on 31 January. The state is seen as a major battleground in the US general election, with a diverse electorate and and a cash-hungry advertising market.
Primaries and caucuses will be held in every US state over the next few months to pick a Republican nominee to take on Democratic President Barack Obama in November.
The eventual winner will be anointed at the party convention in August.When easyJet released its trading figures for the fourth quarter of 2011, it reported a 16.7% increase in revenue, taking pride in the fact that its confident financial performance bucked the trend of poor sales across other UK airline carriers. However, while the company's bosses may be patting themselves on the back for a job well done in the face of economic gloom, news of its financial successes will be leaving a sour taste in the mouth of many disabled people.
News of the airline's profits comes just weeks after it was found guilty by a French court of discrimination against three disabled passengers. It was fined by the court for turning away three disabled customers at check-in during separate incidents, refusing to allow them to fly unaccompanied due to health and safety fears over evacuation of the aircraft. The airline also came under fire this month when a disabled businessman was forced off an aircraft in a humiliating scene in front of passengers, due to his inability to "walk to the emergency exit". The prosecution for the French case laid the blame squarely at the door of the airline's "aggressive commercial policy that consists of reducing operating costs as much as possible". Additional personnel on aircrafts to assist disabled, elderly or younger passengers certainly doesn't come for free.
It seems that taking on extra baggage handlers is also a cost that easyJet can quite happily do without. As a campaign group, the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign Trailblazers are regularly contacted by disabled travellers who have fallen foul of easyJet's policy on transporting electric wheelchairs. It is the only leading UK airline to restrict the weight of wheelchairs carried onboard to 60kg, unless the chair can be broken into several parts each weighing less than this amount. The airline says that the health and safety of its staff comes first and loading weights over 60kg poses risks.
Modern powered wheelchairs can cost up to £16,000 and are extremely specialist pieces of equipment – some people fundraise tirelessly to obtain them. For people with muscle-wasting and weakening conditions – some 70,000 people in the UK – wheelchairs are painstakingly designed to support an individual's body. Suggesting someone dismantle our wheelchairs before every flight we take is akin to suggesting we let an untrained mechanic loose on a brand new family car.
Yet, if we travel with budget airlines, whose very business models involve cutting costs wherever possible, can disabled people be surprised to encounter these kinds of policies? Well, yes. In the well-publicised case of holiday-makers Declan and Alexandra Spencer last summer who ran into easyJet's wheelchair policy, the family told of how they had flown from the same airport with an alternative budget airline without difficulty the previous year. Following the incident with easyJet they were able to rebook their flights within days with a similarly priced carrier. Trailblazers has written repeatedly to the carrier's head office, requesting the opportunity to discuss the policy's impact on many disabled travellers and possible resolutions, but without response.
Alongside chasing business travellers' sterling, easyJet chief executive Carolyn McCall attributes "firm control of costs" as at the heart of the airline's recent success. Yet in the eyes of many disabled passengers, this translates to a below industry standard service. It is true that few budget airlines boast a squeaky clean record when it comes to run-ins with their disabled customers. Yet it is increasingly grating to see Europe's second-largest low-cost carrier stubbornly hold a policy that look outdated alongside those of its competitors.
Those of us who have come unstuck due to easyJet's controversial policies and services for disabled travellers might be forgiven for thinking that those margins come at too high a price.
• Follow Comment is free on Twitter @commentisfreeMUMBAI: The intention of an accused in a molestation case could be gauged only after hearing the victim's version, said the Bombay high court, declining relief to the owner of a popular chain of coaching classes in the city.A division bench of Justice Naresh Patil and Justice V L Achliya was on Thursday hearing a petition by Machindra Chate of Chate Coaching Classes, urging the court to quash an FIR lodged against him by a student. A chargesheet has also been filed under Section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the IPC.The incident took place on January 30, 2013, when HSC students and their parents met him at his Dadar office to complain about the teaching at his classes. According to the complaint, when a student asked him to take responsibility, he allegedly abused her and pushed her away in "such a way that made her feel ashamed".Chate's advocate K Holambe-Patil argued that the parents had assaulted him following which, he lodged a complaint; it was at that time that Chate learnt that a student had also lodged a complaint against him."It was a scuffle, where was the intent to molest her?" Holambe-Patil demanded. But refusing to be convinced by the argument, the judges questioned how the HC could give a verdict that there was no intention to outrage the student's modesty."Even if you keep your hand on the shoulder of a woman, it is for the lady to comment on the nature of the touch, whether it was friendly, brotherly or fatherly," said Justice Patil.The judges also referred to the Rupan Deol Bajaj vs KPS Gill case where the IPS officer was in trouble for his "pat on Bajaj's back". "To say there was no intention is not possible. Her deposition is required. If the girl says there was a misunderstanding, then the situation would be entirely different. Let the girl say why she felt shameful of the act," said Justice Patil.The judges pointed out that even with the law being amended there was a debate over the recording of a victim's statements as minute details were asked. "That is the reason why victims in many incidents refuse to come forward," said Justice Patil. Indicating that they would reject Chate's plea, the judges said he could file an application for getting discharged in the case before the trial court.Holambe-Patil said its hearing might take time and that since Chate would be "contesting the elections, his opponents would use this case for adverse campaigning". But he agreed to withdraw the petition with the judges directing the lower court to expeditiously hear his discharge plea.Being the cinematographer who’s had a heavy hand in cinema’s most distinct visual palette of the last 20 years, Robert Yeoman — better-known as Wes Anderson’s regular DP — need not have some new film for us to speak with him. He’s serving on the jury at this year’s Camerimage International Film Festival, so while yours truly is still stationed in Bydgoszcz, Poland, a discussion was quickly arranged.
What follows is a mix of career overview and in-the-moment pondering, and in between these two is an explication of Yeoman’s many thoughts on visual expression — a matter perhaps best emphasized by how the nonchalant notice that he’d recently been in Prospect Park to shoot a commercial for the New York Lottery started a five-minute talk regarding that specific form. For that, as well as a closer look at the mind which has helped bring forth many of this century’s defining film images, read on below.
The Film Stage: How does something like that, shooting a commercial for the New York Lottery, come about? Have you done other things for them?
Robert Yeoman: No. It was a director who… basically, I get chosen by the director. The director was interested in working with me. In the old days, basically, the director would hire you, but now you have to go through a process where the advertising agency approves you, so they submit my name to the advertising agency and say, “We want this guy to shoot the commercial,” and then they make that determination — whether you’re “good enough for them,” I guess. [Laughs] So it’s kind of crazy, but that’s how it works.
I imagine you could just pull out your phone, go to your IMDb page, and that would be sufficient.
You would think that, but no. I was up for a commercial; then they said, “Well, the director wanted to hire you, but the ad agency said you don’t have enough dance scenes on your reel.” It’s like, “I don’t have enough dance scenes? That’s crazy.” They kind of want to see their commercial on your reel, in a way. It’s stilly, but that’s how these people think. Crazy world. It’s so crazy how these things work. It’s a different world now, and they have a whole process.
Is there anything about the commercial-shooting process that you particularly enjoy?
I actually have enjoyed it. What I like the most is that I’ve worked with some really interesting directors. I did this thing recently with a Swedish director, Andreas Nilsson, and I just worked with Derek Cianfrance on the New York Lottery; before that, I worked with Roman Coppola, who’s an old buddy of mine. You know, there’s a lot of very talented directors working in commercials, and, oftentimes, they’re a little bit handcuffed by the agencies and maybe frustrated by them — but, for me, I’ve been fortunate to really be able to work with some really fun people who are very creative. I just did something that I really enjoyed.
It’s kind of a… I look at it as making a short film. You’re trying to make a short film, and then the ad agency will come in and put their stamp on it, but, that said, it’s a pretty quick in and out. It’s usually somewhere between two to five days, or six days. It’s very intense in that period,but I’ve enjoyed it very much; it’s been fun. In some ways, it’s a nicer lifestyle than a movie, because you don’t have to go away for six months. It’s an abbreviated commitment of your time, so you have more time in your life to do other things — spend time with your kids — and you get to go to fun places.
I imagine that doing the quick work is like stretching a new muscle.
Yes. Everyone has their own idea — something new and different — so it gives you an opportunity to try things new, oftentimes. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out; but, generally, it does. Like I said, it’s nice to be around someone very creative for a short period of time and be collaborating for a few days. For me, it’s very exciting and fun.
I’m always interested when people with a specific background participate in a jury relating to it. You’re on this Main Competition panel, so I ask: when you judge a film on a cinematographic level, how do you approach that? Given that you have your own visual sense and ideas, is there the need to strike a balance between them and what a movie offers?
Certainly, I have my ideas. I come from a much more disciplined formal background than younger people today. We came from film, and it was a very disciplined way of looking at things, and I think that, with the digital cameras today and iPhones, it gives the opportunity for anybody to go make a movie. In the old days, it was so difficult. So I think a lot of the younger people lack the discipline that we had from a cinematography standpoint, and other aspects as well. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. When I see a movie that I might think is kind of sloppy, I don’t mean to reject it; I wonder if that’s part of the aesthetic or if they just didn’t know any better. Sometimes, it’s a combination of both; sometimes, it’s one or the other.
So I try not to impose my own aesthetic on the thing and just accept that of filmmakers. If the style is run-and-gun, half the shots are out-of-focus, there’s no lighting, I used to think, “Oh, my God, this is horrible,” but now I say, “Okay. Is this part of what they were going for?” I don’t know, so I try to be open to what is going on today and realize that there’s a shift in how movies are being made, for sure. In some ways, I welcome the fact that people now have the opportunity, because, when I got out of school, to make a movie was expensive. You had to go rent expensive cameras and buy film and process it and the editing was expensive. Now, you can shoot a movie on your iPhone and edit on your computer. I think that’s a good thing. It gives people more opportunity to make their films. I try to open myself up to those possibilities.
Are there certain contemporary tools you’re curious about, e.g. iPhones and Go Pros?
I’ve shot with Go Pros on commercials, and we even used them, sometimes, on movies. The problem I had was that, when we would cut them in with footage, they kind of stood out. But the iPhone, I actually shoot little videos on all the time. I have this app, the 8mm app, and it makes things look black-and-white and of the time. My daughter was doing a school project, and I suggest she do it on the 8mm app. She did and it came out beautifully. I’m not sure I would feel comfortable shooting a movie to be released in the theater on my iPhone, but it’s getting to that point where the technology is changing so rapidly that, not too long down the future… I think there was a movie shot last year on the iPhone.
Tangerine.
Yeah. Sometime down the future, people will be doing it all the time, I guess. [Laughs] I don’t know. I love that kind of stuff; I think it’s great.
Are there certain things in cinematography that you especially cherish?
Lighting, I think. I appreciate good lighting, and I can generally tell within the first minute of a movie — if not even faster — if I’m going to like it visually or not. The choice of lenses and compositions… like I said, it’s often, maybe, from the very first shot, but certainly within the first minute, you can show me the first minute of a movie and say, “So what do you think?” And I think I would know, at that point, “I’m really going to like the way they shot this,” or, “This doesn’t really appeal to me too much.” A lot of it just has to do with where you put the camera, how you’re composing, how you’re lighting it. All those elements work together.
I mean, I like to start with, “What is the shot?” Whenever we are shooting a movie or commercial, it’s like, “Let’s figure out what the shot is before we do anything else,” and then we can light it; then we can art-direct it and do all the other things. That, to me, is the starting point, and the most important thing is, “What is the shot?” Some people have a very good instinct of where to put a camera and some people don’t. Even here, in this festival, it’s been interesting, because some of the movies are very beautifully shot, and some I haven’t been so crazy about. It has to do with the director and cinematographer, and how they choose to tell their story.
With Wes Anderson, you’ve been part of what is perhaps film’s defining visual style in the last 20 years — the most recognizable, if nothing else. I’m curious about autonomy, and how much you value it. Do you have a preference for a director’s way of communicating their visual ideas?
Everybody’s different, and, in Wes’ particular instance, he has a very specific vision. I might work with another director where they would give me total autonomy and say, “How do you want to shoot this?” I’ve been on many sets where they’ll say, “What are you thinking here?” And I say, “Well, I was thinking this and that and put a dolly here and a camera here.” They go, “Oh, that sounds great.” Whereas Wes has a very clear idea how he wants to shoot something. That has been arrived at through a process where we have a long prep period and we go to every location, with a finder with this, and we hone in very much, exactly, what we’re going to do, so, when we show up, there’s a very clear game plan of how we’re going to shoot. I like them both. Obviously, I like the opportunity to totally do my own thing and call the shots, but, with Wes, you know going in that this person has a very distinct vision — not only from a cinematography standpoint, but art direction, set design, music, acting, everything has been so tightly controlled by him.
That’s a given, and so my role is to bring what I have to bring. I’m constantly suggesting things, and he can take it or leave it. He pretty much lets me do the lighting the way I want — he might make comments — and just kind of do what we can to bring what we have to help him achieve his vision. In the end, I love all his movies; you end up with something you’re part of. Particularly working with Wes, every movie is not just making a movie — it’s kind of a life experience. It encompasses your whole life much more than other directors. A lot of directors, you go to work and get in your car and go home. But that’s not the way it is with Wes. Your whole life is just centered around this movie, and he sets it up that way. In some ways, it’s a whole lot more rewarding.
On the last few films, he gets a small hotel in Germany or India, and the actors live there, he lives there, I live there, the production designers, and, every night after work — we own the whole hotel; there’s no on else there — there’s a chef, and we all go down and have dinner together. It’s a tight ship; it’s very much a family atmosphere. As opposed to particularly, Los Angeles, you drive to work, you shoot all day, then you drive back home and have nothing to do with anybody. So it’s a totally different experience, as far as immersing yourself into the process of making the film.
Criterion release all of Anderson’s films at some point, even if they’ve been released on Blu-ray a few years prior. With Moonrise Kingdom, for instance, I wonder how the mastering process for a disc would work if there’s already a very good version in existence.
Yeah. I think a lot of that has to do with the extras. I’m not sure if the actual movie has changed that much, but they have a lot of behind |
gestation period for a rabbit is a month. But Bugs Bunny, the iconic cartoon character who turns 75 on Monday, took a lot longer to come to life.
Scroll down to read that story–but not before watching a clip from his first official appearance, in the 1940 Tex Avery cartoon A Wild Hare. The Oscar-nominated cartoon has all the classic Bugs favorites: outwitting Elmer Fudd, the signature ears and tail, the "What's up, Doc?"
( Looney Tunes characters, names, and all related indicia are TM & © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. You can watch the whole thing here.)
Here's how the world's favorite cartoon rabbit came to be. Animator Chuck Jones gave credit to Tex Avery for the character, but Warner Bros. had made several rabbit cartoons in the studio's earlier years. There were cutesy rabbits and wacky rabbits, but those rabbits aren't Bugs. (One distinction, Jones explained, was that Bugs' craziness always serves a purpose–in contrast to the unhinged Daffy Duck.)
The Wild Hare bunny is uncredited, though that changed before the year was up. Bugs was an instant star. By 1954, TIME noted that he was more popular than Mickey Mouse. (Mel Blanc, who voiced the character, later claimed that the name was his idea, saying that they were going to call the character Happy Rabbit, but that Blanc suggested naming him after animator Ben "Bugs" Hardaway. Alternatively, the name is sometimes traced to a sketch that designer Charles Thorson did on Hardaways' request, with the caption "Bugs' bunny"—as in, it was the bunny that Bugs had asked him to draw.)
Though Virgil Ross was the animator on A Wild Hare, Chuck Jones became one of the more famous hands behind the Bugs Bunny magic. In 1979, when The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie came out, TIME critic Richard Schickel noted that "it is possible that some day Animator Chuck Jones may come to be regarded as the American Bunuel" for the fact that Jones and the groundbreaking surrealist filmmaker so well understood the psychological underpinnings of comedy.
As these images from the late artist's archives show, Bugs Bunny may have taken a long time to be born—but he sure has aged well.
"Picture the Future" a hand-painted cel art edition by Chuck Jones Courtesy Chuck Jones Center for Creativity
Read TIME's take on Warner cartoons' 50th birthday, in 1985, here in the TIME Vault: For Heaven's Sake! Grown Men!
History Newsletter Stay on top of the history behind today’s news. View Sample SIGN UP NOWCHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. government’s $2.65 billion operating loan program to help farmers keep their businesses going has already run out of cash, as requests for federal financial assistance grow amid the worst agricultural downturn in more than a decade, U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday.
A combine drives over stalks of soft red winter wheat during the harvest on a farm in Dixon, Illinois, July 16, 2013. REUTERS/Jim Young/File Photo
As a result, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is looking for other money sources “to help bridge the gap in farm operating loans as much as possible until additional funds are made available, either this year or in the next fiscal year,” the agency said.
The agency declined to say what other funding it was hoping to leverage for assistance.
Such FSA loan guarantees and direct loans are often considered to be loans of last resort, say banking experts. Without the financial support, some farmers may struggle to survive until the next cash injection in the fall, say rural economy experts.
Last month, the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) told Reuters it had expected funding for these loans or guarantees to be depleted before the program restarts Oct. 1.
As the rural sector struggles with low commodity prices and mounting trade competition, U.S. grain farmers are increasingly relying on the FSA for loan assistance. Agricultural lenders, too, are turning to the agency to help guarantee the loans they are issuing to farmers - whether for operational or real estate needs.
Even with the operational loan program funding depleted, the applications from farmers and the bankers who back them continue to grow.
“At this time, there are already tens of millions (of dollars) in backlog in Direct and Guaranteed operating loan accounts, and that number is expected to increase through the end of the fiscal year,” the FSA said in an email.
EMERGENCY FUNDS
Last month, the FSA said it let Congress know it was tapping into $500 million in emergency funding to bolster a related program: its $2 billion guaranteed farm ownership loan program.
Such emergency funding options do not exist for the agency’s operating loan programs, the agency added.
Altogether, the FSA’s Farm Loan Programs are currently servicing or guaranteeing to cover operating costs and purchase or refinance farm property for more than 113,000 borrowers, totaling nearly $23 billion.
In the past, such lending typically focused on smaller or new farmers with fewer resources. But as economic erosion continues to squeeze Midwest farmers and pressure farmland values, a growing number of agricultural lenders are turning to the federal government, FSA staff said.Rev. Jesse Jackson said President Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE’s criticism of NFL players kneeling during the national anthem were an example of the “slave-master-servant mentality" in a interview with The New York Times.
“They should all kneel, not against the flag, but against the interference by Mr. Trump with their First Amendment rights,” Jackson said.
“If the cotton pickers don’t pick cotton, the industry doesn’t move; the N.F.L. and N.B.A. players don’t play the game, it doesn’t move.”
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Jackson’s comments follow Trump’s weekend criticism of NFL players who choose to kneel during “The Star-Spangled Banner," a protest started by quarterback Colin Kaepernick as a statement against racial injustice.
"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now,' " Trump said at a Friday night rally in Alabama. " 'He is fired.' "
The remarks from Trump led to widespread protests at NFL games across the county on Sunday, as well as criticism from athletes in multiple professional sports leagues.
The president doubled down on his position, saying those who do not stand for the anthem are disrespecting the United States.
In comments to reporters on Sunday, Trump insisted his criticism of the NFL players is not about race.
“This has nothing to do with race. I never said anything about race. This has nothing to do with race or anything else. This has to do with respect for our country and respect for our flag,” Trump said.Myki fines to be reviewed after ombudsman criticism, public complaints
Updated
The Victorian Government will review myki fines after public complaints and criticism by the public transport ombudsman.
Ombudsman Treasure Jennings last month called for improvements to the way $75 on-the-spot penalties were offered to people caught without a valid ticket.
There were concerns some people were finding it difficult to make an informed decision on whether to pay the fine.
Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan said the review would examine if the $75 penalty fare, introduced by the previous Liberal government, should be scrapped.
"This and a range of matters needs to be examined... it's timely to do that and to do it from the perspective of making sure the system is equitable, effective and fair," she said.
Ms Allan said the enforcement of the myki system needed to be fair.
"The public transport ombudsman has raised a range of issues with the introduction of on-the-spot fares... and it's appropriate those issues among others are looked at appropriately and that's the action that we're taking," she said.
The Opposition's public transport spokesman, David Hodgett, said Labor had botched myki from the start.
He said the $75 penalty was introduced as a trial.
"This review is because the ticketing system can't withstand legal scrutiny because you've got 40,000 fines being challenged by commuters in the court," Mr Hodgett said.
"It's yet again another reminder that Labor can't manage major projects, they've poured millions and millions of dollars into the myki system and here we go with another review of Labor's myki system."
High-profile human rights barrister Julian Burnside QC, who has represented many people who have challenged their fines in court, welcomed the review.
He said most of the cases he knew of had been dismissed.
"People who have not committed any offence, who've done what they can to touch on, find themselves getting a summons, they're told they've got to go to court and it will be a $223 fine," he told 774 ABC Melbourne.
"A lot of people think, 'hang on, it'll cost more than that just to take a day off work', and they pay up."
Mr Burnside said authorised public transport officers should use more discretion when dealing with people who have made an attempt to travel on a valid ticket.
"I have had lots and lots of people... school kids and young women who are actually physically frightened because they're surrounded by four authorised officers who are sort of six foot three, that sort of tactic is just ridiculous."
Topics: government-and-politics, states-and-territories, travel-and-tourism, community-and-society, melbourne-3000
First postedThe controversial F1 Strategy Group is set to be the focus of a formal complaint to European Union regulators by some of F1's smaller teams, with the process likely to be launched within a month.
There have been rumours for some time of the EU considering taking a closer look at Formula 1's governance and financial structure, which awards sums of up to $100m individually to the top teams in a deal which runs to 2020.
But without a formal complaint, no investigation has so far been triggered. That is set to change, according to the Financial Times, as some of the smaller teams are preparing the nuclear option of challenging the status quo through EU channels. They feel excluded from both the financial and regulatory benefits enjoyed by the top teams. Their complaints within the F1 ecosystem have led them nowhere, so this is the result.
There are no details at present of which teams are behind the complaint. Two teams went into administration last season; Caterham and Marussia, although Marussia has been revived this year as Manor GP. Other small teams Sauber, Lotus and Force India are bitter at receiving barely a third of the amount Ferrari and Red Bull earn from the central prize fund. They are also concerned about recent F1 Strategy Group moves, such as the talk of obliging them to use customer cars.
Although sceptics may take the view that this development is no more than a way to rattle the cage of F1's rulers, F1 Management and its majority owners CVC, that the small teams would stop short of going through with it if a financial deal were offered, the complainants insist that there is unstoppable momentum behind it now.
An EU challenge would open the sport up to intense scrutiny and could lead to instructions to make changes. The timing is less than ideal with the current scandals swirling around football's governing body, FIFA.
Those FBI and Swiss-led investigations concern corruption; while there is no suggestion of that in a potential EU F1 case at this stage, the EU may well have been stung by widespread accusations that it failed to look closely at FIFA and that it took the Americans to act.
Bernie Ecclestone, who runs F1 Management and who was one of the architects of the F1 Strategy Group, called recently for it to be disbanded, as it is not working as he had hoped.
He told the FT, “It is strange. I would like to know what they [the smaller teams] want. Nobody has ever made any requests to me about what they want. We will wait for the complaint. They all signed contracts. I hope the complaint goes ahead and the competition authorities have enough patience and time to deal with it.”
The EU competition commissioner Margarethe Vestager has launched cases against Google and Gazprom already during her first year in office. These tend to be cases wherein complainants are reluctant to commit to a formal process, for fear of reprisals, but once one is launched, other complainants quickly join the party.
It seems that to get the EU involved, the complaint would have to convince the competition regulators that the actions of F1's rulers caused some kind of broad damage to fans and/or the wider economy, not just that some teams had been handicapped.A $100-million interchange in Red Deer will be one of nearly 600 transportation projects the Alberta government plans to spend billions of dollars on over the next few years.
Premier Rachel Notley and Transportation Minister Brian Mason personally announced the new interchange, to be built at Gaetz Avenue and the Queen Elizabeth II Highway, as they continued to tout the budget their government tabled last week.
The capital plan in that budget includes $7 billion in highway-related projects over the next five years, which the premier described as a central plank in her strategy to create jobs and stimulate the economy.
"This is a time when materials are reasonably priced and Albertans are looking to our government for leadership in providing the jobs that will help them weather the economic storm," she said.
Hundreds of people will be employed in building the new interchange, Notley said, and the project should be complete in time for the 2019 Canada Winter Games, which Red Deer will host.
The interchange will separate low-speed from high-speed traffic where the QEII meets the City of Red Deer and "vastly improve ease of travel along this entire section of the highway," the premier added.
About 42,000 vehicles per day travel on the QEII in both directions at the existing interchange with Gaetz Avenue, according to the latest traffic counts from Alberta Transportation.I had already read up on Estonia before arriving here and so was well aware that one of the challenges faced by this small country of only 1.3 million people is that it's population is steadily declining.
Now when you read of population decline, it suggests a place where streets are filled with the elderly and the middle-aged, and relatively few young people. But above all you do not expect to see very many babies.
And yet there is not a street in Tallinn - the capital city of Estonia - which does not have a mother proudly pushing along a pram.
I asked an academic who was at one of our meetings, two questions. First, why would anyone take out a toddler in such cold weather, no matter how fancy the pram they were carried in, or how warmly dressed they might be. Second was, can it really be true that the population of Estonia is declining, when the evidence of our eyes suggests that Estonian women are having children at a pretty impressive rate?
Her answer was that in general you need every woman to have roughly 2.3 children if the population is to remain at the same level or even increase just a bit. In other words, there should be ten kids for every four families. But what was happening in Estonia was that many women were content to have just one child and leave it at that. It was a very rare Estonian woman who would consider having three children, she told me, even if they loved children, as they also had their careers to worry about.
In an attempt to reverse this trend, the government of Estonia now has a policy in which any woman going on maternity leave is entitled to 18 months of leave, and the government - not any private sector employer - pays her the full amount of her last salary for all those months. That is how heavily the Estonian taxpayers subsidize the months of maternity leave.
Then these women are entitled by law pick up their careers more or less where they left off. That is what sometimes proves a little tricky as the job market in Estonia is very flexible and mobile.
Still, this seems to me something for Kenya go aspire to: that we too should one day be wondering about how best to compensate women going on maternity leave in a way which allows them to return to their careers when they are ready.
Right now what our government is most stressed over - and what is the subject of a laudable campaign led by our First Lady, Margaret Kenyatta - is the question of how to reduce maternal mortality linked to pregnancy and childbirth; and how to best reduce the percentage of children who die before the age of five, often from malaria, water-borne diseases, or other easily curable infections.
There is no doubt in my mind that we will eventually get there. In the 1970s Kenya had one of the world's leading population growth rate, with the average Kenyan woman estimated to have about 7.2 children. And that was at a time when "family planning" was considered an evil scheme by "foreigners" to keep Kenyans economically backward in some undefined way: after all,in colonial and pre-colonial times, children were the only widely-acknowledged source of real wealth, and the more one had the better.
But over the decades, and with no governmental coercion at all - and also with no financial incentives for Kenyan women to have fewer children - the population rate of increase dropped steadily, and now we have an estimated 3.3 children per Kenyan family. That is way lower than our neighbours like Uganda (5.9 children per family); Tanzania (4.9 children per family); or Ethiopia (6.3 children per family). Of course it is also a global trend that the wealthier a country gets, the fewer children the women will have; and Kenya, though in no way a rich nation, is a significantly richer than those other East African countries.
Oh, and about the babies in the prams being wheeled around in deep Estonian winter: apparently it is perfectly safe as no germs can survive such cold weather, so the air is very fresh at this time of year. Plus the babies soon adjust to the cold, which - I suspect - is why you see so many older children playing in the snow, in a manner which nobody born in the tropics like this Kenyan would ever dream of doing.sudo mount -o bind /proc wine32/proc sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf wine32/etc/resolv.conf sudo chroot wine32 su sandbox
cd ~/tmp
sudo apt-get install debootstrap mkdir $HOME/tmp/architectures/wine32 -p cd $HOME/tmp/architectures sudo debootstrap --arch i386 wheezy $HOME/tmp/architectures/wine32 http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian/ sudo mount -o bind /proc wine32/proc sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf wine32/etc/resolv.conf sudo chroot wine32
apt-get update apt-get install locales sudo vim echo 'export LC_ALL="C"'>>/etc/bash.bashrc echo 'export LANG="C"'>>/etc/bash.bashrc echo '127.0.0.1 localhost beryllium' >> /etc/hosts source /etc/bash.bashrc adduser sandbox usermod -g sudo sandbox echo 'Defaults!tty_tickets' >> /etc/sudoers su sandbox cd ~/
sudo apt-get install libx11-dev:i386 libfreetype6-dev:i386 libxcursor-dev:i386 libxi-dev:i386 libxxf86vm-dev:i386 libxrandr-dev:i386 libxinerama-dev:i386 libxcomposite-dev:i386 libglu-dev:i386 libosmesa-dev:i386 libglu-dev:i386 libosmesa-dev:i386 libdbus-1-dev:i386 libgnutls-dev:i386 libncurses-dev:i386 libsane-dev:i386 libv4l-dev:i386 libgphoto2-2-dev:i386 liblcms2-dev:i386 libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev:i386 libcapi20-dev:i386 libcups2-dev:i386 libfontconfig-dev:i386 libgsm1-dev:i386 libtiff-dev:i386 libpng-dev:i386 libjpeg-dev:i386 libmpg123-dev:i386 libopenal-dev:i386 libldap-dev:i386 libxrender-dev:i386 libxml2-dev:i386 libxslt-dev:i386 libhal-dev:i386 gettext:i386 prelink:i386 bzip2:i386 bison:i386 flex:i386 oss4-dev:i386 checkinstall:i386 ocl-icd-libopencl1:i386 opencl-headers:i386 libasound2-dev:i386 build-essential
mkdir ~/tmp cd ~/tmp wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wine/wine-1.7.0.tar.bz2 tar xvf wine-1.7.0.tar.bz2 cd wine-1.7.0/./configure time make -j3 sudo checkinstall --install=no checkinstall 1.6.2, Copyright 2009 Felipe Eduardo Sanchez Diaz Duran This software is released under the GNU GPL. The package documentation directory./doc-pak does not exist. Should I create a default set of package docs? [y]: Preparing package documentation...OK Please write a description for the package. End your description with an empty line or EOF. >> wine 1.7.0 >> ***************************************** **** Debian package creation selected *** ***************************************** This package will be built according to these values: 0 - Maintainer: [ root@beryllium ] 1 - Summary: [ wine 1.7.0] 2 - Name: [ wine ] 3 - Version: [ 1.7.0] 4 - Release: [ 1 ] 5 - License: [ GPL ] 6 - Group: [ checkinstall ] 7 - Architecture: [ i386 ] 8 - Source location: [ wine-1.7.0 ] 9 - Alternate source location: [ ] 10 - Requires: [ ] 11 - Provides: [ wine ] 12 - Conflicts: [ ] 13 - Replaces: [ ]
********************************************************************** Done. The new package has been saved to /home/sandbox/tmp/wine-1.7.0/wine_1.7.0-1_i386.deb You can install it in your system anytime using: dpkg -i wine_1.7.0-1_i386.deb **********************************************************************
sandbox@beryllium:~/tmp/wine-1.7.0$ exit exit root@beryllium:/# exit exit me@beryllium:~/tmp/architectures$
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install ia32-libs libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0
sudo cp wine32/home/sandbox/tmp/wine-1.7.0/wine_1.7.0-1_i386.deb. sudo chown $USER wine_1.7.0-1_i386.deb sudo dpkg -i wine_1.7.0-1_i386.deb
Here's a generic way of building Wine 1.7 which is the new testing branch. And yes, it's the instructions for 1.5.28-1.6 recycled, with a few small amendments.See here for information about 3D acceleration using libGL/U with Wine: http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/429-briefly-wine-libglliubglu-blender.html If you set up a e.g. chroot to build 1.6 you don't need to set up a new chroot to build 1.7. In that case, skip the set-up step below and instead re-enter your existing chroot like this:And skip to 'Building wine'.Otherwise do this:Replace 'beryllium' with the name your host system (it's just to suppress error messages)While still in the chroot, continue (the i386 is ok; don't worry about it -- you don't actually need it):Checkinstall takes a little while (In particular this step: 'Copying files to the temporary directory...').Exit the chrootEnableand install, since you've built a proper 32 bit binary:*At some point I think ia32-libs may be replaced by proper multiarch packages, but maybe not. So we're kind of doing both here.Copy the.deb package and install itThere were numerous amounts of extreme close-up shots in this episode, specifically the eyes. The reason for this is perhaps to underline a turning point that occurred for a few characters in this episode. Those turning points would be, Shibazaki forming a camaraderie, Nine showing a sign of acceptance towards Lisa and the start of the Five vs. Nine rivalry. Extreme close-up shots of the eyes just have a naturally gravitating effect that is very useful for emotionally involving the audience into significant character changes and events.
Almost right from the beginning this episode tries to have the audience invests themselves into Nine with an extreme close-up showing the weariness and emotional drain in his eye.
A disapproving and suspecting look from Shibazaki. In his mind he’s already acting as a lone wolf. This sets up the scene where he discovers that he’s not alone in this fight.
Part of this scene was just Nine and Lisa looking at each other intently. Nine was reading Lisa while she was giving him the look of determination that gained her a semblance of acceptance. This was also a good use of eye-line matches to visually communicate the situation with little dialogue.
This extreme close-up of Twelve seeing white feathers sets up the reveal that he has synesthesia.
The game is afoot.15+ Fresh And Stunning CSS3 Tutorials
CSS helps you in bringing down the infinite possibilities that you can use to create a perfect website. Working with CSS will make you feel comfortable and like a professional web designer as your efforts with CSS is going to be very little. However, you should have a better knowledge about CSS templates, buttons, frameworks and all related stuff of CSS before you begin your work with CSS on web designing. Though you find many articles online that help you to learn CSS, the below mentioned 17 fresh CSS tutorials will help you more to grasp the basic of CSS. Check out our previous CSS tutorials which will definitely work as a boost in your learning process.
You’re welcome to see them
1. Creating Nestable Dynamic Grids
You can create flexible and fluid grids to make your nesting at arbitrary depths so simple and easy through this tool in CSS.
2. How to Create a Simple Multi-Item Slider
If you have some products in list and wish to list in a slider, then you can make use of this tool in CSS. It works well when you have minimum items on your list.
3. Creative CSS Loading Animations
CSS is perfect for creating an animation because you can easily change the speed and style of animations. Use the play-state buttons, you can even pause the animations well.
4. Make your website printable with CSS
Printed pages are different from normal webpages. Printed pages of a website is restricted just to visuals and limited by the size of paper. It has some more restrictions and you can make your website as printed pages using CSS.
5. Animated CSS effects with fallbacks
You can include more than real-world view of animated characters and images to your webpages using CSS though its fallback concept.
6. Make your sites load faster
When designing your webpages, you should use CSS tables instead of using tables. CSS makes the top portion of your webpage to load faster and so, allowing the users to see the content in top page. Meanwhile the remaining page will get loaded.
7. How to Create Custom Social Media Icons in CSS3
You could have seen lots of social linking buttons like ‘Like us’ ‘Follow’ buttons on many of the websites, especially on social networking sites. You can create such buttons through CSS.
8. How to Create a CSS3 Mega Drop-Down Menu
You can find mega drop-down menus in most of the corporate or e-commerce websites. They are more commonly preferred now as you can display bigger content through it and CSS3 is helpful in designing it.
9. How to Create a CSS3 Login Form
This CSS3 tool lets you create a perfect login page for your customers who visit your website. You can add your link page to your website, blog or any of your apps.
10. Create a TV Screen 404 Page with Clever CSS Tricks
You can create a 404 page not found kind of look on your TV screen through CSS coding. Just a little CSS tricks will let you create this effect on your TV.
11. Create a Trendy Retro Photo Effect Purely with CSS
You could have until now created retro effects for your photo through Adobe Photoshop. However, now you can achieve the same effect through CSS coding. It is possible through CSS gradients and filters.
12. CSS: Responsive Navigation Menu
You can produce a navigation menu without the impact of JavaScript. You should use HTML5 mark-up to achieve this. The menu will be aligned easily to the left, right and centre.
13. Quick Tip: Create a Stack of Paper With a Single Element
Just using a single division of element, you can create a stack of paper using CSS. It is going to be really a very simple process, but the most effective one in CSS.
14. Quick Tip: Make the Most of CSS Attribute Selectors
In order to manipulate styles, you should make use of the attribute selectors in CSS. If you have already missed it out, then this is the time to try it out.
15. How To Create a Simple Collapsing Header Effect
You can create for your webpage, a simple but effective collapsing header effect. This effect makes your webpage header or banner to go smaller and after some point of time, it will disappear from your sight.
16. How to create a threaded comment block with HTML5 and CSS3
You can find in many blogs and forums the comments and replies are threaded. Many websites today support threading comments as they let the users to reply within the comments as a continuation. Achieve this kind of layout through CSS3 and HTML5.
17. How to create a simple CSS3 tool tip
Tooltips are used to let your users gather information just by hovering over the button or image without the need for clicking it. Conclusion All the tutorials listed above are highly useful for the web designers to come up with a professional as well as innovative website. You have a lot more CSS tutorials available that will help you to make your web designing process an easy, unforgettable and fun filled one. If you are well trained in CSS, then you cannot restrict yourself from creating an awe-inspiring website.As we watch Congress wrangle with much-needed reforms to the PATRIOT Act -- particularly attempts to address the misuse of National Security Letters -- it's clear that there are important voices missing from the fray. One notable void stems from the empty Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB). Alongside a coalition of civil liberties groups, EFF yesterday called on President Obama to prioritize the nomination of board members so that the PCLOB can contribute to ongoing debates over government surveillance, cybersecurity, and more.
In 2006, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board played some role in oversight of government surveillance abuses. In a recent editorial, former PCLOB Vice Chairman Alan Raul recounted its short-lived impact:
The board met many times in person and by telephone conference. We held numerous private sessions with the president's national security and homeland security advisers, the attorney general, the FBI director and many other officials on the front line of the war against terrorism. At President Bush's personal direction, the board was fully briefed on the most closely held program involving terrorist surveillance. It was also provided full access regarding the FBI's appalling misuse of its authority to obtain information through "national security letters." At the attorney general's request, the board investigated and reported its highly critical conclusions on the scandal to the attorney general and the White House counsel.
However, less than a year after being staffed, the Board was reorganized by congressional leadership. By January 2008, the Board's members were terminated by a "sunset" in the legislation with the understanding that new board members would be nominated and the board reconstituted. Now, nearing the end of 2009, the board still sits empty.
We hope that President Obama recognizes the importance of oversight and takes the advice contained in his own administration's Cyberspace Policy Review, which correctly highlighted how "it is important to reconstitute the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board [and] accelerate the selection process for its board members." We couldn't agree more.Project CEO: If you see one of our self-driving cars on the road, we want to hear from you. Here's how to get involved.
Google has brought four Lexus SUVs to metro Phoenix to begin testing self-driving cars here. (Photo: Provided by Google)
In 2014, Arizona experienced three deadly crashes in a matter of seven days, including two fatalities when a driver traveled down the wrong side of the highway.
Tragedies like these clearly demonstrate the need to make our roads safer — but to do so, we must tackle the biggest problem with driving: human error.
A staggering 94 percent of crashes in the U.S. involve human error and distracted driving.
In Arizona, more than 850 people died and another 36,000 were injured in roadway crashes in 2015. That’s the equivalent of one person dying on Arizona roads approximately every 10 hours — an unacceptable statistic.
John Krafcik, CEO of Google's Self-Driving Car project. (Photo: Courtesy of Google)
Fully self-driving cars can remove human error from the equation and save lives, and metro Phoenix is now playing an important role in helping bring this technology to the world.
Self-driving cars don’t get tired or distracted. They don’t text at the wheel or drink and drive. They have sensors that can see 360 degrees in all directions, and software that can track hundreds of objects simultaneously, even in the dark of night. Humans, in contrast, have a 120-degree field of view and are even more limited when looking through rear-view mirrors or outside the range of headlights.
RELATED: Google shows off self-driving cars in Chandler
This technology can give people, including the elderly and disabled, an opportunity to safely get around. No one should have to worry when their 16-year-old drives for the first time.
No one should have to take the keys away from their aging parents. No one should be forced to stay home simply because they have a disability and can’t drive.
Since we began testing earlier this year, we’ve heard from many curious residents, many of whom are eager to get involved. One day, we hope to give people here a chance to ride in our self-driving cars.
For now, we’ll continue developing our technology in collaboration with the Arizona community. We’re glad to be here.
A self-driving car made by Google is pictured at Soho63 in Chandler on Aug. 12, 2016. (Photo: Ben Moffat/The Republic)
In just a few short months, we’ve made a lot of progress for self-driving cars. Since April, we’ve begun autonomously driving our cars in Chandler and Ahwatukee Foothills, making them the first two areas in Arizona to have fully self-driving cars on the road.
We’re also proud to have brought on test drivers — many of whom are Arizona natives — to monitor our car on the roads and provide feedback to our engineering team on how the car is driving. And we’ve learned new skills, like how to detect and respond to speed limits that change based on the time of the day.
Everyone should have a way to safely get around, whether to visit friends and family, run simple errands, or do what they love. We should have the freedom of mobility without the risk that other drivers are distracted.
We look forward to working together to safely deploy this life-saving technology in more communities here in Arizona and across the country.
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And we are proud to call Arizona home as we hone our technology. If you see one of our cars on the road, we’d love to hear from you.
John Krafcik is the CEO of Google’s Self-Driving Car project. Follow him on Twitter, @JohnKrafcik. Interested in getting involved with our project? Reach us through https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/getinvolved/.
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/2c05XLJThe Presidency of the Arab Republic of Egypt offers its sincere condolences to the leadership, government and people of Russia as well as the families of the victims of the Russian plane crash that took place near Al-Hasana City in Sinai.
President Abdel Fattah El Sisi is following developments and is in contact with Prime Minister Sherif Ismail and other senior officials, who have headed to the crash site.
The President instructed the investigation committee, formed by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, to swiftly carry out its mission and identify the reasons that led to the accident.
This is in addition to coordinating efforts with the relevant Russian authorities.
The Presidency is closely following the situation with members of the crisis management team, headed by the prime minister and that includes the ministers of civil aviation, tourism, interior, social solidarity, health and population, local development, and representatives from the ministry of defence and foreign affairs.
The Presidency receives regular reports on the latest developments.Hey guys! Welcome back to Quick Shots! I hope this New Year is treating you well and that you guys are pumped and prepped for the upcoming slew of events starting next week! Whether it’s MAGFest or PAXSouth, Frequency or Rockage, the next few weeks are looking fantastic! But if by some chance you aren’t feeling the power of upcoming events surging through your veins, perhaps these two albums up for review will help turn that around! Let’s get started!
Reset by Bit Trash Riot
Reset by 81ttr45hr10t
First up on the chopping block is ‘Reset’ by Bit Trash Riot. If you don’t know who he is, I’m going to give you the b.o.t.d. and assume you’re fresh to the scene as BTR is a certifiable icon. Making music predominantly with the Amiga, BTR was a long standing member of 8BitCollective who migrated to uCollective after the former’s collapse. To help fill in the void between new releases, Bit Trash Riot likes to put out re-releases of older albums and this is one of those re-releases that was put up very recently.
Originally published in limited runs on a collection of 6 floppy disks, ‘Reset’ is an eclectic collection of aria that hits hard and fast and crunches in a way that’s satisfying as hell. Clock |
they expect some bang for their bucks.
Stacking the federal judiciary with rightwing judges and neutering regulatory protections is not enough for them. They want tax breaks too. And, before long, it will become even plainer than it already is that they want to privatize everything that they can milk for profit.
In short, their appetite for plunder is limitless. For them, there is no such thing as being too rich. Neither do they have time for, much less sympathy with, challenges, no matter how tepid, to the untrammeled power of their class.
Their flunkies in the House and Senate understand this perfectly. They understand too that, to keep the money flowing in, they need to demonstrate that their services are worth the cost. Thus they needed a win or at least something they could pass off for one.
Trump wanted a big win too – not so much to impress his class brothers and sisters, the ones who are already on board, as to impress himself. He wanted a victory because he is a pathetically vainglorious creature who cannot celebrate himself too much.
He is therefore always on the lookout for ways to toot his own horn, and always on the verge of decomposing when reality frustrates his efforts.
In his little bubble, surrounded by the most nauseatingly obsequious cabinet officers ever to disgrace the republic, and by a Vice President eager to take over but adept at feigning an adoring gaze that puts even Nancy Reagan’s to shame, he can get away with it.
However, at some level, surely even he must know better. External validation helps with that. In this case, though, he will soon be ruing the day he won.
Trump may know even less about what is in his tax scam than the average Republican legislator, but he nevertheless owns it. From now on, the tax scam rammed through Congress last week will be known as “the Trump tax cut.” When the economy starts heading south, as it soon will, that name will become toxic.
The polling data is clear: even now, the Trump tax cut is less popular than any tax increase in living memory. It can only go downhill from there. The morning after euphoria of the miscreants responsible for it will be short-lived. Before long, that stubborn, non-alternative fact may even penetrate the thick skull of the Commander-in-Chief.
Indeed, one can only wonder in disbelief at the sheer irrationality of the idea that led Trump and the Republicans to think that their scam would benefit them in next year’s midterm elections. There are times when something is not better than nothing, and any idiot could see that this was one of those times.
What the likes of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan cobbled together, under the watchful eyes of their donors’ nefarious lobbyists, is a ridiculous concoction that will benefit those donors and the larger donor class, and harm nearly everyone else.
The donors will make out like the bandits they are. But unless Democrats fumble even more spectacularly than they normally do, the bounty they will acquire will be a nail in the coffin of their favorite political party.
McConnell and Ryan and the others did see to it that a few crumbs would go to some “middle class” taxpayers, especially those living in “red” states with low taxes, and low property values. They seem to have taken their cue from their friends in the predatory lending business: lure the suckers in with teaser rates, and then milk them for all they are worth (or more).
Did they really think that tax cuts big enough to finance a family dinner at a fast food restaurant would cause “average” people – not all of them by any means, but more than a few — not to care about deficits that put the remnants of New Deal–Great Society programs that everyone who is not filthy rich depend upon in jeopardy?
It is already obvious that Ryan and others of his ilk are salivating at the prospect of using those deficits as a pretext for doing precisely that. Could they really expect even viewers dumbed down by Fox News not to figure out that the only reason for creating those deficits is to make themselves and their donors richer still?
By now, it should be dawning even on Trump’s most gullible supporters that not only are they being played, but that their intelligence is being insulted — more blatantly even than when Hillary Clinton called them and others like them “deplorable.”
With Democrats for opponents, anything could happen. But unless the less odious of our two semi-established neoliberal parties flubs again, the tax scam Republicans rammed through can hardly fail to deliver a mortal wound to the GOP.
Surely, Republicans would want to prevent that.
Or maybe not. After all, their mind-boggling irrationality does make a kind of sense in a political universe as corrupt as ours has become.
With sufficient ingenuity, one could make a case for the Trump tax cut on ideological – specifically, libertarian – grounds. There is not much ingenuity in Republican ranks, but there probably are libertarians in the House and Senate Republican caucuses who think – reflexively — that anything that “starves the beast” is worthy of support.
There are also Republicans, many of them with libertarian leanings, who consider themselves policy wonks and who think that there actually are sound public policy justifications for the ludicrous concoction they have just pushed through.
Paul Ryan is a case in point; he seems to have been thinking along these lines since the days when, as an adolescent, he discovered that Atlas Shrugged could be useful for more than just a stroke book.
In the final analysis, though, the Trump tax cut is not about ideology or policy or anything else that democratic theorists would claim it is or ought to be. It is about money. In American elections nowadays, money makes the world go round.
However, in the Age of Trump, this is the least of it.
The authors of our Constitution supported or at least tolerated slavery, and they packed all sorts of non- and anti-democratic features into the basic institutions of the republic they founded.
However, they also envisioned a political sphere in which enlightened representatives, assembled together to debate and collectively determine the common good, decided collectively what is to be done. In line with the most advanced political theorists of seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe, they sought to establish a modern version of the Roman Senate or the Athenian agora.
But, almost from Day One, their best laid plans went mightily astray. In American democracy, there has seldom been more than a pretense of rational deliberation and debate, and talk of the common good is hypocritical nonsense. The parties and factions whose malign effects the republic’s founders sought to guard against run the show; and self-interest is all.
We do have generally free and fair competitive elections, especially now that restrictions on the franchise have been relaxed enough to accord the right to vote to nearly all adult citizens, regardless of class, race or gender. But our elections are emphatically not about electing wise, disinterested rulers. They are about “special interests” selling biddable candidates to the voting public.
Or rather that was how it was before Trump’s election magnified the prevailing level of corruption many times over.
Getting reelected is now no longer all that it is cracked up to be. There isn’t as much percentage in it as there was even just a year ago.
Like Trump himself, many House and Senate Republicans have better, quicker ways to feather their own nests.
Trump has botched up so much, undermined so many norms, and delegitimized so many venerable understandings that, outside the shrinking precincts of the hopelessly benighted troglodytes who latched onto him even before his campaign got underway, he has come to be so despised that even Republicans now expect a Democratic landslide in 2018.
It is no sure thing, of course; not even with Trump stirring up fear and loathing in roughly two thirds of the population. Democrats have a knack for defeating themselves – Hillary Clinton style, though electoral incompetence, and because they too do yeoman service for the rich and heinous.
Nevertheless, they are on track for an overwhelming victory in 2018, notwithstanding the gerrymandering rampage that Republicans undertook after their electoral victories in 2010.
For many a Republican legislator, a “shellacking” (Obama’s word) equal or greater than the one that Democrats got in 2010 could actually be a blessing in disguise. Instead of spending years in Congress pretending to care about the public good while prepping to cash in eventually in the lobbying racket, they may soon be able to jump right in.
This is all the more reason for them to do all they can to stay on the donors’ good side. This holds as much for those who won’t themselves get a direct windfall from the scam as for those, like the turncoat Senator Tom Corker of Tennessee and many of his similarly shameless colleagues, who will.
Genuine fascists, or rather their twenty-first century successors and moral equivalents, expressly oppose democracy. Trump has empowered people who come perilously close to that — Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller are the best-known examples.
But that is not, or not yet, his administration’s main thrust. Its effect has been not so much to underwrite opposition to democracy as to cause its level of corruption to increase – to a degree that is unprecedented in American history.
In the absence of a bona fide resistance — an organized, well-resourced countervailing force that is not and cannot be marginalized — this could be almost as bad.In which our man Go gets two more cards for his Pro Wrestle Theme in Code of the Duelist, which is not a Card of the Day post.
COTD-JP011 剛鬼ライジングスコーピオ Gouki Raijingu Sukoopio (Gouki Rising Scorpio)
Level 5 EARTH Warrior-Type Effect Monster
ATK 2300
DEF 0
You can only use the (2)nd effect of this card’s name once per turn.
(1) If you control no monsters, or if all monsters you control are “Gouki” monsters, you can Normal Summon this card without Tributing.
(2) If this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard: You can add 1 “Gouki” card from your Deck to your hand, except “Gouki Rising Scorpio”.
COTD-JP054 剛鬼再戦 Gouki Saisen (Gouki Rematch)
Normal Spell Card
You can only activate a card with this card’s name once per turn.
(1) Target 2 “Gouki” monsters in your Graveyard with different Levels; Special Summon them in Defense Position.38 SHARES Share Tweet
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The act of running is a simple yet blissful process of self-discovery and potential maximization while out pounding the roads or trails. Speaking of pounding, the knee joints can be subjected to forces up to three times of body weight when running. As such, knee injuries tend to be a big concern for many. Allow me to share how knee pain does not have to be a part and parcel of running.
1. “Old age” is not a valid reason in itself for knee injuries. When runners tell me they have an injury on one knee due to aging, I jokingly ask if that knee was older than the other! My 67-years-young father used to have one-sided knee pain that would linger around for days after each run and thus inhibit his training routine; however with chiropractic care his knee issues have completely self-resolved and he is finally able to run consistently, leading up to his age-group win at the 10 kilometer race as part of the 2016 Singapore Marathon event.A 2017 study concluded that current runners were 29% less likely than non-runners to experience knee pain, while there was no increased risk of symptomatic knee osteoarthritis in runners (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27333572).This is enlightening because it dispels the misconception that running ruins your knees; in fact running strengthens your knees by building bone density.“Motion is lotion” for the most part, as long as it is done in the right manner.
2. Take the warm-up and cool-down seriously.Before a race and big workout I would do dynamic stretching at home, followed by a jog and more dynamic stretching at the run site. The purpose of the warm-up is to prime the various body systems (e.g. cardiovascular, respiratory, musculoskeletal) which are all coordinated by the nervous system, increase blood flow to muscles and other connective tissue, as well as to increase joint flexibility. The knee joint is a complex structure involving three bones (patella, femur, and tibia bones) and a variety of connective tissues. If the structures are tight due to insufficient warm-up, there is increased risk of Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome which is the most typical overuse injury in runners. Weak quadriceps and tight hamstrings typically compound this risk so it is worthwhile strengthening or stretching the appropriate muscle groups. After a hard or long run, I am also diligent to stretch (more of the static type) toprevent injuries.
3. Tread softly, literally. Instead of focusing on stride length while running, focus on cadence (i.e. number of steps per minute). Solely trying to go for long strides (while on a low cadence) increases knee injury risk due to the increased joint impact upon landing from unnecessary“hanging” in the air and over-striding. Instead, shoot for approximately 180 steps (i.e. 90 strides) per minute when running at race pace. First establish your individualized cadence baseline by timing yourself for a minute at this pace, then practice that quick turnover in training so it becomes second nature when racing. It is alright to shorten your strides so you can have a faster cadence not just for injury prevention purposes but also because this combination improves running economy.
4. Lose weight if needed. In 2006 at my heaviest I was overweight at 80 kilograms compared to my current 57 kilogram frame, which means that was 23 more kilograms of body weight stress on my knees when running marathons back then! Carrying excess weight increases the impact on your knee joints, thereby increasing risk of injuries and even cartilage degeneration. Running is great for losing weight but while doing so one should take steps to ensure it is done right. I advise starting with shorter easy-paced runs (or even alternate between jogging and walking) especially on soft surfaces like even grass to minimize impact. Cross-training in the initial weight-loss phases can also minimize injury risk.
5. Have a training plan that is progressive.Follow the 10% mileage rule where total weekly run mileage increases no more than 10% week-to-week to allow bones and connective tissue around the knee to adapt. I see too many runner patients getting injuries because they were rushing into intensive training. Take your recovery seriously through rest, proper nutrition, and stretching. Have a weekly training structure so that each run has its purpose, which means you should not be running hard every time (in fact the majority of my runs are run at easy aerobic pace). Be sensitive to differentiating between good and bad pain; for example one should stop a run if there is sharp pain felt.
6. It is possible to rebound back from knee injuries but more important to maintain being injury-free in the first place. Despite being a national marathoner who runs at least once daily and clocks up to 160 kilometers in mileage before a marathon, I have not sustained a single training-related injury since 2010 (coincides with when I started receiving chiropractic care). There is peace of mind that comes from being able to consistently push yourself in training and race season, without having to deal with the psychological scars associated with an injury. Having said that, we happen to see plenty of runner patients that have their initial knee issues improve with chiropractic care. The body is all connected so seemingly small imbalances like a quarter inch leg length difference (due to musculoskeletal tension) could potentially place undue stress on one knee. Multiply that stress with the impact of running over long distances and you realize the injury potential. Another holistic way of checking for biomechanical imbalances would be engaging a qualified coach to evaluate your running gait and form.
In summary, look into the root cause of your knee issues and any imbalances, rather than covering up the symptoms like knee pain. With the right approach, you can go beyond injury prevention and into functioning at optimal potential in the “long run”.
Related Posts:SPD officers are looking for a man after who groped two people just blocks apart in Ballard on Tuesday morning.
From the SPD North Precinct Blotter:
Ballard High School security called 911 after one of their female students reported a man in the parking lot had grabbed her buttocks as she was walking into the school at 11:30 am. The student said the suspect, a Hispanic man in his 30’s wearing paint splattered pants, got into a red pickup truck and drove off as she entered the building.
Another woman reported a similar encounter when a man matching the earlier description, ran up behind her and grabbed her buttocks before running off. The victim last saw the suspect running away through the 6000 block of 15 Ave. NW.
Officers searched the area but were unable to find anyone matching the description.
If you have any information in these cases, please call (206)625-5011 and speak with an officer.Anna Tanneyhill: Urban League Jewel of New England 0
Anna Tanneyhill was considered a New England jewel during her time. She was an administrator, writer, and activist. Tanneyhill was born on January 19, 1906 in Boston, Massachusetts to Alfred Weems Tanneyhill and Adelaide Grandison Tanneyhill. She graduated from Simmons college in 1928, and joined the Springfield, Massachusetts Urban League. The league was dedicated to helping African-Americans gain social and economic equality by finding better jobs and owning their own homes and businesses.
Many years later, almost a decade, she earned a master’s degree in vocational guidance and personnel administration from Teachers College, Columbia University.
In the 1930s, Tanneyhill organized the League’s nationwide annual vocational opportunity campaigns to inspire Black youth to pursue the schooling and training that would prepare them for good jobs. In the 1940s she was instrumental in integrating the workforces of defense plants.
She went on to play a pivotal role in the 1950s, carrying out the League’s pioneering effort to persuade major corporations to recruit on Historical Black College and University campuses. She wrote several articles including, From School to Job: Guidance for Minority Youth 1953, Program Aids for the Vocational Opportunity Campaign and Whitney M. Young Jr. “The Voice of the Voiceless.”
sources:
aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/anna-tanneyhill-new-england-jewel
www.nytimes.com/2001/05/21/nyregion/ann-tanneyhill-urban-league-official-95.html(CNN) — What makes a city user-friendly? Apart from being able to make a buck and rest your head, what sets one metropolis above another?
Melbourne, Australia, was named the world's most livable city by the Economist Group, publishers of "The Economist" magazine.
Whether it's relaxing, dining, people watching or shopping, Melbourne seems to have it all in a colorful and artistic heritage environment. In no particular order, here are 50 reasons Melbourne fans think it's the best place in the world to live (and for travel ):
50. Invented its own dance move
The Melbourne Shuffle, also known as Rocking, is a rave and club dance-style that evolved in the 1980s and involves fast heel-and-toe action.
49. Back alleyways where it's safe to hang out
An organic development arising out of Melbourne's planned, ultrawide streets, its laneways are a hive of activity. From shopping on Degraves Street to dining on Hardware Lane, people-watching is covered.
48. Streets have musical names
Something about Corporation Lane just didn't have a ring to it. Didn't sound so funky. That's why the same laneway is now called ACDC Lane, where you can rock out at Cherry Bar, which claims to be the nation's rock 'n' roll capital.
Cherry Bar, AC/DC Lane, +61 (0)3 9639 8122
47. Vinyl capital of the world
While the rest of the world goes digital, there are still about 50 vinyl record stores around Melbourne, staying alive in musical worship of everything from Bollywood funk and hip-hop and retro rock.
As well as the hottest seven-inches from local DJs, there are bins of pre-loved and once-loved discs. That's more stores and more records, per capita, than any other place in the world.
"None of us are making much money," says Chris Gill, owner of Northside Records in Fitzroy. "But we're happy."
Northside Records, 236 Gertrude St., Fitzroy, +61 (0)3 9417 7557
46. Beers during haircuts
There are more than a few combination hairdresser/barber/tobacconists. At the Bearded Man in Prahran, you can get a beer while they attend to your coiffure. It's the discerning man's choice.
The Bearded Man, 1203 Chapel St. Prahran 3181 +61(3) 9510 0563
45. Melbourne Arts Centre looks like the Eiffel Tower
Melbourne's answer to "The Grande Dame." william west/afp/getty images
Most cities have to look at a postcard to dream of tower romance, but Melbourne has its own 168-meter-high imitation. At the base, performance halls are home to opera, symphony and the Melbourne Festival.
Melbourne Arts Centre, 100 St. Kilda Road, City, +61 (0)3 9281 8000
44. An esplanade that's worth a harbor
Australia's unofficial poet laureate, folk singer Paul Kelly, sings, "I'll give you all of Sydney Harbour, all that land and all that water, for that one sweet promenade." "From St Kilda to Kings Cross" is an ode to the palm-lined bay and pier in Melbourne's bohemian suburb of St. Kilda.
This grungy beachside precinct oozes character even if it is a little rough around the edges at times. Check out the Arts and Crafts Market on Sundays, eat at one of the many excellent restaurants or head to the Espy: the legendary Esplanade Hotel and catch live music from mod rock to hip hop.
The Esplanade Hotel, 11 The Esplanade, St Kilda, +61 (0)3 9534 0211
43. St Kilda is so cool that aliens have landed
For real. And it doesn't look like they're leaving. Maybe they like the bayside coffee. Thank Smik Studio on Acland Street, who got local artists onto making a UFO crash through its roof.
42. Pub grub on a film set
The Union Club Hotel is a regular set for the TV series, "Offspring," and many other shoots. The old-fashioned, round bar and lounges make it ideal.
It's also a good place for a pot and pub grub at Lazy Susan's Kitchen, where you can score Fat Chris' Breakfast Burger, served with the lot and chips ($20).
Union Club Hotel, 164 Gore St., Fitzroy, +61 (0)3 9417 2926
41. Cafes serve LSD
Too much coffee is unhealthy --- that's why it's always good to have mind-altering alternatives.
A latte of soy and dandelion (commonly known as LSD) is a fairly good taste imitation and healthier option than the much-ingested bean. Pick it up at a range of cafes, including local haunt the Galleon Cafe, just off Acland Street in St Kilda.
Galleon Cafe, 9 Carlisle St., St Kilda, +61 (0)3 9534 8934
40. Free trams
This tram isn't really free. william west/afp/getty images
Ever since tram conductors were replaced by automated ticketing systems, Melbournians have joked that tram rides are free.
They can be, unless you're caught by roaming ticket inspectors, in which case it's a very expensive tram ride.
One tram that is truly free is the maroon City Circle tram, for which you really don't need a ticket.
Related content 10 natural wonders of Australia
39. Soapboxes for clean speech
The soapbox on the State Library lawns is always open for whoever wants to vent. You can also venture into a grungy, inner-suburban pub on a weeknight for some performance poetry. Bring your spiel for open mike opportunities.
Passionate Tongues fortnightly Monday night event at the Brunswick Hotel. Spinning Room is on Tuesdays at ET's in Prahran. Drunken Poets on the first Thursday of the month at The Drunken Poet, West Melbourne. The Dan Poets meet Saturday afternoons at the Dan O'Connell Hotel, Carlton. Westword is at the Dancing Dog Cafe in Footscray on the second and fourth Sunday of the month.
38. Galaga in bars
You walk around some cities and wonder where all the pinball machines and video games have gone. Not in Melbourne, where vintage pinball machines and video games can be found in many bars and pubs.
You can enjoy a pot of tea or beer and play Galaga at the Black Cat, all while taking in alternative nights of hip-hop, dub step and garage.
The Black Cat, 252 Brunswick St., Fitzroy, +61 (0)3 9419 6230
37. Neon signs that people actually like
The Skipping Girl Vinegar sign in Richmond -- known as Little Audrey -- was Australia's first girl or guy in bright lights. She came to neon life in 1936 and after short breaks in the 1960s and last decade she recently came back to life after her bill was paid much to the delight of the community.
36. It's so bright it's black
In Melbourne, black is the new black. Everyone wears it, especially women.
35. Culture vultures go Burlesque on Mondays
Monday nights are fairly diverse around the inner city. While some consider TV, the Burlesque Bar Showboat -- the floating version of the Burlesque Bar that closed its doors in 2013 -- is all about that 1920s renaissance.
Burlesque Bar Showboat, Berth 14, Central Pier, Docklands, Victoria 3008
34. Monday is the new Saturday
To keep local students (and everyone else) happy, Cinema Nova on Lygon Street has half-price tickets on Mondays. Lygon Court even lets you park for free with a ticket.
Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon St., Carlton, +61 (0)3 9347 5331
33. Public holiday for a horse race
Melbourne Cup day bacchanal. scott barbour/getty images
If you need to go to the bank on the first Tuesday in November, all the money's over at Flemington Racecourse where the Melbourne Cup is being run. The real banks are closed.
The classic two-miler is the unofficial staying championship of the world and carries $4.5 million (AUD$6 million) in prize money. The bonus for the rest of the city is a day off.
While 100,000 or so get to the track, the bars around the city are full on Cup Day.
32. Red shirts that are actually nice to you
If you see red shirts walking the city streets, don't be alarmed. They'll be your best friends if you get lost on Melbourne's grid. They're city volunteers with a wealth of local knowledge who'll point you to the next block.
31. Street press with street cred
Melbourne's still good for analog news. christian dowlig/getty images
The internet's taken over the world --- yeah, yeah, heard 'bout all that.
But when it comes to community, good old-fashioned street press spreads the word at least as quickly as you can say, "Hey, I like this."
Pick up pamphlets, flyers, mags and glad rags at bars and cafes.
30. Street art surrounds you
Melbourne has embraced street art: its cobblestone laneways are plastered with graffiti and stencil art. World-renowned British street artist Banksy loves the place and has contributed many works over the years.
Hosier Lane not only has spectacular works along its couple of hundred meters, but also off its intersection.
Check it out all 'round town.
29. Best souvlaki outside of Athens
Melbourne's Greek community is one of the largest in the world. WILLIAM WEST/AFP/AFP/Getty Images
The biggest Greek population outside of Athens -- an estimated 800,000 -- ensures plenty of souvlaki shops around Melbourne.
A late night on Brunswick Street could include some typically Melbourne Greek: lamb, tomato, onion, feta, tzaziki and chips rolled in pita bread.
At The Real Greek, you can even tuck into a "Stan the Man," named after a Greek-Australian world kickboxing champion.
The Real Greek, 315 Brunswick Street. Fitzroy, +61 (0)3 9417 1414
28. Parties for everyone
Melbourne has a thriving fetish culture. Players, pussycats, leatherists and swingers have created a strictly adults-only dance party scene. Just for fun.
And OK, many towns are liberal, but fetish can be the true test of openness, diversity and tolerance --- and livability, you know.
27. A post office where you can buy flowers
Most walk into the local postie to grab a postcard or stamp, but Melbourne residents go a step further. Pick up a bouquet for the missus or man out the front, or walk inside the GPO for some of the country's best shopping.
Melbourne's GPO, 350 Bourke St., City, +61 (0)3 9663 0066
26. More tattoo stores than you can poke a needle at
Think ink. cameron spencer/getty images
Hard finding a needle in a city? Not in Melbourne. The locals' love of art appears on their bodies, too, which you can find at scores of tattoo parlors.
Chapel Tattoo in Prahran has eight eager tattooists in store, ready to bruise you with tribal patterns from around the world.
Chapel Tattoo, 155 Chapel St., Prahran, +61 (0)3 9521 1202
25. A square that looks more like a block
Federation Square. That's the block on the right. william west/afp/getty images
Thanks to the demolition of Gas and Fuel Corporation's ugly twin towers in the late 1990s, Federation Square was built in time for Australia's Centenary of Federation in 2001.
Open spaces, cafes, bars and restaurants are now around a building that is locally perceived as ugly. But it's better than what was there before, and is now one of the city's top tourist attractions.
Federation Square, Swanston Street, City, +61 (0)3 9655 1900
24. Play golf on a sand belt
Thanks to its sand belt, Royal Melbourne is the most revered course in the country. The pros play there. A round will set the average hacker back a few hundred bucks.
Royal Melbourne Golf Club, Cheltenham Rd, Black Rock VIC 3193, Australia. +61 3 9599 0500
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23. Get the taste of Central Europe in St. Kilda
Monarch Cakes has been baking from the same recipes for over 80 years. Many of the recipes originated from the original shop in Poland and were brought to Australia and have been used here ever since. For cakes, it's the cream of the crop.
Monarch Cake Shop, 103 Acland Street, St Kilda: Phone (03) 9534 2972
22. Sense of humor
Some blame omnipresent poker machines in other states, others say it's due to a cooler climate. Whatever it is, Melbourne likes to laugh at least as much as any other Australian city about sport, politics, religion or anything else.
21. A clown that eats you for fun
Come inside and I'll take you for a ride. WILLIAM WEST/AFP/AFP/Getty Images
If you walk inside St Kilda's big clown mouth it'll cost you. It's around $37 (AUD$49.95) for an adult, but less for kids. For that you're promised Luna Park's terrific temptations, such as the Silly Serpent, Scenic Railway and the Spider.
Luna Park, 18 Lower Esplanade, St Kilda. +61 3 9525 5033
20. A sporting stadium you can fit a city in
Australia's sporting coliseum, the MCG, can seat more than 100,000. If you count the amount of field space for one the world's biggest cricket and AFL grounds, it's a big place.
It makes some noise during a Boxing Day Test match or an AFL Grand Final.
19. Shout therapy acceptable at football matches
This is a city that loves football so much it invented its own game, Aussie Rules. The game has since been exported round the country, but nine of the 18 teams in the Australian Football League are based in Melbourne.
With teams averaging about 15 goals each per game, it means that even if your team is well-beaten, you can yell good-hearted abuse at the opposition.
And chances are your own team will score at least a goal, giving you a chance to alleviate a working week's worth of stress.
18. Pedestrians get right of way in the city center
A large portion of Bourke Street, the shopping mecca in the heart of the city, has been a pedestrian and tram-only mall since 1983. A section of Swanston Street, which intersects Bourke, has been free of private vehicles since the 1990s.
They meet to create an urban oasis where only trams, taxis, bicycles and horse-drawn carriages disrupt people getting about town the social way.
17. Big, gray towers bring a multicultural groove
Across Melbourne's plains, villages of Victorian terraces are inundated with big, gray towers. You're right: they're 1960s, government-built housing estates, which "slum" neighborhoods were demolished for.
But old, working-class 'hoods aren't so easily gentrified. Many Sudanese still call funky Fitzroy home, in spite of the rents going up around them.
16. The residents are high
Eureka! You've found it. pat scala/getty images
At 197 meters, Melbourne's tallest building, Eureka Tower, is the second-tallest residential building in the world. And while some say that the 285-meter observation deck is too high, others throw caution to the wind and go for the Edge Experience, a glass cube that projects three meters outward.
15. Psytrance: Anyone can be a hippie
OK, it's a bunch of hippies jumping up and down to a metronomic beat, but this local version of the techno-phenomenon is also a lot of fun. Grow out your dreads, find a bush gig and join in the spiritual, shamanic, ritual fun.
14. Cheap strawberries and feta cheese in the same breath
Officially titled Queen Victoria Market, but colloquially known as the "Vic Market," this open-air mart has been the scene of friendly competition, "I'll throw in another one for free," and "She'll be right in a couple of days," since 1878.
It's full of old-world charm and friendly competition between stallholders and draws millions of visitors each year. Apart from fruit, you can buy meat, fish, clothing, coffee and churros -- just about anything.
Queen Victoria Market, 513 Elizabeth St., City, +61 (0)3 9320 5822, market opens 6 a.m. daily (9 a.m. Sundays) and trades until the afternoon. Closed Monday and Wednesday.
13. Festival with a silly name
Moomba... not just a silly name. william west/afp/getty images
So why is country's biggest free community festival called Moomba? Does the Aboriginal word mean "let's get together and have fun," as some originally suggested -- or has the city been saying "bottom fun" in the indigenous lingo since 1955?
12. Living history
Flinders Street Station william west/afp/getty images
The gold rush boom of the 19th century resulted in the construction of iconic buildings, such as Flinders Street Station (generations of Melbournians have arranged to "meet you under the clocks") and the Royal Exhibition Building, built for the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition.
Construction also spread throughout the suburbs, which hang on to a largely Victorian-era-built city perimeter. That means a bunch of students can share a cheap terrace near university and not be that special.
11. You can buy a formal hat at the train station
A thowback to a time when no gangster would be caught dead without their trilby, you can always grab a top hat in transit to keep you warm and stylish.
City Hatters, 221 Flinders St., Melbourne, +61 3 9614 3294
10. Smelly shoes pass off as art
Maturing cheese. william west/afp/getty images
Anything and everything is art in Melbourne. It has no boundaries. Though when a collection of shoes passes as an art installation, questions have to be asked.
9. Shop Sui you can't eat
Shop Sui is a boutique store that sells everything from doll clothes to homeware designs. Typical of boutique shops in Melbourne, the shopping is tasty.
Shop Sui, 227 Gertrude St., Fitzroy, +61 (0)3 9415 9588
Related content Australia in summer: 40 things to do
8. A bay you can loop in a day
Start in Melbourne and wind through wine districts of Mornington, then down to the historic towns of Portsea and Sorrento. From there, jump or drive on the boat to Queenscliffe --- from there you're in the home straight: Melbourne via Geelong.
The 40-minute car and passenger ferry leaves on the hour during daylight hours, every day of the year.
7. Residential factories
While the rest of the world knocks down history, Melbourne integrates heritage. The old Collingwood department store, Foy & Gibson, is typical. It once belonged to the big end of town, but now belongs to whoever has six-figure spare |
react.”
So, if we take this quote at face value, Jaden may not actually be a fascinating weirdo, but just a garden variety internet troll. But! The interview continues, and Jaden—speaking, we must assume, earnestly—continues to sound properly batshit.
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Here's Jaden telling Baron about a pyramid he built in his room:
“It's at my parents' house. Half of a pyramid. The tip is missing, but the whole structural thing is built, and it sits at 12.5 feet tall. I'll Instagram a picture of it once this comes out, so people know what I'm talking about.”
Here's Jaden telling Baron about something called Mystery School, which he later confirms is real:
“Me and my sister started this initiative called Mystery School. It dates back to like ancient Egypt, ancient Greece—like Plato, Pythagoras, all these students had mystery schools. And what they learned in there was sacred. They would learn the math and sciences of that generation, and then they would build the cities and give that energy and that knowledge to the other people. And a lot of stuff they would keep really, really to themselves. Like, you couldn't say the word dodecahedron, which is just a shape, outside of one of the mystery schools or they would, like, kill you or whatever. Because it was such a sacred shape.”
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And here's Jaden telling Baron he's just going to dip out in 10 years:
“No one will know where I am in ten years. They'll see me pop up, but they'll be like, ‘Where'd you come from?’ No one will know. No one will know where I'm at. No one will know who I'm with. No one will know what I'm doing. I've been planning that since I was like 13.”
I suppose it's necessary to concede that he might just be fucking with Baron even after admitting to Baron that he is constantly just fucking with people. But, still, even that is a brilliantly strange way to approach a celebrity profile.
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I still believe Jaden Smith is a time-traveling alien sent to bring us The Real Truth. You're not fooling me, Jaden Smith.
Michael Rosen is a reporter for Fusion based out of Oakland.If you have a spare $1500 burning a hole in your pocket, perhaps you'd like to spend it on an ultra-precise, ultra-small atomic clock, now available for purchase from Symmetricom Inc. Draper Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories.
The Chip Scale Atomic Clock (CSAC), originally developed for DARPA, is 100 times smaller than its predecessors and uses 100 times less power as well. It requires only 100 milliwatts of power, measures about 1.5 inches per side and is less than half an inch deep.
The clock measures the passage of time in millionths of a second by counting the frequency of electromagnetic waves. These waves are emitted by cesium atoms are stored in a tiny container, no bigger than a grain of rice, when they are shot by a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). Replacing the previously used rubidium-based atomic vapor lamp with the VCSEL is what reduced the clock's power consumption.May 6, 2016 This week’s theme
Words that appear misspelled
This week’s words
gapeseed
windrow
unwonted
angor
refect
This week’s comments
AWADmail 723
Next week’s theme
Forgotten positives Words that appear misspelled A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
refect PRONUNCIATION: (ri-FEKT)
MEANING: verb tr.: To refresh with food or drink.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin reficere (to renew or restore), from re- (back) + facere (to make). Earliest documented use: 1488.
USAGE: “[I attempt] recipes that refect thrill-seeking appetites, and which can be served together like a spread-out picnic.”
Rose Prince; Spring Free; Telegraph Magazine (London, UK); Apr 4, 2015.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: Thinking is an experimental dealing with small quantities of energy, just as a general moves miniature figures over a map before setting his troops in action. -Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (6 May 1856-1939)
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DonateFRISCO, Texas -- Several children and one adult were sent to the hospital after a teen driver crashed a car into a daycare Thursday afternoon.
The crash happened at the Primrose School of Frisco at Main and Teel in the 9100 block of Teel Parkway. The 17-year-old driver hit the accelerator, instead of the brake pedal, crashing into the gate outside of the school, officials say.
"Several kids were either moving into the classroom or out of the classroom, we're not sure which," said Kevin Haines, captain with the Frisco Fire Department.
A medical helicopter transferred two of the children to Children's Medical Center Dallas.
As of Friday morning, one child remained in critical condition in the ICU, while three others were admitted overnight to the trauma floor. They are expected to be released sometime Friday.
"Anytime you have a child that is hit, the first concern that comes to mind is head injuries," said Haines.
Parents scrambled in the parking lot to pick up their children. Some parents came by to pick up their children's stuff.
"I hope they're doing ok, and I hope nobody was seriously hurt," said Patrick Ludley, a parent.
The school released the following statement:
“We are heartbroken about the accident that happened today at our school, injuring multiple children and teachers. Our Primrose community is our family and nothing is more important to us than the safety and well-being of the children entrusted to our care. We are incredibly proud of how our teachers and staff responded today and we are grateful for the police and paramedics for their swift action as well."We’re standing side-by-side with the affected families and are currently here at the hospital. We are praying for the medical teams caring for these children and their families and ask that you do too.”
Officials say the 17-year-old driver, who had his driver's permit, was not injured and is cooperating with officials. The father of the driver told WFAA that he was sitting in the passenger's seat when the crash happened.
The teen was on his way to driving school across the street. The father said his son is incredibly sorry and was shaken up by the crash.
The scene remains under investigation.
Copyright 2016 WFAAJosh Riman graduated from Syracuse University in 2006. “I had a job at a great advertising agency,” he said, “but was laid off in 2007. I found a job the next day, amazingly enough, and worked at this next advertising shop for about a year and a half. Then, on my birthday, the place went bankrupt. We all lost our jobs.”
Since then, Mr. Riman has been doing freelance and “pro bono” work. He has been unable to find anything even reasonably secure.
As jobs become increasingly scarce, more and more college graduates are working for free, at internships, which is great for employers but something of a handicap for a young man or woman who has to pay for food or a place to live.
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“The whole idea of apprenticeships is coming back into vogue, as it was 100 years ago,” said John Noble, director of the Office of Career Counseling at Williams College. “Certain industries, such as the media, TV, radio and so on, have always exploited recent graduates, giving them a chance to get into a very competitive field in exchange for making them work for no — or low — pay. But now this is spreading to many other industries.”
Lonnie Dunlap, who heads the career services program at Northwestern University and has been advising young people on careers since the mid-70s, said today’s graduates are experiencing the worst employment market she’s ever seen.
“There’s a sense of huge emotional anxiety among our students,” she said. The young people are not only having trouble finding work themselves; many feel a sense of obligation to parents who are struggling with job losses and home foreclosures.
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“In the past two years,” said Ms. Dunlap, “we have seen a huge uptick in the number of recent alums coming back for services because they still haven’t found work, as well as midcareer alums who have been laid off and need our help.”
Like Mr. Noble, she mentioned the growing use of interns versus paid employees and said she can see the value of such unpaid work for some recent graduates, “though, of course, not everyone can afford to do that.”
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Despite the expansion of the gross domestic product in the quarter that ended in September, there is no sign of the kind of recovery in employment that would be needed to bring the American economy and the economic condition of American families back to robust health. It would be nice if some of the politicians and economists so obsessed with the G.D.P. would take a moment to look out the window at what is happening with real people in the real world.
They might see Laura Ram, who graduated from Baruch College in New York in May 2007. She was laid off from a full-time job almost exactly a year ago and hasn’t worked since. She’s been diligent about submitting applications and showing up at job fairs and so on, but nothing has come close to panning out.
“I haven’t gone on a single interview,” she said, “which manages to shock just about my entire family.”
These recent graduates have done everything society told them to do. They’ve worked hard, kept their noses clean and gotten a good education (in many cases from the nation’s best schools). They are ready and anxious to work. If we’re having trouble finding employment for even these kids, then we’re doing something profoundly wrong.(Newser) – Today is the day that.com starts to sound even tamer: The much more risque.xxx domain goes live at 11am ET today. Some 100,000 websites are expected to make their very adult debut at that time, and CNN reports on some of the upsides and downsides to the move. Pro: They should become safer destinations. Porn links frequently serve as fronts for viruses or other malware; those who apply for a.xxx domain agree to follow certain business standards, and all.xxx sites will be scanned every day with McAfee tools. Con: Some argue the availability of the suffix is basically an endorsement of porn.
The best side story: Universities across the country are gobbling up the.xxx domains. Yes, really. Fearful that porn outlets might try to exploit their good name, schools are making the first move. The Journal Gazette reports that Indiana University spent $2,200 to secure 11 domain names for the next decade. So don't expect anything too scintillating at Indianauniversity.xxx, Hoosiers.xxx, or IUPUI.xxx. (Read more ICANN stories.)Rate among women and girls increases more quickly than among men, yet males continued to account for the majority of deaths, according to a new report
US suicides have reached their highest peak in 30 years, with middle-aged Americans making up the largest part of the growing epidemic, according to new federal data.
A report published on Friday by the National Center for Health Statistics found that between 1999 and 2014, the largest increases in suicide were seen among middle-aged men and women 45 to 64 years old, and girls 10 to 14 years old. Older Americans, aged 75 and over, were the only group to see a decline in suicides during the same period.
The suicide rate among women increased more quickly than among men. But men continued to account for the vast majority of deaths in 2014, the latest year for which data is available. The suicide rate among men was 20.7 per 100,000, compared to 5.8 per 100,000 among women.
This new suicide data underpins recent studies that showed a decline in life expectancy among middle-aged, white Americans – especially women. Such studies attributed the increasing death rate to drug and alcohol misuse, as well as suicide. However, the NCHS data did not analyze racial and ethnic differences in suicide.
“We wanted to highlight the growing problem of suicide in America,” said Sally Curtin, lead author on the NCHS report. “Deaths are just the tip of the iceberg. Many more incidents end up as hospitalizations and ER visits.”
Curtin’s report did not identify causes behind the increase in suicide. But a 2013 analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted the recent economic downturn and a vulnerability among baby boomers who had “unusually high suicide rates during their adolescent years” as possible contributing factors to the rising suicide rate for middle-aged adults.
“We don’t really know enough about what’s driving this rise,” said Mark Kaplan, professor of social welfare at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Past research in this field has focused on young people and very old people. But we know far less about what’s causing suicides among the middle age range: 25- to 64-year-olds. We’re only now starting to invest in trying to understand this phenomenon.”
Kaplan, who studies risk factors for suicide among vulnerable populations, noted that a greater emphasis is needed on age- and gender-specific prevention efforts, as well as means restriction programs for guns. Though suicides by firearm declined as a percentage of all deaths between 1999 and 2014, they were still the most common method of death.
Overall, more than 42,000 Americans died from suicide in 2014, and more than 21,000 were firearm-related deaths, according to the NCHS report.
But even the most up-to-date official numbers likely undercount suicides, Kaplan noted. That’s because many suicide deaths may be recorded as accidents in death reports. “The picture is likely even worse than is being officially presented,” he said.
“Suicide is a big problem, but it’s under-resourced and under-funded,” Kaplan said. “Many people don’t realize it’s an important public health problem until reports like this come out, but we should be paying closer attention year-round.”The FCC will not be voting this November on the adoption of the “Restoring Internet Freedom” rule that would roll back 2015’s Net Neutrality rules, contrary to recent rumors. In a blog post, Chairman Ajit Pai listed a number of items the commission will be voting on, and the proposed rule isn’t among them.
I’ve contacted the commission to confirm this, but it’s extremely unlikely that it would exclude something that major from its stated plans (not to mention extremely disingenuous). Update: An FCC representative confirmed that the vote won’t be in November, and we can expect 3 weeks of warning before any such action.
That doesn’t mean important things aren’t on the docket. Here are the items the FCC, now at full strength with five members, will be voting on next month:
Combating robocalls and other phone-based spam
Opening 1,700 more megahertz of spectrum for 5G networks
Official adoption of the improved ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard
Ignoring historic preservation review on replacing utility poles
“Common-sense measures” to ease transition from copper to fiber
Revamping the Lifeline connectivity subsidy program
Updating cable operator reporting rules
“Modernizing our media ownership rules”
Many of the other measures are either routine or easy to support; the FCC does in fact do a lot of good work that goes undocumented by major outlets, a fact often forgotten in the heat of controversy. But that last item is definitely going to stir the pot.
The FCC will be eliminating rules limiting cross-ownership of broadcast and newspaper outlets, and of TV and radio stations. It would also eliminate the “eight voices” rule that protects independently owned stations, and ease TV join sales agreements.
Don’t worry, all this has nothing to do with the Sinclair-Tribune merger the FCC is considering, and which many worry will produce problematic consolidation in the broadcast world of just the type enabled by the suggested rules. “This transaction is in no way the catalyst for FCC action on these issues,” wrote Commissioner O’Rielly last week.
Oh, and they’re starting an incubator.
You can expect vigorous discussion of the new media ownership rules (which the industry has been pursuing for years) over the coming month.× Burglar breaks into preschool, eats a snack, takes a nap
NEW ORLEANS – A man who broke into a preschool overnight apparently didn’t want to miss snack time or nap time.
The unidentified man climbed through an unlocked window of Clara’s Little Lambs Preschool on Casa Calvo Street in Algiers just after 11 p.m. on April 17.
He can be seen on surveillance video climbing over an empty baby crib and struggling to get past stacks of child-size chairs below the window as he enters the business.
The man can then be seen wandering through several rooms, helping himself to food and drinks in the break room along the way.
After snack time, the burglar constructed a “makeshift bed” in one of the classrooms and went to sleep, according to the NOPD.
After waking up around 6:45 a.m., the man climbed back out of the unlocked window carrying two bags of stolen property.
Watch the surveillance video below:
Anyone with information regarding this incident or the identity of the pictured individual is asked to contact Fourth District detectives at (504) 658-6040.1. The issue at a glance
2. Why is it being talked about now?
3. A brief history
4. What happens next?
5. The options – and key arguments
6. What does it mean for me?
7. Key players
8. Glossary
9. FAQ
10. Some key figures
11. In greater depth
12. One sentence killer dinner party lines
1. The issue at a glance
Around a third of Scotland's 4 million voters believe that Scotland should leave the UK and become independent, ending the 305-year-old political union with England. They believe Scotland's economy, its social policies and its creativity would flourish if it had much greater autonomy. A majority of Scots disagree. They believe Scotland is more secure within the UK, but many want the Scottish parliament to have greater financial and legal powers.
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2. Why is it being talked about now?
The argument is now very real after Alex Salmond, the first minister of Scotland, announced that a referendum on Scottish independence will be held on Thursday 18 September 2014. Just over 4m voters will be asked a six word yes or no question: Should Scotland be an independent country?
The referendum was made lawful on 15 October 2012 when Salmond and David Cameron, the UK prime minister, signed the "Edinburgh agreement". That deal confirmed the UK government would give the Scottish parliament the legal power to stage that referendum.
Despite Salmond's hopes that a coalition of civil and business leaders could build a coalition to fund and campaign for a second question on greater devolution in the referendum, those efforts ended in failure.
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3. A brief history
Scotland's relations with its larger neighbour have often been difficult, none more so than in the "wars of independence" 700 years ago led by William Wallace and then Robert the Bruce. He defeated Edward II, then attempting to subjugate Scotland, at Bannockburn in 1314. After other cross border disputes, including Scotland's defeat at Flodden by the English in 1513, the Scottish and English crowns were unified in 1603 when King James VI of Scotland became overall monarch of the British isles.
In 1707, that union was cemented by Scotland and England's political union, forced on Scotland in part by a financial crisis following the abject failure of its colony in Panama, the so-called Darien adventure. All political power moved to London, but Scotland retained its own legal system, churches and universities. In 1745, the pretender to the British throne, Bonnie Prince Charlie, led the Jacobite revolt against Hanoverian rule by London. Despite reaching as far south as Derby, that ended in crushing defeat at Culloden in 1746.
In the 1800s, Scotland's economy strengthened, its cities boomed and its citizens took a leading role in the British empire. But proposals to give Scotland some form of "home rule" within the UK have been live since William Gladstone's era as Liberal leader in the 1880s. After several failed attempts at Westminster, notably in 1913 and 1979, a Scottish parliament was finally reestablished in 1999 in Edinburgh with wide-ranging policy making and legal powers but dependent on a direct grant from London.
In May 2011, Salmond and the SNP unexpectedly won an historic landslide victory giving the nationalists majority control of the Scottish parliament, enabling the first minister to demand that independence referendum.
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4. What happens next?
The Scottish parliament is now studying the detail of the Scottish government's proposals for staging and running the referendum, which include, as expected, extending the vote to 16 and 17 year olds for the first time in a major poll in the UK. (The Scottish government has previously allowed 16 and 17 year olds to vote in some health board elections and crofting commission elections).
Salmond's government has published two bills, on the franchise and on the running of the referendum. After initialling resisting any involvement from UK bodies in the referendum, his government has also agreed it will be overseen by the UK Electoral Commission.
The commission's proposals on the question, and other major issues such as the spending limits and duration of the official 16 week campaign, were all accepted by Salmond's government.
Salmond had originally wanted to pose the question: "Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country", but this was seen by experts as biased in favour of a yes vote. Voting will be restricted to Scottish residents registered to vote in local council elections (plus the one-off extra list of 16 and 17 year old voters; about 124,000 teenagers in that age group will be eligible to vote in the referendum).
The two referendum bills are timetabled to get royal assent in November 2013, when the Scottish government will also publish a white paper detailing its "prospectus for independence" and setting out the Scottish National party's vision for an independent Scotland.
On 18 May 2014, the final 16 week referendum campaign leading up to a referendum would be due to start. Then both pro-independence and pro-UK campaigns will intensify, with millions of pounds being spent on television broadcasts, advertising and rallies. The Electoral Commission's spending limits for the campaigns and participants could allow more than £6m to be spent in that 16 weeks alone.
The Yes Scotland and their opponents in Better Together, the two official campaigns, will be given a limit of £1.5m each. The two main pro-independence parties, the SNP and Scottish Greens, would be allowed to spend £1.49m in total, while the pro-UK Labour, Tories and Lib Dems have a collective limit of £1.43m. Trade unions, business groups and other civic groups will also be able to register.
Alongside all these steps on the referendum, the UK government will be putting the final touches to new measures to give the Scottish parliament the authority to set its own income tax rates, borrow some £2bn, and devolve stamp duty (the tax on house sales), land tax and landfill tax, in new powers that will come into force in 2016 – assuming the SNP loses the referendum.
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5. The options – and key arguments
Option Arguments for Arguments against Who supports Status quo - the UK government in charge of most taxation, welfare and economy The UK is the most successful economic and political union of modern times – change needs to be slow and careful. The UK brings security and shared risk, and common values. It fails to recognise Scotland's unique needs, values and aspirations; Scotland's interests are always secondary to England's. The UK is run by parties which Scotland rejected. Ruth Davidson, Scottish Tory leader; Lord Forsyth, former Scottish secretary; Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former foreign secretary. Devo plus - ensures that Scotland has to raise the taxes it spends while keeping defence, pensions and foreign affairs at UK level Scotland needs to take responsibility for the taxes it spends, and mould policies to its needs and raise the taxes to match its spending. Giving Scotland control over taxation and welfare would heavily impact all parts of the UK, require reform of the UK parliament and undermine internal unity. Reform Scotland think tank; Scottish Liberal Democrats; possibly Alistair Darling; devo plus campaign; senior figures in Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations. Independence - giving Scotland full control over all taxes, laws and North Sea oil while keeping sterling and the Queen There is no reason why Scotland cannot control its own destiny, become equal to England, and take its full place in the world. Scotland and England would remain firm friends. Scotland would face greater financial risks, lose the security of UK, and gain little that further devolution would give. It would rely on a foreign bank and be in damaging competition with its closest, larger neighbour. Alex Salmond, Scottish National party, Scottish Green party, Sir Sean Connery, Sir Brian Souter, Stagecoach owner, the Scottish Socialist party and Solidarity.
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6. What does it mean for me?
Someone born in Scotland: it should mean a greater direct say over one's government and more political freedom, but also greater economic risks, less security and more differences with England
Someone living in Scotland but not born there: the same as before: every voter in Scotland should be treated equally
Non-Scottish UK citizen: not a great deal, but the UK economy will be smaller, oil and whisky might be more expensive, British identity would be diluted and Britain's status overseas could be weaker
Someone outside UK: Scotland is expected to remain in the EU, so there will be few major changes for tourists or investors.
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7. Key players
Alex Salmond: Scotland's first minister since 2007 and leader of the Scottish National party. Widely regarded as one of the UK's sharpest politicians, he has led his party from being a minor force to dominating Scottish politics and the closest yet to independence.
Nicola Sturgeon: Salmond's deputy has been appointed to oversee the Scottish government's referendum strategy and is now her government's lead speaker on the referendum. She is seen as Salmond lead successor as party leader.
David Cameron: the Tory prime minister wants to avoid being the British leader who presided over the break up of the UK. While his party is third largest at Holyrood, it is unpopular in Scotland and suffers from having only one Scottish MP.
Alistair Darling: the former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer and an Edinburgh lawyer, he saved the UK's banking system from collapse, including two major Scottish banks. Darling is emerging as a trusted,
key figure for the pro-union campaign and is now chair of the official
pro-UK Better Together campaign.
Johann Lamont: the ability of the Scottish Labour party leader to rally and direct her party could prove crucial for the UK. She has
proven to be tougher and more forceful than her predecessor. Her Lib Dem and Tory counterparts say it is essential her party regains its authority if Salmond is to be defeated.
Blair Jenkins: a former head of news and current affairs at BBC Scotland, Jenkins has been appointed chief executive of the official, non-party Yes Scotland campaign which will lead the fight for independence. Although heavily controlled by the SNP at its launch, it has now won the formal support of the Scottish Green party, the hard left Solidarity party and the Scottish Socialist party, and is chaired by ex-Labour MP Dennis Canavan. It says 100,000 Scots have signed its "yes declaration".
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8. Glossary
Holyrood: home of the Scottish parliament, sited next to the Queen's Scottish residence in Edinburgh
Devo-max: this is the catch-all nickname for the proposal known as devolution max where Scotland would have complete control over taxation and political decisions, also known as full fiscal freedom, but remain within the UK, sharing services like defence and foreign affairs. It can also be known as "indy lite".
Devo-plus: used for the less radical proposal to greatly increase Holyrood's powers. Under devolution plus, Scotland could control two thirds of taxation and the welfare system in Scotland, but share pensions, foreign affairs, defence and monetary policy with the rest of the UK.
Indy lite: less far-reaching than full sovereignty where Scotland would have total independence from England and its institutions, this "light" version of independence is closest to the model being developed by Alex Salmond. Under indy lite, Scotland would keep sterling, the Bank of England, the Queen, remain with the EU and could remain in Nato. It could have a currency union with the rest of the UK and cooperate on defence.
West Lothian question: named after Tam Dalyell, the then MP for West Lothian and critical of devolution, who asked why Scottish MPs should continue to vote on English-only bills if English MPs had no power to vote on Scottish policies at Holyrood. The UK government has set up a commission to study new voting rules for Westminster.
North Sea oil: Fundamental to the SNP's economic plans, Scotland would get a 90% geographical share of North Sea oil and gas fields based on the division of the UK's territorial waters after independence. This would mean Scotland would keep 81% of current oil and gas receipts, recently worth between £6bn and £12bn a year.
Bannockburn 2014: The SNP has chosen to hold the referendum in the autumn of 2014 because it is both the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, an iconic event for nationalists, and a year of
significant cultural and sporting events in Scotland, including the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, the Ryder cup golf tournament at Gleneagles and the Year of Homecoming, a celebration of Scottish culture and the Scots diaspora. SNP ministers also believe the Tories and Lib Dems in the UK coalition government will be in conflict in the run-up to the 2015 general election.
David Cameron has since announced the UK government will be staging a series of events to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War during 2014, believing that will help shore up support for the UK and counter Salmond's pro-Scotland initiatives. There will be events too to mark the 75th anniversary of Britain declaring war on Nazi Germany at the start of September.
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9. FAQ
• What would Scottish independence mean for the monarchy?
• Would an independent Scotland keep the pound?
• Who would get North Sea oil revenues if Scotland declared independence?
• Could an independent Scotland have bailed out RBS and HBOS?
• Would an independent Scotland have its own armed forces?
• What would happen to Royal Navy and RAF bases in Scotland, including Trident?
• If Salmond wins a referendum can Scotland simply declare independence?
• What do the opinion polls say?
• Will the UK parties offer voters an alternative to independence?
What would Scottish independence mean for the monarchy?
Under the SNP's plans, Scotland would retain Queen Elizabeth as head of state and remain within the Commonwealth.
Would an independent Scotland keep the pound?
Probably. Under Salmond's proposals, Scotland would seek a currency union with the rest of the UK and ask the Bank of England to be Scotland's central bank. But that would mean the Bank would set Scotland's interest rates, have influence over its borrowing and overall spending and be dominated by the UK's interests. Some academics and critics believe Scotland would be forced to either join the Euro or agree to do so in the future as a condition of EU membership.
Who would get North Sea oil revenues if Scotland declared independence?
The Scottish government believes Scotland is entitled to a 90% geographical share of the North Sea's oil and gas fields, giving it 81% of all the oil and gas produced in 2010. This has not been tested and the UK government refuses to confirm this.
Could an independent Scotland have bailed out RBS and HBOS?
Not without great difficulty. The UK government spent £45bn bailing out RBS and £20bn on Lloyds, which took over Halifax Bank of Scotland to avoid its collapse. That exceeds Scotland's annual tax receipts. But most significantly, at its peak, the Treasury had £465bn at risk in cash and guarantees, well over three times Scotland's total GDP, even if a full geographical share of North Sea oil is included.
Would an independent Scotland have its own armed forces?
Certainly. The SNP voted in October to join Nato if it wins independence, reversing its decades-long opposition to the alliance. It will also insist on all the UK's nuclear weapons, based at the Clyde submarine base near Glasgow, being removed. The Scottish government believes a future Scottish defence force will largely be based on the UK mobile armoured brigade being moved to Scotland, and could spend about £2.5bn, similar to defence budgets in Norway and Denmark.
That force would have 15,000 permanent personnel and 5,000 reserves, be closely aligned to the defence strategies in the north Atlantic followed by the UK, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, and be primarily focused on territorial defence, civil security and helping UN and international peacekeeping operations.
What would happen to Royal Navy and RAF bases in Scotland, including Trident?
The SNP now argues that Scotland would need two airbases, and base its conventional navy at Faslane on the Clyde. But it now admits it would need to buy submarines, new frigates and maritime patrol aircraft from outside Scotland – a policy critics say is extremely expensive, and overwhelms the proposed annual defence budget.
If Salmond wins a referendum can Scotland simply declare independence?
No. All the key issues, like Scotland's share of UK debt, dividing up North Sea oil fields, a possible currency union, taking over military bases and UK government offices, would need to be negotiated. Some argue the final deal should also be ratified in a referendum: Sturgeon has said all the major negotiations could be completed by March 2016, in time for the next Scottish parliamentary elections in May 2016. It is unclear how quickly the UK parliament would approve any deal. There could also be a transition period before that process was complete which could take several years. There are profound doubts the EU's 28 members will agree to Scotland's membership within Sturgeon's 18 month timetable.
What do the opinion polls say?
Polls in late 2011 and early 2012 showed a rise in support for independence and a decline in support for the UK, though the findings varied dramatically depending on what question is asked. Since then, the polls have swung against independence. The polling organisation TNS BMRB in early October 2012 found that support for the UK had grown from 44% earlier in 2012 to 53%, while support for independence had fallen from 38% to 28%.
Before Salmond published his initial question on independence: "Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?", polls in early 2012 asking a simple question on whether you supported or opposed independence found great variation.
One Survation poll for the Mail on Sunday in January 2012 put independence at 26% and opposition to independence at 46%, while an ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph put the difference much closer at 40% to 43%.
On 31 January, Ipsos-MORI asked voters to choose based on Salmond's "do you agree" question, and found 37% said yes, and 50% no. Firming up those answers to focus on only those who were certain to vote, and the proportion preferring independence rose to 39%.
In late January, the Tory peer and former Treasurer Lord Ashcroft funded a poll which asked that question too, and got 41% yes and 59% no. The poll then asked: "Should Scotland become an independent country, or should it remain part of the United Kingdom?" On that question, support for independence fell to 33%, with 67% opting for the UK, raising further questions about the solidity of public opinion either way.
Since the summer of 2012, polls have tended to show a consistent divide, with about a third of Scots favouring independence while more than 50% oppose it. The latest poll in April 2013 by TNS BMRB found that support for the UK stood at 51%, and for independence down to 30%; both those figures were down, but undecided voters increased from 15% to 19%.
A Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times Scotland and Real Radio published in late March had showed a narrowing of the gap to 10 points, with No at 46% and Yes at 36%, with 'don't knows' at 18%.
The most damaging findings for the Yes campaign came in the latest Scottish social attitudes survey, published in January 2013. Regarded as the most authoritative monitor of public opinion, its annual survey of voters found that support for independence had fallen by 9 points year on year to 23% in 2012, while support for staying in the UK stood at 72%.
It was carried out between July and November last year, so that fall could be linked to the euphoria of the London Olympics. Critics pointed out, however, that the survey did not ask the agreed yes/no referendum question, but used its usual formula of offering five different options, ranging from total independence, through forms of devolution to the status quo.
Will the UK parties offer voters an alternative to independence?
Now that Salmond has been forced to abandon hopes that civic and business leaders could campaign for a second option on greater devolution in the referendum, the UK parties believe they will meet the popular desire for greater powers for Holyrood if Salmond loses the referendum.
The Scottish Labour party has a "devolution commission" preparing detailed plans for greater devolution, expected to include enhanced taxation powers and potentially some welfare policies. Johann Lamont, the party leader, is due to unveil interim proposals at her party's conference in Inverness in mid April. The final proposals are not due for some months.
In the strongest pro-devolution speech yet by a Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson said her party |
better players kind of learn quicker what works for them, what works against the opponent, and just trying to come up with a game plan in order to win more often than not.”
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Email: ajahns@suntimes.com
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Here we go again: Will Bears finally parlay a win into something big?
Ground and pound: To win in 2017, Bears lean on old-school rush attackTwo months ago, at the Near Future Summit led by revolutionary thinker and ecoFabulous founder Zem Joaquin, I asked an audience of intellectual luminaries to guess the age of an average supermarket apple. Not a single estimate remotely approached the correct answer:
Fourteen months.
And of course it didn’t. That number is mind-boggling — nearly impossible to accept. It sounds like the punchline to a bad joke, or a botched magic trick.
Yet, this is our reality. And it’s less funny by the moment. That an apple can travel over 11,500 miles from where it was grown (spending over a year in shipment and in toxic, low-oxygen storage to suspend its maturation) is the perfect object lesson of our global agricultural system’s failures. This huge, analog “farm” built by our predecessors is a snarled cats-cradle of crisscrossed strings between origin and destination, shipment and storage. And with the advent of natural-resource scarcity, flattening yields, loss of biodiversity, changing climates, environmental degradation, and booming urban populations, we’re hurtling toward its natural limit.
In the U.S., we’re insulated by the fact that the ramifications of our failing food system remain largely invisible, if still insidious. While we contend with a national obesity epidemic on the one hand and “food deserts” on the other, the rest of the world teeters on the brink of a more aggressive crisis, an increasingly violent reckoning. Just a few weeks ago, police and army forces opened fire on Filipino farmers who had taken to the streets to protest for drought relief. Ten were killed.
We need change badly, and we need it in the form of a dramatic paradigm shift. For starters, we can no longer afford to be slaves to climate.
So what if climate could be democratic? The relentless question of “what if” has long since been my life philosophy. Roaming my family’s ranch in Texas back in middle school, I remember wondering, what if I could simply ask a tree to curve in a desired direction to support a fort? (The weird start young.) And when I visited Minamisanriku, Japan in 2011 after the tsunami and the Fukashima nuclear disaster, amidst barren farmlands and farmers facing a hopeless future, I wondered:
What if we could build a different world? One in which anyone could farm anywhere, not just on land devastated by disaster, but in basements, skyscrapers, and abandoned subway tunnels? Or in classrooms, rooftops, and old factories?
The OpenAG Food Computer. Photo: Caleb Harper.
And that’s exactly what we’re doing with the digital farming OpenAG Initiative at the MIT Media Lab. As I explained at the summit, my “Food Computer” is a controlled environment agriculture platform, in which robotic control systems and actuated climate, energy, and plant-sensing mechanisms create a precisely calibrated environment for growth. We use aeroponic technology, and with thirty sensing points per plant, we can trend data points over time and discover exactly what each plant wants. Unlike conventional agriculture, bent on dominating nature with a heavy hand, we’ve started a conversation with nature, a two-way street. It allows us to calibrate a plant’s phenome — the set of its observable traits — by listening carefully and then coding for optimal expression, for the juiciest strawberries and the sweetest basil.
And with our Open Phenome database of “climate recipe” files, we’ve begun building something like a Wikipedia full of these recipes, created by digital farmers worldwide and accessible to everyone. Our entire endeavor is open source, from Personal Food Computers for in-home use (farmers can even build their own PFCs, using instructional videos and schematics available online), to larger Food Servers for boutique use, and finally to massive Food Data Centers servicing a narrowly regional supply chain.
Because everything is open-sourced and firmly planted in transparency, every new digital farmer constitutes a core of processing — more data for everyone to use. Ultimately, we’re looking at a scatterplot world of informational beacons, with digital farmers uploading the recipes that yielded their best produce and “liking” this yield, much like Instagram users. We’re going to learn so much — not only how best to grow food, but what people truly like as palates vary regionally and culturally, how flavor preference correlates with health and longevity, and even how the human phenotype itself might change when fed 150% nutritionally optimized food.
We’re on the brink of an agricultural revolution, powered by a new, networked generation of the next billion farmers — all galvanized by the pursuit of “what if.” And this future is not merely near; based on the activity I’ve seen on our freshly launched OpenAg forum, the world is joyfully on board with making the future happen now.Online shopping not only has state departments of revenue pulling their hair out over lost sales tax revenue, it also has retailers like Best Buy, Sears, KMart, and Home Depot questioning, the merits of the big-box mentality itself. The Wall Street Journal reports As Big Boxes Shrink, They Also Rethink
Major big-box retailers have been shifting to smaller stores—and scratching around for more profitable ways to fill under-used spaces as they go about reinventing themselves. Sears Holdings Corp. is letting prospective tenants browse an online list of Kmart and Sears stores with space to rent. Sears reached a deal to lease 34,000 square feet of store space in Greensboro, N.C., to Whole Foods Market Inc. for a grocery store set to open in 2012. Home Depot Inc. is selling off portions of its parking lots to fast-food chains and auto repair shops. Gap Inc. is reverting to a Russian nesting-doll strategy: after years of expanding by adding standalone stores such as GapKids and Gap Body, it is shrinking them and stacking them back inside its namesake Gap stores. Best Buy Co. last week became the latest retail chain to go smaller, announcing last week that it was slowing growth of new big-box stores this year in favor of adding 150 Best Buy Mobile locations, focused on smartphones. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. also said last week that it was accelerating the rollout of smaller locations—40,000 square feet or less—after it reported a seventh straight quarterly decline in sales at U.S. stores open at least a year. The retail giant, which rose to dominance with 185,000-foot Supercenters, plans to open its first Walmart Express store in the second quarter of this year, though it won't say where. The miniature Staples carries just 1,200 of the retailer's most high-volume sales items, compared to 8,000 items in traditional stores. Office Depot Inc., meanwhile, quietly began opening new shops the size of convenience stores in December. The new 5,000-square-foot Office Depot stores are barely a fifth the size of the company's traditional locations, yet still manage to contain the office supplies and copy and mail services that account for 93% of the bigger stores' sales, said Kevin Peters, Office Depot's North American retail president. "Our box was just too big and didn't work for our customers," Mr. Peters said Wednesday. "We are reinventing Office Depot as a convenience retailer. Think CVS and Walgreens."
Key Word is Saturation The "bigger is better model" that collapsed with residential real estate, has expanded to its big brother, commercial real estate. The problem is not the size of the stores, but the sheer number of them. Areas that got by with a single Home Depot, now have 2 Home Depots, a Lowes, and a Menards. If they all shrink, does it do any of them any good? Store Advantages
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“I don’t expect to see any evidence,” California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told ABC’s “This Week.”
Schiff and committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., purportedly made the request in a letter Saturday.
Schiff suggested Sunday that the Justice Department would have no evidence because either Trump “made up” the wiretap charge or that the president perpetuated a farfetched allegation.
He further suggested the department wouldn’t face “consequences” for failing to meet the deadline and that FBI Director James Comey would have an opportunity to tell what he knows at an open committee hearing scheduled for next week.
“We're going to be able to ask the director of the FBI … is there any truth of this? Have they seen any evidence of this?” Schiff said. “And I think on March 20, if not before, we'll be able to put this to rest.”
He also said Comey might welcome the opportunity to make clear whether he indeed asked the Justice Department to reject Trump’s wiretap claim.
Trump sparked the controversy last weekend with the tweet: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"
He continued the allegation against Obama in other tweets, which included no evidence and were followed by an official White House request that Congress investigate the issue as part of a broader probe on Russia and perhaps others’ outside influence on the 2016 White House race.
Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has said that nothing matching Trump's claims had taken place. But that has not quelled speculation that Trump's communications were monitored by the Obama administration.
Last week, Schiff said his committee would answer the president's call to investigate the claim.
Nunes has said that so far he has not seen any evidence to back up Trump's claim and has suggested the news media were taking the president's weekend tweets too literally.
"The president is a neophyte to politics -- he's been doing this a little over a year," he told reporters last week.
On Sunday, Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told ABC that Comey was unlikely to meet the Monday deadline -- only because the U.S. intelligence community’s work should remain top secret.
“There are reasons why the intelligence community, in particular the FBI, which often operates … in conjunction with the Department of Justice, is reluctant to make public statements," he said. "Because it could reveal what we do and what [we] don't know and how we know those things. And that's not something that we want our adversaries to understand.”
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that Trump could "clear this up in a minute" if he were to call the director of the CIA or the director of national intelligence and say, “OK, what happened?”
"I do believe on issues such as this, accusing a former president of the United States of something which is not only illegal, but just unheard of, that requires corroboration,” McCain continued. “I'll let the American people be the judge, but this is serious stuff."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.Whether you're an Ubuntu fan or you're just not happy with any of the current mobile operating systems, this is good news for you: Canonical has announced that it will be releasing the first public preview for its Ubuntu Phone operating system on February 21. The software, intended both for developers and adventurous end-users, will be made available as images for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus handset as well as LG's Nexus 4. Source code will also be released for those who would like to port the operating system to other phones.
This fulfills the company's promise to release the preview in late February and is the first step toward getting actual phones in stores—something that Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth wants to do by October of this year. While Canonical's press release is careful to point out that this software is intended primarily for development use on "spare handsets" (as opposed to your primary smartphone), it should give us a good idea of how the software will stack up to current offerings.
We've already looked (with our eyes, not with our hands) at an early version of the Ubuntu Phone OS at Canonical's CES booth, but this will be our first chance to actually dig into the operating system and use it as a daily driver. If you've got a Galaxy Nexus or Nexus 4 that you'd like to use as a guinea pig, full instructions for flashing your phone will be available on the Ubuntu wiki starting on February 21st. We'll be flashing our phones and taking Ubuntu for a spin as soon as we've got the software in-hand.Syeda Huma Shah of Al Madina Model School receives her certificate for securing second position in the BISE Swat from MPA Fazal Hakim. — Dawn
MINGORA: Girls have clinched top three positions in the Secondary School Certificate examination held by the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Swat.
The exam results were announced by BISE Swat controller (examinations) Professor Inayatullah during a special ceremony here, where local MPA Fazal Hakeem Khan was the chief guest.
Sabawoon of SPS College along with her jubilant father receives her first position certificate from MPA Fazal Hakim and BISE Swat Chairman Fazal Rahim.-Dawn
According to the results, 64,639 students sat the examination and 48,198 of them were successful with the pass rate coming to 84 per cent.
Sabawoon Shah of Swat Public School and College clinched the first position in the examination by securing 1,025 marks, while Andeel Rawan and Mahwish of Swat Public School and College, and Syed Huma Shah of Al Madina Model School and College shared the second position with 1,024 marks.
BISE declares 84pc of 64,639 candidates successful
Mehr Nigar of Al Madian Model School and College stood third by obtaining 1,023 marks.
In ninth grade examination, the pass percentage was 66 as of the 33,363 students, sat the exam, 21,881 were successful.
The high-achieving girls expressed happiness at their accomplishment and said girls in the region loved to get education as they wanted to serve the country by excelling in their respective fields.
“Though I studied 18 hours daily, I owe this success to my mother’s guidance. She is my ideal personality. Also, my teachers and studying environment at school contributed a lot to this achievement,” said Sabawoon Shah.
Mehr Nigar of Al Madina Model School receives her certificate for grabbing third position in the BISE Swat from MPA Fazal Hakim and BISE chairman Fazal Rahim. -Dawn
She said she worked 18-hours hard work enabled me to grab the second position
Her father, Afzal Shah, said his daughter had done him and family proud.
“I’m really proud to be the father of a brilliant student,” he said.
Another high-achiever, Syed Huma Shah, gave father the credit of her success saying he always encouraged her to study.
“This is the first step towards me becoming a doctor to serve the poor people,” she said.
Meher Nigar, who secured third position in the exams, said it was really a unique moment in her life to clinch one of the top positions in the board examination.
“I worked really hard and studied more than 16 hours daily to do well in the exam,” she said.
MPA Fazal Hakeem Khan congratulated high-achievers on the accomplishment and said the provision of excellent education and healthcare facilities to the people across the province was the top priority of the PTI government.
“Youths are the future of our nation, so they should get education to lead the nation’s development,” he said.
BISE Swat chairman Fazal Rahim Khan, who was also in attendance, said the examinations were conducted in a transparent manner.
PASSING-OUT PARADE: The passing-out parade of the police recruits was held at the Javed Iqbal Shaheed Police Lines here on Monday.
Additional Inspector General of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police Dr Ishtiq Ahmad, who was the chief guest on the occasion, told participants that the police were ready to address threats to peace and development in the province.
He said the sacrifices of the police had led to the restoration of peace in Malakand division.
The AIG urged recruits to serve the people by ensuring the rule of law.
He said the government was spending huge sums of money of the police reforms.
Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2016The West, The Greatest Cause Of War In Human History, Stands Stripped Of All Legitimacy By Paul Craig Roberts September 01, 2014 " ICH " - The Donetsk National Republic States The Facts “Every time you come to Russia with a sword, from a sword you will perish.” The former Russian provinces, which Soviet party leaders carelessly attached to Ukraine at a time when it seemed to make no difference as all were part of the Soviet Union, are now independent republics with their own governments. The West pretends that this isn’t so, because Washington and its puppet capitals don’t recognize the independence of formerly captive peoples. But the West’s opinion no longer counts. In the last couple of days the newly formed military units of the Donetsk National Republic have defeated and surrounded large portions of the remaining Ukrainian military. Russian President Putin asked the Donetsk Republic to allow the defeated Ukrainians to return home to their wives and mothers. The Donetsk Republic agreed to Putin’s mercy request as long as the Ukrainians left their weapons behind. The Donetsk Republic is short on weapons as, contrary to Western lies, the Donetsk Republic is not supplied with weapons by Russia. Washington’s puppet government in Kiev declined the mercy extended to its troops and said they had to fight to the death. Shades of Hitler at Stalingrad. Western Ukraine has remained the repository of Nazism since 1945, and it is Western Ukraine with which Washington is allied against freedom and democracy. Thanks to The Saker we are provided with a press conference with English subtitles that Alexander Zakharchenko, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Donetsk National Republic, held with media. Present are Russian and Western press. You will be impressed with the ease with which Zakharchenko handles the ignorant and corrupt Western media representatives, and your sides will burst with laughter at his reply to the media question: “Are there regular Russian military units fighting on your side?” The British and American journalists were the most stupid, as we already knew. You will die laughing at the response to the question, “why did you parade the prisoners.” This person Zakharchenko puts to shame every politician in the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, all of the puppet politicians of the American Empire. If only the United States had people of the character and quality of Zakharchenko. Now that Zakharchenko has revealed himself and made mincemeat of the stupid Western media, he will be demonized and misrepresented. So use this opportunity to see for yourself who has integrity and character. Hint: no one in political and media circles in the West. http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2014/08/watershed-press-conference-by-top.html You might have to put the video on full screen to read the subtitles. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.One by one, the veteran offensive linemen have spoken to their young quarterback.
They've pulled Brad Kaaya aside to offer advice, to go over signals, to make sure he's comfortable.
But more than that Jon Feliciano, Ereck Flowers and Shane McDermott want to make sure Kaaya knows that come Monday night when the Hurricanes take the field for their opener at Louisville in front of 55,000 fans at Papa John's Stadium, he won't have to worry about his guys in front.
And they, in turn, aren't too worried about how the highly-touted true freshman will perform.
"Brad's a very smart kid. When he came in, he really picked up the playbook really quick. He's been listening to [offensive coordinator James] Coley. He's been putting in work and it shows," said McDermott, the center tasked with getting Kaaya the ball. "Me, Feliciano, and Flowers, we've all gone up to him in between plays and said, 'Hey, we've got you.' We'll fill him up with as much confidence as we can and we'll protect our butts off for him."
McDermott and the rest of his line know their job is to protect any of the quarterbacks on Miami's roster when they take the field, but their play is likely to come under extra scrutiny with the Hurricanes starting a true freshman under center.
Though Kaaya has shown plenty of poise in camp — coaches and linemen alike say he's mature well beyond his 18 years — the stakes will be higher Monday, the spotlight brighter.
But with Miami's three veterans anchoring the line, Danny Isidora and newcomers Taylor Gadbois, Kc McDermott, and Trevor Darling all playing well in camp, offensive line coach Art Kehoe says this group can do more than protect Kaaya. A solid effort, he says, will go a long way in setting the tone for the season and creating the kind of depth Miami needs to compete for an ACC championship.
"You don't know if you're 10 deep until you win some games, so you've got to play football and win games," Kehoe said.
"I think there's nice competition. We were just trying to line up two deep last year, you know what I mean? We had some competition there too, but we just didn't have the extra bodies. Now we've got them and it's happening all over this team. My group's just a reflection of that."
Days before the Hurricanes open their season, it seems they've settled on a starting group for the line with Flowers at left tackle, Feliciano at left guard, Shane McDermott at center and Isidora at right guard. Though Miami coach Al Golden said Thursday Gadbois, Darling and Kc McDermott continue battling for the right tackle spot, Gadbois said he's been taking a lot of snaps with Miami's first-team offense and could get the start there.
That group combined to appear in 43 games last season with 37 starts, experience that could make plenty of difference as the line protects Kaaya and works to open holes for Miami's dynamic running back, Duke Johnson, who'll play in his first game since fracturing his ankle in November against Florida State.
"I think they've worked their tails off in the summer time, spring ball, everything, all of coach Golden's offseason program. They've been fully committed," Kehoe said. "Between Shane, Jon and Ereck Flowers, our leaders, they've brought the young guys up. Players coaching players … they're fun to coach."
ccabrera@tribune.com or Twitter @ChristyChirinos.Naturally, being a science guy and all, Mr. Nye wanted to test that hypothesis. He analyzed the data — the publication last fall of “Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation” (St. Martin’s Press), the best seller he wrote while living in the city — and drew a conclusion: Yes, he can make it here all right. “The last year has been just cool,” said Mr. Nye, whose “Science Guy” educational series ran on PBS in the 1990s and collected 18 Emmys. “The opportunities that keep coming up for me have been fantastic.”
He chose his base of operations only after many consultations with friends and much observation. “Not that you couldn’t be happy in any number of places, but this is pretty nice,” Mr. Nye said. “It’s nice that it’s in a modern building. There are a lot of places on the Upper West Side where everything is broken. I love the Upper West Side, but when you’re trying to write a book, trying to take off your vagabond shoes, it’s just easier when all the plumbing works.”
Fortunately, his apartment has pipes a guy can depend on. It also has a serviceable kitchen, a good thing because Mr. Nye likes to cook; he made a spinach pizza from scratch in anticipation of a reporter’s visit. It’s soundproof, an important consideration since he’s hard at work on another book, this one about global warming. And downstairs there’s a gym where he works out and gets worked up daily.
“People take the weights from the gym,” Mr. Nye said incredulously. “They’re 20-pound things. They take them to their apartments and don’t bring them back. These are my neighbors. I’m sure I’ve been on the elevator with some of them. I want to say: ‘What goes through your mind? Do you think you’re the only person who uses the weights?’ ”
Won’t they feel remorseful when they aren’t invited to the science guy’s apartment for pizza or the other house specialty, salmon, and a chance to play with some of Mr. Nye’s favorite toys? The list is long and includes the copper and aluminum Eddy current tubes that he always has on hand to teach visitors about magnetism, the square plates or blocks for melting ice for a tutorial on thermal conductivity, and a miniature Stirling engine for a chalk talk about using heat to drive a piston.Last week, Ars introduced readers to Hajime, the vigilante botnet that infects IoT devices before blackhats can hijack them. A technical analysis published Wednesday reveals for the first time just how much technical acumen went into designing and building the renegade network, which just may be the Internet's most advanced IoT botnet.
Not your father's IoT botnet
As previously reported, Hajime uses the same list of user name and password combinations used by Mirai, the IoT botnet that spawned several record-setting denial-of-service attacks last year. Once Hajime infects an Internet-connected camera, DVR, and other Internet-of-things device, the malware blocks access to four ports known to be the most widely used vectors for infecting IoT devices. It also displays a cryptographically signed message on infected device terminals that describes its creator as "just a white hat, securing some systems."
But unlike the bare-bones functionality found in Mirai, Hajime is a full-featured package that gives the botnet reliability, stealth, and reliance that's largely unparalleled in the IoT landscape. Wednesday's technical analysis, which was written by Pascal Geenens, a researcher at security firm Radware, makes clear that the unknown person or people behind Hajime invested plenty of time and talent.
One example: Hajime doesn't rashly cycle through a preset list of the most commonly used user name-password combinations when trying to hijack a vulnerable device. Instead, it parses information displayed on the login screen to identify the device manufacturer and then tries combinations the manufacturer uses by default. When attacking a MikroTik router, for instance, Hajime attempts to log in using the user name "admin" and an empty password. That's the factory-default combination, according to the MikroTik documentation. By reducing the number of invalid passwords entered into the login page, Hajime lowers the chances of being locked out or blacklisted.
Also, in stark contrast to Mirai and its blackhat botnet competitors, Hajime goes to great lengths to maintain resiliency. It uses a BitTorrent-based peer-to-peer network to issue commands and updates. It also encrypts node-to-node communications. The encryption and decentralized design make Hajime more resistant to takedowns by ISPs and Internet backbone providers. After researchers from Rapidity Networks in October uncovered a flaw in the encryption implemented in an earlier version of Hajime, a Hajime developer updated the botnet software to fix it.
Here is a full list of features:
It changes the telnet brute force sequence of credentials depending on the platform it is trying to exploit
It is capable of infecting ARRIS modems using the password-of-the-day “backdoor” with the default seed as outlined here
During the infection process, it is able to detect the platform and work its way around missing download commands such as ‘wget’ through the use of a loader stub ‘.s’
The loader stub is dynamically generated using hex encoded strings based on handcrafted assembly programs that are optimized for each supported platform. The IP address and port number of the loader are patched in the binary upon dynamically generating the loader stub
The loader from which the malware is downloaded does not have to be the node that is performing the infection. Hajime has a way of detecting the reachability of the infecting device, and if its loader service port is not available from the Internet it will use another node from its network that is known to be reachable to download the initial malware binary
It uses a trackerless torrent network for command and control (C2) message exchange
It uses the torrent network to share and update itself and its extension module(s) to/from peers
To minimize the required ports and TCP sockets, it uses the uTP BitTorrent protocol instead of just TCP in torrent transfers – uTP implements in-order delivery and reliable connectivity on top of UDP and only requires one single socket and UDP/port for all DHT and torrent communications
All torrent exchanges are encrypted and signed using public and private keys
The scan and load extension module has the capability to perform UPnP-IGD and punch pin-holes in gateway devices to expose any ports it requires making it effective also from inside the homes
The analysis is based on a collection of vulnerable devices or simulated devices Geenens maintained inside a special laboratory. During the five weeks that Geenens observed his honeypot, Hajime attempted almost 15,000 hijacks from more than 12,000 unique IP addresses scattered all over the world. For now, the greyhat Hajime is outstripping the blackhat IoT botnets in features, robustness, and possibly even the number of infected devices. It wouldn't be surprising, however, if new blackhat versions catch up in the next year or two.
"If Hajime is a glimpse into what the future of IoT botnets looks like, I certainly hope the IoT industry gets its act together and starts seriously considering securing existing and new products," Geenens wrote in a separate post. "If not, our connected hopes and futures might depend on... grey hat vigilantes to purge the threat the hard way."Justice Department Looking To Change The Law That Made It Impossible To Serve Megaupload
from the but-of-course dept
The Department of Justice recommends amendments to Rule 4 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to permit the effective service of a summons on a foreign organization that has no agent or principal place of business within the United States. We view the proposed amendments to be necessary in order to effectively prosecute foreign organizations that engage in violations of domestic criminal law.
First, we recommend that Rule 4 be amended to remove the requirement that a copy of the summons be sent to the organization's last known mailing address within the district or principal place of business within the United States. Second, we recommend that Rule 4 be amended to provide the means to serve a summons upon an organization located outside the United States. The proposed amendments are necessary to ensure that organizations that commit domestic offenses are not able to avoid liability through the simple expedients of declining to maintain an agent, place of business and mailing address within the United States.
Accordingly, the United States maybe faced with the anomalous result that a private civil litigant will be able to pursue an action against an organization while the government remains helpless to vindicate the laws of the United States through a corresponding criminal proceeding.
Another example is provided by a pending case, United States v. Dotcom.... A grand jury returned an indictment against foreign organization Megaupload Limited and other defendants on racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering charges. In response, Megaupload Limited — a foreign organization that has an extensive presence in the United States (it allegedly leased more than 1,000 servers in the United States, facilitated the distribution of illegally reproduced works throughout the United States, and has caused damages in excess of $500 million to victims) — has specially appeared and argued that it is immune from prosecution in the United States simply because it does not have an agent or mailing address in the United States: "Megaupload does not have an office in the United States, nor has it had one previously. Service of a criminal summons on Megaupload is therefore impossible, which forecloses the government from prosecuting Megaupload."
This one is a bit old, but it appears that nothing's happened on it yet. cosmicwonderful alerts us to the fact that, back in October, the DOJ asked the federal courts to amend the rules on serving criminal complaints to foreign companies. As you may recall, the Justice Department ran into a bit of a hiccup when the courts first realized that Megaupload is a foreign corporation with no US address, and that the federal rules on issuing an arrest warrant or summons requires that a copy be sent to "the organization's last known address within the district or to its principal place of business elsewhere in the United States."But what if there is no business in the US? That's what the DOJ and Megaupload have been fighting about in the courts, though the courts have (so far) said that the DOJ can proceed. Still, with this requested amendment, the DOJ makes it clear it doesn't want to run into this issue again.While most of the request for the amendment focuses on a ruling in a case involving Chinese espionage via a Chinese firm called Pangang, Megaupload and Kim Dotcom do get a mention. The DOJ first notes how unfair it seems that it can't unleash its powers on foreign companies:And then discusses Megaupload in a footnote:I wouldn't be surprised to see this amendment eventually go through, though it still does seem somewhat questionable to think that the US government can bring criminal charges against a foreign company with no physical presence within the US.
Filed Under: criminal complaints, doj, foreign companies, kim dotcom, summons
Companies: megauploadThe world’s oldest serving aircraft carrier, INS Viraat, will be decommissioned on March 6. Serving the Indian Navy for the last 30 years, Virat is the last serving British-built ship in the country. While addressing the media on Monday, Vice Admiral Girish Luthra said when the ship was purchased, India had planned to use it for five years. It went on to serve for 30 years. Its decommissioning is a historic moment for the Indian Navy.
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The INS Viraat was originally commissioned by the British Navy as HMS Hermes on November 18, 1959. She was decommissioned in 1984. In 1986, India was examining a number of vessels from several countries. Finally, it decided to lay its hands on the British carrier. Soon after, it was sent to Devonport dockyard to be refitted and sold to India for a sum of $465 million. In India, it was rechristened as INS Viraat.
The ship had been given a new shape in the form of navigation radars |
Cast and VIPs should begin arriving around 6 p.m., with the program and season premiere starting at 7 p.m. The Jonas Brothers will perform live immediately following the premiere.
The first episode of Five-0’s fourth season will be broadcast the following evening (Sept. 27) on CBS.Crime rates have fallen significantly in Dayton this year, according to the latest city data. The city’s drop in crime lines up with larger national trends showing overall crime rates at historic lows in many cities.
The data show Dayton’s crime rate fell by double digits in many areas:
Violent crimes, including murder, armed robbery and aggravated assault, are down 15 percent for 2017. Property crimes, such as arson, residential burglary and theft are down 18 percent.
Chief of Operations with the Dayton Police Dept., Lt. Colonel Matt Carper, says this is the steepest decline in crime rates the city has seen since 2011.
He says some of that decline stems from community education and outreach efforts, and organizational changes within the department.
“This past year we created a violent offender unit by realigning some resources and putting our investigators and enforcement personnel together to combat these violent crimes, so that has proven to be effective,” he says.
Other categories of crime also fell in 2017. For example, rates of forgery, vandalism and bribery dropped 28 percent for the year.
Nationally, the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law found overall 2017 year-end crime numbers are expected to drop to their lowest rates since 1990.
The preliminary report is based on police data collected from the nation’s 30 largest cities.
In a written statement, Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl called the news encouraging.
"We are hopeful this is a continuation of a longer-term trend of overall crime reduction," he says. "We are deeply grateful for all the assistance from the Dayton community, which helped to create a safer city."
The Brennan Center’s previous report analyzing crime in 2016 is available here, and a report analyzing historical crime trends from 1990 to 2016 is available here.ASPEN -- Stanford's Balaji Prabhakar is one of those computer scientists who has become fascinated by the networks of the physical world. After working for years on cloud computing, Prabhakar has turned his attention not to social networks, but to "societal networks," transportation in particular.
His big idea is to create "frequent commuter programs" in which people who travel on public transit would be rewarded for patronizing the system varying amounts depending on when and how far they travel. Prabhakar thinks the system could help create greater public transit usage and simultaneously decrease congestion. And he's deploying behavioral economics to transform the small monetary rewards a city could offer into something more. They tried a pilot program with Infosys in Bangalore and are rolling out a larger program with Singapore soon.
Here's a lightly edited and mildly condensed version of what he told me this afternoon:
The frequent commuter program has two goals. One is to increase people's loyalty to the public transport system. We want people to be disloyal to their cars, to cheat on their cars. And the second major goal is to decongest the peak time trains and buses. The problem is that it is unpleasant to take a trip during the peak time. If we could achieve both goals with the frequent commuter project, it would be great. The nice thing about this project is that it is going to do exactly what the airline miles do. You take a 10 kilometer trip, you get 10 credits. And Singapore can measure the kilometers. But if you make that same trip in the off-peak time, you'll get 30 credits. This creates new bonding between you and the system. People don't think of the indignity of taking a three-stop trip on their preferred airline versus a direct cheaper flight sometimes. In fact, they see the angle as, "I'm earning more miles." What are these credits worth? We have some dollars to give away, but since we don't have a whole lot of dollars. Instead, what we're going to do is create this microraffle method of paying out. It leverages this idea in economics that in games with low stakes players are more risk taking.Rand Paul made a visit to another unlikely state this week, continuing his strategy of frequenting areas that other presidential candidates write off.
Toward this end, Paul found himself in an Essex Junction barn in Vermont, talking to an enthusiastic crowd that so far has only had access to a presidential candidate who also happens to be their senator.
According to the Burlington Free Press, Republican National Committeewoman Susie Hudson introduced Paul at a fundraiser benefitting the Vermont GOP by saying, “Please join me in welcoming to Vermont a presidential candidate that is not Bernie Sanders,” to crowd applause.
Many observers felt that although Paul has dropped in polls nationally, he’s the type of candidate the party needs to be competitive. “Rand is the kind of Republican who can win in the Northeast,” said State Representative Paul Dame, who represents the area Paul visited.
Paul made his case for why a candidate who focuses on an inclusive message has broad appeal in a general election. As he explained to media prior to his speech, “If Republicans run the same kind of candidate that we’ve always run, at least in the last several cycles, they can’t compete in some of these areas.”
Paul repeatedly said that he’s a different kind of Republican, a tagline he has used to differentiate himself from frontrunners Donald Trump and Jeb Bush. He also focused on the fact that he has support among independent voters, young people, and minorities—groups key to winning the general election, especially in blue states like Vermont.
Paul made a constitutional argument to the Vermont crowd that has become a staple of his campaign. “If you like the Second Amendment, you’re not going to keep it unless you have the Fourth Amendment,” he said.
After Vermont, Paul continued his trip across New England, where he’ll be making stops in Maine and, of course, key presidential primary state New Hampshire.Jody Hice has done it! He’s the new champion of the GOP’s World Cup of batshit crazy. Hice is like the Republican version of a right-wing Frankenstein, featuring the worst elements of the GOP jammed into one person.
So who is Jody Hice? Well, he could be the next congressional representative from Georgia’s 10th district. Hice came in first in a seven-person field in the March GOP primary but didn’t win by a big enough margin to avoid a run off. Now he’s battling Mike Collins in the July 22 run off. The victor will almost certainly win the Congressional seat in this conservative district.
What caught my eye about Hice was his comments: “Most people think Islam is a religion, it’s not...it’s a complete geopolitical structure and, as such, does not deserve First Amendment protection.”
It’s weird to hear Hice, a Baptist minister, say Islam is not a religion when Jesus, Abraham, and Moses are all very important to Muslims. I’m no expert on Baptists, but I thought those three were pretty big with them, too.
In any event, Hice rails against Islam, claiming it’s more of a political organization than a religion. Where did I hear that before? Oh yeah, from every Islamophobe.
But what makes Hice’s statement crazily ironic is that on his campaign website, he boasts of joining with other pastors in standing up to the IRS when they threatened to remove their churches’ tax exempt status if they discussed politics from the pulpit. But “Hice took his bold stand by formally endorsing a candidate in a Sunday message and sending a copy of it to the IRS.”
You see, Hice used his religious pulpit to advocate not only political positions, but to formally endorse a political candidate. So while he denounces Islam for being politically focused, he brags about using his religious position to advocate for political issues and candidates.
But calling Hice simply an Islamophobe would be unfair. He’s truly so much more.
On women, Hice commented that he has no problem if they seek elected office, as long as they do so with the permission of their husbands: ''If the woman's within the authority of her husband, I don't see a problem.”
On gays, Hice claimed in his 2012 book, It's Now or Never: A Call to Reclaim America, that he uncovered a gay manifesto. He claimed this blueprint for the homosexual domination of America revealed their plans to “sodomize your sons” by seducing them “in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms,” until “your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. “
The problem is that what Hice was citing was a satirical column by gay writer Michael Swift, who was clearly mocking the idea of a scary, gay agenda. Once again, Hice confirms my theory that people on the far right have zero sense of humor, except when it comes to making jokes about, you know, Muslims and gays.
Last year during a radio show, Hice claimed that gays have a tendency to lie and be violent. He also compared being gay to alcoholism, which it must be noted he did way before Rick Perry said the same thing two weeks ago. Could Hice be writing speeches for Perry, or did Perry pull a Rand Paul and plagiarize from Hice? We may never really know.
Okay, so Hice is anti-gay, anti-Muslim, and anti-women. But could there be more? Do I even have to answer that?
Hice stated that the horrific Sandy Hook elementary school shooting that resulted in 20 school children and six adults being shot to death was a consequence of America “kicking God out of the public square” when it ended mandatory state sponsored Christian prayers on schools.
And in his book, Hice compared advocates for women’s reproductive rights to Hitler and the Nazis.
Did I mention that Hice tied for first place in the GOP primary?!
Hice’s GOP run-off opponent, Mike Collins, responded to my inquiry about Hice’s assertion that Muslims shouldn’t be afforded First Amendment rights by saying in part: “All Americans are afforded rights under the First Amendment, regardless of faith. I do not agree with any of the divisive and demeaning statements Jody Hice has made, this one included.”
That’s great to hear. But Collins seems to be alone. I haven't heard RNC Chair Reince Priebus or other GOP leaders denounce Hice.
In fact, Erick Erickson, a Fox News contributor and editor of the conservative website Red State, not only endorsed Hice in his June 19 column, but also boasted that he attended and spoke at one of Hice’s recent fundraisers. Erickson went on to write: “I am proud to support him...I am happy to encourage people to support him.”
I wonder what Erickson is most proud of? Could it be Hice’s anti-gay comments, his ant-Muslim, or anti-women ones? And just so it’s clear, Hice's statements noted above have all been well documented in the media before Erickson endorsed Hice.
Look, Hice has every right to spew his hate from the pulpit to those who chose to attend his services. But let’s hope he never has a chance to bring his hateful crap to the US Congress. Congress is bad enough as it is.Police Scotland is considering the future of 58 police stations across the country as part of a review of its estate.
The buildings potentially under threat include those in Carnoustie, Broughty Ferry, Leith, Hawick, Oban, Campbeltown, Port Glasgow, Ayr, Hamilton and Larkhall.
Details of the plans emerged through a freedom of information request from BBC Scotland following revelations last month that a question mark hung over eight stations in Dumfries and Galloway.
The force said some of the existing estate no longer fits the demands of policing in 2016.
Last month, Scottish Police Federation general secretary Calum Steele claimed decades of under-investment in infrastructure had left the force with a ''crumbling police estate''.
Gordon Crossan, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme: "Many of these stations are already obsolete, they are expensive to run, they have limited facilities, so we're reviewing that to see what could provide a better service for the public for the money that they give us to deliver policing.
"I think the big thing we need to really look at is the footfall - 95% or more of calls to police now are done by phone or via the internet."
In 2014, the closure of dozens of police station front counters was widely criticised by opposition politicians.
An estate strategy published last year by the force said more effective use of its buildings "may not result in Police Scotland being located in less premises, but it should reduce floor space occupied by 10% to 25%".
The force estimated the move could generate annual revenue savings of between £5 million and £18 million, with the potential to raise between £22 million and £34 million through property sales.
Assistant Chief Constable Andrew Cowie said: "The existing estate has evolved over the course of the last 100 years and in some cases it no longer fits the demands of 2016, or the needs of communities. It makes little sense to maintain old and expensive buildings when smaller, more collaborative options may be available."
He stressed that any future decisions will follow local consultation with communities.
"This is about enhancing the service we deliver - not doing less," he added.
"Having buildings across Scotland from which we can operate more effectively will ensure police officers are available in the right time and the right place whilst continuing to deliver a quality service to local communities."
But opposition MSPs have voiced concern, with Conservative community safety spokesman Oliver Mundell saying: "When police station front counters were closed a couple of years ago, it was promised that police stations would stay open.
"Police stations are not like bank branches - it's not about how many customers are using them, it's about ensuring a safe and reassuring presence in the community.
"There is hard evidence that dealing directly with a police officer is still people's favoured way of reporting a crime.
"Ripping police stations out of communities is going to make that even harder, and erode the police presence in communities right across the country."
Labour justice spokeswoman Claire Baker said: "Under the SNP, Police Scotland faces a £27 million revenue budget overspend. SNP ministers can no longer bury their head in the sand and claim that this will not have an impact on local policing.
"The overspend is forcing Police Scotland's hand and the potential closure of local stations is just the next step for a force desperately trying to make ends meet.
"We need to have a serious debate about what sort of police force we want in Scotland, yet under the SNP all we are getting is cuts and excuses."
John Finnie, justice spokesman for the Scottish Greens, said: "While many people do use phone and the internet to interact with police, there is still a significant number of people - many elderly and vulnerable - who do not. Accessibility is paramount."
A Scottish Government spokesman said: "Decisions around operational policing are a matter for Police Scotland working in partnership with individual communities across the country.
"This Government has made clear that we wish to see the community focus of policing further strengthened."Spread the love
By Lawyer Michael Minns | US-Observer
Federal grand jury indicts Judge Diane Kroupa and husband Robert Fackler on charges of tax evasion, obstruction of a tax audit, conspiracy and making and subscribing false tax returns.
USA – It doesn’t get any more blue-blooded, mixed with legal aristocracy than the 500 Lawyer firm of Faegre & Benson in Minneapolis. If you want legal work done, if money is no object, and perhaps you want a lawyer connected with the Republican Establishment… look no further. Faberge and Benson is the largest law firm in Minneapolis. Now, if you found yourself in the crosshairs of the IRS from 1995 to 2001, you would have sought out the top Tax Lawyer in the firm, Diane Kroupa.
Judge Diane Kroupa Judge Diane Kroupa
Diane graduated from Georgetown University in 1978, got her Juris Doctorate in 1981, worked for the Legislation and Regulations Division of the Office of Chief Counsel, where the top IRS lawyer, the Chief Counsel, makes suggestions on what the tax laws should be and drafts the regulations, which create forms like the 1040. From there she worked at the Tax Court and was then an attorney clerk for Judge Joel Gerber in 1984. So it made sense that Faegre & Benson would want to sign up this bright, shining star, who also had political connections with the Tax Court. Who better to hire if a tax-payer found him or herself on the wrong side of the IRS facing an assessment in Tax Court? All those options were taken away from taxpayers though when President George W. Bush discovered this legal light and appointed her to a fifteen-year term with the United States Tax Court on June 13, 2003.
Meanwhile, Judge Kroupa’s husband, Robert (Bob) Fackler went about his job running Grassroots Consulting. Grassroots Consulting is a lobby firm. Let’s say you were a big company and your tax bill was too high. Maybe you would like a credit. The man to see might be Bob Fackler, a registered lobbyist whose wife happens to know a thing or two about taxes.
Judge Kroupa and Bob lived happily in their nearly million dollar home in Minneapolis, but they also had a rental house in Maryland so that Judge Kroupa could attend to her duties as a tax court judge and sit on cases in Washington D.C.
Now when you leave a job as a senior tax partner with the largest law firm in Minneapolis to do public service … to sit as a tax court judge, you are going to take a huge pay cut. Unless all the cars are paid off, and the kids are out of school, you are going to have to make due on the salary and benefits of a mere servant of the people. In Judge Kroupa’s case that would be in the $200,000 range, plus benefits. Thank goodness, at 60, all her kids were out of the house and grown and graduated from college. At least the family could rely on an extra million bucks over the years from Bobby’s little lobbyist business. “But things were still pretty tight.”
Fortunately, Kroupa had learned a few things about tax deductions from her decades practicing tax law and sitting on the tax court bench.
So, they allegedly deducted vacations to Alaska, Australia, Bahamas, China, England, Greece, Hawaii, Mexico, and Thailand as business expenses. Can you deduct your home groceries, and your laundry?
Bobby had a different problem with his lobbyist business. When he took clients out to eat, he would deduct the expenses. Makes sense doesn’t it? The problem, according to the government, is that he also got reimbursed for all those meals by his client. So if you don’t pay the expense at all, if your client pays it, can you still deduct it? Probably not. The dispute with the feds on these deductions is a little under a half a million dollars.
Some of the non-reported stuff will be even harder to defend. In 2010, Judge Krupa received $44,520 for the sale of real estate in South Dakota. Apparently this money did not appear on her 2010 tax return. Lots of people make mistakes, forgetting various things, and for a man and wife as well off as she and her husband were, it’s not as big a mistake as it would be for say, most everyone else who might not even make that much in a year. Still, as a Federal Tax Judge it is really hard to believe she just forgot to put it on her tax return. How many tax payers appeared in her court over the decade-plus that she sat on the bench and got to “leave off” a sale of real estate. If she had no explanation at all for the $44k that might be better than the one the IRS says she gave her tax preparer… that the money was from an unrelated inheritance. Another allegation in the indictment is that she and her husband didn’t pay $33,000 they had agreed to pay back to Bank of America. Added to the slight against paying a just debt, the judge and her husband claimed that the nonpayment of the debt, usually taxable, wasn’t in their case because they were indigent.
Judge Kroupa and her lobbyist husband Bob Fackler informed the IRS that they had not been keeping adequate records of their business expenses. This becomes a “pretty tuff pill to swallow” when the government accuses Judge Kroupa and lobbyist husband Bob Fackler of shorting their income by “approximately $1,000,000.” Coming from a judge who issued $25,000 sanction orders for bad conduct, stings a little. Taxpayers in Judge Kroupa’s court had to document their expenses.
Most tax professionals know that you can’t write off your homestead or residence. You can write off your office expenses. Judge Kroupa used a residence in DC, as her home, when she handled tax cases. However, to the IRS and to their tax preparer, Judge Kroupa claimed that it was a DC office. Since the judge has chambers and office provided for her by the taxpayers she can’t deduct for another “office” in DC. The IRS claims that Judge Kroupa falsely claimed she did not use the home as her residence.
One of the conditions for her bail is that “she continue with existing mental health therapy and medications management.”
In other words, the Judge who sat in Judgement for 11 years on American Taxpayers, claims she committed income tax evasion because she was nuts.
The Judge has a politically powerful white collar defense lawyer who does not show a single not guilty criminal tax jury finding on his website. Maybe modesty kept him from putting it up. Maybe he hasn’t tried a criminal tax defense case in front of a jury. Her husband’s defense attorney doesn’t show a single criminal tax not guilty verdict on his web page. Maybe he is too modest, or possibly his clients are not looking for trials but looking for favors? Maybe they think it’s too plebeian to talk about their jury trial victories. A quick google search didn’t pull up any published trials. These guys have contacts … and power… and they are not going to go to trial. They are already setting Judge Kroupa up for a settlement, and mercy, because the Judge has some mental disorders and a “slight” drinking problem. No idea about the husband. He has not yet shown any cards… except that; his lawyer would no more try this case before a jury than Isis would submit to American jurisdiction.
If Judge Kroupa and her husband are convicted on all counts they could spend more than the next ten years in a Federal Prison. It would be their new home, and not their office and they would not be entitled to deduct the cost of living there. Fortunately, as has been for the last decade of their life, most of their expenses would be picked up by the Taxpayers.
The indictment was issued April 4, 2016. The indictment is only an accusation. This author plans on being there for the sentencing and reporting on it. All citizens, including judges are presumed innocent unless otherwise proven.President Trump's replacement for former national security adviser Michael Flynn represents a stark new direction, both in policy and approach.
Where Flynn was widely seen as a Trump loyalist whose extreme views mirrored the president’s own, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster has a reputation for speaking his mind to superiors — and has publicly staked out positions that are in direct conflict not only with Flynn, but with Trump himself.
Widely thought to be one of the Army’s premier thinkers — he’s been called a “warrior scholar” — McMaster made the threat posed by Russia a central focus in his most recent role as the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center. He has publicly warned lawmakers about the threat posed by Moscow.
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McMaster has been cautious not to conflate the religion of Islam with jihadist terrorism. In a 2016 speech at the Virginia Military Institute, he accused the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) of “[using] a perverted interpretation of religion.”
Flynn, by contrast, argued in his 2016 book that the U.S. is in a “world war” with radical Islam and has long been shadowed by suspicion that he’s too close to Russia.
In 2015, the retired lieutenant general gave a paid speech in Moscow at an event where he was seated with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Last week, Flynn was forced to resign after it was revealed that he misled Vice President Pence about the content of a pre-inauguration phone call he had with the Russian ambassador.
Where Flynn was known as a firebrand ideologue, McMaster is considered an intellectual and a strategist who is willing to challenge conventional wisdom.
“[McMaster is] a combat commander. Flynn was a military intelligence officer and primarily a staff officer — those are two different personality types,” said retired Lt. Gen. Dave Barno, who has known McMaster for years. “I don’t know if I would go as far as to call him the anti-Flynn, but they’re very different guys.”
The selection of McMaster, along with a handful of public statements made by other high-ranking administration officials over the weekend, could give ammunition to Trump supporters who say fears that the president will suppress intelligence that doesn’t fit his worldview are overblown.
The president has been engaged for months in a public feud with the intelligence community that has its roots in a multi-agency assessment that Russia attempted to interfere in the U.S. presidential election on Trump’s behalf — analysis that the president has begrudgingly and only partially acknowledged.
Critics have feared that Trump would allow political loyalists like chief strategist Steve Bannon to operate a kind of “shadow council” that would make pivotal national security decisions. The former Breitbart News executive was recently named a member of the National Security Council principals committee, seemingly confirming the concerns of those who worried that Bannon would be influential on national security.
Still, McMaster was not the president’s first choice for the position — or even his second. Retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward rejected Trump’s offer to fill the spot left vacant by Flynn’s resignation.
McMaster reportedly was not even on the president’s radar until Sen. Tom Cotton Thomas (Tom) Bryant CottonHillicon Valley: Senators urge Trump to bar Huawei products from electric grid | Ex-security officials condemn Trump emergency declaration | New malicious cyber tool found | Facebook faces questions on treatment of moderators Key senators say administration should ban Huawei tech in US electric grid Inviting Kim Jong Un to Washington MORE (R-Ark.) suggested him after Flynn’s resignation.
Questions continue to swirl about the degree of autonomy and influence he will wield in the White House.
The same views that have earned him praise from outside the administration could lead McMaster to disputes with the president, particularly on the issue of Russia. Trump has repeatedly called for warmer relations with the Kremlin.
“Ultimately, the president's always been the decider, whether it's Russia or any other issue,” press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday.
McMaster has a reputation for standing up to his superiors — even when it means damaging his career. He was twice passed over for promotion to the rank of brigadier general in the mid-2000s, reportedly thanks to his willingness to ruffle feathers in pursuit of his ultimately successful 2005 counterinsurgency campaign that took back the northern Iraq town of Tal Afar.
It wasn’t until former Gen. David Petraeus rallied support for McMaster that the star was pinned.
“Knowing his personality well, he’s not going to have any problem going into the president and telling him things that he may not be aware of, things that he might not agree with, things that he may think are problematic from the president’s worldview,” Barno said. “H.R. will bring that into the room.”
In fact, a number of high-ranking Trump officials over the weekend gave public statements that directly contradicted the president on key foreign policy issues, suggesting that Trump may defer to more experienced officials on matters of foreign policy.
Defense Secretary James Mattis said in Brussels Thursday that the U.S. is “not in a position” to collaborate militarily with Russia — despite calls from the president for the U.S. and Moscow to team up in the fight against ISIS.
Both Pence and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley have in recent days insisted that the U.S. is fully committed to NATO, after Trump publicly argued that the alliance was “obsolete.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also took a harder line with Moscow than his boss, insisting after a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Russia must honor its commitments to “de-escalate the violence in Ukraine.”
McMaster literally wrote the book on speaking truth to power. His 1997 book, “Dereliction of Duty,” — based on his Ph.D. thesis at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and published while he was still on active duty — blamed the tragedy of Vietnam on military brass who caved to political pressure.
McMaster criticized President Lyndon B. Johnson’s security council meetings as “pro forma affairs in which the president endeavored to build consensus for decisions already made,” condemning “the president’s unwillingness to entertain divergent views on the subject of Vietnam.”
“He wanted advisors who would tell him what he wanted to hear,” McMaster wrote.
The appointment of McMaster drew instant praise from across the ideological spectrum, especially from jumpy Russia hawks on Capitol Hill. Sen. John McCain John Sidney McCainGOP lobbyists worry Trump lags in K Street fundraising Mark Kelly kicks off Senate bid: ‘A mission to lift up hardworking Arizonans’ Gabbard hits back at Meghan McCain after fight over Assad MORE (R-Ariz.), who has been an outspoken critic of Trump’s national security apparatus, called McMaster an “outstanding” choice.
“I give President Trump great credit for this decision, as well as his national security cabinet choices,” he said in a statement.
“McMaster is solid choice, bright & strategic,” the House Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff Adam Bennett SchiffHouse Democrats file legislation to ensure Mueller report released Hannity echoes Bill Maher, invites Schiff to appear on show Curtain rises on 3 days of Cohen drama MORE (Calif.), tweeted Monday. “Wrote the book on importance of standing up to POTUS. May need to show same independence here.”
As an active-duty general, McMaster will require Senate confirmation to retain his three-star rank as he becomes national security adviser.Tommy Bertollo’s family and friends are looking for him. And they need your help.
Bertollo, 35, left his home in New Jersey in July and drove to California “on a whim” according to a family friend.
While his family believes Bertollo is suffering from mental illness, Joe Kennedy, the family friend, said they weren’t too concerned because “we had been in contact with him on a pretty regular basis even though it would be a week or two between contact.”
“Fast forward to today and we haven’t been able to get in touch with him since early September,” Kennedy said in an email to WEHOville. “His phone doesn’t appear to be on anymore and it goes right to voicemail but he doesn’t have his mailbox set up. His car was towed from Cynthia Street on October 2nd and that’s the last lead we’ve had.”
Bertollo is about 6’1″ tall and weighed about 220 to 230 pounds when his family last saw him, although he’s likely to have lost some weight. “He was last seen by a friend with a full beard,” Kennedy said, “and he is an avid skate boarder so if there are any skate parks around that would be a good place to suggest looking at.”
Kennedy said that two friends of Bertollo are coming to Los Angeles today to look for him.
Anyone having information about having seen Tommy Bertollo or his possible whereabouts is invited to contact WEHOville at Henry@WEHOville.com and we will pass along the information to his family and friends.Today marks an historic event for Team Property as this is the first time the team will be represented by female progamers. We have for a long time looked for female teams or players that share our competitive spirit to win championships and this lineup is the definition of that. All the girls are training hard with only one goal in mind to win championships and compete at the highest level.
Lineup Team Property CS:GO Female
Therese “Szanto” Szanto
Jennie “yeahnie #27” Andersson
Matilda ‘’Rambolina’’ Gustavsson
Sandra ”Steelya” Stålnacke
Angel “Mouse” Malihiolzakerni
“We are five girls with different past experiences in CS and we are all dedicated and share the same goal. It’s hard to build up a full-swedish female team but we are lucky to have found eachother to play with, and also having Team Property by our side. We are happy to have joined Team Property and thankful for them giving us a chance to achieve our goals and dreams together. Right now our focus is on the female tournaments and Copenhagen Games where we will be participating and fight for first place.” Angel “Mouse” Malihiolzakerni player
“This marks the first time Team Property moves into female competitive eSports and I truly could not be more pleased and happy with the players and the lineup as a whole. We will give the team the resources they need and a platform from which they can deliver great results. Keep cheering us on as we challenge the world elite.” Aron Larsson CEO Team Property
“Im excited that we finally are able to announce the recruitment of our first female CS:GO-lineup. Especially since it consists of these five talented players. The players have great attitude and are constantly pushing themselves to improve, so I truly believe that they will prove themselves on the competitive scene. The players and I are looking forward for the upcoming events and to achieve our goal of winning championships.” Daniel Kauppinen Manager CS:GO FemaleSouth Korea president Park Geun-hye impeached, could face criminal proceedings
Updated
In an historic ruling, South Korea's Constitutional Court has formally removed impeached President Park Geun-hye from office over a corruption scandal that has plunged the country into political turmoil, worsened an already-serious national divide and led to calls for sweeping reforms.
Key points: Park Geun-hye faces possible criminal proceedings, first South Korean president forced from office
Fears that Ms Park's impeacment could spark violence between supporters and opponents
Weeks of rallies involving millions of protesters created huge pressure on Ms Park
It was a stunning fall for Ms Park, the daughter of a dictator who rode a lingering conservative nostalgia for her father to a big win in 2012, only to see her presidency descend into scandal.
Park Geun-hye's downfall: July 27, 2016: A TV news report kicks off a series of media exposés ultimately revealing that Park's longtime friend, Choi Soon-sil, received classified government information such as drafts of presidential speeches.
October 25: Park publicly acknowledges her close ties with Choi, and says Choi helped her on speeches and public relations issues during her 2012 presidential campaign and after her 2013 inauguration.
October 27: State prosecutors launch a special investigation team to look into the scandal.
October 29: The first of what becomes a series of large anti-Park rallies is held in Seoul.
October 30: Choi returns to South Korea from Germany and tells reporters two days later she "committed a sin that deserves death." on he way to the prosecutor's office.
November 20: In indicting two former Park aides and Choi, state prosecutors say they believe the president was "collusively involved" in criminal activities by the suspects, who allegedly bullied companies into giving tens of millions of dollars to foundations and businesses Choi controlled and enabled Choi to interfere with state affairs. Park's lawyer calls the accusations groundless.
December 3: Opposition lawmakers formally launch an attempt to impeach Park, setting up a floor vote. Massive crowds said to number more than 2 million demonstrate across the nation calling for Park's ouster.
December 9: Lawmakers pass the impeachment bill on Park by a vote of 234 for and 56 opposed. The Constitutional Court begins preparations for Park's impeachment trial.
January 5: The Constitutional Court begins hearing arguments in Park's trial. One of Park's lawyers compares her impeachment to the "unjust" deaths of Jesus Christ and ancient Greek thinker Socrates.
January 25: A former culture minister tells court Park's office blacklisted thousands of artists deemed unfriendly to her government with an intention to deny them state support.
February 17: Lee Jae-yong, the billionaire scion of Samsung, South Korea's largest business group, is arrested over suspicions that he bribed Park and Choi in exchange for business favours.
February 22: One of Park's lawyers tells court there will be a "rebellion and blood will drench the asphalt" if the court unseats Park and she is later acquitted of her charges through a criminal proceeding. Court closes arguments five days later.
The unanimous ruling opens her up to possible criminal proceedings, and makes her South Korea's first democratically elected leader to be removed early from office since democracy in the country in the late 1980s.
The court's acting chief judge, Lee Jung-mi, said Ms Park had violated the constitution and law "throughout her term", and despite the objections of parliament and the press, she had concealed the truth and cracked down on critics.
"The removal of the claimee from office is overwhelmingly to the benefit of the protection of the constitution... We remove President Park Geun-hye from office," Ms Lee told the hearing.
Ms Park denied any wrongdoing.
South Korea must now hold an election within two months to choose Ms Park's successor.
Liberal Moon Jae-in, who lost to Ms Park in the 2012 election, currently enjoys a comfortable lead in opinion surveys.
Whoever becomes the next leader will take over a country facing a hostile North Korea, a stagnant economy and deep social and political divides.
Pre-verdict surveys showed that 70 to 80 percent of South Koreans had wanted the court to approve Ms Park's impeachment. But there have been worries that her ouster would further polarise the country and cause violence between her supporters and opponents.
Ms Park's parliamentary impeachment in December came after weeks of Saturday rallies that drew millions who wanted her resignation.
Overwhelmed by the biggest rallies in decades, the voices of Ms Park supporters were largely ignored. But they recently regrouped and have staged fierce pro-Park rallies since.
People on both sides have threatened not to accept a Constitutional Court decision that they disagree with.
One of Ms Park's lawyers told the court last month that there will be "a rebellion and blood will drench the asphalt" if Ms Park is booted from office.
Many participants at anti-Park rallies had said they would stage a "revolution" if the court rejected her impeachment.
"If Park accepts the ruling and soothes those who opposed |
on it dies. The lagoon bounded by the reef becomes murky because water circulation is restricted, and most living things that once thrived in it no longer do so.
At the end of the period of sea-level fall, the food available to you in what was once your coastal idyll has decreased by 80 percent. What do you do? History suggests that you try to grab what your neighbors have, and that, when they resist, you try to kill them. Where no other options remain, conflict becomes habitual and you have to leave your coastal location—because it has no natural defenses—and move somewhere that can be fortified.
And this seems to be the likely explanation for the establishment of Fiji’s hillforts. Sea-level fall (driven by cooling) during the A.D. 1300 Event—an event that led up to the Little Ice Age—caused a rapid and enduring food crisis along Fiji’s coasts that resulted in conflict and the movement of people into the hills, where they remained for several hundred years.
Little is known today about the hillforts, which is the main motivation for our research project, a collaboration between the Fiji Museum, the University of the South Pacific, and the University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia). We think Fijians have a right to know about this period of Fiji’s history. Yet they know very little about it, because of what happened around the time hillforts were finally abandoned in the mid-19th century. By all accounts, it was a perfect storm.
Remains of hillfort foundations, such as these rocks, can still be found across the highest parts of the Seseleka Peninsula. Patrick Nunn
By the start of the 19th century, coastal resources had recovered from the effects of the A.D. 1300 sea-level fall, thereby removing one of the main reasons for the conflict. In fact, many of the earliest written accounts of fighting in Fiji and other Pacific island groups noted its by-then ritualized nature: lots of rude language, many feints and bluff attacks, but relatively few casualties.
Then Europeans arrived on Fiji’s shores, inadvertently introducing diseases like measles and influenza, which the Indigenous people had never before experienced. Their lack of resistance led to epidemics; on some islands, it has been estimated that around 80 percent of the Indigenous people died as a result. Entire villages were abandoned, giving European settlers the notion that the country was nearly empty, which encouraged land “purchases” for negligible amounts. The remaining Indigenous people questioned their traditional belief systems, leaving the path clear for Christian missionaries to convert almost everyone within a few decades. Fijians were taught to forget their “heathen” past, especially the time most recent in their minds, which was the period of conflict manifested by the hillfort period. And that is why hardly anyone remembers anything about it today.
There is strong evidence linking the profound societal changes that occurred at the start of Fiji’s hillfort period to climate change. But only solid chronologies of climate change and societal change from places like Seseleka can ultimately prove that past human societies in island countries like Fiji were fundamentally and involuntarily reconfigured by climate change. What happened then is similar to what many people—residents and scientists alike—observe happening on Pacific islands today. Sea level is rising, inundating coastal settlements and their food gardens, leading to any number of doomsday scenarios for the future.
There is no question that island societies are unusually exposed to the manifestations of climate change, especially sea-level change. In our presently globalized world, it is unlikely that “adaptation” will involve conflict so severe that people will need to rebuild and occupy hillforts. Yet the ruins stand today, craggy sentinels towering over the people of the lowlands, stark reminders of the fragility of life on islands in the middle of the world’s oceans.
This article was republished on Slate.This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As in all recent elections, Ohio is a crucial state to win for either presidential candidate. Once again, Ohio is at the center of charges of systematic suppression of the African-American vote. Investigative reporter Greg Palast discovered that some early voters in the Buckeye State received the wrong ballots. He filed this report for Democracy Now!
GREG PALAST: Hallelujah! Finally, it’s Election Day in Ohio. Union workers and rural evangelicals are on the road driving to the polls. Ohio will probably pick our president today, Tuesday, but Democrats hope the election was decided on Sunday.
This is Greg Palast reporting. Here, in the economically wounded heart of Dayton, Ohio, I’m going to church, because Sunday is “Souls to the Polls” day.
Today is Souls to the Polls day?
GIRL: Yes.
GREG PALAST: Souls to the Polls day, when thousands of African Americans in Ohio will go from Sunday church to vote early. While most other Ohioans will vote on Tuesday, the clear majority of black folk in Ohio will vote early. This is the Freedom Faith Missionary Baptist Church, and they will load into the church van to take their singing souls to the polls. Terra Williams, a church member and leader of the Souls to the Polls movement, explains why African Americans vote on Sunday.
TERRA WILLIAMS: Well, because typically on Election Day, everyone works. Particularly, most African Americans are probably working two or three jobs, and it’s harder for them to get off that particular day. So, early voting hours for our community was very essential, especially weekend voting hours, because that gives us a time to get out and vote. Most of—most individuals are off on the weekends. And so, for us, in our community, it’s easier for us to vote early on the weekends.
GREG PALAST: We drive behind the church group to downtown Dayton, to the early voting station. And here’s what we found: a line of nearly 1,000 voters snaking out of the state building and out into the parking lot. What happened? The Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted cut black church day voting from four Sundays to just one, and just for four hours, and at just one polling place for all of Dayton, all of Montgomery County.
So, do you think that this is a good way to do it, where they just have one polling place for early voting?
DAYTON EARLY VOTER 1: Well, that’s probably not a good way, but that’s the way it is now. So, we work with it.
GREG PALAST: You know, it could be an hour or two in line. Are you up to it?
DAYTON EARLY VOTER 1: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
GREG PALAST: Can I ask who you’re going to vote for?
DAYTON EARLY VOTER 1: No.
GREG PALAST: After hours of wait, voters were herded into this auditorium, where they were treated to a slide show. The government crowed that on Tuesday, the day when most whites vote, there will be 176 polling locations. Finally, 10 by 10, groups of voters were sent to get their ballots. But wait, these weren’t ballots. These were applications for absentee ballots. What’s going on here? Absentee ballots are not at all the same as a regular ballot. In U.S. elections, between one and three million absentee ballots are rejected by voting officials, effectively thrown in the garbage. Voting on an absentee ballot is like playing bingo with your vote.
ELECTION OFFICIAL: Number 175. Number 175 and under can head up the steps. Stay to the left as you exit, 175 and under.
GREG PALAST: But to reassure voters—or to fool them—this big notice was projected on the giant screen. “Early voting equals absentee voting.” Oh, no, it doesn’t. Not according to voting rights attorney Robert Fitrakis, professor at Columbus State University. I show the professor the absentee ballot form handed out at early voting and ask if this was legitimate or a common practice.
ROBERT FITRAKIS: Absolutely uncommon. And I would suspect it’s either done out of incompetence for convenience or to defraud people of their vote. As you can see, on this form, you have to fill it out. And the secretary of state, Jon Husted, has come up with the notion that if you leave anything blank, even though it’s irrelevant, your absentee ballot can be tossed.
GREG PALAST: So, in other words, these voters could lose their votes.
ROBERT FITRAKIS: Absolutely. Jon Husted, as the Republican secretary of state, really has decided that he’s going to deliver for the Republican Party, that the only way they can win is by throwing as many people as they can off the registration rolls and making it as inconvenient and difficult as possible to vote, particularly during early voting. It’s outrageous! It’s a systematic attempt to eliminate the hardcore base of the Democratic Party. And they’re getting away with it.
GREG PALAST: When you say the “hardcore base,” is there a racial element?
ROBERT FITRAKIS: Oh, absolutely. It’s the new Jim Crow.
GREG PALAST: Back at the early voting station, we asked our souls from Missionary Baptist how they did at the polls.
UNIDENTIFIED: How did your voting go, guys?
DAYTON EARLY VOTER 2: It went great. Thank you very much.
UNIDENTIFIED: Thank you to you, too.
DAYTON EARLY VOTER 2: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED: Did it all went—did it all go smooth for you guys?
DAYTON EARLY VOTER 2: Yes, it did.
UNIDENTIFIED: Beautiful.
DAYTON EARLY VOTER 2: All right. Bye. Bye-bye.
GREG PALAST: I didn’t have the heart to tell them, those ballots may never get counted. This is Greg Palast in Ohio at early voting—or early voting suppression—for Democracy Now!
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Greg Palast, author of the New York Times bestseller, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits. He will be joining us live from Ohio tonight for our special election broadcast from 7:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. You can tune in on television, radio, watch a live video stream online at democracynow.org. Democracy Now! will be looking at claims of voter intimidation and harassment. If you have photos and video, we’ll be following the hashtag #dnvote, #dnvote. Check our website for details, democracynow.org.One of the great cycling races, the Giro d'Italia, or Tour of Italy, concludes its 100th edition on Sunday in Milan.
Riders race across the island of Sicily, cross over to the mainland and then follow Italy's boot from the heel to the top.
Eighty years ago, an Italian named Gino Bartali won the race. In all, the renowned cyclist won the Giro d'Italia three times (1936, 1937 and 1946) and the Tour de France twice (1938 and 1948). Those victories alone place him in the international pantheon of great cyclists.
But there’s another story about the Italian cyclist well worth knowing.
Bartali risked his own life during the Holocaust to rescue as many as 800 Italian Jews from the Nazis.
“He smuggled documents in the frame of his bike, thinking that if he would be stopped by the Nazis, he would tell them that nobody should touch his bike because it was set up perfectly for racing, it shouldn't be tinkered with,” says Jonathan Freedman, an avid cyclist who has researched Gino Bartali’s story.
“So, he was able to use his training to move around the country in ways that others couldn't because movement was generally restricted and under suspicion.”
Gino Bartali is pictured, circa 1945. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
World War II historians have only recently documented how Bartali smuggled documents, photos and messages past the fascist police to the Italian resistance while wearing the Italian racing jersey and pretending to train. It’s also emerged that Bartali hid a Jewish family in the cellar of his house in order to save their lives. Another story suggests that, in 1943, Bartali helped some Jewish refugees flee to the Swiss Alps by hiding them inside a small wagon with a secret compartment that he pulled with his bicycle under the guise of training.
Bartali was recognized in 2013 by Yad Vashem with the honorific "righteous among the nations" for his courageous efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust.
Freedman says he came across the extraordinary story of Bartali by chance. During one of his visits to Italy, his barber introduced him to the producer of a 2014 documentary film about Bartali called "My Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes."
The story of Bartali's efforts to support the resistance clearly inspired Freedman. "My grandparents were Holocaust survivors from Hungary, so when I first heard this story by chance... the story just really, really hit me.... it’s the romance of cycling, it’s the heroism, it’s the fact that he was a famous sports figure, and I thought, 'Wow, what an amazing story!'"
The chance discovery motivated Freedman to participate in a charity ride in Italy in Bartali’s honor. Freedman also encouraged members of the Israel Cycling Academy, Israel’s first professional cycling team, to retrace one of Bartali’s training routes from Florence to Assisi. It’s a challenging 120-mile stretch of road where Bartali once prepared for the intense Giro d’Italia competition. The route still stands as an amazing landmark and testament, says Freedman, “to Bartali’s heroism set against the backdrop of the war.”In cooperation with the City of Santa Clara, host of the 2016 Super Bowl, the Triton Museum of Art joins the celebration by hosting the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s largest traveling exhibition in its history – Gridiron Glory: The Best of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The exhibit features hundreds of artifacts from the Hall of Fame’s collection and presents a panoramic view of the story of professional football-- from its humble beginnings in the early 20th century to the sports phenomenon it has become today.
Gridiron Glory is the most extensive and comprehensive exhibit ever done on America’s most popular sport. The Pro Football Hall of Fame has lent to the exhibition the best of its vast holdings of football artifacts, rare photos and one-of-a-kind documents. In addition, NFL Films has provided spectacular footage from its unparalleled film archives to illustrate the exhibit’s many themes and storylines. Throughout, the exhibit, the Hall of Fame has also created a series of interactive exhibits that challenge both mind and body.
Throughout the artifact-filled Gridiron Glory exhibition will be storylines focusing on such diverse subjects as the societal impact of the sport, to the science behind the game. Inspirational stories of the game’s pioneers, great players, coaches, and circumstances of play will unfold throughout. The 5,000 square-foot pro football exhibit will include more than 200 artifacts from the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s collection, rare documents, and award winning-photography.October 14, 2014 at 3:03 PM
The Seahawks today essentially reversed the move they made on Saturday, waiving defensive back Steven Terrell and bringing back defensive lineman Greg Scruggs.
On Saturday, the Seahawks had waived Scruggs to activate Terrell off the practice squad to add depth in the secondary. Scruggs was not claimed on waivers and became a free agent and re-signed by Seattle today.
The move could indicate optimism that Tharold Simon will be able to return soon, possibly this week, and that the calf injury to Byron Maxwell also is not a big deal.
Terrell, listed as a safety, played 22 snaps against Dallas Sunday at cornerback after Maxwell left late in the second quarter. Maxwell’s absence forced Marcus Burley to play outside corner and had Terrell playing at nickelback.
But Seattle coach Pete Carroll said Monday that Simon will practice this week and could play Sunday at St. Louis. And the calf strain suffered by Maxwell won’t have him out as long as the high ankle sprain that was initially feared. Carroll did not give a time frame for Maxwell Monday but indications are it’s a short-term deal, at best.
DeShawn Shead can also play cornerback, if needed.
Terrell, meanwhile, could return to the practice squad if he is not signed by another team. Seattle still has a spot open on its practice squad.
Scruggs was not active for the first four games of the season but now returns to the 53-man after a weekend away.Most recommended from 32 comments
workablob
join:2004-06-09
Houston, TX 5 recommendations workablob Member Fascism at its finest Consolidation of power between the government and corporate America.
Mussolini would be proud.
Blob
Zenit
The system is the solution
Premium Member
join:2012-05-07
Purcellville, VA ·Comcast XFINITY
·Verizon DSL
5 recommendations Zenit Premium Member Fuck
This government is truely in the hip-pocket of the corporations, while we the people continue to get ripped off for every penny.
Once again VZ wins the "Capped 4G LTE is grate" battle. It will never stop, will it!
Well, those of you who don't have FIOS now in NJ, you will NEVER see it. Thank your elected officials for throwing out the 1993 agreement. Cablevision and Comcast will love your wallet for a long time!
Meanwhile here in VA, the only thing that will bring FIOS to my town is the County demanding it by 2015, but even then I doubt it will actually happen and VZ will say "$g is greate.! OR Just use comcast "
(hand rubbing intensifies) Really, that's all I can say. This is a disaster.This government is truely in the hip-pocket of the corporations, while we the people continue to get ripped off for every penny.Once again VZ wins the "Capped 4G LTE is grate" battle. It will never stop, will it!Well, those of you who don't have FIOS now in NJ, you will NEVER see it. Thank your elected officials for throwing out the 1993 agreement. Cablevision and Comcast will love your wallet for a long time!Meanwhile here in VA, the only thing that will bring FIOS to my town is the County demanding it by 2015, but even then I doubt it will actually happen and VZ will say "$g is greate.! OR Just use comcast(hand rubbing intensifies)
TAZ
join:2014-01-03
Tucson, AZ 3 recommendations TAZ Member So how's this work for everyone else? So can I go rob a Verizon store, get arrested, then have a bunch of my friends send letters to the prosecutor in support of my release (no need to disclose their relation to me, of course!)? Hmm, something tells me that wouldn't turn out very well...
IowaCowboy
Iowa native
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA ARRIS SB6183
Netgear R8000
3 recommendations IowaCowboy Premium Member Their CEO should be fired This is called corruption, and if any kickbacks or bribes were involved or if any money was exchanged for the deal then someone should be going to jail.
Maybe it will take a judge to get them to follow through on their obligations. Unfortunately it takes thousands of dollars in legal fees to take on a multimillion dollar corporation.The Government is facing calls to relocate some of the 1,400 unaccompanied children still at the Calais migrant camp to Ireland.
A cross-party Opposition motion calling for the “immediate” relocation of 200 of the children from the makeshift camp, known as the “Jungle”, near the French port, is to be debated in the Dáil on Wednesday.
Among those supporting the call are the Children’s Rights Alliance (CRA), the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI) and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu).
Taoiseach Enda Kenny must “do the right thing and intervene to relocate these children to Ireland”, Tanya Ward, chief executive of the CRA, said last night, while Ictu said Ireland must “assist France... by offering to take 200 of the unaccompanied children from Calais”.
Sr Stanislaus Kennedy of the ICI said: “There can now be no disputing the scale of the need, or its urgency, and the longer Ireland stands quietly in the shadows the more shame we bring on ourselves.”
Shipping containers
Irish volunteers working with the children say many are displaying signs of depression and post-traumatic stress, and anxiety is increasing as the children are not clear about what their future holds.
The Department of Justice and Tusla, the Child and Family Agency were “actively working on relocating 20 unaccompanied minors from Greece”, a spokesman said. So far one has arrived.Naval vessels from seventeen different countries arrived in Sydney Harbour today for the International Fleet Review. Among them was HMS Daring, one of the most advanced ships in the British Royal Navy.
The type 45-destroyer travelled from her home port of Portsmouth in May for a nine-month deployment, stopping in Puerto Rico, San Diego, Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands and Pearl Harbour in Hawaii.
It's the first time a ship of her class has visited Australia.
Watch: A pilot's view of the Lynx Mark 8 Helicopter on board HMS Daring
Commander Angus Essenhigh says the purpose of the visit is part training opportunity and part diplomatic visit.
"The Royal Navy has had a long-standing relationship with many areas of the world, this is one we don't get to service very frequently," he says.
Deputy Weapon Engineer Officer Fraser Mackay was on board the ship last year when the anti-aircraft and anti-missile warship was involved in anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, near Somalia.
The deployment meant keeping an eye on local fishing vessels and any suspicious activity in the region.
"Routinely we'd go most of the time just to have a chat with them, see how they were getting on what they'd seen while they were in the area and if we'd seen a suspicious vessel or flag verification, we'd send a team to go aboard the ship and then carry out a search if neccesary," he says.
Following the visit, the HMS Daring will stay in the region and join Indonesian, Malaysian, New Zealand and Australian forces in joint naval exercises.
Timelapse: HMS Daring enters Sydney HarbourEpisode 34: Foraminifera and Palaeoclimatology
Planktonic foraminifera are single celled organisms that are highly abundant in modern oceans and a hugely important part of the Earth’s carbon cycle. Each cell builds a hard calcite ‘test’ around itself in a huge variety of shapes. These tests continuously rain down on to the ocean floor leaving continuous records of how these organisms have changed over millions of years. They form the most complete fossil record we have, and are a very useful tool in everything from the oil industry to understanding how evolution works.
In this episode we talk to Dr Tracy Aze from the University of Leeds about her research using planktonic forams to understand macroevolutionary change, as well as decoding their record to map major climate events and temperatures throughout geological history.
Part A
Part B
DownloadA 74-year-old Maine man has been charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of his teenage tenants.
Story Highlights James Pak charged with two counts of murder
Police called to residence regarding a landlord-tenant dispute
Minutes after officers left the home, they received a call reporting the shootings
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A 74-year-old Maine man was charged in the shooting deaths of two tenants inside an apartment he rented out at his home, possibly over a dispute about where they parked their cars during a snowstorm, state police said Sunday.
James Pak was arrested at about 10 p.m. Saturday following a standoff at his suburban neighborhood home in Biddeford, about 15 miles south of Portland, police said. He is charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of Derrick Thompson, 19, and Thompson's girlfriend, 18-year-old Alivia Welch.
Thompson's mother, Susan Johnson, 44, called police to report the shootings at about 7 p.m. She and her 6-year-old son also live in the apartment, which is attached to the main house where Pak lived.
Before the shootings, Biddeford police were called to Pak's home regarding a dispute between Pak and his tenants over their cars being parked in his driveway during the snowstorm, said state police spokesman Steve McCausland. Biddeford banned street parking during the night so city crews could plow the streets.
Minutes after officers left the home, they received the call reporting the shootings. Upon their return, Biddeford police rescued Johnson and her young son, and Pak retreated to his part of the house, where he lived with his wife, McCausland said.
Pak's wife left the home, and he surrendered hours later after talking to police negotiators, said McCausland. A gun was found in the house.
Johnson was being treated for a gunshot wound at a Portland hospital, officials said. Her younger son, Brayden, was not hurt.
Detectives are investigating whether the violence stemmed from a landlord-tenant dispute, McCausland said. Johnson and her family moved into the apartment in October.
Pak is being held at the York County Jail in Alfred and is expected to make his initial court appearance either Monday or Wednesday, depending on the availability of a judge.
The victim's bodies were transported Sunday to the medical examiner's office in Augusta, where autopsies will be performed.
Thompson was an auto detailer at a local car dealership and had attended Biddeford High School, and Welch worked at a local coffee shop and graduated from Thornton Academy in Saco, according to their Facebook profiles and a list of Thornton Academy graduates. Two people who answered a phone call at the coffee shop would not comment.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/S0iakwPolice smashes a ten-member ring involved in trafficking mentally-impaired women. The latter were bought for as little as US$ 500 and sold for as high as US$ 16,000 to farmers in northern China for “breeding” their children. As a result of China’s one-child policy, sex ratios are skewed with 118 boys at birth for every 100 girls.
Beijing (AsiaNews) - A criminal gang bought mentally impaired women and held them in a pigsty in northern China to be sold as brides, Xinhua reported. Police eventually arrested ten people.
The women, who ranged in age between 20 and 30, were bought from their families, who considered them a burden, in Guangdong province and the Guangxi region of southern China for 3,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan (US$ 500 to 800) with the promise that they would be married to a well-off family.
Mentally disabled people are generally considered a burden by their families. Once sold, the women were brought to Shandong province and kept in a pigsty run by Sun, one of the traffickers, to wait for buyers to come and choose their “brides”.
Sun would find prospective buyers for the women who knew that their brides were mentally impaired but only wanted them to give birth to their children. He would then alert a middleman who would ask local “matchmakers” to find mentally impaired women in Guangxi and Guangdong.
The case was cracked when two men travelling with a mentally impaired woman on a train from Guangxi to northern China attracted the attention of railway police.
The women were usually between 20 and 30. Their “price” ranged between 50,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan (US$ 8,000 and 16,000), this according to Xu Jian, a police officer handling the case. The gang earned hundreds of thousands of yuan over two years.
In its report, Xinhua noted that families were generally indifferent about the fate of their daughters.
One family even refused to take their daughter back from her buyer, saying they were too poor. Her parents only agreed to care for her again after their local government promised to give a monthly subsidy.
Unfortunately, such scandals are not new in China, where human trafficking touches especially young, poor women.
In addition, China’s one-child policy, the traditional preference for sons and pre-natal ultrasound technology that show the sex of the unborn have led to an unparalleled gender imbalance.
According to official data, reported by Xinhua today, about 118 boys are born for every 100 girls in China. However, other sources indicate that the real ratio is 123 to 100.A boil order is in effect until further notice for the several addresses in W Travis County (Cutout Photo: Mk2010 / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0)
UPDATE: Officials say the boil water notice has been lifted and the water is now safe for consumption.
================
EARLIER:
A water main break on Sunday is necessitating residents in west Travis County to boil water until further notice.
The West Travis County Public Utility Agency urges residents in the neighborhoods of Village of Bear Creek, Bear creek Estates, Hills of Texas, Friendship Ranch, Fox Run and Reunion Ranch to boil water used for drinking, cooking and making ice for at least two minutes in order to kill possible bacteria.
Samples have been sent to labs for testing and will rescind the notice when results return positive.
The repair to the water main is expected to be completed Monday.
CBS Austin will update when the main has been repaired and the notice lifted.CLOSE Sparking protests in several cities, a NYC grand jury declined to indict a police officer in the death of Eric Garner, who was held in an apparent chokehold. The decision fueled protests already being held due to the situation in Ferguson.
Daniel Pantaleo, the Staten Island cop accused of putting Eric Garner in a fatal choke hold, testified in his own defense in front of a grand jury. (Photo11: New York Daily News via Getty Images)
NEW YORK — The white New York City police officer whose choke hold led to the death of an unarmed black man has been sued three times for allegedly violating the constitutional rights of other blacks he and fellow cops arrested.
A grand jury decision not to indict Daniel Pantaleo on Wednesday in the death of Eric Garner, 43, the man he wrestled to the ground during an attempted arrest for selling untaxed cigarettes on a Staten Island sidewalk in July, sparked waves of angry though largely peaceful demonstrations in several cities.
YOUR TAKE: Reader photos from NYC's protests
The Garner case wasn't the first time Pantaleo, 29, was accused of misconduct, however.
Darren Collins and Tommy Rice alleged in a 2013 federal court lawsuit that Pantaleo and at least four other officers subjected them to "humiliating and unlawful strip searches in public view" after handcuffing them during a March 2012 arrest on Staten Island.
The court complaint charged that the cops, searching for illegal drugs, "pulled down the plaintiffs' pants and underwear, and touched and searched their genital areas, or stood by while this was done in their presence."
Pantaleo and three of the officers repeated the searches after they took the suspects to Staten Island's 120th police precinct, the complaint alleged.
Charges against Collins and Rice, who said they had done nothing wrong, ultimately were dismissed and sealed. The city settled their lawsuit last year, court records show.
Separately, Rylawn Walker alleged that Pantaleo and other cops falsely arrested him on Staten Island for alleged marijuana possession in February 2012. His federal lawsuit against the cops maintained that Walker "was committing no crime at that time and was not acting in a suspicious manner."
City lawyers have denied the allegations, and the case is pending.
The marijuana charges against Walker were dismissed and sealed on a motion by Staten Island prosecutors, defense lawyer Michael Colihan wrote in an August 2014 letter to U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos.
"To put it mildly, many police on Staten Island have been playing fast, loose and violently with the public they seem to have forgotten they are sworn to protect," wrote Colihan. "After litigating about 200 of these civil rights matters in the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York since 1977, I have seen no interest by the managers of the New York City Police Department, or anyone employed by the city of New York, in doing anything to stop this."
City attorney Daniel Passeser complained that the defense letter in part was "designed to fan the flames of anti-police sentiment in the Staten Island community." He unsuccessfully argued that portions of the letter should be removed from the court docket.
Kenneth Collins, a 22-year-old Staten Island man, in November filed a lawsuit alleging that Pantaleo and other police officers violated his rights during a February 2012 marijuana arrest. Along with being arrested falsely, he "was subjected to a degrading search of his private parts and genitals by the defendants," the court complaint charged.
The drug charges were dismissed and sealed one day after the arrest, court filings show.
Collins' lawsuit alleged that the police officers charged him in part in an alleged bid to get overtime pay while processing legal paperwork and obtain credit from superiors for making the arrest.
City attorneys have not yet filed a response to the lawsuit.
Misconduct allegations against city police officers filed with the Civilian Complaint Review Board dropped to 11,501 in 2013, the lowest total in a decade, the agency's data shows. NYPD currently has approximately 34,500 uniformed officers. The CCRB received 2,739 complaints during the first six months of this year, a 7% increase from the same period of 2013, the data shows.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1zWMm0HA VETERAN Fine Gael councillor fled from a routine garda checkpoint before ditching his vehicle and running away from officers through a churchyard.
A VETERAN Fine Gael councillor fled from a routine garda checkpoint before ditching his vehicle and running away from officers through a churchyard.
Councillor on drink-drive charge hid behind bush after fleeing, court told
The revelation came as Cllr Michael Hegarty pleaded not guilty to a charge of driving while under the influence last year.
Youghal District Court heard that gardai found the councillor, following a lengthy foot chase, behind a bush in a derelict site.
The 51-year-old, a former chairman of the Cork Joint Policing Committee, denies driving while over the alcohol limit at Ballymacoda, in east Cork, on August 21, 2012.
Mr Hegarty of Moanroe, Ladysbridge, Co Cork, had the case against him adjourned for a fortnight after his legal team challenged the validity of his detention by gardai.
Judge Terence Finn was told by Garda Cillian Barry that he was conducting a checkpoint at midnight outside Ballymacoda.
He spotted a car approaching the checkpoint, which after halting at a junction, turned to the left with its wheels spinning.
The officers pursued the vehicle which stopped in the car park of a church at Ballydaniel.
Gda Barry said the motorist jumped from the car and ran away. Judge Finn was told the officers repeatedly shouted at the man to stop and identified themselves as gardai.
Gda Barry said he spotted Mr Hegarty behind a bush.
After cautioning the father of four, Gda Barry said he was told: "I just panicked – I had a few drinks."
An intoxilyzer test later delivered a result of 61 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath – almost twice the permitted alcohol driving limit.
Following legal submissions, Inspector Eoin Healy asked for an adjournment so he could take advice on a case law cited.
Judge Finn adjourned the matter to the March 15 sitting of Youghal District Court.
Irish IndependentAn investment firm led by Bill Gates is spending $80 million to build a new smart city named Belmont in Arizona, just 45 minutes away from Phoenix.
The plan is ambitious, including plans for digital infrastructure like data centers and autonomous logistics hubs as well as schools and public spaces, according to a statement by the firm. Belmont is planned to span 25,000 acres with space for 80,000 residential units. But it’s hardly the first—India, with its quickly growing population and rapid adoption of new technologies like artificial intelligence, has already been working to build “smart cities” with similar aims.
India’s initiative started in 2014, with the goal of building 100 high-tech cities from the ground up, which could serve as a blueprint for India’s future infrastructure. That plan shifted over the next year, eventually evolving to improving infrastructure in existing cities, according to the Hindustan Times.
Unlike Belmont in the United States, India’s smart city movement is largely led by the federal government, which has been criticized by the private sector for moving too slowly, according to a report in The Economic Times. Of the 100 cities originally intended to be included in the project, work has only started in 20.
“When we looked at it from outside, we have been seeing the initiative for some time but it’s not moving as fast as you would expect it to move…so, getting enterprises involved in the city is always helpful,” Nokia’s global head of Internet of Things, Rakesh Kushwaha, told ET.
The difference between private and public leadership in the project might make a difference in the ease of Belmont’s development; Indian officials told the Hindustan Times that a large delay was the process of selecting contractors through the government’s bidding process. A private, independently-funded venture limited to a single geographic location could simplify that process—plus Bill Gates’ name attached to the project doesn’t hurt when requesting proposals.
Critics of India’s plan might have similar critique of Gates’ techno-utopia: Creating a city for those who can pay to live in the future damns those who can’t afford it to live in the past.Available now on VOD and Blu-ray from Uncork’d Entertainment is Hunting Grounds, about a father and son who go to live in an isolated cabin and end up being hunted by a group of Sasquatch. It is a disappointingly slow-moving family drama wrapped within a monster movie, which only begins to really pick up in the third act. The end result is only going to appeal to serious Bigfoot enthusiasts and fans of the actor Bill Oberst Jr., while also removing any expectations of a spectacular cinematic event.
As mentioned above, the primary plot point involves the relationship between the father and son characters |
0 architects and engineers who have signed the petition at AE911Truth.org, that the so-called “investigation” we have been given by the government is nothing more than an elaborate, expensive cover-up.
So, how do we respond to the atrocities of 9/11?
Here are a few thoughts.
AE911Truth recently produced a major feature-length video entitled 9/11: Explosive Evidence — Experts Speak Out which is available on DVD or for download from the AE911Truth.org web site. There is now a 1-hour version on BitChute and YouTube (shown here) which was shown on Colorado PBS and became the most watched video in that station’s history. For a time it was also the most viewed and most shared video on the national PBS website. This is a breakthrough for exposure of our research on the mainstream media, where it is more typically treated as a taboo subject.
PBS Documentary 9/11: Explosive Evidence – Experts Speak Out Final Edition, 60min (YouTube version)
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The International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001
(Also known as “The Toronto Hearings”)
Trailer
The 2-hour video summary of the Toronto Hearings, 9:11 Decade of Deception (YouTube version)) is now available for free streaming. See the Toronto Hearings tab in the main menu above to view the whole DVD broken into an introduction and day-by-day segments.
The printed Proceedings have been published and are available from Amazon.com.
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It is generally thought that the academic community approaches significant issues without bias. However there appear to be significant pressures on the academic community with regard to 9/11, as this video documents.
9/11 in the Academic Community (YouTube version)Reid Wilson is the author of Read In, The Post’s new morning tipsheet on politics.
We all know the dread that comes with an expiring driver’s license. It may be about the passage of time or our advancing age. But mostly it’s because we have to go to the DMV — purgatory in government form.
Except, that is, if you live in Ohio. More than 97 percent of customers at the Buckeye State’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles said they were satisfied with their experiences, according to a recent survey conducted for the state. That’s largely because Ohioans don’t have to go to the BMV too often. They can renew license plates, schedule driving tests and change their addresses online, all services for which residents of many other states have to show up in person.
Even when they do go to the BMV, Ohioans don’t have to spend much time there. The average Ohio resident waits just under 15 minutes to receive service at any of the agency’s 204 locations around the state. Compare that with nearly 54 minutes in California, according to another survey conducted by DMV.com, a group that monitors driving statistics and state licensing policies.
In a separate DMV.com survey, Ohio also ranked high in customer satisfaction because of its low fees for registering vehicles and renewing licenses. According to data maintained by the Federal Highway Administration, the state charges $21.50 to register a typical vehicle; the average vehicle costs more than $50 to register in Texas and a whopping $100.75 in Oklahoma.
(The Washington Post)
Maybe it’s a Midwestern thing. Illinois residents rated their motor-vehicle agency the second-best in the nation. Indiana ranked third in overall customer satisfaction.
What makes for a satisfied customer? Staying open, says Jordan Perch, a blogger with DMV.com who put together the survey. “Customers in states who reported higher satisfaction with office location and hours were more likely to report higher overall satisfaction with the DMV,” Perch wrote in an e-mail.
Oregon ranked last among 36 states plus the District of Columbia. (Too few residents in smaller states such as Alaska and North Dakota responded to make a representative sample size.) D.C. ranked 14th, behind Virginia (9th) but ahead of Maryland (22nd).
But no one beats Ohio’s smooth ride.
Read more from Outlook, friend us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.New orders for U.S.-made goods rose in August and orders for core capital goods were stronger than previously reported, suggesting robust business spending could help offset some of the economic drag of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
Factory goods orders increased 1.2 percent as demand for a range of goods rose, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. Orders fell by an unrevised 3.3 percent in July.
Economists had forecast factory orders increasing 1.0 percent in August. The Commerce Department said it was unable to isolate the impact of Harvey and Irma on the data as the survey is "designed to estimate the month-to-month change in manufacturing activity at the national level and not at specific geographic areas."
Orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft - seen as a measure of business spending plans - jumped 1.1 percent in August instead of the 0.9 percent increase reported last month.
Orders for these so-called core capital goods advanced 1.3 percent in July. Shipments of core capital goods, which are used to calculate business equipment spending in the gross domestic product report, shot up 1.1 percent instead of the previously reported 0.7 percent rise.
Strong business spending on equipment is helping to underpin manufacturing, which makes up about 12 percent of the U.S. economy. Business investment in equipment grew at its fastest pace in nearly two years in the second quarter.
Spending is rising despite signs of slowing oil and gas drilling as ample supplies restrain crude oil prices.
In August, orders for machinery gained 0.3 percent after rising 0.2 percent in July. Mining, oil field and gas field machinery orders dropped 5.1 percent after leaping 3.7 percent in July.
Orders for transportation equipment advanced 5.1 percent, reflecting a 44.8 percent surge in civilian aircraft orders.
Motor vehicle orders rose 0.7 percent after declining 2.2 percent in July. Further gains are likely in September as residents in the areas ravaged by Harvey and Irma replace flood-damaged vehicles. Major automakers on Tuesday posted higher U.S. new motor vehicle sales for September.
Motor vehicle sales increased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 18.57 million units in September from 17.72 million units a year earlier, according to Autodata Corp.The Cleveland Cavaliers have suffered a downright horrible season in 2013-14, going from postseason hopefuls to 10th-place outsiders working through some serious organizational issues. This season hasn't gone nearly as well as planned, even if they technically retain a chance at one of the downtrodden East's final playoff berths.
Yet every cloud has a silver lining, and last week the Cavs brought us one of the coolest visual experiences seen in the NBA this year. As part of the franchise's celebration and jersey retirement ceremony for beloved center Zydrunas Ilgauskas, the team unveiled a new 3D projection system for the court at Quicken Loans Arena. The result is pretty incredible (via All Ball via Deadspin):
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The display has several aspects of typical video board packages, like highlights from this year's team and days of franchise past, but the experience is totally different. The 3D projection is reminiscent of some of material from the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in Sochi last month, though not quite as blatantly artistic. It's a full-on show, not just an introduction to a basketball game.
Of course, given the play of the Cavs this season, that might be a good thing. Perhaps lottery participants have found a new toy to distract fans from all the sad sights usually found on the same court.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
Stay connected with Ball Don't Lie on Twitter @YahooBDL and "Like" BDL on Facebook for year-round NBA talk, jokes and more.It is common knowledge --at least for part of the right-- that resentment of Israel is merely an extension of Western self-hatred. We know that Israel is hated by the Arab world and many of the “have nots” of the postmodern age, because the fact that it is the only democracy and successful economy in the Middle East serves as a constant and unwelcome reminder to these countries that their problems cannot simply be blamed on the Western colonial legacy, and that, on the contrary, there is a fundamental flaw in their mentality and culture. For the same reason, the leftist intelligentsia of the West hates Israel: for them, this country is the distillation of their concept of the West to its very essence: the ultimate and eternal oppressor, a fusion of the destructive racism and capitalism that according to them constitute the core of Western culture. And needless to say, the Palestinians and other Arabs personify the eternal proletarian class of the oppressed.
This insight helps us a long way in understanding and combating what drives antisemitism in Third World and in the West itself. However, the explanation is ultimately insufficient, because it only moves the question to a higher level: why have Western intellectuals, and more generally, Western people, come to despise their own culture and achievements?
Mostly, conservatives implicitly assume that the leftist intellectuals are rational actors, and try to make a case for the historical achievements and thus, the ultimate superiority of Western culture -- in fact, much like advocates of the free market and/or traditional values throughout the last century have tried to defeat socialism and communism simply by logically disproving it, hoping that their arguments would reach a large enough public, and ultimately convince many of their opponents. After a century it doesn't take much analysis to conclude that this strategy has abjectly failed. And in fact, it could not have been otherwise, because they tried to advance their cause with practical arguments while the essence of the problem lies in morality.
Socialists and communists are not at all rational actors. That they are, is a propaganda myth the intelligentsia has itself spread through its near monopoly on intellectual pursuits, or to put it more concretely, through its control of the universities. It is no exaggeration to say that no sensible person who knows his basics of economics can believe that a planned economy or distributing the wealth are feasible methods to achieve economic growth and improvements for the masses. In reality socialism and communism were ideologies solely devised to serve the interests of the intellectuals themselves; few of them come from a poor, “proletarian” background and many of them shared with Marx an astonishing contempt for the uncouth laboring classes. Since intellectuals are people without any concrete, useful skills that could provide them with a living like the rest of society, but whose mentality is characterized by broad visions of how society as a whole should be organized, and an ingrained certainty that they are entitled to personally implement those visions, they constantly have to invent “oppressed” groups that they can represent, and so are able make themselves necessary to society. As times changed, these oppressed groups have changed: beginning with the proletarian masses, after the Second World War the intellectuals shifted their attention to the third world, Palestinians, immigrants in their own countries, and the environment.
But as I said, the problem does not solely lie with the intellectuals, but with the general attitude of Westerners towards their own culture. Or more precisely, the problem is that people do not have the moral power or self-certainty to refute the claims of the intelligentsia, even if they intuitively sense something is fundamentally wrong with them. And contrary to conventional conservative claims, this is not because people are not sufficiently aware of the benefits of the free market or of Western culture, but because they find themselves unable to refute the intellectuals' creed morally.
The origin of leftism is surely the dominant ethical code of the West, namely altruism. Most people do not fully grasp what altruism means or how it manifests itself in our daily lives. On the conscious level, people will say that it just means loving your neighbor, and that brother-love is perfectly compatible with self-interest. In their daily lives, they may never be consciously confronted with any dilemmas. Consequently, many people have dismissed Ayn Rand's denunciation of the altruist ethics as a “battle without enemies”. For a long time, I myself thought of it the same way.
However, if we remove our glance from our direct personal experiences and take a look at historical trends and current political and economical developments, Ayn Rand's observations on altruism will perhaps become more accessible and at the same time provide a water-tight explanation for many disturbing developments in Western history. Our self-hatred, our wish for a society characterized by “diversity”, our praise for backward cultures, and our appeasement of radical Islam (and of communism) can all directly be traced to the altruist premise underlying our morality. Contrary to a common misunderstanding, the doctrine of altruism does not simply say that people should act so as to maximize the well-being of their fellow-men; if this were the case, our heroes would be businessmen, inventors, artists, and so on, because these are the people who have spread the most well-being throughout history, and not the saints, ascetics, and warriors who serve as our moral examples and for whom we erect statues. The prerequisite of an altruist deed is that the person who carries it out in no way benefits from it himself: indeed, the ultimate altruist act is the act of self-sacrifice, in which the person himself loses in order to benefit his brothers.
And that is the reason for Western self-hatred. If the well-being of Third World inhabitants would be the primary concern of the intellectuals, they would be praising Western civilization for the marvels in science and humane governance it has brought forth. But that is not in the least their concern: on the contrary, they are motivated by the obsession with self-sacrifice that was born with Christianity two millenniums ago. It is also the reason why the conservative campaign against communism and cultural relativism is doomed to fail, if they do not understand Ayn Rand's crucial insight: even if they can logically prove that capitalism and Western culture are by far preferable to the alternatives that leftists have devised and advocate, they share the same Christian premise of self-sacrifice with their opponents. It is of little use to know that your set of ideas is the most practical one, and at the same time implicitly accept a moral code that teaches you that morality has nothing to do with what is practical.
Antisemitism has the same root cause; the reason so many Europeans love immigrants and the multicultural proletariat, is the same reason why they tend to hate Jews. If, on the altruist premise, men should sacrifice themselves for their brothers who have been less fortunate in life, and by all means avoid to judge their behavior that often is the cause for their depressed condition, it becomes chillingly clear what constitutes altruist behavior toward people who are more fortunate than ourselves and clearly owe it to their own efforts: punishment of the fortunate and the industrious because of their virtue and industriousness. Or, as Ayn Rand put it: hatred of the good for being the good. Often we are taught that the reason for Christian resentment of Judaism is that Jews were accomplices in the murder of Jesus Christ. This story certainly has a symbolic meaning: the Jews refused to go along in the belief that man was born with original sin, and that they had to worship a God and prophet that instructed them to atone for this default; they refused to go along in the notion that morality consisted in sacrificing oneself for one's brothers, and for this they were eternally damned in the eyes of many Christians.
As in the case of socialism, communism, and multiculturalism, antisemitism is of course also very appealing to many people because it serves their needs perfectly. For many on the far right, blaming all problems (including immigration) on a Jewish conspiracy enables them self-righteously to pose as a persecuted and morally uncorrupted minority, while in fact Jews are the one ethnic group in Europe that these days can be spat upon with impunity. Criticizing Islam will get you death threats and persecution by the government, criticizing multiculturalism will result in accusations of racism, but criticizing Jews or Israel will, at the most, be punished with a letter of protest from the local Jewish cultural center.
Also, there is the very human tendency of these people to escape the fact of their insignificance and mortality by imagining a global conspiracy is out to “get” them, while the dreadful reality is that they are utterly alone in this world, without either a future or actual events that have any bearing upon themselves. As David P. Goldman states in It's not the End of the World, It's Just the End of You:
To be truly convinced of your insignificance, however, is an unbearable, if not suicidal thought. The human mind resists its own destruction by wishing away its sense of insignificance. One such device is paranoia, which attributes significance to insignificant objects and events; we imagine that the fellow at the next table is a secret police-agent. It is more comforting to believe that occult forces are persecuting us than that no one cares about us.
The confrontation with Jewish and Israeli success and cultural strength places many Westerners in the same position as the rest of the world finds itself in when confronted with the West: how should they react to a model that is more successful than their own? Like people in non-Western cultures, they mostly choose the easy solution: blame the more successful for your own problems and the inferiority of your civilizational model. This observation makes clear that all people have a tendency to act the proletarian and oppressed when confronted with the (earned) success of others.
In short, to combat antisemitism we should fight altruism first. Merely stating the obvious, that we shouldn't seek scapegoats for problems that are fully our own responsibility, or that we should “respect” others and not give in to ethnic hatred, clearly misses the whole point, because conventional Christian morality precisely teaches us that the strong should blame themselves for the weakness of their brothers, and that we should not judge other people's behavior. Perhaps this criticism of Christian ethics will be hard to swallow for many on the right. When confronted with daunting challenges, men will always interpret them in the light of their own assumptions, and seek answers that will not upset they view of the world and of human life. But these are not times for such smugness and complacency: we should be prepared to identity the essential contradictions and faults in Western ethics that explain our current predicament.In the end, it was the human weaknesses that proved the undoing of the world's oldest dictator. Arrogance, pride, stubbornness and obsessive family loyalty – a mundane collection of ordinary frailties, but they were enough to bring down a ruler who had dominated Zimbabwe for 37 years.
The signs of a looming military coup must have been obvious to Robert Mugabe. His top generals were against his plan to give a senior government post to his unpopular wife, Grace. The once-petty feud between her and the commanders was growing increasingly bitter, and she was insulting and mocking the military men and their political allies.
Mr. Mugabe controlled a vast security apparatus, including a secret police agency that would have certainly told him of the warning signs from the army.
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Yet he didn't even need an intelligence report. By early this week, the likelihood of a military intervention was a secret to nobody. Senior military officers called a press conference, issued a public threat to the Mugabe regime, and announced that they might need to step in. The ruling party responded with nothing more than a haughty verbal reprimand.
Two days later, the army commanders launched their takeover. But even when the armoured vehicles were rolling into Harare, the President did nothing.
Why did the dictator fail to act? At the age of 93, while his health was declining and he needed help to walk to a podium, he was still alert and lucid. But he ignored the alarm bells from the Zimbabwean military and the Zimbabwean people. He was convinced of his popularity, believing in the results of rigged elections, without realizing that his authority was hollow and crumbling.
Zimbabweans who have watched him for decades have little doubt that it was Mr. Mugabe's own imperious egotism that led to his downfall. He saw the danger signs, yet his supreme confidence led him to assume that he could swat away the threats with yet another sacking or another arrest.
"Big people tend to over-reach, and he over-reached himself," says Earnest Mudzengi, a political analyst in Harare.
"His system had collapsed around him. Surely he should have known. It's a sad end for him. He led a guerrilla warfare in the 1970s, the people looked up to him – and now they're chasing him away."
Tendai Biti, a former finance minister who worked with Mr. Mugabe in government from 2009 to 2013, says the autocrat was destroyed by his own pride. "Hubristic arrogance," he told The Globe and Mail. "He was in power so long. He became so comfortable, complacent and over-confident. He's stubborn, and he forgot the nature of the state around him. This is a military state, a state of securocrats. He forgot that he was just a representative of a securocratic state, and it will always dump you if you don't serve it. So they fired him."
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Nov. 15: A youth washes a minibus bearing Mr. Mugabe’s portrait at a bus terminal in Harare. PHILIMON BULAWAYO/REUTERS
Nov. 15, 2017: Soldiers stand on the streets in Harare after the military’s takeover. PHILIMON BULAWAYO/REUTERS
Nov. 15: An image from the Twitter account of Fadzayi Mahere, advocate of the High Court and Supreme Court of Zimbabwe, appears to show officers sitting in a line with troops guarding them in Harare. AFP/GETTY IMAGES
MALAWI ZAMBIA Harare ZIMBABWE MOZAMBIQUE BOTSWANA SOUTH AFRICA 0 200 KM THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: MAPZEN; OSM; NATURAL EARTH; WHO’S ON FIRST MALAWI ZAMBIA Harare ZIMBABWE MOZAMBIQUE BOTSWANA SOUTH AFRICA 0 200 KM THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: MAPZEN; OSM; NATURAL EARTH; WHO’S ON FIRST MALAWI ZAMBIA Harare ZIMBABWE MOZAMBIQUE BOTSWANA SOUTH AFRICA 0 200 KM THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: MAPZEN; OSM; NATURAL EARTH; WHO’S ON FIRST
Grace under fire
For decades, Mr. Mugabe had shrewdly balanced the factions around him. He kept his enemies close. He used selective repression to weaken any camp that became too strong. Nobody was allowed to become the heir apparent.
But in recent years this strategy became cruder, less cautious and more impulsive. He decided that Ms. Mugabe must have her future guaranteed, and the only way to safeguard her ambitions was to give her a powerful government post: vice-president or perhaps even the coveted role of his official successor.
And to do that, he disrupted the delicate balance around him. After relying on military support for nearly four decades, he suddenly began to threaten the senior military officers, and they responded in a predictable way: by plotting against him.
For most of their marriage, Grace Mugabe had stayed out of politics. More than 40 years younger than her husband, she was content to go on shopping sprees in Paris and Hong Kong, running several private businesses and enjoying the perks and wealth that flowed from her husband's power.
But everything changed after the 2013 election. It was blatantly rigged. The main opposition party, which had held a number of cabinet posts in a coalition government for the previous four years, was thrown into the political wilderness. With the regime's power now assured, the biggest remaining political question was the post-Mugabe succession within the ruling party itself.
Mr. Mugabe, left, and his wife Grace, shown in 2008. ASSOCIATED PRESS
In 2014, as Mr. Mugabe's health deteriorated, the jostling and political tensions were becoming more visible. It became clear to Ms. Mugabe that she could lose everything if her husband died. She needed to secure her future. She felt the resentment of the older generation of politicians who gained their authority because they were veterans of the liberation war against white minority rule in the 1970s. If this veteran generation controlled the post-Mugabe succession, she could be stripped of her wealth and forced into exile.
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Ms. Mugabe, leaping into the political arena, decided to ally herself with a younger generation of politicians, who became known as the G40 faction (Generation 40). Among them were several ambitious cabinet ministers who sought to bypass the war veterans and gain power after Mr. Mugabe's demise.
Grace Mugabe's first major move was to launch a nasty verbal campaign against Vice-President Joice Mujuru, a respected war veteran. Ms. Mugabe held a series of political rallies, whipping up hatred against Ms. Mujuru. It was a successful campaign: the Vice-President was fired at the end of 2014.
Joice Mujuru. AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Ms. Mujuru was replaced by another war veteran, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who had been a crucial ally of Mr. Mugabe since the guerrilla war of the 1970s. As the security minister in the Mugabe cabinet, he led a bloody crackdown on dissidents in the Matabeleland region in the 1980s, and continued to play a key role in supporting Mr. Mugabe in other crises, including the 2008 election when the ruling party was on the verge of losing power.
Emmerson Mnangagwa. JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
It was obvious to Ms. Mugabe that Mr. Mnangagwa posed a serious threat to her ambitions. She turned against him, spearheading another furious campaign of political rallies and crude insults. "The snake must be hit on the head," she declared.
She also attacked his military allies – including the army commander, General Constantino Chiwenga, another liberation war veteran. There were growing reports that Mr. Mugabe would conduct a sweeping purge of the highest levels of the military ranks to ensure that the army was neutralized.
The factional conflict, by now, was becoming so intense that Ms. Mugabe heard scattered jeers from Mr. Mnangagwa's supporters at one of her rallies. She ramped up the pressure on her husband to take action against her foes. The ruling party announced a special congress for December, where Ms. Mugabe and her supporters could be appointed to key positions.
On Nov. 6, the President fired Mr. Mnangagwa for "disloyalty, disrespect, deceitfulness and unreliability." But in a crucial error, Mr. Mugabe's police and security agents failed to prevent Mr. Mnangagwa from slipping out of the country, where he was able to mobilize support and issue a taunting statement.
General Chiwenga, meanwhile, was on an official visit to China. When he returned to Zimbabwe last weekend, there was reportedly an attempt to arrest him – but he had arranged to protect himself with a military unit at the airport, and the police were unable to seize him.
On Monday, he made an extraordinary appearance before the television cameras, backed up by almost every senior military commander in the country. It was a remarkable moment: the top military chief was publicly criticizing the Mugabe government in harsh and bitter words, while openly threatening that the military could intervene. With hindsight, his words were a clear guide to the army's plans to target Ms. Mugabe and the G40 faction – yet Mr. Mugabe failed to take any steps to halt him.
Nov. 13: General Constantino Chiwenga addresses a news conference held at the Zimbabwean Army Headquarters in Harare. JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
While he did not name Ms. Mugabe or her G40 allies, General Chiwenga was unmistakably referring to them. He painted them as a generation too young to have legitimacy in Zimbabwe. "The history of our revolution cannot be rewritten by those who have not been part of it," he said.
"It is saddening to see our revolution being hijacked…. We must remind those behind the current treacherous shenanigans that when it comes to matters of protecting our revolution, the military will not hesitate to step in."
Mr. Mugabe ruling party, ZANU-PF, issued a brief statement to denounce General Chiwenga's comments, but its rebuke was brushed aside. Two days after the commander's warning, the military did exactly what it said it would do.
Nov. 15: Major-General Sibusiso Moyo reading a statement on television announcing the military takeover. DEWA MAVHINGADEWA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Armoured vehicles rumbled out of a military base and rolled into Harare, taking control of all key sites. Mr. Mugabe was placed under military guard in his home, permitted to leave only under military escort. Several leading members of the G40 faction, including several cabinet ministers, were arrested and taken to military barracks.
As for Ms. Mugabe herself: She vanished from public view, her whereabouts unknown, although some reports suggested that she was holed up in the presidential residence.
While the details of Mr. Mugabe's exit were still being negotiated on Friday, it was the end of the Mugabe era.
March 4, 1980: Mr. Mugabe raises his fists in triumph at a press conference following his landslide election victory. ALLEN PIZZEY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
April 16, 1980: Prince Charles, right, speaks with Mr. Mugabe in Harare (then called Salisbury) while British governor Christopher Soames and the Rhodesian cabinet look on. Mr. Mugabe was hailed as a hero in Zimbabwe for helping to bring about the end of British colonialism there. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Invincible no more
There was a time in Zimbabwe when Robert Mugabe was popular. As the leader of the main guerrilla movement that had fought white-minority rule, he swept to power in a landslide victory in the 1980 election. He outmanoeuvred every other politician, eliminating every threat from rival guerrilla leaders such as Joshua Nkomo.
But his economic mismanagement – seizing farmland, imposing state controls, fuelling inflation, destroying the industrial sector – led to widespread poverty and unemployment, which in turn eroded his popularity. Hyperinflation erupted in 2008, and the national GDP collapsed. Only a military crackdown saved him from a looming defeat in the 2008 election.
After a brief recovery under the coalition government from 2009 to 2013, the economy fell into decline again. Sporadic cash shortages and commodity shortages led to panic buying and rising economic anxieties.
In 1980, when Mr. Mugabe won his first election, Zimbabwe's economy was twice as large as that of neighbouring Zambia, and its average incomes were higher than those in most countries in southern Africa. Today its economy is smaller than Zambia's, and its life expectancy is lower than it was in 1980.
Last Monday, in his pre-coup statement, General Chiwenga cited the deteriorating economy as one of the main reasons for his potential intervention. He made it clear that the economy has tumbled into decline since the end of the coalition government in 2013.
"As a result of squabbling within the ranks of ZANU-PF, there has been no meaningful development in the country for the past five years," he said. "The resultant economic impasse has ushered in more challenges to the Zimbabwean populace, such as cash shortages and rising commodity prices."
It is the battered economy, more than anything else, that has created public support for the military coup. Zimbabweans are not enthusiastic supporters of the army, especially after its human-rights abuses in the past, but the army's promises have provided a glimmer of hope. So when the military seized power and put Mr. Mugabe under house arrest, there was no outpouring of support for the elderly leader. Nobody bothered to defend him.
"People have been heartily sick of Mugabe for a long time, and Grace has done him no favours with her rude behaviour," said David Moore, a Canadian scholar and Zimbabwe expert at the University of Johannesburg.
Nov. 16: A man has a shave at a street barber, next to a covered poster of Mr. Mugabe, in the low-income neighbourhood of Mbare in Harare. BEN CURTIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Interviews in Harare confirm that the coup was widely supported. Tinaye Gomo, who scrounges a meagre living by selling pirated music discs on the streets of Harare, was quick to welcome the intervention. "Things were very bad," he said this week, a day after the military intervention. "There is nothing at home, so I have to work very late at night. But now things are getting better. We're very happy."
Vivid Gwede, an independent political analyst and human rights activist in Harare, says the Zimbabwean people felt a yearning for any kind of new regime after so many years of Mugabe rule. "People are desperate for change," he says. "For a lot of people here, any kind of change is a good thing. For 37 years, they've been under one leader whose rule was dictatorial, and they've suffered a lot of economic victimization. Elections haven't worked, demonstrations are violently suppressed, and people feel under siege."
Mr. Mugabe's own blunders led to his fall, Mr. Gwede says. "When someone is in power for 37 years, there is the myth of invincibility. And Mugabe himself believed it. He forgot that his rule was based on the security agencies, not the popular will. He showed arrogance, and the military decided that enough was enough. He was aware that something was afoot, but he couldn't stop it."
One of his biggest blunders was to allow his politically inexperienced wife to share his power. "She has an inflated sense of superiority, but she lacks the emotional intelligence to know that you shouldn't insult people in public," Mr. Gwede says. "She seems to revel in the limelight."
Ms. Mugabe and the G40 faction made another political error by pushing for a swift entrenchment of their power at the special ZANU-PF conference next month.
"I think G40 tried to move too fast to get their slate set for the December conference," Mr. Moore says. "They figured they'd have to work fast to get their slate in, but their hubris made them move too fast, and they underestimated the savvy of their enemy. And they have no guns. Without guns they had no chance."
Nov. 16: A man walks past a military tank parked on the side of a Harare street. AFP/GETTY IMAGES
In the end, Mr. Mugabe became a victim of his own willingness to encourage the military to intervene in political issues – a pattern that continued from the army massacres in Matabeleland in the 1980s to the blatant military interference in the 2008 election. "He promoted military intervention in civilian affairs, and this was a direct result of that," Mr. Gwede says. "His grip on the army began loosening last year, and then he complained of military intervention in the political succession battle."
The military coup was carefully planned and shrewdly organized, with a minimum of disruption. Mr. Biti, the former finance minister, says the army commanders avoided the three biggest mistakes of most coups: they did not inflict great bloodshed, they did not disrupt the lives of ordinary people, and they did not wreak revenge on their enemies.
As a result, they have retained a significant amount of public support, and they still have a chance to gain legitimacy for their intervention by persuading ZANU-PF to drop Mr. Mugabe as the party's leader – allowing the military to maintain the fiction that this was not a coup.
"The army wants a soft landing for Robert Mugabe, because they respect him," Mr. Mudzengi says. "They are the same guys as him. He made those guys, and they made him."
Mr. Mugabe, true to his character, stubbornly refused to resign when the generals took over. But the military has continued to play the game shrewdly, allowing him to keep his dignity. On Thursday, it permitted him to be photographed at a negotiating session with mediators and military leaders at State House, his presidential headquarters. On Friday, it even allowed him to supervise a university graduation ceremony.
Nov. 16: A screengrab from Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation shows Mr. Mugabe, second from right, with General Constantino Chiwenga, right, and South African envoys in Harare. ZBC/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
This strategy might avoid bloodshed and pave the way for a peaceful transition to a new government – but it does nothing to restore democracy in a country where autocrats have long ruled.
"A family had captured the state, and now a junta is capturing the state," Mr. Gwede said. "It doesn't change the fundamentals. We're still under a militarized and undemocratic system that doesn't respect human rights. We're seeing how the military has become such a powerful force in our politics. It's hard to see who can run the country in the future without the army, and that's not what we want as human rights defenders and democrats."
He wonders if the military will allow any criticism of the next president – whether it is Mr. Mnangagwa or someone else. "It's as if the military are the commissars of the ruling party. They're not acting as a national army – they are acting as a partisan party. And that's dangerous."
AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Geoffrey York is The Globe and Mail's Africa correspondent.
MORE FROM THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Editorial: The welcome end of Robert Mugabe’s reign From all appearances, the interminable reign of President Robert Mugabe, the only leader Zimbabwe has ever known, has come to an end in a bloodless coup.Excerpt from Drama. Art by Raina Telgemeier.
For the vast majority of my 31 years on this Earth, I was the only comics reader in my family. I’ve been picking up funnybooks — most of them, I’m slightly ashamed to say, of the superhero variety — for decades and, with the exception of some parental dabbling in NPR-approved works like |
in the EU is wholly uncontrolled. I believe we must accept the political reality that there should be some control over migration from the EU. (exempting Ireland for obvious reasons) within a broadly liberal regime. This will however make it difficult to retain Single Market status unless the EU becomes less dogmatic. It may be that the Conservative government will have the responsibility of telling its friends in the City that some of them will have to be sacrificed. To govern is to choose.
Local power.
One of the biggest dangers moving forward is that the UK fragments: not just Scotland and N Ireland but successful parts of England (London, Manchester, Cambridge, Bristol) demanding to keep more of their tax revenue at the expense of poorer areas. The Scottish problem is most immediate and, if I were Scottish, I would feel like voting for independence in Europe. It may be that economics might make independence unattractive fight now but in the longer term the only thing which will keep the union together is the emergence in England of a powerful movement with the same liberal and social democratic values.
More broadly, the process of devolution in England will, and should, gather pace but must be done in a way which supports the ‘left behind’ as well as the successful. That cannot happen if the Conservative government keeps eroding the financial base of local government: another reason for demanding a fundamental rethink of fiscal policy.
Inequality.
There is no doubt that seething resentment over widening inequalities in the wake of the financial crisis played a big role in boosting the Brexit vote. Production line workers at Nissan in Sunderland and JLR in the Midlands simply ignored company advice. Low pay and insecure jobs have taken their toll. In the post-Brexit world, issues like executive pay and the taxation of incomes and property will have to be revisited in a more progressive spirit.
There are people more skilled than I in crafting slogans and writing manifestos and others will have a different view about the key essentials.
But if we were to develop a programme around which a wide segment of the population could unite, there is then the issue of how to deliver the programme politically.. Within the current parliament the government has a small majority and most MP’s are Remainers. The Lords is a formidable obstacle to damaging legislation. So, there are realistic prospects of stopping seriously bad outcomes.
But more is at stake than parliamentary arithmetic. It seems likely that the Labour Party will split. It is more than possible that many Conservatives will look to leave when they grasp the scale of the havoc their party leaders have wrought. We could well be facing a major realignment. Our party can play a leadership role if it is willing to be part of it. That is why we need to define, now, what a broader movement would fight for.
* Vince Cable is Leader of the Liberal DemocratsSanctioned Austin ADA attorney now targeting websites
KXAN (AUSTIN) — A Texas attorney, known for filing hundreds of Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuits in Austin, now appears to be peppering healthcare businesses across the state with letters asking the recipient to pay $2,000 or be sued for alleged ADA website violations. The letters related to alleged ADA website violations have landed in mailboxes from Amarillo to Beaumont.
Omar Weaver Rosales' "demand" letters and threats of litigation are a new twist to a familiar pattern, according to longtime civil rights attorney Jim Harrington. Harrington announced Wednesday he is forming the Texas ADA Defense Project. The Defense Project will combat "exploitative" litigation threats, such as those sent by Rosales, that could undermine the integrity of ADA law, Harrington said in a news release. Harrington retired in 2015 from the Texas Civil Rights Project, which he founded.
"This is about as close to a shakedown as you can get."
"This is about as close to a shakedown as you can get," Harrington said. "Rosales sends a draft of a suit, with himself as plaintiff, to scare people into paying him $2,000. This is a perverted use of the ADA."
KXAN contacted Rosales by email for a comment, but he did not respond before publishing time. Rosales has defended his lawsuits in the past, saying they are necessary to improve accessibility for the disability community.
"The ADA has been law for almost 30 years," Rosales told KXAN previously in an interview. "We're here fighting these cases and without the work, nobody cares, and the work won't get done to make the buildings compliant."
Rosales' "demand" letter is accompanied by an unfiled lawsuit alleging a business' website violates ADA law, according to one example provided by Harrington.
In the letter provided by Harrington, Rosales says people who are disabled such as himself use websites to book medical treatment, and the websites must comply with new web content accessibility guidelines called WCAG 2.0 AA. According to the potential lawsuit, Rosales claims he surveyed the website, and it failed a compliance test. Rosales also says the website owner must "self-report to the Department of Health and Human Services and forfeit any Federal funds received until you have completed recertification," according to the letter.
"Our Initial Demand to settle this unfiled lawsuit is $2,000," Rosales' letter states. "Should you refuse to enter settlement negotiations, I will have no choice but to file the attached lawsuit against your company. I will also contact DHHS and discuss the possibility of a separate civil suit under Qui Tam doctrine to obtain reimbursement of Federal Tax dollars that you improperly obtained from the government."
Harrington said he has received numerous reports from healthcare companies around Texas that received similar letters.
Rosales does not have legal standing to bring the lawsuit, Harrington said, since he does not plan to use the facility or the service connected to the website. Harrington also points out that Rosales was able to use the website to figure out how it may violate ADA law.
The federal government has not yet resolved the issue of website access for visually impaired people and what specific requirements there will be, Harrington said. In addition, Rosales seeks attorney's fees, but a lawyer representing himself is not entitled to attorney's fees, Harrington added.
Harrington said he would seek administrative and court sanctions against Rosales, if he sued any of the businesses that received website-related lawsuit letters.
According to records obtained by KXAN, Rosales sued two Texas businesses in October for alleged website ADA violations.
Bob Rapp, a San Antonio attorney, is representing one of those businesses: Concentra Operating Corporation.
"I don't see a connection between an Austin resident and an urgent care clinic in San Antonio," Rapp said.
Rapp's client received Rosales' letter roughly one month before the lawsuit was filed, Rapp said. Concentra would not settle, and Rapp has filed a motion stating Rosales lacks standing and is not the proper person to file the lawsuit in the first place, among other things.
A Cottage Industry
A KXAN investigation previously revealed Rosales was involved in suing nearly 400 Austin businesses for technical ADA parking lot violations. Those lawsuits followed a slightly different pattern, according to records obtained by KXAN.
Rosales represented a single client named John Deutsch and typically filed the lawsuits without first contacting the defendants, federal court filings show.
Harrington is already defending a handful of those businesses pro bono. That litigation became increasingly contentious earlier this year. A federal judge ultimately sanctioned Rosales in early December and assessed more than $175,000 in federal court penalties for his conduct and actions in the cases against Harrington.
Rosales accused Harrington of making anti-Semitic and racist remarks against Hispanic people. Harrington hired his own attorney and defended himself against those accusations. Federal District Judge Mark Lane ruled in Harrington's favor, finding Rosales' accusations lacked any basis in fact.
In Lane's 49-page order, he said Rosales "engaged in serious and habitual misconduct—from making false and offensive statements about Harrington in multiple court filings to knowingly submitting fabricated evidence," according to the court order.
Lane referred Rosales to the Western District of Texas' disciplinary committee for possible further sanctions.
Rosales sued KXAN News based on our previous stories. The lawsuit was later dropped.Yes, we have reached our goal!! But remember, this is a pre-order for the record and many of these items will sell out. Let's run these numbers up!! (Says me, the now ruthless record label owner.)
Here's "Raw Wood" from Dagger Beach.
Here's "Diamanthunde" from Vanderslice Plays Diamond Dogs
WE HAVE CROSSED 75K, SO I WILL NOW WRITE YOU A SONG.
You can play it, post it, lip dub it, make a 7" out of it, sell it, YOU OWN IT (collectively). It'll be recorded at Tiny Telephone using the musicians you know and love. It will be a bad ass production, not a demo. It will be weird and wonderful.
STRETCH GOAL REACHED...We crossed 65K, so all packages of $100+ will receive a UNIQUE 4X6 photograph. Thanks so much for doing this.
Taken by me on my Leica M6 and printed at San Francisco's own Photoworks on Kodak matte paper. I'll sign and write some location info or other explication on the back. These are one-off prints, they are actually the only print I have of each photo. It's a 1 of 1 kind of scenario. WE DO IT.
Stereogum has the DIamond Dogs track.
Vanderslice Plays Diamond Dogs - "A Better Whirlpool"
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NEW REWARDS: ALL THE CDS, GREEN GROW THE RUSHES 180G VINYL
REWARDS CLOSE TO SELLING OUT: Diamond Dogs vinyl, 1/2" master tape (1), Dagger Beach Test Pressing (4), House Shows (1 left), Private Listening Party (3 left), Extra In Music Video (1 left), Taqueria Tour (1 left).
SOLD OUT rewards: I WRITE YOU AN 8 SECOND SONG WITH YOUR NAME IN IT, DIAMOND DOGS TEST PRESSING, MY COPY OF MOON COLONY BLOODBATH, DISTRESSED WOOD FLASH DRIVE
We crossed 60k so we'll live stream the May 2nd listening party.
Brooklyn Vegan, Billboard, Hypebot, and Flavorwire picked up the story of your AWESOME INVOLVEMENT in these records.
You can easily combine rewards: just type in the total amount for both rewards, but select just one of them. When the campaign ends I'll send out a survey getting necessary info to be sure everyone gets what they requested.
----------- The story-----------
In the winter of 2011, after lots and lots of White Wilderness touring, I returned home to an empty house and a chaotic Tiny Telephone. The years of relentless recording and touring had inflicted some psychic costs that needed to be accounted (and paid) for.
So I lost my mind for a few exciting months, and then made some hard decisions about how to best maintain a healthy relationship with creativity.
I decided to tour much less (with the exception of house shows, which always feels right to me) and release music on my own label, Tiny Telephone.
For me, the best part of making records and touring was always the friendships I made with fans. Many of you reading this will know exactly what I mean.
There were only two aspects of what I was doing that had to stay: recording my songs and nurturing the relationships with people who have supported my music. That means you.
So you see, it's now just you and me. The label has one employee, and you're looking at him. I'm trying to bring this stuff back to its essence.
Honestly, I'm terrified to put out my own records. For a week after I made the decision, I had intense insomnia and deep regret. Later, I moved to something like terror + incredible excitement. Now, after further reflection, it's clear to me: I was born for this.
Needless to say, there are costs associated with self-releasing. (Wow, I really took those label advances for granted!) My crew at Tiny Telephone (which includes the engineer, all the musicians on the record, and Magik*Magik Orchestra) has let me run up an impressive tab, but that tab is now due.
The costs of the initial vinyl printing are around $12,000. Without your help, it will be impossible for me to release the record.
This is what Dagger Beach looks like
I love Dagger Beach. I spent 10 months writing and recording this record. It's construction was very similar to Cellar Door and Pixel Revolt: songs were written over existing free-form drum parts, or tracked at home and meticulously overdubbed at Tiny Telephone. We kept the roughness and frayed edges in (when they worked) and leaned on early takes and performances that teetered on perfection.
Mixing Dagger Beach
Like all my albums, Dagger Beach is a linear, analog production. The 200g pressing is superb and might be the best sounding vinyl I've made yet. Joe Williams did a wonderful job on the gatefold artwork.
Dagger Beach will be in stores this summer. If you support this Kickstarter, you will receive your (digital or analog) copy of both records at least a week before they hit stores.
Dagger Beach Track Listing
1. Raw Wood
2. Harlequin Press
3. Song For Dana Lok
4. How The West Was Won
5. Interlude #1
6. Song For David Berman
Side 2
7. Damage ControlAbout 30 cyclists from around Southern California donned shirts stained with fake blood as part of a “die in” outside City Hall Tuesday afternoon, the latest effort in a continued push for a set of five cycling safety signs in the city.
The protesters gathered near Malaga Cove Plaza ahead of Tuesday’s City Council meeting, where cyclists reportedly planned to continue their months-long campaign for a set of signs reading “Bicycles May Use Full Lane.”
Previously, groups or riders have used the council meeting’s public comment sections to chastise the city for refusing to install the signs, which the council shot down in October, citing a desire to wait until a developing Roadway Safety Master Plan is finished to decide whether the signs are needed.
Proponents argue the signs are needed to promote safety for riders on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, where three cyclists have died this year.
Residents opposed to the signs accuse the cyclists of flouting existing roadway safety laws and trying to take over traffic lanes where it isn’t allowed.You must enter the characters with black color that stand out from the other characters
Message: * A friend wanted you to see this item from WRAL Sports Fan: http://wr.al/zcIp
— At a hastily called press conference Tuesday in Zurich, Switzerland, Sepp Blatter announced his intent to resign as president of FIFA.
An “extraordinary” FIFA Congress will be convened in accordance with FIFA notice and other guidelines, but this extraordinary congress will not take place until sometime between December 2015 and March 2016, according to a spokesperson at Tuesday’s press conference.
Blatter was just re-elected as FIFA President last week. A Tuesday’s press conference, Blatter said he will remain as FIFA president until the extraordinary congress can convene.
Meanwhile, Aaron Davidson, the former president of Traffic Sports USA, Inc. and the only charged soccer official yet arraigned as a result of last week’s U.S. Justice Department indictments, appears to be entering plea negotiations with federal authorities.
In court filings, prosecutors and Davidson’s attorney, Michael Hantman, asked a federal judge to delay Davidson’s prospective trial date from May 29 to July 17, a request that was granted.
“The parties seek the exclusion of the foregoing period because they are engaged in plea negotiations, which they believe are likely to result in a disposition of this case without trial, and they require an exclusion of time in order to focus efforts on plea negotiations without the risk that they would not, despite their due diligence, have reasonable time for effective preparation for trial,” the application for the delay said.
It would be common practice that such plea negotiations between defendants and federal authorities would include a pledge of full cooperation with the U.S. Justice Department’s ongoing corruption investigation.
Traffic Sports USA remains the majority stakeholder in the Carolina RailHawks, the Cary-based soccer club. Davidson is also a director of Carh Holding, LLC, the RailHawks management company. He is also the now-former chairperson of the North American Soccer League (NASL), having been suspended from that post last week by the league.Illinois senator responds to written questions submitted by the Washington Post.
Q. Do you believe democracy promotion should be a primary U.S. goal? If so, how would you achieve it? How would you balance democracy and human rights priorities against other strategic needs in the case of countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China and Russia?
A. We benefit from the expansion of democracy: Democracies are our best trading partners, our most valuable allies and the nations with which we share our deepest values.
Our greatest tool in advancing democracy is our own example. That's why I will end torture, end extraordinary rendition and indefinite detentions; restore habeas corpus; and close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
I will significantly increase funding for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other nongovernmental organizations to support civic activists in repressive societies. And I will start a new Rapid Response Fund for young democracies and post-conflict societies that will provide foreign aid, debt relief, technical assistance and investment packages that show the people of newly hopeful countries that democracy and peace deliver, and the United States stands by them.
I recognize that our security interests will sometimes necessitate that we work with regimes with which we have fundamental disagreements; yet, those interests need not and must not prevent us from lending our consistent support to those who are committed to democracy and respect for human rights.
Q. You have said that you will open talks with countries such as Iran, Cuba and North Korea. Are you willing to reestablish diplomatic relations with Iran and Cuba as the logical extension of that policy, and open an embassy in Pyongyang?
A. I have said that we should consider carrots as well as sticks in our negotiations with these and other countries. Reinstatement of normal diplomatic relations is one carrot I might consider, but normalizing relations would require the countries meeting their requirements on key U.S. and international demands, which in the case of Iran, for example, would mean verifiably ending its nuclear program and its support for terrorism. On Cuba, I have made clear that I will authorize unlimited family travel and family cash remittances.
Q. You have said that as president you will focus on the Israeli-Palestinian issue "from the start."... How will you succeed where other presidents have failed? What, specifically, can you do to "insist" that good faith efforts are made? What leverage are you prepared to use?
A. The current administration has talked a good game on Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, but until recently it has done very little. The Annapolis conference was a worthy, but late, effort, and already the follow-up has been lacking. As president, I will commit myself personally, and I will assign high-caliber diplomats, to be engaged with both sides on an ongoing basis -- encouraging communication, helping them develop and implement solutions, holding them accountable to their commitments by carefully monitoring and reporting on their implementation. I will also demand greater support for this process from the Arab world.
Q. You have said that within your first 100 days in office, you would give a major speech in a "major Islamic forum" in which you will "redefine our struggle." What is that redefinition? What would be the substance of that speech?
A. As president of the United States, I will directly address the people of the Muslim world to make it clear that the United States is not at war with Islam, that our enemy is al-Qaeda and its tactical and ideological affiliates, and that our struggle is shared. In this speech, I will make it clear that the United States rejects torture -- without equivocation, and will close Guantanamo. I will make it clear that the United States stands ready to support those who reject violence with closer security cooperation; an agenda of hope -- backed by increased foreign assistance -- to support justice, development and democracy in the Muslim world; and a new program of outreach to strengthen ties between the American people and people in Muslim countries. I will also make it clear that we will expect greater cooperation from Muslim countries; and that the United States will always stand for basic human rights -- including the rights of women -- and reject the scourge of anti-Semitism. Simply put, I will say that we are on the side of the aspirations of all peace-loving Muslims, and together we must build a new spirit of partnership to combat terrorists who threaten our common security.Borussia Dortmund are reported to have bid €36 million for Karim Bellarabi.
Bayer Leverkusen have dismissed reports that Karim Bellarabi wants to join Borussia Dortmund as "nonsense."
Dortmund have been linked with Bellarabi for some time and, with Henrikh Mkhitaryan set to join Manchester United, are reported to have stepped up their efforts to sign the 26-year-old winger.
BVB are reported to have bid €36 million for the Germany international and local outlet DerWesten said on Monday that he wants to make the switch this summer "by all means."
Addressing the DerWesten report, Leverkusen sporting director Rudi Voller told kicker: "Whoever says that Karim Bellarabi wants to leave Leverkusen talks nonsense. It is a lie.
"After all the talks we've held with Karim, I am totally convinced he wants to stay, and there is not the slightest doubt about it. Karim feels well here, and there is no desire to switch clubs."
In a second interview, published by German tabloid Bild, Voller said that the relationship with Dortmund has not been damaged by Borussia's recent attempts to sign Bellarabi and centre-back Omer Toprak.
"We signed Kevin Kampl from Dortmund last year; they signed Gonzalo Castro from us," Voller said. "We will always meet on the transfer market. That won't change the good relationship between the clubs."
Stephan Uersfeld is the Germany correspondent for ESPN FC. Follow him on Twitter @uersfeld.FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- The New York Jets are serious about this penalty-prevention thing.
The three highest ranking members of the organization -- owner Woody Johnson, president Neil Glat and general manager John Idzik -- hit the ground Wednesday, banging out 30 push-ups apiece because of three penalties that occurred in practice.
It's Rex Ryan's new edict: Ten push-ups for every penalty. It's mandatory for players and coaches -- except the offending player, who has to watch the others pay for his mistake. Ryan, in a show of unity, challenged every member of the organization to participate. Setting an example, The Big Three followed through. It didn't happen during the 30-minute period open to the media. During that window, Johnson -- the billionaire boss -- was seen wearing a blue blazer and dress slacks, not exactly exercise garb.
This, of course, was in response to the Jets' 20-penalty debacle in Sunday's win over the Bills.
"Obviously, we're 32nd in the league, probably closer to 33rd, if that's possible," Ryan said. "It's just not us. It's not who we are, so we're trying to fix it. And we will fix it."
The Jets had the fourth fewest number of penalties last season.Draper, Utah
Independent conservative presidential candidate Evan McMullin is surging in the Utah polls and turning the state into a toss-up contest. But he's still not registering in national polls, even as Libertarian Gary Johnson is garnering about 6 percent of the vote and the Green party's Jill Stein is grabbing about 2 percent. One of McMullin's biggest challenges as a national protest candidate is that he's named on the ballot in just 11 states and is an official write-in candidate in 32 other states.
Still, he hopes to win over many Gary Johnson voters who cannot in good conscience vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Ahead of a rally in Utah this weekend, McMullin outlined three reasons why he's a better choice than the Libertarian party nominee.
First, McMullin pointed out that Johnson is a poor protest vote for those who care about the Constitution. "Gary Johnson is not actually a libertarian," McMullin told TWS at a press event. "He has tax policies that are not libertarian, his stance on religious liberty is not libertarian."
Johnson has called religious liberty a "black hole" and believes the state rightly has the power to coerce a Christian photographer to work same-sex weddings to which she conscientiously objects. His runningmate Bill Weld has pointed to liberal activists like Stephen Breyer as the model of a good Supreme Court justice. McMullin is pro-life, while Johnson believes in a right to abortion. "If Gary Johnson were a real libertarian, I probably would not be in this race," McMullin said.
Second, McMullin pointed out that Gary Johnson is a poor choice for those casting a protest vote on the grounds that neither Trump nor Clinton is fit to be commander-in-chief. "I do believe that I'm prepared to lead this country. I know where Aleppo is. I've been to Aleppo," said McMullin, a former CIA counterterrorism agent. "We need to defeat ISIS."
"There's nothing honorable about not knowing who international leaders are or not being able to say that you respect any of them," he added.
Johnson opposes military action, including bombing and drone warfare, against ISIS. When he was asked what he'd do about Aleppo, the city at the center of the Syrian war, Johnson infamously replied: " And what is a leppo?" When he was asked to name a foreign leader he admires, Johnson drew another blank and said he was having an " Aleppo moment."
Johnson later defended his lack of knowledge by arguing a president can't get the country involved in a war in a foreign country he couldn't find on the map.
That explanation will likely satisfy only the most dovish voters. But many non-interventionist libertarians could be turned off by McMullin's hawkish foreign policy. McMullin has taken a strong anti-Assad line. Asked in an interview Saturday with TWS if the fall of Assad could end up strengthening ISIS, McMullin replied that Assad has already "left an entire country as a vacuum for ISIS. That's what he's created--an environment in which ISIS has thrived. He's done what you're talking about. He is a brutal dictator who has created an environment across an entire country in which ISIS is thriving. He is one of the primary causes of ISIS's empowerment as well as the refugee crisis, which is the largest humanitarian disaster since World War II."
McMullin said if Assad fell, then "our moderate friends on the ground, who we've done a terrible job supporting, they would then be able to fight a one-front war instead of a two-front war. Now they're fighting ISIS and Assad. If Assad was gone, then the Turks... everybody who's involved on this effort more-or-less on our side, their interests would be even better-aligned. Right now, they're not. The Turks and essentially everybody in the region we depend on for success in this fight--if we were to ever get serious about it--they don't trust our strategy.... They don't trust our comitment to defeating ISIS, and a lot of that is all about Assad. They say, look, you can't defeat ISIS, you can't solve the humanitarian crisis without getting rid of Assad."
McMullin has never held elective office, but the 40-year-old former top congressional advisor and CIA agent has made it through his brief campaign without committing any embarrassing gaffes so far, which is something the former New Mexico governor can't say about himself.
Third, McMullin is honest about his longest-of-longshot odds, but he argues that "our strategy is much smarter" than Gary Johnson's because "we're in this to win Electoral College votes." Right now, some new polls show McMullin in a dead heat in Utah with Trump and Clinton. Johnson, on the other hand, is not currently in serious contention to win any state. And as Benjamin Morris wrote recently at FiveThirtyEight.com, McMullin has a small chance of throwing the election to the House of Representatives if he can win Utah:
It would take a fascinating scenario — in which much of the technical detail of how we select presidents comes into play — for McMullin to be sworn in as the 45th president, but the chances of its happening are slim, not none. Indeed, his chances of at least making things very interesting may be as high as 1 to 3 percent — about the same as the odds of the Cubs' coming back to beat the Giants on Monday.
Even if the election is thrown to the House, the odds of stopping Trump there are even smaller. A vote for McMullin or Johnson at this point is more about sending a message than electing either man president, but for many voters appalled by both Clinton and Trump, even a 1-in-1,000 chance of stopping them both is better than nothing.It's not easy being a man on today's college campuses. As the new year kicks off, several schools have apparently made it part of their New Year's resolutions to stomp out anything that might be identified with traditional definitions of masculinity, also known as masculinity.
We've already discussed UW-Madison's assault on manhood, but they're far from alone on this.
Via Campus Reform:
An advertisement for the conference lists several other intended “learning outcomes,” such as examining “the histories and legacies of Eurocentric masculinities and [understanding] how they influenced and continue to shape modern global masculinities.”
“Join us in a collective examination of the histories and legacies that shape present day masculinities. Through a day of presentations, panels, workshops, and artistic expression, learn how to engage systems of power,” the advertisement states, noting that students will be allowed to attend free of charge.
Similarly, Ithaca College will host a workshop on “masculinity and violence” during its MLK Week celebrations, where students will “examine hegemonic masculinity and its role as the wheel that rotates a cycle of violence” while empowering “willing individuals to begin to recognize, acknowledge, own, and disrupt the toxicity of manhood in order to end violence.”
Duke University’s “Men’s Project,” meanwhile, is looking for applicants for a “nine-week long discussion group” that will also “examine the ways we present -- or don’t present -- our masculinities, so we can better understand how masculinity exists on our campus -- often in toxic ways -- and begin the work of unlearning violence.”
“We want to explore, dissect, and construct an intersectional understanding of masculinity and maleness, as well as to create destabilized spaces for those with privilege,” a description of the program explains. “Duke is an environment where some are rarely made uncomfortable while others are made to bear the weight of their identities on a daily basis -- we aim to flip that paradigm.”My bar trivia team changes its name with each new tournament. Every few months, this becomes a ritual where I pitch a series of disgusting and/or esoteric names like Bridget Jones’s Diarrhea or Rod Torfulson’s Armada Featuring Herman Menderchuk and the group rolls their eyes as they reject my ideas. In the last go-around, I became insistent that we name ourselves after one of the gangs from the 1979 cult film The Warriors. For no particular reason, I especially wanted to be called The Baseball Furies. In a flash of brilliance and to my surprise, a teammate suggested that we be called The Baseball Furries – combining the fictional gang with the name for people whose sexual fetish is to dress up like a Care Bear.
This was a good name for a trivia team, but considering their usual aversion to jokes that might offend, I was surprised that the team was amenable to this name. It was difficult for me to imagine naming our team after any minority group – sexual or otherwise. I had to conclude that everyone pretty much assumed there to be no furries in the bar, nor would there be any in our social groups that could possibly take offense.
Furries might exist somewhere, but nowhere, we assume, near us. It makes them a convenient reference for a laugh about other people’s perversion. And yet, our assumption that it is a minority group so small as to be nonexistent belies our and everyone else’s assumed familiarity with the practice. For a group that barely exists, there sure are a lot of people talking about furries. This is why the group is “fictional” – the amount of discourse that surrounds furry-ism immeasurably outweighs the reality of its practice. That it is other people’s perversion is key. Furry fetishism is so far off the radar of seemingly possible sexuality that it has come to stand in as a marker for sexual deviance in comedy. It is a common target for television comedies like The Drew Carey Show, Entourage, and Check It Out with Dr. Steve Brule. And in a comic twist on “rule 34,” furry culture is the topic of a lot of internet mockery.
In an episode of 30 Rock, unlucky-in-love Liz Lemon finds a seemingly great guy who is single. Too good to be true? Yes – he’s a furry. This is reminiscent of the “all the good men are gay” sitcom trope where a woman falls for a gay man. One variation of this trope, which became the basis for Will and Grace, has a female character only realize at a humiliatingly late moment that her crush is gay. The key difference between Grace and Liz, however, is that while Will’s sexuality allowed the pair to easily reformulate their relationship as friends, Liz was so horrified at the prospect of furry-ism that it was borderline unimaginable for her to spend any more time with this man. And as the primary surrogate for the audience, it was implied that the we too should be comically horrified by the prospect of explorations in furry sexuality. That kind of experimentation was Jenna’s domain.
It is difficult to imagine, in the current media environment, having a character like Liz Lemon be horrified by a homosexual. Homer Simpson could get away with homophobia in 1997, as long as he learned tolerance by the end of the program. Although homophobia still exists in American comedy, the kind that would blatantly encourage a kind of abject dread is not terribly common in contemporary mass media. This is due to a host of factors, notably general changing social mores as well as more pointed calls for responsible representation by gay rights groups. Jokes constantly change their particulars while maintaining a common structure. That some gay jokes have shifted their target to furries is thus less notable than the fact that jokes have shifted from an identifiable group to a practically unidentifiable one.
And this is neither only nor simply an issue of redirected homophobia. Jeffrey Sconce provocatively suggests that “the unconscious is slowly dying out” in part because of, “the Internet’s ability to actualize any and all erotic scenarios in seconds.” From a Freudian standpoint, the lack of an unconscious would obviate the need for humor or sexual shame, so why do we seem stubbornly stuck with jokes at the expense of furries? Furry jokes demonstrate at least some aspect of the unconscious is alive and that it is desperately trying to Other furries in an attempt to normalize the things of which we are all silently ashamed. We need furries because they make your internet browser history seem less embarrassing. But beware. Once that stuff becomes normalized, there will be few places left to go for the thrill of perversion. Someday, we will all become furries.
AdvertisementsA trucker died in an explosion after hitting a bridge support in Jonesboro, Arkansas early Monday, June 27th.
It happened underneath the Harrisburg Road overpass at approximately 9 a.m. on Interstate 555.
According to KAIT 8, a semi truck was driving north on I-555 when it struck a bridge support beam, causing the rig to catch fire.
The fire caused three separate explosions, each originating at the tractor trailer.
The truck driver, 57-year-old Jackie Becker of Jonesboro, died in the crash. No other injuries have been reported.
Firefighters were able to get the blaze under control, but the Harrisburg Road overpass has been shut down due to extensive damage from the accident.
The Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department is waiting for a bridge inspector to confirm the extent of the damage.
The southbound lanes of I-555 have since been reopened, but as of 2 p.m. the northbound lanes were still closed at the crash site.
Traffic is being directed to exit the highway just before the crash site and will be able to get back on the highway at the next on-ramp.
The exact cause of the wreck is still not known.
982983958388255Michael Edwards (born 5 December 1963), known as "Eddie the Eagle", is an English skier who in 1988 became the first competitor since 1928 to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping, finishing last in the 70 m and 90 m events.[1] He became the British ski jumping record holder, ninth in amateur speed skiing (106.8 km/h (66.4 mph)), and a stunt jumping world record holder for jumping over 6 buses.[2]
In 2016, he was portrayed by Taron Egerton in the biographical film Eddie the Eagle.
Background [ edit ]
Edwards was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. His family calls him by his given name, Michael. "Eddie" is a nickname derived by schoolfriends from his surname.[3] Having not made the grade as a downhill skier, he decided to switch to ski jumping as there were no other British ski jumpers with whom to compete for a place.[4]
Edwards began jumping under the eye of John Viscome and Chuck Berghorn in Lake Placid, New York, using Berghorn's equipment, although he had to wear six pairs of socks to make the boots fit. He was disadvantaged by his weight—at about 82 kg (181 lb), more than 9 kg (20 lb) heavier than the next heaviest competitor—and by his lack of financial support for training, being totally self-funded.[5] Another problem was that he was very nearsighted, wearing thick glasses under his goggles, which would mist up at altitude.[5]
Edwards was informed of his qualification for the games while working as a plasterer and residing temporarily in a Finnish mental hospital due to lack of funds for alternative accommodation (rather than as a patient).[6] He first represented Great Britain at the 1987 World Championships in Oberstdorf in Bavaria, West Germany and was ranked 55th in the world. This performance qualified him as the sole British applicant for the 198 |
I came up with a bash script to print the password and unlock the crackme.
#!/bin/bash e=$(printf "\x41\x42\x43\x04") echo $e./crackme3 $e
On executing the script.
Awesome stuff coming up!!V8: Behind the Scenes (February Edition feat. A tale of TurboFan)
February has been an exciting and very, very busy month for me. As you have probably heard, we’ve finally announced that we will launch the Ignition+TurboFan pipeline in Chrome 59. So despite running late, and not making it for February actually, I’d like to take the time to reflect on the TurboFan tale a bit, and tell my story here. Remember, that everything you read here is my very personal opinion and doesn’t reflect the opinion of V8, Chrome or Google.
It’s been almost 3½ years since we started (thinking about) TurboFan in 2013. The world has changed a lot since that time. And V8 has changed a lot since then. I have changed a lot since that time. And my mental model of JavaScript, the web and Node.js has changed significantly. This story of TurboFan development is strongly linked to my own personal development, so it’s probably heavily biased towards my own point of view here.
In late 2013, when I joined the TurboFan project, we strongly believed that we had to address the code generation problems of Crankshaft and throw more sophisticated peak performance optimizations at JavaScript code. We based most of these findings on JavaScript code we hit in certain benchmarks like Octane and investigations of asm.js based applications, but also on findings from important web pages like Google Maps. Those were considered good proxies for real-world performance, as they stress the optimizing compiler a lot. Looking back, we couldn’t have been more wrong. While it’s true that various tests in Octane could benefit from an even smarter compiler, the reality was that for the vast majority of websites the optimizing compiler doesn’t really matter, and can even hurt the performance ⸺ because speculative optimizations come at a cost ⸺ especially during page load and in particular on mobile devices.
But for the first year of TurboFan development we were mostly unaware of the real-world concerns. Our initial goal was to build a full language optimizing compiler that does extremely well on asm.js like code ⸺ both areas where Crankshaft was never really able to shine. In Chrome 41 we shipped TurboFan for asm.js code. This initial version of TurboFan already contained a lot of smartness. We basically got to Firefox level of asm.js performance with a more general approach. Most of the type based optimizations for fast arithmetic would work equally well in general JavaScript. From my very personal point of view, the TurboFan optimizing compiler at that time was probably the most beautiful version we ever had, and the only version (of a JavaScript compiler) where I could imagine that a “sea of nodes” approach might make sense (although it was already showing its weakness at that time). In the following months we tried to find incremental ways to turn TurboFan into a viable, general drop-in replacement for Crankshaft. But we struggled to find another subset of JavaScript that would be possible to tackle independently, similar to how we started with asm.js.
In mid 2015 we began to realize that TurboFan might actually solve a problem we don’t have, and that we might need to go back to the drawing board to figure out why V8 is struggling in the wild. We weren’t really engaging the community at that time, and my personal response when developers brought problems to my attention was often negative and along the lines of “your JavaScript does odd things”, which over time turned into “if your code is slow in V8, you wrote slow code” in people’s minds. So taking a step back, and trying to understand the full picture, I slowly realized that a lot of the suffering arose from performance cliffs in V8. Phrased differently, we were over-focused on the peak performance case, and baseline performance was a blind spot.
This lack of balance led to highly unpredictable performance. For example, when JavaScript code follows a certain pattern ⸺ avoid all kinds of performance killers, keep everything monomorphic, limit the number of hot functions ⸺ you’ll be able to squeeze awesome performance out of V8, easily beating Java performance on similar code. But as soon as you leave this fine line of awesome performance, you often immediately fall off a steep cliff.
V8 has been like this cliff. If you pay attention, then it’s stunning and beautiful. But if you don’t, and you fall off the cliff, you’re screwed. Performance differences of 100x weren’t uncommon in the past. Of these cliffs, the arguments object handling in Crankshaft is probably the one which people hit most often and which is the most frustrating too. The fundamental assumption in Crankshaft is that arguments object does not escape, and thus Crankshaft does not need to materialize the actual JavaScript arguments object ever, but instead can just take the parameters from the activation record. So, in other words, there’s no safety net. It’s all or nothing. Let’s consider this simple dispatching logic:
var callbacks = [
function sloppy ( ) { },
function strict ( ) {
"use strict" ;
}
] ;
function dispatch ( ) {
for ( var l = callbacks. length, i = 0 ; i < l ; ++ i ) {
callbacks [ i ]. apply ( null, arguments ) ;
}
}
for ( var i = 0 ; i < 100000 ; ++ i ) {
dispatch ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ) ;
}
Looking at it naively, it seems to follow the rules for the arguments object in Crankshaft: In dispatch we only use arguments together with Function.prototype.apply. Yet, running this simple example.js in node tells us that all optimizations are disabled for dispatch :
$ node --trace-opt example.js... [marking 0x353f56bcd659 <JS Function dispatch (SharedFunctionInfo 0x187ffee58fc9)> for optimized recompilation, reason: small function, ICs with typeinfo: 6/7 (85%), generic ICs: 0/7 (0%)] [compiling method 0x353f56bcd659 <JS Function dispatch (SharedFunctionInfo 0x187ffee58fc9)> using Crankshaft] [disabled optimization for 0x167a24a58fc9 <SharedFunctionInfo dispatch>, reason: Bad value context for arguments value]
The infamous Bad value context for arguments value reason. So, what is the problem here? Despite the code following the rules for arguments object, it falls off the performance cliff. The real reason is pretty subtle: Crankshaft can only optimize fn.apply(receiver,arguments) if it knows that fn.apply is Function.prototype.apply, and it only knows that for monomorphic fn.apply property accesses. That is, fn has to have exactly the same hidden class ⸺ map in V8 terminology ⸺ all the time. But callbacks[0] and callbacks[1] have different maps, since callbacks[0] is a sloppy mode function, whereas callbacks[1] is a strict mode function:
$ cat example2.js var callbacks = [ function sloppy() {}, function strict() { "use strict"; } ]; console.log(%HaveSameMap(callbacks[0], callbacks[1])); $ node --allow-natives-syntax example2.js false
TurboFan on the other hand happily optimizes dispatch (using the latest Node.js LKGR):
$ node --trace-opt --future example.js [marking 0x20fa7d04cee9 <JS Function dispatch (SharedFunctionInfo 0x27431e85d299)> for optimized recompilation, reason: small function, ICs with typeinfo: 6/6 (100%), generic ICs: 0/6 (0%)] [compiling method 0x20fa7d04cee9 <JS Function dispatch (SharedFunctionInfo 0x27431e85d299)> using TurboFan] [optimizing 0x1c22925834d9 <JS Function dispatch (SharedFunctionInfo 0x27431e85d299)> - took 0.526, 0.513, 0.069 ms] [completed optimizing 0x1c22925834d9 <JS Function dispatch (SharedFunctionInfo 0x27431e85d299)>]...
In this trivial example, the performance difference is already 2.5x, and TurboFan doesn’t even generate awesome code ⸺ yet. So you take the performance hit just because you’re faced with the choice of two extremes: Fast path vs. slow path. And V8’s focus on the fast path in the past often led to making the slow path even slower, for example because you pay more for tracking feedback that you need to generate almost perfect code in some fast case, or simply because you have to fall through even more checks to get to the slow path.
Taking a step back again: If TurboFan was supposed to help us, then it had to do something about the slow path too. And we figured that we’d have to address two things to make this happen:
Widen the fast path. Improve the slow path.
Widening the fast path is crucial to ensure that the resources the JavaScript engine spends on trying to optimize your code actually pay off. For example, it’s a complete waste of resources to collect type feedback and profile a function until it gets hot, just to then realize that it uses arguments in a way that isn’t supported. The stated goal for the TurboFan optimizing compiler is to support the full language, and always pay for itself. In the new world, tiering up from Ignition to TurboFan is always a win in terms of execution speed. In this sense, TurboFan is kind of a better Crankshaft.
But that alone wouldn’t really help, especially since TurboFan compilation is more expensive than Crankshaft (you really have to acknowledge the awesome engineering work that went into Crankshaft here, which still shines as core part of the Dart engine). In fact real-world performance would have suffered a lot from just replacing Crankshaft with TurboFan in many cases. And real-world performance is starting to hurt V8 and Chrome seriously, as we move to a world where most of the web traffic comes from mobile devices, and more and more of these devices are low-end Android devices. In this world, page load time and low overhead ⸺ both memory and execution wise ⸺ are crucial for success. For example, we discovered that 30% of the managed memory in typical web applications was used by Code objects:
That means 30% of the memory is taken by the VM for its internal execution support. That’s a lot! The vast majority of these Code objects came from Full-Codegen and the IC (inline caching) system. V8 traditionally used to generate machine code for every function it executes, via the Full-Codegen compiler. That means even if the function is executed only once or twice during page load, we would still generate a Code object for it. And these code objects used to be really huge because Full-Codegen doesn’t really apply any serious optimizations (it was supposed to generate code as quickly as possible). We added mitigations for this in the past, like a code aging mechanism, where the GC (garbage collector) would eventually nuke Code objects for functions that weren’t executed for a certain period of time.
But even with these mitigations in place, the overhead of code generated for functions was significant. And the TurboFan optimizing compiler wouldn’t help at all here. But as it turned out, some smart engineers figured out that we could reuse the actual code generation parts of the TurboFan pipeline to build the Ignition interpreter, which drastically reduces the code memory overhead. In addition to that it also improves page load time and helps to mitigate the parsing overhead, because the TurboFan optimizing compiler no longer needs to reparse the function source when it starts to optimize, but can optimize directly from the interpreters’ bytecode.
The interpreter is a big win for V8. But its impact on page load time and baseline performance is not overall positive. The issues with the slow paths, especially in the IC (inline caching) system, remain even with Ignition (and TurboFan). A key observation here, was that the traditional approach of having dedicated code stubs, so-called handlers, for the various combinations of maps (hidden classes) and names to speed up property accesses, doesn’t scale. For example, for each property access o.x executed by V8, it would generate one Code object for each map of o, which checks whether o still has this map and if so, loads the value of x according to that map. The knowledge about the object and the way how to get to the property value was thus encoded in tiny Code objects. This contributed a lot to the general code memory overhead, and was also fairly expensive in terms of instruction cache utilization. But even worse, V8 would have to generate these Code objects for each and every property access that is executed at least two times (we mitigated overhead already by not doing this on the first execution).
Some web pages would spend a significant amount of time just generating these property access handlers during page load. Again, replacing the optimizing compiler wouldn’t help at all, but instead we were able to generalize the TurboFan based code generation architecture that was introduced for Ignition to also be able to use it for code stubs. This allowed us to refactor the IC system to move away from handler Code objects towards a data-driven approach, where the information how to load or store a property is encoded via a data format, and TurboFan based code stubs (i.e. LoadIC, StoreIC, etc.) read this format and perform the appropriate actions, utilizing a new data structure, the so-called FeedbackVector, that is now attached to every function and is responsible to record and manage all execution feedback, necessary to speed up JavaScript execution.
This greatly reduces the execution overhead during page load, and also significantly reduces the number of (tiny) Code objects. The new abstraction mechanism we build on top of the TurboFan code generation architecture is called the CodeStubAssembler, which provides a C++ based DSL (domain specific language) to generate machine code in a highly portable fashion. With this portable assembler, we can generate highly efficient code to even handle parts of the slow-path in JavaScript land without having to go to the C++ runtime (which is the really slow path).
There was a third area in V8, which traditionally suffered from unpredictable (baseline) performance: The builtins defined by the JavaScript language. These are library functions like Object.create, Function.prototype.bind or String.prototype.charCodeAt. Traditionally these were implemented in an awkward mix of self-hosted JavaScript, hand-written machine code (one for each of the nine supported architectures of V8), partial fast-paths in Crankshaft, and C++ runtime fallbacks. This was not only a serious source of correctness, stability and security bugs, but also one of the main contributors to generally unpredictable performance.
For example, using Object.create in a simple microbenchmark often gave pretty good performance, but as soon as it hit a real application, where you have a couple of different libraries using it and thereby feeding it with conflicting feedback, the performance dropped significantly, and this feedback pollution led to performance drops in functions that would use the resulting objects. Nowadays Object.create is a so-called TurboFan builtin, based on the CodeStubAssembler technology, and provides predictable, decent performance more or less independent of the uses.
Another prime example is Function.prototype.bind, which was a pretty popular entry point to blaming V8 for bad builtin performance (i.e. John-David Dalton made it a habit to point to the poor performance of bound functions in V8… and he was right). The implementation of Function.prototype.bind in V8 two years ago was basically this:
function FunctionBind ( this_arg ) {
if (! IS_CALLABLE ( this ) ) throw MakeTypeError ( kFunctionBind ) ;
var boundFunction = function ( ) {
"use strict" ;
if (! IS_UNDEFINED ( new. target ) ) {
return % NewObjectFromBound ( boundFunction ) ;
}
var bindings = % BoundFunctionGetBindings ( boundFunction ) ;
var argc = % _ArgumentsLength ( ) ;
if ( argc == 0 ) {
return % Apply ( bindings [ 0 ], bindings [ 1 ], bindings, 2, bindings. length - 2 ) ;
}
if ( bindings. length === 2 ) {
return % Apply ( bindings [ 0 ], bindings [ 1 ], arguments, 0, argc ) ;
}
var bound_argc = bindings. length - 2 ;
var argv = new InternalArray ( bound_argc + argc ) ;
for ( var i = 0 ; i < bound_argc ; i ++ ) {
argv [ i ] = bindings [ i + 2 ] ;
}
for ( var j = 0 ; j < argc ; j ++ ) {
argv [ i ++ ] = % _Arguments ( j ) ;
}
return % Apply ( bindings [ 0 ], bindings [ 1 ], argv, 0, bound_argc + argc ) ;
} ;
var proto = % _GetPrototype ( this ) ;
var new_length = 0 ;
if ( ObjectGetOwnPropertyDescriptor ( this, "length" )!== UNDEFINED ) {
var old_length = this. length ;
if ( IS_NUMBER ( old_length ) ) {
var argc = % _ArgumentsLength ( ) ;
if ( argc > 0 ) argc -- ;
new_length = TO_INTEGER ( old_length ) - argc ;
if ( new_length < 0 ) new_length = 0 ;
}
}
var result = % FunctionBindArguments ( boundFunction, this, this_arg,
new_length, proto ) ;
var name = this. name ;
var bound_name = IS_STRING ( name )? name : "" ;
% DefineDataPropertyUnchecked ( result, "name", "bound " + bound_name,
DONT_ENUM | READ_ONLY ) ;
return result ;
}
Note that %Foo is a special internal syntax and means call the function Foo in the C++ runtime, whereas %_Bar is a special internal syntax to inline some assembly identified by Bar. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out why this code would be slow, given that crossing the boundary to the C++ runtime is pretty expensive (you can also read about it here). Just rewriting this builtin in a saner way (initially fully based on a single C++ implementation) and providing a simpler implementation for bound functions yielded 60,000% improvements. The final performance boost was achieved when the Function.prototype.bind builtin itself was ported to the CodeStubAssembler.
Yet another example was the Promise implementation in V8, which was suffering a lot, and people would actually prefer to use polyfills despite V8 providing a native Promise implementation for quite some time. By porting the Promise implementation to the CodeStubAssembler, we were able to speed up Promises and async/await by 500%.
So despite being the most well-known component in the whole TurboFan story, the actual optimizing compiler is only one part of the puzzle and depending on how you look at it, it’s not even the most important part. Below is a rough sketch of the current TurboFan code generation architecture. A lot of those parts are already shipping in Chrome today. For example a lot of the builtins have been utilizing TurboFan for quite a while, Ignition is enabled for low-end Android devices since Chrome 53, and most of the data-driven IC work is already available. Thus the final launch of the full pipeline is probably the most important event in the whole TurboFan story, but in some sense it’s just the icing on the cake.
For me personally, this is just the beginning, as the new architecture opens a whole new world of possible optimizations for JavaScript. It will be exciting to push forward on optimizing the Array builtins, such as Array.prototype.map, Array.prototype.forEach and friends, and finally being able to inline them into TurboFan optimized code, which was more or less fundamentally impossible in Crankshaft for a couple of reasons. And I’m also looking forward to ways to further improve performance of new ES2015+ language features.
One thing that makes me very happy, is that onboarding new people on TurboFan technology was a much more pleasant experience than trying to onboard people on the weird mix of Crankshaft, Full-Codegen, self-hosted JavaScript, hand-written machine code and C++ runtime we had in the past.Inside a nondescript suburban Calgary strip mall, Ivan Kniazkov grunts as he slides into a wooden pool filled with ice water.
For Kniazkov, this frigid bath is just part of a weekly ritual that includes a withering steam, and a "massage" that involves lashing his body with an oak branch known as a venik.
"I am so happy, this is banya, Russian, European culture," sighs Kniazkov as he emerges from the icy waters.
For Kniazkov and others, this experience connects them to an ancient tradition which has been practiced in Russia and across parts of Europe for at least a thousand years.
Ivan Kniazkov stands with his oak branch, known as a venik, inside the European Club Oak Leaf. (Erin Collins/CBC)
That connection with the past is only part of the reason Kniazkov comes here. He also believes the combination of scorching heat and freezing water comes with huge health benefits.
"I have some bad colds, some stress a little bit, so this is like massage, acupuncture massage, you just release your muscles against trigger points, against spasms."
Close-knit community
This banya, the only one in Western Canada, is small. In addition to the wooden sauna and cold tub, two change rooms, a massage room and a small lounge make up the entire facility.
But owner Dr. Igor Voropanov says he likes it that way. Voropanov, who previously served as a surgeon and a Colonel in the Soviet Navy, says it is difficult to book a time at his private "European Club Oak Leaf."
An appointment and membership are needed to stop in for a plunge, a steam or an oak leaf massage, an exclusivity that has lead to a tight-knit community of patrons.
"People come with their friends, with their family, with their business partners, to discuss business, to relax."
Dr. Igor Voropanov stands outside of his private Russian sauna club in SE Calgary. (Erin Collins/CBC)
It is a sense of belonging that Voropanov found more easily when he moved to Ontario from Russia 14 years ago. Voropanov says there are around half a dozen Russian banyas in the Toronto area but found none when he moved to Calgary.
"I can't live without this — it is like I don't know, the breakfast, something you are doing often or periodically, like yoga."
Numbness, 'but it's OK'
About 95 per cent of the club's patrons are Russian, according to Voropanov, but he says there is a smattering of Germans, Finns, Poles, Swedes and Canadians who frequent the sauna as well.
Voropanov says that everyone is welcome, provided they are in good health and abide by the club's rules, which include not being intoxicated and wearing a felt hat to protect against the heat of the sauna.
And he says the physical and mental health benefits of plunging into freezing water after a good sweat and swat are undeniable.
"This is the most tremendous experience, you will feel like numbness, but it's OK because it is actually the training for the vessels — it is very good for osteoporosis, for stress release, for depression."Guerrilla Capitalism: How to Practice Free Enterprise In an Unfree Economy [FREE BOOK]
Guerrilla Capitalism: How to Practice Free Enterprise In an Unfree Economy by Adam Cash
If you appreciate the work put in to digitize this, please consider supporting our efforts. Donate crypto-currencies by using the buttons on the sidebar, donate via PayPal, or become a patron on Patreon. And last but not least, share this around!
Digitizer’s Note
The following is Adam Cash’s Guerrilla Capitalism: How to Practice Free Enterprise In an Unfree Economy, digitized by yours truly. The book has been transcribed in the exact manner it appears in the paper copy, including any grammatical mistakes made by the author. In most circumstances, I have denoted such an occurrence with [brackets]. Any other spelling or grammatical mistakes are solely the responsibility of your humble transcriptionist.
The book was copyrighted by Loompanics Unlimited in 1984, yet they have since gone defunct, with most of their publications not being reprinted. Outside of the ~40 picked up by Paladin Press, they are only available from second-hand stores (i.e. Amazon), and some of them can get quite expensive since they are rare and out of print. Our goal is to make this valuable information available as FREE downloads for generations to come.
Before turning you over to Mr. Cash, there are a couple of things worth noting. Obviously, we here at Liberty Under Attack Publications do not recommend or advocate anyone “break the law.” If you decide to do anything with the information found in this book, it is done at your own risk and of your own accord.
Secondly, it’s important to remember that this book was published in 1984—banking and finance laws have changed drastically, and therefore, some information in this book may be unusable, or may need to be adapted to the current times.
If you would like to check out the other releases under Liberty Under Attack Publications, or if you would like to support our efforts, visit www.libertyunderattack.com. Please enjoy and laissez-faire.
Shane Radliff
May 2017
Bloomington, IllinoisParallel Extensions: Building Multicore Applications with.NET Version: 1.1.0 Description Microsoft's Parallel Computing Platform (PCP) is providing tools enabling developers to leverage the power of Multicore processors in an efficient, maintainable, and scalable manner. Parallel Extensions to the.NET Framework brings several important concepts into this toolset. In this Hands-On Lab, you will learn how to parallelize an existing algorithm by using the static Parallel helper class, create and run Tasks, use the Future<T> class to create and run Tasks that return a value and use Parallel LINQ (PLINQ) to optimize LINQ queries to exectue in a parallel environment. Overview Modern computers have seen explosive growth in the number of processors and cores available for systems running on them. System developers can take advantage of this power in a number of ways in their software, particularly when working on complex algorithms or large sets of data. Microsoft’s Parallel Computing Platform (PCP) is providing tools enabling developers to leverage this power in an efficient, maintainable, and scalable manner. Parallel Extensions brings to the.NET Framework several important concepts into this toolset: imperative and task parallelism via the Task Parallel Library (TPL), and Parallel LINQ (PLINQ), which gives developers a declarative way to deal with data parallelism. Objectives In this Hands-On Lab, you will learn how to: Parallelize an existing algorithm by using the static Parallel helper class and have the expression of concurrency handled automatically.
Create and run Tasks that enable abilities like cancellation of in-process tasks.
Use the Task<T> class to create and run Tasks that return a value.
Use Parallel LINQ (PLINQ) to optimize LINQ queries to exectue in a parallel environment. System Requirements You must have the following items to complete this lab: Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
NET Framework 4 Setup All the requisites for this lab are verified using the Configuration Wizard. To make sure that everything is correctly configured, follow these steps. Run the Configuration Wizard for the Training Kit if you have not done it previously. To do this, browse to Source\Setup folder of this lab, and double-click the Dependencies.dep file. Install any pre-requisites that are missing (rescanning if necessary) and complete the wizard. Note: The Configuration Wizard is used for checking dependencies and setting up the environment. If the Configuration Wizard is not installed on your machine, you must install it running the DependencyChecker.msi file located on the %VS2010TKInstallationFolder%\Assets\DependencyChecker folder (e.g. by default the Training Kit is installed under C:\VS2010TrainingKit). For convenience, much of the code you will be managing along this lab is available as Visual Studio code snippets. The Dependencies.dep file launches the Visual Studio installer file that installs the code snippets. Exercises This Hands-On Lab is comprised by the following exercises: Parallelize an Existing Algorithm by using the Static Parallel Class.
Create and Run Parallelized Tasks.
Use the Task<T> Class to Create and Run a Task that Returns a Value.
Parallelize LINQ Queries using PLINQ. Estimated time to complete this lab: 60 minutes. Note: Each exercise is accompanied by an End folder containing the resulting solution you should obtain after completing the exercises. You can use this solution as a guide if you need additional help working through the exercises. Note: Each exercise contains a Visual Basic and a C# version; Inside the End/Begin solution folder you will find two folders: VB, containing the Visual Basic version of the exercise, and C#, containing the C# version of it. Next Step: Exercise 1: Parallelize an Existing Algorithm using the Static Parallel Helper Class next >“Phony scandals,” Mr. President? No, your scandals are as real as can be, it’s the GOP’s investigations into them that are phony. Speaker of the House John Boehner has refused to appoint a special prosecutor to the Benghazi massacre investigation. Why? Because he made a deal with Obama? Because he simply doesn’t give a damn? Whatever the reason, he’s obstructing the ability to get to the bottom of it once and for all.When the IRS scandal hit, Boehner came out to the media and burped out, “Who’s going to jail?” He’s done nothing to answer his own question.
Who has paid a price for Obama’s scandals? Can you name one individual? What has Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, done about these scandals? Has he even said anything of note about them? Now, the IRS’s profiling of Tea Party groups was a terrible thing to learn about for Americans, but for politicians in both parties, they could care less, since the Tea Party isn’t only a threat to the Democrats, but to the Republicans as well.
Not only do we have the most lawless administration in American history at this moment in time, but we have the most gutless opposition a party in power has ever had. The only way we can get to the bottom of these scandals is if the next midterms replace the current Republican leadership with those who understand what’s at stake and who are willing to fight the bastards in both parties, tooth and nail. No more phony leadership.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.“We don’t know why, but it appears to be protective to have baby sleeping in the same room as parents, not in the same bed but in the same room,” Dr. Hauck said.
To back this up, the academy cited three studies and an out-of-print book, “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS): New Trends in the Nineties.” This is the same evidence the academy cited in 2011, when it also recommended room-sharing, but less prominently.
The three studies are case-control studies. That means researchers compiled records of babies who died of SIDS and matched them as closely as possible, based on things like age or geography. Then, by comparing the groups, they tried to identify factors that might place babies at higher risk.
Case-control studies are among the weaker designs used in human research. They can only indicate association, not causation, and they are especially susceptible to “recall bias,” when people remember things differently based on outcomes. People who have had a baby die, for instance, are more likely to have pored over any details that might have contributed.
Unfortunately, when it comes to SIDS, case-control studies are pretty much our only option. Even though SIDS is a large cause of infant mortality, very few babies die of it each year. We would never be able to enroll enough babies in a controlled trial to test interventions.
The first of the three studies was published in 1999 in The British Medical Journal. It matched 325 cases of SIDS against 1,300 controls, or babies who did not die of SIDS, in England. The second study, published in The Lancet in 2004, included 745 cases and 2,411 controls from 20 regions in Europe. The third, published in The Journal of Pediatrics in 2005, compared 123 cases to 263 controls in Scotland. All three found, to varying degrees, that infants who slept in a separate room had a significantly higher rate of SIDS than those who shared a room with their parents.
The first thing to note is that they all collected data in the 1990s, when SIDS was much more common than it is today. The academy said room-sharing “decreases the risk of SIDS by as much as 50 percent,” but that was before the significant improvement in SIDS rates. It’s not clear that sharing a bedroom would make as much of a difference today as it did then."We hurt you. For that, I am truly sorry."
Those were the words from RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson to every woman who was ever harassed, belittled, demeaned or assaulted in the RCMP, as he announced a stunning $100 million compensation package at a news conference in Ottawa Thursday.
"It's an acknowledgment of the culture that has existed since its inception," said Catherine Galliford.
The former corporal unwittingly opened the floodgates of complaints when she told CBC News in 2011 she'd suffered from years of sexual harassment as an RCMP officer.
"It will be difficult to change the RCMP culture, but hopefully this will be the start of a new beginning."
Galliford says the only flaw with the settlement is that there is no mechanism to hold perpetrators of harassment accountable.
Catherine Galliford reached a settlement with the RCMP earlier in 2016. (CBC)
Lack of accountability now a concern
"When the membership begins to see employees of the RCMP being held accountable, only then will the culture slowly start to change," said Galliford.
Other plaintiffs who brought forward the suit echoed the same concerns.
"I do hope that they will be dealt with swiftly and justly to be either removed from the force and held accountable for their actions," said Krista Carle, a plaintiff and former Mountie from Victoria, who hopes the force will now reinvestigate harassment complaints.
David Klein, the Vancouver based lawyer for 480 proposed class action plaintiffs, confirmed there is no process in this settlement to investigate harassers.
"We estimate there could be 1,000 women seeking compensation," he said.
Another class action lawyer in Thunder Bay told CBC News he believes it will be double that, because any of the 20,000 women who ever worked for the force are eligible to make a claim within the next six months.
"I believe it was a little bit more widespread then the people of Canada know... I think its going to be more than a thousand," said former inspector Linda Davidson, who described vomiting in the bushes on the way to her detachment, after years facing endless unwanted sexual advances and sexist comments.
Plaintiffs Janet Merlo, second from left, and and Linda Gillis Davidson, second from right, embrace guests as they leave the stage following Thursday's announcement in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Apology brings hope
At the news conference, Davidson thanked Paulson for what she believes was a heartfelt apology.
CBC News asked Paulson whether he would fire perpetrators of harassment.
"If claimants come forward, you can rest assured that the fist of God will descend upon the people," said Paulson, promising swift action should complainants choose to also file a complaint with the force and name their attackers.
Former RCMP officers, and plaintiffs, Janet Merlo and Linda Davidson offer thanks after their two class action lawsuits are settled by the RCMP and the government. 2:51
"This provides hope that my force has turned a corner," said Cst. Deana Hagen, a 17-year veteran in Edmonton and one of the 30 per cent of plaintiffs still working for the RCMP.
"It's key that victims are not labelled the problem, isolated and forced out, but rather invited to the table and empowered to help provide insight and solutions [while] aggressors are held accountable."
Settlement is 'hush money'
Under the settlement terms, Alice Fox and any other plaintiffs could abandon civil suits and apply for compensation, but she calls the $100 million "hush money."
"How can you be validated when the RCMP lets them walk?" said Fox, a B.C. constable who is suing the force separately for harassment.
She refuses to apply for the compensation fund because then the senior officers who she says harassed her won't have to face consequences before a judge or answer for their actions.
Apology bittersweet
"There is no justice until people are held accountable" said Judi Watt, a former officer who now lives in Manitoba.
She says relief comes with an apology but it is bittersweet, now knowing just how much she was not alone.
"People just didn't talk about it because who do you go to?" she said.
Now they can go to Justice Michelle Bastarache, who will independently determine which claimants will be compensated.
All claims will be confidential and Bastarache alone will decide which of the six levels of compensation each woman is entitled to, based on the severity of their claim and whether mistreatment left them unable to work.
Previous Next
"I never thought this day would ever come... I have goosebumps," said Nancy Arias, who left her shift at an Ottawa warehouse early to attend the news conference.
She served as a civilian public servant in the RCMP from 1989 to 2006, but left after the RCMP failed to support her during a conflict with a mentally ill co-worker.
"To listen to him apologize, take out a Kleenex and rub his eyes, it does give a person hope," she said.
"It's a culture of the old boys club, [where] women are second class."
CBC News Investigates
If you have information on this or any other story we should investigate, email us.
Follow @NatalieClancy on TWITTER.WINNIPEG — Elections Canada is asking voters to be patient as the turnout at advanced polling stations has been significantly higher than in previous years.
Marie-France Kenny, the regional media advisor, said turnout has been much higher than expected.
Kenny said one of the problems is the process during advanced voting is longer as there are very specific rules as to who can perform what duty.
“Advanced voting used to just be for a select group of people but now it is open to all Canadians,” said Kenny. “So now we are seeing longer wait times, some up to two hours.”
@BrittAtGlobal Winnipeg south |
downfalls” or actions that could stifle the Australian bitcoin industry.
“The lack of a regulatory framework or regulatory oversight is one of the key drivers for lack of investment in this space,” Guzowski told the inquiry.
Senator Bill Heffernan told the panel of experts the Australian bitcoin industry should return to discussions with government on regulation when it can classify the digital currency as being a bag of wheat or a bag of coins.
The question Heffernan ultimately wants answered is whether or not bitcoin is property or currency. Earlier this year the Australian Tax Office gave guidance that bitcoin would be treated as property and as such GST would be applied. Heffernan was particularly concerned with how this might relate to corporate tax avoidance and “the redefinition of sovereignty”.
Both Pesce and Boring pointed out that in the United States, various government bodies had taken different views on that question, based on common sense regulation about how bitcoin is predominantly used, rather than global “harmonisation” that Heffernan was after.
All of the witnesses spoke of the inevitability of digital currencies becoming mainstream in the future, regardless of whether or not such harmonisation occurs.
“Within a decade, every networked device will have some version of blockchain technology running inside it, serving as the first line of defence against network attacks, providing badly needed security and authentication capabilities,” Pesce says.
“Blockchain technology will be everywhere, in everything, so pervasive it becomes invisible. Digital Currencies such as bitcoin are at the start of a transformation that will leave our world more open and more secure.”
Sommer built on that point of openness, describing bitcoin blockchain’s public ledger as an auditor’s dream.
“As a regulator, the amount of information that is available through the documentation of transactions on the blockchain is unprecedented,” he says.
“The blockchain can distinguish between a transaction that’s supply for a GST purpose, and a supply that’s GST free.”
He said it could be an additional tool to improve transparency in the finance industry.
Follow StartupSmart on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.Biography: Michael Jingozian is the founder and CEO of AngelVision Technologies. In 2007, they were voted "One of the 15 Best Small Companies to work for in Oregon." Recently, AngelVision was ranked the 120th fastest growing company in the United States by Inc. Magazine. Jingozian is also the founder of RESET America, which is a group dedicated to breaking the 2 party monopoly and increasing the number of candidates who run on 3rd party tickets to secure 3rd party ballot access and participation in national debates. He is currently the Vice-Chairman of the Libertarian National Committee and is on working on a book titled, "Story Pollution," to increase awareness for why American voters continue to support politicians who do not represent their best interests and what can be done to change these views and elect people who are committed to creating a more sustainable world. Endorsement: I endorse the National Initiative for Democracy for many reasons. First, I have had the great honor of meeting and campaigning with Senator Gravel while running for the Libertarian Party’s Presidential nomination and I had the opportunity to talk to him in person about the National Initiative and why it makes sense for America. My work in "Story Pollution" is about challenging ways of thinking that keep us in the past and to work, instead, for a future that sees a breakdown in the 2 party system and is more hospitable to 3rd party candidates who seek public office. The National Initiative makes it possible for people to realize their potential to affect change, which could inspire a new generation of people who hold opinions not supported by either of the 2 major parties to run for local, state and federal government. Not only is the National Initiative in line with democratic ideals in that it recognizes the power of the people to make laws, it also allows people to recognize their own power to serve themselves rather than just sending elected officials to Washington. I grew up in Massachusetts and during that time, there was no such thing as a voter initiative. When I moved to Oregon, I experienced, first-hand, the difference between a state with no voter initiative policy and one that put power into the hands of the people to make decisions regarding their own future. Not only does this foster a sense of community because people are able to collaborate and to think about the best way to govern themselves, but it also allows for a more responsible government on the part of the state representatives who realize that they do not hold all of the cards. The people are inspired and engaged in the process.If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Thank you, Pinterest. You have single-handedly made Christmas shopping a breeze. Guys? Stumped about what to give your wife/partner/girlfriend/main squeeze for Christmas? Check out her boards, and problem solved. Parents, want to share your kid’s Christmas wish list with the grandparents and other relatives? Done. All through Pinterest.
For those of us, however, who are using Pinterest for business, crave a bit more. Other than seeing how many likes and repins I’ve gotten on something, Pinterest doesn’t offer any stats or analytics. But there are a couple of cool new third-party apps that will do that for you, and more.
Reachli: recently rebranded Reachli from Pinnerly, this app allows you to download a button and install it in your browser’s toolbar. Use it instead of the “Pin It” button, and voila! You are able to track how your pins are doing. You can create campaigns, track how they do, and you’ll get stats on your likes, repins, and reach emailed to you in a weekly report. Reachli also allows you to upload images/pins from your computer.
Pingraphy: In addition to offering stats on likes, repins and reach, Pingraphy gives you a breakdown of your most popular pins, ranked in order.
It also gives you stats for all of your pins, not just ones you’ve pinned through the app, like Reachli does. Bonus stuff: scheduling your pins and staggering them over a period of time. Really cool stuff.
Again, install the Pingraphy bookmarklet in your browser’s toolbar for ease of use.
What tools are you using to help track your Pinterest for business account? Let me know in the comments below.
(Visited 104 times, 1 visits today)Over the course of American history, there has been no greater conflict of visions than that between Thomas Jeffersons voluntary republic, founded on the natural right of peaceful secession, and Abraham Lincolns permanent empire, founded on the violent denial of that same right.
That these two men somehow shared a common commitment to liberty is a lie so monstrous and so absurd that its pervasiveness in popular culture utterly defies logic.
After all, Jefferson stated unequivocally in the Declaration of Independence that, at any point, it may become
necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natures God entitle them
And, having done so, he said, it is the peoples right
to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Contrast that clear articulation of natural law with Abraham Lincolns first inaugural address, where he flatly rejected the notion that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Instead, Lincoln claimed that, despite the clear wording of the Tenth Amendment,
no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; [and] resolves and ordinances [such as the Declaration of Independence] to that effect are legally void
King George III agreed.
The Real Lincoln: A Ne... Thomas J. Dilorenzo Best Price: $1.46 Buy New $8.01 (as of 09:30 EST - Details)
Furthermore, Lincoln claimed the right of a king to collect his federal tribute, by violence if necessary. Without even bothering to pretend such authority existed in the Constitution, Lincoln offered (and eventually carried out) a thinly veiled threat that
beyond what may be necessary for [collecting taxes], there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.
In the words of Tony Soprano, pay up and nobody gets hurt.
But perhaps, as some have said, Jefferson intended his Declaration merely as a political tool to justify American independence from Britain. He surely would never have acknowledged or defended an individual states right to secede from the very union he helped to found. Except that he did, in his own first inaugural.
Upon assuming the presidency in 1801, amidst severe political and sectional turmoil, Jefferson said
If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
In light of these facts, no serious student of history or politics could believe that Jefferson and Lincoln possessed similar visions for America. Or that Jefferson would have condoned the violent subjugation of a single sovereign state (let alone 11 of them), or thought Lincolns disregard for the Constitution in any way legal or justified.
Rather, he would have known at once that what Lincoln spawned through his belligerence was a government capable of violating its own fundamental law at will; of using illegal force to prevent the governed from withdrawing voluntary consent (regardless of their motivation), and thereby destroying consent altogether.
Such a government is incapable of liberty, and antithetical to the very existence of Jeffersons America.
For that reason, it is not possible to truly understand, and yet still admire, the words and deeds of both men. Despite his occasional use of the Declarations language, Lincoln himself despised Jefferson; demonstrating by his policies that they occupied polar opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, as do their political descendants today.
Mr. Jefferson Albert J. Nock Best Price: $3.16 Buy New $17.00 (as of 09:15 EST - Details)
But, after decades spent trying to ignore or deny the irreconcilable disconnect between these two figures, the political class has succeeded only in perpetuating the contradictory and inherently dishonest character of modern American government. Though our system is ostensibly rooted in the rule of law and the ideals of liberty, its current nature is really embodied much more accurately by the lawless despotism of our 16th president.
We cannot continue to have it both ways. The preposterous dichotomy between Americas founding principles and the actions of her government, from the War Between the States to the War on Drugs, has predictably eroded that governments moral standing at home, and its credibility around the world.
As a society, we cannot both revere a man whose fierce dedication to the right of political self-determination formed the philosophical foundations of our republic, and at the same time worship a dictator whose arrogant and bloody denial of that right transformed our republic into an empire.
It is time to choose. If Americans truly are heirs to the Jeffersonian legacy, than it has always been and must always be, not only our right, but our duty as citizens to withdraw consent from any government that becomes destructive of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.
If, however, We the People believe ourselves incompetent to judge when that line has been crossed, then we will continue to find no shortage of political masters eager to carry on Lincolns legacy of contempt for our Constitution, and violent suppression of self-government.
Either way, one thing is certain: America will never regain the principles of her founding until her people muster the courage and clarity to finally separate libertys friends from its foes.
This is reprinted from the Tenth Amendment Center website.
March 1, 2010
Josh Eboch is a proud tenther, freelance writer, and activist originally from the Washington, D.C. area. He is the State Chapter Coordinator for the Virginia Tenth Amendment Center.
The Best of Josh EbochCloud Alpha
HyperX™ Cloud Alpha’s groundbreaking Dual Chamber Drivers design will give your audio more distinction and clarity by reducing the distortion. The dual chambers separate the bass from the mids and highs, allowing optimal tuning for cleaner, smoother sound. The Cloud Alpha headset builds upon HyperX’s foundation of signature award-winning comfort with premium red memory foam, expanded headband and softer, more pliable leatherette. The durable aluminum frame can take the rigors of daily play, and per player request, Cloud Alpha also features a tough, detachable braided cable. The detachable noise-cancellation microphone is certified by Discord and TeamSpeak™, ensuring you’ll have great team communication. It’s also multi-platform compatible with in-line audio controls, so serious gamers on PC, PS4™, Xbox One™ and other platforms with a 3.5mm port will benefit from the bold sound of the Cloud Alpha evolution.1918 Trench Knife Value for Your Dollars
I received my 1918 Trench Knife from KeepShooting a short while ago and find the knife to be a Very Good Value for the price paid. I have only seen photos of the Original but this one appears to be a very close match. The handle looks to be very sturdy, as it should. The Blade used for this replica is the only negative, in my opinion. Not a fatal flaw but the blade could be better even if it cost a little more. I think that the one used is a bit on the too thin side. The blade profile would a better fit for a concealed carry knife. The scabbard is excellent but the leather could be, again, more sturdy or thicker. Even with those comments I like the knife a lot and believe it is a very good value for the price paid.A house at the gateway to the Laurelhurst neighborhood — one of the neighborhood's first — has been sold, and architectural preservationists fear it could be headed for demolition.
A post on the Portland-based Architectural Heritage Center's preservation blog first noted that the house at 3206 N.E. Glisan, built in 1906, might be threatened. It cites a request for a meeting with city development officials, which notes the existing structure could be demolished.
Peter Kusyk, whose Firenz Development Co. bought the house for $467,148 in a deal that closed Monday, said he hasn't applied for a demolition permit and is still weighing his options for the house, which could include a rehabilitation.
But he said it has been vacant and that the interior has suffered damage that would make a rehabilitation project difficult. An earlier attempt to rehabilitate the home was left unfinished.
"Anybody who looks at the house right now and sees the condition it's in would be thrilled that somebody's doing something with it," Kusyk said.
The house was one of nearly 5,000 properties included in a city historic resource inventory, but it's been removed from the inventory. It has not been recognized as a local landmark, nor does it appear on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Laurelhurst Gate, a landmark that extends onto the property, is protected by a deed restriction, Kusyk said.
"I don't want to lose what's there, as far as the entry into one of the nicest neighborhoods in Portland," he said.
The house was one of the first in the Laurelhurst neighborhood, built on farmland once owned by Portland's Ladd family, the Architectural Heritage Center wrote. It originally served as home and office to the real estate agent for the development.
A residential construction boom in Portland has developers scouting for land in Portland's most desirable neighborhoods, and an existing home can be a prime opportunity for demolition and redevelopment.
Meanwhile, in North Portland's Kenton neighborhood, a developer has applied to demolish a two-bedroom cottage at 7608 N. Omaha Ave. The house, built in 1919, is listed as a contributing resource in the Kenton conservation district, so the demolition is on a mandatory hold until Oct. 1.
The delay is designed to allow for considering alternatives to demolition.
-- Elliot NjusEnlarge CDC An electron microscope image of E. coli bacteria. Dean Wyatt, a supervisory veterinarian at the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, is testifying after several outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7. HEALTH UPDATES ON TWITTER HEALTH UPDATES ON TWITTER WASHINGTON Department of Agriculture officials failed to act on reports of illegal and unsafe slaughterhouse practices, letting suspect operations continue despite public health risks, a USDA veterinarian alleges in testimony to be aired today at a congressional hearing. The charges by Dean Wyatt, a supervisory veterinarian at the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, detail instances in which he and other inspectors were overruled when citing slaughterhouses for violations such as shocking and butchering days-old calves that were too weak or sick to stand. He also describes being threatened with transfer or demotion after citing a plant for butchering conscious pigs, despite rules that they first be stunned and unconscious. IN USA: Food-borne illnesses cost $152B a year "When upper-level FSIS management looks the other way as food safety or humane slaughter laws are broken … then management is just as guilty for breaking those laws," Wyatt says in testimony sent to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. USA TODAY obtained a copy of the testimony in advance of today's hearing. Wyatt's testimony follows several outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 and other potentially deadly illnesses linked to contaminated meat. It also raises issues linked to the 2008 recall of 143 million pounds of beef from the Westland/Hallmark processing plant in Chino, Calif., which was caught slaughtering "downer" cows that were too sick or weak to walk on their own. Such animals are considered risks for carrying mad cow disease and other illnesses. USDA spokesman Caleb Weaver says inaction on Wyatt's reports occurred before the tenure of current Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who is "fully committed" to enforcing safe and humane slaughtering rules. In 2008 and early 2009, Wyatt ordered suspensions in operations three times at Bushway Packing Inc., in Grand Isle, VT. Among other things, he found downed calves being dragged through pens to slaughter — a violation because contact with excrement can contaminate animals. In each case, he says, managers overruled him and allowed the plant to keep running. Bushway subsequently made headlines last fall when the Humane Society of the United States filmed undercover video of workers hitting and using electric prods to move calves. The plant was shut down. Vilsack ordered a criminal investigation. Bushway has "made changes to comply fully with the Humane Slaughtering Act and we hope to … reopen in the near future," says Peter Langrock, a lawyer for the company. Wyatt also says superiors dismissed violations he reported in 2007 and 2008 at a Seaboard Foods pork plant in Guymon, Okla. He cited the plant for slaughtering conscious pigs, beating pigs and trampling of pigs. In some cases, Seaboard successfully appealed Wyatt's citations, says company marketing director David Eaheart. And Seaboard always "took steps to ensure that if there were any deficiencies, they were addressed." But Wyatt says his reports and those of other inspectors were shelved by regional supervisors without consulting on-site personnel. Instead, he says, writers of citations were chastised and threatened with transfer. Wyatt's experiences "illustrate a pattern that FSIS is broken and must be fixed," says Amanda Hitt of the Government Accountability Project, a whistle-blower organization representing Wyatt. "The new administration must recognize past wrongs and … ensure the proper treatment of animals and the safety of our food supply," says Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who will chair today's hearing. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read moreWho was St. Valentine?
Saint Valentine, officially Saint Valentine of Rome, is a widely recognized 3rd-century Roman saint commemorated on February 14 and since the High Middle Ages is associated with a tradition of courtly love.
All that is reliably known of the saint commemorated on February 14 is his name and that he was martyred and buried at a cemetery north of Rome on that day. It is uncertain whether Saint Valentine was one individual or a pseudonym for several.
Connection to Today
Today we exchange cards expressing love or appreciation for one another. According to tradition,, a young man named Valentine was executed in Rome for his faith. But what does our exchange of sentimental cards have to do with a third-century martyr?
Actually, the connection is not at all clear. Valentine was martyred the day before the pagan festival to the goddess Februata Juno at which boys drew girls' names for acts of sexual promiscuity. Were legends about the martyr's death modified to replace the heathen custom? No one knows for sure. In fact, there may have been two or even three martyrs named Valentine who died in different parts of the empire at about the same time. We know little or nothing about any of them.
Take the Roman Valentine as an example. A city gate on the Flaminian Way and a chapel near it were named for him. Several ancient Christian writers mention his name. There is no doubt he lived and was tortured before being beaten with clubs and beheaded. And yet we have no sure account of why.
The Many Legends of Valentine
Some say this Valentine was a young man with a tender heart who aided Christians who were undergoing martyrdom. He was not even a Christian at the time. Arrested for his activities, he converted to faith while in prison and would not renounce it. Knowing he was going to die, he wrote letters to his friends saying "Remember your Valentine."
Another legend says that the Roman Valentine was a priest who defied the Emperor Claudius's temporary order and secretly married couples so the husbands wouldn't have to go to war. Claudius desperately needed more soldiers and did not appreciate this interference.
A third legend says the Roman Valentine was a priest who refused to sacrifice to pagan gods. Imprisoned for this, he gave testimony in prison and through his prayers, the jailer's daughter was healed. On the day of his execution, he left her a note signed "Your Valentine."
During the Middle Ages, it was popularly believed birds paired in mid-February. This also reaffirmed the association of romantic love with Valentine's name. Whatever the truth behind the legends, St. Valentine's day has become a day we connect with romance and friendship.
St. Valentine of Rome from 2014grr on GodTube.
Bibliography:i think post-retcon vriska is quite complex. just as complex as her ghostly counterpart, perhaps!
everyone thinks she’s a bastardized version of her pre-cascade self, but everyone also thought that about post-retcon terezi, until they realized the impact that the retcon existing had on her.
now, vriska was also strongly affected by the presence of the retcon… but instead of checking her behaviour, she thought she had a free pass
so like i thought knowing about the retcon would make terezi feel stronger and vriska check herself, but it had the opposite effect. vriska took advantage of the knowledge that her death caused a chain of events resulting in another doomed session, she took advantage of how she was needed to keep the kids together. and terezi didn’t want to do anything about it cause of what happened, and if anyone else goes against vriska (apart from rosemary) they soon get roasted. even gamzee gets his ass kicked..
in essence, she recieved a HUMONGOUS ego boost. nothing to stop her. as far as vriska is concerned she is the reason everyone is alive and therefore should act on all her instincts.
unfortunately, as terezi delightfully pointed out, vriska’s instincts are incredibly self-destructive and volatile.
So, we get to see Vriska in action whe all that stuff holding her back pre-cascade - her conflict with aradia, her rivalry with terezi, her slight guilt over tavros, karkat’s stubbornness, any recognition of her self-doubt - is pushed aside.
If we pay attention to the differences in how she handles her friends pre or post retcon - tavros, meenah, terezi, even john - we can get a good grasp on what parts of her personality she’s repressing or overriding.
Pre retcon (vriska):
has feuds with tavros, having treated him like shit for years, but got sort of insecure about it at the end and would probably apologise
met meenah through a feud but eventually fell in love with her because of how thoughtful and caring meenah truly is
quietly respected terezi for offing her, eventually realized her fuckup… she’s the person (vriska) thought of when she had nobody else left
strongly respects john’s opinion, he was an influence on her journey, quite upset when he said he hated her
ended up feeling deeply ashamed about her failed leadership
used to be “strong” but is now the alternian textbook definition of “weak”
became at home with being in the background
Post retcon vriska:
has a similar situation with tavros except chose to side with him because he proved himself “strong” by her standards, treated tavsprite like shit
met meenah while breaking up her own relationship with her, thought meenah looked “ready for a fight”, knows jack shit about her and would probably not respect her depression much
cares about terezi but thinks she’s “weak” and ignores her thoughts, exploits her weaknesses, seems to be sick of her apparent neediness
has quite clearly gotten over john and spoke quite patronizingly to him tbh
seems to think she’s the greatest leader in the multiverse and ditched her fucking team to go fight lord english for rad points
to go fight lord english for rad points should really stop quantifying people into “strong” and “weak” this is hurting a lot of people
literally had the spotlight handed to her on the end of a human fist gripping a bloody scarf… has no intentions of ever returning it
but the thing is these two, its because they went through opposite paths. they met somewhere in the middle before and now they don’t.
(vriska) symbolizes everything right with serket, vriska symbolises everything wrong with serketLong years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.
At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance
It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again.
The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?
Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.
That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity.
The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for anyone of them to imagine that it can live apart.
Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.
To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.
The appointed day has come - the day appointed by destiny - and India stands forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning point is past, and history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.
It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom in the east, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materialises. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed!
We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are sorrow-stricken and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people.
On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the father of our nation, who, embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us.
We have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but not only we but succeeding generations will remember this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son of India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and humility. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.
Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto death.
We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good and ill fortune alike.
The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.
We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be.
We are citizens of a great country, on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.
To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.
And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service.
Jai Hind.newswire article reporting portland metro actions & protests | labor VICTORY FOR LABOR: Janus Workers and the Portland IWW e-mail: author: Jon D.e-mail: portland.iww@gmail.com After four weeks of informational picketing, everyday for 2 hours outside
of Janus Youth Programs' main office at 707 NE Couch St, workers at the
Streetlight/Porchlight shelters and at Harry's Mother finally gained the
right to keep their peer review panel. Janus workers and the IWW would like to thank
the members of the community who have supported them in this effort,
including Portland's Jobs with Justice. A victory for one is a victory for
all. Major Victory for Janus Workers and the Portland IWW
After four weeks of informational picketing, everyday for 2 hours outside
of Janus Youth Programs' main office at 707 NE Couch St, workers at the
Streetlight/Porchlight shelters and at Harry's Mother finally gained the
right to keep their peer review panel. Both Streetlight/Porchlight and
Harry's Mother are non-profit programs serving youth, and both shops are
under contract with the Portland Industrial Workers of the World. Janus
told workers at both work sites that they would not sign their labor
contracts with the peer review panels that they have had for over 10 years
-- instead trying to pressure workers into accepting binding arbitration
at a cost workers and the IWW could not afford.
After four weeks of picketing, workers took a break for week five, a week
that a contract negotiations session with management was scheduled.
Management tried to get workers to accept a ridiculously long contract of
8 years, with wage re-openers every two years, in exchange for the keeping
the peer review panel. Workers instead said they were only willing to go
as long as a 6 year contract, with wage re-openers every 2 years and one
additional, non-wages article which could be bargained during the wage
re-opener.
Janus negotiators were not willing to budge.
At this point, workers suggested that the offer they were making was more
than reasonable, and that there were people willing to get back out on the
picket line if Janus would not compromise.
Janus's negotiators took a caucus, and after a long break, returned to the
table and agreed to the workers' terms.
This is a huge victory for workers who have struggled many weeks for the
right to keep their peers in a place to oversee any disputed firings --
the peer review panel can overrule any firing decisions that Janus makes
against its union workers. Janus workers and the IWW would like to thank
the members of the community who have supported them in this effort,
including Portland's Jobs with Justice. A victory for one is a victory for
all. contribute to this article add comment to discussion view discussion from this articleNew Delhi: The income-tax department is developing a mobile app which can be used by users for filing their tax returns, a top finance ministry official said on Saturday.
“We are developing a mobile app which can be used by users for filing their income tax returns. There are some security related issues, which we will resolve soon," Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) chairperson Anita Kapoor said on Saturday.
Online filing of tax returns has caught up in a big way in recent years, while filings through mobile apps can make it even easier for the taxpayers.
Talking about direct tax collections, Kapoor said, “Collections are doing well and we are keeping our fingers crossed. The December collection of advance tax will actually give us a good idea." The government aims to collect ₹ 7.98 trillion as direct tax in the current fiscal year. PTIThe kids are back to school and that means one thing—their bookshelves are left unguarded.
I don’t have any kids myself, but I have a penchant for middle-grade books left over from my own childhood. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsberg? Forget it. I was never the same after I read that book. From Beverly Cleary to Judy Blume to Lois Duncan, the books that are meant for young readers have things they teach us—like how to spend a last lazy summer afternoon recapturing the enjoyment of reading.
As a mystery writer, what I really love are kid mysteries. I began to wonder… what are the great mysteries for young readers set in Chicago? I solicited some opinions from literary/library friends and got a treasure trove. Special thanks to Susanna Calkins, Hope Baugh, Karen Steinberger, Mike Hominick, and Keir Graff (all adults) for the recommendations.
Quick, get your hands on these books before the kids get home.
Chasing Vermeer
by Blue Balliett, illustrated by Brett Helquist
Art, puzzles, and full-on nerd-dom set at the laboratory school on the campus of the University of Chicago. Middle grade.
The Westing Game
by Ellen Raskin
One last game for a dead man? Sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of a will; one of them might be a killer. Middle grade.
The Sixty-Eight Rooms
by Marianne Malone, illustrated by Greg Call
Ever wanted to shrink to the size of the Thorne miniature rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago and just walk around, solving crimes? Middle grade.
I sabel Feeney, Star Reporter
by Beth Fantaskey
A spunky young newspaper seller in 1920s Chicago makes news when she investigates a murder. Middle grade.
The Detective’s Assistant
by Kate Hannigan
The first woman Pinkerton detective, Kate Warne (real) takes on an orphaned niece (fiction), who turns out to be a crime-solving asset. Middle grade.
On the Day I Died: Stories from the Grave
by Candace Fleming
Ten ghost stories set in White Cemetery, a real cemetery in Barrington, Illinois—based in part on the ghost stories of Chicago. Young adult, tween.
What did we miss? Suggest your favorite Chicago-set mysteries for young readers in the comments!Kids enjoying a day off from school aren't the only ones who enjoy a snow day.
Reston photographer William O'Brien took these photos of a red fox near his home on appropriately named |
July—but it was the first that included new Trump-era features on so-called deregulatory actions, which are any regulatory action taken by an agency that reduces economic costs. Experts are still looking through the document, attempting to discern any changes from the July version, and digging into how Trump intends to overhaul the government’s regulatory apparatus.
As has been clear for a while, Trump’s main regulatory priority is to roll back the regulatory state. The White House claimed Thursday that the administration had cut 22 regulations for each new one it issued, and claimed $570 million in annual economic savings this year. Those numbers are exaggerated, since they include every deregulatory action while only including regulations with costs greater than $100 million—and nearly 75 percent of the $570 million in cost savings comes from the repeal of one rule. But the Unified Agenda shows that the administration plans to target a wide era of Obama-era rules and implement other Trump administration priorities.
A few examples: The Department of Education plans to issue new proposals to replace two Obama-era rules that were intended to protect students from predatory for-profit colleges. Those proposed rules are scheduled to be issued in May and June 2018. The Department of Transportation will focus its rulemaking on drones, which are likely to loosen restrictions on operators, while the Department of Labor intends to issue rules to reform the H1-B visa program for skilled workers to focus on the “best and brightest” and to prevent the spouses of H1-B visa holders from receiving work permits.
But it wasn’t all good news for the deregulatory crowd: The Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to repeal a far-reaching Obama-era rule intended to limit pollution in America’s wetlands is delayed. In July, the agency said it would issue a proposed rule this month. That has now been delayed to next May. A final rule isn’t expected until June 2019.
3. Department of Transportation kills Obama-era rule on airline fees
Just 11 days before Trump took office, the Department of Transportation proposed a rule to force airlines to disclose checked and carry-on baggage fees when passengers first begin to purchase a ticket, rather than later during the process. While airlines are required to disclose those fees, consumer groups argued that they are often hidden late in the process. The Obama-era proposal, they said, would increase transparency and improve market competition.
But this week, the Department of Transportation officially withdrew the proposed rule, saying it was of “limited public benefit” and that the Department’s existing rules were adequate to protect consumers from hidden fees. Consumer groups and Democrats slammed the move while airlines groups praised the withdrawal, saying the Obama-era rule was an unfair restriction on airlines’ rights to market and sell their product as they see fit.
4. FCC makes big moves—beyond net neutrality
The Federal Communication Commission’s decision on Thursday to overturn Obama-era rules on net neutrality dominated the headlines, provoking a sharp backlash from liberal groups who said that the rollback would threaten the free and open Internet. Conservatives praised the move, arguing that liberal fears were vastly overblown and that it will encourage digital innovation.
But beyond net neutrality, the FCC also made a couple other key decisions on Thursday. Most notably, the FCC issued a “notice of proposed rulemaking” on changing or killing a cap on media ownership, which currently prevents broadcasters from reaching more than 39 percent of the national audience. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the agency has no specific plans for reforming the cap, saying, “We are just asking.” But many groups are skeptical of Pai’s intentions after he reinstated a policy earlier this year, known as the UHF discount, that critics say was designed to enable the conservative broadcaster Sinclair Broadcast Group to purchase to purchase Tribune Media without violating the 39 percent cap. Pai says the UHF discount and the media ownership cap are “inextricably linked” and the FCC intends to review them together.
The FCC also voted to create a new “blue alert” code—to go along with existing alerts including for missing children (AMBER alert) and severe weather—for when a law enforcement officer is killed or in trouble. This change was less controversial: It passed unanimously.
5. USDA begins repeal of organic livestock welfare rule
On January 19, just a day before Trump took office, the Department of Agriculture published a new rule intending to improve conditions for organically raised animals on everything from daily access to the outdoors to acceptable euthanasia methods. Animal welfare groups and many organic farmers cheered the news, while large egg producers and other big agricultural companies said it would raise prices for consumers.
This week, USDA took the first step toward overturning the Obama-era rule, issuing a proposed rule to repeal it altogether. The move wasn’t exactly a surprise: USDA had already sharply criticized the rule as having both legal and policy issues and had delayed its effective date three times. It’s currently not set to take effect until May 2018. Now, that almost certainly that will not happen.Tuesday, August 6, 2013
CÁRDENAS INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO ENCOURAGE COMPUTER EDUCATION
(Washington, DC) -- U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-San Fernando Valley) recently introduced legislation that would help prepare children in the Valley, and throughout the United States, for a future working with computers and networks.
Cárdenas’ bill, the Computer Science in STEM Act, will prepare children for the computing jobs of today and tomorrow by adding Computer Science as one of the core “Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics” (STEM) classes.
“We have a duty to educate our children, so that each of them has the opportunity to find a well-paying job that will allow them create prosperity, raise a family and contribute to our economy,” said Cárdenas. “The tech industry is quickly expanding and adding middle class jobs to the U.S. economy. We need to ensure that we have a trained workforce to fill these jobs so we can keep them here at home. I wrote this legislation is to make sure this happens so we can rebuild the middle class.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that from 2008 to 2018 more than 1,500,000 high-wage computing jobs will be created in the United States economy, making computing one of the fastest growing occupational fields.
According to the National Science Foundation, 2 percent of STEM students are computer science majors, while 60 percent of STEM jobs are computing jobs. For every American student receiving an engineering degree, about eight students receive engineering degrees in China and about five students earn equivalent degrees in India.
Along with including computer science in STEM definitions, the legislation creates grants to develop comprehensive plans at the state level to strengthen computer science education in grades K through 12 by ensuring quality and grade-appropriate computer science education giving teachers the appropriate skills and access to resources to teach computer science; and including universities and colleges in the process of creating this plan.
The bill is co-sponsored by Rep. Jared Polis (D-Boulder).
"High quality computer science and computing education exposes students to careers in exciting fields and prepares them to fill the jobs of the future,” Rep. Polis said. “However, current policies do not support computer science as a critical part of our education system. The Computer Science in STEM Act would support computer science programs across our K-12 and higher education systems, increasing access to the skills needed to compete in a global economy.”
The legislation is also supported by “Computing in the Core,” a conglomerate of advocates for the inclusion of computer science in K-12 education. In a letter to Cárdenas, they noted, “Your legislation would clarify that existing and currently funded federal programs could support the teaching and learning of computer science and encourages local and state education leaders to put computer science curriculum and teachers in schools.”
-30-Election 2016 (Photo: Courtesy photo)
SANTA FE — The number of registered voters in New Mexico has increased nearly 3 percent since the start of the year as election officials process a final flurry of registration forms.
Tuesday was the cutoff date for voters to register ahead of New Mexico's June 7 primaries featuring presidential, statewide and local candidates.
A preliminary tally released on Thursday by the Secretary of State's Office shows about 32,700 additional registrations since Jan. 1. Republicans account for 31 percent of 1.2 million registered voters, and Democrats represent 47 percent.
There were 1,583 new registrations under a new law allowing 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if they will turn 18 by the date of the fall general election.
Online registration is another novelty this year, allowing almost 37,000 to register or update registrations.
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office deputy shot and killed a man during a traffic stop late Tuesday on West Central after “a struggle occurred” between the two, according to an office spokesman.
The deputy, who has been identified only as a member of the DWI unit, pulled over 34-year-old Adam Padilla in a white 1997 Oldsmobile around 10:50 p.m. Tuesday.
BCSO Capt. Matt Thomas said that “a struggle occurred” and that the deputy shot Padilla.
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Thomas didn’t provide details about the struggle. He said deputies believe Padilla had a gun in his possession during the shooting. A gun was found at the scene of the shooting during the investigation, Thomas said.
He didn’t say if Padilla was holding that gun – or fired it – during the confrontation.
Padilla was taken to University of New Mexico Hospital where he was pronounced dead. His female passenger, who was there during the confrontation, was interviewed by the investigative team and released. She has not been charged with anything.
His girlfriend, Ashley Beuerle, told KOAT-TV that the pair were pulled over because the car’s registration was expired. She said the deputy was going to let them go, but then asked to talk with Padilla. That’s when the shooting happened.
“I feel devastated, empty. I don’t know what to say,” she said.
Padilla faced a handful of criminal charges in the past but was convicted in just one case. That case included two counts of aggravated battery on a household member in 2009.
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The deputy who fired was not injured, Sheriff Dan Houston said. The deputy is on paid leave until the investigation is finished, as is standard when a deputy is involved in a shooting.
“It’s obviously going to be a long night. We are just starting the investigation,” Houston said early Wednesday.
Central Avenue between 75th Street and Unser Boulevard was closed in both directions after midnight as officials investigated the shooting.
Edward Villa, who lives nearby, said he was awakened by the sound of a helicopter around 11 p.m. and then heard about five to six gunshots.
An Oldsmobile remained on the shoulder of Central Avenue between 75th Street and Unser Boulevard throughout the investigation. The trunk and passenger -side door of the car were open.
A multiagency shoot team that includes investigators from New Mexico State Police and the Albuquerque Police Department are investigating, Thomas said. Someone from the District Attorney’s Office also was on scene, he said.
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A contract signed in the wake of the Department of Justice’s agreement with the Albuquerque Police Department solidifies the way that officer-involved shootings are investigated. Investigators from State Police, APD, the Rio Rancho Police Department and BCSO are supposed to investigate officer-involved shootings, serious use-of-force cases and in-custody deaths in Bernalillo County.
This is the first officer-involved shooting in the metro area since that agreement was solidified in October.
The last BCSO deputy-involved shooting was in August, when a suspect rammed a deputy’s car, trapping him inside.PlayStation VR has commonly been heralded as the headset that will bring VR gaming into the mainstream. But one Tokyo-based startup, FOVE Inc., feels that all the currently available headsets are missing a key component, the ability to track the user’s eye movement.
FOVE’s headset will be the first commercially available set of VR goggles to include this feature. The headset tracks the user’s eye movement via small infrared cameras. According to FOVE’s founder Yuka Kojima, by tracking the user’s eye movement, motion sickness will be reduced, graphical performance will be improved and users will be able to have eye to eye contact with others.
Although current VR headsets can offer players incredibly immersive experiences, tracking the user’s eye movement opens up a new world of possibilities. It’s commonly said that the eyes are the “window to the soul”, one’s eye movement can betray intent, reactions, and display emotion.
When FOVE was founded back in May 2014, Kojima opened up a Kickstarter campaign that eventually gathered a total of $13 million from investors including Samsung, Colol Inc., Foxconn Technolgy and Taizo Son.
FOVE will launch the first batch of headsets to developers and enthusiasts for pre-order on the 2nd of November at a price of $600, the same as their competitor the Oculus Rift.
Kojima who is a former associate producer at Sony believes the FOVE headset is up to two years ahead of its competitors.Although the technology behind eye tracking is nothing new, FOVE seeks to make a difference via their software. The company is currently amassing a vast database of eye movement which they will use to improve their tracking algorithms.
AdvertisementsGlenn Beck hosted a studio audience on his television program last night, where he revealed that he has ordered his staff to find a location outside of the United States from which he can continue to broadcast his programs once American society collapses and the government shuts down his network.
Beck fielded a question from a woman who had relocated her family from California to Texas based upon Beck’s warnings of a coming social collapse and wanted Beck’s advice on how best to prepare her children for what is to come, to which Beck responded that he and his wife are going to start reading the apocalyptic “Left Behind” series to their own children in preparation for the End Times.
Beck revealed that he recently had conversations with two different people who warned that the American economy and social structure are on the verge of total collapse, which prompted him to tell his staff to get to work finding a location in Israel to which they can flee when it happens.
“We have to pick up our pace on finding another place to broadcast,” Beck told his staff. “I need to know if I can get to Jerusalem, where they won’t shut this down and we can be able to broadcast into the United States. This could end quickly.”
Beck’s young daughter happened to be in the room when he made that declaration and was understandably upset by it, but Beck said that we cannot shield our children from the realities of the world because “they’re the giants that are going to fix this, they have to know.”
As such, Beck and his wife are going to be reading the “Left Behind” series to their children because “they have to know that this might be the time … You have an army on earth now that says they are the army of the Antichrist, they are the army of Armageddon.”
Beck, of course, is doing all that he can to prevent this from happening, which is why he has endorsed Ted Cruz for president.
“This is why I’m endorsing Ted Cruz and I’m going out this weekend” to Iowa, he said. “If I could change one mind, I am not going to sit at home because I know what the consequences are.”MA'SUM GHAR, Afghanistan – Canadian forces in this sprawling region of grape orchards, opium fields and heavily fortified mud walled compounds have gone from being run ragged to being firmly in control according to Canada's top soldier. Despite initial success with the invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime in 2001 and 2002, the militants have since regrouped and mounted an increasingly strong insurgency over the past three years.
Canadian troops take their places aboard a CH 147 Chinook helicopter before a patrol in Kandahar province. ( STEFANO RELLANDINI / REUTERS )
A surge in American troops has been a godsend for Canadian soldiers here. U.S. President Barack Obama committed 21,000 new forces to Afghanistan this year, part of a record U.S. commitment of 68,000 by the end of this year. Canada has been going it largely alone for the past three years and the reinforcements couldn't come at a better time. "It's been a huge bonus. When you think three years ago we were covering this massive region with a single battalion and here today in 2009 we're covering this region with eight battalions," said Chief of Defence Staff General Walt Natynczyk in an interview with The Canadian Press at Forward Operating Base Ma'sum Ghar, a mountainous area in the heart of the Panjwaii district – the birthplace of the Taliban.
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"We also have an entire brigade of Afghan army and hundreds and hundreds of Afghan police. So the conditions are quite different today and that's allowed us to make some progress." Despite the political instability and constant concerns about security in the area – the population by and large seems to be relying more heavily on government and NATO troops. Village leaders argue that the location of new schools, community centres and even outdoor bazaars, should be within site of Afghan National Police, Afghan National Army or NATO bases for the sake of security. Shuras between district leaders and representatives from aid groups such as the Canadian International Development Agency, or CIDA, include long wish lists which usually start out with better roads, irrigation and schools. The Canadian military has maintained that the ultimate goal of the presence here is to allow the Afghan people to provide their own security and to determine their own path to prosperity. That is working in some areas and has given hope in some regions. There is a school for girls close to this armed compound but it remains empty and will do so until the Taliban are gone once and for all.
"You mentioned hope. The Taliban just represent destruction. They want to retain power at any cost. They hide behind a veil of extreme fundamentalism but indeed all they do is destroy and kill," Natynczyk said quietly. "What they don't want is to have that hope. We are seeing that in the past three months," he added. "They really did step up their activity in this region and certainly before the election, the number of attacks and IEDs went up significantly."
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"Yet the Afghan Army, Afghan police with our support and our training was able to support an election in the middle of a war. To consider that this country was able to hold an election in the midst of a war is really quite spectacular." Going it alone in Kandahar has taken a rising toll on Canadian soldiers. IEDs, the constant favourite of the Taliban insurgency, has claimed the majority of the 129 Canadian soldiers who have died since the mission began. Despite the technical superiority the threat remains. "We are using every piece of sophisticated technology that we can get our hands on and each piece is a lifesaver for our soldiers and so we're not holding anything back," said Natynczyk."We're seeing more and more finds, but again there is tragedy... when you don't find all of them, it's absolutely tragic."
Read more about:Stardew Valley: Coming To Switch With Multiplayer Mode
Stardew Valley, a game that was well received by many, is getting a port over to the Nintendo Switch. The game is already available to play on the PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, so the release on the Nintendo Switch is hardly a far flung idea. For me though, the release on the Nintendo Switch platform is my favourite one so far. The convenience of being able to play that game in my hand, while riding the train on my hour commune, appeals to me greatly.
For those of you looking for something new, Nintendo announced something interesting about this version of Stardew Valley: The Multiplayer Mode. That’s right gamers, Stardew Valley will finally gives us access to a multiplayer mode. The details on this mode seem to be sort of non existent, but we can speculate as to what this means. As a multiplayer mode, we can hope that this will give players the ability to then join into another gamers world and work on a farm together. This would allow for a lot of work, quests, and overall accomplishments to be completed in one day.
That said, I would love to be able to do this. As I feel that there’s never enough time, or energy, in my one little Stardew character.
Let us know in the comment’s about whether you’ll be grabbing this game on the Switch, and whether a multiplayer mode appeals to you.
Follow us on Twitter to keep up with the latest posts, or to recommend a game for the team to review: @TheSaveSpot1Catalonia continues to press on with its independence movement, much to the dismay of Spain and the European Union. Catalonia is not the only region in the EU demanding more autonomy or independence.
Here seven regions in the European Union that may seek separation, and cause more fragmentation in an already weakened Europe.
1. Scotland, Britain
In 2014, Scotland had a historic referendum on leaving the United Kingdom resulting in a narrow 55 percent vote against leaving the UK.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, head of the pro-independence Scottish National Party, is now calling for a second referendum once Britain’s exit from the EU becomes clear.
Scotland is home to 5.2 million people and has been semi-autonomous since 1998 with a devolved parliament that handles matters of education, health, environment and justice.
Diplomacy and defense remain under the control of London.+
Time to buy old US gold coins
Sturgeon openly condemned the Spanish police violence during the Catalonia independence vote.
2. Flanders, Belgium
Housing the center of EU oligarchy, Belgium is anything but a unified state.
Created 1830 as an independent nation to act as a buffer between France and Germany, Belgium is a mix of a Flemish-speaking, conservative northerners and French, left-leaning southerners.
The Flemish nationalist sentiment is more powerful than ever, and the separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) is now one of the biggest party in Belgium, and a key partner in the coalition government.
The N-VA is pushing for the creation of a Flemish republic, and during the 2018 elections, it may have its chance.
Flanders’ Minister-President Geert Bourgeois called on the Spanish government to start talks with “the legitimate leaders of a peaceful people”.
3. Basques, Spain
Separatist group ETA was founded in 1959 to promote the interests of the Basque region. later turning into a violent independence campaign blamed for 829 deaths.
ETA carried out its last attack in 2010. It has since disarmed in April of this year.
ETA members have now joined a Franco-Spanish Basque political party called Sortu that is working for “full freedom” for Basque’s 2.2 million population.
40,000 people demonstrated in Bilbao in support of Catalonia’s referendum.
The regional president, Inigo Urkullu, called for the recognition of the Catalan and Basque nations.
4. New Caledonia, France
With a population of approximately 280,000 people, this South Pacific archipelago is set to hold a referendum by November next year on independence from France.
Under French rule since 1853, New Caledonia reached an agreement in 1998 with Paris for greater autonomy, although many activists say autonomy has not been fully granted.
New Caledonia has on-fourth of the world’s known resources of nickel, but as is the case with most colonial relationships, wealth is properly shared.
5. Corsica, France
Corsica is a Mediterranean island with a population of 330,000 people. It is part of France with its own language.
The separatist National Liberation Front of Corsica (FLNC) ended its armed struggle in June 2014, and has now pushed for a political solution to its demands.
Since 2015 nationalists have been leading the island’s assembly, as Corsica currently has a special administrative status that affords it certain powers, and retains strong autonomy.
The Corsica assembly highlighted “the indisputable legitimacy of the government of Catalonia”.
6. Faroe Islands, Denmark
With a population of 48,000, Denmark’s Faroe Islands will hold a referendum in April 2018 on a new constitution that would give the islands self-determination.
Faroe Islands have been autonomous since 1948. Foreign affairs and defense are under the control of Copenhagen.
7. Lombardy and Veneto, Italy
These wealthy regions in northern Italy are set to hold non-binding consultative referendums on October 22, asking voters if they favor more autonomy from Italy’s central government.
Politicians in Lombardy and Veneto, which combined account for nearly a third of Italy’s economy, demand a bigger share of tax income.Appalachian State handed Georgia Southern their first ever loss in the Sun Belt on Thursday night, winning 31-13 and controlling the game in dominant fashion. The App State defense held Georgia Southern to only 252 total yards, nearly half of their season average, and quarterback Taylor Lamb helped the offense conduct an efficient evening.
For all the words spent leading up to this game on the two offenses, the best unit on the field by far was the Appalachian State defense. The Mountaineers gave up a touchdown on the first drive of the night, but after that they put the Georgia Southern offense into a choke hold. It wasn't until late in the fourth quarter that they surrendered another point, well after the game had been decided.
Taylor Lamb was efficient, going 14 of 20 passes for 202 yards and two touchdowns to lead the 'Neers. Marcus Cox had 84 rushing yards and two touchdowns to spearhead a 184-yard team rushing effort. The delightfully named Simms McElfresh led them with 66 receiving yards and a touchdown.
Matt Breida was held to only 78 rushing yards, his lowest total of the season since their season-opening loss to West Virginia. Kevin Ellison and Favian Upshaw each threw a pick, but Ellison did have a rushing touchdown.
With this win in their pocket, App State becomes the odds-on favorite to win the Sun Belt. But beyond that, the Mountaineers could have a shot at grabbing the Group of Five New Year's bowl bid, which would be a shocking climb for a program in only their second year in the FBS.
They'll need some help to get there, of course, but if they do, they'll be carried there by their defense. Their performance against Georgia Southern was no fluke. They had the 27th-ranked defense in terms of Defensive S&P+ entering this week, and that number will certainly not be hurt by their drubbing of the potent Eagles' attack. Their offense isn't exactly chopped liver either at 39th in Offensive S&P+, so it's really not that difficult to conceive of them surviving while the teams ahead of them like Houston, Memphis, Toledo and others, all knock each other off while the Mountaineers keep chugging along and end up playing in a bowl game on New Years Day.
It may not be the most likely scenario, but neither is a second-year FBS program even being in this position. Why stop now?With Ryan Mallett still on the burner as a potential trade target for quarterback-needy teams, the New England Patriots are keeping their backup in bubble wrap.
NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport reported Monday that New England is expected to hold Mallett out of Thursday's final preseason game against the New York Giants, per a Patriots source.
With potential trade opportunities down the road, the risk of injury was deemed too high, the source told Rapoport. That means rookie Jimmy Garoppolo will start and likely go the distance.
Rapoport was told the Patriots won't deal Mallett until they feel comfortable with Garoppolo as their backup. Thursday will go a long way toward making that decision.
The Mallett trade rumors have burned bright all offseason, but quarterback chaos in a handful of NFL cities makes moving the lanky passer a greater reality than ever before.
Losing Sam Bradford to another season-ending ACL tear would have left the Rams as a potential candidate for Mallett's services. However, Rapoport reported Monday evening that St. Louis trading for a quarterback is "unlikely, mainly because of what they would have to give up."
The Texans remain in the picture, and hold the advantage of the No. 1 waiver priority if Mallett is ultimately cut.
The Patriots, though, would love to get something in return for the fourth-year passer who looked entirely average in preseason play but comes equipped with the size and build teams love at the position.
Hang on tight, friends, the Mallett whispers remain alive and well for at least another week.
The "Around the League Podcast" Fantasy Football Extravaganza has landed. Tell your friends and lovers.Coordinates : Frankenstein Castle is in southern Hesse, Germany, on the spurs of the Odenwald mountain range at an elevation of 370 m (1,210 ft) close to the southern outskirts of Darmstadt. It is one of many historic castles along the Hessian Bergstraße Route, also famous for its vineyards and its mild climate.
Frankenstein is a German name consisting of two words: The Franks are a Germanic tribe and "stein" is the German word for "stone". Accordingly, the meaning of Frankenstein is "Stone of the Franks". The word "stein" is common in names of landscapes, places and castles in Germany. Consequently, the term "Frankenstein" is a rather ordinary name for a castle in this region.
On Halloween night in 1952, John Keel sent three American Forces Network reporters to Frankenstein Castle to explore the castle for a live radio broadcast. The reporters were told that a local legend claimed Frankenstein's monster would return to the castle that night. Reporter Carl Nelson investigated the castle's crypt, where Keel had "set up a statue in the middle of the crypt - and rigged it to move and topple" as a prank, terrifying Nelson. Reportedly, frightened radio listeners bombarded the station with calls and military police were dispatched to the castle. [2]
The castle was used as refuge and a hospital afterward, falling into ruins in the 18th century. The two towers that are so distinctive today are a historically inaccurate restoration carried out in the mid-19th century.
Being both strong opponents of the reformation and following territorial conflicts, connected disputes with the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt, as well as the adherence to the Roman Catholic faith and the associated "right of patronage", the family head Lord John I decided to sell the lordship to the Landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1662, after various lawsuits at the Imperial Chamber Court.
In 1363, the castle was split into two parts and owned by two different families of the lords and knights of Frankenstein. At the beginning of the 15th century, the castle was enlarged and modernized. The Frankenstein knights became independent of the counts of Katzenelnbogen again.
Before 1250, Lord Conrad II Reiz of Breuberg built Frankenstein Castle and thereafter named himself von und zu Frankenstein. The first document proving the existence of the castle in 1252 bears his name. He was the founder of the free imperial Barony of Frankenstein, which was subject only to the jurisdiction of the emperor, with possessions in Nieder-Beerbach, Darmstadt, Ockstadt, Wetterau and Hesse. Additionally the Frankensteins held other possession and sovereignty rights as burgraves in Zwingenberg (Auerbach (Bensheim)), in Darmstadt, Groß-Gerau, Frankfurt am Main and Bensheim. The hill on which the castle stands was probably occupied by another castle from the 11th century, which fell into ruins after Frankenstein Castle was built a short distance away to the northwest. Claims of an even older predecessor upon the hill are widespread, but historically unlikely.
The Odenwald, the mountain range on which Frankenstein Castle is located, is a landscape with dark forests and narrow valleys shrouded in mystery and enshrined in legend. Many folktales and myths exist about Frankenstein Castle. None of them have been verified as fact, but all of them have influenced the culture and traditions of the region.[citation needed]
Alchemist Dippel, Mary Shelley and the monster Edit
In 1673, Johann Conrad Dippel was born in the castle, where he was later engaged as a professional alchemist. It is suggested that Dippel influenced Mary Shelley's fantasy when she wrote her Frankenstein novel, though there is no mention of the castle in Shelley's journals from the time. However, it is known that in 1814, prior to writing the famous novel, Shelley took a journey on the river Rhine. She spent a few hours in the town of Gernsheim, which is located about ten miles away from the castle. Several nonfiction books on the life of Mary Shelley claim Dippel as a possible influence.[3][4][5]
Dippel created an animal oil known as Dippel's Oil which was supposed to be equivalent to the "elixir of life". Dippel attempted to purchase Castle Frankenstein in exchange for his elixir formula, which he claimed he had recently discovered; the offer was turned down.[6] There are also rumours[who?] that during his stay at Frankenstein Castle, Dippel practiced not only alchemy but also anatomy and may have performed experiments on dead bodies that he exhumed. There are rumours[who?] that he dug up bodies and performed medical experiments on them at the castle and that a local cleric would have warned his parish that Dippel had created a monster that was brought to life by a bolt of lightning. There are local people[who?] who still claim today that this actually happened and that this tale was related to Shelley's stepmother by the Brothers Grimm, the German ethnologists.[7] However, none of these claims have been proven to this date,[when?] and some local researchers doubt any connection between Mary Shelley and Frankenstein Castle.[8]
Lord George and the Dragon Edit
Frankenstein forest
One of the most famous legends is about Lord George and a dragon, by August Nodnagel (1803-1853). It is said that long ago a dangerous dragon lived in the garden near the well at the castle of Burg Frankenstein. The peasants of a neighboring village (Nieder-Beerbach) lived in fear of the mighty dragon. It is said the dragon would creep in at night and eat the villagers and their children in their sleep. One day a knight by the name of Lord George rode into town. The townsfolk were desperate, seeing a brave knight gave them hope, and they poured out their troubles and sorrows as he promised to help them.
The next day, he put on his armor and rode up to the castle, into the garden and straight to the well where the dragon was taking a rest in the sun. Lord George got off his horse and attacked the dragon. The dragon fought for his life, puffed and spewed out fire and steam. Hours passed as the two continued to battle. Finally, just as the knight was about to drop from exhaustion, and just as the dragon was going to drop from exhaustion, the knight plunged his sword into the underbelly of the beast and was victorious. But as the dragon struggled in agony, it coiled its tail with the poisonous spine around the knight's belly and stung. Lord George and the dragon both fell. The villagers were so happy and relieved that the dragon was finally slain they wanted to give the knight a proper, honorable burial. They brought him to the Church of Nieder Beerbach, in the valley on the east side of the castle, and gave him a marvelous tomb. To this day, you can still visit and pay your respects to Lord George, the Knight who slew the Dragon in the 1200s.[9]
Fountain of youth Edit
Fountain of youth - Frankenstein Castle
Hidden behind the herb garden of the castle, there is a fountain of youth. Legend is that in the first full-moon night after Walpurgis Night, old women from the nearby villages had to undergo tests of courage. The one who succeeded became rejuvenated to the age she had been on the night of her wedding. It is not known if this tradition is still being practiced these days.[10]
Gold rush Edit
In the 18th century, a gold rush caused some turmoil near Frankenstein Castle. It is believed[who?] that a legend and visions of fortunetellers caused local residents to believe that a treasure was hidden near the castle. In 1763, chaotic scenes took place which even an intervention of a priest from the neighbouring village of Nieder-Beerbach could not stop.[clarification needed]
Even though no gold-filled vaults were ever found, fortune-hunters did not abandon the digging until one Johann Heinrich Drott was killed when his dig collapsed on him.[citation needed] He was given a suicide's burial.[clarification needed : this?] In 1770, 1787 and 1788, further attempts[clarification needed] were made, but nothing of any value was found. It was then that local authorities banned further gold-digging.[11]
Ghost Hunters investigation Edit
Frankenstein Castle gained international attention[citation needed] when the SyFy TV-Show Ghost Hunters International made a whole episode about the castle in 2008 (Episode 107) and claimed it would show "significant paranormal activity". The investigators met with a Frankenstein expert who guided Robb Demarest, Andy Andrews, Brian Harnois and their colleague through the castle and discussed its legends and paranormal sightings. After discussing their personal experiences, the team used audio and video devices for their investigation. Sounds from the chapel and the entrance tower sounded like words[citation needed] and a ultrasonic recorder picked up signals[clarification needed] in the chapel. A recorded sound was identified as a phrase in Old German that means "Arbo is here", which was interpreted as "Arbo" probably meaning "Arbogast", the name of a knight of the castle, announcing his presence and claim over the land. A second sound bite was interpreted to mean "come here". The team left Frankenstein Castle convinced that there is some sort of paranormal activity going on.[12]
Magnetic phenomena near the castle Edit
Magnetic stones at Frankenstein
In a remote part of the forest behind Frankenstein Castle on 417 meter high Mount Ilbes, compasses do not work properly due to magnetic stone formations of natural origin. Local nature enthusiasts and witchcraft practitioners are said[who?] to perform rituals at these magnetic places on special occasions like Walpurgis Night or summer solstice.[13] The magnetic stones can be visited by everyone, but it is advisable[ |
ima. Esta mudança requer a liberalização dos entraves regulatórios e burocráticos que hoje incidem sobre o setor empreendedor. Redução da carga tributária e eliminação do pesadelo burocrático são imprescindíveis. O setor estatal deve abandonar seu intervencionismo ad hoc, o qual cria incertezas, em prol de uma política que se limite a oferecer segurança jurídica e institucional, e que facilite o empreendedorismo.
Porém, não apenas hoje, mas já por décadas, o Brasil pratica uma política macroeconômica errada para lidar com a armadilha da renda média. Em vez de liberar a economia, o estado cria cada vez mais controles e regulamentações. Em vez de promover uma economia empreendedorial, o Brasil se dedica a fortalecer ainda mais seu sistema de capitalismo de estado. Em vez de abandonar as políticas macroeconômicas de cunho dirigista, o país intensifica seu intervencionismo já extremado.
Adotar políticas fiscais e monetárias expansionistas na tentativa de sair da armadilha da renda média apenas agrava a situação. Falando em termos de teoria do crescimento econômico, ambas estas políticas levam a economia a um desequilíbrio entre poupança, investimentos, gastos e taxa de câmbio. Uma atividade econômica que exceda este ponto de "crescimento equilibrado" é insustentável. Sem o progresso tecnológico para compensar este hiato, a economia recua.
Ainda pior será a situação se o governo apresentar déficits orçamentais, os quais geram uma redução da taxa nacional de poupança. Neste caso, em consequência de um crescimento artificial gerado pelos estímulos monetários e fiscais, a economia cairá abaixo de seu nível anterior de renda.
O grande erro desta política econômica está em confundir as consequências do crescimento econômico com suas causas. A política macroeconômica que o Brasil adotou para lidar com a armadilha da renda média sofre do mesmo erro que Mises já havia denunciado ao recorrer à alegoria do mestre de obras que tenta construir uma casa em um tamanho que excede a real quantidade de insumos ao seu dispor. Este erro de cálculo não apenas faz com que a construção da casa não seja concluída, como também faz com que a casa nem sequer possa ficar de um tamanho menor do que aquele originalmente projetado.
Conclusão
Países de renda média, após superarem a armadilha da pobreza e a armadilha malthusiana, enfrentam o esgotamento da mão-de-obra barata. Um país emergente cai na armadilha da renda média quando, simultaneamente, perde sua capacidade de competir com os países de baixa renda em termos de preços e, ao mesmo tempo, ainda não possui a capacidade de competir com os países de alta renda em termos de tecnologia. A continuidade da ingerência do estado na economia faz com que estes países caiam no regresso.
Tentar sair da armadilha recorrendo a políticas de estímulo monetário e fiscal não apenas não funciona, como na realidade pavimenta o caminho para o endividamento público, e gera ainda mais debilidade econômica no longo prazo. O caso do Brasil e seus famosos "vôos de galinha" mostra como o país sofre de recorrentes ciclos de expansão econômica artificial seguida de contração.
Para continuar a crescer, o país tem de ter progresso tecnológico. No entanto, se o país recorre a déficits orçamentários e a inflações monetárias, a tragédia econômica está programada. Para obter maiores níveis de produtividade, o Brasil teria de abandonar o atual sistema de capitalismo de estado, o qual foi escolhido como o caminho para a decolagem. Para sair da armadilha da renda média, o Brasil tem de abrir sua economia para o capitalismo empreendedorial da destruição criativa.Article By: Vanit Shah of The Youth Journal
When it comes to promoting international stability, Canada is not a country to scoff at. Since its inception in the October of 1945, Canada has enthusiastically supported the United Nation’s vision of collective security, preventing conflict of the likes associated with the Second World War.
But the country’s indisputable generosity continues to suffer a phantom pain from what many patriots view to be the worst rejection it has had to meet from this international community.
The Security Council.
A committee of five comprised permanently of global superpowers Britain, France, Russia, the United States and China. A committee that convenes in times of crisis to discuss action that needs to be taken to counter events that threaten world peace.
A committee that welcomes ten temporary members for two-year terms, where they will make their puny little voices heard in the face of the veto power-holding Big 5.
Canada has served six terms to date on this council – a total of 12 years. Once every decade, Canada has never failed to serve its rightful term in this much-coveted spot of apparent prestige. But Canada’s portrayal as a model UN member was shattered in October 2010, when Canada’s Conservative government was stunned by a horrific revelation – they had placed third behind both Germany and Portugal in the first round of votes!
When Canada, for the first time in our history, loses a vote at the United Nations to become a member of the Security Council... to Portugal, which was on the verge of bankruptcy at the time, you should look in the mirror and say: ‘Houston, I think we have a problem.’
– Brian Mulroney, 18th Canadian Prime Minister
In the face of certain defeat, Canada withdrew from the election, barefacedly losing support to a powerless little European country. And we acquired nothing but an ugly stain on Canada’s apparent track record of perfection in the world peace effort. Canadians looked upon this incident as nothing short of blatant outrage. Hadn’t Canada proved time and time again that it was one of the pillars of international peace? Let the rest of the world be damned for refusing to give Canada its rightful spot of leadership in the world!
But the rest of the world may not think so.
To understand the discontentment the international community had built up against us seven years ago, we must first look at the gradually rescinding interest that Canada had exhibited in international affairs. Affairs which included Canada gradually cutting back the aid given to distraught African countries, affairs which spanned the lack of interest it had displayed in the welfare of Southeast Asia, affairs which encompassed Canada’s passivity in reducing its carbon footprint considering rising sea levels.
Was it any surprise to the inverted, domestically-conscious, internationally-oblivious Mr. Harper that his country lost its bid?
So Canada gradually shrank back into the shadows, lurking in the outskirts of the General Assembly as time dragged on. Never showing more commitment in the international community other than sending in minuscule contingents of soldiers and humanitarians to war-torn regions of the world.
But the Liberals then burst onto the scene in 2015, with headstrong Justin Trudeau guaranteeing better international co-operation, amongst a mundane party platform. The Liberals barely hesitated for a breath before firing a statement to the nation, that Canada would be campaigning for a seat on the Security Council in 2021. No matter what it takes. Remember those 5 words now, for they expose the true mentality of our current government.
Hurrah for Canada and international peace! And taking back what is OURS!
Well, some of us may be slightly more realistic.
I’ll give you an example which is shockingly unfamiliar to most Canadians. It was John Humphrey, a simple Montreal lawyer who founded and adopted the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1946, guiding its growth and development until its adoption in 1948. He didn’t think much of his efforts at the time, but dozens of countries today look to the Declaration of Rights as a model for their own charters. Canada could proudly say at the time that it had taken a gallant step forward in establishing a universal set of rights for every person on this planet!
Did John Humphrey give a hoot about his country’s status in the United Nations? Did he waste his time and energy campaigning for a spot that would serve virtually no purpose? NO! He recognized an issue, accepted responsibility for it and worked tirelessly to foster change.
His work should continue to serve as an inspiration to us Canadians today, the entire Liberal party included. From spearheading the creation of the Food and Agricultural Organization to providing monumental support for UNICEF, Canada has never taken on the role of a bystander in the United Nations.
Is there any need for Trudeau to pump millions of dollars into hospitable vacations and fancy accessories to purchase votes for our country, courtesy of all these shallow global ambassadors, many of whom look no further than their next meal at their next fancy restaurant? Does Trudeau really need to spend money on smooth-talking representatives with sleek script-writers who are able to polish off gleaming speeches in front of the entire General Assembly?
Our country is more than capable of making an enormous difference in the world, and bowing down to such grizzly tactic to secure support for our nation on the Security Council will do nothing. If the Liberal government really cares about fostering international cooperation, it must first trash this silly scheme associated with winning this phony honor. Not only is it a waste of money, but there is something horribly degrading about seeing Canada potentially stooping to such levels one day.
Surely, this money can be put to better use. And ultimately, we must question how influential the Security Council really is when concerning global betterment.
Like this: Like Loading...Bernanke’s Continuing Confusion about How Monetary Policy Works
TravisV recently posted a comment on this blog with a link to his comment on Scott Sumner’s blog flagging two apparently contradictory rationales for the Fed’s quantitative easing policy in chapter 19 of Ben Bernanke’s new book in which he demurely takes credit for saving Western Civilization. Here are the two quotes from Bernanke:
1 Our goal was to bring down longer-term interest rates, such as the rates on thirty-year mortgages and corporate bonds. If we could do that, we might stimulate spending—on housing and business capital investment, for example…..Similarly, when we bought longer-term Treasury securities, such as a note maturing in ten years, the yields on those securities tended to decline. 2 A new era of monetary policy activism had arrived, and our announcement had powerful effects. Between the day before the meeting and the end of the year, the Dow would rise more than 3,000 points—more than 40 percent—to 10,428. Longer-term interest rates fell on our announcement, with the yield on ten-year Treasury securities dropping from about 3 percent to about 2.5 percent in one day, a very large move. Over the summer, longer-term yields would reverse and rise to above 4 percent. We would see that increase as a sign of success. Higher yields suggested that investors were expecting both more growth and higher inflation, consistent with our goal of economic revival. Indeed, after four quarters of contraction, revised data would show that the economy would grow at a 1.3 percent rate in the third quarter and a 3.9 percent rate in the fourth.
Over my four years of blogging — especially the first two – I have written a number of posts pointing out that the Fed’s articulated rationale for its quantitative easing – the one expressed in quote number 1 above: that quantitative easing would reduce long-term interest rates and stimulate the economy by promoting investment – was largely irrelevant, because the magnitude of the effect would be far too small to have any noticeable macroeconomic effect.
In making this argument, Bernanke bought into one of the few propositions shared by both Keynes and the Austrians: that monetary policy is effective by operating on long-term interest rates, and that significant investments by business in plant and equipment are responsive to relatively small changes in long-term rates. Keynes, at any rate, had the good sense to realize that long-term investment in plant and equipment is not very responsive to changes in long-term interest rates – a view he had espoused in his Treatise on Money before emphasizing, in the General Theory, expectations about future prices and profitability as the key factor governing investment. Austrians, however, never gave up their theoretical preoccupation with the idea that the entire structural profile of a modern economy is dominated by small changes in the long-term rate of interest.
So for Bernanke’s theory of how QE would be effective to be internally consistent, he would have had to buy into a hyper-Austrian view of how the economy works, which he obviously doesn’t and never did. Sometimes internal inconsistency can be a sign that being misled by bad theory hasn’t overwhelmed a person’s good judgment. So I say even though he botched the theory, give Bernanke credit for his good judgment. Unfortunately, Bernanke’s confusion made it impossible for him to communicate a coherent story about how monetary policy, undermining, or at least compromising, his ability to build popular support for the policy.
Of course the problem was even deeper than expecting a marginal reduction in long-term interest rates to have any effect on the economy. The Fed’s refusal to budge from its two-percent inflation target, drastically limited the potential stimulus that monetary policy could provide.
I might add that I just noticed that I had already drawn attention to Bernanke’s inconsistent rationale for adopting QE in my paper “The Fisher Effect Under Deflationary Expectations” written before I started this blog, which both Scott Sumner and Paul Krugman plugged after I posted it on SSRN.
Here’s what I said in my paper (p. 18):
If so, the expressed rationale for the Fed’s quantitative easing policy (Bernanke 2010), namely to reduce long term interest rates, thereby stimulating spending on investment and consumption, reflects a misapprehension of the mechanism by which the policy would be most likely to operate, increasing expectations of both inflation and future profitability and, hence, of the cash flows derived from real assets, causing asset values to rise in step with both inflation expectations and real interest rates. Rather than a policy to reduce interest rates, quantitative easing appears to be a policy for increasing interest rates, though only as a consequence of increasing expected future prices and cash flows.
I wrote that almost five years ago, and it still seems pretty much on the mark.
AdvertisementsIt was supposed to have been a high-minded debate on the Irish collapse and the euro crisis but instead the talk in the European parliament today degenerated into a screaming match about goose-stepping Nazis, Spitfires and Adolf Hitler.
Martin Schulz, a German social democrat previously taunted by the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, as being "perfect" for the role of Nazi concentration camp guard, was criticising the EU's attempts to bail out Ireland when a British MEP interrupted to call him a "Euro nationalist".
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer," [one people, one nation, one leader] yelled Godfrey Bloom, the UK Independence party's MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, using the Nazi slogan to insult the leader of the European socialists in the Strasbourg chamber.
MEPs were appalled. Jerzy Buzek, the Polish president of the European parliament, demanded that Bloom apologise and retract his remarks.
But the Ukip MEP said: "The views of Herr Schulz make the case. He is an undemocratic fascist."
Bloom was expelled from the chamber. Leaders of all the other caucuses, including Michal Kaminski, the controversial Polish right-winger who leads the Tories' European group of conservatives and reformists, demanded that "a severe sanction" be imposed on Bloom.
The Ukip member's anger was apparently stirred by Schulz's call for greater EU solidarity in the financial crisis that is hitting Ireland and Portugal and threatening the euro single currency.
"My father, as a Spitfire pilot, fought for freedom against Nazi domination of Europe," Bloom said afterwards. "As an MEP, I will fight against the destruction of democracy across Europe. Schulz is an unrepentant Euro nationalist and a socialist. He wants one currency, one EU state, one EU people. These Euro nationalists are a danger to democracy. These people are fanatics."
The outburst is in line with Ukip publicity stunts in the parliament – calculated displays of rudeness aimed at causing upset and attracting attention.
In February, the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, turned on the new president of the European council, Herman Van Rompuy, a former Belgian prime minister. "Really, you have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk," Farage told him. "Who are you? I'd never heard of you; nobody in Europe had ever heard of you … I can speak on behalf of the majority of British people in saying that we don't know you, we don't want you, and the sooner you are put out to grass the better."
Farage admitted today that Bloom had been "rash and inflammatory", but the MEP was supported by far-right members from France's National Front and the Freedom Party of the Dutch anti-Islam campaigner Geert Wilders.
Some 20 MEPs walked out of the chamber in support of Bloom. Bruno Gollnisch, of Jean Marie Le Pen's National Front, said Bloom's expulsion was illegal.Farage said: "This was the week that the European commission has taken control of the economy of a second country, this time Ireland. The EU is clearly intent on expanding its powers."
As for Schulz, today was not the first time he had had to deal with Nazi-related slurs. Appearing before the parliament after taking over the rotating EU presidency in 2003, Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, clashed with the German social democrat. In comments that almost caused a diplomatic incident between Berlin and Rome, Berlusconi said: "Mr Schulz, I know a movie producer in Italy who is making a film about Nazi concentration camps. I will suggest you to play the role of a Kapo [an inmate made to be a camp guard]. You are perfect."Image caption The warning applies to visitors who stayed in the cabins at Curry Village from mid-June onward
Yosemite National Park is warning 1,700 visitors who stayed in some of its tent cabins this summer that they may have been exposed to a deadly virus.
Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome has been blamed for the deaths of two campers who stayed at the Californian park.
The disease can be carried in the urine, saliva and faeces of infected deer mice, and symptoms can appear as late as six weeks after exposure.
Two other infected campers were expected to survive.
The first death was reported earlier this month, and one of the victims was identified as a 37-year-old man from the San Francisco Bay area.
Fever and dizziness
There is no specific treatment for the hantavirus, which has a fatality rate of 30%.
The National Park Service, which runs Yosemite, extended the warning to visitors who stayed in the 408 canvas and wood cabins in Curry Village from mid-June onward.
They have been advised to be watch out for the symptoms of hantavirus, which include fever, aches, dizziness and chills.
"We are encouraging anyone who stayed in Curry Village since June to be aware of the symptoms of hantavirus and seek medical attention at the first sign of illness," a statement said.
Officials said they were working with contractors to clean and inspect the cabins.
"This is a serious public health issue and we want to be transparent, but at the same time we don't want people to alter their plans because we are taking the necessary precautions," said park spokesman Scott Gediman.
The park has seen two other cases of the hantavirus in a more remote area in 2000 and 2010, but this year's deaths were the first.A Samsung J7 smartphone caught fire on a Jet Airways flight bound to Indore from New Delhi causing mid-air panic. The flight staff were unable to extinguish the fire and had to drop the phone in a tray of water to put off the flames.
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It was a close call for nearly 120 passengers onboard the Indian Jet Airways flight 9W 791 from New Delhi to Indore as the cabin crew could somehow major to avert what could have been a major disaster due to an exploding smartphone. New Delhi resident Arpita Dhal, was carrying a Samsung J7 smartphone along with two other phones in her handbag. Fifteen minutes after take off, she noticed smoke emanating from her handbag and called the cabin crew for assistance.
It turned out that the smoke was from the Samsung J7 phone that had exploded in her handbag. There was reportedly a mid-air scare and the passengers prayed for a safe landing. The flight crew tried to extinguish the flames using a fire extinguisher but as luck would have it, the fire extinguisher malfunctioned. This prompted the crew to put the phone in a tray of water to subdue the flames. The other phones of the passenger were also reportedly put into water as a precautionary measure.
The flight, however, landed without any major hiccups and all passengers heaved a sigh of relief. The affected passenger said she would file a complaint against Jet Airways for the malfunctioning fire extinguisher as it would have put many lives at risk in the event of a major fire. A spokesperson for Jet Airways said that the incident was resolved "as per guidelines". A Samsung India spokesperson said that the company is in touch with the authorities to gather more information. After the whole Note 7 fiasco, another exploding phone is the last thing Samsung could wish for.
The phone has been confiscated to understand the cause for explosion and will be returned to the owner after investigation.It's been well documented that the Philadelphia Flyers have been generally trending upwards since an extended period of poor play in late October and early November. The reasons for the team's improvement are numerous - improved scoring, the return of key players like Sean Couturier, the emergence of Shayne Gostisbehere.
For their part, the players have long attributed the bounce in play to increased familiarity with the systems of first-year NHL head coach Dave Hakstol. Direction from Hakstol was becoming habit, and the team was able to execute effectively without thinking, resulting in quicker breakouts, cleaner passes, and better offensive zone play.
One obvious disadvantage to hiring a head coach without any NHL coaching experience was the fact that he was coming in with little preexisting knowledge of his opponents. Sure, Hakstol would have assistant coaches to help him, but there would likely be a learning curve as the new coach became more familiar with the other NHL teams, their players, and the preferred systems of opposing coaches.
Now past the halfway point of the season, the Flyers have reached the point of their schedule where they will regularly face teams for the second, third and even fourth times under the direction of Dave Hakstol. But will this prove advantageous for Philadelphia, giving Hakstol a chance to better understand and prepare for his opponents? Or could it actually be a negative, as other teams are now more familiar with Hakstol and his tactics?
Let's take a look at the numbers so far.
Flyers have played much better in second, third games against opponents
In 2015-16 thus far, the Philadelphia Flyers have faced 16 teams more than once. They've then played those sixteen teams a combined twenty more times this season. The win-loss records show that Philadelphia has achieved much better standings results the second (and third) time they've faced an opponent versus matchup No. 1.
Matchup Type Record First Game 5-9-2 Rematches 12-5-3
That's a point percentage of 37.5% the first time the Flyers face a team, and a 67.5% rate in rematches. Per Hockey Reference, the former rate would place Philadelphia dead-last in the overall standings, while the latter would rank the Flyers third-best in the league.
Still, we're dealing with very small samples here. The outcomes could be driven by factors that are very difficult to attribute to coaching, such as fantastic (or terrible) goaltending performances, or unsustainable shooting percentages. To that end, let's take a look at one of the most sustainable measures of team-level play - score-adjusted shot attempt differential at five-on-five (per War-On-Ice).
Matchup Type Score-Adjusted Corsi First Game 47.59% Rematches 51.77%
The Flyers have legitimately improved their underlying puck possession metrics in repeat matchups against opponents. It's not just Steve Mason and Michal Neuvirth, or uncharacteristically strong special teams play, or even an elevated shooting percentage. Philadelphia's play at even strength under Hakstol has been much better the second time facing a team.
Real effect, or just noise?
There is undoubtedly a disparity between how the Flyers have played in their first matchup against an opponent versus the second and third times that they've faced teams this season. But that disparity does not prove that increased familiarity is the primary reason for the improvement. And with the sample sizes so small, it would be impossible to prove mathematically that this is a driving force behind the Flyers' improvement.
Still, the narrative does make some sense. After all, the idea that a sharp coach would benefit from having first-hand observation and tape study of opponents does not seem farfetched.
Hakstol himself was skeptical of any connection, but he did note that the disparity was striking.
"Honestly I don’t [think it's the reason]. Not at all. I didn’t know that stat - that’s an interesting stat. Worthy of taking a look at, but I don’t think so."
Veteran forward Ryan White, on the other hand, wondered if there may be something to the theory.
"I think for sure [Hakstol] is learning - he’s hasn’t seen a lot of these teams before. I think he’s done a real good job of gameplanning and putting in the right system every night."
"At the same time, you see a team once, and then you see them a second time, you know their tendencies. Like I said, he’s been doing a good job gameplanning for the teams when we play them a second time. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or what. Again, any time you see [a team] the first time, it’s kind of a fresh game. After that, you try to pick up their tendencies and go try to limit what they want to do. I don’t know if it’s a stat or a secret or what, but it seems to be working, I guess."
White also proposed an alternate theory that falls more in line with the general consensus from the locker room over the past few months.
"We’ve got our base system that we’ve been playing all the time, and I think probably the biggest thing is that we’ve gotten better at the system throughout the season. I think it's the main thing. Relying on it a lot more, and knowing the ins and outs of it, when to step up, when not to, it’s made the game a little bit easier."
That's certainly a possibility. By the nature of the schedule, most of Philadelphia's "first game" matchups occurred early in the year, when the team as a whole was struggling. Maybe the team's better performance in rematches is less a result of Hakstol's tape study and gameplanning, and more due to improved performance across the board as the season has progressed.
If the theory holds water, however, it would bode well for the remainder of the Flyers' season. Only a late February game against the Arizona Coyotes would be a "first-time" matchup for Hakstol and Philadelphia. If the coach is truly gaining an advantage or "catching up" to the rest of the league with additional experience, the next three months could be quite exciting for Flyers fans.Police investigators work at the scene outside a cordoned area surrounding the police station in Helsingborg, Sweden, after an explosion at the main entrance, October 18, 2017. TT News Agency/Johan Nilsson via REUTERS
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - An explosion overnight in the southern Swedish town of Helsingborg caused extensive damage to the entrance of a police station, authorities said on Wednesday.
Nobody was injured in the explosion, which occurred shortly after midnight local time and also shattered windows in a neighboring building, police said in a statement.
“It is unclear what caused the detonation,” police said.
Police said they were carrying out checks in the Helsingborg area but had not made any arrests. Gang-related violent crime in southern Sweden has been in the spotlight in recent years with several shootings in the region.On Bullshit
The hideous pollution case I stumbled on illustrates our failure to see the harm caused by animal farming.
By George Monbiot, published on the Guardian’s website, 5th October 2015
Eat less meat and fish, drink less milk. No request could be simpler, or more consequential. Nothing we do has greater potential for reducing our impacts on the living planet. Yet no request is more likely to elicit a baffled, hurt or furious response.
This point comes across with astonishing force in the film Cowspiracy. I would question some of the figures it uses, but its thesis – we just don’t want to talk about it – is undeniable. Leaders of the big US green groups either avoided the film makers like the plague or smiled and shook their heads when asked about livestock. State officials were struck dumb by the question.
Climate change, water use, forest destruction, river pollution, floods, dead zones in the sea: the impacts of animal farming are massive and global; in many cases greater than those of anything else we do. But we don’t want to know.
Livestock keeping is so embedded in our cultural and religious identity that to challenge it is, it seems, to attack the foundations of society. We like to see ourselves as free thinkers, but we all have our sacred cows.
The world’s great monotheistic religions arose among nomadic herders. While sedentary people worshipped a host of local gods, to the herders moving across the land, God was an overarching principle, often residing in the sky. The pastoral religions took root among settled peoples, and we found ourselves, even in wet and fertile lands like Britain, reciting the sere desert creeds of Abel’s profession, though we tilled the ground like Cain.
For millennia we counted our wealth in cattle (otherwise known as chattels, or stock). A literary tradition dating back to Theocritus, in the 3rd Century BC, portrays herding as a life of virtue and innocence, a refuge from the corruption and venality of the city. Two thousand years later, the trope persists almost nightly on television. You challenge these deep themes at your peril.
Look at the treatment of Kerry McCarthy, Labour’s new shadow environment secretary, who has the temerity to be vegan in a public place.
Among her many deadly sins are her proposal (before she became shadow minister) that meat should be treated “the same way as tobacco, with public campaigns to stop people eating it”, and her observation that – while other industries cut production when it exceeds demand – dairy farmers are exempt from market forces. They are paid to keep producing more milk than we want to drink.
Let’s focus on this point for a moment.
Four weeks ago, farmers from across Europe gathered in Brussels to protest against the law of supply and demand. Some of them explained their economic theories by throwing stones and bottles at the police and setting light to hay bales in the streets.
When other protesters expound their views this way, they are beaten up by the police, excoriated by the press and rewarded with accommodation in state facilities. In this case however, the European Commission gave them €500m to go away and not restructure their industry. This comes on top of the €55bn that farmers receive every year through the Common Agricultural Policy.
Before she became environment secretary in the Westminster government, Liz Truss founded the Conservative Party’s Free Enterprise Group, which believes that nothing should stand in the way of market forces, and prescribes the harshest medicine for those who live off the generosity of the state.
But last month she boasted that the UK had managed to secure £26 million of the new European handout: “the third largest [allocation] of all the member states.” Each dairy farmer, she exulted, would receive a state gift of, on average, £1,800.
The money isn’t allocated equally, by the way: it’s paid per litre of milk production. The bigger you are, the more you get, which is how the whole European subsidy system works.
Apart from rewarding the rich for being rich, there is not one element of the subsidy regime that accords with the beliefs Liz Truss professes. Yet, in over a year as environment secretary, I have never heard her mutter a word against it.
The justification given for this special treatment is that farming is an essential industry, and we must support it to secure food supplies. But its consistent problem is not undersupply but oversupply. Overproduction threatens our future food supply, as it accelerates the destruction of the soil. Dairy is more damaging than most sectors, as the cows are often fed on maize, the great soil-stripping crop.
A few days ago, I stumbled across one result of what we are paying for.
I had intended to spend the day beside the River Culm, that flows through the Blackdown Hills in Devon. It is supposed to be a wildlife haven, supporting brook lampreys, stone loach, wild trout and bullheads. A local primary school has been helping to restore the salmon population by hatching the fish and releasing them into the water.
Well, the river certainly made an impact – on my nostrils. I could smell it from 50 metres away. When I reached the bank, I saw that it had been reduced to little more than a farm sewer. It stank of cow manure. The bed was covered in feathery growths of “sewage fungus” (the name is misleading: in reality these are bacterial colonies). Here is a picture I took of it:
I’m told by an expert in river ecology that when sewage fungus becomes filamentous like this, it means that the pollution is both severe and chronic. This was the dominant lifeform. There was little life of other kinds to be seen.
So I changed my plans, and went to look for the cause of the pollution. Because the sewage fungus disappeared abruptly as I walked upstream, it was not hard to trace the apparent source. I found this pipe discharging cow slurry into the river:
Here is the slurry mingling with the bright river water:
The pipe came from a dairy farm on a hill overlooking the river. I went to take a look.
This is one of two indoor dairy units on the farm:
Here’s the first of the farm’s slurry lagoons, into which manure from the cattle flows:
This drains into a second lagoon:
Below the second lagoon, I found a trench containing a broken pipe. Running through the pipe – and past it – was a steady flow of stinking liquid manure:
This appeared to seep into a rivulet running off the land, that was thick with liquid slurry:
The stench was so bad that it almost made me gag. I followed this rivulet down to the pipe I had found, discharging into the river.
The weather had been dry for several days before my visit. I can only imagine what the flow must be like during a wet spell.
I phoned the Environment Agency’s number for reporting environmental destruction (it’s 0800 80 70 60: ring if you see something similar). Its inspectors visited the farm three days later.
I rang the farmer afterwards, but he said, “I’m not discussing it with you. It’s none of your business.” When I tried to ask questions, he hung up.
The Environment Agency told me it is “taking this incident seriously” and will decide what action to take according to what its investigations reveal. It said it is illegal to let slurry flow out of a lagoon into a ditch, and for a farm pipe to discharge into a river.
While the state of rivers in this country remains dire, as a result of our excessive use of water and of chronic, low-level contamination, the number of severe pollution incidents has declined in all sectors except one. Farming. In this case, it is rising.
Farming is now, by a long way, the nation’s leading cause of severe water pollution. And of all kinds of farming, dairy production causes the greatest number of serious incidents.
The scale of dairy farms has increased greatly in recent years, so when something goes wrong, it can go very wrong indeed.
Imagine how we would respond if this were any other industrial sector. If rivers like the Culm were frequently trashed by toxic sludge from factories, there would be an outcry. But, as Cowspiracy shows, the biggest problem is the one we don’t want to see.
Far from ensuring that such disasters cease, Liz Truss is deregulating the industry. She has called for “simpler and fewer farm inspections plus an overhaul of greening requirements”. She boasts that “since 2010 we have cut 10,000 unnecessary dairy inspections a year.” What she considers unnecessary, I see as an essential defence of the natural world.
The Environment Agency, through a series of devastating cuts, no longer has enough staff for the routine inspection of rivers. Now it’s up to you and I to report pollution, though we don’t possess its expertise. But if a river stinks, or you see something filthy running into it, call them.
Just as importantly, remember that we sit at the end of this chain of consequence, through our consumption. It’s true that our influence over the dairy sector is weaker than it might be, because of overproduction. But you can still make a difference, simply by reducing the animal products you put in your mouth. You might also do your waist a favour.
Should we not welcome this chance to change the world so swiftly and easily?
www.monbiot.comMarch 14, 2014 4 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
We all have our own perceptions of what “effective” leadership looks like, so trying to |
2) (B), as a function of vehicle status (1 = lowest status, 5 = highest status). In study 2, we tested whether upper-class drivers are more likely to cut off pedestrians at a crosswalk. An observer positioned him- or herself out of plain sight at a marked crosswalk, coded the status of a vehicle, and recorded whether the driver cut off a pedestrian (a confederate of the study) attempting to cross the intersection. Cutting off a pedestrian violates California Vehicle Code. In this study, 34.9% of drivers failed to yield to the pedestrian. A binary logistic regression with time of day, driver's perceived age and sex, and confederate sex entered as covariates indicated that upper-class drivers were significantly more likely to drive through the crosswalk without yielding to the waiting pedestrian, b = 0.39, SE b = 0.19, P < 0.05. Percentages of cars that cut off the pedestrian as a function of vehicle status are shown in Fig. 1B. Study 3. Study 3 extended these findings by using a more direct measure of social class and assessing tendencies toward a variety of unethical decisions. Participants read eight different scenarios that implicated an actor in unrightfully taking or benefiting from something, and reported the likelihood that they would engage in the behavior described (16). Participants also reported their social class using the MacArthur scale of subjective SES (2). This measure parallels objective, resource-based measures of social class in its relationship to health (2), social cognition (4), and interpersonal behavior (7). As hypothesized, social class positively predicted unethical decision-making tendencies, even after controlling for ethnicity, sex, and age, b = 0.13, SE b = 0.06, t(103) = 2.05, P < 0.04. These results suggest that upper-class individuals are more likely to exhibit tendencies to act unethically compared with lower-class individuals. Study 4. Study 4 sought to provide experimental evidence that the experience of higher social class has a causal effect on unethical decision-making and behavior. We adopted a paradigm used in past research to activate higher or lower social-class mindsets and examine their effects on behavior (5, 7). Participants experienced either a low or high relative social-class rank by comparing themselves to people with the most (least) money, most (least) education, and most (least) respected jobs. Participants also rated their position in the socioeconomic hierarchy relative to people at the very top or bottom. This induction primes subjective perceptions of relatively high or low social-class rank. In this prior research, as expected, manipulations of perceived social-class rank influenced generosity (7) and the ability to identify others’ emotions (5). Participants completed a series of filler measures, which included the measure of unethical decision-making tendencies used in study 3 (16). Our main dependent variable was a behavioral measure of unethical tendencies. Specifically, at the end of the study, the experimenter presented participants with a jar of individually wrapped candies, ostensibly for children in a nearby laboratory, but informed them that they could take some if they wanted. This task was adapted from prior research on entitlement (17) and served as our measure of unethical behavior because taking candy would reduce the amount that would otherwise be given to children. Participants completed unrelated tasks and then reported the number of candies they had taken. The manipulation of social-class rank was successful: Participants in the upper-class rank condition (M = 6.96) reported a social-class rank significantly above participants in the lower-class rank condition (M = 6.00), t(127) = 3.51, P < 0.01, d = 0.62. Central to our hypothesis, participants in the upper-class rank condition took more candy that would otherwise go to children (M = 1.17) than did those in the lower-rank condition (M = 0.60), t(124) = 3.18, P < 0.01, d = 0.57. Furthermore, replicating the findings from study 3, those in the upper-rank condition also reported increased unethical decision-making tendencies (M = 4.29) than participants in the lower-class rank condition (M = 3.90), t(125) = 2.31, P < 0.03, d = 0.41. These results extend the findings of studies 1–3 by suggesting that the experience of higher social class has a causal relationship to unethical decision-making and behavior. Study 5. Study 5 focused on positive attitudes toward greed as one mediating mechanism to explain why people from upper-class backgrounds behave in a more unethical fashion. Participants took part in a hypothetical negotiation, assuming the role of an employer tasked with negotiating a salary with a job candidate seeking long-term employment (14). Participants were given several pieces of information, including the fact that the job would soon be eliminated. Participants reported the percentage chance they would tell the job candidate the truth about job stability. Participants also reported their social class using the MacArthur scale (2) and completed a measure of the extent to which they believed it is justified and moral to be greedy (18). We first tested the associations between social class, attitudes toward greed, and probability of telling the job candidate the truth, while accounting for participant age, sex, and ethnicity, as well as religiosity and political orientation, variables that can influence unethical behavior (19). Social class negatively predicted probability of telling the truth, b = −4.55, SE b = 1.90, t(103) = −2.39, P < 0.02, and positively predicted favorable attitudes toward greed, b = 0.16, SE b = 0.04, t(103) = 3.54, P < 0.01. In addition, favorable attitudes toward greed negatively predicted probability of telling the truth, b = −12.29, SE b = 3.93, t(100) = −3.12, P < 0.01. Testing our mediational model, when social class and attitudes toward greed were entered into a linear regression model predicting probability of telling the job candidate the truth, social class was no longer significant, b = −2.43, SE b = 1.87; t(101) = −1.30, P = 0.20, whereas attitudes toward greed were a significant predictor, b = −11.41, SE b = 3.81; t(101) = −3.00, P < 0.01. Using the bootstrapping method (with 10,000 iterations) recommended by Preacher and Hayes (20), we tested the significance of the indirect effect of social class on probability of telling the truth through attitudes toward greed. The 95% confidence interval for the indirect effect did not include zero (range: −3.7356 to −0.6405), suggesting that upper-class individuals are prone to deception in part because they view greed in a more positive light. Study 6. Study 6 extended these findings to actual cheating behavior. Participants played a “game of chance,” in which the computer presented them with one side of a six-sided die, ostensibly randomly, on five separate rolls. Participants were told that higher rolls would increase their chances of winning a cash prize and were asked to report their total score at the end of the game. In fact, die rolls were predetermined to sum up to 12. The extent to which participants reported a total exceeding 12 served as a direct behavioral measure of cheating. Participants also completed the measures of social class (2) and attitudes toward greed (18) that we used in study 5. Controlling for participant age, sex, ethnicity, religiosity, and political orientation, social class positively predicted cheating, b = 0.22, SE b = 0.11, t(181) = 1.98, P < 0.05, and more favorable attitudes toward greed, b = 0.06, SE b = 0.03, t(186) = 2.22, P < 0.03. In addition, attitudes toward greed predicted cheating behavior, b = 0.61, SE b = 0.29, t(180) = 2.36, P < 0.02. When social class and attitudes toward greed were entered into a linear-regression model predicting cheating behavior, social class was no longer a significant predictor, b = 0.16, SE b = 0.11, t(185) = 1.50, P = 0.14, whereas attitudes toward greed significantly predicted cheating, b = 0.68, SE b = 0.27, t(185) = 2.50, P < 0.02. The Preacher and Hayes (20) bootstrapping technique (with 10,000 iterations) produced a 95% confidence interval for the indirect effect that did not include zero (range: 0.0005–0.3821). These results further suggest that more favorable attitudes toward greed among members of the upper class explain, in part, their unethical tendencies. Study 7. To further understand why upper-class individuals act more unethically, study 7 examined whether encouraging positive attitudes toward greed increases the unethical tendencies of lower-class individuals to match those of their upper-class counterparts. When the benefits of greed were not mentioned, we expected that upper-class individuals would display increased unethical tendencies compared with lower-class individuals, as in the previous studies. However, when the benefits of greed were emphasized, we expected lower-class individuals to be as prone to unethical behavior as upper-class individuals. These findings would reveal that one reason why lower-class individuals tend to act more ethically is that they hold relatively unfavorable attitudes toward greed (and, conversely, that one reason why upper-class individuals tend to act more unethically is that they hold relatively favorable attitudes toward greed). Participants listed either three things about their day (neutral prime) or three benefits of greed (greed-is-good prime). Participants then responded to a manipulation check assessing their attitudes toward greed before completing a measure of their propensity to engage in unethical behaviors at work, such as stealing cash, receiving bribes, and overcharging customers (21). Participants also reported their social class using the previously described MacArthur measure (2). As expected, participants primed with positive features of greed expressed more favorable attitudes toward greed (M = 3.12) compared with participants in the neutral-prime condition (M = 2.42), t(87) = 2.72, P < 0.01, d = 0.58. Our central prediction was that the manipulation of attitudes toward greed would moderate the relationship between social class and unethical behavior. To test this theory, we regressed the measure of unethical behavior on social class, the greed manipulation, and their interaction, while controlling for age, ethnicity, sex, religiosity, and political orientation. Results yielded a significant effect for social class, such that upper-class participants reported more unethical behavior than lower-class participants, b = 0.13, SE b = 0.07, t(84) = 2.00, P < 0.05, and a significant effect for the greed manipulation, such that participants primed with positive features of greed reported more unethical behavior than neutral-primed participants, b = 0.38, SE b = 0.18, t(84) = 2.18, P < 0.04. These effects were qualified by the predicted significant interaction between social class and the greed manipulation, b = −0.24, SE b = 0.18, t(84) = −2.34, P < 0.03. As shown in Fig. 2, in the neutral-prime condition, upper-class participants reported significantly more unethical behavior relative to lower-class participants, t(45) = 2.04, P < 0.05. However, when participants were primed with positive aspects of greed, lower-class participants exhibited high levels of unethical behavior comparable to their upper-class counterparts, t(38) = −1.42, P = 0.17. Fig. 2. The relationship between social class and propensity for unethical behavior, moderated by the greed-is-good prime (from study 7). Together, the findings we observed in study 7 indicate that priming the positive features of greed moderates class-based differences in unethical behavior. Importantly, lower-class individuals were as unethical as upper-class individuals when instructed to think of greed's benefits, suggesting that upper- and lower-class individuals do not necessarily differ in terms of their capacity for unethical behavior but rather in terms of their default tendencies toward it.
Discussion The results of these seven studies provide an answer to the question that initiated this investigation: Is society's nobility in fact its most noble actors? Relative to lower-class individuals, individuals from upper-class backgrounds behaved more unethically in both naturalistic and laboratory settings. Our confidence in these findings is bolstered by their consistency across operationalizations of social class, including a material symbol of social class identity (one's vehicle), assessments of subjective SES, and a manipulation of relative social-class rank, results that point to a psychological dimension to higher social class that gives rise to unethical action. Moreover, findings generalized across self-report and objective assessments of unethical behavior and in both university and nationwide samples. Why are upper-class individuals more prone to unethical behavior, from violating traffic codes to taking public goods to lying? This finding is likely to be a multiply determined effect involving both structural and psychological factors. Upper-class individuals’ relative independence from others and increased privacy in their professions (3) may provide fewer structural constraints and decreased perceptions of risk associated with committing unethical acts (8). The availability of resources to deal with the downstream costs of unethical behavior may increase the likelihood of such acts among the upper class. In addition, independent self-construals among the upper class (22) may shape feelings of entitlement and inattention to the consequences of one's actions on others (23). A reduced concern for others’ evaluations (24) and increased goal-focus (25) could further instigate unethical tendencies among upper-class individuals. Together, these factors may give rise to a set of culturally shared norms among upper-class individuals that facilitates unethical behavior. In the present research we focused on a values account, documenting how upper-class individuals’ more favorable attitudes toward greed can help explain their propensity toward unethical behavior. Such attitudes among the upper class are likely to be themselves multiply determined as well. Our prior work shows that increased resources and reduced dependency on others shape self-focused social-cognitive tendencies (3, 5⇓–7), which may give rise to social values that emphasize greed as positive. Furthermore, economics education, with its focus on self-interest maximization, may lead people to view greed as positive and beneficial (26, 27). Upper-class individuals, who may be more likely to serve as leaders in their organizations (2), may also be more likely to have received economics-oriented training and to work in settings that hone self-interest. These factors may promote values among the upper class that justify and even moralize positive beliefs about greed. The current findings should be interpreted within the confines of certain caveats and with suggested directions for future research. Importantly, there are likely to be exceptions to the trends we document in the current investigation. There are notable cases of ethical action among upper-class individuals that greatly benefited the greater good. Examples include whistle-blowing by Cynthia Cooper and Sherron Watkins, former Vice Presidents at Worldcom and Enron, respectively, and the significant philanthropy displayed by such individuals as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. There are also likely to be instances of lower-class individuals exhibiting unethical tendencies, as research on the relationship between concentrations of poverty and violent crime indicates (28). These observations suggest that the association between social class and unethicality is neither categorical nor essential, and point to important boundary conditions to our findings that should be examined in future investigations. “From the top to the bottom of the ladder, greed is aroused,” Durkheim famously wrote (29). Although greed may indeed be a motivation all people have felt at points in their lives, we argue that greed motives are not equally prevalent across all social strata. As our findings suggest, the pursuit of self-interest is a more fundamental motive among society's elite, and the increased want associated with greater wealth and status can promote wrongdoing. Unethical behavior in the service of self-interest that enhances the individual's wealth and rank may be a self-perpetuating dynamic that further exacerbates economic disparities in society, a fruitful topic for the future study of social class.
Methods Study 1. Participants. The behavior of 274 drivers of vehicles at a busy four-way intersection in the San Francisco Bay Area yielded the data for study 1. Procedure. Coding of driving behavior took place at a four-way intersection, with stop signs on all sides, on two consecutive Fridays in June 2011, from ∼3:00 PM to 6:00 PM. Two separate teams of two coders (blind to the hypotheses of the study) stationed themselves out of drivers’ sight at opposite corners of the intersection. From their respective highways, each coding team selected an approaching vehicle in a quasirandom fashion and coded the characteristics of the vehicle and driver before it reached the stop sign (a photo of the intersection is presented in Fig. 3). Coders rated each vehicle's status (1 = low status, 5 = high status) by taking into account its make (e.g., Mercedes, Toyota), age, and physical appearance (M = 3.16, SD = 1.07). A breakdown of the vehicles in the current study by vehicle status is presented in Table S1. Coders also noted the vehicle driver's perceived sex (0 = male, 1 = female; 175 female, 99 male) and age (1 = 16–35 y, 2 = 36–55 y, 3 = 56 y and up; M = 1.70, SD = 0.59), the time of day (M = 3:40 PM, SD = 38 min), and—to index the amount of traffic—the number of highways in the intersection with vehicles already stopped in them when the target vehicle arrived at the intersection. A maximum of three other highways could be coded as having cars in them (M = 2.69, SD = 0.50). Procedures for assessing the reliability of codes are presented in SI Text. Once the target vehicle came to a complete stop, coders observed whether or not the vehicle's driver cut in front of other vehicles at the intersection (0 = no cut, 1 = cut). California Vehicle Code states that vehicles approaching an intersection should yield the right-of-way to any vehicle that has already arrived at the intersection from a different highway (30). To reduce coding demands, each team produced one set of agreed-upon codes. The number of vehicles that did and did not cut off other vehicles as a function of vehicle status is presented in the left hand columns of Table S1. Zero-order and partial correlations between vehicle status and cutting off other vehicles are shown in Table S2. Fig. 3. Aerial view of four-way intersection (from study 1). White arrows depict highways used by coders to code driver behavior at the intersection (image courtesy of © 2011 Google Maps). Study 2. Participants. The behavior of 152 drivers of vehicles that approached a pedestrian crosswalk of a busy throughway in the San Francisco Bay Area provided the data for study 2. Procedure. Coding took place from ∼2:00 PM to 5:00 PM on three weekdays in June 2011, at an unprotected but marked crosswalk of a busy one-way road. A coder (blind to the hypotheses of the study) positioned him- or herself near the crosswalk, beyond drivers’ direct line of sight, and recorded whether an approaching vehicle yielded for a pedestrian—a confederate of the study—who was waiting to cross (a photo series depicting the procedure is presented in Fig. 4). Sex of the confederate was alternated. Paralleling study 1, the coder rated the perceived status of an approaching vehicle using its make, age, and physical appearance (1 = low status, 5 = high status; M = 3.22, SD = 0.96). A breakdown of the vehicles in the current study by vehicle status is presented in Table S1. Coders also noted the vehicle driver's sex (0 = male, 1 = female; 72 female, 80 male) and age (1 = 16–35 y, 2 = 36–55 y, 3 = 56 y and up; M = 1.66, SD = 0.69); the time of day (M = 3:12 PM, SD = 49 min); whether the driver indicated having seen the pedestrian by directing his or her gaze toward the pedestrian or briefly decelerating (all drivers were coded as having seen the pedestrian); and the sex of the confederate (0 = male, 1 = female; 49 female, 103 male). Finally, coders observed whether the driver yielded the right-of-way or cut off the pedestrian (0 = yield, 1 = cut). According to California Vehicle Code, a driver must yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk (30). We also held constant several factors that might otherwise confound the results. First, we only coded vehicles in the lane closest to the pedestrian. Second, only vehicles that approached the crosswalk when the confederate was the sole pedestrian were coded. Third, only after a vehicle crossed a designated point on the road ∼15 m from the crosswalk did the pedestrian enter the beginning of the crosswalk and look toward the oncoming vehicle, thereby signaling his or her intent to cross. Fourth, a vehicle was only coded if there were no other vehicles in front of it when it passed the designated point on the road. The number of vehicles that did and did not yield for the pedestrian as a function of vehicle status is presented in the right hand columns of Table S1. Zero-order and partial correlations between vehicle status and cutting off the pedestrian are shown in Table S3. Fig. 4. Photo series depicting crosswalk from study 2 with confederate posing as a pedestrian approaching (Top) and standing at crosswalk (Middle) as target vehicle fails to yield (Bottom). Study 3. Participants. One-hundred five University of California at Berkeley undergraduates (43 female; age 18–36 y, M = 20.33, SD = 2.52) provided informed consent and completed a survey in the laboratory in exchange for course credit. Of these, 37 participants selected European American as comprising their ethnic background, 4 selected African American, 15 selected Latino, 50 selected Asian American, 2 selected Native American, and 11 selected Other. The sum of these values exceeds 105 because participants could select multiple categories (this was also true in studies 4–7). Given that European Americans were the largest represented ethnic category in the majority of the current studies (studies 5–7), and to parallel precedent in prior social-class research (4, 7), in study 3, as in subsequent studies, ethnicity was coded as 1 = European-American and 0 = non-European American. We repeated the analyses with two different coding schemes, one contrasting Asians to non-Asians (1 = Asian and 0 = non-Asian), and one with a dummy code for each ethnic category represented (with European-American as the comparison category); the results in study 3 and subsequent studies were virtually the same. Procedure. Participants accessed the study via a private computer terminal and completed filler measures and the measure of unethical decision-making tendencies (16). Participants were presented with eight hypothetical scenarios describing an unethical behavior and rated how likely they would be to engage in the behavior described (1 = not at all likely, 7 = highly likely; M = 4.39, SD = 1.08, α = 0.68). The items and information regarding the validity of this measure is presented in SI Text. Participants also completed demographics, including the measure of social class: the MacArthur Scale of subjective SES (2, 7). In this measure, participants are presented with a figure of a ladder containing 10 rungs representing people with different levels of education, income, and occupational prestige. Participants are asked to think of people at the top of the ladder as “those who are the best off, have the most money, most education, and best jobs,” whereas the people at the bottom of the ladder are “those who are the worst off, have the least money, least education, and worst jobs or no job.” Participants then select a rung that represents where they perceive they stand relative to others (M = 6.30, SD = 1.72). This measure predicts patterns in health (2), social cognition (4), and interpersonal behavior (7), consistent with objective, resource based measures of social class (e.g., wealth, educational attainment). Zero-order and partial correlations between social class and unethical decision making are shown in Table S4. Study 4. Participants. One-hundred twenty-nine University of California at Berkeley undergraduates (85 female; age 18–27, M = 20.07, SD = 1.67) completed a study in the laboratory in exchange for course credit. Of these, 34 participants selected European American as comprising their ethnic background, four selected African American, 16 selected Latino, 73 selected Asian American, 1 selected Native American, and 12 selected Other (one unreported). Procedure. Participants accessed the survey via a private computer terminal and completed the manipulation of social-class rank. Participants were shown an image of a ladder with 10 rungs representing where people stand socioeconomically in the United States. Participants were then randomly assigned to compare themselves to those at the very bottom or top of the ladder by indicating where they stand economically relative to these people, and to write a brief description of how an interaction with one of these individuals might go (for complete instructions see SI Text). After the manipulation, participants completed a filler task, which was followed by the measure of unethical decision-making tendencies used in study 3 (M = 4.11, SD = 0.97, α = 0.66) (16). Participants then completed demographics before notifying the experimenter. The experimenter (blind to condition) asked the participants to wait in the hall as the experimenter purportedly set up the second part of the study. At this time, the experimenter presented participants with a jar of individually wrapped candies that, participants were told, were intended for children participating in studies in a nearby laboratory (17). The experimenter told participants that they could take some if they wanted. The jar contained ∼40 pieces of candy and was labeled with a note stating that it was to be taken to a specific child-research laboratory. The experimenter then left the participants alone with the candy jar for ∼30 s to set up the second part of the study. Participants then reentered the laboratory and completed some unrelated tasks on the computer before reporting how many pieces of candy they had taken (M = 0.91, SD = 1.05). Study 5. Participants. One-hundred eight adults (61 female, 1 unreported; age 18–82, M = 35.87, SD = 13.62) completed an online study via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk), a Web site that features a nationwide participant pool for online data collection. Of these, 80 participants selected European American as comprising their ethnic background, 6 selected African American, 9 selected Latino, 14 selected Asian American, 6 selected Native American, and 4 selected Other. Procedure. Participants accessed the study via a survey link and were presented with instructions for a hypothetical negotiation (14). Participants were asked to imagine that they were an employer tasked with negotiating a low salary with a job candidate. Participants were told that the position was certain to be eliminated in 6 mo but that the candidate, who desired to maintain the job for at least 2 y, was not aware of this (complete instructions are presented in SI Text). Participants were then asked, “What is the percentage chance that you will tell the job candidate that the position is certain to be eliminated in 6 months if she/he specifically asks about job security?” (14). Participants responded by clicking and dragging a slider to a value between 0% and 100% (M = 62.30, SD = 31.03). Next, participants completed demographics, including measures of religiosity (1 = not at all religious, 7 = deeply religious; M = 3.45, SD = 2.09) and political orientation (1 = extremely liberal, 7 = extremely conservative; M = 3.76, SD = 1.69), and the MacArthur Scale of subjective SES to index social class (M = 5.35, SD = 1.65) (2). Finally, participants rated their agreement with seven items that assessed the extent to which they endorsed beliefs that greed is justified, beneficial, and moral (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree; M = 3.67, SD = 0.80, α = 0.61) (18). The complete list of items is presented in SI Text. Zero-order and partial correlations between social class, attitudes toward greed, and probability of telling the truth are shown in Table S5. Study 6. Participants. One-hundred ninety-five adults (129 female, 6 unreported; age 18–72, M = 33.82, SD = 13.26) responded to an advertisement on Craigslist, an online community forum, and received an invitation to complete an on-line study for a chance to win a $50 gift certificate toward an online retailer. Of these, 141 participants selected European American as comprising their ethnic background, 11 selected African American, 12 selected Latino, 17 selected Asian American, 21 selected Native American, and 19 selected Other (two unreported). Design and procedure. Participants took part in a game of chance in which they were told that the survey software would “roll” a die for them five times by randomly displaying one side of a six-sided die. Participants were informed that for every five points rolled, they would be awarded a credit (in addition to the one received for their participation) toward the $50 prize drawing, and that remaining points would be rounded up or down to the nearest multiple of five. Participants were also told that because the experimenters had no way of ascertaining their individual rolls, they would be asked to report their total for all five rolls at the end of the game. In fact, the “rolling” of the die was predetermined such that all participants received a 3 on their first roll, a 1 on their second, a 2 on their third, a 2 on their fourth, and a 4 on their fifth (totaling a score of 12, or two extra credits, with two leftover points). Our measure of cheating was the extent to which a participant's reported total exceeded 12. In the present study, 31 participants reported total rolls exceeding 12. The average amount of cheating was M = 0.85 (SD = 2.78). Participants then completed various self-report measures, including measures of religiosity (1 = not at all religious, 7 = deeply religious; M = 3.41, SD = 2.00) and political orientation (1 = extremely liberal, 7 = extremely conservative; M = 3.14, SD = 1.54), the MacArthur Scale of subjective SES (M = 5.70, SD = 1.91) (2), and the measure of attitudes toward greed used in study 5 (M = 3.59, SD = 0.74, α = 0.52) (18). Zero-order and partial correlations between social class, attitudes toward greed, and cheating behavior are shown in Table S6. Study 7. Participants. Ninety participants (53 female, 1 unreported; age 15–79, M = 34.97, SD = 13.58) completed an on-line study via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Seventy participants selected European American as comprising their ethnic background, five selected African American, three selected Latino, seven selected Asian American, six selected Native American, and six selected Other. Procedure. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two priming conditions. In the greed-is-good priming condition, participants were instructed to think about and list three ways in which greed could be beneficial. In the neutral-prime condition, participants were instructed to think about and list three activities they did during an average day (complete instructions for the manipulation are shown in SI Text). Participants then answered five items assessing their positive beliefs about greed (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree; M = 2.74, SD = 1.26, α = 0.92; the list of items is shown in SI Text). Participants then responded to a 12-item subset of the Propensity to Engage in Unethical Behavior scale (21), indicating how likely they would be to engage in a variety of unethical behaviors at work (1 = very unlikely, 7 = very likely; M = 2.26, SD = 0.97, α = 0.89; all items are presented in SI Text). Participants then completed demographics, including measures of religiosity (1 = not at all religious, 7 = deeply religious; M = 3.56, SD = 1.09) and political orientation (1 = extremely liberal, 7 = extremely conservative; M = 3.48, SD = 1.73), and the MacArthur scale of subjective SES to index social class (M = 5.40, SD = 1.77).
Acknowledgments We thank Pia Dietze, Nicholas Durant, Mikhaella Hodges, Sharon Hou, Nadine Lueras-Tramma, Matthew Lupoli, and Stacy Zhong for their help with data collection. P.K.P. was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
Footnotes Author contributions: P.K.P., D.M.S., S.C., and D.K. designed research; P.K.P. and D.M.S. performed research; P.K.P. analyzed data; and P.K.P., D.M.S., S.C., R.M.-D., and D.K. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
↵*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1118373109/-/DCSupplemental.PERTH AMBOY — Two administrators and several support staff at a Perth Amboy elementary school have been placed on paid leave over allegations of alcoholic beverages being sold at the school, according to officials.
"It has come to my attention that allegations have been made regarding the sale of alcoholic beverages at Dr. Herbert N. Richardson School in December 2011," acting School Superintendent Vivian Rodriguez said in an e-mail to school board members Monday.
"This matter has been reported to the police and is pending an investigation. All involved staff members including principal, vice-principal, and support staff have been placed on leave pending the investigation," Rodriguez said in the e-mail.
No other details were released about the allegations, but school principal Alvaro Cores today blasted the action as "a political witch hunt."
Cores said he could not go into details about the allegations, but "all the falsehoods will come to light." He also said he has made inquiries with the police and city officials and can find no indication of a police investigation.
"I’m cooperating with an investigation I have no knowledge even exists," Cores said. "This building’s administration has been gutted a week before (a state test) is to be given. I’m really sad for the kids."
Perth Amboy Police Chief Ben Ruiz said he was aware staff members at the Richardson school were placed on leave, but he said there was no police investigation at the school and no evidence a crime was committed.
Ruiz said Superintendent Janine Caffrey, who has since been placed on administrative leave, notified his department several months ago about the alcohol allegations. The chief said the issue was handled internally and there was insufficient evidence for a police investigation.
"This makes no sense whatsoever," Ruiz said of the school staff members being relieved of their duties. "I have to assume it’s all part of the chaos going on over at the school board."
Rodriguez’s action came five days after school board members voted 4-0 to place Caffrey on paid leave and hired a consultant to negotiate a settlement of the remaining two years of her contract. Five board members abstained from voting, with four citing conflicts about voting on personnel issues because they have relatives employed by the school district.
When contacted today, Caffrey said she will fight the board’s decision to remove her, but she declined to comment on what happened at Richardson School.
Responding to calls from a reporter, Rodriguez issued a statement that Derrick Kyriacou, a supervisor at Richardson school, was appointed to serve as principal.
"Mr. Derrick Kyriacou has been temporarily assigned to Dr. Herbert N. Richardson School. All duties and responsibilities of the building principal will be covered by Mr. Kyriacou," she said in the statement.
"Certain individuals have been placed on leave. However, we are unable to comment on personnel matters or the extent of any pending investigations at this time," she said.
There was no indication how long the investigation would take or how long people would remain on leave.
Richardson school vice principal Karen Moffatt said she received a letter Monday from Rodriguez advising her of the investigation.
"I’ve done nothing wrong," Moffatt said. "Beyond the receipt of the letter, I know nothing further of the situation. I will cooperate fully with the investigation."
She declined to comment further when asked about the allegations, saying "I’m standing by my statement."
School board president Samuel Lebreault referred all questions to Rodriguez.
Caffrey was placed on leave at an April 25 special school board meeting during which Lebreault read 22 allegations against her, including giving interviews to newspapers and accusing him and another board member of pushing to give district jobs to their friends.
He called the attacks on board members and staff a "great disservice to the community," and said staff morale was at a low point.
Caffrey called the charges "baseless."
Related coverage:
• Perth Amboy school board puts superintendent on paid leave
• Moran: Perth Amboy putting schools superintendent on leave wastes money, hurts kids
• Moran: In Perth Amboy, politics derailing school reformU.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) recently introduced H.R. 131, a bill that would more comprehensively address the interstate transportation of firearms and ammunition for law-abiding gun owners.
Current federal law guarantees the right of law-abiding persons to transport firearms between two locations where they have a legal right |
of the summer, so I think you should see my percentages go up next season. I’m also working on some more stuff off the dribble. It’s going to be a good year for me. With Dwight rolling to rim, I think our pick-and-roll is going to be really special and I’m looking forward to that as well.”
Kennedy: You’re very active in the community and have a lot of things going on right now with your foundation. What are some of the initiatives you are working on at the moment?
Bazemore: “I have three areas that I’m targeting right now. First is back home where I grew up in Bertie County, NC. Then, I have some things in Norfolk, VA, where I went to college. And here in Atlanta, I’m starting to plant some seeds and my foundation’s home base will be here in Atlanta. It’s a very saturated area with a ton of opportunities to do things. It’ll run out of Atlanta and trickle down to everywhere else. Ultimately, I want to start an academy, so right now I’m doing things in education like working with Boys and Girls Clubs, working with foster homes, working with basketball camps and things like that. We have a lot on our plate and some really big goals for the foundation. It’s something that I want to continue to do long after I retire, so I’m going to be involved in this for a very long time. I always wanted to get into philanthropy and I think this is a great start with my foundation. I want to turn this into something that’s very special.”
Kennedy: This question was submitted on Twitter by @HollywoodHeat. Kent, you have a lot of friends around the NBA and you’re obviously a charismatic guy. It’s well documented that you played a role in Stephen Curry joining Under Armour, so you clearly have some recruiting talent. Do you envision yourself being a recruiter of free agents for Atlanta moving forward?
Bazemore: “Oh yeah, most definitely. I think next summer, I’ll be sitting in every meeting. I think it’s a strong gesture when a team brings one of their leaders to a meeting because they can weigh in and tell the player how they can fit. In my Rockets meeting, having James Harden there really meant a lot and helped a lot.
“With Kevin Durant, you had all of the top Warriors players there recruiting him and answering questions. Damian Lillard [was involved] in recruiting this summer, and I think Damian is one of the most underappreciated players in the league on and off the court. He deserves more credit for everything he does. Young players should look up to him, with the way he approaches the game, how team-oriented he is and how he is always focused on a greater cause than himself. He’s definitely a guy who I’ve been eyeing and watching what he does to learn from him.
“For some reason, certain guys have a lot of pride or a big ego so they don’t want to show up to a free-agent meeting to recruit a guy to come play with them. But that just creates animosity. As soon as we signed Dwight Howard and Jarrett Jack, I sent them a text because I wanted to talk to them and start our relationship out on the right foot. That way when we’re in training camp or see each other in the gym, we’ve already talked and it’s not our first conversation. I’ll definitely be a recruiter in the future. I think I have a natural connection with people.”
For more exclusive interviews by Alex Kennedy (with players such as Indiana’s Jeff Teague, New York’s Courtney Lee, Oklahoma City’s Victor Oladipo, Sacramento’ Garrett Temple, Portland’s Moe Harkless and more), click here.Can the wallet-friendly “LifeWear” retailer compete with the fast-fashion kings?
Uniqlo and Zara are both in the business of fast fashion on a global scale, but style-wise, they’re on opposite ends of the spectrum. While Zara is trend-driven to a fault, Uniqlo is all about wardrobe essentials. Uniqlo’s flashiest collaboration, for example, a capsule collection by French designer Christophe Lemaire, includes things like gray hoodies and white canvas sneakers. That is, even when the Japanese retailer goes for hype, it doesn’t ever get weird.
While Uniqlo’s brand slogans include “quality comes first, then price” and “simple made better,” following a slightly lackluster 2016, which forced the company to cut revenue predictions for the next five years by 40 percent, it's putting more emphasis on something more core to the Zara strategy: speed.
According to Bloomberg, at the opening of the company’s new design and delivery center in Tokyo last week, Uniqlo owner Tadashi Yanai—a former hippie turned Japan’s richest man—told the press that Uniqlo intends to shorten its design-to-delivery cycle down to just 13 days, on par with Zara’s breakneck cycle. "We need to be fast," he said. "We need to deliver products customers want quickly.” But Yanai clarified that, despite a similar production strategy, Uniqlo and Zara are still worlds apart. "Zara sells fashion rather than catering to customers’ needs," he said. "We will sell products that are rooted in people’s day-to-day lives, and we do so based on what we hear from customers.”
As such, Uniqlo wants to use its new state-of-the-art (i.e. heavily automated) production facilities to create more custom-made products for shoppers—although it’s unclear whether “custom-made” means personalized graphic T-shirts or made-to-measure dress shirts.
Uniqlo will also use artificial intelligence to design and deliver more desirable basics to stores at exactly the right time. That cobalt blue hoodie or coral dress shirt, for example, will hit Uniqlo a moment or two before it actually becomes “a thing”—a skill Zara has famously mastered over the years.
In tandem with a faster retail cycle, Uniqlo also plans to open some 200 new stores across China and Southeast Asia annually. Interestingly, however, Uniqlo’s U.S. retail footprint will actually get smaller over the next several years. Uniqlo plans to shut stores in mid-level shopping malls (a trend across many retailers) and open new ones only in more premium locations in order to improve its brand image in the U.S.How many rounds of bidding are buyers willing to endure in the pursuit of one house?
For David Fleming and his clients, they had been asked to come back a fourth time and better their offer of $1.745-million when one half of the frazzled couple answered his call with the words “NO MORE MONEY.”
And that was it, with those words, a night of turmoil was over in an instant.
“The emotions you go through!” says Mr. Fleming, who was cycling between dejected and elated with each successive round – only to find out each time that the battle for the century-old home wasn’t over.
By the end of the evening, Mr. Fleming learned that the reason for the astonishing four rounds is that his clients and one other couple had been virtually deadlocked all the way through. That’s a fluke he’s never encountered before.
The experience also illustrates how the bidding in the Toronto real estate market becomes extremely heated at this time of year – and possibly even more intense this February than last.
Mr. Fleming, an agent with Bosley Real Estate Ltd., says his clients had set a limit they would not surpass and they stuck to it. Still, they found the process draining. One reason they called a halt, he says, is that even if they had ultimately prevailed, the buying process would have tainted their feelings about the house.
And many prospective buyers who establish a final number in their minds end up blasting through it when their emotions take over.
“You romanticize it. You start to picture yourself in the wood-panelled library. You see Christmas mornings there. You see your kids coming down the stairs. Then in a second, it’s over.”
In 2015, it’s rare to have just one round of bidding, Mr. Fleming says. He explains that, when eight offers materialize on a property, and the listing agent reviews the offers with the sellers, and then goes back to the top four offers to ask them to “improve,” that constitutes a second round of bidding.
“There’s always a second, never a third and absolutely never a fourth,” he says of a typical Tuesday or Wednesday evening in Toronto.
Prospective buyers roundly hate the idea of adding another round, he says, but now it has become such accepted practice that many complain if there isn’t a second invitation to the table.
“You’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t,” he says of listing agents.
Mr. Fleming says prospective buyers grumble if there’s a second round because they feel they’re being pressured into increasing their bids. But if first-round contenders lose out by $5,000, they often gripe because they weren’t given the opportunity to offer more.
One agent is so notorious for pushing several rounds of bidding, he says, that a lot of agents around town won’t even enter the melee. More commonly, the sellers’ agent will call all of the other agents after the first round bids and say “we’re working with the top two.”
In his Toronto Realty Blog, Mr. Fleming recounts in detail the quirky experience of representing the couple who were interested in purchasing the century home with an asking price of $1.598-million.
On the date set for receiving offers, Mr. Fleming was encouraged to find only one other bid registered.
“I was shocked there were only two offers.”
The property was “magnificent and exceptionally unique,” he says, so he advised his clients to offer $1.7-million after his research showed that a house up the street had recently sold for $136,000 above the asking price.
In that price range, Mr. Fleming says, people don’t mess around. He assumed the other bidders had made a serious offer.
“It’s a 30-year house for somebody.”
In any deal where he expects competing offers, Mr. Fleming has his clients initial a few agreements in advance. He leaves the space for the amount blank and then – if needed – fills in the amount later while he’s consulting with his clients by phone.
Well, three hours went by and Mr. Fleming had used up three of his documents. Sitting in his car on the street, he saw the competing agent start her car and drive away.
“I thought we had it for sure,” he says.
But soon he was summoned to the house again. The competing agent was invited, too.
“I had never experienced anything like this in my entire career,” he says.
But the sellers and the listing agent had wanted to show them what had happened: Both parties had started at $1.7-million and after three hours they were tied again at $1.745-million. The sellers were not being greedy, he says; they’d all just come up against an unprecedented scenario.
Mr. Fleming called his clients one last time, which is when they tapped out.
The other agent came back with an offer of $1.757-million and her clients bought the house.
Mr. Fleming says his clients had no regrets – in fact they purchased a smaller, brand-new house for $250,000 less a week later.
“They’re pleased in the end, the way it worked out,” he says. He admires them for being able to draw the line. “They were fully willing to walk away for five grand. Most people let their emotions get the best of them.”
77 Berkshire Ave., Toronto
John Pasalis, president of Realosophy Realty Inc., says he had an unexpected spurt of competition recently for a downtown condo unit.
Mr. Pasalis had not set an offer date for the one-bedroom-plus-den at 77 Lombard St.
“We got three offers as soon as it hit the market – that deal fell through and we got five more.”
Mr. Pasalis says the unit was listed with an asking price of $397,000; when the first purchaser backed out, the sellers accepted an offer for $430,500.
“They were floored. They were over the moon.”
He says the one-bedroom-plus-den has a very functional layout with a main-floor powder room.
He didn’t use the common tactic of deliberately setting a low asking price, which can often result in a bidding war.
“It just organically happened.”
He knew the condo had lots of appeal: It’s a two-storey unit, in a boutique building, with a good view of St. James Park.
“You know what the interest is just based on the momentum – the calls you’re getting from agents.”
Mr. Pasalis says condos in such buildings sell more quickly than those in neighbourhoods with rows of high-rise towers because they’re more rare.
Mr. Fleming advises clients that, if they want a single-family house in Toronto, they’d better brace for competition. He says the scarcity of listings means that multiple offers are all but certain.
“Say you’re John and Jim and you want that Davisville semi, so do 50 other couples.”
People buying condos can often negotiate a deal because there are so many to choose from, but not always.
Competition even emerged when Mr. Fleming was helping one buyer who wanted to purchase “a really crappy bachelor condo” in the King Street West area. The asking price was $279,900; they offered $268,000. To Mr. Fleming’s astonishment, another offer came in. That buyer offered $285,000.
“They blew the lid off.”
Mr. Fleming thinks that was an isolated case in which the buyer was uneducated or had an inexperienced agent. Mr. Fleming says the three previous deals for units of that size were struck at $263,000, $269,000 and $266,000.
“Do your homework, buddy,” is his advice for the buyer who paid too much, in his opinion.
He also thinks that the current low interest rates may be spurring some buyers on.
Financial markets, meanwhile, are pricing in another rate cut from the Bank of Canada at its scheduled policy meeting next week.
21 Berkshire Ave., Toronto
In January, the central bank shocked the market when it cut its key rate by 25 basis points to 0.75 per cent.
Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics, expects the Bank of Canada to wait until April to make another reduction, but he does anticipate a cut to 0.5 per cent at some point.
In a note to clients, Mr. Ashworth says he suspects that central bank officials will be alarmed by how quickly the oil price slump has translated into a collapse in Calgary’s housing market.
He notes that sales and prices in Toronto and Vancouver have been holding up well by contrast.
Last week, I wrote about 21 Berkshire Ave. in Leslieville, which sold for $595,000, or $96,000 more than the asking price of $499,000. On the strength of that sale, the same agent, Christopher Stevenson of Sutton Group-Associates Realty Inc., then listed the house up the street at No. 77 for $499,000.
Mr. Stevenson hoped that one or more of the four parties who missed out on No. 21 would be interested in the nearly identical house a few blocks away. He set an offer date seven days away but added a clause saying that the seller reserved the right to consider “pre-emptive offers” – also known as bully bids.
Sure enough, one of those bidders stepped up and, within an hour of listing, the house sold for $575,000.I’ve been working on an article detailing my various forays into Blue Hero with Empire at War for a couple weeks at this point, and I’m currently 5000 words in with no end in sight.
Whoops, let’s back up a minute. Blue Hero in Star Wars: Destiny is the deepest, most synergistic color/affiliation pairing in the game, and just about everyone are playing un-optimized lists.
Not far enough. My name is Trevor Holmes, you might know me as ArchitectGaming, and I have a deckbuilding addiction.
There we go.
I fully intended on my first article for TheHyperloops.com to be literally anything else than what I’ll be discussing today. An introduction to ‘me’ and my theories on deckbuilding and gameplay. An analytical discussion on context and how it affects literally everything we see and do in games. A primer on card game fundamentals like card advantage, rate, tempo, and macro-archetypes. All of those topics (well, the ones that don’t involve me) are required reading for anyone focused on maximizing their deck building and playing skills, which I’ll assume your interested in since you’ve found your way to this excellent website.
Still, I’ve got a secret, and I can’t hold it in any longer. Since Empire at War has released I’ve been hard at work finding the best thing you can be doing in the format, but truthfully, I’ve been holding something back. See, it’s not that I meant to keep it from you. Usually I work on a deck to the point where I’m happy with its performance, confident that its ‘close’ to the best it can be, then I write about it and share it for others to enjoy. It’s kind of my thing. Today I’m here to come clean and show you what I’ve been working on. It’s called Blue Hero, a.k.a The Unsolvable Puzzle, a.k.a. 1,000 Ways to Die.
This is the entrance to the Labyrinth. You’ve been warned.
Choose Your Blue Hero
Blue Hero has a wealth of powerful cards available to it, which is both a blessing and a curse. The days of Use the Force as mitigation because that’s all we’ve got! are long gone, replaced by Caution, Guard, and lightsabers of the Shoto and Ancient variety. Don’t even get me started on Rey’s Lightsaber, Luke’s Protection, and Yoda’s Quarters. Yes, you heard that right, Yoda’s Quarters. More on that later. Blue Hero’s power extends beyond upgrades, events, and supports to characters as well. Kanan Jarrus, Rey, and Ahsoka Tano join an impressive array of potential contributors, including (but not limited to) Qui Gon, Rey (you know, that one) and Luke Skywalker. The depth of character pairing and decklist options available to builders is overwhelming, which makes ‘finding the best build’ all but impossible.
Still, I plan on trying anyways. One thing we need to know going in is the fact that the options available to us are deep, which means we need a ‘plan’ for what our deck is trying to accomplish. The core of that ‘plan’ revolves around this concept of identity, which I’ll explain further in a future article, but I’ll give an overview here. Basically, identity is the idea that we are building to accomplish a specific goal and playing to our strengths, which we all do already to some extent and is manifested in decisions like Personal Shield over Z6 Riot Control Baton in Thrawnkar, or Rise Again in a more midrange Blue Villain build. For Blue Hero, most often our identity is tied to our character pairing, and how our pairing influences the relative strengths and weaknesses of various deckbuilding options. Let’s break it down.
As I see it, there are four main ways to build Blue Hero decks in Destiny: three die ‘Main/Support’, two character Rey, two character ‘consistent dice’, and three character Padawan. I’ll give a brief explanation of the main differences between the four, and then we’ll dive in individually for a deeper look. Keep in mind that I could spend an entire article on each of these archetypes (and probably will at some point), so in the interest of article length I won’t be able to cover everything I would like. This is agonizing for me, but we’ll get through it together.
Main/Support builds utilize Mace Windu, Luke Skywalker or Ahsoka as a primary character and fills out the build with another character in a support role. These builds are most often characterized by strong character dice, few upgrades, the ability to ‘hit hard’, and usually play more expensive, swingy effects like Master of the Council or My Ally is the Force.
Three character Padawan builds look to play a much slower game, maximizing health, redeploy upgrades and economy cards like Padawan’s ability and It Binds All Things. These builds try to flood the board with dice and deal damage while remaining competitive after the first (and second) character goes down.
Two character Rey builds tend to prioritize aggression and speed, utilizing Rey’s ability to chain actions with cards like Force Speed, Vibroknife and Jedi Robes. These builds tend to play ‘smaller’, looking to maximize upgrades on the board and play out every card in hand each round.
Finally, two character ‘consistent dice’ builds look to play a more middle of the road strategy, trading Rey’s speed for consistency in character dice. These builds tend to play for the long game better, with the hopes that trading Rey’s velocity for better dice translates to more ‘game’ if/when they lose their first character.
Main/Support Builds
While there are a few different ways to build Main/Support, my preferred Mono Blue option is Luke/Kanan ‘Toolbox’. This build is similar to Luke/Rey of formats past, with Kanan as a clear upgrade over Rey and a few new tools thanks to Empire at War. Main/Support builds are all about maximizing that expensive character, so most of our strategy revolves around resolving Luke’s character dice for big damage.
Main/Support strategies exist in this weird duality where their strength is also their weakness, in the sense that they ‘live and die’ based on how successfully then can execute their Plan A. Getting our Luke dice removed hurts us badly, which is why we value effects that either give us extra value from our character dice like My Ally is the Force/Defiance or protects them from removal like Endurance/Force Speed. As a result, we value these effects highly, and tend to play more reactive than normal Aggro builds. Since we need to buy time to set up My Ally is the Force or Swiftness plays (another staple for this archetype) Main/Support strategies prioritize mitigation events and conditional effects over upgrades and ‘general’ interaction.
This is why, for the most part, Main/Support strategies should play as many events as possible while minimizing upgrades (that cost resources). This type of strategy relies heavily on keeping our ‘Main’ alive (usually), so minimizing burst damage while leaning on our strong character dice is a traditional path to victory.
A few final thoughts on Main/Support deal mostly with how the strategy affects cards we traditionally think of as ‘strong’ for Blue Hero. Caution is excellent as always, as we’re most often trading a Kanan die for three health, but Guard isn’t as strong for us as you might expect. As we can’t afford to play many upgrades, Guard usually requires us to remove our character dice to prevent damage which carries a higher ‘opportunity cost’ when we don’t have many character dice to begin with. Losing a Luke die to remove some opposing dice could potentially halve our damage output for that turn, and while saving ourselves from taking damage is nice, we also need to be doing damage if we want to win. That’s the high quality analysis you came here for, I know. This condition makes Ancient Lightsaber excellent for us, as we can use it to ‘turn on’ Guard without having to give up Luke’s dice in the process. So, we’re still playing two copies of Guard, as it is an incredible card, just be aware of the fact that it isn’t ‘as good’ for this build as it is for others.
A very quick note on Partnership; we can play to maximize it if we wish by using Training Remote or some other support to give us the second effect, but I hesitate to go that far down the rabbit hole for one card. Right now, I like Partnership as a flex card that we can Swiftness out to activate with an extra action in a pinch, either to deal quick damage or get our dice on the field for Caution/Guard.
Three Character Builds
Three character builds can be three die (all non-uniques) or four die, by pairing either Rey or Kanan with some combination of Padawan/Jedi Acolyte/Jedi Instructor. To be honest, the four die versions are easily better, so I’ll be speaking in reference to those in this section. The strength of three character lies almost entirely in their health and the upgrade engine made possible thanks to Padawan and It Binds All Things, so the traditional builds tend to lean in that direction. They play a longer game than Main/Support strategies, looking to take advantage of lots of health and the lack of a ‘clear target’ to outlast and outdamage their opponent.
If we’re looking to take advantage of high health, multiple characters, and redeploy, focusing our engine around upgrades and taking advantage of said upgrades is the next logical step. The best way I believe we can do this is through The Power of the Force, an old card from Awakenings that just gets better with each new set release.
Eventually I’ll talk about The Power of the Force in a future article on rate, so I won’t go too deep on that here, though I definitely could. For today, all I’ll say is that if we can play PotF with just three upgrades out (so resolving any die we choose for a value of 3), we’re already pretty far ahead, and things can get crazy quickly. Pre-Empire at War we basically had Force Speed, Force Illusion and Journals of Ben Kenobi as cheap upgrades options, and the two-cost upgrades were mostly abilities that didn’t gel with Padawan. Now, not only do we gain Keen Instincts as another free upgrade that provides at least a little value, we also gain Bestow, Funeral Pyre and Ancient Lightsaber and Shoto Lightsaber as two cost Blue weapons for It Binds All Things and Padawan to abuse.
As for what we do with our newfound Power, I’ll let you figure out for yourself, but resolving for a ton of resources to dump a hand full of upgrades, deal a crazy amount of damage with a lowly one melee die, or use it on focus to focus our entire board should be enough to get you interested.
For all of its strengths, three character has weaknesses as well. Guard is unreliable for us in the early rounds, as Kanan only has one melee side unless we want to go really deep on a Focus into Melee into Guard play. The deck plays very slow, which is the case with most Blue hero builds, but a fast opponent that can dish out damage quickly can punish us for devoting half our deck to upgrades. If we get our engine rolling it can be difficult to stop, but we still play 15 non-upgrades and our characters don’t do much on their own, so a poor early draw can often be fatal.
Two Character Rey Builds
Three and a half sets in and Rey is still one of the best Blue characters available to us, which is a good thing. Her low point cost coupled with her action cheating ability and two melee damage sides (one modified, obviously), to consistently hit Guard makes her an excellent pairing for some of the mid-costed Blue character options like Ahsoka Tano and Qui Gon. The fact that she is costed close to ‘Support’ levels while also providing decent health and dice for her cost makes her a great middle of the road character than can hold her own when our first character goes down.
Two character Rey decks tend to be aggressive, looking to take advantage of her ability to put dice out quickly and either resolve before our opponent can mitigate, or control once they roll in with our all-star events like Caution and Guard. Because of this, Rey builds tend to play a more traditional damage dealing/controlling game, using cards like Synchronicity, Riposte and Jedi Robes bring surprise damage and health to the table.
My preferred Rey build pairs her with Qui Gon, where we can maximize our shield ‘sub-game’ while providing the most consistent damage dealing dice in the game to overcome Rey’s inconsistencies. When supported, Qui Gon’s dice deal damage on 4 sides (with the fifth giving a resource) and we can utilize his ability to chip away at our opponent bit by bit with Luke’s Protection, Shoto Lightsaber and card draw effects. Qui/Rey builds tend to use every part of the buffalo and are card hungry, so Trust Your Instincts to reroll dice and redraw a used Luke’s Protection for another shield or damage are common plays the deck is looking to make.
Qui Gon/Rey offers so much survivability in the form of incidental shields that it can basically attack on two axes. It is capable of quick burst damage with Riposte, Synchronicity and a potential eight melee damage off character dice alone, while also retaining the ability to outlast opposing damage with Caution, Jedi Robes, Rey’s Lightsaber and Shoto Lightsaber providing shields, while Ancient Lightsaber and Yoda’s Quarters heals any damage that might get through.
You can sit there and scoff, but Yoda’s Quarters can do some serious work when we are dragging games out four rounds or more. If our opponent targets Qui Gon they are in for a barrage of Caution and Protective Mentor on Rey, where Jedi Robes and Rey’s Lightsaber keeps the shields coming. If they target Rey, we can go the other way with Protective Mentor, and they’ll have to outrace all our shields pinging for damage and Yoda’s Quarters healing whatever damage gets through. Turning Rey’s at times poor character dice into three shields on Qui Gon or two health off herself is a core strategy for this archetype, and successfully overcomes the deck’s primary ‘weakness’.
Two Character ‘Consistent Dice’ Builds
Finally, the last Blue Hero option I’ll cover today are the two character builds that don’t play Rey. These builds elect to move away from Rey’s awkward dice in favor of more consistency, usually with Kanan Jarrus. As the only 10/13 option for Blue Hero, Kanan fills an area of need in the Blue character tree, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to see him pop up here in multiple lists. Rey 2.0 is the very definition of a consistent mid-tier character, but she doesn’t have a good option to pair with in Blue besides Kanan, which leaves two points on the table, at which point we might be better off pairing with Ahoska or Qui Gon instead.
Personally, I find Kanan Qui Gon to be a better pairing, as Qui Gon is such a powerful card when supported correctly, but I haven’t given an Ahsoka list, so I’ll do so here. Ahsoka Tano exists in this weird spot where her ability entices us to play her at one die, but the rest of Blue Hero’s card pool incentivizes four die builds. This tension is exacerbated further thanks to the fact that the one card we would really want to play in an Ahsoka build that uses her ability (Fearless) is outclassed completely by Ancient Lightsaber and Shoto Lightsaber. Blue doesn’t have great ‘traditional’ resource generation, relying instead on cards like Destiny and It Binds All Things, so her ability can be difficult to trigger without giving up something in return.
Still, if I were to make a four die Ahsoka build that takes advantage of her ability, this is how it would look.
The first thing we need to realize if we’re looking to play a build like this is the fact that we need to get something extra out of activating Ahsoka a second time. Two resources for a maximum of 4 more damage if we hit perfect is great, but the baseline is closer to two damage and a removed die or some other non-damage resolve. Fearless just isn’t worth the investment, until the point where we are triggering it for the 4th time, and even then I’d rather take two ‘fair’ rolls with an upgrade that gives me value.
All of that being said, the next best thing for Ahsoka to take advantage of is one giant upgrade, be it Master of the Council or One With the Force. I’m choosing Council here, as the rest of our deck revolves around finding those resources to afford the activation, so there will be times we are flooded and can get that third activation. Our resources come from Chance Cube, which can either roll naturally or can be focused with Kanan to an immediate resolve, and from Destiny, which can power out our upgrades for ‘free’, letting us use the two resources we get every turn for Ahsoka activations.
This type of build is definitely powerful, but can be a tough nut to crack. We need to interact with our opponent but cannot rely on paying resources for traditional mitigation, which points us in the direction of Heroism and Sound the Alarm. Actually, besides Concentrate (an excellent trick to use with Force Speed), our other 13 events cost zero, assuring us that our money is going where it matters, to upgrades and Ahsoka’s ability.
One card I’ve been impressed with lately that we can take advantage of here is Training Remote. Remote pairs nicely with our consistent character dice, ensuring we can gain extra of whatever we want, be it resources to support Ahsoka, damage, shields, or focus to set multiple dice. On top of all of that, Remote is great as a Destiny target if nothing better presents itself, especially if we hit that two side, but it’s primarily in there to tack on to one of our character dice showing resource so we can afford to keep our activations coming.
Conclusion
As this article has hopefully shown, Blue Hero has tons of options available to it, and can be built a myriad of different ways. The pool of ‘playable’ cards is deep, and extends beyond the usual suspects of Caution, Guard, and Force Speed. Hopefully my analysis has given a model that you can use to build your own decks, and the concepts and ideas I’ve discussed here can be taken and applied to any subset of cards you choose. While you can throw 30 ‘legal’ cards together and call it a deck, the intricacies and relative value of the cards you choose and how they interact with each other, the pairing itself, and your primary gameplan can provide ‘hidden’ value that you might not expect. If you want to take your deckbuilding and playing ability to the next level, thinking about how Training Remote’s relative value adjusts whether we are playing Rey or Kanan, or how Guard’s strength diminishes based on exactly which Blue die we are removing can really elevate your game.
Thanks for reading,
Trevor Holmes
ArchitectGaming on Discord
Trevorholmes91 on TTS
https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArchitectGamingRadeonsi is faster than Catalyst with Steam games
As I said in my previous post radeonsi is becoming faster than Catalyst in several scenarios. Some peoples on phoronix didn’t think it was actually possible and blamed “old games”. So I decided to benchmark Steam games, in particular Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Team Fortress 2 and Portal. Unfortunately these are the only Steam games with a phoronix-test-suite profile available and they all use the Source engine. Hopefully the Phoronix Test Suite’s author Michael Larabel will provide us more profiles in the future, games with different engines.
AMD Radeon HD 7950 using kernel 3.15-rc4 + PTE patches (VRAM page table entry compression) + hyperz (R600_DEBUG=hyperz). I’m also using libdrm git, xf86-video-ati git, llvm 3.5 git, mesa git (OpenGL core profile version string: 3.3 (Core Profile) Mesa 10.3.0-devel (git-cf93f86)) and Keith Packard’s xorg-server glamor-server branch (1.16.0 RC 2). Catalyst version is 14.4 (kernel 3.14.3, xorg-server 1.15.1).
Radeonsi is 21% faster than Catalyst with Half-Life 2: Lost Coast.
Radeonsi is 3% faster than Catalyst with Team Fortress 2.
Radeonsi runs at 81% of Catalyst with Portal.
Here is the link on openbenchmarking: http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1405092-SO-1405097SO80With a few steps, Xavier Lacombe, 6, buzzed through 100 years of subway car technology at the New York Transit Museum on a recent afternoon. Nathaniel Lacombe, 2, followed behind his older brother’s dizzying path: R-30, to an R-11 prototype, parking themselves on the faux-rattan seats of an ancient AB Standard.
“This looks just like the real subway,” Xavier paused, “because it is the real subway!”
In the decommissioned Court Street Station in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, the Transit Museum opened as a temporary exhibit on July 4, 1976, in celebration of the country’s bicentennial. Transit Authority staff conceived the idea as a way to remind New Yorkers of the system’s technological innovation during a period when the subway was covered in graffiti and plagued by crime.
The exhibit was supposed to run through the summer, until Labor Day. But the staffers underestimated New Yorker’s fascination with how they move around the city.
“It was so popular after the summer that, here we are 40 years later, still open,” said Regina Asborno, the museum’s acting director. Now the museum serves 500,000 visitors annually at its locations, including below-ground headquarters and in its Grand Central Terminal exhibit.
Asborno and staff will begin celebrating its 40th anniversary, a surprise success story, with the public this weekend. Festivities will kick off Sunday morning with a breakfast, crafts, dancing and vintage subway and bus rides. In the afternoon, there will be a block party on Schermerhorn Street and free admission to the museum.
“The whole idea of being down here is an exploration of looking at what you see every day in a new light,” said Asborno, as she sat in her favorite vintage subway car in the museum’s collection: the R-11, the prototype originally built in 1949 for the still unopened Second Avenue Subway. The car, featuring a stainless- steel frame, porthole and a painted teal interior, was the pinnacle of sleek for its day.
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”This was what the future was supposed to look like in 1949,” she said. “That tealy-blue color of the 1950s. I know this car has been used in a couple of film shoots. It’s definitely all about the color. I’ve heard the directors saying, ‘That’s the color’ and I’d say, ‘Well, actually, historically this would be the train that would be more often seen. And they’d say, ‘No, no. That’s the color |
or if it was sabotaged by some of the very men who took part in its creation, it has taken root in the very foundation that holds this broken country together, it has become eternal; it prevails within the deep seeded beliefs of that which makes this country truly powerful: its people.
Those who have participated in this fabrication are terrified that the people will once and for all see through the lie, and find the sinister reality behind. And that is indeed what we are witnessing in real-time, as Americans finally begin to wake up to this gross manipulation.
This awakening has been a long time coming, and was brought on by many different occurrences. Yet, the one event that was always meant to reinforce the citizen’s blind faith and dedication to the system, the election process, has much to the establishment’s dismay, become the largest awakening event in American history. People are being hyper-exposed to the true nature of the government and those who have complete control over its actions, thanks almost entirely to WikiLeaks and those who anonymously leaked the information.
From blaming the Russians with zero evidence, and pitting Americans against each other with race, religion and political standing, to the classic ‘lesser of two evils” ploy, this entire election has weirdly enough turned into one of the most important things that could have happened to the individual, as it shook us all out of complacency to see the true level of corruption operating right beneath our noses, while being told we are living the dream.
Does the Government Represent the People?
To begin, I would like to discuss a study that wildly enough has not gotten much attention since its release, as something like this would only be ignored by a willfully uninformed populace. This study actually quantifies the irrelevancy of the American public in regard to their influence on the government and its policy.
Researchers at Princeton University looked at more than 20 years worth of data to answer a pretty simple question: Does the government represent the people?
Quoting the Princeton study directly:
“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
So if you’ve ever felt like your opinion doesn’t matter and that the government doesn’t really care what you think, well… you’re right. But there’s a catch. Economic elites, business interests–those who have enough money to hire lobbyists–have a entirely different line on the graph below, and it’s much closer to the ideal representation. So in other words, this study clearly demonstrates that money, and those who have it, dictate this country’s true direction, not the people and their faux democracy.
Ultimately, this shows us that the elites have the ability to get what they what, regardless of the American majority will, and the people pay for it. We pay for it with the most expensive healthcare in the world; we pay for it with the tax code that’s a complete mess; we pay for it with Internet that’s slower and more expensive, with wasteful spending, a floundering education system, a catastrophic drug war and one in five American children born into poverty. Almost every major issue we face as a nation can be traced back to this graph.
Knowing that what we really think, and who and what we vote for, quantifiably and mathematically has zero effect on the outcome(which is actually a verifiable fact thanks to this study), why do we continue to participate? This would be the point where people get angry, or call names, conspiracy theorist, or un-American, all for striking at their foundation which is unfortunately built on lies, and that shakes people; shakes them to the point where they will refuse to acknowledge the reality that contradicted their beliefs, regardless of the presented proof. And I should remind everyone that this study was conducted by Princeton University. If we have reached a point where institutions, that were once relied upon for their integrity and principled research for the greater good, are now dismissed the moment they touch on specific topics, regardless of their findings, then the cognitive dissonance is in full effect.
So considering all this, let’s discuss the lesser of two evils ploy that has swept much of those still desiring to vote.
The “Lesser of Two Evils”
Every American is enlisted at a young age, and told their vote matters; that even one vote can make a difference. Yet that entire mantra came crashing down this election cycle when all were told that their vote would only truly matter, if and when they vote for one of two pre-approved, state-sponsored candidates; and were told this would be democracy at its finest. Intentionally manipulated polls are thrown out to convince the people that a third-party vote would indeed, not count. Yet, despite proof of these manipulations, many continue to fulfill their programming and plan on voting in-line.
Consider for a moment the previous claim, of which there is ample proof; knowing that the polls being broadcasted by mainstream channels are falsified in order to give you–the voter–the impression that “the majority” is voting for either Clinton or Trump, consider for a moment the possibility that the actual majority could in fact be voting for someone else, and most likely are, or there would be no need to falsify the polls.
You then dutifully go off to cast your vote reluctantly for the “lesser-of-two-evils,” still convinced by the onslaught of propaganda telling you that the age-old adage, “Every Vote Counts” only applies when you stay within party lines. Then consider that your one vote, as misguided and manipulated as it may be, could in fact be the winning vote that steals away the presidency from a potentially more deserving, better suited and morally sound third-party option, and all you had to do was vote for who you believed in.
And this does not even take into account the very real problem, that no one seems to be talking about outside of alt media circles, that is voter machine manipulation. There is more proof to support both that it has happened in our past, and that it is under way this very day, and unless you know where to look, most will never tale notice. From machines being directly linked to George Soros, a man who has been clearly implicated for hiring protesters and inciting violence with the intention of manipulating the outcome of the election, to algorithms specifically designed to manipulate votes, this election is far from democratic.
Ultimately, to allow the media to control your perception of what is and is not possible in the current election, or what will or will not count based on the current standings, will only lead you to settle for what seems plausible; to vote for their selection, and not for the candidate you truly feel will rescue the America we once knew.
So I ask you today, with this nation’s future hanging in the balance; I plead with you today, to look into your heart and cast your November vote for the candidate you genuinely feel will lead this country into a time of prosperity and change; one who will put the people back in their rightful place, as the leaders of this nation. Do not fall for the “lesser of two evils” ploy, follow your heart, and do what you know to be right.
Eyes to the Future
However eye-opening this election has been, the awakening of the individual does not necessarily do much to stop this warmongering empire. Yet, we are now aware; and that has power; and the world will recognize. So we press on and spread the word, and hold out hope that those brave few within will join us in reviving this dream thriving within us all, and set things in motion that will revitalize this country.
And if fact, some think that is happening right this moment, and we will break down that and much more as we discuss the 2016 Selection process in this weeks episode:
Sources: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/20/475017281/u-s-ranks-41st-in-press-freedom-index-thanks-to-war-on-whistleblowers, https://rsf.org/en/ranking, http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycmX1Os2G7c, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2uSjWGfcaU
New World Order: http://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/top-news/understanding-the-new-world-order/
Washington Coup: http://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/revolution/former-us-state-dept-official-us-intelligence-community-started-counter-coup-clintons/
Podesta Leaks Came From Inside Washington: http://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/conspiracy/former-british-ambassador-claims-source-podesta-leaks-comes-within-washington/
Julian Assange Dartmouth Film/RT Full Interview: http://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/top-news/julian-assanges-incendiary-interview-hillary-clinton-central-cog-establishment
Help Us Be The Change We Wish To See In The World.(WOMENSENEWS)–Kofi Annan, the seventh U.N. secretary general, knew empowerment was key in 2005 when he said, “There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women.” Turns out it’s good tool for girls in 2016, too.
At least this is what For Girls GLocal Leadership, or 4GGL, found in its Women’s Empowerment Global Survey. The results, “Voice & Choice: What Young Women Want,” were released this spring. The survey found that 60 percent of the young women interviewed see themselves as the main catalyst for change. What they desire most is personal development that will lead to more control over their lives.
The Brooklyn-based nonprofit organization surveyed 145 females, including adolescent girls and young-adult women, and 22 men from 26 countries, including Australia and those in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and diasporas in the United States. They found that girls need to feel they have a voice and the power to create change in their own lives in order to achieve their personal, educational, societal and career goals. One survey-taker from Jordan said voice is “both our right and duty.” This comment reflects what the survey found that girls strive for, yet in both economically rich and poor countries, only 30 percent of girls and young women use their voice regularly, according to the report. For at least one participant, voice was a “space to speak, and listen with love and understanding.”
While 69 percent of the young women found female role models in their families or in global leaders, many cited their governments, their society and their communities as muffling their voices. Traditional media also came under attack. Movies, music and advertisements made girls feel powerless. However, family and friends were found to be the most supportive of speaking freely and honestly and social media platforms like Facebook were found to provide the most opportunities for voice.
Participants were also asked to address what they thought the biggest problems facing women were in their society. Respondents in Asia, the Middle East and Africa spoke of sexual violence, gender discrimination and domestic violence. In Western European and North American cities, young women spoke of a glass ceiling created by societal expectations.
The report points out that women who are empowered feel as though they have the ability to voice their opinions freely, and this contributes to the ways girls make changes in their lives and subsequently within larger systems. 4GGL research found that this change was most able to occur when girls felt they had attained self-awareness. While age, maturity and education are important catalysts for growth, “knowing who they are” is the key to real positive change in their lives. Forty-six percent of respondents identified self-reflection about who they are, self-worth, purpose in life and connecting with their inner strengths as their biggest catalyst for change. They understand that leading by example is often so much more effective than simply leading.
Both females and males responded that the biggest issue facing women in their countries was rape or sexual violence. Both sexes saw a need for more respect for women.
Choice and self-control are also important. According to a survey, girls were found to have the most control in education and the least in their careers. However, many in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East still struggle for basic human rights. One girl responded: “The situation in Iraq in general [is very bad], not only “no peace” and destruction, but also psychological and social state of people around me” is very messed up.
As the survey illuminates, the key to solving larger societal issues such as violence, war and terrorism is empowering women to find their voices. Although education still lies at the forefront of this empowerment, the survey shows that personal development and empowerment are essential to solving issues perpetuated by men and an overarching disrespectful view of women, like the culture of rape and sexual assault, sexual harassment, child marriage, war, gender discrimination and social pressure to conform to gender norms.This Week’s Marijuana News: Congressman Urges POTUS to Drop Marijuana from Dangerous Drug List; Dueling Marijuana Billboards to Compete at Superbowl; Holder Says Legal Marijuana Won’t Make Kids Toke Up; Justice Department Dramatically Increasing Clemency Use; Meet Paul Chabot, Drug War Addict of the Year; CA Law Enforcement Still Vows to Kill Marijuana Reform; Marijuana Contests Join Denver County Fair; Fox News Pretends Coloradans Can Buy Pot with Food Stamps; US Vets Needed for Medical Cannabis Study; and more.
Medical/Health
Cannabis Has Been Studied More Than Many FDA Approved Pharmaceuticals — Opponents of legalizing cannabis for medicinal purposes are fond of arguing that the plant must be subjected to the same standards of clinical study and FDA review as conventional medicines. What they fail to mention is that cannabis and its active components have already been subjected to a greater degree of scientific scrutiny than many FDA-approved pharmaceuticals.
US Military Vets Needed for Medical Cannabis Study — U.S. military veterans of all time frames are needed to join a medical marijuana study, “One More Mission.” Ten thousand Vets are to be part of a minimum one year study/commitment to accumulate data on the use of cannabis by Vets who have a primary or secondary diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms, according to Al Byrne (US Navy, Ret.), cofounder and director of the group Patients Out of Time.
Politics/Legal
Congressman Urges POTUS to Drop Marijuana from Dangerous Drug List — With federal law enforcement officials moving to make it easier for marijuana businesses to operate in states where they are legal, one member of Congress is calling on President Barack Obama to take the next logical step and remove pot from the federal government’s list of tightly restricted drugs.
Dueling Marijuana Billboards to Compete at Superbowl — When teams from the two states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use clash at Sunday’s Super Bowl, so will activists on both sides of the debate about pot prohibition. The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) is sponsoring five billboards near MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where the Denver Broncos will face the Seattle Seahawks. The anti-pot group Project SAM is responding with an ad that “will be placed on digital and vinyl billboards throughout the New York-New Jersey area.”
Holder Says Legal Marijuana Won’t Make Kids Toke Up — Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that just because states are legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes doesn’t mean minors will be able to roll up a joint. “People cannot buy alcohol I guess now until you’re age… age 21, but young people find ways to get alcohol because adults can have access to it,” Holder said before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I’m not sure that we will see the same thing here given what we have said with regard to our enforcement priorities.”
Meet Paul Chabot, Drug War Addict of the Year — There were many candidates to choose from this year, but the award can only go to Dr. Paul Chabot.
Fox News Pretends Coloradans Can Buy Pot with Food Stamps — Fox News seized on Colorado’s legalization of recreational use and sale of marijuana to stoke fears — while offering no evidence — that low-income Americans could use food stamps to buy marijuana. In fact, food stamp recipients are barred from purchasing non-food items, cannot withdraw food stamps as cash, and fraud in the program is extremely rare.
States News
California Law Enforcement Still Vows to Kill Marijuana Reform — In Sunday’s Sacramento Bee, the law enforcement lobbyists who for several Legislature sessions in a row have derailed reform and regulation of medical marijuana vow to do it again.
Marijuana Contests Join Denver County Fair — Colorado’s Denver County is adding cannabis-themed contests to its 2014 summer fair. It’s the first time pot plants will stand alongside tomato plants and homemade jam in competition for a blue ribbon.
New Jersey Considers Full Legalization — The Garden State will get a whole lot greener if one lawmaker gets his way. New Jersey state Senator Nicholas Scutari (D-Union) said last week he is planning to introduce a bill in the next month that will fully legalize marijuana in the state, much like it is in Colorado.
Medical Marijuana Qualifies for Florida Ballot — The Florida Division of Elections today confirmed that proponents of a 2014 statewide measure to allow for the physician-supervised use of cannabis have gathered sufficient signatures to qualify for the November ballot. Proponents of the measure still await a ruling from the Florida Supreme Court as to whether the measure will appear before voters this fall.
Texas Politicians Trying to Reform State’s Marijuana Laws — Two Texas lawmakers have tried to reform the state’s draconian marijuana laws for years, but their efforts have come up against a stubborn legislature that they say fears being seen as soft on crime. But now, with changing public opinion on marijuana, there may be a glimmer of hope for success. State Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston) plans to re-introduce a bill that would lower the state’s penalties for people caught possessing small amounts of marijuana. It will be his fourth attempt at passing the legislation.
Entertainment
Merle Haggard Comes Out of the Cannabis Closet — “I’m a cancer survivor, I had a lung operation in 2008 and they took out a piece of my lung, I was ordered to use marijuana,” Haggard says. “Either that or take a bunch of medication that I didn’t want to be hooked on. We are about to see marijuana take on a different standing. Even if nobody ever smoked it, the industrial reasons for its legalization are overwhelming and people are realizing that could save our economy, if they look at the truth.”
IMPORTANT ACTION ALERT — Tell The President to Fire Anti-Marijuana Head of the DEA Michelle Leonheart
In a recent speech, DEA administrator Michele Leonhart criticized President Barack Obama for his acknowledgement that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol in terms of its impact on the consumer. Yet there is an abundance of research demonstrating that marijuana is in fact less harmful than alcohol.
Leonhart has consistently demonstrated a reckless disregard of such scientific evidence. Under her watch, the DEA has obstructed attempts to remove marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act — a classification reserved for the most dangerous drugs — and at a 2012 House committee hearing, she refused to answer a congressman’s simple question about whether heroin and crack cocaine pose more harm to the consumer than marijuana
Shortly after taking office, President Obama mandated, “Science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of [his]Administration …” Whether Leonhart is ignorant of the facts or intentionally disregarding them, she has fundamentally undermined the president’s directive and is clearly unfit for her current position.
We call on President Obama to immediately terminate DEA Administrator Leonhart and replace her with someone who recognizes the fact that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol.On Friday, Sarah Palin, whose endorsement may have the most impact in the 2016 GOP presidential contest if she does not run, said that though she did not have a 2016 favorite yet, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY) were at the top of her list.
Former South Carolina Senator and Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint has said that Palin’s endorsement has the most impact in GOP primaries, and a recent national survey found that Palin had the highest favorability rating among Republican presidential primary voters.
Appearing on Fox News’s On The Record with Greta Van Susteren the night before she closes out CPAC for the second time in three years, Palin was asked if a potential candidate was emerging as her favorite.
“No, not yet,” she answered without hesitation.
Van Susteren then asked if there were candidates who were at the top of her list.
“I appreciate those who have fought for America like Ted Cruz, like Rand Paul,” Palin answered before saying that, perhaps, the best candidate may not even be a politician.
“It doesn’t have to be someone who has a title today, someone who’s in office today,” Palin said. “In fact, some would say we need to stay clear of those who have followed a conventional political path. Maybe they are a part of the problem.”
“There are businessmen and women and strong family men and women who understand what it is that makes America exceptional, and they want to protect that, they want to get back to that; maybe someone like that will rise and be the 2016 candidate, maybe that’s what we need,” she explained.
When asked if she would run in 2016, Palin gave the same answer she always gives: “You never say never.”
She said she does not have a team “doing the poll-tested, whatever they do” to figure out what messages work and test the waters in early presidential primary states. Palin said that she’ll “never say never” and run if there aren’t fighters that appreciate and want to fight to preserve American exceptionalism and the promise of America. Palin said there are so many Americans who “feel like I feel” and “serve this country” and mentioned that “it doesn’t have to be me” running for president.
As Breitbart News has reported and documented, Palin’s influence was proven during the 2012 cycle – as candidates Palin praised before Iowa and South Carolina voted won:
She praised Rick Santorum in December in 2011 when Iowans seemed lukewarm about the field of Republican primary candidates. After Palin made her remarks on December 2 on Fox News’s Hannity, Santorum, who was at four percent in the polls in Iowa – barely above Jon Huntsman, who was not even competing in the state – started getting momentum and eventually won the caucus a month later. Though Santorum had gone “all-in” in Iowa and planted his campaign exclusively in the state, voters were persuaded to consider his candidacy more seriously after Palin spoke kindly of him. Palin has influence in South Carolina as well, of course – her support of Nikki Haley in the 2010 primary ensured she won the Palmetto State’s gubernatorial election – and her positive comments about Newt Gingrich enabled him to win South Carolina’s presidential primary in 2012.
While the 2012 GOP presidential primary had a clear establishment frontrunner in Mitt Romney and a bevy of weaker candidates who battled to be the anti-Romney, the 2016 primary has strong candidates across the board without a clear frontrunner. If they all run, potential candidates like Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum would each have a significant group of supporters that may get them around 8-15% of the vote.
That may make Palin, if she chooses not to run, the 2016 kingmaker.This spring/summer is seeing an awful lot of new sets releasing. Instead of our typical Storyline Organized Play series, we’re getting two 15th anniversary sets. The first of these, Marvel’s What If? released yesterday, and today I’ll be doing a breakdown of the set.
I know that last week for the initial article of the soft relaunch, we had a rather lengthy article. Unfortunately reviews are a little lengthy as well as we have a whole set to get through. However, because this set is legal for World’s, which is happening next weekend, I figured it would be best to get this set review up as quickly as possible. Thankfully this set is only 50 figures (plus 6 from the starter, 1 LE, and 1 Colossal LE), so that should help.
If you’re familiar with my reviews, I typically rate figures on a 3-point scale. For Two Clicks From KO, we’re going to keep things on a 5 point scale instead with 1 being poor and 5 being amazing. I’m not going to get into decimals or anything; just whole numbers, and each will be easy to spot as you run down the list. This will help those of you that know the set but aren’t completely sure whether a figure you’re looking at is worth it or not.
Before jumping into the review, here’s a small disclaimer: these reviews are based on constructed play, not sealed. There’s already a fantastic series on the Realms about each set and how the figures are rated based on sealed play, so I suggest you look into that if you’re wondering who to draft for your sealed events. While I may say something along the lines of “this piece is pretty good for sealed”, the score itself will be based on their constructed capabilities. Lastly, remember that these are opinions (and only mine). Just because I don’t score a figure highly doesn’t mean they’re bad. I am in no-way telling you to avoid certain figures.
Okay, let’s have some fun and get into this review.
Commons
001 Spider-Man – I really like the 50-60 point characters as they give us a chance to play full comic-teams in 300 point games. With that said, this is a pretty darn good Spider for 55 points. With solid numbers, improved movement for hindering and elevated, Wild card, and the potential to deal 4 damage with Hypersonic Speed, this is a really good budget Spider-Man dial. He’s also got pretty good keywords too. The 9 attack at mid-dial is a little scary, but he’s an overall strong showing. Score: 3/5
002 Iron Man – Wiz Kids has been throwing us some really strong commons lately, and this Iron Man seems to be the number 1 pick from the set. While 100 points is a little high in points, his threat assessment is very strong. With the Avengers team ability and a trait that doesn’t give him tokens when he moves, it really doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have Indom, and can actually manuever through the field every turn. No attack value under 10, good damage potential, flight, and versatility make him a solid common. Score: 5/5
003 Punisher – This guy is a throwback to the first showing of Punisher back in Ultimates. While I love the nature of this dial, he just doesn’t wow me in any way. Sure, you’re getting a possible 11 attack, 3 damage for only 40 points, but I’d rather just play the 30 point Hawkeye from Avengers Defenders War. Score: 2/5
004 Daredevil – Like Punisher, you could argue that you’re getting some decent value for 40 points with a Stealth attacker that can token people down, ignores hindering and elevated, and has an 11 attack. But then you realize that he’s slow and doesn’t bring a lot of meat to the table. For 10 more points, I’d rather play the ADW version. Score: 2/5
005 Thor – This dial is a little more dangerous than it seems. Unlike Tony, Thor starts with Running Shot which makes him a little more deadly, but he’s also 10 more points. He’s also easier to hit with only a 17 defense. The traited Energy Explosion with 3 targets is really nice, but will see a decrease in power with the new rules coming out. I like that he has that special attack his whole dial that can really make his final clicks hurt quite a bit. He’s not special, but not bad either. Score: 3/5
006 Iron Lad – It feels like Iron Lad is trying to accomplish a lot on his dial and it kind of goes a little haywire. He starts off with a decent set of powers but with lower values with a large point cost. He’s got some nice survivability at the end of his dial with an auto-healing mechanic, and traited Mastermind to help mitigate damage, but it doesn’t seem like enough to push playing him over Iron Man for the same cost. Score: 3/5
007 Oni-Hulk – 25 points for a piece with Super Strength, possible 10 attack, and 3 damage with Battle Fury? Seems like a good idea. Past keyword makes him a very efficient body blocker and nuisance for theme teams that like range. He’s pretty darn good for his points. Score: 4/5
008 Punisher Squad – While it may seem like they’re only useful with the Punisher of S.H.I.E.L.D. Uncommon, these guys are actually pretty great for S.H.I.E.L.D. teams in general. For 30 points, you get the team ability, Stealth, and Ranged Combat Expert that can scale elevation and can shoot adjacent characters. With a single Perplex to attack, you’re looking at 10 attack 4 damage for just 30 points that hides in Stealth and has 18 defense against melee. Seems pretty good to me. Score: 4/5
009 Dr. Stark – There seems to be some backlash in terms of two of the strongest Marvel characters merging into a 45 point support dial, but I think he’s a lot stronger than folks give him credit for. A full dial of Prob, the Mystical keyword and Mystics team ability alone warrant his cost, but you’re also getting Plasticity to keep folks next to him and eat attacks and Willpower for added positioning. With his swap trait (that all the amalgams have), you could easily sub a piece that isn’t helping you for a full dial of Prob. He gives options and is a pretty decent support piece for Mystical. Score: 4/5
010 Iron Rick – Rick Jones has some nice protection with a Super-Super Senses (that only completely fails on a 1 or 2, and gives Invul on a 3 or 4), but his lack of move and attack is frustrating. Indom will help, but should he take a hit, he’s instantly downed to a 9 or 8 attack and potentially 1 damage. I would much rather play the common Iron Man from ADW for the same cost of 55 points. Score: 2/5
011 Molly Hayes – This dial is about as perfect as a common can get. Invincible for two clicks with Charge and the Avengers team ability to let her position with out taking actions from your pool makes her a pretty good piece for 50 points, but her special damage power makes her just disgusting. Molly can use Close Combat Expert as a close combat action, and with her native 10 attack and 3 damage, she’s either going to hit with 11 and 4 or take a gamble and go 10 and 5, all for 50 points. Oh yeah, and she auto-knocks back 4 squares on a hit. This piece is incredible and you should absolutely get her. Score: 5/5
012 Chase Stein – Very mediocre dial on this character, although the Perplex is kind of nice and always outweighs somewhat low numbers. He’s got the same special defense that Iron Lad has on the back end of his dial and ramps up the same, but has no powers to back that. If you’re going Runaways or Young Avengers, he might be worth it for the Perplex, but that’s still a long shot. Score: 1/5
013 Jessica Jones – Not only does she not count against theme if you have Cap, she gains their keywords! A melee piece that flies, boosts range for your friendlies, and pushes into Perlex is pretty sweet, but she’s a tad expensive to be worthwhile outside of sealed. At the end of the day, Jessica is about 10 points too expensive. Score: 2/5
Uncommons
014 Spider-Man – We’re basically getting a vanilla dial that ignores elevated terrain as his special Super Senses will almost never be used. He’s got decent values, but I’d honestly rather play the common for a whopping 35 points less for the same amount of health, although this one is a little higher on the survival side with ES/D. Score: 2/5
015 Iron Man – Tony is a 40 point paper weight with this dial, basically acting as an Enhancement piece that gives Armor characters an additional +1 to their damage. However, if you can make it to his last click, he becomes god-like, especially at this point value. Still, it seems like an awful lot of work to accomplish this. Score: 2/5
016 Punisher – I’m going to be Frank here (I’ll see myself out): this dial just isn’t good. With no movement help whatsoever on his first click, a very conditional attack buff, and totally lackluster damage, this is a hard pass after all the Punisher’s we’ve gotten this year. Score: 1/5
017 Daredevil – Like Jessica, he gains all keywords of The Kingpin, which could be nice with the new Super Rare we got in ADW that is surprisingly difficult to KO. If he sticks with Kingpin, he gets a +1 to attack, but that forces you to move them together. He’s just too conditional for his own good, and again, lackluster compared to the ADW versions. Score: 1/5
018 Thor – This dial actually has some bite with a huge 12 Charge, 4 damage, and knockback that ignores Charge and Combat Reflexes. He’s got good defense powers, but low values, and a lack of flight is very perplexing. 100 points is an awful lot to pay for this piece, although with his Indom, he could do some work with careful planning. Score: 2/5
019 Captain Britain Iron Man – I like that they gave him a pay-what-you-want defense power. Indom with Running Shot is a really nice, and the fact that he can use it three times in a row is a pretty big deal. For 55 points, he’s not too shabby, but he’s a little overcosted at 70. His low attack values on his back half make him a rough bet. Score: 2/5
020 Oni Leader – Let’s face it, you’re only going to use this character with Oni Hulks. By himself, he’s a bloated Outwit piece for 75 points. Sure, getting to use Outwit maybe twice a turn is okay, but not for his cost. If you’re running an Oni-Hulk team, he could be decent as he gives them a +1 to their attack values. Score: 1/5
021 Punisher of S.H.I.E.L.D. – This version of Frank is actually not too shabby, and can be very nasty with his minions to help out. On a closed off map like the WizKids Offices, he’ll be able to shoot around corners while still staying safe around walls. On a map with lots of elevation, he booby traps all higher elevation than ground level. He’s got some okay values and a potential to really hurt higher point figures. Too bad he’s a tad on the expensive side. Score: 3/5
022 Dr. Stark – This feels more like the two characters combined! Although he has lacklusher attack values (9 on half his dial) for 115 points, he does have Mystics, flight, Prob, and lots of Perplex. The main caveat to this version is that he has traited ES/D making him hard to hit with his Impervious, and he completely shuts down Pen/Psy, Precision Strike, and Pulse Wave within 4 sqaures. He’s a bit costly for what he does, but he’s got a little potential. Score: 3/5
023 Iron Punisher – Most people are going to see that 12 attack Pen/Psy with 6 range and 9 Running Shot for 100 points and say “oh yeah, this guy is awesome”. I look at him and see that after his second click of nasty, he falls flat on his face. If you can manage to keep him healthy, he’s totally worth the 100 points. If there’s a single piece with penetrating damage on the other side of the field, you’re going to be upset you dropped 100 points on him after just the first strike. Score: 3/5
024 Karolina Dean – She’s got decent attack values with only one click of 9, pretty good defenses, a big swing with 7 range and 10 Running Shot, and nerfs ranged damage to herself and adjacent friendly characters, while sharing her 18 defense and Enhancement. She’s a team player, and she’s pretty darn good. My only gripe with her is that she has no reducers meaning that if she gets based, she’s going down hard. Score: 4/5
025 TV’s Spider-Man – He’s a nuisance, but that’s about it. With the ability to keep his defense very high, he doesn’t really…. do anything aside from that. He’s tough to take down, but you want him living in the later end of his dial with Outwit. He’s very bloated for 70 points. Score: 1/5
Rares
026 Spider-Man – While the Uncommon was ranged-heavy, this spider prefers melee combat, and as long as you keep two tokens off of him, he’s going to be tough to put down. The 10 attack up front is troubling as you’ll want to push into click 2 with 11 attack and Perplex, but then you lose his awesome movement power and give up his traited Combat Reflexes. His dial seems very counter-productive. Score: 2/5
027 Iron Man – With a trait much like Spider-Man, Tony picks up ES/D rather than Combat Reflexes. His first click is pretty solid, and he ages pretty decently. I’m a little confused why he has Toughness mid-dial before jumping up to Invulnerable. I just don’t see a reason to play this version over the common. Score: 2/5
028 Punisher – Low defense might seem scary, but the damage this version of Frank can put out is pretty shocking. He also makes wonderful tie-up pieces that have a chance at putting out a fair amount of damage. Every click on this Punisher has strength, and at 60 points, he’s the go-to from this set if you need one. Score: 4/5
029 Daredevil – Lawyer Daredevil is pretty lackluster. With low movement, low defense, low damage, and no improved movement, he’s going to have a very hard time hitting anyone. While his Outwit/Perplex combo is rather nice, I’d rather play a dedicated |
celivestream servers are being bad :\
The_Pacifist Profile Blog Joined May 2010 United States 540 Posts #18 22 wins in a row... StC is a monster...
Dental Floss Profile Joined September 2009 United States 1015 Posts Last Edited: 2010-08-17 01:25:48 #19 3 of those win streaks are from oGstheSTC. Doesn't 1 really good player throw off your point a bit? Kim Tae Gyun.... never forget Perfectman RIP
hwanikani Profile Joined January 2008 Korea (South) 43 Posts Last Edited: 2010-08-17 01:27:37 #20 Yeah, StC is really really good with his unique terran style.
But you also have to remember that StC was playing top players during 22 win streak including tester.
1 2 3 4 5 11 12 13 Next AllNobody familiar with Europe’s history can look at this resurgence of hostility without feeling a shiver. Yet there may be worse things happening.
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Right-wing populists are on the rise from Austria, where the Freedom Party (whose leader used to have neo-Nazi connections) runs neck-and-neck in the polls with established parties, to Finland, where the anti-immigrant True Finns party had a strong electoral showing last April. And these are rich countries whose economies have held up fairly well. Matters look even more ominous in the poorer nations of Central and Eastern Europe.
Last month the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development documented a sharp drop in public support for democracy in the “new E.U.” countries, the nations that joined the European Union after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not surprisingly, the loss of faith in democracy has been greatest in the countries that suffered the deepest economic slumps.
And in at least one nation, Hungary, democratic institutions are being undermined as we speak.
One of Hungary’s major parties, Jobbik, is a nightmare out of the 1930s: it’s anti-Roma (Gypsy), it’s anti-Semitic, and it even had a paramilitary arm. But the immediate threat comes from Fidesz, the governing center-right party.
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Fidesz won an overwhelming Parliamentary majority last year, at least partly for economic reasons; Hungary isn’t on the euro, but it suffered severely because of large-scale borrowing in foreign currencies and also, to be frank, thanks to mismanagement and corruption on the part of the then-governing left-liberal parties. Now Fidesz, which rammed through a new Constitution last spring on a party-line vote, seems bent on establishing a permanent hold on power.
The details are complex. Kim Lane Scheppele, who is the director of Princeton ’s Law and Public Affairs program — and has been following the Hungarian situation closely — tells me that Fidesz is relying on overlapping measures to suppress opposition. A proposed election law creates gerrymandered districts designed to make it almost impossible for other parties to form a government; judicial independence has been compromised, and the courts packed with party loyalists; state-run media have been converted into party organs, and there’s a crackdown on independent media; and a proposed constitutional addendum would effectively criminalize the leading leftist party.
Taken together, all this amounts to the re-establishment of authoritarian rule, under a paper-thin veneer of democracy, in the heart of Europe. And it’s a sample of what may happen much more widely if this depression continues.
It’s not clear what can be done about Hungary’s authoritarian slide. The U.S. State Department, to its credit, has been very much on the case, but this is essentially a European matter. The European Union missed the chance to head off the power grab at the start — in part because the new Constitution was rammed through while Hungary held the Union’s rotating presidency. It will be much harder to reverse the slide now. Yet Europe’s leaders had better try, or risk losing everything they stand for.
And they also need to rethink their failing economic policies. If they don’t, there will be more backsliding on democracy — and the breakup of the euro may be the least of their worries.Feminist are chanting "Off with her head!" after Marie Antoinette star Kirsten Dunst's latest comments on gender roles were revealed in the May issue of Harper's Bazaar UK.
PHOTOS: Kirsten and other stars without makeup
The 31-year-old cover girl has a more traditional view when it comes to relationships between men and women.
"I feel like the feminine has been a little undervalued," she told the magazine. "We all have to get our own jobs and make our own money, but staying at home, nurturing, being the mother, cooking – it’s a valuable thing my mom created."
PHOTOS: Kirsten and other stars who love The Bachelor
The Midnight Special star, who has been dating actor Garrett Hedlund since the Sundance Film Festival in January 2012, argues that finding a manly man is necessary.
"And sometimes, you need your knight in shining armour," continued Dunst, whose exes include Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire, and Justin Long. "I’m sorry. You need a man to be a man and a woman to be a woman. That’s how relationships work."
PHOTOS: Jake Gyllenhaal's love life
Naturally, her comments have stirred up controversy on the Internet. Sites like Jezebel and Uproxx have bashed Dunst's comments.
“Kirsten Dunst is not paid to write gender theory so it shouldn't surprise anyone that she's kind of dumb about it,” Jezebel writer Erin Gloria Ryan wrote.
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Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!More than six months after Michael Brown was killed by Officer Darren Wilson, the youth-led protests in Ferguson continue to fuel a national movement against police brutality.
“Part of the struggle for us in Ferguson is to break a four-hundred-year belief that black people are not human,” says St. Louis native and activist Rev. Osagyefo Sekou.
After the Department of Justice released a blistering report finding systematic racism and prejudice against blacks in the Ferguson Police Department, protests continued, the police chief and several Ferguson officials resigned, and two police officers were injured in a shooting.
This problem, however, is not unique to Ferguson. St. Louis County is made of around 90 municipalities, each with their own police departments and courts. Residents report similar discriminatory treatment at the hands of law enforcement. And with so many different jurisdictions, a small infraction like an expired license plate can turn into dozens of fines and eventually warrants. Those in St. Louis who live below the poverty line are faced with the reality of buying food or paying fines.
In the Fusion documentary Ferguson: A Report from Occupied Territory, we turn to the residents of St. Louis County to tell us what it’s like to be racially profiled and under siege.Share. "This city still needs saving." "This city still needs saving."
Note: Full spoilers for the Arrow: Season 3 premiere follow.
Arrow’s second season was nothing if not dark and brutal. The first episode kicked off with Oliver Queen in seclusion and mourning the death of Tommy Merlyn. The eventual emergence of Slade Wilson in Starling City created a chain reaction of death and despair in Ollie’s life. The Arrow could really use a break for a change.
And that’s what he got as Season 3 debuted. Things are looking up for team Arrow. Crime is way down. Ollie and Felicity’s romance is beginning to kindle. Diggle is about to have a baby. But as you would expect from an episode titled “The Calm,” it wasn’t long before the cracks began to show again. The mix of lighthearted superhero adventure and darker plot twists made for a very satisfying premiere episode.
“The Calm” started out by showcasing the entire crew in action, functioning more as a well-oiled machine than ever. That included Roy as Speedy or Red Arrow or whatever his codename is supposed to be (they've called him Arsenal in promotional materials, but no name was given on the show). It was great to see Roy playing a more traditional sidekick rather than the angry bruiser hopped up on Mirakuru he was for much of Season 2. We didn’t see much of the character outside that capacity, but that left the writers more room to focus on the core trio of Ollie, Felicity, and Diggle.
Exit Theatre Mode
Right away, it’s clear that one of the central struggles of this season will be the need of characters like Ollie, Diggle, and Detective Lance to balance their private and professional lives. Is it even possible to have both when you make a habit of dressing in a costume and shooting criminals full of arrows? Ollie thought so at first. I really enjoyed the interaction he and Felicity shared throughout the episode, especially during their all-too-brief date night. Their kiss in the hospital was bittersweet, showcasing the love that’s grown between them even as it was clear Ollie was ending the relationship before it could grow into something more. There’s clearly more mileage to be had out of their relationship than I would have expected a year ago.
This episode also addressed one of my recurring complaints from Season 2 in that Diggle has been too much of a sideline character. That reluctance to be kept off the battlefield became very much a point of contention between Ollie and Diggle. I didn’t quite buy the resolution, with Diggle thanking Ollie for making the choice to leave him out. That kind of flies in the face of Ollie’s assertion that Lance endangers himself and his loved ones as a personal choice. Why can’t that be true for both men? But at least it’s clear Diggle is more of a focus this season.
This episode also introduced a number of new players into the mix. On one hand, we got a new take on Count Vertigo as Peter Stormare debuted as Werner Zytle. This new Count is immediately leaps and bounds ahead simply because of the much stronger casting choice. Maybe we didn’t get much of a glimpse into Zytle’s motivations or history, but Stormare brought a sense of charisma and menace to the role that Seth Gabel’s Count was always lacking. It’s also interesting to note that the Vertigo drug now has a fear-based component. You have to wonder if that’s a hint towards the eventual appearance of Scarecrow as Vertigo’s partner or master.
Several other big-name DC characters showed up during the course of “The Calm.” Ted “Wildcat” Grant had a cameo during the boxing sequence. We saw a little bit of Katana and her husband in the flashbacks. Even Barry Allen briefly dropped by, in case you were wondering exactly where exactly the Arrow and Flash timelines fall in relation to each other.
Exit Theatre Mode
But easily the most significant introduction outside of Vertigo this week was Brandon Routh as Ray Palmer. Once you get over the initial shock factor seeing Superman in Starling City, Routh left a very strong first impression. He was charismatic in a very different way from Vertigo - all bubbly personality and charming playboy and ruthless businessman. And it seems Palmer will be a major thorn in Ollie’s side, threatening to steal away his company and likely creating a love triangle as he woos Felicity. But it’s a testament to Routh’s acting that Palmer never comes across as overly obnoxious or antagonistic. Even if this show never actually has Palmer transform into the Atom (an opportunity it seems doubtful the writers would pass up), Palmer is amusing enough in his own right.
Two other elements are worth mentioning this week. The first is that the flashbacks offer a nice change of pace from the approach taken in the first two seasons. The show’s format might have grown stale if every season involved Ollie encountering a new villain trying to exploit a different hidden resource on the island. The move to Hong Kong is just the sort of overhaul these sequences needed. It opens up all sorts of questions about what Ollie was doing and why he didn’t try to return to Starling City, questions that started to be answered here. It’s clear we’re going to see a more ruthless side of Amanda Waller this year. I’m also very interested to see how the dynamic between Ollie and the Yamashiro develops in the weeks ahead.
Arrow EP on Why Season 3's Premiere Ended With That Shocking Event
The other element, of course, is the big cliffhanger. It seemed a bit random and unnecessary to bring Sara back into the fold again. But as we saw, her newest team-up with Ollie was also her last hurrah. Someone wanted her dead and wanted the blame to be placed squarely on the Arrow. I don’t know that I’m thrilled Sara has been killed off. It seems like there was more potential with her character. But on the other hand, it’s a natural way to bring the League of Assassins back into play. And it could easily lead to Laurel making the long-awaited transformation into Black Canary herself.Final Fantasy XV, the highly-anticipated next entry in the Final Fantasy franchise, is set in a world with one giant land mass, meaning players can stick to the ground and walk, train, or drive across the entire world.
In a recent interview, director Hajime Tabata told GameSpot that the idea was to make players really feel all locations in the game are connected--so they were connected, literally. This idea feeds back into something shown earlier on in XV’s development: a trailer beginning with the phrase, "This is a fantasy based on reality."
"The towns and the cultural references that you see throughout the world, you’ll get a sense of realistic towns and cultures," Tabata said. "That’s one aspect that has remained since the title was first named Versus XIII.
"The first town that was showcased was based on Shinjuku in Japan, and one area we showed in December [in the most recent trailer] was based on Havana in Cuba," he explained. "And the other watery town we showed is based on Venice. So those are some cultural references that have been made within the game."
So the trailer we saw last September featuring four main characters on a road trip is not far off from what we’ll be seeing in the main game. Yes, you can choose to drive everywhere, if you so choose.
"The world is connected by continuous land," Tabata said. "If those areas were disconnected, it would feel distant from reality. You’ll find that you’ll be able to walk or drive or take a train and travel through this world seamlessly. I feel you’ll be able to experience something similar to a real trip."
Final Fantasy XV was announced in 2006 as Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and it’s here that the "Versus XIII" name comes into play. Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels, XIII-2 and Lightning Returns, take place on a planet and its orbiting satellite, two fantastical worlds that are literally and culturally disconnected. This time, for Versus XIII, now XV, Tabata said Square Enix wanted the world to be different from the original Final Fantasy XIII, it’s complete opposite in presenting one whole, connected world.
But does that mean there will be no airships--a franchise staple--in Final Fantasy XV?
"To be completely honest, that’s still to be determined," Tabata said. "But the development team does understand that this is something everyone is looking forward to. It is a huge technical challenge; as mentioned earlier, all areas are connected. We are trying to tackle that challenge. So at the moment we can’t say yes, they will be included, but we do want to and we’re ready to take on that challenge and see what can be done."
Also different from the Final Fantasy XIII games---and spin-off title Final Fantasy Type-0--are the l’Cie, humans with powers assigned duties by higher beings in power. In Final Fantasy XIII, they were strange, sometimes half-mechanical demigods. In Type-0, they are people chosen as vessels to carry out the will of and protect crystals that supply power to four warring countries. These power-endowed beings will not be present in Final Fantasy XV.
However, Tabata hinted that summons, large mystical monsters and beings that have appeared in nearly every game in the Final Fantasy franchise, will have a large role in XV. These summons will be protectors of the planet, guarding parts of the world from annihilation.
Summons will be protectors of the planet, guarding parts of the world from annihilation.
Tabata also noted that classic-style dungeons will be featured in Final Fantasy XV.
"In the most classic Final Fantasy title category, for me, dungeons [were] very scary things that were chaotic and uncontrollable," he said. "In the dungeons, there is this kind of strangeness where something that shouldn’t necessarily be there in real life is existing. That kind of strangeness, the non-normal, that feeling you get in those circumstances, will be experienced in XV."
Tabata brought up one very clear example that we’ve already seen in action: an early trailer for XV showed protagonist Noctis hiding behind a wall in a stone dungeon as a large Behemoth walks by in the background. He also brought up the idea of having a Behemoth appear in the Shinjuku-based environment. It’s this feeling of something not belonging, of running up against "strangeness" in your environment, that Tabata wants to capture in XV.
Although his ideas for Final Fantasy XV sound grand, Tabata himself is humble about directing the latest big Final Fantasy title. When asked how he came to lead the project, he said he is still not sure himself.
"In XV, having very many challenges moving forward, including responding to fans and the technical updates required, the company structural changes… There are so many factors and I’m unsure of the reasoning behind being given the opportunity to pick up and lead the project. But it is what I was tasked to do," Tabata said. "I really believe I’ve been given a big challenge, and in that respect I am very honored for the opportunity."
Final Fantasy XV will launch for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One at an unannounced date.Share Tweet
(Photo: Bill Streicher-USA Today Sports)
It looks like Ryan Arcidiacono will find a home after all.
The senior point guard out of Villanova will be signing a partially guaranteed contract with the San Antonio Spurs.
Villanova national champ PG Ryan Arcidiacono is heading to the #Spurs on a partially guaranteed deal, per source. Good spot for him. — Darren Wolfson (@DWolfsonKSTP) June 24, 2016
Arcidiacono, a Philadelphia native, held workouts with 12 teams leading up to Thursday’s draft. However, the NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player would slide through everyone, including his home town Sixers. “Arch” became a Philadelphia favorite over the last four years and it will be interesting to see how his game carries over to the NBA.
The deal has not yet been made official and contract terms are unknown at the moment.
Share TweetNo one has to tell Sabrina Landreth about the bleak days of Oakland’s not-so-distant past. That’s where the city’s new administrator cut her teeth.
As a young budget analyst for the city — and later its budget director — Landreth had a front-row seat to massive layoffs, violent Occupy Oakland protests, and seemingly endless multimillion-dollar budget crises that followed the Great Recession.
“I try not to think about those days too much,” she said. Landreth learned from past struggles, she said, but doesn’t dwell. She’s too busy thinking about Oakland’s future.
Landreth, 39, returned to Oakland this summer as Mayor Libby Schaaf’s right-hand woman after a two-year stint as Emeryville’s city manager. She inherited a city that’s more stable than it’s been in years, with a booming economy, a reforming police force and a bustling downtown to its credit.
But she’s also dealing with a regional housing crisis that threatens to divide the community, a city workforce itching for compensation after years of cuts, lack of funds for the city’s aging infrastructure and millions of unfunded liabilities in retiree pensions and health care.
And, if she has time, it would be lovely if she figured out how to keep the city’s pro sports teams in Oakland — without spending any public money.
Landreth knows the challenges. But the fifth-generation Oaklander — and her husband’s family goes back just as far — says she’s in for the long haul, hoping to be a steadying hand for an office that’s seen six city administrators in a chaotic two-year stretch.
“This is not a steppingstone for me. This is my home,” Landreth said. “Warts and all, this is it for us.”
Landreth’s history as a proficient City Hall wart remover made her an obvious choice, said Schaaf, who got to know Landreth personally while the two were midlevel staffers stalking Frank H. Ogawa Plaza.
Schaaf said Landreth was a calming force when California shut down local redevelopment agencies in 2011, giving cities just five weeks to redo their budgets. More than 100 employees’ jobs were in danger, according to Schaaf. The city had already trimmed a quarter of its workforce because of the recession just months earlier and couldn’t afford another heavy blow, she said.
“After Sabrina was done, fewer than 10 people lost jobs,” Schaaf said. “That’s just an example of how skillful she is at understanding city finances.”
It didn’t take long for other cities to notice. Landreth left Oakland in 2013 for Emeryville, where the city manager worked closely with the council to raise the minimum wage, establish impact fees for builders and develop a close relationship with the school district, said Jac Asher, a former mayor and current city councilwoman.
Although the city’s population is only 10,000, Emeryville wasn’t immune to the same regional issues. Landreth always had the trust of the council and community, she said.
“The same things are happening here, but on a much smaller scale,” Asher said. “Sabrina, in her two years here, had many things come across her desk, but she was never frazzled.”
Landreth said she learned from former Oakland administrators like Henry Gardner, John Flores and P. Lamont Ewell, one of her strongest mentors, she said, who shepherded Oakland through even tougher times.
He was a new fire chief in 1991 when a fire ripped through the hills of Oakland and Berkeley, killing 25 people and destroying 3,500 homes, and was interim city administrator supervising Landreth in 2011.
“I used to say to staff, one thing we’re not interested in is quick, short-term fixes,” Ewell said last week. “Not having to continue to scratch year after year. That’s what Sabrina brought, the ability to look three to five years into the future.”
Landreth saw the fruits of her good planning recently when she drove through a Public Works lot and saw brand new vehicles being outfitted under the vehicle replacement plan she developed years ago.
That was a stark contrast from Oakland’s patchwork strategies of the past, she said, which sometimes favored quick solutions instead of smart investment.
“We were replacing full engines in 10-year-old black and whites (police cars),” Landreth said, adding that she became almost embarrassingly emotional seeing the new cars. “It was really personal for me.”
Landreth said she’s spent her first weeks trying to reestablish trust with the community and her employees. She’s personally overseeing the city’s efforts to fix the city’s controversial new trash contract with Waste Management, she said, and is overseeing labor negotiations with five city unions.
And so far, so good. Although the city retained outside counsel for negotiations, Landreth helped broker tentative agreements for new contracts with three unions — including SEIU Local 1021, the biggest city workers union — with in-house city staffers.
Ewell said workers trust Landreth because she’s honest and credible. People might not always be satisfied with the outcomes, he said, but will respect a straight shooter.
“I think she’s going to do exceptionally well, because she’s a very intelligent individual who is exactly as she defined me — levelheaded, not reactionary,” he said. “Exactly what Oakland needs at this moment.”
Balancing the chaos of Oakland with her personal life will always be a challenge, she said. She has two kids under 10, and often works a late-night “third shift” after the children are asleep.
Schaaf, who also had young children, said 11 p.m. calls between the two city leaders isn’t unusual.
“She’s someone who lives this job, as do I,” Schaaf said.
Landreth said she’s convinced Oakland’s new “all-star” Oakland-centric team is primed to solve the city’s biggest problems, even if it takes years before residents feel the full impact. Assistant Administrator Claudia Cappio is one of the state’s premiere experts on housing, she said. Christine Daniel left her position as Berkeley’s city manager to take a lesser role in Oakland, the city she loves and lives in, Landreth said.
“If we can’t get it done …” Landreth said before trailing off, letting her obvious kicker hang: Who can?
Mike Blasky covers Oakland City Hall. Contact him at 510-208-6429. Follow him at Twitter.com/blasky.Chapter 1
Let the Journey Begin
Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or any of the Metro series (2033 in both novel and game form or Last Light)
A/N Dialogue in bold is in Russian (assuming the setting is Remnant, of course. besides, I can tell people are too lazy to pull up Google Translate to see what they mean.) As for the gang being able to speak English, I think that Artyom was taught by Alex/Sukhoi, Miller and Khan were probably around their twenties when the missiles rained down, making sense that they know English, and Ulman also got to read from what stalkers took from the Lenin Library. He may be a soldier, but he's still in Polis. What are the odds that every single book that survived in the Lenin Library are ALL in Russian, right?
I'll try to be as specific as I can without sticking a wall of text on certain details of the Metro universe for those joining us who are unfamiliar with the series. I basically assume you know RWBY though.
This is the first fanfic I have ever written. Please be gentle and R&R.
"Artyom, it is time…"
Artyom crawled over to the switchboard, on it, the detonator for the explosives wired through the entire facility of D6. He prayed that he didn't have to use their last resort. The Communists, more commonly called "The Reds" have broken the line, and he knew as well as the other Rangers that no one should have this facility, that no one should possess the bioweapons locked within. The general of the Communists took notice of him.
"And who might this be? Ah…the resourceful young man. Tell me, Artyom, 'Saviour of the Metro,' where are you going?"
Artyom said nothing as he flicked the switch. "STOP HIM!" the general cried, but he said so too late. In the last five seconds before the detonation, Artyom's life flashed before his eyes. His life in Exhibition station and his stepfather Alex. His travels throughout the metro. The conversations he found himself eavesdropping into. His new partner, Anna, who became more than just his partner, who was evacuated from D6 beforehand. The four men who fought alongside him; Khan, Ulman, and Colonel Miller, his commanding officer. 'If only we met under different circumstances, or in a different world…' Artyom thought. His last thought was of his mother, her face finally clear to his mind's eye, saying "Don't be afraid… There's nothing to be afraid of now…"
The last thing one Red soldier saw before the explosion was the disappearance of four Rangers, in what appears to be a puff of black smoke and an orange glow where their torsos were supposed to be.
Artyom woke up, water falling on his face. He found himself in a dark forest, all surrounded in green. It was raining. Realizing he was where he thought was the surface with its toxic air, he rushed to put his gas mask on. 'Thirty minutes worth of filters,' Artyom thought as he wound up the timer on his watch. The first thing he did was check his equipment, patting himself down.
At the same time…
Blake had just settled in the dorm room with her new team, with the events of the initiation dealt with earlier that day. She looked over her new teammates, Ruby, her red energetic leader, Yang, Ruby's blonde hard-hitting sister and her own partner, and Weiss, the elegant white swordswoman. Ruby and Yang were proclaiming their excitement to the world, almost as if they were broadcasting it all throughout Remnant, and Weiss simply steaming in her bed. Suddenly, a dull pain shot up in her head. She grunted and put her thumb and fingers on her temples; her teammates noticing that she was in pain.
"Blake? Are you okay?" Ruby and Yang simultaneously asked.
"This was probably caused by YOUR incessant squealing! Some people are trying to sleep!" Weiss replied.
"Guys, it's fine. It didn't last too long. You should still probably quiet down though, Weiss is right; people are trying to sleep," said Blake. On that note, she walked over to her bed and closed her eyes. 'As much as I don't like rain, it sure sounds soothing…'
Back in the Emerald Forest…
'Let's see…five throwing knives, three pipebombs, two incendiary pipebombs, one claymore, medkit with three syringes left, ammo supply, 120 military grade bullets, at least I'm not broke, trench knife, lighter, head light, night vision goggles, universal battery charger, journal.' He still had his Kalash, the AK-74M, fully customized with a reflex sight, a 45 round magazine, and a laser designator. He also had his Volt Driver; a railgun whose body had a battery connected a universal battery charger, which was charged by squeezing the handle like one would with a motorcycle brake, the amount of charge in the battery indicated on a voltmeter. The barrel itself is composed of two thick rectangular prongs with electromagnetic rails on the inside, which launched 15mm ball bearings from a 15 round cylinder. A 4x optical sight, heavy duty capacitor for making the most of full-power shots and a laser designator is attached to it. Finally, his revolver, customized with a suppressor, reflex sight and laser designator. He mainly used this to shoot out lights, but it had its fair share of use on mutants and people alike. He took a look around, and spotted a cliff a fair distance away. He started walking towards it.
Half an hour in, he heard a howl. "Watchmen, huh? Time to hide," he said to himself. The Ranger took cover behind a tree, waiting for whatever made that howl to pass by. Artyom peeked from his hiding spot to try and take a look at what he was dealing with, his blue eyes widening as he saw what it was. It was a wolf-like creature, standing tall on two legs; its black fur seemed to absorb the moonlight, not reflecting any. However, what caught his attention were its solid red eyes which paraded a killing intent, and what appears to be a mask made of bone with red marks over its eyes. It sniffed around, possibly looking for the Ranger.
'This thing is probably dangerous. I should probably get rid of it,' Artyom thought as he drew his revolver and a throwing knife, placing the foregrip in his left hand, remembering the Rangers' motto; 'If it's hostile, you kill it.' He raised his arm, poised to throw the knife right between its eyes. The knife hit the mask of the wolf, but uselessly bounced off, causing it to look at the tree, and consequently, Artyom. "Ah, fuck," Artyom mumbled, and quickly aimed his revolver at the beast, firing all six of his rounds. The wolf howled in pain as six bullets were embedded in its torso. The beast collapsed, and Artyom trotted over to the body, unsheathing his trench knife and stabbed it in the cranium for good measure. He picked up the throwing knife, and a multitude of howls emanated from a good distance behind him. A whole pack of them is headed his way. He started running until he reached his limit.
"Dammit, I can't use my lighter in this rain, let alone my grenades…" Artyom muttered. The Ranger holstered his revolver, unslinging the Volt Driver. He turned on his flashlight as well, shining an almost blinding white light, indicating a full charge. He counted four wolves the same size as the one he just took down, and a bigger one behind the four 30 metres away from him. He slowed his breathing, took aim, and shot three rounds at one wolf, each shot announced by a boom, like softened thunder, and flashes of blue from the rails. 'That's one.' Another three shots were fired, the wolves getting closer. 'Two.' Three more shots, the wolves closing the distance. 'Three.' Three more rounds flew. The big wolf was spitting distance from him. 'Four.' He fired his last three rounds at the big one, but it was still standing. Cursing under his breath, he ran towards the big wolf and jabbed the Volt Driver's flat rectangular prongs into its chest, with intent to fry the beast with electricity. Unfortunately, he neglected to take a look at the voltmeter, which indicated that the charge was next to nothing; only a small spark had shocked the wolf. Taking the opportunity, the wolf pinned Artyom to the ground.
At the same time…
Blake was just about to fall asleep, when suddenly she heard what sounded like thunder in the distance. "Did anyone else hear that?" she asked, but the rest of Team RWBY was still fast asleep. 'The magic of Faunus hearing, I guess…' The thunder seemed to sound off in bursts of three. 'Something seems off,' she thought to herself. She got up from her bed and looked outside the window, and saw that there was no lightning, but instead, a faint blue light flashing three times in the Emerald Forest. 'I'd better go check this out,' she thought, and silently walked out of the room. She retrieved Gambol Shroud from her locker, along with her gear and Scroll, and headed for the Emerald Forest.
Artyom struggled to unsheathe his trench knife with one hand while the other hand trying to push the wolf off of him as it was tried to bite his face off, the wolf growling and snarling rabidly while doing so. He pulled out his knife and shouted "GET OFF ME YOU SON OF A BITCH!" and punched it in the gut with the knuckle duster. To his surprise, some force aside from his punch sent the wolf flying off a few meters away from him, the beast on its back. To add more surprise, he saw two metal rods fly into its chest, one of which hit its heart.
"Artyom, are you okay?" a familiar voice questioned, muffled by a gas mask.
"Man, that thing was huge! Can we take it as a memento? I want to mount it on my wall!" another familiar voice exclaimed, muffled as well.
"What Artyom and the rest have said about you was right. You are indeed a comedian," a third voice deadpanned, also muffled.
"Khan? Colonel Miller? Ulman? Is that you?" asked Artyom.
"Come on, Artyom, up you get. We have to get up that cliff and get our bearings." Colonel Miller told Artyom as he helped him up, and the group started walking.
"How did this happen? How were we in D6 in one second, and on the surface in the next? Where are we, anyways?" Artyom was asking a kilometre a minute.
"No idea, but I get the feeling we're not on Earth anymore," Ulman replied.
"How do you know?"
"Look up, my friend, and tell me what you see," Khan answered.
Artyom did as he was told, and his eyes widened as he saw a shattered moon. "This is surreal. Aren't we supposed to be dead?"
"I don't know for sure. I always thought that our souls would stay in the metro, considering we destroyed everything else…" Khan replied as he pulled out the metal rods and stuck them in a quiver, and slung his Hellsing over his shoulder. "These trees are bursting with life, compared to the dead leaves on certain lucky yet burnt trees we've seen in Moscow. That was the first hint I took that we are not on Earth anymore."
"But, if these trees are alive, then that must mean…" Miller took his gas mask off, and took a deep breath. "The air is clean, everyone! You can take off your masks!"
The other three accordingly followed suit, and took deep breaths. The air was safe, clean, and smelled much sweeter than the filtered air of the tunnels and stations. Although, the fact that they were in a forest instead of rat-infested tunnels reeking of rust, death and shit helped in that area.
"I've never thought I'll ever see the day that I can go outside and not wear a gas mask," Artyom stated.
"Well you better breathe it in deep man. Who knows, maybe this is all a dream and we're lying in some corpse ridden tunnel after all," Ulman replied.
Meanwhile…
Blake spotted four figures walking on a path towards the side of the cliff. 'Who are these four?' she thought. The faunus tracked the four down, keeping her distance, yet keeping them in sight. They also seemed to speak a different language she |
martial arts presence before mixed martial arts was mainstream.
2015: Smith provides an opening for current captain John Tavares, and I think Tavares will replace Smith when it is all said and done. He is a brilliant player who is serious and dedicated to his craft. So: Bossy, Potvin, Tavares, Trottier.
New York Rangers
2009 team/theory: Ed Giacomin, Brian Leetch, Mark Messier and Mike Richter. This was another tough one. The Rangers don't have a long line of hockey legends to choose from. Messier and Leetch were the easy ones. Giacomin is a Hall of Famer with only 266 career wins. He was a beloved Ranger. Goaltenders had so much personality in Giacomin's era because of the smaller equipment, no masks, then the smaller masks, and because of the robotic goaltending many goalies employ today. Goalies were more artistic in Giacomin's era. Today, it is more of a science. That is why Tim Thomas is so popular in Boston. He plays like goalies of the past, more with his heart than his head.
The fourth Ranger was a tough call. I asked a big Rangers fan here at ESPN, and he said Rod Gilbert. I can respect that, but I think Richter also was artistic and so much fun to watch. The save on Pavel Bure's shot during the 1994 Stanley Cup finals was iconic. So was winning the Cup. I like Mike.
2015: Henrik Lundqvist is in and Giacomin is out. The King is one of the best competitors in the NHL. There is no one with more of an over-my-dead-body mentality. I mean, he just empties the tank and it could end up shortening his career down the road. I don't see him playing until he is 40 like other goalies. He will be exhausted. So: Leetch, Lundqvist, Messier, Richter.
Ottawa Senators
2009 team/theory: Daniel Alfredsson, Dany Heatley, Wade Redden and Jason Spezza. Only the new Ottawa Senators apply here. Sorry, Cy Denneny. Alfredsson is Mr. Senator. Spezza has averaged better than a point per game in his career, and his numbers barely drop off in 40 playoff games. I haven't witnessed any of his off-ice habits or dedications to fitness, but I would take Spezza on my team any time. Picking the fourth Senator was difficult. Redden appears to be the most overpaid player in the NHL this season, but he had a terrific career in Ottawa.
2015: Heatley played only four seasons with the Sens, but he scored 180 goals. That's a short tenure, though, so we'll replace Heatley with the silky Erik Karlsson. Sometimes his defensive effort/execution is embarrassing, but he is so prolific offensively, scoring and moving the puck, that he cracks the mountain for now. His playoff goal scoring is weak, though: just four goals in 29 playoff games. So: Alfredsson, Karlsson, Redden, Spezza.
Philadelphia Flyers
2009 team/theory: Bill Barber, Bobby Clarke, Bernie Parent and Rick Tocchet. Clarke, Barber and Parent are locks. The fourth one was difficult. I suppose lots of Flyers fans would choose Tocchet. In games played, he's not in the top 10. I thought about Ron Hextall because he was a huge personality and combined great playoff success (at least for one season) with complete insanity. Watching athletes who could snap at any moment is compelling. Tocchet was Philadelphia's version Cam Neely -- he combined goal scoring with a great ability to fight. I'm curious to see how Flyers fans will respond to this list.
2015: Claude Giroux has a great opportunity to join the mountain. Durable and productive. I love players who score more in the playoffs, when it's more difficult to score, than they do in the regular season. Giroux is one of those guys. He is a 20-goal scorer in the regular season but projects to a 30-goal scorer in the postseason. That's the kind of guy you want. So: Barber, Clarke, Giroux, Parent.
Phoenix Coyotes/Winnipeg Jets
2009 team/theory: Shane Doan, Dale Hawerchuk, Teppo Numminen and Keith Tkachuk. Winnipeg/Phoenix is the Hartford/Carolina of the West in one way: small, passionate city loses team to warm-weather city. Doan is Mr. Desert Dog. Numminen has played the most games in franchise history. Hawerchuk and Tkachuk rank 1-2 in goals scored in franchise history.
2015: Nothing changes here, except that the team is now called the Arizona Coyotes. So: Doan, Hawerchuk, Numminen, Tkachuk.
Pittsburgh Penguins
2009 team/theory: Sidney Crosby, Jaromir Jagr, Mario Lemieux and Evgeni Malkin. Lemieux (690 goals) and Jagr (439 goals) are the two obvious selections here. Don't give me any anti-Jagr sentiment, Pittsburgh! In terms of conservative talent projections, and assuming they fulfill their long-term contracts, Crosby and Malkin should fulfill Rushmore status. I'm looking forward to hearing from Pens fans. Will they put Tom Barrasso on their Mount Rushmore? Ron Francis?
2015: The projections proved correct. The Penguins went on to win the Stanley Cup the year of this blogumn and Crosby and Malkin are future Hockey Hall of Famers. So: Crosby, Jagr, Lemieux, Malkin.
San Jose Sharks
2009 team/theory: Patrick Marleau, Evgeni Nabokov, Owen Nolan and Joe Thornton. Marleau is the Sharks' all-time leader in games, goals and assists. Nabokov will have 250 career wins by season's end. Many people don't realize that. Nolan's All-Star moment and 2000 Stanley Cup playoff goal in St. Louis were both beautiful moments. Thornton is far and away the most prolific offensive player in Sharks history.
2015: I have Joe Pavelski bumping Nolan off the mountain. Pavelski has been a durable and productive player. Thirty-seven goals last season, 41 before that and hasn't missed a game the past two seasons. He had 19 power-play goals last season. He's played 643 games in his NHL/Sharks career. So: Marleau, Nabokov, Pavelski, Thornton.
St. Louis Blues
2009 team/theory: Bernie Federko, Brett Hull, Al MacInnis and Brian Sutter. Federko was not a compelling player, but he had excellent numbers, and those numbers didn't fall in the playoffs. Hull was the most compelling player in Blues history. MacInnis' lone Norris Trophy came in St. Louis. I thought about Chris Pronger, but I have a soft spot for those tough Norris Division players who also scored. Only Hull and Federko scored more goals as a Blue than Sutter.
2015: Since the Blues fired Joel Quenneville late in the 2003-04 season, they've won one playoff series. One. That's mediocrity. Vladimir Tarasenko might be able to change that and help bump Brian Sutter off the mountain by continuing to score around the 40-goal mark and helping the Blues advance in the postseason. So: Federko, Hull, MacInnis, Sutter.
Tampa Bay Lightning
2009 team/theory: Dave Andreychuk, Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards and Martin St. Louis. If only Daren Puppa had more wins. I thought about Dan Boyle, and wouldn't hate that selection. He was a great player for Tampa, and his trade to San Jose is one of the worst in recent memory. I just thought Andreychuk was such an important player for that 2004 Cup team. He could be leaned on as a ballast of experience, reason and media duties.
2015: Steven Stamkos bumps Andreychuk off the mountain. Andreycuk did raise the Cup in Tampa, but he played just 278 games for the Lightning and when the Bolts won the Cup, he had one goal in 23 playoff games. Stamkos is the most talented player in Lightning history. Lecavalier, Richards, Stamkos, St. Louis.
Toronto Maple Leafs
2009 team/theory: Turk Broda, Dave Keon, Mats Sundin and Darryl Sittler. This was a difficult one. I feel good about Keon and Sittler. Broda won more than 300 games in net and five Stanley Cups for the Leafs. Tough to argue those apples. Sundin might be the point of contention for some. George Armstrong, Ted Kennedy, Borje Salming, Tim Horton and Charlie Conacher are all candidates. My first inclination was Kennedy.
My fellow anchor Scott Van Pelt has an intense and quite bizarre relationship with the 1983-84 Leafs. Apparently, Scott and his buddies adopted this team while they drank large amounts of Schlitz. Van Pelt's 1984 Toronto Maple Leafs Mount Rushmore: Miroslav Frycer, Borje Salming, Bob McGill and the incomparable Walt Poddubny.
2015: This one changes only if Stamkos ends up in a Leafs sweater. So: Broda, Keon, Sundin, Sittler.
Vancouver Canucks 2009 team/theory: Pavel Bure, Trevor Linden, Markus Naslund and Stan Smyl. Kirk McLean, anyone? Let me know what you think, Canucks fans.
2015: The season after I wrote this original blogumn, Henrik Sedin won the Hart Trophy as MVP and the Art Ross Trophy as the league leader in points. The season after, his twin brother, Daniel Sedin, won the Art Ross and was voted MVP by his fellow players, and the Canucks went to the Stanley Cup finals, where they lost to the Bruins on home ice in Game 7. The Sedins replace Naslund and Smyl. So: Bure, Linden, Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin.
Washington Capitals
2009 team/theory: Peter Bondra, Dale Hunter, Olaf Kolzig and Alex Ovechkin. Ovechkin already is the biggest star in Caps history. Of course, he also is one of the most magnetic personalities and players in NHL history. Bondra scored 472 goals in 961 games as a Capital, most of them in the dead-puck era. Hunter was a natural leader. Kolzig won 301 games and brought the Caps to their only Cup finals appearance.
2015: I was tempted to replace Kolzig with Nicklas Backstrom, but Backstrom's low output in the playoffs (51 points in 71 playoff games) has me still giving Olaf the nod. So: Bondra, Hunter, Kolzig, Ovechkin.As a white teen was waiting with his friends for a taxi, a group of unprovoked Muslim migrants attacked him, eventually beating the boy unconscious. However, as soon as reports of the horrific crime surfaced, the liberal left had just one sickening response for the abused victims.
On Friday, December 16, 18-year-old James Toolan was enjoying his first trip to Manchester when he got a taste of England’s growing multiculturalism. While waiting for a cab with his 2 friends, a group of 8 Muslims in their 20s approached the teens and began brutally beating them without warning.
Sadly, Toolan received the worst of the attack, as the migrants continued delivering blows to his head and face, according to the Express. Toolan was dragged along the street and fell unconscious when one migrant punched him so hard that he fell unconscious, landing on the cold pavement outside the Mercure Hotel.
Toolan suffered serious facial injuries, including 3 broken bones in his cheek, the Daily Mail reports. Unfortunately, not one of the migrants has been identified, which prompted police to finally release the graphic footage in the hope that someone could provide information that would lead to arrests.
As disturbing as the footage is, the response from the liberal left is even more disgusting. Not one demand from the self-proclaimed human rights defenders on the left has come forward to demand justice. Not one is calling for a hate crime investigation like they constantly do for the Muslims who repeatedly fake hate crimes against themselves. Nothing but silence has come from the left, and we would never expect them to stand up for actual victims, especially when their favorite religious ideology is the prime suspect.
If a Muslim claims that white men pulled her hijab, leftists initiate a nationwide cry for hate crime charges. When a non-Muslim suffers physical assault perpetrated at the hands of devout Muslims, however, they have nothing but indifference.
Of course, as is every physical attack by Islamists whether minor or catastrophic, it is religiously motivated. When a Muslim assaults a non-Muslim, they are carrying out the Quran’s commands to use violence against the unbelievers.
“This was a totally unprovoked and sickening attack on a young lad who had been at a concert in the city centre with his two friends,” Manchester City Police Commisioner Gareth Gardiner said. “This was their first visit to Manchester City Centre and this is the memory they will be left with. We have issued CCTV and images of James’ injuries in the hope that someone might have seen the incident and come and speak to us. Christmas and New Year were ruined for James, as he had to spend it recovering from his injuries. I want to be able to get him and his family the justice they deserve.”
The authorities are referring to these suspects as “Asians,” which the mainstream media uses to describe Muslims from Southeast Asian countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. Of course, considering that the vast majority of migrant criminals are Muslims and political correctness protects them, this description is always a dead giveaway.
Nevertheless, the UK isn’t the only Western country suffering from Islamic supremacism. Austrian authorities have been forced to admit that they are now suffering from Sharia Patrols composed of teen girls. After 15-year-old Patricia Montag had her jaw broken in 2 places by a gang of Muslim girls, officials confirmed that these dangerous patrols are becoming more rampant in schools and neighborhoods around the country. The gangs roam the streets and businesses, enforcing Sharia law on the populace for crimes against Islam, which range from accusations mocking religious aspects to allegedly pulling off headscarves, as was Patricia’s offense.
Likewise, Sweden’s no-go zones have expanded to popular tourist locations. Gothenburg police have been forced to implement extensive security measures at the country’s largest shopping mall after a number of visitors suffered abuse from Muslim youth gangs.
On Saturday, Belgium called in the army to assist with massive anti-terror raids on Islamic suspects. A number of arrests in Brussels consisted of Muslims involved in the Paris attacks of November 2015.
As the number of Muslims grows in the West, so does the amount of terrorism and oppression. Just as Muhammad declared, “I have been made victorious through terror,” so his followers will be if we don’t stand against their fundamentally violent ideology.
Photo Credit [Daily Mail]Chinese journalist Gao Yu, seen in Hong Kong on February 5, 2007, was convicted and jailed for leaking state secrets (AFP Photo/Mike Clarke)
Beijing (AFP) - A Chinese court convicted and jailed a 71-year-old journalist Friday for leaking state secrets in a decision condemned by rights groups as part of Beijing's widening "attack on freedom of expression".
Gao Yu -- named one of the International Press Institute's 50 "world press heroes" in 2000 -- "illegally provided state secrets to foreigners", Beijing's No. 3 Intermediate People's Court said on a verified social media account.
The ruling said Gao -- who was jailed for seven years -- had leaked a 2013 directive by the ruling Communist Party named "Document number 9" to a Hong Kong media outlet.
The document warns of the "dangers" of multiparty democracy, independent media, "universal" definitions of human rights and criticism of the party's historical record, according to copies widely circulated online.
"We are very disappointed with this verdict," said Shang Baojun, one of her lawyers, who argued in court that a "confession" from Gao had been extracted after threats were made against her son.
The US urged China to free Gao, describing her jailing as "part of a disturbing pattern" of oppression of anyone who questions Beijing's policies.
William Nee, a researcher for Britain-based Amnesty International, said Gao was "the victim of vaguely worded and arbitrary state-secret laws that are used against activists as part of the authorities' attack on freedom of expression".
Known for her outspoken support for democracy and press freedom, Gao went missing last April and resurfaced on China's state broadcaster a month later admitting she had made a "mistake".
Shang said the main evidence presented at Gao's trial in November was a "confession" she made after police threatened the journalist's son -- who they had also detained.
He added that after the verdict was read out Gao stated in a "strong voice" that she would appeal, but was not allowed to make any further statement.
The court denied the defence access to documents used to convict her, the lawyer said. The septuagenarian suffers from high blood pressure and Shang added he was "very worried" about her health.
Chinese courts are tightly controlled by the ruling party and more than 99 percent of defendants are convicted, with appeals rarely successful.
Police and security staff pushed foreign journalists hoping to cover the verdict more than 100 metres away from the courthouse, and bundled a Chinese individual into a police vehicle.
- 'Blow to free expression' -
China's President Xi Jinping has overseen a harsh crackdown against critics of the Communist Party, with scores of journalists, lawyers and academics detained and dozens jailed.
The country's definition of "state secrets" is notoriously broad, taking in the number of people executed each year, information about pollution, and databases listing commercial companies.
A consistent advocate for democracy and free speech, Gao was imprisoned following the government crackdown on student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Her political writings saw her jailed for six years in the 1990s, also on a charge of "leaking state secrets".
She was detained again in the lead-up to the Tiananmen crackdown's 25th anniversary last year, as were dozens of other government critics, and her one-day trial was conducted in secret.
Prosecutors said that a researcher affiliated with China's agriculture ministry gave Gao a copy of "Document number 9" in 2013, according to a copy of the verdict posted online by friends of Gao and confirmed to AFP by Shang.
The prosecution said she had used the online telecommunications tool Skype to transfer the document to Ho Pin, head of Hong Kong-based publishing house Mirror Books, one of many outlets which has released the text in the last two years.
Mirror Books denied receiving the document from Gao in a statement posted online Friday.
"This so-called'secret document' is not concerned with military secrets, or even economic secrets. It is a mere guide to ideology," it said.
Gao's arrest "was part of an effort to intimidate and silence journalists and activists" ahead of the Tiananmen anniversary, the US chapter of free speech group PEN International said.
Beijing's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the case had been handled "in accordance with the law".
"This is a matter of China's internal sovereignty," he told reporters.
Ahead of the ruling, France-based Reporters Without Borders said it would be a gauge of "how far the Chinese authorities are ready to go in order to suppress those who speak with an independent voice".
The group ranked China 176th out of 180 countries in its 2015 Press Freedom Index.Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s much-anticipated report into the G8/G20 summits will be tabled in the House of Commons on June 7.
That’s assuming Parliament returns on May 30, a date that was published in the Canada Gazette.
In a letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons dated April 12, Fraser confirms she would like her office to table her spring and status reports, 10 chapters in all, "during the first 15 days" that the House of Commons is sitting.
Fraser will not be tabling the reports herself as her 10-year mandate comes to an end on May 30, and not a day later.
As for her replacement, spokesperson for the Privy Council Office Raymond Rivet says, "The selection process has not been completed."
That means it will be up to deputy auditor general John Wiersema to table Fraser’s reports, unless the government announces her replacement by June 7.
And should Parliament convene at a different date, in her letter to the House of Commons Speaker, Fraser asks to discuss "an appropriate date" when her office can table the reports so alternate arrangements can be made.
Fraser’s 2011 spring report includes two chapters on the G8 and G20 summits: one looks at the amounts spent during the summits, the second looks at the G8 Legacy Infrastructure Fund.
The third chapter in the 2011 spring report looks at the way in which the Department of National Defence implemented a pension plan for the reserve force. Other chapters will be follow-up audits on projects like large technology projects, programs for First Nations on reserves and the RCMP's policing services.
Chapter 7, unlike the rest of the status report, is not a follow-up. It presents the main points of special examination reports on Crown corporations that were issued to the corporations’ boards of directors during 2010 and that the corporations have made public.
Election 2011
The auditor general’s 2011 spring report became an issue during the federal election campaign in the lead-up to the leaders debates after a leaked draft report alleged the Conservative government lavished millions of G8 spending on a prominent cabinet member's riding and misled Parliament.
Fraser immediately cautioned Canadians that only her final report would represent her audit’s findings and conclusions, but she refused to release the report because the rules of her office only allow her to present it to a sitting House of Commons.
Fraser also initiated an investigation into the leaks.
Spokesperson for the Auditor General’s Office, Ghislain Desjardins, said they are "still looking into the matter."The issue of Aadhaar data, and privacy is far from over, it seems.
In a shocking revelation, it has been found that knowingly or unknowingly, private foreign firms have been granted full access to classified Aadhaar data of billions of Indians.
And the scary part is that, Govt. has been denying the allegations from the start; even as the contract details for Aadhaar clearly proves otherwise.
The question is: Is Govt. of India hiding something from us?
RTI Reply On Aadhaar Data Is Shocking!
Col. Matthew Thomas from Bengaluru is one of the parties in the ongoing Right to Privacy case, being heard in Supreme Court. Earlier, the apex court had declared that Right to Privacy is a fundamental right of every Indian.
For this case, Col. Matthew had filed a RTI request, asking the details about contract given by UIDAI to private firms for collecting Aadhaar data.
As per the reply received under RTI, the Aadhaar contract has given full access to classified data of Indians, to the private firms based out of India.
In fact, the contract requests these companies to store the data for 7 full years as well.
Which Companies Have Been Asked To Store Aadhaar Data?
Govt. has chosen several Biometric Service Providers or BSPs, who are providing hardware and software for collecting Aadhaar related data like biometric scans, iris details, fingerprints etc.
L-1 Identity Solutions Operating Co Pvt Ltd is one such BSP, based out of USA. This company has now been taken over by Safran Group from France. Morpho and Accenture Services Pvt Ltd are other BSPs, who were provider the contract, albeit for 2 years.
What Does The Contract Say?
Now, while providing the contract to BSPs, Govt. formed a various clauses, and it seems that no attention was provided to the aspect of privacy and protection of data by foreign firms.
For instance, Clause 15.1 of the contract, under the heading ‘Data and Hardware’, states that the firm “may have access to personal data of the purchaser (UID), and/or a third party or any resident of India…”
Clause 3, under Privacy, states that the BSPs can “collect, use, transfer, store and process the data”.
Note here, that personal data, in relation to Aadhaar includes everything: biometric data, which includes fingerprint scans and IRIS data, demographic data which includes name, date of birth, address, mobile number; and connected data such as bank details, licence number, PAN number, passport number and any other data provided by the law-abiding citizen as part of KYC.
Not Only Access, But Store The Data As Well!
Accessing sensitive Aadhaar data was, it seems, not enough. Govt. also allowed these private firms to store the data, for 7 years.
As per the contract, in the event of expiry of contract, the concerned BSP “shall transfer all the proprietary templates to UIDAI”
This statement clearly proves that Govt. has asked these private, foreign firms to store the data as well.
Col Matthew rightly asks, “If the firms did not have the biometric data, what were they expected to transfer? Why can’t the UIDAI just come out in the open with all the contract details?”
On their part, the private firms have said that they are doing what the contract actually says.
L-1 has said that they have accessed to sensitive Aadhaar data “as part of its job”.
It seems that while drafting the regulations and the contract for BSPs, Govt. officials clearly failed to comprehend the dangers of sharing such sensitive data with foreign firms, and ignored the risks involved.
Who is responsible for this data breach?
Lots of questions, but very few answers.They say to know where you're going, you must know where you've been. One local historian believes that's true, and to make sure we don't forget anytime soon, he's sharing his gallery of historic Houston images with us, including the oldest film ever shot in Houston."History is the soul of Houston's community. And through a visual representation, everybody can get an idea of exactly what it was like," Story Sloane III said.Sloane says it's important to preserve Houston's past. For him, it's been a family affair."My father was born here in Houston and he was a photographer for San Jacinto High School. So he had a love and fascination with the city," he said.When his father passed, thousands upon thousands of historical photos were handed down, along with the family business,"One of my favorites is Main Street, 1928, and it was taken for the Democratic Convention coming to town," Sloane said.The gallery is home to a rare collection of unique images, showcasing Houston over the past century.After dad's death, Sloane discovered old film reels in storage that his father had saved and protected from being destroyed years ago."There's silver used in black and white film. So if you burn the film, filtrate the ashes, you can reclaim minute traces of silver. So some people felt it was worth more for the minor money you could get from it, than the historical value," Sloane said.The reels Sloane found were priceless."The 1915 film of the Shriner's Parade downtown Main Street we ascertained is the oldest film found in existence of Houston, Texas," he said.Because of its age and fragile condition, special preservation techniques were used to digitally archive the film."There's spots and scratches on it. And we're in the process of trying to get it totally restored," he said.Besides the 100-year-old film, Sloane was able transfer other reels from the 1920s. His goal to continue archiving as many historical films as possible, so they're preserved for generations to come.COLLEGE STATION, Texas—Texas A&M quarterback Kyle Allen must have smiled and then frowned when he heard John Chavis was coming to Aggieland from LSU to be his team’s new defensive coordinator. The smile? Allen would never have to play another game against a Chavis defense. The frown? Allen would have to play a Chavis defense at every practice.
As a true freshman, Allen made his fourth career start against the Chavis-run Tigers’ defense on Thanksgiving. The Aggies posted their second-lowest yardage (228) and point (17) totals of the 2014 season—only the 59-0 debacle at Alabama on Oct. 18 was worse—and the 23-17 loss dropped Texas A&M to 3-5 in the SEC. Over the last three years, including two with Johnny Manziel at quarterback, the Aggies have never cracked 20 points against a defense led by the man known as Chief. “We were having trouble on the outside getting off press-man coverage,” Allen said. “It was really how long could we hold on to the ball before our receivers could get open or before I got sacked.”
This spring Allen must contend with the way Chavis has unleashed fellow sophomore Myles Garrett. Garrett, perhaps the most physically gifted pass rusher in the SEC, has few other jobs in the new scheme besides zooming upfield toward the quarterback. This is how a Chavis defense works. The corners match up one-on-one against the outside receivers, while one safety is left high. The defensive ends surge up the field and a fifth rusher comes from somewhere. This apparently leaves Garrett free quite frequently. Though he isn’t allowed to tackle Allen, the ban hasn’t precluded Garrett from putting his quarterback on the turf. “He can’t hit me, but he likes to give me that shove on the back,” Allen said. “And he’s a lot stronger than he thinks he is. Half the time I end up on the ground anyway.”
Texas A&M couldn’t beat Chavis, so the Aggies decided to hire him. Coach Kevin Sumlin is quite matter of fact when explaining why he chose Chavis, who will receive a reported $1.7 million a year, to run his defense. “There were a lot of people who were interested in the job. I was comfortable with him because of the conversation that we had, but schematically, I knew what we were getting with the style of play,” Sumlin said. “Combine that with the overall league experience and the division experience. That’s hard to beat.”
Chavis will have to earn that salary this fall or the mood could darken considerably in College Station. The memories of an 11-2 mark in Texas A&M’s debut SEC season have begun to fade, replaced by fears that the Aggies’ 7-9 league record from the past two years represents the norm. This was not a program that annually competed for championships as a member of the Big 12. The Aggies must prove they can do that in the SEC, or the spending spree inspired by their conference realignment and success in 2012 might seem like overkill. Every day construction crews work to remodel the west side of Kyle Field to match the east, which was renovated last year. When they finish, capacity will be 102,512. Will so many people come to watch a team stuck in the middle or bottom half of its league? Chavis was hired to ensure that question doesn’t get asked.
Even without Manziel and even though it dealt with a midseason quarterback swap (the since-departed Kenny Hill to Allen), Texas A&M’s offense was productive in 2014. According to Football Outsiders’s tempo-adjusted stats, the Aggies finished 24th nationally in offensive efficiency. The defense was the albatross. In ’14, Texas A&M finished 110th in the country (55.4%) in a metric Football Outsiders calls Available Yards. If the opponent started at its own 20-yard line, it would have 80 available yards and could expect to gain a little more than 44 on an average drive against Texas A&M. Chavis’s LSU defense finished 11th (35.8%) in that same category. A drive that started on the 20 would have gained an average of 28.6 yards against last year’s Tigers.
Jonathan Bachman/AP
And the 2014 version wasn’t a particularly great Chavis defense. The Tigers suffered because their offense could not move the ball consistently, forcing the defense to face short fields after taking short breaks. In fact, this may have been one reason Chavis made the move. Even in bad times, Texas A&M will usually move the ball and score points. Also, the Tigers did not have the defensive line talent to which Chavis had grown accustomed. The Aggies have at least one elite pass rusher in Garrett and another, junior Daeshon Hall, who should get pressure.
But although LSU’s defensive line talent dipped, its cornerback group did not. Chavis probably won’t have corners comparable to Jalen Collins and Tre’Davious White in his first season at Texas A&M. The Aggies are solid at safety thanks to the presence of sophomore Armani Watts and the arrival of juco transfer Justin Evans, but they are thin at cornerback. De’Vante Harris is entering his fourth year as a starter, but the rest of the group remains raw. The ability of the corners will likely determine the ceiling for the defense under Chavis. From Andre Lott and Dwayne Goodrich at Tennessee to Patrick Peterson and Morris Claiborne at LSU, Chavis typically has had corners capable of locking down receivers. The reliance on man coverage—either press or catch, depending on the situation—frees up another defender to attack the quarterback as a fifth rusher. If the corners can cover one-on-one, the pressure will reach the quarterback. But if the corners get beat, it could lead to huge gains.
• STAPLES: Florida State reloads again after exodus of NFL-caliber talent
An inability to cover one-on-one might force Chavis to alter his scheme, but at the moment he doesn’t plan to change anything. “There’s no secret about what we do,” he said. “We’re a pressure defense. Have been for a long time. That’s what we’re going to continue to do.” If the Aggies have recruited as well as their Rivals.com rankings would have us believe, then this shouldn’t be a problem. The defense has seemed perpetually young since 2013, but that could be because younger players have beaten out older ones. The Aggies will be young again this season on that side of the ball, but some of that youth will include sophomores with experience and freshmen—maybe five-star defensive tackle Daylon Mack, for example—too good to keep off the field. Sumlin was quite frank when he arrived at A&M that the roster needed an upgrade to compete in the SEC. With Sumlin’s fourth recruiting class in the locker room come June, the talent level should be adequate by now.
Chavis said he had no concerns about coaching a defense that plays opposite an up-tempo offense. Such schemes usually require defenses to face more snaps during games and can lead to less physical practices, as tackling is sacrificed for the sake of tempo. “When you look, 80 or 90% of the teams you play run a fast-paced offense,” Chavis said. “So you’re playing against it all the time. To be quite honest, we practiced against it a good bit before. It’s kind of where football has taken us.” Sumlin said he discussed practice habits with Chavis before the latter accepted the job, and Sumlin adjusted the tempo of practice to help the defense. In fact, he may have adjusted it too much at first. “He’s the one who said after Week 1 [of spring practice] to pick up the pace,” Sumlin said.
Chavis brought with him the Attack Drill, an exercise that requires a defender to fight through three players to reach a tackling dummy. He has run the drill since before he became defensive coordinator at Tennessee in 1995, and believes it helps instill the toughness he requires in his players. “It’s a tough drill,” Chavis said. “There’s nowhere to hide. You’ve got to be a man. … If there’s one drill that’s going to help you with defensive football, in my opinion, that’s as good as it gets.”
The drill should provide excellent preparation, because there won’t be anywhere for the Aggies’ defense to hide once the season begins. More than 102,000 people will stare down from the Kyle Field stands, and they’ll want to see a defense worthy of sharing the sideline with Texas A&M’s offense. If Chavis can raise the defense to that level, there is no limit to what A&M can accomplish. If he can’t, those new stadium additions will cast long shadows over a program at a crossroads.
A random ranking
Reader Al submitted the below question too late to make last week’s #DearAndy, but I considered it my duty to dive down this rabbit hole so you won’t have to.
@Andy_Staples radio played madonnas American pie this morning. What are top 5 worst cover songs? — Al Caniglia (@alcaniglia) April 8, 2015
I figured I should limit this ranking to songs released on albums, so one-off horrors such as Miley Cyrus butchering “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Celine Dion warbling “You Shook Me All Night Long” don’t qualify. The truly terrifying thing about this list? All of these are worse than Madge’s mangling of “American Pie.”
1. “My Generation,” Hilary Duff
Whatever royalty money this song generated was probably spent to replace all the furniture Pete Townshend destroyed the first time he heard this abomination. Plus, the lyrics don’t include the phrase “participation trophy,” so Duff can’t possibly be singing about her own generation.
2. “Purple Haze,” Winger
How do you make Jimi Hendrix uncool? Let him get covered by Stewart Stevenson’s favorite band.
3. “Satisfaction,” Britney Spears
Only word-for-word covers make this list. Otherwise, it would also include the Vanilla Ice tune that sampled the guitar riff from “Satisfaction.” Which is worse? Put cups under each ear, play each song and see which one causes the cups to collect more blood. You’ll have your answer.
4. “Light My Fire,” Train
No. Just no.
5. “Fortunate Son,” U2
Just because a band makes a great protest song doesn’t mean it knows what to do with another band’s great protest song.
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Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
First-and-10
1. Sumlin offered some encouraging thoughts for those of us who would like to see Texas and Texas A&M stop being babies about it and play each other again. The blame for the lack of a Texas-Texas A&M matchup shifted between the two schools after the Aggies’ departure for |
. “But I want them to go through the process.”
So far, Trump has made no changes to the high-skilled visa program. This week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that the Trump administration may reexamine the program.
Even as Bannon was calling for a general retreat from multinational alliances, however, he was warning of the need for a new alliance — involving only a subset of the world’s countries.
The “Judeo-Christian West” was at war, he said, but didn’t seem to understand it yet.
“There is a major war brewing, a war that’s already global,” Bannon said at the Vatican in 2014, at a time when the Islamic State was gaining territory. “Every day that we refuse to look at this as what it is — and the scale of it, and really the viciousness of it — will be a day where you will rue that we didn’t act.”
Bannon has given few details about the mechanics of the war he thinks the West should fight. But he has been clear that it is urgent enough to take priority over other rivalries and worries.
In his talk at the Vatican, Bannon was asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bannon’s answer was two-sided.
“I think that Putin and his cronies are really a kleptocracy, that are really an imperialist power that want to expand,” he said. But, Bannon said, there were bigger concerns than Russia — and there was something to admire in Putin’s call for more traditional values.
“However, I really believe that in this current environment, where you’re facing a potential new caliphate that is very aggressive that is really a situation — I’m not saying we can put [Russia] on a back burner — but I think we have to deal with first things first,” Bannon said.
If Bannon succeeds, Bannon’s own comparison, to England’s Thomas Cromwell, might be apt — to a point.
“The analogy — if it’s going to work — is that Bannon has his own agenda, which he will try to use Trump for, and will try to exploit the power that Trump has given him, without his master always noticing,” said Diarmaid MacCulloch, a professor of history at England’s Oxford University.
But Cromwell was later executed, after Henry VIII turned against him. For a man like that, MacCulloch said, power is always tenuous: “It’s very much dependent on the favor of the king.”
Read more:
Questions multiply over Bannon’s role in Trump administration
How Bannon flattered and coaxed Trump on policies key to the alt-right
Trump agrees with Bannon’s assessment that the media is the ‘opposition party’CLOSE A 64-year-old woman was found tied to a tree about an hour after she was reported missing in Blue Ridge Parkway. Video provided by Newsy Newslook
The Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. (Photo: File photo)
National Park Service rangers in North Carolina are looking for an unwashed, unkempt 50-year-old man who might be able to tell them why a missing 64-year-old hiker was found late last week tied to a tree along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
An hour after a friend reported the woman missing last Thursday, rescuers found her barely alive on a trail in Buncombe County. "She's not deceased at this time but she is tied to a tree," WLOS-TV reported a rescuer told emergency dispatchers. "This is the one we've been looking for."
Rangers say they think she was assaulted on the Mountains to Sea Trail, just four miles from Craggy Gardens Visitor Center.
About 1:30 p.m. Thursday, a friend who identified herself as a caregiver called 911, saying she was getting texts from the woman, who was hiking in the area of Snowball Trail at Craggy Gardens.
The caller said she received messages that the woman was having an emergency, and although she was unsure what was happening, she did say the woman has a medical condition.
“She has something that looks like seizures, and when she does, she is conscious long enough sometimes to send a text but generally it renders her somewhat mute,” the caller said in a 911 recording.
When crews arrived, they discovered the hiker tied to tree and transported her to Mission Hospital. Officials have declined to discuss further details, and the hiker’s name and condition haven’t been released.
Leesa Brandon, a public information officer with the Blue Ridge Parkway, released a statement late Friday describing a possible suspect in the incident as a generally unkempt white male, about 50 years old, with salt-and-pepper hair and facial hair that is partially grown in. He was believed to be wearing a light or faded grey short sleeve T-shirt, old or faded baggy blue pants and a dark pair of tennis shoes.
"The subject may appear and smell of a musty odor of being unwashed in several days," the park service said.
Contributing: Neal Colgrass, Newser.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/27rxHNwLogo for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the privacy advocates whose FOIA request resulted in Wednesday's disclosure. (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
After a legal battle that went on over a year, the federal government was forced to reveal a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court (FISC) opinion that showed the National Security Agency (NSA) engaged in unconstitutional surveillance practices, including the collection of tens of thousands of Americans' online communications. The Switch talked to Mark Rumold, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) who worked on the case, hours after the opinion was released Wednesday night. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Andrea Peterson: How did the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit come about?
Mark Rumold: In the summer of 2011, Congress was set to start debating whether or not the FISA Amendments Act (FFA) should be reauthorized. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) put a hold on the reauthorization bill in the Senate and in what I can only assume were some back channel negotiations, he got the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to declassify three statements. One of those statements was that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court (FISC) had held that the surveillance conducted under FAA had violated the Fourth Amendment, another was that it had violated the spirit of federal law, and the last was just the DNI throwing something in there for good measure: that the problems the FISC had identified had been fixed and they were no longer engaging in illegal and unconstitutional surveillance.
Senator Wyden got these statements declassified and he released the letter that had those statements in them. Based on that letter, we submitted a FOIA request for the opinion. One of the basic rules about classification is that you can't classify information to conceal illegal conduct. So just from the outset, if we know that a FISC opinion held that what the government was doing was unconstitutional and had violated the FFA, we thought we had a pretty good chance of getting at least part of the opinion.
Can you walk me through the basic timeline and the government's reaction to the FOIA suit?
We filed suit in August 2012 and essentially the government dragged their heels. They dragged their heels for the entire period that the FFA was up for reauthorization and the entire period that the opinion itself could have provided useful information for the public and for Congress to debate whether the FFA should be reauthorized.
Kind of shockingly, during the entire debate they withheld the opinion, they withheld all records. Even though they had represented to the court that they were considering releasing parts of it, they still withheld it. What ended up happening was that while the suit was happening -- while we were waiting for the opinion to be partially released -- Congress reauthorized the FFA Act. They did it on Dec. 28, so in a pretty limited session with limited debate. The president signed it on Dec. 30.
And then on Jan. 3, they released documents to us -- they didn't produce the documents released today obviously -- and it wasn't even a release really. It was the reports from Congress and they were entirely redacted. This has kind of been that attitude that the administration has had.
When you say entirely redacted, are you saying page upon page of redacted information?
It's fair to say it was a joke, what they released to us. And a bad joke at that because what they were withholding was the opinion they released that basically said the NSA has been misleading the FISC and has been collecting purely domestic communications of Americans -- tens of thousands of times. It's information that was intentionally concealed from the public. This wasn't a coincidence, right?
This is a representative example of the documents about the FISC order the government released to EFF earlier in the litigation process. (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
So five days after the law was reauthorized they released these documents to us. After that we waited for the government to file a summary judgment motion outlining the reasons they felt they were justified in withholding this information from us.
When they did that we were pretty surprised by one of their arguments -- indeed it was their primary argument -- that it wasn't the executive branch that was deciding to withhold the opinion, it was the judicial branch. [The executive branch claimed] the FISC itself had placed a restriction on the executive branch that prohibited the executive branch from releasing the documents.
And my understanding is that later on, the FISC itself ruled quite differently?
Yeah, and in fact, the FISC had ruled quite differently earlier. In 2008 the FISC had said that if the public wants access to our opinions they need to go through FOIA. Which is exactly what we were doing. So when we saw the court's response we were fairly surprised and we thought, "Here's an easy way to clear this up -- we'll just go to the FISC and ask for the court's consent to release these opinions and ask the court to weigh in on whether or not it is in fact prohibiting the release of this."
We filed a brief [with the FISC] in May of this year, the government responded, and after the government's response but while the motions were under submission in the FISC, the disclosures started happening. So, that changed the litigation and the amount of classified information the government had acknowledged and was willing to declassify. So based on that, the FISC very quickly ruled in our favor.
I don't actually want to suggest the FISC ruled in our favor because of the disclosures -- I think the FISC would have ruled in our favor regardless, the arguments the government was making were crazy. But the FISC ruled in our favor and it went back to the District Court and there was some jostling originally about how the case would proceed.
The government wanted an open-ended stay in the case so it could decide what to release and when and we argued that, "Look, we're in the most robust debate on surveillance that has occurred in the us since the 1970s and the Church Committee and if FOIA is going to have a role and purpose to play in the United States then it has to be this time that FOIA is applied and that the government has to move quickly and make their decisions quickly.
The court ultimately agreed with us and the court ordered them to make decisions by Aug. 12 about what to release. When that day rolled around the government asked for a nine-day extension so they could do it in what they called "an intelligent manner" and we agreed to that nine-day extension. And today the opinion was finally released.
What has your reaction been to the actual opinion?
There's a lot to process. That's my initial reaction. But I'll say that I'm pleasantly surprised by the amount of information that the administration made available. This was honestly less redacted than I thought it would be -- and I'm happy about that. It means that finally within the executive branch it's starting to resonate that the public is not happy with the type of surveillance that is going on, the public isn't happy with being kept in the dark. And that it's time to come clean with the public about what's going on.
But obviously it shouldn't have taken litigation and a massive leak to make this happen. It should have happened in the first place. That being said, I find the opinion itself pretty troubling for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is the tenor of the opinion is that the FISC has been lied to by the government, the government is misrepresenting the way it's operating it's surveillance programs, and the court knows it. There's a sense in the opinion that the court caught them this time because they were forthright with the court, but that the court wasn't happy at all about the role it was being placed in and the type of candor it was getting from the executive branch.
President Obama has suggested that the surveillance programs were transparent because they received FISC oversight -- it seems like you don't think this order helps that argument?
It's a contradiction in terms to say that a secret court yields transparent oversight. But giving the president the benefit of the doubt, what I imagine that what he meant was that the program receive oversight from all branches of government and that's why in his opinion the surveillance is legitimate.
But yes, I'd say this opinion shows quite to the contrary that the court wasn't particularly happy with the representations that the government was providing to it. The court felt that it had been mislead multiple times in the past, and, that as Judge Walton said the other day in an article in the Post, the court just isn't equipped to handle the type of oversight that it was being charged with doing.
What type of reforms do you think are necessary to give that oversight?
I think it's premature to figure out what reforms we need. We don't know the whole story at this point. Senator Wyden called some of the disclosures that have come out "just the tip of the iceberg." There's so much that is still hidden about these type of surveillance programs and the representations that the government has made to the courts, and the public, and Congress. We need a full investigation before intelligence reforms can be made to these laws.
What will the Electronic Frontier Foundation's next steps be?
We currently have four lawsuits pending, two of which are for more information about the NSA's surveillance programs. We have one that concerns section 215, the provision of FISA that the government was using to collect the calling records of all Americans. And we have this lawsuit, the FISC opinion lawsuit, it remains to be seen if there are more records that are responsive to our request that the government may ultimately produce.
We also have two other lawsuits: One, Jewel v. NSA which has been pending since 2008 which challenges basically what was described in some depth in the Wall Street Journal yesterday -- the NSA's collection of communications information from telecom provider's fiber optic backbone. We're moving forward with that in September. We've also filed a new lawsuit last month called First Unitarian v. NSA and it challenges the domestic collection of call records.
Do you have any final thoughts today?
The one takeaway that I'd like folks to have is that the issues may be complicated, there may be a lot of new information that comes to light on different days and it may be difficult to keep track of, but it's really important that we get this right and we get it right now. People, if they're uncomfortable with the type of surveillance that's going on, with the things that they hear about, they need to speak up and they need to let their elected officials know that this kind of dragnet collection and bulk collection of their communications information just isn't acceptable. It's illegal, it's unconstitutional, and we have to put an end to it now.Days before the cash machine of the State Bank of India in south Delhi’s Sangam Vihar dispensed five notes with ‘Churan Lable’ on them, another ATM in Ghaziabad had dished out a fake Rs 2,000 note to an employee of a MNC.
The victim in this January 24 incident, 26-year-old Sidhant Shashikar, tried his best to recover his lost money, but the bank manager allegedly dismissed his allegations saying that all the notes are “sorted” before the ATM’s vault is filled. After reading about the fake notes at Sangam Vihar and police action after that, he is now set to file a police report.
Shashikar is employed as a network engineer in HCL Technologies and was headed to work when he decided to withdraw Rs 2,000.
Shashikar had stopped at an SBI ATM at the bank’s branch in Indirapuram’s Gyankhand area and used his grandmother’s PNB card to withdraw Rs2,000. The note that was allegedly dispensed at 8.57am was strikingly similar to the ones dispensed by another SBI ATM in south Delhi’s Sangam Vihar on February 6.
Spot the difference 1. Bharatiya Manoranjan Bank instead of Bharatiya Reserve Bank
Bharatiya Manoranjan Bank instead of Bharatiya Reserve Bank 2. Serial number 000000
Serial number 000000 3. Rupee sign missing
Rupee sign missing 4. Churan Lable instead of strip with leaf markings
Churan Lable instead of strip with leaf markings 5. P.K. logo instead of RBI seal
P.K. logo instead of RBI seal 6. I promise to pay the barer two thousand coupens (sic) instead of I promise to pay the bearer the sum of two thousand rupees
I promise to pay the barer two thousand coupens (sic) instead of I promise to pay the bearer the sum of two thousand rupees 7. Governor’s signature missing
Governor’s signature missing 8. Churan Lable instead of the Ashok emblem
Churan Lable instead of the Ashok emblem 9. Children Bank of India instead of Reserve Bank of India
Children Bank of India instead of Reserve Bank of India 10. Guaranteed by the Children Government instead of Gauranteed by the Central Government
“When I checked the note, I could not believe my eyes. It had the words ‘Churan Lable’, ‘Bharatiya Manoranjan Bank’ and ‘Children Bank of India’ written on it. I immediately realised something was wrong and showed it to the guard at the ATM before visiting the branch manager,” said Shashikar.
The bank manager, however, returned the hand-written letter to Shashikar by writing that the note in question did not pertain to them “as all the notes are sorted before replenishing them in the ATM”.
An angry Shashikar did not report to work that day and returned home to complain about the error and the bank manager’s alleged response to his aunt.
His aunt immediately shot off a mail to SBI officials at gm.customer@sbi.co.in, but allegedly received no response.
“There is no redressal system where I can seek help. Your customer care numbers have been constantly busy and not responding and not giving me the right choice. Your website is not opening,” she wrote in her mail.
The family said they did not approach the police as they had little hopes from them, but had safely kept the note with them all this while.
First Published: Feb 22, 2017 23:36 ISTAfter pouring three years of her life into making the film, and having great success with audiences at festival screenings, she now can't distribute it, because of music licensing issues: the film uses songs recorded in the late 1920's by singer Annette Hanshaw, and although the recordings are out of copyright, the compositions themselves are still restricted. That means if you want to make a film using these songs from the 1920s, you have to pay money — a lot of money (around $50,000.00).
It's a classic example of how today's copyright system suppresses art, effectively forcing artists to make creative choices based on licensing concerns rather than on their artistic vision.
The music in Sita Sings The Blues is integral to the film: entire animation sequences were done around particular songs. As Nina says in the interview, incorporating those particular recordings was part of her inspiration. To tell her — as many people did — to simply use different music would have been like telling her not to do the film at all. And that's part of her point: artists "internalize the permission culture", which in turn affects the kinds of art they make.
Sita Sings The Blues has been nominated for a "One To Watch" Spirit award and won a Gotham "Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You" award, as well as "Best American Feature" at the Avignon Film Festival, "Best Feature" at the Annency Animation Festival, and a Special Mention at the Berlinale. Famed film critic Roger Ebert has raved about it. But the film remains undistributable as of this writing; Nina is trying to work out an arrangement with the holders of the monopolies on the music that inspired her. If you'd like to donate to support Nina, you can do so here.
(2009-12-16: she eventually did pay them off, and then released the film under a free license. You can buy a DVD, or download it online. Buying a DVD directly supports Nina, as do donations obviously.)
Thanks to: Nina Paley for interviewing and for editing help; the Software Freedom Law Center for space and for logistical support; Light House Films for camera work, etc.
The full interview can also be played at the Internet Archive, and you can download it from there in a variety of formats.The new bike purchased by an anonymous donor in Dickson, Tenn. for a boy whose bike was stolen. (Photo: Submitted)
By Chris Gadd
The Dickson Herald
The story started off simply, and sad: A boy’s new bicycle was stolen in the Main Street area of Dickson.
A few days later, Cameron, age 5, who lives in Dickson City, Pa. will be receiving a new bike courtesy of an anonymous donor and diligent police in the City of Dickson nearly 900 miles away in Middle Tennessee.
The bike was stolen sometime Aug. 26-27. The boy’s aunt, Krystina Mecca, of Dickson City, Pa., sent a message to the local Dickson Police Department’s Facebook account by mistake seeking help with relocating the bike.
“(Cameron) said, ‘Aunt Krystina, I’ve never had such as good bike. This is my favorite bike,’” Mecca said. “He said, ‘Aunt Krystina, we should call the cops. He said, “Please call the cops because stealing is wrong.’”
Detective Chad Fussell, of Dickson, Tenn., got back with her quickly through Facebook. No phone calls were made – so no distinguishing Northeast and Southern accents could be heard.
But the Southern hospitality was noticed.
“He’s seriously the nicest police officer ever,” said Mecca.
Fussell, after their online discussion and still unaware she was contacting him from Pennsylvania, posted on the department’s Facebook page a photo of the stolen bike and asked for information relocating it.
An anonymous donor, after seeing the Facebook post, brought a brand new bike to the Dickson Police Department in Tennessee.
Fussell posted the good news on Facebook, writing that the donor was “the reason we love this town. You embody the spirit that is Dickson County. Let's all learn from this act of kindness and pay it forward to someone today.”
However, Mecca and Fussell were still not aware of the cross-country mix-up.
“I didn’t realize it until he wrote ‘You can come pick up the bike, and I went to (Pennsylvania) police station, which happens to be on Main Street also,” Mecca said. “The officer there…looked at me like I was nuts. He said, ‘Wait a minute. Did you contact Dickson City, Tenn. by accident?’”
“I said, ‘Oh no. I think I did,’” she added.
Mecca contacted Fussell and told him “not to worry about” after realizing the mistake.
“But that is not how we are in Dickson,” said Fussell, who noted that this isn’t the first time people have contacted the Dickson Police Department in the Midstate while trying to reach Dickson City police in Pennsylvania.
“When we set out to do something, we finish it,” Fussell added.
Walmart is working with the local police on accepting the returned bike and providing Mecca with a bike from the Walmart in her area.
“(Cameron) is going to be ecstatic when I tell him about it,” Mecca said.
Read or Share this story: http://tnne.ws/1UrWTuaAn estimated 4.5 million previously unemployed Americans have attained paid-positions in the last four months, qualifying their employers for the US tax benefits of the Government’s Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act of 2010.
On July 12th the US Treasury Department released preliminary results of the Government’s HIRE Act of 2010. According to estimates (on the date of publishing), 4.5 million long-term unemployed US citizens have attained work during the first four month of the program, potentially savings their employers billions in payroll taxes.
Under the HIRE Act, employers paying wages to newly-hired taxpayers between March 19th 2010 and December 31st 2010 are eligible for an exemption to the 6.2 percent contribution towards Social Security payroll taxes. An additional tax credit of USD 1000 will also be granted to the employer for every employee who is retained for longer than 52 weeks. The HIRE Act only applies to new employees who have previously been out-of-work in excess of 60 days.
According to US Treasury estimates, if every employee applicable for the HIRE Act is retained for a period of at least a year, employers will experience a cumulative USD 5.1 billion reduction in payroll tax obligations. However, by applying their commonly observed staff turnover rate, the Treasury estimates a tax saving of approximately USD 3.4 billion. The figure rises to USD 8.5 billion when the USD 1000 tax credit is considered. The estimates are expected to rise further during the year as the HIRE Act will continue to apply for the remainder of 2010.
The latest figures have sparked a fresh round of support for the tax incentive. Charles Schumer, Senator for New York and one of the original authors of the Act, has already begun weighing up a six months extension to the system. Some critics of the HIRE Act have outspokenly claimed that there is no way to gauge the effectiveness of the scheme and its direct impact on unemployment. However, economic analysts have pointed out that the average unemployment period for those falling under the HIRE Act is 10 months, indicating its effectiveness.
Photo by saebaryoGenome features of the Penicillium genus
The genomes of nine Penicillium species, P. antarcticum, P. coprophilum, P. decumbens, P. flavigenum, P. nalgiovense, P. polonicum, P. solitum, P. steckii and P. vulpinum, were sequenced, assembled and annotated as described in the Methods, and analysed together with 15 published Penicillium genomes (Supplementary Table 1). All genomes were 23.9–36.1 Mbp in size and contained 7,232–15,615 genes (Fig. 1). The genomes sequenced in this study generally showed characteristics similar to those of previously published Penicillium species, albeit P. steckii showed a slightly lower GC content (45.1%) than the rest, and P. decumbens had the smallest genome (Fig. 1).
Figure 1: Maximum likelihood phylogram and genome statistics of Penicillium species analysed in this study. The phylogram was determined from the protein sequence of 1,389 single-copy genes present in all genomes. Aspergillus nidulans was used as outgroup, bootstrap support is given from 100 bootstrap replicates, and the scale bar indicates the mean expected substitutions per site. Species marked in bold were sequenced in this study. BUSCO57 describes the completeness of the genomes by assessing the presence of ubiquitous fungal single-copy genes. ORFs, open reading frames. Full size image
Phylogenetic analysis showed that the 24 species clustered into seven clades, with P. decumbens, P. steckii, P. brasilianum and P. oxalicum being the most distinct species, representing Penicillium subgenus Aspergilloides (clade 7) (Fig. 1). The remaining species represented members of Penicillium subgenus Penicillium, with the recently discovered P. arizonense13 and the marine fungus P. antarcticum14 diverging earliest and representing section Canescentia (clade 6), while 18 species formed a closely related branch, and were divided into their recently redefined sections15, which was in agreement with the topology of the phylogram, that is, Fasciculata (clade 1), Robsamsonia (clade 2), Roquefortorum (clade 3), Chrysogena (clade 4) and Penicillium (clade 5) (Fig. 1).
Functional versatility
All 278,862 genes from the 24 species were clustered into orthologous groups based on protein sequence, and 3,249 gene families were shared by all species, hence representing the core genome, while 8,784 genes families were seen in a subset of the species (at least two) and represented the dispensable genome (Supplementary Fig. 1). A functional annotation using euKaryotic Orthologous Groups (KOGs) (Fig. 2a) proved that the core genome contained 39% non-metabolic and 37% metabolic genes, while the dispensable genome was dominated by 47% non-metabolic genes and 27% metabolic genes. The remaining genes were annotated within poorly characterized KOG categories. In the pangenome, secondary metabolism (Q) showed the greatest variation in gene content, followed by the remaining major parts of metabolism: carbohydrate metabolism (G), amino acid metabolism (E) and lipid metabolism (I) (Fig. 2a and Supplementary Fig. 2). Interestingly, secondary metabolism (Q) and carbohydrate metabolism (G) were mainly encoded in the core genome, while amino acid (E) and lipid metabolism (I) were more equally distributed among core and dispensable genes (Fig. 2a). We further analysed gene copy number relative to genome size, and showed that secondary (P = 0.003) and carbohydrate (P = 0.047) metabolic genes were enriched among gene families correlating with genome size (Supplementary Fig. 3). This highlights that these subsystems are under positive selection and drive the genome expansion in Penicillium, and also explains the high variation within these KOG categories. More specifically, the variation within secondary metabolism was mainly explained by variations in the content of cytochrome P450 genes (Supplementary Fig. 4), while carbohydrate active enzymes (CAZys) showed the greatest variation within glycoside hydrolases (GHs), ranging from 759 in P. arizonense, which was recently shown to encode a large number of CAZys13, to 321 in P. decumbens.
Figure 2: Functional analysis of Penicillium species. a, Distribution of proteins allocated to different subsystems as defined by euKaryotic Orthologous Groups (KOGs). KOGs are sorted according to standard deviation in the pangenome. KOG categories are as follows. For cellular processes and signalling, M is cell wall/membrane/envelope biogenesis, O is post-translational modification, protein turnover and chaperones, T is signal transduction mechanisms, U is intracellular trafficking, secretion and vesicular transport, V is defence mechanisms, W is extracellular structures, Y is nuclear structure, and Z is cytoskeleton. For information storage and processing, A is RNA processing and modification, B is chromatin structure and dynamics, J is translation, ribosomal structure and biogenesis, K is transcription, and L is replication, recombination and repair. For metabolism, C is energy production and conversion, D is cell cycle control, cell division and chromosome partitioning, E is amino-acid transport and metabolism, F is nucleotide transport and metabolism, G is carbohydrate transport and metabolism, H is coenzyme transport and metabolism, I is lipid transport and metabolism, P is inorganic ion transport and metabolism, and Q is secondary metabolites biosynthesis, transport and catabolism. b, Distribution of BGC classes. Each boxplot represents the distribution of a class of BGCs as defined by antiSMASH16. The class ‘Other’ contains BGCs that do not fit into any of the predefined categories of antiSMASH and rare BGC classes that were present in a few species only. In the boxplots, the box indicates the first, second and third quartiles and the whiskers extend to the lowest/highest value that is within 1.5 IQR (inter-quartile range). Full size image
Overview of BGCs
Secondary metabolism was further investigated by mining the genomes for BGCs using antiSMASH16 (Fig. 2b). A total of 1,317 putative BGCs were detected in the 24 genomes, corresponding to an average of 54.9 BGCs per species (median 55), with the highest number of 78 BGCs being observed in P. polonicum. The most abundant class was PKS BGCs, with 463 in total and an average of 17.2 per species (median 18), and the second most abundant class was NRPS BGCs, with 275 in total and an average of 11.3 per species (median 12). Among the hybrid BGCs, the majority (140 of 195) were PKS–NRPS hybrids. Interestingly, the species from clade 1 contained more terpene BGCs than the rest, and generally showed a high number of BGCs encoded in their genomes (Fig. 2b).
BGC diversity
The two major BGC classes in Penicillium were based on PKSs and NRPSs and these were, including hybrids thereof, grouped into gene cluster families using core domains of the backbone genes (in total 467 PKSs, 260 NRPSs and 71 PKS–NRPS hybrids). We used the most conserved regions, the KS domain of PKSs and the C domains of NRPSs, to serve as a proxy for the similarity of the entire BGC, because these domains have previously been shown to be good evolutionary determinants17, 18, 19.
To identify the diversity between the domains and to evaluate whether their similarity could be used to infer the similarity of BGCs, an all versus all alignment was performed (Fig. 3a). The majority of the KS domains showed a similarity between 20 and 60% identity, while the C domains were less similar and distributed mainly between 10 and 40% identity (Supplementary Fig. 5). However, a number of highly similar domains clustered together, and several of these generated super clusters, as indicated by the dark colours in Fig. 3a. These super clusters mainly represented PKSs with the same degree of reduction, or C domains with the same catalytic activity. The tendency to form distinct super clusters was more pronounced for the KS domains and might encompass PKSs generating scaffolds with similar chemical structure, as was observed (Supplementary Fig. 6).
Figure 3: Overview of the similarity of PKS and NRPS BGCs in Penicillium species. a, All versus all comparison of conserved protein domains (ketoacyl synthase (KS) and condensation (C) domains), based on pairwise sequence alignments. The KS domains were annotated based on the number of reducing domains in the corresponding PKS into either fully reducing (FR), partially reducing (PR) or non-reducing (NR). Clustering of the KS domains was based on a maximum likelihood phylogram. The C domains were annotated based on catalytic specificity into the following classes: ‘cyclic’, catalysing both peptide bond formation and subsequent cyclization; ‘DC L ’, linking an l-amino acid to a d-amino acid; ‘dual’, catalysing condensation and epimerization; ‘LC L ’, linking two l-amino acids. Clustering of C domains was based on Bray–Curtis dissimilarity. b, Network representation of PKS (left) and NRPS (right) BGCs shared by multiple species. Each node represents a domain and by extension a BGC, and the edges connect domains that are similar. Nodes are coloured according to the clade of the species and highlighted clusters represent gene cluster families mapped to the MIBiG database (Supplementary Data 1 and 2). Full size image
Based on a detailed inspection of the similarity of the domains (Supplementary Fig. 5), an empirical cutoff of 74 and 64% identity for KS and C domains, respectively, was chosen to select domains (and by extension BGCs) that were shared between multiple species (Fig. 3b). Among the KS and C domains, 81 and 77%, respectively, grouped into a gene cluster family, meaning that 104 PKS and 148 NRPS BGCs in the Penicillium species studied here were unique to one species. In all species analysed, we found examples of both unique and shared BGCs.
The putative products of the BGC pathways were predicted by mapping the KS and C domains to the MIBiG database20 of characterized BGCs, from which all fungal KS and C domains were extracted and aligned against the corresponding domains predicted in the Penicillium genomes. Among the predicted PKS-containing BGCs, 80 could be annotated to one of 21 different pathways (Fig. 3b and Supplementary Data 1). In the KS network, nine highly abundant gene cluster families were present in more than half the species, but only one of these could be assigned to a pathway, that is, biosynthesis of the green conidial pigment YWA1, which was found in all species. Second most abundant was a gene cluster family showing the same level of similarity to monodictyphenone and pestheic acid, which are both derived from emodin. Based on the low connectivity of this cluster in the network (Fig. 3b), we expect these pathways to have a diverse set of end products based on a conserved chemical core, similar to the emodin pathway in Aspergillus nidulans, which has been shown to encode more than ten different stable products21. Besides this gene cluster family, all other clusters in the network showed a high connectivity, indicating a consensus in the pathway predictions (Fig |
even worse than the ghettos – run by megalomanic men, promised everything and more by their dictator. These camps, localized in the region of Central Otago, were the only camps that could be considered truely fascistic. One of these camps was run by Tipene. — 17 January 1911 Nestorius looked worried over the news regarding the Pannonian, Bulgarian and Caucasus fronts. He attempted to look through the newspapers for something that would interest him. He found the article regarding the invention of the zipper very confusing. “Why does this article have the headline ‘Smokers rejoice!’ if it is discussing a device that binds the edges of an opening together?” he asked aloud. “Must be another error,” Hairini quipped.
Nestorius was reading a book about the Severan dynasty that ruled the Empire back in the late 2nd/early 3rd century. He motioned Hairini to come over and look at something in the book. She approached and saw him pointing at a section of text discussing the Constitutio Antoniniana. She was surprised by the information.
Senators, as always, thank you for your time.
17 February 1911
Senators,
On 23 January, Iraq agreed to Our demands.
But this good news was countered by the dire news from the Pannonian front. The legions, already weakened from their previous fights, were being severely battered by the Aquitaine forces and their poison gas attacks. We saw no other option to but to agree to the status quo and form a peace.
Of course, the legions were immediately attacked in the same location by a Polish army. But by the 10th of February, they had completely defeated that army the same way they had beaten the German one.
Fortunately On 5 February, the battle of Tulcea was decisively won, clearing the Bulgarian front. IV. Legio and XXIV. Legio immediately marched to free Moldavia from German control. But when they spotted a Polish army in the area, they immediately returned to their former defensive line.
We were not surprised to learn that during these perilous times, contact had been lost with the latest expedition to the South Pole. Nevertheless, We furnished a third expedition, if only to point to it as an example of the Imperial Spirit.
In other news, the humanities department at the University of Constantinople has announced a new major: political science. Students will learn the theory and practice of political systems.
And the school of business has become a proponent of what they are calling “human resource development”. It seems to be common kindness dressed up in a way to appeal to businessmen who only see their workers as a resource to be exploited. As strange as that approach is, We are pleased by anything that causes Our workers to be better treated.
In western Europe, Burgundy has made peace with both France and Aquitaine.
There were no newspapers considered worthy of the archives this month.
“This is terrible news. All those nations not seen for many centuries have returned to bedevil Europe, sneering at the Pax Romana. Disgusting!”
Bah, our Empire is so weaken and rotten from within, that two nations now have declared independence. We must move quickly to destroy them and purge the impure elements. We are the Roman Empire without Rome! -Senator Talbot Palaiologos
As always, Senators, thank you for your time.
17 March 1911
Senators,
On February 22, the Germans again struck the Pannonian line at its weakened point in Fiume. Again, the legions smashed the attacking army.
While this battle raged, IX. Legio defeated a German army that had tried to slip around the front in the east.
And in Bulgaria, IV. Legio and XXIV. Legio moved to defeat the Poles while not giving them the opportunity to slip past the front. The battle of Bacau proved most effective at blunting Polish power.
XXXV. Legio and XXXIX. Legio won their battle against the South African army, ensuring Our eventual victory in the region. Though it will take the occupation of the region before South Africa will admit this, We fear.
Fortunately, Israel finally admitted they were defeated and were reabsorbed into the Empire. Our initial assessment shows no crimes against the populace, and so only the leaders of the revolt will be punished. Our former administration, mediated through local synagogues instead of local churches, largely remained intact, and so needs not be replaced.
Slowly, the war moves in our favor.
The successes against these aggressors who would take advantage of our weakened state is welcome news. Soon we will push back the Germans, Russians, Poles, and many others and they will come to regret trifling with the Roman Empire. It is also good to hear that the Holy Land is secure once more. Hopefully this means troops can be moved to more contested areas. Also, does anyone want any toast? I made extra. – Senator Raphael Favero
“Oh, sure!” Theodora said. “Anybody want tea to go with their toast?” ((Private – Last month)) Theodora stepped through the corpse-strewn halls of the governor’s palace in Jerusalem her father had administered Israel from. Her father’s sword lay in her hands, drawn and bloodied. Any rebel scum who dared to oppose her was quickly cut down. But no matter how many rooms she searched, she could not find her brother. An Imperial soldier ran up to her. “Minister Doukas, we have secured the entire complex,” he said, “We have found no trace of your brother.” “Then tell Dalassenos to put the whole city on lockdown and put all legions in the province on high alert,” she replied, “The rebel scum will not escape my wrath for long.”
Sure! I have buddah if anyone wants some with their toast.
-Senator Marco
5th of March 1911; excerpt from Hairini’s journal “Things were quite calm, for the most part. One of the most worrying things, however, was how Lykidis has been acting around Nestor. In a conversation I overheard, I found out that Lykidis was, in fact, the descendant of a former Serbian ruling family. ‘Vukanović’, I believe. He planned on convincing Nestor of letting his son be Nestor’s senatorial successor, so that his family may once more rule over land lost as governors. A couple of hours later, he attempted to do just that, but Nestor stopped him dead in his tracks. He told him he didn’t want to hear anything about this until he was close to forced retirement. Michail was furious and ranted about how his family deserved it. Heraklides jumped in, pointing out how Lykidis’ family is descended from his, the ‘Vojislavljević’ family, and argued that they held that claim instead. Epimonopoulos mentioned how his family, the ‘Nemanjić’ family, derives from the main branch of the ‘Vukanović’, and that they held the claim instead. Alexidas pointed out his family, the ‘Branković’ family, descends from Epimonopoulos’ family via female line through marriage. And out of nowhere, Antecheirinidis jumped in and argued that none of them hold any true claim via family, unlike his family, the ‘Trpimirović’ family, who held more land in Dalmatia, which they all apparently want to govern. At this point, many of my fellow peers, such as Kojo Onobanjo, Sudarto Wanggai, Botros Damji and Dhaaniel Kurien, jumped in and told them no one cared. Nestor, frustrated by his friends all trying to claim themselves as worthy of the Dalmatian governorship, thanked his subordinates profusely for stopping the madness. For the rest of the day, everyone was quiet. The former friends were all glaring at one another. According to Kojo, Lykidis has told him in the time they’ve worked together that there are many Hellenized families in the Roman Empire, especially of regained lands. Their families had been at each other’s throats for decades now, as well at the throats of the other formerly non-Greek families. When I asked him on his thoughts on the matter, he just told me he didn’t care and that Nestor should adopt a child, just so Michail would stop ranting to him about this. That night, I heard ruffling from Nestor’s room. I quietly moved to the room’s door and slowly opened it to find Nestor having trouble sleeping. I sat down and talked with him; he was frustrated over the fact that his friends were chasing after his senatorial position. While Antiochos and Nicolaos apologized, he still couldn’t believe such old friends would do something like that to him. I myself was a bit frustrated as well, though that was mostly because of lack of sleep. In a moment of mutual frustration, I leaped onto Nestor. That night, both our frustrations disappeared.” — 17 March 1911 Nestorius and Hairini were glad to hear the news of Israel’s fall and of how the war was going. Hearing the offer for toast and tea, Hairini chimed in. “Two pieces of toast and cups of tea for us, please!” she asked politely.
17 April 1911
Senators,
On 19 March, Germany again attacked the force in Fiume. As always, they were defeated.
The legions took advantage of the temporary German weakness in the region to push the defensive line forward. By moving from Fiume to Pola and Karlovac to Postjana, the line would remain the same length, yet protect half of Istria. And then a short campaign up the coast might prepare the way to move the entire front to the eastern edge of the Alps.
On the eastern front, the legions continued to prove their superiority to the German and Russian forces.
In more governmental matters, the Imperial Bank has introduced another means of controlling the monetary system within the Empire.
Along other fronts:
In Moldavia, the legions are slowly reclaiming the region and placing it back under the civilian government’s control.
In west Africa, the entire region has been placed under the control of either Sokoto or the Empire. Its permanent disposition will be determined in time.
In south Africa, XXXV. Legio is working to reclaim Imperial lands, while XXXIX. Legio chases the South African army region to region, whittling its numbers and not giving it a chance to rest or recover.
And in Guyana, English forces are doing their best to take control of the region.
Good, good, we are finally achieving victory! May I ask the Emperor about my appointment as a general to an army? -Senator Talbot Palaiologos
It seems that Africa has calmed down and we are turning aside the forces of Germany and Russia. The momentum shifts in our favour. Soon we will push these aggressors back and crush the rebel states that defy us. – Senator Raphael Favero
Nestorius and Hairini looked quite happy after hearing the news. “Hopefully we will be able to push back the English from Guyana,” the former stated.
Senator Palaiologos, We will certainly appoint you as a general. And We think We will have the perfect opportunity for you to command within the month.(Day 1)
Tuesday
There were two interesting themes in the solar sessions this morning. The first was a really positive story about how instrumental differences between rival (and highly competitive) teams can get resolved. This refers to the calibration of measurements of the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI). As is relatively well known, the different satellite instruments over the last 30 or so years have shown a good coherence of variability – especially the solar cycle, but have differed markedly on the absolute value of the TSI (see the figure). In particular, four currently flying instruments (SORCE, ACRIM3, VIRGO and PREMOS) had offsets as large as 5W/m2. However, the development of a test-facility at NASA Langley the
University of Colorado, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder
Colorado – an effort led by Greg Kopp’s group – has allowed people to test their instruments in a vacuum, with light levels comparable to the solar irradiance, and have the results compared to really high precision measurements. This was a tremendous technical challenge, but as Kopp stated, getting everyone on board was perhaps a larger social challenge.
The facility has enabled the different instrument teams to calibrate their instruments, and check for uncorrected errors, like excessive scattering and diffusive light contamination in the measurement chambers. In doing so, Richard Wilson of the ACRIM group reported that they found higher levels of scattering than they had anticipated, which was leading to slightly excessive readings. Combined with a full implementation of an annually varying temperature correction, their latest processed data product has reduced the discrepancy with the TIM instrument from over 5 W/m2 to less than 0.5 W/m2 – a huge improvement. The new PREMOS instrument onboard Picard, a french satellite, was also tested before launch last year, and they improved their calibration as well – and the data that they reported was also very close to the SORCE/TIM data: around 1361 W/m2 at solar minimum.
The errors uncovered and the uncertainties reduced as a function of this process was a great testament to the desire of everyone concerned to work towards finding the right answer – despite initial assumptions about who may have had the best design. The answer is that space borne instrumentation is hard to do, and thinking of everything that might go wrong is a real challenge.
The other theme was the discussion of the spectral irradiance changes – specifically by how much the UV changes over a solar cycle are larger in magnitude than the changes in the total irradiance. The SIM/SOLSTICE instruments on SORCE have reported much larger UV changes than previous estimates, and this has been widely questioned (see here for a previous discussion). The reason for the unease is that the UV instruments have a very large degradation of their signal over time, and the residual trends are quite sensitive to the large corrections that need to be made. Jerry Harder discussed those corrections and defended the SIM published data, while another speaker made clear how anomalous that data was. Meanwhile, some climate modellers are already using the SIM data to see whether that improves the model simulations of ozone and temperature responses in the stratosphere. However, the ‘observed’ data on this is itself somewhat uncertain – for instance, comparing the SAGE results (reported in Gray et al, 2011) with the SABER results (Merkel et al, 2011), shows a big difference in how large the ozone response is. So this remains a bit of a stumper.
The afternoon sessions on water isotopes in precipitation was quite exciting because of the number of people looking at innovative proxy archives, including cave records of 18O in calcite, or deuterium in leaf waxes, which are extending the coverage (in time and space) of this variable. Even more notable, was the number of these presentations that combined their data work with interpretations driven by GCM models that include isotope tracers that allow for more nuanced conclusions. This is an approach that was pioneered decades ago, but has taken a while to really get used routinely.
(Days 3&4)(Day 5 and wrap up)
ReferencesUpdate (1/13/2016): Lawrence Phillips was found dead on Wednesday, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman confirmed to USA TODAY Sports.
The handwritten letters have arrived with the same return address: Lawrence Phillips G-31982, Kern Valley State Prison, P.O. Box 5101, Delano, CA 93216.
Yes, that Lawrence Phillips.
The star running back on University of Nebraska’s national championship teams in 1994 and 1995. A first-round pick, sixth overall, in the 1996 NFL draft. A convicted felon — sentenced to 31 years for driving his car into three teenagers and assaulting an ex-girlfriend — under suspicion for the recent death of his cellmate in a maximum-security prison 140 miles north of Los Angeles.
Authorities have said little about the investigation since finding the body of Damien Soward, a former gang member serving 82 years to life for first-degree murder, unresponsive in his cell on April 11. That same day, a second inmate was named as a suspect in the death of his cellmate in the prison designed to hold fewer than 2,500 inmates but that currently houses more than 3,700 inmates, a prison spokesman said.
Phillips, 40, appealing his sentence, has made no public comment outside of the courtroom in more than a decade. But USA TODAY Sports obtained copies of letters he has written over the past 18 months that offer insight into his state of mind and situation.
He wrote several of the letters to Tony Zane, who coached Phillips at Baldwin Park High School in Southern California. Phillips transferred to the school before his junior year, and Zane recalled starting him at wide receiver, rather than running back, in the season opener. “Shows you what I know,” Zane said with a chuckle.
Zane moved Phillips to running back that next game, and Phillips helped transform Baldwin Park into a powerhouse as the coach and player developed a strong and lasting relationship. Zane said he has regularly sent Phillips care packages that have included everything from a TV to gym shorts to snacks.
Here are Phillips’ letters to Zane and other coaches. (They have been edited for length and clarity.)
JAN. 14, 2014
Dear Coach Zane, How are you doing? I’m doing well. As you might have noticed on the envelope, I have been moved from the cell I was in. I spent some days in the hole for refusing to room with a gang member. They have now took my privileges, which include yard (exercise), canteen, vendor packages, and all personal property for 180 days. I will of course appeal this decision as I was refusing to room with gang members after already having had incidents with gang members. At any rate, I just wanted to write to you and let you know in case that the package I requested was returned. I have not received any mail since moving, so I do not know if you sent the package. They are supposed to re-route mail, but they usually don’t check and make sure they guy in the cell is the correct guy to receive the mail. At any rate, I will appeal the situation and I should get relief due to my several incidents involving gang members. We are on lock down at this time due to a murder and the stabbing of five other dudes. I hope you and your family are well and had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Several letters have been written to Ty Pagone, a retired vice principal and former football coach at Baldwin Park High. Phillips was living at a boys home when he transferred to Baldwin Park and Pagone helped Phillips get on track academically so Phillips would be eligible to accept college scholarships. Phillips and Pagone, a close friend of Zane, also developed a close relationship.
MAY 29, 2014
Dear Coach Pagone, We are still today on lock down due to some stabbings and assaults between black and white inmates. It has been ongoing for sometime. I am glad to hear Marie’s wedding was great. Usually an open bar leads to a lot of dancing. I do not have a cell mate. All of these dudes want to use drugs and (illegible) weapons in the cell. I’m in the process of applying for single-cell status. I will let you know how that goes.
Dear Coach Pagone, I received your letter and package a day apart. We do get the packages in lock down as the companies do not really want the items back. We have been in lock down about 80% of the time. You would be surprised at what these altercations are about! Nonsense! But when your world is this small all one has to care about is nonsense. That is why I do not want any of these idiots in the cell with me. All they they want to do is the drugs, make knives and make alcohol. Then they say when they get out they will not come back. I tell them of course you will. You are doing the same thing that got you locked up. Of course they do not want to hear that. It is like speaking to a brick wall. Now I understand how people must have felt talking to me. So needless to say I have zero friends inside here. Not one person is in line with my way of thinking. Well that’s all from here, Pagone. I will stay out of trouble. I might have to endure some write-ups for refusing a cell mate though. Better that than them getting me into serious trouble.
JULY 6, 2014
Dear Coach Zane, I hear you were in Hawaii. I am sure you had a good time. Remember when we went out there and kicked their butt in the all-star game and they tried to hold up our bus and all that crap? Good times. Well there is not much happening here. We are still on lock down because they found a hacksaw in someone’s cell. Apparently people use the saw to cut up the bunks and make knives. It is completely nuts in here. It is pretty much a free for all.
SEPT. 14, 2014
Dear Coach D, Huskers kicked butt out there. I only listened to the radio. The game was not televised here. (Nebraska running back Ameer Abdullah) has a real chance at the Heisman and the Huskers could win the Big 10, although the Big 10 is a bit watered down with the injury to O-State Q.B. (Braxton Miller). NFL is going through some stuff. Unfair to blame the NFL for what guys do. … These misdeeds by the players (are) being used by the liberal parties and the media to further their particular interests. Next they will be forcing out owners like they did with the Los Angeles Clippers owner (Donald Sterling). Well, there is nothing new happening here. We are still locked down. One of the guards was assaulted so it may be awhile. Coach D, this place is a jungle. Trouble everywhere. One must swallow his pride constantly or one will always be in the hole. But we must deal with the situation we put ourselves in.
APRIL 9, 2015
Dear Coach Pagone, I was able to get the necessary paper to prove that the court had made a mistake in closing my case in appeal. I was not informed of the ruling by the court and could not have responded in time. When I refer to prison lawyers, I am referring to guys who have been incarcerated for 20-30 years and have been in the courts for most of those years. They pretty much have a top notch legal education. Once you have been out of the hole for a certain amount of time you are cleared for a lower security prison. I have been cleared but I have not been moved. There are many people in this same boat. They say it is due to the overcrowding. On the Level IV yards, which is the highest level, not many people go home. Most have life or 30-40-50 years and in some cases 350 years. So not much new space opens. Hopefully my time will come soon.
Three days after sending this letter to Pagone, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, announced Phillips was a suspect in the death of his cellmate.
MAY 3, 2015Ireland's already dismal World Cup preparations suffered a fresh blow on Saturday night when the flanker David Wallace was ruled out of the competition. The Munster player suffered what is almost certainly a serious knee ligament injury when he crumpled under a Manu Tuilagi challenge in the first half.
"We don't know the exact prognosis yet, but it was a bad bang on the knee and unfortunately it will definitely rule him out of the World Cup," said Ireland's coach, Declan Kidney. "He took it like the man he is. These things happen unfortunately and you have to deal with them.
"He's 35 now but I've never seen a man as physically fit as he is right now, never. It's heartbreak for him and his family and extremely disappointing for us. It'll be good news for someone else which is the cut-throat nature of sport.
"We obviously have contingency plans, that's why we brought 44 into training. I don't think it would be appropriate for me to give out any names. We'll do that once we've made the decision and informed all the relevant people."
The mood in the room had been decidedly lighter when Martin Johnson had sat in the same chair as Kidney 15 minutes earlier. That unmistakeable frown that had been so deeply rutted after the Wales match was gone, and he even managed to crack the occasional smile.
"We knew we needed to perform and step up from the last two games," said the England team manager. "We really wanted to turn opportunities into points and that's what we did.
"We had a little blip for 10 minutes when we lost control, but we overcame that and defended really well at the end. I thought we adapted really well to the conditions.
"I just want to say well done to the boys because we had a lot of disruptions with injuries. We lost Tom Wood and Nick Easter, but we handled it very well. It could have been an easy excuse but we didn't use it as one. We handled the whole thing really well and I'm just extremely pleased. The challenge now is to build on this win."
Mike Tindall, the England captain, was even chirpier. The last time the big centre was in this stadium he saw a grand slam slip between his fingers, so not surprisingly he took a good deal of satisfaction from making amends this time. "The way that we approached this game we knew we had to win to get on that game [against Argentine at the World Cup] in good condition. We spoke last night in a team meeting about the feeling we had here after the Six Nations and after the defeat to Wales.
"I thought the way the boys fronted up at the start was excellent. We didn't give Ireland the strong start that they had in the Six Nations. We kept the pressure up all the way through. There were patches when they had the ball and were on top, but our defence was outstanding.
"The physicality the forwards showed around the breakdown and after lineouts was outstanding. It was hugely encouraging for us every time they kicked to the corner and got nothing from it."
The England captain also made a point of complimenting the explosive impact that his centre partner Tuilagi had on the match. "You saw the raw power that Manu's got and the raw talent, and every time he takes the field in that shirt I think he's going to grow and get better and better.
"He's just a hugely powerful guy, but he's got great pace as well, so he's a huge asset. You know that if there's nothing else on you can just throw it to him and he'll make hard yards. Everyone played their part today though and it's a hugely satisfying result.
"It's hard to put into words just how important a win like that is because it's vital to go to a World Cup with momentum and we're all looking forward to getting out there now. "Another high-profile naval officer is speaking out against having the U.S. Navy's fleet of cruisers equipped with ballistic-missile defense capabilities. Adm. John Richardson, the current nominee for chief of naval operations, said he supported stripping Navy cruisers of the sea-based missile defense system, Politico reported.
As the Navy planned to take 11 of its cruisers out of service for a multiyear modernization and remove ballistic-missile defense capability from five vessels as part of the upgrade, the popular, expensive and increasingly ill-adapted system has become a contentious issue.
Thirty ships were currently participating in the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, which is designed to intercept short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles and is widely seen as a critical part of providing missile protection to the U.S. However, the costly Aegis system, built by Lockheed Martin, ultimately restricts the movement of the Navy by limiting the number of ships able to perform other, more pressing tasks and missions. The systems also take up a large part of the naval budget.
Other Navy officers have echoed Richardson's sentiments. "Would I love to give this to somebody else?" Rear Adm. Peter Fanta, the Navy’s director of surface warfare, asked rhetorically in a June conversation with reporters, Breaking Defense reported. "It would greatly alleviate the pressures on my budget."
WASHINGTON: Sometimes success is its own punishment. Shooting down ballistic missiles is one of the Navy’s most... http://t.co/41elyTmuBZ — Geopol Intelligence (@GeopolIntel) July 2, 2015
Despite supporting stripping naval cruisers of ballistic-missile defense capabilities, Richardson has been a big proponent of the Navy's submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The Pentagon's inspector general cleared Richardson of allegations that he engaged in improper lobbying for the new ballistic submarine program July 21 after he called for attendees at a trade show to try to sell lawmakers on the replacement Ohio-class nuclear submarines, Politico reported.
Naval officers have supported Richardson as a candidate for chief of naval operations, stressing his experience and knowledge of problems currently facing the military branch.
"I think he's going to look at how to solve challenging problems using the insights of those around him," a three-star admiral told Navy Times about Richardson's nomination for the operations job. "He's got a unique style and a unique ability -- he's very smart, very quick and very personable, and if people offer him an opinion and perspective, he'll listen to them."
The United States began building three land-based missile-defense systems in Romania in 2015, as part of its broader defense program.Welcome to Dear Julia, a weekly column where readers can submit everyday health questions. Which over-the-counter painkillers work best? Is it better to run or walk for exercise? How much harm does frequent flying do to your body? Julia Belluz will sift through the research and consult with experts in the field to figure out how science can help us live happier and healthier lives.
Have a question? Use our submission form or ask @juliaoftoronto on Twitter.
Are probiotics actually worth taking? Is there any science suggesting that they're effective?
Perhaps you've seen over-the-top ads for probiotics — live yeasts and bacteria that you can take for a rainbow of wonderful effects: "Strengthen your natural defenses!" "Burn fat and flab!" "Improve gastrointestinal function!"
The first thing to know about probiotics is that most of these ads are wildly exaggerated. As UpToDate, the guide to medical research for physicians, put it dryly: "Enthusiasm for probiotics has outpaced the scientific evidence."
But that doesn't mean probiotics are useless. There's actually decent evidence that they can be effective to treat specific ailments. And it's quite possible that scientists could find more promising uses for probiotics in the future. We just have to look carefully at the evidence and not buy into the hype.
Let's start by understanding what probiotics are supposed to do. Every human being is colonized by millions of microorganisms in his or her body, including bacteria, viruses, and yeast. Scientists once thought these microbes were mostly harmful. But nowadays, the consensus has shifted. Our microbial colonies — or "microbiome" — actually help us survive and thrive. That's where the phrase "friendly bacteria" comes from. And sometimes if we kill off too many of these friendly bacteria (say, because we're taking antibiotics), it can have adverse effects.
That's where probiotics come in. These are essentially live microbes you can buy in supplement, powder, fermented milk, or yogurt form that consist of yeast or bacteria (particularly lactobacillus acidophilus). The idea is that when you consume probiotics, they enhance or restore a proper balance in our microbiomes — bringing back that friendly bacteria and boosting our health.
This isn't a crazy idea. The catch is that right now, scientists still haven't identified what a "good" or "bad" microbiome actually looks like. (It doesn't help that all people's microbiomes are different and often changing, depending on things like diet.) So they can't be sure how probiotics actually work, which probiotics to take, and at what dosage.
At this point, all scientists can say is that probiotics do seem to help treat certain ailments — even if they don't yet understand how that happens.
One systematic review, published in JAMA in 2012, found that probiotics can reduce the risk of diarrhea associated with antibiotic use. There's also compelling evidence that probiotics can help treat infectious diarrhea in children and adults, modestly shortening the duration of illness. In constipated people, it seems probiotics can boost the frequency of bowel movements.
But these findings are still pretty circumscribed. Many of the other popular claims about probiotics — that they treat irritable bowel syndrome, prevent allergies, or help with weight loss — remain unproven. This recent review debunked the notion that probiotics add diversity to the gut. The researchers rounded up the findings of seven randomized control trials, and found no evidence that probiotics had an effect on the microbioata composition in feces from healthy humans.
"We don't know which probiotics are the most useful"
What's more, there are important caveats about the research base generall: The bulk of probiotic studies are small and use different doses and types of supplements, so extrapolating from this evidence is really difficult. Sydne Jennifer Newberry, a nutritionist and evidence reviewer at RAND Corporation who has studied probiotics, puts it this way: "We don't know which probiotics are the most useful. We don't know if it depends on which antibiotics people are taking. And the ones you buy off the shelf have no quality control."
That last point is important. Just because some probiotics can treat ailments doesn't mean that the probiotics in your grocery store will be effective. In the United States, probiotics are regulated as food or supplements, not pharmaceuticals, so none of the wild claims on their packaging need to be backed up by evidence. (For more on just how unregulated the supplement industry is, see here.) Many of the probiotics sold in stores have never even been studied in humans.
As Pieter Cohen, a professor at Harvard Medical School who studies supplements, told me: "The problem is that if anything is sold as a dietary supplement, who knows what's actually in it." He added, "There is likely a role for probiotics, but until the laws are reformed so we're assured what's on store shelves, we can't trust that what's on the label is found in the bottle."
Yogurt is a perfect example. While many yogurts are advertised as a good source of probiotics, the reality is rather murky. Some yogurts may not have many probiotics at all, since the bacteria often don't survive the pasteurization process. And since food is regulated much more lightly than drugs, you also can't really trust the label. Activia does not have to make sure, for instance, that every carton of yogurt is equally chock-full of the microorganisms it claims to contain on its packaging. (Making things worse, the Federal Trade Commission has caught yogurt manufacturers making misleading claims in the past.)
So it's perhaps unsurprising that when the European Food Safety Authority put food companies' health claims about probiotics under a microscope, it rejected nearly every one, finding none of the bacterial strains examined were proven to do the things they promised, like boosting immunity or gut health. As a result, according to Nature, "The EU stated that after December 14, 2012, food and nutritional supplements companies will no longer be allowed to communicate health benefits for their products on account of probiotic content."
So what does this all add up to?
"Probiotics probably do no harm except to your pocketbook"
The available data suggests that probiotics are generally safe to take (although you should consult your doctor before taking them — especially if you've got an immune disorder). "There's probably no harm except to your pocketbook," says Newberry.
But if you do decide to try them, consider seeking out probiotics that have at least been studied in humans. This guide to probiotic supplements, recommended to me by Gregor Reid at the University of Western Ontario, is helpful, listing the products that actually have evidence behind them.
In the future, as researchers gather more evidence and deepen their understanding of the microbiome, we may find more uses for probiotics. Perhaps one day they could prove a promising treatment. For now, though, don't expect any miracles.
Send your questions to Julia via the submission form or @juliaoftoronto on Twitter. Read more about Dear Julia here.News in Science
Tarantula venom to kill cotton pests
Toxic tarantulas Chemicals from the venom of the Australian Tarantula spider could one day be sprayed on, or engineered into, cotton and other crops to keep pests at bay.
Biochemist Professor Glenn King, from the University of Queensland, and colleagues, report their findings today in the journal PLOS ONE.
"It has been assumed that spider-venom peptides are not orally active and are therefore unlikely to be useful insecticides," write King and colleagues.
"Contrary to this dogma, we show that it is possible to isolate spider-venom peptides with high levels of oral insecticidal activity."
Development of pest resistance to existing chemical insecticides is a major problem facing agriculture.
One approach has been to turn to nature to find new chemicals that could kill pests.
For example, cotton crops have been sprayed with, or engineered to express, the bacterial Bt toxin.
Spiders are another natural inspiration for insecticides. After all, says King, "they're the best insect killers on the planet".
But the question has always been whether eating the chemical would kill insects.
Although spiders have been killing insects with their venom for over 250 million years, there has been no evolutionary selection pressure for venom toxins to have oral activity since they are injected into prey and predators via a hypodermic needle-like fang.
Until now, no one had ever tested whether venom toxins were orally active.
King and colleagues extracted peptides from the venom of the Australian tarantula (Selenotypus plumpies) and fed them to a number of insects.
"We found that they were orally active and that was the exciting thing," says King.
The current paper reports on one of five newly-discoverd peptides, called OAIP-1, which the researchers found was able to kill cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera) with a potency similar to that of the synthetic insecticide imidacloprid.
The peptide was also active against mealworms, which attack stored grains.
Such pests reduce global crop yields by 10 - 14 per cent annually |
national attention to more pressing matters. Subsequently, the temperance movement wayned. Moral suasion had proved to be both difficult and frustrating. So after the War, temperance […] Read More
Dry Counties Have Higher DWI Fatality Rates Dry counties have higher DWI or DUI fatality rates than wet counties. That is, alcohol prohibition or dry counties have higher rates of alcohol-related traffic deaths than do wet counties. Here are the results from three states. There are many examples. Here are three. I. Arkansas A study of all counties in Arkansas found dry […] Read More
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Alcohol Facts:Hello w0rld! JUMPSEC researchers have spent some time on the glibc DNS vulnerability indexed as CVE 2015-7547 (It hasn’t got a cool name like GHOST unfortunately…). It appears to be a highly critical vulnerability and covers a large number of systems. It allows remote code execution by a stack-based overflow in the client side DNS resolver. In this post we would like to present our analysis.
Google POC overview
Google POC Network Exploitation Timeline
Google POC Exploit Code Analysis
First response
The dw() function calls a “struct” module from python library. According to the documentation, it performs conversion between python values and C structs represented as python strings. In this case, it interprets python integer and pack it into little-endian short type binary data. This is a valid response sent by the “malicious” DNS server when it receives any initial queries. This response packet is constructed intentionally in large size (with 2500 bytes of null), it forces the client to retry over TCP and allocate additional memory buffer for the next response. This also triggers the dual DNS query from getaddrinfo() on the client side, which is a single request containing A and AAAA queries concatnated.
Second Response
This is the second response sent by the malicious DNS server. It is a malformed packet sending large numbers of “fake records” (184 Answer RRs) back to the client. According to google, this forces __libc_res_nsend to retry the query.
Third response
This is the third response sent by the “malicious” DNS server. It is another malformed packet which is carrying the payload. JUMPSEC researcher has modified the Google POC code to identify the the number of bytes to cause a segmentation fault (possibly overwriting the RET address) of the buffer. It is found that the RET address is being overwritten on the 2079th byte. With the addition of return_to_libc technique, an attacker can bypass OS protection such as NX bit or ASLR and perform remote code execution.
Google POC debugging and crash analysis
JUMPSEC has run it through the trusty gdb. It crashes with a SEGMENTATION FAULT which verifies that the DNS response has smashed the stack of the vulnerable client application when running getaddrinfo(). The vulnerable buffer is operated in gaih_getanswer. The entry address has been overwritten with 0x4443424144434241 (ABCDABCD). The state of the register also showing the overflowed bytes.
JUMPSEC has also tested it on a few other applications. It was found that the getaddrinfo() function in glibc is commonly used…
Conclusion
The best way to mitigate this issue is to enforce proper patching management. Make sure to update all your systems with the latest version of glibc. If you have any systems exposed on the internet and you want to make sure that this vulnerability is not triggered then the following Wireshark filter could be useful: (DNS.length>2048 to see malformed packets). A DNS response has a maximum of 512 bytes (typically), note that the DNS reply is truncated. Even if the client does not accept large response, smaller responses can be combine into a large one which can also trigger the vulnerability. A possible filter is to monitor the size of the entire conversation as a distinct amount of bytes in total is require to trigger specific responses from vulnerable client and all of them requires more than 2048 bytes.
The above vulnerability can be fixed by patching. If you are running RedHat or CentOS a simple
yum -y update glibc
will update the libc and resolve the issue (remember to restart the service right after the update!).
Reference links
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2015-7547
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/freeaddrinfo.html
https://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/cve-2015-7547-glibc-getaddrinfo-stack.html
https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2016-02/msg00416.htmlYour Newborn
Changing your baby’s nappy is easy – you just need to stick to a routine. Here’s a guide for how to do it:
Have everything you need to hand – changing mat, cloth, wipes or cooled, boiled water, cotton wool, nappy disposal bags, and a couple of fresh nappies.
Choose a suitable nappy change spot: somewhere that he can’t roll off, and where you don’t have to strain to reach him, as your back muscles are still vulnerable.
Lie your baby on his back and undo the nappy. Lift your baby gently by holding both his feet and remove the used nappy, using it to wipe away as much solid waste as possible.
Carefully and gently wipe over your baby’s nappy area, paying special attention to skin folds. You can use a wipe, or warm water and a cloth or cotton wool. For girls, wipe from front to back, to keep germs away from the vagina. For boys, clean around the penis and testicles, but don’t pull back the foreskin. Check for nappy rash.
If necessary, dry your baby carefully with cotton wool or a dry cloth. Letting him kick his legs in the warm, dry air is a good way of reducing nappy rash.
Open out the nappy and slide your fingers down the side of the nappy to lift up the leak guards.
Lift your baby’s legs up and place the clean nappy underneath (with the grip tabs at the back), so he’s lying on it. The absorbent, soft side of the nappy should go against his skin, and the top edge of the nappy should be about level with the middle of his back.
Bring the front part of the nappy up between his legs and spread firmly around the tummy. If you have a boy, point his penis down in the nappy.
With one hand holding the nappy gently on baby, open up one Grip Tab and attach it to the front of the nappy. Huggies Nappies and Huggies Newborn Nappies for your new baby both feature tabs that can be fastened anywhere on the front of the nappy. Repeat for the other side.
Reposition the Grip Tabs to adjust the fit of your baby’s nappy so they are comfortable. Double-check that the nappy is not too loose or too tight. Put your baby somewhere safe while you wash your hands and tidy up.
If your baby’s cord stump is still attached, fold the front of the nappy down to avoid this area.
HUGGIES® Newborn Nappies are Australia’s No. 1 newborn nappy, and have been awarded Gold in the 2015 Mother & Baby Awards for ‘Most Popular Disposable Nappy (0-3years)’!
Disposal
Remember if there are any solids in the nappy, dispose of these in the toilet. The used nappy can be rolled into a tight ball using the Grip Tabs to seal it.
DO NOT flush the nappy down the toilet.
The general rule for newborns is to change your baby about as often as you feed him. A lot of mums will change their baby in the middle of each feed. However you usually don’t have to do it at every night feed.
Right from the start, your baby’s nappy-changing time is a good time to have a ‘conversation’, as well as being a necessary part of the care you give. You’re face to face with each other – so sing, tickle, talk and have fun!
Here’s where you can find more information about the entire Huggies Product Range to help make nappy change time easier.
Changing your newborn's nappies View all videos
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A decision to upgrade ERP cannot be made lightly. Deloitte practitioners present some practical advice for navigating the hazards.
Upgrading or enhancing ERP systems can be a sensitive topic in many organizations, and for good reason. Organizations have spent significant financial and political capital to reach their current state with ERP; careers have been made (and lost) based on the outcomes. ERP comprises a sizable percentage of IT spending and has an even larger influence on business operations. A decision to make changes to ERP will likely attract intense scrutiny from business leaders and should be approached with caution.
But that doesn’t mean CIOs should hold back. Vendors are getting ready to roll out the next potentially disruptive wave—one that offers transparent and competitive costs and widespread access. How can you position your organization to benefit from vendor enhancements to ERP while navigating the potential hazards?
Here are some suggestions:
Experiment at the edge. Explore opportunities to adopt revamped ERP engines in areas that surround your core transactional layer—in business intelligence or analytics, for example. Additionally, use the adoption of the revamped engine to introduce new disciplines that may have immediate business impact—for example, creating new capabilities around big data to improve customer sentiment or salesforce effectiveness.
Experiment at the core. Explore opportunities to run core workloads more affordably and on much less gear. Similarly, performance leaps in run times offer opportunities to rethink traditional limits on batch windows, run-book sequencing, and even business cycles.
Catch up with technical upgrades. If you’ve hedged against technical upgrades and are generations behind the latest versions, now’s the time to get compliant, before you're asked to support a business agenda that requires an ERP engine with more horse power.
Understand vendors’ competing approaches. Today’s leading vendors are placing different bets. SAP focuses on extensibility and ubiquity, while Oracle emphasizes convergence and integration. The various cloud players seek to create disruptions on the edge that will bleed into the core. The burden is on each organization to understand vendors’ plans and articulate their own business vision in similar terms. They can then invest where the plans and visions are clearly aligned, and make intelligent bets where there is uncertainty.
Evangelize. Become a change agent by asking what the business can do differently and how the organization’s mission can be better served. Understand the implications of the “what” and “how” so you don’t oversimplify the migration effort or promise too much. Vendors and partners can provide benchmarks and scenarios for use cases to help you understand the potential business impact of making foundational changes. Examples from competitors and other industries are helpful, but use cases for your own business are even better.
*****
While technology considerations are clearly central to pursing ERP enhancements, more important questions relate to business performance. What would you do differently if you could close your books in seven seconds instead of seven days? How would your sales strategy change if thousands of store managers could each execute daily sales forecasts? What could you learn from real-time monitoring of the social sphere around your industry? A new ERP engine can give you the tools to answer these questions and more.
—by Bill Allison, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and Richard Kupcunas, director, Deloitte Consulting LLPThe sun’s energy is difficult to get a hold of – and even more difficult to hold on to. Now chemists have developed molecules with the capacity to create and store substantial amounts of solar energy that may also be released on demand. This is after research by Anders Bo Skov, a master’s student collaborating with the University of Copenhagen’s (UCPH) Center for Exploitation of Solar Energy.
Until recently, storage of solar energy has proven fickle and troublesome: the stubborn molecules would offer only slight enhancements in storage capacity, without increasing the length of storage time as desired. However, now they have been able to shed light on the molecular mystery that had remained experimentally elusive, according to Anders Bo Skov:
“The problem has always been that the energy couldn’t be stored for a long enough time, and not enough could be stored for it to be viable. My system can store energy for years without losing a significant amount of energy. There was a parent system, which had the properties of 100kJ/kg and the energy could be stored for a few days. My new system is better because the energy can be stored at 250kJ/kg for 114 years,” he says to the University Post.
Need key to release energy
The entire research team, run by Professor Mogens Brøndsted Nielsen, works with the so-called Dihydroazulene-Vinylheptafulvene (DHA/VHF) molecular system, which effectively stores energy by changing shape. The system works by undergoing photoconversion between the yellow molecule DHA and the red VHF. This recent success has boosted the group’s efforts to increase the energy of this system.
Anders Bo Skov is doing his master’s at the University of Copenhagen
Despite having found a way to enhance the storage time, Skov says they still have their sights set on improvement:
“We need the key to release the energy. So far we can only store it for 114 years. We want to make energy stored in VHF much less stable than DHA, so that VHF will release the energy. I’m working on different ways to make DHA more stable. We have the goal to double the amount to 500kJ/kg.”
Breaks down into ‘chamomile flower’ component
The breakthrough also has the potential for lessening the hazardous impact of technology and creating greater environmental efficiency.
Lithium batteries, which are composed of harmful acids, bases, and poisonous metals, are a commonplace in electronics today, especially mobile phones. The positive potential of Skov’s system is that it offers a way to gather and store solar energy without carbon dioxide and other toxic byproducts. In this way, there is an opportunity to develop this system into something applicable to energy consumers, offering sustainable solar energy.
“So, we want to use it for solar heat batteries. All batteries today are toxic to the environment while this system is powered only by sunlight and is completely non-toxic to the environment. When it breaks down, [my molecule] turns into a component similar to that found in chamomile flowers,” Skov says.
universitypost@adm.ku.dk
Do you have a good story? We would like to hear from you. In the meantime, like us on Facebook for features, guides and tips on upcoming events and follow us on Twitter for links to other Copenhagen academia news stories.Update: Portland Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioner Steve Novick will be taking questions today at 2 p.m. Tell us what you want to know, and see what each is saying about the decision to delay.
Portland Commissioner Steve Novick made it official Tuesday morning: a vote on the city's controversial street fee is getting delayed until November.
Novick's confirmation came a day after The Oregonian reported that Novick and Mayor Charlie Hales were considering calling off Wednesday's scheduled City Council vote.
Officials heard more than 5 ½ hours of testimony about the street fee, much of it negative, during a public hearing last week. Novick and Hales had already decided to delay a vote on the business side of street fees because of pushback.
Now, Novick said Tuesday on the "Thank You Democracy with Jefferson Smith" radio show, he and Hales are postponing the street fee vote indefinitely.
"As of this morning, we're also going to delay the residential," he said.
The street fee, as originally constructed, was expected to raise up to $50 million a year. Most homeowners were expected to pay $11.56 a month and businesses would have paid based on the type of business, square footage and projected vehicle trips.
Hales and Novick have not responded to requests for comment since Tuesday. At 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, Hales' office released the following statement:
***
The proposal by Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioner Steve Novick to launch a street fee in 2015 remains on schedule. However, the council vote on how to structure the fee will be pushed back until November.
"We have not taken care of our largest asset: our streets. We have to change that," Mayor Hales said. "We've been talking about this for 13 years, and we held several town halls this winter and spring to hear from people. Despite that, many constituents still haven't been heard yet. We get that. Postponing the Council vote will give people time to weigh in on whether this is the best solution to this dire need, and to consider changes to make it work better."
"The last street free proposal in 2008 was derailed by a lobbyist filing a referendum petition," said Commissioner Novick. "This one has been temporarily delayed due to concerns voiced by small business owners and low-income people and advocates. We are in a hurry to get to work, but if we're going to be delayed, it's for the right reasons."
The City Council on Wednesday will still vote on referring a charter change that would lock in the use of any street fee for transportation purposes.
"Voters need to be assured that we will spend this money the way we say we will," Hales said. "A charter change will ensure that we stay true to that commitment, administration after administration."
However, the council vote on both the residential fee, and the non-residential fee, will be pushed back to November.
Further public forums will be scheduled to hear from residents and the business
community. And two work groups will be formed. Their charges:
* To analyze city policy regarding low-income residents and fees. The work group will look at the street fee as well as fees for other city utilities, including water and sewer, to see how well low-income residents are being served and how widely discounts can be applied.
* To further engage with small business, nonprofit and government partners on design and implementation of the fee.
"Think of this as a track race," Hales said. "We haven't moved the finish line, which is July 2015. But we're moving the starting blocks. We heard from the community: We are taking our time to hear a more robust debate on the details of this fee. But we have not wavered in our resolve. It is our intention to finally address our deteriorating streets."
*
Reading:
The Oregonian: Boon or bust? What happens when McDonald's considers building -- in east Portland
The Oregonian: In heart of east Portland neighborhood in need of jobs, is McDonald's the answer?
Portland Tribune: City pins plans for water fix on panel
-- Brad SchmidtSafari 6 brings improved performance and many new features to OS X, including offline reading lists, a unified search field and support for Do Not Track. What seems to be completely gone from Apple’s site now, though, is any mention of the Windows version of Safari. Indeed, it looks like Apple has removed all download links for Safari from its site for the time being. This could be because Apple is currently highlighting Safari’s new features in Mountain Lion (which pre-installs Safari 6), or because Apple has indeed ended development of Safari for Windows. Windows users can still download the old version from Apple, but the link is hidden on the company’s support page.
Apple launched the first preview version of Safari for Windows in 2007 and the first stable version arrived in 2008. Despite some innovative features, Safari never caught on with Windows users. Google’s Chrome, which is based on the same WebKit browser engine as Safari, on the other hand, quickly became one of the most popular browsers on the market. As MG noted last year, it only took Chrome a year to surpass Safari’s market share.
It was always obvious, though, that Safari for Windows was not a priority for Apple and users often complained that Safari (just like Apple’s other Windows applications) felt unnecessarily bloated and slow. Maybe Apple decided to put Safari for Windows on the back burner for now and focus on getting it right on OS X, but it’s curious that every reference of the Windows version is now gone from the site (with the exception of a number of support articles).
We have reached out to Apple and will update this post once we find out more.A new startup has launched a drone service in San Francisco to deliver prescribed medications to residents' doors within 15 minutes - including medical marijuana.
QuiQui (pronounced Kwi-Key) operates 24 hours-a-day and users only need to pay for the cost of their medication, plus a $1 (60p) delivery charge.
"We can't ring the bell, but we'll meet you outside," says the company's website, which explains that it has decided to launch the drone service in the Mission district of San Francisco as the lack of tall buildings and generally flat landscape makes it much easier for the flying drones to get around.
The company is working with local pharmacies in San Francisco to deliver your prescriptions and says it chose pharmacy items because they're typically very small and easy to transport. Carrying larger items would not be commercially viable it says.
Obviously there is a risk that potentially dangerous drugs could fall from the drones but QuiQui says that its drone have "patent pending software to mitigate their damage in the event of catastrophic failure" and if it should "accidentally drop your order in a tree, we can help you with that too."
FAA ban lifted
On 6 March, an administrative law judge for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) lifted a ban on the commercial use of small drones, which had been in existence for the last six years.
Raphael Pirker, the founder of a video recording company called Team BlackSheep that uses flying drones to capture footage, was slapped with a $10,000 fine by the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) in 2011 for using the drones at the University of Virginia.
The judge's ruling has overturned the fine and the FAA is not happy.
The FAA said in a statement: "The FAA is appealing the decision of an NTSB Administrative Law Judge to the full National Transportation Safety Board, which has the effect of staying the decision until the Board rules. The agency is concerned that this decision could impact the safe operation of the national airspace system and the safety of people and property on the ground."
QuiQui has been working on the technology for two years in the hopes that the FAA would one day change its mind and come up with a list of clear guidelines for commercial drones.
Drone open season
"We didn't expect the FAA to lose their lawsuit," the company said.
"Multiple members of our team are aviators and have great respect for the FAA and NTSB. They've done great work in making aviation safer not just in America, but all over the world. If they appeal and win, the team will abide by their rules and jurisdiction."
For now though it's open season, and QuiQui is trying to make sure that the Mission's residents are disturbed as little as possible.
"We understand that drones cruising around the neighbourhood may not be well received. We've worked extra hard to make sure our drones are quiet and respectful of the neighbourhood. For example, we avoid schools and parks on our flight paths," QuiQui said.
"Our drones have patent-pending software to mitigate their damage in the event of catastrophic failure. If you accidentally drop your order in a tree, we can help you with that too."Jon Ossoff and Karen Handel ( Erik S. Lesser/European Pressphoto Agency; David Goldman/Associated Press)
The June 20 election for the suburban Atlanta seat vacated by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price remains tight, with a survey from a Democratic polling firm finding Democrat Jon Ossoff one point ahead of Republican Karen Handel — well within the margin of error.
The poll, conducted early last week by Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, found Ossoff up 48 percent to 47 percent over Handel, running strongest among those “who voted in 2016, but had not voted in 2014.” In April 18’s closely watched first round, Ossoff won 48.1 percent of the vote; Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state who has narrowly lost two recent bids for statewide office, won just 19.8 percent of the vote.
In a tweet, the pollster celebrated the numbers as good news for the first-time Democratic candidate.
Our latest poll for @ossoff This is what you get when you have a great candidate who gets Dems excited. The last 3 Dems averaged 36%. https://t.co/Z9zhE2bjGi — John Anzalone (@JohnAnzo) May 2, 2017
But Republicans, surprised by their underdog status in a seat that has been deep red for more than 30 years, are encouraged by any sign of Handel consolidating votes. She has not nabbed the endorsement of Dan Moody, a former legislator who ran fourth in the primary, but she enjoyed a burst of donations after the first round and a burst of attention when President Trump arrived in Atlanta for the National Rifle Association of America conference and a fundraiser.
“You’d better win,” the president joked to Handel, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Heading into the runoff’s third week, Handel also had the endorsement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which went on the air with a TV ad attacking the Democrat as a “Hollywood” candidate, a theme in ads from the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is aligned with Speaker of the House Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.).
But none of that has budged the numbers in the Ossoff-Handel showdown. In polls taken before April 18 that asked about a hypothetical runoff, Ossoff either trailed Handel or led by one or two points. But polls underrated Ossoff’s first-round vote total. The final pre-primary surveys put Ossoff’s runoff vote projection at 42 percent; he outperformed that and came within a few thousand votes of outright victory. The final pre-election poll, conducted by Opinion Savvy, found Ossoff and fringe Democrats getting 42.1 percent of the total district vote; on Election Day, the party’s candidates won 49 percent of the vote.LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - A deal between the European Union and Canada to share airline passenger data must be revised as parts of it violate privacy and data protection laws beyond what could be justified for fighting terrorism, the EU’s top court said.
FILE PHOTO: A plane is silhouetted against the sun as it lands at Fiumicino International airport in Rome, Italy, April 3, 2016. REUTERS/Max Rossi/File Photo
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) said that while transfer, retention and use of passenger data was allowed in general, the envisaged rules for handling sensitive personal data “are not limited to what is strictly necessary”.
The EU’s 28 states and Canada negotiated the deal in 2014 but the European Parliament - where the collection of data including names, travel dates, itineraries and contact details, has been debated fiercely - asked for the ECJ’s position.
“The PNR (passenger name records) agreement may not be concluded in its current form because several of its provisions are incompatible with the fundamental rights recognized by the EU,” the court said on Wednesday.
The ruling will come as a blow to governments in Europe who have stepped up their arguments in favor of data retention after a spate of militant attacks over the past years.
The bloc’s security commissioner, Britain’s Julian King, told a news conference in Brussels he would speak to his Canadian counterparts later in the day about “what we’re going to do to take account of the points” raised by the ECJ.
“Exchanges of information such as PNR are critical for the security of our citizens, and the European Commission will do what is necessary to ensure they can continue in accordance with the Court’s opinion and in full respect of fundamental rights.”
“UNACCEPTABLE” RISKS
The EU also has a PNR agreement with the United States and Australia, as well as an internal one, and they could face challenges in light of the ruling.
The European Digital Rights group campaigning for protecting rights and freedoms in the digital environment, welcomed the ruling saying that authorizing massive databases of sensitive personal data carried “unacceptable” risks.
“The proposed EU/Canada PNR agreement was considered to be the least restrictive of all of the EU’s PNR agreements. To respect the ruling, the EU must now immediately suspend its deals with Australia and the United States,” it said.
The ECJ said PNR data can reveal travel and dietary habits of people, their existing relationships, health conditions and financial situation.
The agreement allows Canada to keep this data for up to five years and possibly share it with other non-EU states, which the ECJ said constituted an “interference with the fundamental right to respect private life” and to personal data protection.
Privacy advocates says the schemes are ineffective in battling terrorism while infringing people’s privacy.
The ruling comes after the court’s adviser said last September that the deal with Canada had to be redrafted before it could be signed because it allowed authorities to use the data beyond what is strictly necessary to combat terrorist offences and serious transnational crime.
On Wednesday, the ECJ specified that a reworked agreement should spell out more clearly the types of data that can be transferred and must ensure that automated analysis is non-discriminatory and relates exclusively to fighting terrorism and cross-border crime.Bombshell emails released by Judicial Watch on Monday show that in June 2009, two longtime Hillary Clinton friends and donors asked the then-secretary of state for help for a “major client.”
The emails, which were not among the records that Clinton gave the State Department in Dec. 2014, show that Clinton aimed to help her two associates, Kevin O’Keefe and Kevin Conlon.
“Let me know when you are well enough for me to ask you to do a couple of things,” O’Keefe, a Chicago-based attorney and former Bill Clinton White House official, wrote to Clinton on June 25. She was recovering from an elbow injury at the time.
Clinton wrote back, but the State Department redacted her response. O’Keefe responded, writing that Conlon “is trying to set up a meeting with you and a major client.”
Conlon runs a public relations firm in Chicago. He served as co-chair of Clinton’s 2008 Illinois campaign operations.
In his email on behalf of Conlon, O’Keefe also asked Clinton to keynote an event for Richard Daley, then the mayor of Chicago, where O’Keefe works and where Clinton was born.
Clinton obliged O’Keefe and Conlon.
“Can you help deliver these for Kevin?” she wrote to Huma Abedin, her deputy chief of staff at the time.
The emails provided to Judicial Watch are from Abedin’s email accounts. They were released just hours after The Washington Post reported that the FBI found nearly 15,000 documents on Clinton’s private email server which she did not give the State Department in 2014.
Clinton has claimed that she gave the State Department all of the work records she had in her possession at that time. She ordered her lawyers to delete all of the other documents contained on the server.
The State Department will not start releasing the 15,000 documents until October, just weeks before the general election.
The newly released emails provide further evidence of Clinton’s pattern of providing favors for donors, friends and political allies, according to Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton.
According to Judicial Watch, O’Keefe has donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Conlon has raised more than $100,000 for Clinton’s campaigns.
“These new emails confirm that Hillary Clinton abused her office by selling favors to Clinton Foundation donors,” Fitton said in a statement. “There needs to be a serious, independent investigation to determine whether Clinton and others broke the law.”
Judicial Watch also released emails on Monday which show that Clinton Foundation adviser Doug Band coordinated with Abedin to set up a meeting between Clinton and the Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain. As of 2010, Salman had pledged at least $32 million to the Clinton Global Initiative, an arm of the Clinton Foundation.
Earlier this month, Judicial Watch released emails from Abedin’s account which show that Band asked for favors on behalf of Gilbert Chagoury, a Nigerian-Lebanese billionaire who has donated at least $1 million to the Clinton Foundation.
The Clinton campaign announced last week that is the former first lady is elected president, the Clinton Foundation will stop taking donations from foreigners.
Follow Chuck on TwitterO.J. Simpson held on to the knife he may have used to kill his ex-wife and her friend and is now trying to sell it for a handsome price, an anonymous source told the National Enquirer.
The story, which appears in the tabloid's latest print edition, quotes the source who is "close to Simpson's inner circle" as saying the knife is stashed in the Bahamas. Simpson reportedly wants $5 million for it.
“[O.J. is] looking for a strictly cash deal so that the money can be deposited in offshore accounts and can’t be traced directly to him," the source said, according to the New York Post. "O.J. said he’d reveal the location once a firm deal — for a minimum of $5 million — was reached.”
The Daily Mail reports that an unnamed wealthy memorabilia collector is interested in purchasing the knife.
Hollywood Gossip lists several questions left unanswered in the Enquirer's report, including "How could he possibly have hidden it from police then and held onto it for this long?" and "How is he negotiating that deal from a maximum security prison cell?"
Simpson is currently in prison after being convicted of a 2007 armed robbery in Las Vegas.
Simpson was found not guilty of the murder charges in 1995. A murder weapon was never found.
In a civil trial that followed, a jury held Simpson responsible for the deaths of his ex-wife and her friend, Ronald Goldman. He was ordered to pay the victims' families $33 million in damages.
Back in 1995, the hall of fame football player hatched another apparent money making scheme to make cash off the trial's notoriety. He applied for trademark rights to use his name on a laundry list of products, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Simpson's request could have resulted in the production of trademarked kitchen knives with the name "O. J. Simpson" etched on the handles, according to the St. John's Law review.
Simpson's application was denied.In this photo taken Thursday, June 29, 2017, Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin, right, attends the Government swearing in ceremony at the Serbian Parliament building, in Belgrade, Serbia. Vulin has praised a convicted war criminal for his role in the defense against NATO's 1999 intervention in Kosovo, saying the Balkan country no longer has to be ashamed of a bloody crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia’s defense minister on Saturday praised a convicted war criminal for his role against NATO’s 1999 intervention in Kosovo, saying Serbia no longer has to be ashamed of a bloody crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists.
The remarks by Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin illustrate Serbia’s increasing defiance of the West. Serbia is formally seeking European Union membership but at the same time is edging closer to longtime Slavic ally Russia.
“The time of shame is gone. It’s time for a quiet pride,” Vulin said in the central Serbian town of Nis.
He was flanked by former Gen. Vladimir Lazarevic, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison by a U.N. war crimes tribunal for atrocities committed by Serb troops in Kosovo during NATO’s bombardment, which stopped the crackdown.
Lazarevic, the commander of Serb troops during the Kosovo war that left some 10,000 people dead and thousands homeless, was released from prison after serving two-thirds of his sentence.
Vulin said Lazarevic and other Serb soldiers who fought in Kosovo “have the reason to be marked as the best among the best and the bravest among the brave.”
Moscow has backed Belgrade’s bid to maintain its claim over Kosovo — a former Serbian province that declared independence in 2008 with the support of Washington and its allies.
Serbia has never recognized the independence of Kosovo.When Hillary Clinton was leading Donald Trump by 7 or 8 percentage points nationally, her Electoral College map seemed expansive. States like Virginia and Colorado were out of Trump’s reach. South Carolina and Georgia seemed competitive. Even a Clinton win in Texas seemed less like a fever dream and more like just an optimistic projection. The map seemed like Clinton’s friend.
But Trump’s chances have been on an upswing the last couple of weeks and rose again Thursday on strong national and state polling. He now trails by only a couple of percentage points. And the tighter the race gets, the less favorable the map looks for Clinton. Indeed, Clinton does not have a meaningful advantage in the Electoral College, as President Obama did in 2012.
Four years ago, Obama defeated Mitt Romney by 3.9 percentage points. But even if the national popular vote had been closer, Obama had a pretty big cushion in the Electoral College. Let’s say the race had been 3.9 percentage points closer and Obama and Romney had tied in the popular vote. So let’s make every state 3.9 points more Republican-leaning. Obama won Pennsylvania, for example, by 5.4 points. After our adjustment, he wins by only 1.5 points. Georgia would go from a 7.8-point Romney win to an 11.7-point one. And so on. If we do this in every state, we find that Obama would still have carried enough states to win the White House. If you were to continue to take points away from Obama in the popular vote margin and adjust the state margins accordingly, you’d find that he would have had to lose nationally by 1.5 percentage points to lose the Electoral College.
This exercise — imagining a tied race nationally and then shifting the states accordingly — is useful for getting a sense of the political leanings of each state independent of the overall political environment. You can see from above that Pennsylvania was only the lightest shade of blue in 2012. Georgia was safely red. And the playing field overall was tilted in Obama’s favor — there were more blue-leaning electoral votes than red.
The reverse may be true in 2016 — Clinton’s support is less optimally distributed than Obama’s, according to current polling.
Clinton leads Trump by 2.2 percentage points in the national popular vote, according to our polls-only forecast. Trump has already shaved several percentage points off Clinton’s advantage; let’s imagine that he shaves off a couple more. If the race in |
him to quit. Instead, having spurned the U.S. debate while spending a secretive summer in Malaysia and the Middle East, Rauf returned to New York on the eve of Sept. 11, to pronounce that unless his mosque gets built near Ground Zero, Americans might expect from the "Muslim world" a new wave of destructive fury.
We used to call this kind of stunt a protection racket. The message here is one of implied violence. Not that Rauf himself would do anything violent, mind you. He'd just like his audience to know that if Americans don't knuckle under and get with his program for Ground Zero, he can't be responsible for whatever devastation the "Muslim world" might inflict on his behalf. "My life has been devoted to peace-making," he told CNN's O’Brien.
In his CNN interview, Rauf also said that had he anticipated the pain his Cordoba House project would cause, he would not have started down this road. That turned out to be a throwaway remark. He then implied there is no going back, lest it result in -- here's that threatening element again -- "greater conflict."
Really? All Rauf has to do is announce that he is in the market for a venue less inflammatory and quite possibly more convenient for his planned community palace with mosque and swimming pool -- though less likely to land him a permanent pulpit on global TV news. Far from trying to shut down Rauf's plans for an Islamic center, New York Governor David Paterson has offered to help him relocate, at taxpayer expense. On Thursday, real estate magnate Donald Trump offered to buy out the Burlington site, in cash, for 25% above what Rauf's developers paid, provided they build their mosque at least five blocks from Ground Zero. Apparently that would be too great a compromise for Rauf and his partners. They just keep saying no.
As for any anger that might boil up in the Muslim world should Rauf decide to build his Cordoba House a few blocks further from Ground Zero, why, here was a real opportunity for the Kuwait-born, Egyptian-fathered, Arabic-speaking naturalized American Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to do some genuine peace-making. Instead of warning Americans to toe his line or brace for something "very, very, very dangerous," Rauf could quite as easily have devoted his air time to backing down and issuing a public call for tolerance from that same Muslim world.
In battening on to the crater of the destroyed Twin Towers, Rauf and his partners are getting the publicity ride of their lives. They are exploiting the site as an amplifier for their own agenda, never mind who gets hurt. With their newly acquired megaphone, what are they broadcasting to the world? Rauf’s wife and business partner, Daisy Khan, who covered for him in New York during his summer excursions abroad, seized the opportunity last month to make a televised denunciation of America as a place “beyond Islamophobia.” Now comes Rauf, with his pronouncements on CNN that if his Cordoba House doesn’t go up near Ground Zero, Americans had better worry – even more than they do already -- about “national security.” The "peace" he would bring to Ground Zero now smacks of an extortionist's chilling instructions: Do it my way, or else.Yep. It’s happening. L.A. Noire, Rockstar’s 1940s crime thriller is coming to PC.
“L.A. Noire is a new type of game that makes players see through a detective’s eyes in 1940s Los Angeles,” said Rockstar’s Sam Houser. “Its unique blend of story, action and crime solving will be perfect to play on PC.”
It’ll arrive in the Autumn. Other details below.
Rockstar says:
The PC version of L.A. Noire was developed by Rockstar Leeds. It will run on a wide range of PCs and feature customization, including keyboard remapping and gamepad functionality to both optimize and customize the performance and user experience. Along with increased fidelity and improved graphical enhancements, the PC version will feature 3D support for an even greater sense of interaction and immersion within a painstakingly detailed 1940s Los Angeles.
Red Dead Redemption would be perfect to play on PC, too…Nick Giambruno: The inevitable breakdown of the European Union and the massive financial crisis it could trigger is an important theme for us right now.
I’ve just spent weeks with my boots on the ground in Italy. The country has enormous public debt levels, and its banking system is on the verge of collapse.
Italy could trigger the collapse of the entire EU, which could start an irreversible trend. It’s a sign that globalism—the secular religion of the Deep State—is a failed ideology.
By globalism, I simply mean the centralization of power into global institutions: the EU, the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank, NAFTA, GATCA, NATO, and so forth. Globalism is really just a polite way of describing world government, or what George H.W. Bush termed the New World Order.
I’m skeptical of government on any level, especially the global government. Speculator (High Groun... Doug Casey, John Hunt Check Amazon for Pricing.
Most people never bother to consider what “globalism” actually means. The mass media simply asserts the idea of globalism as though it were a permanent fixture in the universe, beyond discussion.
Nonetheless, I think the breakdown of the EU represents a failure of globalism. It also appears to be planting the seeds of increased nationalism.
Now, my question is: Is nationalism a lesser evil than globalism?
Doug Casey: First, that’s a great definition of globalism that you just gave.
But before I answer the question, we have to also define nationalism.
Nationalism is, most importantly, a psychological attitude. It amounts to making your nation-state a major element in your life, where you view yourself not so much as a human being or an individual, but as an Italian or an American or a Congolese or Chinese or what have you. Nationalism makes you see yourself, and others, as part of a collective.
Of course, there are different flavors and degrees of nationalism. “Patriotism,” for instance is automatically considered a good thing, wherein you reflexively support what your nation-state does. But it’s really just a euphemism for nationalism. It’s nationalism made righteous, with overtones of hearth and home, as opposed to politics. Then you get “jingoism” when patriots get overenthusiastic. The connotation of words is often just as important as their formal definition. Think: “I’m a freedom fighter, you’re a rebel. He’s a terrorist.”
I think it’s a mistake to automatically give your loyalty to any large group that you belong to just through an accident of birth. For instance, should you have been a Soviet patriot just because you were born in the USSR? Should you have been a German patriot while the Nazis were in power?
Myths, Misunderstandings and Outright lies about owning Gold. Are you at risk?
Nationalism amounts to saying “my nation-state is the best in the world because I happen to have been born there.” It’s really a very stupid psychological aberration because it places an accident of birth above much more important things like your ethics, desires, and attitudes. I don’t, by the way, necessarily favor or disfavor people because of their nationality, but only because of their character, beliefs, and actions. Although sometimes in today’s world, their nationality can give you a clue as to their character, beliefs, and actions…
Nationalism, no matter what flavor, can be a very dangerous thing. It brings people down to the lowest common denominator. It encourages groupthink. Unfortunately, it’s probably a condition with genetic roots, so it’s hard to cure. At best, you can probably just minimize the size of the groups it affects.
So, ideally, the world would have about seven billion little nations. Then everyone could, quite rationally, be as nationalistic or patriotic as they want. But nationalism is not nearly as dangerous as globalism.
That’s because globalism is the idea that all the power in the world should be centralized. You don’t even get a choice of what kind of nationalism you might prefer. It means power is further concentrated into the hands of the kind of people that constitute the Deep State.
Nick Giambruno: I agree.
The situation is very different than it was just 25 years ago. Back then, globalists thought they had the whole thing wrapped up.
Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, illustrates this well. The book proposed the ridiculous and now discredited notion that we were approaching the endpoint of humanity’s sociocultural evolution and the final form of human government.
The End of History and... Francis Fukuyama Best Price: $3.70 Buy New $9.98 (as of 08:55 EST - Details) Doug Casey: Fukuyama is a professional neoconservative intellectual. His book impressed me in two ways. Neither good.
First, its central thesis—that today’s version of so-called “liberal democracy” is the final evolution of politics and economics—is at once naïve, dangerous, and stupid. It’s amazing that someone who’s supposed to be a historian actually believes that conflicts between major nation-states have come to an end because everybody now shares the same worldview. Which is also untrue.
The other thing that impressed me was how Fukuyama’s notions have become so popular among television’s talking-head intellectuals and the kind of people who read The New York Review of Books and The Atlantic magazine. Ironically, I include myself among their readers. Although I read them mainly to find out what the enemy is up to.
The fact that his view—essentially that the U.S. had triumphed—became so widely accepted, was the bell ringing at the top of the market, just after the USSR collapsed. People only become so arrogant at the peak, just before they head downhill. The Romans felt that way in the second century, the Spanish in the 16th century, the French before Napoleon invaded Russia, the British in 1914, the Germans in 1940. The Russians in 1980. It’s typical and predictable.
Fukuyama is representative of a whole class of what might be called “court intellectuals.” He now collects fat speaking fees from think tanks and NGOs, of which there are hundreds in the U.S. alone, most located within the Washington Beltway. It’s a whole ecosystem, populated by people who see themselves as “the best and brightest.” They pretty well dominate the media, academia, and government. They all promote each other and feather each other’s nests. Since they’re the “elite,” the average person feels safe parroting their thoughts. But they’re really just propaganda outlets, funded by foundations, whose donors want to give an intellectual patina to their views. He’s a mouthpiece for globalist views.
People like him are mostly what I call Running Dogs, acting as a support system for the Top Dogs in the Deep State. Their product is “public policy recommendations.” Which have a huge influence on how much tax you have to pay, what new regulations you have to obey, and what foreign adventures the U.S. Government gets involved in.
They’re no friends of the common man. Or the concept of individual liberty.
Nick Giambruno: Yes, indeed. Most think tanks do nothing but advocate for more welfare, warfare, money printing, and regulations. They nurture the psychological soil of big government.
I’m sure you recall the pivotal role certain think tanks played in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War. In reality, think tanks are nothing more than lobbying organizations. Albeit ones with a thin academic facade, which they use to get a special tax-exempt status.
As for the failure of globalism, the jury is still out on whether it will strengthen nationalism and the nation-state or if power will decentralize further into smaller political entities.
For example, Scotland might try to break away from the UK again; Catalonia could secede from Spain. These are just a few of the increasing number of secessionist movements around the world.
I think the long-term trend is that both globalism and the nation-state are on their way out. In the meantime, do you think a resurgence of nationalism will give the nation-state a second wind?
Doug Casey: I think the trend is not towards a few big nation-states, as George Orwell posited in his book 1984, but in the opposite direction. He was right in so many ways, but I’m glad he was wrong about that. The globalists would, however, agree with what Orwell foresaw.
The globalists essentially want to see a world government. And they’re working towards that through formal organizations such as the UN, the EU, the IMF, and the OECD. And informally, through groups such as the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, and the World Economic Forum.
My argument, however, is that the breakup of the Soviet Union was only the first straw in the wind. Most of the world’s big nation-states—and even the little ones—are going to disintegrate over the next few generations. Besides the USSR, we’ve seen Yugoslavia break up. And Czechoslovakia. And Sudan. Brexit is another indicator.
There are now dozens of little or large secessionist movements all over Europe. Africa is made up of 50-some nation-states. All of them, with the exception of Egypt, Ethiopia, and a couple of others, are completely artificial constructs put together in the boardrooms of Europe in the 19th century. The continent will eventually break up along tribal lines, into hundreds of entities. So will the Middle East and Central Asia. In fact, this is true of almost the whole world. I question how long either the U.S. or Canada will stay together for that matter. All political entities have half-lives.
Al Stewart got it right in “On the Border”—which is, incidentally, a fantastic song: “On my wall, the colors of the maps are running.”
Mankind has gone through three main stages of the political organization since Day One, say 200,000 years ago, when anatomically modern men appeared. We can call them Tribes, Kingdoms, and Nation-States.
In prehistoric times, the largest political/economic group was the tribe. Since men are social creatures, it was natural enough to be loyal to the tribe. It made sense. Almost everyone in the tribe was genetically related, and the group was essential for mutual survival in the wilderness. The local group was all that counted. “Others” from alien tribes, were not only in competition for scarce resources, but they might want to kill you for good measure. Tribalism is probably genetic—it’s a survival mechanism. Patriotism for your tribe also served a survival purpose, because you were always fighting with the neighboring tribes. You wanted your co-tribalists to be loyal and patriotic…
In the Kingdom phase, from around 3,000 B.C. to roughly the mid-1600s, the world’s cultures were organized under strong men, ranging from petty lords to kings and emperors. With kingdoms, loyalties weren’t so much to the “country”—a nebulous and arbitrary concept—but to the ruler. You were the subject of a king, first and foremost. Your linguistic, ethnic, religious, and other affiliations were secondary. Tribal leaders who were good warriors conquered neighboring tribes and set themselves up as kings.
Then came the nation-state, one of the mankind’s worst inventions.
It seems that most people naturally want, and maybe even need, a leader. It must be some kind of innate atavism, probably dating back to before humans branched out from the chimpanzees about three million years ago. Most people, it seems, like being led, and giving their loyalty to something bigger than themselves. Maybe that helps give their lives meaning… In any event, over the last few hundred years, it’s become fashionable to pledge allegiance not to a ruler or a king, but to something called the “State.”
Today’s prevailing norm is the nation-state, a group of people who tend to share a language, religion, and ethnicity. Like a gigantic tribe. The idea of the nation-state is especially effective when it’s organized as a “democracy,” where the average person is given the illusion he has some measure of control over where the leviathan is headed.
I think, however, that the nation-state is approaching its end game. What will replace it? I think Neal Stephenson was right in his superb novel The Diamond Age, where he put forward the idea of “phyles.” It no longer makes sense to be loyal to a group just because they have the same government ID that you do, or because they were born in the same bailiwick. I don’t feel any particular loyalty to the people living down the road in the trailer park, or in the barrio, or the ghetto, or the next town. As a matter of fact, they’re likely adversaries and liabilities. We’ve got little in common.
I feel more loyalty to people with whom I share values—and they could as easily be in France, or Burma, or the Congo as the U.S. Now, with the internet, modern telecommunications, and jet travel, we can find each other. Birds of a feather will wind up forming phyles, obviating the nation-state.
Nick Giambruno: Most people simply accept the nation-state as a normal part of life—like gravity or the sun setting in the west. They don’t realize it’s a man-made beast that’s only been around for a couple hundred years, tracing its origins to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.
This is an incredible moment in history. We could live to see the dissolution of the Westphalian world order.
I agree with you. Good riddance to the nation-state.
I was recently in San Marino, a mountainous microstate enclave surrounded by Italy. It’s a relic of the Kingdom phase you mentioned.
San Marino is the oldest sovereign political entity in the world. It gained its independence from the Roman Empire in the year 301 and has kept it ever since… surviving Napoleon, the unification of Italy, WWI, and WWII. It has wisely avoided being absorbed into the EU.
It was remarkable to see a “country” that predated the nation-state by over 1,300 years. It felt like the local people actually cared about the place. It was clean. There were no riff-raff, migrants, or freeloaders that I could see. You got the feeling you were a guest on someone’s private property. Tourists and locals alike were respectful.
It was a sharp contrast to being in a public space in any other nation-state. Some, like the New York City subway, seem like giant, filthy public toilets at times.
Anyway, you often hear the media and the government use the term “failed state.” I find it curious. How would you define a “failed state”?
Doug Casey: It must be a government that doesn’t control its bailiwick, that doesn’t do the things that a government is “supposed” to do. But, in my view, there are very few things a government should do. That’s because the essence of government is a force. And, in a civilized society, force should be kept to a minimum. So the only legitimate function of government is to protect you from force. Which implies an army to protect you from violence from outside of its borders, police to protect you inside of its borders, and a court system to allow you to adjudicate disputes without violence.
But those three functions are actually far too important to be left to the state or the kind of people that inevitably go to work for it. So the only three things that it can legitimately do are the very three things that are too important to trust it with. It’s almost a contradiction of terms. In point of fact, there’s nothing the State does that shouldn’t be left to entrepreneurs and a voluntary market.
Nick Giambruno: I think you hit the nail on the head.
As you’ve noted before, the essence of government is coercion. The state is simply a group of people who have the monopoly on force in a certain geographic area.
Therefore, a “failed state” is one in which that monopoly is broken.
And that’s pretty much the situation in countries the media and U.S. government call failed states… Libya, Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and so forth. None of those countries’ central governments have a monopoly on force within their geographic borders.
Libya is the perfect example. It’s a completely arbitrary political entity that Gaddafi held together strictly through brute force. It was entirely predictable that Libya would unravel after NATO toppled Gaddafi. No other entity could maintain a monopoly on coercion once the central government lost it. Thus, Libya became a “failed state.”
That’s why I think it’s a revealing term. It’s an implicit recognition that the nature of government is force and coercion and not benevolence.
Personally, I’m not a fan of the term “failed state.” It implies that every square inch of the world should be organized into nation-states.
The media often uses another problematic term, “rogue state,” as an ill-defined pejorative. It might be more accurate to call a “rogue state” a “disobedient state,” akin to the United States in 1776.
What’s your take on all of this and how it relates to the sustainability of the European Union?
Doug Casey: Good points. And almost all states in the world are on the point of failure because almost all of them are bankrupt. They’ve issued far more debt than they can ever repay. They all compel their subjects to use fiat currencies, but all of those currencies are in the process of being destroyed, since governments, through their central banks, are issuing them by the trillions now.
Governments the world over provide less and less in the way of services that people actually want and need—and most of those they’ve usurped, as they always have, from the market. Since they’re mostly bankrupt they’ll be increasingly unable to provide useful services. So I expect we’ll see more internal turmoil around the world in the years to come. And more wars, as governments blame each other for various problems. You’ll find more states going rogue for that reason.
This is all bad news. But the good news is that—possibly—we’re at the cusp of seeing the concept of the state itself debunked. And the state replaced by a more rational form of social organization. Continuing advances in technology will enable the individual, as they always have, to decrease his need to rely on the State.
So there’s real cause for optimism.
Nick Giambruno: Any final thoughts?
Doug Casey: Unfortunately, it’s likely to be a bumpy road getting from here to there.
Nick Giambruno: I agree. Most people have no idea how bad things can get when a government goes out of control, let alone how to prepare…
The coming economic and political collapse is going to be much worse, much longer, and very different than what we’ve seen in the past.
That’s exactly why Doug and I just released an urgent video. Click here to watch it now.
Reprinted with permission from Doug Casey’s International Man.
The Best of Nick GiambrunoA few weeks ago this blog explained how Arsenal’s Champions League qualifications have been living on luck as of late, and understandably a few Arsenal supporters took issue with the article’s conclusions. Some wanted more details on the statistical methodology used within the article, while others seemed unwilling to accept that teams being tightly bunched around a few point totals in the table meant luck played a role in how the table turned out. Surely other factors like goal differential and the teams' play that was behind the goal differentials must have had some role in where each of the teams ended up relative to each other, right?
Such commentary provides a great way to examine how our view of results ex post facto via single point data summarizing an entire season (points, goal differential, etc.) erroneously colors our view of how things happened. Using such summary data within the league table gives us a false sense of just how deterministic things are within the league, and provides us with only a single view of the multiple realities that were equally possible but just didn’t happen because of random events falling one way versus another.
It all starts with the fundamental flaw in the way one traditionally views the league table. Originally constructed when space on a newspaper page was valuable and sports statistics didn’t necessarily help drive ad revenue, fans who consumed the weekly league table could have been forgiven for being more interested in a match summary's flowery language than demanding the basic table tell them anything more than who was in the top four or five teams versus who was fighting off relegation. All that mattered then was showing the order of the teams and a few summary statistics of how that order had been derived, but in presenting teams in equidistant vertical spacing the league table presents the erroneous message of uniform compactness to this day. As an example, see the final 2012-13 Premier League table below, where none of the compactness in the second through fifth teams jumps out at the reader along with the parity found further down the table.
The step function in financial rewards and reputation enhancement based upon certain finish positions makes club comparison by table position even more flawed. Examples of such step functions include a Top Four finish that equates to tens of millions of British pounds of Champions League revenue, while avoiding the drop and staying in the Premier League guarantees another year of at least forty million pounds in television revenue. These step functions in revenue cause us to pay far more attention to table position than we should when the core of our focus should be on relative team quality over a season and how much real differentiation there may or may not be in potential point totals. Ultimately, the mental model of a table that is visually structured around table position leads to a mentality of artificial and uniform differentiation when there may be more or less differentiation than the table can possibly capture.
There are alternatives to the traditional league table. Jenny Cann, an Arsenal supporter, popularized a method of reconceptualizing the table and centering it instead on points, then goal differential, and finally games in hand. It’s a simple tool using the same data as the traditional table, but it accomplishes the goal of not only communicating table order but also the magnitudes of the gaps between the teams. This method of viewing the league table begins to correctly communicate just how fragile or secure a clubs’ table position is relative to the clubs around it in the table. A few additions can be made to the Cann table to further increase its usefulness. In the case of the 2012/13 table below, the bounds of the table have been set to the maximum and minimum points possible in a season. Further enhancements could have been made to indicate the maximum points ever earned by a Premier League champion – 95 by the 2004/05 Chelsea title winners – and minimum points earned for a top four finish. Things have been kept simple in the table below to help illustrate another point later in this post.
Yet even the Cann table leaves a good bit to be desired. What if Juan Mata’s 87th minute shot hadn’t been deflected in for Chelsea’s game-winning goal at Manchester United late in the season, and then Frank Lampard hadn’t scored an 88th minute goal for Chelsea at Aston Villa in their penultimate game? Tottenham wouldn’t have been as close as a single point to Arsenal if not for an Emmerson Boyce 89th minute own goal against Wigan, and they would have been further behind the Gunners had Gareth Bale not scored a 90th minute game winner against West Ham United. The Arsenal blog 7AMKickoff.com noted numerous close calls for the Gunners, including their 1-0 away win at Sunderland containing four wasted big chances by Sunderland in the second half alone and two big chances missed by West Bromwich Albion during Arsenal’s 2-1 win (with the added difficulty of Arsenal seeing a player sent off in both matches). Any of these events turning out differently than they did would have changed the order of third through fifth place in last season’s table. That is to say, the clubs’ table positions hinged on the outcome of those and many other random events. All three table positions were determined by luck. How do we take such luck into account when looking at a table?
James Grayson has proposed a method for quantifying the impact random variation, or luck, has on a club’s point totals. His research indicates random variation results in a standard deviation in point total of 8.18 points over an English Premier League season. What does this mean for Arsenal’s, Chelsea’s, and Tottenham’s possible point totals in the 2012/13 season? To answer this question a 10,000 run Monte Carlo simulation was completed by generating normal distributions of the top six team’s point totals using their final point totals from the season and the standard deviation due to random variation. The results of the Monte Carlo simulation were then translated into the likelihood of the team achieving each one of the point totals. The plot below shows each team’s projected distribution of point totals, which essentially flips the table on its side given point totals are now on the x-axis of the graph. Distributions further to the right represent higher point totals.
Note how Everton and Manchester United are the only two teams with distributions that are visually separate from the main pack of the other four teams in the table’s second through fifth positions. The clustering of these four clubs demonstrates how Manchester City could just have easily finished third or fourth last season, while Tottenham could have easily finished second or third. Further insight comes when all of the other teams are eliminated from the graph and only Arsenal and Tottenham remain.
Notice that the distributions for both teams are nearly identical, with the only difference coming in the slight shift to the right that favors Arsenal given their single higher point last season. In a statistical sense, the difference between these two distributions is not significant. If one were to randomly sample point totals from the two distributions they would find plenty of occasions where Tottenham’s point total would be greater than Arsenal’s and thus replace them as the fourth Champions League qualifier from the Premier League in 2012/13.
Arsenal’s projected 2012/13 point distribution using Grayson’s data also tells us something about their performance during the previous two seasons. In 2012/13 the Gunners finished with 73 points, three points better than their 2011/12 total (70) and five better than the 2010/11 total (68). This might lead some to say Arsenal is an improving team, but such a declaration would ignore statistical reality. Arsenal’s point total in 2012/13 and normal, run-of-the-mill variation around that point total says that a team that earns 73 points actually has a 50% chance of finishing with as few as 68 or as many as 78 points. In a statistical sense, this is the 50th percentile prediction interval for the 73 point total, and this blog typically uses that interval to set the bounds for expected noise around an average value. The fact that the point total has increased the last two seasons is simply an artifact of a low sample size. Rather than declaring Arsenal’s fortunes are improving, the statistician would say they are actually performing consistently when it comes to points.
So why does this mean Arsenal is living on luck? Such a declaration can be made when Arsenal’s Champions League likelihoods are viewed in the longer term. Their actual point totals relative to every other club’s actual point totals over the last three seasons translate into the following likelihoods of Champions League qualification when random variation in point totals is used to create a 10,000 run Monte Carlo simulation of each season’s projected point totals:
2010/11: 72.6% of top four finish
2011/12: 66.2% of top four finish
2012/13: 65.7% of top four finish
Viewing the individual likelihoods of Champions League qualifications may provide a deceptively high expectation for Arsenal always finishing in the top four table positions just like they did over the last three seasons. The table below summarizes the likelihood of each of the five consistent top finishers from the last three seasons qualifying for zero, one, two, or all three of the Champions League positions available over the three season span studied.
It turns out that Arsenal’s likelihood of not qualifying for all three Champions League competitions was more than two-to-one. The most likely outcome was Arsenal qualifying for only two out of the three possible Champions League campaigns. Meanwhile, Tottenham Hotspur had a nearly ten-to-one chance of qualifying for at least one Champions League position over the last three seasons. It's not just predictive models that are telling us how rare Arsenal's three Champions League qualifications have been, but also retrospective statistics as well.
It’s easy to look at a table and build a narrative that fits it. It is one of the clearest examples of scoreboard journalism, a term increasingly popularized by statistician Simon Gleave. It constructs the story of team quality around a single set of summary statistics, simplifying the story of a season by ignoring the alternative realities of how things could have just as easily unfolded very differently. This means that the league table lies to us, because it only shows us one of the many alternative outcomes that could have happened if a ball had bounced slightly differently, a shot had gone off the inside of the woodwork rather than hit it straight on and bounced out for a goal kick, or any other event whose outcome would have greatly changed the scoreline of a match and over which players and managers have minimal to no control. The table lies to use by constructing a definitive, single point reality in a sport filled with lots of variation and distributions of possible outcomes. As authors Chris Anderson and David Sally explain in The Numbers Game, the rarity of the goal means a soccer match is an unpredictable event where luck determines fifty per cent of the match’s outcome. That role of luck in a match shows up in wide variations in point totals over a season, variation that the current league table refuses to express.
To believe that a manager like Arsene Wenger can consistently control his team’s performance relative to others to within a single point when the data says point totals easily vary by eight points just due to random events is the height of denying luck’s roll in the final table. Wenger and Arsenal are extremely lucky to have qualified for as many Champions Leagues tournaments as they have given the razor thin margins they’ve maintained the last few seasons. The same can be said of Chelsea given their point totals and their sixth place finish two seasons ago, and it’s one of the many reasons why owner Roman Abramovich was not satisfied with the performances of managers Andre Villas-Boas and Roberto Di Mateo. Meanwhile, Spurs have certainly been unlucky not just in finishing one point behind Arsenal the last two seasons, but also in the fact that when they actually did finish in a Champions League position two years ago they found themselves excluded from the 2012/13 tournament given Chelsea’s 2011/12 Champions League title while finishing sixth in the Premier League. If Wenger and Arsenal do nothing to separate themselves from the second pack of three teams in the Premier League – that is, spend more money on better players compared to the competition – they will continue to leave their Champions League hopes up to luck. At some point that luck will run out, and they will only have themselves to blame for not taking more control over their own destiny.Andrew Clark
Local Hero
Andrew has been in the independent comic industry since 2007 when he launched his own webcomic, “A Slice of Fate” which ran until 2013. Since then he has done some work for Red Leaf Comics called Ministers of Magic and an issue of their book called “The Leaf”. At this time Andrew is primarily focused on his creator owned comic “Adam” a “For immature Mature readers” book. Currently four issues of Adam are available with issue five expected to come out as soon as he can get 'er done. “Adam” follows a rather ignorant blow hard by the name of... you guessed it, Adam. Recruited by the creators of all things, Adam acts as their hunter and hit-man to kill off their mistakes as only he can do....Citing free speech, Facebook will allow Holocaust deniers to remain on its site — a stance that has baffled TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington. In today’s post he rages against Facebook policies that on the one hand forbid nipple-baring shots of breast feeding, but on the other gives the green light to hatemongering groups.
Arrington said:
“Nipples are bad, even if clearly not posted for sexual reasons. Holocaust denial is ok, even if clearly posted in order to spread hatred of Jews.”
Arrington joins the chorus of criticism against the social-networking site. Lawyer Brian Cuban, whose brother Mark owns the Dallas Maverick’s, has been leading a crusade against groups like “Holocaust is a Holohaux.” In an open letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Cuban points out:
“By allowing these groups whether they number 1 or 1000, Facebook is not promoting open discussion of a controversial issue. It is promoting and encouraging hatred towards ethnic and religious groups, nothing more.”
But the company argues that incendiary comments are not grounds for removal. Facebook’s spokesman, Barry Schnitt, told Businessweek:
“The mere statement of denying the Holocaust does not constitute a violation of our policies.”
Schnitt also told Cnet:
“… of course, we abhor Nazi ideals and find Holocaust denial repulsive and ignorant. However, we believe people have a right to discuss these ideas and we want Facebook to be a place where ideas, even controversial ideas, can be discussed. Of course, we have some limits.”
Two Facebook groups — “Holocaust is a Holohoax” and “Based on the facts…there was no Holocaust” — were recently removed because they violated the terms of service, reports PC World. But several others remain.Global emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels are set to rise again in 2013, reaching a record high of 36 billion tonnes - according to new figures from the Global Carbon Project, co-led by researchers from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia (UEA).
The 2.1 per cent rise projected for 2013 means global emissions from burning fossil fuel are 61 per cent above 1990 levels, the baseline year for the Kyoto Protocol.
Prof Corinne Le Quéré of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia led the Global Carbon Budget report. She said: "Governments meeting in Warsaw this week need to agree on how to reverse this trend. Emissions must fall substantially and rapidly if we are to limit global climate change to below two degrees. Additional emissions every year cause further warming and climate change."
Alongside the latest Carbon Budget is the launch of the Carbon Atlas - a new online platform showing the world's biggest carbon emitters more clearly than ever before. The Carbon Atlas reveals the biggest carbon emitters of 2012, what is driving the growth in China's emissions, and where the UK is outsourcing its emissions. Users can also compare EU emissions and see which countries are providing the largest environmental services to the rest of the world by removing carbon from |
with Donald Trump. Our newly elected president doesn’t even care to go through the motions of concealing his venality. He flaunts it. Just look at the way he ran his campaign.
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According to the latest Federal Election Commission filings, Trump directed close to $3 million in campaign funds towards Trump-owned properties between Oct. 20 and Nov. 28. Tag Air, Inc., the Trump-owned company that operates his personal jet, raked in $2,055,786 in travel expenses. A small galaxy of Trump-branded properties — various hotels, golf resorts, and restaurants — collected an additional $777,672.83.
This was one of the running themes of the Trump campaign prior to his election, and past campaign finance reports showed much the same pattern: millions of dollars in campaign cash being funneled towards the Trump family’s businesses. It’s a sort of self-dealing that is slightly different from the variety Trump admitted to engaging in via his non-profit charity. And it’s done with an eye on plundering as much campaign cash as possible. The Huffington Post documented that Trump jacked up the rent at his Trump Tower campaign offices the moment he started taking public donations. As the election drew near, Trump held a non-campaign campaign event at his new hotel in Washington.
There was no legitimate reason for Trump to conduct as much campaign business through his own properties as he did, and plenty of very good reasons to avoid doing so: namely, to avoid the appearance of being massively corrupt. But, again, Trump doesn’t care. He knows all this stuff will show up in public filings, and he knows people like me will write about it. At the same time, he’s confident that, as a wealthy and powerful individual, he’ll skate without anyone giving him too much grief.
And, as Ryan Cooper observed Friday, Trump is largely justified in that outlook. The idea of “accountability” for elites — be they in government, finance, the media, wherever — has been hollowed out by wagon-circling and a persistent impetus to look the other way. There’s also an element of partisanship to this as well, which Trump will benefit from tremendously from.
The Republicans who control Congress are already shutting their eyes and closing their ears to the brightly flashing and loudly blaring signs of corruption exploding from Trump’s orbit. House Speaker Paul Ryan has stated in plain terms that he just doesn’t care about the web of conflicts in which Trump is ensnared. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the chair of the House Oversight Committee who had been planning a sustained blitzkrieg of inquiries into a Democratic president-elect, now finds himself cured of the desire to investigate. House majority leader Kevin McCarthy, who once boasted of the political damage wrought by the investigations conducted under his watch, now frets that congressional inquiries have “harmed the ability for people all to work together.”
Trump has enablers in the legislature who will keep their mouths shut so long as he signs bills to cut taxes and shred the safety net. He’s had tremendous success at manipulating the press into focusing mainly on his Twitter feed and other public pronouncements. He won a presidential campaign through open deceit and racism, and defeated challenges to his behavior through bravado and gaslighting. Put simply: He’s probably feeling pretty untouchable at this point.
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So why shouldn’t Trump do whatever he can to use his immensely powerful position to secure as much financial benefit as possible for himself and his family? He’s already proven that he can get away with it in plain sight.ANALYSIS/OPINION:
In the past few days, the White House has made it clear that the president wants specific exit strategies for all his Afghan war options. That brought to mind the advice almost a century ago of an American geopolitician describing the only exit strategy worth considering:
Over there, over there
Send the word, send the word,
Over there
That the Yanks are coming,
The Yanks are coming,
The drums rum tumming every
where
So prepare,
Say a prayer
Send the word,
Send the word to beware
We’ll be over, we’re coming over.
And we won’t be back till it’s
over over there!
The geopolitician in question, of course, was that great Irish-American, Tin Pan Alley’s own George M. Cohan. And by quoting his lyrics to World War I’s most popular song, I don’t mean to be frivolous. But millions of young men were prepared to risk their lives - to not come back “till it’s over over there” - because they were called to fight for something our nation considered vital. Those farm boys didn’t know about foreign policy, but they trusted their parents and their leaders not to send them off for no good reason.
Hearing the president’s request for exit strategies at the beginning of what would be “his” Afghan war - and thinking of our young troops, 18, 19, 20, 21 years old who have volunteered to risk their lives for America - how on God’s good Earth can we ask those wonderful kids to risk dying for an exit strategy?
I have heard from a few of them, and they are game to make a fight of it if their country believes it’s necessary. Of course they will obey all their orders and commands. But what a cold and heartless command: to send our generation’s “Yanks” off to risk their young lives just to prepare to retreat (i.e. exit).
The administration is making its intentions quite clear. Over the weekend, top Obama administration officials went on television to “lower the bar for success” in Afghanistan, stressing that the administration is seeking an exit strategy and holds “no illusions” (Fox News).
“We have no illusions. This is not the prior days when people would come on your show and talk about how we were going to help the Afghans build a modern democracy and build a more functioning state and do all of these wonderful things,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told ABC’s “This Week.”
On another Sunday show, the president’s top political adviser, David Axelrod, explained that “obviously we cannot make an open-ended commitment. And we want to do this in a way that maximizes our efforts against al Qaeda, but within the framework of bringing our troops home at some point.”
We have to watch our pennies, too. As the Saturday New York Times reported: “While President Obama’s decision about sending more troops to Afghanistan is primarily a military one, it also has substantial budget implications that are adding pressure to limit the commitment, senior administration officials say.”
Even the great Cohan could not write a song that would give life and passion and hope to such flatulent, cynical comments.
Three months ago in this space, I wrote: “President Obama is on the cusp of a fateful policy decision. He has argued consistently that the war in Afghanistan is necessary to deny al Qaeda a base of terrorist operations and to stop the Taliban insurrection from destabilizing nuclear Pakistan. … [But] even the optimists now believe that a successful counterinsurgency in Afghanistan (and needed as much in Pakistan) will require several years of sustained commitment, with substantially more men and materiel. … To have a reasonable chance at success, Mr. Obama will have to sustain the effort for years, which will require him to be at least as determined and stubborn on behalf of this war as former President George W. Bush was in fighting the Iraq war.”
Now, three agonizing, rationalizing, equivocating, twisting, turning months of White House squirming later - even a blind man could see that this president, and this White House staff, do not have the stomach to continue the war in Afghanistan. They are trying to avoid it. They don’t want to fight it. They think they have great things to do here at home. They know they don’t have anything they want to do in Afghanistan.
If the Taliban and al Qaeda retake Afghanistan, the world (and America) will have hell to pay for the consequences. But this president and this White House do not have it in them to lead our troops to victory in Afghanistan. So they shouldn’t try. The price will be high for whatever foreign policy failures we will endure in the next three years. Let’s not add to that price the pointless murder of our finest young troops in a war their leader does not believe in.
Bring them home. We’ll need them later.
Tony Blankley is the author of “American Grit: What It Will Take to Survive and Win in the 21st Century” (Regnery, 2009) and vice president of the Edelman public-relations firm in Washington.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Sarpa salpa, known commonly as the dreamfish, salema, salema porgy, cow bream or goldline, is a species of sea bream, recognisable by the golden stripes that run down the length of its body, and which can cause hallucinations when eaten.[2] It is found in the East Atlantic, as well as the Mediterranean, where it ranges from the Bay of Biscay to South Africa.[3] It has occasionally been found as far north as Great Britain.[2] It is generally common and found from near the surface to a depth of 70 m (230 ft).[1] Males are typically 15 to 30 cm (6–12 in) in length, while females are usually 31 to 45 cm (12–18 in).[4] The maximum size is 51 cm (20 in).[3]
Sarpa salpa became widely known for its psychoactivity following widely publicized articles in 2006, when two men ingested it at a Mediterranean restaurant and began to experience many auditory and visual hallucinogenic effects.[5] These hallucinations, described as frightening, were reported to have occurred two hours after the fish was ingested and had a total duration of 36 hours.[6] The fish, and especially its viscera, have been assessed as potentially unsafe by a study conducted on Mediterranean specimens.[7] It is believed that the fish ingests a particular algae or phytoplankton which renders it hallucinogenic. The effects described are similar to those of indole tryptamine psychedelics.[5]The Software we chose that would be most suitable for the machine, was Chilipeppr. We chose this Software because it is very flexible with what you can do with the machine. It gives you a bunch of workspaces, for different boards you are using and other types of machining you can do. The workspace we chose was the tablet workspace, because the Raspberry pi is basically run by a phone processor. Since Chilipeppr is an api and it is a network based program, it has to be accessed though online. You also need to run a serial port for Chilipeppr so it can communicate to the TinyG via USB. Basically you download the serial port JSON server from the Chilipeppr website and you run it in terminal before you start up Chilipeppr on your machine, NOTE: The serial port JSON server has to be running the whole time while your machine is being used. Also, NOTE: That you cannot download the serial port JSON server through console, it will automatically unzip your file, therefore your serial port cannot be run, because you need the application. Once that has all gone through you can configure your TinyG board via CLI in Chilipeppr and you can go look at all of the configuring commands, and if you need help you can go to the TinyG wiki, and it will show you everything there has to do with the TinyG and Chilipeppr.Erin McElroy Jim Edwards / BI San Francisco has been riveted in recent months by a series of protests against the way tech workers — and their big salaries — have driven up real estate prices in San Francisco, pricing out workers from less lucrative fields.
Activists have stopped Google's commuter buses, smashed windows, and picketed the homes of Digg Founder Kevin Rose and one of Google's corporate lawyers. One activist even vomited onto a Yahoo commuter shuttle after protesters stopped it in the street. They recently demanded $3 billion from Google as mitigation for the damage they believe the company has caused the poor in San Francisco.
The protesters often wear masks and costumes, so it's sometimes hard to know who they actually are.
Erin McElroy is one of the main activists in the movement, and she agreed to have lunch with Business Insider in San Francisco's Mission district recently, and answer a few questions.
"A six-pack of Rolexes"
Until now, the message from protesters has been clumsily delivered: They blame wealthy tech workers for pushing up housing costs in San Francisco. That argument has been equally clumsily countered by people like tech investor Tom Perkins, who recently appeared on Bloomberg TV wearing a watch he said was worth the equivalent of "a six-pack of Rolexes."
One thing that impressed us during our talk with the soft-spoken McElroy — aside from her copious tattoos and giant "gauge" earrings — is how nuanced, and how data-oriented, the anti-gentrification argument is. Her critique of how tech companies are reshaping San Francisco is much more complicated than you think it's going to be.
McElroy is perhaps best known as being one of the main people behind the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, a series of data visualizations of the increase in tenants being turfed out of apartments in the city. McElroy's coding and designing chops are such that she could probably get a job at a tech company and become part of the gentrification problem she's fighting against. But she doesn't want to.
"I've never considered working in tech myself. I have no interest in working for a large corporation. I'm interested in tech to help fuel a movement. I'm not interested in helping a large corporation accumulate dollars," she says.
Professionally, she is a carer for a developmentally disabled adult, and she does some childcare. "I'm doing currently what I want to be doing."
What's wrong with high-wage jobs?
She lives in a rent-controlled apartment in the Bernal Heights section of the city, for which she pays $635 a month — an incredibly low sum in a city where even ordinary one-bedroom units can rent for $3,000 or more. In 2011, she began to notice that the number of people being evicted from their apartments so that landlords could move in new renters at higher fees seemed to be increasing. She had helped so many of her friends move house that "I joked we should start our own moving company."
McElroy says this tattoo is a life motto she invented for herself when she was in high school. Jim Edwards / BI I put it to her that back in the day, San Francisco's left would have demanded jobs for workers that are pretty much what tech companies now provide: High-wage, low-danger work with great benefit packages. Now it seems to be against them.
"The average salary in San Francisco is actually dropping right now," she says. While employees of Google and Facebook are doing very well, "non-tech salaries are in decline. The rate of disparity in San Francisco is growing more quickly than any other city in the U.S. right now." Stats from the last census back part of that up.
Targeting the commuter buses is another counterintuitive tactic. If all Facebook's employees drove their Porsches to work, wouldn't protesters argue they should be on public transport — like a bus — for both environmental and traffic mitigation reasons?
The buses do hurt non-tech workers, McElroy says, rattling off stats rapid-fire:
"Thirty to 40% of tech workers would not live in San Francisco if buses were not there to bring them to work. 69% of no-fault evictions now happen within four blocks of tech bus stops. Rents have gone up 20% in proximity to tech bus stops."
Google buses may make public transport worse
She argues that the buses actually make commuting worse for a couple of reasons. First, the modern touring buses that Google et. al use are considerably larger than city buses. So non-tech workers' buses end up blocked in traffic by the newer, larger ones. At the same time, riders on a Google bus are by definition not using the Caltrain trains or the city buses — and that takes rider revenue out of the public transport system. That revenue reduction prevents government from investing in and improving the public transport system.
At the same time, the evictions drive poorer residents into neighborhoods that have even less public transport infrastructure (the most desirable areas of S.F. tend to be the ones with great access to the light rail, bus and subway systems). The people being evicted are often least economically able to adjust: "Sixty percent of Ellis Act [the state law that allows renters to be kicked out] evictions happen in the first year of ownership. And 71% of Ellis Act eviction tenants in 2012 were older than 62 and/or disabled," she says.
Put those two factors together — rich tech workers displacing poor ones in the city, and a parallel private bus system which enables that displacement at the same time as it hurts the public transport infrastructure — and that's why tech workers are the focus of protests.
Jim Edwards / BI Until recently, the companies didn't pay the city anything for using public bus stops as pickup spots for their buses. McElroy estimates that the companies owe the city $600 million to $1 billion in uncollected parking ticket fees since 2007 for using the stops. (That number is calculated from the basis that, if you parked your own car at a bus stop, the city would give you a $271 parking ticket.)
The companies did recently starting paying $1 per stop per day to use the stops, but that is just another example of the way tech companies are deaf to ordinary San Franciscans. "They haven't been paying that [larger sum] because there were a series of backroom handshake deals between the city and tech."
That sounds like hyperbole, but McElroy raises an interesting point: Tech companies are happy dealing with city officials and regulators. They make very little effort to talk to ordinary people before launching new products or cutting deals with the government. She wishes tech entrepreneurs would stop to ask, "Whose job might actually be affected by this idea?" before they plow ahead with their disruptions. Uber is a prime example, she says. "I have two friends who drive taxis and they're pissed off right now. Nobody ever came to them and asked them how it might affect them."
A "serious" demand for Google to pay $3 billion
McElroy's movement is actually quite small. Its biggest meetings and demonstrations have attracted no more than 600 people, she says. So it's not yet clear whether the activists speak for the majority of ordinary folks in S.F., or just a vocal minority.
"What would people in tech see as a solution to displacement?" she asks. "I'd like to hear ways that could mitigate these problems in a non-technocratic way."
As for that $3 billion demand targeting Google, McElroy says it was a genuine calculation and the demand was real. "It was serious. I mean I didn't imagine Google was about to turn around and give it to us."Today was supposed to be the deadline for thousands of protesters encamped to prevent completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline across Lake Oahe on the Missouri River to evacuate their camp-sites. Instead it has become a moment of celebration, as the Army Corps of Engineers and the Obama Administration have concluded that a new Environmental Impact Statement is needed to determine the best route across the Missouri River. But the incoming Trump Administration is likely to reverse the decision, with uncertain legal results for the environmental assessment process.
The resistance by the Standing Rock Sioux nation and its allies to the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline routing signaled a new stage in evolving community resistance to fossil fuel extraction and transportation—but also reveals some ugly fissures within America as we enter a four year, almost certainly traumatic presidency.
Standing Rock has been the largest and one of the longest, Native American resistance protests in modern America. It differs from earlier fossil fuel protests like those against Keystone XL or Shell's basing Arctic drilling vessels in the Port of Seattle because the protesters attempted to physically disrupt the construction, not just symbolically protest it.
They have succeeded, for the moment. Months ago construction slowed, Corps of Engineers permits were suspended and the President had already called for consideration of alternative routes. Native American vetoes of fossil fuel projects had become an acknowledged part of the regulatory and permitting landscape in Canada, but only recently have the tribes inserted themselves routinely into these processes in the U.S. They have some won victories already, as when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied the permit for a coal and oil export terminal at Cherry Point, Washington, saying the project would impair fishing grounds guaranteed to the Lummi Nation by treaty.
The backstory of the project is particularly outrageous; alternative routings that would have avoided the Standing Rock issues altogether appear to have been rejected by the Army Corps and the developer, Energy Transfer Partners, because they might threaten water supplies for Bismark, North Dakota—a conscious decision to put an Indian nation at risk to protect a non-Indian community. Energy Transfer Partners appears to have tried to cover up evidence that the construction was disrupting sacred sites and actually faces fines from North Dakota as a result. And both the state and Energy Transfer have persistently treated the Standing Rock Sioux as one among many stakeholders who should be expected to participate in the regulatory process designed by North Dakota, rather than as a sovereign nation whose rights were, at the very least, in dispute and needed to be negotiated.
Indian advocates point to Standing Rock as evidence of a broad consciousness among Native Americans of the need to see the fight against fossil fuel development as continental. By September, more than 300 tribes had gathered at the protest camp, at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers, along with numerous non-Indian supporters like a contingent of Catholic workers.
Standing Rock organizers cite the evolution in Canada of a multi-First Nation alliance to resist any and all projects that would increase production of oil from the Albert tar sands. The first version of this treaty was signed in 2013; the latest, signed last September, and has now grown to link 112 Canadian and Northern U.S. tribes in a united front to oppose all pipelines or other infrastructure which might facilitate increased tar sands production.
(Their opposition is critical because Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, last week approved two pipeline expansions serving the tar sands, expansions which would enable an additional 900,000 barrels of oil a date to reach U.S. and world markets, significantly increasing the likely price tar sands producers can get for their product, and the amount of it they can pump. But the First Nations will continue the fight).
In response to the Standing Rock ongoing protests, the New York Times intensified its coverage of the resistance, including the first of two full throated editorials calling for the pipeline to be rerouted. Then, on the night Nov. 20, police surrounding the protesters escalated their tactics and crossed the line into brutal crowd suppression. In the words of a second The Times editorial denouncing the actions, "They drenched protesters with water cannons on a frigid night, with temperatures in the 20s. According to protesters and news accounts, the officers also fired rubber bullets, pepper spray, concussion grenades and tear gas. More than 160 people were reportedly injured, with one protester's arm damaged so badly she might lose it."
By the standards of historic violence against Native Americans, this is small bore stuff—nothing like Wounded Knee for example. But it has been some time since peaceful protesters in the U.S. were met with such violence. A recently established norm—that Americans may disruptively protest as long as they are peaceful without fearing police violence—broke down.
After the brutal events of Nov. 20, the first instinct of the Corps and the State were to intensify the crack-down. The Corps declared that it would shut down the camp-site where most of the protesters have been housed and that any who remained would be subject to arrest for trespass. (This was stunningly tone deaf after the events in Eastern Oregon where right-wing ranchers armed with guns and openly threatening violence were permitted to occupy a federal wildlife refuge which also was the home to important sacred sites without being arrested for months). The state of North Dakota followed up by ordering the protesters evicted because their dwellings were not adequately winter-proofed.
Both the Army Corps and North Dakota backed off slightly in the days following, the Corps making clear it would not forcibly evict protesters even if they were trespassing, and the state clarifying that it's "blockade" of food and other supplies would be enforced with a threat of fines, not by actually physically obstructing access. Two thousand U.S. veterans organized as Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, agreed to serve as human shields for the protesters to avoid the kind of violence that flared up on Nov. 20. Then came Sunday's stunning announcement.
In some ways Standing Rock is a Native American version of Gandhi's 1930 Salt March—and while the Trump Administration is likely to try to ram through the permits needed to complete Dakota Access, it's similar efforts to revive Keystone XL are triggering vociferous opposition from Nebraska ranchers, unlikely partners with the Sioux, but symbolic of a new and emerging coalition. And Gandhi did not succeed in undoing the Salt Taxes—his game was much bigger, intensifying Indian resistance to British rule. Standing Rock, even if the pipeline gets built, seems likely to have had that impact across a wide swathe of Indian Country in the U.S.This caught my eye. It's funny and oddly compelling.
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The film is of an installation by a contemporary French artist called Celeste Boursier-Mougenot. It's very Marcel Duchamp, the French artist who started the conceptual art ball rolling nearly a hundred years ago.
Duchamp pioneered combining everyday materials, philosophical comment and humour, an idea that seeped into places like the 1960s pop group the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (they wanted to call themselves the Bonzo Dog Dada band, but worried people wouldn't get it) and Monty Python.
But Duchamp's more radical idea was to introduce chance into the creation of art. In 1913-14 he made 3 Standard Stoppages, a work of art that was the result of the random actions of mechanised contraptions. At the time, he was largely dismissed as a crazy Frenchman, but he inspired an entire avant-garde movement in art as well as the music of John Cage and the choreography of Merce Cunningham. Duchamp was not short of self-confidence, but the idea of adding chance to the creative process was rather humble.
"That's so random" is a common refrain nowadays, referring to a supposedly non-logical thought or event. It was also the clarion cry of the Dadaists, the anti-art, anti-rational early-20th-Century art movement that argued that it was rational thought that led to World War I.
Duchamp was much loved by the Dada movement. I wonder what Dadaists would have made of the internet. It's interesting that, as far as I am aware, no contemporary artist has yet harnessed this extraordinary technology to make a significant artwork. Of course, maybe I'm wrong and am missing something great - do you know of any net-based art works that are worth a look?
Maybe you have made one (an artwork made specifically for the medium, as opposed to a film such as the one above, which uses the net only as a means of dissemination)?
If you, like me, can't find any net-based art of note, why do you think that is? Why, when there's been such a boom in contemporary art around the world, has no artist made the medium of the web his or her canvas? And if someone were to use the net as a medium, as opposed to making an image, or a video, or even an interactive Flash animation, what would the resulting art look, or sound, or feel like?
Duchamp and the Dadaists would have had hours of artistic amusement creating spoof websites, unintelligible Wiki entries and general questioning of the status quo.
Perhaps that is what Celeste Boursier-Mougenot should do next after the installation of his 40 Finches work opens at London's Barbican art gallery on 27 February. Like Duchamp, he seems to understand the creative potential of random acts and non-directed participation. He's already proved in this artwork that while Keith Richards and Eric Clapton might be masters of the Gibson Les Paul, even they cannot play it like 40 wild birds - not a chance.
Update 5 Feb: On Tuesday I asked: if, like me, you can't find any net-based art of note, why do you think that is? It was a question that had the effect of chucking a large stick into a hornet's nest, and some of those commenting here and around the web are aghast that I should even pose such question.
Many comments have included links to a wide range of internet-based art. Some of the work I knew well; others I didn't and enjoyed seeing. Thanks to all those who provided links. Thanks also to Roberta who made an interesting comment regarding the post generating a useful archive of some net-based art. It's a good point; please continue to add links.
But my question was of eminence not of existence. As the Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller said recently to Charlotte Higgins of the Guardian, "I'm still waiting for someone to use the internet, really use the internet. We're still in a post-Warhol era. We haven't got beyond it."
Of course there is plenty of net-art about and has been for some time, and for the net-art cognoscenti there are stand-out works and practitioners. But for some, which includes many museum curators as well as Jeremy Deller, there hasn't been that moment of epiphany, where they feel they have seen a great work of art created using the medium.
That doesn't make them wrong or ignorant; it's just the subjective nature of the arts. And I don't think they're alone. Why, when the internet has become such a central part of people's everyday lives and at a time when there is enormous interest in contemporary art, is there not one net-based artist or artwork that, say, the layman would recognise by name or output?
To ask that question is in no sense to belittle the often intelligent, thoughtful and fascinating nature of net-based art, and it is not about being unaware of the presence of that art - it is to generate a debate: why, to many in the art world and the public in general, is it "not of note"?
Maybe it's just a issue of timing. It took a while for video-based art to gain real traction. Curators have told me that it was not until the likes of Bruce Nauman in the 1970s that artists using video started to become relatively well-known. Perhaps, just by having this debate, knowledge of net-art will increase in the public consciousness. It certainly has in mine.So here’s what happened. In 2013, The Onion (which in case you don’t know is a satirical newspaper) printed a fake ‘opinion’ piece authored by ‘Donald Trump‘ titled, “When You’re Feeling Low, Just Remember I’ll Be Dead in About 15 or 20 Years.”
Here is a little sampling:
Indeed, you can always take solace in the fact that the monstrous, unimaginable piece of shit that is me will stop existing fairly soon, and that I will continue to not exist for the remainder of your lifetime… And if my death in 15 or 20 years feels like it’s too far in the future to wash away your blues, you can take heart knowing that I’ll start to physically and mentally deteriorate well before then. Why, by 2020, I, a man who recently tried to extort the sitting president of the United States to release his college and passport records, might even begin to show signs of serious and unavoidable decline in mental and physical faculties, and doesn’t that just perk your spirits right up? Just imagine me shuffling along, hunched forward, with a noticeably shortened gait and perpetually haggard face.
So…. apparently, Trump didn’t really appreciate the satire, and reportedly had his attorney send the editorial staff a very kind little note. In a recent NBC’s ‘Web Extra’, The Onion staff discussed what that letter said.
“You should read it, it is most wonderful thing in the world,” one of the The Onion editors said.
Watch:
I transcribed what I could from the interview. Trump’s attorney allegedly wrote:
“To the Onion: I wish to call your attention to an article currently on your home page allegedly penned by Donald Trump entitled, “When You’re Feeling Low, Just Remember I’ll Be Dead in About 15 or 20 Years.” Let me begin by stating the obvious, the commentary was not written by Donald Trump. The article is an absolutely disgusting piece that lacks any place in journalism even in your Onion. I am hereby demanding that you immediately remove this disgraceful piece from your website and apologize to Mr. Trump. I further ask that you contact me immediately to discuss. This commentary goes way beyond defamation and if it is not removed I will take all actions to ensure that your actions will not go without consequences. Guide yourself accordingly.”
In case Trump’s attorneys are not aware, according to the Supreme Court case, Hustler Magazine vs. Falwell, the First Amendment protects publications which publish parodies of public figures from being held civilly liable. In that case, the Justices found that any ‘reasonable person’ would not have interpreted the satire to contain actual factual claims. I think we can all assume that the same principal would apply here.Foreign Policy
FM: Iran to Partake in Upcoming Geneva II Conference in July
TEHRAN (FNA)- )- Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi announced that Iran will take part in the upcoming Geneva II conference in Switzerland in July.
The Iranian foreign minister made the remarks in a meeting with his Lebanese counterpart Adnan Mansour in Tehran on Saturday.
“Iran will certainly take part in Geneva 2 Conference if it be held,” Salehi said.
He noted that final decision has yet to be made about Geneva II conference.
“Certain countries openly have talked about the necessity of Iran’s presence in the conference and some others indirectly and by intermediaries have asked Iran to participate in the conference,” the Iranian foreign minister added.
Earlier this week, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Araqchi said that Tehran is still undecided about taking part in the upcoming Geneva II conference in Switzerland in July.
“The Islamic Republic will decide about taking part in the Geneva II conference after the plans, date and agenda of the international event are announced,” Araqchi said on Friday.
Last week, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Ali Larijani underlined the necessity for the settlement of the Syrian crisis through talks, but cautioned that Tehran would not take part in the Geneva II conference on Syria in Switzerland if Israel is invited to the international gathering.
“If Israel takes part in the Geneva II conference, Iran will never participate in it, Larijani said in an interview with al-Mayadeen news channel.
He stressed that Iran believes in the necessity of the political settlement of the Syrian problem, and said violence and crisis in the Muslim country merely serves the interests of the Zionist regime, the US and other western states.
“Iran only believes in the settlement of the Syrian crisis through the ballot box,” Larijani underscored, and stressed, “The Syrian government enjoys more legitimacy than some other regimes (in the region).”
Earlier this month, a prominent Syrian legislator underlined that Iran should take part in the upcoming Geneva II conference.
“Iran, as a key player in the regional political scenes and a major state both at regional and international levels, should attend the Geneva II conference to be held in Switzerland in July,” member of the Syrian Parliament Walid Al-Zaabi said.
Al-Zaabi described Iran as true friend of the Syrian people and government.
Late in May, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov underlined that Iran should take part in the upcoming Geneva II Conference.
“This issue is not related to the Syrians alone, as there are a number of foreign players involved at that crisis as well, and therefore, Iran’s presence at that conference is of key importance for us,” Lavrov said.
“In my talks with the US and French foreign ministers John Kerry and Lauran Fabio aimed at solving the ambiguities about the combination of participating countries at Geneva II International Conference on Syria I gained their approval on need for revising their former decision,” he added.
Also in May, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman announced that Tehran is likely to take part in the Geneva II conference on Syria if the co-hosts, the US and Russia, invite it to the international gathering.
“If the Geneva II conference is held and if Iran is invited, we will study our presence with a positive view,” Araqchi said at the time.The judgment will be met with relief in India, where engagements are decided, wedding and election dates are chosen on the basis of detailed charts drawn up by revered astrologers. A day deemed "auspicious" by an astrologer can lead to thousands of weddings and traffic gridlock.
For years it has been dismissed by the world's scientists, but according to the Bombay High Court astrologers are officially their colleagues.
The ruling was made in a case brought by a campaign group, Janhit Manch, which sought a ruling against practitioners of "tantric" black magic and "fake" astrologers. Their "work" should be prohibited by India's Drugs and Megical Remedies Act (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 which bans false claims in advertisements.
The judges rejected the application, however, relying on an affidavit by Dr R Ramakrishna, a government deputy drug controller, who said: "The Act does not cover astrology and related sciences. Astrology is a trusted science and is being practised for over 4000 years."Looking for news you can trust?
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Peruse the ingredients list of your air freshener, floor polish, or multi-surface cleaner, and you’ll likely come across an “f” word: fragrance. You know what it means—whatever the manufacturer added to make your house smell nice—but what does it stand for?
California State Sen. Ricardo Lara, who authored the bill, remembers his mother “telling me stories about how she’d feel sick or dizzy after a day of cleaning bathrooms and other people’s homes.”
Turns out, the “f” word could stand for one or more of 3,000-plus chemicals. Under a federal rule that protects manufacturers from revealing “trade secrets,” companies haven’t had to disclose those ingredients, even if they’re, say, known carcinogens, or if they impair fetal development. But in California—and, in effect, the rest of the country—that’s about to |
ó concerning truck permitting, drivers should help in any way they can. Truckers called off a planned strike because of Hurricane Irma three weeks prior, he said.
Rodriguez did take a swipe at Rosselló, saying long lines are partly his fault, and noted that truckers can’t come down when they are in regions with impassable roads. But by and large, Rodriguez said that truckers are working and doing what they need to do to deliver goods. He even cuts off the reporter at one point for suggesting they are refusing to work.
In response to all the false stories online blaming Teamster drivers, the union released a statement on Oct. 2 that said their members have been working since Maria passed over the island. The statement blamed "online, anti-union sources" for spreading an inaccurate story.
"These viral stories spreading across the internet are nothing but lies perpetrated by anti-union entities to further their destructive agenda," Teamsters president Jim Hoffa said in the release. "The fact that they are attempting to capitalize on the suffering of millions of citizens in Puerto Rico that are (in) dire need of our help by pushing these false stories, just exposes their true nature."
Our ruling
Bloggers said that "San Juan Teamsters didn't show up for work to distribute relief supplies" because they went on strike after Hurricane Maria.
The widespread accusations trace back to a post that selectively edited and mistranslated interviews to make it look like union truckers were being greedy and lazy.
But there’s no strike, and union truck drivers have been trying to move aid shipments across Puerto Rico. There are multiple logistical problems slowing down transport, not the least of which is that some drivers simply can’t get to the port, or drive on impassable roads.
Bloggers are misrepresenting a real humanitarian crisis by blaming trade unions. That drives this rating to Pants On Fire!Breaking: FBI Informant in Clinton Uranium One Bribery Case has Video of Briefcases Full of Money! (VIDEO)
The Jeff Sessions DOJ leaked the name of the FBI informant in the Clinton Uranium One bribery case.
The Sessions DOJ told Reuters the man’s name is William D. Campbell and he worked as a lobbyist for a Russian firm. According to reporter John Solomon the informant is a consultant and his evidence will show Russian agents with suitcases of cash to bribe the Clintons for US uranium.
Investigative reporter John Solomon told Sean Hannity on Thursday the consultant has video of briefcases full of money in the bribery of case on Hillary Clinton.
Solomon says the Reuters report today downplaying the informant is completely inaccurate.
The informant says he is in fear for his life since he was outed by the Sessions DOJ.
Campbell will reportedly testify on Monday.
The informant will testify next week before Congress.
Via Hannity:The slow dance between Ryan Fitzpatrick and the New York Jets over a new contract continues to be as exciting as a pair of eighth graders with a balloon stuck between them and Stairway to Heaven blaring over the gym loudspeaker.
The last we heard was the Jets reportedly offered Fitzpatrick a three-year deal with $12 million guaranteed in the first year (and $6 million salaries the next two seasons). Here's a fun new wrinkle: Fitzpatrick might be willing to take less money as a backup somewhere else purely out of spite.
From Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News:
The nearly three-month stalemate has some folks on One Jets Drive wondering if Fitzpatrick will ever return to help make a playoff push for a team with an aging core. Jets sources, including players, now believe that Fitzpatrick is amenable to spurning them on principle and taking less money to play elsewhere. They no longer think that Fitzpatrick's return is a fait accompli.
Like, where would Fitz go? The Broncos are still an option, what with an injured Mark Sanchez, a rookie in Paxton Lynch and the possibility of Trevor Siemian actually maybe becoming the starting quarterback.
He could join Rex Ryan and the Bills and battle the Jets twice a year while simultaneously giving Tyrod Taylor a run for his money as the starter and eliminating the fear of starting EJ Manuel.
Would Ryan Fitzpatrick take less money to play elsewhere out of principle? USATSI
Maybe the Patriots would like a guy who can come in and start hot for four games...? These are just places he could see an actual run under center. Fitz would be a welcome addition to almost any roster as a top-flight backup. His intelligence (not sure if you heard but he went to Harvard) makes him malleable to most offensive schemes and systems, even if he's not physically the type of guy who will dominate.
Don't worry, though, Jets fans! Everyone is totally comfortable with the idea of Geno Smith helping the Jets win.
It would be pretty lovely if these two would just agree on a contract already.This article is about the Indian film. For the anime, see Gurren Lagann
Lagaan (English: Taxation), released internationally as Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India, is a 2001 Indian historical epic sports drama film, directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, produced by Aamir Khan and written by Gowariker and Abbas Tyrewala. Aamir Khan stars along with debutant Gracy Singh, with British actors Rachel Shelley and Paul Blackthorne playing supporting roles. Made on a then-unprecedented budget of ₹250 million[2] (US$5.32 million),[3] the film was shot in an ancient village near Bhuj, India.
The film is set in the Victorian period of India's colonial British Raj. The story revolves around a small village whose inhabitants, burdened by high taxes, find themselves in an extraordinary situation as an arrogant officer challenges them to a game of cricket as a wager to avoid the taxes. The narrative spins around this situation as the villagers face the arduous task of learning the alien game and playing for a result that will change their village's destiny.
Lagaan received critical acclaim and awards at international film festivals, as well as many Indian film awards. It became the third Indian film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film after Mother India (1957) and Salaam Bombay! (1988).
Plot [ edit ]
In the small town of Champaner (in the state of Gujarat, western India) during the height of the British Raj in 1893, Captain Andrew Russell, the commanding officer of the Champaner cantonment, has imposed high taxes ("Lagaan") on people from the local villages. They are unable to pay due to losses caused by a prolonged drought. Led by Bhuvan, the villagers pay a visit to Raja Puran Singh to seek his help. Near the palace, they witness a cricket match. Bhuvan mocks the game and gets into an argument with one of the British officers who insults them. Taking an instant dislike to Bhuvan, Russell offers to cancel the taxes of the whole province for three years if the villagers can defeat his men in a game of cricket. If the villagers lose, however, they will have to pay three times their current taxes. Bhuvan accepts this wager on behalf of the villagers in the province, despite their dissent.
Bhuvan begins to prepare the villagers for the match. He initially finds only five people willing to join the team. He is aided in his efforts by Russell's sister Elizabeth, who feels that her brother mistreated the villagers. As she teaches them the rules of the game, she falls in love with Bhuvan, much to the anguish of Gauri, who is also in love with him. After Bhuvan reciprocates Gauri's feelings, the woodcutter Lakha, who is in love with Gauri, grows jealous of Bhuvan and becomes a spy for Russell. He orders Lakha to join the villagers' team but not contribute in any way. Eventually, the villagers realise that winning equals freedom and one by one, they join the team. Short one player, Bhuvan invites an untouchable, Kachra, who can bowl spin. The villagers, conditioned by long-term prejudice against Dalits, refuse to play if Kachra joins the team. Bhuvan chastises the villagers and convinces them to accept Kachra.
On the first day, Russell wins the toss and elects to bat, giving the British officers a strong start. Bhuvan brings Kachra to bowl only to find that Kachra has somehow lost his ability to spin the ball — new cricket balls do not spin as well as worn-down ones (which the team have been practising with). In addition, as part of his agreement with Russell, Lakha deliberately drops many catches. Later that evening, Elizabeth notices Lakha meeting with Russell and immediately informs Bhuvan of Lakha's deception. Rather than allow the villagers to kill him, Bhuvan offers Lakha the chance to redeem himself.
The next day Lakha redeems himself by taking a diving one-handed catch. However, the British score 295 runs, losing only three wickets by the lunch break. Kachra is brought back to bowl with a now-worn ball, and takes a hat-trick, which sparks the collapse of the British batting side. The villagers soon start their innings after the British are dismissed for 322 runs. Bhuvan and Deva, a Sikh who has played cricket earlier when he was a British sepoy, give their team a solid start. Deva misses out on his half-century when a straight-drive from Bhuvan ricochets off the bowler's hand onto the stumps at the non-striker's end, where Deva is backing up too far. When Lakha comes on to bat, he is hit on the head by a bouncer and falls onto his stumps. Other batsmen get out rashly trying to score a boundary off each delivery. Ismail retires hurt as he is hit on the leg. The villagers' team ends the day with four batsmen out of action with barely a third of the required runs on board. In desperation, the villagers pray for success.
On the third and final day, Bhuvan passes his century, while most of the later wickets fall. Ismail returns to bat with the help of a runner and passes his half-century, reducing the target to 30 runs of 18 balls. The game comes down to the last over with Kachra on strike. With one ball remaining and the team down five runs, Kachra knocks the ball a short distance, managing a single. However, the umpire signals no-ball. Bhuvan returns to bat and hits the ball high in the air towards the boundary. Russell runs backwards and catches it, believing that his team has won, until he realises that he has caught the ball beyond the boundary, giving six runs, and therefore victory, to Bhuvan's team. Even as they celebrate the victory, the drought ends as a rainstorm erupts.
Bhuvan's defeat of the British team leads to the disbanding of the cantonment. In addition, Russell is forced to pay the taxes for the whole province and is transferred to Central Africa. After realizing that Bhuvan loves Gauri, Elizabeth returns to London. Heartbroken, she remains unmarried for the rest of her life. It is revealed, during the epilogue, that Bhuvan and Gauri get married. But despite the historic triumph, Bhuvan's name was lost in the pages of history.
Cast [ edit ]
Production [ edit ]
Origins [ edit ]
Lagaan was inspired by a 1957 Indian film, Naya Daur, starring Dilip Kumar.[17][18]
Director Ashutosh Gowariker has stated that it was almost impossible to make Lagaan. Gowariker went to Aamir, who agreed to participate after hearing the detailed script. Even after securing Khan, Ashutosh had trouble finding a producer. Producers who showed interest in the script wanted budget cuts as well as script modifications. Eventually, Aamir agreed to Ashutosh's suggestion that he'd produce the film.[19] Aamir corroborated this by saying that the faith he had in Ashutosh, the story and script of the film,[20] and the opportunity of starting his own production company inspired him to produce Lagaan.[21] He also said that by being a producer himself, he was able to give greater creative freedom to Ashutosh. He cited an example:
"If the director tells the producer that he wants 50 camels, the latter will probably say, 'Why not 25? Can't you manage with 25 camels?' Whereas, if he is telling me the same thing... I will not waste time asking him questions because I am also creatively aware why he needs them."[6]
Jhamu Sughand co-produced the film because he liked the emotional and patriotic story.[22][23]
One of the first members to join the production team was Nitin Chandrakant Desai, the art director, with whom Ashutosh set out for extensive location hunt throughout India, to find the setting for the fictional town of Champaner, in late 1998. After searching through Rajasthan, Nasik, UP, they zeroed in on an ancient village near Bhuj, located in Gujarat's Kutch district, by May 1999, where the film was primarily shot.[24]
The script demanded a dry location: an agricultural village where it had not rained in several years. To depict the 1890s era, the crew also required a village which lacked electricity, communication and automobiles.[20] Kutch faced the same problems at that time and hence the village of Kunariya, located a few miles away from Bhuj, was chosen. During the filming of Lagaan, it did not rain at all in the region. However, a week after the shoot finished, it rained heavily bringing relief to Bhuj, which had a lean monsoon the previous year.[5] The typical old Kutch hamlet was built by the local people four months before the arrival of the crew.[24] The 2001 Gujarat earthquake devastated this region and displaced many locals. The crew, including the English, contributed to their cause by donating ₹250,000 (equivalent to ₹710,000 or US$9,900 in 2017), with further contributions during the year.[25]
Avadhi, which is a dialect of Hindi, is primarily from a region in Uttar Pradesh. It was chosen to give the feel of the language spoken during that era. However, the language was diluted, and modern viewers can understand it.[6] The dialogues, which were a combination of three dialects (Avadhi, Bhojpuri and Braj Bhasha) were penned by Hindi writer K. P. Saxena.[5]
Bhanu Athaiya, an Oscar winner for Gandhi, was the costume designer for the film. With a large number of extras, it was difficult for her to make enough costumes. She spent a lot of time researching to lend authenticity to the characters.[5]
Filming [ edit ]
Pre-planning for a year, including ten months for production issues and two months for his character, was tiring for Aamir. As a first-time producer, he obtained a crew of about 300 people for six months. Due to the lack of comfortable hotels in Bhuj, he hired a newly constructed apartment and furnished it completely for the crew. Security was set up and a special housekeeping team was brought to take care of the crew's needs.[21] Most of the 19th century tools and equipment depicted in the film were lent to the crew by the local villagers. Initially, they did not want to part with their equipment, but after much coaxing, they gave in. They then travelled to different parts of the country to collect the musical instruments used in that day and era.[21]
During the shooting, Ashutosh suffered from a slipped disc and had to rest for 30 days. During this period, he had his bed next to the monitor and continued with his work.[26]
The filming schedule spanned the winter and summer, commencing in early January and finishing in mid-June. This was physically challenging for many, with the temperatures ranging from 0 to 50 °C (32 to 122 °F).[11][15] The actors had to drink frequently and sit in the shade.[10][12] The schedule was strict. The day began at 6 am, changing into costumes and getting onto the actors' bus, which took them to the sets in Kanuria. The actors, including Aamir, all travelled on the same bus. If anyone missed it, it was up to them to reach the sets. One day, Aamir was late and missed the actors' bus. That day, his wife Reena, the executive producer, reprimanded him for being late. She told him he had to set an example for the rest of the crew. "If he started coming late, how could she tell the others to come on time?"[12] While on the sets, the actors were given call sheets with the day's timetable such as breakfast, hair styling, make-up, costumes, etc.[27]
Release [ edit ]
Before its worldwide release, Aamir Khan kept a promise to screen the film to the locals of Bhuj.[28] Lagaan clashed with Sunny Deol's Gadar: Ek Prem Katha at the box office. The film made it to the UK Top 10 after its commercial release.[29] It was the first Indian film to have a nationwide release in China[30] and had its dubbed version released in Italy.[31] With favourable reviews from the French press, Lagaan premiered in Paris on 26 June 2002 and continued to have an unprecedented nine weeks of screening with over 45,000 people watching.[32] It was released in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Africa and the Middle East with respective vernacular subtitles.[31][33] The film took a cumulative of $2.5 million at the international box-office[34][35] and ₹380 million (equivalent to ₹1.1 billion or US$15 million in 2017) at the domestic box-office.[36]
In 2001, Lagaan had a world premiere at the International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA) weekend in Sun City, South Africa.[37] The Locarno International Film Festival authorities published the rules of cricket before the film was screened to a crowd which reportedly danced to its soundtrack in the aisles.[38] Lagaan was shown four times due to public demand as against the usual norm of showcasing films once at the festival.[31] It subsequently won the Prix du Public award at the festival.[39] After the film's publicity in Locarno, the director, Ashutosh Gowarikar said that distributors from Switzerland, Italy, France, Netherlands, North Africa, Finland and Germany were wanting to purchase the distribution rights.[31] Special screenings were held in Russia, where people were keen to watch the film after its Oscar nomination.[40]
Apart from these screenings, it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival,[41] Cairo International Film Festival,[42] Stockholm International Film Festival,[43] Helsinki Film Festival[44] and the Toronto International Film Festival.[45]
Reception [ edit ]
Box office [ edit ]
The film initially grossed ₹65.97 crore worldwide in 2001. This made it the third highest-grossing Indian film of 2001, behind Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and Gadar: Ek Prem Katha.[46]
Domestically, Lagaan grossed ₹55.63 crore in India. Its domestic net income was ₹34.31 crore, equivalent to ₹187 crore ($29 million) when adjusted for inflation.[47]
With an overseas gross of ₹10.8 crore[36] (US$2.2 million) in 2001, it was the year's second highest-grossing Indian film overseas, behind only Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.[48] Lagaan's overseas gross included £600,000 in the United Kingdom, US$910,000 in the United States and Canada, and US$180,000 in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.[47]
In China, where the film later released on 16 May 2003, it grossed ¥3 million,[49] equivalent to ₹1.71 crore[50] (US$362,500).[51]
Including the film's China collections, the film's total worldwide gross was ₹67.68 crore (US$14.533 million).[52] At a ticket inflation rate of 5.5 times,[47] the film's total gross is equivalent to approximately ₹372 crore ($57 million) when adjusted for inflation.
Critical reception [ edit ]
Lagaan was met with high critical acclaim. The film currently scores a 95% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, based on 59 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The site's critical consensus is, "Lagaan is lavish, rousing entertainment in the old-fashioned tradition of Hollywood musicals."[53] Derek Elley of Variety suggested that it "could be the trigger for Bollywood's long-awaited crossover to non-ethnic markets".[54] Somni Sengupta of The New York Times, described it as "a carnivalesque genre packed with romance, swordplay and improbable song-and-dance routines"[55] Roger Ebert gave three and half out of four stars and said, "Lagaan is an enormously entertaining movie, like nothing we've ever seen before, and yet completely familiar... At the same time, it's a memory of the films we all grew up on, with clearly defined villains and heroes, a romantic triangle, and even a comic character who saves the day. Lagaan is a well-crafted, hugely entertaining epic that has the spice of a foreign culture."[56] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described the film as "a lavish epic, a gorgeous love story, and a rollicking adventure yarn. Larger than life and outrageously enjoyable, it's got a dash of spaghetti western, a hint of Kurosawa, with a bracing shot of Kipling."[57] Kuljinder Singh of the BBC stated that "Lagaan is anything but standard Bollywood fodder, and is the first must-see of the Indian summer. A movie that will have you laughing and crying, but leaving with a smile."[58] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times argued that the film is "an affectionate homage to a popular genre that raises it to the level of an art film with fully drawn characters, a serious underlying theme, and a sophisticated style and point of view."[59] Sudish Kamath of The Hindu suggested that "the movie is not just a story. It is an experience. An experience of watching something that puts life into you, that puts a cheer on your face, however depressed you might be."[60] The Times of India wrote, "Lagaan has all the attractions of big-sounding A. R. Rahman songs, excellent performances by Aamir Khan... and a successful debut for pretty Gracy Singh. In addition, there is the celebrated David vs Goliath cricket match, which has audiences screaming and clapping."[61] Perhaps one of the most emphatic recommendations for the movie, coming 10 years later, is by John Nugent of the Trenton Independent, who wrote "a masterpiece... and what better way to learn a bit about India's colonial experience! History and great entertainment, all rolled in to one (albeit long) classic film."[62]
Lagaan was listed as number 14 on Channel 4's "50 Films to See Before you Die" and was the only Indian film to be listed.[63] The film was also well received in China, where its anti-imperialism themes resonated with Chinese audiences.[64]
Awards [ edit ]
Aamir Khan and Gowariker went to Los Angeles to generate publicity for the Academy Awards. Khan said, "We just started showing it to whoever we could, even the hotel staff."[65] About India's official entry to the 2002 Oscars, The Daily Telegraph wrote, "A Bollywood film that portrays the British in India as ruthless sadists and Mafia-style crooks has been chosen as Delhi's official entry to the Academy Awards."[66] It added that the film was expected to win the nomination.[66]
On 12 February 2002, Lagaan was nominated for the best foreign language film at the Academy Award nominations ceremony.[67] After the nomination, Khan reacted by saying, "To see the name of the film and actually hear it being nominated was very satisfying".[68] Post-nomination reactions poured in from several parts of the world. The USA Today wrote "Hooray for Bollywood, and India's Lagaan".[65] With Sony Pictures Classics distributing the film and Oscar-winning director Baz Luhrmann praising it, Lagaan had a chance to win.[65][69] The BBC commented that the nomination raised Bollywood hopes that Indian films would become more popular in the US.[70] In India, the nomination was celebrated with news reports about a win bringing in "a great boost for the Indian film industry"[71] and "a Bharat Ratna for Aamir Khan and the status of a 'national film' for Lagaan".[72]
When Lagaan lost the award to the Bosnian film No Man's Land,[73] there was disappointment in India. Khan said, "Certainly we were disappointed. But the thing that really kept us in our spirits was that the entire country was behind us."[74] Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt criticised the "American film industry" as "insular and the foreign category awards were given just for the sake of it."[74] Gowariker added that "Americans must learn to like our films".[75]
The film won a number of national awards including eight National Film Awards,[76] nine Filmfare Awards, nine Screen Awards[77] and ten IIFA Awards.[78] Apart from these major awards, it also won awards at other national and international ceremonies.
Soundtrack [ edit ]
Home media [ edit ]
There were two releases for the DVD. The first, as a 2-DVD set, was released on 27 May 2002 in limited regions. It contained subtitles in Arabic, English, Hebrew, Hindi, Turkish and several European languages. It is available in 16:9 Anamorphic widescreen, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, progressive 24 frame/s, widescreen and NTSC format. It carried an additional fifteen minutes of deleted scenes, filmographies and trailers.[79]
The second was released as anniversary edition three-disc DVD box after six years of the theatrical release. This also included Chale Chalo which was a documentary on the making of Lagaan, a curtain raiser on the making of the soundtrack, deleted scenes, trailers, along with other collectibles.[which?][80] After its release, it became the highest selling DVD in India beating Sholay (1975).[81]
Merchandise [ edit ]
In the anniversary DVD edition, a National Film Award-winning documentary, Chale Chalo – the lunacy of film making, 11 collector cards, a collectible Lagaan coin embossed with the character of Bhuvan, a 35 mm CinemaScope filmstrip hand-cut from the film's filmstrip were bundled with the film.[80]
A comic book, Lagaan: The Story, along with two colouring books, a mask book and a cricket board game were subsequently released to the commercial market. The comic book, available in English and Hindi, was targeted at children between the ages of six and 14. At the book's launch, Aamir Khan said that they were keen to turn the film into a comic strip during the pre-production phase itself.[82][83]
In March 2002, a book titled The Spirit of Lagaan – The Extraordinary Story of the Creators of a Classic was published. It covers the making of the film, describing in detail the setbacks and obstacles that the crew faced while developing the film from concept to its release.[84]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]Get the Recipe Sautéed Japanese Turnips With Turnip Greens
Recently, a Japanese acquaintance asked me what recipes I was working on. "Oh, I just did a quick and easy thing with Japanese turnips," I told him. He stared at me blankly. That's when I realized, slightly embarrassed at my daftness, that "Japanese turnip" is probably not how they're known in Japan. "What do you call them?" I followed up. "You know, the little white ones that you can eat raw?"
Hakurei turnip, it turns out, is the answer. A delicate, sweet, crisp-tender root vegetable, Hakurei turnips have become a popular item at farmers markets nationwide, even if, at least in the New York area, they're often slapped with the generic "Japanese" moniker. I can't get enough of them—and right now, in late spring, the market stands are full of them.
If you count yourself among the rather sizable population of people who don't like turnips, I implore you to give Hakurei turnips a try. They're tiny things, sometimes called "small" or "baby" turnips, with a much milder flavor than the large winter ones. They hardly have any of that sulfurous funk typical of bigger turnips and many other members of the brassica family. Instead, they're slightly sweet, and surprisingly juicy—so much so that they're fantastic raw. Imagine supremely tender radishes, with none of the peppery bite.
Perhaps the thing I love most about them, though, is that each bunch almost always comes with its leafy green tops. There are a million things you can do with these, but one of my favorites is to serve the two together, the turnip bulbs sautéed until browned and the greens quickly blanched, then chopped and tossed briefly in the pan to combine them.
I take an extremely simple approach to let the vegetables shine as much as possible; not even a clove of garlic sneaks its way into my skillet (not that garlic would be bad, but I just love these turnips so much as they are).
It's an easy one-two punch of blanching and sautéing to make them. I set a medium pot of salted water on the stove and bring it to a boil. (In case you're wondering why I don't bother with a large pot, see my blanching tests here.) While that happens, I prep the turnips, cutting off the greens, discarding any yellow leaves, and washing them well of sand and grit.
Then I peel the turnips, which is an entirely optional step. The OCD part of me loves how clean they look peeled, but the peels are edible, so a good scrubbing is all you really have to do. I also like to leave a small portion of the green stems attached to each turnip, mostly because I like how they look, though they also function as excellent handles if you decide to eat the turnips with your fingers. (The stems are edible, too, though, so don't discard them after nibbling at the turnip.)
Finally, I cut each turnip pole to pole into thin wedges.
At this point, the water should be boiling, so it's time to drop the turnip greens in and give them a quick blanch, just until they're softened, in a minute or so. I pluck them out of the water with tongs or a strainer and drop them into cold water to chill. Then I squeeze them of excess water and chop them up.
Meanwhile, I set a skillet over high heat with olive oil in it. As soon as the first wisps of smoke appear, I drop the turnips into the pan, tossing them just enough to allow them to brown but not burn.
Once they've browned nicely, I drop the chopped greens into the pan and toss it all together just until it's warmed through. You might be wondering why I bother blanching the greens first, instead of just adding them to the pan raw and letting them cook there. Truth is, you could do that, but I like how plump and vibrantly green they are from the blanching—they don't spend any more time in the pan than it takes to heat them up.
I season it all with salt and pepper and give it a good bath in fresh olive oil. That's it, done and done: a phenomenal (and phenomenally simple) side dish for roast chicken or a piece of fish. There's nothing terribly Japanese about it, but then again, what's in a name, anyway?
Get the Recipe Sautéed Japanese Turnips With Turnip Greens View Recipe »
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.We were somewhere around our second bottle of wine when I made the startling realization that Fake Winehouse’s unexpected British accent had faded into something typical and American. When I had picked her up that night for drinks at The Reptile Zoo, I told her I wasn’t expecting a British accent. She asked what I was expecting, and I didn’t have a good answer. You exchange a few messages with a girl on OKCupid and agree to meet for drinks; what is there to expect?
But it was when the accent disappeared entirely that I realized the true depth of the situation. I had cut right to the heart of it and was sitting on the main nerve; Fake Winehouse was a fucking lunatic. And I’m a stupid motherfucker who likes that kind of thing. Yeah… that’s me, the normal girls are boring type; I want the curve ball. I want the crazy girl; I want the hyper-emotional; I want the bizarre.
So of course the unexpected accent disappearing entirely from a girl who wonders why I think it’s funny that she’s “never been to Europe” is right up my alley. When the bill comes, I ask Winehouse how much she’s gonna throw in and she tells me that she didn’t bring any money. This was very funny to her. The accent was back. Son of a bitch. Who is this girl?
As a girl, if you’re not gonna pay, this is how to do it. None of that passive aggressive shit. Say you don’t have money and think it’s all a big laugh. She got me there. Winehouse says something like, “well, do you want to fuck me or not?”
I say no, and we leave. No is always the right answer, if you didn’t already know that. That’s the game. The game is sub-textual. Your job is to frustrate and confuse. This makes Budget Winehouse whine about always getting what she wants, and how men don’t say no to her. She continues to spout gibberish. I allow it. This is funny to me. Always say no. Women don’t understand no.
We get back to my real shithole of an apartment, and Winehouse wants to be fucked. I concede- and why not? Crazy girls are the best in bed. I mean, it’s a cliche for a reason.
This is the new American dream. Humping as the American dream. Gone are the days of marrying young. Our stock is bred for college and a meandering twenties of hedonistic exploration. Well, personal choice, right? My married friends are caught up in the worst of relationship dynamics. She’s the boss kind of shit; keep your success under the radar, divorce can be tempting. I was born into this. You try to create meaning where you can; you fuck like a wild animal. An entire generation of men as refugees from Progressivism. Horatio Alger snorting the last remnants of the sexual revolution on the way down with the ship.
Winehouse wants to stay over, and I say no. No. Women don’t understand no. Winehouse is pissed.
And in a flash, reality hit hard. This was heavy, too heavy for me to handle at 3AM on an Monday morning. I was confused, paralyzed with horror, and would only agree to deal with my new wretched reality in terms of fantasy; an analogy. What happens when Batman ends up in bed with the Joker? It sounded like a riddle. I had made a grave error in judgment.
I didn’t think much of when she asked me to retrieve her glasses after sex. She wanted to collect herself, this much was certain, but it was when I got a better look at her glasses that I felt a deep sense of dread.
The dark reality of the situation; I had a godamn pair of problem glasses pointed straight at my head and the fucker was cocked and loaded. How could I not have noticed? I decide to slow down; to massage things. Let’s explore the issue. She seemed upset; we can talk. Winehouse was a therapist; she’s a professional. I asked her what her major was in college and she said
Women’s studies. Was this for real? Was I dreaming? I had read about this kind of thing on the Internet but I didn’t think it could actually happen to me. Winehouse knew what she was saying; she had a very deliberate grin, I was sure.
I was too smug to let her stay over. I wanted to think this was all insignificant. She was like an angry dog and I couldn’t let my fear show. I had to be pack leader. On the car ride taking her home, she mentioned a friend who had been raped because her boyfriend fucked her and then broke up with her. That was rape, she explained. Son of a bitch. She got me again. Women don’t understand the word no. They find it aggressive and hostile. She was good, really, you had to hand it to her. I am a stupid motherfucker.
In nearly every conversation about the Jodi Arias murder of Travis Alexander, after everyone agrees that murder is awful and unjustifiable, it is inevitably mentioned that Travis was just using Jodi sexually, and that soundbite is left alone to hang in the air. It becomes up to the individual to assess how justifiable it is for a woman to brutally murder a man for refusing to commit to a monogamous relationship after having consensual sex.
This transforms the Arias murder from something binary- she stabbed a naked man thirty times, slit his throat, and shot him in the head unprovoked and therefore she’s aggressively guilty- to a nuanced matter of her degrees of guilt.
Lifetime even made an awful TV movie about Arias which served as a thinly veiled revenge porn; Lifetime, the network for women. We are supposed to understand the Arias case as two wrongs; one only being somewhat more wrong depending on your perspective. Lifetime’s perspective is immediately apparent in the film’s title: “Dirty Little Secret“- a reference to their relationship, not the murder |
( " String ", LibRuby.rb_cObject) LibRuby.rb_define_method(string, " blank? ", -> StringExtensionWrapper.blank?, 0 ) LibRuby.rb_define_method(string, " blank_as? ", -> StringExtensionWrapper.blank_as?, 0 )... end
This is mostly boilerplate. But now check out what I am having to do in the wrapper, in this particular snippet:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 def self. blank? ( self : LibRuby :: VALUE ) return true.to_ruby if LibRuby.rb_str_length( self ) == 0 str = String.from_ruby( self ) str.blank?.to_ruby rescue true.to_ruby end
I am receiving a C-Ruby String casted as a pointer (VALUE) then I go through the lib_ruby.cr mappings to get the C-Ruby string data and copy it over into a new instance of Crystal's internal String representation. So at any given time I have 2 copies of the same string, one in the C-Ruby memory space and another in the Crystal memory space.
This happens with all FFI-like extensions but it doesn't happen to the pure C implementation. In Sam Saffrom's C implementation it directly works with the same address in C-Ruby's memory space:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 static VALUE rb_str_blank(VALUE str) { rb_encoding *enc; char *s, *e; enc = STR_ENC_GET(str); s = RSTRING_PTR(str);...
It receives a pointer (direct memory address) and goes. And this is huge advantage for the C version. When you have a big volume of medium to large sized strings being copied over from C-Ruby to Crystal, it adds a noticeable overhead that can't be removed.
String mapping Caveat
I still have a problem though. There is one edge case I was not able to overcome yet (help is most welcome). When C-Ruby passes a unicode "\u0000" I am unable to create the same character in Crystal and I end up passing just an empty string ("") which is not the same thing.
The way to deal with it is to receive a Ruby String (VALUE) and get the C-String from it this way:
1 2 rb_str = LibRuby.rb_str_to_str(str) c_str = LibRuby.rb_string_value_cstr(pointerof(rb_str))
If the "str" is the "\u0000" (under Ruby 2.2.5 at least) C-Ruby raises a "string contains null bytes" exception. Which is why I rescue from this exception like this:
1 c_str = LibRuby.rb_rescue(-> String.cr_str_from_rb_cstr, str, -> String.return_empty_string, 0.to_ruby)
When an exception is triggered I have to pass the pointer to another function to rescue from it:
1 2 3 4 def self. return_empty_string (arg : LibRuby :: VALUE ) a = 0 _u8 pointerof(a) end
But this is not correct, I am just passing the pointer to a "0" character, which is "empty". Therefore, specs are not passing correctly:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Failures: 1) String provides a parity with active support function Failure/Error: expect("#{i.to_s(16)} #{c.blank_as?}").to eq("#{i.to_s(16)} #{c.blank2?}") expected: "0 false" got: "0 true" (compared using ==) #./spec/fast_blank_spec.rb:22:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>' #./spec/fast_blank_spec.rb:19:in `times' #./spec/fast_blank_spec.rb:19:in `block (2 levels) in <top (required)>' 2) String treats correctly Failure/Error: expect("\u0000".blank_as?).to be_falsey expected: falsey value got: true #./spec/fast_blank_spec.rb:47:in `block (2 levels) in <top (required)>'
Ary gave a simple tip later, I will add it to the conclusion below.
The Synthetic Benchmarks (careful on how you interpret them!)
The original Rails ActiveSupport implementation of String#blank? looks like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 class String # 0x3000: fullwidth whitespace NON_WHITESPACE_REGEXP = %r! [^ \s #{ [ 0x3000 ].pack( " U " ) } ]! # A string is blank if it's empty or contains whitespaces only: # # "".blank? # => true # " ".blank? # => true # " ".blank? # => true # " something here ".blank? # => false # def blank? # 1.8 does not takes [:space:] properly if encoding_aware? self!~ / [^[:space:]] / else self!~ NON_WHITESPACE_REGEXP end end end
It's mainly a regular expression comparison, which can be a bit slow. Sam's version is a more straight forward loop through the string to compare each character with what's considered "blank". There are many unicode codepoints that are considered blank, some are not, which is why the C and Crystal versions are similar, but they are different from Rails' version.
In the Fast Blank gem there is a benchmark Ruby script to compare the C-extension against Rails' Regex based implementation.
The Regex implementation is called "Slow Blank". It's particularly slow if you pass a real empty String, so in the benchmark Sam added a "New Slow Blank" that checks through String#empty? first, and this version is faster in this edge case.
The fast C version is called "Fast Blank" but although you can consider ir "correct" it's not compatible with all the edge cases from Rails. So he implemented a String#blank_as? which is compatible with Rails. Sam calls it "Fast Activesupport".
In my Crystal version I did the same, having both String#blank? and String#blank_as?.
So, without further ado, here is the C Version over OS X benchmark for empty strings, and we exercise each function many times within a few seconds to have more accurate results (check out Evan Phoenix's "benchmark/ips" to understand the "iteration per second" methodology).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 ================== Test String Length: 0 ================== Warming up _______________________________________ Fast Blank 191.708k i/100ms Fast ActiveSupport 209.628k i/100ms Slow Blank 61.487k i/100ms New Slow Blank 203.165k i/100ms Calculating _______________________________________ Fast Blank 20.479M (± 9.3%) i/s - 101.414M in 5.001177s Fast ActiveSupport 21.883M (± 9.4%) i/s - 108.378M in 5.004350s Slow Blank 1.060M (± 4.7%) i/s - 5.288M in 5.001365s New Slow Blank 18.883M (± 6.9%) i/s - 94.065M in 5.008899s Comparison: Fast ActiveSupport: 21882711.5 i/s Fast Blank: 20478961.5 i/s - same-ish: difference falls within error New Slow Blank: 18883442.2 i/s - same-ish: difference falls within error Slow Blank: 1059692.6 i/s - 20.65x slower
It's super fast. Rails' version is 20x slower on my machine.
Now, Crystal version over OS X
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 ================== Test String Length: 0 ================== Warming up _______________________________________ Fast Blank 174.349k i/100ms Fast ActiveSupport 174.035k i/100ms Slow Blank 64.684k i/100ms New Slow Blank 215.164k i/100ms Calculating _______________________________________ Fast Blank 8.647M (± 1.6%) i/s - 43.239M in 5.001530s Fast ActiveSupport 8.580M (± 1.3%) i/s - 42.987M in 5.010759s Slow Blank 1.047M (± 3.7%) i/s - 5.239M in 5.008907s New Slow Blank 19.090M (± 9.3%) i/s - 94.672M in 5.009057s Comparison: New Slow Blank: 19090034.8 i/s Fast Blank: 8647459.7 i/s - 2.21x slower Fast ActiveSupport: 8580487.9 i/s - 2.22x slower Slow Blank: 1047465.3 i/s - 18.22x slower
As I explained before, even checking empty strings, the Crystal version is slower than the Ruby check for String#empty? (New Slow Blank) because I have the string copying routine of the Wrapper mappings. This adds overhead that is perceptible over many iterations. It's still 18x faster than Rails, but it loses to C-Ruby.
Finally, Crystal version over Ubuntu
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 ================== Test String Length: 0 ================== Warming up _______________________________________ Fast Blank 255.883k i/100ms Fast ActiveSupport 260.915k i/100ms Slow Blank 105.424k i/100ms New Slow Blank 284.670k i/100ms Calculating _______________________________________ Fast Blank 8.895M (± 9.8%) i/s - 44.268M in 5.037761s Fast ActiveSupport 8.647M (± 8.2%) i/s - 43.051M in 5.020125s Slow Blank 1.736M (± 3.9%) i/s - 8.750M in 5.048253s New Slow Blank 22.170M (± 6.2%) i/s - 110.452M in 5.004909s Comparison: New Slow Blank: 22170031.0 i/s Fast Blank: 8895113.3 i/s - 2.49x slower Fast ActiveSupport: 8646940.8 i/s - 2.56x slower Slow Blank: 1736071.0 i/s - 12.77x slower
Notice that it's around the same ballpark, but the Rails version on Ubuntu runs almost twice as fast compared to its counterpart in OS X, which makes the comparison against the Crystal library go down from 18x to 12x.
The benchmark keeps comparing agains strings of larger and larger sizes, from 6, to 14, to 24, up to 136 characters in length.
Let's get just the last test case of 136 characters. First with C version on OS X:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 ================== Test String Length: 136 ================== Warming up _______________________________________ Fast Blank 177.521k i/100ms Fast ActiveSupport 193.559k i/100ms Slow Blank 89.378k i/100ms New Slow Blank 60.639k i/100ms Calculating _______________________________________ Fast Blank 10.727M (± 8.7%) i/s - 53.256M in 5.006538s Fast ActiveSupport 11.600M (± 8.3%) i/s - 57.681M in 5.009692s Slow Blank 1.872M (± 5.7%) i/s - 9.385M in 5.029243s New Slow Blank 1.017M (± 5.3%) i/s - 5.094M in 5.022994s Comparison: Fast ActiveSupport: 11600112.2 i/s Fast Blank: 10726792.8 i/s - same-ish: difference falls within error Slow Blank: 1872262.5 i/s - 6.20x slower New Slow Blank: 1016926.7 i/s - 11.41x slower
The C-version is consistently much faster in all test cases and in the 136 characters it's still 11x faster than Rails in pure Ruby.
Now the Crystal version over OS X:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 ================== Test String Length: 136 ================== Warming up _______________________________________ Fast Blank 127.749k i/100ms Fast ActiveSupport 126.538k i/100ms Slow Blank 94.390k i/100ms New Slow Blank 60.594k i/100ms Calculating _______________________________________ Fast Blank 3.283M (± 1.8%) i/s - 16.480M in 5.021364s Fast ActiveSupport 3.235M (± 1.3%) i/s - 16.197M in 5.008315s Slow Blank 1.888M (± 4.4%) i/s - 9.439M in 5.009458s New Slow Blank 967.950k (± 4.7%) i/s - 4.848M in 5.018946s Comparison: Fast Blank: 3283025.1 i/s Fast ActiveSupport: 3234586.5 i/s - same-ish: difference falls within error Slow Blank: 1887800.5 i/s - 1.74x slower New Slow Blank: 967950.2 i/s - 3.39x slower
It's also faster, but just by 2 to 3 times compared to pure Ruby, a far cry from 11x. But my hypothesis is that the mapping and copying of so many string over adds a large overhead that the C version does not have.
And the Crystal version over OS X:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 ================== Test String Length: 136 ================== Warming up _______________________________________ Fast Blank 186.810k i/100ms Fast ActiveSupport 187.306k i/100ms Slow Blank 143.439k i/100ms New Slow Blank 98.308k i/100ms Calculating _______________________________________ Fast Blank 3.517M (± 3.9%) i/s - 17.560M in 5.000791s Fast ActiveSupport 3.485M (± 3.8%) i/s - 17.419M in 5.006427s Slow Blank 2.755M (± 4.2%) i/s - 13.770M in 5.008490s New Slow Blank 1.551M (± 4.3%) i/s - 7.766M in 5.017853s Comparison: Fast Blank: 3516960.7 i/s Fast ActiveSupport: 3484575.5 i/s - same-ish: difference falls within error Slow Blank: 2754669.0 i/s - 1.28x slower New Slow Blank: 1550815.2 i/s - 2.27x slower
Again, the Ubuntu versions of both Crystal library but also the Ruby binary runs faster and the comparison shows no more than twice as much faster. And the pure Ruby's String#empty? is in the same ballpark as Crystal's version.
Conclusion
The most obvious conclusion is that I probably did a mistake in choosing Fast Blank as my first proof of concept. The algorithm is too trivial and a simple check for String#empty? in pure Ruby is orders of magnitude faster than the added overhead of mapping and string copying to Crystal.
Also, any use case where you have a huge amount of small bits of data being transferred from C-Ruby to Crystal or any FFI-based extension will have the overhead of data copying, which a pure C-version will not have. Which is why Fast Blank is better done in C.
Any other use case where you have less amounts of data, or data that can be transferred in bulk (less calls from C-Ruby to the extension, with arguments with a larger size, and with more costly processing) are better candidates to benefit from extensions.
Again, not everything gets automatically faster, we always have to figure out the use case scenarios first. But because it's so much easier to write in Crystal and benchmark, we can make faster proofs of concepts and scrap the idea if the measurements prove that we won't benefit as much.
The Crystal documentation recently received a "Performance Guide". It's very useful for you to avoid common pitfalls that harms overall performance. Even though LLVM is quite competent in heavy optimization, it can't do everything. So read it through to improve your general Crystal skills.
That being said, I still believe that this exercise was well worth it. I will probabaly do some more. I'd really want to thank Ary (Crystal creator) and Paul Hoffer for the patience in helping me out through many of quircks I found along the way.
While I was finishing this post, Ary pointed out that I could probably ditch Strings altogether and work directly with an array of bytes, which is a good idea and I will probably try that. I think I made it clear by now that the whole String copying adds a very perceptible overhead as we saw in the benchmarks above. Let me know if someone is interested in contributing as well. With a few more tweaks I believe we can have a Crystal version that can at least compete against the C version while also being more readable and maintainable for most Rubyists, which is my goal.
I hope the codes I published here will serve as boilerplate examples for more Crystal-based Ruby extensions in the future!Despite its Zen façade, Apple has been known to take occasional jabs at its rivals, something that senior VP Jony Ive recently demonstrated in spectacular fashion when he launched an open attack on Motorola. And now Moto has hit back, ripping open what will hopefully be a hilarious tech bitch-slap contest.
Jony Ive’s comments spilled out during a recent interview with the BBC, where he openly criticised Motorola’s ‘build-your-own’ program. The program in question is Moto Maker, a service recently introduced in the UK which allows you to choose your own design and components for your Moto X smartphone.
Now Moto President Rick Osterloh has responded to Ive’s comments, defending his company’s design philosophy and adding a few choice words of his own regarding Apple’s ethos.
Ive’s original criticism of Motorola focused on the company’s design choices, something he himself has been responsible for at Apple. “Their value proposition was, ‘Make it whatever you want. You can choose whatever colour you want’, and I believe that’s abdicating your responsibility as a designer,” Ive said.
However, it seems that Motorola is taking the criticism on the chin. Osterloh told the BBC in a recent interview that “Our belief is that the end user should be directly involved in the process of designing products. We’re making the entire product line accessible. And frankly, we’re taking a directly opposite approach to them.”
Osterloh also added that he thought design was only a small part of what a smartphone should offer, adding “We do see a real dichotomy in this marketplace, where you’ve got people like Apple making so much money and charging such outrageous prices. We think that’s not the future.”
He went on to say that Motorola’s beliefs were centred more on equality and affordability, rather than high prices and courted exclusivity.
“We believe the future is in offering similar experiences and great consumer choice at accessible prices. The mobile phone industry’s greatest failure is also its greatest opportunity: to make really good, affordable devices for people who don’t want to spend a lot of money.”
“A great smartphone, and a great mobile internet experience, shouldn’t be an expensive luxury. It should be a simple choice for everyone.”
Sir Jony’s words could well be taken as a badge of honour by Motorola, as Apple’s track record when it comes to burning rivals is usually limited to companies it sees as a threat. With Motorola pulling back a significant market share in recent times, and its marked improvement in mobile output, it’s no real wonder.CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- For the second time in four seasons, North Carolina heads into the NCAA tournament wondering about the health of a starter after a late-season injury.
Coach Roy Williams said he probably won't know until Thursday whether John Henson will be ready for the Tar Heels' tournament opener the next day against the Lamar-Vermont winner.
Henson hurt his left wrist on a fall during the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament in Atlanta. The 6-foot-10 forward didn't play the final two games of the tournament, though he dressed out for the championship game against Florida State.
"If I had to guess -- and this is merely a guess -- if the game were today he probably still would not play today," Williams said Tuesday. "But we're being hopeful that he will be Friday."
It's reminiscent of a toe injury that befell point guard Ty Lawson just before the regular-season finale against Duke in 2009. Lawson sat out the ACC tournament and the NCAA opener before returning in the second-round win against LSU and leading the Tar Heels to the national championship.
That team started its run in Greensboro, about an hour west of the Chapel Hill campus. Now this year's Tar Heels (29-5) are in similar position, with a No. 1 seed and opening in Greensboro.
While Lawson led Williams' fast-paced transition attack, Henson's value comes in defense and rebounding. He's averaging about 14 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks per game, and is a two-time ACC defensive player of the year.
Williams said Henson's wrist swelled during the weekend, but that swelling went down in the past 24 hours.
Senior Tyler Zeller, and sophomores Kendall Marshall and Harrison Barnes didn't sound too worried about Henson's health Tuesday afternoon.
"Selfishly, I missed him (during the ACC tournament) because that's two or three assists a game that are now gone," Marshall said. "He affects the game in more ways than one -- obviously with the double-doubles he puts up on a consistent basis, but more so the shots he alters on a consistent basis on the defensive end.
"That may not show up in the stats, but you can tell teams weren't so worried about attacking us on the inside when the defensive player of the year isn't sitting in there."The moment has finally come for Nokia’s first Windows tablet. While it's been rumored for what feels like years, Nokia’s Lumia 2520 is the Finnish smartphone-maker’s take on a Lumia-style tablet. It’s everything you’d expect from Nokia, and it looks just like a much bigger version of a Lumia Windows Phone. Microsoft might be buying Nokia’s device business, but for the next few months they’re going to be battling it out as competitors for Windows-based tablet market share. At Nokia World in Abu Dhabi today I got a chance to compare Nokia’s Lumia 2520 directly with Microsoft’s Surface 2 tablet and find out whether a Nokia-built tablet can take on Apple’s iPad and the rest of the tablet competition.
Just like a bigger Lumia Windows Phone
Nokia has opted for a 10.1-inch display on its Lumia 2520 with a body that’s styled just like a Lumia Windows Phone. It looks beautiful in red, white, cyan, and black. The easiest way to describe this device is just to imagine a rounded Lumia like the 720 and then increase it in size to 10 inches. It really takes Nokia’s design language and places it almost perfectly into a tablet form factor. The 1920 x 1080 display is perhaps one of the best I’ve seen on a tablet. Viewing angles are great and the brightness is equally impressive. Color reproduction is incredibly accurate, and it’s clear Nokia has really aimed high with the display on its first tablet.
One of the worries that comes with a Windows RT device is performance. While Microsoft’s initial attempt with Surface RT was plagued with app performance issues, the Surface 2 improved greatly and Nokia’s tablet is equally powerful. Inside there’s a 2.2GHz Quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, and Windows RT 8.1 runs great. It’s responsive and multitasking with apps seems just as good as the Surface 2. Because this is Windows RT you also get access to the desktop Office apps as part of this device, and that’s where Nokia’s keyboard is useful.
While the Surface 2 has its own Touch and Type Covers, Nokia has opted for a Power Keyboard. It adds a Surface-like keyboard and trackpad, alongside two USB ports and a boost of five hours to the battery life. Nokia says the Lumia 2520 should get 11 hours by itself, so it’s possible this device will reach 16 hours in total with the cover attached.Class of Japanese super battleships
The Yamato-class battleships (大和型戦艦, Yamato-gata senkan) were battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) constructed and operated during World War II. Displacing 72,000 long tons (73,000 t) at full load, the vessels were the heaviest battleships ever constructed. The class carried the largest naval artillery ever fitted to a warship, nine 460-millimetre (18.1 in) naval guns, each capable of firing 1,460 kg (3,220 lb) shells over 42 km (26 mi). Two battleships of the class (Yamato and Musashi) were completed, while a third (Shinano) was converted to an aircraft carrier during construction.
Due to the threat of American submarines and aircraft carriers, both Yamato and Musashi spent the majority of their careers in naval bases at Brunei, Truk, and Kure—deploying on several occasions in response to American raids on Japanese bases—before participating in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, as part of Admiral Kurita's Centre Force. Musashi was sunk during the battle by American carrier airplanes. Shinano was sunk ten days after her commissioning in November 1944 by the submarine USS Archerfish, while Yamato was sunk by US naval air power in April 1945 during Operation Ten-Go.
Background [ edit ]
The design of the Yamato-class battleships was shaped by expansionist movements within the Japanese government, Japanese industrial power, and the need for a fleet powerful enough to intimidate likely adversaries.[6]
Musashi, August 1942, taken from the bow., August 1942, taken from the bow.
After the end of the First World War, many navies—including those of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Imperial Japan—continued and expanded construction programs that had begun during the conflict. The enormous costs associated with these programs pressured their government leaders to begin a disarmament conference. On 8 July 1921, the United States' Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes invited delegations from the other major maritime powers—France, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom—to come to Washington, D.C. and discuss a possible end to the naval arms race. The subsequent Washington Naval Conference resulted in the Washington Naval Treaty. Along with many other provisions, it limited all future battleships to a standard displacement of 35,000 long tons (36,000 t; 39,000 short tons) and a maximum gun caliber of 16 inches (406 mm). It also agreed that the five countries would not construct more capital ships for ten years and would not replace any ship that survived the treaty until it was at least twenty years old.[7][8]
In the 1930s, the Japanese government began a shift towards ultranationalist militancy.[9] This movement called for the expansion of the Japanese Empire to include much of the Pacific Ocean and Southeast Asia. The maintenance of such an empire—spanning 3,000 miles (4,800 km) from China to Midway Island—required a sizable fleet capable of sustained control of territory.[10] Although all of Japan's battleships built prior to the Yamato class had been completed before 1921—as the Washington Treaty had prevented any more from being completed—all had been either reconstructed or significantly modernized, or both, in the 1930s.[11] This modernization included, among other things, additional speed and firepower, which the Japanese intended to use to conquer and defend their aspired-to empire.[12] When Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in 1934 over the Mukden Incident, it also renounced all treaty obligations.[13] Japan would no longer design battleships within the treaty limitations and was free to build warships larger than those of the other major maritime powers.[14]
Japan's intention to acquire resource-producing colonies in the Pacific and Southeast Asia would likely lead to confrontation with the United States,[15] thus the U.S. became Japan's primary potential enemy. The U.S. possessed significantly greater industrial power than Japan, with 32.2% of worldwide industrial production compared to Japan's 3.5%.[16] Furthermore, several leading members of the United States Congress had pledged "to outbuild Japan three to one in a naval race."[17] Consequently, as Japanese industrial output could not compete with American industrial power,[6] Japanese ship designers developed plans for new battleships individually superior to their counterparts in the United States Navy.[18] Each of these battleships would be capable of engaging multiple enemy capital ships simultaneously, eliminating the need to expend as much industrial effort as the U.S. on battleship construction.[6]
Design [ edit ]
Musashi. The bridge of
Preliminary studies for a new class of battleships began after Japan's departure from the League of Nations and its renunciation of the Washington and London naval treaties; from 1934 to 1936, 24 initial designs were put forth. These early plans varied greatly in armament, propulsion, endurance, and armor. Main batteries fluctuated between 460 mm (18.1 in) and 406 mm (16.0 in) guns, while the secondary armaments were composed of differing numbers of 155 mm (6.1 in), 127 mm (5.0 in), and 25 mm (0.98 in) guns. Propulsion in most of the designs was a hybrid diesel-turbine combination, though one relied solely on diesel and another planned for only turbines. Endurance in the designs had, at 18 kn (21 mph; 33 km/h), a low of 6,000 nmi (11,000 km) in design A-140-J 2 to a high of 9,200 nmi (17,000 km) in designs A-140A and A-140-B 2. Armor varied between providing protection from the fire of 406 mm guns to enough protection against 460 mm guns.[19]
After these had been reviewed, two of the original twenty-four were finalized as possibilities, A-140-F 3 and A-140-F 4. Differing primarily in their range (4,900 nmi (9,100 km) versus 7,200 nmi (13,300 km) at 16 kn (18 mph; 30 km/h)), they were used in the formation of the final preliminary study, which was finished on 20 July 1936. Tweaks to that design resulted in the definitive design of March 1937,[20] which was put forth by Rear-Admiral Fukuda Keiji;[21] an endurance of 7,200 nm was finally decided upon, and the hybrid diesel-turbine propulsion was abandoned in favor of just turbines. The diesels were removed from the design because of problems with the engines aboard the submarine tender Taigei.[20] Their engines, which were similar to the ones that were going to be mounted in the new battleships, required a "major repair and maintenance effort"[22] to keep them running due to a "fundamental design defect".[22] In addition, if the engines failed entirely, the 200 mm (7.9 in) armored citadel deck roof that protected the proposed diesel engine rooms and attendant machinery spaces, would severely hamper any attempt to remove and replace them.[23]
The final design called for a standard displacement of 64,000 long tons (65,000 t) and a full-load displacement of 69,988 long tons (71,111 t),[24] making the ships of the class the largest battleships yet designed, and the largest battleships ever constructed. The design called for a main armament of nine 460-millimetre (18.1 in) naval guns, mounted in three, three-gun turrets—each of which weighed more than a 1930s-era destroyer.[21] The designs were quickly approved by Japanese Naval high command,[25] over the objections of naval aviators, who argued for the construction of aircraft carriers rather than battleships.[26][A 1] In all, five Yamato-class battleships were planned.[6]
Ships [ edit ]
Yamato and Musashi anchored in the waters off of the andanchored in the waters off of the Truk Islands in 1943.
Although five Yamato-class vessels had been planned in 1937, only three—two battleships and a converted aircraft carrier—were completed. All three vessels were built in extreme secrecy, to prevent American intelligence officials from learning of their existence and specifications;[6] indeed, the United States' Office of Naval Intelligence only became aware of Yamato and Musashi by name in late 1942. At this early time, their assumptions on the class's specifications were quite far off; while they were correct on their length, the class was given as having a beam of 110 feet (34 m)—in actuality, it was about 127 feet (39 m) and a displacement of 40,000–57,000 tons (actually, 69,000 tons). In addition, the main armament of Yamato class was given as nine 16-inch (41 cm) guns as late as July 1945, four months after Yamato was sunk.[27][28] Both Jane's Fighting Ships and the Western media also misreported the specifications of the ships. In September 1944, Jane's Fighting Ships listed the displacement of both Yamato and Musashi as 45,000 tons.[29] Similarly, both the New York Times and the Associated Press reported that the two ships displaced 45,000 tons with a speed of 30 knots,[30] and even after the sinking of Yamato in April 1945, The Times of London continued to give 45,000 tons as the ship's displacement.[31] Nevertheless, the existence of the ships—and their supposed violation of naval treaties—heavily influenced American naval engineers in the design of the 60,500-ton Montana-class battleships, though they were not designed specifically to counter the Yamato class.[32]
Yamato [ edit ]
Yamato on trials in 1941. on trials in 1941.
Yamato was ordered in March 1937, laid down 4 November 1937, launched 8 August 1940, and commissioned 16 December 1941.[21] She underwent training exercises until 27 May 1942, when the vessel was deemed "operable" by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.[21] Joining the 1st Battleship Division, Yamato served as the flagship of the Japanese Combined Fleet during the Battle of Midway in June 1942, yet did not engage enemy forces during the battle.[33] The next two years were spent intermittently between Truk and Kure naval bases, with her sister ship Musashi replacing Yamato as flagship of the Combined Fleet.[21] During this time period, Yamato, as part of the 1st Battleship Division, deployed on multiple occasions to counteract American carrier-raids on Japanese island bases. On 25 December 1943, she suffered major torpedo damage at the hands of USS Skate, and was forced to return to Kure for repairs and structural upgrades.[21]
In 1944—following extensive antiaircraft and secondary battery upgrades—Yamato joined the Second Fleet in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, serving as an escort to a Japanese Carrier Division.[34] In October 1944, as part of Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's Center Force for the Battle of Leyte Gulf, she used her naval artillery against an enemy vessel for the only time, helping sink the American escort carrier Gambier Bay and the destroyer Johnston before she was forced away by torpedoes from Heermann, which put her out of combat.[35] Lightly damaged at Kure in March 1945, the ship was then rearmed in preparation for operations.[21] Yamato was sunk 7 April 1945 by 386 American carrier aircraft during Operation Ten-Go, receiving 10 torpedo and 7 bomb hits before capsizing; 2,498 of the 2,700 crew-members were lost, including Vice-Admiral Seiichi Itō.[28] The sinking of Yamato was seen as a major American victory, and Hanson W. Baldwin, the military editor of The New York Times, wrote that "the sinking of the new Japanese battleship Yamato... is striking proof—if any were needed—of the fatal weakness of Japan in the air and at sea".[36]
Musashi [ edit ]
Musashi departing Brunei in October 1944. departing Brunei in October 1944.
Musashi was ordered in March 1937, laid down 29 March 1938, launched 1 November 1940, and commissioned 5 August 1942. From September to December 1942, she was involved in surface and air-combat training exercises at Hashirajima. On 11 February 1943, Musashi relieved her sister ship Yamato as flagship of the Combined Fleet. Until July 1944, Musashi shifted between the naval bases of Truk, Yokosuka, Brunei, and Kure. On 29 March 1944, she sustained moderate |
or at least ‘North European’) technology, capable of being at the heart of new urbanities and new forms of mobile citizenship. Like the Internet too, the bike is a technology whose meanings are struggled over by different social groupings. Having been largely abandoned as a means of mass transportation in Britain and elsewhere, cycling has instead become associated with a shifting mixture of ‘subversive play and utopian futures’ (Aldred, 2012: 97), which express the dispositions of particular middle-class fractions. In this article, I deal with these struggles for meaning and the connections that on-line writers make with their off-line identities and embodied cycling activities. By analysing Bike Blog in the light of debates over taste and citizenship, I concentrate on the boundaries drawn, and policed through accusations of trolling, between cycling as a bio-political sphere of ‘healthy’, autonomous and frequently expensive play and a more ‘ethical’ disposition that links cycling to environmental and social responsibility. At the same time, a fragile sense of on- and off-line community is established through the embattled relationship with a sometimes imagined and sometimes insistently present ‘petrolhead’ mode of on-line writing which asserts the pleasures of unrestrained lifestyle-as-fun and contests the tastes and claims to good citizenship made by pro-cycle bloggers. The essay asks whether the field of cycle blogging is constituted by its games of taste and its defensive response to real or assumed trolling, or if ‘civilizing processes’ of netiquette and on-road etiquette offer a route to a form of ‘professionalization’ and thereby to legitimacy.
To examine these issues, the article analyses the archive of contributions to the Guardian‘s Bike Blog from its appearance in 15 June 2009 to the end of December 2012. ’Guardian’ is used throughout the article as shorthand for a range of on-line and print media owned by the UK’s Guardian Media group: the Monday-to-Saturday Guardian newspaper and the Sunday Observer; the website guardian.co.uk, which reproduces almost all of the newspaper’s news, editorial and comment pieces, together with some original content; and a network of discussion boards which are routinely referred to as ‘blogs’. While in the blogosphere more generally, bloggers write blogs, to which other contributors append comments, in the Guardian’s case any such distinction is blurred, so the discussion constitutes the ‘blog’ every bit as much as the (generally) journalist-written article that occasions the discussion. Similarly, comment posters on the boards are regularly described as ‘bloggers’, even if they are only occasional visitors to the pages.
Bike Blog was chosen since guardian.co.uk is amongst the world’s most-visited English-language newspaper websites (its own research claims it to be the world’s third most popular newspaper website in any language (Media Briefing, 2012)). Guardian.co.uk’s relative success stands in stark contrast to the long-term decline in sales of the print versions of the Guardian and Observer. Indeed, in 2011 editor Alan Rusbridger announced a ‘digital first’ strategy, foregrounding the problems faced by print in an online age. Crucially in terms of the discussion here, ‘digital first’ does not currently involve the website operating behind a paywall, thereby encouraging the contribution of posts from readers who may balk at having to pay for content. While the blog is primarily British (indeed, southern English) in its topics and comments, it regularly attracts comments from around the world, and covers global cycling issues. So, for example, during two weeks on October and November 2012, Bike Blog dealt with cycling matters from Oregon, Yemen, New York and Sydney as well as its UK ‘home’.
Bike Blog’s breadth of readership is crucial when considering trolling and other forms of on-line hostility. Although the Guardian umbrella covers a spectrum of political and cultural positions, it is generally characterised as occupying a space on the ‘progressive’ liberal-left of the British press, at some ideological remove from the majority of British national newspapers. A prominent trope in hostile comments is therefore that the paper’s readers are ‘guardianistas’ – modish, metropolitan liberals. Although other UK regional and national newspapers cover cycle-related stories and invite reader responses on the topic (most notably the Times with its campaigning ‘Cities Fit for Cycling’ site) no other paper has a regular discussion board dedicated to cycling (though the London Evening Standard carried a short-lived bike blog).
Although the Guardian had previously run a regular ‘Two Wheels’ column, Bike Blog was an offshoot of the paper’s ‘Ethical and Green Living’ section, first appearing in its own right with a column entitled ‘What Moves You to Get on Your Bike?’ on 15 June 2009. Bike Blog was envisaged as a weekly discussion piece accompanied by a podcast, but open-to-comment postings have been much more frequent than this: between June 2009 and December 2012, guardian.co.uk posted over 700 bike-related features on Bike Blog. Numbers of comments varied from less than ten on several topics to approaching 900 on the topic of ‘cycle haters’. Although around 400 of these articles were studied, the sample here is limited to discussions which either contained direct accusations of trolling, or broached a variety of legal or etiquette issues. This poses some problems in terms of how the article attempts to capture the character of trolling on the Bike Blog. As Patrick O’Sullivan and Andres Flanagin note in their discussion of ‘flaming’, while there might be a consensus that trolling ‘consists of aggressive or hostile communication occurring via computer-mediated channels’ (2003: 71) there are considerable differences in the perceptions of senders, receivers and third party observers about whether such communication represents a ‘real’ violation of community norms or a misinterpretation on the part of one or other interactant (see also Lange, 2006; Neurauter-Kessels, 2011). Nonetheless, explicit accusations of trolling enable us to see the positions taken by those prepared to name the troll and the reactions of those named as trolls. [1]
Equally, however, the article examines on-line comments in which trolling is not explicitly marked. O’Sullivan and Flanagin note that a further problem with writing on flaming is the assumption that it is overwhelmingly negative and destructive, and research is therefore ‘framed in terms of finding solutions to the ‘problem’ of uninhibited or inappropriate messages’ (2003: 74). By contrast, I show that the ‘troll function’ of valorising negative conventions is generative : although it establishes limits to what is writable on Bike Blog (and doable offline) it is also ‘click bait’ that provides opportunities for writing, traffic for the website and the legitimation of positions taken by some writers. Writing about an earlier period of internet discussion systems, in which the troll had the more specific role of provoking an indignant response from someone new to the forum, and a more legitimated disposition [2], Michele Tepper (1997: 40) argues that trolling serves to generate profits in distinction within the on-line field. Trolling, she notes, is accepted within on-line subcultures, because it enforces ‘community standards and [increases] community coherence by providing a game that all those who know the rules can play against those who do not.’ Although the troll may well be an individual from the shifting ‘community’ of Bike Blog contributors, the troll function is nearer to this sense of a set of rules and (negative) conventions which can form a capital on which a poster can trade. Moreover despite the often high level of hostility shown between pseudonymous posters on Bike Blog, trolling can also consist of relatively playful games within which humour and deep knowledge of community conventions are highly valued.
In what follows, I provide a context for thinking about these rules though a discussion of the dominant regime of mobility in late modern societies, and the relationship between this regime and practices of computer-mediated communication (CMC).
From automobility to moral mobility
In this section I review key writing about transport in late modernity. I note potent correspondences between cycling and the internet around their common promotion of a model of renewed participatory democracy and citizenship. However, there is no necessary relationship between the two technologies and their associated practices, and I go on to suggest some problems in linking cycling and the internet as redemptive technologies which automatically generate virtuous behaviour.
The most encompassing theoretical engagement with these issues has been the description of a hegemonic regime of ‘automobility’. For Mimi Sheller and John Urry (2000: 738), this is a near-global phenomenon, exerting ‘an awesome spatial and temporal dominance’. Automobility links embodied mobile practices and their representation on the internet for it is both ‘the predominant form of ‘quasi-private’ mobility that subordinates other ‘public’ mobilities of walking, cycling’ and so on and ‘the dominant culture that sustains discourses of what constitutes the good life [and] what is necessary for an appropriate citizenship of mobility’ (739, original emphasis). As a consequence, they argue, ‘society should be reconceptualised as a ‘society of automobility’’. While some individuals and groups may practice other forms of mobility, these exist in a subaltern relationship to automobility since the institutions of civil society, including the internet, cannot ‘be conceived of as autonomous from these all-conquering machinic complexes’ (Sheller and Urry, 2000: 739).
In her discussion of cycling and citizenship, Rachel Aldred (2010) argues that automobility’s privatization of public space, its reinforcement of inequality and its cultivation of consuming individualism are problematic for democratic citizenship. By contrast, her research amongst cyclists in Cambridge indicates that, for her primarily middle-class respondents, cycling can produce a number of potential forms of citizenship that point outside and beyond the ‘carcoon’ (Wickham, 2006: 4). She notes four dimensions of cycling citizenship: ‘being responsive to environmental issues, taking care of oneself, being rooted in one’s locality, and responding to the social environment’ (2010: 39). Cycling therefore appears to be a form of ‘resistant mobility’ (Green, 2012: 274), or ‘virtuous mobility’.
This virtuousness has undoubtedly become central to health and transport policy discourses. Tim Jones and his co-authors (2012: 1407) write that cycling has entered the policy domain as a response to a number of problems associated with car dependency and more broadly with late modernity: congestion and environmental degradation; the disembedding of face-to-face social relations; obesity and cardiac illness, such that Aldred describes it as a ‘‘win-win solution’ to public health, environmental and economic problems’ (2012: 95). This policy discourse has, in turn, entered popular conceptions of the meanings of cycling. Through their interview work with different groups of Londoners, Judith Green and her co-authors argue that a new ‘moral transport hierarchy’ has been established in which ‘car travel clearly occupied the bottom rung’ (2012: 280). By contrast, cycling was at the apex, with ‘the moral worth of cycling [resting] on its construction as the ultimate mode for meeting a range of citizenship obligations’ (2012: 280). For Green et al’s respondents, therefore, cycling offers a route towards the flexibility, freedom and independence of ‘true’ automobility, for, ‘If car driving once provided the … promise of autonomous and efficient travel, in accounts from our participants, cycling now unequivocally offered this possibility’ (276).
This reconstruction of citizenship and reclamation of public space bears comparison with the countercultural values regularly claimed for the internet and the blogosphere, technologies which activists have claimed as privileged tools for the construction of virtual communities, subcultural playgrounds and ‘netizen’ democracy (Curran, 2012: 38; Hauben and Hauben, 1997). As Bart Cammaerts notes, a Habermasian notion of the public sphere is regularly invoked in discussions of the blogosphere, depicting it as an independent arena ‘where public opinion is formed through communicative action, through the free and open exchange of rational arguments between status-free citizens’ (2008: 358). Zizi Papacharissi (2002), however, argues that there is frequently a slippage or imprecision when depicting the internet as a public sphere. While it may have the potential for promoting the democratic exchange of ideas and opinions, it is exclusionary to some and what she describes as a ‘public space’ to others, open to a multiplicity of voices who may have little interest in rational public debate. ‘A virtual space enhances discussion’, she claims, while ‘a virtual sphere enhances democracy’ (2002: 11). As we shall see, there is no necessary direction to this travel: blogs (including Bike Blog) constantly shift between operating, in Papacharissi’s terms as ‘spheres’ and ‘spaces’.
For some authors and activists, the bike and the internet can form powerful associations. Green et al note that the cycling citizen is a hybrid of ‘active’ and ‘activist’ conceptions of citizenship. While the active citizen has rights and obligations in relation to the nation state, the activist cycling citizen is ‘engaged in struggles over rights in sites as local as the city streets, or internet message boards, as well as globally, across international borders’ (2012: 273). Similarly, in his discussion of Critical Mass protests, Zack Furness (2007: 301) argues that the online circulation of self-produced bike advocacy mirrors the leaderless organization of the ride, and celebrates ‘xerocracy [self-produced media] over corporate media’ as much as ‘bicycling over car culture’. Horton, meanwhile, in his study of cycling in the environmental community, argues that, while the car and television set are absent or marginalised in the lives of environmentalists ‘the computer screen … facilitates for British environmentalists a rooted but networked sense of local belonging to a globalised green community’ (2004: 750). And Aldred (2012: 107) describes how activist cycle blogging, represented by the London ‘Cycling Embassy of Great Britain’ (www.cycling-embassy.org.uk) has been a key part of local and national environmental campaigns.
Against the regime of automobility, therefore, ‘vélomoblity’ (Horton, Rosen and Cox, 2006: 2) has routinely been constructed as a virtuous practice and CMC as an element of this. But there is no necessary connection between these two technologies. As hypermodern convenience devices, computers share many characteristics with cars, not least their participation in processes of disembedding or ‘unbundling’ face-to-face relationships and territorialities of home, community and work. Indeed, Sheller and Urry themselves imagine that the future involves both a more diverse ecology of mobility and an (albeit significantly less privatised) intensification of ‘carcooning’ through the hybridisation of the car with a range of convergent ICTs. ‘Thus, any public vehicle could instantly become a home away from home: a link to the reflexive narratives of the private self in motion though public time-space scapes’ (2004: 171). We – and contributors to Bike Blog show an awareness of this – should therefore be cautious when envisaging a carless future or hybridising netizen democracy and cycling citizenship.
This section has shown that there is widespread agreement over the negative impact of a regime of automobility in late modernity. Cycling has come to the centre of policy discourse and been widely accepted as an exemplar of moral mobility, while its advocates have described urban futures based on the conjoined technologies of the bicycle and the internet. But, as the next section shows, acceptance of cycling is not the same as acceptance of cyclists.
The cultural construction of cyclists
We saw in the previous section that cycling has been constructed as a model of virtuous citizenship, analogous to – and sometimes linked with – notions of the active netizen. Yet despite this acceptance of cycling as potentially rich in social and ecological moral worth, Green et al note that its ‘practice incurs disapproval of inappropriate road use, echoing a normative assumption of car driving’ (2012: 279, original emphasis). The sociological literature indicates a strongly marked difference between cycling as an ideal (albeit one freighted with risk, see Horton, 2006; Aldred 2012) and the cyclist as the embodiment of social distastes. The section therefore discusses the ways that cycling has been described as a stigmatised activity, before considering how cyclists themselves engage in practices of judgment and repudiation. Finally, I discuss the early contributions to Bike Blog as an example of a ‘safe space’ where condemnation could be temporarily suspended.
Aldred (forthcoming) notes a strong disjuncture between the virtuous policy representation of cycling and the ‘stigmatised’ construction of cyclists within the popular imagination. Although cycling in most of its developed-world forms is a largely white, male and middle-class activity, this status is threatened since ‘a stigmatised identity … might have the power to ‘spoil’ the higher status identity’ (8). Similarly, Horton (2006: 145), argues that ‘Cycling, and most especially urban utility cycling, has become a polluted and polluting practice and ‘the cyclist’ a polluted and polluting identity.’ Cycling is spatially marginalised and the cyclist symbolically marginal, so that cyclists ‘are experienced as threatening and unsettling, and are demonised … within the mass media’, through being described as strange, criminal or deviant. Chris Rissel and his co-authors’ (2010) study of the representation of cycling in Sydney and Melbourne newspapers shows a similarly low level of positive framing of cyclists, and the expression of ‘powerfully negative’ sentiments on opinion pages and blogs.
However, all the authors above note that a critical perspective on cyclists is also common to cyclists themselves. Indeed, Aldred (forthcoming) is overwhelmingly concerned with how cyclists other, blame and shame one another, and she argues that ‘there are two conflicting stigmatised images of ‘the cyclist’; one cast as incompetent and one as too competent’. Jones et al similarly argue that one of the more pressing policy issues is to appeal to a ‘fundamentalist tendency within the world of cycling advocacy’ (2012: 1422). In the clearest expression of this approach, David Skinner and Paul Rosen (2006: 92), argue that ‘the identity of people who commute by bicycle tends to involve them setting themselves apart from other cyclists’. They note that an ‘insistence on discussing the ‘hell’ of ‘other’ cyclists’ is common to all their interviewees, even those amongst them who are cycle-commuting advocates (2006: 95).
Though the depth of hostility expressed towards fellow cyclists may come as a surprise, the fact that cycling is a diverse practice involving a wide range of opinions and value-hierarchies should not. The very notion of a ‘cyclist’ identity is problematic since adult cyclists tend to be travel omnivores: most will hold a driving licence and use public transport and all will be pedestrians. Perhaps precisely because of this complexity, at the moment of its appearance on 15 June 2009, Bike Blog appeared to offer a ‘purified’ space within which a community could be imagined, a ‘temporary autonomous zone’ where, for a while at least an enhanced sense of cycling solidarity could be expressed and enjoyed. Although a key feature of many forms of cycling advocacy has been the insistence on the desirability of cyclists being present within car-dominated space, Bike Blog’s initial appeal was more to the notion that a separate space for online discussion would increase understanding of cycling, overcome difference and pave the way for a more rational cycling future. In part, too, there was a sense that Bike Blog represented a withdrawal from the face-to-face conflicts of ‘real’ cycling (Horton, 2006: 125). In calling for potential contributors to write about what ‘thrills and enrages’ them about cycling, the article positioned the blog as follows:
- 21 - Cycling coverage tends to veer towards earnest discussions of gear ratios and carbon fibre gizmos, something we want to avoid. We also hope to steer clear of endless debates about red lights and/or belligerent car drivers. Cycling, in the main, is enjoyable, not a source of conflict. - 22 - We want this blog to be for everyone who cycles, however frequently they use a bike and wherever they go on it (Walker, 2009).
Had Bike Blog actually avoided these issues (not least sport cycling, which tends to attract large numbers of posts), then it would have been short lived. But the editorial points towards the direction that the site would subsequently take: it frames cycling in terms of pleasure, everydayness and as an expressive lifestyle activity. In response, the 105 comments were entirely supportive. Although a variety of problems were raised, they were either environmental or external to the cycling community (‘white van man’ or, as we shall see in the next section, ‘Clarkson’). Gledhowian (16 June) was typical:
- 24 - This is fabulous – well done Guardian! I’d like to see a critical mass pressure group developing from this which pushes the government into making changes to transport policy whereby cycling becomes a recognised and funded alternative to the horrible motor car. Not much to ask? For the sense of freedom it engenders, for the fitness it develops and for the positive mental outlook it breeds what can beat cycling? - 25 - Let’s do it
As we saw earlier, however, claims that the internet acts as a virtual public sphere and exemplar of polite, rational discourse, typically overstate the extent to which this is the case. Instead Bike Blog very quickly came to offer a public space for anti-cyclist sentiment and the articulation of divergent cycling dispositions from cyclists themselves. This should come as little surprise since, as Manuela Neurauter-Kessels (2011: 191) notes, disrespectful and aggressive behaviour is a persistent feature of much CMC and prevalent among the anonymous users of online newspaper comments. Moreover, because of the heterogeneity of cycling itself, there is no single privileged position from which cycling advocates can pronounce, nor a singular view of cycling that they espouse. Indeed, only eight days after its launch, one contributor, scavenger, could write: (23 June 2009) ‘Here’s a challenge to the Bike Blog folks: Find a topic for discussion that doesn’t result in the usual offtopic flamewar between different types of road user. I suspect it is impossible’. We turn to this impossibility now.
Trolls, Haters and Flamers
In the previous section, we saw how Bike Blog was initially treated as a public sphere within which an online community could debate, in rational manner, the pleasures and practices of cycling and the problems of automobility. However, in the following sections I argue that the meanings and values of the blog have been shaped both through the actions of dissenting voices (‘trolls’, ‘flamers’ and ‘haters’, but also those challenging the claims to virtue made by cyclists) and through the games of taste and practices of ‘responsibilization’ played out by cyclist bloggers themselves.
To do this, I have adopted Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of a cultural ‘field’ to think about the Bike Blog. For Bourdieu, a field is a relatively durable and consistent set of cultural practices governed by its own internal laws, a ‘particular social universe endowed with particular institutions and obeying specific laws’ (1993: 162–3). Fields possess their own autonomous codes of conduct and modes of behaviour and their own forms of reward (in this case not monetary reward, but symbolic recognition in the form of the acknowledgement of one’s peers) so that they become ‘self-regulating, self-validating and self-perpetuating’ (Ferguson, 2001: 5). Although this article does not have the scope to cover the international range of blogs which would constitute the field [3], the idea draws our attention to how a field involves both the internal dispositions of a cultural activity, and its external relations with related cultural fields. In the case of Bike Blog, for example, it explores how the deployment of what O’Sullivan and Flanagin (2003) call ‘problematic messages’ constitute and maintain the practice.
A central form of such problematic communication is what Bike Bloggers characterise as overt trolling: the contribution of clearly pro-car and/or anti-cyclist posts to the virtuous space of the Bike Blog. In an intertextual and convergent medium such as a newspaper have-your-say column, ‘trolls’ also exist outside the Bike Blog and construct the cycle trolling discourse in other media. Any ‘conversation’ typically takes place across media, and the troll or hater may not always be a contributor to Bike Blog. The Guardian articles to which the comments respond, for example, are frequently versions of such flamebait, highlighting broader cultural hostility to cyclists and encouraging righteous indignation from the majority online pro-cycling community and gestures of approval from mischievous or anti-cyclist posters.
Indeed, a prominent way in which the cycle blogging field is constructed is through its relationship with ‘cycle haters’ in the media. In the UK, a shorthand for this hostility is given by reference to the BBCs’ Top Gear, and its chief presenter, Jeremy Clarkson. Top Gear is a ‘slippery candidate for investigation’ (Bonner, 2011: 44): its use of comedy, fantasy and pleasurable failure mean that it is far from straightforward propaganda for a car-centred lifestyle (as many contributors to Bike Blog admit). Nonetheless, Clarkson’s more strident work for the tabloid press, and the very success of the programme in adopting an approach to environmentalism which shifts between the ‘irreverent’ and the actively antagonistic, means that it operates as a touchstone for Bike Blog. As Frances Bonner notes, ‘The days of taking pleasure in cars may be numbered, but there is an element of defiance and denial surrounding public discourse on the topic. Top Gear is a significant site for this defiance’ (Bonner, 2011: 42)
‘Clarkson’ and ‘Top Gear’ are therefore ways of performing trolling (for example, Gfewster 15 September 2009 quoted Clarkson in posting, ‘You are guests on the road. Get used to it’) and of labelling trolls on Bike Blog. In response to a poster’s call for bicycles to have number plates, StOckwell (24 August 2011) responds, ‘I’ll remember you next time some moron in a car tries to kill me and then tells me it’s my fault because you ride like a dick. Or are you a Clarkson fan trolling?’ Or for cuddyduck (10 June, 2011), ‘The button you seek is most likely on The Times motoring blog page, found by hovering your mouse over a jpg of a gurning Jeremy Clarkson … Where’s the ‘idiot lying trolls’ button?’ For other commenters, it was important to establish a blogging position distinct from the Clarkson persona. Thus WattaPalaver (19 November 2009) argues that ‘despite some rude remarks made about me, recommending I go off and watch Clarkson videos, I am not anti-cycling. I am anti stupid road users’. And others drew a distinction between haters and trolls. Thus contractor000 (9 November 2012) argued against the accusation that ‘this Shufflecarrot is a troll. Just an interestingly transparent example of conservative instincts in every possible example… In fact, Shufflecarrot may be Jeremy Clarkson’s cousin.’
Bloggers saw that, within the media field, imitating the comic reactionary Clarkson persona was a means of trying to establish legitimacy by taking sceptical or denying positions about the environment and cycling. Thus, when the British TV chef James Martin claimed to have chased some weekend cyclists off the road in his car, he was represented as a failed Clarkson: LordLucan (15 September 2009) ’ Personally I don’t think that Clarkson crosses the line in the same way that this fool does’. Similarly, Ikearse (16 September 2009) observed that ‘Using the ‘Clarkson’ get out clause doesn’t work because Jeremy Clarkson is a) funny and b) hasn’t actually openly admitted to an act of violence against the person’.
While Top Gear is therefore held to be a relatively successful example of a cultural politics of defiance and denial, and its imitators on the blog and in other media as failed examples of this, the two are linked by a common position on taste and consumption that is distinct from the bike bloggers and serves to constitute the field through being its other. As Bourdieu argues, whereas the ‘old’ middle classes based their consumption practices on a morality of modesty and restraint, the new middle classes urge a morality of pleasure as duty. ‘This doctrine makes it a failure, a threat to self-esteem, not to ‘have fun’’ (1984: 367). Here, ‘having fun’ is represented as a knowledgeable but wilfully unreflexive practice, at odds with the virtuous restraint of cyclists. Thus a one-time contributor, Euan888 (1 June 2010) was quickly named as a troll (and confessed to trolling) when he imitated the hedonistic language of consuming, spending and enjoying in response to a feature on how the new Transport Minister was going to end what the tabloid press called the ‘war on motorists’:
- 34 - SUPERB! At last a minister who talks sense. Personally I would go one further and ban cyclists from all city centres … Then, we need the new Govt. to ban the use of average speed cameras as they actually increase the chances of a crash as everyone drives with one eye on their speedo and the other on the hot female in the car beside them… Let’s put the ‘Great’ back into Britain!
A challenge to the claims to moral mobility made by Bike Blog therefore came from posters who either adopted, or who were censured for adopting, an unreflexive position on lifestyle-as-fun. This position could be dismissed as unethical and as a source of disgust (for example, Cree (5 January 2013): ‘Lot of trolling on this page, for me cars and their drivers are a bunch of filthy immoral fat scum. The Jeremy Clarkson body coming to a driver near you ha ha fat boys’). Trading on the idea that unrestrained automobility exists at the lowest level of a mobility hierarchy, the dismissal of such posts and posters represents precisely the profit in distinction identified by Bourdieu ‘which consists in the fact of feeling justified in being (what one is), being what it is right to be’ (1984: 224).
But if such trolls and haters maintain the boundaries of the community through creating a sense of virtuous entitlement amongst the in-group, a much more insistent (and common) form of attack presents cyclists themselves as unreflexive hedonistic consumers and ‘matter out of place’. In this form of online disrespect, far from being at the apex of a moral hierarchy, cyclists are those travellers least concerned with the diverse ecology of the road. Three examples give a flavour of this aggression:
- 37 - BallaBoy (23 June 2009):
Is that before or after you run a red light, head the wrong way up a one way street, steam through a zebra crossing, mount the pavement and shout at pedestrians for exercising their priority in crossing the street?
As a frequent London pedestrian, I can assure you that the lycra clad half wits marauding around the capital on two wheels are a far greater hazard to my health and safety than anyone in a car.
Bourbons3 (19 November 2009)
I agree with the principle of cycling … but I can’t stand cyclists. It just seems to attract people who, as soon as they got on a bike, get some power complex. If they’re not shouting at pedestrians to get out of their way, they’re running through red lights, which also puts people crossing at risk.
So that leaves me with the conclusion that cycling is good, but cyclists are bad.
Carlill (09 November 2012):
Cycling’s problem is that there is a pervading sense of self-righteousness that clings to the ‘movement’ … And I say this as someone who doesn’t own a car and despises the Clarkson ‘I should be allowed to go as fast as I want whenever I want’ brigade.
The terms used not only resonate with the observation that the cyclist is a strange and marginal figure, but also ironically recast vélomobility as sharing automobility’s worst characteristics, while privileging pedestrianism as the apex of the moral mobilities hierarchy. This echoes Jones et al’s (2012: 1420) analysis of urban mobilities, in which respondents who value walking in the city most highly are described as ‘pedestrian prioritisers’. Pedestrian prioritisers are almost all drivers, but desire changes, both to motoring, though the imposition of further restrictions, and to cycling through the creation of segregated cycle tracks.
As the tone of the posts above indicates, many contributors do not participate in Bike Blog in a Habermasian spirit of rational exchange, but with the intention of assigning to cyclists an identity that is ‘immoral, repellent, abject, worthless, disgusting, even disposable’ (Skeggs, 2005: 977). The virtuous pedestrian persona might well be adopted as a mask for the expression of broader anti-cyclist feeling (and bloggers are well aware of the potential for impersonation on the Bike Blog, so for example, Hithlum, (09 November 2012) responded to marcolo’s claim that he was regularly threatened by cyclists: ‘Make believe stories where everyone of a group is evil and vile and the teller is an angelic martyr tend to be pure …… well I am smelling and you are shovelling great mounds of it’ [4]) but the ascription of hedonism, excessive or inappropriate consumption and unrestrained speed to cyclists is a wounding invasion of a space which seeks to celebrate cycling’s progressive potentials. As Bourdieu notes, within the dominant class, opposing forms of habitus correspond to particular material conditions and configurations of cultural capital: an ‘aristocratic asceticism’ or disposition for austerity and purity stands in opposition to a hedonistic taste for luxury and ostentation. While for the most part, bike bloggers claim this aristocratic asceticism for themselves and their practice, ‘pedestrian prioritiser’ posters, whether they are trolling or flaming, attempt to reverse this symbolic distinction. As we shall see in the next section, the effect of this is to generate new games of distinction as posters attempt to reclaim the profits accruing from austerity.
Defensive and reflexive responses
While the adoption of a blanket anti-cycling position may therefore make the troll easy to name and counter, other critical positions are more ambivalent. By problematizing Bike Bloggers’ claims to good citizenship and netizenship, trolls and flamers contribute to the fragmentation of any imagined Bike Blog community. This section discusses reflexive responses to these attacks. First, I show that hostility from anti-cyclists is both constricting and generative. It constricts because the ‘memes’ of bike trolling established in the previous section–red light jumping, pavement riding, cyclists as metropolitan hipsters and objects of disgust–take up space and drown out ‘good sense’. But, equally, such tropes provide opportunities to write, points of departure and the chance to clarify and codify counter-arguments. Second, I suggest that, for some Bike Bloggers at least, responding to the negative consensus involves a form of ‘responsibilization’ where, rather than Bike Blog being a utopian and inviolable space, it becomes one in which posters play out their moral authority through the enactment of increasingly intellectualized and professionalized positions on cycling. These positions can be sharply divergent, however, and a particular fault line is the difference between social or community responsibility, and a more individualized notion of private responsibility.
Setting up anti-cyclist ‘noise’ is a key way in which posters begin a conversation and position themselves at the centre of the imagined community. As Honeycutt (2005) points out, an important feature of netiquette is a poster’s ability to digest and synthesize a great deal of information economically. To do so is both a form of politeness and a demonstration of mastery over the conversation. So, for example Bablkubrox (23 December 2009) writes:
- 42 - I think that what this blog requires is a regular monthly article ‘Is Red-Light Jumping Mostly the Fault of Helmetless Fixed-Gear Brompton [5] Riders?’ so that everyone can vent their spleen, and the resulting 500-odd posts then be sealed, autoclaved at a high temperature and collected for disposal.
In other cases, however, this shorthand dismissal of flame tropes could itself be misrecognised, and named, as trolling. The extended exchange below (28 November 2012) is typical of such attempts to name the meme and to thereby quarantine it.
- 44 - Jimson Weed: Can I be the first to say that cyclists don’t pay any road tax? Thanks, carry on.
Tresorf: You can be the first person to say that cyclists don’t pay any ‘road tax’. Can I have the pleasure of being the first person to mention that ‘road tax’ doesn’t exist (you pay VED, a motor vehicle tax based on the vehicles potential emissions) and that cyclists pay for their proportion of road use (their road use impact having orders of magnitude less impact than a car incidentally) through the same general taxation as everyone else (income tax, VAT etc)? … Sorted? Right, carry on.
PhineasPPhagbrake: @tresorf – I think Jimson is just trying to beat the trolls to it, but really it only encourages them.
Tresorf: @JimsonWeed – oh right. sorry about that :) A premature rant on my part :-)
Tresorf: @PhineasPPhagbrake – poe’s law
JimsonWeed @tresorf – no problem – quite understandable that you thought my post was genuine given the level of anti-cycling crap one usually sees on here : )
Mmmmf: @tresorf – Thanks anyway. I’ll keep your post as a handy cut’n’paste for the next time.
Luke Ts Shall I mention helmets or red lights, too, to get that out of the way?
The response from tresorf, above, gives some sense of how trolling is reflexively managed on Bike Blog. Cycling is widely depicted as a high-risk activity and, as we have seen, the cyclist is a polluted and polluting identity. On-line at least, posters are required to respond to persistent anti-cyclist accusations by ‘responsibilising’ themselves through the sort of expert knowledge that tresorf (mistakenly) deploys. Like other subjects occupying risk-defined identities, pro-cyclist bloggers ‘are instructed to become prudent subjects who must ‘practice |
features I'm super excited about is the ability for players to review positive cases as well. Players who show positive behaviors will have cases built in the Tribunal and if the community believes they are positive, they'll get a little prize."
Lyte
"TL DR: We're going to try a mix of different rewards and punishments in the upcoming year. It'll be important to get feedback from players about what rewards they care about the most, and why they care about it.
Incoming rant about "positive reinforcement" :)
The interesting thing about prizes and "positive reinforcement" is that it's often misunderstood by people.
For example, I'll often hear "why are we focused on punishment? Let's just do positive reinforcement instead!" This is a flawed argument because the overall approach to player behavior in games isn't about punishment OR reward. It's both.
There are many, many types of players in League. Most players are neutral to positive, and a few players are toxic. However, every type of player is motivated by different things. Some players love skins. Some player love rank (social status). Some players love competition. Some players love teamwork. Different players have different motivations, and respond to different punishments and rewards.
There are some players out there that are toxic and ONLY care about competition. So, if we gave out skins to behave, these players wouldn't care and Ranked behaviors might be exactly the same. However, the same players love social status, so if we remove their ability to earn loading borders and social status-bumping icons they now care and change their behaviors.
To truly improve player behavior across League of Legends, we need to incorporate a mix of approaches. We need rewards and positive reinforcement here and there to nudge neutral players to strive to be more positive, and to give positive players recognition for their contributions. But, we also need punishment for players unwilling to change, or who don't care about "rewards."" As for when we might expect more rewards for players who have never been punished by any of the behavioral systems, Lyte commented:
"There's no excuse, we have some plans that you'll hear about later in the year. We've always believed that "good" players in League should get some recognition for their contributions to the community."
He Suggested Players and sharing what else they are focusing on:
"We're wrapping up some polish with the new Suggested Players feature and what we call Team Builder Normals. Our focus right now is on stuff like Tribunal, LeaverBuster, Honor, and exploring what a Ranked Team Builder could be."
When asked about the current status of Team Builder and if there are any other plans for it in the immediate future, Lyte commented:
"Ah, we actually have been working on this along with a few other "quality of life" changes to Team Builder. For example, Team Builder will remember your last played spec (Champ, Position and Role) and then auto-populate them for you in your next game. Like you mentioned, we'll also be prioritizing almost full groups but I don't believe that feature made it into next patch." As for when we might expect more rewards for players who have never been punished by any of the behavioral systems,He continued, mentioning work they are doing onand sharing what else they are focusing on:When asked about the current status ofand if there are any other plans for it in the immediate future,
This morning's red post collection featureswith his latest plans for Cassiopeia anddiscussing all things player behavior - chat restrictions, upcoming projects, and more!Continue reading for more information!has once again on to the boards to give an update on his follow up to Cassiopeia's rework, this time including an updated changelist that should hit the PBE soon!In a lengthy reddit thread regarding Chat Restrictions,dove into a discussion on all things player behavior - Chat Restrictions, upcoming system improvements, and more!He started off by explaining how Chat Restrictions work to a summoner who just got out of a large streak of chat restrictions only to find himself with hundreds more:As for the typical frequency of Chat Restrictions and repeat offenders,He continued, elaborating on chat restrictions vs game bans:He continued, replying to a question regarding chat restrictions and the lose of ranked rewards:When asked for additional information on how toxic behaviors can be handled or managed,As for inaccurate or false reports and how they play into chat restrictions,In response to a suggestion to limit the amount reports players can submit based on time,also touched on toxic players who believe nothing will happen to them since the Tribunal is down:When asked if the updatedis expected to be up for the next season,He continued continued to elaborated onand mentioning that the updatedallows voting on positive cases which can bestow "little prizes" to players:When asked to elaborate on the rewards for good behavior and positive reinforcement,Authorities say this 27-year-old man, angered when his mother asked him to quiet down while playing Warcraft, choked her and rammed his head through a wall before his grandfather finally shot him. He wasn't seriously wounded. Nerd rage'll do that.
James Swan (pictured) of Manatee, Fla. was drinking and playing World of Warcraft around 10 p.m. on Feb. 11 when his 50-year-old mother asked him to pipe down, as her three grandchildren were trying to sleep at that hour. Cops say Swan ignored her, and when she put her hand on his shoulder, he flipped the f—- out.
The Bradenton Herald got the police report, and it says Swan grabbed his mother by the hair and threw her across the bed. She managed to get to the kitchen phone to call 911, but he tore it out of the wall, rammed his head through the hole where it had been, then threw her on the ground and started choking her. That's when his grandfather - mom's dad - got a gun from a gun closet. Still holstered, the gun misfired in a struggle and Swan was grazed behind the left ear.
Before you get huffy, no one's pinning this on the game, although it would boost MMOs' street cred considerably. Pretty much everyone can point the finger at the demon likker. Meantime, Swan is in the slammer, probably pissed that his raiding party hasn't formed up to bust him out.
World of Warcraft Argument Leads to Violent Dispute [Hot Blooded Gaming]
Image via Bradenton Herald.Emails recently released from a Right-To-Know request show that the Pennsylvania Department of Homeland Security monitored the twitter activity of law-abiding citizens.
The emails, obtained by the website PARevolution.com, show that a private firm used twitter to collect intelligence on anti-war protests as a part of their contract with the department.
Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR) monitored the activities of the Berks Peace Community, a group of Quaker-affiliated senior citizens, who routinely meet on the Penn State Bridge in Reading to protest America’s “war habit.”
Collecting intelligence by monitoring tweets is “part of the intelligence effort that is conducted daily… on behalf of the PA Office of Homeland Security,” according to the emails.
The former director of Homeland Security, Jim Powers, forwarded an ITRR “alert” email to William Heim, chief of the Reading Police, on July 3 to notify him that a protest was planned on the Penn State Bridge. ITRR had found out about the protest by monitoring the Act Now To Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) website.
“We regularly have anti-war demonstrators on the Penn Street Bridge holding signs and getting motorists to beeping their horns but they have not caused a problem and have not attempted to block the street or traffic in any way,” Heim wrote back in a email to Powers.
Powers then asked ITRR to contact the Reading police chief directly.
Mark Perelman, co-founder of ITRR, emailed an offer to brief Heim. “As promised, we will monitor Twitter for any tactical information that can be identified before, during, and immediately after the 5 p.m. demonstration,” Perelman said in a follow-up email.
“Because that monitoring activity will be part of the intelligence effort that is conducted daily by our organization on behalf of the PA Office of Homeland Security, there is no charge to the Reading PD,” he added.
But ITRR found no related tweets and the next day the protest proved to be of the usual non-threatening sort.
“We placed our best Twitter researcher on the task,” wrote Perelman. “She was unable to locate any planned communications for the protest. That fact is significant. Our inability to locate a communications network indicates that probably none exists (we’re pretty good at locating them if/when they exist).”
“Informed knowledge of the anarchist movement would indicate that there is potential that the name ANSWER is enough to bring outside aggressive anarchists to the protest. ITRR has no intelligence to indicate either way. As discussed yesterday, if they come they will most likely act in a lone-wolf/small cell capacity outside the perimeter of free speech activity,” he added.
John Hoskyns-Abrahall, a spokesman for the Berks Peace Community, told Patriot-News that the protests are always peaceful.
“We don’t shout,” he explained. “We’re just a presence. … It’s more of a vigil than a demonstration.”
Of the surveillance, Hoskyns-Abrahall said, “If that’s the best they can do, that is truly pathetic … more than pathetic — it’s downright un-American, might I say. It represents exactly the worst things we want to put behind us.”
Gov. Ed Rendell announced in October that Powers would be stepping down from his post after a scandal erupted over the department’s monitoring of lawful groups.
The Discovery Channel website Treehugger revealed last week that a 2009 ITRR briefing showed that they had considered a documentary on coal mining to be a threat to security.THE MORNING PLUM:
In the latest sign that the Russia scandal continues to ripen, as it were, the Senate Intelligence Committee may take action as early as today to try to compel President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, to turn over documents relevant to the committee’s probe of possible electoral collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, a senior Democratic aide tells me.
Flynn has emerged as a crucial figure in this whole saga, and new revelations in the past 24 hours dramatically raise the stakes, once again illustrating that he may have been the figure at the heart of efforts by Trump and the White House to hamstring or slow the ongoing FBI investigation into potential Russia-Trump campaign collusion. Those efforts may ultimately be revealed as obstruction of justice.
Flynn refused this week to turn over documents relating to his contacts with Russian officials during the campaign, which the Senate Intelligence Committee had subpoenaed as part of its ongoing probe, by invoking his right against self-incrimination. Now the committee may act as early as today to try force the issue, a senior Democratic aide tells me.
The committee has two leading options at its disposal (other than doing nothing) to try to force Flynn to cough up the documents it has subpoenaed. Right now, Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee are mulling both options, the senior Democratic aide says. As a useful Lawfare explainer notes, the Committee can either try to refer the matter to the U.S. Attorney for criminal action, or it can try to get the Senate, under a provision in a 1978 ethics reform law, to enlist its counsel to bring a civil action to compel release of the documents. The basic principle here is that in order for congressional oversight to be effective, its subpoena power must have real teeth.
The success of the first option relies on the willingness of the Justice Department to prosecute, and the latter option (a civil action brought by Senate counsel) is the more likely one, the Democratic aide tells me. And that would probably require votes first by the committee, and then by the full Senate, according to Sarah Binder, a congressional expert at George Washington University.
“The important procedural step here has typically been that the Senate by statute is authorized to direct its chamber legal counsel to seek civil enforcement of its committee subpoenas,” Binder told me this morning. “The full Senate would vote on a resolution directing its legal counsel to file suit in federal court to enforce a committee issued subpoena.”
This would raise some political complications — and would pose a challenge to Republicans. As one legal expert explained to USA Today, the question then would be how hard the GOP-controlled Senate’s counsel will fight in civil court — which would have to decide whether the Flynn documents are protected under the Fifth Amendment — to try to get Flynn to release them. That would also raise questions about how seriously Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is taking his oversight role in carrying out the probe, and more broadly, how seriously the GOP Senate caucus is taking that role.
A spokesperson for Burr didn’t return an email requesting comment on whether the committee will act or how.
The reason all this matters so much: Flynn’s role appears to be increasingly at the center of efforts by Trump and the White House to slow the FBI investigation. The Post reported yesterday that Trump personally asked top intelligence officials to deny the existence of any evidence of Russia-Trump campaign collusion, a request they found inappropriate. And some of the most glaring efforts were driven by Flynn, as the Post story also reported:
Senior White House officials sounded out top intelligence officials about the possibility of intervening directly with Comey to encourage the FBI to drop its probe of Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, according to people familiar with the matter. The officials said the White House appeared uncertain about its power to influence the FBI. “Can we ask him to shut down the investigation? Are you able to assist in this matter?” one official said of the line of questioning from the White House.
The urgency of efforts to scuttle the FBI probe into Flynn may have extended to Trump himself. As you may recall, a memo by former FBI director James B. Comey reportedly recounted that Trump urged him to shut down the Flynn probe. This has emerged as a major bullet point in the case that Trump might have obstructed justice. Which is to say that protecting Flynn from further scrutiny has emerged as a key objective in any such obstruction effort.
Indeed, another new revelation goes right to the heart of this matter. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have now released new documents suggesting that Flynn may have misled Pentagon investigators about the extent of his Russia ties when applying last year for a security clearance, raising new questions about how much Trump knew about those ties. They have asked the GOP chair of that committee to subpoena from the White House documents that might illuminate that.
And so, the question of whether the Senate Intelligence Committee will act to try to compel Flynn to cooperate with its own subpoena is a key test of how serious Republicans are about exercising their oversight role in this increasingly hyper-sensitive area.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats refused to say whether President Trump asked him to halt the FBI's Russia investigation, on May 23 at the Capitol. (Senate Armed Services Committee)
**************************************************************************
* TRUMP’S BUDGET WOULD DRAMATICALLY SLASH SAFETY NET: The New York Times reports that Trump’s budget, to be released today, would deliver “unprecedented cuts to programs for poor and working-class families”:
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known commonly as food stamps, would be cut by $192 billion over the next decade. Medicaid, the health program for the poor, would be cut by $800 billion, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, commonly known as welfare, would be cut by $21 billion … Mr. Trump also wants to … cut access to disability payments through Social Security.
Meanwhile, Trump wants to cut taxes bigly for the rich while dramatically boosting spending on the military and on border security. This is the reality of Trumpism.
* TRUMP’S BUDGET IS ‘NATIONALIST’: The Post’s overview of the budget contains this nugget:
A White House official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Trump saw the shrinking of the “welfare state” as a necessary component of his nationalist, working-class appeal and part of his pledge to “drain the swamp.”
Really? Are huge tax cuts for the rich also part of his “nationalist, working-class appeal”?
* TRUMP’S BUDGET WOULD SLASH MEDICAL RESEARCH: The Post offers up additional details of Trump’s proposed cuts to medical research and health programs:
The National Cancer Institute would be hit with a $1 billion cut compared to its 2017 budget. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute would see a $575 million cut, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases would see a reduction of $838 million. The administration would cut the overall National Institutes of Health budget from $31.8 billion to $26 billion.
Coming next: A senior administration official will claim that this represents “populist, working-class nationalism” because it constitutes cutting “the administrative state.”
* LIBERALS LAUNCH CAMPAIGN AGAINST TRUMP BUDGET: The Center for American Progress and other groups are launching a new advocacy campaign and website, called Hands Off, devoted to blocking the regressive cuts in Trump/GOP budget proposals. The site provides a clearinghouse for people to share stories of how they’ll be hurt by the cuts.
The site will feature issue-by-issue analysis of the cuts’ impact, broken down by congressional district. Liberal groups hope to block the worst of the Trump/GOP agenda via pressure on individual GOP members of Congress who might find political danger in enabling it.
* POLL: OSSOFF TAKES LEAD IN SPECIAL ELECTION: The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that a new Survey USA poll finds Democrat Jon Ossoff leading Republican Karen Handel by 51-44 in the special election for a House seat in the Atlanta suburbs.
It’s hard to poll special elections, so don’t place too much stock in this — and remember, it’s a deep-red district. Still, here’s a notable finding: Trump has a 51 percent disapproval rating here, despite the fact that the GOP House member won it in 2016 by 23 points.
* DEMOCRATS DON’T NEED TRUMP VOTERS TO WIN HOUSE: FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten has a good analysis explaining that the fact that Trump is “holding his base” doesn’t mean Democrats can’t take back the House:
Trump can hang on to most — if not all — of his base, and Democrats could still clean up in the midterm elections … In the last three midterm wave elections (1994, 2006 and 2010) that resulted in the president’s party losing the House, for example, the president’s party won at least 84 percent of the president’s voters. But that wasn’t enough … how independents vote in 2018 and who turns out will play roles just as big as that of how satisfied Trump voters are.
Yet pundits continue sagely telling us that the fact that Trump’s voters are sticking with him means something significant, though they rarely tell us what.
* AND TRUMP RIPS ‘EVIL LOSERS’ BEHIND BOMBING CARNAGE: A bomb killed at least 22 people, including children, at a concert in Manchester, England. Trump weighed in this morning:
“So many young beautiful innocent people living and enjoying their lives murdered by evil losers in life. I won’t call them monsters because they would like that term. They would think that’s a great name. I will call them from now on losers because that’s what they are.” “They’re losers, and we’ll have more of them, but they’re losers, just remember that,” he added.
The Islamic State has now claimed responsibility.Whether or not our current, slow economic recovery will last depends on who you talk to. But either way, you'd hope that we can learn from the last few years—and from the crises of our past too.
From recession-ready living for frugal sustainability to great stimulus ideas from the Great Depression, Lloyd has been digging in to the parallels between our current financial and ecological crisis and the challenges of the Great Depression for some time. But he's not the only one.
Janaia Donaldson of Peak Moment TV —the folks who have brought us videos of a sailboat Community Supported Agriculture program and neighbors removing fences and starting gardens —sat down with her own mother, Rowena Donaldson, to talk about her experiences of the Great Depression.
From making do with less through the value of hard work to finding the joy in the simple things in life, there are plenty of important lessons to learn from this beautiful video. For all our talk of the Plenitude Economy, it's worth remembering that many of the ideas we are exploring have been around for a very, very long time.I apologize for the lateness of this post. Life has been crazy, and I'm just now getting to this.
My Secret Santa saw that I love to bake when I have the time. I'm a professional artist, and I don't always know what to make my family at the end of the day. They were thoughtful and sent me a series of Time Life cooking books from the last 1970's-early 1980's. I got these in 4 different boxes. Each time the UPS man knocked on my door, it made my day.
As our son is finishing college soon, I am passing on this wonderful series of cookbooks to him for his new apartment. These books are not only filled with recipes, but also have detailed instructions/photos on how to prepare meats, knead bread, create sauces, and so much more.
Thank you so much Secret Santa for your thoughtful gifts. They will be used and appreciated :)The data breach disclosed in March by security firm RSA received worldwide attention because it highlighted the challenges that organizations face in detecting and blocking intrusions from targeted cyber attacks. The subtext of the story was that if this could happen to one of the largest and most integral security firms, what hope was there for organizations that aren’t focused on security?
Security experts have said that RSA wasn’t the only corporation victimized in the attack, and that dozens of other multinational companies were infiltrated using many of the same tools and Internet infrastructure. But so far, no one has been willing to talk publicly about which other companies may have been hit. Today’s post features a never-before-published list of those victim organizations. The information suggests that more than 760 other organizations had networks that were compromised with some of the same resources used to hit RSA. Almost 20 percent of the current Fortune 100 companies are on this list.
Since the RSA incident was disclosed, lawmakers in the U.S. Congress have taken a renewed interest in so-called “advanced persistent threat” or APT attacks. Some of the industry’s top security experts have been summoned to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers and staff about the extent of the damage. The information below was shared with congressional staff.
Below is a list of companies whose networks were shown to have been phoning home to some of the same control infrastructure that was used in the attack on RSA. The first victims appear to have begun communicating with the attacker’s control networks as early as November 2010.
A few caveats are in order here. First, many of the network owners listed are Internet service providers, and are likely included because some of their subscribers were hit. Second, it is not clear how many systems in each of these companies or networks were compromised, for how long those intrusions persisted, or whether the attackers successfully stole sensitive information from all of the victims. Finally, some of these organizations (there are several antivirus firms mentioned below) may be represented because they intentionally compromised internal systems in an effort to reverse engineer malware used in these attacks.
Among the more interesting names on the list are Abbott Labs, the Alabama Supercomputer Network, Charles Schwabb & Co., Cisco Systems, eBay, the European Space Agency, Facebook, Freddie Mac, Google, the General Services Administration, the Inter-American Development Bank, IBM, Intel Corp., the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Motorola Inc., Northrop Grumman, Novell, Perot Systems, PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP, Research in Motion (RIM) Ltd., Seagate Technology, Thomson Financial, Unisys Corp., USAA, Verisign, VMWare, Wachovia Corp., and Wells Fargo & Co.
At the end of the victim list is a pie chart that shows the geographic distribution of the command and control networks used to coordinate the attacks. The chart indicates that the overwhelming majority of the C&Cs are located in or around Beijing, China.
302-DIRECT-MEDIA-ASN
8e6 Technologies, Inc.
AAPT AAPT Limited
ABBOTT Abbot Labs
ABOVENET-CUSTOMER – Abovenet Communications, Inc
ACCNETWORKS – Advanced Computer Connections
ACEDATACENTERS-AS-1 – Ace Data Centers, Inc.
ACSEAST – ACS Inc.
ACS-INTERNET – Affiliated Computer Services
ACS-INTERNET – Armstrong Cable Services
ADELPHIA-AS – Road Runner HoldCo LLC
Administracion Nacional de Telecomunicaciones
AERO-NET – The Aerospace Corporation
AHP – WYETH-AYERST/AMERICAN HOME PRODUCTS
AIRLOGIC – Digital Magicians, Inc.
AIRTELBROADBAND-AS-AP Bharti Airtel Ltd., Telemedia Services
AIS-WEST – American Internet Services, LLC.
AKADO-STOLITSA-AS _AKADO-Stolitsa_ JSC
ALCANET Corporate ALCANET Access
ALCANET-DE-AS Alcanet International Deutschland GmbH
ALCATEL-NA – Alcanet International NA
ALCHEMYNET – Alchemy Communications, Inc.
Alestra, S. de R.L. de C.V.
ALLIANCE-GATEWAY-AS-AP Alliance Broadband Services Pvt. Ltd.,Alliance Gateway AS,Broadband Services Provider,Kolkata,India
ALMAZAYA Almazaya gateway L.L.C
AMAZON-AES – Amazon.com, Inc.
AMERITECH-AS – AT&T Services, Inc.
AMNET-AU-AP Amnet IT Services Pty Ltd
ANITEX-AS Anitex Autonomus System
AOL-ATDN – AOL Transit Data Network
API-DIGITAL – API Digital Communications Group, LLC
APOLLO-AS LATTELEKOM-APOLLO
APOLLO-GROUP-INC – University of Phoenix
APT-AP AS
ARLINGTONVA – Arlington County Government
ARMENTEL Armenia Telephone Company
AS INFONET
AS3215 France Telecom – Orange
AS3602-RTI – Rogers Cable Communications Inc.
AS4196 – Wells Fargo & Company
AS702 Verizon Business EMEA – Commercial IP service provider in Europe
ASATTCA AT&T Global Network Services – AP
ASC-NET – Alabama Supercomputer Network
ASDANIS DANIS SRL
ASGARR GARR Italian academic and research network
ASIAINFO-AS-AP ASIA INFONET Co.,Ltd./ TRUE INTERNET Co.,Ltd.
ASIANDEVBANK – Asian Development Bank
ASN852 – Telus Advanced Communications
AS-NLAYER – nLayer Communications, Inc.
ASTOUND-CABLE – Wave Broadband, LLC
AT&T Global Network Services – EMEA
AT&T US
ATMAN ATMAN Autonomous System
ATOMNET ATOM SA
ATOS-AS ATOS Origin Infogerance Autonomous System
ATT-INTERNET4 – AT&T Services, Inc.
AUGERE-AS-AP Augere Wireless Broadband Bangladesh Limited
AVAYA AVAYA
AVENUE-AS Physical person-businessman Kuprienko Victor Victorovich
AXAUTSYS ARAX I.S.P.
BACOM – Bell Canada
BAHNHOF Bahnhof AB
BALTKOM-AS SIA _Baltkom TV SIA_
BANGLALINK-AS an Orascom Telecom Company, providing GSM service in Bangladesh
BANGLALION-WIMAX-BD Silver Tower (16 & 18th Floor)
BANKINFORM-AS Ukraine
BASEFARM-ASN Basefarm AS. Oslo – Norway
BBIL-AP BHARTI Airtel Ltd.
BBN Bredbaand Nord I/S
BC-CLOUD-SERVICES
BEAMTELE-AS-AP Beam Telecom Pvt Ltd
BEE-AS JSC _VimpelCom_
BELINFONET Belinfonet Autonomus System, Minsk, Belarus
BELLSOUTH-NET-BLK – BellSouth.net Inc.
BELPAK-AS BELPAK
BELWUE Landeshochschulnetz Baden-Wuerttemberg (BelWue)
BENCHMARK-ELECTRONICS – Benchmark Electronics Inc.
BEND-BROADBAND – Bend Cable Communications, LLC
BEZEQ-INTERNATIONAL-AS Bezeqint Internet Backbone
BIGNET-AS-ID Elka Prakarsa Utama, PT
BLUEWIN-AS Swisscom (Schweiz) AG
BM-AS-ID PT. Broadband Multimedia, Tbk
BN-AS Business network j.v.
BNSF-AS – Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railway Corp
BNT-NETWORK-ACCESS – Biz Net Technologies
BORNET Boras Energi Nat AB
BREEZE-NETWORK TOV TRK _Briz_
BSC-CORP – Boston Scientific Corporation
BSKYB-BROADBAND-AS BSkyB Broadband
BSNL-NIB National Internet Backbone
BT BT European Backbone
BT-ITALIA BT Italia S.p.A.
BTN-ASN – Beyond The Network America, Inc.
BTTB-AS-AP Telecom Operator & Internet Service Provider as well
BT-UK-AS BTnet UK Regional network
CABLECOM Cablecom GmbH
CABLE-NET-1 – Cablevision Systems Corp.
CABLEONE – CABLE ONE, INC.
CABLEVISION S.A.
CACHEFLOW-AS – Bluecoat Systems, Inc.
CANET-ASN-4 – Bell Aliant Regional Communications, Inc.
CANTV Servicios, Venezuela
CAPEQUILOG – CapEquiLog
CARAVAN CJSC Caravan-Telecom
CARRIER-NET – Carrier Net
CATCHCOM Ventelo
CCCH-3 – Comcast Cable Communications Holdings, Inc
CDAGOVN – Government Telecommunications and Informatics Services
CDS-AS Cifrovye Dispetcherskie Sistemy
CDT-AS CD-Telematika a.s.
CE-BGPAC – Covenant Eyes, Inc.
CELLCO-PART – Cellco Partnership DBA Verizon Wireless
CENSUSBUREAU – U. S. Bureau of the Census
CERNET-ASN-BLOCK – California Education and Research Federation Network
CERT – Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) – Coordination Center
CGINET-01 – CGI Inc
CHARLES-SCHWAB – Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.
CHARTER-NET-HKY-NC – Charter Communications
CHINA169-BACKBONE CNCGROUP China169 Backbone
CHINA169-BJ CNCGROUP IP network China169 Beijing Province Network
CHINA169-GZ China Unicom IP network China169 Guangdong province
CHINANET-BACKBONE No.31,Jin-rong Street
CHINANET-IDC-BJ-AP IDC, China Telecommunications Corporation
CHINANET-SH-AP China Telecom (Group)
CIPHERKEY – Cipherkey Exchange Corp.
CISCO-EU-109 Cisco Systems Global ASN – ARIN Assigned
CITEC-AU-AP QLD Government Business (IT)
CITelecom-AS
CITYNET – CityNet
CLARANET-AS ClaraNET
CLIX-NZ TelstraClear Ltd
CMCS – Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.
CMNET-BEIJING-AP China Mobile Communicaitons Corporation
CMNET-GD Guangdong Mobile Communication Co.Ltd.
CMNET-V4SHANDONG-AS-AP Shandong Mobile Communication Company Limited
CNCGROUP-GZ CNCGROUP IP network of GuangZhou region MAN network
CNCGROUP-SH China Unicom Shanghai network
CNIX-AP China Networks Inter-Exchange
CNNIC-DSNET-AP Shanghai Data Solution Co., Ltd.
CNNIC-WASU-AP WASU TV & Communication Holding Co.,Ltd.
CO-2COM-AS 2COM Co ltd.
COGECOWAVE – Cogeco Cable
COGENT Cogent/PSI
COLO4 – Colo4Dallas LP
COLOMBIA TELECOMUNICACIONES S.A. ESP
COLT COLT Technology Services Group Limited
COLUMBUS-NETWORKS – Columbus Networks USA, Inc.
COMCAST-33490 – Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.
COMCAST-33491 – Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.
COMCAST-36732 – Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.
COMCAST-7015 – Comcast Cable Communications Holdings, Inc
COMCAST-7725 – Comcast Cable Communications Holdings, Inc
COMCAST-HOUSTON – Comcast – Houston
COMHEM-SWEDEN Com Hem Sweden
COMNET-TH KSC Commercial Internet Co. Ltd.
Completel Autonomous System in France
COMSAT COLOMBIA
COMSTAR COMSTAR-Direct global network
CORBINA-AS Corbina Telecom
COVAD – Covad Communications Co.
CPMBLUE-AS-BD CPM BLUE ONLINE LTD.Transit AS Internet Service Provider, Dhaka
CRRSTV – CRRS-TV
CSC Computer Management and CSC Denmark
CSC-IGN-AUNZ-AP Computer Sciences Corporation
CSC-IGN-EMEA – Computer Sciences Corporation
CSC-IGN-FTW – Computer Sciences Corporation
CSLOXINFO-AS-AP CS LOXINFO PUBLIC COMPANY LIMITED
CSP-AS CSP
CSUNET-NW – California State University Network
CSXT-AS-1 – CSX Technology
CTIHK-AS-AP City Telecom (H.K.) Ltd.
CTS-MD I.S. Centrul de Telecomunicatii Speciale
CXA-ALL-CCI-22773-RDC – Cox Communications Inc.
CYBERVERSE – Cyberverse, Inc.
CYPRESS-SEMICONDUCTOR – Cypress Semiconductor
CYTA-NETWORK Cyprus Telecommunications Authority
DARLICS-AS Darlics ltd. provides IP transport and Internet
DATAGRUPA SIA _Datagrupa.lv_ Marijas 7 – 412a Riga, LV-1050, LATVIA
DCI-AS DCI Autonomous System
DECHO – Decho Corporation
DFINET DFi Service SA
DHL-AS DHL Systems Inc.
DHSINETNOC – DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
DIGCOMM Digital communications, LTD
DIGITAL-TELEPORT – Digital Teleport Inc.
DIL-AP DIRECT INTERNET LTD.
DIN-AS TOMSKTELECOM AS
DINAS-AS PE Kuznetsova Viktoria Viktorovna
DINET-AS Digital Network JSC
Diveo do Brasil Telecomunicacoes Ltda
DK-ESS-AS Syd Energi Bredbaand A/S
DMSLABNET – DoD Network Information Center
DNC-AS IM Data Network Communication SRL
DNEO-OSP7 – Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.
DNIC-ASBLK-00721-00726 – DoD Network Information Center
DNIC-ASBLK-27032-27159 – DoD Network Information Center
DOGAN-ONLINE Dogan Iletisim Elektronik Servis Hizmetleri
DOMAINFACTORY domainfactory GmbH
DOMAINTOOLS – DomainTools, LLC
DONTELE-AS Telenet LLC
DOPC-AS
DOPC-AS-NGN
DOPC-AS-US
DREAMHOST-AS – New Dream Network, LLC
DREAMX-AS DREAMLINE CO.
DRWEB-AS Doctor Web Ltd
DSE-VIC-GOV-AS Department of Sustainability & Environment,
DSIJSC-AS DSI Autonomous system
DSLEXTREME – DSL Extreme
DTAG Deutsche Telekom AG
DWL-AS-IN Dishnet Wireless Limited. Broadband Wireless
DYNDNS – Dynamic Network Services, Inc.
EASYDNS EasyDNS Technologies, Inc.
EASYNET Easynet Global Services
EBAY – eBay, Inc
ECI-TELECOM-LTD ECI Telecom-Ltd.
EDGECAST – EdgeCast Networks, Inc.
EIRCOM Eircom
ELISA-AS Elisa Oyj
EMBARQ-WNPK – Embarq Corporation
EMBIT-AS BURTILA & Co. ELECTRON M.BIT SRL
EMC-AS12257 – EMC Corporation
EMCATEL
EMIRATES-INTERNET Emirates Internet
EMOBILE eMobile Ltd.
ENTEL CHILE S.A.
EPM Telecomunicaciones S.A. E.S.P.
EQUANT-ASIA Equant AS for Asian Region covering Japan
EQUINIX-EDMA-ASH-ASN – Equinix, Inc.
ERICSSON-APAC-MY-AS Ericsson Global Services. BUGS N&V APAC
ERX-SINGNET SingNet
ESRI – Environmental Systems Research Institute
ESS-PR-WEBMASTERS – ESS/PR WebMasters
EthioNet-AS
ETISALAT-MISR
ETPI-IDS-AS-AP Eastern Telecoms Phils., Inc.
ETSI Autonomous System
EURONET Online Breedband B.V. Global AS
European Space Agency
EUSKALTEL Euskaltel S.A.
EXCELL-AS Excellmedia
EXIM – Export Import Bank of the U.S
FACEBOOK – Facebook, Inc.
FANNIEMAE – Fannie Mae
FasoNet-AS
FASTMETRICS – Fastmetrics, LLC
FAST-TELCO Fast Telecommunications Company W.L.L.
FASTWEB Fastweb SpA
FAWRI-AS
FDA – Parklawn Computer Center / DIMES HQ
FIBREONE-AS fibre one networks GmbH, Duesseldorf
FITC-AS – FITC – FedEx International Transmission Corporation
FMAC-I-BILLING – Freddie Mac
FMI-NET-AS – Freeport-McMoran Inc.
FORATEC-AS Foratec Communication AS at Sverdlovsk, Tyumen, Perm regions
FORTINET-CANADA – Fortinet Inc.
FPT-AS-AP The Corporation for Financing & Promoting Technology
FRONTIER-AND-CITIZENS – Frontier Communications of America, Inc.
FRONTIER-FRTR – Frontier Communications of America, Inc.
FR-RENATER Reseau National de telecommunications pour la Technologie
FULLRATE Fullrate A/S
FX-PRIMARY-AS FX Networks Limited
GBLX Global Crossing Ltd.
GET-NO GET Norway
GHANATEL-AS
GIGAINFRA Softbank BB Corp.
GLOBAL-SPLK – Sprint International
GLOBE-TELECOM-AS Globe Telecoms
GOLDENL |
Hey, he was the conscience of your group and that means I must be...
Green Lantern: Come on, Jiminy!
Flash: Wow, Supes, you really know how to bring down the house!
(Justice Lord Superman picks Flash up and raises his fist but then hesitates)
Flash: Can't do it, can you? I'm the last piece of your conscience, and this is the one thing you'll never do.
Justice Lord Superman: I've done a lot of things I thought I'd never do these past two years. One more won't hurt.
Lex Luthor: (aiming a weapon) This would be so sweet. (hands it to Superman) But... a deal's a deal.
Green Lantern: What deal?
Superman: A full pardon in exchange for his help.
Justice Lord Superman: Everything he does from now on is your fault!
Superman: It's a high price, but it's better than the alternative.(BIVN) – While the May 3 collapse of the Kamokuna lava delta was not a surprise, the speed in which the event occurred was.
USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory geologist was out on the field observing the aftermath of the delta collapse on Thursday. “What was interesting,” Patrick said in later a phone interview, “is how quickly it happened. Previous collapses we’ve seen operate in a piece meal fashion, over the course of hours. The time lapse camera that was capturing (the May 3rd) delta collapse showed that most of the delta collapsed within about five minutes.”
Before the event, the lava delta had shown signs of a pending collapse. “We’d seen cracks develop, and it actually looked like sagging in the front of the delta,” Pattrick said. “The front of the delta looked like it was slumping towards the sea.”
The delta began forming in late March. Patrick said there is no indication of a return of the fantastic lava “fire hose” that enthralled the world a few months ago. However, the collapse has exposed some active lava at the base of the sea cliff.
On Thursday, the USGS posted a sequence of photos taken from the time lapse camera positioned at the ocean entry.
The collapse is a reminder that new land created by ocean entries is highly unstable and prone to collapse without warning, scientists say.On August 10, Brontez Purnell, frontman for garage-punk band the Younger Lovers, and his bandmate Adal Castellon were beaten outside Oakland’s Club Paradiso. In Purnell’s account, which he shared on Facebook and in the Bay Citizen immediately following the incident (a pending court case now limits his comments), two men followed him out of the mixed, formerly gay club, which he’s frequented for years. They shouted “batty boys” (a homophobic Jamaican slur) at the two musicians and said that they would be dead if they were in Jamaica. The unknown assailants apparently perceived both men to be gay – Purnell is, Castellon is not.
Purnell yelled back at the men; he was promptly punched and knocked off his bike. Castellon, who attempted to calm down Purnell and avoid a conflict, was also hit, causing fractures in five different places on his face, which required titanium plates to hold the bones in place. When the alleged assailants fled to their vehicle, Purnell threw his bike lock after them. Since Castellon does not have insurance, Purnell is trying to organize benefit shows on his bandmate’s behalf. Castellon told the Bay Citizen after its initial report that he is “trying to stay positive.”
As far as Purnell knows, his alleged attackers had no idea that he played music. But he also told SPIN: “I flame the fuck out. I wear tight jeans, I have a musical voice, I’m a fuckin’ queen. I talk and a purse flies out of my mouth. I stick out.”
Indeed, whether he’s hanging out casually, performing or recording songs about boys he loves, Purnell is openly gay. And that’s still dangerous, regardless of which states pass gay marriage laws, or which polls suggest shifting attitudes, or how the social taboo seems to be moving from homosexuality to homophobia. There was a 13 percent national increase in reports of anti-LGBT violence between 2009 and 2010. Within the Bay Area, the Community United Against Violence reported a 65 percent rise in anti-gay attacks during that time (although it’s possible that this was also a matter of CUAV’s increased capacity to take reports and the increased visibility of the organization).
The Younger Lovers, “Danny”
There is no specific data available on anti-gay violence and discrimination against gay musicians, but it’s become particularly apparent recently. Following the Purnell incident, in late September, girlfriends Leisha Hailey and Camila Grey of Los Angeles electro-pop band Uh Huh Her claimed that they had been booted from a Southwest Airlines flight after engaging in “one, modest kiss.” The couple allege in a statement that they were reprimanded by a flight attended for inappropriate behavior on a “family airline.” A heated exchange led to them being thrown off the plane, they claim.
“No matter how quietly homophobia is whispered, it doesn’t make it any less loud,” Hailey (who has also appeared on the Showtime series The L Word) and Grey said in a statement released the day after the Southwest altercation. “You can’t whisper hate. We ask this airline to teach their employees to not discriminate against any couple, ever, regardless of their own beliefs. We want to live in a society where if your loved one leans over to give you an innocent kiss on an airplane it’s not labeled as “excessive or not family-oriented” by a corporation and its employees.” Southwest has maintained that Hailey and Grey’s PDA was “excessive” and caused complaints from fellow passengers, but “ultimately their aggressive reaction led to their removal from the aircraft.”
Purnell, Hailey, and Grey are far from the first gay artists to encounter serious resistance as a result of their sexuality, of course. In fact, if you ask most out musicians about their experiences with homophobia, you’ll hear a story that will break your heart. I did, at least, when collecting anecdotes for this piece. Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt was pelted with bottles, rocks, and slurs outside a club in Philadelphia in the 1990s. Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart was called a “fag” and had lit cigarettes thrown at him onstage in 2003 in Austin, Texas. After Holly Miranda recently played her song “Pelican Rapids,” about Proposition 8, the 2008 California amendment restricting marriage as only between a man and a woman, she was confronted by a “big, burly door guy” who said that “if I got with him, he would make me do a 360,” says the singer-songwriter. “I was like, ‘I think you mean a 180. You’re more right than you know.'”
Musicians are particularly vulnerable to anti-gay sentiment because, says Ejeris Dixon of the New York City Anti-Violence Project, they “become representations of their communities. When people are attacking public figures, it’s a way of sending a broader message of homophobia, transphobia, racism, and all these forms of discrimination that can be a way of really fostering a homophobic and transphobic culture. They’re attractive as targets as a message to our community.”
As a result, bashing is not uncommon in the non-mainstream music world (we’ll call it “indie” here, with the knowledge that Merritt, who has released records on theWarner Bros.-affiliated Nonesuch, wouldn’t approve of such a tag). This sphere has more out figures than virtually any other major art form, except possibly theater: Merritt, Beth Ditto, Antony Hegarty, Mark Eitzel, Tegan & Sara, Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke, Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste, Le Tigre’s JD Samson, Sigur Ros’ Jonsi Birgisson, Wild Flag’s Carrie Brownstein, Patrick Wolf, Ani DiFranco, Owen Pallett, the Hidden Cameras’ Joel Gibb, and Bob Mould (who is comfortable enough to detail his 45th birthday present to himself – a male escort – in his recently published memoir See a Little Light).
Many of the artists I talked to saw their music as a refuge. “Being a punk rocker, I’ve always been a bit more…protected,” says Purnell. “Artists, people on the fringe of society, see things way different.” But it’s not a shield. “There are plenty of racists who love Jimi Hendrix. I don’t think that people let bigotry interfere with their record collection,” Merritt observes. For this reason, he recommends that artists don’t start their careers by leaping out of the closet.
“Keep them guessing until you’re in a position where coming out will mean something,” advises Merritt.
Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij says he routinely advises closeted queer people he meets to “come out now,” but that doesn’t mean he disagrees with Merritt’s point. He acknowledges that there is a subversive way of getting the world on your side and even engaging them with ambiguously gay subject matter, before essentially pulling out the rug and confirming that, yep, you’re gay. (A move like this is reminiscent of Adam Lambert’s post-American Idol career, Ellen DeGeneres, Rosie O’Donnell, etc.)
“I think that is a means of combating homophobia and I think it’s an effective one,” says Batmanglij. He revealed his own sexual orientation in a 2010 feature story published in Rolling Stone (and discussed it further in Out), around the time of the release of Vampire Weekend’s second album, Contra, which featured a song with gay subject matter, “Diplomat’s Son,” co-written by Batmanglij.
“It was important to come out when there was something expressing my sexuality in a real way, which I think happened in [‘Diplomat’s Son’],” he explains. “As Ezra [Koenig] and I were working on the song, I realized that when the song came out, I needed to be totally comfortable with being gay, and for everyone to know I was gay.”
That gay people have to consider how to negotiate their humanity with the public is essentially homophobia before homophobia. The burden of the gay public figure weighs on all of them, even someone like Luis Illades, who joined the all-gay punk rock group Pansy Division as its drummer in 1996.
“Even I, who have gone onstage in front of thousands of people, proclaiming to be a fag in front of all these people, still have been in [public] situations where I’ve had to monitor myself out of fear,” says Illades. “It’s something that comes along with the territory… You should never have to be that person. You should always be able to be yourself 100 percent of the time. But that’s not the world we live in. Sometimes, that shit’s going to backfire on you.”
Homophobia manifests itself in covert ways, too. Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter Erin McKeown was outed against her will by the lesbian-oriented site After Ellen in 2006. Her music isn’t typical confessional, diary-entry fare, so maintaining a distance between her personal life and her music didn’t require dishonesty, and she was prepared to keep that distance for as long as possible.
“It’s been my experience that the vast majority of mainstream people, when they perceive or know that someone is queer, they think that their art is only for queer people, or they think that only queer people are going to go to that art,” says McKeown. “It excludes or isolates based on a person’s identity.” While she’s quick to point out how much she appreciates her fans, she also feels marginalized as an out artist. Regardless, being out is “less exhausting” than staying closeted.
Seth Bogart, meanwhile, sounds exhausted. His band Hunx and His Punx are unambiguously out – Bogart appeared in leather-bar drag for their “Cruising” video, singing, “I like my boys like steak / All juicy and rare.” But his stance has some inevitable drawbacks: “Every interview that I ever do, people bring it up to me,” he says. “Eventually I find it annoying, because I don’t want to talk about being gay or my sexuality, I’m just making music.” (And no, the irony of saying that to a journalist writing an article about gay musicians did not escape him.)
Meanwhile, Zan Amparan of the out New York-based punk band Little Victory, is not worried about being pigeon-holed. “I’m aware that there are people out there who will never take what I do seriously,” he says. “And that’s perfectly fine. I don’t think it’s any different from being a woman musician. Your capacity to make art is the same as everyone else’s, but there are people who aren’t going to be receptive to it. What I’m interested in is reaching young gay people.”
Though most of the instances of homophobia discussed by the musicians interviewed for this article took place outside of major metropolitan areas, Holly Miranda cautions, “It could happen anywhere.” Says Bogart: “When I go to [high-profile music convention] South By Southwest, I’m terrified, because it’s huge groups of needy white dudes.” Adds Purnell: “There’s no utopia.”
Pansy Division bassist Chris Freeman recounts Los Angeles as the site of one of the roughest stops on the band’s stint opening for Green Day, who asked the group to join them on their first stadium tour in 1994. At another show in Fairfax, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., Green Day threatened to cancel the concert because a bigoted promoter wanted to remove Pansy Division from the bill (in the end, the promoter relented and the show went on). Freeman recalls being repeatedly flipped off by audience members, once they realized that the opening band was vocally gay. At that point in his life, though, Freeman said he was used to such abuse.
Pansy Division, “I Really Wanted You”
“Where I come from [Aberdeen High School, formerly Weatherwax in Washington State], every day was like that,” says Freeman. “Every day was getting up in front of Green Day’s audience. Going to high school was just as daunting. I was getting beat up routinely. I’d have my books thrown around the halls. This was 1975 and 1976. As an adult in my thirties, getting up before Green Day, I was ready for it. No one could hurt me more than I’d gotten hurt in my teens, especially because I knew I was gay and I was projecting that. When I was a teenager, I was trying to hide it. Then I was like, ‘No, I am a fag. Call me a fag, that’s what I call myself. What else you got?'”
Being an out public figure means opening up to joy and annoyance and bigotry and pandering and possibly lowered career expectations, but it also means opening up – period. Expressing yourself and being yourself are inextricably bound, and in a homophobic society, “being yourself” is an act of bravery. But, of course, exactly what being yourself means gets complicated by notoriety.
“As a musician, or someone who’s recognizable to the general public, or even to a small group of queers, there’s something really interesting that happens to your self,” explains JD Samson, who leads the band MEN, in addition to playing in Le Tigre. “All of a sudden, there’s this duality of what is actually you and what people want from you. Creating that persona, keeping that persona, and making sure it doesn’t infect your real life is really difficult. That’s been complicated as a queer person. I feel like I have let people fetishize me. I’ve been okay with it in this way that’s been like, ‘This is great for my career!’ But it really has put me in this uncomfortable place, and it’s really hard to get out of that world. I think that’s homophobia. The fact that I’m afraid that I don’t mean anything else to this world, but being fetishized as a butch lesbian, yeah, that’s pretty depressing.”
But no matter how frustrated, angry, or disenfranchised the musicians that I interviewed felt, they were still bold and proud. Perhaps Purnell put it most succinctly: “I wouldn’t trade my existence for anything.”Terrible news. Hamas authorities have found the body of activist Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, inside a house in the Gaza Strip, the BBC is reporting. The International Solidarity Movement member was abducted early on Thursday. BBC:
Hamas police reportedly found his dead body inside a house. Vittorio Arrigoni was seized by a radical Islamic group on Thursday morning and video of him blindfolded with tape was later posted on YouTube.
Arrigoni had been in Gaza throughout the onslaught of Cast Lead, two years ago. He also worked as a freelance journalist. We were honored to run his work. Haaretz says:
The body… was discovered in the home of a member of the extreme Islamist group that claimed responsibility for the abduction. Four suspects have already been arrested. Hamas authorities claim to be taking measures to locate additional suspects involved in the alleged abduction and subsequent murder.
Italian consular officials said that Arrigoni was taken on Thursday morning.
Max Ajl has the video here. The Gaza-based blog Revealing Gaza adds:
Salafi Jehadis claimed the responsibility of kidnapping and abducting him asking Hamas government in Gaza to release Abu Al Waleed Al Maqdisi in 30 hours starting from 11 am today 14\4\2011 or else they would kill him.
Earlier today the BBC reported:
Mr Arrigoni is the first foreigner kidnapped in Gaza since BBC journalist Alan Johnston was snatched in 2007. The BBC’s Gaza correspondent Jon Donnison says the group that is thought to have taken Mr Arrigoni is part of a movement sometimes called Salafism. Salafists have often been in conflict with Hamas, the Islamist movement that governs Gaza, and they consider Hamas too moderate, says our correspondent. In the video, the kidnappers demand that Hamas release a number of Salafist prisoners.
In a more recent post the blog author Omar Ghraieb adds:
Ansar Al Sunah “Salafi” Group in Gaza, declared their responsibility of Vittorio’s abduction and said they will release a press release soon. According to PalToday Magazine. Join Vittorio’s support group on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/ghRe0k Sign this petition asking for his immediate release and share it : http://goo.gl/4TFRd Gazans will move to Al Jundi Sq. tomorrow at 4 pm in Gaza to protest and ask for his immediate release, join the facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/event.php?eid=218681814813064
Despite the grim news, our prayers are with Vittorio and we will pass along updates and things you can do to help as we receive them.
Earlier today, The International Solidarity Movement issued this press release:
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT
FREE GAZA MOVEMENT
http://palsolidarity.org/2011/04/17643/
For Immediate Release
[April 14, 2001] Today, our friend and colleague, Vittorio Arrigoni, a journalist and human rights defender working in the Gaza Strip, was kidnapped by Salafists, members of a very small extremist group in Gaza.
Vittorio has been active in the Palestine cause for almost 10 years. For the past two and a half years, he has been in Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement, monitoring human rights violations by Israel, supporting the Palestinian popular resistance against the Israeli occupation and disseminating information about the situation in Gaza to his home country of Italy. He was aboard the siege-breaking voyage in 2008 with the Free Gaza Movement and was incarcerated in Israeli prisons several times. He was in Gaza throughout Israel’s brutal assault (Operation Cast Lead), assisting medics and reporting to the world what Israel was doing to the Palestinian people. He has been arrested numerous times by Israeli forces for his participation in Palestinian non-violent resistance in the West Bank and Gaza. His last arrest and deportation from the area was a result of the Israeli confiscation of Palestinian fishing vessels in Gazan territorial waters.
Vittorio frequently writes on the issue of Palestine for the Italian newspaper, IL Manifesto and Peacereporter. Additionally, he maintains a popular blog (http://guerrillaradio.iobloggo.com) and facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vittoriatio-Arrigoni/)
Khalil Shaheen, a friend of Vittorio and Head of the Economic and Social Rights Department at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said, “This is outside of our traditions. We are calling for the immediate release of my best friend. Vittorio Arrigoni is a hero of Palestine. He was available everywhere to support all the poor people, the victims. I’m calling on the local authorities here in Gaza, and all security departments, to do their best to guarantee his safety and immediate release.”
Vittorio was granted honorary citizenship for his work on promoting the cause of the Palestinian people. Members of Gazan civil society are demanding his release; tomorrow at 4:00pm there will be a mass demonstration in Jundi Square.On the disk there are carvings that describes the astonishing knowledge of our ancestors. The object has been examined in the Museum of Natural History, Vienna, Austria. Dr. Vera M. F. Hammer, expert for precious stones and minerals, analysed the object.
The symbols on the disk are very impressive. The obverse and reverse side are decorated with carvings and ornaments, separated with single vertical stripes. On the edge of the disk there is a symbol of a snake. In the middle the disk shows a hole, maybe a hint that the disc originally was fixed on a stick and then turned around. One side shows biological details like male sperms, female egg cell and the genitals, the fertilized egg, foetus and the growing embryo. The other side shows scenes that could be interpreted as the cell division and depiction of frog creatures in different stages.
Dr. Algund Eemboom MD, and his colleges analysed the different segments of the disk. His result was that it is possible to recognize the phases of evolution of human life on the disk. Very significant are the distant lying eyes and the broad nose. This is a characteristic of the embryonic structure of the head.
Prof. Dr. Rudolf Distelberger, internationally recognized expert for precious stones and director of the Schatzkammer, Vienna, said that the disk has a very complex content. That is the reason why many scientists cried fraud as the disk appeared. It cannot be classified in the known South American system of cultures.
Sources :
Unsolved Mysteries : “An Exhibition of Unsolved Mysteries and Enigmatic Findings in the History of Humanity" by Reinhard Habeck, Dr. Willibald Katzinger and listed authors;
http://blog.chosun.com/blog.log.view.screen?blogId=35501&logId=3009361
Pic Source :
http://www.5050clinic.com/image/25_img3.gif
This disk from South America is one of the most interesting and confusing finds of archaeology. The unique relic is made of black stone and measures about 22 cm in diameter. It weights about 2 kg. It was not made of artificial materials like cement but of lydite. It was dated in a prehistoric epoch, and assigned to the Muisca-culture.I am feeling particularly hostile to Donald Trump after his incendiary move on Jerusalem. But it remains the case that I have enough direct knowledge of events to be aware that the entire premise of the Russophobic “election-hacking” conspiracy theory is simple nonsense. I am therefore most amused that my friend Randy Credico, who stayed with Nadira and I in Edinburgh a few months ago, has now been subpoenaed by the Senate Inquiry on Russian meddling as the alleged go-between for Roger Stone and Julian Assange, on the brilliant grounds that he knows both of them.
I can tell you from certain knowledge this is absolute nonsense. While Randy is a delightful person who hides a shrewd political mind behind a deliberate crackpot façade, he is the most indiscreet person in the world. He is not anybody’s conveyor of secrets, he would tell it all impulsively on his next radio show! Where Russia fits into this mad conspiracy theory I have no idea. If I had any belief that it was the genuine intention of Senate or Special Counsel inquiries to discover the actual truth, I would be surprised they have never made any contact with me, as opposed to my fleeting houseguests. But as I am well aware the last thing they want to know is the truth, I am not surprised in the least.
On a personal note I have just emerged from a really harrowing period. I had to leave the High Court a month ago straight to Heathrow and fly out to Ghana. Here I have been battling for the last year to save Atholl Energy, a company I chair which had some US $50 million worth of debts. The reason for this was that it had built an extension to the power station it originally constructed for the Ghanaian government, and the Ghanaian government had failed to pay for the extension after Atholl pre-financed it. In line with company philosophy, Atholl had both completed and handed over the extension, despite the non-payment, as the aim is to supply power to the people of Ghana.
The massive debt of course threatened Atholl with going bust. That would mean redundancy for our staff, and potentially many scores of redundancies at local sub-contractors we had been unable to pay in full. The thought of inflicting that mass misery on families, many of whom I know, has stopped me sleeping for months.
The current government of Ghana took over in January and inherited a huge fiscal deficit due to – and there is no other way of saying it – wholesale looting by the last government on a scale which Ghana had never witnessed before. To give an example from our own sector, we install power plant using Siemens equipment at about 1.2 million dollars per MW for a turnkey plant including fuel supply and power evacuation infrastructure. The last government of Ghana were contracting large projects at three times the unit cost or more, using inferior equipment. For $150 million per project to be added corruptly was not unusual.
On top of this, despite having imposed some of the world’s highest electricity tariffs – higher than British tariffs, for example – the revenue collected was mysteriously vanishing. As a result, our $52 million owed was part of a US$2.5 billion energy sector debt the current government inherited.
In effect this has been rescheduled, by the launch of bonds to raise the money to pay off the debts. The bonds are serviced by a levy on petrol and diesel. As usual in Africa, the IMF and World Bank were extremely unhelpful, refusing to sanction a government guarantee on the bonds, which means the energy levy is now to be collected by a new corporate structure and the bond is a corporate one. This structure necessitated an increase in the bond interest rate to 19.5%, which will benefit the financial institutions who have bought them, to the detriment of the Ghanaian public. In my experience every IMF and World Bank policy intervention in Africa always, on analysis, benefits corporations to the disbenefit of the African public.
It is also a gross double standard – if the energy debt had been treated as government debt, Ghana’s “unacceptable” debt to GDP ratio would still have been substantially less that that of many developed countries, including the UK.
The government of Ghana is to be congratulated on its persistence and the brilliance of its financial engineering that enabled it to tackle a huge problem despite obstruction rather than help from the international agencies – the energy sector debt had been threatening to crash the Ghanaian Banking sector, to the benefit of the large international banks.
For our company, we had to take a haircut because the payment was made not in the cash dollars which were owed, but in a mixture of bonds and local currency. We owed banks and suppliers in dollars, so we have been structuring sales and taken the odd hit on discounting. But we have got through it, and as of yesterday have paid off all our creditors in full. There is not a single job loss caused by us, either in our company or at our suppliers and sub-contractors, and that has removed a fear which has been haunting me. I cannot express how tough this period has been – I did not receive a single penny from my major source of income for nearly four years, and as of this morning still haven’t. I am not going to be a millionaire, but I am now going to be OK.
2017 has personally been really difficult. But I can now look forward to the New Year with lightened shoulders, and pick up the rest of my life again.
I am truly sorry that for the last few months speaking invitations and book orders have gone by the wall. I have 21,253 unopened emails!! Not to mention over 5,000 donors to my legal defence fund I have not thanked yet. I promise I shall be less elusive in future.These People Lost Their Minds Over a Bike Lane
Over the years, Streetsblog has reported on many, shall we say, disproportionate reactions to the installation of bike lanes. But a demonstration this weekend in Minneapolis — replete with Nazi references — just might take the cake.
Minneapolis Council Member Lisa Bender shared photos of the anti-bike lane rally in a Facebook post that quickly went viral. These folks really, really object to some stripes on the street.
Believe it or not, this wasn’t just a bunch of random cranks. John Edwards at local blog Wedge Live reports that while the organizer is a notorious attention-seeking troll, the event drew real political candidates and a former council member:
One important thing to know is that the idea for this protest began on social media as a hoax, but became very real after spreading to credulous bike-haters on Facebook. The Facebook event was created by internet hoax artist Jeremy Piatt (known for creating the GoFundMe for Kanye West that was picked up by major national news outlets). By all accounts, organizer Jeremy Piatt didn’t show up to the protest. But here’s who did show up to march against bikes: two candidates for City Council, David Schorn (Ward 10) and Joe Kovacs (Ward 7); and former Ward 10 City Council member Meg Tuthill; and let’s not forget the group of people carrying “Nazi Lane” signs dripping with red paint intended to look like blood. The anti-bike marchers began by walking in the newly installed bike lane on 26th Street, east from Hennepin to Lyndale Ave. They then walked in the bike lane, west on 28th Street. Observers on social media remarked how fortunate they were to find refuge from cars in the bike lanes.
It’s tempting to dismiss this as a fringe action that happened almost by accident and only drew 20 people. Or it could reflect where local bike lane politics are headed in the Trump-era culture wars.
For a more reasonable account of why these bike lanes were installed and what’s at stake, visit Ethan Fawley’s article over Streets.mn. Fawley lives right off 28th Street and he says the bike lanes were installed after the death of a child. They help give him peace of mind when he’s walking his own 2-year-old son to daycare along the street.
More recommended reading today: BikePortland reports on the results of a distracted driving sting after Oregon’s new rules took effect banning the use of mobile devices behind the wheel. And TheCityFix reflects on Amazon’s insistence on good transit access for its second headquarters, and what that means for cities.Good morning, Broncos Country!
So the guy leading the team on the field Sunday is a guy who used to back up the guy leading the team, then came in to lead the team, then left the team to lead another team, before getting benched then traded to another team that didn’t really want him leading anyway and sent him back to his original team to back up the guy leading the team and now in.
Whew.
If that striking resumé has you a bit concerned about the future of the Broncos’ 2017 season, there’s plenty of good reason for it.
After all, the sixth-year quarterback - tall quarterback (drink!) - has only started 21 games of the 37 total he’s played in the NFL. His career TD-to-INT ratio of 26:22 is too close to 1:1 to make fans super comfortable. And just the fact that the Browns were willing to pay him $16 million/year to play - but on another team - is not a ringing endorsement.
Yet Brock Osweiler has upside in a very important category that doesn’t exist on the stat sheet - leadership.
Although many of us might be behind the quarterback change, few are holding our collective breath that Osweiler leads the Broncos to nine wins in a row, including huge victories over the Pats and Chiefs at home, a couple of playoff wins and a trip back to the Super Bowl where Osweiler last left us.
It would be the craziest NFL storybook ending in the history of crazy NFL storybook endings - an honor the Broncos have claimed two times already.
So it would be total bonkers to think Osweiler can save the season that way.
At the same time, no one is willing to rule it out either (not until Sunday anyway).
12-0, baby!
“[Osweiler] is still the same guy. Still breaking the huddle all fast, still talking a lot, still communicating, still being that leader and still believes that he’s the man. And that’s what it’s about.” - Emmanuel Sanders
Osweiler as the Broncos’ signal caller is intriguing, kind of mind-blowing, and yes, even exciting.
And that’s what the Broncos are feeling, and that’s why this change was necessary.
Among the most telling was Emmanuel Sanders’ enthusiasm.
“He’s still the same guy. Still breaking the huddle all fast, still talking a lot, still communicating, still being that leader and still believes that he’s the man, and that’s what it’s about,” Sanders noted Thursday. “As a quarterback, everybody always said, ‘Oh Peyton’s so humble.’ But Peyton was one of the most competitive, confident guys to be around. It was addictive and Brock has that same thing.”
Sanders agreed that the entire offense needs to improve, but he definitely thinks the change is for the better for this team.
“I think changing up the quarterback position, bringing a new energy and a new spark to the offense,” Sanders said before adding that Trevor Siemian “bounced around” as well. “Offensively, like you said, we collectively as a group, we aren’t getting the job done. We have to get better no matter who’s throwing the football.”
But the point is that Osweiler will be doing it, and historically that’s good for Sanders as he was Oz’s most targeted receiver in 2015.
“I have to figure that out, maybe I was paying him or something,” Sanders laughed. “I might have to leave some money in his locker or something. From yours truly and wink.”
“Peyton groomed him well for sure. Breaking down film, he was telling us exactly what he’s seeing...Just the energy that he brings and that leadership mentality that he brings. The guy knows and thinks that he’s a franchise quarterback.” - Emmanuel Sanders
Sanders’ light mood was telling, but he also indicated Osweiler came prepared this week - having learned from the best the importance of studying the playbook and knowing the game film.
“Peyton groomed him well for sure. Breaking down film, he was telling us exactly what he’s seeing and we’re able to get on the same page,” Sanders said. “Just the energy that he brings and that leadership mentality that he brings. The guy knows and thinks that he’s a franchise quarterback.”
In fact, Sanders added, he’s been that way even since coming back and being the scout team QB.
“You saw him on scout team commanding like he’s about to play in the Super Bowl. That’s just Brock. He’s, ‘Come on guys!’ Talib is getting all mad, ‘Throw me an interception. You’re the scout team quarterback.’ And Brock’s like, ‘No I’m not throwing an interception,’” Sanders said. “Brock, he’s competitive and I’m excited for him. I’m excited about the opportunity and I’m excited about facing the Philadelphia Eagles. Right now we’ve lost three games in a row and what better team to go and beat on the road.”
Von Miller said having Osweiler under center felt a little like 2015 all over again. For those not paying attention, that turmoil-ridden season turned out alright.
“Like I said, when we first signed Brock, I was happy about it. I was excited about it,” Miller said. “It kind of feels like 2015 again. We’ve won with Brock. We’ve done a lot of great things with Brock. I’m totally confident in Brock and what he’ll be able to do for us moving forward.”
Both C.J. Anderson and Demaryius Thomas acknowledged that it’s tough to see their starter get benched, but having a familiar face coming in to take over certainly helps - especially one who has had some experience doing it..
“Yes, it helps big time. He’s been around a long time, so he kind of knows the system. He knows all the right things to check to. He knows all the little things that certain guys might not know. I’ve heard some of the other guys say, ‘Oh, that’s something that Peyton [Manning] used to do,’” Thomas said. “He knows everything about the offense. He knows when to change the play in the huddle. We’re excited about seeing what he can do come Sunday.”
“I’ve been very fortunate now for seven games to be able to sit on the sideline, learn this offense through mental reps, just observe and think about how I would do things differently if I were ever given the opportunity again.” - Brock Osweiler
Probably the most excited person on Sunday will be Osweiler, who has had a crazy journey just to find out. When he first arrived back in Denver in August, John Elway told the press that Oz would need to “get football rehab” before being ready to play.
Osweiler joked he “is checking out” now.
“I feel sometimes the best thing to do with a quarterback when he’s not playing well or he’s |
UPDATE
Cricket Australia's National Selection Panel has confirmed Phil Hughes will replace Clarke in the ODI squad for the VB Tour of the UAE.
Hughes was initially left out of the ODI squad, despite scoring two half-centuries in four matches in the Zimbabwe tri-series, but was scheduled to travel to the UAE earlier than the remainder of his Test teammates to spend time working on his batting against spin with coaching consultant Muthiah Muralidaran.
The NSP confirms Phil Hughes as the replacement batsman for Michael Clarke in the ODI squad for the VB Tour of the UAE. — Cricket Australia (@CAComms) September 16, 2014
EARLIER
Australia skipper Michael Clarke has been ruled out of the upcoming one-day international series against Pakistan in the UAE.
Clarke injured his hamstring at training prior to Australia's first match of the recent tri-series in Zimbabwe, then aggravated the problem in his first game of the tour, and scans have since revealed tendon damage in the affected area.
"Since returning to Australia Michael has had a series of investigations that have confirmed a significant hamstring injury," said Cricket Australia physiotherapist Alex Kountouris.
"Importantly, the scans have demonstrated tendon damage which complicates the recovery from this injury.
"As such, he will not recover in time to be available for the ODI series in the UAE.
"We are hopeful that he will be available for the Test series but this will be determined at a date closer to the first Test."
The news concludes weeks of speculation as to Clarke's potential availability for the series and is the latest in a long line of back and hamstring issues for the New South Welshman.
The 33-year-old is even considering departing for overseas tours earlier than his teammates in a bid to avoid injury from launching into full training straight after a long-haul flight.
However, when quizzed upon his return to Australia from Zimbabwe, he was adamant that the problem wouldn't result in a premature end to his ODI career.
“It’s hard for me to look any further down the track than where I am today but I love the game as much as I ever have and the last thing I am thinking about is retiring," he told reporters.By Jason Edwards
The Ontario Labour Relations Board recently found in favour of workers of Richtree Restaurant and their union, UNITE HERE Local 75. The company was found to have violated the Labour Relations Act when it closed its store, then re-opened at the other end of the Eaton Centre food court, using the move as a ruse to cease recognizing its employees’ union.
Looking at the facts of this case as they are laid out in the Board’s decision, the time it took to give a decision, nearly 12 months, was startling. The facts were so stunningly simple, the employer’s position was so absurd, and the ramifications for the employees were so severe, it is unconscionable that this decision took more than an afternoon. Such a reprehensible timeline is symptomatic of the state’s inability (or lack of desire) to confront the economic advantage capital wields against labour in its effort to save money on the backs of workers.
The timeline
The restaurant was closed and employees were permanently dismissed on January 28, 2013. The Board’s decision was released January 7, 2014. That is, it took almost a year to come to a decision on the facts.
The gravity of the decision
Decisions like Richtree carry important human consequences. The closure put about fifty employees out of work. These are people getting by on barely more than minimum wage; they cannot afford to wait a year to hear a Board decision.
RankandFile.ca interviewed Nazrul Islam, a Richtree employee of twenty-five who lost his job in the closure. As he says in the interview, he was a loyal employee who worked very hard. A single-income household, Islam’s family experienced serious financial distress when he lost his job, having difficulty affording rent, food, medicine, and amenities for the children. Despite his loyalty and hard work, the corporation callously cast him aside in an effort to cut costs.
Islam’s story is not atypical of precarious workers, who are increasingly struggling to meet their families’ needs and have their basic employment rights respected. In cases like this, justice delayed is justice denied. A large corporation like Richtree can hold out for a long legal battle, but low wage workers need their incomes in order to survive.
The question decided
The question that was put to the Board was whether or not Richtree was obligated to recognize its employees’ union. That is, did the move across the foodcourt constitute a closure-opening or was it simply a relocation of the same restaurant?
(There was caselaw submitted by the employer, but it was “of limited assistance” to the Board. In fact, it played no role but to provide instances of bargaining units that were limited by their location, an entirely undisputed aspect of the proceedings. This decision was made on factual evidence, not on a legal question.)
The employer’s position
Richtree made the argument that the workers’ collective bargaining rights do not exist at the current location. The collective agreement states that the union exists at the “Eaton Centre, 220 Yonge Street” while the new location, because it now has a door to the mall’s exterior, is at “14 Queen Street West” (still in the Eaton Centre, on the same floor). This distinction was made in the 2006 collective agreement, which was presumably (the Board is unclear on this question) drafted in such a way so as to distinguish between the Eaton Centre and Yorkville locations (this was the first agreement shared by employees/management at both locations).
The facts decided on
Any thoughtful person would be able to digest these facts, identify their absurdity in the face of the Labour Relations Act, and find in favour of the employees within the course of an afternoon. The facts, as found in evidence presented to the Board, are as follows (emphasis added in Board quotes):
The new location was “approximately 50 metres from the location of the former restaurant,” on the same floor of the food court, under the same name and rendering the same services.
The collective agreement covered the following scope: “all employees of the restaurant located at Eaton Centre, Toronto”. In the 2006 negotiations, when the address of the restaurant was written into the collective agreement, “the issue of scope of the recognition clause did not come up…” Rather, it was assumed by both parties that the subject of the collective agreement was the Richtree restaurant in the Eaton Centre, wherever the Eaton Centre’s address may be.
Even after the move, the General Manager of the restaurant had business cards stating that the address was “Eaton Centre, 220 Yonge Street”.
“[220 Yonge Street] is the public representation of the location of the Eaton Centre (or even its contact address) as listed on the Eaton Centre’s own website (not only currently but even the website at the time, in April 2006)…” Further, “what we are talking about here is what people would understand a reference to the Eaton Centre to mean – and whether a reference to ‘220 Yonge Street’ means such a specific and confined portion of it so as not to include a portion of the Eaton Centre a mere 50 metres away across the corridor or common laneway of the mall.” Most other businesses in the Eaton Centre foodcourt also list 220 Yonge Street as part of their addresses.
In the words of the Board, “Richtree conceded that the change would not be of such a substantial nature as to extinguish the Union’s bargaining rights if this, for example, were an application under section 69(5) of the Act (and it is not)”. That is, despite trying to argue that the new restaurant was a different type of operation with different employee positions, the employer conceded that the changes were not substantial enough so as to meet the requirements of a new type of business, thus making the union’s bargaining rights null
While Richtree argued that the location change was made in order that the restaurant would have street access, “there is presently no entrance, no street access to the new restaurant, and no restaurant signage at 14 Queen Street West. Other than on paper (a Liquor Sales Licence and some municipal permits), 14 Queen Street West has no visible or real existence.”
Concerning the company’s argument that new employees were not interested in remaining union members (despite losing the pay raises, health and dental benefits, and formal protections that were ensconced in the collective agreement), the Board found, “that is an argument that, if relevant, should be raised by the employees themselves (and not lie in the mouth of an employer) and no such employees have sought to participate (or participated) in these proceedings, in this case that argument rings hollow and is somewhat circular.”
These evidentiary findings support, in whole, the position of the employees and their union. It could not be more clear which side held the moral and legal high ground.
The decision
The Board’s decision is summed up in the following statement: “I conclude that 220 Yonge Street is added as merely a description of the Eaton Centre – not a limiting qualification or restriction to only part of the Eaton Centre.” This means that the company has to revert to recognizing the union.
The decision does not guarantee that the wrongfully-fired workers will be re-instated or compensated for the income they lost over the past year. The two sides will now negotiate outlying issues. (These problems are better articulated here.)
Conclusion
Both the lack of expediency and the absence of an order for appropriate compensation in this decision are symptomatic of larger problems with systems of labour relations in Canada. The deep asymmetry of power between precarious workers and the wealthy corporations who employ them means that disputes greatly favour one side over the other. During this dispute, and continuing today, Richtree has hired replacement workers and carries on business at the “new” location. While the company has been able to continue profiting, the wrongfully-fired workers have had no incomes. The workers even faced the unsavoury decision between finding new jobs (without the benefits provided by their union contract) and keeping up the public fight to have their union recognized.
Waiting for a conclusion to a dispute like Richtree carries serious consequences for workers, but almost no disincentives for employers to work toward a resolution. Surely Richtree management was aware of this when it decided to draw-out lengthy proceedings despite being wholly in the wrong. The systems of labour relations in Ontario and across Canada make it possible for employers to exploit the economic advantages they have over workers, wielding their power as a weapon against labour in their effort to lower the wages and worsen the working conditions of precarious workers.Exactly two years ago, Lawrenceville, Ga., police shocked a registered nurse with a Taser and arrested her after she refused to grant the cops access to a patient suspected of sexual assault at the psychiatric unit where she worked. Now, the woman has filed a Federal lawsuit against them.
Marthe Bien-Aime, who is suing officers Christy Vice, Mark Tinkey, C.L. Hyatt and Shawn Humphreys, alleges the police subjected her to excessive force in the Oct. 31, 2011 incident. Bien-Aime greeted the police when they showed up in response to a call alleging the patient had sexually abused another patient, but she would not allow them access to the suspect until she had obtained permission from her unit supervisor.
Bien-Aime, who was working at the Summit Ridge mental health facility in Lawrenceville, told the cops she had sworn an oath to protect her patients and that she simply needed to call her nursing director for permission to let the officers into the unit where the suspect was being treated.
But the officers claimed to have an arrest warrant for the patient and threatened to arrest her for obstruction unless she broke her own code of professional ethics, for which she herself is accountable before the law, by giving them immediate access to the patient.
From the complaint:
21. The Defendant officers had a piece of paper that they said was a warrant, but they did not allow Nurse Bien-Aime to read it, so she was unable to confirm whether it was a warrant or what patient it was for. 22. Nurse Bien-Aime then called the Director of Nursing, Shelley Beaubrun, and told her what was happening with the police officers. Ms. Beaubrun asked to speak with the officers and Nurse Bien-Aime held out the phone so that they could speak to her. 23. The officers refused to speak with Ms. Beaubrun and said they were going to arrest Nurse Bien-Aime for obstructing justice. 24. As Nurse Bien-Aime remained behind the counter in the nurse’s station, waiting for guidance from Ms. Beaubrun on the telephone, Lt. Tinkey burst through the door to the nursing station, followed by Officers Hyatt and Humphreys, and Defendant Vice grabbed the phone and began speaking to Ms. Beaubrun. 25. Lt. Tinkey, Officer Hyatt, and Officer Humphreys grabbed Nurse Bien-Aime’s hands and arms and began twisting her arms backward. Then they threw her to the floor with great force and shackled her wrists with a chain and handcuffs. 26. Nurse Bien-Aime cried out in pain due to the tightness of the handcuffs, as well as from the aggravation of an old left shoulder injury and new injuries to other parts of the body resulting from Defendants’ unreasonable and unjustified use of force against her. 27. She asked the Defendant officer several times to loosen the handcuffs but they would not do it. 28. When they got her off the floor and began escorting her out, Nurse Bien-Aime had difficulty walking and the Defendant officers kept shoving her. 29. After going through a set of double doors in the hallway, Nurse Bien-Aime lost her balance and fell to the floor. The Defendant officers yelled for her to get up but she was not able to, and they told her they would drag her if she didn’t get up. 30. Officer Vice said “let’s tase her” and then they proceeded to do so.
Bien-Aime was taken to the Gwinnett County Detention Center, subjected to a body search, given ice for her bruises and — after waiting for an arrest warrant to be issued — charged with obstruction of justice.
Atlanta’s WSB-TV News recently obtained a video of the incident. Recorded by a surveillance camera inside the mental health facility, the video shows four officers throwing Bien-Aime to the ground and handcuffing her. “Then,” reporter Craig Lucie writes, “two officers dragged her out of the nurse station and one of the officers hit her on the back.”
At the moment the officer struck Bien-Aime, she was already safely in custody with her hands cuffed behind her back. She was walking down the hallway with an officer escorting her at either side.NEW WINDSOR - The owner of a local auto-body shop who is a former town Zoning Board member has been charged with falsifying records to keep a Porsche left in his shop after the owner died, according to town police.
Patrick Torpey, 53, owns of 20th Century Towing and 21st Century Auto Body on Union Avenue in New Windsor and was a member of the town’s Zoning Board until December 2016. He was arrested by the New Windsor Police Department after an eight-month investigation, according to a police press release.
Torpey had a 1978 Porsche 911 at his business for repairs in 2012, when the owner died. Torpey then filed a garageman's lein with the state Department of Motor Vehicles, including false information on required documents, according to police.
Police said this created a new title of ownership under Torpey’s name even though the owner’s wife was looking for the vehicle as the administrator of the deceased’s estate. Torpey purposely hid the vehicle from the woman to keep it for himself, police said.
The car was found in the summer of 2016, revealing Torpey’s fraud, police said. The Porsche was recovered from a garage at Torpey’s home and is being held by the police department.
Torpey was charged Tuesday morning with one count each of third-degree grand larceny, second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument and second-degree perjury; five counts of first-degree falsifying business records and four counts of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, all felonies.
In 2008, Torpey was charged with insurance fraud for allegedly overcharging Geico Insurance on four jobs he performed at the request of town police. In 2009, the charges were dismissed.
Torpey was arraigned Tuesday morning before Town Justice Richard Thorpe and released in lieu of $2,500 bail, according to the release.Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman on Sunday said the events transpiring in Libya should send a strong message to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
“If he turns his weapons on his own people, he runs the risk,” Mr. Lieberman, Connecticut independent, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “There is a precedent now … we’re not going to allow Assad to slaughter his own people.”
Sen. John McCain, appearing on the same program, wouldn’t go as far as his colleague in comparing the uprising in Syria with the pro-democracy movements in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.
“Every one of these countries is different,” Mr. McCain, Arizona Republican, said.
“Let’s give moral support to these (protesters) in Syria,” he said, “but let’s not take our eye off Egypt. Egypt is the key.”
On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, also stopped short of backing the possibility of another American-led military intervention, this time in Syria, where anti-government protesters are being killed by security forces.
The senator said the intervention in Libya has the support of the international community, including the Arab League.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.We’re not even sure how we should present this rumor originating from Brazil. Technically it came from Brazil’s UFC Bahia — and quite frankly we have no idea the level of legitimacy this news source holds. Fortunately at MiddleEasy we love to entertain the imagination, therefore even the most bizarre conspiracy theories are treated like potential news items.
If MiddleEasy didn’t make you put your tinfoil hat on at least twice a week, then we wouldn’t be doing our jobs. Therefore check out this highly-detailed claim as to what happened leading up to UFC 162.
“Minotauro has declared the following statement: “If people knew what really happened in the defeat of Anderson, they would be disgusted.” All Brazilians were shocked and saddened by Anderson having lost the belt in Vegas. But they don’t need to be. What is discussed below is the news firsthand being investigated by radio and newspapers throughout Brazil and some foreigners, specifically Wall Street Journal and Sports Gazette and the media should be released soon, and the evidence will confirm the facts. Rumor: Anderson Silva SOLD the UFC belt. The fighter’s staff was advised, at 1:00pm on July 6 (Fight Day), at a meeting involving Dana White, Pedro Rizzo and Mr. Lorenzo Fertitta. At first they were very upset, and Anderson refused to sell the belt. The acceptance came through the full payment of premiums, US$70K for each member of staff, plus a bonus of U.S$400K for the whole team, a total of US$23 million by Nike. Still, Anderson refused to participate. Their situation was only resolved after the representative of Nike threatening to withdraw its lifelong sponsorship of the fighter, valued at more than US$90 million throughout his career. Thus, it was agreed that Anderson would be defeated by points, but the apathy that befell the fighter made Chris Weidman, who absolutely did not participate in this negotiation, TKO Anderson. Dana White applauded the team collaboration of Silva, since the change of belt has brought balance to the category.”The University of California (UC) Board of Regents, the governing body that oversees 10 campuses and approximately a quarter of a million students, is considering adopting the State Department definition of anti-Semitism, which conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. A variety of student organizations have pushed back against the regents’ initiative.
United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2865, the union which represents over 13,000 student workers in the UC system; Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP); and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) have publicly opposed the attempt to adopt the State Department definition.
In a message to UC President Janet Napolitano, who supports the initiative, UAW “voice[d] strong opposition to the proposed adoption.” The letter (embedded below) was endorsed by the UAW 2865 Joint Council and represents the official position of the union local.
JVP urged the UC Regents “to stand for academic freedom and to reject the ‘State Department definition’ of anti-Semitism.” SJP West, a coalition of West Coast SJP chapters, also wrote a letter to President Napolitano, “strongly oppos[ing] its adoption.”
David McCleary, Head Steward and Executive Board Trustee of UAW 2865 and a molecular and cellular biology PhD candidate who is also involved in JVP and SJP, spoke with Mondoweiss about the campaign.
McCleary says there has been a “long and planned” campaign against UC Palestinian solidarity activism. The present attempt to conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism is spearheaded by the pro-Israel organization AMCHA Initiative. On the homepage of its website, AMCHA Initiative claims the peaceful Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is anti-Semitic and implores readers to sign a petition calling on UC to adopt the State Department definition of anti-Semitism.
AMCHA Initiative has helped pass numerous resolutions on university campuses disguised as condemnations of anti-Semitism, yet with the State Department definition “sneaked in,” McCleary explained, in order to conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
The definition is based on the concept of the “new anti-Semitism,” formulated by the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League and other fervent supporters of Israel, which conflates Israel and Zionism with Jewishness and Judaism. This “new anti-Semitism” is based on “the three Ds”: alleged demonization, delegitimization, and double standards vis-à-vis Israel.
For decades, scholars such as Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappé, and others have argued that there is no “new anti-Semitism,” and that it is an explicitly politically motivated redefinition of anti-Semitism in order to prevent criticism of Israel.
The California Legislature’s SCR 35
For months, the California state legislature has deliberated Senate Concurrent Resolution (SCR) No. 35, a measure that “would urge each University of California campus to adopt a resolution condemning all forms of anti-Semitism and racism, and would condemn any act of anti-Semitism augmenting education programs at all publicly funded schools in the State of California.”
Non-profit advocacy group Palestine Legal has condemned the resolution for “perpetuat[ing] the conflation of anti-Semitism and protected free speech critical of Israel.”
“We applaud the Senate’s efforts to confront racism and bigotry on college campuses, including anti-Semitism,” Palestine Legal says. “However, SCR as currently written is unduly vague.”
The California Senate Education Committee deliberated the resolution on 29 April. The California State Assembly Higher Education Committee then met on 23 June to debate SCR 35. McCleary attended the two hearings; in both, he said, deliberators tried to “openly conflate university divestment and anti-Semitism.”
A UC regent testified at the Higher Education Committee hearing in favor of the resolution. He did not identify himself, yet said “I’m here as a private citizen, not in my capacity as a member of the UC Board of Regents” (his statement begins at 4:40 in the government’s official audio recording of the hearing). UC regents are not legally permitted to lobby on behalf of legislation that will affect their university; the unnamed man was aware of this, yet brought up the fact that he was a regent anyway.
Jack Mizes, president of the UC Davis chapter of JVP, publicly testified against the measure.
If you disagree with Iran’s nuclear program, as many US politicians vehemently do, you are not considered anti-Iranian or anti-Muslim, Mizes argued. But if you criticize Israel, you are often dubbed anti-Semitic.
“If we adopt SCR 35 in reference to the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism, then we are clearly adopting a partisan bias,” Mizes said, and, in so doing, “further silencing an already marginalized voice in the debate.”
“Original Intent”
Carol Sanders, who identified as a member of the Jewish community, voiced strong opposition to the measure. “Central to our beliefs is opposition to all forms of bigotry and racism. Therefore we strongly support efforts to confront anti-Semitism when it occurs,” she said. “But we vigorously reject assertions that speech critical of Israeli policies and supportive of Palestinian rights is inherently anti-Semitic.”
Sanders notes that the original text of SCR 35 references the State Department definition, but unquoted “is that part of definition that condemns critical of Israel as a form of anti-Semitism.”
Proponents of the resolution sent a letter to the legislature after the Senate committee hearing, insisting on the importance of maintaining the State Department’s definition. The pro-Israel AMCHA Initiative called organizations that oppose the adoption of the State Department definition “anti-Israel groups.” It admitted that the “original intent” of the resolution is to conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, writing
we are extremely troubled by the efforts of some groups to remove from the resolution any reference to the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism, or worse, to replace it with the Merriam Webster dictionary definition. We think that doing so would be disastrous, and would completely undermine and pervert the original intent of this very important resolution.
“A major purpose of the resolution was to combat what the proponents called anti-Israel activity, and particularly BDS,” Sanders explained. “Such intervention would strike at the heart of the First Amendment. It would have the government stigmatize and ultimately silence political speech by officially intervening,” she warned.
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, co-founder of AMCHA Initiative and a UC, Santa Cruz lecturer, has openly said that her next step is to go to the legislature and to ask them to defund public universities that do not adopt the State Department definition. She has also admitted that her ultimate goal is to pressure the legislature to legally classify any boycotts, divestment, and sanctions of Israel as acts of anti-Semitism.
Rossman-Benjamin has a history of making anti-Arab and Islamophobic remarks. In 2013, UC students circulated a petition calling on the university president to condemn what they characterize as Rossman-Benjamin’s “racist and defamatory claims” and “hate speech.”
Opposition from the Definition’s Author
Kenneth Stern, the longtime former director of anti-Semitism and extremism for the American Jewish Committee, published an op-ed in the Jewish Journal warning against universities adopting the US government’s definition. Stern served as lead author of the European Monitoring Centre’s “working definition on anti-Semitism,” upon which the State Department definition is based.
Stern notes that two dozen groups have lobbied the UC in favor of the measure, but cautions that “official adoption of the State Department’s definition would do more harm than good.”
To “enshrine such a definition on a college campus is an ill-advised idea that will make matters worse, and not only for Jewish students; it would also damage the university as a whole,” Stern wrote.
Stern continued:
Those who want the university system to adopt the definition say it isn’t a speech code (presumably because they recognize that speech codes are likely unconstitutional and anathema to the ideals of academic freedom). But that is precisely what they are seeking. You don’t need a university endorsement of a particular definition in order to increase careful thought about difficult issues, such as when antisemitism is present in debates about Israel and Palestine. AMCHA’s leader, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin rather wants a rule of what is hateful to say and what is not. She has said that advocacy in favor of Boycotts/Divestment/Sanctions (BDS) against Israel would be classified as antisemitic, as would the erection of fake walls imitating Israel’s separation barrier. So if the definition is adopted, presumably administrators would be expected to label such political speech as antisemitic, or face challenges (political and perhaps legal) from AMCHA and its colleagues that they were not doing their jobs. … [O]n a college campus, do we really want a student (imagine yourself as a Palestinian student) to fear that anti-Zionism on their part (even if they are quoting Martin Buber and Hannah Arendt to make their case) will violate an administratively-imposed definition of what is ok to be said? … Further, if a university adopts an official definition of antisemitism, how long would it be until other groups demand an official definition of Islamophobia, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian animus, homophobia and so forth, with the built-in expectation that speech transgressing such definitions requires an administrative response too? Consider what speech might run afoul of an official definition of “anti-Palestinian.” Perhaps when a student says that he does not believe Palestinians have a right to a country of their own, and that the West Bank instead should be part of a Greater Israel?
Amendments to the Resolution
Through working with the legislature, JVP and Palestine Legal managed to get vague language removed from SCR 35.
In the 29 April California Senate Education Committee hearing, the Asian Law Caucus; the Center for Constitutional Rights; JVP; and the National Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles condemned the measure. The committee agreed, in response, to remove the ambiguous phrase “augmenting education programs” from the resolution.
Legislative staff also agreed to add “Nothing in this resolution is intended to diminish the rights of students or anyone else to freely discuss or engage in any legal speech or other activity protected by the Constitution of the United States.”
Students are still afraid, nonetheless, that were the measure to pass, UC will clamp down on not just Palestinian human rights activism, but even on teaching and research.
Academic Freedom
The majority of the 13,000 workers represented by UAW 2865 are teaching assistants. A grad student who asked to remain anonymous told Mondoweiss she is worried that, if the State Department definition is adopted, she would have to bias her teaching in favor of Israel, in fear of being labeled an anti-Semite for teaching about Israel’s illegal activity and what the world’s leading human rights organizations and legal bodies have classified as war crimes.
“Student teachers need to be able to criticize any country in order to teach students,” the graduate student stressed, particularly when discussing contemporary political issues. “That is the most crucial part of academic freedom,” she said.
McCleary, the student union trustee, explained UAW 2865 has “members who literally wouldn’t be allowed to do their research if this was actually enforced, because their research is focused on Israel.”
SCR 35 is “completely antithetical to the First Amendment,” he said. It poses “a really dangerous precedent for academic freedom.”
McCleary, who got the New York Times to apologize for applying a “Jewish litmus test” to American Jews who are critical of Israel, says he finds the UC regents’ and legislature’s attempts to conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism to be insulting.
“It’s really offensive to me as a Jewish student,” McCleary explained. “I support BDS, and I don’t for one second think that’s incompatible with my Jewish identity. That is my Jewish identity in fact. I don’t support BDS in spite of my Judaism; I support it because of my Judaism.”
UAW 2865 Letter Opposing Adoption of State Dept. Definition Letter
Dear President Napolitano, United Auto Workers Local 2865, which represents over 13,000 student workers in the University of California system, wishes to voice strong opposition to the proposed adoption of the State Department definition of anti-Semitism by the UC Regents. As members of the union local’s Joint Council, we write to ask that you withdraw your personal support for its adoption and ensure that this does not end up on the agenda for the July Regents Meeting in San Francisco. The State Department definition conflates legitimate, first amendment-protected criticisms of policies of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism, which is commonly defined as discrimination against Jewish people. The State Department definition includes a section declaring that “demonizing”, “delegitimizing”, or applying a “double-standard” to Israel are examples of anti-Semitism. These terms are extremely vague and could be applied to virtually any criticism of any Israeli policy. In addition, we are concerned that by adopting such a measure, the UC Regents would in fact be treating Israel as exceptional and applying a double standard to the values of the University, which is supposed to foster free intellectual exchange and which prides itself on commitment to academic freedom, free speech and student leadership. UAW 2865 understands that many Jews find the conflation of Judaism with Israel and the decisions of its government anti-Semitic in itself. The growing movement of Jewish communities who have spoken out against war crimes and human rights violations by the Israeli state highlights this, and to deny their legitimate grievances against policies claiming to speak on behalf of world Jewry is unethical and tells them their Jewish identity does not matter. In December, our union local endorsed divesting from corporations complicit in violations of International law by Israel and ending US military aid to Israel, by a nearly two-thirds majority. Many Jewish students unhappy with Israeli policies toward Palestinians joined in that campaign, not for a second thinking their criticisms of Israel were an attack on their own Jewish identity. As this vote specifically targeted Israel without calling for divestment and ending military aid to other countries, this could be characterized as applying a “double-standard” to Israel, and therefore declared anti-Semitic. One could argue that students seeking to boycott and divest from Israel weren’t the ones applying the double-standard, but in fact US foreign policy does so through the outsized amount of military aid provided to Israel. The double-standard isn’t applied by those seeking recognition of Israeli violations of International law, but by the US government which prevents any action at the United Nations against Israel for these violations. The United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has clearly ruled that criticism of Israel is protected campus speech. In 2013, the Office for Civil Rights dismissed three separate Title VI Civil Rights Act complaints against UC campuses which claimed that several events critical of Israel fostered an anti-Semitic campus climate. In rejecting these claims, the office stated that the events in question “constitute expression on matters of public concern directed to the University community. In the university environment, exposure to such robust and discordant expressions, even when personally offensive and hurtful, is a circumstance that a reasonable student in higher education may experience. In this context, the events that the complainants described do not constitute actionable harassment.” Kenneth Stern, the lead author of the European Union Monitoring Center’s working definition on anti-Semitism, which served as the basis for the State Department definition, opposes enforcing the definition on college campuses. In a recent Jewish Journal op-ed, Stern characterizes efforts by outside groups like the AMCHA Initiative to apply the State Department definition as a transparent ploy to establish unconstitutional “speech codes” that are “anathema to the ideals of academic freedom.” He says that enshrining this definition in the UC system “is an ill-advised idea that will make matters worse, and not only for Jewish students; it would also damage the university as a whole.” He continues: The Regents would be better advised to think of ways to increase the teaching and scholarship about antisemitism and hatred in general rather than adopt a definition that was never intended to regulate speech on a college campus. If the university were to officially brand critical views of Israeli policy as “anti-Semitic,” many of us would wake up the next day with a stamp of condemnation on our academic work. Many would have to change our academic focus, or wonder if we should to avoid controversy and undue scrutiny. Many would change their course curriculums to avoid the topic all together. Many would be afraid to ask questions about Israel and Palestine. Many would choose to avoid campus debates on the topic, keep our heads down and decide to stay away from essential learning opportunities that campus activism and controversial programming afford. Many would change our resumes, hide our passions, and decide not to speak our conscious or ask questions. This would be devastating to the learning environment at what should be a world-class university. As a body that represents thousands of student teachers for the work they do in classrooms, we see this redefinition of anti-Semitism as a serious threat to the academic freedom of our members. Lastly and most importantly we ask the UC regents consider the legal, ethical and academic implications this has on its Palestinian and Arab student and faculty constituency. Many students are here in the US studying in the UC because opportunities for education, to live in freedom, dignity, safety and peace has been denied to them because of persistent Israeli occupation, wars and the denial of Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homeland. To conflate a critique of Israel with anti-semitism first does not account for the fact that Arab people are also Semitic people and secondly it criminalizes the very existence, experience and narratives of one of your already most underserved and marginalized communities. This measure would signify a new form of institutional racism that would consolidate and strengthen Islamophobia, anti-semitism, anti-Arab racism which will surely be reflected in campus climate. As a union committed to justice, equity and collaborative exchange, we strongly urge you to not consider adoption of the State Department definition of anti-Semitism. We hope you will do the right thing and not attempt to stifle protected speech on campus. Sincerely, United Auto Workers Local 2865
UAW 2865 Letter Opposing SCR 35After more than a month of silence, the ABC News/Washington Post national presidential poll, which is one of the five selected by the Republican/Democrat-controlled Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) to determine eligibility for this fall's televised gabfests, came out with a new survey this morning that puts another nail in the coffin of Gary Johnson's debate hopes.
The Libertarian nominee set a new high in the poll, at 9 percent (Hillary Clinton was at 46 percent, Donald Trump at 41, and Jill Stein at 2), but that only brings his five-poll average to 9.0 percent, with less than a week to go before the CPD's deadline of "mid September." With only two of the other polls (CBS News and NBC/Wall Street Journal) due for a new survey between now and then, that means Johnson would have to average 25 percent in each to achieve a five-poll average of 15.0 percent. He has yet to produce a national number higher than 13 percent. It's no wonder that the Johnson/Bill Weld ticket signaled a new debate strategy yesterday in New York: Drum up outrage at their non-inclusion by hosting live answer sessions outside |
or a combination of the sorts. In most mainstream sports, the symmetry of rules and capabilities between both teams means all players are typically playing on an even field (at the start) while in video-games, there is, at a minimum, a two-level difficulty scale: one of skillful players improving at different rates and approaches and the balance by game design.For team games, a debate can be made about how much game balance can affect its participants. Teams outplay one another through strategy, ability to cooperate/communicate as well as through an individual’s aptitude in achieving their role’s tasks. So in the instance of Dota 2 and League of Legends, one hero/champion may not be the most effective in all situations, players typically must be able to know and play skillfully a large variety of characters that are all characterized with the same intention (or roles: support, ganker, etc.). In addition, to compensate with majorimbalances, there is a banning and picking stage to help level the field on both sides (captain’s mode). For StarCraft II, players dedicate themselves to one race for nearly the entirety of their careers (with some exceptions). This dedication must be maintained in order to be able to keep up with other dedicated players as well as the overall demand to execute certain strategies (demand in terms of understanding of key timings to engage your foe as well as actions per minute to execute a vast succession of keystrokes). In addition, maps are changed on a seasonal basis, adding to the layers of possible imbalances or curve disadvantages that may affect the player’s to adapt.Typically no one blames balance (minus a few exceptions) for their losses purely because it cannot be changed. Developers, especially within Blizzard Entertainment, make major balance changes on empirical and cumulative showings, meaning; many may lose until they pick up on an issue. Overcoming adversities for players is definitely a part of adaptation. This is an expectancy everyone has on the players but balance has an even larger arching role beyond the game. Sometimes it can be part of the determinant as to whether a player is contracted to a new team or reconsidered, it’s not the deciding factor but an influence either shown through results (or lack thereof) or the trend of current leaders (which is what most premier teams look for).The impact of game balance, poor tournament structure and administrative rulings may be the least of effects to ultimately bring some professional gamers into retirement, but they are apparent despite. We didn’t discuss the psychological effects of these issues but I’m sure many have read competitors admit to disliking the game they once loved. As mentioned, pro gamers are the center piece to our dining room of a subculture. We revolve around giving them a setting, publicity and exposure, equipment and communication. However making sure they are at work is something that may coincide with those trying to run a business and there is little to help keep players afloat while they transition into a self-supported lifestyle (with future successes or not). With the ups and downs of players as well as the game, assuring they have a financial safety net or unionized organization to support them as they continue improving without the worries or fears of their financial stability has yet to be truly conceptualized. Few teams support their players after contracts end and even less try referring them to other companies. Who, in the end, looks out for the welfare of the players?
(1 We dictate balance as a part of the game design in which developers configure the strength or power of a player-controlled unit(s) to either make more ineffective or less effective in its use or influence towards the game’s overall endpoint (victorious/defeat). Imbalanced systems are seen as undermining the intention of the game or dismissing the validity of intended [other] units).The term “1911” gets used a lot to describe a particular style of firearm that is nominally similar to the handgun designed by a collaboration of John Moses Browning and the U.S. War department for military adoption in 1911. It’s really an inaccurate term because the 1911, the gun that the US military adopted back then was a highly specific spec for a pistol made to very exacting standards and doesn’t really exist anymore. Today US military small arms are made according to what is known as a Technical Data Package that dictates the manufacture with highly specific requirements in materials, tolerances, and quality control measures that weapons have to meet in order to be accepted on the contract between the DOD and the manufacturer. The same sort of thing applied back when the 1911 was being manufactured for the US military. The War department had a very detailed spec that the pistols and the ammunition had to meet.
Folks often talk about loose “tolerances” on the old 1911 pistols but they are usually confusing the concept of manufacturing tolerances with designed clearance between parts in the final product. Tolerance has to do with variations in the dimensions and performance of manufactured parts/final products and back in the day the tolerances for manufacture of a 1911 pistol were very strict. (Just as they are with current weapons like the M9 and the M4) Consider that 1911 pistols manufactured by Colt, Remington-Rand, Ithaca, Singer, and Union Switch and Signal all had to work with the specified ammunition and, even more importantly, work with spare parts regardless of manufacture. You could take a gun from each manufacturer, completely disassemble them, mix all the parts up, and then reassemble all the parts into perfectly functional weapons again regardless of who originally made them. You do not achieve that with loose tolerances. When you consider that a GI in the Pacific could be issued a pistol from any of the contracted manufacturers and that he could be stuck with a broken gun if it could only work with parts from the original manufacturer, the strict tolerances used on the military 1911 pistols makes sense.
The 1911 was made with forged steel frames and slides, high quality tool-steel internal parts (like the sear and disconnector) and all of this manufactured to extremely strict tolerances…and parts that failed to make that standard were scrapped. In the days when the 1911 was being produced for the military contracts, that’s how most firearms were manufactured…and even by the standards of the day it was an expensive way to make guns. The resource constraints of WWII pushed engineers and manufacturers to experiment with new materials like stamped steel in the production of firearms in an effort to save manufacturing time, precious materials, and money.
That was the world of the 1911. It was relatively expensive and involved to manufacture, it had some ergonomic issues, tiny sights, and wouldn’t necessarily shoot very tight groups…but by gum it worked and if something broke you could drop in a replacement with hardly any tools and it would be right back up and running. If we leave out that whole “expensive and involved to manufacture” part, doesn’t that list of features sound familiar? Doesn’t it sound an awful lot like the benefits listed for the polymer pistols everybody is buying today?
Think about it: The 1911 was the Glock of its day. More rugged, reliable, and sensible to use than the Luger or the C96 or other semi-automatic pistols of the time. It was made of relatively few parts and could be disassembled entirely and reassembled easily in the field. It worked in humid jungles and nearly arctic cold, in deserts and rain forests alike. Remember that in the original 1911 trials Mr. Browning’s creation fired 6,000 rounds without malfunction while only being cleaned and lubricated every 1,000 rounds. Literally no other semi-automatic handgun on the planet at that time could touch that kind of performance.
So how is it that when we talk about “the 1911″ today nobody is picturing the gold standard of reliability and durability in a handgun that the 1911 once was? That returns us to the first sentence of this piece…”the 1911” we know today isn’t really a whole lot like the gun that the War Department adopted. The 1911 doesn’t exist in production anymore. Instead we have a lot of 1911-pattern pistols from a number of different manufacturers that are made to wildly different specifications, tolerances, clearances, and unfortunately standards. The market today expects 1911 pattern pistols to function with ammunition and even chamberings that didn’t exist when the 1911 specs were laid down. We also expect several ergonomic improvements to the pistol that weren’t really contemplated when John Moses was at his drafting table.
A company could certainly manufacture a run of pistols identical to the original 1911 in every respect, but that pistol would be just like the original: a hand-pinching handgun with almost useless sights shooting large-ish groups that is dead-nuts reliable with hardball ammo and excellent long term durability. Oh, and thanks to inflation, the price of steel, and the cost of machining high quality parts it will cost between double (extremely optimistic) and triple (probably more likely) the cost of a Glock. Few want a pistol with those kinds of features at that kind of pricepoint.
That brings us to one of the biggest issues with the 1911 pattern pistol and why the term 1911 is no longer synonymous with reliability…namely the pricepoint. More on that later.
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RedditBob Chapman | May 31, 2008
Everything the cartel does is geared into keeping both professional and private investors out of precious metals. The so-called "wall of worry" which any given market is said to climb, is nothing more than a false, fraudulent front of disinformation which is created by elitist insiders on Wall Street, in our government and in corporate America, in order to scare people out of any market from which the elitists wish to profit. They want you to keep out until they have bought in cheaply. After they have glutted themselves, the wall of worry is removed and the public dupes are let in on "the coming huge rally" in whatever, all as promoted by our "beloved" fane-stream media. The market is then run up by the sheople-dupes to a blow-off top, and then the inside players bail out with as much stealth as they can muster, booking monumental profits while the public sucker-dupes crash and burn and are essentially left holding the bag as they are advised by the fane-stream media to follow Charles Schwab's mantra that "we're in it for the long term." (Barf) We have news for you -you're in it for the long greased pole that the elitists will be shoving up your collective derrieres after they have glommed their pirate booty. Yes indeed, you're "in it for the long pole."
The "wall of worry" for precious metals is no different and is a product of the cartel's overall creative efforts at suppression of the monetary metals. Gold suppression is JOB ONE at the Fed, and the Fed uses its vast powers, in conjunction with the powers given to the PPT by Reagan's Executive Order (and we might add in conjunction with powers that go way beyond the mandate called for in that Executive Order), to create the wall of worry for precious metals. They do this not only because precious metals continually embarrass the value and integrity of their "worthless paper" which some prefer to call Federal Reserve notes (printed by a Ponzi-scheming, privately owned Fed and backed by the full faith and credit of a bankrupt US Treasury), but also because they are attempting to alleviate what is one of their greatest causes for angst. The fear we have just alluded to is the cartel's fear that due to their complete bungling and ineptitude, gold and silver will explode before they can bail out of the general stock and bond markets through dark pools of liquidity that would hide their bailout from the public patsies. They want to plow those proceeds into commodities and real, tangible assets, with gold and silver high on their list. And when they buy, they want to get in cheap.
The problem is, that in their unmitigated greed and lust for power, as well as their paranoia about political fallout which they feel must be avoided at all costs (costs which include the destruction of our economy), they have destroyed our nation's real estate market, thereby destroying themselves in the process as all real estate-backed securities are in the process of being taken to the cleaners. And that is just the tip of the iceberg as other debts such as credit cards and car loans start to implode along with our economy which in turn has been destroyed by free trade, globalization, off-shoring, outsourcing and illegal immigration. Credit default swaps are now skyrocketing for many of the brokers and other financial institutions, indicating some very bad things to come, not the least of which are bank failures caused by the real estate debacle and the credit-crunch. In order to save themselves, the Illuminists had to lower rates, thus destroying the dollar and sending gold to new all-time highs. And in order to maintain oil backing for the dollar, they had to create more wars for profit to keep leaders from other countries from trading oil in currencies other than the dollar; wars that have greatly supported gold as a safe-haven. Meanwhile a $596 trillion time bomb of derivatives awaits the pressing of its detonator button through a combination of all the above. Gold is going to go inter-dimensional when that ticking time bomb finally detonates. Ah, the tangled webs we weave when we practice to deceive!
If you think it is safe to get back into the financial waters for stocks and bonds, we suggest you watch the original movie, "Jaws," using the waters patrolled by the great white shark as your metaphor. Already the stock markets have plummeted, and the bond markets are now under pressure as massive losses create higher rates of interest through accelerating risk reassessment. The great white shark of hyperinflation waits under the deep, dark waters of financial profligacy, fiscal mismanagement, monetary imbecility, unfair trade with its attendant currency manipulations and rampant, rampaging fraud from top to bottom, with the bursting of the real estate bubble being a perfect example of this witches brew of economy-killing debacles. Da-da, da-da...da-da, da-da...da-da, da-da...
Gold and silver have now completed their rollover as of Friday and immediately the monetary metals began their recovery, bursting from 870 to 889 with a close at 888, a number which Asians find propitious in their obsession with 8's. We have to cut large specs some slack due to this rollover as they cannot all liquidate at the same time, so some downward pressure can be expected when you throw in massive cartel efforts to suppress and destroy the monetary metals. They have a big rally planned, so you better stay tuned and take your position. It does not matter what level you make your rollover at if you plan on pushing past 1000 again. You make back all your losses and then some in that event, and we can assure you that the specs have no intention of passing up on a chance to make gargantuan profits and take back ground lost in the rollover. Precious metals have the wind at their backs, while stocks, bonds and treasuries face a hurricane west wind.
If you want to really see gold and silver go on a rampage, liquidate all your precious metal paper counterfeits such as ETF's, mint certificates and futures and use them to purchase and take possession of physical gold and silver bullion. When the COMEX cupboards of gold and silver are empty, you have then purchased the casino and can gamble with impunity. The bullion and collectable coins will skyrocket when volume takes them out of circulation. That is what paper sources of gold and silver are all about, namely, to forestall the taking of precious metals off the table and out of circulation so these pools of paper gold and silver can be used against the very people who invested in them in the first place. Be sure to take a goodly portion of your ETF liquidations and plow them into resource stocks. ETF's are despicable, multipurpose elitist vehicles of metals suppression. They create pools of gold and silver which can be sold and leased, and divert money away from more traditional vehicles like resource stocks. Continuation of ETF investments is like spinning a revolver with five of six chambers loaded and then putting it to your head and pressing the trigger. Why give the elitists a pool of gold, which is greater than many central banks possess so they can use it against you by leasing it out or selling it off. Get in it for the long haul and stop taking profits and trading in and out. Every time there is massive profit-taking, the cartel gets an undeserved breather, and of course they make any resulting downturn all the worse with their usual suppressive tactics.
Who would want futures, ETF's or mint certificates when the best leverage plays are in resource stocks. A great junior will provide leverage that will outperform the futures market hands down without the risk of loss due to the passage of time. You do not have to worry about running out of time when you own high quality resource stocks, but the time element is your main nemesis when you deal in futures. We are puzzled and perplexed at the lack of interest in resource stocks, but can understand some of the reluctance because of the continual naked-shorting used by the cartel. However, naked shorting is a two-edged sword, and if you catch the cartel off guard with a huge rally their shorts will get slaughtered and you will have a massive short-covering rally on your hands.
The yen was weakened this week to support general stock markets while gold and silver were under rollover pressure in the futures markets. That is the only way stocks can go up, and now that the futures rollover is complete, any weakness in the yen will send carry traders into precious metals, as they are the only game in town right now. Treasuries and bonds are under pressure due to inflation, the declining dollar and rising interest rates while stocks suffer the impact of an upcoming hyperinflationary recession and bad economic news across the board. How anyone can have a positive attitude toward stocks with crude above 100 is beyond us. The second quarter has been an absolute disaster and the earnings reports due out starting in July are going to be horrendous. The stimulus has been completely negated by rising crude and food prices, not to mention the destruction of the real estate market, which has shut off the equity-extracting spigot.
The dollar rally has already petered out at 73, and the dollar will now get systematically destroyed as everyone begins to flee stocks, bonds and treasuries in favor of real assets, which has already ongoing for many months now since the credit-crunch took control over market sentiment. Specs should consider buying some dollar longs on the next big dollar dip, and acquire a healthy portion of oil shorts to guard against a takedown of oil to hit the precious metals. These should be in addition to your usual arsenal of protective derivatives. As you can see, the turndown in oil prices coincided precisely with the rollover period for the metals so the commercial shorts could bail out at lower price levels. Open interest has greatly declined because the commercials were cashing out and not rolling all the proceeds over, choosing instead to pocket some cash because they know a rally is on its way. Note that the short positions of Goldman Sachs are at unusually low levels as well. Those expecting summer doldrums to step in are going to get their heads handed to them. The market has completely changed, with investment demand far outstripping jewelry demand in importance. The destruction of financial markets is under way and is starting to accelerate as inflation and recession take their toll. Patterns are going to be broken this year and gold and silver are going to start marching to their own drummer. We expect massive rallies before the end of the year. So take your positions in physical metals and resource stocks and wait for the fun to begin. Such investments are the surest bet you will find during the current economic headwinds.
Energy and food prices are soaring. The housing market continues to collapse. Government revenue is falling, and taxes are rising. Airlines are jacking up fares and fees while reducing service. Banks are pulling credit lines. Auto companies are cutting production once again. Even investment bankers are losing their jobs.
The tendency is to see these as separate developments, each with its own causes and dynamic. Fundamentally, however, they are all part of the same story -- the story of the global economy purging itself of large and unsustainable imbalances that for a time allowed many Americans to think they were richer than they really were.
Most of us understand that an overabundance of cheap, easy credit created a housing bubble that artificially inflated the price of land and housing, produced too many homes and homeowners, and persuaded too many Americans to dip into their home equity to support a lifestyle their income could not sustain, As we reported in detail earlier, SEC officials said in a statement that they had been monitoring Bear Stearns’s financial situation on a daily basis in recent weeks, and had no cause for alarm earlier in the week. Bear’s holding company capital exceeded regulatory standards at the end of February, and information supplied by Bear Stearns to the SEC on Tuesday [March 12, 2008] showed the holding company had a “substantial capital cushion,” according to the SEC.
As of that date, the firm had more than $17 billion in cash and unencumbered liquid assets, the SEC said.
“Beginning on that day, however, and increasingly throughout the week, lenders and customers of Bear Stearns began to remove funds from the firm, despite its stable capital position. As a result, Bear Stearns’s excess liquidity rapidly eroded, the statement says.
Please note in the following Moody’s table that Bear Stearns’ “Total Illiquid Risk Assets” at 31% are far less than other ‘bulge-bracket brokers.’ Lehman is 197%; GS is 135%, Morgan is 109%, MER is 45%...
During the JP Morgan conference call on Bear, Bill Winters, Co-CEO of JP Morgan, said the following about Bear Stearns’ condition: “In fact what we've -- we were very pleasantly surprised to see that it was a very well run, tight operation with good risk controls and a risk discipline that was very similar to our own.”
If we were the SEC, we’d be issuing subpoenas like crazy to ascertain if Bears’ ‘run’ was a conspiracy. We’d check to see who shorted Bear stock, bought puts, CDS and other derivatives and cross check them against any party whose actions might have facilitated the run on Bear…Perhaps Bear Stearns stock rallied to 4.81 on the possibility of legal recourse. Yesterday’s WSJ: Bear Stearns Cos. plans to turn over documents to securities regulators showing that several financial giants, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citadel Investment Group and Paulson & Co., slashed their exposure to the securities firm in the weeks before its collapse…
The SEC is expected to use the data to determine whether any trading activity was improperly coordinated in any way, constituted manipulation or otherwise contributed to Bear Stearns's collapse.
George Bush’s trip to the Middle East accomplished very little other than the fact he had to beg the Saudis for 300,000 more barrels of oil a day. We have a very dangerous 7 months left with this crew and anything can happen. Our biggest fear is he will start another war and there won’t be elections in November.
George Bush has been America’s worst president in history. He has prepared our country emotionally for the Federal Reserve’s collapse of our currency, bringing an end to the dollar’s reserve status. In our current credit crisis it’s save Wall Street and abandon the dollar. The question is has a secret deal been made to give away all of our assets to satisfy our debts?
George Bush has ruined our reputation with the assistance of Wall Street. More than 70% of foreigners despise our government and it’s blatant corruption, and its senseless barbaric wars. This is why on 5/16/08 the US didn’t attend the staple food summit in Lima, Peru. Virtually everyone else of any note was there. On the same day Brazil, Russia, India and China met in Russia to discuss forming a political alliance. The US wasn’t there either. You are witnessing the end of America as an imperial power. After Iraq and Afghanistan, with the exception of nuclear power, the US is a paper tiger. They have exhausted their war resources and they are bankrupt.
The NATO summit was another loser for George and the neocons, as Russian President Putin put George in his place.
Europe is making major commercial inroads into commercial trade with South America. It looks like the Monroe Doctrine is dead and so is a great deal of the influence the US once had in Latin America. Worse yet, last week the foundations for a South American Union was laid and it won’t be long before an EU-Latin American free trade pact will become reality. America is oblivious to what is going on. They are too busy watching the circus in Iraq and Afghanistan. After years of exploitation Latin America wants to dump the US and their arrogant demands, and their backing of every dictator in the hemisphere for the 150 years. It is called gunboat exploitation. America is in for a rude awakening.
What does a country do when they have a long-term commitment for $75 trillion or more? They cut spending and raise taxes. Our country is doing just the opposite. In the middle of a recession, production and consumption are falling and our leaders tell us there is little inflation and no recession. Guidance like that will lead to national suicide.S
hiro Ulv is a 21-years-old IT security consultant living in Brunswick, Georgia. Born Matthew Schimmel, Shiro identifies himself with the growing subculture known as the Otherkin movement. In April 2013, Shiro was featured in Logo TV’s special documentary I Think I Am an Animal. Since the airing of the documentary, Shiro has gained online notoriety for being "The Wolf Guy" after a screenshot of him identifying himself as a “wolf therianthrope” from the program began circulating on Tumblr and elsewhere online. What is more, Shiro has been an active member of the Know Your Meme community for over a year. In the light of this discovery, our longtime research moderator MisterJ reached out to the wolf-man himself to chat about his Internet fame.
Interview
Q: How did you come to appear in the Logo TV documentary?
A: I was contacted because I am the administrator of a large therianthropy and therein website. I originally declined, because the media has a way of portraying our community badly. I was eventually asked to provide background information on the community, and to help fact check. I was then manipulated into appearing on TV.
Q: How do you reflect on your internet fame? And how has others in your life reacted to your internet fame?
A: I have mixed emotions about it. I pretty much joke around about it for the most part. Others in my life think it’s amusing, funny, or cool. I’ve been asked to pose with people on the street. I’ve also gotten a lot of negative backlash. It’s funny, because a lot of the scenes were coached and I was told or encouraged to do certain things. In the famous meme, I was told, by the person filming, “look at the water and give me a bark”.
Q: Do you regret appearing in the documentary?
A: In a sense, very much so. I embarrassed myself and the community I am a part of. In another sense, I met some true friends from the experience as well.
Q: How often were you requested to repeat the famous memetic line thus far?
A: I’d say more times than I can count. It’s become a local trend in my area for people to take Vines with me. I don’t normally bark in real life. Sometimes if I’m with friends and we’re goofing off, sure. Or if I’m asked to for a Vine with someone.
Q: Since your appearance in the documentary, alongside with your identify as a wolf, went viral on the internet, has the attention it gathered resulted in positive consequences on your private or social life, and within the therein community?
A: Well, my girlfriend sort of found me through the documentary. She knew me from High School, and had a crush on me for several years. I had legally changed my name as explained in the documentary, so she was unable to look me up on Facebook or anything. When she saw it, she found my name, we talked, became friends, and now we’ve been together for six months. I’m told by some therians that I have inspired them, but I honestly get sad when I am told this. My behavior on the documentary isn’t an inspiration, it is an example of what NOT to do.
Q: Are you aware of the furry fandom, and would you identify yourself as a member?
A: Aware of the fandom, participate to a slight degree, but am not really a member.
Q: How would you say the otherkin/therian community is treated online and in society at large?
A: Badly. We’re a laughing stock. The most vocal members of our community are idiots, or in my case, portrayed as such. It’s fashionable to make fun of our community, just like it is to make fun of furries. The Tumblr therein community is the worst place to go for info; it’s full of idiots. The community existed long before Tumblr, and like everything else on the internet, Tumblr tends to ruin it. The Tumblr community has decided that it’s okay to identify as objects, and various other nonsense. They’ve also decided they’re a part of the transgender community, and that they need nounself pronouns. I don’t support any of this, by the way.
Q: What would you like people to understand regarding the otherkin/therian community?
A: We’re a bit odd, but we’re also pretty normal. We have jobs, and contribute to society like everyone else. It’s a spiritual and/or psychological belief and nothing more.
Q: Is there any significance behind the name Shiro Ulv?
A: It means White Wolf.
Q: Are there any variations of your meme that you find interesting?
A: The Sonic one. I’m a Sonic fan and I’m actually wearing a Tails shirt right now.
Q: Are there any plans in the future regarding your internet fame?
A: Not much. It’s kind of embarrassing. :P
Q: How did you first find out about the therein community? And how did you find out that your phrase was made famous online?
A: I first found out through my online friend. I was a volunteer staff member of the game Furcadia. I thought I was a furry, but was told therian fits me better.
Q: How did you find out that your phrase was made famous online?
A: A friend of mine showed it to me on Facebook. I figured it’d be pretty well known because I was on TV.
Q: What are some of your go-to sites? Are you active in any specific online communities?
A: I administrate Kinmunity.com
Q: Do you have any favorite internet memes?
Q: Any favorite Internet-famous people?
Q: You have said you are a fan of the Sonic franchise; have you created an original character related to it?
A: Ew. No.
Q: What would you tell someone who is in a similar situation as you right now? Regarding both otherkin/therian and internet fame.
A: I’d tell them that they shouldn’t let the haters get to them. A lot of people on the internet are mindless drones and hate machines, and there’s no point in paying any attention to them. The positive is better to focus on. Don’t judge somebody you don’t know by a one hour block on television. There’s a lot of things I’d change about the documentary, and I had no editorial control over it. It was filmed over a period of about a week, and cut down to one hour. I was joking around with some of the film people and such, and got friendly, and was willing to do stupid things before I caught myself doing something that probably wouldn’t look good on TV. Over the course of several days, that’s enough material to piece together fake stuff.
Q: To close up the interview: do you still stand by what you say when you said “on all levels except physical I am a wolf”?
A: It’s a lot more complicated than that. I still identify as a wolf in a spiritual and psychological matter, so yes.
Q: You do not bark in real life like you did in the video, correct?
A: No, not normally.
Q: Do you have anything else you would like to add?
A: Yes. My trademark “Woof”.
Shiro Ulv is an American I.T. security consultant and the founder of Kinmunity, an online community and resource website for Otherkins, therianthropes and other individuals who identify themselves as non-human, based in Brunswick, Georgia. In addition to his active presence within the Otherkin subculture, Ulv has spoken at various panels as an advocate of autism rights movement. For more information, visit his official website at shiroulv.me. This interview was conducted over email by Know Your Meme research moderator Mister J in November 2015.The Temple Mount and UNESCO Translations of this item: Danish
French
German Portuguese
Spanish The attempts to deny any ancient and ongoing Jewish presence in Jerusalem, to say there was never a first let alone a second Temple and that only Muslims have any right to the whole city, its shrines and historical monuments, have reached insane proportions.
Is this really what it boils down to? The Islamic State rules the international community? Including UNESCO?
The world is outraged when it sees the stones of Palmyra tumble, or other great monuments of human civilization turn to dust. But that same world is silent when the Palestinian Arabs and their supporters Islamise everything by calling into question the very presence of the Jewish people in the Holy Land. UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is known throughout the world for the many places it designates as World Heritage Sites. There are more than one thousand of these, distributed unequally in many countries, with Italy at the top, followed by China. The largest single category of sites consists of religious sites, categorized under the heading of cultural locations (as distinct from natural ones). Within this category, UNESCO has carried out many dialogues with communities in order to ensure that religious sensitivities are acknowledged and guaranteed. UNESCO has undertaken many measures in this field. In 2010, the organization held a seminar on the "Role of Religious Communities in the Management of World Heritage Properties." "The main objective of the [seminar] was to explore ways of establishing a dialogue between all stakeholders, and to explore possible ways of encouraging and generating mutual understanding and collaboration amongst them in the protection of religious World Heritage properties." The notion of dialogue in this context was clearly meant to avoid unilateral decisions by one nation or community to claim exclusive ownership of a religious site. Alleged or actual claims to multiple ownership of religious sites are not uncommon. A collection of essays entitled, Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites: Religion, Politics, and Conflict Resolution, examines such disputes over shared religious sites in Turkey, the Balkans, Palestine/Israel, Cyprus, and Algeria, providing powerful analyses of how communities come to blows or work reconcile themselves in a willingness to share shrines and other centres. Sometimes people come to blows over these sites, and sometimes one religion can cause immense pain to the followers of another, as happened in 1988 when Carmelite nuns erected a 26-foot-high cross outside Auschwitz II (Birkenau) extermination camp in order to commemorate a papal mass held there in 1979. A more famous example of an unreconciled dispute is the conflict over the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, India, a mosque originally built in 1528-29 on the orders of Babur, the first of the Mughal emperors. According to Hindu accounts, the Mughal builders destroyed a temple on the birthplace of the deity Rama in order to build the mosque -- a claim denied by many Muslims.[1] The importance of the site is clear from a Hindu text which declares that Ayodhya is one of seven sacred places where a final release from the cycle of death and rebirth may be obtained. These conflicting claims were fatefully resolved when an extremist Hindu mob demolished the mosque in 1992, planning to build a new temple on the site. The demolition has been cited as justification for terrorist attacks by radical Muslim groups.[2] The massacres at Wandhama (1998) and the Amarnath pilgrimage (2000) are both attributed to the demolition. Communal riots occurred in New Delhi, Bombay and elsewhere, as well as many cases of stabbing, arson, and attacks on private homes and government officers.[3] Muslim invaders did indeed destroy or modify thousands of "idolatrous" temples and sacred sites in India, just as they did elsewhere on a lesser scale, and just as the Islamic State has been doing for several years in modern Iraq and Syria. This is not simply the sort of destruction normally associated with wars, invasions, or civil disputes. For Muslims, it has a theological basis. Islam, as it has existed since the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632, is predicated on three things: the belief that there is one God without partners or associates; the belief that Muhammad is the messenger of that one God; and the belief that Islam is the greatest and last religion revealed to mankind, authorized by God to destroy all other religions and their artefacts: "He (God) has sent his prophet with guidance and the religion of the truth in order to make it prevail over all religion" (Qur'an 9:33; 61:9). It is this last belief that has, for over 1400 years, instilled a deep sense of supremacism within the Muslim world. As many Muslims believe that Islam is the final revelation and Muhammad is the last prophet, so they believe that they cannot possibly live on equal terms with the followers of any other faith. Jews and Christians may live in an Islamic state, but only if they submit to deep humiliation and abasement and in return for the payment of protection money (the jizya tax). Churches and synagogues may not be repaired or, should they collapse, be rebuilt. Islam trumps everything. This last doctrine is used repeatedly in the works of modern Salafi ideologues such as the Pakistani Abu'l-A'la Mawdudi and the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb. Here is a fairly typical statement by Qutb, from his best-known publication, Ma'alim fi'l-tariq, ("Milestones"): "Islam, then, is the only Divine way of life which brings out the noblest human characteristics, developing and using them for the construction of human society. Islam has remained unique in this respect to this day. Those who deviate from this system and want some other system, whether it be based on nationalism, color and race, class struggle, or similar corrupt theories, are truly enemies of mankind!"[4] Here is a recent comment by a modern Salafi writer: "this worldwide |
Then there was perhaps the most important question that they explored during the drill: What if someone made a mistake with quarantine protocols and their rescue facilities became infected?
In the drill, just like in a zombie apocalypse, all it took was a few drops of blood.
"That drove it home to everybody," Littnan said. It's an important lesson, since the program regularly encounters seals that have been wounded by fishing equipment and brings them in for surgery. "Any animal we bring in could be infected with morbillivirus or something similar. If we're not aware of it at the time, it could threaten all of the animals we work with."
Over the course of two days, the team "vaccinated" about half of the seals on Oahu. (During a real event, they would have aimed for 90 percent, and then repeated the whole thing again a few weeks later to provide booster shots.)
The drill, although effective, revealed some flaws in their plan. "We had pretty dramatically underestimated the amount of backup resources that we would need just to maintain the operation should any small thing go wrong," Littnan said.
They learned from the lesson. The drill, he said, allowed them to improve their plan "leaps and bounds" above what they previously believed was a robust approach. "We feel a lot better now from the lessons and are much more confident going into a real vaccination attempt if this were to happen tomorrow," Littnan added.
An HMSRP team in action. Image: HMSRP
And tomorrow is an all-too-likely possibility.
When NOAA started working on its vaccination plan in 2005, marine-bound morbillivirus in Hawaii was just a theoretical problem. That's no longer the case. In 2010, a Longman's beaked whale infected with morbillivirus washed up on Maui, the first time morbillivirus had been found in a marine mammal from the central Pacific.
Two years later, a juvenile northern fur seal from the west coast of the US also turned up in Hawaii, the first time the species had been seen in the islands. Although it was not infected with morbillivirus, Littnan explained that other northern fur seals do appear to carry the disease. It's still unknown what inspired the young seal to swim thousands of miles across the Pacific.
Then there's the potential risk from dogs. Canine distemper is relatively rare in Hawaii, but the state relaxed its quarantine rules in 2003, which creates a bit more risk. People often walk their dogs on the same beaches where monk seals sun themselves. Last year one monk seal pup died and four others were injured after a dog attack on Kauai.
Infection wouldn't even require an attack. Littnan says a dog sneezing near a seal might be enough to start an epidemic.
Littnan says they must plan as if any disease that strikes Hawaiian monk seals would be fatal. "There are not a lot of good stories about morbillivirus in other marine mammals," he said. Since Hawaiian monk seals have no natural immunity to these diseases, their arrival could, indeed, look like something out of "The Walking Dead."
Hell or Salt Water is a series on Motherboard about exploring and preserving our oceans. Follow along here.Is a picture worth 1000 words? For people interested in how light water reactors work, the mix of GIF images available on the Internet sometimes falls short. Here’s a link to a beautifully designed set of animation of how one works.
It is also a good basic educational item so feel free to link to this post or copy it as needed for your nonprofit or educational use. Be sure to use the credit line below when you do.
Hat tip to the folks at http://siegemedia.com for letting me know about their work that developed this content for their client SaveOnEnergy in Plano, TX.
How Nuclear Energy Works
This piece explains the process of how nuclear power works and outlines the process in a series of simple, easy-to-understand animations.
Why is nuclear power still such a heated point of debate? It may be due to the fact that people are unfamiliar with the inner workings of nuclear power.
Most don’t realize how similar a nuclear power plant actually is to any other type of power plant. The plant still heats water into steam which powers a turbine generator. This is the same way a coal plant works, for instance. The main difference is the radioactive fuel used to power the core of a nuclear plant.
Nuclear power’s source is uranium. This is a natural element found in the earth’s crust. It naturally undergoes spontaneous fission which gives off heat. A nuclear power plant’s core contains rods of uranium. These rods get submerged in a pool of water and produce an intense amount of heat. This heated water (now radioactive) never comes in touch with anything outside of the core. It moves through a pipe which heats another body of water. That body of water then produces the steam that powers a turbine which makes electricity.
This is the one of the three very cool animations at the SaveOnEnergy site. Click on this URL to see the others.
# # #He'd been in real estate and run a laundromat. Now, Jackson is ready to "hook in” his customers at his Empire Fish Market at 6th and Ingalls.
"I just wanted to do something different, something outside of the loop, something a little away from real estate, away from business and something I had a passion of doing. I love fish, I love to eat healthy, I love to work out, I love to stay on top of my health," he said.
"When he brought me here the first time, it used to be a diner, walked me through and said, 'This is the idea, this is the vision,' and I could see it. He not only helped me see it but brought it to life," explained Melissa Jackson, his wife.
However, this traditionally has been a tough spot to keep a clientele. It's not like downtown Troy, which has found a "boutique feeling" with specialty shops and small businesses -- some have thrived while others have closed quickly.
After the rejection of Bowtie Cinemas near the waterfront, the city hopes to keep a focus on corners and neighborhoods with character.
"This whole area is transforming with a number of projects," said Steve Strichman, Troy's planning director.
"They're right in the middle between Troy Prep and School 1 Apartments, so I think they're going to have a great market to draw from," said Cheryl Kennedy, the economic development coordinator.
"I always wanted a place where I could come and eat and enjoy the food. Not, have something be like, 'Nah, I don't eat that, but I'll sell it,'" said Jay. "I stand behind the product and I love fish, I'm a fish lover."
It's been opened for almost a month already and Jay Jackson himself makes two trips a week to Hunt's Point in the Bronx for his fish. He's already got a catering order on the books for Christmas.Swedish prosecutors prepare to ask courts to seize key Pirate Bay domains
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 22 April 2015
Swedish prosecutors are prepping to argue their case in court as to why The Pirate Bay’s flagship.se domains should be deactivated or put under government control, as copyright enforcers continue to try and make it harder for piracy platforms to operate.
Seizing domains, of course, is one of a number of tactics used by those fighting piracy, and authorities in other countries have done just that against various other sites, usually replacing the piracy operations with a notice alerting users that the site is no longer operational because of a copyright action.
The Bay has actually anticipated having its.se domains seized for a while, and at one point kept switching its primary URL to different domain registries around the world. Though it often saw those new domains quickly blocked by each new domain registry after action by local copyright industries or IP enforcers.
But the Swedish domain has so far remained unseized (even though ISPs in various countries have been forced to block access to it). Next week prosecutors will argue in the Stockholm District Court that it’s time to call time on thepiratebay.se. The action is being led by Fredrik Ingblad, who also oversaw the server raid against the Bay in Sweden last December, which resulted in the infamous file-sharing site going offline for a time.
Of course, even if Ingblad succeeds in his domain claim, the Bay will presumably have an assortment of other domains to use instead. And in the Google age it’s not so problematic if your domains keep changing. Though many rights owners argue that any barriers put in the way of piracy operations are a good thing.
In related news, the majors have filed legal action in the US against another piracy operation called MP3skull, which – aside from seeking $15 million+ in damages – deals with domain matters. The labels are seeking an injunction banning domain registries, server companies and, for that matter, advertisers from doing business with the piracy company.
Which is interesting in that would be a very wide-ranging court order, though obviously injunctions are constrained by jurisdiction – ie it could only apply in the US – which would limit its impact on a site currently using a domain registered in Tonga.
READ MORE ABOUT: The Pirate BayThis BMW 700 is David in a world of Goliaths
You don't need power to have fun, or at least you don't when you've only got 640kg of BMW 700 to push around. Certainly that's what Vasek Polak must have been thinking when he assembled this 30hp pocket rocket.
It's easy these days, when a base-spec 3 Series diesel is capable of 126mph, to forget that speed is relative. We've all travelled at 500mph in jet airliners, but it doesn't feel like we're moving at all. Without vibration, bumps, noise and heat we have no way of sensing speed.
That's the magic of small sports cars like this 700 racer. Like a Mini Cooper or a sports bike, they can make 50mph feel like 100mph and 30bhp (yes, just 30!) feel pugnacious.
Certainly that's the appeal to many and famous Califronia Porsche dealer and race team owner Vasek Polak clearly felt the same when he bought this 700.
Currently listed on bringatrailer.com, the seller claims most of the modifications to the car, including minilite wheels, a bumper delete, wrapped headlights and racing stripes to be as left by Polak, however this can't be confirmed.
While the interior is impressively original, it is a shame not to see a period racing seat and harness, which would confirm the car's sporting credentials. Whether these have been swapped out, or the car never made it to the track in the end, is a mystery.
Nonetheless, it's always fantastic to see one of these rare Bimmers intact and in good condition. The body seems to be in fair condition and the twin cylinder motorcycle derived engine is reported as running too. It's a shame the car is all the way in California, but undoubtedly that has helped preserve the 700.
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CC-NSH-08012017Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
An indictment was filed Friday morning against two east Jerusalem residents accused of assisting the enemy in a time of war, contacting a foreign agent and purchasing materials for explosives.
The Jerusalem District Attorney filed the indictment against alleged Hamas recruits Hazem Sandouqa, 22, and Fahdi Abu Qaian, 19, to the Jerusalem District Court.
The two young men had plotted to carry out an attack on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however they did not set a specific time for the strike, the indictment said.Among accusations, the indictment stated that Sandouqa had wanted to place an explosive device under a stage during a speech by the premier at the Jerusalem Payis Arena sports facility.According to the indictment, Sandouqa had also purchased, on multiple occasions, several kilograms of various chemical substances for the purpose of making explosives and explosive devices. According to allegations, he transported the materials to Hamas operatives running a laboratory in an apartment in the Arab neighborhood of Abu Dis, bordering Jerusalem.Furthermore, Abu Qaian, who was said to be in alignment with the Islamic State group, was accused of conspiring with Hamas to transport weapons between Israel and the West Bank and vise versa, "to carry out murderous attacks against Israeli citizens."The indictment further stated that Hamas had in recent months recruited Sandouqa and Abu Qaian from the Abu Dis campus of Al-Quds University. The two were pursued by the terrorist group due to their lack of criminal records and because security services were not monitoring them."They were aiding Ahmed Gamal Moussa Azzam, a Hamas operative, to carry out actions aimed at advancing the cause of Hamas organizations and organized various terrorist attacks using explosive devices," the indictment charged.The two were part of Hamas operations in Abu Dis, as revealed two weeks ago by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency)."Ahmed Azzam was in constant contact with handlers in the Gaza Strip and trained to be an explosives expert who would develop suicide belts and explosive devices," the Shin Bet said. "In accordance with instructions given to Azzam, he recruited several other operatives who were studying at Abu Dis University, for the purpose of purchasing material for the manufacture of explosives, renting apartments, and serving as suicide bombers in Israel."The prosecution called for the arrest of the defendants until the culmination of legal proceedings against the two.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/11/2014 (1564 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
THE Mennonite Central Committee cancelled its biggest event of the year, a benefit concert planned for Saturday evening, over an ideological objection to an indigenous smudging ceremony.
The North End Women's Centre drum group Buffalo Gals had expected to hold the ceremony prior to singing a sacred drum song at the concert.
"The most straightforward explanation I can give is to say the church regarded the practice of smudging as a violation of their rental agreement with us," said MCC executive director Ron Janzen.
The concert had been planned for months to be held at the massive facility owned by the Immanuel Pentecostal Church on Wilkes Avenue.Donald Glover is tired. Like, bone-tired–the kind of tired that crushes his normally bright voice into a monotonous murmur. “This is a different level of production than anything I’ve ever been involved in, you know?” he says. It’s close to 9 p.m. London time, and Glover is coming off another grueling 10-hour day on the set of his latest movie–the as-yet-untitled Star Wars film in which he plays the beloved Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi character Lando Calrissian. It’s a part that has required Glover to not only undergo intensive stunt training but also participate in daily weight-lifting sessions and abide by a strict muscle-building diet. Most nights, he says, he leaves the set barely able to walk.
Over the course of its 10-episode run, the show built an impressive audience. By its November finale, Atlanta was averaging more than 5 million viewers per episode across platforms, making it the most-watched comedy in FX’s history. It went on to win two Golden Globes–one for Glover, for best actor, and one for best television comedy–and FX quickly announced it was re-upping the series for a second season, which is due next year.
Atlanta has been celebrated for its diversity: The cast is composed entirely of people of color, as is the writers’ room. Glover stars as Earnest “Earn” Marks, a Princeton dropout who washes back up in his hometown, crashing with his on-again, off-again girlfriend (Zazie Beetz) and their toddler daughter. Dead broke, Earn ingratiates himself with his cousin, a rapper who goes by Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry), and the first season loosely follows their travels through the local hip-hop scene. Atlanta is a show created by an African-American man in 2017, and its concerns, if not always overtly political, are necessarily wrapped up in questions of what it means to be young and black in America today. (Atlanta recently won a Peabody Award, which recognizes, in part, societal impact.)
But the project that has truly kick-started Glover’s career–that has transformed him from a well-respected performer into one of Hollywood’s most exciting and in-demand creative minds–is the FX television series Atlanta, which he created, stars in, cowrites, and executive produces. When it premiered last September, the show quickly established itself as something original and important: a cerebral not-quite-comedy that uses the 30-minute-sitcom format to explore issues of race, class, ambition, friendship, relationships, parenthood, and other endlessly complex subjects. It’s all filtered through Glover’s unconventional aesthetic, which blends pathos and humor with a giddy surrealism that comes and goes like fragments of a dream.
Though shooting a mega-budget sci-fi blockbuster has proven more extreme than his typical workday, Glover has lately been getting used to fatigue. Consider the relentless pace of his last 24 months, a period that has cemented his reputation as one of the entertainment industry’s premier polymaths. In addition to playing Calrissian in the eagerly awaited Han Solo-focused prequel (due next summer), he will appear in this July’s Spider-Man: Homecoming in a mysterious role that has been the subject of much online speculation. (Glover won’t divulge anything for fear of, as he puts it, getting “dragged away by the Marvel police.”) Last December, while still making the Spidey film, Glover released his third official album under the name Childish Gambino–the well-received Awaken, My Love!–and in September he put on a sold-out, three-day multimedia event in Joshua Tree, California, to debut his new music.
In January, the network tapped Glover for an unusual exclusive overall production role, which enables him to create an unspecified number of other shows (including a recently announced animated take on Marvel’s Deadpool, which will air on FXX). “FX, to me, feels like a safe creative place right now,” Glover says. “I’m hesitant to say that, because it’s owned by a big conglomerate [20th Century Fox], but I mean it: If I have an idea, they’ll find a place to put it.” To the network, Glover represents the rare kind of visionary talent who can attract intense interest at a time when it’s harder than ever to break through the cultural clutter. “He’s remarkably multifaceted,” says FX president John Landgraf. “I look at Donald first and foremost as a creator, but also as an entrepreneur–someone who is almost boundaryless, who can do almost anything they set their mind to.”
For Glover, Atlanta’s success–and FX’s faith in his voice and creative vision–is gratifying. “I had this thing, starting out, where people didn’t really trust me,” he says. “I say that as a young creative person, and I say that as a young black man.” The shows that he will create via his FX deal are a chance to prove, as he puts it, “that I understand what hits are–that I can make a hit. I’m gaining people’s trust. Every one of those roles is a step that brings me closer to doing the things that I want to do, on my own terms.”
Though Atlanta is not autobiographical, Glover did grow up in a suburb of the city, the son of a postal worker and daycare manager. After graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2006, where he was a member of a popular comedy group, he was handpicked by Tina Fey to lend some millennial savvy to the writers’ room of 30 Rock, and three years later he scored an acting role on cult-favorite sitcom Community, playing Troy, a washed-up jock. Though it was a supporting part, Glover’s endearing performance earned him outsize attention and appreciation. When Glover started releasing music as Childish Gambino, many fans and critics were skeptical. But it turned out he was serious about broadening his creative purview, and his albums Camp (2011) and Because the Internet (2013) won some devotees. His most recent, Awaken, My Love!, a carefully crafted tribute to Funkadelic and other sounds of the 1970s, has been admired by both fans and music critics.
Related Video: How Gareth Edwards went from Star Wars fan to Rogue One Director
Glover now essentially juggles four separate careers, any one of which would be a full-time occupation for most people: star and showrunner of a hit TV show, in-demand film actor (he will also voice Simba in the upcoming remake of The Lion King), creator and producer of multiple future FX programs, and recording artist. Today, in operating this culture factory, Glover has come to rely on a team of colleagues and family members, which includes his longtime manager, Dianne McGunigle, and his kid brother, Stephen Glover, a rapper and one of the writers on Atlanta. Glover refers to this group as a “hub” that gives him a creative base as well as advice, especially as the number of opportunities that come his way have multiplied. “Freedom is responsibility,” he says. “This idea that the only thing stopping you is your own imagination–that’s beautiful, but you still need structure, you still need boundaries, even if you’re making them yourself.” A similar dynamic is at play with the Atlanta team. “At its best,” he says, “it’s like a Ouija board. We’re all pushing and pulling together.”
Part of his strategy includes paying close attention to social media, carefully monitoring reactions to his various projects. “A lot of art is a dance you do with your audience,” he says. “You’re playing off the vibes, the wavelengths, the algorithms that your audience is giving you. And now that I’ve got that information, I can get ready to dance with them again for [Atlanta‘s] second season.”
Surprisingly, he does not himself actively participate, having deleted all of the posts from his public Twitter and Instagram accounts two years ago. “I wanted, when I said something, for people to know I meant it,” he now explains. “Instead of 140 characters with no detail, I’d rather be like, ‘Here’s this thought. I made a thing out of it, and there’s a whole world contained in there.’ I want you to be able to immerse yourself in it.”Falcon Global Capital is seeking to hire lobbyists to promote bitcoin in Washington, DC. The investment firm will provide “education and understanding of bitcoin and other crypto-graphic based currencies”.
Lobbyists Promote Bitcoin
With bitcoin heading to Washington, Congress may become more familiarized with what bitcoin has to offer the nation. This could potentially lead officials to accept bitcoin for themselves.
Falcon’s co-founder Brett Stapper stated:
“In our discussions and debates we have realized that those who oppose bitcoin don’t really oppose it, they simply don’t understand it.”
Bitcoin has made such an impression on politicians, that it has found itself discussed by them more in recent memory. Politicians have used the digital currency in their election campaign runs. Additionally, regulators are studying bitcoin to make it as safe as possible for the general public to use it.
A Bitcoin Rule Book is in the works with the hope of clarifying how states can allow citizens to use it. If Congress were to ever recognize the digital currency, it would do wonders for both bitcoin and Falcon Global’s reputation.
Stapper Wants FBI’s Bitcoins
Back in October 2013, the FBI seized an estimated 27,000 bitcoins from the now defunct black market site Silk Road. Stapper has announced his interest in acquiring all of the seized bitcoins.
The FBI’s coins are said to total 5 to 10% of all bitcoins in existence today. However that number will decline as more bitcoins become mined over time.
Though Stapper wasn’t able to get his hands on the bitcoins, he hopes his lobbyists will be able to change the minds of some within Washington, as well as educate them on bitcoin. He says:
“Our main concern is that our elected officials will pass regulations without being fully educated on the topic which could have a negative impact on the bitcoin ecosystem.”
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In the last week, at least a dozen petitions that appear to be penned by Chinese citizens have been submitted to the White House’s “We the People” petition site. Like the petitions that Americans have put on the site asking the president to stop gun violence or construct a Star Wars-style Death Star, the Chinese petitions range from the serious to the silly. They deal with everything from the Tiananmen Square massacre to banning a certain type of fried pancakes. The Obama administration has promised to respond to any petitions on the site that garner 100,000 signatures; so far, only one of the Chinese petitions has hit that milestone, and the White House hasn’t commented on it yet.
As the Washington Post notes, in China, petitioners who travel to their local petitions office are often threatened by “thugs” hired by the same government officials that they’re petitioning against, and they can even be physically harmed and deported back to their homes. So it’s not surprising that Obama’s painless petition site is gaining popularity. Here are seven of the craziest China-related petitions submitted so far:
1. Invest and deport Jasmine Sun who was the main suspect of a famous Thallium poison murder case.
What’s this about? Almost 20 years ago, a college student named Zhu Ling was diagnosed as having been poisoned by Thallium, which is used to kill rodents. Today, Ling has severe brain damage and the intelligence of a six-year-old, according to International Business Times. Zhu’s roommate, Sun Wei, became a suspect in the case because she had access to the substance. But Sun’s grandfather held a senior symbolic position in the communist party, and she was released after eight hours of interrogation. For years, the case has drawn attention from online activists determined to prove Sun’s guilt, but the case is getting attention again because another student was recently poisoned at Fudan University, according to The New Republic. Chinese citizens who feel that Sun’s case exposes a corrupt justice system willing to cover up crimes associated with party members are once again turning to the internet. Here is a photo of Ling, the victim:
What do the protesters want Obama to do? According to the petition, “Resources show that the case was mystically closed due to her family’s powerful political connections. Resources also show that she changed her name and entered USA by marriage fraud. To protect the safety of our citizens, we [petition] that the government investigate and deport her.”
How many signatures? 143,481 since May 3, 2013
Is this issue censored in China? According to International Business Times, Chinese government censors have started deleting references to Jasmine Sun online, and search results for “Zhu Ling” don’t appear. Even the name of the poison is being censored, according to The New Republic, and “the censorship has only made people more angry and suspicious.” Sun’s family connections to the communist party would also make the government more inclined to protect her against alleged wrongdoing.
2. The requests do not let Luo Yufeng return to China!
What’s this about? According to the Huffington Post, Luo Yufeng “gained notoriety in China for passing out flyers petitioning for the perfect spouse” and became a well-known internet celebrity in China. She now lives in New York City where she is still searching for the perfect man, “between 5.74 and 6.11 feet tall, is between the ages of 25 and 31” and in 2011, was working in a Brooklyn nail salon.
What do the protesters want Obama to do? Keep Luo Yufeng in the United States, because she’s a “serious threat to international security” and the “Chinese government to her helpless.”
How many signatures? 1,169 since May 8, 2013
Is this issue censored in China? Probably not; she’s China’s Kim Kardashian
3. Please remonstrate with Chinese government about the PX Project in Kunming, Yunnan Province of China.
What is it? The Paraxylene (PX) Project is a proposed oil refinery plant that would be built in Kunming, China. Local residents, up to 2,000 of whom protested last week, are angry that the plant will be producing the chemical Paraxylene, which used to make plastic bottles. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, exposure to this chemical can lead to nerve damage and hearing problems. The Telegraph reports that similar protests have forced PX projects to be suspended in the past.
What do the protesters want Obama to do? “Tell the Chinese government to suspend the Project PX until enough reliable assessments have been made by independent authorities so that people’s health will not be harmed and our beautiful Kunming not be damaged.”
How many signatures? 12,943 since May 5, 2013
Is this issue censored in China? Police officers are cracking down on protesters and distributing fliers urging them not to demonstrate, according to the Associated Press.
4. Never forgot the Tian’an’men Massacre in June 4th 1989??????.
What’s this about? On June 4, 1989, the Chinese government launched a violent military crackdown on mostly student-led protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The protests had sprung up in response to the death of Hu Yaobang, a former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party who helped usher in an era of increased government transparency. Protesters were angry over the party’s rejection of Yaobing and his ideals, as well as rampant corruption and censorship. The Chinese government refuses to confirm the number of deaths that resulted from the military action. Below is the famous picture of “tank man,” a protester in the square:
What do the protesters want Obama to do? They want Obama, and 100,000 people, to “remember the warriors.” So presumably, they’d like China to recognize that the massacre actually happened.
How many signatures? 1,972, since May 7, 2013
Is this issue censored in China? Absolutely: The Chinese government censors search terms related to the massacre and refuses to provide information on the event.
5. We would like the US government to ban the Beijing breakfast pancake, “jianbing.”
What’s this about? A jianbing is a delicious sweet and salty breakfast crepe eaten in China.
What do the protesters want Obama to do? The petitioners would like the United States to help ban the Beijing vendors from making this fried pancake.
How many signatures? 2,411 since May 7, 2013
Is this issue censored in China? It depends on whether this petition is actually a metaphor for something else entirely. There are several Chinese idioms in the petition with cryptic meanings like, “The trees may prefer calm, but the wind will not subside” and “we can no longer put up with this.” That sounds ominous.
6. Send troops to liberate the Chinese people!
What’s this about? Apparently some protesters are tired of the government.
What do the protesters want Obama to do? Send in the Marines.
How many signatures? 6,364 since May 7, 2013
Is this issue censored in China? Xi Jinping probably wouldn’t dig this idea.
7. We request the United States government will Lanzhou beef noodle united and proscribe imitations by formal decree.
What’s this about? Protesters are fed up with imitations of a popular noodle dish eaten in Lanzhou, China. It’s kind of like how New Yorkers feel about their bagels.
What do the protesters want Obama to do? Officially ban all the imitation noodle dishes.
How many signatures? 526 since May 8, 2013
Is this issue censored in China? It depends upon how seriously the Lanzhou local government takes its noodles.Looking for news you can trust?
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About 4 percent of all soybean crops planted in the United States have been damaged by a weed killer this year, the New York Times has reported. On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that more than 3.6 million acres of soybean crops had been affected by dicamba.
“I think it [dicamba] is an inherently volatile product,” University of Missouri weed scientist Kevin Bradley told Mother Jones in August.
In June, Mother Jones reported that dicamba, much of which is manufactured by Monsanto, “causes the plants’ leaves to cup together, their budding stems to die back, and their beans to curl into twisted, malformed pods.” As a result, many farmers have been forced to buy Monsanto’s seeds that are resistant to dicamba.
“It is an extremely high profile and significant situation,” Rueben Baris, the acting chief of the herbicides branch of EPA told the New York Times. Starting this year, farmers began using the herbicide on genetically modified soybean crops, which are not harmed by it, but the weed killer has been drifting off and landing on non-modified soybean crops.
“I think it [dicamba] is an inherently volatile product,” University of Missouri weed scientist Kevin Bradley told Mother Jones in August.
Nearly 3,000 complaints came from 25 of 34 states who use the “over-the-top” application. The problem is especially acute in Arkansas and Missouri, where there were 986 and 310 complaints, respectively.
Pesticide manufacturers are confident that they will solve the problem in the next year, but EPA officials are warning that the approval for use of the herbicide could be jeopardy if the steps the company takes don’t significantly reduce the scope of the problem by next growing season. Cynthia Palmer, who is a member of an EPA pesticide advisory committee told the New York Times, “it seems like farmers have no choice but to buy dicamba-resistant seeds from Monsanto.”Years after the close brush with the Bumpkles, I would make three more ventures into the Blackrock Forest. However, on the fourth journey, I was in search of one creature in particular, the fabled beings known as Sun Stealers. Said to be tall as the trees themselves, and black and cold as a starless night, heavens know why I would actually want to intentionally go looking for them. The Dragons once again sent help with me, this time with a young sapphire dragonling named Tyr'ia, and a wise Steelback named Jaar'nadi. Before leaving, Gaaren ran up to us with a last-minute gift as well: a potion that would turn us dark as the Blackrock Forest, so that the creatures hiding within could not spy us as we invaded their home. Gaaren himself would not dare accompany us again; I do not think any less of him for doing so.
The trip to the Blackrock Forest felt different this time, colder, like the creatures expected our return, and were gleefully waiting to strike as soon as we stepped foot into their lair. I suspected it was just nerves, though as we passed through the Rugged Line, I could not help but begin to have second thoughts about coming back. As the first Blackrock shrubs came into view, and the new moon cast darkness onto the ground, Tyr'ia, Jaar'nadi, and I took out Gaaren's gift and each took a drink from the bottle.
It was like having a barrel of water from the glaciers of the Ridge forced down your throat. But when the chills passed, we could tell Gaaren's work had been done. We were all still able to see one another, but each of us looked like a reflection in slowly rippling water, a camouflage to shield us from whatever lurked in the trees. We steadied our minds and once again went into the Ashen Trail.
Sun Stealers were said to live deep within the Blackrock Trees, where the air itself feels like floating pitch, and slightest sound echoes like the cracking of a thousand bones. We journeyed for what I think was two days. All the while, the Ashen Trail grew less and less pronounced, and the darkness became overwhelming. More than once Jaar'nadi suggested we concede and turn back, but I was stubborn, and Tyr'ia was eager for adventure. We pushed on.
On the fifth day, Jaar'nadi spotted something. A patch of darkness even more ominous than the surrounding black, a darkness that rippled and seemed to ripple and churn. I knew at once we had found a Sun Stealer grove. It was well off the Ashen Trail, though we knew that we must step off the path. Tyr'ia was the first to go forward. I am slightly ashamed to say I was the third.
The chill grew frigid as we came closer, the silence all-consuming, but still we pressed on. After moving a mere twenty paces we were soaked with sweat, near collapse. But we made it, and we waited to gaze upon a Sun Stealer with a mix of terror and excitement.
None came. We waited for hours, and the creatures never appeared. It was maddening. Time slipped away. On the third day, Jaar'nadi finally told us to go back, and with hearts heavy, provisions low, and minds fogging, we relented.
And as we neared the clearing back into the Rugged Paths, the Sun Stealers appeared.
The old scriptures were true. Tall as the trees, like a shroud woven from a black sky. A smooth white depression for a face, two black, expressionless eyes that looked on us like a child about to curiously crush an insect. An ebony crown that floated above their heads, with long, slender points. And above the crown, an orb that looked like a star, an orb that made me realize why the Sun Stealers were so aptly named.
The crown seemed to suck the light from the circle, the glow changing from white to grey to black as it reached the crown's base. But it didn't end with the stars within their crowns. What little light that snuck through the trees was dragged to them as well, the black leaves withering as they lost what little sun they could live from, the creatures living within them fleeing or falling dead at the creature's feet.
Tyr'ia died. The Sun Stealers enveloped her in their cloaks and when they moved away, she was |
elderly driver had no idea that her tyres had deflated because of the road spikes.
She has not been charged but police were talking to her family about the status of her driver's license, Horne said.A convicted rapist has been found guilty of raping a woman and attacking another just days after being released from prison in June last year.
Raymond Dempster raped a 42-year-old woman in her home in Glasgow's east end and days later attacked a 19-year-old student in the city's west end.
Dempster, who has 110 previous convictions, had denied the charges.
At the High Court of Glasgow, Judge Norman Ritchie QC deferred sentence for background reports.
The court heard how the 38-year-old raped the first victim in her home on 20 June, three days after his release from prison.
The victim has since died, and her police statement was read out as evidence in court.
'Good Samaritan'
She told how she was locked out of her home in her nightclothes. When Dempster came along at first she thought he was a Good Samaritan.
She had said: "He told me once we were inside 'you've got a nice wee flat here'."
He then grabbed her by the arms and pushed her into the bedroom, removing her clothing and raping her.
The court heard that Dempster bit his victim and punched her on the face during her ordeal.
Dempster's other victim was walking home alone along Kelvin Walkway in the early hours of the morning on 23 June.
He followed her, then grabbed her, forced her to the ground and put his hand over her mouth.
Attacker kicked
The woman fought back kicking Dempster in the face, and he ran off to the hostel he was living in.
She said: " I believe his intention was to rape me."
Police found CCTV footage which showed Dempster in the vicinity of the attack and his victim identified him.
The prosecutor said that Dempster was jailed for five years in 2003 for rape and has breached the condition of the sex offenders' register five times.
His 110 previous convictions also included dishonesty and violence.
Judge Norman Ritchie QC said: "A man with his record is simply shown the door and then within a handful of days has attacked two women."
He told Dempster he would be considering whether to make an order for lifelong restriction.the software engineering notebook
Fellow software engineers/hackers/devs/code gardeners, do you keep a notebook (digital or plain dead-tree version) to record things you learn?
Since my days assembling glassware and synthesizing various chemicals in the organic chemistry lab, I’ve found keeping notes to be an indispensable tool at getting better and remembering important lessons learned. One of my professors recommended writing down, after every lab sessions, what had been accomplished and what needed to be done next time. When lab sessions are few and far apart (weekly instead of daily), it is easy to forget the details (for example, the mistakes that were made during weighing of chemicals ). A good quick summary helps with this!
When I first started working for a software company, I was overwhelmed. Academic software development was indeed very different to large scale distributed software development. For example, the academic software I wrote was rarely version controlled and had few tests. I had never heard of a ‘build’ or DEV/QA/PROD environments, not to mention things like Gradle or Jenkins. The academic software I worked on was distributed in zip files and usually edited by only one person (usually the original author). The systems I started working on were simultaneously developed by tens of developers across the globe.
To deal with the newbie developer info-flood, I went back to the concept of a ‘software engineering lab notebook’. At first, I jotted down commands needed to setup proper compilation flags for the dev environment and how to run the build locally to debug errors. A bit later, I started jotting down diagrams of the internals of the systems I was working on and summaries of code snippets that I had found particularly thorny to understand. Sometimes these notes proved indispensable in under-stress debug scenarios when I needed to quickly revisit what was happening in a particular area of the codebase without the luxury of a long debug.
In addition to keeping a record of things that can make your development and debug life easier, a software engineering lab notebook can serve as a good way to learn from previous mistakes. When I revisit some of the code I wrote a year ago or even a few months ago, I often cringe. It’s the same feeling as when you read a draft of a hastily written essay or work of fiction and then approach it again with fresh eyes. All of the great ideas suddenly seem - well- less than great. For example, recently I was looking at a server side process that I wrote to perform computations on a stream of events (coming via ZeroMQ connection from another server ) and saw that for some reason I had included a logging functionality that looped through every single item in an update (potentially 100s ) and wrote a log statement with the data! Had the rate of events been higher, this could have caused some performance issues, though the exact quantification of the impact still remains an area where I need to improve. Things such as these go into the notebook to the ‘avoid-in-the-future-list’.EXCLUSIVE: Ross Katz, who produced The Laramie Project and the superb HBO pic Taking Chance, has signed on to write Out At Home: The Glenn Burke Story. He joins Juma Entertainment’s Jamie Lee Curtis and Robert Horowitz as producers of the film that tells the story of Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland A’s player Burke, who was honest with his teammates and management that he was gay at a time in the 1970s when such a revelation was unheard of. It’s still perilous today, though the Brooklyn Nets’ Jason Collins just became the first openly gay player to play on a major pro sports roster, and 2013 SEC co-defensive player of the year Michael Sam is preparing to enter the NFL draft as football’s first openly gay player.
I have been surprised by the level of discussion on ESPN, where some ex-jocks expect Sam’s draft stock to fall simply because of the awkwardness in the locker room and the prospect that some athletes won’t accept him. Seems to me that skeptical players might want to watch the Jackie Robinson movie 42 before they decide whether they want to be on the right or wrong side of this issue when it is judged half a century down the road. I just don’t see much difference between Robinson’s struggle against racists and a player like Sam as they try to overcome bigotry to be accepted for their outsized athletic skills, and the right to be comfortable in their own skin.
All this brings a timely context to Out At Home, which is based on a 1995 memoir Burke wrote with Erik Sherman. Drafted by the Dodgers in 1972 and hailed as baseball’s next superstar, Burke played in the majors from 1976-79. He was the only rookie to start in the 1977 World Series, when the Yankees defeated the Dodgers in 6 games. A larger-than-life character both on and off the field, Burke unexpectedly was traded to Oakland in 1978. He retired after his second season with the A’s. Although his teammates and management knew the truth, Burke didn’t go public with his sexuality until 1982, in an appearance on NBC’s Today with Bryant Gumbel. It was still an act of courage, because Burke was the first ballplayer to do so.
“With Michael Sam’s brave and bold statement, he joins the trifecta of American sports — Glenn Burke, MLB; Jason Collins, NBA; Michael Sam, NFL — dealing with gay athletes, and forcing open the door permanently,” said Curtis. “Our film will clearly honor the force and the struggle to get there.”
Burke also was credited with inventing the high five. In 1977, while waiting in the on-deck circle at Dodger Stadium, Burke was the first to congratulate teammate Dusty Baker as he hit his 30th home run in the last game of the season. Burke raised his hand over his head to congratulate Baker as he crossed the plate.
Burke was diagnosed with AIDS in January 1994. He died on May 30, 1995, at 42.
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An app that uses the technology behind bitcoin, the digital currency, is launching in the UK with the support of Barclays.
The Circle app will allow customers to transfer money with messages and emojis, and make currency transfers between pounds and dollars. Euros will be added later.
Barclays is providing Circle, which is based in Boston and backed with investments by Goldman Sachs, the infrastructure to operate in the UK.
Circle has received an e-money licence from the Financial Conduct Authority, which has granted about 80 such permissions although this is the first one for a company operating a digital currency. The FCA does not regulate bitcoin.
Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and chief executive of Circle, said customers would not be buying bitcoin through the app, which allows money transfers without fees. Circle uses bitcoin to facilitate transfers for customers outside its own system.
Transactions in bitcoin are registered on a blockchain, a kind of electronic ledger, which Circle uses to make transactions.
Customer deposits will be held by Barclays, which is also providing the mechanism to make transfers from any UK bank account in and out of Circle.
“For the first time ever, any consumer in the US or UK can instantly send value, without fees, and with the convenience of sending an email or text. US dollars and pound sterling are becoming more digital and global,” said Allaire.
Circle launched in the US last year although Allaire refused to disclose any information about the number of customers using the service.
The Bank of England has warned that the digital currency could pose a threat to financial stability, although one of its deputy governors, Ben Broadbent, has also said Threadneedle Street could become the hub for such digital currencies.
The government – which wants to make the UK a centre for innovation in financial technology, known as FinTech – took credit for the launch of Circle.
Harriett Baldwin, economic secretary to the Treasury, said: “Circle’s decision to launch in the UK and the firm’s new partnership with Barclays are major milestones. Together they prove our decision to introduce the most progressive, forward-looking regulatory regime is paying off and cements our status as the world’s FinTech capital.”
Barclays said: “We can confirm that Barclays Corporate Banking has been chosen as a financial partner by Circle, and we support the exploration of positive uses of blockchain that can benefit consumers and society.”Who was the bigger liar on WMD? Bush or Obama?
During the Bush administration, the popular protest refrain was “Bush lied, people died." It's true that a major justification for the Iraq war was eliminating Saddam Hussein's stockpiles of so-called weapons of mass destruction, a catch-all phrase for biological and chemical weapons, as well as ridding Iraq of attempts to start a nuclear program. Saddam Hussein previously used chemical weapons on the Kurds, so we know he had these weapons at some point. But they were nowhere to be found when we invaded.
One popular theory for what happened to them is that they were smuggled into Syria. In 2003, none other than James Clapper—who went on to be Obama's director of national intelligence—said this is what happened to Iraq's WMD:
The official, James Clapper Jr., a retired lieutenant general, said satellite imagery showing a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria, just before the U.S. invasion in March, led him to believe that illicit weapons material "unquestionably" had been moved out of Iraq.
"I think people below the Saddam-Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," Clapper, who leads the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, said at a breakfast with reporters.
He said he was providing a personal assessment. But he said "the obvious conclusion one draws" was that there "may have been people leaving the scene, fleeing Iraq, and unquestionably, I am sure, material."
Clapper wasn't alone. Other credible reports from international officials and a well-regarded Syrian journalist and many other sources said that Iraqi WMD ended up in Syria as well. In 2005, the CIA's final report on the absence of WMD in Iraq called the transfer of chemical weapons to Syria "unlikely," but couldn't rule out the possibility that this is what happened.
However, given what we know now about Syria's chemical weapons use, it might be time to reassess whether the intelligence that Iraq had WMD was as faulty as we thought. And it's not just that WMD ended up in Syria, either. Though it was largely downplayed by the media, American troops in Iraq also stumbled across caches of chemical weapons—a handful of soldiers were even exposed to chemical weapons in Iraq with serious consequences. Further, there are chemical weapons stores in Iraq unaccounted for in areas now controlled by ISIS. The New York Times reported all of this in 2014, long after "Bush lied" was the settled line on WMD.Abstract Objective Racism is related to policies preferences and behaviors that adversely affect blacks and appear related to a fear of blacks (e.g., increased policing, death penalty). This study examined whether racism is also related to gun ownership and opposition to gun controls in US whites. Method The most recent data from the American National Election Study, a large representative US sample, was used to test relationships between racism, gun ownership, and opposition to gun control in US whites. Explanatory variables known to be related to gun ownership and gun control opposition (i.e., age, gender, education, income, conservatism, anti-government sentiment, southern vs. other states, political identification) were entered in logistic regression models, along with measures of racism, and the stereotype of blacks as violent. Outcome variables included; having a gun in the home, opposition to bans on handguns in the home, support for permits to carry concealed handguns. Results After accounting for all explanatory variables, logistic regressions found that for each 1 point increase in symbolic racism there was a 50% increase in the odds of having a gun at home. After also accounting for having a gun in the home, there was still a 28% increase in support for permits to carry concealed handguns, for each one point increase in symbolic racism. The relationship between symbolic racism and opposition to banning handguns in the home (OR1.27 CI 1.03,1.58) was reduced to non-significant after accounting for having a gun in the home (OR1.17 CI.94,1.46), which likely represents self-interest in retaining property (guns). Conclusions Symbolic racism was related to having a gun in the home and opposition to gun control policies in US whites. The findings help explain US whites’ paradoxical attitudes towards gun ownership and gun control. Such attitudes may adversely influence US gun control policy debates and decisions.
Citation: O’Brien K, Forrest W, Lynott D, Daly M (2013) Racism, Gun Ownership and Gun Control: Biased Attitudes in US Whites May Influence Policy Decisions. PLoS ONE 8(10): e77552. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077552 Editor: Brock Bastian, University of Queensland, Australia Received: May 3, 2013; Accepted: September 7, 2013; Published: October 31, 2013 Copyright: © 2013 O’Brien et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: These authors have no support or funding to report. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist
Introduction Several mass shootings in 2012 (e.g., Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut; Aurora, Colorado) reignited gun-control and firearm ownership debates in the United States (US). The public health importance of gun reform in the US is clear and should not need such tragedies for policy change. In 2011, there were 32,163 firearm-related deaths in the US, with 11,101 homicides (69.5% of all homicides), and 19,776 suicides (51.6% of all suicides) [1]. Rates of firearm homicides in the US (3.6 per 100,000) are over 7-fold of those in similar nations (e.g., Canada, 0.5; United Kingdom, 0.1; Australia, 0.1) [2]. Blacks are disproportionately represented in US firearm homicides (14.6 per 100,000), and would benefit most from improved gun controls [1]. Opposition to gun control is considerably stronger in whites than blacks [3], with whites also reporting twice the rate of personal gun ownership and having a gun in the home, than is reported by blacks [4]. Proponents of gun-ownership rights cite self-protection and safety as their primary argument for owning guns and resisting gun reform [4], [5]. This is paradoxical, as whites, and particularly white males, are considerably more likely to commit suicide with firearms (7.3 and 12.9 per 100,000, respectively), than die from a firearm homicide (1.9 per 100,000) [1]. Indeed, US research found that having one or more guns in the home is related to a 2.7 and 4.8 fold increase in the risk of a member of that household dying from homicide or suicide, respectively [6], [7]. Given that gun controls have been shown to reduce suicides and homicides [8]–[10] arguments against gun reform based on self-defense/protection/safety are counterintuitive, and are inhibiting the adoption of appropriate policy to improve public health. As such, it is important for public health advocates, researchers, and policy makers to consider all explanations for opposition to gun reform in US whites. However, research on the reasons for opposition to gun control is sparse, in part because of restrictions on funding for research on gun control in the US [11], [12]. Stronger opposition to gun control by US whites has not always been the case. During the civil rights movement of the late 60 s, black activists exercised their right to carry loaded firearms in order to provide protection from police and extreme white factions [13]. The response from US whites was to demand stricter gun control. The Mulford Act was signed into law by Californian governor Ronald Reagan in 1967, and prohibited the carrying of loaded firearms in public [13]. The social landscape has changed considerably, and most recent data indicates a quite different view on gun control by whites, with 53% of whites wanting to protect the right to own guns, whereas only 24% of blacks do [14]. People’s stated reasons for owning guns and opposing gun-control legislation are likely complex; however, it has been suggested that sociocultural factors such as fear of black violence may be associated with gun ownership, and with opposition to gun controls [15], [16]. Similarly, negative attitudes towards blacks (i.e., racism), along with conservative and political ideologies, appear to be related to fear of black violence and crime [17]–[20]. What is not known, and accordingly is the focus of this study, is whether racism is associated with gun ownership and opposition to gun control. It has been found that racial stereotypes (e.g., that blacks are violent) are related to US whites’ fears of violence from blacks, and to their support for crime-related policy measures, such as building prisons, and the death penalty [19], [20]. Support for such policies is particularly pronounced in US whites who hold higher levels of racism [19]. Strong evidence also supports the notion that negative racial stereotypes and attitudes are related to people’s perceptions of threat from black gun-related violence [20]. Additionally, US research using measures of implicit race attitudes (e.g., Implicit Association Test; IAT) have shown a preference for whites over blacks [21] and appear to influence people’s political decisions, and even choices of medical procedures for blacks [22]–[24]. For instance, measures of explicit and implicit racism measures predicted opposition to Obama’s health reforms [23]. Most prominently, symbolic racism (racial resentment), an explicit but subtle form and measure of racism, has been found to be consistently related to peoples decisions regarding policies that may affect non-white US citizens. It is argued that symbolic racism supplanted old-fashioned or overt/blatant racism which had seen blacks as amoral and inferior, and was associated with open support for race inequality and segregation under ‘Jim Crow Laws’ [25]. Research following the US civil-rights movement suggested that anti-black racism and stereotyping, as assessed by blatant measures, had declined [26]. However, subsequent research revealed that people may merely be reluctant to express racism and negative stereotyping on these blatant measures in order to avoid appearing racist [27], [28]. This observation led to the conceptualization and measurement of more subtle measures of racism, such as, symbolic racism [25]. Symbolic racism is a belief structure underpinned by both anti-black affect and traditional values [29]. The anti-black affect (racism) component of symbolic racism is said to be established in pre-adult years through exposure to negative black stereotypes (e.g. blacks as dangerous, blacks are lazy), to the point that phenomena such as crime and physical violence have become typified as black phenomena [30]. The anti-black affect is not necessarily conscious or deliberative, but may be felt as fear, anger, unease, and hostility towards blacks [29], [31], [32]. The symbolic component reflects the abstract view of blacks as a collective rather than as individuals, as well as its basis in abstract white moralistic reasoning and traditions. Because symbolic racism represents an ingrained schema, individuals high in symbolic racism will react in a negative manner, often unconsciously, to issues perceived to involve a racial (i.e. black) component. Psychometric work shows that while symbolic racism has a small relationship with old-fashioned or blatant racism and stereotypes, only symbolic racism is associated with policy preferences related to race after controlling for conservative and political ideology and demographic characteristics (e.g., education, gender, age) [33]. Policies of which blacks or whites are the intended or obvious beneficiaries (e.g. affirmative action, school busing) should easily be perceived as involving a racial component. But other policies may also involve a perceived racial component merely because they concern an issue that is already understood by whites in racial (black) terms. Thus, symbolic racism has been linked to opposition to and support for a range of policies that whites consistently associate with blacks (e.g., welfare), even if it is not in the self-interest of whites to do so [22]–[25], [32]. This is also likely to explain the frequently observed correlations between symbolic racism and public opinion regarding a range of criminal justice policies (e.g. death penalty, mandatory sentences). There is substantial evidence that whites associate blacks with crime, and especially violent crime [19], [30]. The result of this conflation of race and crime is that whites high on symbolic racism will support policies that are perceived as being tough on crime and oppose policies that are considered lenient. Green and colleagues [34] have found a positive relationship between symbolic racism and punitive crime policies (i.e., death penalty, three strikes imprisonment), and negative correlation with policies that are intended to assist criminals (i.e., education of inmates, poverty reduction). And although conservative ideologies and racism are inherently related, symbolic racism makes a unique contribution to crime policy attitudes after accounting for other race-neutral factors (e.g., conservatism, crime victimization, crime news exposure, and socio-demographics) [34]. More generally, symbolic racism should also correlate with fear of crime and black violence, along with attitudes to policies that may reduce, or increase, perceived threat (e.g., gun ownership, gun control). Self-protection and physical safety (e.g., fear) are the most commonly cited reason for owning a gun and opposing gun control and blacks are overrepresented in the crime statistics and media portrayals of violent crime. Accordingly, people with higher symbolic racism may be more likely to own a gun and oppose gun control as a means of dealing (consciously or unconsciously) with abstract fears regarding blacks [19]. Given the importance of guns and gun-control to US public health, and the urgent need for appropriate policy to reduce gun-related harms, it is vital to examine the psychological and sociocultural reasons for the paradoxical attitudes of many US citizens and politicians to gun-control. US whites have twice the rate of gun ownership of blacks, oppose gun control to much greater extent than blacks, but are considerably more likely to kill themselves with those guns, than be killed by others or blacks. While the literature suggests that racism in whites shapes fear of black violence and support for policies that disadvantage blacks, no research has examined whether racism is related to gun ownership and attitudes to gun-control in US whites. This study investigated whether racism is related to gun ownership and opposition to gun control in US whites. We hypothesized that, after accounting for known confounders (i.e., age, gender, education, income, location, conservatism, political identification, anti-government sentiment), anti-black racism would be associated with having a gun in the home, and opposition to gun controls.
Methods The most recent data from the American National Election Study (ANES) [35] was used to test the hypothesis. The ANES panel study is the leading large-scale psychological and socio-political attitudes survey in the US, measuring various constructs and attitudes in monthly waves from a representative probability sample of US voters. Explanatory variables, including demographic details (i.e., age, gender, education, income, location: southern vs. other), anti-government sentiment, measures of conservatism (e.g., liberal versus conservative ideology), party identification (e.g., Republican versus Democrat leanings), symbolic racism, belief in a black violent stereotype, and implicit racism (i.e., race IAT), were accessed for US whites. Outcome measures were: having a gun in the home, opposition to policies banning handguns in the home, and support for permits to carry concealed handguns. Potential participants for the ANES were contacted via telephone using random-digit-dialling and requested to complete an online survey each month from January 2008 to September 2009. Respondents were paid $10 a month for participation and those without internet access were provided with internet service for the duration of the study. The current study drew on data from several waves of the ANES survey. To counter the impact of participant drop-out and non-response on the representativeness of the sample examined in the current study we applied ANES generated weights as recommended (i.e. wave 20 post-election weight) [35]. The comprehensive ANES panel study demographics, data, materials and methods are freely available online at (http://www.electionstudies.org/).
Results Just over half (52%) of the sample had a gun in the home, 66% opposed bans on handguns in the home, and 52% reported support for permits to carry a concealed handgun. Participants reported being slightly more conservative than liberal, and more Republican than Democratic leaning. Mean scores for symbolic racism, and to a lesser extent the race IAT, indicated anti-black sentiment; however, participants had mean scores considerably below the midpoint of scoring for the stereotype that ‘blacks are violent’. Table 5 displays full weighted descriptives. After adjusting for all explanatory variables in the model, symbolic racism was significantly related to having a gun in the home. Specifically, for each 1 point increase in symbolic racism, there was a 50% greater odds of having a gun in the home (see Table 1), and there was a 28% increase in the odds of supporting permits to carry concealed handguns (see Table 3). The relationship between symbolic racism and opposing a ban on guns in the home (27% increase in odds), was reduced (17% increase in odds) and became non-significant when the outcome ‘having a gun in the home’ was entered in the model (see Table 2). This is unsurprising as, in effect, opposition to gun control policy is conflated with having a gun already, and reflects self-interest [38]. Thus the gun ownership variable mediated the relationship between symbolic racism and opposition to a ban on handguns in the home. It is noteworthy that symbolic racism still maintained its significant relationship with support for permits to carry concealed handguns in the presence of having a gun in the home. Conservative ideology was also significantly related to stronger support for permits to carry concealed handguns after adjusting for other explanatory variables. Similarly, stronger republican identification, being from a southern state, and anti-government sentiment were associated with opposition to gun-control policies, but not with having a gun in the home. With the exception of sex, and to a much lesser extent education, demographic variables were not related to having a gun in the home or opposition to gun controls. Although sex was unrelated to having a gun in the home, there were greater odds of males being opposed to banning handguns in the home, and being supportive of permits to carry concealed handguns, than for females. This result is consistent with other US data showing that white males display the most opposition to gun control, and greater support for liberalisation of gun laws [3]. Higher education levels were associated with lower odds of having a gun in the home, but not with the gun control outcomes. This finding mirrors national data on gun ownership and support for gun control policies [3], which also shows a poor and mixed relationship between income and age, and gun ownership. In correlation analyses, greater race IAT scores were weakly associated with greater symbolic racism scores, and with the black violent stereotype. Higher IAT scores were not related to gun ownership and gun control in full models. Higher scores on black violent stereotyping were not related to any of the gun-related outcomes; the univariate relationship between black violent stereotyping and greater support for concealed handgun permits was explained by other variables.
Discussion Opposition to gun control in US whites is somewhat paradoxical given the statistics on gun-related deaths, and such opposition may be undermining the public health of all US citizens. This study examined for the first time whether racism is related to gun ownership and the opposition to gun control in US whites. The results support the hypothesis by showing that greater symbolic racism is related to increased odds of having a gun in the home and greater opposition to gun control, after accounting for all other explanatory variables. It is particularly noteworthy that the relationship between symbolic racism and the gun-related outcomes was maintained in the presence of conservative ideologies, political affiliation, opposition to government control, and being from a southern state, which are otherwise strong predictors of gun ownership and opposition to gun reform. Contrary to research showing associations between implicit racism and policy decision making [23], we did not find implicit racism to be significantly related to gun related outcomes after accounting for other variables. Similarly, the small correlations between the stereotype that most blacks being violent and gun outcomes were not significant after accounting for all other variables. There are several possible reasons for the absence of multivariate associations between the stereotype of blacks as violent and race-IAT, and gun outcomes. There is considerable debate in the field regards the validity and predictive qualities of implicit measures with critical reviews and reanalyses showing weak or no association between implicit and explicit measures, and outcomes [39], [40]. Others demonstrate that non-attitudinal factors, such as, stimuli familiarity, cognitive ability, and fear of appearing racist also account for individual differences in IAT scores, that may in turn affect associations with outcome variables [39]–[43]. The implicit association test is also a conceptually difficult task for some to learn, and particularly the brief race-IAT used in the ANES which restricts training on this computerized measure [41]. Given the mean D score for the ANES race-IAT (.17) is more than twice as small as from any other studies, including one in medical doctors [44], it is also possible that participants may not have completed this complex computerized task correctly. Other authors have noted this problem with the ANES race-IAT data [45]. There are two plausible reasons for the blacks as violent stereotype not accounting for significant variance in multivariate models. First, the stereotype appears to be subsumed by symbolic racism. Table 4 shows that the black violent stereotype has its strongest relationship with symbolic racism (r =.24), and only weak relationships with other variables (rs =.06–.09). Thus, the association between the black violent stereotype and gun outcomes may be explained through its association with symbolic racism which captures negative affect towards blacks (e.g., fear, unease, hostility). Alternatively, because the black violent stereotype is a quite blatant measure, participants may have been reluctant to endorse a clearly negative view of blacks in order to avoid appearing racist. In support of this notion, only 10% of participants strongly endorsed the statement that most blacks could be described as violent, with a mean score of 2.2 on the 5-point scale, compared to a mean score of 3.5 for symbolic racism on a 5-point scale. There are potential limitations that should be noted. The item assessing having a gun in the home does not establish that the respondent is the owner or user of that gun. This observation is born out in the absence of a sex difference to this question. Males typically have a higher rate of gun ownership than females [3]. Similarly, the gun control policy items do not assess opposition/support for assault weapons, which has been a particular focus of attention during recent gun debates in the US. Nonetheless, symbolic racism might also, quite reasonably, be related to opposition to broader gun control measures (banning assault weapons, and gun clips containing more than 10 rounds), which may or may not be effective in reducing firearms related deaths. However, although the ANES only asked participants whether there was a gun in the home, best available evidence suggests that merely having a gun in the home is associated with a marked increase in the odds of one of the members of that home dying from suicide or homicide [6], [7]. Another potential limitation is the focus on white US adults as it is possible that other US racial groups may display similar pattern of results. However, given that whites oppose gun reforms to a considerably greater extent than do blacks, or indeed any other non-white racial group, that whites are also the single largest (>70%) ethnic grouping in the US, and that symbolic racism in whites is related to numerous outcomes, the focus of the study on whites seems appropriate [3]. Indeed, in a sub-analysis of the black sample from the ANES panel study, we found that none of the variables reported in models for white participants were significantly related to any of the gun-related outcomes for blacks. Finally, the correlational nature of the study clearly prohibits causal inferences. While a view that racism underpins gun-related attitudes is plausible and supported by evidence on other race-related policy decisions [18], [23], it could be argued that there are other plausible but unmeasured variables that could explain the pattern of relationships we find here. Similarly, simply owning a firearm may lead whites to develop more negative attitudes towards blacks. There is some experimental research showing that participants who have recently held a firearm produce enhanced salivary testosterone levels and display increased aggression toward others [46]. Causality aside, greater control of firearms is the most logical direction for public health policy. Notwithstanding these limitations, the results indicate that symbolic racism is associated with gun-related attitudes and behaviours in US whites. The statistics on firearm-related suicides and homicides in the US might reasonably be expected to convince US citizens that action on reducing gun ownership and use would be beneficial to their health. Yet, US whites oppose strong gun reform more than all other racial groups, despite a much greater likelihood that whites will kill themselves with their guns (suicide), than be killed by someone else [1]. Black-on-black homicide rates would benefit most from gun reform, and, quite logically, blacks support these reforms even if whites do not [3], [47]. Symbolic racism appears to play a role in explaining gun ownership and paradoxical attitudes to gun control in US whites. In other words, despite certain policy changes potentially benefitting whites, anti-black prejudice leads people to oppose their implementation. This finding is consistent with previous research showing that symbolic racism is associated with opposition to US policies that may benefit blacks, and support for policies that disadvantage blacks, and critically, goes beyond what is explained by other important confounders. Gun-related deaths in the US are a significant public health concern, representing a leading cause of death, and are particularly prevalent from ages 15–54. Attitudes towards guns in many US whites appear to be influenced, like other policy preferences, by illogical racial biases. The present results suggest that gun control policies may need to be implemented independent of public opinion. The implementation of initially unpopular public health initiatives has proven effective for other public health threats (e.g., tobacco taxation, bans on smoking in public places, seatbelt use) that initially did not have widespread public and political support, but have eventually proven popular and have led to changes in attitudes [48], [49]. There remains considerable resistance in the US to even cursory gun controls, and the reasons for owning a gun and opposing gun reform (i.e., self-protection, safety, fear of crime) [4], [5], are not supported by the evidence on gun-related harms. Clearly, other motives and attitudes must be driving such paradoxical views on guns. Future research needs to examine other less obvious, yet influential, sociocultural and psychological influences on gun ownership and control, as this evidence is sparse. Evidence on the psychological and sociocultural drivers of gun ownership and resistance to strong controls will in turn help inform educational campaigns (e.g., social marketing) that may aid public acceptance of appropriate policies in the interest of the US public’s health, and/or allow policy makers to implement good public health policy. The reinstatement of funding for research on gun control in the US should assist in these research endeavours.
Acknowledgments We would like to thank Louise Connell for helpful comments on drafts of this work, Elmer Villanueva and Jason Ferris for their statistical advice, and the reviewers for their helpful suggestions.
Author Contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: KOB WF DL MD. Performed the experiments: KOB WF DL MD. Analyzed the data: KOB WF MD. Wrote the paper: KOB WF DL MD.“Watch your step rookie, or you’ll end up in Corktown.”
Calamity brews in Detroit. Paranormal activity is on the rise. An angry spirit, a dangerous creature, or a pack of desperate cultists hides under every sewer cover and within every abandoned building. The officers of Corktown Precinct are the only thing standing between the city and paranormal onslaught. Corktown has a secret, though. Its crew of supposed washouts are either psychics or have encountered the paranormal. These damaged, over-worked, and under-paid officers must keep paranormal activity in Detroit under wraps and out of sight. No mean feat in a city as old, large, and haunted as Detroit.
Corktown officers face constant threats |
be linked to the Zika virus, which has been spreading through the Americas.
Dismayed by recent comments about microcephaly, Ms Caceres decided to tell her story.
On the day I was born, the doctor said I had no chance of survival. "She will not walk, she will not talk and, over time, she will enter a vegetative state until she dies," he said.
But he - like many others - was wrong.
I grew up, went to school, went to university. Today I am a journalist and I write a blog.
I chose journalism to give a voice to people like me, who do not feel represented. I wanted to be a spokesperson for microcephaly and, as a final course project, I wrote a book about my life and the lives of others with this syndrome.
I can say that today I am a fulfilled, happy woman.
With the spike of microcephaly cases in Brazil, the need for information is more important than ever. People need to put their prejudices aside and learn about this syndrome.
Including the health minister. He said that Brazil would have a "damaged generation" because of microcephaly. If I could speak to him, I would say: "What is damaged is your statement, sir."
Microcephaly is a box of surprises. You may suffer from serious problems or you may not. So I believe that those who have abortions are not giving their children a chance to succeed.
I survived, as do many others with microcephaly. Our mothers did not abort. That is why we exist.
Image copyright Ana Carolina Cáceres Image caption Doctors told Ana Carolina Caceres's parents that she would not walk or talk
It's not easy, of course. Life was hard for me and my family. My dad is a lab technician and was unemployed when I was born. My mother was a nursing assistant.
Health insurance covered a few things, such as labour expenses. But other tests were not covered and were very expensive.
The whole family got together - uncles, aunts and others. Everyone gave what they could to cover the costs.
I had five operations, the first just nine days after I was born, because I was not breathing properly.
I also had seizures. Apparently it's something that all people suffering from microcephaly will have. But it's not a big deal - there are drugs to keep it under control.
I took medication until I was 12, then never needed it again. Now I am even able to play the violin!
So when I read that activists in Brazil were urging the Supreme Court to allow abortion in cases of microcephaly, I felt offended and attacked.
I believe that abortion is a short-sighted attempt to tackle the problem. The most important thing is access to treatment: counselling for parents and older sufferers, and physiotherapy and neurological treatment for those born with microcephaly.
Image copyright Ana Carolina Cáceres Image caption Ana Carolina was able to give up medication for seizures 12 years ago and now plays the violin
I certainly know that microcephaly can have more serious consequences than the ones I experienced and I am aware that not everyone with microcephaly will be lucky enough to have a life like mine.
But what I recommend to mothers or pregnant women is that they remain calm. Microcephaly is an ugly name but it's not an evil monster.
Have your prenatal tests done sooner rather than later and seek the advice of a neurologist, preferably before your baby is born.
Also, get to know mothers of children with microcephaly. There are groups of women on Facebook with two or three children with the syndrome who can tell you about their lives.
If there are still parents who choose to abort, I cannot say anything. I think the choice is theirs. But they need to make that decision knowing all the facts.
As told to BBC Brasil's Ricardo Senra.Have you noticed that the homosexual rights movement has been silent over what’s happening about the removal of monuments? Could it be that the demand to remove offensive images is damaging the argument that bakers, florists, and photographers should be forced to serve same-sex marriage ceremonies?
There are beliefs and views that offend people, so much so that there are calls for their removal. Millions of dollars are pouring into the Southern Poverty Law Center to expose “hate groups.” Once exposed, do people have the right not to service their operation or business? Sure they do. No one should be forced to accommodate a view they disagree with. If it’s OK for anti-Confederates to oppose Confederate opinions, memorials, and services, it seems to me that it should be OK for anyone to oppose and not accommodate other types of offending opinions and actions.
Should a black-owned bakery be forced to make a cake with a Confederate flag emblazoned on it designed for a Confederate-themed wedding? I don’t believe a baker should be forced to make any cake for whatever reason. The cracks are beginning to widen in the argument that business owners should be forced to supply an advertised service for any or all who request it no matter what the subject matter.
take our poll - story continues below Will the media learn anything from their biased reporting of the Jussie Smollett story? Will the media learn anything from their biased reporting of the Jussie Smollett story?
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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Email This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Completing this poll grants you access to Godfather Politics updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to this site's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. Trending: Ocasio-Cortez’ Green New Deal Would Cost More Money Than Exists in the Whole World A Wisconsin Circuit Court announced … that it will rule a Christian photographer can declare her faith-based intent not to take photos at homosexual “weddings” because her business does not have a storefront. The court said her online business would not be prosecuted under a Dane County law banning “discrimination” based on “sexual orientation.” Evangelical Christian Amy Lawson, who describes herself as “a Madison portrait and wedding photographer with a passion for telling visual stories that glorify God,” had once advertised publicly that she would not take photos that promote homosexual “marriage” (or abortion or racism). (LifeSiteNews)
Does this mean that if a Jewish-owned bakery that has a storefront it will be forced to make a cake for a Nazi-themed wedding or a Jewish-owned printer will be forced to print signs for a pro-Nazi protest march?
The homosexual lobby has been able to carve out special protections for their position that are not afforded to others.
If on a particular day a pro-Confederate, a pro-Nazi, and a pro-homosexual walked into three separate bakeries and asked for a cake, only two of the bakeries could refuse and not be fined even though the argument for each refusal would be the same.
Keep readingAs we all know, the Campus Rape Crisis is due to white fraternity boys like U. of Virginia lifeguard Haven Monahan. Except, despite all the rules mandating counting race and rape on campus, nobody ever releases any figures about the racial makeup of college men accused of rape.
But in passing in a New Yorker article, Harvard Law School criminal law professor Jeannie Suk drops a bombshell: on average, male students accused of sexual assault look less like Haven Monahan than like, say, Heisman Trophy-winner Jameis Winston. From The New Yorker:
Shutting Down Conversations About Rape at Harvard Law BY JEANNIE SUK This is a piece on a subject about which I may soon be prevented from publishing, depending on how events unfold. Last month, near the time that CNN broadcast the documentary “The Hunting Ground,” which focuses on four women who say their schools neglected their claims of sexual assault, I joined eighteen other Harvard Law School professors in signing a statement that criticized the film’s “unfair and misleading” portrayal of one case from several years ago. A black female law student accused a black male law student of sexually assaulting her and her white female friend. The accuser, Kamilah Willingham, has graduated from the law school and is featured in the film. The accused, Brandon Winston, who spent four years defending himself against charges of sexual misconduct, on campus and in criminal court, was ultimately cleared of sexual misconduct and has been permitted to reënroll. The group that signed the statement, which includes feminist, black, and leftist faculty, wrote that this was a just outcome. … But last week the filmmakers did more than understandably disagree with criticism of the film, which has been short-listed for the Academy Award for best documentary. They wrote, in a statement to the Harvard Crimson, that “the very public bias these professors have shown in favor of an assailant contributes to a hostile climate at Harvard Law.” The words “hostile climate” contain a serious claim. At Harvard, sexual harassment is “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,” including verbal conduct that is “sufficiently persistent, pervasive, or severe” so as to create a “hostile environment.” If, as the filmmakers suggest, the professors’ statement about the film has created a hostile environment at the school, then, under Title IX, the professors should be investigated and potentially disciplined.
It’s funny how you used to hear all the time about the dangers of any “chilling effect” on freedom of expression, but now you hear all about how allowing freedom of expression creates a “hostile environment” and the phrase “chilling effect” has vanished.
Professor Suk goes on to argue that the current campus atmosphere of Always-Believe-the-(self-proclaimed)-Victim is disproportionately bad for black men:
It is as important and logically necessary to acknowledge the possibility of wrongful accusations of sexual assault as it is to recognize that most rape claims are true. And if we have learned from the public reckoning with the racial impact of over-criminalization, mass incarceration, and law enforcement bias, we should heed our legacy of bias against black men in rape accusations. The dynamics of racially disproportionate impact affect minority men in the pattern of campus sexual-misconduct accusations, which schools, conveniently, do not track, despite all the campus-climate surveys. Administrators and faculty who routinely work on sexual-misconduct cases, including my colleague Janet Halley, tell me that most of the complaints they see are against minorities, and that is consistent with what I have seen at Harvard. The “always believe” credo will aggravate and hide this context, aided by campus confidentiality norms that make any racial pattern difficult to study and expose.[Emphasis added]
That’s not exactly transparent prose, so let me elucidate: what Professor Suk [] has privately heard from professional campus rape experts and what she has seen at Harvard is that most of those accused of sexual assault don’t look like Haven Monahan, but are instead minorities. And the context of the paragraph suggests that a large fraction of this minority majority of accused student rapists are black.
[Comment at Unz.com.]A U.S. Army officer was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a military jury in Kentucky Saturday for shooting and killing an Iraqi detainee during an interrogation in Iraq.
First Lt. Michael Behenna of Edmond, Okla., was convicted a day earlier of murder and assault, but acquitted of making a false statement. He had faced up to life in prison.
"We are disappointed at the jury's verdict and the sentence," Behenna's lawyer Jack Zimmermann said.
Zimmermann said he has filed a motion for a mistrial, claiming prosecutors withheld evidence that could help Behenna's defence. The judge has scheduled arguments on the motion Monday, Zimmermann said.
Behenna testified he was trying to defend himself when he shot Ali Mansour Mohammed, and that the detainee reached for the officer's gun in a secluded railroad culvert near Beiji, Iraq, in May.
Prosecutors said the detainee was defenceless against Behenna, and the officer's threats and other actions showed he had planned to kill the man.
Zimmermann argued Behenna wouldn't have brought along an Iraqi translator if he had planned to kill the detainee.
Behenna testified that he threatened Mohammed and pointed his gun at him to scare out information about a roadside bombing that had killed two members of his platoon.
After the detainee was shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest, another soldier testified that he tossed an incendiary grenade on the body.
Staff Sgt. Hal Warner pleaded guilty this month to charges of assault, maltreatment of a subordinate and making a false statement. He was sentenced to 17 months in prison and testified against Behenna.Two police forces have begun trialling the sophisticated programme, which has echoes of the Tom Cruise film Minority Report, where psychics are used to stop criminals before they commit a crime.
The system, known as Crush (Criminal Reduction Utilising Statistical History) evaluates crime records, intelligence briefings, offender profiles and even weather reports, to identify potential flashpoints where a crime is most likely to occur.
The “predictive analytics” technology has been credited as a key factor behind a 31 per cent fall in crime and 15 per cent drop in violent crime in Memphis, Tennessee, according to The Observer.
John Williams, of the Memphis Crime Analysis Unit, said: “This is more of a proactive tool than reacting after crimes have occurred.
“This pretty much puts officers in the area at the time that the crimes are being committed.”
The software has been developed by IBM which has invested $11 billion in analytics over the past four years.
Mark Cleverley, the company’s head of government strategy, said: “What the technology does is what police officers have always done, sometimes purely on instinct – looking for patterns to work out what is likely to happen next.
“What is different is the scale on which the systems operates and the speed at which the analysis takes place.”Read more on the story at CNN affiliate KNXV.
(CNN) -- The chief executive officer of a Western grocery store chain resigned after he was arrested in a child prostitution sting, according to police and CNN affiliate KNXV.
Michael Gilliland, 52, was one of eight people arrested in the sting, said Steve Martos, spokesman for Phoenix police. He is accused of soliciting sex online from a girl who identified herself as a minor on Thursday, he said.
Nevertheless, "the suspect arranged a meeting with this underage female" and allegedly drove to a hotel to meet her, authorities said. "The suspect agreed to pay the underage female for sexual intercourse," police said.
Gilliand founded Wild Oats Market, which was bought by Whole Foods in 2007, and was the CEO of Sunflower Farmers Market. He was charged with felony child prostitution.
Sunflower said in a statement that Gilliland resigned from his executive position and from the company board of directors, according to KNXV.
"Sunflower appreciates the respect that Mr. Gilliland has shown for the company by his action, so that his personal affairs will not affect the company," acting CEO Chris Sherrell said in the statement.
Gilliland told the company "that he believes he is not guilty of the charges brought against him, and that he expects to be exonerated," according to the statement, KNXV reported.
CNN's Nick Valencia contributed to this report.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The rules governing immigration to the EU - explained in 90 seconds
Three children are recovering in hospital in Austria after being rescued from a van containing 26 migrants.
Police said the severely dehydrated children would not have lasted much longer in the cramped vehicle.
The van was stopped in Braunau district on Friday and the Romanian driver was arrested after a chase.
Separately, four men appeared in court in Hungary following the discovery last week of another truck in Austria containing the bodies of 71 people.
The three Bulgarians and an Afghan, who were arrested in Hungary, were remanded in custody until 29 September. Austria is expected to seek their extradition.
The latest incident - which was not reported until Saturday - happened near the small town of St Peter am Hart, close to the German border.
What we know about Austria lorry find
'Migrants','refugees' or 'aliens'?
The Turkish city where migrants buy supplies
Migrants' perilous route to Germany
A police spokesman told the BBC that the children were crammed in the back of the van along with the other migrants, said to be from Syria, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
He said the children - aged about five or six - were critically ill and almost unconscious. Officials said on Saturday that their lives were no longer in danger but they are still in hospital.
Police said they had tried to stop the vehicle and gave chase when it drove off at speed. The migrants said they were hoping to reach Germany.
Image copyright AFP Image caption In Hungary, the four handcuffed suspects arrived in black police vehicles
The discovery of the 71 bodies in the lorry left on a roadside near the Hungarian border last week led to an outcry.
Officials said the 59 men, eight women and four children - thought to be mainly Syrians - had probably died of suffocation two days earlier.
Austrian police were alerted when a road worker saw liquid seeping from the vehicle and the badly decomposing bodies were found inside.
Prosecutors say the four suspects who appeared at court in the city of Kecskemet on Saturday are believed to be low-ranking members of a Bulgarian-Hungarian people-trafficking gang.
So far this month more than 40,000 asylum seekers, the majority of them Syrian, have arrived in Hungary via the Balkans.
Hungary said on Saturday it had completed a 175km (108 mile) razor-wire barrier - aimed at stemming the flow of migrants - along its border with non-EU member Serbia.
It plans to replace the barrier with a 4m-high (13ft) fence.
Many migrants fall prey to smugglers who wait near the refugee camps, offering to take them at a high price on to western Europe, the BBC's Nick Thorpe in Hungary says.Advertisement
We come from dust, we return to dust. Thankfully, it’s for us living beings and not for digital data. A slew of software makes it possible to recover files 3 Remarkable File Recovery Tools 3 Remarkable File Recovery Tools Read More which have been lost. Where would digital forensics be without them?
Well, I am not getting into the criminal underbelly, but just jabbering about a long existing software that makes it possible to recover deleted files from a memory card used on digital cameras. PC Inspector Smart Recovery (v4.5) is a free, Windows only software that does one job (actually two”¦ as we shall see) and does it well.
Primary job: PC Inspector Smart Recovery is a freeware data recovery program from CONVAR for Flash Card/USB Flash Drive, Smart Media, SONY Memory Stick, IBM Micro Drive, Multimedia Card, Secure Digital Card or any other data carrier for digital cameras.
Secondary job: While it goes about its first job, it also offers a way to check the memory type for any errors.
I call PC Inspector Smart Recovery a “˜doomsday’ software. This one and others of its ilk help us to recover from our errors or those committed by our digital devices. If you think that the chances of losing some precious photo or video among the thousands we shoot with our digital cameras is one in thousands then give this software a miss. Otherwise, let’s give it a rip”¦
The download size of PC Inspector Smart Recovery is fairly compact at 6.1MB. The software is compatible with Windows XP (not tested for Vista).
These are the formats and digital camera types supported by PC Inspector Smart Recovery:
JPG, AMR, TIF, BMP, GIF, AVI, MOV, WAV, DSS, MP4, Canon (.crw), Fuji (.raf), RICOH (.raw), Olympus E-XX (.orf), Olympus C5050 (.orf), Nokia (3gp), Kodak (.dcr), Minolta (.mrw), Nikon D1H/D1X (.nef), Nikon D2H/D2X (.nef), Nikon E5000/E5700 (.nef), Konica Minolta, Sigma – Foveon (.x3f).
Installation is a no-brainer. And so is the use – in five simple steps.
Connect your memory card through your computer’s memory card reader or connect the digital camera/mobile phone with the provided data cable. Start PC Inspector Smart Recovery. Select the drive letter (Select Device) used by the memory device from the first dropdown. Select the file type (Select Format Type) that is to be recovered from the second dropdown. The Enhanced Options is for JPG format only. The default Automatic setting recognizes the format on its own. The With Thumbnails option assumes that your picture format includes thumbnails; the Without Thumbnails option assumes that your picture format does not include thumbnails. Select the destination folder (Select where the images are to be recovered). Create a specific folder as opposed tp recovering them to an area like the desktop because the sheer number of images might create a mess. Click on Start and the software indicates the progress through the progress bar.
Change the search mode”¦
The Settings menu lets you change the way the recovery is done. The Fast Mode is the default mode. The Intensive Mode scans more thoroughly and takes longer to complete. The recoverable file size can be limited optionally.
Check Media found under Menu – Function is a way to check the memory device for errors. Once started, the progress is reported by the software under the Media Check section. Any read errors like a “˜Not Available’ alert could indicate problems in the memory device, the card reader or the driver.
So has it helped me avert my doomsdays?
On my 4GB memory card with a sample of 160 pictures, I recovered all but six. Yes, the process was slow – about 160 minutes for an intensive scan. But the success ratio was great so I guess I can live with the slow speeds. Getting the lost pictures back at no cost is a definite deal maker for me.
There are a few others which fall under the broad category of file recovery The Best Free Data Recovery Tools for Windows The Best Free Data Recovery Tools for Windows Data loss can strike at any time. We will highlight the best free data recovery tools for Windows to help get your precious files back. Read More software. Check these out. They might save your day ““
3 Remarkable File Recovery Tools 3 Remarkable File Recovery Tools 3 Remarkable File Recovery Tools Read More
Recover Lost Computer Files with Undelete Plus
How To securely Retrieve and Delete PC files How To securely Retrieve and Delete PC files How To securely Retrieve and Delete PC files Read More
So, what do you do when you unintentionally lose your Kodak moments (minus the teeth gnashing of course)? How do you recover deleted picture files from a memory card? Do you have your toolkit of “˜doomsday’ software?CULVER CITY, Calif. -- Upon learning I'd be interviewing Marisa Miller on Tuesday, a sense of anxiety crept in.
No, it wasn't because Miller is a renowned supermodel who looks like this and I'm, well, a lowly blogger. The consternation was born out of my fear of interviewing a celebrity who says they're a football fan but really isn't. It's happened before, and it's always terrible.
Supermodel Marisa Miller visits the NFL Network studios in Culver City, Calif. This angel's love for the 49ers is no secret. (Ben Liebenberg/NFL.com/)
I'd been told that Miller was a die-hard San Francisco 49ers fan. I entered the NFL Network green room as a skeptic; I walked out a believer.
"I'm from Santa Cruz in Northern California and the 49ers were my dad and I's bonding time," Miller said. "We would go to games in the '80s. It was a good time to fall in love with football when your team was unstoppable."
For totem pole reasons, my interview time with Miller coincided with her makeup application process prior to a photo shoot. As mascara was being applied, Miller didn't hesitate when asked what Niners moment she would call as a broadcaster if given the chance.
"My biggest memory as a football fan was the Super Bowl in '89 against the Cincinnati Bengals," she said. "We were at this restaurant in Santa Cruz called The Crow's Nest. I think I was 10 or 11 years old and I remember just everybody going nuts. It was the first time I saw adults act like children. It was such a huge moment. John Taylor's catch, that was one of the best memories ever."
It turned out my fears of a bad interview were ultimately rooted in some sort of nefarious supermodel discrimination. Marisa Miller: Pulverizing misconceptions without trying.
Follow Dan Hanzus on Twitter @DanHanzus.£9.95 – £24.95
‘Impressively comprehensive…offers fresh insight into one of the ways the programme was kept alive while it was off air and fills a rare gap in the wealth of literature of Doctor Who” – Doctor Who Magazine
‘…an absolute must-read.’ – Starburst Magazine review
‘…this is one of the best and most absorbing Doctor Who related books ever written!’ – user HumanBoy, GallifreyBase
‘It’s not easy to produce a book which works as both a story guide and detailed behind the scenes study, but Dylan Rees has managed it here, and the story as a whole is fascinating, funny, sad, alarming and sobering … as guides go, I can’t see this being bettered.’ We Are Cult review
‘Having just finished my copy of Dylan Rees’ ‘Downtime’, I can recommend it as an incredibly rich book that transcends the limitations of being a niche guide to spin off material, and becomes a both hilarious and painful insight into the realities of low budget filmmaking & audio production.’ – user jackapendrix, GallifreyBaseThe Trump Administration’s efforts to ban travelers from seven Middle Eastern countries has slowed bookings and deterred international travelers heading to the U.S., but Colorado is not feeling much impact.
Forward Keys, which tracks U.S. air travel trends, found bookings from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen plummeted as the new administration worked to ban travelers arriving from those countries. The travel ban has slowed U.S.-bound traffic from other parts of the world as well. Forward Keys showed net bookings from around the world have fallen 6.5 percent since President Donald Trump announced the immigration ban in late January, when compared to the similar period in 2016.
The Global Business Travel Association said uncertainty around travel to the U.S. caused a $185 million loss in international travel bookings in the first week of February across the U.S. If the so-called “Trump Slump” continues, the country’s travel industry could see billion-dollar declines.
But those declines in visitors and revenue won’t likely hit Colorado hard, said Andrea Blankenship, the Colorado Tourism Office’s director of international tourism.
Colorado does not host many travelers from the Middle East. Of the seven countries listed in the Trump Administration’s ban, Iran was the largest source of Colorado tourists in 2015 with 568 visitors. The entire Middle East accounts for about 5,300 annual visitors to Colorado. Colorado’s international tourism efforts are focused in six countries: Great Britain, Germany, France, Canada, Japan and China.
The largest concerns for travelers from those countries, Blankenship said, involves the visa waiver program that allows visitors from 38 countries to travel to the U.S. without a visa. There has been no discussion of changing the visa waiver program. (Although Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order — entitled “Protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States” — suspends the Visa Interview Waiver Program, which allows some repeat visa applicants to skip an in-person interview.)
“Actually, the bigger effect right now is the strength of the U.S. dollar,” Blankenship said.
Blankenship said Colorado is fortunate because most international travelers consider the state “an aspirational destination.”
“People who have saved up years to come here are still going to come. Politics is playing no role in that,” she said.A cancer study that would represent the first use of the red-hot gene-editing tool CRISPR in people passed a key safety review today. The proposed clinical trial, in which researchers would use CRISPR to engineer immune cells to fight cancer, won approval from the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, a panel that has traditionally vetted the safety and ethics of gene therapy trials funded by the U.S. government and others.
Although other forms of gene editing have already been used to treat disease in people, the CRISPR trial would break new ground by modifying three different sites in the genome at once, which has not been easy to do until now. The study has also grabbed attention because—as first reported by the MIT Technology Review —tech entrepreneur Sean Parker’s new $250 million Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy will fund the trial.
“It’s an important new approach. We’re going to learn a lot from this. And hopefully it will form the basis of new types of therapy,” says clinical oncologist Michael Atkins of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., one of three RAC members who reviewed the protocol.
The proposed CRISPR trial builds off the pioneering efforts of Carl June and others at University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) to genetically modify a cancer patient’s own immune cells, specifically a class known as T cells, to treat leukemia and other cancers. For the CRISPR trial, a UPenn-led team wants to remove T cells from patients and use a harmless virus to give the cells a receptor for NY-ESO-1, a protein that is often present on certain tumors but not on most healthy cells. The modified T cells are then reinfused back into a patient and, if all goes well, attack the person’s NY-ESO-1–displaying tumors. The UPenn team has already tested this strategy in a small clinical trial for multiple myeloma. But although most patients’ tumors initially shrank, the reintroduced T cells eventually became less effective and stopped proliferating.
To boost the staying power of the engineered T cells, the UPenn group wants to use CRISPR to disrupt the gene for a protein called PD-1. The protein sits on the surface of T cells and helps dampen the activity of the cells after an immune response, but tumors have found ways to hide from T cell attack by flipping on the PD-1 switch themselves. (Drugs that block PD-1 eliminate this immune suppression and have proven to be a promising immunotherapy cancer treatment.)
June’s team also wants to knock out two gene segments that encode different portions of the protein that makes up a T cell’s primary receptor so that the engineered NS-ESO-1 receptor will be more effective. To do this, they will introduce into the T cells so-called guide RNAs, which tell CRISPR’s DNA-snipping enzyme, Cas9, where to cut the genome.
The 2-year trial will treat 18 people with myeloma, sarcoma, or melanoma who have stopped responding to existing treatments at three sites that are members of the Parker Institute—UPenn; the University of California, San Francisco; and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. June pointed out to RAC that his team already has experience with gene editing. They have used a different technique, called zinc finger nucleases, to disrupt a gene on T cells that HIV uses to enter the cells. In a small trial, this strategy appeared to be safe and has shown promise for helping HIV patients. Those data suggest that CRISPR gene editing should be safe in humans, June said.
To confirm that, researchers conducting the CRISPR trial will look for signs of an immune reaction to the Cas9 enzyme, which comes from a bacterium. They will also look for evidence that it has made cuts in wrong places, potentially creating or triggering a cancer gene. When the UPenn team recently used CRISPR to edit T cells from healthy donors as a test run, they checked the 148 genes they most feared Cas9 would mistakenly slice and only found one cut in a harmless location. For the CRISPR trial, the team will do various tests to watch for uncontrolled growth of the modified T cells. Because they are cutting the genome in three places, one RAC member also noted, the team should watch for large swapped chunks of chromosomes.
Another concern raised by several RAC members is that June, who would not treat the cancer patients but would serve as the trial’s scientific adviser, and UPenn have a financial interest in the trial. (June has patents on using engineered T cells to treat cancer and has advised companies developing these treatments.) Some on the panel suggested they were particularly sensitive about such concerns given that it was at UPenn in 1999 that a young man, Jessie Gelsinger, died in a gene therapy trial, setting the field back for years. “Penn does have an infamous history in this regard,” says biomedical ethicist and RAC member Lainie Ross of the University of Chicago in Illinois.
However, others on the panel noted that the university could take various steps to mitigate the conflict of interest, for example by recusing June from specific tasks. UPenn itself should decide whether it can directly treat patients or merely supply the modified T cells to other sites for the trial, RAC concluded. Ultimately, RAC members voted unanimously (with one abstention) to approve the trial.
Although RAC endorsement is a big step, the researchers must now seek approval from their own institutions’ ethics boards and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Others are likely nipping at their heels. Many thought the Cambridge, Massachusetts–based biotech company Editas Medicine would conduct the first CRISPR clinical trial—it has announced plans to use CRISPR to treat an inherited eye disease in 2017—but RAC has not yet reviewed a proposal from the company.
*Clarification, 24 June, 10:12 a.m.: A previous version of this item incorrectly stated that CRISPR would be used to edit three genes, rather than three genome sites in two genes.Anthony Martin Sinatra (born Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra;[1]:22 May 4, 1892 – January 24, 1969) was an Italian-American Hoboken city fireman, professional boxer, bar owner, and father of singer and actor Frank Sinatra.
Biography [ edit ]
On December 21, 1903, he emigrated to New York City from Palermo, Sicily, on the SS Città di Milano with his mother Rosa Saglimbeni Sinatra and his sisters Angela and Dorotea, as well as his brother. His father Francesco, born in Lercara Friddi,[2] was already in the city working in a pencil factory earning eleven dollars a week, and his mother went on to own and operate a small grocery shop. Sinatra himself apprenticed as a shoemaker, until he started prize-fighting, calling himself Marty O'Brien, because Italians were not welcomed in the fight game.[3][4]
On February 14, 1914, Sinatra eloped with Natalie Garaventa[1]:25 (also known as "Dolly"), in Jersey City, New Jersey, as Dolly's parents refused to host a wedding and did not approve of Marty, as he was illiterate, inferior at boxing, and was a Sicilian, whereas the Garaventa family were Ligurian.
The couple eventually moved to 415 Monroe Street, Hoboken, New Jersey. Their only child, Francis Albert Sinatra, was born on December 12, 1915.
Sinatra continued his boxing career, until he broke his wrists after 30 professional fights. He then attempted to find marine work, but was rejected due to asthma. Dolly helped him find work as a fireman, and he was eventually appointed to the Hoboken Fire Department in 1927, where he attained the rank of Captain without having to take any formal exams.
While still a Captain in the fire department, Sinatra and his wife opened a tavern, called Marty O'Brien's. With sufficient income, the family of three moved to a three-bedroom apartment, only a few blocks away from Monroe Street, but well out of Little Italy, at 703 Park Avenue.
Sinatra suffered a fatal heart attack in 1969 at a Houston hospital.[5] He was buried at the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California; other family members, including Frank Sinatra and Anthony's wife are buried nearby.[6]
Popular culture [ edit ]
In the 1992 CBS miniseries Sinatra (a series about the life of his son Frank), he was portrayed by Joe Santos.Donald Burns (Screenshot/Click2Houston)
A white man in Houston who has painted “white power” and “KKK” on the corrugated steel surrounding his home insists he’s not racist.
Donald Burns said he painted the inflammatory messages to draw attention to what he believes are unjust property-related violations by the local civic club, Click2Houston reports.
“Has nothing to do with race, it has a problem with black property owners and what they’ve got away with. It does have something to do with race,” said Burns, who introduced an African-American woman to the station who he said was his girlfriend.
Click2Houston acknowledged this was “tortured logic.”
Burns painted over some of the words after he was interviewed by the station, but insisted he was not racist, even taking his shirt off to demonstrate his lack of white supremacist tattoos.
“Since 1977 I’ve been in and out of your prisons, you don’t see no marks of that (expletive) hate on me,” he told Click2.
Neighbors in his predominantly African-American community of Shamrock Manor have been taken aback.
“It’s very offensive,” Joseph Boxie, a member of the civic club, told Click2. “He’s totally out of control.”
“If you feel a certain way you don’t have to write all this on your fence, because you have kids come by here from school looking at this stuff,” neighbor Sam Pratt told the station.
Community activist Quannel X said Burns is provoking people.
“What he’s doing is dangerous. Many of the young people in this community have a problem with that signage and he’s creating a very volatile situation,” he told Click2.
Burns said the point of his actions was to draw attention to what he considers a violation of his civil rights.
“I don’t have an NAACP, I don’t have a LULAC. There’s no means for me to get something when I’m offended,” he said.
Amazingly, some of Burns’ neighbors seem to have been sucked into his Alice In Wonderland logic whirlpool.
“He’s not actually speaking about KKK and white folks and black folks. He’s speaking about a lot of illegal doing going on in this neighborhood,” said a man named James who declined to give his full |
not Clinton’s exclusive jurisdiction, as The Post’s Fact Checker noted.
In any case, the New York Times devoted two ace investigative reporters — Jo Becker and Mike McIntire — to the story. The project received a boost from materials gathered by Peter Schweizer, who has been a senior editor at large at Breitbart and is the author of “Clinton Cash.” Fox News used input from Becker for a piece on the uranium decision. Other media outlets ran followups, fact-checks, blog posts, the whole deal.
So you had the New York Times working with a Breitbart guy and Fox News. Which is to say that the investigation of Clinton’s cross-cutting duties and allegiances brought the media country together.
Despite the central involvement of the New York Times in breaking the story, Trump on Thursday told reporters, “I think that’s your Russia story. That’s your real Russia story. Not a story where they talk about collusion and there was none.
“It was a hoax. Your real Russia story is uranium. … The problem is that the mainstream media does not want to cover that story because that affects people that they protect. So they don’t like covering that story. But the big story is uranium and how Russia got 20 percent of our uranium. Frankly, it’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace. And it’s a disgrace that the fake news won’t cover it. It’s so sad.”
Again: A mainstream media organization launched this story, which was then fanned and promoted and cheered by right-wing media outlets, as documented in a Harvard study on the matter.
Writing in the Hill on Tuesday, John Solomon and Alison Spann breathed new life to Trump’s Russia-media talking point. Boiled to its essentials, their story states that federal law enforcement officials were on to criminal schemes orchestrated by Russian nuclear industry officials in the United States. The timing mattered, according to the reporters: As early as 2009, notes the story, evidence began emerging that “Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI and court documents show.”
Things looked fishy, in other words. Just as the CFIUS was examining the uranium deal, the FBI was investigating the Russian nuclear energy officials for orchestrating illegal schemes. However, as the Hill piece discloses, “Multiple current and former government officials told The Hill they did not know whether the FBI or DOJ ever alerted [CFIUS] committee members to the criminal activity they uncovered.”
The Hill played up the story with a newsy headline: “FBI uncovered Russian bribery plot before Obama administration approved controversial nuclear deal with Moscow.” Yet the FBI’s early work on this case wasn’t a very well kept secret. The Wall Street Journal’s Joel Schectman in June 2015 did a comprehensive piece on this investigation under the headline, “Russian Uranium Probe Reaches Into Small-Town Ohio.” The investigation focused on Russian citizen Vadim Mikerin, an executive with the Russian energy outfit Tenex. Mikerin, U.S. law enforcement officials believed, was receiving kickbacks from U.S. transportation companies seeking contracts with Tenex. The FBI’s investigation of Mikerin, reported Schectman, began in 2007.
Another fascinating piece by Schectman — this one in April 2015 — showed that the goal of federal officials in the probe was to confront Mikerin with the evidence they’d gathered, and then flip him into “‘undercover cooperation’ against unspecified ‘high ranking government officials’ in Russia, according to a court motion.” It didn’t work. In a plea deal, Mikerin received a prison sentence of four years.
A conspiratorial tone sneaks into the Hill’s story, as it questions why the Justice Department didn’t make a bigger deal of its probe. “The Justice Department and FBI took little credit in 2014 when Mikerin, the Russian financier and the trucking firm executives were arrested and charged,” notes the story. More elliptical and suggestive language relates to another matter:
[Federal agents] also obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.
Bolding inserted to highlight what-the-heck-are-you-talking-about language. Circa’s Sara A. Carter reported Thursday that Tenex paid consulting firm APCO Worldwide Inc. $3 million in 2010 and 2011 to lobby U.S. agencies. Starting in 2008, APCO provided pro bono services to the Clinton Global Initiative, an arm of the Clinton Foundation. “APCO’s work for Tenex and APCO’s work for the Clinton Global Initiative were separate and unconnected, publicly documented from the outset, and fully consistent with all regulations and US law,” the company told Circa.
Craig Minassian, a spokesman for the Clinton Foundation, tells the Erik Wemple Blog, “After all we now know about the extent of Russia’s interference in the election and how the Clinton Foundation was targeted by sophisticated disinformation campaigns, we should all hope news organizations would take an extra critical look at the motivations and sources for this story before throwing around allegations without offering evidence. In an environment where facts and reason are under assault, news organizations owe their audiences more than simply raising questions designed to ignite controversy.”
There’ll be lots more news on the uranium front. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has begun investigating the Uranium One dealings. Stay tuned to “Hannity” for updates.One night when I was 12, my mom and stepdad took me out for dinner in Calgary, where we lived. Afterward, we walked around downtown and spotted a few teenage girls standing on a street corner. My stepdad, a detective with the Calgary police, told me they were in the sex trade and launched into a string of horror stories about prostitution. Young women like them would come into the station covered with cuts and bruises, he said. Their pimps got them addicted to heroin and crack. As I looked back at them, I spotted a woman in a fur coat and designer stilettos, smiling at me. She seemed happy enough. I figured my stepdad was exaggerating.
Back then, we were a middle-class Canadian family. My mom managed several bridal shops, and we lived on a suburban cul-de-sac. At school, I was popular, got good grades and loved playing soccer. My stepdad always taught me to be strong, to believe in myself, that girls could do anything boys could do. He also taught me to fight. On summer days, he would take me to the gun shop and the shooting range, and sometimes we made bullets with his bullet-casting machine on our back deck. He made me and my mom do emergency drills in the house to prepare for intruders, rape threats, even nuclear war. “Follow your instincts,” he told us, “and fight like hell.” He showed me what to do if I were ever held down, training me to attack the groin, the eyes, the throat and other pressure points. I thought I could tackle anything or anyone.
About a year after that night in downtown Calgary, my parents divorced. My mom and I moved into a small apartment, and my stepdad and I grew apart. The divorce devastated my mother, and soon she was drinking and partying all the time. I never liked the guys she dated, men who used her for sex and a good time, and we often fought because of it. My perfect world was crumbling, and in typical teenage fashion, I rebelled. Soon, I was ditching school, hanging out with a crowd of older kids and copying my mom’s behaviour. One night, when I was 13, a friend broke into a vacant house for sale and threw a rager. I drank until everything was a blur, and smoked cigarettes and pot for the first time. That night, I lost my virginity in one of the empty bedrooms upstairs.
All of my friends had dysfunctional families—some were abused, others had alcoholic parents—and we all wanted to escape. In 1987, when I was 13, five of us hatched a plan. We would steal a parked RV from a rental lot and run away to Vancouver. We had no money, but we were cocky enough to believe we could survive on our own. One of my friends, who was 16, said that she would turn tricks to support our group once we reached Vancouver.
In September, we found our target: a full-size, decked-out RV in a downtown lot. I was the smallest of the group, so I squeezed through the sunroof and unlocked the doors. We hopped inside and hot-wired the vehicle. After an hour and a half on the highway, we stopped in Banff and stole a credit card from an unlocked pizza delivery car. When we tried to use it to buy gas, the attendant became suspicious. After all, we were a group of unkempt teens driving an expensive motorhome. He called the police. As we hit the highway, driving through the Rockies, a fleet of cruisers began chasing us. With the cops on our tail, we got desperate, whipping stuff out of the back door, even a mattress and a passenger seat, to slow them down. Eventually, we swerved into a ditch. When we emerged, a phalanx of RCMP officers stood with loaded guns. We were promptly handcuffed, arrested and told to lie on a hill. Reporters showed up and snapped photos of us. The press compared our chase to something out of Smokey and the Bandit.
I spent two weeks in the Revelstoke jail before they let me off with a warning. When I got home, I was expelled from junior high, and my mom sent me to stay in a group home for troubled kids. At that point, I didn’t care. I felt displaced and unloved, and I thought I was invincible. One of my housemates was a 17-year-old girl who had been court-mandated to stay at the home. She lived with her pimp, she told me, and made enough money to support herself. “You’re already giving it away for free,” she said. “Why not get paid for it?” I thought she had a point.
Two weeks after I arrived at the group home, we ran away to her house, a duplex in the north end of Calgary. She asked me to sit outside for a moment while she went upstairs. Within minutes, I heard her screaming, then a man yelling, then my friend sobbing. I realized I was hearing her pimp beat her. I trusted my instincts and ran, hoping to hide out at a friend’s house. I never wanted to be hurt like that, and yet I still believed becoming a prostitute was my key to independence. I wanted to learn how.
Within a year, my relationship with my mother had all but evaporated. Occasionally, we got along, and I’d go out partying with her and her friends, picking up men in their 20s and 30s. More often, we fought. Our arguments always ended in tears, and soon I stopped returning home altogether. I couch-surfed at friends’ houses, sneaking in through windows and hiding in closets, where they’d bring me leftovers from their dinner. When friends couldn’t accommodate me, I hooked up with older men—usually bouncers from clubs, who were easy to seduce—in exchange for food and a place to stay. Mostly, I wanted love.
One night, I ran into two girls I knew at an LRT station. They were just a few years older than me and already veterans of the sex trade. When I told them I needed a place to crash, they offered to take me in. As we headed to their apartment, they stopped at a corner store and bought a cucumber and a pack of condoms. When we got to their place, they taught me the basics of prostitution: where to turn tricks, how to put a condom on without touching the shaft of a john’s penis and how much to charge—$80 for intercourse, $60 for oral sex and $100 for both. I was ready.
The next night, I headed to a club and met a man in his 20s. He looked like something out of Risky Business, with slicked-back hair and a black trench coat. He offered me a deal: for one night only—and 50 per cent of my profits—he could line me up with interested johns. I turned my first trick the next night in a musty attic above a restaurant in Chinatown. The john, a cook, had missing teeth and greasy black hair, his chef’s jacket covered with old food. He agreed to wear a condom. I lay down on a stained mattress, closed my eyes and tried to forget where I was, holding my breath to avoid his stench. It was over within minutes, and he handed me $100. I serviced four other men that night, and each time I tried to think of how good the money would make me feel. At the end of the night, I had made $500. I handed the Risky Business guy half of it and never spoke to him again.
I figured I could work as a prostitute without a pimp, or what’s known in the sex trade as renegading. I trolled the local pickup spots in Chinatown, making a name for myself. Soon I was getting between 10 and 20 calls a day. Within a few weeks I had an older friend rent out an apartment for me and a few other girls. It was a trick pad, where our johns could buy sex from us. We went shopping for furniture at IKEA, fumbling toward adulthood. I called my mom from time to time. She had no idea what I’d gotten myself into.
We made every john wear condoms; we always told each other where we’d be in case one of us didn’t come home from a job; and we tried to screen men over the phone, declining service to anyone who sounded sketchy. But we never really knew what we were in for. A friend of one of my regular johns once beat me because I refused to have sex with him while I was on my period. For weeks, we had a peeping tom who set up a stack of phone books outside the bedroom window where we serviced men. Once, a pimp stabbed and killed a man a few streets from our home and showed up at our place to hide out from the cops. We were fresh meat for predators—pimps, johns, drug dealers and pedophiles. I told myself that none of it mattered. We were making thousands of dollars a week. We could afford designer clothes and limo services. We made our way onto VIP lists at Calgary’s poshest clubs. We thought we ran the city.
It didn’t take long for the renegade act to end. We were all lured by traffickers, who offered us more money and more protection. For me, it happened at a Calgary club, where I met a man I’ll call Benjamin. I knew he was a pimp, but he seemed different from the sleazy older men who usually worked the trade. He was 25, with high cheekbones, a slim nose and a charming smile. I had just turned 17 and was instantly attracted to him. The night we met, he asked me questions about myself and showed me photos of his five-year-old daughter. I wasn’t used to kindness from pimps. He gave me his number, and for the next few weeks, we spoke on the phone every night. Benjamin was what we call a Romeo pimp—he wooed me, promising me comfort and safety and normalcy. He said that if I worked with him, we could make enough money to get out of the sex trade, find a house in the suburbs and live a quiet life together. The idea appealed to me. I missed my old life, and I wanted to feel loved again. I thought the only way to accomplish that was through Benjamin.
A few months after we met, he went to prison, serving a four-year sentence for living off the avails of prostitution and a few other charges. I saw our time apart as an opportunity to prove my dedication to him. I visited him in jail and told him I would wait for him. I saved my money and bought him a Mustang. One of my sugar daddies gave me $5,000 every month, which I used to cover Benjamin’s lawyer’s fees, and I filled his canteen account with hundreds of dollars at a time. My devotion paid off. When he got out in 1995, he promised that I would be the only girl he worked with. I’d be under his protection—and his control.
My new life with Benjamin cemented my place in the trade. We lived a glamorous lifestyle. We ordered $120 bottles of Dom Pérignon at restaurants and travelled all over the country. One time, in Kelowna, I got into a fight with another girl. Benjamin stepped in to defend me, and her pimp ended up shooting him in the leg and butt cheek. He used this incident to prove that I needed his protection. Soon after, Benjamin proposed to me. A few days before our wedding date, I got cold feet and asked to postpone it. In response, he smashed my head against our car window—not quite hard enough to break the glass or cut me up, but enough to leave me shaken. It was the first time he’d physically harmed me, and I felt trapped. I knew he’d come after me if I left. On New Year’s Eve in 1995, right as the countdown ended, we took our vows in front of a justice of the peace, with a friend of his from prison as our witness. I was 21 years old.
A few days later, I panicked and ran away to Kelowna, where I rented a hotel suite on Okanagan Lake. I returned after two weeks, hoping Benjamin would forgive me. He seemed to, at first. We had sex. Then, he snapped. I was still naked when he whipped me with a cable cord, its sharp edge piercing my thighs, back, chest and arms. By the end, my body was bruised and bleeding. I made a friend take photos in case I ever went missing. Benjamin, meanwhile, already had plans for us. He told me we were going to do the trafficking circuit across Canada—from Calgary to Vancouver to Kelowna to Edmonton. Our last stop would be Toronto, where Benjamin said we’d build our new home.
“New girls always attract more johns,” Benjamin told me when we began travelling the circuit. We stopped in several cities, sometimes for a couple of days, sometimes for weeks. I was unknown, young, desirable. Benjamin had done all this before, so he knew where to go—the strip clubs, escort agencies and hotels where johns would be trolling. At agencies and clubs, I had to pay two pimps: Benjamin and the owner. I preferred the streets, or the “high track,” because I could hustle more and get some distance from Benjamin. The work was different from what I’d done at my trick pad in Calgary, and so was the money: on the high track, I could charge $400 an hour. I was sold for sex several times a day, sometimes in back-to-back sessions, and my body constantly ached. By this point, Benjamin was regularly abusing me, both physically and emotionally. He’d punch and slap me, calling me “dirty whore” and “stinking bitch.”
The first night we arrived in Toronto, he took me down to Jarvis and Carlton, the city’s high track, and stood on the sidewalk while men solicited me. Within an hour, a john picked me up and drove me to the lakeshore for a car date. We arrived at a secluded spot near Cherry Beach. I reached to roll down the window, but it was locked. So was the door. I felt sick. Then, the john pulled out a butcher knife. “I’ve killed before,” he told me. “So do as I say.” I had encountered many violent johns before, but this guy was different. I believed him.
I was convinced I would die that night. I thought of my stepdad’s safety talks, and I knew what I had to do. I told the john that maybe I’d killed before too, in a desperate attempt to convince him we could be a team. I broke my own rules and kissed him on the mouth while his knife grazed my throat. His demeanour softened, but I kept up the façade. There were moments when he could see through my act and I’d have to up my game. To my surprise, he eventually drove me back to our pickup spot without an exchange of sex or money. I gave him a fake number to reach me.
Another time, a bouncer roughed me up at a club. Benjamin stabbed him seven times. He was arrested for attempted murder, but the charges were dropped. The bouncer didn’t show up for court. Benjamin held this over my head for years. “I almost died for you and I almost killed for you,” he’d say. “What other man will love you as much as me?” I thought I owed my life to him.
During the week, we lived normal lives. We rented a house in Brampton, and I bought Benjamin a Mercedes with my earnings. He would cook and clean the house. On Friday nights, I was jolted back to reality, when Benjamin would take me to the high track. He’d wait at a nearby strip club while I worked. If I wasn’t done by 4:30 a.m., he’d decide I was up to no good and hurt me. I was arrested twice for soliciting; I avoided jail by agreeing to attend court-mandated intervention programs. I never completed them.
I had been hardened by my experiences in the trade. Benjamin sometimes accused me of concealing money, though I was regularly bringing back as much as $1,000 a night. He still took all of my profits. And he was beating me daily. Over the course of a year, he broke my arm, a rib, my nose and a finger, and he chipped one of my teeth. I only went to the hospital to have my bones set, and I never told the doctors who hurt me. Benjamin always apologized. I always stayed.
One night, when I was 25, Benjamin and I got into an argument. When I threatened to leave him for a trafficker from North Preston’s Finest, a gang in B.C., he sat on my chest and repeatedly slugged me in the face. The beating continued, on and off, over the course of 12 hours. I weaved in and out of consciousness; he kept me alive just to hurt me again. As soon as I could stand, I ran outside, got in a taxi and fled to a women’s shelter. I thought I could use the night to rest and recuperate. When I arrived, my face was purple, my eardrum was damaged and my nose was broken (to this day, I can’t breathe out of one nostril). The shelter workers took me to the hospital and begged me not to go back home, but I already knew I would. I genuinely believed I was worthless without Benjamin, and I had nowhere else to go.
When I went home a few days later, he apologized again. We resumed our routine. And the violence continued. One summer, Benjamin recruited another girl. Jealous and tired of the abuse, I fled with my best friend, Samantha, who was also being trafficked. My mother had recently moved to Midland, and I left my dog, a Rottweiler, with her when I ran. To regain control of me, Benjamin drove to my mom’s house and stole the dog. He knew I’d go back to him if he took her, and I did. Samantha’s trafficker found her in Calgary, and made her return to Toronto. Our pimps told us we could no longer be friends.
During the 12 years I worked in the sex trade, I’d never been a regular drug user. But as Benjamin’s beatings got worse, I became desperate. One day, I called up a local coke dealer and bought a $30 bag. I needed to feel numb, to reduce my physical pain and mental anguish. I went to a bathroom at Mr. Tasty Burger near Church and Wellesley, carved out a line, rolled up a $100 bill and snorted the powder. The sensation was incredible, like I was floating. That $30 hit quickly turned into a $500-a-day habit. Within weeks, I had turned to crack for a stronger high.
A few months later, a friend told me she’d seen Benjamin buying drugs. I was shocked. He’d always told me how disgusting he thought addicts were. When I confronted him, he admitted that he’d been addicted to crack throughout our entire relationship. He’d used the money I’d earned to finance his habit. After that, we fuelled each other’s addictions and smoked together every day. Once, when I was high, I attacked one of my regular johns. I was traumatized from years of repeated violence, and delusional from drugs and lack of sleep. I tried stabbing him in the heart first, and then I jerked the knife into his arm. I thought he was trying to rape me. When I realized he was joking, I moistened a cloth and used my boot laces to create a makeshift tourniquet. I never saw him again. Another time, I bought dope from an older man who drove girls in the sex trade to their calls. I asked him to rent a motel room for me. When I woke up, he shoved a cloth dosed with chloroform over my face and raped me.
On my 27th birthday, I partied for three days straight without sleep. I ploughed through an eight-ball of crack, eating and drinking just enough to keep me alive. I realized I had hit rock bottom, and that if I didn’t stop, I would kill myself or be killed.
My mom had been calling for months, but I kept pushing her away. On that third night, I hopped into a cab and headed to Midland. I arrived on her doorstep at 4 a.m. When she opened her door, I was so tweaked out that I barely recognized her—I thought she was an imposter. I blurted out the truth in a single breath: I was a prostitute, I was on crack, and Benjamin was my trafficker. My mother stood still, shocked. She was in her first year of sobriety, and she was my old mom again, the mom I’d needed when I entered the sex trade. Without saying a word, she led me to her spare bedroom, laid me down and rocked me to sleep in her arms. She saved my life that night.
For the next few weeks, I hid out at my mom’s house. Withdrawal was bad, but it was manageable. I could see the end. Trying to extract myself from Benjamin’s stranglehold was much harder. I threw away all of my clothes and the phone numbers of other women in the trade—anything that reminded me of him. He found my mother’s number and begged me to come back. “I love you,” he’d coo in his sweetest voice. When he didn’t get the response he was after, he’d threaten me. My mom was quick to change her number. I soon heard he’d moved on and recruited a new breadwinner.
A month after leaving Benjamin, I entered rehab in Elliot Lake, a two-hour drive from Sudbury. In two cars, my family—my mother, cousins, aunts and uncles, and our Rottweiler—dropped me off. The rehab centre was the first structured space I had been in since my Grade 7 classroom. I tried to be diligent, attending group sessions and being candid about my addiction. I knew I had to turn my life around. Still, my past ruled me. If a man smiled at me, I assumed he wanted sex. Eventually I began to see men and boys as more than pimps and johns. Once, a few weeks into the program, I met a distraught teen boy in the smoking room. I gave him a hug—a genuine gesture of empathy. When counsellors heard about it, I was escorted to an office where four staffers sat in front of me in a row, detailing my offences: my backtalk, my attitude, my alleged fraternizing. I was asked to leave the centre.
After my abrupt exit from rehab, I almost gave up. I had to fight the urge to return to Benjamin. Instead, I moved back in with my mom. I realized the best way to keep myself sane was to stay occupied. I’d lost enough of my life. It was time to do something with the time I had left. I began studying, and in seven months I had earned enough credits to receive my high school diploma.
From there, I enrolled in a counselling program at George Brown College, where I learned how to define my abuse. Women in the sex trade are often pitted against each other, and I was hardened from those experiences, but I learned to open up to my classmates and formed the kinds of lasting friendships that I never thought I’d have. I became a counsellor and program manager at Streetlight Support Services, an exit program for women and children in the trade, where I was able to use my experience to help my clients. The idea was to treat women and girls without judging or punishing them. At Streetlight, I counselled more than 750 clients.
In 2007, I started a non-profit advocacy coalition, Sex Trade 101, with my friend and fellow survivor Bridget Perrier. Our objective is to educate the general public about the reality of the sex trade—that many of the women involved have been forced into it. My mom even volunteers with the coalition; our clients call her Grandma Rose. With the coalition, I helped lobby for new legislation for those in the trade. In 2010, I worked with MP Joy Smith to advocate for Bill C-268, which sought to amend the Criminal Code to impose mandatory minimum sentences for traffickers of underage girls. Later that year, I helped the Crown form its argument against the Bedford challenge to decriminalize pimps, and I testified in the lower court. The case went to the Supreme Court, which determined that prostitution laws in Canada were outdated. The feds were given a year to implement the new law. During that year, I was an expert witness before Senate and parliamentary committees. I pushed for the Nordic model, which criminalizes pimps and johns and decriminalizes independent sellers of sex. The law, Bill C-36, passed in 2014.
I’m now 43 years old, and living in downtown Toronto with my rescue cat, Halo. I’m in a loving long-distance relationship, but I’m taking it slow; I still have trouble trusting men. I’ve spent the past few years teaching social justice courses in the police foundations program at Humber College, where I educate future cops. In one of my courses, Contemporary Social Problems, I lecture on the sex trade, focusing on the physiological and sociological impact it has on its victims, how young women are coerced into prostitution, and the telltale signs of trafficking. I also work with police departments across Canada, consulting on sex trafficking cases. I’m often able to draw on my own experiences.
I only saw Benjamin once after my escape. Years after I left, I was invited to a church event. I knew Benjamin and his daughter would be there, but I mustered up the courage to attend. When I saw him, I felt nothing—no love, no obligation, no pity, no fear. At that moment, I knew I was free.The Armoury Shoe Collection | We are excited to share the making of and background behind The Armoury Shoe collection.
The Armoury Gloucester Wingtip Oxford in Black Calf
Hidden and out-of-sight behind the things we love are social relationships that went into making projects possible. There’s the relationship between the client and his tailor, the artisans laboring together at a workbench, and the collaborations between companies. We here at The Armoury feel fortunate to be able to work with some of the best makers in the world. Over the years, we’ve leveraged those relationships to bring our customers new and distinctive things – tailoring inspired by suits we’ve admired in Florence and London, but produced for us by our partners Ring Jacket in Japan. Or lighter weight, Japanese chambray shirts from The Real McCoys, updated with a new collar and raised armholes so you can wear them with anything from jeans to tailored trousers.
Our Latest Collaboration This month marks a special milestone for The Armoury, as we’re releasing one of our most exciting collaborations to date – a house line of shoes we’ve been working on for two years. The shoes are produced for us in Northampton, the heart of Northamptonshire in the East Midlands of England, which has traditionally been the home of high-end, Goodyear-welted footwear production. The designs and lasts, however, were made for us by our bespoke artisan partner Yohei Fukuda. The project brings together two things we love - traditional, English craftsmanship with a Japanese sense of style, design, and engineering.
The Armoury Pedder Captoe Oxford in Black Calf
The Armoury Pedder Captoe Oxford in Mocha Calf
In some ways, the collaboration was rather natural. Fukuda-san got his start in the shoe trade in England, first studying at the esteemed cordwainers’ college Tresham Institute, then moving on to work in the bespoke departments at G.J. Cleverley and Edward Green. There is a clear English sensibility in his work, particularly in how you can see the legacy of early-20th century, high-society British shoemaker Nikolaus Tuczek in some of his lasts. The slightly dropped, soft chisel toe was Tuczek’s signature, which Fukuda-san carries forward in many of his styles today.
Inspired Design
The design process was sparked some years ago when our co-founder Mark Cho found a vintage last in a dusty archive. The old, carved-out wooden block, probably originally made in the early-to-mid 20th century, had a soft, almond toe. Mark gave the weather-beaten last to Fukuda-san, who used it as the starting point. Chipping away at the toe and sanding away the volume, he gave the toes a soft, chiseled edge and sleeker profile. The idea was to create something that would be reminiscent of mid-century racecars, with a low-slung silhouette and sweeping lines blowing back towards the shoe’s quarters. To compensate for the shallower profile, Fukuda-san widened the ball of the foot to ensure comfort.
With the last made, we began working with Fukuda-san on a set of designs and patterns, which we created from scratch. For our debut, we’re releasing a small, tightly edited line of classic town oxfords in three styles – a wingtip, a semi-brogue, and a cap toe, each offered in espresso brown and black, making them perfect accompaniments for either business suits or casual tailoring. The idea was to keep things classic and conservative, while relying on the silhouette and some subtle detailing to give the shoes their distinctiveness. For our second iteration, we've added the new split-toe derby model, The Jubilee, in a plough suede. The Jubilee model has a soft leather oiled sole with open channel stitching and a 360 degree welt, for a sportier look. We have also taken the same sole and applied it to our existing Wyndham model, for our new suede maracca option. Our third new shoe is a rich, dark leaf calf color for the full brogue Gloucester model.
From Left to Right: The Armoury Wyndham (with new soft oiled leather sole) in Maracca Suede, The Armoury Jubilee in Brown Suede, The Armoury Gloucester in Dark Leaf Calf
Thoughtful Elements
For example, our oxfords are all imitation brogues and cap toes. Meaning, instead of having the wing and cap made from separate pieces of leather, the decorative detail is purely done with stitching. This design is harder to execute, as it requires higher quality hides that are unblemished across a larger surface area (something a manufacturer would otherwise be able to cover up with smaller pieces of leather), but it also achieves three things. First, the shoes are immediately more comfortable, as the uppers are comprised of just one piece of soft, flexible leather, rather than multiple pieces stacked on top of each other. Second, without the separate piece of leather across the front, the creasing across the vamp – that area that runs across your forefoot – will be less pronounced over time. Third, imitation brogues and cap toes simply look sleeker, which we felt was in keeping with our desired low, racers’ profile.
Finally, with all the talent available in Northampton, we wanted the shoes to be finished in a way that would honor the rest of the design process. The soles are made from the best material possible with two sole options: oak bark leather featuring closed channel stitching and soft oiled leather with open channel stitching. To give the uppers some visual depth, we’ve burnished the leather at the heel cups and toes. And for presentation, our friend Mr. Slowboy illustrated our shoebox labels. As each of our shoes are named after a special landmark in Hong Kong, the birthplace of The Armoury, the illustrations show that place on the outside of the box.
The Armoury Shoe Collection Available Now
Clothes are only as good as the talent that went into making them, and we’re proud to present our customers with what we think is some of the best talent in the world. This is traditional Northampton craftsmanship, constructed to the highest level of detailing possible, but with a design made by one of the best shoemakers in the world, Yohei Fukuda. You can find The Armoury’s shoes at our stores and online later this month.
Close up of The Armoury Jubilee, with a double-stitched front seam
The Armoury Jubilee in Plough Suede
The soft, oiled leather sole with open channel stitching on the Jubilee
The new Armoury Gloucester in Dark Leaf Calf
The Gloucester with oak bark leather sole and closed channel stitching
The new Armoury Wyndham in Maracca Suede
The oiled sole on the new Maracca Suede Wyndham shoe
Next (arrow right) Previous (arrow left) CloseSilk Road 2 moderator Defcon reported in a forum post that hackers have used a transaction malleability exploit to hack the marketplace. The hackers stole over 88,000 4474.26 bitcoins worth $2,747,000, emptying the site’s escrow account.
UPDATE – Fixed estimate.
The site used a central escrow service to send bitcoins from buyers to sellers. The hackers exploited the transaction malleability bug – essentially a |
Limited (TASL) have joined hands to set up a facility here to co-produce Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopter fuselages and other aerostructures.Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday laid the foundation stone of Tata Boeing Aerospace Limited (TBAL) at the aerospace Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Adibatla on the city outskirts.The facility will also deal in integrated systems in aerospace.The Hyderabad production facility will eventually be the sole producer of AH-64 fuselage globally.The AH-64 Apache is the world's most advanced multi-role combat helicopter and used by the US forces as well as many other countries, including India.Mr Parrikar termed the joint venture one of the initial big foreign direct investment in defence and aerospace under the government's 'Make in India' initiative.He said things would be speeded up during the current financial year and hoped that there will be more such projects by the end of 2016-17.Boeing and TASL last year signed a framework agreement to collaborate in aerospace and defense manufacturing and potential integrated systems development opportunities, including unmanned aerial vehicles.TASL, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons, is already on contract to manufacture aerostructures for Boeing's CH-47 Chinook and AH-6i helicopters.TASL already has partnership with major players like Ruag, Cobham, Pilatus, Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky and Airbus.Boeing is the world's largest aerospace company and leading manufacturer of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems.Authorities say Gregory Salyer was arrested on suspicion of possessing a weapon in an area of the airport where it is not allowed. (Photo courtesy OCSD)
— Authorities have identified a Kentucky man who allegedly sought to bring three military artillery fuses and a grenade in his checked bag on a flight from John Wayne Airport.
Gregory Salyer, 23, was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon after the devices were discovered by Transportation Security Administration staff ran the luggage through baggage screening, according to Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Hallock.
Salyer – who was recently discharged from the military – was also found with a small knife in his carry-on bag along with about 300 steroid and Adderall pills, according to Hallock.
Authorities evacuated Gate 21 after Salyer allegedly checked the items in luggage aboard Frontier Airlines flight 264 to Denver. Salyer and the rest of the flight’s passengers were escorted off the plane, Hallock said.
All of the devices – including the sting ball grenade, which projects small rubber pellets when detonated – were in safe condition with no threat of detonation, Hallock said. Nothing suspicious was found in the suspect’s carry-on bag.
Salyer was arrested on suspicion of placing explosives in a checked bag, possessing prohibited weapons in an airport, possession of controlled substances and possession of stolen property, according to Hallock. Salyer is being held on $500,000 bail.
Following the arrest, authorities lifted the evacuation of Terminal C and the airport returned to full operation around 3:30 p.m.
(©2013 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)Delete ALL the invoices or an INDIVIDUAL invoice / shipment or delete ALL of the credit memos on an order. Helpful for when you make a mistake on an order. Now with the ability to delete an order aswell as restore a deleted order.
Adds buttons to orders page, invoice page, shipment page and also the credit memo page.
- Turn off the buttons in your admin
- Turn on or off the comment of which user deleted the item from the database
- Delete individual Shipment or Invoice
- Delete All Invoices / Shipments / Creditmemos associated with a single order
- Buttons disable if you are unable to use them
- If the order is pending / pending payment, you will be able to edit the order
- Reset order button - deletes ALL creditmemos, invoices and shipments on an order and resets it back to pending payment
- Buttons disabled if there is nothing to delete
- Give access to the delete button based on a users role
- Delete an entire order
- Restore a deleted order from a quote
- *(New) Edit Customer E-mail Address
Coded to Magento best practices
Single payment, single server license
None encrypted, open source coding
Bug fixing support if required during installation Coded to Magento best practicesSingle payment, single server licenseNone encrypted, open source codingBug fixing support if required during installation
Compatible with versions
Community Edition Professional Edition Enterprise Edition 1.3x - 1.9x 1.8x - 1.11x 1.7x - 1.14x
It is always recommended that you backup your database before removing records.
CURRENT RELEASE 8.0.8 (SUPEE 6788 Compatible)
$40.50
instant downloadThis project is being co-directed and produced by women. We strive to increase representation from all backgrounds. Our cast and crew are diverse which we feel brings even more comedy to our viewers. We also hope to highlight comedic talent from LA's best comedy theaters.
PRofessionals is pilot presentation about an underdog PR company that is hired by the State Senator's daughter to win her class election. In our pilot episode, Gabe and Roland are sent to the school to campaign, while Ryan stays behind and is determined to sell Sheila's busted car.
This is a fast paced comedy gives a new twist on PR and presents its audience with fresh faces from LA's comedy scene. Our lead cast has performed in hundreds of sketch/improv/standup shows in Los Angeles and have worked together for years. We've spent most of 2017 developing this show to make it the best it can be for all of you.
Our team is passionate about making comedy! We feel like this show is something new that hasn't been seen. The possibilites with PR are endless and we know that our unique voices will make audiences laugh. This episode is quite a challenge but we know that it needs to be made.
We have budgeted this pilot presentation to make the best possible episode we can. Our initial episode requires school locations, a full crew, amazing editing and sound design so we can bring our vision to you. Your contributions can make this happen.Secretary of State John Kerry John Forbes KerryOvernight Defense: White House eyes budget maneuver to boost defense spending | Trump heads to Hanoi for second summit with Kim | Former national security officials rebuke Trump on emergency declaration 58 ex-national security officials rebuke Trump over emergency declaration Ex-national security officials to issue statement slamming Trump's emergency declaration: WaPo MORE is taking an unusually harsh tone against the Israeli government, warning about recent language that appeared to undermine the prospects of side-by-side Israeli and Palestinian states.
The United States’ top diplomat notably declined to unequivocally rule out blocking any action at the United Nations Security Council on the issue on Sunday, suggesting the possibility of a radical move late in the Obama administration, albeit a slim one.
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“If it’s a biased and unfair and a resolution calculated to delegitimize Israel, we’ll oppose it. Obviously, we will. We always have,” Kerry said at the Saban Forum in Washington.
“But it’s getting more complicated now, because there is a building sense of” frustration, he said, due to recent comments by Israeli figures.
For years, the U.S. has used its veto power at the U.N. Security Council to oppose efforts targeting Israel.
The Obama administration had last week appeared to rule out support for any move at the U.N. to pressure Israel to reach a final agreement on a so-called two-state solution. A major reversal still appears unlikely.
But Kerry’s comments hint at the exasperation in the Obama administration and fears about emboldening of Israeli hard-liners as President-elect 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 prepares to take office.
“We have always stood against any imposition of a, quote, final status solution and against any resolution that is unfair and biased against Israel, and we will continue,” Kerry said. “We don’t support that.”
“There are, however, other people out there who, because of this building frustration — you need to know there are any number of countries talking about bringing resolutions to the United Nations.”
Kerry’s criticism of Israeli officials’ remarks was especially severe.
“Out of the mouths of ministers in the current government have come profoundly disturbing statements publicly,” he said.
Kerry specially called out Education Minister Naftali Bennett, a pro-settlement politician who in the wake of Trump’s victory declared that “the era of the Palestinian state is over.”
Israel, Kerry warned, was “heading to a place of danger.”
Earlier in the day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied that settlements were hindering efforts toward peace.
“If Bibi says the settlements aren’t the cause of this conflict, I agree,” Kerry responded. “They’re not the cause of it."
"But... if you have a whole bunch of people who are specifically, strategically locating outposts and settlements in areas that make it impossible to have a contiguous Palestinian state, they’re doing it for the specific purpose of not having a peace,” he said. “That affects the peace.
“That greatly complicates the whole topic of peace.”If you follow the news, you know that new casinos have been opening and more are on the way. You also know that Las Vegas is on pace to break its all-time visitation record this year. Everything seems to be getting back to normal, except that room rates remain at low levels. Actually, not just low, but amazingly low.
Aside from the December holiday period, July is the best month of the year for room bargains, as the casinos compete for tourists who aren’t already committed to family vacations elsewhere. Hence, the Las Vegas Advisor always does a big July canvassing to see just how low the rates can go.
This year’s audit of 94 hotel-casinos turned up 52 properties offering rates of $50 or less. Of those 52, 40 had rates of $40 or less, 28 had rates of $30 and under, and eight—Golden Gate, Palace Station, Circus Circus, the Quad, Fiesta Rancho, Texas Station, Riviera and El Cortez—were below $20, which is double last year’s total in that category.
Pretty amazing results, but it gets better. While you’d expect that the good deals would all be at Downtown and locals digs, that’s not the case: Several good rates were found on or near the Strip, including $18 at the Quad and Circus Circus; $19 at Riviera; $22 at Hooters; $23 at Wild Wild West; $25 at LVH, Excalibur, and Flamingo; $26 at Harrah’s; $27 at Stratosphere; $29 at Luxor; $37 at Monte Carlo; $44 at New York-New York; and $46 at Planet Hollywood.
Want more? Check out the higher-end properties: Palms $50, Tropicana $50, Hard Rock $51, The Mirage $60, Palms Place $62, Mandalay Bay $64, Vdara $79, Caesars Palace $82, MGM Grand Signature $84, Aria $95, THEhotel $96, Cosmopolitan $101 and even the ultra-posh Nobu at $149.
As good as these low rates are, there are even better deals to be had when you consider some of the bundled offers that include resort credits and other add-ons. Bally’s had a $29 base rate with $20 in daily (as in, yes, you get them every day of your stay) food and drink credits. Apply the credits and that’s a $9 base rate! Rio had $34 with $20 in credits and Paris had $50 with $25. Remarkable!
Keep in mind that these examples are the absolute lowest rates found, even if they were available for a single day in July, so you may not be able to duplicate the numbers exactly. Also, the rates don’t include resort fees where applicable (which is most places), so the bottom line for most is higher than listed. As an example, the best base rate of all that we found was $9 at Golden Gate, which turned into $33 after the tax, resort fee, and tax on the resort fee, but that’s still mighty low. I mean, try finding that at a Motel 6 in Victorville.
Anthony Curtis is the publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor and LasVegasAdvisor.com, a monthly newsletter and website dedicated to finding the best deals in town.A clear majority of the country thinks the legal status of same-sex marriage should be the same in Alabama as it is in New York, according to a poll released Thursday.
The latest national poll from Quinnipiac University showed that 56 percent of American voters believe the Constitution should determine whether or not gay nuptials are legal, and that the legal status should be the same in all 50 states. Only 36 percent believe that individual states should make their own laws governing same-sex marriage.
President Barack Obama still maintains that the issue should ultimately be left up to the states instead of making it a constitutional right, although he said last month that he couldn’t imagine a state-level gay marriage ban would be in line with the Constitution.
The poll also found that 50 percent said they support same-sex marraige, while 41 percent said they are opposed. In last month’s Quinnipiac poll, 47 percent said it should be legal compared with 43 percent who said they were opposed.I got bored and felt like drawing something, and my brain thought "What would a hippogriff look like in the world of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic?"And I was like "I dunno, Brain. Let's find out."So I pulled up a couple vectors of Gilda for reference and off I went.For those of you not familiar with the myth of the hippogriff, it's a creature similar to a griffin, but instead of being a half-eagle/half-lion, it's half-eagle/half-horse. (or in this case half-pony)So basically I took most of the eagle parts from Gilda and drew them with pony parts instead of lion parts.There are other differences which I will point out shortly.One being that I made her look friendlier than Gilda. (although that's not difficult, lol)Another being I gave her pony ears. I figure that would add to the pony-like aspect of the hippogriff.Also, I gave her the smaller pegasus wings instead of the huge eagle wings the griffins have.And lastly, since she has a pony rump, she has a cutie mark. Since this is just a random doodle and not a specific character in particular, I gave her two feathers for a cutie mark.Maybe her name can be "Goose Down" or something like that. lol XDSo yeah... I guess this is what happens when a griffin and a pony have a baby.So, from our perspective down on Earth, the sun and moon appear to be the same size during a total solar eclipse — which is why the sun gets completely blocked by the moon.
The sun’s diameter is 400 times wider than the moon’s, but the sun also happens to be 400 times farther away.
The penumbra is the region on Earth that is partially darkened by the moon’s shadow. Any region within the moon’s penumbra will experience a partial eclipse.
The umbra is the moon’s shadow that is cast on Earth. Any region that falls within the umbra’s path — known as the path of totality — will experience a total eclipse.
A solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, covering the sun and casting a shadow on Earth.
For a few spectacular moments on Monday, Aug. 21, nature will hold its breath: the skies will darken, winds will calm, the temperature will drop and birds will go quiet. The reason? A total solar eclipse. Here’s what you need to know about this rare astronomical event.
What will you see?
The path of totality, the region which will get a total eclipse, stretches across the U.S. from the northwest to the southeast. About 12 million people live directly along this path, and another 200 million are within a day’s drive (including many Canadians).
Those in the penumbra are still likely to be treated to a partial eclipse (weather permitting). The penumbra is wide, stretching north to Canada, and south to Central America and parts of South America.
There are partial eclipses every year — that’s when the alignment of the moon is slightly off and does not fully obstruct the sun.
Total solar eclipses are more rare. They happen about once every year and a half, but since the moon’s shadow is relatively small, not many people get to see them. There hasn’t been a total solar eclipse across the entire U.S. since 1918.NYPD Wants $42,000 To Turn Over Documents Related To Discharges Of Officers' Firearms
from the The-Man-sticks-it-to-the-public...-again dept
The NYPD is jerking around FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) requesters again. Usually, the NYPD just pretends it's the CIA (somewhat justified, considering its hiring of former government spooks) and claims everything is so very SECRET it couldn't possibly be edged out between the multiple exemptions it cites in its refusals.
It tried the usual deflectionary tactics with Shawn Musgrave, who's seeking the department's mandatory reports on firearms discharges by its officers. After five months of promising to get to his request, the NYPD finally sent out a response letter denying him access to every document he requested, citing a plethora of FOIL exemptions.
The NYPD FOIL office has not claimed inability to find the requested 24-hour and 90-day reports following firearm discharges for 2010 through 2014. Rather, the NYPD errantly claims that these documents are exempt from release under FOIL for a variety of reasons.
All of the cited exemptions are categorically incorrect. No less an authority than the Supreme Court of the State of New York has ruled as much in a case that is virtually identical to the present request.
In January 2009, the New York Civil Liberties Union submitted a FOIL request to the NYPD for 24-hour and 90-day shooting incident reports from 1997 through 2008 (see http://www.nyclu.org/case/nyclu-v-nypd-seeking-access-police-shooting-incident-reports). As you can see from my original request, these are precisely the same documents I seek.
The NYPD rejected that request, claiming that such reports were exempt from disclosure pursuant to:
1) Public Officers Law 87(2)(a), New York Civil Rights Law 50-a(1);
2) Public Officers Law 87(2)(b) and 89(2);
3) Public Officers Law 87(2)(e)(i-iv);
4) Public Officers Law 87(2)(f);
5) Public Officers Law 87(2)(g);
Conveniently, these are the same exemptions by which the NYPD FOIL office has rejected my present request. I will allow Judge Goodman's ruling in the NYCLU case (see http://www.nyclu.org/files/releases/NYCLU%20v%20%20NYPD%20Shooting%20FOIL%20decision%202-14-11.pdf) to address the invalidity of the NYPD's response in my own case:
"The issue is whether the 24-hour and 90-day firearms discharge incident reports are categorically exempt from disclosure under FOIL. After a careful review of the NYPD Firearms Discharge Manual containing the 28 section form for the 24-hour and 90-day firearms discharge incident report, the Court finds that these reports are not categorically exempt."
It is estimated that the copying fee for preparation of the requested copies, including redaction and copying thereof, is $42,000. Preparation of the copies will commence upon receipt of payment of in the form of a check or money order in the amount of $42,000, payable to New York City Police Department.
While the NYPD may be (purposefully) terrible at remembering pertinent FOIL-related court decisions, Musgrave isn't. He quickly responded with this Having been reminded that the Supreme Court of its home state had previously said it couldn't do the very thing it was attempting to do, the NYPD's FOIL team regrouped. A month later it finally admitted Musgrave's appeal had been accepted. Three weeks after that, it told him it could have all the documents the state's highest court had declared any citizen could access... for the price of a late model SUV The response doesn't explainthe NYPD reached this dollar amount. It simply states that itthe dollar amount the NYPD will be charging and that nothing will be done until the money is in its hands.Having failed to discourage Musgrave with its bogus exemption ploy, the NYPD has gone for another favorite technique of open records request-resistant agencies: pricing requesters out of the market. Musgrave will certainly be appealing this estimate, but until forced to back down by higher authorities, the NYPD has successfully managed to evade yet another records request.
Filed Under: fees, foia, nypd
Companies: muckrockTalk about your thinking different.
As everybody knows, the natural order of things is to think of Apple as the hip one, the confident one, the hero, the maverick, the iconoclast, the Marlboro cowboy with a hard drive. Not only has it been so since 1984, when the new Macintosh was famously portrayed as a tool of liberation from the tyranny of the PC "Big Brother," it's been that way since Kevin Costner walked his dog at his beach house because his Apple Lisa (with its proto-mouse) let him work from home all ruggedly and handsomely sunburnished and windblown.
Title: Island of Misfit Toys
Marketer: Verizon
Agency: McCann Erickson, New York
Apple as object of ridicule -- it almost seems to defy the laws of physics.
And, of course, for the last three years, Apple savoir faire has been embodied by Justin Long, who is the quiet and unassuming "Mac" alongside the dumpy, nerdy blowhard "PC," played by John Hodgman. Mac doesn't wish to seem superior, but PC just brings his insecure buffoonishness on himself.
That's how we understand the world. But now everything is topsy turvy, because suddenly Apple is on the defensive.
First came the Windows campaign, which featured attractive "laptop hunters" shopping for computers with all sorts of Mac-like capabilities at low, low, low PC prices. (Apple cried foul on the grounds that all MacBooks don't cost as much as a car...) Then came Verizon's "There's a map for that" ad, which ridiculed the iPhone's spotty 3G coverage on AT&T vis-à-vis Verizon's superior network. (AT&T cried foul, claiming misleading mapping.)
Then came the $100 million introduction of the Droid, Verizon and Motorola's answer to the iPhone on AT&T, and a campaign almost entirely devoted to the shortcomings of Apple's already iconic smartphone.
That began with a cunning McGarry Bowen teaser employing a very Apple-ish all-white background to inform us -- without mentioning any names -- about the many things the iPhone cannot do. The spot was called "iDon't." ("iDon't have a real keyboard; iDon't customize; iDon't run widgets; iDon't allow open development.") Yowch. And don't expect any holiday truce, either. The group-pummeling of Apple will even take on a Christmas theme.
Hey, look! In that new commercial from McCann Erickson, New York,... it's the Island of Misfit Toys from the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer holiday special! Look at all those mistakes from Santa's Workshop, exiled for their various manufacturing defects. There's Bird Fish -- a swimming bird! There's the sinking boat, and the unflyable plane and Trainer the train, with the square wheels on his caboose! Oh, and there's...
... the iPhone.
"What are you doing here?" asks the spotted elephant. "You can download apps and browse the web."
"Yeah," says Misfit Dolly, "people will love you!" But when the disputed 3G coverage map appears above the iPhone, all the other toys exclaim, "Ohhh."
"You're gonna fit right in here!" giggles the unflyable plane.
Double yowch. The competition has identified some profound weaknesses in the iPhone and is exploiting them mercilessly -- precisely as Apple has mercilessly had its way with the PC for decades. It is, of course, perfectly understandable. Standard operating procedure, really. But come on, admit it: Doesn't it all seem weird? It's like the lady from "1984" tripping as she tries to throw the hammer, or catching Justin Long picking his nose and eating the boogers.
Apple as object of ridicule -- it almost seems to defy the laws of physics.
You know, like those ones from...
... Newton.About
We are really excited to launch our first project on Kickstarter. It is the first solution to create, share and watch virtual reality with your iPhone. Everybody knows that the iPhone 6 (and the new iPhone 6S) has an incredible camera and processing power. With Shot we are trying to add the last ingredient to make possible capturing immersive videos and photos, the ability to "see more".
In summary, Shot is a lens attachment composed of two lenses that increase the field of view of your phone’s camera, and an app that allows you to easily record and share immersive content.
It is as easy as opening the app, slide the lens attachment and start recording and sharing immersive videos and photos in one shot. The interface is similar to other apps like Instagram or Vine. Combined with a virtual reality headset, the Shot app allows you to look around and experience your photos and videos in a totally different way.
Shot is compatible with the new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus
For further press inquiries, email hello@shot.io
Create. Watch. Discover. All in a single app. Follow your friends and share your creations with them. Scroll through your friend’s photos and videos or discover popular content around the world. To watch the content the app includes several visualization modes:
Preview mode : this is the first view mode you’ll see while scrolling through content. You’ll be able to look around in the photos and videos by moving and tilting the phone.
: this is the first view mode you’ll see while scrolling through content. You’ll be able to look around in the photos and videos by moving and tilting the phone. Full screen mode : you’ll be able to look around a single photo or video in the same way as in preview mode but at full screen.
: you’ll be able to look around a single photo or video in the same way as in preview mode but at full screen. Full screen mode with VR headset: this is the full immersive experience that requires you to put your phone in a VR headset. You’ll be able to look around by moving your head.
A Cardboard compatible headset is included with every lens kit so you can experience the VR Full screen mode whenever you want.
Visualization modes
Once we realised that we could use the phone cameras to create a virtual reality camera, we felt that we had to do it. Our goal was to build something affordable and really easy to use. You take a picture or record a video and the app does all the heavy lifting under the hood to create immersive experiences that you can watch in a virtual reality headset like the Google Cardboard.
Not every fisheye lens is suitable to capture immersive virtual reality content. We spent months trying different configurations until we found the right one. We know you will not be carrying your phone with the lens attachment on it all the time, so it had to be very easy to slide in and out. It is also really important that the lenses are perfectly aligned with the phone’s cameras. To meet both requirements we’ve iterated through several prototypes
CAPTURING IMMERSIVE PHOTOS (360º)
In order to capture a 360 degrees photo the app takes one photo with each camera and merges them into a high resolution panorama in a transparent way to you.
CAPTURING IMMERSIVE VIDEO (235º)
The iPhone can't record video using the two cameras at the same time so it is impossible to create a 360º video the same way we do it with photos. The immersive video created with Shot covers 235 degrees using just one of the cameras. The total available field of view for videos is the equivalent to looking around while you are sitting on a chair.
WHY YOU NEED SPECIAL LENSES
The field of view of an ordinary mobile camera is not wide enough to capture immersive content. That’s why we have created a lens attachment for iPhone 6/6S and 6/6S Plus. Shot’s lens attachment modifies how the light enters the camera sensors and increases the horizontal field of view of each camera up to 235 degrees from the original 75 degrees.
Expanding the FOV of the iPhone 6
We have worked together as software engineers for several years for a well known social network startup in Spain. Our passion for virtual reality and building cool products led us to start this project on Kickstarter.
We started this company with the vision of making virtual reality content creation accessible to everyone, not just professional filmmakers.
Earlier this year when we started noticing how all the pieces lined up to make Shot possible we wondered why no one was doing it already. In a way, our vision goes in the opposite direction of the industry efforts, we want to create something affordable and easy to use instead of an expensive device composed of several cameras.
We will use the funds raised to pay for tooling and actual production costs.
William Viana & Jorge Lería working on something that looks important
The Shot lens attachment and app for iPhone are just the first steps in building our company. We are already planning the Android version of the app and a compatible lens attachment. We have big plans for the next generation virtual reality headsets but we need your help to keep innovating and to achieve our vision.
Since February 2015, we moved from an idea to a functional prototype that works really well with iPhone. We cleared the most difficult part but now we need your help to take it into production.
Cardboard, iPhone 6 and Shot lens attachmentLine 3.0.0 and them had been newly consecrated by common effort, and by.common sacrifice in
Line 3.0.1 a righteous cause."—"The Times."
Line 3.0.2 Her hand was still on her swordhilt, the spur was still on her heel,
Line 3.0.3 She had not cast her harness of grey war-dinted steel;
Line 3.0.4 High on her red-slashed charger, beautiful, bold, and browned,
Line 3.0.5 Bright-eyed out of the battle, the young Queen rode to be crowned.
Line 3.0.6 And she came to the old Queen's presence, in the ball of our thousand years,
Line 3.0.7 In the hall of the five free nations that are peers among their peers.
Line 3.0.8 Royal she gave the greeting, loyal she bowed the head,
Line 3.0.9 Crying, ''Crown me, my mother;" and the old Queen stood and said:
Line 3.0.10 "How can I crown thee further? I know whose standard flies
Line 3.0.11 "Where the clean surge takes the Leeuwin, or the notched Kaikouras rise:
Line 3.0.12 "Blood of our foes on thy bridal, and speech of our friends in thy month,
Line 3.0.13 '"How can I crown thee further, oh, Queen of the' Sovereign South?
Line 3.0.14 "Let the five free nations witness."' But the young Queen answered swift—
Line 3.0.15 '"It shall be crown of our crowning to hold our crown for a gift.
Line 3.0.16 "In the days when our folk were feeble, thy sword made sure our lands,
Line 3.0.17 "Wherefore we come in power to beg our crown at thy hands.".
Line 3.0.18 And the old Queen raised and kissed her, and the jealous circlet prest,
Line 3.0.19 Roped with the pearls of the Northland, and red with the gold of the West;
Line 3.0.20 Lit with her land's own opats, levin-hearted, alive,
Line 3.0.21 And the five-starred cross above them for sign of the nations -five.
Line 3.0.22 So it was done in the presence, in the hall of our thousand years,
Line 3.0.23 In the face of the five free nations that have no peer but their peers
Line 3.0.24 And the young Queen out of the Southland kneeled down at the old Queen's knee,
Line 3.0.25 And asked for a mother's blessing on the excellent years to be.
Line 3.0.26 And the old Queen stooped in the stillness, where the jewelled head drooped low—
Line 3.0.27 "Daughter no more, but sister, and doubly daughter so,
Line 3.0.28 "Mother of many princes and child of the child I bore,
Line 3.0.29 "What good thing shall I wish thee that I have not wished before?
Line 3.0.30 "Shall I give thee delight in dominion, rash pride of thy setting forth?
Line 3.0.31 "Nay, we be women together; we know what that lust is worth!
Line 3.0.32 "Peace on thy utmost borders, and strength on a road untrod;
Line 3.0.33 "These are dealt or-diminisbed at the secret will of God.
Line 3.0.34 "I have swayed troublous councils, I am wise in terrible things,
Line 3.0.35 "Father and son and grandson, I have known the heart of the kings.
Line 3.0.36 "Shall I give thee my sleepless wisdom, or the gift all wisdom above,
Line 3.0.37 "Ay, we be women together; I give thee thy people's love—
Line 3.0.38 "Tempered, august, abiding, reluctant of prayers or vows,
Line 3.0.39 "Eager in face of peril, as thine for thy mother's house.
Line 3.0.40 "God requite thee, my sister, through the strenuous years to be,Six games into the season, it was clear that Nets Coach Avery Johnson was already looking for spots where a win meant more than just a win.
He calls them “breakthrough moments” — those seminal games the team can use as a springboard, toward where it thinks it can be, toward where the Boston Celtics currently are.
So Thursday night’s matchup was more than just an exercise to show off the Nets’ plush new arena in front of a national television audience. It was that rare early chance for a statement.
“Sure, we’ve had some wins,” Johnson said before the game. “We need breakthroughs.”
The Nets certainly made something clear with their 102-97 win over Boston at a sold-out Barclays Center on Thursday night. Chants of “Brooklyn!” reverberated. The season may be in its infancy, but the Nets finally laid claim to their home turf after those skeletal final seasons in New Jersey.
Photo
“It really hasn’t been like that for a long time here,” center Brook Lopez said.
The Nets withstood a second-half Celtic rally to win their fourth in a row, the team’s longest winning streak since March 2011. Two late baskets by their marquee off-season acquisition, Joe Johnson, provided a fitting resolution in a tough early-season test.
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“We showed a lot of resiliency in the fourth quarter,” Johnson said. “We were able to get some stops down the stretch.”Marvel Comics has revealed that Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez will pilot Iron Man into All-New, All-Different Marvel this fall.
As announced during today's Special Edition NYC convention, the creative duo will relaunch the armored Avenger into the post-Secret Wars Marvel Universe with Invincible Iron Man #1. Bendis and Marquez previously collaborated on Ultimate Comics Spider-Man and All-New X-Men. This will be the first Iron Man solo title for either creator.
During a panel at Special Edition, Bendis touted many of the series' selling points, including a new transformative armor and love interest. Bendis' comments also confirm that Tony Stark will remain as Iron Man after Secret Wars. "We're tasked with taking the crown jewel of the Disney/Marvel empire. We're doing a new armor, a new girlfriend, and we will find out who Tony Stark's birth parents are," Bendis teased. "His new armor will turn into any of his 30 armors on the fly, so he can alter it to do whatever he needs at the moment."
Bendis also said that he plans to improve Tony's Stark's rogues gallery by introducing new villains for Iron Man's alter-ego. "Tony needs more villains for Tony, not just Iron Man," Bendis said. "He needs more friends who are not Avengers."I knew that I wanted to do some kind of manicure that incorporated all three of these colors. They just needed to be together. And since I am not anywhere near nail art skilled a gradient is what I was thinking. I really like how it turned out.
Mauve On is the lightest of the three polishes. Its a light dusty mauve color with gold shimmer.
Karma is is a darker mauve with gold shimmer. This polish leans more purple on the mauve scale.
(Sorry for the blurry picture. I did not re-size and watermark before removing this many the next day)
Krushed Velvet is a deep maroon/plum with gold shimmer.
I really like that all three of these polishes have the same gold shimmer running through them. It makes the end result mesh well. I did paint my nails with Mauve On first before sponging to help with coverage. Still I sponged three coats to get Krushed Velvet as deep as I wanted it.
Brand: Sinful Colors
Name: Mauve On
Color: Light Mauve w/ Gold Shimmer |
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5B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 3B, Megaminx Heat 1B, Pyraminx Heat 1B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 2B Maxwell Freda 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 6B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 4B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 4B, Pyraminx Heat 2B Minjae Josh Hong 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 7B Nicholas Eng 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 1B, Pyraminx Heat 3B Nicholas Toth 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 5B, Megaminx Heat 2B, Pyraminx Heat 4B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 3B Nicholas Tran 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 3B Nick Leighton 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 4B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 1B, Megaminx Heat 1B, Pyraminx Heat 5B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 4B, Square-1 Heat 3B Nick Rech 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 5B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 6x6 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 1B, Megaminx Heat 2B, Pyraminx Heat 1B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 1B Nick Schoelkopf 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 6B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 2B, Megaminx Heat 1B, Pyraminx Heat 2B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 2B, 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1B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 3B, Square-1 Heat 3B Questin McQuilkin 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 4B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 1B, Megaminx Heat 2B, Pyraminx Heat 2B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 4B Raphael Vache 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 5B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 1B, Pyraminx Heat 3B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 1B Robert Curtis-Hardy 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 4B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 2B, Megaminx Heat 1B, Pyraminx Heat 4B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 2B, Square-1 Heat 1B Rohan Matta 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 5B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 6x6 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 7x7 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 3x3 Blindfolded Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 3B, Megaminx Heat 2B, Pyraminx Heat 5B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 3B, Square-1 Heat 2B Rohan Volety 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 6B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 4B, Pyraminx Heat 1B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 4B, Square-1 Heat 3B Rowe Hessler 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 7B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 4B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 1B, Megaminx Heat 1B, Square-1 Heat 1B Roy Lee 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 5B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 6x6 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 7x7 Speedsolve Heat 1B, Megaminx Heat 2B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 1B, Square-1 Heat 2B Ryan Abousada 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 1B, Megaminx Heat 1B, Pyraminx Heat 2B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 2B Ryan Case 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 3B Ryan Crossman 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 4B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 2B, Pyraminx Heat 3B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 3B Ryan Durette 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 6x6 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 2B, Megaminx Heat 2B, Pyraminx Heat 4B Ryan Hebert 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 4B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 3B, Pyraminx Heat 5B Sam Schultz 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 5B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 5B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 6x6 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 7x7 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 4B, Megaminx Heat 1B, Pyraminx Heat 1B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 4B Sameer Sethuram 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 6B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 1B, Pyraminx Heat 2B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 1B Samuel Brenner 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 7B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 6x6 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 7x7 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 2B, Megaminx Heat 2B, Pyraminx Heat 3B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 2B, Square-1 Heat 3B Saransh Grover 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 3x3 Blindfolded Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 3B, Pyraminx Heat 4B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 3B, Square-1 Heat 1B Sawyer Morgan 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 2B, Pyraminx Heat 5B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 4B Seiya Matsumoto 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 3B, Pyraminx Heat 1B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 1B Sepp Zammuto 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 4B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 4B, Pyraminx Heat 2B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 2B, Square-1 Heat 2B Spencer Andersen 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 5B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 4B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 6x6 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 7x7 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 3x3 Blindfolded Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 1B, Megaminx Heat 1B, Pyraminx Heat 3B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 3B, Square-1 Heat 3B Stanley Nerkowski IV 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 6B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 5B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 6x6 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 7x7 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 3x3 Blindfolded Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 2B, Megaminx Heat 2B, Pyraminx Heat 4B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 4B, Square-1 Heat 1B Sudhith Sai Kondapalli 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 7B Takao Hashimoto Square-1 Heat 2B Tariq Ali 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 3x3 Blindfolded Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 3B Thaddeus Ciras 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 4B Thayne Carlo 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 3B, 6x6 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 7x7 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 1B, Pyraminx Heat 5B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 1B Thomas Brodeur 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 4B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 4B, 5x5 Speedsolve Heat 1B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 2B, Megaminx Heat 1B, Pyraminx Heat 1B, 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Heat 2B Zachary Colwell 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 5B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 1B, Pyraminx Heat 3B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 3B, Square-1 Heat 2B Zachary Croft 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 6B, 4x4 Speedsolve Heat 2B, 3x3 One-handed Heat 3B, Pyraminx Heat 4B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 4B Zack Robbie-Johnston 3x3 Speedsolve Heat 7B, Pyraminx Heat 5B, Skewb Speedsolve Heat 1B, Square-1 Heat 3BNepal on Friday signed up to China's new Silk Road drive, a massive infrastructure project spanning some 65 countries at the centre of the Asian giant's push to expand its global influence.
The long discussed deal between impoverished Nepal and its much bigger neighbour comes just days before China hosts a summit for 28 leaders near Beijing, showcasing the ambitious plan.
The One Belt, One Road Initiative (OBOR) spearheaded by President Xi Jinping would see 60 percent of the global population and around a third of global GDP linked through a network of Chinese-bankrolled ports, railways, roads and industrial parks.
The deal will see China plough money into Nepal for a series of projects including boosting its road network, power grid and a new railway connecting the capital Kathmandu with Lhasa in Tibet.
"We believe China will bring more investment to Nepal, helping the country overcome its status as a landlocked and least developed nation," said Nepal Foreign Minister Prakash Saran Mahat at the signing of the deal on Friday.
Analysts have expressed concern over the Asian giant's attempt to take a lead in global commerce, cautioning that an integrated world trade system where China's Communist party sets the rules could come with serious risks and hidden costs.
New York-based Fitch Ratings said that political motivations might trump "genuine infrastructure needs and commercial logic", leading to "a heightened risk of projects proving unprofitable".
Struggling countries could be saddled with Chinese loans requiring payment regardless of project performance, Fitch Ratings said.
In Kathmandu, China's Ambassador to Nepal Yu Hong appeared aware of such criticism and described the plan as a "symphony performed by an orchestra" not China's "solo show" in a short speech at the signing ceremony.
"The Initiative is not going to be China's solo show. A better analogy would be that of a symphony performed by an orchestra composed of all participating countries," Yu said.
"The One Belt, One Road Initiative will bring new opportunities for China-Nepal cooperation and South Asia development," she added.
The newly inked deal will be closely watched by Nepal's other large neighbour, India, which has traditionally played the role of big brother to the much smaller country.
Landlocked Nepal remains dependent on India for the majority of its imports, but the previous administration aggressively courted China as part of a nationalist drive to decrease the country's reliance on New Delhi.Comedian Roseanne Barr defended President Trump on Twitter, saying every attack against him is an attack on the American voter.
“Every single attack on @POTUS is really a disguised attack on American voters who rejected Obama-Clinton-Bush’s bleeding of R treasury,” Barr tweeted.
https://twitter.com/therealroseanne/status/843918091914375169
The mainstream media assaults against President Trump have been relentless. Barr is not a conservative, but she is an avowed patriot who wants what’s best for the United States.
Accordingly, she has increasingly spoken out in support of Trump because she believes Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have damaged the country with their leftist open-borders, globalist agenda.
Wait, did Judge Gorsuch just eye roll Al Franken? Check out ‘favorite response of the day’
In July 2016, Roseanne Barr — who voted for herself for president — got a personal thank-you note from Donald Trump when she defended him during the campaign.
Actress Roseanne Barr goes off on Hillary Clinton, gets a personal ‘thank you’ from Donald Trump https://t.co/6gokmxgtmD — ARnews 1936 (@ARnews1936) July 12, 2016
The three-time Golden Globe winner has since continued to speak out on his behalf, and on behalf of policies that she believes will protect and help the United States.
Roseanne’s Twitter followers agreed with her statement that attacking Trump is an attack on the 63 million Americans who voted him into office.
Tucker Carlson shreds liberal for defending the illegal aliens who raped 14-year-old girl
You are absolutely right and we don't like it. We want our borders closed and Podesta investigated. — MVigoda❌ (@LandaStone1) March 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/SkyeShepard/status/843936518549004292
Always remember, libs are what they claim to fear. — Bill Adams (@wickedbilladams) March 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/AlwayanAmerican/status/843963386903891968
https://twitter.com/WANGNGEO/status/844294552513073152
@CarolCcbossy @POTUS perfect analogy. Dem are obstructing progress thereby endangering he USA — LaZmut (@lorrainekaack) March 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/AlwayanAmerican/status/843961031206600705The controversial move by a Toronto public school to ban balls from its playground even has Americans shaking their heads — and wagging their tongues. On the latest episode of Saturday Night Live, cast member Seth Meyers dropped Earl Beatty Public School into his Weekend Update, a roundup of wacky news items from around the world.
Seth Meyers of Saturday Night Live made mention of the ball ban at Earl Beatty Public School in Toronto, during an episode of Weekend Update on Saturday. ( Globaltv.com screengrab )
“A school in Canada has banned all game balls including soccer balls and baseballs because the principal thinks they’re causing too many injuries,” Meyers says. “The safety-minded principal also asked that the custodian install a hinge in the see-saw,” he says, pausing for effect as the studio audience chuckled. Pundit and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh also weighed in on Friday, saying the ball ban would turn schoolchildren into “wusses.”
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“This is how you wimpify kids. This is how you turn 'em into a bunch of wusses. Can you believe this?” he asks, according to a transcript of the show posted on his website. “Softballs, baseballs, footballs, soccer balls, banned, tennis balls. Because the children were scared,” Limbaugh says. The principal at the east-end public school sent a letter home last Monday, stating students could no longer bring hard balls onto school property, citing a number of “serious incidents |
early" seems to be that the company will at least deliver its main tool for managing desktops when it releases its next desktop operating system (Windows 10).
Anderson said that more than 75 percent of the world's PCs are managed by Configuration Manager. Intune is also used for PC management, he added, with some organizations managing tens of thousands of PCs using Intune.
While Microsoft is moving the "control plane" of its management solutions more into the cloud with Intune, the company's goal is have "100 percent" of its Intune capabilities added to its Configuration Manager product in a "short period" of time, Anderson said. This integration will come in the form of a future update to the Configuration Manager product, although Anderson didn't specify when that might occur.
Currently, it's possible to use a connector application to link Configuration Manager with Intune, providing a "single pane of glass" view for managing mobile devices and PCs. While Intune is Microsoft's main mobile device management tool, Configuration Manager likely will still be needed by organizations since Intune can't be used to deploy servers.
Meanwhile, Intune is now being released on a monthly update schedule, as of this month. Anderson said that Microsoft hopes to increase that release pace. The company is also looking at a possible quarterly cycle for its Configuration Manager product update releases.
Not everything will be shifting to the cloud, according to Microsoft's "world view" (see chart). PC management will remain an on-premises activity, although mobile device management will best be handled via the cloud, according to Microsoft's vision.
[Click on image for larger view.] Microsoft device management vision. Source: February 4, 2015 System Center Universe keynote talk by Brad Anderson.
Microsoft plans to enable a consistent and integrated management experience across mobile devices (third bullet point). In a previous talk, Anderson linked that capability to the use of container technologies in Windows 10, while leveraging such technologies in iOS and Android. It'll be specifically associated with the management of Office apps and data across those platforms.
The self-protecting data concept (fifth bullet point) is associated with the Microsoft Azure Rights Management service, which can be used to avoid inadvertent data disclosures. Microsoft plans to sell those kinds of data management capabilities via its Enterprise Mobility Suite licensing.
Anderson stressed that Microsoft plans to deliver four layers of protection with its mobile management solutions. There will be protections at the device level, the app level (using containers and wrappers), the file level (self-protecting data) and at the identity management level (Azure Active Directory).
The Azure cloud service will smooth over the process by enabling single sign-on access to apps by end users. Microsoft currently has more than 2,400 different software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps that are integrated with Azure Active Directory to enable such access, Anderson explained.
IT pros can use Microsoft's Cloud App Discovery tool to search for unvetted SaaS apps in their organization. Microsoft has found that a typical enterprise has about 300 SaaS apps in use that IT departments don't know about, Anderson said.SIMFEROPOL — Kremlin officials are overjoyed at the passage of a referendum Crimean residents voted on Sunday, after a landslide 140 percent of the two million citizens decided to break away from Ukraine to join Russia later this month.
The free and fair election was celebrated far beyond Moscow, as praise poured into the region from democratic republics as diverse as Syria, Iran, and North Korea. While confident in the vote, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un offered cautious praise: “We commend President Putin, but at least in our elections we have the grace and fairness to win with only a 100 percent margin,” Jong-un said through a translator. “This seems like amateur hour.”
Still, the vote attracted widespread condemnation from others on the world stage.
“This election is nothing more than a show election to legitimize the Russian occupation of sovereign territory of the nation of Ukraine,” said Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations. “This behavior by Russia is to be strongly condemned and we have sent a harshly-worded letter to President Putin saying he should leave Crimea or we will pass a resolution to use force in the region that he will later veto.”
Calling the vote an “affront to democracy,” President Obama joined others in criticism of Moscow.
“As a nation with extensive experience rigging elections in other countries, it is blatantly obvious to us that this election has been tampered with,” Obama told reporters. “I mean a 140 percent voter turnout … even in Chicago we never made it that obvious.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin was quick to rebuff critics of the election, stating that he was quite disappointed with the poor result and considered a voter turnout of around 300 percent to be a more realistic figure.DARJEELING/KOLKATA: The Darjeeling tea industry has welcomed the ban on blending of Darjeeling tea that is sold in the European Union (EU) countries saying it will herald a new chapter for the world famous "cuppa" post November, 2016. However, Indian Tea Association (ITA), the largest tea producers' body in the country, feels this new law can badly hit exports of Darjeeling to EU countries, especially Germany.At present in the world market, especially in the EU countries, teas under brand Darjeeling are being sold much more than it is produced in the 87 tea gardens of the Hills.A lot is to do with at times "illegal blending" of tea leaves from Darjeeling with that of other states like Assam and even Nepal. However, after November 10, this practice will become illegal and only pure tea leafs from the region (Darjeeling) will be allowed to flood the EU markets."The name of Darjeeling tea which is a brand was being misused so far. This has mostly to do with blending of Darjeeling tea leaf with the produce of other region. If consumers do not get to drink original Darjeeling tea then how will they be able to differentiate its taste with other varieties," said Ashok Lohia, chairman of the Chamong tea group that owns 13 gardens.The Chamong group chairman though said that the ban on blending was only for tea leaves from regions other than Darjeeling. "Under the geographical indication (GI) protection the EU protects the Darjeeling tea for its uniqueness. This implies that the product has to be pure though blending can be done with others tea leafs produced from the region of Darjeeling but not from others," explained Lohia.But Azam Monem, chairman, ITA, said, "Only first flush and second flush tea from Darjeeling can sustain on the export market on their own without blending. But that is only 3-4 million kg of Darjeeling tea, which is just one-third of the total Darjeeling produce."According to the ITA chairman, the rest of the seasonal tea from Darjeeling have to be blended for the exports market. "Now, if the EU countries ban blending, most of the tea from Darjeeling will have to be blended with Assam Orthodox to be sold in the EU market."Darjeeling tea became the first product in the country in 2003 to be granted GI status. The EU had given Darjeeling Tea the GI shield five years ago in November, 2011. The GI or PGI (protected geographical indication) tag indicates that a product has a unique association with a particular region.However, traders dealing in Darjeeling tea found ways to exploit the GI protection as blenders were given a five year breather to convert to pure product. "We has started an investigation some years back and to our surprise found that teas under brand Darjeeling in quantity were being sold much more than it was actually produced. And the maximum mischief we found was being done in Germany which is one of the largest buyers of Darjeeling tea," said an industry source.The Darjeeling Tea Association (DTA) an umbrella organization of tea gardens in the Hills welcoming the ban on the blending said it would negate the impact of spurious tea being sold as Darjeeling tea. "The DT along with the EU is trying its best to ensure that consumers of Darjeeling tea receive actual tea for its value. This ban has come as a boon now for the Darjeeling tea industry. We have already started the process seeking protection Darjeeling tea and other important international markets like the USA and Japan," said Sandeep Mukherjee, principal advisor of the DTA.Even though the ban blending will come into effect from November, Lohia suggested that creating awareness and publicity about Darjeeling tea should be pro-activated to increase its demand. "Just the ban will not help if we do not publicize the product, create awareness and find ways to boost the demand," the Chamong group chairman said.The Darjeeling tea industry produces over eight million kg tea leaf annually over the 87 tea gardens in the Hills employing over fifty thousand workers.Anshuman Kanoria, vice chairman of Indian Tea Exporters' Association, said, "Darjeeling GI is a matter of national prestige and could have been used for brand enhancement and value of Darjeeling tea. Instead, the larger producers have used GI to threaten the very importers who were responsible for creating the market for Darjeeling and alienating them. Average quality of Darjeeling tea has declined in the face of steeply rising costs and ever increasing food safety challenges. Darjeeling viability depends on improving quality, image, demand and competition. Through its actions, the trade has let itself down on all fronts."Like Kanoria, many tea experts feel that GI cannot be a magic wand and has been mis-presented to importers. The larger systemic issues ailing Darjeeling need to be urgently addressed. "Moreover, we continue to turn a blind eye to GI violations within the country and our trade fraternity and undermine the Government's effort in having obtained Darjeeling GI," said a renowned tea trader, who doesn't want to be named.The trader added that the premise for GI was based on wrong premise and a false notion that Darjeeling produces 10 million kilo tea and people fabricate and sell 40 million kgs as Darjeeling tea. "It is ironical that the very Darjeeling producers who clamoured for GI protection are big buyers for Nepal teas and exporting the same in their trade interest. The association and Tea Board continues to turn a blind eye to reports of large scale Nepal green leaf being bought by some Darjeeling gardens in violation of GI. Darjeeling tea over the years has lost its unique quality and less than 20% teas produced are true quality while the rest is showing Darjeeling in poor light," said another trader.Today hardly 8.5 million kgs is produced and without Tata absorbing about 1 million kgs in its CTC packet it is difficult enough to sell 8.5 million kgsEvery weekday, a CNNHealth expert doctor answers a viewer question. On Friday, it's Dr. Melina Jampolis, a physician nutrition specialist.
Asked by Mindy J. of Denham Springs, Louisiana
I recently starting tracking my calories, carbohydrates, fat, and protein. So far I have been meeting all of my goals except for the amount of fat grams. Do I need to meet a minimum number of fat grams? If so, what are some healthy options to get enough fat grams into my diet?
Expert answer:
This is a great question and brings up several important points. First of all, I am impressed by your tracking dedication. Research shows that people who keep a food journal lose double the weight of those who don't.
I do suggest, however, that you don't get too caught up in the numbers and hitting exact goals every day. Calorie, fat, carb and protein intake naturally fluctuate somewhat day to day based on activity, menstrual cycle, social events and even your schedule.
Limiting fat is important for weight loss as fat has more than twice the calories of protein or carbohydrates. Limiting sugar and refined carbohydrates (carbohydrates that are not made with whole grains) is also critical for both weight loss and total health so this is more important than counting carbs.
Getting adequate amounts of lean protein is essential to maintain lean body mass and help control hunger. Rather than counting protein grams, I'd rather see you getting a small to moderate serving of healthy protein (lean meat, low fat dairy, legumes, nuts and seeds) at most eating occasions.
As to your specific question, the range of fat percentage suggested for optimal health is 20-35 percent. While you could go lower than this to lose weight, it is not a great idea for a prolonged period of time. Fat is essential for the absorption of the very important fat soluble vitamins including vitamins D, A, K and E that help protect your vision, keep your immune system functioning properly, and maintain bone health.
Fat is also used to manufacture hormones in the body, is part of the membrane lining every cell in your body, and is part of the sheath surrounding every nerve cell in your body allowing them to communicate effectively.
Choosing healthy fats in portion controlled servings is essential for a healthy diet. The best choices are the unsaturated fats including fatty fish, olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds.
For weight loss, it is essential to watch your serving sizes, so I recommend that my patients measure serving sizes of fat whenever possible if they are trying to lose weight because it is very hard to 'eyeball' a tablespoon of oil or 2 tablespoons of nuts. Here are a few ideas for including healthy fat in your diet on a regular basis:
1. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of chopped nuts or seeds on low fat or nonfat greek yogurt with fresh fruit for breakfast or as a snack
2. Add 1/4 sliced avocado to turkey sandwich on whole grain bread with romaine lettuce and tomato for lunch
3. Cook vegetables in a few tsp of olive oil or make a homemade salad dressing with 1 tablespoon olive oil (or flaxseed oil, another healthy fat), 2 tablespoons of vinegar and a little Dijon mustard. (Note it is especially important to eat vegetables with a little fat as vegetables are an excellent source of several of the fat soluble vitamins)
To calculate the number of fat grams you would need to eat to total 25 percent of your total calories (this is what I recommend for patients), do the following:
1. Multiply your daily calorie goal by 0.25
2. Divide this number by 9
3. This equals your minimum total daily fat grams.
4. According to the dietary exchanges, a serving of fat contains 5 grams of fat so you can divide this number by 5 to calculate your daily servings of fat
For example, if you were eating 1200 calories per day: 1200 x.25 = 300 calories/9 = 33 g/5 = 6.5 servings of fat per day. Note that more than likely you get fat elsewhere in your diet (meat, cheese, packaged foods, dairy that is not fat free), so you should adjust your daily fat exchanges downward to account for the fat in other foods that you eat. Again, you don't have to hit this number every day, but try to average out to this number over the course of the week if your goal is weight loss.
Follow Dr. Jampolis on TwitterSome of the world's most prominent aid groups and other nongovernmental organizations warned that their ability to brief U.S. and United Nations agencies on humanitarian crises will be hurt by a recent change in a 30-year-old visa program.
They also warned that the move could even hurt their ability to carry out much needed aid work in war zones, potentially having a damaging effect on lifesaving humanitarian operations.
They fear that the visa adjustments will mean that many of their staffers who spend time in some of the world's worst crisis-hit countries — such as Syria and Iraq — will be prevented from visiting the United States or face long delays in getting permission to enter the country.
The controversy centers on an amendment to the visa waiver program (VWP) that Congress recently rushed into an omnibus spending bill and President Barack Obama signed into law on Dec. 18.
The VWP allows citizens of 38 countries to travel to the U.S. without needing to obtain a visa. The legislation, which was introduced in response to the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, introduced a number of changes, including requiring a visa for anyone who has visited Iraq, Syria, Iran or Sudan in the previous five years.
Lawmakers supporting the amendment are concerned that citizens of the 23 European Union countries that participate in the VWP could travel to the U.S. after receiving training in Syria from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.
Aid workers say they were blindsided by the passing of the amendment. Alex Gray, the global humanitarian director at Relief International, said he didn’t expect the amendment to become law so quickly. “We heard discussion that this might be happening, but we thought it was just political gesturing,” he said.
NGOs are concerned that the provisions are too general and could affect the humanitarian work they do in those countries.
The amendment is “overly broad and contains discriminatory nationality provisions,” InterAction, an alliance of U.S.-based global NGOs, said in a letter to members of Congress. “For the NGO community, [the amendment] would limit the work of international humanitarians who are on the ground in Iraq, Sudan and Syria, providing lifesaving assistance to those who need it most.”
The U.N. lists Iraq and Syria as two of its four Level 3 emergencies — its classification for the largest and most severe humanitarian crises.
Gray said that because Iraq and Syria are Level 3 countries, the “bulk of the international humanitarian aid workers are actually traveling back and forth,” disqualifying them from entering the U.S. without a visa under the new law.
He is based in the United Kingdom and is one of those aid workers who benefit from the VWP. In the last few years, he has traveled many times to northern Iraq, Syria and Sudan.
Relief International, which provides water, sanitation and emergency health services to displaced people in countries surrounding Syria, has its staff from regional offices attend conferences in the U.S. quarterly to brief donors and policymakers. “We are already starting to talk about not having our global meetings in the U.S. anymore,” Gray said.
The American Civil Liberties Union has also warned that the amendment is too broad and called for exceptions to be made for those who have traveled to Syria, Iraq, Iran and Sudan for educational and professional purposes, including humanitarian aid workers.
"This includes weapons inspectors examining Iran nuclear facilities, social workers interviewing Kurdish refugees in Iraq, physicians treating patients in Darfur and human rights investigators documenting atrocities committed by ISIL," Joanne Lin, an ACLU legislative counsel, wrote in an article on the group’s website.
The changes have yet to be put into practice, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is responsible for implementing the VWP provisions.
“At this time, no determination has been made as to how the waiver provision would be implemented,” DHS representative S.Y. Lee said in a statement. “We will announce any changes affecting travelers to the United States from visa waiver program countries as soon as that information is available.”
The DHS has not provided details on when that information will be available or indicated if exceptions will be made for aid workers.
“It concerns us because it impacts on our operations,” Gray said. “Until we have clear information in terms of how it’s being implemented, how can we plan in our procedures and operational decisions?”
Sara Margon, the Washington, D.C., director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said she still “does not know how things are going to play out.”
“HRW staff who have traditionally benefited from the VWP and who have visited these countries of concern will, of course, follow the new procedures for visa applications, which could lead to delays or even denials. It all depends on how the legislation is implemented,” she said.
More than 20 million people visited the U.S. under the VWP in 2013, according to the DHS.
The amendment could affect Americans as well, NGOs warned. The VWP operates on the principle of reciprocity with other participating countries like France and Denmark. When the U.S. makes a change in its policy affecting their citizens, those nations will often make the same change regarding Americans.
“Requiring a visa to travel to those countries will add obstacles to their necessary work and may make it more difficult for Americans to manage employment as humanitarian workers,” InterAction said in its letter.Tamerlan Tsarnaev: Terrorist. Murderer. Federal Informant?
Not long after Tamerlan Tsarnaev bombed the Boston Marathon, investigative reporter Michele McPhee went looking for answers. What she discovered, detailed in this exclusive excerpt from her new book, Maximum Harm, might just change how you think about our government and law enforcement forever.
Get a compelling long read and must-have lifestyle tips in your inbox every Sunday morning — great with coffee!
As darkness descended over the village of Utamysh, Russia, one mid-July night in 2012, international soldiers, intelligence agents, and local police made their way inside a convoy of covered troop carriers to a carefully hidden encampment. They even brought a light-armored tank, knowing the men inside were heavily armed.
The hideout, a small farmhouse, was home to seven mujahideen, guerrilla fighters who had all vowed to bring sharia law back to Russia’s Northern Caucasus. They flew their own nationalist flag and consistently referred to Russian authorities as “invaders.” Two of the men, however, Islam and Arsen Magomedov, were more than mere guerrilla insurgents: They were notorious terrorists and commanders of the region’s most brutal criminal gangs. In all, they were suspected of orchestrating dozens of murders and deadly bombings of police checkpoints, civilian-filled trains, and Russian Federation television stations. Next to the Magomedovs stood five other men who ranged in age from 25 to 35, budding jihadists who had very few prospects when they left their families other than to go, as they said, “into the forests” to train. After a long day, the men went to bed—completely unaware that just outside the tiny village, under the cover of night, forces were preparing a raid that would level their camp.
Russian Interior Ministry counterterrorism troops wanted to move in without being seen by the prying eyes of Utamysh villagers, so they evacuated some women and children living near the camp. Not everyone in the Muslim village supported the continuing carnage in their region, but most distrusted Russian Federation law enforcement officials. As in most military operations, the soldiers moved silently as they carefully checked their guns and grenades, switched the safeties off their automatic weapons, and even loaded a small rocket-propelled grenade. They wore combat gear, and not for aesthetic reasons. Inside the hideout were some of the most violent men in the Northern Caucasus, an area that has long been among the most volatile and lawless places in the world. At that time, it was not unusual for a Russian police officer to be assassinated weekly. The insurgents inside the Utamysh compound had been trained to believe that the Russians were invaders who—like pigs—deserved nothing less than slaughter, and had been taught that there was no greater honor than to die taking a Russian out.
When the radicals heard the sound of dried dirt and rocks being crushed under the weight of the tank and the troop movers carrying the enemy to their front door, according to a video that was later released by the Russian Interior Ministry, the mujahideen grabbed their own guns, prayed that Allah would give them strength in battle, and fired.
Tracer rounds and bombs lit up the village for hours. When the sun rose over the mountains on July 14, 2012, all seven of the Islamic militants were dead. The Russians photographed their slain bodies lying in the scrubby grass as proof of their deaths.
The camp was a smoldering shell. Cars belonging to the insurgents were still burning. The walls of the farmhouse were pitted with gunfire, and its windows had all been blown out. Russian Federation counterterrorism coalition forces also lost a man: an officer with the Russian Interior Ministry. Three other Russian agents had been wounded.
As the farmhouse continued to fume, while militants mourned and the Russian Interior Ministry prepared to bury its dead agent, one man left the region, somehow paying 2,050 euros for a one-way Aeroflot ticket from Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow to John F. Kennedy International Airport, and then to Logan airport on July 17, 2012. His name was Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a Russian expat whose entire family fled the region a decade earlier for Cambridge, Massachusetts, telling United States immigration officials that they would be killed because of their political affiliations if they ever returned home.
It remains unclear how the unemployed 25-year-old on welfare paid for the flight or exactly what he spent his time in Russia doing, or for whom. Less than a year later, he and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, carried out the Boston Marathon bombings, an act of terror so immense it would paralyze the entire city. Tamerlan would die on April 19, 2013, not long after a wild firefight with police and a high-speed chase in a stolen SUV driven by Dzhokhar, who fled the shootout and prompted a nearly daylong manhunt before being captured.
When Dzhokhar’s trial started nearly two years later, his famed death-penalty defense attorney, Judy Clarke, startled court spectators when she flat-out admitted her client was guilty of the bombings. At one point, she pointed to a photo of older brother Tamerlan and explained, “There’s little that occurred the week of April the 15th…that we dispute.” But what about in the months and years before that?
Much is murky about Tamerlan’s life leading up to the deadly attack on Boylston Street. Four years after the blasts, his case, at first blush, seems to be an extreme cautionary tale about the shortcomings of the overbloated war on terror, its divided attentions rendering actual terrorists invisible. But upon closer inspection, a strange picture starts to emerge—one that counterterrorism experts and law enforcement officials have suggested points to Tamerlan having been a federal informant who went rogue.
During Dzhokhar’s trial, his defense attorneys raised provocative questions about the FBI’s mysterious involvement with Tamerlan. Had agents pressured him to be an informant? And if so, did that pressure play a role in the bombings? “We base this on information from our client’s family and other sources that the FBI made more than one visit to talk with [Tamerlan’s parents] Anzor, Zubeidat and Tamerlan, questioned Tamerlan about his internet searches, and asked him to be an informant, reporting on the Chechen and Muslim community,” Dzhokhar’s lawyers stated in court records. “We further have reason to believe that Tamerlan misinterpreted the visits and discussions with the FBI as pressure and that they amounted to a stressor that increased his paranoia and distress. We do not suggest that these contacts are to be blamed and have no evidence to suggest that they were improper, but rather view them as an important part of the story of Tamerlan’s decline. Since Tamerlan is dead, the government is the source of corroboration that these visits did in fact occur and of what was said during them.”
The FBI denies that Tamerlan was their informant, but to this day those questions have not been answered. What is the bureau trying to hide?
THE TSARNAEV CONNECTION 2009
Tamerlan Tsarnaev participates in a photo essay titled “Will Box for Passport.” March 2011
Russian counterterrorism agents warn the FBI about Tsarnaev. June 2011
The FBI closes its investigation on Tsarnaev. September 11, 2011
The bodies of three men with connections to Tsarnaev are found nearly decapitated in a Waltham apartment. October 2011
Russian officials warn U.S. intelligence about Tsarnaev’s jihadist rhetoric; his name is added to two terror watch lists. January 21, 2012
Despite being watch-listed, Tsarnaev is allowed to fly from New York to Russia. July 2012
Radical extremist William Plotnikov and six other rebel fighters are killed by Russian forces in Dagestan; Tsarnaev leaves Russia, paying 2,050 euros in cash for the flight. August 28, 2012
Tsarnaev’s naturalized citizen application is reopened. January 23, 2013
Tsarnaev’s citizenship is delayed once again. April 15, 2013
Tsarnaev and his brother bomb the Boston Marathon.
In 2011, the year before Tamerlan flew from Boston to Moscow, the Russians were already worried about him and his mother, Zubeidat. So in an unusual move, the agency shared its concerns with counterterrorism counterparts in the United States. To say the least, the relationship between the two countries—both of which were trying to eradicate Islamic terrorism—was based more on need than trust.
Still, on March 4, 2011, the FSB sent its first message about Tamerlan and Zubeidat to the FBI’s legal attaché in Moscow. Later, it sent the same memo to the CIA. While the FBI refuses to release a copy of the letter, FSB officials read it to a congressional delegation that included Representative William Keating, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a former prosecutor. “It was amazing in its detail dealing with Tamerlan Tsarnaev,” Keating later said.
The letter, according to Keating and others, described intercepted text messages between Tamerlan, his mother, and Magomed Kartashov, her second cousin—a former Dagestan police officer who had become a prominent Islamist and leader of a group called Union of the Just (a Muslim advocacy group that has been banned in Russia because of its alleged affiliations with Muslim militants). The organization sympathized with radical Islamic insurgents who had declared war against Vladimir Putin’s Russian forces. Zubeidat and Tamerlan, the letter stated, were becoming adherents of radical Islam.
The FSB also provided full names, addresses, and phone numbers for many of the members of the Tsarnaev family, including Tamerlan and his mother. According to the FBI, it warned that Tamerlan “had changed drastically since 2010” and was preparing to travel to a part of Russia “to join unspecified underground groups,” namely, violent radical Islamists in the Caucasus who formed their own bandit groups, which were essentially ragtag insurgency gangs. The FBI’s legal attaché in Moscow sent a translated copy of the FSB’s warning concerning Tamerlan to the Counterterrorism Division of the FBI’s Boston field office, telling them “to take any investigative steps deemed appropriate and provide [the legal attaché in] Moscow with any information derived,” with the promise that the information would be forwarded to the Russians.
After receiving the FSB’s letter, a special agent in that Boston Counterterrorism Division, referred to in an Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report as “the CT Agent,” was assigned to conduct what the FBI called a threat assessment based on the information that the FSB had shared regarding Tamerlan’s and his mother’s increasing extremism.
In the months before Tamerlan left Boston for Russia, the CT Agent interviewed Tamerlan and his parents and reported his findings, the OIG said. The report concluded that there is no public evidence that the CT Agent contacted Tamerlan’s then-wife (Katherine Russell, also known as Karima Tsarnaeva)—at the least, notes about any contact with her never became part of any official file. Nor did the CT Agent visit the controversial Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge where Tamerlan prayed, despite its rumored connections to radical Islamists. The FBI would later issue a statement that in response to the FSB’s letter, agents “checked U.S. government databases and other information to look for such things as derogatory telephone communications, possible use of online sites associated with the promotion of radical activity, associations with other persons of interest, travel history and plans, and education history. The FBI also interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev and family members. The FBI did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign.” And so the bureau closed its case on Tamerlan in June 2011.To be the first major leaguer from a particular town must be pretty cool. Especially if it is a small, rural city, one is looked on as the local hero. Billboards are constructed proclaiming how that one neck of the woods is the hometown of someone who beat the odds and is living out a childhood dream.
To be the first pitcher and the second major leaguer from a particular country, well … that is a whole different story.
Chicago White Sox starter Andre Rienzo became the first Brazilian-born pitcher to ever make the majors when he made his debut on July 30, 2013. Because of this, the entire soccer-loving country began to focus more of their attention to America’s pastime. Along with the Cleveland Indians‘ Yan Gomes, Rienzo has been embraced by his new home country and his old.
When Rienzo made his major league debut in the middle of last season against Gomes and the Indians, an entire country tuned in to watch a sport that is sometimes forgotten down there. Baseball players in Brazil believe that Rienzo can be the poster child for Brazilians who take up the game. With his down-to-earth attitude and what one would label as “southern charm” if he was from the states, Rienzo could be the perfect person to take on the added responsibility.
The White Sox on the other hand, do not expect as much from Rienzo as his home country. With Chris Sale and Jose Quintana being the faces of the future in the rotation and John Danks being the large-contract veteran, all that is expected of Rienzo is that he can be a viable fourth or fifth starter. With Erik Johnson demoted, Felipe Paulino struggling, and Scott Carroll still an unknown, Rienzo is only expected to bring stability to the back end of the rotation.
Rienzo struggled in August and early September, after his July call-up last season. As with most rookies, Rienzo was beat up by opposing hitters after teams started to have more information on his pitching repertoire. While he was not known as an elite prospect as he progressed in the minors, many scouts labeled his cutter as a major league-ready pitch.
With a low 90s fastball and a cutter in the high 80s that featured late movement, Rienzo was able to keep hitters off balance with just those two pitches. After major league hitters began to take more pitches, forcing him to throw a larger variety of pitches, Rienzo’s struggles began to be showcased. He had to throw his curveball and changeup even though both were not even close to major league-ready.
Throughout his 10 starts, he fell behind in the count numerous times. This led his batters working the count in their favor, which allowed them to know what was coming. At the end of the season, Rienzo finished with a 4.82 ERA and a WHIP of 1.82. Based on his numbers to end last season, Rienzo should not have been one of the front-runners to be penciled in to the rotation.
On Opening Day, the starter found himself in triple-A Charlotte. After going 0-2 with a 4.85 ERA to start the season, Rienzo himself did not believe that he deserved a call-up. Due to injuries Sale and Paulino (still not sure if his DL stint was the result of an actual injury) as well as Johnson’s struggles, Rienzo finds himself making his second start of the season against the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday.
Now in his second stint in the majors, not much is expected of Rienzo. The organization will characterize his outings more so as spot starts than the continuation of a storied career in the rotation. Still, the country of Brazil cannot help but think that their homegrown major leaguer will find stability in the only franchise he has ever known.Abdul Sattar Edhi held hostage; Rs20 million and five kilos of gold stolen during robbery
KARACHI: Eight to ten dacoits looted an Edhi centre in Karachi on Sunday, Express News reported.
Five kilos of gold and foreign currency worth Rs20 million were also reportedly stolen from the Eidhi centre located in the Mithadar area. Philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi was present at the centre and held hostage during the robbery.
While talking to Express News, Edhi said he was woken up from his sleep by the dacoits who walked straight to the cupboard where the money and gold was kept.
“I thought they came to ask me about the Edhi centre but they started asking me about money. I don’t understand how they [dacoits] knew that everything was kept in the cupboard,” he said.
“The money and gold stolen belonged to those who entrusted me with it,” Edhi said.
His son, Faisal Edhi, confirmed that eight to ten men entered the centre and took his father and others present at the centre hostage.
Further, Faisal added that the dacoits were at the centre for half an hour.
“The police responded efficiently and has registered a case,” Faisal said, adding that a forensic team would also arrive shortly at the centre to investigate the matter.
Read full storyDANVILLE -- A township police chief in Montour County is off the job again, this time without pay, until the resolution of criminal charges accusing him of "huffing" while on duty.
The new Mahoning Township Board of Supervisors Monday night voted 2-1 to suspend Chief Chad Thomas, 41, without pay.
A week ago the former board voted 2-1 to reinstate Thomas who had been on paid administrative leave since charged Dec. 2. A new supervisor Monday replaced one who had voted for reinstatement.
Thomas is free on personal recognizance pending trial after waiving his preliminary hearing. He is accused of breathing in a product used to clean keyboards and computer equipment.
Pa. police chief charged with 'huffing'
The charges brought by the state attorney general's office allege other officers on May 27 saw Thomas inhale the product and watched as his eyes fluttered and became unresponsive.
One officer thought Thomas had suffered a seizure, the criminal complaint states.
An analysis of the can of compressed air showed it contained a substance that is prohibited from being inhaled under the state's Sale or Illegal Use of Certain Solvents and Noxious Substances Act, investigators said.
Thomas has acknowledged the "huffing" incident occurred, the charges state.
The police department has five officers in addition to the chief.A Delray Beach man arrested for an alleged armed robbery after victims identified him as having a lazy eye, according to an arrest report.
The description allowed Delray Beach police to connect Cody Jermaine Bradley to at least one armed robbery Aug. 19.
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newsletter, which you can subscribe to by visiting their website. Townhalls are typically announced 1 to 3 days before they are hosted, so you need to be vigilant. Meeting with staff at the district office or in Washington, D.C., is valuable in conveying public opinion. Those can be set up at any time simply by calling the office (every office line is listed on their congressional website) and asking for a meeting. Just make sure you are calling the right office (go here to look up your House representatives. and go here for your senators) because, again, they will only want to hear from their constituents. For more information on how to set up and prepare for a meeting with a congressional staffer, see our page on contacting Congress.
How are Congressional Offices Structured to Process Public Opinion?
Every member of Congress has two sets of offices, one in Washington, D.C., and district offices in areas where their constituents live. D.C. staffers are responsible for researching and advising senators and representatives on the hundreds of issues Congress covers each year. For virtually every bill that goes through Congress, each member will have a staffer responsible for researching and advising them on that bill. Staffers' advice is influenced by a variety of sources such as local press coverage, national press, research papers, personal experience, lobbyists, and most importantly, voter opinion back home. In addition to these policy staffers, every office has a group of staff who receive your communication (email, phone calls, or letters) and ensure that you get a response. See below for information on how to interpret those responses.
The district office is staffed by people who do "casework;" essentially, that means they work on helping voters back home navigate and understand the federal government services available to them. Sometimes a district staffer will also be the subject matter expert, but that's the exception. That doesn't mean your opinion won't be heard back home, though: district staffers are responsible for meeting with voters and delivering their opinions to the right staff who will help get you a response. If you want to meet with an office in person and don't plan to travel to D.C., you should meet with the district office.
Does My Member of Congress Read My Communication?
This is one of the most common questions we get about Congress. The answer is that it depends on the member. We can say two things for certain, though. First, Congress will never hear you if you never communicate with it. Second, every communication is read and processed in some manner to keep the member informed about what voters back home think.
I have personally worked for a member of Congress who read every single new letter that came to the office and was directly involved with staff-drafted responses. In other words, when a constituent wrote about an issue that was new to the office, the member read the letter and approved the response letter. Once the member's position on an issue was established, staffers could reuse previous responses. These are called form-letter responses.
To give an example of how this works, imagine going into the district office to meet with a staffer to voice your opinion on an EFF issue such as defending encryption. That district staffer may not know the details of the issue or what experts are saying, but they will take notes about your opinion and then send that to the D.C. office so that you get a response. Once your communication is received in D.C., the staff responsible for encryption as a policy matter will check if the member of Congress has taken a position in a form letter they approved and then will immediately send it your way. If they do not have an approved response, then the legislative staff responsible for the issue will be involved in writing a response for approval and will send it through a process to formalize the public statement of that member of Congress. At the end of that process, you can be sure that the written statement you receive represents their official position and that your communication is directly involved in the decision-making process.
Every letter, phone call, or email you send is absolutely critical because frankly, most people do not take the time to contact Congress. When people do rally in sizable numbers, no amount of special interest and campaign contributions can override the perceived opinion of voters back home and how that impacts an elected official's electoral concerns. The more confident a member of Congress feels in the number of people who will vote for them back home if they vote their way, the more resistant they become to opposing influence.
I Got a Response, What Does It Mean?
There are two kinds of letters congressional offices send back to voters. One is crystal clear about their position on the issue because they have settled on their opinion (though that can always be changed with enough of a push from voters back home) and the other is less clear. The "undecided" responses recite various facts about the issue and then conclude with stating that they will "keep your thoughts in mind" or something to that effect. These types of letters happen because the member of Congress remains undecided or simply does not want to take a public position at that time.
Until you have a firm commitment that is favorable to you established by your elected official, you should assume that you have to continue to advocate as a voter and organize others to do the same. Many issues worth fighting for do not get resolved quickly; they require sustained activism on the part of voters to really bring about change. That being said, movements that are persistent, motivated, and widespread regularly bring about changes in law or stop bad changes from happening in Congress. The only parties that do not want you to believe you can make change happen are the special interests that reside in D.C. because they depend on voters back home being silent.
How Do I Get Started and Join the Fight with EFF?
At EFF, we are preparing for the new congressional session and administration and will aggressively fight for your constitutional rights to privacy, free speech, as well as protecting a free and open Internet. However, all of our work depends on you augmenting our voice with your support. So please sign up for our action alerts, make those calls and send those emails when we put out the word, follow what is going on in Congress on our blog, and most importantly, organize your friends and family to join you in standing up for free speech, promoting innovation, and ending the surveillance state.Israel-Palestinian peace talks were already pretty well dead last weekend, when Israel officially reneged on their promise to release Palestinian prisoners, and efforts to save it look to be faltering too, with Israel reluctant to agree on even a partial settlement freeze.
Indeed, after refusing public comment on the prospect of a settlement freeze, the Israel Lands Authority announced 708 new settlement homes in occupied East Jerusalem today.
To the extent Israeli officials have made unofficial comments on the matter, they have insisted that any settlement freeze wouldn’t include East Jerusalem anyhow, or for that matter any of the massive construction plans they’ve already announced.
Today’s 708 tenders are some of the same ones announced in November and January. Despite Israel insisting housing is desperately needed in the settlements, the 708 plots went unclaimed during those tenders, with contractors complaining prices were too high. Today’s announcement dropped the price, hoping to ensure the settlement could grow no matter what.
Last 5 posts by Jason DitzNBC and its partner Advertising Analytics have updated their TV-ad-spending numbers for the general election. You may remember that in June we marveled at how Donald Trump had still not spent a dime on general-election ads; by June of 2012, Mitt Romney and PACs supporting him had spent $38 million.
So prepare to marvel once again. Trump's campaign still hasn't spent any money on general-election ads. PACs supporting him have spent a little over $12 million — less than one-third of what had been spent for Romney two months prior in 2012. It's also one-fifth of what the Hillary Clinton campaign has spent. And outside groups have spent another $43 million on her behalf. In other words, this is still the correct ranking for ad spending by presidential campaign for each of the four best-known candidates:
Hillary Clinton (Democratic): $61 million Jill Stein (Green): $189,000 Gary Johnson (Libertarian): $15,000 Donald Trump (Republican): $0
The natural question here is: What's Trump spending his money on? We don't really know yet, as we noted last week. We only have spending totals by category broken down through June. We created a graph that shows how much Trump has spent each month and where it went:
(The Washington Post)
These are our categories, not his, so there's some estimation at play. "Rent," for example, includes rent, utilities and furniture. "Advertising" includes digital, mail and TV, to the extent that Trump does these things. He advertised some in the primaries, which is why the red bars mostly cut off in April. Management is lots of consulting fees, unless those fees are clearly related to another category, such as fundraising consulting.
People asked how Trump's spending compared with Clinton's, so we made the same chart for her, with the same broad categories.
(The Washington Post)
Lots more red; lots more spending on advertising. Her ad-spending dropped off in May, too, but picked right back up for the general.
Remember: The NBC-Advertising Analytics data suggests that the July numbers that are released won't show any significant ad spending for Trump. Television ads are expensive to make and expensive to run and eat up a lot of a campaign's ad spending. This is another reason that Trump's foot-dragging is so weird: Television stations are selling ads to all comers, including Senate and House candidates. Supply goes down, cost goes up — and availability goes down, too. If Trump wants to target ads on a certain channel at a certain time, he should reserve that spot as soon as possible. The nonsensical argument from supporters that he doesn't want to tip his hand on his ad spending completely is like saying that you don't want people to know your musical chairs strategy, so you're not going to run as soon as the music stops. Those chairs are going to be gone.
Note something else here: The scale of the Clinton and Trump graphs is not the same. If we put them on the same scale, the imbalance between the two campaigns becomes even more stark.
(The Washington Post)
Clinton spent more on advertising in June than Trump spent on his entire campaign for May, June and half of April.
Trump's campaign simply doesn't look like past presidential campaigns, which he would probably argue is a good thing. The grand experiment to run a new type of political campaign, though, has him trailing nationally, trailing in every swing state from 2012 and losing in states Romney won in 2012.
If you're going to judge Trump's spending/advertising strategy, that's worth pointing out.Multiple sources confirmed to ESPN that the following is a transcript of a voice message Incognito left for Martin in April 2013, a year after Martin was drafted:
"Hey, wassup, you half n----- piece of s---. I saw you on Twitter, you been training 10 weeks. [I want to] s--- in your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your real mother across the face [laughter]. F--- you, you're still a rookie. I'll kill you."
Sources tell ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter that officials from both the NFL and the Dolphins have heard the tape and have copies of the message.
Sources familiar with the tapes say these are terms Incognito used over time and were not isolated incidents, including the use of the racial epithet multiple times.
Sources also say Martin received a series of texts that included derogatory terms referring to the female anatomy and sexual orientation.
Incognito was suspended indefinitely by the Dolphins on Sunday night for conduct detrimental to the team. Meanwhile, the Miami Herald reported Monday that the team plans to cut ties with him.
"He's done," a team source told the newspaper. "There are procedures in place, and everyone wants to be fair. The NFL is involved. But from a club perspective he'll never play another game here."
In a statement announcing his suspension, the Dolphins said, "we believe in maintaining a culture of respect for one another and as a result we believe this decision is in the best interest of the organization at this time. As we noted earlier, we reached out to the NFL to conduct an objective and thorough review. We will continue to work with the league on this matter."
Incognito, who had been a part of Miami's six-player leadership council, started all eight games for the Dolphins (4-4). He will be an unrestricted free agent after the season. Backup guard Nate Garner will start in his place.
Martin left the team last week after a lunchroom incident. It is unknown whether and when Martin plans to return to the team.
Martin also missed two days of organized team activities this past spring, and the team knew he was struggling and unhappy without knowing the exact reason why, league sources told Schefter. Martin did not identify Incognito as the source of his unhappiness out of fear of retribution and not wanting to roll over on his teammates, according to league sources.
The Dolphins have until 4 p.m. ET Tuesday to take him off the non-football-related illness list.
This is not the first time Incognito has been in trouble. In 2009 he got into a verbal altercation with then-St. Louis Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo for multiple penalties in a game. Incognito was waived a few days later. Incognito also was suspended for the 2004 season in college at Nebraska because of off-the-field incidents.
In the preseason, Houston Texans defensive lineman Antonio Smith swung a helmet at Incognito during a game, alleging foul play.
On Monday, Smith said he wasn't surprised Incognito was involved in such an incident.
"You are what you are I guess," Smith said. "That doesn't surprise me one bit."
New York Jets quarterback David Garrard was a teammate of Incognito's in Miami during the preseason last year and described the embattled lineman as "a jokester kind of guy."
"I would just say he's a jokester kind of guy," Garrard said. "A good guy, but like all of us, you want to have your fair shake of pranks and stuff like that.... It's unfortunate. You never want it to get to a point where guys want to leave the team. You would hope other guys in the locker room would help police it. It's one of those situations that's sad to see."
Former New York Jets and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Bart Scott told ESPN 98.7 FM in New York that Incognito should be kicked out of the NFL.
"He needs to be gone," Scott said. "No one would miss him anyway. Trust me."
Scott added: "You got to be some type of loser in your spare time away from the building you want to call me and leave threatening messages and text messages on my phone. That's taking bullying to a whole other level."
Scott himself is no stranger to rookie hazing, as he was seen on the Jets' season of "Hard Knocks" as part of a group of veterans tying a rookie player to a goalpost and dousing him in ice, Gatorade and powder.
Incognito talked to NFL.com this past summer about problems he's had to overcome through therapy with anger-management issues and substance abuse, particularly when he was with the Rams at the beginning of his career.Porn star Sunny Leone entered Bollywood with a bang and has never looked back going from strength to strength - literally.
One of the things that got her through was her work ethic and a bit of luck in the form of Mahesh Bhatt. Here are 2 instances:
Before Sunny Leone entered the Bigg Boss house, Ujjwala Dutt, one of the producers of the show, was assigned to help her get used to India.
She is intelligent and confident and had done her homework. She was never embarrassed of her profession, but said she was done with it and needed a change, she says.
Sunny Leone did not have to wait long; Mahesh Bhatt stepped into the Bigg Boss house to offer her Jism 2.
When I approached Sunny Leone for the film, the whos who in Bollywood told me that I was committing hara-kiri because India is a traditional country and the audience would never accept her. But she was already on the show and viewers didnt seem to have a problem, says Bhatt.
Sunnys success is a marketing coup. She made a smart choice to be a part of successful franchise films like Jism 2 and Ragini MMS 2. Shes not fighting for the traditional Indian heroines space, he says.Full disclosure: I was once a full-time freelance designer. And like many of you, I worked in Crew for some extra income. While I felt the platform ran well, I did have my fair share of frustrations with the app itself. Things like: Getting an error when adding a collaborator
Not being able to log out of my account when on mobile
My messages being duplicated
Having to download a file before previewing it If I wasn’t bringing up some those issues with Kirill (my good buddy and then-product designer at Crew), we’d be discussing different design solutions for it. That Facebook conversation was from a year ago and around the time that Crew tackled one of their most challenging product updates to date. And while the results of that huge overhaul (dubbed ‘Big Bertha’) were impressive, they weren’t the be-all-end-all of Crew. Right now, we’re in the process of redesigning the entire Crew experience with our community in mind. We’re calling it Dream Crew. We’re reworking every flow across the website to bring you a faster and more responsive app with real-time everything. Our goal is to have a platform that reflects your feedback, and continues to adapt to the challenges freelancers face today. What can you expect from Dream Crew? First off, a brand new layout.
CTO using Photoshop. Not bad.
This is how Angus, our CTO, imagines the next version of Crew to look: a 3-column layout similar to Slack. Why this layout style? We found that many Crew members prefer to manage their projects on Slack rather than use the Crew platform. Hell, we even manage our day-to-day tasks on Slack. When we dug a bit further and looked at other project management tools (like Basecamp and Asana) we found more of the same: a 3-column layout with Your Projects in one column, Your Tasks in another, and Information Pertaining to that Task in the last column. If it works, why change it? Building a product with purpose Taking on a redesign like this requires serious thought and research before you even think about building. For large-scale projects like this I like to refer to Matt Cooke’s Design Methodology chart. It helps generate concepts with purpose rather than creating ‘look and feel’ designs with no functionalities in mind. More importantly, the chart keeps us in check, making sure we always validate our initial design brief at every phase (and adjust it as we see fit).
We know that our target audience prefers to manage their projects on Slack because of features like: Instant Direct Messaging (feedback is immediate)
Streamlined Project Management (attending to multiple projects in ‘one screen’)
Trouble-free Team management (easily add/remove collaborators from a channel) Moreover, Slack’s success comes from the way it allows us to navigate and manage various conversations at once and how ‘fast’ it all feels. It’s also readily available on the web, and as an app on our phones and desktop computers. To make Dream Crew a reality, we need to hit these ‘wow moments’ and so our main design objectives are to: Simplify the flows : Design a smarter and more responsive app that displays important information in real time
: Design a smarter and more responsive app that displays important information in real time Create a sense of familiarity when navigating Crew using a shared aesthetic to most messaging/project management tools
when navigating Crew using a shared aesthetic to most messaging/project management tools Make Messaging the most prominent feature of our App
Next, the ‘Divergence’ phase is where the majority of our background research takes place. Once we had a bit of an idea of where we wanted to go, we took a step back, put aside our assumptions, and assessed the project as a whole. To make sure we weren’t just making decisions based on how we felt, we reached out to the people who know Crew best — those who interact with our members on a daily basis. With support, we outlined every problem area of the current website. We also came up with potential solutions for each one. This exercise helped us refine what has become our Design Problem: Crew will help Project Owners build their dream product by matching them with the industry’s best freelance professionals. For these professionals, it is the most secure place to find contract work as Crew takes on all the risks associated with freelancing (in-house agreements, securing funds, and any disputes are handled by the Crew Happiness Team). Finding the problems that need to be fixed We found that Crew’s problems arise mainly once the matching phase is complete and especially during the agreement and funding stages. After speaking with our members, we nailed down the main pain points to: Incomplete specs: Building a solid work agreement is key for the success of any project. Unfortunately, the current agreement is too long to complete and the descriptions are too broad, resulting in underwhelming, inconsistent specs.
Building a solid work agreement is key for the success of any project. Unfortunately, the current agreement is too long to complete and the descriptions are too broad, resulting in underwhelming, inconsistent specs. Down time: Too many actions require approval from the other party, which causes the project to lose momentum.
Too many actions require approval from the other party, which causes the project to lose momentum. Knowing what’s happening: The Crew App fails to communicate the many stages it takes to complete a project. Too many times, a user is confused as to what needs to be done as information is scattered across the app.
The Crew App fails to communicate the many stages it takes to complete a project. Too many times, a user is confused as to what needs to be done as information is scattered across the app. Unresponsiveness: The Crew App fails to notify the other party of a person’s availability (vacations, online/offline).
The Crew App fails to notify the other party of a person’s availability (vacations, online/offline). The disjoint between estimated and final budget + Crew fee: The cost associated with each part of a project isn’t communicated clearly enough. There’s confusion as to how the Crew Fee is communicated to the respective parties. In order to solve these issues and make for a better user experience, we came up with the following features that should be implemented in Dream Crew: Instant Messaging + Notifications: Keep the conversation going. Have real-time discussions on Crew.
Keep the conversation going. Have real-time discussions on Crew. Better Escorts: Our very own ‘Crew Bot’ will guide you towards your next ‘To Do’.
Our very own ‘Crew Bot’ will guide you towards your next ‘To Do’. Progress Tracker: Easily know what phase of the project you’re in.
Easily know what phase of the project you’re in. Overhaul of the Original Agreements: Parts are no longer sequential and can be created at any time, in any order. The new agreements should reflect this change.
Parts are no longer sequential and can be created at any time, in any order. The new agreements should reflect this change. Simplified Agreements / Standardized Proposals: Member1 is hiring Member2 to build Project X for an estimated price of $______, to be delivered by this date: _____.
Member1 is hiring Member2 to build Project X for an estimated price of $______, to be delivered by this date: _____. Penalty/Reward System: Penalize unresponsive Crew members. Reward those who deliver on time.
Finally, we created a range of visual experiments and solutions with our design objectives in mind.
From our research and when designing for Dream Crew, we found a need to make changes to our current layout — ones that make it possible to display all the new information and features. We needed a layout that breaks away from the confines of a 970px grid, and goes full width.Cricket Australia to use concussion sensors in helmets
Updated
Cricket players in Australia could be wearing concussion sensors in their helmets as early as next summer.
Cricket Australia (CA) has revealed it is in the early stages of trailing state-of-the-art sensor technology to help understand the impact of head knocks.
"We've put a high priority on understanding concussion, like most other sporting organisations in the last three to four years are doing same thing, and sensors are one of those," Cricket Australia sports science and medicine manager Alex Kountouris said.
It is a move that is already being trialled in the NFL.
Sensors are placed inside a player's helmet and ranks the level of impact on hits to the helmet.
That ranking is relayed to a handheld device that is in the hands of coach or trainer, who can determine whether or not the player needs to undergo concussion testing.
"Once we understand the technology better and have confidence then we'll look to introduce it and trial it in games," Kountouris said.
"It won't happen this summer it's more likely to happen in the next 12 months."
Australia coach Darren Lehmann says he would happily support the introduction of the sensor technology.
"Anything that helps the safety of the players I'm all for," he said.
Concussion sub to be trialled this summer
Almost two years since the death of Phillip Hughes, New South Wales cricketer Daniel Hughes was subbed out of a one-day match with concussion.
CA is trailing a substitution rule for this season's Big Bash and domestic one-day games.
While CA is leading the charge, the International Cricket Council (ICC) is yet to change the guidelines that govern first-class matches.
That means there are no provisions for a concussed player to be replaced during Sheffield Shield or international fixtures.
"Cricket is a sport that doesn't have substitutes, so it is a massive cultural change and a big change for the game to allow that and we understand that," Kountouris said.
"We're realistic about the complexity of it. The game's been around for over 100 years and didn't have substitutes, so for us to get it in and trial it is a big thing."
CA will feed back the results from its substitution trial to the ICC body at the end of the summer.
Topics: cricket, sport, sydney-2000, nsw, australia
First postedNow playing: Watch this: Stop your Vizio smart TV from spying on you
Most TV makers track your viewing habits using their smart TV systems, but the one you may have heard about recently is Vizio. That's because the popular TV maker was just hit with a $2.2 million fine by the FTC for failing to properly disclose the activity.
If you have a Vizio TV, you might be wondering how to turn off its tracking features.
While you could disconnect your TV from the Internet to prevent this, it's not the best solution. Cutting the Inernet would mean you won't be able to use built-in apps like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video. The better option is to just turn tracking off and still enjoy your TV's smart features.
First, however, you need to know which Vizio smart TV you have.
Which models are affected?
For models sold before 2011, designated VIA (for Vizio Internet Apps), the company says tracking has been disabled already -- so no action is needed. But just to make sure, we've included instructions for those older TVs below as well.
For TVs sold between 2011 and 2016, you'll have to do it manually. And for TVs sold in 2016 as SmartCast displays, the tracking is not enabled.
Disable tracking on older VIA TVs (up to 2011)
As mentioned, Vizio already disabled tracking on TVs from 2011 and earlier, but you can do this just to make sure. Press the Menu button on the remote, open Settings, highlight Smart Interactivity and switch it to off.
Disable tracking on newer VIA Plus TVs (2011-2016)
To disable the Smart Interactivity feature on the models with the VIA Plus interface, press the Menu button on the remote to open Settings, select System, followed by Reset and Admin. Then scroll down to Smart Interactivity and switch it to off.
You can now enjoy using your TV without having to worry about Big Brother watching over you.
This article was originally published November 16, 2015. It has been updated to reflect recent developments.Chances are a lot of people will tune in Saturday to see the results of the U.S. Powerball lottery, including many Canadians.
The largest jackpot in U.S. history is at almost $1.3 billion Cdn, to be paid over 29 years or as a one-time lump sum of around $790 million Cdn.
However, the odds of winning are "astronomically small" at one in 292.2 million, said Scott Norris, an assistant professor of mathematics at Southern Methodist University.
"It's probably still not going to happen if you buy a hundred tickets or a thousand tickets or even a million tickets," he said.
Jeffrey Miecznikowski, an associate professor of biostatistics at the University of Buffalo, said the odds are "dare say impossible," adding winning the Powerball is about as likely as flipping a coin and having it land on heads 28 times in a row.
In other words, chances of winning the Powerball lottery are slim.
Here are a few things more likely to happen.
Maple Leafs winning Stanley Cup
According to Vegas, the betting odds for the Toronto Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup this season is 100 to one — the lowest for any Canadian NHL team — and a slightly better 50 to one chance of winning the Eastern Conference.
If you were to put down $2 US, the cost of one Powerball lottery ticket, on the blue and white to win it all, you would rake in $200, or about $280 Cdn.
The Leafs, who haven't won a Cup since 1967 and have only qualified for the playoffs once since the 2004-05 lockout-shortened season, are currently in thirteenth place in the 16-team Eastern Conference.
Fans at Toronto's Maple Leafs Square react after the Leafs lose to the Boston Bruins in game seven of the first round of the 2013 NHL playoffs. (Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)
Being dealt a royal flush
The chance of playing five-card draw poker and being dealt a royal flush, or five sequential cards from 10 to ace in the same suit, is one in 650,000. The odds of landing the unbeatable poker hand in Texas hold'em are one in 31,000.
Even if you somehow defy the odds and get the luck of the draw, you aren't guaranteed to win a Powerball-like jackpot. An amateur poker player in England once scored two royal flushes in one hour on the same night, but was not able to win the tournament, leaving with just over $300 in winnings.
The royal flush is the highest ranking hand in poker. And very difficult to get. (Robert Sullivan/AFP/Getty Images)
Rolling up the rim to win a car
The chance of winning a doughnut or coffee in the Tim Hortons' seasonal Roll Up the Rim promotion is one in six.
Some have claimed buying larger coffee sizes increase the chances of winning, but a software developer who analyzed about 4,000 winning Roll Up the Rim cases determined the theory to be untrue.
To win a car is much tougher.
The popular coffee chain, which in 2014 started giving customers the chance to roll up twice, said the chance of winning one of those is one in seven million.
The chance of winning a car in the Tim Hortons' Roll Up the Rim contest is one in seven million. (CBC)
Birthing identical quintuplets
The miracle of birth becomes even more miraculous when it comes to identical quadruplets, but that is exactly what happened to a Calgary couple in 2007.
J.P. and Karen Jepp gave birth to four girls — Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia — at a U.S. hospital, due to Calgary's only neonatal intensive care unit being full.
Statistically, the chances of giving birth to four identical babies at the same time are one in 13 million, which is still 20 times more likely to happen than winning the Powerball lottery.
Calgary couple J.P. and Karen Jepp are parents to older brother Simon and quadruplets Brooke, Dahlia, Calissa and Autumn. (Julie Marwood Photography)
John Mellencamp winning an Oscar
"If anyone gives you 10,000 to one on anything, you take it," said accountant Kevin Malone, a fictional character on the comedy show The Office. "If John Mellencamp ever wins an Oscar, I am going to be a very rich dude."Governor Greg Abbott aims to'reunite the Texas-Texas A&M football rivalry'
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott briefly met with the media before Texas and Texas A&M played an exhibition basketball game at Rice on Wednesday night, and while he likes seeing the hoops teams come together even in a glorified scrimmage, he has something more in mind.
"My next goal as governor is to reunite the Texas-Texas A&M football rivalry," said Abbott, before adding a "Hook 'em Horns."
The old Southwest Conference and Big 12 rivals haven't played since A&M exited the Big 12 for the SEC in the summer of 2012. Meanwhile the Aggies and Longhorns hoopsters are hustling up and down the floor in the exhibition game like it was the NCAA Tournament – one more example of why the state's two most prominent universities need to renew acquaintances.
All proceeds from Wednesday night's game go to hurricane relief.Chelsea Manning was hospitalized on July 5, according to her attorney. The U.S. soldier reportedly tried to commit suicide, while imprisoned for handing over classified files to WikiLeaks. (Reuters)
Chelsea Manning, the U.S. soldier sentenced to 35 years in prison for her role in the publication of a vast trove of classified information by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, was hospitalized early Tuesday after what media reports characterized as a suicide attempt.
Manning, 28, was taken to the hospital and has since been returned to confinement, said Wayne Hall, an Army spokesman. He declined to discuss the circumstances of the incident, but CNN and TMZ reported Wednesday that the medical treatment was prompted by a suicide attempt, citing unnamed defense officials. TMZ reported that Manning attempted to hang herself, citing an unnamed source.
[Chelsea Manning files suit over military’s decision not to provide hormone treatment]
Manning’s lead attorney, Nancy Hollander, said in a statement that she was “shocked and outraged” that an official at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, where Manning is imprisoned, provided “confidential medical information” about Manning to the media but had not shared anything with her team.
“Despite the fact that they have reached out to the media, and that any other prison will connect an emergency call, the Army has told her lawyers that the earliest time that they will accommodate a call between her lawyers and Chelsea is Friday morning,” Hollander said. “We call on the Army to immediately connect Chelsea Manning to her lawyers and friends who care deeply about her well-being and are profoundly distressed by the complete lack of official communication about Chelsea’s current situation.”
Army officials at Fort Leavenworth referred questions to the Pentagon.
Manning was convicted in July 2013 of violating the Espionage Act and other crimes when she was still known as Bradley Manning. She transitioned from male to female after her conviction and has kept a relatively high profile while behind bars, writing opinion pieces for The Guardian and pressing for the right to receive hormone treatments while imprisoned.
Manning wrote about the U.S. military’s recent decision to repeal the ban on transgender troops in a piece published July 1, saying it was a necessary step toward protecting and recognizing the humanity of transgender people. But she also criticized the military’s plans, saying they fall short of what is needed.
In particular, Manning took issue with a new requirement that transgender people may serve so long as they are certified to be stable for 18 months after transitioning. The new plan has generally been greeted with optimism by repeal advocates, but Manning called it a misuse of established standards of medical care.
[The Pentagon’s ban on transgender service just fell — but the details are complicated]
“What is the stability of gender?” Manning wrote. “Isn’t gender an inherently unstable concept — always being constrained by the various context and rules under which we live?”
Manning also questioned whether the new rules will apply to U.S. troops who are incarcerated.
“I am deeply concerned that like so many policies, the impact of this change won’t penetrate the prison walls,” she wrote. “What does it mean that the military will recognize our gender, unless and until we are arrested, and then what? This core identity is then stripped away and our birth assigned sex is imposed on us?”The electronics industry has long been obsessed with usurping the personal assistant, with attempts ranging from Siri back to the Palm Pilot. Generally speaking, most of those efforts have failed to achieve the adoption their creators once hoped for.
According to Lee Hnetinka, the 25-year-old founder of a new iPhone app called WunWun, the very idea of replacing the personal assistant using the Internet is wrongheaded. WunWun, which stands for “what you need, when you need it,” does something very different. It gives iPhone users access to a network of live dispatchers and super-local “helpers” that can perform nearly any task imaginable (within legal bounds). “The state of the web right now is search-and-sift,” he tells me. “Our big idea is to create local, on-demand networks that generate an array of information that you could never find using Google.”
WunWun offers a couple of different things. You can ask for a delivery of almost anything (a cake, an iPhone charger, a pack of gum) and pay a flat $15 delivery fee. Or, you can request a service (walk my dog, unclog the toilet, or as one user requested, drive to Ikea and pick up some Swedish meatballs). That costs $2 for every five minutes. Lastly, you can ask for advice (where should I take my date?), which is totally free. It’s a bit like on-demand car service Uber, but with a vastly broader array of services.
Once you make your request, a dispatcher assigns it to one of WunWun’s growing ranks of “helpers.” These are students, freelancers, even retirees who’ve been background checked and trained to respond to requests around them. “Your helper could be your neighbor, for all you know,” Hnetinka says. “They aren’t just going to Google or Yelp your request.” The helpers make $10 for every $15 you pay for a deliver–not a bad rate, considering it’s a side job for most of WunWun’s fast-growing pool. Eventually, the company hopes to have one helper for every three blocks in the city. “Our best use case came up a few weeks ago,” he says. “This guy was in Pun |
West Hollywood’s and all other cities with which we are familiar. Being closed on Sundays makes even less sense, and is reminiscent of “dry county” rules found in Southern states relative to alcohol. There are no restrictions like this for patients obtaining “Big-Pharma” medicine from any pharmacies (which are open 24 hours) or even alcohol (open until 2 a.m.) or even cigarettes (24 hours).”
The PTSA is also asking that dispensaries must verify and document that patients are Santa Monica residents, which Leahy believes is only intended to harm patients.
“There is no business in Santa Monica restricted only to serving documented residents,” Leahy said. “There is no dispensary in California barred from serving a Santa Monica resident. Such a restriction like this seems like bullying intended to unreasonably punish patients and dispensaries. It is also likely illegal. This could cause a dispensary not to be economically viable.”
Leahy also found the request that no consumable medical marijuana products be sold at dispensaries to be detrimental to patients.
“Many patients ingest their medicine only by eatables. Requiring patients to obtain their medicine only in a smokable form seems completely unreasonable, counterintuitive and punitive. Also, this results in a dramatic reduction in the type of medicine any dispensary can offer its patients; which could result in the dispensary being economically not viable.”
Leahy said it is “hard to see” how the resolution is in the interest of the PTSA’s students and school community.
“It is, abundantly clear, however, that seriously ill patients are needlessly and unreasonably harmed and punished under this resolution. Under this resolution, no dispensary operator could physically or economically locate in Santa Monica.”
Winters finds SAMOSA’s response to their resolution both sudden and hurtful.
“It has been within the past few months that the PTSA thought it was in our kids’ best interest to create this resolution. And the school year just started, so we are just getting started. We thought it was in our kids’ best interest to have a response and to address it … I don’t disagree that the patients need reasonable access and that they need to have this. We completely support the patients’ rights in this. We just need to be an advocate for the kids and we need to make sure there isn’t the ability for the kids to run off campus in the middle of the day or bring it back to campus. So I think we can strike a fine balance where the patients who want it get this access without there being bottles on the playground.”
Leahy said SAMOSA believes that Santa Monica’s current ordinance appropriately balances residents’ concerns while affording reasonable access for patients.
“The Council’s decision last July to expeditiously implement safe access exemplifies the City’s tradition of compassionately helping the sick. For far too long, the hardships endured by patients have been worsened by not having local access to a holistic remedy to ease their suffering,” Leahy said.
Ultimately, Winters wants to make sure the PTSA is heard on this matter.
“The goal is to make sure we have a voice, as it is pretty clear there are other groups and advocates who have a voice. And that’s what we’re here to accomplish,” Winters said.
jennifer@www.smdp.com"It was a crazy day, but I'd do it again if I had to," Adams said. "I've had worse days, let's say that. That was definitely one to remember."
ATLANTA -- At some point within the next few weeks, Lane Adams might have to pay a few fines levied by the Georgia State Road and Tollway Department. But this will simply add to the splendor of the story the Braves outfielder can always tell about the time he played in a Minor League and Major League game on the same day.
ATLANTA -- At some point within the next few weeks, Lane Adams might have to pay a few fines levied by the Georgia State Road and Tollway Department. But this will simply add to the splendor of the story the Braves outfielder can always tell about the time he played in a Minor League and Major League game on the same day.
"It was a crazy day, but I'd do it again if I had to," Adams said. "I've had worse days, let's say that. That was definitely one to remember."
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After recording a pair of hits for Triple-A Gwinnett during Wednesday afternoon's home victory over Norfolk, Adams made the 30-plus minute drive back toward his Dunwoody-area apartment with the expectation he would stop at his neighborhood super market, buy the lemon cups he had been craving and enjoy a relaxing evening. His plans were drastically altered around 5:20 p.m. ET, when Gwinnett manager Damon Berryhill called to inform Adams he'd been promoted to Atlanta's roster and needed to make every attempt to get to SunTrust Park before the Braves began their game against the Phillies at 7:35 p.m. ET. The late notice was a product of the unexpected decision to place Adonis Garcia on the disabled list.
"It went from a pretty mellow chill day to just really sped up and frantic," Adams said. "I was just rushing.
"I remember driving back from the game in Gwinnett, and I saw all the traffic going the other way and I thought, 'Oh, I'm glad I'm not sitting in that.' Then an hour or so later, I'm sitting in it. But it was worth it."
Before making what would have been about a 10-mile trek to SunTrust Park, Adams first had to drive approximately 30 miles through rush hour traffic to gather his bats, spikes and gloves that were at Gwinnett's Coolray Field. Along the way he called his girlfriend, who spent 10 minutes telling him about the mess their dog had made in the apartment, before providing Adams a chance to explain why he wouldn't be home for dinner.
"I sat in traffic for about 35 minutes before I decided if I'm going to make the game, I've got to get in the Peach Pass lane," Adams said of the pre-pay toll lane in which he wasn't authorized to drive. "It felt like every half mile, I was passing cameras. At first I started weaving in and out, trying to avoid them. But I was thinking this is taking too long, so I just wore it."
After arriving at Gwinnett's stadium around 6:15 p.m. ET, Adams left about five minutes later and began the 40-mile drive to SunTrust Park. His determination to do whatever it took to arrive in time allowed him to arrive a little after 7 p.m. ET.
"Driving back from Gwinnett was the first time I've ever driven with my hazard lights on," Adams said. "I just threw the hazards on and tried to rush back. People were nice."
Adams went hitless in the two at-bats he collected after entering Atlanta's win over Philadelphia in the seventh inning. As he drove back home after his second game of the day, he had quite a story to tell. But to his chagrin, he never did get those lemon cups.
"I should have just bought them and ate them in the car," Adams said.Darren Aronofsky is the director of π, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan, Noah and the forthcoming mother!.
On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, two cinematic titans are in conversation as Darren Aronofsky sits down with the legendary Alejandro Jodorowsky, to coincide with the theatrical release of the 88-year-old cult director’s new film, Endless Poetry. The two have a fascinating, wide-ranging conversation that takes in the challenge of making art within the Hollywood system, the ability of films to heal, the vulgarity of Trump and life’s big questions – death, God, aliens, the universe – and Jodorowsky also fulfills a longheld dream of the Black Swan director’s by reading his tarot. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse Film at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now on iTunes or Stitcher to stay in the loop about future Talkhouse Podcasts.
The music featured in the podcast is as follows:
1. Intro / outro underscore: “Plastic Man vs. The Giant Red Phase Of The Sun” – Iced Ink
Episode engineered by Talkhouse Podcast producer Elia Einhorn and mixed by Mark YoshizumiThe Italian Simone Ponzi (Astana) won the 139km opening stage of the Vuelta a Burgos, which was decided in an uphill finish at El Castillo de Burgos. Ponzi benefited from the work of his teammate Vincenzo Nibali, who tested his legs ahead of the Vuelta a España by setting the pace (and tearing the pack to pieces) in the final kilometer of the stage. When Nibali ceased his effort, Ponzi found himself in a close, man-to-man contest with Daniele Ratto (Cannondale), who tried to win by striking first with no reward except an unsatisfying second result. Katusha's Sergei Chernetskiy, very inspired as he recently showed in the Tour de Pologne, took third place.
Ponzi praised Nibali in his statements after the race. "Without Vincenzo I wouldn't have won today, it's that simple," said Ponzi. "He did so much work in the last kilometers to set a high pace and keep the speed up."
That allowed Ponzi to arrive with "good legs and a lot of energy" for the finale and grab his first victory of the season. Ponzi's last win was in June, 2012 on stage 1 at the Tour of Slovenia.
Leaving aside the picturesque climb to El Castillo de Burgos, which the cyclists faced twice in the final ten kilometers, the stage also featured beautiful landscapes and interesting racing. It followed the conventional pattern as six riders went clear early after some aggressive racing and were caught right before the crucial moments in the stage's endgame. Those escapees were Vasil Kiryienka (Sky), Paolo Tiralongo (Astana), Jorge Azanza (Euskaltel), Christian Meier (Orica-GreenEdge), Fabricio Ferrari (Caja Rural) and Iliart Zuazubiskar (Euskadi).
The six were given kept on a tight leash by the peloton, driven by Movistar which thought of Giovanni Visconti and Nairo Quintana as potential winners for the stage, although the pair got boxed in during the closing kilometers and couldn't contest for glory.
The stage was marred by several crashes midway through which caused the retirement of Dani Navarro (Cofidis, 9th in the Tour de France) and three Team Sky riders: Joe Dombrowski, Ian Boswell and Christian Knees. They are "bruised up", according to Sky DS Marcus Ljungqvist, but "should be okay for their upcoming races."
Full Results 1 Simone Ponzi (Ita) Astana Pro Team 3:16:34 2 Daniele Ratto (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 3 Sergei Chernetckii (Rus) Katusha 4 Anthony Roux (Fra) FDJ.fr 5 Dario Cataldo (Ita) Sky Procycling 0:00:03 6 Jens Keukeleire (Bel) Orica-GreenEdge 7 Benoît Vaugrenard (Fra) FDJ.fr 0:00:05 8 Mauro Finetto (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 9 Mikael Cherel (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 10 Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:08 11 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Movistar Team 12 Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 13 Giampaolo Caruso (Ita) Katusha 14 Jeffry Johan Romero Corredor (Col) Colombia 15 Ivan Velasco Murillo (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 16 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team 17 Nicolas Edet (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 18 Carlos Barbero Cuesta (Spa) Euskadi 0:00:12 19 Romain Hardy (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 20 Mikel Landa Meana (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 21 Marcos Garcia (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 22 Steve Bekaert (Bel) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 23 Benat Intxausti Elorriaga (Spa) Movistar Team 24 Andre Fernando S. Martins Cardoso (Por) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 25 Dmitry Kozontchuk (Rus) Katusha 26 David Arroyo Duran (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 27 José Herrada Lopez (Spa) Movistar Team 28 Nairo Alexander Quintana Rojas (Col) Movistar Team 29 Salvatore Puccio (Ita) Sky Procycling 30 Laurent Pichon (Fra) FDJ.fr 31 Jonathan Monsalve (Ven) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 32 José Joao Pimenta Costa Mendes (Por) Team NetApp-Endura 33 Amets Txurruka (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 34 Ruben Plaza Molina (Spa) Movistar Team 35 Cayetano José Sarmiento Tunarrosa (Col) Cannondale Pro Cycling 36 Francesco Failli (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 37 Anthony Geslin (Fra) FDJ.fr 38 David Belda Garcia (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 39 David De La Cruz Melgarejo (Spa) Team NetApp-Endura 40 Iker Camano Ortuzar (Spa) Team NetApp-Endura 41 Peio Bilbao (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 42 Haritz Orbe Urrutia (Spa) Euskadi 0:00:21 43 Luca Mazzanti (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 44 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana Pro Team 45 Juan Pablo Valencia (Col) Colombia 0:00:24 46 Steve Chainel (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:25 47 Daniel Teklehaimanot (Eri) Orica-GreenEdge 0:00:27 48 Pier Paolo De Negri (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 49 Cristiano Salerno (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:00:29 50 Igor Merino Cortazar (Spa) Euskadi 0:00:32 51 Romain Zingle (Bel) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 52 Valentin Iglinskiy (Kaz) AG2R La Mondiale 53 Jarlinson Pantano (Col) Colombia 0:00:34 54 Xabier Zandio Echaide (Spa) Sky Procycling 55 Federico Canuti (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 56 Jussi Veikkanen (Fin) FDJ.fr 57 Lloyd Mondory (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 58 Jan Barta (Cze) Team NetApp-Endura 59 Luis Mas Bonet (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 0:00:38 60 Stéphane Poulhies (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 61 Ivan Basso (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:00:42 62 Romain Lemarchand (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 63 Gorka Verdugo Marcotegui (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:00:45 64 Egoi Martinez De Esteban (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 65 Jorge Azanza Soto (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 66 Robinson Eduardo Chalapud Gomez (Col) Colombia 67 Cameron Wurf (Aus) Cannondale Pro Cycling 68 Luca Paolini (Ita) Katusha 0:00:51 69 Angel Vicioso Arcos (Spa) Katusha 70 Philip Lavery (Irl) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 0:00:58 71 Jesus Herrada Lopez (Spa) Movistar Team 0:01:07 72 Zakkari Dempster (Aus) Team NetApp-Endura 0:01:10 73 Unai Iparraguirre Azpiazu (Spa) Euskadi 0:01:16 74 Daniele Colli (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 75 Jesus Del Pino Corrochano (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 76 Duber Armando Quintero Artunduaga (Col) Colombia 0:01:31 77 Moises Duenas Nevado (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 0:01:33 78 Fabio Andres Duarte Arevalo (Col) Colombia 0:01:34 79 Mikel Bizkarra (Spa) Euskadi 80 Andrey Zeits (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 81 Arnaud Courteille (Fra) FDJ.fr 0:01:36 82 Petr Ignatenko (Rus) Katusha 83 Paolo Longo Borghini (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 84 Matteo Rabottini (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 85 Alexander Wetterhall (Swe) Team NetApp-Endura 86 Ricardo Garcia Ambroa (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:01:55 87 Tristan Valentin (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 0:02:03 88 Aritz Bagües (Spa) Euskadi 0:02:07 89 Arman Kamyshev (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 0:02:12 90 Luke Rowe (GBr) Sky Procycling 0:02:26 91 Janez Brajkovic (Slo) Astana Pro Team 0:02:29 92 Mitchell Docker (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 0:02:39 93 Pablo Urtasun Perez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:02:51 94 Mikhail Antonov (Rus) Katusha 0:03:33 95 Fumiyuki Beppu (Jpn) Orica-GreenEdge 0:03:41 96 Paolo Tiralongo (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:03:49 97 Valerio Agnoli (Ita) Astana Pro Team 98 Fabricio Ferrari Barcelo (Uru) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 99 José Ivan Gutierrez Palacios (Spa) Movistar Team 100 Francesco Lasca (Ita) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 101 Airan Fernandez (Spa) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 102 Xavier Florencio Cabre (Spa) Katusha 103 Pablo Torres Muino (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 104 Allan Davis (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 105 Darío Hernández (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 106 Cédric Pineau (Fra) FDJ.fr 107 Sylvester Szmyd (Pol) Movistar Team 108 Efren Carazo (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 109 Christian Meier (Can) Orica-GreenEdge 110 Ben Gastauer (Lux) AG2R La Mondiale 111 Anthony Ravard (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 112 Julio Alexis Camacho Bernal (Col) Colombia 113 Antonio Piedra Perez (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 114 Sandy Casar (Fra) FDJ.fr 115 Juan Carlos Larrinaga Muguruza (Spa) Euskadi 116 Vasil Kiryienka (Blr) Sky Procycling 0:03:58 117 Illart Zuazubiskar Gallastegi (Spa) Euskadi 118 Erick Rowsell (GBr) Team NetApp-Endura 0:03:59 119 Jonathan McEvoy (GBr) Team NetApp-Endura 120 Leigh Howard (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 121 Matteo Montaguti (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 122 Lucas Sebastian Haedo (Arg) Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:04:14 123 Edwin Alcibiades Avila Vanegas (Col) Colombia 0:11:26 DNF Daniel Navarro Garcia (Spa) Cofidis, Solutions Credits DNF Christian Knees (Ger) Sky Procycling DNF Ian Boswell (USA) Sky Procycling DNF Joseph Lloyd Dombrowski (USA) Sky Procycling
Points 1 Simone Ponzi (Ita) Astana Pro Team 25 pts 2 Daniele Ratto (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 20 3 Sergei Chernetckii (Rus) Katusha 16 4 Anthony Roux (Fra) FDJ.fr 14 5 Dario Cataldo (Ita) Sky Procycling 12 6 Jens Keukeleire (Bel) Orica-GreenEdge 10 7 Benoît Vaugrenard (Fra) FDJ.fr 9 8 Mauro Finetto (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 8 9 Mikael Cherel (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 7 10 Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 6 11 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Movistar Team 5 12 Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 4 13 Giampaolo Caruso (Ita) Katusha 3 14 Jeffry Johan Romero Corredor (Col) Colombia 2 15 Ivan Velasco Murillo (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 1
Mountain 1 - Alto Los Buitres (Cat. 3) 41km 1 Jorge Azanza Soto (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 6 pts 2 Paolo Tiralongo (Ita) Astana Pro Team 4 3 Fabricio Ferrari Barcelo (Uru) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 2 4 Illart Zuazubiskar Gallastegi (Spa) Euskadi 1
Mountain 2 - El Castillo (Cat. 3) 131km 1 Anthony Roux (Fra) FDJ.fr 6 pts 2 Francesco Failli (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 4 3 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team 2 4 Jeffry Johan Romero Corredor (Col) Colombia 1
Mountain 3 - El Castillo (Cat. 3) 139km 1 Simone Ponzi (Ita) Astana Pro Team 6 pts 2 Daniele Ratto (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 4 3 Sergei Chernetckii (Rus) Katusha 2 4 Anthony Roux (Fra) FDJ.fr 1
Sprint 1 - Castrillo del Val, 52km 1 Fabricio Ferrari Barcelo (Uru) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 3 pts 2 Illart Zuazubiskar Gallastegi (Spa) Euskadi 2 3 Christian Meier (Can) Orica-GreenEdge 1
Sprint 2 - Ibeas de Juarros, 58km 1 Fabricio Ferrari Barcelo (Uru) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 3 pts 2 Illart Zuazubiskar Gallastegi (Spa) Euskadi 2 3 Christian Meier (Can) Orica-GreenEdge 1
Sprint 3 - Atapuerca, 74km 1 Fabricio Ferrari Barcelo (Uru) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 3 pts 2 Illart Zuazubiskar Gallastegi (Spa) Euskadi 2 3 Jorge Azanza Soto (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 1
Young riders 1 Carlos Barbero Cuesta (Spa) Euskadi 3:16:46 2 Haritz Orbe Urrutia (Spa) Euskadi 0:00:09 3 Arman Kamyshev (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 0:02:00 4 Efren Carazo (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 0:03:37
Spanish riders 1 Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 3:16:42 2 Ivan Velasco Murillo (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 3 Carlos Barbero Cuesta (Spa) Euskadi 0:00:04 4 Mikel Landa Meana (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 5 Marcos Garcia (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 6 Benat Intxausti Elorriaga (Spa) Movistar Team 7 David Arroyo Duran (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 8 José Herrada Lopez (Spa) Movistar Team 9 Amets Txurruka (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 10 Ruben Plaza Molina (Spa) Movistar Team 11 David Belda Garcia (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 12 David De La Cruz Melgarejo (Spa) Team NetApp-Endura 13 Iker Camano Ortuzar (Spa) Team NetApp-Endura 14 Peio Bilbao (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 15 Haritz Orbe Urrutia (Spa) Euskadi 0:00:13 16 Igor Merino Cortazar (Spa) Euskadi 0:00:24 17 Xabier Zandio Echaide (Spa) Sky Procycling 0:00:26 18 Luis Mas Bonet (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 0:00:30 19 Gorka Verdugo Marcotegui (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:00:37 20 Egoi Martinez De Esteban (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 21 Jorge Azanza Soto (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 22 Angel Vicioso Arcos (Spa) Katusha 0:00:43 23 Jesus Herrada Lopez (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:59 24 Unai Iparraguirre Azpiazu (Spa) Euskadi 0:01:08 25 Jesus Del Pino Corrochano (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 26 Moises Duenas Nevado (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 0:01:25 27 Mikel Bizkarra (Spa) Euskadi 0:01:26 28 Ricardo Garcia Ambroa (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:01:47 29 Aritz Bagües (Spa) Euskadi 0:01:59 30 Pablo Urtasun Perez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:02:43 31 José Ivan Gutierrez Palacios (Spa) Movistar Team 0:03:41 32 Airan Fernandez (Spa) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 33 Xavier Florencio Cabre (Spa) Katusha 34 Pablo Torres Muino (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 35 Darío Hernández (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 36 Efren Carazo (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 37 Antonio Piedra Perez (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 38 Juan Carlos Larrinaga Muguruza (Spa) Euskadi 39 Illart Zuazubiskar Gallastegi (Spa) Euskadi 0:03:50
Local riders 1 Carlos Barbero Cuesta (Spa) Euskadi 3:16:46 2 Moises Duenas Nevado (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 0:01:21 3 Efren Carazo (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 0:03:37
Teams 1 FDJ.fr 9:49:59 2 Katusha 0:00:03 3 Astana Pro Team 0:00:12 4 Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 5 Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 0:00:15 6 Movistar Team 7 Euskaltel-Euskadi 8 Team NetApp-Endura 0:00:19 9 Ag2R La Mondiale 0:00:21 10 Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:00:24 11 Sky Procycling 0:00:32 12 Cofidis, Solutions Credits 0:00:35 13 Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 0:00:45 14 Euskadi 0:00:48 15 Colombia 0:00:49 16 Orica-GreenEdge 0:02:52
General classification after stage 1 1 Simone Ponzi (Ita) Astana Pro Team 3:16:34 2 Daniele Ratto (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 3 Sergei Chernetckii (Rus) Katusha 4 Anthony Roux (Fra) FDJ.fr 5 Dario Cataldo (Ita) Sky Procycling 0:00:03 6 Jens Keukeleire (Bel) Orica-GreenEdge 7 Benoît Vaugrenard (Fra) FDJ.fr 0:00:05 8 Mauro Finetto (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 9 Mikael Cherel (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 10 Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:08 11 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Movistar Team 12 Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 13 Giampaolo Caruso (Ita) Katusha 14 Jeffry Johan Romero Corredor (Col) Colombia 15 Ivan Velasco Murillo (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 16 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team 17 Nicolas Edet (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 18 Carlos Barbero Cuesta (Spa) Euskadi 0:00:12 19 Romain Hardy (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 20 Mikel Landa Meana (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 21 Marcos Garcia (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 22 Steve Bekaert (Bel) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 23 Benat Intxausti Elorriaga (Spa) Movistar Team 24 Andre Fernando S. Martins Cardoso (Por) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 25 Dmitry Kozontchuk (Rus) Katusha 26 David Arroyo Duran (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 27 José Herrada Lopez (Spa) Movistar Team 28 Nairo Alexander Quintana Rojas (Col) Movistar Team 29 Salvatore Puccio (Ita) Sky Procycling 30 Laurent Pichon (Fra) FDJ.fr 31 Jonathan Monsalve (Ven) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 32 José Joao Pimenta Costa Mendes (Por) Team NetApp-Endura 33 Amets Txurruka (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 34 Ruben Plaza Molina (Spa) Movistar Team 35 Cayetano José Sarmiento Tunarrosa (Col) Cannondale Pro Cycling 36 Francesco Failli (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 37 Anthony Geslin (Fra) FDJ.fr 38 David Belda Garcia (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 39 David De La Cruz Melgarejo (Spa) Team NetApp-Endura 40 Iker Camano Ortuzar (Spa) Team NetApp-Endura 41 Peio Bilbao (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 42 Haritz Orbe Urrutia (Spa) Euskadi 0:00:21 43 Luca Mazzanti (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 44 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana Pro Team 45 Juan Pablo Valencia (Col) Colombia 0:00:24 46 Steve Chainel (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:25 47 Daniel Teklehaimanot (Eri) Orica-GreenEdge 0:00:27 48 Pier Paolo De Negri (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 49 Cristiano Salerno (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:00:29 50 Igor Merino Cortazar (Spa) Euskadi 0:00:32 51 Romain Zingle (Bel) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 52 Valentin Iglinskiy (Kaz) AG2R La Mondiale 53 Jarlinson Pantano (Col) Colombia 0:00:34 54 Xabier Zandio Echaide (Spa) Sky Procycling 55 Federico Canuti (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 56 Jussi Veikkanen (Fin) FDJ.fr 57 Lloyd Mondory (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 58 Jan Barta (Cze) Team NetApp-Endura 59 Luis Mas Bonet (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 0:00:38 60 Stéphane Poulhies (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 61 Ivan Basso (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:00:42 62 Romain Lemarchand (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 63 Gorka Verdugo Marcotegui (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:00:45 64 Egoi Martinez De Esteban (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 65 Jorge Azanza Soto (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 66 Robinson Eduardo Chalapud Gomez (Col) Colombia 67 Cameron Wurf (Aus) Cannondale Pro Cycling 68 Luca Paolini (Ita) Katusha 0:00:51 69 Angel Vicioso Arcos (Spa) Katusha 70 Philip Lavery (Irl) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 0:00:58 71 Jesus Herrada Lopez (Spa) Movistar Team 0:01:07 72 Zakkari Dempster (Aus) Team NetApp-Endura 0:01:10 73 Unai Iparraguirre Azpiazu (Spa) Euskadi 0:01:16 74 Daniele Colli (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 75 Jesus Del Pino Corrochano (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 76 Duber Armando Quintero Artunduaga (Col) Colombia 0:01:31 77 Moises Duenas Nevado (Spa) Burgos BH-Castilla y Leon 0:01:33 78 Fabio Andres Duarte Arevalo (Col) Colombia 0:01:34 79 Mikel Bizkarra (Spa) Euskadi 80 Andrey Zeits (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 81 Arnaud Courteille (Fra) FDJ.fr 0:01:36 82 Petr Ignatenko (Rus) Katusha 83 Paolo Longo Borghini (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 84 Matteo Rabottini (Ita) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 85 Alexander Wetterhall (Swe) Team NetApp-Endura 86 Ricardo Garcia Ambroa (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:01:55 87 Tristan Valentin (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 0:02:03 88 Aritz Bagües (Spa) Euskadi 0:02:07 89 Arman Kamyshev (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 0:02:12 90 Luke Rowe (GBr) Sky Procycling 0:02:26 91 Janez Brajkovic (Slo) Astana Pro Team 0:02:29 92 Mitchell Docker (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 0:02:39 93 Pablo Urtasun Perez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:02:51 94 Mikhail Antonov (Rus) Katusha 0:03:33 95 Fumiyuki Beppu (Jpn) Orica-GreenEdge 0:03:41 96 Paolo Tiralongo (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:03:49 97 Valerio Agnoli (Ita) Astana Pro Team 98 Fabricio Ferrari Barcelo (Uru) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 99 José Ivan Gutierrez Palacios (Spa) Movistar Team 100 Francesco Lasca (Ita) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 101 Airan Fernandez (Spa) Vini Fantini-Selle Italia 102 Xavier Florencio |
price of a ticket and thought I'm not going to get one. Arsenal is not a £62 experience. You'd consider that as a price for an FA Cup final ticket."
However, the Premier League insisted that attendances are still high and that the quality of stadiums in the top division has greatly improved. "Ticket pricing is a matter for individual clubs, many of which work hard to fill their stadiums with offers at different points during a season that make top flight football accessible to large numbers of fans," a spokesman said. "The quality and safety of stadia is as a result of extensive and continued investment from the clubs. Fans clearly enjoy the environment in which they watch Premier League matches and the football on offer with occupancy rates at grounds tracking at 95% for this season and having been 90%+ for the last 15 seasons in a row."Diggerland in Devon
Logo used from 2000-2017
Diggerland is the name of theme parks inspired by diggers and JCBs. There are four theme parks in England, and a fifth in the United States. Diggerland is part of the H.E Services Group and Allsafety Limited.
Locations [ edit ]
There are four Diggerland theme parks in the United Kingdom located in Strood in Kent, Cullompton in Devon, Langley Park in Durham, and Castleford in West Yorkshire. In 2015 it was announced that Diggerland would open their fifth UK park in Evesham, Worcestershire,[1][2][3] but this was delayed indefinitely in 2017.[4]
Diggerland had a temporary park in Dubai during the summer of 2005. Their 2006 plan to expand to Richmond, Virginia in the United States was stalled out by the Great Recession.[5]
Diggerland expanded into the United States and opened a park in West Berlin, New Jersey in 2014.[6][7]
Events [ edit ]
Racing events happen between March and October, because they need to be completed in daylight hours. Dumper Racing is held on a monthly basis.
Diggerland also has a team, The Dancing Diggers, which operates every other year and features large diggers doing stunts. In 2017, they performed at several county fairs, including the Royal Bath and West Country Show.About the Series
Croc College (6 x 2730) follows six Australians who dream of changing their ordinary lives for the better. The three men and three women do just that when they embark on one of the most thrilling and dangerous training courses Australia has to offer. Led by Queensland croc legend John Lever, the students learn how to handle, farm and manage the worlds oldest and largest living reptile - the saltwater crocodile. They will also study the hardcore and sometimes ethically confronting business side to croc wrangling and some will take part in a ground breaking scientific artificial insemination project.
John Lever has been working in the crocodile industry for 40 years, both in Australia and abroad. He knows almost everything there is to know about the Australian Salty and is eager train the next generation of Crocodile People.
At Johns crocodile farm, Koorana, just outside Rockhampton in tropical Queensland, hell teach the students how to capture crocodiles; how to move them and collect their eggs; as well as how to raise the babies. The students will learn to interpret the animals behaviour; how to sex them; prepare their food; set traps to capture them in the wild; and kill, butcher and skin adult crocs for meat and leather. Croc College is not for the faint hearted and the activities John has in store will challenge this group of men and women like never before.
Theres plenty of light and shade in this compelling observational documentary series because the farm, which is home to more than 3,000 crocodiles, is also a tourist park, where the students get an opportunity to show off to the public the six-month-old crocs which they will attempt to train!
Nothing about Croc College is easy. Almost every day the students risk both life and limb. Not only that but its oppressively hot; there are more mosquitoes on the farm than crocs; and the students are in each others pockets 24/7 as they all live together in tin shed on the property for the duration of the three-week course.
Their nerve-wracking, action packed, emotional journey culminates in Episode 6 when the two most promising students go to the Northern Territory with John to learn how to capture crocs in the wild and take part in important research. Over the past 18 months Johns been working with scientists from the University of Queensland to develop a world first artificial insemination programme for saltwater crocodiles. As well as helping the farming industry the project has a direct application to worldwide conservation biology. There are a number of species of crocodile that are endangered, particularly in South America. So what is learnt about Australias Salty has direct application to the endangered species. In this final episode, indigenous Kakadu rangers show the students how they harpoon the animals, and John collects semen for artificial insemination. In daring raids, the students also collect eggs from wild croc nests in remote Arnhem Land.
For all six students, Croc College is the challenge of a lifetime, and while some of them dream of becoming fulltime croc-wranglers, others are at Australias scariest school for entirely different reasons. One way or another, Croc College will change their lives forever.
GalleryLONDON (Reuters) - A little-noticed change in the way Google selects search results has allowed company statements to top the list of news links shown when users search for information on businesses.
A security personnel answers a call at the reception counter of the Google office in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad in this file photo taken on February 6, 2012. REUTERS/Krishnendu Halder
The measure may cost news publishers web traffic and risks misleading users, analysts said.
A Google spokeswoman said that in September the search giant widened the number of sources from which it drew the entries that appear in the “in the news” section of its search results page.
Previously, only links to stories on approved news sites such as those of newspapers and TV stations appeared in this section of the main search page.
“The goal of search is to get users the right answer at any one time as quickly as possible — that may mean returning an article from an established publisher or from a smaller niche publisher or indeed it might be a press release,” the Google spokeswoman said.
She added Google, which did not announce the September change, does not get paid for including press releases on the lists.
Recent examples of companies whose announcements topped the “in the news” section include Franco-Dutch SIM card maker Gemalto.
Last month, Gemalto confirmed reports it had likely been the victim of hacking by U.S. and British spies. The story garnered wide media attention but when users did a Google search for the word “Gemalto”, the first “in the news” listing was a Gemalto statement, which played down the impact of the hacking.
Earlier this week, on the day Apple launched its new watch, a link to a promotional site for the product topped the “in the news” selection.
Gemalto and Apple were not available for comment.
Josh Schwartz, chief data scientist at Chartbeat, which tracks web traffic for news publishers and others, said it was likely that companies could use search engine optimisation techniques to lift their rankings in the news listings.
He said the new system could confuse readers, directing them towards public relations material and away from news reports.
That also poses a risk to news organisations that rely on Google and other search engines to direct readers to their websites.
“The ‘in the news’ modules are potentially an extremely powerful driver of traffic,” Schwartz said. “It could cost news sites traffic.”Starting Sunday, drivers in Quebec will face stiffer penalties if they fail to respect the "move-over law," which forces people to slow down and move away from service vehicles that have their lights on.
This includes emergency vehicles, tow trucks attending to other cars and surveillance vehicles equipped with flashing yellow arrow signs.
CAA's Cedric Essiminy said a dozen law enforcement and emergency workers are injured in roadside incidents each year. He said sometimes, it's the emergency vehicles that distract drivers.
"You tend to look at it to see what's happening."
The rest of Canada has already implemented similar laws. In Quebec, the government followed suit after a police officer was hit and killed by a vehicle last December.
According to the Canadian Automobile Association's website, the Sûreté du Québec recorded about 214 accidents involving vehicles stopped on the road, four of which were fatal and 13 that led to injuries.
Provincial police spokesman Yves Bouchard said every law enforcement and emergency worker has had their own close call on a road.
Drivers who fail to abide by the law can face fines from $200 to $300 and receive a penalty of four demerit points.
The provincial government has also funded commercials and other advertisements to make drivers aware of the new rules of the road.By the time you read this, the Texas Legislature probably will be close to passing a bill banning abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and including provisions that will cause most women’s health clinics that provide abortions to close their doors.
An aside: Due to deadlines, the Independence Day holiday and the legislative process, this editorial went to “ether” prior to adoption of the bill. But this issue still matters because (a) lawmakers are all but certain to pass the abortion bill and (b) these proposals should become policy and/or practice, even if the “old” abortion laws still apply.
Editor Marv KnoxWith new abortion laws in place, Texans can expect a significant increase in the number of babies born every year. That’s the whole point—to turn more pregnancies into live births.
We can expect the mothers of a multitude of these “extra” babies to be teens, unwed and/or poor. Those are the demographics of a significant proportion of women who choose abortions.
Since the moral impetus for reducing, if not eliminating, abortions is advocacy for life, then Texans should demonstrate our support for these babies. When you examine many of our current practices and policies, you understand why outsiders claim Texans are more concerned about fetuses than babies, children and teenagers.
Texas is among the nation’s leaders in child poverty, teen pregnancy, dropout rates and illiteracy. We’re also among the nation’s lowest-spending states on child poverty, teen pregnancy, dropout rates and illiteracy. Some people attribute these maladies to dependence on government, the product of a so-called welfare state. If that were true, then their incidence would be higher in states that spend the most on child welfare, anti-poverty programs and education, not the least-spending small-government states, like Texas.
A strange disparity
Ironically, conservative states composed of higher percentages of Bible-believing Christians—from Texas across the South—suffer the blights of child poverty, teen pregnancy, dropout rates and illiteracy much more promiscuously than their more secular counterparts. Those are the states many Texans and Southerners call “pagan” and “dark.”
This disparity is an affront to the name of Jesus. Small wonder unbelieving outsiders doubt the compassion of Christ and the credibility of Christians. We often treat people Jesus called “the least” worse than unbelievers do.
If Texans’ conservative moral values prompt our state to implement one of the nation’s most stringent abortion codes, then we should accept the responsibility for all those babies we will bring into the world. We need to do right by them.
Churches lagging behind
That means both enacting better laws and public programs that protect women and children, make certain no child goes hungry and ensure our young people receive quality education. And don’t dare claim that’s the job of the church, and the state should butt out. The church has demonstrated its unwillingness to rise to the occasion, and the enormity of the task is about to multiply. Maybe less than 10 congregations in the entire state come anywhere near caring for all the poor people in their community. Others lag far behind. Most don’t try. Moreover, a central task of Christian citizenship is public advocacy for the weakest and most vulnerable and championing the common good.
If we’re going to take care of babies spared from abortions, here’s where we start:
• Adoption. Streamline laws and practices to make Texas adoptions simple and inexpensive. A mother who carries her baby to term should know without a doubt that child can be placed in a loving “forever” family who will treasure and nurture it as their own.
Churches can support this by creating a culture of adoption—adoption as ministry—that provides a ready and willing supply of families who receive children.
• Parenting. At-risk families of these children need the help of a variety of steps. They include …
More classes and other learning opportunities to provide basic-parenting skills. Churches particularly can provide these.
Changes in tax laws to benefit intact two-parent families.
Stronger incentives, as well as financial requirements, for fathers to remain in homes with mothers and their children.
Changes in the penal codes so nonviolent offenders of numerous crimes make appropriate restitution but are not locked up and removed from their homes. Research shows the No. 1 factor related to promiscuity of girls and violence of boys is absence of a father from their home.
• Nutrition. Secure and strengthen public- and private-sector programs that ensure no child in Texas goes hungry. These changes need to accommodate programs for infants and preschoolers, as well as school-age children, not only during school sessions, but also holidays and summer.
• Education. Multiple changes will be required, including …
Expanded Head Start programs, to give young children in at-risk families greater opportunity to learn early and prepare for school.
Parental training, so moms and dads understand the educational system, the requirements of schools and how they can help their children learn. For some, expanded adult literacy and remedial adult education is needed. Churches can play a huge role.
Tutoring for children at all levels. Churches must provide the people-power to make this possible.
Modification of middle school and high school curriculum to expand vocational training and broaden vocational options. Our state economy increasingly will depend upon well-trained workers who did not attend college.
These are just a few ideas. If we all turn our hearts and minds toward unconditional compassion and care for the all the baby Texans, we will develop more and better responses.
We must start now, before they are born.WASHINGTON — The crisis in Crimea is heralding the rise of a new era of American energy diplomacy, as the Obama administration tries to deploy the vast new supply of natural gas in the United States as a weapon to undercut the influence of the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, over Ukraine and Europe.
The crisis has escalated a State Department initiative to use a new boom in American natural gas supplies as a lever against Russia, which supplies 60 percent of Ukraine’s natural gas and has a history of cutting off the supply during conflicts. This week, Gazprom, Russia’s state-run natural gas company, said it would no longer provide gas at a discount rate to Ukraine, a move reminiscent of more serious Russian cutoffs of natural gas to Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe in 2006, 2008 and 2009.
The administration’s strategy is to move aggressively to deploy the advantages of its new resources to undercut Russian natural gas sales to Ukraine and Europe, weakening such moves by Mr. Putin in future years. Although Russia is still the world’s biggest exporter of natural gas, the United States recently surpassed it to become the world’s largest natural gas producer, largely because of breakthroughs in hydraulic fracturing technology, known as fracking.
“We’re engaging from a different position because we’re a much larger energy producer,” said Jason Bordoff, a former senior director for energy and climate change on the White House’s National Security Council.SEOUL, South Korea — The president of South Korea vowed on Thursday to accelerate efforts to strengthen its pre-emptive strike, missile defense and retaliatory capabilities against North Korea, and he renewed his call for the armed forces to become more independent from the United States.
In a speech to mark South Korea’s Armed Forces Day, the president, Moon Jae-in, said he would push for the South to move more quickly to retake wartime operational control of its military from its American ally. Since the Korean War in the early 1950s, the terms of the countries’ alliance have called for an American general to command the South’s 650,000-member military should war break out.
Mr. Moon and other liberals have campaigned for South Korea to play a greater role in the alliance, and they have long called for the country to resume responsibility for wartime command as soon as it can feasibly do so. But the idea has gotten more public support as remarks by President Trump have led many South Koreans to doubt his commitment to defend their country.
Mr. Moon said Thursday that a more self-reliant military could make itself stronger and more feared by North Korea. But he also said the South should strengthen its alliance with Washington. An aide to Mr. Moon said this week that the allies were working on ways to move strategic American military assets into the region more frequently, to help deter North Korea.“Health care inflation has gone down every single year since the law [the Affordable Care Act] passed, so that we now have the lowest increase in health care costs in 50 years–which is saving us about $180 billion in reduced overall costs to the federal government and in the Medicare program.”
— President Obama, news conference, Nov. 5, 2014
In his post-election news conference, President Obama hit on a theme that we have explored before — that the Affordable Care Act has led to lower increases in health care costs. But the evidence for this is still rather fuzzy.
Let’s deconstruct the president’s statement.
The Facts
First, note that the president simply notes that growth in health-care spending has gone down every year since the law passed, thus cleverly avoiding a causal connection. But he certainly implies it, and that’s the message most viewers might have received.
But as we have said, the evidence for a direct connection is fuzzy — and certainly in dispute. The White House earlier this year touted a report by the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as showing slow health-care spending growth continued in 2013. But here’s how the actuaries actually worded their assessment:
“Health spending growth for 2013 is projected to have remained slow at 3.6 percent due to the modest economic recovery, the impacts of sequestration and continued slow growth in the utilization of Medicare services, and continued increases in cost-sharing requirements for the privately insured.”
Note that there is little mention of the impact of the Affordable Care Act on the data. In fact, despite the president’s claim of a decrease of every year, the White House’s own chart shows that the 2013 estimate represents a slight uptick from 2012, when adjusted for inflation and population. As the White House report puts it, “the three years since 2010 will have recorded the three slowest health-care spending growth rates since record keeping began in 1960.” That is impressive, but it is not the same as health costs going down “every single year” since the law was passed in 2010.
Here’s the White House chart:
On top of that, the actuaries estimated that expected growth in 2014 would be 5.6 percent — obviously an increase from 3.6 percent — because “9 million Americans are projected to gain health insurance coverage, predominantly through Medicaid or the Health Insurance Marketplaces.”
Thus, even if Obama’s claim of continuing year-after-year declines in heath care inflation were correct, that track record will likely end this year — because of the Affordable Care Act. Now, to be fair, the long-term impact of the law on health-care inflation remains uncertain. Analysts can only speculate. But in the near term, the law is expected to increase health-care costs, according to an analysis cited by the White House.
“In context, it is clear that the president’s core point is that the last three years have seen historically slow health care cost growth,” a White House official said. “As shown in the graph you included, 2011, 2012, and 2013 saw slower growth in real per capita national health expenditures than 2010 or any prior year stretching back five decades. The sentence you asked about below does not change the core point of the claim.”
The president gets even more specific in the second part of his statement — that $180 billion is being saved in the Medicare program. We realize he was speaking extemporaneously at a news conference, but he’s using too much shorthand here. He is referring to a Congressional Budget Office projection for the year 2020, not currently, and this is a combined figure for both Medicare and Medicaid, which totals $188 billion. (In speeches, the president has rendered the statistic correctly.)
In 2020, the CBO report shows, the decrease for Medicare alone would be $120 billion. Obama talks about the $180 billion as if it is current savings, but in the 2014 fiscal year, the estimated savings is just $60 billion.
Moreover, the impact of the Affordable Care Act on these Medicare numbers is also murky. A recent report that appeared on the blog of the journal Health Affairs found that more than 60 percent of the slowdown in Medicare costs since 2011 stems from reduced estimates of spending on Medicare Part D, the prescription drug program created under President George W. Bush. Much of that savings appears to be the result of the fact that many blockbuster drugs have lost patent protection and thus face competition from less expensive generic drugs. The report said that such savings likely would be fleeting.
In any case, that savings on prescription drugs has little to do with the Affordable Care Act. Over a 10-year period between 2012 and 2022, the analysis said, the total savings to the core parts of Medicare that pay for hospitals, doctors and other providers (Parts A and B) amounted to $145 billion, with the reason for three-quarters of those potential reductions still subject to speculation.
The Pinocchio Test
To recap, at the news conference, the president bungled a pair of talking points in service of what some may regard as a tendentious claim — that the Affordable Care Act has already resulted in a decline in the growth of health-care spending.
There is no dispute that health care spending is growing at its lowest level since the 1960s, but the impact of the Affordable Care Act is still uncertain. The White House has issued reports making its case, which have been disputed by others. There are certainly some cost-controls contained in the law, but it remains unclear whether those measures have really had that much impact, especially because the Great Recession clearly had affected health-care inflation even before the law was implemented. Just as growth in health-care costs have slowed because the 2009 economic crisis, so has economic growth and general price inflation overall.
When making a claim like this, the president needs to get his statistics right. He is trying to say that Obamacare is responsible for the slowdown in health-care costs, without directly saying so. But he should acknowledge that although the overall trend is positive, the impact of his health-care law remains unclear. Uttering this claim without any caveats is going too far, even when making allowances for the fact he is speaking extemporaneously. The president earns Three Pinocchios.
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Follow The Fact Checker on Twitter and friend us on FacebookCoinbase Temporarily Disables Ross Ulbricht's Account, Hires Silkroad Prosecutor
Yesterday, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase disabled alleged Silkroad founder Ross Ulbricht’s account. They reactivated it later, citing security concerns. After this happened, some people pointed out Coinbase just hired Silkroad prosecutor, Kathryn Haun, which exacerbated worries that Coinbase may be targeting the Ulbricht campaign.
Also read: Top German Banker Warns Cryptocurrencies Could Precipitate a Financial Crisis
When people mentioned Haun had been hired, it caused some individuals to level verbal assaults, saying Coinbase should not hire the enemy.
It appeared the community was prepared to wage a pitched battle against the Coinbase team. However, the situation was quickly neutralized when Coinbase brought the account back online.
The Ross Ulbricht campaign tweeted about the issue when the account was shut down, saying:
And disabled the #FreeRoss account after receiving 16.5 #bitcoin today. Now can’t pay lawyers.
Then today, @Free_Ross tweeted the account had been restored and everything was back in working order.
.@coinbase has enabled #FreeRoss account. Was auto security response to possible link to previous compromised account. Never happened b4. — Free_Ross (@Free_Ross) June 16, 2017
The Silkroad Prosecutor; Ulbricht’s Campaign
The timing of hiring Haun was also rather strange, but likely a coincidence. It turns out that the prosecutor was not the Federal attorney that convicted Ulbricht. Haun was the one who put the agents that stole his bitcoin behind bars.
Nonetheless, it is understandable why some individuals in the community would be sensitive to this kind of issue. It leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths when federal prosecutors, who were deeply involved in a bitcoin consensual crime case, are suddenly awarded a corporate position with a deeply entrenched bitcoin exchange platform.
In the end, the story turned out to be not as bad as it initially sounded. Still, it remains to be seen what will become of Ross Ulbricht, who does not belong behind bars according to many. At least his family and friends can continue funding his campaign, and perhaps some day they will receive some semblance of justice.
Do you think Coinbase did something wrong in all of this? Do you believe Ulbricht should be freed from prison? Share your thoughts below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, ibtimes.co.uk
At News.Bitcoin.com all comments containing links are automatically held up for moderation in the Disqus system. That means an editor has to take a look at the comment to approve it. This is due to the many, repetitive, spam and scam links people post under our articles. We do not censor any comment content based on politics or personal opinions. So, please be patient. Your comment will be published.Crew of the Monitor Celestra during a March 2013 Swedish larp. Image credit: John-Paul Bichard
For three weekends in Sweden, Battlestar Galactica was real.
With dozens of staff, over a million Swedish kronor ($160,000), and a retired naval destroyer, a team of designers hosted a live action role-playing game — commonly known as a larp — that would put many historical reenactments to shame. The Monitor Celestra took the setting of Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica reboot, but writers came up with 140 fresh characters and moved the action to the Celestra, a ship that was referenced but virtually never seen in the show itself. Over three-day periods in March, larpers played out a tense and sometimes deadly conflict between the Celestra’s civilian crew and a military boarding party, all while trying to unmask the Cylons in their midst. One of the game’s three weekend-long runs ended in a surrender to Cylon agents, another became mired in a bitter ethnic cleansing, and a third — while it had the lowest death count of any run — resulted in the fictional ship itself exploding.
But if the creators have their way, these won’t be the only fates of the Celestra and its crew. At the NYU Game Center in Manhattan, gamemaster Martin Ericsson and producer Cecilia Dolk laid out their plans for a new ship, this time on the show’s home turf: America. Years after airing, Battlestar Galactica still enjoys a wide fan base. The original cast has praised their adaptation — Michael Hogan (Colonel Tigh) has even expressed tentative interest in participating. So what’s standing in the way? Well, among other things, the fact that it’s a larp.
"Saying the ‘larp’ word is a great way to lose somebody's attention in 30 seconds."
"One of the things we got in approaching fandom rather than larpdom is that saying the ‘larp’ word is a great way to lose somebody's attention in 30 seconds," says Ericsson. In Sweden and other Nordic countries, live action role-playing is relatively accepted as a form of gaming or improvisational art — some larps are actually funded by government grants. But in the US, it’s still a joke. Ericsson laments the YouTube videos and image macros showing poorly costumed larpers shouting spells: "That lightning bolt clip has created more problems for the US larp community than any video ever."
Ericsson, Dolk, and a group of American enthusiasts are trying to change that. Sometimes, that means simply raising the visibility of art-house Nordic larp: last year, a group ran Mad About the Boy, possibly the first extended Nordic larp on American soil. Sometimes, it means being willing to reframe the debate. "It's just a different way of expression," says Dolk at one point, comparing The Monitor Celestra to other games. "It's still a larp. it's still a game." Ericsson breaks in: "Or we can say it's not a larp! It's interactive theater!" If changing the name will make Celestra 2.0 happen, he’s all for it.
The HMS Småland, a retired destroyer and set of The Monitor Celestra. Image credit: Marcusroos (Wikimedia)
Currently, there’s no set date for an American run. The project will tentatively "launch" in some form in 2014, but the team still hasn’t decided where to hold the game or how to fund it. Besides a small grant-funded stipend for Dolk, the original Monitor Celestra was paid for by participants; this time, the team has also considered attempting to get help from the show’s owners themselves. The game hasn’t been officially licensed, but Ericsson doesn’t think this will be a problem — especially because Moore and others are clearly already aware of it. "Anyone can cosplay as Starbuck, there's no copyright issue there," he says. "We're really doing the same thing on a large scale."
If The Monitor Celestra runs again, it will expose American audiences to a new facet of Battlestar Galactica’s world, informed by Sweden’s own debates over racism and nationalism. "If BSG's main allegory is post-9/11 America, say freedom and security and the trauma that 9/11 brought with it," says Ericsson, explaining his game design, "then our main allegory would have to be something that's relevant today in Europe." The team chose to focus on cultural conflict between two ethnic groups within the world: the urbane, individualistic Capricans and the hard-bitten, family-oriented Taurons.
"If BSG's main allegory is post-9/11 America... our main allegory would have to be something that's relevant today in Europe."
Ericsson hoped to explore the discomfort that motivated hard-right groups like the Swedish Democrats: in future runs, he plans to coach characters to adopt different body language and personal space expectations depending on who they play. "The rise of superconservative, frankly racist parties is the biggest issue in Europe right now," he says. "We found two cultures we thought would fit the bill for talking about these issues."
The Monitor Celestra is one part improvisation, with mechanics designed to shape the story and a vast array of possible outcomes. Ericsson describes it as a series of sandboxes full of different possible stories, comparing it to a player-created version of the popular interactive theater piece Sleep No More, an interpretation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. One person might end up in a fight for labor representation, while another could have an in-game relationship while working in a secret AI lab.
Image credit: John-Paul Bichard
But behind the social interactions lies a strict system for simulating life on a fictional spaceship. In the original run, 10 networked computers and 12 Raspberry Pis were used to control everything from the radarlike DRADIS sensor to which areas of the Celestra got power. In order to keep the action "in people’s heads and bodies rather than on a screen," things like coordinates and targeting had to be conveyed between different departments physically, but players were helped by Arduino-powered consoles and custom-built software based on submarine simulator Silent Hunter.
To Ericsson and Dolk, Battlestar Galactica is the perfect setting for a larp. "It is both about intimate character drama and sociopolitical commentary and awesome space battles," says Ericsson. An American revival would allow him to bring Nordic larp to the US without the pressure of representing an entire genre like steampunk or post-apocalyptic larping and it would give the team a chance to fix problems with the first run — primarily the fact that they felt many of the hundred-plus characters weren’t written well enough. "We're just doing something super-specific: one show in one environment," he says. "And then see if people like it."Story highlights Patriots star tight end Rob Gronkowski hurt his ankle earlier in the playoffs
He says he does not know if he will play
"Hopefully that ankle hurts," Giants' Tuck says
The Giants beat the Patriots in 2008, and are hoping for a repeat
Not in a long time has the pre-Super Bowl chatter been so dominated by one player's body part.
But Sunday's game in Indianapolis has turned into the saga of the injured ankle of New England Patriots superstar tight end Rob Gronkowski.
While pundits are split on who will clinch the big game between the Patriots and the New York Giants, most agree that the Patriots will be severely hobbled if Gronkowski can't take to the field.
Gronkowski suffered a devastating ankle sprain in the Patriots' playoff win against the Baltimore Ravens on January 22.
Last week, he was sporting a protective boot over his ankle that he took off Monday, but was still unable to practice most of the week.
Speaking at the Super Bowl media day, Gronkowski says he's still not sure if he'll play Sunday.
At media day Tuesday, Gronkowski said he wasn't sure if he could play Sunday.
"I don't know yet," Gronkowski said. "I am not really worried yet if I am playing or not. We're going day by day. I am taking new steps every day. I am feeling better every day. That is a positive sign. I want to be out there with the team obviously. "
Gronkowski tallied 17 touchdown catches this season - an NFL record -- and is a match up nightmare for any defense.
He stands 6-foot-6 and packs a hard-to-handle mix of power and speed. He could be the Patriots' most valuable player after quarterback Tom Brady.
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The dominating conversation about Gronkowski's status is reminiscent of the lead up to the Super Bowl game in 2005 when then-Eagles wideout Terrell Owens miraculously came back from a severe ankle injury to play in the game.
He caught nine passes for 122 yards, but the Eagles lost the game to the Patriots.
That was also the last Super Bowl the Patriots won. The Pats have appeared in the big game more times than any other team since 1986, and is only the second team in the game's history -- after the Dallas Cowboys -- to win three Super Bowl championships in four years.
Seven years later, the Pats are hoping to do it again.
"Gronk is in the training room every day trying to get ready," Brady said. "He wants to be there. He's going to work his butt off to be there."
Giants defensive lineman Justin Tuck hopes not.
"Hopefully that ankle hurts a little more than everyone expects it to and he is not as versatile as he has been," Tuck told ESPN. "You talk about the talent that he is, he had probably the best year for a tight end ever."
No matter what the Patriots do on offense, the key for the Giants lies with their defense, pundits say. The Giants beat the Patriots in 2008 Super Bowl, throwing cold water on the Pats' undefeated season.
In that game, the Giant's ferocious defensive line rushed Brady and sacked him five times.
"No one has been able to figure that out all year," said Brady, referring to the Giants' defensive line this year. "They can rush the quarterback really well and hopefully we can slow them down somehow. They are ready to go and ready to take my head off."MONROE, N.C. -- The State Bureau of Investigation is working with detectives in Union County after a teenager was shot and killed on his way to a cookout Sunday afternoon.
According to Monroe Police, officers responded to the intersection of Hough and Everette streets around 3 p.m. When they arrived on the scene, officers found 17-year-old Kalique Farmer suffering from an apparent gunshot wound. He was taken to CHS-Union, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
"This is our first homicide of the year," said Monroe Police spokesman Pete Hovanec. "And one is too many. We don't have this level of crime in Monroe in general."
Neighbors near the crime scene that spanned an entire block couldn't believe what happened.
"I thought it was a wreck," said one neighbor.
Lieutenant Bobby Manus of Monroe Police said investigators believe there may be multiple shooters involved in the shooting.
"We are led to believe that there was more than one gun involved in this incident," said Manus. "We have had issues in this neighborhood before."
No one has been arrested in connection with Farmer's death and Manus say they are looking for suspects. Anyone with information is asked to call Monroe Police at 704-282-4700.
Copyright 2017 WCNCPhoto by: The News-Gazette Gov. Bruce Rauner at the University of Illinois baseball game vs Rutgers, Sunday, May 10, 2015 at Illinois Field. Other Related Content Letter regarding Wise bonus
Gov. Bruce Rauner opposes a $400,000 bonus for University of Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise, and he is urging the board of trustees to reject the partial retention bonus.
Deputy governor Trey Childress sent a letter to board chairman Ed McMillan on Tuesday, asking McMillan to vote no.
"We request that you and the members of the Executive Committee... |
well as opening up a whole beautiful and
enourmous well of possibilities, man..
after some 70 shows, it is still magic.
if the thunder don't get
you then the lightnin' will.. - August 18, 2008first of many, many
Reviewer: grateful kev - favorite favorite favorite favorite - December 12, 2006
Subject: A VERY GOOD AUD FROM 1978 THIS SHOW FOR A AUD RECORDING IS PRETTY DAMM GOOD
WELL WORTH THE DOWNLOAD - December 12, 2006A VERY GOOD AUD FROM 1978
Reviewer: pkonems - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - October 14, 2006
Subject: Ticket Stub, picture and flyer http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=109380&page=0#startcomments - October 14, 2006Ticket Stub, picture and flyer
Reviewer: St.Stephen71 - favorite favorite favorite favorite - July 26, 2006
Subject: good sound recording not the greatest but good sound recording - July 26, 2006good sound recording
Reviewer: Jac from Tucson - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - June 18, 2006
Subject: Wow, it's fun checking out audience recordings
When the Dead Organization pulled DLs of the soundboards, I was furious. I was so mad, I thought about having the Stealie tattoo removed from my right bicep. But one day I was twiddling around with the
So, in retrospect, pulling the SBDs still was RUDE AS HELL, but I've found a whole new group of Dead shows to explore!
Try to find that positive side, eh?
Peace,
Jac in Tucson Like the yahoo below, I was an "elitist" and simply would not consider trades for shows unless they were A+ soundboards, or at least A soundboards for shows I really wanted. I'd never consider audience recordings.When the Dead Organization pulled DLs of the soundboards, I was furious. I was so mad, I thought about having the Stealie tattoo removed from my right bicep. But one day I was twiddling around with the archive.org options, and found this link to downloadable shows, almost all of which are audience recordings. One option allows you to rank the downloadable shows by rating, and, bam, did I come across a whole bunch of 1981 shows (why that year, I dunno...) that were 5-star audience recordings. I've DL'd a bunch of '81, plus a tasty 9-7-85 Red Rocks show, and a hilarious 7-31-71 show from Yale, where the damn audience CLAPS along with the Dead for three whole CDs! I never would have discovered those shows, or this nice one from Jackson, Mississippi, if I hadn't been "forced" to "go slumming" among the audience recordings. Yeah, a lot of them still suck, but if you take the time, jewels like this (and Barton Hall, Cornell University, 1981) will unveil themselves.So, in retrospect, pulling the SBDs still was RUDE AS HELL, but I've found a whole new group of Dead shows to explore!Try to find that positive side, eh?Peace,Jac in Tucson - June 18, 2006Wow, it's fun checking out audience recordings
Reviewer: Cadillacluster - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - March 14, 2006
Subject: Pigpen Heaven Compared to other online live audio downloads of The Grateful Dead, this one sounds really good to me. Originally I was looking just to locate the tour date for this concert, since I am from Jackson,Ms. and I attended this-my one and only Grateful Dead concert. I just wanted to determine if it was in '78 or '79, it's been awhile you know. Anyway, I was elated to be able to locate the date, but to find the actual audio download for me was just TOO MUCH!!! As I recall, the authorities were so afraid that something iconoclastic was going to occur that they left the house lights on, if not for the whole concert-most of it! Unfortunately, this was after Pigpen's passing, but I still enjoyed the J-Bob show. And of course, you don't appreciate things as much when they're around until it's too late, and they're gone. So, for me I am really enjoying the exhumation of this fond memory. And now just as it was then, I am still in Pigpen Heaven! - March 14, 2006Pigpen Heaven
Reviewer: birdsgosouth - favorite favorite favorite favorite - February 24, 2006
Subject: This is a really cool show The nimrod below picks a show to complain about the SBDs being gone for a show where a board doesn't even exist. Nice. You go dude!! - February 24, 2006This is a really cool showWill Power gave a masterclass in road course driving to win the 2017 Indy Grand Prix of Indianapolis from a hard charging Scott Dixon.
The former IndyCar series champion traded the lead with teammate Helio Castroneves before pulling away to win comfortably. Power’s first win of 2017 helped him jump to 5th place in the point standings.
2017 Indy Grand Prix heroes
Hero – Will Power
Power was the fastest driver throughout the compressed Indy Grand Prix weekend. The Australian converted that in to a win that has put him back in to contention for a second IndyCar championship.
Running the optimum 3-stop strategy Power was able to run the alternate red Firestone tyres in his last two stints. Despite leaving the pits behind Helio Castroneves, Power was able to extend a significant lead over the Brazilian who struggled on the slower primary tyre compound.
Power might be 56 points off championship leader Simon Pagenaud but with double-points at Indy, the 2014 champion is coming on strong.
Heroes – Team Penske/Chevrolet
After 2 races of the Verizon IndyCar season it looked like Honda had found big performance gains Chevy could not match. Wins for Bourdais and Hinchcliffe were ominous for Chevrolet teams. Excluding of course Team Penske.
The Penske juggernaut has taken Chevrolet to victory lane in the last 3 races. Whilst other bow tie wearing teams like AJ Foyt Racing are stuck at the back of the pack, Penske are just as competitive as they were in 2016 when Chevrolet was the aero/engine package of choice on road/street courses.
Hero – Ryan Hunter-Reay
2017 has been a stinker of a season for Hunter-Reay (and the American has had some awful seasons since his maiden championship in 2012). Starting 8th and finishing 3rd was equivalent to a win for the 2014 Indy 500 winner.
Despite the Honda resurgence Hunter-Reay and the Andretti Autosport team have failed to convert that in to wins or big points. Penske’s form suggests the advantage might have been short-lived. Hunter-Reay will be relieved to have got a confidence boosting result on the board before the Indy 500.
Hero – Graham Rahal
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing continue to be unable to capitalise on the performance gains made by Honda. Qualifying for the Indy Grand Prix was more of the same as Graham Rahal lined up 20th of 22 starters.
Displaying a maturity and calmness often lacking in previous seasons, Rahal climbed the order to finish 6th. Not the race winning form Rahal or RLL would have been expecting but in context, a significant step forward.
Rahal is a confidence driver. Taking a solid top 10 from such a low starting position will be a big boost. Particularly given that the race finished without a single caution period. That in itself makes Rahal’s 14-place gain all the more impressive.
Hero – Scott Dixon
There was a flicker of excitement with 15 laps to go that Dixon might hunt down Will Power. Despite his best efforts the Kiwi had to ‘settle’ for his third top 3 finish this season.
The Indy road course rarely makes for good racing. Dixon set out to be the exception to the rule as he went toe-to-toe with Helio Castroneves. Admittedly Dixon had the advantage of running the quicker alternate red Firestone tyres. Castroneves was stuck on the primary black compound but the two of them put on the best racing of the day.
For a driver who typically does not get in to his groove until mid-season, Dixon is racking up an impressive tally of finishes. Plus with Honda power and aero for the month of May, Dixon is in great shape.
2017 Indy Grand Prix zeroes
Zero – Marco Andretti
Andretti – despite his actual results – has probably made his best start to an IndyCar season for several years. Part of that progress undoubtedly has been down to a more mature approach.
The third generation Andretti returned to type at the Indy Grand Prix running in to the back of Tony Kanaan on the opening lap. The resulting penalty dropped Andretti down the order and without any caution periods there was little chance of salvaging anything. Unsuspecting victim Kanaan was similarly banished to the back of the field following the resulting puncture.
Zero – the Indy road course
A big crowd can look tiny at the Brickyard thanks to its epic Indy 500 capacity. The audience on Saturday for the Grand Prix looked pretty poor despite a lot of heavy promotion of the race – where even the series’ drivers were posting and tweeting about tickets and special offers.
The current road course configuration just does not lend itself to good racing. Audiences and the quality of racing are unlikely to improve unless modification create more overtaking opportunities.
Zeroes – AJ Foyt Racing
At a race where Team Penske demonstrated that the Chevrolet package can take on and beat Honda, Foyt Racing’s grand revolution is still stuck in the garage.
Lowly qualifying spots were converted in to, well, lowly finishing spots on Saturday afternoon. Spencer Pigot illustrated that a non-Penske driver on a part-time programme with a Chevrolet package can be competitive. Excuses for Foyt Racing and Munoz and Daly in particular are becoming increasingly thin on the ground.
Zero – Josef Newgarden
Newgarden played the usual game of chicken with the pit lane speed gun and lost. Badly.
Drivers do it at each and every race trying to shave a few tenths off their in or out laps. Youthful exuberance often gets the better of good judgement. That was the case for Newgarden who sped not once or twice but three times during the Indy Grand Prix.
After his maiden Penske win at Phoenix it looked like Newgarden was set to push on for more and a title challenge. Natural speed and talent was now matched with maturity and precision. But not just yet.
Given that Newgarden finished just outside the top 10 despite 3 penalties, this was an opportunity missed for the 4-time IndyCar winner. He lost ground to both points leading Simon Pagenaud and Scott Dixon as a result.
Race rating – 4 out of 10
The Indy Grand Prix is just not a race I can get excited about. Yes it takes place at the Brickyard. Yes it is a fortnight before the Indy 500. But the racing is usually pretty dull and the 2017 Indy Grand Prix was no exception.
Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves and Graham Rahal gave it their best to spice up the action. But overall this was not one to remember.
AdvertisementsEver had a smartphone stolen? Nine times out of 10, you never hear of it again. Even tools such as Find My iPhone don't usually work; too often, the thief is smart enough to wipe the phone and destroy its SIM card.
But for one user, the theft of her iPhone on vacation in Spain at the end of July was only the beginning of the story. The thief, it seemed, had not turned off the feature that uploaded photos to Dropbox whenever the phone was connected to Wi-Fi. Not only that, he sent her a message on Facebook.
See also: Stolen Laptop Sends Mystery Pictures from Iran
Now that anonymous user has turned these inadvertent updates from the thief into a Tumblr, "Life of a Stranger Who Stole My iPhone." It now has 14,000 readers.
Those readers have discovered that the alleged thief's name is Hafid, he lives in Dubai with roommates, and that he is interested in costumes, cars and selfies. Apparently he is still unaware that his photos are being shared — though that hasn't stopped a few hundred Tumblr commenters from pretending to be Hafid.
This isn't the first time a gadget's unauthorized owner has been exposed via the stolen device. In April, a stolen laptop started sending surreptitious pictures from its new home in Tehran. Last year a tourist on a Disney cruise discovered her phone had been snatched by a Disney employee; she posted the employee's pictures to Facebook.
Homepage image: lifeofastrangerwhostolemyphone.tumblr.comOver the span of the last nineteen years, since he was five years old, Reid has been a player, a deck builder, a collector, and a lover of the Magic world. Today, he’s a full-time professional Magic player and writer.
Answering the toughest questions in Magic is about walking fine lines. It's about striking perfect balances. Power and consistency, risk and reward, speed and staying power.
Flexibility is an important concept when it comes to finding balance in Magic. Choosing flexible cards or building flexibility into the structure of your deck will lower your risk and increase your consistency. In other words, flexibility helps prevent things from going wrong. If flexibility doesn't come at the cost of too much power, you should jump at the opportunity!
Modal Spells
A modal spell is simply a spell that asks you to choose "modes" when you cast it. Abzan Charm is an excellent card because it offers three distinct options, tailored to fit your needs under varying circumstances.
Modal spells are, by nature, very flexible cards. In the middle of a hairy combat step? Add two +1/+1 counters! Troublesome creature on the other side of the board? Exile it! None of the above? Cash it in for two new cards!
If you were to separate Abzan Charm's modes into three separate cards, it's possible that none of them would be good enough for competitive play in Standard. However, combining all of the options into one neat package makes it one of the best cards in the format. It greatly increases the likelihood that the Abzan player will have the right tool in any situation. In my opinion, the flexibility of Abzan Charm is one of the things that's made Abzan the most successful deck in Standard!
Mana Sinks
Recall that mana sinks are cards that, while not necessarily expensive in themselves, can make use of your extra mana in late-game scenarios. They increase the consistency of a deck by providing insurance against mana flood.
Mana sinks are flexible cards. If they aren't expensive to put into play, they won't make your deck slow, top-heavy, or reliant on having tons of mana. However, they're also helpful if you do draw too many lands, or if the game is dragging on into the very late stages.
Cards with "X" in the Mana Cost
One particular category of mana sink is cards with "X" in their mana cost, like Hangarback Walker. "X" means flexibility! It means that you can spend however much mana you please, and the card's effect will scale accordingly.
Hangarback Walker is an extremely good, flexible card. You can put it into play right on turn two, but if you draw it on turn eight, you can make it much bigger.
Endless One
Today's preview card from Battle for Zendikar follows in the same vein as Hangarback Walker.
Endless One is also a creature with "X" in its mana cost. You can cast it early if you need to do so in order to keep pace in tempo. Later in the game, though, it can easily be the biggest creature on the table!
One of the greatest appeals of a card like Endless One is its ability to plug a hole in your mana curve.
Imagine that your goal is simply to use all of your mana to cast creatures on every turn. Ideally, you'd want to cast a one-mana creature on turn one, a two-mana creature on turn two, a three-mana creature on turn three, and so on. To maximize your chances, you can build your deck with a healthy mix of creatures at each of these mana costs. Inevitably, though, you're going to have games where your draws don't line up the way you were hoping. Maybe you have a one-drop and a two-drop, but you're missing a three-drop. Maybe you miss your land drop on turn five and can't continue moving up the mana curve.
Endless One guarantees that these things won't happen. On any turn, with any amount of mana, you can spend it on Endless One!
That's the real beauty of flexibility—it helps you in the games where your draw isn't perfect. It raises the floor for how bad things can go for you and ensures that you have something to work with in each and every game you play.
Flexibility is an important factor in striking the balance between power and consistency. Playing with flexible cards will always increase your consistency, but will sometimes come at the cost of power.
Endless One | Art by Jason Felix
You can cast Hangarback Walker for two mana, but you'd usually prefer to cast Fleecemane Lion instead. You can cast it for four mana, but you'd prefer a Siege Rhino. You can use Abzan Charm to take care of Polukranos, World Eater, but Ultimate Price can basically do the same job for one less mana.
Your flexible cards will rarely let you down, but they'll also rarely be the best possible play you can make on a given turn.
Thankfully, Endless One doesn't force you to give up too much power for the sake of flexibility. Yes, spending four mana for a 4/4 isn't quite a Siege Rhino, but it's still a good rate and is likely to be one of the biggest creatures on the board.
Endless One also has the advantage of being colorless, making it playable in any deck, immune to Ultimate Price, and positioned to play well with any colorless-themed cards that appear in Battle for Zendikar. However, it's not an artifact for the purposes of being destroyed by Kolaghan's Command or Conclave Naturalists.
Finally, like Hangarback Walker, Endless One features +1/+1 counters, which pair well with many of the cards from the Abzan clan and the Dromoka brood. Hardened Scales is just one example.
It's a good habit to always keep an eye out for flexible cards. You'll find flexibility in Endless One. More importantly, though, you'll find it in any quality card that strikes a healthy balance between power and consistency. Putting cards like Endless One into your decks will lower the chances of a bad draw, but they won't cost you much in terms of raw power. It's a slam dunk!12 Pages Posted: 24 Apr 2017 Last revised: 13 Mar 2018
Date Written: April 24, 2017
Abstract
This essay is a response to Ahmed Ghappour's article, "Searching Places Unknown: Law Enforcement Jurisdiction on the Dark Web." Professor Ghappour argues that United States government use of malicious computer code (known as NITs) to investigate criminal cases on the dark web poses a threat to international relations and international law. In Ghappour's view, those threats justify a new regulatory framework to fill the regulatory vacuum that currently leaves the use of NITs to rank-and-file agents.
This response challenges Ghappour’s framework in three ways. First, it questions whether there are real international relations difficulties with the use of NITs to investigate Tor users engaged in criminal activities. Second, it questions whether government use of NITs to investigate crimes on the dark web violates international law. Third, it argues that the use of NITs on the dark web does not occur in a regulatory vacuum. We agree with Ghappour that government use of NITs raises significant technical, legal, and policy challenges. At the same time, we are unpersuaded that the threat to international relations caused by use of NITs to investigate criminal cases on the dark web is among them.Image copyright Thames Valley Image caption Clockwise from top left: Vikram Singh, Akbari Khan, Asif Hussain, Mohammed Imran, Taimoor Khan and Arshad Jani were all found guilty
Six men who groomed vulnerable under-age girls for sex "for the price of a McDonald's, a milkshake and cinema ticket" have been jailed.
The Old Bailey heard the abuse in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, involved multiples rapes, child prostitution and administering substances to "stupefy".
The men, from Aylesbury, Milton Keynes and Bradford, abused the two schoolgirls between 2006 and 2012.
Most were given long prison sentences - the longest being 19-and-a-half years.
The jailed men are:
Vikram Singh, 46, of Cannock Road, Aylesbury, jailed for 17-and-a-half years after being found guilty of four counts of rape and administering a substance with intent
Asif Hussain, 33, of Hodge Lea, Milton Keynes, jailed for 13-and-a-half years after being convicted of three counts of rape
Arshad Jani, 33, of Cousins Drive, Aylesbury, sentenced to 13 years in prison after being found guilty of rape and conspiracy to rape
Mohammed Imran, 38, of Springcliffe Street, Bradford, sentenced to 19-and-a-half years in prison after being convicted of three counts of rape, one count of conspiracy to rape and one count of child prostitution
Akbari Khan, 36, of Mandeville Road, Aylesbury, sentenced to 16 years in prison after being found guilty of two counts of rape, administering a substance with intent and conspiracy to rape
Taimoor Khan, 29, of Highbridge Road, Aylesbury, jailed for three years after being convicted of one count of sexual activity with a child
The offences, which all the defendants denied any involvement in, took place in cars, vans, flats and sometimes the girls' homes in Aylesbury, their trial heard.
Legal action
The court heard evidence from both victims, who came from troubled backgrounds and were befriended by the men who gave them alcohol, DVDs, food and occasionally drugs.
When she was 12 or 13, one of the girls - known as A - was passed between 60 Asian men for sex and had been conditioned to think it was normal behaviour, the jury was told.
The girls started to believe the men, some of whom were married with children, were their boyfriends.
Image caption Repeatedly excluded from school, Child A spent a lot of her time around Aylesbury Market
Referring to girl A, judge John Bevan QC said that "for the price of a McDonald's, a milkshake and cinema ticket, she became 'liked' by stall holders in Aylesbury market, taxi and bus drivers".
"Why these defendants focused their attention on white under-age girls is unexplained but I have no doubt vulnerability played a substantial part in it," he said.
"If they pursued Asian under-age girls, they would have paid a heavy price in their community."
In a statement, girl A spoke of her feelings of "worthlessness" as she battled depression and alcohol addiction, adding: "I feel my teenage years were taken away from me."
The second girl - known as B - said today's sentencing was "academic" because "no sentence could ever put right what happened".
Image copyright Google Image caption Six of the 11 defendants on trial at the Old Bailey were found guilty
Alan Collins, solicitor for girl B, said they would be taking legal action against Buckinghamshire County Council for its "negligence" which "resulted in the unnecessary suffering of these victims".
David Johnston, children's services director at the council, said it was "determined to do everything we can to stamp out all forms of sexual abuse in Buckinghamshire", urging other victims of abuse to come forward.
The authority declined to comment on the legal claims.Republicans Pass Sweeping Anti-Gay Bill in Special Session
Led by Republican Speaker Tim Moore (photo), Republican House lawmakers in North Carolina have just passed a sweepingly broad anti-gay bill in a special session called just for this one bill. The bill will void all local nondiscrimination ordinances. It will also mandate that all public accommodations ordinances, all minimum wage ordinances, and all employment discrimination ordinances come only from the General Assembly - state lawmakers - effectively banning any localities from protecting citizens in any of these areas.
The bill, HB 2, passed by a huge margin, 83-24, after less than three hours of debate and just 30 minutes of public comment.
HB 2 now heads to the Senate, who will take it up immediately.
It is expected to pass and Governor Pat McCrory, who called for the bill, is fully expected to sign it.
The bill is a direct response to a nondiscrimination ordinance passed by the Charlotte City Council. State GOP lawmakers were incensed that it allows transgender citizens use public restrooms that corresponds with with their gender identity.
Final NC House 83-24. Here's how each legislator voted. #ncpol #ncga
Off to the Senate... pic.twitter.com/qHozvDVasR — Colin Campbell (@RaleighReporter) March 23, 2016
This is a breaking news and developing story. Details may change. This story will be updated, and NCRM will likely publish follow-up stories on this news. Stay tuned and refresh for updates.
Stay with NCRM throughout the day as we publish the latest news on this legislation. And please follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Image: Screenshot via Carolina Business Review/YouTube
See a mistake? Email corrections to: [email protected]Yesterday, we posted the raw results from the 2014 State of Clojure and ClojureScript survey, where you can find not only the raw results but the methodology and other details of how it was conducted. I want to first thank Chas Emerick for having launched the survey back in 2010 and repeating it through 2013, and for reaching out to Alex to run it this year when he could not.
As always, the purpose of the survey is to shed some light on how and for what Clojure and ClojureScript are being adopted, what is going well and what could stand improvement.
What's the overview?
We'll look at the individual questions below, but there are some demonstrable trends we can tease out of these responses.
Clojure (and ClojureScript) are seeing increasing use for commercial purposes, with noticeable growth on all measures where this survey tracks such things. From use on commercial products and services, to "I use it at work", we're seeing strong positive movement. ClojureScript is coming along for the ride - even though it does not seem to have a substantial independent identity separate from Clojure, it is also seeing strong growth in commercial application. The community is adding new users faster each year, which could imply accelerating growth (though remember that this is not a scientific survey).
Let's look at the questions individually, first from the Clojure survey:
How would you characterize your use of Clojure/ClojureScript/ClojureCLR today?
The percentage of respondents using Clojure at work has nearly doubled since the 2012 survey (38% to 65%), which is the big news here. This would seem to comport with the changes we see in the domains question, and a continued sign of robust commercial adoption of the platform.
In which domains are you applying Clojure/ClojureScript/ClojureCLR?
Web development is still the top dog, and that helps explain the continued increase in usage of ClojureScript as well. What is significant is the jump in respondents working on commercial products and services (jumping from the low 20s to the low-to-mid 30s), while NoSQL and math/data analysis took a small tumble, essentially reversing positions with commercial development. Network programming is the only other thing to make a substantial move (dropping down about 10%). Really the takeway is that commercial development is gaining steadily, demonstrating a continued growth of Clojure in commercial settings, with a quite dramatic increase from 2012 (12% and 14%, respectively).
How long have you been using Clojure?
While the answer distribution has remained largely the same, the relative growth of the "Months" response (moving up a slot) matches up with other metrics, like Kovas Boguta's post analyzing GitHub metrics, to show a continued picture of accelerating growth in the development community.
Do you use Clojure, ClojureScript, or ClojureCLR?
The JVM platform clearly dominates, which is no shock. There is no cross-over in the responses between Clojure and ClojureCLR. However, a quite impressive 54.9% of respondents are also using ClojureScript, which is a measurable increase since 2013, though there is still no significant sign in the survey results of a ClojureScript-only userbase. This seems to imply a continuation of the theme from last time: ClojureScript is adopted (in growing numbers) by existing Clojure developers, not as an independent entity.
We have not previously had ClojureCLR explicitly included in this survey. The recent release of Arcadia (ClojureCLR + Unity gaming engine) may have spurred some recent interest in the ClojureCLR platform. Thanks as always to David Miller's tireless efforts in this area.
What is your *primary* Clojure/Script/CLR dev environment?
Cursive (a Clojure IDE built on IntelliJ) is the big winner, jumping dramatically to second place. Interesting that Light Table saw absolute growth in both respondents and percentage, but still fell a spot due to Cursive's massive growth. While Emacs continues to dominate, it is great to see a vibrant collection of options here, to suit every developer's and team's needs.
Which versions of Clojure do you currently use in production or development?
Great to see that 1.6 dominates and it would seem that everyone is able to keep up with the new releases. A full 18% are using the 1.7 alphas in production or development already.
What version of the JDK do you target?
These answers comport with other survey results recently released, showing a rapid uptake of 1.8 at 49% of respondents. 1.7 is still the most common platform at 70%, and 1.6 is slowly fading at only 14%. Last year, 1.6 was still 19% of the sample, while 1.8 was a mere 5%.
What tools do you use to compile/package/deploy/release your Clojure projects?
Leiningen would now appear to be ubiquitous, at a whopping 98% of respondents using it (up from 75% last year). There isn't a significant change anywhere else.
What has been most frustrating for you in your use of Clojure?
There has been remarkably little motion in this list over the years. Staffing concerns, which jumped all the way to #2 last year, fell a spot this year, falling behind documentation/tutorials. It is interesting to note that #4, finding editing environments, remains steady even though there has been dramatic shifts and growth within the editor responses. Otherwise, hard to see any new trends here. Congratulations to everyone for "unpleasant community interactions" continuing to come in dead last.
Next, let's look at the ClojureScript survey
How would you characterize your use of ClojureScript today?
Once again, we see a dramatic jump in usage at work - from 28% to 49% in just the last year. Serious hobby also climbed roughly 20%. It would appear that the rising tide floats all boats, as the entire Clojure ecosystem is seeing growth in commercial development use.
Which JavaScript environments do you target?
Browsers are now ubiquitous, being targeted by 97% of the community, with everything else on the list remaining largely unchanged.
Which ClojureScript REPL do you use most often?
Chas was quite distressed last year to note that more than a fourth of the respondents used no REPL at all. This year, that number is now almost a third. On the other hand, Austin took a major jump all the way to #2 at 22%, probably due to his commitment to it after last year's survey. Light Table also came from literally nowhere (not named on last year's survey) to occupy the third spot. In fact, it wasn't even included in the original responses until a bunch of people requested it be added, so it might be under-represented in the list. So even though even more people aren't using a REPL at all, the options seem to be growing.
What has been most frustrating for you in your use of CLJS?
Through the change in the question style, we can get a better picture of the real answers here. The difficulty of using a REPL jumps from 14% in 2013 to a whopping 68% this year, while debugging generated JavaScript rises from 14% to 43%. This is a much better window into how much pain those two items cause the community. It is impossible to tell because of this change in survey methodology, but the addition of CLJS source map support has most likely made that issue less difficult for many.
The Takeaway
While not a scientific survey, with five years of data it is really possible to spot trends. Clojure has clearly transitioned from exploratory status to a viable, sustainable platform for development at work. And as the community continues to add new users at an accelerating pace, we should only expect that trend to continue.
Our thanks to everyone who took the time to fill out the survey - this kind of sharing is invaluable to the wider community.Bad Sci-Fi, No Cookie!
I don’t exactly keep it a secret that I love fantasy and science fiction: Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, just to name a few. I grew up on Amazing Stories, The Twilight Zone, and The Outer Limits. I have no problem with blending science fiction with fantasy. I love Piers Anthony for the way he combines the two. But as with anything, it needs to be done well.
I recently discovered that Hulu has the original Outer Limits, not just the remade series, and had a bit of a geek-gasm over it. So I sat down to watch the legendary show from its beginnings, and I was enjoying the trip back to 1963 until I hit the episode called “The Sixth Finger” (season 1, episode 5) That was when it struck me, perhaps rather belatedly, that TV writers just don’t know science. You see, while it’s true that any good story is about people and how they respond to situations they’re in, perhaps highlighting important issues in the process, what makes science fiction what it is is the science. Radical concept, I know. Magic makes fantasy, cowboys make westerns, and science makes science fiction. And bad science makes bad science fiction.
“The Sixth Finger” deals with a man who has been artificially evolved tens of thousands of years into humanity’s future, and later is reverted to his original state. Now certainly, we often wonder what Homo sapiens will look like in that far distant time, and there have been science fiction stories written where we get to see what we might look like then, through the vehicle of either time travel or simply setting the story in that time period. This is fine because time travel has not been definitively disproved, and conjecture is the backbone of all speculative fiction. But showing evolution in one person is plain old bad science fiction, because it is grounded in bad science. Evolution is not a force unto itself and has no ultimate or inevitable goal. Also, individuals don’t evolve: a species as a whole does over the course of generations.
Evolution starts with a random mutation, an accident in the DNA copying process in the earliest stages of conception, sometimes as a result of a faulty sperm or egg. Some mutations are minor and end up making little or no difference. Others can cause or lead to disfiguration, disability, or disease. Others yet can end up being useful. When organisms procreate, they pass on their mutations good, bad, and indifferent. Once enough people with a particular mutation pass it on to enough offspring, it becomes the norm, whatever that trait happens to be. Evolution has happened and the mutation is no longer considered to be such.
Evolution is “directed,” for lack of a better term, by natural selection and sexual selection. Natural selection means that if a mutation ends up being useful and gives those who have it an advantage over those who don’t, then in time it is likely that more organisms will have it than not and they will be said to have evolved in that direction. Sexual selection is a matter of organisms choosing mates based on characteristics they have. If a given set of characteristics is more desirable than others, then those who have it will be more successful in finding mates and those genes will be more likely to be passed on. In time, again, more organisms will have it than not and they will be said to have evolved in that direction. The important aspect is that an overwhelming majority have, for whatever reasons, passed on a certain trait that began as a lowly chance mutation. Evolution doesn’t always happen in a necessarily positive direction, either. Peacocks are a great example of sexual selection driving evolution into questionable territory. Peahens are attracted to the grand and brightly colored plumage, but so are predators.
Forcing evolutionary change in an individual with no selective pressures to guide it, not to mention the assumption that any given individual possesses within him the full “potential” that mankind can become, is a nice mythology, an imaginative fantasy, but it is profoundly bad science. And this episode makes it clear that we are dealing with straight science fiction, not fantasy. We’ve known the basic mechanics of evolution for a while, so I’m not entirely sure we can chalk it up to 1963. Either way, it fails to stand the test of time. The sad part is that in 1996, Star Trek: Voyager aired an episode named “Threshold” (season 2, episode 15) that dealt with Paris and Janeway evolving forward and back again.
Here’s the deal: If science fiction deals with something not well understood at the time, but later is proved to be quite different from how it’s portrayed, that simply makes that story dated. If, however, science fiction deals with something that is reasonably understood, but portrays it in a significantly different way, that makes very bad science fiction because it’s based on very bad science.James Frederick Bridenstine (born June 15, |
Lake Erie.
Silver carp is one of the Asian species threatening to invade the Great Lakes and compete with native fish for food.
The discovery of genetic markers doesn't necessarily prove the presence of live carp, as fish deposit their DNA when shedding scales, excrement or mucous. But scientists say it could come from other sources, such as fishing gear or bird droppings.
"While we don't have evidence of a live fish in the water, we treat this finding very seriously," Michigan DNR senior water policy adviser Tammy Newcombe said.
The agency has requested assistance from the Fish and Wildlife Service for additional surveillance on the lower Kalamazoo River, and authorities planned to begin collecting an additional 200 samples Tuesday. Results should be available within a month.
Also, the DNR will boost presence of its staff along the river, which is popular for recreational activities such as fishing and boating, to ask anglers to report any Asian carp sightings. The agency plans to place information in local bait shops to heighten public awareness.
Read or Share this story: http://bcene.ws/1xlVH1qIn the 80s, there were basically only three distribution systems for video: TV, VHS cassettes and the movie theater. That meant that the only video was highly produced by strangers and most of it ran in half hour increments.
Not today. Now, micro-video has become hugely popular. On Vine (RIP), a six second video of a bin full of squeezy toys screaming might be the most amazing video you’ve seen in years (if you haven’t seen it, it will be). That video would have never hit the pre-internet distribution networks, though.
Bitcoin guru Andreas Antonopoulos explains that money, like pre-internet video, takes on the characteristics of its container. When it had to be contained on a TV channel with a schedule or a videotape that took up physical space, it didn’t make sense to pass around a six second video. With the internet, any length of video can be watched at any time. Length and time no longer matter. We love videos today that people 30 years ago would never have suspected anyone would want to see.
Antonopoulos predicts the same transformation coming to money. Cryptocurrency will make it feasible to stream value. The Lightning Network envisions a continuous flow of transactions, even ones worth far less than a penny. The first testbed for that network from Lightning Labs came online as an alpha release last week.
Antonopoulos paints a hazy and hopeful picture of what such a network could mean in a new video on YouTube.
A future where cash flow actually flows
Lots of people who draw salaries get paid in monthly installments, after they have completed a chunk of work.
“Why do we chunk money at monthly intervals?” he asks. “This is money acquiring the characteristics of its container.” Banks charge too much money to pay people more often, so it isn’t done. Using a lightning network, it should be possible to make millions of transactions, both much smaller than a penny and larger than each of us can imagine, in millionths of a second.
Right now, it costs about a nickel or so to register a transaction on the bitcoin blockchain. That’s too expensive to handle true micropayments (for example, to create more reasonable paywalls in online media). The lightning network adds a layer above the bitcoin network that only logs final transactions after lots of payments have resolved.
“If I can do payments in a millionth of a second frequency and are as low as a satoshi, why not get your salary every minute?” he asks. “When you can make micropayments over milliseconds, cash flow takes on a whole new meaning.”
There’s a real example of this already in beta for pay-per-view streaming video, called Streamium. It creates a smart contract such that you can sign up for a paid online stream with an expert (for example), but if it turns out the material isn’t what you expected, you can back out any time. Only watched three minutes of the stream? That’s all you pay for.
That just scratches the surface. Antonopoulos asks his audience to picture something much more grand than that, a true internet of money.
A metaphor to make sense of the Lightning Network
Here’s one way to think about how the Lightning Network would work. Imagine, for example, a conference devoted to trading some kind of collectible, such as Beanie Babies. Its organizers rent out a huge hall at a hotel. People set up a tables, they bring their Beanie Babies and a bunch of cash. Then the visitors come, with more cash and empty bags for Beanie Babies.
Inside the hall, people start trading super fast. People buy and sell Beanie Babies. Money is changing hands left and right. The first $5 bill spent could end up in a dozen different tills before the day ends. Transactions are happening much too fast for a network like bitcoin’s to settle quickly enough.
Think of the giant room as a metaphor for the Lightning Network. The hallway outside the room is the bitcoin blockchain. Only two records need to get logged for each person on that blockchain: the amount of money they walked in with and the amount they walked out with. The Lightning Network keeps track of all the thousands of transactions that take place inside the room. It only needs to report, at the end, their final accounts.
In a real room, of course, that’s not necessary. Cash works great for settlement in person. Online, though, there is no great way to have that kind of rapid fire, peer-to-peer market, with thousands of transactions super fast, on, for example, an internet protocol designed with cryptography built in. That’s the vision for the Lightning Network.
In fact, you could even extend the metaphor to the Beanie Babies themselves. Once the market for digitized assets, such as smart contracts, really takes shape, the Lightning Network could not only track how much money changes hands, but how many “Beanie Babies” as well.
Privacy
Antonopoulos says the privacy model for these transactions has already been shown by Tor. With Tor, each node in the network only knows two hops for each packet, where it came from and where it’s going next. It doesn’t know where it went before and it doesn’t know if the next hop will be its last one.
Tor participants volunteer to take part anonymously. Nodes in a Lightning Network will most likely get paid. They won’t get paid much. The award to pass along a transaction will probably be much smaller than a penny, but across thousands or millions of transactions, that could still add up.
Technical details
For folks who like to go deep into these topics, Antonopoulos explained that it relies on several new inventions, including CheckLockTimeVerify, CheckSequenceVerify, multi-signature and Hashed TimeLock Contracts. These allow, for example, for people to have multiple transactions over time and only finalize them when they are actually finished.
All that said, Antonopoulos notes that there’s no reason why bitcoin would have to be the fundamental layer for this kind of network. It could be Ethereum, Steem, XRP or any of a number of other alt-coins. The market will sort that out, if it wants this technology.
Keep in mind that no one ever successfully anticipates what the world will look like, as Antonopoulos cautioned in his talk.
New technology has a way of creating use cases that look nothing like what came before. Imagine going back to the 70s and explaining emoji culture to a postman. He might understand the idea of electronic letters, but hundreds of short messages every day made up entirely of pictures? He might have a hard time believing anyone would want to do that.
Today, we’re going to have a hard time imagining what people will do differently if money genuinely lives online, but getting paid every day doesn’t sound like a bad place to start.BISMARCK, N.D. - The head of a Texas company building the controversial $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline told employees Tuesday that it is committed to the project despite strong opposition and a federal order to halt construction near an American Indian reservation in North Dakota.
Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren said in a memo to employees that the four-state, 1,172-mile project is nearly 60 percent complete and that “concerns about the pipeline’s impact on the local water supply are unfounded.” The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and others argue the project will impact drinking water for thousands of tribal members and millions downstream.
“I am confident that as long as the government ultimately decides the fate of the project based on science and engineering, the Dakota Access Pipeline will become operational... So we will continue to obey the rules and trust the process,” he wrote.
North Dakota tribe's request to stop oil pipeline work denied
Standing Rock Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II said he and the thousands of others who have gathered at an encampment in southern North Dakota to protest won’t budge.
“People are still coming down here and are committed to stopping the project,” he said.
Warren’s memo, which was released to some media outlets, is the first time in months the company has provided significant details of the project. The company often has ignored requests for comment from The Associated Press.
“Our corporate mindset has long been to keep our head down and do our work,” his memo said. “It has not been my preference to engage in a media/PR battle. However, misinformation has dominated the news, so we will work to communicate with the government and media more clearly in the days to come.”
The Standing Rock Sioux is challenging the Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to grant about 200 permits at water crossings for pipeline, which goes through the Dakotas and Iowa to Illinois. The tribe says the project will disturb sacred sites and impact drinking water.
Wikaya Eagleman of the Sicangu Lakota, told CBS News: “They just came in and destroyed it.”
Eagleman also blamed federal authorities for instigating violence during the protests.
“Yeah, you know they instigated the whole situation. They came to use their dogs on my people,” Wikaya said. “They came and maced us. So what else are we supposed to do? We ain’t going to stand and let them do this anymore.”
Energy Transfer Partners disputes the claims of Native Americans, saying the pipeline would include safeguards and that workers monitoring the pipeline remotely could close valves within three minutes if a breach is detected.
Face-off in North Dakota over oil pipeline construction
“We have designed the state-of-the-art Dakota Access pipeline as a safer and more efficient method of transporting crude oil than the alternatives being used today,” his memo said.
The tribe’s effort to temporarily block construction near its reservation on the North Dakota-South Dakota border was denied by U.S.District Judge James Boasberg on Friday. But minutes later, federal officials ordered a temporary halt to construction on Army Corps land around and underneath Lake Oahe - one of six reservoirs on the Missouri River. Three federal agencies also asked ETP for a “voluntary pause” in work for 20 miles (32 km) on either side of Lake Oahe.
The federal departments said the case “highlighted the need for a serious discussion” about nationwide reforms “with respect to considering tribes’ views on these types of infrastructure projects.”
Warren said the company had consulted with more than 55 tribes, including the Standing Rock Sioux, adding that ETP values and respects “cultural diversity and the significant role that Native American culture plays in our nation’s history and its future and hope to be able to strengthen our relationship with the Native American communities as we move forward with this project.”
Archambault said the consultations were one-sided and that “they met with us after their plans were already made.”Screenshot of a computer-generated prototype of a drone armed with a machine gun. (FPSRussia/YouTube)
In April 2012, Rand Paul's nightmare seemingly came true nearly a year before he'd even gotten the chance to dream it. Four people were having a dinner party and playing cards when all of a sudden, a robotic plane showed up outside their window and interrupted their game with a barrage of bullets.
For 13 hours on the Senate floor this March, Paul railed on the government's willingness to use armed drones on American civilians, even suggesting that the government could use an unmanned plane to kill an American eating dinner with his family. But he never mentioned the possibility that the person flying the drone could be a neighbor.
That idea sounds farfetched, but some legal scholars think that Second Amendment rights might extend to robotic arms, including drones outfitted with weapons.
Fortunately, the poor card players that went down in a hail of drone-borne gunfire last year was a family of prop dummies, and the bullets were computer generated. The video was designed to promote the release of Call of Duty Black Ops 2, where players can control an unmanned attack drone. But the nation collectively freaked out when Kyle Myers, known online for blowing stuff up with big guns, posted video of that "Prototype Quadrotor with Machine Gun" on YouTube. It has since been viewed more than 18 million times.
But soon, the technology to arm your own personal drone might become a reality.
Most commercially-available drones, for the time being, aren't strong enough to carry a firearm, and experts say the recoil from firing most types of guns would likely down a small drone. But as technology improves and guns with little- or no-recoil become more commonplace, armed drones could become an issue.
In Texas, for instance, the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department floated the idea of arming drones with a no-recoil shotgun that shoots rubber bullets and tear gas dispensers. In other YouTube videos, hobbyists claim to have created homemade armed drones.
One video shows a remote controlled helicopter outfitted with a.45 caliber handgun. Another video shows a six-rotored helicopter that has been modified to shoot paintballs. The man who created that craft wore a bandana covering his face and voice modifying technology, because attaching weapons to aircraft is expressly forbidden by the Federal Aviation Administration.
In February, Jim Williams, the man in charge of regulating drones for the FAA, was unequivocal about the question.
"We currently have rules in the books that deal with releasing anything from an aircraft, period," he said at an industry meeting. "Those rules are in place and that would prohibit weapons from being installed on a civil aircraft."
But when someone inevitably ignores the FAA and arms a drone to use it to shoot targets or defend their farm or house, will they have a Second Amendment argument to fight the FAA?
Maybe.
It's a question that Peter W. Singer, director of Brookings' 21st Century Defense Initiative, wrote in 2010 was an "all too real question" surrounding the age of drones.
"Does the Second Amendment cover my right to bear (robotic) arms? It sounds like a joke, but where does the line stop, and why?" Singer wrote.
"A lot of people have been moseying around this issue, but if you can't arm your own Cessna, you probably can't arm your own drone," Singer tells U.S. News. "We're in the early days of this, so anyone saying this could never ever happen is a pretty good way to prove they don't know what they're talking about."
The Second Amendment question was recently explored in-depth by Dan Terzian, a U.S. District Court clerk in Guam, who published "The Right to Bear (Robotic) Arms" in the Penn State Law Review earlier this year.
According to Terzian, the answer to that question comes down to the interpretation of the Supreme Court in a couple cases, most importantly District of Columbia v. Heller, the 2008 decision that overturned Washington's handgun ban.
That decision held that the Second Amendment "protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in the militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home," but limits the amendment's protections to weapons that are "in common use at the time."
By that definition, robotic weapons would almost certainly not be considered in "common use," much like rocket launchers, tanks and cannons. But Terzian says that as the technology improves, armed drones could one day become popular enough to become commonplace.
"There are a lot of people in other countries who are basically making autonomous weapons at their home, but they're not necessarily using handguns, they're using Nerf guns or paintball guns," Terzian says. "There's no fundamental [Second Amendment] difference between using a squirt gun and a firearm."
According to Terzian, Congress could, with one law, make it illegal for Rand Paul's nightmare to come true - at least if perpetrated by a civilian. Because armed drones are currently not common, Congress could simply expressly ban them, making it impossible for them to ever become an everyday thing.
"If Congress chose, it could ban robotic weapons, meaning robots would never be in common use, and thus never armed," he writes. "But just because Congress can ban them, does not mean it should... robotic weapons [could be] both more effective and safer than firearms, so banning them, as opposed to regulating them, would by myopic."
Lawmakers in Washington have proposed bills that would restrict when private companies, individuals and public agencies can use unarmed drones, but it has yet to strongly consider armed drone legislation.
If Congress doesn't act, Terzian argues that one day, robotic weapons could defend factories, public places and, eventually, people's homes. As autonomous decision-making intelligence improves, Terzian says that automated weapons might have legitimate self-defense uses that could potentially be lawful.
It's also unclear, he says, whether someone would have the right to attach their handgun to a small drone and then use it for target practice on their private property. The FAA certainly wouldn't approve, but Terzian says it might not be inherently illegal.
"If they're using a pistol attached to a mechanical device - you have a right to that pistol, you can do whatever you want with it unless you are breaking the law with it," he says. "I think it's at least possible that some of those laws could be challenged. I'm not sure we're to the point where you'd win, but you could try."
But those who most often challenge anti-gun laws aren't ready to get behind citizens' armed drone rights – either real or perceived.
"It's nothing I've ever heard of anyone wanting to do," Dave Workman, a representative for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. "It certainly is an interesting idea, but if you're launching an armed, remote controlled aircraft, I'd imagine you'd run into some serious safety issues. What if it crashes and you have a loaded gun on it?"
Though the FAA expressly forbids people from arming their private planes, it doesn't forbid the shooting of guns out of the windows of planes or helicopters. While it is illegal in most states, in some places, it's specifically permitted. In 2011, Texas passed a law that allows licensed hunters to shoot feral hogs from helicopters.
"Coyotes and hogs are regularly hunted on ranches out of small aircraft with rifleman at the trigger. I don't know what the legal implications of using a drone to do that would be. I don't think most people see that it's within the purview of the Second Amendment," says Dudley Brown, a pro-gun lobbyist and executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. Brown says he's not ready to support someone who wants to arm a drone, but that some "wealthier gun owners" he knows have mounted guns to their aircraft, FAA regulation or not.
The possibility that someone might arm a drone, legality be damned, is more pressing than the Second Amendment implications, Brookings' Singer says.
"There's a risk of terrorist or criminal use of this technology," Singer says. "People are thinking about packing these with explosives and carrying out 9/11-style attacks."
In 2011, the FBI arrested a Massachusetts man named Rezwan Fedaus who planned to pack a remote controlled airplane with explosives and fly it into the Pentagon. In the Middle East, Hezbollah has used rudimentary armed drones against Israeli forces.
Ferdaus got caught because he tried to collaborate with FBI agents posing as al-Qaeda operatives. But using a remotely-piloted vehicle makes it inherently more difficult to catch a criminal or terrorist, says Tony Hallett, CEO of Community Research Corporation, a Pennsylvania-based consulting company that is exploring the forensic problems that drones will present. In an upcoming academic paper, he argues that home grown drone attacks are inevitable.
"Most street cops aren't ready for this—it's not going to occur to them that an attack that just happened might have happened because of a drone," he says. "Conceivably, you can put a gun on a drone and a guy can sit on the other side of the country with an iPad, fly it into a crowd and open fire, then fly it away and crash it into the river. Who's going to solve that? It'll leave no trace evidence at the scene, nothing."
For now, seriously-armed drones remain primarily a military asset, and few people have the $17 million necessary to buy a Predator drone. But as technology improves, as it always does, mounting a gun on a hobbyist drone will no longer be a technological hurdle – meaning Rand Paul's nightmare scenario wouldn't necessary be exclusively reserved for government agencies.
"Technology-wise, you could solve the recoil issues," Singer says, referring to the Texas police department's plan to use a non-recoiling shotgun with rubber bullets. "From there, the conversion from nonlethal to lethal rounds is a policy leap, not a technological one."
More News:Editor's Note: This is the final installment in George Friedman's recent series written during his journey from the Baltics, through Central and Eastern Europe and then east to Turkey and Azerbaijan.
I traveled between Poland and Azerbaijan during a rare period when the forces that shape Europe appear to be in flux, and most of the countries I visited are re-evaluating their positions. The overwhelming sense was anxiety. Observers from countries such as Poland make little effort to hide it. Those from places such as Turkey, which is larger and not directly in the line of fire, look at Ukraine as an undercurrent rather than the dominant theme. But from Poland to Azerbaijan, I heard two questions: Are the Russians on the move? And what can these countries do to protect themselves?
Moscow is anxious too, and some Russians I spoke to expressed this quite openly. From the Russian point of view, the Europeans and Americans did the one thing they knew Moscow could not live with: They installed a pro-Western government in Kiev. For them, the Western claims of a popular rising in Ukraine are belied by the Western-funded nongovernmental organizations that were critical to sustaining the movement to unseat the government. But that is hardly what matters most. A pro-Western government now controls Ukraine, and if that control holds, the Russian Federation is in danger.
The View to Russia's West
When the Russians look at a map, this is what they see: The Baltic states are in NATO and Ukraine has aligned with the West. The anti-Western government in Belarus is at risk, and were Minsk to change its loyalties, Russia's potential enemies will have penetrated almost as deeply toward the Russian core as the Nazis did. This is a comparison I heard Russians make several times. For them, the Great Patriotic War (World War II), which left more than 20 million Soviet dead, is a vivid, living memory, and so is Hitler's treachery. Russians are not a trusting people and have no reason to be. The same is true of the Central Europeans, the Turks and the Caucasians. Nothing in their past permits them the luxury of assuming the best about anyone.
In recent weeks, three things have become obvious. The first is that the Russians will not invade Ukraine directly. You don't occupy a country of almost 50 million people with the 50,000 troops Russia has mobilized, and you can never assume that an occupied population will welcome you. The Russians have postured as if they were an overwhelming force, but the threat of American munitions dumps and airstrikes against fuel depots — not something that the Russians can dismiss out of hand — as well as the threat of an insurgency leave the Russians wary.
Equally clear is that no European power can defend the line running from Poland to Romania with the decisive force needed to repel a Russian attack — or even support these countries against Russian pressure and potential subversion. Germany is the key country, and Berlin has made it clear that there are limits to what it is prepared to do in Ukraine and to the steps it is ready to take to defend the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union. Berlin does not want another Cold War. Germany depends on Russian energy and ultimately is satisfied with the status quo. The rest of Europe cannot intervene decisively.
Finally, this means that any support to Europe's eastern flank must come from the United States. Washington spent the past few weeks indicating its commitment to two key countries: Poland and Romania. President Barack Obama went to Poland while Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Romania, and while both leaders stressed Washington's absolute commitment to Poland's and Romania's national security, they were short on specifics. That lack of detail is not surprising — the United States is still taking stock of the situation. Washington is not ready to outline the nature and extent of its support, and from the American point of view, so long as the Russians are focused on Ukraine, there is still time to do so.
The primary concern for the United States would logically be Poland, the most vulnerable country on the North European Plain. But for now, distance and logistics limit the Russians' ability to threaten Poland. The stability of the Baltic states is the greatest fear in the region, and the threat there is not Russian invasion, but Russian subversion — a threat that armored divisions cannot address.
More important, a primary commitment to Poland forces any alliance into a defensive posture. That made sense during the Cold War, when Soviet conventional military forces were much larger and better deployed. But Russia today is far weaker, and a more assertive strategy — one that presents Russia with risks while also defending key assets — is more appropriate.
The Emerging Black Sea Strategy
For these reasons, we see the United States beginning to adopt a Black Sea strategy centered on Romania. The Russians held on to Sevastopol because naval capability in the Black Sea is critical. A strategy that enhances Romania's naval capability and places U.S. aircraft in the region would pose a threat to the Russian fleet. It would also extend defensive capabilities to Georgia and protect the indispensible route for any pipelines running from Azerbaijan. Put simply, a competent rival Black Sea fleet would create problems for Russia, particularly if the Ukrainian regime survives and Crimea is isolated. The visit by U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to Romania indicates the importance U.S. strategic thinkers place on that country.
It is important to note the extensive diplomacy ongoing between the United States and Turkey, as well as meetings between Turkish, Romanian and Polish leaders. The Turks are obviously vulnerable to energy cutoffs, and Ankara does not want to see the Black Sea used as a battleground. At the same time, Turkey would want to be a part of any alliance structure the United States is constructing in the region. In the long run, the Turks have a deep interest in Iraqi and Iranian energy and little trust in Russian intentions.
What we are seeing is regional players toying with new alliance structures. The process is in its infancy, but it is already forcing the Russians to consider their future. An added dimension to this is of course energy. The Russians would appear to have the advantage here: Many of the nations that fear Moscow also depend on it for natural gas. But there is a Russian weakness here as well. Natural gas is a powerful lever, but it is not particularly profitable. Russia's national budget — indeed, its economy — is built around oil. The chief danger Moscow faces is that it doesn't control the price of oil. A radical decline in that benchmark would cause the Russian economy to stagger at the very least. While in Poland, Obama deliberately pointed out Russia's economic problems. He wanted Russian President Vladimir Putin to know that he understands Russia's weakness.
Deployment of military force, while necessary, is therefore not the core element of the developing Western strategy. Rather, the key move is to take steps to flood the world market with oil — even knowing that implementing this strategy is extremely difficult. It appears likely that once Tehran reaches an agreement with Washington on nuclear weapons, Iran's oil market will open up, and a major source of oil will flow. Additional Iraqi oil is also moving toward the market, and Libyan production might soon resume. Washington itself wields the most powerful weapon: The United States could reverse its current policy and start exporting oil and liquefied natural gas.
There are undercurrents in this. Bulgaria announced this weekend that it would suspend construction on South Stream, a pipeline the Russians favor, after the country's prime minister met with three U.S. senators. In the short run, the strategy may be to limit Russia's control over Europe's energy; in the long run, the strategy could create the means to destabilize the Russian economy.
None of this is an immediate threat to Russia. It will be years before these and other alternative sources of energy come online — indeed, some may never be available — and there are many constraints, especially in the short term. U.S. companies and oil-producing allies who depend on high oil prices would suffer alongside Russia — an expensive collateral to this policy. But the game here is geopolitical futures. Once major efforts are underway to increase the worldwide availability of oil, those efforts are hard to stop. The Russian strategy must be to diminish the influence of energy on Moscow's geopolitical imperatives. The Russians know this, and their aim now is to diversify their economy enough within the next 10 years to reduce their vulnerability to fluctuations in energy markets. The threat to Moscow is a surge in supply that cuts into Russian markets and depresses oil prices before Russia completes this effort.
For the United States, the game is not to massively arm Poland, build a Romanian navy or transform the world oil markets. It is simpler than that: Washington wants to show that it is ready to do these things. Such a show of will forces the Russians to recalculate their position now, before the threat becomes a reality. It is not that the United States is bluffing — it is that Washington would prefer to achieve its goals without a major effort, and frankly, without tanking oil prices.
New Calculations
The United States now has a pro-Western government in Ukraine. If that government survives and is strengthened, the Russian position becomes entirely defensive, and the threat Moscow poses is gone. Further, Belarus could destabilize and end up with a pro-Western government. In either case, the Russian position becomes enormously difficult. Its principal weapon — cutting off natural gas to Europe — would then have to take into account Russia's strategic vulnerability, and possibly even calculate the potential for instability in Russia itself. The future for Russia becomes the one thing no nation wants: uncertain.
Russia now has two choices. The first is to destabilize Ukraine. Success is uncertain, and Moscow cannot predict the U.S. response. Washington's moves in Poland, Romania and even Turkey have made this option riskier than it was. The fallback for Russia is to neutralize Ukraine. Russia would leave the current government in place so long as Kiev pledges not to join Western-led multinational structures and not to allow any foreign military presence on Ukrainian territory. In return, the Russians would guarantee Ukraine's territorial integrity and might even reconsider the status of Crimea.
The Western strategy is to create a credible threat to fundamental Russian interests. That means guaranteeing Poland's defense while setting up offensive military capabilities in Romania. But a linchpin of the strategy is to let Moscow know that the United States is prepared if necessary to stage an all-out attack on the price of oil. The goal is to make Putin rethink the long-term risks he is running by cashing in on Russia's short-term advantage in natural gas exports.
The Russians must now calculate whether they can destabilize Ukraine enough to displace the pro-Western government. They must also consider the costs of doing so. In the meantime, Moscow is exploring possibilities for the neutralization of Ukraine. Germany will be key, and I suspect the Germans would be happy to see Kiev neutralized if doing so brought an end to the crisis.
From the U.S. point of view, a Western-oriented but neutral Ukraine would create a buffer zone without forcing a confrontation with Russia. What the Americans must calculate is how stable this arrangement is and what the Russians might later do to undermine it. The problem with agreeing to any deal is in its enforcement. You enforce it by being able to threaten the other party with the one thing they don't want. And the one thing that Russia doesn't want is anything that threatens its weakened economy. If a control mechanism doesn't emerge, then Ukraine will remain a battleground in a little cold war.Hi,I know I didn't post something lately because I was on a busy schedule.And in these days I'm involved in a secret project( you'll probably see it after six or seven months) and this is something related to it(hehe nothing more or less)This means, I'm working on some horror pieces. I hope out there, there is someone who wants some macabre from me.This is a personal work for my portfolio. I can't tell what it is yet I have no opinion with her. One part that I'm really sure, she's an ancient alien-like demon. I'll try to post other ancient demons in time. And at the end, "the big one" will comeStay tuned.And here it is; "Ne idugu belirsiz" to all your fancy. Ahh, look at her; she is ready to take her step to fresh daylight. And fresh meat; yummiiieee!This image was also selected for inclusion for EXPOSE 8.BestErtaçPhotoshop CS2UC-Logic LaPazz WP5540 A6 Graphic Tablet20 hoursASRock Taichi X399 Review
Introduction and Technical Specifications
| Source: ASRock Price: Author: Tom Logan
Introduction
ASRock have really upped their game of late, shuffling off the cloak of averageness that somewhat followed them around like a shadow. With the X370 Taichi we saw the dawning of a new day for ASRock that was only slightly tempered by a few issues with the early BIOS releases.
Now ASRock have got the difficult first new product out of the way and ironed out the kinks, it's time to see how the X399 Taichi compares to the other models rapidly appearing on the market.
With a price equal to the MSI X399 Pro Gaming Carbon AC there is tight competition for your money if you're wanting something to squeeze your Threadripper CPU into, but the folks at ASRock have picked up the gauntlet of high performance and rich feature sets and seen about planting themselves firmly in the group of companies at the top of the motherboard chain. Are they successful?
Technical Specifications
The Taichi is replete with high end features ticking off all the wants and needs of the power user. Eight DIMM slots and four PCI Express 3.0 slots provide the majority of expansion card supports whilst the blend of eight SATA 6Gb/s ports, three M.2 ports and a U.2 connector keep even the most demanding storage-heavy user sated. Particular attention has been paid to the power phase design so let's look at the motherboard itself to go over those.
1 - Introduction and Technical Specifications 2 - Up Close 3 - VRM Cooling 4 - Overclocking & VRM Temperatures 5 - AIDA64 6 - SiSoft Sandra 7 - Blender 8 - Cinebench R15 9 - HEVC 10 - x265 Benchmark 11 - Geekbench and Realbench 12 - PC Mark 13 - Passmark 9 14 - 3D Mark 15 - VR Mark 16 - Gaming 17 - Conclusion «Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next»
Most Recent CommentsConst. Dave Stewart remembers getting a call last year from a manager at a fast-food restaurant reporting a drunk customer in the drive-thru.
When Stewart, of the Halton Regional Police Service in Ontario, arrived on scene, it was clear the manager made the right decision. "He was practically passed out at the wheel."
But what happened next was just as disturbing, said Stewart. After the arrest, he asked the manager how often he calls 911 about drunk drivers.
"And he told me he only calls in the bad ones."
That's not good enough, said Stewart. "We want people to call, even if they have a suspicion."
Project Drive Thru
Stewart is now spearheading a pilot program called Project Drive Thru that launched in May. It includes 38 fast-food restaurants in Burlington.
In addition to meeting with managers and staff, Stewart created a YouTube video and put posters inside drive-thru windows to remind cashiers of what do look for when trying to spot impaired drivers.
Drive-thru workers are in an ideal position to detect impaired drivers, said Anissa Aldridge of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
"They can look into the car, they can see if there's open alcohol, they can see if there's drugs," she said. "They can see how they actually manoeuvre getting into the drive-thru. Yeah, I think it's a great vantage point."
No need for statement
People who call 911 to report a suspicious driver are not required to make a statement or file an official report. The idea is to put as few barriers as possible between on observation of intoxication and the decision to call police.
A scene from a Halton police training video that encourages drive-thru workers to call 911 when they suspect an impaired driver. (Halton Regional Police Service)
Thai Manilay-Lake, 19, knows all too well about impaired drivers who suddenly get the munchies. "I was working at Tim Hortons and an impaired driver came through. He was intoxicated on marijuana."
Manilay-Lake said the driver was smoking a joint while placing his order.
Thai Manilay-Lake says Project Drive Thru would have made him think differently when he came across impaired drivers. (Blair Sanderson/CBC)
But Manilay-Lake didn't call. "I don't know. At the moment there I just wasn't thinking right and just told him to keep on moving."
Program could spread
Manilay-Lake said he might have called 911 if he'd been encouraged to do so through a program like Project Drive Thru.
Stewart said that he's already made one arrest after a call from a drive-thru worker trained through the program, but that it's too early to say how effective the project will be.
In 2016, Halton police arrested 10 people through calls from drive-thrus, before the program was launched.
Stewart said if the number of arrests goes up this year, he'll try to expand Project Drive Thru to other police jurisdictions.Manchester United Head Quarters and also this is where the original Players Union had their HQ as well c 1903
Original Headquarters of Manchester United and the Players Union. Now the Imperial Hotel |
BALTIMORE RAVENS RG
6’3, 305 POUNDS Yanda is one of the game’s elite guards, and is playing for a contract extension in 2015. His 99 Run Blocking is tops in the league, and he also brings 90 Pass Blocking and 94 Strength.
JOSH SITTON (97 OVR)
GREEN BAY PACKERS LG
6’3, 318 POUNDS Sitton provides NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers with the protection he needs thanks to 96 Pass Blocking and 88 Run Blocking. Sitton is a key component to the Packers’ high-scoring offense.
JASON PETERS (96 OVR)
PHILADELPHIA EAGLES LT
6’4, 328 POUNDS Peters starts with a league-best 98 Strength. His 97 Pass Blocking will be crucial to protecting the fragile Sam Bradford, and 96 Run Blocking will help make life easier for new additions DeMarco Murray and Ryan Mathews.
NICK MANGOLD (95 OVR)
NEW YORK JETS C
6’4, 307 POUNDS The six-time Pro Bowler has 91 Strength, and shows his veteran technique with 93 Run Blocking and 90 Pass Blocking.
ANDREW WHITWORTH (95 OVR)
CINCINNATI BENGALS LT
6’7, 330 POUNDS Whitworth will be challenged by talented rookies Cedric Ogbuehi and Jake Fisher. He’ll be hard to unseat with 94 Strength, 98 Pass Blocking, and 89 Run Blocking.To everyone who got excited about 9.6 supertest data being leaked to gamemodels3d site – don’t. Some of the stuff is wrong, such as the armor models of the HD tanks, those are screwed. Personally, considering most of the stuff was leaked per partes before, I think waiting for the 9.6 CT is better than drawing conclusions currently.
- Storm, commenting on the HT mission where you have to cap the base being too difficult: “There are some complications, but we’ll think what to do with it. No promises though for now.”
- many things were changed in WOT based on player surveys
- French LT’s won’t be buffed apparently, because “their situation is better than those tanks that are getting buffed”
- Aufklärungspanzer Panther (tier 7 LT) will be removed from the game and replaced by SP.I.C. (SS: oh, I proposed that almost two years ago, well, better late than never)
- the change mentioned above will happen in 2015
- it’s possible WT E-100 will be removed from the game as well, WG is considering it, as there are options now (SS: …and they are awesome. Well, okay, one is.)Please enable Javascript to watch this video
You're standing at the airport check-in counter. Maybe you're thinking about work. Maybe talking to someone in line. Routine stuff.
Next thing you know, there's a sound. Everything goes black. You're being hurled through the air. Your watch and shoe are gone. You're bleeding.
This is what it was like to experience the terror attacks in Brussels, Belgium, on Tuesday, which killed at least 31 people and wounded more than 230.
As their conditions stabilize, victims are beginning to talk about what happened to them. Here are some of their stories:
'I was so lucky'
Mormon missionary Mason Wells was at the airport that morning to drop off colleague Fanny Clain, who was heading to the United States. He spoke to CNN from his hospital bed, his head still wrapped in gauze.
Waiting in line, he pulled out his iPad to look something up. It was shortly before 8 a.m. The first of two bombs exploded, nearly engulfing him in flames.
"I wasn't expecting it at all," Wells told CNN's Phil Black. "I was looking down and all of a sudden, a huge blast from my right. I believe my body was actually picked off the ground for a moment."
"A large part of the right side of my body got really hot and then really cold, and I was covered in a lot of fluids, a lot of blood, and a lot of that blood wasn't mine," he said.
He found an exit amid the chaos. He took just a few steps. Then, another explosion.
"I ran over the top of this destroyed door, over a bunch of glass," he said, then he turned back to look for the other colleagues with whom he'd gone to the airport.
It was then, he says, that the pain began to hit him, and he looked down and saw his ankle was bleeding heavily.
Someone told him to sit. He did, landing in a puddle of blood. An Eagle Scout with first aid training, he began to assess his wounds. Several people tried to place tourniquets on his leg, but he told them not to, fearing he would lose it if they did.
He said he's been praying for those hurt that day.
"I feel love for those that were injured," he said. "I feel so bad."
"I'm very lucky," he said. "I know there were some that were not as lucky as I was."
Not only did Wells survive Tuesday's attacks, but he was about a block away from the first explosion at the Boston Marathon in 2013, where he was cheering on his mother who was racing.
The teen was also in France during the Paris attacks last year, but was not hurt.
'It was all gray'
Clain, the missionary Wells had accompanied to the airport, told CNN's Allison Camerota that she'd just gotten in line to check in when the bomb went off. A woman holding a newborn baby was behind her.
Next thing she knew, she was lying on the floor.
"It was all ashes all around," she said. "It was all gray."
Burning flesh stank. Sticky brown blood covered her coat.
She opened her eyes and walked away as fast as she could. She was crying.
Her family is panicked, she said, but she says she's OK. "The doctors are really nice with me, and I don't feel so bad," she says.
The source of such calm?
"Simple," she says. "God is with us."
A mother's determination
Sneha Mehta and her husband, Samip, had just returned from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. They live in Antwerp. They were downstairs in the arrival area when they heard the explosion, and parts of the ceiling began to fall on them.
"I absolutely didn't know which direction to run in," Mehta said.
She thought for a moment that she might die there. Then the moment passed and she knew with certainty that she would survive, for the sake of her unborn child.
"I knew for sure," Mehta said. "I knew for sure."
She later wrote a letter to the baby, which an ultrasound after the attack revealed to be healthy.
"I do hope with all my heart that you are born into a better world," Mehta wrote, "and if not, then you do absolute best to make it that."Newt Gingrich appeared on Fox and Friends this morning to discuss the protests held over the weekend in response to Donald Trump being sworn in to the presidency of the United States. During one such protest rally, singer/entertainer Madonna took the stage and made what some would consider inflammatory comments towards the new president. Specifically, she said (among other things), “I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.” Although, she quickly followed up that she reasoned it would’t help.
This caused Newt to go off on a tirade about a new Leftist Facism in this country and he suggested Madonna should have been arrested.
This caught the attention of some in the media, including CNN’s Brian Stelter who fired off this tweet:
Newt on Fox just now: “She oughta be arrested” https://t.co/a0LD5eVHoO — Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 23, 2017
Madonna’s remarks also caught the attention of The Washington Post’s Eugene Volokh, who is a law professor and authors a legal blog for the newspaper. Volokh determined Madonna’s speech was protected by the First Amendment.
“First Amendment law — and common sense — has long realized that not every reference to violence, even related to the president, is a true threat,” Volokh wrote. “The question is what words actually mean in context, not whether someone uses the phrase ‘blowing up the White House.’”
Volokh further explained the seminal case on the issue is U.S. v. Watts, a case handed down by SCOTUS in 1969 that looked at whether Watts intended to harm then-POTUS LBJ.
During a Vietnam War protest rally, Watts allegedly said, “They always holler at us to get an education. And now I have already received my draft classification as 1-A and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.”
Accordingly, he was charged and convicted of a felony — knowingly and willfully threatening the President.
SCOTUS tossed the conviction, holding, it was mere “political hyperbole” and did not constitute a “threat” under the circumstances.
“Taken in context, and regarding the expressly conditional nature of the statement and the reaction of the listeners, we do not see how it could be interpreted otherwise….” the court held.
Similarly, Volokh found Madonna’s remarks, when taken in context, do not constitute a “threat” against the President.
“Madonna just literally said that she thought about bombing the White House, rather than she would bomb the White House,” he explained (emphasis added). It is simply that “in this context, Madonna’s statement isn’t a threat of violence — not in the eyes of the law, and not, I think, in normal everyday understanding.”
[image via screengrab]Sorcerous Origin: Conduit Fluff to be written. Magical energy from the Ethereal Plane flows through the sorcerer, etc. Conduits can harness that energy for magic and augmenting abilities. Ether Focus The only spellcasting focus a conduit sorcerer can use is a crystal of any specified colour (found in chapter 5 of the PHB), which may simultaneously be used as an arcane focus. You may call this crystal an ether focus. When an ether spell has a crystal material component, it is referring to the crystal you are carrying on your person. If such a spell uses the crystal's colour in the function of the spell, and the crystal is multicoloured, you use the main colour of the crystal. Your DM may allow the use of multicoloured crystals to take advantage of multiple colours. When you do, work with your DM on how a spell's damage dice are allocated for each colour's damage type, or choose to use one single colour per casting of the spell. Modified Spell List Conduit sorcerers have a different spell list than arcane sorcerers. This spell list is determined by which spells are ether spells as opposed to arcane. Ether spells are considered to be involved with energy, the elements, transmutation magic, and mind-affecting magic. Note. The spell list is on the next page. Medicine Wheel When you choose this origin at 1st level, your connection to the ether has allowed you to augment your abilities. You may choose one skill from among the physical (Acrobatics, Athletics), mental (Investigation, Perception), emotional (Insight, Animal Handling), or spiritual (Performance, Religion) domains. You gain proficiency in that skill, or double proficiency if you are already proficient in it. You may alternatively choose two skills from the list and add 1/2 of your proficiency bonus (rounded down) to those skills, whether you have proficiency or not. This effect does not stack with other effects that provide double proficiency. Physical Self At 1st level, you can instinctively augment your physical capabilities at times when you need them the most. You can add half of your proficiency bonus (rounded down) to Strength and Dexterity saving throws saving throws if you are not already proficient in them. Additionally, your maximum hit points are increased by 1, and your hit point maximum increases by 1 for every sorcerer level above 1st. Additionally, when you are unarmoured, not wearing a shield, and not carrying a heavy object, your AC is equal to 12 + your Dexterity modifier. Mental Self At 6th level, you can instinctively augment your mental resistance and capabilities at times when you need them the most. You can add half of your proficiency bonus (rounded down) to Intelligence saving throws. Additionally, when you take psychic damage, you can use your reaction and spend 2 sorcery points to gain resistance to it. Emotional Self At 14th level, you can instinctively augment your mind to stay collected, as well as your ability to resist magical effects. You can add half of your proficiency bonus (rounded down) to Wisdom saving throws. Additionally, when you make an ability check for empathetic purposes, you can spend 1 sorcery point to reroll it and use either result. Empathy Creatures can make a Wisdom (Insight or Perception) check against a DC of 15 (or varied number depending on the difficulty) to discover another creature's emotions and moods, but not alignment. A creature who wants to conceal their emotions, moods, and to the extent of the sense evil and good cantrip, alignments, may use their passive Charisma (Deception) score as the DC for the ability check for empathy. If they are aware of the other creature making the ability check (or casting sense evil and good), they may alternatively make an active check against the roll. Spiritual Self At 18th level, you can instinctively augment your constitution when you need it the most. When you make a Constitution saving throw and fail, you can spend 1 sorcery point to reroll it. You must use the new roll. Additionally, by completing the medicine wheel, you also develop a healthy spirit, providing you with a stronger immune system and better physiological health. You are immune to disease, and you age at half the rate you would normally.
Modified Spell List Cantrips Arc Bolt
Blade Ward
Dancing Lights
Friends
Light
Magic Art
Message
Produce Flame
Ray of Frost
Resistance
Sense Evil and Good
Shillelagh
Shocking Grasp
Thaumaturgy 1st-Level Spells Athleticism
Burning Hands
Charm Person
Chromatic Orb
Cure Wounds
Detect Evil and Good
Detect Magic
Expeditious Retreat
Extrasensory
Faerie Fire
Fog Cloud
Force Brawn
Jump
Longstrider
Mage Armour
Magic Missile
Sanctuary
Shield
Thunderwave
Witch Bolt 2nd-Level Spells Blindness/Deafness
Calm Emotions
Continual Flame
Darkness
Darkvision
Detect Thoughts
Flame Blade
Flaming Sphere
Gust of Wind
Hold Person
Lesser Restoration
Levitate
Locate Animals or Plants
Locate Object
Magic Weapon
Misty Step
Quick Strike
Reflex
Scorching Ray
See Invisibility
Shatter Silence
Suggestion
Warding Bond 3rd-Level Spells Beacon of Hope
Blink
Clairvoyance
Counterspell
Daylight
Dispel Magic
Fireball
Force Weapon
Glyph of Warding
Haste
Lightning Bolt
Magic Circle
Meld Into Stone
Protection from Energy
See Into Ether
Sending
Sleet Storm
Slow
Tongues
Wind Wall 4th-Level Spells Contenting Aura
Control Water
Death Ward
Dimension Door
Fire Shield
Ice Storm
Locate Creature
Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum
Otiluke's Resilient Sphere
Wall of Fire 5th-Level Spells Antilife Shell
Commune with Nature
Cone of Cold
Contact Other Plane
Dispel Evil and Good
Dream
Flame Strike
Greater Restoration
Hallow
Hold Monster
Rary's Telepathic Bond
Scrying
Telekinesis
Teleportation Circle
Transfer Life
Vigour
Wall of Force
6th-Level Spells Blade Barrier
Chain Lightning
Disintegrate
Globe of Invulnerability
Mass Suggestion
Move Earth
Sunbeam
True Seeing
Wind Walk 7th-Level Spells Delayed Blast Fireball
Etherealness
Fire Storm
Mordenkainen's Sword
Plane Shift
Regenerate
Reverse Gravity 8th-Level Spells Antimagic Field
Antipathy/Sympathy
Control Weather
Earthquake
Feeblemind
Sunburst
Telepathy
Tsunami 9th-Level Spells Astral Projection
Foresight
Storm of Vengeance
Time Stop Ether Spell Descriptions Arc Bolt Evocation cantrip Casting Time: 1 action
1 action Range: 120 feet
120 feet Components: V, S, M (a crystal worth at least 10 gp)
V, S, M (a crystal worth at least 10 gp) Duration: Instantaneous You hurl a mote of magical energy the colour of the crystal in an arc trajectory homing towards a target creature within range. You have two charges, which you may power into a single ranged spell attack or aim at other target creatures. Each charge deals 1d4 magic bludgeoning damage. Any effect or feature that grants immunity to Magic Missile also applies to this spell.??At 5th level, your charges' damage dice turn into d8s (2d8). At 11th level, you gain one more charge (3d8), and again at 17th level (4d8). Athleticism 1st-level transmutation Casting Time: 1 action
1 action Range: Self
Self Components: V, S
V, S Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute For the duration, you gain a +1 bonus to Athletics and Acrobatics checks, Strength and Dexterity saving throws, and weapon attack rolls. If you fail a Strength or Dexterity saving throw, or fail an Athletics or Acrobatics check, you must make a Constitution saving throw to stay in concentration. Contenting Aura 4th-level transmutation Casting Time: 1 action
1 action Range: 15-foot radius, centered on a point up to 10 feet from self
15-foot radius, centered on a point up to 10 feet from self Components: V, S, M (a crystal worth at least 10 gp)
V, S, M (a crystal worth at least 10 gp) Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes You alter the energy in a given area within range, which may feel warm or cool depending on the colour of the crystal. For the duration, any creature within the area has resistance to a damage type based on the crystal's colour. Blue/Green/Purple. Cool area, and provides resistance to fire damage. Red/Orange/Yellow. Warm area, and provides resistance to cold damage. White/Light Gray/Clear/Brown. Indifferent area, and provides resistance to thunder damage. Black/Dark Gray. Cold area, and provides resistance to radiant damage. Additionally, whenever a creature within the area is healed by a healing spell, they receive 1d4 temporary hit points. This effect can happen only once per casting of this spell. If the colour of the aura is black or dark gray, creatures within the area are instead vulnerable to necrotic damage. Extrasensory 1st-level transmutation Casting Time: 1 action
1 action Range: Self (30-foot radius)
Self (30-foot radius) Components: S
S Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute You can sense the general direction of any creature within range, and you can perform a Perception check against your spell save DC to locate that creature. You may also use this check to listen to the soundwaves within a 5 foot radius in a desired spot within range. You are vulnerable to thunder damage if you do this. You additionally gain a +1 bonus to these perception checks when you close your eyes to do so. The sensory effects of this spell are received from signal waves coming from their origins, so interruptions may occur if they are in the way between you and the location you are attempting to sense. At least 1 foot of solid stone, metal and wood interrupt the reception. You may maneuver to receive these signals again. You can sense living and undead creatures, which each give off different signatures when sensed. You cannot sense the dead or constructs.
Force Brawn 1st-level transmutation Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take when you are hit by an attack or make a Strength saving throw.
1 reaction, which you take when you are hit by an attack or make a Strength saving throw. Range: Self
Self Components: S
S Duration: Concentration, until the start of your next turn When you are hit by an attack or make a Strength saving throw, you may use your reaction to cast this spell. Until the start of your next turn, you gain resistance against bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. Force Weapon 3rd-level transmutation Casting Time: 1 action
1 action Range: Touch
Touch Components: V, S
V, S Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour A nonmagical weapon you touch becomes a magic weapon. Choose one of the following damage types: force, cold, fire, lightning or thunder. For the duration, the weapon gains a +1 bonus to attack rolls and deals an extra 1d4 damage of the chosen type when it hits. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 5th or 6th level, the bonus to attack rolls increases to +2 and extra damage increases to 1d4 + 1. When you use a spell slot of 7th level or higher, the bonus to attack rolls increases to +3 and the extra damage increases to 1d4 + 2. Magic Art Evocation cantrip Note. This spell is also available to normal sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards.
This spell is also available to normal sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards. Casting Time: 1 action
1 action Range: 30 feet
30 feet Components: S, M (a crystal worth at least 10 gp)
S, M (a crystal worth at least 10 gp) Duration: Concentration, up to 30 minutes You generate harmless magic the colour of the crystal up to 5 feet in width and 10 feet in length. It can be small and hover around yourself, use the magic to perform, during meditation, etc. The magic provides dim light up to 20 feet, and it emits a feeling from cold to warm, depending on the colour of the crystal being used to cast this spell. Blue/Green/Purple. Cool, and provides resistance to nonmagical fire damage to creatures who are within the magic area. Red/Orange/Yellow. Warm, and provides resistance to nonmagical cold damage to creatures who are within the magic area. White/Light Gray/Clear/Brown. Indifferent, Willing creatures within 60 feet of you may be charmed for the duration. Black/Dark Gray. Cold, Creatures within 60 feet of you must make a Charisma saving throw. Creatures who are not hostile to you may automatically pass this saving throw. On a failed save, the creature takes a -1 penalty to ability checks, attack rolls and saving throws. This effect does not stack with the frightened condition. Quick Strike 2nd-level transmutation Casting Time: 1 bonus action
1 bonus action Range: Self
Self Components: S
S Duration: Instantaneous When you use your action to make a weapon attack, you may cast this spell to make one weapon attack as a bonus action. This weapon must be light or finesse, and you must be proficient with it. Reflex 2nd-level transmutation Casting Time: 1 bonus action
1 bonus action Range: Self
Self Components: S
S Duration: 1 Rotation For the duration, any attack roll made against you has disadvantage if you can see the attacker, and you make Dexterity saving throws with advantage. You lose this benefit if you are incapacitated or if your speed drops to 0. See Into Ether 3rd-level divination (ritual) Casting Time: 1 action
1 action Range: Self (150-foot radius)
Self (150-foot radius) Components: V, S, M (a crystal worth at least 10 gp)
V, S, M (a crystal worth at least 10 gp) Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour For the duration, you can see magical energy in the air, as well as the auras of the living and the undead, which is the colour of the crystal for the energy and the living, and an ugly dark colour for the undead. For the duration, when you close your eyes, you can see into the border regions of the Ethereal Plane, depending on your location in the current plane. You cannot interact with creatures or objects in the ethereal plane through this spell, but creatures in the ethereal plane may perceive you and recognize your acknowledgement of their presence. They can also interact with you. If you are unwilling of their interaction, they must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw to do so.NBN Co will start selling a one gigabit per second (1Gbps) broadband service before the end of the year, but availability will depend on the number of people willing to pay for the super fast speeds.
The commercial-grade broadband service will travel at download speeds of up to 1000 megabits per second [Mbps], also known as a gigabit, and upload speeds of 400 Mbps. This was about 100 times faster than the average speeds available to most households on the copper network today.
NBN Co will start selling a 1 Gbps broadband service before the end of the year. Credit:Fairfax Media
An NBN Co spokesman confirmed on Friday the service "will be made available to retail service providers by the end of the year", but that it was up to retail service providers to decide whether they would sell it to customers.
There were currently about 250,000 households and businesses within NBN Co’s fibre footprint that could potentially request the service.Some women write off the men in their lives as helpless, fashion-challenged creatures with neither the desire nor the know-how to fix themselves up. But it turns out plenty of guys out there are not only interested in improving their style, but are actively seeking out advice -- from each other. On Reddit.
Male Fashion Advice is our new favorite subreddit, where guys in need of outfit advice crowd-source each other for help. There are recurring posts, including "Should/Shouldn't I Buy" posts on Tuesdays and "Outfit Feedback & Fit Check" posts on Fridays.
There are dudes looking for advice on how to wear certain items, like this request for feedback: "Not sure how I feel about this Uniqlo bomber. This is how I look with a henley underneath. Looks okay, right? But then this is one of my OCBD's. However, this is with the bomber over it. It looks absurdly short. How is it supposed to fit?" Shopping questions also abound, such as "Anyone know of any shorter undershirts?" and "Anyone know of a moc toe military boot?"
Then there are the broader conundrums men face, which prompt questions like "Fuckin denim jackets, how do they work?" and "This is what I wear almost every day. Is that bad?"
For guys who'd rather not put their own fashion issues and queries up for debate, Male Fashion Advice also has a handy sidebar with resources on topics such as "How Clothes Should Fit," "Understanding Color" and our favorite, "I've got $X. How do I spend it?" In fact, the subreddit is so helpful we're thinking of trolling it for insights on what to buy our dads, boyfriends and brothers for the holidays.
After we first forward it to every single guy we know. Check it out at Reddit/r/malefashionadvice.
Now if only we could get all guys to stop wearing these:
Style Deal Breakers SEE GALLERYEven the Klan is too embarrassed by them...
According to some little noticed 2010 press releases on the KKK's main website, which turned up this week on Reddit, it seems as if America's most famous hate group is actually very concerned about being mistakenly lumped in with other zealots on the right, including Koran-burning churches, the Westboro Baptists, and the Tea Party.
In one statement from August 2010, the Klan had this (shockingly reasonable thing) to say about Terry Jones, the Florida pastor whose Koran burning set off a massacre at a U.N. building in Afghanistan in early April this year:
There are without doubt Islamic sects that teach extreme views of Islam but, going down to their level of hatred by burning their books is a dangerous and ignorant way to confront their teachings. The flames made by such unholy fires never die out! The Ku Klux Klan, LLC. opposes this most un-American thinking and activity.
The Klan also says it "absolutely repudiates" the Westboro Baptist Church's practice of protesting at American soldiers' funerals, and, maybe most surprisingly, it says it's no fan of the Tea Party.
"Our Associates, members and supporters are here officially ordered: NOT to attend Tea Party events or support them in ANY way," writes the Klan. "The Tea Party does not represent any but a shallow limited political agenda, which fails to serve our Nations interests. They are an extension of the Republican Party and seek to compromise it. We do NOT support any political party, all have betrayed the trust of the American people, and they have compromised their agenda to support the Progressive Socialist enslavement of the American people."A German magazine has claimed stricken Formula 1 racing legend Michael Schumacher has started walking again – taking tentative steps with the aid of a carer. Glossy magazine Bunte published a front page story on Tuesday (22 December) in which it quoted a "confidante" of the star.
The unnamed source reportedly said: "Michael is very thin. But he can once again walk a little with the help of his therapist. He manages to walk a few steps. He can even raise his arm."
But Schumacher's representatives have denied the story's claims, accusing staff at Bunte of giving "false hope".
Long-term manager, Sabine Kehm, said: "Unfortunately, we are forced by a recent press report to clarify that the assertion that Michael could move again is not true. Such speculation is irresponsible, because given the seriousness of his injuries, his privacy is very important for Michael. Unfortunately they also give false hopes to many involved people."
Bunte said it stood by what it had printed and would not be retracting the piece, which describes Schumacher's "improvement" as a "Christmas miracle".
It is almost exactly two years to the day since the seven-time Formula 1 world champion suffered horrific head injuries after hitting a rock while skiing at the French Alps resort of Mirabel with wife Corinna and children Mick and Gina Maria.
The accident, on 29 December 2013, saw him airlifted to hospital and undergo two emergency brain surgeries. He was left in an induced coma for months. Released from hospital in September 2014, he has since been recovering in a purpose-built medical suite at his Lake Geneva mansion in Switzerland where a team of 15 people look after him round-the-clock.
Reports on his condition have previously been few and far between with strict media controls imposed by his family. In November 2014, former racing driver Philippe Streiff told French radio Schumacher was paralyzed and in a wheelchair, suffering "memory and speech problems".
His manager Kehm revealed in April this year Schumacher was "making progress" but was still immobile and unable to speak. Last month, FIA president Jean Todt, a close friend of the star, was reported to have said Schumacher was "still fighting", adding: "I see Michael very often and Michael is still fighting. Michael is a close friend, his family is very close to me and I am very close to them as well. We must keep him fighting with the family."
Wife Corinna, who is managing her husband's finances as the former racing driver receives treatment, reportedly sold their £25m private jet and holiday home after accepting her husband may never fully recover.ORLANDO, Fla. - An Orlando police officer accused of crashing into a toll booth while off-duty has been arrested on several charges, including DUI.
OPD Officer Frederick Rolle was arrested Wednesday on charges of leaving the scene of an accident with injuries, leaving the scene of an accident with property damage, driving under the influence with property damage and driving under the influence.
According to police, Rolle, who started with the agency in 2011, met with detectives at the Orange County Jail and was arrested. His bail was set at $3,500.
Rolle was relieved of duty with pay after the November crash.
Officials said Rolle crashed his pickup truck into a toll booth on State Road 408 east near Andes Avenue. The truck caught fire, and Rolle fled the scene, authorities said.
The Central Florida Expressway Authority said the toll lane did not suffer any structural damage.
An OPD internal investigation into Rolle is ongoing.
Copyright 2017 by WKMG ClickOrlando - All rights reserved.The massive data breach that exposed information from more than 100 million PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment user accounts may end up being the most expensive data breach of all time.
Sony, which announced on April 26 that information from 77 million PlayStation Network user accounts could have been stolen, added another 25 million compromised accounts to the list May 2. The newly added accounts are on its online multiplayer division, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE).
Hackers stole personal data, including credit and debit card information, in a complex attack that could cost Sony and credit card issuers $1 to $2 billion, experts say.
“This may be the mother of all data breaches at this point,” says Larry Ponemon, chairman of the Ponemon Institute, a research organization in Traverse City, Mich., that publishes an annual study on the cost of data breaches.
To date, the largest data breaches include up to 130 million credit card numbers stolen from Heartland Payment System in 2008, up to 100 million accounts from retailer TJX in 2005 and 2006, and more than 4.2 million credit and debit card number from the grocery chain Hannaford Bros. in 2008.
Mr. Ponemon thinks that the Sony data breach will be more expensive than previous hacks because PlayStation and Sony are household names whose reputations could suffer.
Sony announced on Monday that personal information from up to 24.6 million SOE user accounts could have been stolen, and that credit card, debit card, or bank account numbers were stolen from more than 20,000 users outside the US.
The information illegally obtained from the 24.6 million compromised accounts includes at least the following information:
name
address
e-mail address
birth date
gender
phone number
login name
hashed password
Mr. Ponemon says that Sony will pay “the lion’s share” of the costs involved with the data breach, but that banks and credit card issuers could incur some of the costs as well. Ponemon estimates that it could cost as much as $25 for an organization to issue a new credit or debit card to a user whose account has been compromised. Sony could choose to cover part or all of those costs right away, or the company will be at greater risk of lawsuits from banks and other credit-card issuers.
Each potentially compromised account could cost Sony between $10 and $100, or up to $1billion in all, in technical issues, extra communication, and credit-card services, says John Pescatore, an analyst at Gartner, Inc. However, he adds, “There’s usually not a customer loyalty issue” for retailers.
However, Ponemon says that consumers are more sensitive about privacy issues when it involves children or adolescents. Because the Sony data breach involves video game user accounts, young people’s information could have been compromised, which would be a bigger blow to Sony’s reputation and could increase sales for competitors in the short term, he says.
In addition to costs to Sony or credit card issuers, which Ponemon estimates would total up to $2 billion, customers and merchants could suffer, too. Customers whose debit card or bank account information was obtained are especially at risk.
“Debit card is in fact access to your banking account,” says Ponemon. “Any loss sustained on a debit card, in most cases, is not refundable to you.”
If a criminal does use a stolen credit card number to make a purchase, it is often merchants, not consumers or banks, that feel the brunt.
“The way credit cards works in the US everything rolls down hill and lands on the merchant,” says Mr. Pescatore.
The cyber attack was complex, and though Sony was targeted this time, its competitors will feel vulnerable, too, until the case is solved.
People should not keep their credit card or debit card numbers on file, Ponemon says, whether it's on a website or gaming console. People have a hard time thinking of gaming consoles as machines that carry the same privacy risks as computers connected to the Internet.
“In this mobile connected world, everything is connected,” says Ponemon. “Today it’s our PlayStation, tomorrow it might be our refrigerator or our washing machine.”Consensus is building across the political spectrum around the need for a permanent solution to the problem of increasingly unaffordable energy bills in the UK. While some have suggested that green policies are to blame for the increasing costs, the main...
Consensus is building across the political spectrum around the need for a permanent solution to the problem of increasingly unaffordable energy bills in the UK. While some have suggested that green policies are to blame for the increasing costs, the main drivers have in fact been rising energy imports and price pressure due to increasing global energy demand. Indeed, the Coalition Government’s cut to the Energy Company Obligation to support energy efficiency has hindered rather than helped manage these impacts. Energy prices are still relatively low in the UK compared to many European countries, but the UK has some of the most inefficient housing stock in Europe. As such, it simply takes more energy to keep our homes warm compared to elsewhere in Europe and this drives up bills.
A new report out today by the Fabian Society and E3G outlines a number of steps the next government should take to address this challenge and get a grip on energy bills once and for all.
1. A new story on energy efficiency
Economic (‘saving money’) and environmental (‘going green’) arguments have failed to drive sufficient progress. We need a new politics of energy efficiency, focussed on putting people in control of |
build the new scripting bits (including on a system without Visual Studio 2015 - it can actually be built using only Visual Studio 2013), introduce some of the scripting functionality, and show some scenarios where this might be helpful in your own applications. I also want to caveat this post by saying that it may go out of date quickly. The.NET Compiler Platform is under heavy development and it is changing frequently, including the public API. While I wouldn't expect any sweeping changes in the scripting support at this point, many of the details are subject to change.
Obtaining and Building
Since the scripting support isn't available in one of the binary distribution channels like the nightly MyGet feed or on NuGet, you'll need to obtain and build the.NET Compiler Platform from source in order to use them. Luckily the development team has been working hard to ensure this part is straightforward. The first step is to clone the repository from GitHub using the following command (or your favorite Git GUI): git clone https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn.git.
The readme file says that to build the libraries you'll need Visual Studio 2015, but that's not actually true. You can build the.NET Compiler Platform just fine with only Visual Studio 2013 using the special Roslyn2013.sln solution file they've provided. In fact, it's just a simple two-command process. Make sure to run these commands from a Visual Studio command prompt. First you have to restore the NuGet packages and then build the solution. You might get some warnings about missing FxCop, but those are safe to ignore. From the \src directory in the repository run:
powershell.nuget\NuGetRestore.ps1 msbuild Roslyn2013.sln
This will compile a bunch of libraries to the \Binaries\Debug directory. You don't need all of them for scripting. Assuming you want to script in C#, the libraries you need are:
Microsoft.CodeAnalysis
Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp
Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.Desktop
Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp.Desktop
Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.Scripting
Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.Scripting.CSharp
System.Collections.Immutable
System.Reflection.Metadata
I also ran into a problem with VBCSCompiler.exe crashing during the build, which appears like it might be related to this issue. In any case, upgrading to the latest.NET 4.5.2 runtime resolved my problem. Of course, if you have Visual Studio 2015 installed you can also try building the other Roslyn.sln solution.
Your First Script
Writing a simple script in the.NET Compiler Platform is really easy. For the remainder of this post I will discuss scripting in C#. There is a nearly identical API for scripting in Visual Basic if that's your thing. The CSharpScript class has a bunch of static methods that provide a good entry point to the API. Perhaps the most straightforward of these is CSharpScript.Eval() which will evaluate C# statements and return a result. For example:
var value = CSharpScript.Eval("1 + 2"); Console.Write(value); // 3
This returns an int with a value of 3. See, easy right? If you want more control, there's also CSharpScript.Create() which returns a CSharpScript object suitable for further manipulation before evaluation and CSharpScript.Run() which evaluates the script and returns a ScriptState object with the return value and other state information useful for REPL scenarios.
Getting Variables
As you saw above, it's easy to get the return value from the script using the CSharpScript.Eval() method. But what about other variables that get created during evaluation? We can get those as well by using the ScriptState object you get back from calling CSharpScript.Run(). It contains a member called Variables (of type ScriptVariables ) that enumerates ScriptVariable objects with the name, type, and value for each variable the script created. For example:
ScriptState state = CSharpScript.Run("int c = 1 + 2;"); var value = state.Variables["c"].Value; Console.Write(value); // 3
References and Namespaces
If you want to do anything reasonably advanced, you'll probably need to include references and import namespaces for additional assemblies. Thankfully this is also really easy. There are a number of ways to do it, but the easiest is to use a ScriptOptions object which is accepted by any of the three CSharpScript static methods. The default ScriptOptions includes the System assembly and namespace and will search for additional assemblies in the current runtime directory. To modify this, start with ScriptOptions.Default and use it's fluent interface to setup additional references and namespaces (you can also create your own ScriptOptions if you don't want the default System assembly and namespace). Use ScriptOptions.AddReferences() to add references and ScriptOptions.AddNamespaces() to add namespaces (there are also several variations on these methods). ScriptOptions.AddReferences() accepts a variety of different ways of referring to assemblies, including the.NET Compiler Platform type MetadataReference if you're used to using that from the other portions of the platform. Here is an example of including System.IO support in a script:
ScriptOptions options = ScriptOptions.Default.AddReferences(Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(Path))).AddNamespaces("System.IO"); var value = CSharpScript.Eval(@"Path.Combine(""A"", ""B"")", options); Console.Write(value); // A\B
Dynamic Support
Getting support for dynamic in your script can be a challenge if only because it's not obvious which assemblies need to be referenced to support it. The answer is that you need System.Core and Microsoft.CSharp. That's all that's strictly needed, but if you also want support for ExpandoObject you'll need an extra reference and namespace support for System.Dynamic. Here is an example script with dynamic support (note that there's no magic to the types I pass to Assembly.GetAssembly() ; these just happen to be types I know are defined in the required assemblies). Note also that I had to use CSharpScript.Run() since you can't directly return values from a script so I had to store my value in a variable and get it from the ScriptState object as we saw earlier.
ScriptOptions options = ScriptOptions.Default.AddReferences( Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(System.Dynamic.DynamicObject)), // System.Code Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(Microsoft.CSharp.RuntimeBinder.CSharpArgumentInfo)), // Microsoft.CSharp Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(System.Dynamic.ExpandoObject))) // System.Dynamic.AddNamespaces("System.Dynamic"); ScriptState state = CSharpScript.Run(@" dynamic dyn = new ExpandoObject(); dyn.Five = 5; var value = dyn.Five;", options); Console.Write(state.Variables["value"].Value); // 5
Setting Globals
We've seen a number of ways of getting data out of the script, but what about getting data into the script? This is one of my favorite features of the scripting API because it's so easy to use. To set the data available to the script, you just have to pass an arbitrary object to one of the three CSharpScript static methods. The members of this object will then be available to your script as globals. For example:
// Defined elsewhere public class Globals { public int X; public int Y; } var value = CSharpScript.Eval("X + Y", new Globals { X = 1, Y = 2 }); Console.Write(value); // 3
Note that the scripting engine respects protection levels so it's not possible to directly pass an anonymous object to the script because anonymous objects are usually scoped to the method in which they appear.
Creating a Delegate
Finally you may want to compile the script, but store it for later reuse. Thankfully, there is also an easy way to create a delegate from any method in your script by calling ScriptState.CreateDelegate().
ScriptState state = CSharpScript.Run("int Times(int x) { return x * x; }"); var fn = state.CreateDelegate >("Times"); var value = fn(5); Console.Write(value); // 25
Conclusions
By now you've hopefully thought of some use cases for the new scripting capability. My personal favorite at the moment is using this to drive configuration files. Instead of configuring your application using XML or JSON, why not set up a scripting environment and let your users (or you) write code to configure the application. If this interests you, I should also mention ConfigR which does exactly this while abstracting away many of the details. Any post on C# scripting would also be incomplete without a mention of scriptcs which provides a REPL for you to use on the command line for executing your own script files.
There's also a lot more to the.NET Compiler Platform scripting support than what I've discussed here. It's even possible to compile your script to a syntax tree and then use the rest of the.NET Compiler Platform capabilities to explore, analyze, and manipulate the script. A good place to continue exploring is the enhanced Roslyn source view site.
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DisqusThe estimated death toll from the violence in Syria is more than 146,000 as the conflict enters its fourth year. The Post's Liz Sly explains the impact on the region and what we can expect moving forward. (The Washington Post)
The third anniversary of the outbreak of the Syrian uprising has been marked with powerful, creative new campaigns designed to stir the world’s conscience. Save the Children UK’s heart-wrenching video of the collapse of a young girl’s life into civil war has been viewed more than 25 million times. Banksy’s striking “#WithSyria” video featuring a young girl floating with a red balloon past Syria’s bombed-out landscape has attracted multiple celebrity endorsements. A group of fiercely dedicated Syrian activists has been reading 100,000 names of Syrian victims of war outside the White House, while vigils have been held in cities across the world.
The NGOs and activists behind these campaigns should have an easy case to make. There is no serious disagreement about the enormity of the suffering of the Syrian people through the last three years of war: an estimated 146,000 people dead, a million refugees and some 6.5 million people internally displaced, a nearly unbelievable 9.3 million others in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, cities reduced to rubble, a generation of children traumatized. The campaigns have creatively and powerfully used social media to refocus attention on these horrific realities. But this increased awareness isn’t likely to change American attitudes toward intervening in the Syrian conflict – at least not as long as intervention is defined in military terms.
The premise of the “With Syria” campaigns is that the United States hasn’t acted to resolve the conflict in Syria because people aren’t aware of its horrors. But that’s probably wrong. To get a sense of how Americans think about Syria, I looked at every Syria question in the public opinion surveys collected in the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research database since January 2011 – 281 questions in all. Those surveys paint a pretty clear picture of an American public that knew perfectly well what was happening in Syria and whom to blame, and generally wanted to help, but absolutely rejected anything that smelled like military intervention. The activist campaigns might have more success translating a stand “with Syria” into meaningful action if they proposed specific ways for concerned individuals to make a difference without supporting war.
Here’s what the surveys suggest:
Do Americans know what is happening in Syria? A lot of them do. The Pew Research Center regularly surveys people about how closely they are paying attention to six or seven leading domestic and international news stories. Syria was a big enough story to be included in the set of stories 21 out of the 29 months between May 2011 and September 2013. It was almost always one of only two or three international stories included. August 2011 and January 2012 saw the smallest number of respondents saying that they were paying some or very close attention to Syria, at 29 percent (with Syria not being included in the survey in the intervening months, suggesting it had also dropped out of the headlines). August and September 2013 broke the charts at nearly 70 percent in the midst of the debate over the United States bombing Syria. The other 17 months saw a remarkably consistent level of attention of roughly 40 percent. Not many other international stories received such sustained attention in the survey.
Did Americans blame Assad? Mostly, at least at first. Most of the U.S. media adopted the opposition’s Arab Spring-friendly narrative about a civic uprising attacked by a brutal dictator (one which I think was accurate, by the way). In April 2011, Americans wanted the United States to take a position expressing support for the demonstrators over the Syrian government by 22 percentage points, a figure that barely changed when the same question was asked in August 2011. But as insurgency replaced a civic uprising, and information mounted about Islamist extremism among the rebels and their atrocities, that sympathy began to fade. Support for arming the rebels failed to break 30 percent in 11 out of 12 surveys. By May 2013, 68 percent agreed with the statement that “the US should not do more in Syria because it’s a civil war that’s a no-win situation for the US, and we could actually end up helping anti-American extremist groups” (Fox News). In June 2013, 60 percent agreed that “the opposition groups in Syria may be no better than the current government” (Pew). And in September, 31 percent thought the United States was giving too much support to Syrian rebels, against only 13 percent who thought it had done too little (CBS/New York Times).
Did Americans care? Mostly, yes. In August 2012, 72 percent said they were somewhat or very concerned (CBS/New York Times). That rose to 80 percent in December 2012 and stayed at 79 percent in May 2013. In September 2013, 79 percent said that what happened in Syria was at least somewhat important to American interests (CBS/New York Times). But that concern rarely translated into a belief that the United States had a responsibility to intervene. No more than 33 percent agreed that the United States had a “responsibility” to try to rescue Syria in any of seven different surveys between February 2012 and May 2013. Adding “moral” to the question seemed to make a difference: 49 percent said in June 2013, and 54 percent in September, that the United States had “a moral obligation to do what it can to stop the violence in Syria” (Pew). But “what it can” was the very large catch: Consistently, even in the same surveys, large majorities opposed every form of military intervention on offer.
Did Americans want to do something? Yes and no. They wanted to help: In March 2012, for instance, 82 percent supported the United States providing humanitarian aid to Syrians (Fox News). In May 2013, 42 percent wanted the United States to provide only humanitarian assistance, compared to 24 percent wanting the United States to take no action at all (NBC/Wall Street Journal). In August 2013, 40 percent favored humanitarian aid against only 23 percent who favored doing nothing (NBC). But when discussion turned to military action, everything changed: Americans consistently and overwhelmingly opposed any form of military intervention, whether conducting air strikes, arming the rebels, or – especially – sending troops. It’s partly that they didn’t think it would help: Only 27 percent in August 2013 thought that U.S. military force would improve the situation for civilians in Syria (NBC), while in September 75 percent said U.S. airstrikes would make things in the Middle East worse overall (Pew). It’s pretty remarkable to see the divided, polarized American public agree about anything, so to see consistent majorities of 70 to 80 percent united around anything has to be taken seriously. Why such consensus? Almost certainly because of the lessons of Iraq. While Americans wanted to help, they absolutely did not want another Iraq, and mostly thought – in my view, correctly – that such a quagmire was the inevitable implication of getting involved with Syria militarily. Proponents of intervention almost always insisted that this would not include boots on the ground and that intervention could be kept carefully limited. But an American public scarred by a decade of false promises on Iraq and Afghanistan was too smart to fall for such nonsense. In August 2013, 61 percent thought U.S. airstrikes would likely lead to a long-term military commitment (Pew), and in September 2013, 87 percent were at least somewhat concerned that U.S. military action would be a long and costly operation (CBS/New York Times).
The upshot of these surveys, it seems to me, is that raising consciousness of Syria’s suffering won’t help without a strong, non-military alternative for concerned individuals to support. It’s telling that the vast outpouring of tweets using the #WithSyria hashtag is strong on expressions of solidarity such as “don’t let another year go by” or “I stand with Syria,” but virtually devoid of concrete actions that might follow from being “With Syria.” The vastly successful activist campaigns in Kuwait and the Gulf focused on soliciting material donations and financial contributions, for instance, something tangible that people could do to assuage their guilt and anger. As long as Americans understand standing with Syria as getting involved in another Iraq, hearts are unlikely to soften no matter how horrible the situation. Changing that equation of helping Syria with military intervention might help, perhaps with efforts such as the congressional resolution pushing for a robust humanitarian strategy just introduced by Sens. Tim Kaine and Marco Rubio. If activists want these new campaigns to do more than make people feel bad, they need to offer them more concrete, specific things that might be done to help – even if that’s as prosaic as asking for donations for humanitarian relief … which is, after all, ultimately the point of that Save the Children UK viral video.LONDON (JTA) — Britain’s Jewish population is becoming more concentrated, with nearly 60 percent of Jews living in London, new statistics show.
According to detailed figures from the 2011 census released this week, 90 percent of the country’s 263,000 Jews live in just 20 percent of its neighborhoods.
The most heavily Jewish area was the Orthodox suburb of Golders Green in northwest London, with 7,661 Jews, a growth of 35 percent since the last census in 2001.
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“This concentration into relatively few places often gives rise to the perception that there is a greater Jewish presence in Britain than is actually the case,” said David Graham of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research. “Nationally, Jews comprise just 0.5 percent of the population, but at the local level that proportion rises to as much as 40 percent in some places.”
He noted that many of the areas that were growing fastest were Haredi neighborhoods in London and Manchester, buoyed by high birth rates. Another trend was for Jews to move away from “the crowded and congested” capital to the “greener, more spacious surroundings” of Greater London.
Partially as a result, some previously dominant areas such as Redbridge in northeast London were showing considerable decline, leaving some schools and synagogues struggling to fill places.
The full set of census data will continue to be released in stages throughout this year and in 2014 and will be used to inform planning in the community.20 SHARES Facebook Twitter Reddit Google Mail Linkedin Digg Stumbleupon Buffer
PaaS will find a way
Akin to the T-rex in Jurassic Park (arguably the hero of the piece, in our opinion), when Java founder James Gosling makes moves in the sector, everyone knows about it. So it was no surprise that the Twittersphere was ablaze when the news broke that Gosling and fellow Java hero Bruno Souza would be joining Java and PHP PaaS and IaaS specialists Jelastic in the roles of independent director and advisor.
As the company blog notes, 53% of Jelastic users are Java developers, and Jelastic positions itself as the only cloud company with a Java foundation, so it’s a natural move to have these two Rock Stars come aboard to help push their technology forward in this respect.
In addition, Dr Gosling is a long-term aficionado of Jelastic, notably applying their PaaS technology in Liquid Robotic’s ocean going Wave Glider robots. In a talk back in 2012, Gosling explained that, because he wanted to avoid the liabilities that come intertwined with special APIs or ISPs, he saw Jelastic as a great choice, also noting that he was a fan of the Jelastic PaaS setup, backend, and UI. Coming on board to help drive a technology of which he’s an enthusiastic user therefore seems like an intuitive move.
Bruno Souza explains that his decision to pivot towards Jelastic is rooted in a shared philosophy of giving developers the ability to make choices. He credits the company with helping him change the way he sees cloud infrastructure, adding that, “Jelastic’s Java-based implementation shows the power of Java technology. Giving developers the freedom to leave gives us the confidence to choose to stay. This is the power of the Java ecosystem. The power of choice. I’m very happy to be more directly involved in the future of Jelastic.”
Looking ahead to 2015, the company write that they have plans to sharpen their focus on Java to make development “even more dynamic” by ultimately empowering devs to reload all configurations and setting without having to restart their apps or JVM to work on desktop apps in the cloud.
To this end, Jelastic CEO Ruslan Synytsky explained in an interview with InfoQ that Gosling will bring “expertise and advice regarding Java in the cloud, marketing and business strategies” to the table. On Souza’s part, he’ll providing in-depth analysis and advice for improvements for the Jelastic platform, as well as suggestions on ways to engage the sprawling Java community.
PaaS has had some public knocks in recent months, with pioneers CloudBees taking a step back from what they deemed an ‘immature’ market to focus on Jenkins fuelled Continuous Integration. Moreover, Docker, a game changer for formerly beleaguered PaaS vendors dotCloud, has further turned the screws by providing a lot of the functionality you’d get with the technology, but without the focus on infrastructure, and at a far lower pricing point.
Along with being a huge boost for the large numbers of Java devs working with Jelastic, the endorsement of Gosling and Souza for the software is no doubt a welcome ray of sunshine for those in the sector working to bat down the “PaaS is dead” flame wars that seem to have become increasingly frequent in 2014.
Image by travelling.steve
Boost for PaaS as Java-Father Gosling Joins JelasticThe '' has announced its top 10 artists for the year!
The annual award ceremony, sponsored by Melon, is one of the first year-end award shows to kick off celebrating some of the bests of K-Pop from over the past year!
This year's top 10 artists were chosen from a pool of 30 artists who had the highest Melon chart scores for the year, narrowing it down by combining fan votes (20%) and chart scores (80%). They are: Akdong Musician, BewhY, BTS, EXO, G-Friend, MAMAMOO, Red Velvet, Taeyeon, TWICE, and Zico.
A 2nd round of fan votes will take place from now until November 18, so that they can be factored into selecting the winners in categories like Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Netizen's Choice, Hot Trending Star, Music Style Award, and more.
The '2016 Melon Music Awards' will be broadcast live on MBC MUSIC, MBC every1, Daum, Kakao TV, 1theK's Youtube channel, China's QQ Music, and more on November 19 at 7PM KST.A reader writes:
The Civil War was fought from Sumter to Appomattox, from April 12, 1861, to April 9, 1865. But the roots of the war predated 1861, and the consequences lived on long after 1865. In reality the Civil War never ended, it just shifted from a military to a culture war - the same culture war that is still going on today.
On the one hand I agree with you; on the other hand, you don't go nearly far enough. An Obama presidency means much more than a truce in the 60’s culture war. It means the end of a much older and more terrible war, in which the 60's was merely one battle: the American Civil War. That is what is at stake here.
Earlier this week, in your post “ The Top Ten Reasons Conservatives Should Vote For Obama ”, you wrote under Point 4: “A truce in the culture war. Obama takes us past the debilitating boomer warfare that has raged since the 1960s. Nothing has distorted our politics so gravely; nothing has made a rational politics more elusive.”
What you call the “boomer warfare” of the 1960’s was part of that larger war, marking the struggle to end Jim Crow, the century-long regime of American apartheid (Vietnam was, in my opinion, related but secondary). The end of apartheid was a second humiliating defeat for the forces of the conservative "South" at the hands of the liberal "North", and it subsequently gave rise to those decades of distorted and irrational politics you so deplore, as the reactionary and fundamentalist forces regrouped and mounted yet another rearguard insurrection against their liberal "oppressors", culminating in their partial ascension to power under Bush. (And we can only hope it ends there, instead of with Palin and the Christian Nationalists in 2012).
I realize this may sound harsh; I do not think Bush is a racist, for instance (quite the contrary), and I am very aware of the progress made in this country since I was young, including in the South; nevertheless, this election is clearly about race, about who and what we are as a nation, as a people, as a family (I would throw California's Prop 8 squarely into this battle too).
So let's be clear - it is not "boomer warfare" which has distorted our politics, or made rational politics so elusive since the 60's: it is something far deeper, something far older, something which has been with us from the beginning in this country, and which we in turn brought with us from the Old World; something which in fact traces back to the very origin of humanity - spiritually, psychologically, politically, evolutionarily. That depth is what gives the American story its pathos and its importance. That is why the world watches us: to see if we can work it out - to see if there is hope.
And that's why January 20, 2009, is so important: the day Barack Obama is sworn in as our 44th president will mark the third, and I believe the final defeat of the forces of repression and division in this country, and the actual end of the American Civil War.
How can I be so sure? Because when the American President is inaugurated, it is directly homologous to the crowning of the King in ancient days: the King is the groom, the Nation is the bride, the crowning is the hieros gamos, the sacred marriage. When Barack Obama is sworn in as our 44th president, a symbolic marriage will be enacted, binding us together forever, black and white. We will have chosen to become one. We will have chosen to become family. The War will be over. E pluribus unum.
The whole world will be watching this. You have stated over and over again that an Obama presidency would be “transformational”, even “indispensable”. You're right. And you're right that this is only the beginning. A new chapter is dawning.
Will the old guard resist? Of course. But their power is waning. Providence made sure the better man lost in 2000, and the eight years since have been just enough rope for the old, corrupt right to hang itself.This past weekend while attending an Xprize fundraiser in San Francisco I saw self-help guru Tony Robbins and Google co-founder Sergey Brin, but not in the traditional sense. Although neither of them could physically attend the event, both Tony and Sergey were strutting the room and chatting it up like the rest of us by controlling Willow Garage’s awesome Texai telepresence robots. If you are like me, you have been somewhat skeptical of the whole telepresence robot idea. I mean, once we get over the novelty of the idea and the coolness factor of it all, do telepresence robots really have a place in our society beyond a niche role?
After witnessing Sergey and Tony in telepresence grandeur, consider me converted into a believer in the telepresence revolution. People at the event, myself included, were immediately attracted to the robots and loved talking to them. During the course of the evening, I spoke to individuals from Argentina, Washington DC, and Canada – all via telepresence. Telepresence robots are going to be an awesome addition to our technology fueled lives. Catch a glimpse of my conversation with Tony below:
Humans are social creatures, and the telepresence robots at the Xprize event latched on to this human quality in a way that surprised me. If Tony Robbins had simply video conferenced into the Xprize event via a hanging TV the experience simply would not have been the same. He wouldn’t have been able to traverse the room to find (or evade!) various individuals. He would not have been able to turn away when he was done talking to you, nor would he be able to see someone or something that was “behind” him in the room.
At this point the Texai robot does not even have arms or hands to allow for a more robust human social interaction. Once they have appendages, I could see the future for these robots becoming even more compelling.
One of the fascinating aspects of telepresence robots is that they can become different people throughout the evening. There were three Texai robots at the Xprize event, and over the course of the evening each robot was embodied by several different interesting individuals from all over the world. Enjoy a video of Sergey Brin in full telepresence form below:
In some ways attending an event via telepresence robot might even be superior to physically attending. No need to dress up in fancy clothes! Safely hidden within your robot, now you can attend black tie events in the comfort of your boxers. Need to put the kids to sleep or answer the front door of your house while “attending” an event thousands of miles away? No problem! With the conditions setup just right, you could even attend multiple events simultaneously by taking over telepresence robots that you have reserved ahead of time. Will telepresence robots be available “for rent” at parties, conferences, and other events in the future? Sounds like an interesting business idea!
Maybe I am just caught up in the euphoria of the moment and telepresence robots aren’t all they are cracked up to be. They can’t traverse stairs very well, for example, and attending an event by telepresence certainly is not the same as truly being there. Still, I can’t get away from the fact that telepresence robots are pretty neat. I could see them becoming a regular part of human social gatherings over the next decade. If so, chances are I will be inside one of them.Director of the Center for Security Policy Frank Gaffney told Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon that Washington has a “willful blindness” to the desire of jihadists like the one who just struck in Nice, France, “to destroy Western Civilization from within.” He said that “more Americans are going to get killed because of it.”
Said Gaffney:
What they are trying to accomplish worldwide is the supremacy of the doctrine they call sharia, and that simply means they run everything, and everybody else will be forced to submit. That’s what we’re having trouble getting our heads around. This isn’t just some murderous jihadist lone wolf. … This is a global jihad movement and its objective, whether it’s being carried out by the Islamic state, or by al-Qaeda, which says this would be the period of total confrontation, or whether it’s the Muslim Brotherhood. And this is the thing that’s just so infuriating.
As for Newt Gingrich’s recent call to test Muslims in America to see if they support sharia, Gaffney said:
For some time, he’s been absolutely right. We’re dealing with … just another totalitarian ideology. The thing that makes this one so dangerous, particularly to a society like ours … with its constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, is that its got a patina of religiosity to it. But strip away maybe that ten percent of sharia that involves religious practice and tradition and what you have is ninety percent of the same basic totalitarianism as Nazism, or as Communism, or as fascism. And it’s all about forcing everybody else to submit to the way that these totalitarians are seeking to impose.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
ST. LOUIS (KTVI) - Opposing factions in St. Louis City Hall appear ready to meet, seeking common ground in an effort to curtail violence in the city. The agreement comes in the wake of gunfire outside a high school football game, Friday, which sent fans and players scurrying for cover.
The shooting happened just outside the football stadium at Sumner High School. Terrified fans were rushing for safety and the game was briefly stopped until police secured the area. Frustrated neighbors were still talking about what happened, Monday, and equating it with larger crime problems in the city.
“The news is so depressing you don’t even want to look at it because every time you turn around somebody’s getting killed or somebody’s getting shot up or something,” Celestina Jamerson told us from her home across the street. “It don’t seem like anything’s being done about it for real.”
The question of what’s being done has been the center of a battle between Alderman Antonio French and the office of Mayor Francis Slay. French has threatened to block funding for a new NFL stadium on the city’s north riverfront if violent crime is not addressed in what he describes as a “comprehensive fashion.”
“I think there is a majority of aldermen down there who realize that crime and violence is a more pressing need than a stadium. And that we can get to a stadium and there might even be votes for a stadium deal, but we need to deal with this violence situation first,” French said.
But Mayor Slay’s chief of staff, Mary Ellen Ponder, says French is off base. First, she points out, there is a comprehensive plan on line for all to see.
She also points out that French has been a leader in a call for more jobs to cut down on crime, something she says the stadium would create.
“We need more jobs to help people and lift them out of poverty. The stadium certainly creates thousands of new jobs. You are able to fight crime at the same time as moving the city forward and making progress and redeveloping blighted areas.”
French have often been critical of Slay’s administration. He’s laid much of the blame for the city’s problems at the mayor’s feet.
“When the may or says we’ve been doing what we’ve been doing for fourteen years, number one, clear to everyone else, is that it’s not working. Whatever they’ve been doing has not worked. We are on pace to have a 20 year high in the number of homicides in the city of St. Louis.”
But Ponder says aldermen have not been partners in much of what they’re trying to do. One example:
“We’ve laid out a path for how to fund more officers. That’s before the board of aldermen right now. I understand that’s not a strategy that interests most of them. I’d love for an idea to get more officers from them.”
But in the wake of the shootings near Sumner, after being questioned about why they’re not talking by FOX 2, the two sides have agreed to at least meet.
Ponder says the meeting was scheduled after we met with French, but prior to our arrival at the mayor’s office. They are scheduled to sit down together Friday, with hopes that some common ground can be found.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
A mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino that left 14 dead and 21 others injured was being investigated as an act of terrorism, the FBI announced Friday.
“As of today, based on the information and the facts as we know them, we are now investigating these horrific acts as an act of terrorism,” Dave Bowdich of the FBI said at a Friday morning news conference.
The declaration came two days after Syed Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, stormed into a County of San Bernardino Department of Public Health training and holiday luncheon at the center, spraying a room full of Farook's coworkers with bullets.
Federal investigators have uncovered evidence that pointed to extensive planning ahead of the deadly attack, Bowdich said.
Although he didn't specify the evidence, he said there were a number of pieces "that has essentially pushed us over the cliff to say we are now investigating this as an act of terrorism.”
He did not link the attack to any terror group, including Islamic State, saying they were still working with the agency's foreign partners to determine any overseas connections.
Earlier in the day, three U.S. officials told CNN that Malik had declared her loyalty to the leader of ISIS on Facebook, apparently posting it on the social media site as the massacre occurred.
Bowdich said the FBI was aware of the post, and was looking into it. He offered no additional information on the post.
Authorities were also looking into Farook's communications via social media and phone with at least one subject who was being investigated for possible terror connections, according to CNN.
Bowdich confirmed that at least one of the two individuals involved had "telephonic connections" with other subjects being investigated by federal officials.
He did not specify if it was Farook or Malik, declining to elaborate further on the matter.
Fourteen victims, all between the ages of 26 and 60, were killed and 21 others were injured in Wednesday's attack, the deadliest since 20 children and six staff members were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.
San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan confirmed most of the victims worked for the county.
He said Farook, an American, was employed by the county's health department and had attended the luncheon that morning.
Farook left the party angry, possibly after a dispute. Others told authorities he seemed to have just disappeared from the venue.
He later returned to the party with Malik, his wife, wearing “black-style tactical gear,” and began shooting at party attendees, according to police.
The couple was heavily armed and “came prepared,” Burg |
. Such an act would be largely symbolic.
Head of Russian Military Forecasting Center, Colonel Anatoly Tsyganok confirmed Russia's ability to conduct such an attack when he stated: "These attacks have been quite successful, and today the alliance had nothing to oppose Russia's virtual attacks", additionally noting that these attacks did not violate any international agreement.[26]
Influence on international military doctrines [ edit ]
The attacks triggered a number of military organizations around the world to reconsider the importance of network security to modern military doctrine. On 14 June 2007, defence ministers of NATO members held a meeting in Brussels, issuing a joint communiqué promising immediate action. First public results were estimated to arrive by autumn 2007.[27]
On 25 June 2007, Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves met with US President, George W. Bush.[28] Among the topics discussed were the attacks on Estonian infrastructure. [29] NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) operates out of Tallinn, Estonia, since August 2008[30]
The events have been reflected in a NATO Department of Public Diplomacy short movie War in Cyberspace.[31]
See also [ edit ]From Queensland's Department of Agriculture and Fisheries brochure Can I have a pet rabbit?,
Why are pet rabbits illegal in Queensland?
Rabbits are Australia's most destructive agricultural and environmental introduced animal pest, [...]
Can I get a permit for a pet rabbit?
A permit cannot be issued for keeping pet rabbits of any variety for any private purpose.
A permit to keep domestic rabbits in Queensland can only be approved if the animal is being kept for an approved purpose:
certain forms of public entertainment (e.g. magic show and circuses)
scientific and research purposes
What if it is in a secure enclosure and desexed?
It is often suggested that rabbits should be allowed as pets if they have been desexed and registered. Although desexed and contained rabbits pose minimal risk to the environment and agriculture, there are practical obstacles involved for the mandatory desexing of privately owned animals. [...]Image copyright AP Image caption Six Tornado jets would be used in Germany's proposed mission to Syria
Only 29 of Germany's 66 Tornado jets are airworthy, a defence ministry report has revealed.
It comes two days before German MPs are expected to vote in favour of military action against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria.
Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen has stressed that only six of the operational Tornado jets would be needed for the proposed mission.
A vote on the UK's involvement takes place in parliament on Wednesday.
Germany decided to join the fight against IS after an appeal by French President Francois Hollande in the wake of the 13 November Paris attacks.
But the readiness of Germany's armed forces has long been the subject of criticism.
'Long and dangerous'
"The state of our flying systems remains unsatisfactory," the German army's chief of staff General Volker Wieker was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
The defence ministry report, obtained by German media, blamed the problem on the "lack of availability of various spare parts".
Six Tornado reconnaissance aircraft, a naval frigate and a 1,200-strong force will be sent to Syria under the proposals backed by the German cabinet on Tuesday.
The Bundestag is set to start debating the plans on Wednesday, with a vote expected on Friday.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen has faced criticism over funding for armour development
Speaking to German TV channel ARD (in German) on Wednesday, Defence Minister von der Leyen said: "Thirty Tornados are ready for action, and we need six of them. That gives us a wide margin."
She stressed that any military operation against IS in Syria would be "long and dangerous".
Poor repair
The latest defence ministry report showed Germany's air force capability further depleted from the year before, when 38 of 89 Tornado fighters were operational.
Critics have accused the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) defence minister of neglecting important areas of military investment such as armour development.
Last year she was forced to admit Germany's military equipment was in such poor repair that the country could not meet its Nato obligations.
Technical problems grounded German military aircraft delivering weapons to Kurds fighting IS in northern Iraq and medical aid to West Africa during the Ebola outbreak.
A YouGov opinion poll published on Tuesday showed 71% of people in Germany believed involvement in a mission against IS in Syria would raise the threat of attack in the country.
However, 45% of Germans questioned backed military involvement and 39% were opposed.
Until now, Germany's biggest foreign mission has been in Afghanistan, but that has gradually wound down to a force of just under 1,000.
Some 700 German soldiers are also part of the Nato-led K-For operation to stabilise Kosovo.The only study published to date that specifically addresses the impact of an isolated primary alteration in insulin signaling on lifespan in mammals is a report of increased longevity of mice with disruption of the insulin receptor in its adipose tissue.Fat Insulin Receptor Knockout (“FIRKO”) mice have essentially normal appearance, food intake and fertility, are lean, insulin sensitive, and outlive normal (wild-type) animals by approximately 18%. Moreover, these animals are resistant to age-related and high fat dietinduced obesity and glucose intolerance. Consistently with reduced adiposity, adiponectin expression in white adipose tissue of FIRKO
mice is increased but unexpectedly, leptin levels are also elevated
The insulin/insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) signalling pathway — a lifespan, metabolism and stress-resistance regulator — links neurodegeneration to the aging process. Thus, although a reduction of insulin signalling can result in diabetes, its reduction can also increase longevity and delay the onset of protein-aggregation-mediated toxicity. Here we review this apparent paradox and delineate the therapeutic potential of manipulating the insulin/IGF1 signalling pathway for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
Some flies were fed mifepristone, a chemical copy of progesterone. This hormone activated a switch attached to dFOXO, which in turn repressed the normal insulin signals inside the cells. As a surprising result, insulin production was lowered throughout the body. These flies lived an average of 50 days – 18 days longer than flies whose insulin signals went unchecked. "We now know that insulin is a direct player in the aging process," Tatar says. "So the research fits some key puzzle pieces together. And it should change the way we think about aging." Tatar's research is part of a growing body of evidence linking low insulin levels to increased longevity. In recent years, scientists have found that mice and other animals live longer when they eat a low-calorie diet, which reduces insulin production. "Aging regulation is a complex physiological process of nutritional inputs, metabolic regulation and hormone secretion," Tatar says. "But we still have so many unanswered questions."
Thus, increased mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation due to increased influx of nutrients in the absence of increased ATP consumption may be expected to increase mitochondrial O2•−production due to depletion of ADP availability and increased occupancy of electron carriers. Similarly, a reduction in mitochondrial number without a concomitant reduction in nutrient uptake will increase net substrate flux through the remaining mitochondria resulting in increased O2•− production per energy unit.
In fact, calorie restriction induces a reduction in the insulin signalling pathways (both through IGF-I and insulin), and this reduction in insulin signalling pathways is thought to be one of the primary mechanisms through which calorie restriction acts to increase lifespan.High blood insulin levels are usually the result of high blood glucose levels. So high levels of insulin signalling are a signal of high "nutritional state", and shift a cell's internal state towards increased levels of growth and decreased levels of repair. Increases in growth and decreases in repair = increases in waste products that accumulate within a cell and that ultimately cause aging at the cellular level.An increase in insulin levels usually causes an increases in protein synthesis and decreases in both proteolysis and autophagy through the pathway diagrammed below [1]. This is, as this will effectively increase the number of misfolded proteins that fail to degrade (one major factor in aging rate). In fact, decreased protein synthesis and increased autophagy are both associated with increased lifespan ().For a summary of its physiological effects, seeInsulin stimulates mTOR, and inhibition of mTOR by rapamycin is associated with the anti-aging effects of rapamycin (seeand).As a secondary pathway (see pathway below), insulin also inhibits FOXO1, and FOXO1 is involved in cellular stress resistance. Increased activity of the C. elegans homologue of FOXO1 (daf-16) is required for the 2x life extension caused by reducing IGF1 signalling through mutation of daf-2 (the C. elegans analogue of the IGF1 receptor - see).(figure fromFurthermore, insulin plays a key role in making organisms fatter, as it forces fat cells to take in circulating lipids (through increasing SREBP-1c activity). While accumulation of fat is important and doesn't necessarily cause aging in itself, it often increases inflammation levels, especially in an organism that is already metabolically compromised.See below figure.Artificial sweeteners basically "fool" the organism into anticipating that it is in a nutritional-rich state, which effectively causes it to increase its insulin levels (see), which basically result in both weight gain and metabolic syndrome (seeand, among many other links).Insulin is a huge reason why Type-II diabetes is so pernicious to health (and is associated with accelerated aging). People with type-II diabetes basically have higher-than-normal levels of both insulin and glucose. Ultimately, cells with too much insulin cannot stand all the insulin signalling anymore and become resistant to insulin [2]. This, in effect, makes higher levels of insulin necessary in order to cause reductions in glucose, which further elevates the blood glucose levels of diabetics, which makes them suffer all the blood vessel damage associated with high glucose levels. See diagram below for an illustration of insulin resistance from Lippincott's Biochemistry:One thing to note: C. elegans, fruit fly, and mouse mutants with knockouts in the insulin-like IGF-I factor pathway are known to have exceptionally increased lifespans [3].. Seefor a very good review.Also, see these following articles on insulin and aging:and this:[1]- Autophagy and Aging Review Article[2] In fact, some hypothesize that insulin resistance is actually a cell's last-ditchmeasure against excessive insulin signalling in the presence of high glucose levels - seeandInsulin resistance prevents too much glucose from entering the cell. If too much glucose enters the cell, then glycolysis can convert the glucose into glycolytic intermediates (like glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate) that can cause damage to proteins within the cell's cytosol (seeOne hypothesis is that cellular overnutrition (from too much glucose itself) could also create the mitochondrial oxidative stress that could presumably cause insulin resistance, as explained by the below quote:So in the presence of super-high levels of glucose, the cell becomes resistant to insulin in order to prevent significantly more glucose from coming into the cell (and ultimately causing oxidative stress through its downstream targets).Although glucose in the cell is more quickly converted into other endproducts (via glycolysis), these endproducts still represent a state of nutritional excess that ultimately increase mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and the formation of reactive oxygen species in the mitochondria.[3] I'm not yet aware of correlations between insulin and IGF-I yet.Some additional reading:I took a breath before I posted this. I even saved the draft, worked out and came back to it to see if I could let go of some of the... shock? Anger? Angst? Nope. Still there. I'm not trying to beat a dead horse or breath oxygen into a dying fire, but I wanted to be as honest, concise and calm as possible for this.
There is an item floating around in the news about an LA comic, a friend of mine, Ari Shaffir and his unprovoked verbal attack on an overweight, one armed female comic -- Damienne Merlina, an acquaintance I've known for many years. I'd always thought she was sweet and secretly always thought it was super metal that her arm had been RIPPED off in a car accident and kind of cool that she made jokes about it.
I like Ari, we have always been cool. I am writing this because I believe the subtext behind the events that followed sort of transcend the stage and really speak to a major problem in our society.
When I heard what he said, I thought there definitely had to be two sides to that story. Maybe she had called him a name and it was a proper fight. I believe in a no-holds-barred/equal opportunity offender type of comedy as long as everyone is willingly participating. I think it levels the playing field and sort of forces people to be mindful of what they say, knowing that once you put something out there, you can't control the responses. That rule applies to not just comedy, but anytime you publicly state an opinion... As I am reminded every time I use Twitter.
His attack was mean but, above all, unprovoked, which is what scared me.
As comics, we are supposed to use our "powers" for good. Powers we developed because, perhaps in our lives, we have been the target of unprovoked attacks. When I was seven a boy kicked me until I bled because he decided he didn't like that I was funny. When I was on tour with Last Comic Standing, I had a comic threaten to hit me because he hated that I'd won and that I existed. I'm not saying this for sympathy. I'm saying this because every human knows what it feels like to be attacked just for being themselves.
Ari's clip was an independent entity. There hadn't been a roast battle, there hadn't even been a Twitter tiff. This was from a comedy special, now coming to light, no doubt because my friend has his own show -- and he just went off on a woman that he didn't think mattered.
We've all been there, onstage. You say something you don't mean, you make fun of something on accident but... This wasn't that. This wasn't crowd work. This was a rehearsed set. This was pointed.
Her response was heartfelt and sad. She mentioned how hard her life had been, which, in a horrible way, is sort of irrelevant. What is germane to the story is that she chose to address his comments with poise, tears and positivity. I can applaud that... to a degree. I suppose that's how she felt comfortable standing up for herself. As comics we are taught to fight back with words -- she did, her words just weren't funny, something she was, sadly, faulted for. Should she have used it as a platform to show off her comic skills? Maybe. But her way of dealing with it certainly wasn't wrong.
So that happened. A male comic attacked a female comic he barely knew and it really really hurt her feelings. Horrible. And what happened after is sort of worse.
I tweeted that Comedy Central should be ashamed that they aired that clip. Some were quick to point out that I had done a bit on that network where I said someone's name and shamed them. Here is the difference, and I can't believe I even have to explain this.
In my bit about a sociopath ex-boyfriend who had wronged me in a horrific way, lying to me about his mother having cancer, who he was and everything else. They bleeped out his name when I used it (at least in the version I was shown). Regardless, my attack was a defensive response to a psychopath who involved me in his dangerous choices. Just because I didn't put that all in the Comedy Central version, doesn't mean it didn't happen -- for God's sake I had eight minutes to tell the story.
Regardless, even if you feel I was wrong in that, it was me going on the defense after shots had been fired and I was more than prepared to deal with whatever flak was to come my way.
This girl did nothing to warrant this.
It wasn't a conversation, it wasn't a fight between comics. That's what's scary. She was just a woman who a man decide wasn't acceptable looking and so he put her on blast. Men do it all the time: Donald Trump's favorite past time is calling Rosie O'Donnell fat. Women's looks, fertility and age are always the first things men attack when they are angry. It's sad.
Do we live in a society that complains too much? Absolutely. Is it right to just attack someone, publicly, for something they can't help when they have never done anything to you? Absolutely not. Is it okay if it's Kim Kardashian? Absolutely.
It's not about comedy rules, it's about a moral compass, and I think in the name of "our art" we often forget to check in with it from time to time. If we're going to say that "hey, he's a comic, everyone is fair game," then lets make it really fair! Let's do specials where we just rip apart mentally handicapped children and cancer patients. Let's sharpen our claws on people with MS and really dig into babies born with genetic defects. Let's just do anything for a laugh and hope we never have to deal with repercussions. Is there a town square where we can bring out the crippled and yell at them?
Damienne's act is a lot of self-deprecation. She knows she is overweight with one arm; she points it out. But because she isn't famous, she didn't have the benefit for getting in front of those insults before they hit her. All we saw was Ari's take on her.
It comes down to this: A man found the shape of a woman's body unacceptable so she was publicly humiliated. This is not a new concept to our society. Looking like that, she was asking for it... Sound like a familiar phrase, anyone?
Would it have been a bigger deal if she was black? If he had said "an annoying black girl?" "An annoying Mexican chick?" "A fat Muslim loser?" Oh, you better believe it. Apologies would have been issued left and right. Shows cancelled. Tears shed.
But she's just a fat white girl and by daring to show her face or try to make a living? She was asking for it.
What's scarier is no one seemed to personally speak out. Sure, some websites posted the video, but I saw no female comics of influence stand up for her. If you're a female comic or just a comic, and you took a stand and I didn't see it, then I'm sorry. I tweeted my thoughts about how this was wrong and scary. I didn't even direct them to Ari -- I just referenced what had happened and said that Comedy Central should be ashamed. One genius wrote me back and said "It's not Comedy Central's job to censor the comics." Clearly he had never done a set on TV before. If he had said something anti-Ford or Dorito, or whatever their sponsor is, would have been bleeped? If not, then are we just gonna live in a society where -- if you're ratings are good -- you can pick on smaller people for fun? If you want to bring the idea of Freedom of Speech into it, then let's go balls deep with law terms: Defamation of Character, anyone?
The amount of men that were basically saying "she's a comic; she should just take it" is absurd. Women are just supposed to keep quiet and "take it," and when they fight back then they are "bitches" or "cunts" or something else horrific that I know I've been called just because I dare to speak my mind. Ashley Judd said something negative about a college basketball team and she got rape threats. Do any of these men have mothers?
What's odd is this: As much as women are put down in our society and as "fragile" and "sensitive" and "unstable" as we are told we are ( I'm gonna get a lot of fun hate tweets from guys who have "69" in their handles and have three followers but...) when men (some men) feel wronged or feel that they are owed something, let's say female attention, acceptance, a cool spot at the lunch table, on occasion, they lash out violently. I don't see any women shooting up schools because they feel left out or rejected by the opposite sex. I don't see women often raping men because they need to feel power. This isn't about women being better than men, this is about reactions that have become commonplace.
So let me get this straight: When a man feels rejected (and obviously I'm not an idiot who hates men and think all men are rapists but... women don't rape as often or shoot up schools or movie theaters) he is allowed to go out and take it out on a woman and she is supposed to just take it and if she lashes out, then she's a bitch.
Got it. Again, super pumped for the future of our country, guys.
I'm disgusted at how everyone kept silent. I'm disgusted that there is no sense of what's right or wrong. There is no debate here: What he did was wrong, and all the people faulting her in anyway are wrong. Only an insane person with three followers and an egg for a profile picture would disagree.
We're quicker to threaten to KILL someone over wasting water on an ALS Ice Bucket Challenge than we are to defend a woman who was humiliated simply for living.
And we all keep silent for selfish reasons. People are afraid to get their hands dirty; they are afraid it will affect their careers, or they will be shunned by their peers.
None of that will happen. This isn't McCarthyism. If you work hard on your own merits and stand up for what's right, then you have no one to answer to. Truth is, this story won't even be a subject of discussion in a week -- it barely is now. I'm writing this because it needed to be written. I'm using the little fame I have to make my point heard.
I am not an unknown comic. I'm not a struggling comic. I'm also not afraid of anyone. Girls, don't be afraid. Please. The more you stay silent, the more things stay the same.
I am writing this because, as Billy Crystal said in Mr. Saturday Night, "It's a comic's job, when he sees bullshit, he calls bullshit."Three weeks after Apple was declared responsible for leading a conspiracy to raise e-book prices, the Department of Justice (DOJ) today submitted a proposed remedy to prevent the company from fixing prices and discriminating against competitors such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Apple should not be able to "discriminate against rival e-books apps and may not agree with any other e-book retailer to fix retail e-book prices," the proposal (PDF) says. The specific remedies would, among other things, make it easier for iPhone and iPad users to buy books for use on Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook apps.
Those apps don't include a way for users to purchase books today, largely because if they did, Apple would demand a 30 percent cut on sales. Amazon and Barnes & Noble apps aren't even allowed to provide links to purchase pages unless they also make the books available as in-app purchases, with Apple getting that 30 percent cut.
Users of the Kindle and Nook iOS apps can exit the app, open the device's Web browser, navigate to Amazon's or Barnes & Noble's website, purchase books, and then go back into the Kindle or Nook app and download them. But a direct connection between the apps and purchasing mechanisms does not exist today.
That would change under the proposal from the DOJ and 33 state attorneys general:
[The proposal] requires Apple, for two years, to permit any e-book retailer to include in its e-book app a hyperlink to its own e-bookstore, without paying any fee or commission to Apple. This section thus requires Apple, for a relatively brief period of time, to return to its own pre-iBookstore policy of allowing Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other e-book app providers to offer a simple, costless means for readers to purchase e-books directly from the third party. This provision is intended to reset competition among trade e-book retailers and deny Apple the benefits of its conspiracy. In 2011, shortly after adding Random House’s titles to the iBookstore, Apple forced its retailer rivals to remove the hyperlinks from their e-book apps (in order to avoid paying Apple a 30 percent commission on their sales). By doing so, Apple made it more difficult for consumers using Apple devices to compare e-book prices among different retailers, and for consumers to purchase e-books from other retailers on Apple’s devices. At the time, as a result of Apple’s collusive agreements, prices for the most popular e-books tended to be the same across retailers, and many consumers likely determined that shopping around for a better e-book price was a waste of time.
The DOJ proposal would also bar Apple "from entering into contracts that would, in any way, fix the price that any of its competitors charge for content." Apple would not be able to share information with publishers in attempts to take "collective action" that raises prices across the board. The proposed judgment would remain in effect for 10 years, but certain requirements will not last that long.
Apple would have to terminate the agency agreements with publishers that were crucial in the conspiracy. "Apple also is barred, for five years, from either enforcing its retail price MFNs [most favored nation contracts] against publishers or accepting limitations on its own ability to price-compete with respect to e-books," the DOJ's proposal states.
Finally, Apple would have to hire a full-time, internal antitrust compliance officer to make sure the company plays by the rules. "The PFJ [proposed final judgement] also calls for an External Compliance Monitor, appointed by this Court, with the authority to oversee Apple’s compliance with the PFJ, and to oversee Apple’s internal antitrust compliance provisions," the DOJ wrote. "Apple also will be required to provide to the United States and the Representative Plaintiff States reasonable access to Apple’s documents, information, and personnel."
No financial penalties against Apple are being proposed, but the DOJ said these remedies combined with requirements for publishers will be enough.
"Price competition has returned to the marketplace" because of previous settlements with the publishers accused of conspiring with Apple, the DOJ filing states. Penguin, HarperCollins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan have agreed to repay $164 million to consumers who were overcharged. The publishers also were "required to terminate agreements that prevented e-book retailers from lowering the prices at which they sell e-books to consumers and to allow for retail price competition in renegotiated e-book distribution agreements," a DOJ announcement said.
Apple has not responded to a request for comment.
For a full description of how the e-book price fixing worked, see our previous story on the issue, "How Apple led an e-book price conspiracy—in the judge’s words."
UPDATE: Apple has filed a response in court, saying the "overreaching proposal would establish a vague new compliance regime—applicable only to Apple—with intrusive oversight lasting for ten years, going far beyond the legal issues in this case, injuring competition and consumers, and violating basic principles of fairness and due process."
The harms from the conspiracy were "already remedied by the publishers' consent decrees," Apple wrote. The restrictions placed on Apple's treatment of e-book apps is also unwarranted because "there was no evidence admitted at trial, or finding by the Court, that the conspiracy involved the App Store," Apple wrote.
Further, Apple contended that the DOJ proposal unfairly targets more than just books.
"Plaintiffs would prohibit Apple from entering into or maintaining 'any agreement with any E-book Publisher or supplier of any other form of content (e.g., music, other audio, movies, television shows, or apps) where such agreement likely will increase, fix, or set the price at which other E-book Retailers or retailers of other forms of content can acquire or sell E-books or other forms of content' for the entire ten-year period of the judgment," Apple wrote. "This absurdly broad proposal is not only disconnected from any evidence adduced at trial or findings made by this Court, but would open Apple up to liability in virtually every content market for the actions of content producers, over which it has no control."Vintage 101: Even more Kaladesh in Vintage!
by Islandswamp // Sep 16, 2016 Tweet
vintage 101 Kaladesh Rashmi Saheeli Rai Kambal Combustible Gearhulk Paradoxical Outcome
Kaladesh Part Two
I really have to say that Wizards of the Coast is just killing it with Kaladesh. Last week I wrote about a few of the cards from Kaladesh, and I knew going into it that there was a chance more cards would be released that would be worth discussing. Usually when I've written articles like this one there aren't many Vintage-related cards to talk about, but Kaladesh has exceeded my expectations to say the least. There were a few cards that readers asked me to cover, and even more relevant cards were spoiled last week. Buckle up and Start Your Engines, here's Kaladesh Part Two!
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Dack is Back?
After my article went up last week, a Reddit user asked me specifically what I think of Saheeli Rai. Rai does seem to have a slight resemblance to a Vintage favorite, Dack Fayden. Saheeli Rai has exact same mana cost as Dack, and the new walker also has some artifact synergies. Does she have what it takes to make the cut in Vintage? Let's take a look.
At three mana, Saheeli is certainly cheap enough to consider running. Blue and red is a very popular color combination in Vintage, so it's not as if some wonky mana base needs to be constructed to facilitate Rai. The area of the card that is the most concerning would be the loyalty abilities.
+1: Scry 1. Saheeli Rai deals 1 damage to each opponent.
Rai's first ability adds one loyalty and provides no card advantage. She does ping your opponent for one damage each time you activate the first ability, but this ability would be far more interesting if it hit creatures. I can think of several one-toughness creatures I'd love to kill, like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Young Pyromancer. However, we live in the real world so dreaming about things the card can't do simply isn't productive.
Scrying for one is certainly useful, but it is nowhere near as powerful as Dack Fayden's ability to loot two cards. Dack can allow you to trade two extra lands in your hand for two fresh cards off the top of your deck. Discarding cards fuels Delve, Yawgmoth's Will, and more. Things move very fast in Vintage, and scrying one card to the bottom with Saheeli isn't going to be worth three mana in any deck in the format.
-2: Create a token that's a copy of target artifact or creature you control, except it's an artifact in addition to its other types. That token gains haste. Exile is at the beginning of the next end step.
The second ability that Saheeli has is much more interesting. There are a lot of artifacts and creatures that you could copy to create an advantage. I really don't think that this ability can compare to Dack's ability to steal an artifact though. If you use Dack to take something as small as a Mox Emerald from your opponent you have gained a plus two in card advantage. The fact that Dack might stick around only adds to his potential. Saheeli won't ever create a guaranteed permanent advantage with her card-copying ability, and you have to have a card worth copying for it to even work.
-7: Search your library for up to three artifact cards with different names, put them onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.
Saheeli's ultimate ability is really cool, and it (like almost every other planeswalker ultimate) has the potential to win the game immediately. You could use Rai to search up three different artifacts and choose Time Vault, Voltaic Key, and Blightsteel Colossus. While this scenario is undoubtedly powerful, it's rather unrealistic. It takes five uninterrupted turns to ultimate Rai, and she can't protect herself during that time. If you're dominating a game for that long, you're probably going to be able to just Tinker or Yawgmoth's Will yourself into a winning position sooner.
Saheeli, Don't Like it (Rock the Casbah)
Saheeli Rai is a really interesting card with fantastic art, but I have zero faith that she will do anything in Vintage. I'm sure she'll be part of an artifact-centric Standard deck, and maybe there's a Modern brew waiting to be discovered, but Saheeli won't be chilling with Mishra's artifact army anytime soon.
The Ultimate Paradox
Paradoxical Outcome is one of the more interesting cards that I didn't touch on last week. I honestly didn't think much of the card when I first saw it, but I've started to come around on it a bit. Storm decks often use Hurkyl's Recall on themselves to bounce and replay a battlefield full of mana artifacts in order to generate a higher storm count, and often times mana is netted in the process. Paradoxical Outcome does cost more than Hurkyl's, but you also get to draw a bunch of cards when you play it.
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To make Paradoxical Outcome beneficial in a Vintage deck, you need to be playing some moxen. And by some moxen, I mean you need to be playing all of them, as well as every other restricted piece of artifact mana. The nice thing is that it you can net some extra mana if have the right combination of these cards, so you can possibly play some or all of the cards you draw.
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The requirements to make Paradoxical Outcome work well are somewhat excessive, but they are not without precedent. In the past year people have been playing a brew in Vintage usually referred to as U/R Welder (a Steel City Vault variant), and that type of deck might be a good home for it.
The purpose of this U/R Welder deck is basically to vomit your hand of artifacts onto the table as quickly as possible, eventually culminating with the assembly of Time Vault and Voltaic Key. The list that I started with when constructing this deck contained Time Spiral, which I have basically just replaced with Paradoxical Outcome.
Draw-seven effects like Time Spiral and Wheel of Fortune are powerful, and card-draw is needed in order for the deck to find a game-ending play. Such effects are very risky though as they are very likely stock your opponent's hand with more disruption. Since this deck was already built to ramp to six mana in order to cast a Spiral, four mana for Paradoxical Outcome shouldn't be too much of a stretch.
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I also added Empty the Warrens to the deck as an alternative win condition. I saw a TMD post about someone playing U/R Welder with Empty the Warrens, and I thought that was a great idea. I feel that with the right configuration Empty could be even better in a version of this deck with Paradoxical Outcome, because it should be even easier to make get upwards of ten goblin tokens onto the battlefield.
Final Outcome
I think there are definitely decks that could reap great rewards from playing Paradoxical Outcome, but I also don't think it would push any of those decks into a better metagame position. Decks like TezzCast, Steel City Vault, and even Goblin Charbelcher decks are all potential homes for the card, but none of those are more than fringe decks these days. Null Rod is still a card, as is Stony Silence. Monastery Mentor and Young Pyromancer decks create insane board states nearly as fast as the Time Vault decks, and they do so with a better suite of countermagic. Paradoxical Outcome will definitely produce some crazy games, but my gut tells me it won't crack the top eight of many large Vintage events.
Rashmi Anything
Here we have another four mana card advantage machine. Rashmi has big shoes to fill in a format previously dominated by Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Let's see if Rashmi has what it takes to compete in Vintage.
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Rashmi is sort of like a four mana personal Howling Mine, or an easier to trigger Jori En, Ruin Diver. Your four mana investment will provide you an extra card or two each turn cycle, which is comparable to the extra cards a planeswalker might provide. It's also possible to manipulate the top card of your library with something like Sensei's Divining Top to ensure that you hit a card that you can play for free. I suppose you could try to use Rashmi, Eternities Crafter to try to cheat the suspend on Ancestral Visions, but Vintage already has Ancestral Recall, Treasure Cruise, and Dig Through Time, which need far less setup.
Rashmi has a mid-sized body, which is both a blessing and a curse. Creatures, especially those with toughness three or less, are notoriously easy to dispatch. Poor Rashmi dies to Lightning Bolt and Pyroblast, but at least she can block several kinds of token in Vintage. She's unlikely to be able to go on the offensive much though, and having an extra wall isn't all that exciting. If your opponent is playing creatures, they're probably big enough to kill Rashmi. If your opponent is not playing creatures, then their deck is probably a fast combo deck, and in that case you don't want a four-drop with only two power.
Crafting Eternities in Vintage
Rashmi, Eternities Crafter has a very powerful ability that undoubtedly could do some interesting things, but I'm afraid the set-up required to make it better than other options probably means it won't make the cut in Vintage. Four mana is a perfectly reasonable casting cost, but you could be getting a Jace, the Mind Sculptor for the same investment. Note that Jace can provide some value immediately upon entering the battlefield, whereas Rashmi will not be able to do so until at least your opponent's next turn.
Rashmi's ability reminds me a lot of the Cascade mechanic, as both abilities allow you to play a spell for free. Shardless Agent and friends aren't usually played in Vintage, but there's at least one brewer who has been playing RUG Cascade in Vintage lately. Perhaps Rashmi could find a home in a similar build.
Kambal, High Chief of the Fun Police
If you're having |
a ton of resources online describing how to do so.
Warning: Just like with SQL you need to be very careful to not allow attackers to inject their own bash code into your calls. For example, if your call is mkdir 'filepath' someone could manipulate the file path to be some/path'; rm -rf /' to delete your entire file directory. You need to sanatize your input to not allow this kind of attack by escaping all single quotes in the call. There are also many other ways someone might be able to manipulate your call including using bash variables like $HOME or use tick marks (`) to execute arbitrary commands. Bottom line, if you are using this on a high value target, you should be careful and you should also ensure you are running your program with minimum permissions. Finally, you should avoid using this technique in a place that can even be manipulated by the user in the first place.
The Future
Slowly I hope to phase out all of the calls into bash. Calling into bash breaks a lot of the core principles of Swift: mainly safety. For a while I even forgot to close the process with pclose and it was causing my programs to leak processes and eventually crash. I am putting these calls in place because they are quick and easy workarounds. I don't want to impede the process of my development too much, especially for the things that should and will be easy soon.
I recommend occasionally restoring the Foundation code on Linux when new versions of Swift are released to see if they have been implemented yet. That has already happend to me with DateFormatter and I was able to happily delete several calls to the command line. I also recommend wrapping these calls in methods and types that hide the hack from other parts of the code. I ultimately only have a few places in my code that actually have this command line code, even if other code depends on the functionality. A few of the types I have created so far are: Command Line, Email, and a File Service.It’s a difficult thing to pin down, which English team is better than the rest. That’s because the defining characteristic of this remarkable season has been complete chaos.
Usually, the points table is as definitive of a statement about top-to-bottom quality and consistency as there is in sports. The best team, usually armed with the league’s best roster of players, will more often than not have its superiority slowly but surely borne out in the results of the 38 fixtures that make up the EPL calendar.
Yet it feels like this is not quite the case this season, when Leicester City have sat atop the league for so long, outlasting everyone’s belief that their carriage would turn back into a pumpkin eventually, now only needing three points from three games to become champions of England for the first time in the club’s 132 year history.
A variety of factors have played into Leicester’s Cinderella run, allowing them to outrace even the most optimistic of projections: the unforeseen emergence of players like Riyad Mahrez (who on Sunday was voted by his fellow players the league’s player of the year), Jamie Vardy, and N’Golo Kanté, who are all legitimate stars; the league’s lack of tactical sophistication, where a team with a well-coordinated, intense-pressing deep block and an emphasis on counterattacks could routinely face opponents that played right into their hands; their freedom from burdensome non-league matches that weigh down starters’ legs, allowing them to create the kind of team-wide instinctual thinking that comes from playing alongside the same teammates every week; many of the usual favorites enduring down years; and flat-out good luck, with shots of theirs finding the net that would normally hit the post, shots of opponents hitting the crossbar that would normally touch twine, and eking out 1-0 wins in largely even affairs.
Sift through any number of advanced stats and the numbers support what our eyes have seen, that Leicester are a truly good team that we nonetheless wouldn’t expect to wind up champions. This should take nothing away from the Foxes, but it’s worth saying: this season of theirs, for a whole host of reasons, has been really, really lucky.
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If not Leicester, then, who can stake a better claim as England’s best? Arsenal, despite their totally typical late-season collapse, have played some of their best soccer for extended periods this year, did appear to be title favorites for a while, have great advanced stats (they led the league in Michael Caley’s expected goals difference formula), and with players like Mesut Özil and Alexis Sánchez, they have arguably the two best players in the whole league leading a squad full of good-to-great players. Still, their lack of consistency and the pitiful way they’ve crumbled ever since that huge win against Leicester back in February means they can’t honestly be considered the league’s best.
Manchester City could argue that they’re the class of England. They stormed out of the gate and put together a couple months of top-class play that had us thinking they would pull a 2014-15 Chelsea and lead the title race from wire to wire. And while they’ve continually stumbled in league play since that great start, they are one of the four teams still standing in the Champions League. Who knows what a full, healthy season out of Kevin De Bruyne would’ve meant for City’s title credentials? Holding them back from serious consideration as England’s best, though, are those stumbles in the league, many of which have been self-inflicted due to a complete lack of defensive structure or awareness. Man City have the best roster in England; that they weren’t able to parlay that into another title is too big a blemish to be overlooked.
That brings us to Tottenham, the only other team that’s been consistently good enough this season to earn a place in the conversation. This team has no flaws. Their attack, consisting of Harry Kane and Christian Eriksen and Érik Lamela, is young, dynamic, and fearsome, all in a complementary way. Their central midfield is the best in the country, with Eric Dier providing the defensive shield, Mousa Dembélé taking the ball from deep and scything his way into more advanced positions with his strange but unstoppable dribbling style, and Dele Alli cutting through the final layer of defenses. Spurs’ defense is elite, their goalkeeper is great, and their bench is strong, to boot. And maybe most importantly, they have a brilliant manager who has implemented a sophisticated tactical scheme that, like with Leicester’s, the rest of the league has yet to figure out how to cope with.
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It’s quite easy to make the case that Tottenham are the best team in England this season over Leicester, in spite of the seven-point gap that separates them in the table. (Or, looked at another way, it’s easier to imagine Spurs fighting for one of the league’s top spots next season than it is Leicester, even if the Foxes were to retain all their players.) Tottenham’s Big Three (Kane, Alli, and either Dembélé or Eriksen) at the very least stands right up against Leicester’s; everywhere else, Tottenham are better. Tottenham’s top-level stats are better (they’ve scored more and conceded fewer), their underlying ones are considerably better, they have been observably more dominant, and yet, they almost certainly will not be winning the title.
Tottenham suffered what is likely the penultimate death blow to their title hopes yesterday, when Spurs settled for a draw against West Brom. The first half went exactly as Tottenham expected. They cut through the Baggies’ defense at will and only some bad luck, like a few shots hitting the woodwork instead of the back of the net, kept them from leading by more than one at halftime.
Tottenham would pay for failing to press their advantage when they had it, though, as West Brom came out much stronger in the second half and scored a deserving equalizer late on. Tottenham’s only realistic shot at catching Leicester involved them winning out, and this draw put their title rivals just one win away from the trophy.
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Games like yesterday’s, and Spurs’ lack of fortune when attempting to turn those types of close games into wins, are likely why Tottenham won’t end the season as champions, even if they can make the strongest case for being the league’s best team. Tottenham opened the campaign by failing to win any of their first four matches, each one of which could’ve easily been three points with a little more luck. Win just a couple of those matches—which included a 1-1 draw against Leicester—and score one of the three shots that hit the woodwork yesterday, and it’s quite possible we’d now be talking about Tottenham’s wondrous whirlwind title season instead of Leicester’s.
Tottenham may have the better team, but Leicester have had the luck. And even in the Premier League, where the table is the closest thing to a truly meritocratic determiner of the country’s best team, luck can still make enough of a difference. Given how enjoyable Leicester’s magic has been to watch, maybe we spectators are the lucky ones.Promised Land, Sugaree, Jack Straw, China Cat Sunflower-> I Know You Rider, Me & My Uncle, Bird Song, Beat It On Down The Line, Tennessee Jed, Playin' In The Band, Casey Jones Mississippi Half Step, Mexicali Blues, Brown Eyed Women, Truckin', Dark Star-> Morning Dew, Sugar Magnolia, Sing Me Back Home, One More Saturday Night, E: Uncle John's Band
SBD>Rm>Dat(48k) with missing songs patched from SBD>Rm>Cass>Cass>Cass>Dat>Samplitude>SHN via Charlie Miller
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comment Reviews
Reviewer: njpg - favorite favorite favorite favorite - February 7, 2018
Subject: - Right out of the gate, this show is top-notch. Recording very well-balanced for a SBD as well: not too much vocals, which is the usual problem, and the band is singing well.
Phil especially is in top form: his boopity-booping in Sugaree is hilariously artistic. This is one of those shows where I'm listening to Phil way more than Jerry.
However, some of the jammier songs are not played very imaginatively and for some reason it sounds like the band are not leaving a lot of space for each other so that it's too dense for exploration. Still, this doesn't stop the Dark Star from being a work of genius, as with the spectacular Morning Dew.
It isn't 1975 yet, so Donna hasn't learned how to not be annoying at this stage. She straight up ruins Greatest Story and greatly roughens the preferably smooth waters of Sing Me Back Home. - February 7, 2018
Reviewer: DoctorMaceio - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - April 20, 2017
Subject: download show https://thepiratebay.org/user/DoctorMaceio/ - April 20, 2017download show
Reviewer: acorus - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - April 19, 2017
Subject: these berkeley shows are better than veneta!!!! these berkeley shows leading up to veneta have been unfortunately overlooked and swept under the carpet, but Archive has the proof in the pudding that indeed these are better played shows than veneta for the most part. exhibit A would be the dark star(s), which are uniformly not as monumentally dark as veneta, and imho are thus better dark stars in these shows from the 21 to the 25th. the level of dosage was much greater in veneta by the band and the audience, and the heat alone was crazy, but. i love veneta because of the astute visual spectacle courtesy of ken and company(sunshine daydream dvd!!!!!), and the ace recording by bear, and the presence of all those pranksters, mr kesey rip...however the cohesiveness and playing is actually better in Berkeley. enjoy yrselves with open minds because hardly anybody has even heard these shows in comparison to veneta! - April 19, 2017these berkeley shows are better than veneta!!!!
Reviewer: c-freedom - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - August 26, 2016
Subject: She sang a little while,,, then flew off First Set is very good especially Bird Song and P.I.T.B.
Good to hear Donna say something from the stage.
Her part in this 1/2 step is not usually where she sings.
The 2nd set is very hot. Listening without headphones and I am pretty sure the dog was smiling during Truckin'
Dark Star>Dew ----- IT DOESN'T MATTER ANYWAY!!!
I like hearing Ramble on Rose and Greatest Story so late in the show.
I find Donna's contribution to the later to be gritty!
UJB is a sweet encore,,, surprised they didn't do that in the encore slot more often in the later years,,,
Always good to hear Phil singing harmonies. - August 26, 2016She sang a little while,,, then flew off
Reviewer: mifraidin - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - May 31, 2016
Subject: An unassuming all-timer The playing is impeccable and the set list -- specifically the sequencing of songs -- is pure genius artistry. - May 31, 2016An unassuming all-timer
Reviewer: Far-I - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - October 12, 2015
Subject: Donna's announcement First off fantastic show. Loved it from start to finish. Excellent Tennessee Jed.
Donna has shares her opinion on her being a vocalist in the band as Bobby says "Get a load of this" referring to the impending screeching she does in the upcoming PITB. - October 12, 2015Donna's announcement
Reviewer: doug_the_dude - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - August 25, 2013
Subject: -- Awesome night at home base; They really will rip your face off with that Playin' - I mean, :::woah, nellie:::
Dark Star > Morning Dew is the centerpiece of the 2nd set, and the former goes through a multitude of jams; they take this one pretty far out there....Sugar Magnolia will absolutely rock your socks off.
Prototype amazingness for this year. Only caveat is Sing Me Back Home, which has some sound/channel problems and such. - August 25, 2013--
Reviewer: chris phillips - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - June 5, 2013
Subject: ratings post-Pig rschwz: With DJ absent, would you give 5 stars for 9/27/72? Can't see otherwise.
This show features a beautiful Dark Star. No need for explanation. China Cat>Rider, Beat It, Greatest and Uncle John's are other highlights. Jerry is on AND Bob sounds great too 8/24.
8/21-9/28 is magnificent, generally speaking. - June 5, 2013ratings post-Pig
Reviewer: rschwz28 - favorite favorite favorite favorite - December 11, 2011
Subject: where's Ron? More than the presence of DJ, the absence of Pigpen means this show can't get five stars! - December 11, 2011where's Ron?
Reviewer: Grateful-Joe - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - May 21, 2011
Subject: excellent Love this show. Why is the Ramble On and Greatest Story not shown on the setlist at Dead.net and Setlist.com? I just checked the copy I have of this show and they are on it, as well. - May 21, 2011excellent
Reviewer: gratedude69 - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - August 25, 2010
Subject: one of the best around this show is just outstanding from start to finish, excellent set list all played excellently
as for the dark star, super intense super energy gets pretty wild at parts in there then settles nicely into the dew, one of the best things ever
uncle john encore is awesome as well! - August 25, 2010one of the best around
Reviewer: TheManMulcahey - favorite favorite favorite favorite - August 25, 2010
Subject: For myself. Decided to do a Grateful Dead Hour for myself. So I came to archive and searched for shows on this day in history. It wasn't my intention initially, but it seems as if I will be GDH'ing the rest of the week, as from the reviews, this was an epic week back in 1972.
I have given this recording a 4/5, only because I feel that Jean's vocals are a little loud which pretty much drown out everyone else when she's singing. She does sound sincere when Bobby introduces her though. :) - August 25, 2010For myself.
Reviewer: BIG_R - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - June 2, 2010
Subject: 8-24-72 August '72 saw the Grateful Dead make a lot of magic and this show is no exception. Through in an incredible remaster by C Miller and your ears will think they died and went to the good place. - June 2, 20108-24-72
Reviewer: oh_uh_um_ah - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - March 21, 2009
Subject: The GRATEFUL DEAD "Live On Stage" August 24, 1972 at the Berkeley Community Theater, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A. `
~^|\_@|@_/|^~
~/\~
I highly recommend adding this show to your 1972 GRATEFUL DEAD collection.
Get all the GRATEFUL DEAD shows at the Berkeley Theater, August 21, 22, 24 & 25, 1972.
5 stars for the mix
5 stars for the recording
5 stars for the performance
5 stars for Charlie Miller
Get it while you can, get it while it's free, get it now or you'll be sorry.
Eat, Drink, Be Merry and Listen to the GRATEFUL DEAD.
Thanks for the love from 1972. - March 21, 2009The GRATEFUL DEAD "Live On Stage" August 24, 1972 at the Berkeley Community Theater, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.
Reviewer: Stargazin - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - August 24, 2008
Subject: Incredible Show one of the best.... the entire Berkeley run is totally amazing. Thank you Charlie Miller for everything you do! - August 24, 2008Incredible Show
Reviewer: NYLifer - favorite favorite favorite favorite - August 24, 2008
Subject: I love you a bushel and a peck Listen at the very end of BIODTL for Keith picking out this little ditty from Guys And Dolls just before Jed starts.
GREAT SHOW!!! - August 24, 2008I love you a bushel and a peck
Reviewer: lemon lime partridge - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - December 18, 2007
Subject: so far from home... 1972! i so rarely make it out this far...
this is an amazing and beautiful show, this china cat is beautiful, everything is beautiful, from what i have heard of 8.27 this certainly measures up...
all of these august 72 shows just have the most beautiful spacey jams. this dark star is huge!
overall i might prefer 8.22 just for the ridiculous playin in the band & other one, but this playin in the band is pretty incredible as well...and there's just nothing like a dark star. - December 18, 2007so far from home...
Reviewer: pnc - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - December 11, 2007
Subject: beautiful this show really is magnificent. it would be difficult to argue that 8/27 is any BETTER than this one (even though that one has a certain something...even in the recording itself).
the dark star is the shizzle...and the dew which follows is no slouch either.
if anything deserves 5 stars... - December 11, 2007beautiful
Reviewer: slickwil - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - August 24, 2007
Subject: Another stellar '72 performance often overshadowed by 8/27; but you'd be a fool to pass this one up.
simply heed jerry's advice and 'listen to the whistle of the acid train!'
oh, and listen to the good Dr. too. - August 24, 2007Another stellar '72 performance
Reviewer: rollandfin - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - April 18, 2006
Subject: great DS>DEW
email me at fieldhouse11277@ yep, darkstar to dew is fine, I think both the 24th and 21st are superior to the 27th, Sure the Sing Me Back Home is well done as is the dark star, but these two dates levitate well beyond.email me at fieldhouse11277@ hotmail.com happy to share - April 18, 2006great DS>DEW
Reviewer: Bluebird3434 - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - November 7, 2005
Subject: Dark Star Their is a "Dark Star" song, but this is the "DARK STAR"!!!! If i need to explain then u really don't need to listen this - but I still love ya - November 7, 2005Dark Star
Reviewer: jimkrum - favorite favorite favorite - June 22, 2005
Subject: rippin' Ridiculous 1st set. sound quality is ok. - June 22, 2005rippin'
Reviewer: Dstone5553 - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - May 27, 2005
Subject: Magic
Dstone5553@ The Dstar is long and lusty and everything you hope a dstar can be. And then the magic comes, the incantation of something that haunted me greatly as a boy and still does today...in the form of the transition into Dew. i don't know who's playing strings (cello) but the boys let him lead the way, with phil close behind... and it's just impossible to describe the beauty that arises as the they slither into the Dew, which of course is a monster. Extraordinary.Dstone5553@ aol.com - May 27, 2005Magic
Reviewer: skwimite - favorite favorite favorite favorite - May 4, 2005
Subject: What a trip These Berkeley shows they played after coming back from Europe seemed "note perfect" at the time. I suppose that notion doesn't necessarily hold up, but I still love these shows. I think the 24th is the best of the bunch, and I refuse to invoke 8/27/72 for comparison. It's in a class by itself. I'd give this one 4 stars for general consumption. Where is the NRPS SBD from this night? One of the few Death and Destructions they ever played, and no, it's NOT Down By The River! - May 4, 2005What a trip
Reviewer: socal - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - November 16, 2004
Subject: Old gem Probably often overlooked due to the show up in Oregon a few days after - which is a mistake. I used to have the old tape and this DL brings it all back again.
They are in peak form, nailing everything they play. It deserves 5 stars, but, again, it sits in an unenviable position: just a few days before the most significant show in GD history. (Veneta deserves 9 out of 5.)
Def. worth a listen. Enjoy! - November 16, 2004Old gemSergei Aksyonov, de facto leader of Russian-occupied Crimea, has demanded that Ukrainian media “be purged as a class”. Most have long been driven out, but it seems that a few TV and radio channels can still be accessed in the north of the peninsula, and these must be exterminated.
It won’t fix the electricity pylons whose destruction has plunged Crimea into darkness, but helps deflect attention from the failure of the occupation authorities to prepare for the likely blockade, and from Russia’s inability to provide electricity to the peninsula it claims was always its territory.
There have been more heavy-handed responses to the blackout – some comical, like the de facto prosecutor Natalya Poklonskaya’s initiating of a criminal investigation over destruction of pylons outside Crimea. Others are more ominous, although after almost two years of Russian occupation, predictable.
The FSB [Russian Security Service] has summoned Safinar Dzhemilieva, wife of the exiled Crimean Tatar leader and Ukrainian MP for interrogation. 72-year-old Mustafa Dzhemiliev has undoubtedly played an important role in the Crimean Blockade, however summonses and interrogations of his wife are, like the illegal imprisonment of his son, Khaiser in Russia, flagrant attempts at intimidation.
The same is true of the FSB visitation on the elderly (82- and 77-year-old) parents of Crimean rights activist Eskender Bariev. Bariev reports that they have also summoned his sisters, and tells the FSB to lay off his family and quit pretending to search for him. He is not in hiding, he says, and has never concealed his position.
While Nariman Dzhelyal, First Deputy Head of the Mejlis, or Crimean Tatar representative assembly, says that he is not aware of any major escalation in repression of Crimean Tatars, he does believe it likely that since the occupation authorities can’t touch those carrying out the blockade, they will lash out at those who support it and/ or do not concern their opposition to Russian occupation. There have been new heavy-handed measures against Ukrainian Cultural Centre activist Veldar Shukurdzhiyev and an absurd administrative case over a peaceful attempt to take photos with the Ukrainian flag back in August appears to have been reinstated.
Dzhelyal says that he himself is not a supporter of such radical measures as the blowing up of electricity pylons, but believes that the Ukrainian government had long needed to take responsibility and prepare measures on resolving the Crimean issue.
Dzhelyal and Bariev point to the entirely specific demands that the blockade initiators have put forward. Mustafa Dzhemiliev has made it clear that they are not against reinstating an agreement on providing electricity and some trade, but on certain conditions. Nobody has suggested sitting down and negotiating. Instead Aksyonov simply calls them terrorists and threatens some kind of asymmetrical response, and Russia is silent about the demands..
It is frustrating that the western media has largely followed suit. When they do mention the demanded release of political prisoners, they put the term in inverted commas. This could mean that they are questioning the classification, in contrast to reputable human rights organizations, including the Crimean Human Rights Group, Memorial Human Rights Centre and others. Or they simply cannot be bothered to do their homework and this is disturbing since it is not difficult to find information about the grave human rights abuses since Russia invaded and occupied Crimea.
In a recent interview, Mustafa Dzhemiliev insisted on the release of specific prisoners, mentioning imprisoned Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz; Ali Asanov and Mustafa Degermendzhy; Crimean filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko, Gennady Afanasyev, Oleksy Chirniy, Maidan activist Oleksandr Kostenko and others; the formation of a commission to investigate the disappearances and murders since Russia invaded Crimea; the removal of the bans on entering their homeland imposed on Dzhemiliev, Refat Chubarov and others and on permission for international organizations to monitor the human rights situation and “to reinstate those democratic rights which existed in Crimea under Ukrainian rule.”.
Aksyonov’s reaction has been to bluster about purging the few remaining Ukrainian media that the occupation regime did not manage to silence earlier. The occupation authorities and Russia have again claimed that Dzhemiliev is recruiting for Isis, and that all the blockade activists are ‘criminals’.
In the meantime, the Russian Supreme Court took an indecently short amount of time on Nov 24 to reject appeals against the monstrous sentences passed on Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko.
Their release has been demanded by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, etc., yet the upholding of 20-year and 10-year sentences for non-existent terrorism went largely unnoticed. So too have the retaliatory measures against Gennady Afanasyev because of his retraction of testimony against Sentsov. All three men have been recognized as political prisoners by the Memorial Human Rights Centre, targeted because of their opposition to annexation.
Memorial has also declared Oleksandr Kostenko a political prisoner, and information is easily found about the surreal trial and imprisonment of a Ukrainian Maidan activist for an unprovable offence in Kyiv before Russia’s occupation.
The same contempt for fundamental principles of jurisdiction and international law can be seen in the ongoing imprisonment of Chiygoz, Asanov and Degermendzhy, as well as armed searches, interrogations, etc. over a pre-annexation demonstration. What is more, this case is overtly targeting Crimean Tatars..
There can certainly be differing views regarding the sense, morality, etc. of the blockade and now the blackout, but surely not about the totally reasonable demands made.
If it was Ukraine’s government which failed for so long to react decisively, the international community also bears moral responsibility for basically confining themselves to stern words, with even these scarcely heard of late. Mustafa Dzhemiliev and other leaders have put forward legitimate demands which can help entirely specific victims of Russia’s occupation of Crimea. They deserve to be heard.Playing grizzled police chief Jim Hopper in Netflix’s Stranger Things turned David Harbour into a household name. Before, he was a character actor beloved of directors like David Ayer (End of Watch, Suicide Squad), Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) and Sam Mendes (Revolutionary Road). But he was front and center in the Duffer brothers’ series, as a reluctant officer of the law content to coast through life in his small town until the disappearance of a neighborhood boy forced him into action. It was a startling performance, as the dark secrets of Hopper’s life came to the fore, and it was complemented in the public consciousness by the barnstorming speech Harbour gave at the SAG Awards earlier in the year. In the midst of the Trump administration’s so-called “Muslim Ban”, Harbour took a stand: “As we act in the continuing narrative of Stranger Things, we 1983 Midwesterners will repel bullies, we will shelter freaks and outcasts, those that have no homes,” he announced.
On the set of the show’s second season, Harbour reflects on the first season’s surprising success, and hints at the challenge faced by the show’s creators in avoiding the “Sophomore Slump” for Season 2.
You’ve been around the industry for a while at this point. When Stranger Things launched on July 15th last year, were you surprised by how quick the reaction was?
I’ve never experienced anything like it in my career. I’m so close to it, I can’t tell if it’s real, but it certainly felt phenomenal. It was something that was so personal to people. There wasn’t much advertising; it was something that people discovered for themselves and told their friends about. It’s so pure, it wasn’t artificially hyped up. That was what was super gratifying; that it was grassroots. People just fell in love with it for real. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.
Netflix
Did it feel special when you first read it?
I thought it was the best pilot script I’ve ever read, and certainly the best character I’d ever been asked to play, in terms of his complexity and his depth, and the sophistication of the writing. I feel in storytelling, people are so afraid that you won’t get it unless you pound them over the head. In this show, he wakes up and you see the picture of his dead daughter, and you’d know this guy’s messed up. But in the next scene, he’s making jokes about some other guy’s wife, and you realize the sophistication of a guy who’s been through tragedy but has lived five years and has had to develop a way of living with it. Just to have it be, “We’re not going to tell you exactly who this guy is, we’re going to let him be a real human being,” was really very unique.
But when you’re shooting it, we’re all just in the trenches. I think we were just all neurotic, and we definitely went through some fearful phases. We were untested in that way. The Duffers had done one movie that was shelved by the studio, and Winona had never played a motherly figure. These kids sure hadn’t done a lot, and I’d never been a leading man in a show. We were all just trying to do our best.
I never expected the show to have the broad appeal that it has. I have kids who are 12 years old coming up to me, and also people in their 60s, telling me they love the show. I get people whose kids watched it and told their parents they had to watch it. I’ve had parents tell their kids they have to watch it. I’ve never seen a show like that.
Netflix
Your character’s journey seems particularly unlikely. When we meet him in Episode 1, we don’t have any sense that he’s on the right side, or he’s going to be able to figure this out.
You’re right. We’re making an eight-hour movie. And because of the cliffhangers, you follow the characters slowly on that journey. It’s very satisfying to play something where you’re not indicating the outcome. You really are letting the person go on the journey with you. With Hopper. I’m very interested in the drama of the leading man being someone who is incapable, becoming capable. With the superhero thing, it’s like they’re all so capable that the villainy doesn’t really mean anything. I look at older movies. Look at The Taking of Pelham 123. You have Robert Shaw, who is this badass villain, and then he’s up against the dumpy Walter Matthau. That guy is never going to take him down. So the drama of not really believing in your hero is, to me, so much more satisfying when they do actually get the guy in the end.
For Hopper, there needs to be a reawakening. He’s in this habitual pattern where nothing really matters and he can’t make a difference anyway. And what’s key is what sets him off is not the heroic journey. It’s that people start lying to him, and he doesn’t like it when people lie to him. That leads him down a path of heroism. Hopper is just a guy who doesn’t like you to fuck with him. So once that happens, he’s going to go to the end of the rope for that.
Courtesy Netflix
Having said that, he does get to become the hero by the end. What does that leave for him in the second season of the show?
I think that breath he takes where he saves the child at the end is like the first breath he’s felt in a long time. He breathes again, as Will wakes up. So you’re right, this guy’s OK.
I think the journey, then, has to be something different in Season 2. And it is very different. You get to peel the onion back more and more as the seasons go on, and learn what these people are made of. We start with a guy, in Season 2, who has been on a heroic journey. He’s had this reawakening, and he is a hero, and I think we start with the delusions of what that might bring to you, and the fantasy life that might be dangerous. What does that mean for him going forward? You’ll start to see the pitfalls of that as the season goes on. What I love about Hopper is that he’s not a cartoon. He does come up against real life.
Has the experience of making the show changed at all, now you know it’s been popular with people?
[Laughs] Yeah, the kids are on Instagram a lot more. That’s changed.
Netflix
What else?
There are a couple of things. We didn’t know what we were making. We didn’t know that it was that special. We thought it could be, but now we know that we have something special, and I think we feel an obligation for the fans. We feel an obligation to the people. I’m terrified in that way. I’m more afraid this season than I was last. I was very afraid last season, but I’m more afraid this season because we’re very aware we do not want a sophomore slump. Each scene I’m thinking a lot more specifically, and I’m thinking a lot harder. We feel the ownership of this great thing and the camaraderie, and also we feel this pressure.
It’s like, you created vanilla ice cream in the first season, and it’s so tasty, so delicious, but in the second season you can’t redo vanilla. You have to create strawberry. Some people are going to like strawberry and some people are going to like vanilla better. But you can’t try to recreate vanilla. We’re going to take a lot of risks. I think people are going to be pissed off by things. I think they are going to be elated and excited about things. It’s all further in terms of going on this journey.DOT Has a Fix for the Crummy Bike Connection Between Lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge
DOT is looking to fix the stressful connection between the Lower Manhattan street grid and the Brooklyn Bridge bike path with a short, two-way protected bike lane on Park Row [PDF].
Currently, there are no good options for cyclists. If you’re biking off the bridge, you head right into a row of police cars, press vans, and other vehicles with parking placards — they’re all stationed in what’s supposed to be a short stretch of southbound buffered bike lane on Park Row. Heading toward the bridge, cyclists are expected to go out of their way to take hectic Church Street and approach the bike path entrance through City Hall Park — many end up breaking the rules and riding against traffic on Park Row instead.
The big change in DOT’s plan is a two-way section of bike lane protected by a concrete barrier on Park Row, plus a short contraflow lane on Spruce Street. It’s not a lot of bike lane mileage, but it’s a key link in the network that will be dramatically improved:
“We know there are a lot of cyclists coming from Lower Manhattan,” said DOT Bicycle and Pedestrian Program Director Sean Quinn. “Almost half the cyclists are going the wrong way on Park Row or on the sidewalk. We knew we could capitalize on a route that |
Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash expressed his surprise and disagreement for the non-induction of Deep Purple: "The list of people who haven't even been nominated is mind-boggling... [the] big one for me is Deep Purple. How could you not induct Deep Purple?".[152][153] Metallica band members James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett have also lobbied for the band's induction.[154][155] In an interview with Rolling Stone in April 2014, Ulrich pleaded: "I'm not going to get into the politics or all that stuff, but I got two words to say: 'Deep Purple'. That's all I have to say: Deep Purple. Seriously, people, Deep Purple. Two simple words in the English language... 'Deep Purple'! Did I say that already?"[156] In 2015, Chris Jericho, WWE wrestler and current vocalist of rock band Fozzy, stated: "that Deep Purple are not in it [Hall of Fame]. It's bullshit. Obviously there's some politics against them from getting in there."[157]
"With almost no exceptions, every hard rock band in the last 40 years, including mine, traces its lineage directly back to Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. Where I grew up, and in the rest of the world outside of North America, all were equal in status, stature and influence. So in my heart – and I know I speak for many of my fellow musicians and millions of Purple fans when I confess that – I am somewhat bewildered that they are so late in getting in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame." —Excerpt from Lars Ulrich's speech, inducting Deep Purple into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.[158]
In response to these, a Hall of Fame chief executive said, "The definition of 'rock and roll' means different things to different people, but as broad as the classifications may be, they all share a common love of the music."[149] Roger Glover remained ambivalent about induction and got an inside word from the Hall, "One of the jurors said, 'You know, Deep Purple, they're just one-hit wonders.' How can you deal with that kind of Philistinism, you know?".[159] Ian Gillan also commented, "I've fought all my life against being institutionalised and I think you have to actively search these things out, in other words mingle with the right people, and we don't get invited to those kind of things."[160] On 16 October 2013 Deep Purple were again announced as nominees for inclusion to the Hall, and once again they were not inducted.[161][159]
In April 2015, Deep Purple topped the list in a Rolling Stone readers poll of acts that should be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016.[162] In October 2015, the band were nominated for induction for the third time.[163] In December 2015, the band were announced as 2016 inductees into the Hall of Fame, with the Hall stating: "Deep Purple's non-inclusion in the Hall is a gaping hole which must now be filled", adding that along with fellow inductees Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, the band make up "the Holy Trinity of hard rock and metal bands."[164] The band was officially inducted on 8 April 2016. The Hall of Fame announced that the following members were included as inductees: Ian Paice, Jon Lord, Ritchie Blackmore, Roger Glover, Ian Gillan, Rod Evans, David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes. Excluded from induction were Nick Simper, Tommy Bolin, Joe Lynn Turner, Joe Satriani, Steve Morse and Don Airey.[165]
Prior to the induction ceremony, Ian Gillan announced that he was barring Hughes, Coverdale, Evans and Blackmore from playing with them onstage, as these members are not in the current "living, breathing" version of the band.[166] Of the eight inducted members, five showed up. Blackmore didn't attend; a posting on his Facebook page claimed he was honoured by the induction and had considered attending, until he received correspondence from Bruce Payne, manager from the current touring version of Deep Purple saying, "No!"[167] In interviews at the Rock Hall, however, Gillan insisted he personally invited Blackmore to attend, but not to play onstage. Evans, who had disappeared from the music scene more than three decades prior, also didn't show, whilst because Lord had died in 2012, his wife Vickie accepted his award on his behalf. The current members of the band played "Highway Star" for the opening performance. After a brief interlude playing the Booker T. & the M.G.'s song "Green Onions" while photos of the late Jon Lord flashed on the screen behind them, the current Deep Purple members played two more songs: "Hush" and their signature tune "Smoke on the Water". Although barred from playing with Deep Purple, both David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes (as well as Roger Glover) joined fellow inductees Cheap Trick and an all-star cast to perform a cover of the Fats Domino song "Ain't That a Shame".[18]
Band members [ edit ]
Current members of Deep Purple with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in 2011
Current members
Former members
Touring members
Joe Satriani – guitar (1993–1994)
Nick Fyffe – bass guitar (2011)
Concert tours [ edit ]
Deep Purple are considered to be one of the hardest touring bands in the world.[168][169][170] From 1968 until today (with the exception of their 1976–1984 split) they continue to tour around the world. In 2007, the band received a special award for selling more than 150,000 tickets in France, with 40 dates in the country in 2007 alone.[171] Also in 2007, Deep Purple's Rapture of the Deep tour was voted number 6 concert tour of the year (in all music genres) by Planet Rock listeners.[172] The Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang tour was voted number 5 and beat Purple's tour by only 1%. Deep Purple released a new live compilation DVD box, Around the World Live, in May 2008. In February 2008, the band made their first ever appearance at the Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia[173] at the personal request of Dmitry Medvedev who at the time was considered a shoo-in for the seat of the Presidency of Russia. Prior to that, Deep Purple has toured Russia several times starting as early as 1996, but has not been considered to have played such a significant venue previously. The band was part of the entertainment for the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2009 in Liberec, Czech Republic.[174]
Deep Purple in Brazil, March 2009
Studio Albums [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ](Reuters) - Shares of Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N) fell 11.5 percent, their biggest intraday percentage drop in more than six years, after a brokerage said a class action lawsuit against the largest U.S. meat processor over industry collusion was “powerfully convincing”.
Tyson foods Inc and Hillshire Brands Jimmy Dean sausages are shown in this photo illustration in Encinitas, California May 29, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
The lawsuit filed last month alleged that Tyson colluded with Koch Foods and others in the broiler chicken business to reduce production since 2008.
Tyson Foods disputed the allegations in the complaints as well as the speculative conclusions in the report.
Shares of other chicken producers named in the lawsuit, Pilgrim’s Pride Corp (PPC.O) and Sanderson Farms Inc (SAFM.O), were also down about 4 percent in afternoon trading on Friday.
Pivotal Research Group analyst Timothy Ramey said he was not alleging that Tyson colludes on chicken pricing or production.
However, the brokerage downgraded the company’s stock to “sell” from “buy” and cut its price target to $40 from $100, saying the lawsuit would lead to intense scrutiny of the sector.
Tyson’s shares were down 9 percent at $67.71 in afternoon trading.
The company’s annual profit has grown from $86 million in 2008 to $1.22 billion last year, partly helped by its acquisition of Jimmy Dean sausage maker Hillshire Brands in 2014. The chicken business, Tyson’s second-largest by sales, accounted for 63 percent of the company’s operating income last year.
Pivotal Research is the only brokerage with a “sell” rating among the 11 brokerages covering the company. At least six brokerages rate the stock “buy” or higher and four “hold”.
“Our thesis is that the class-action suit has merit and will lead to intense scrutiny of the broiler sector,” Ramey wrote.
“We have long wondered how an industry marked by such volatility and lack of discipline could morph to a highly disciplined industry where production remains constrained and pricing remains high,” Ramey added.
Tyson Foods said it had not made any changes to its business practices in response to the complaint.CLEVELAND, Ohio - Here are step-by-step instructions for three ways to vote in Ohio.
This information was compiled by Leagues of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland, partners with the Northeast Ohio Media Group on a Voter Guide project featuring information about candidates and issues on the ballot.
Voter ID rules
Ohio accepts the following documents for voter ID purposes:
Driver's license or state ID card with voter's name and photo issued by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Must be current (not expired), but may have an old address. U.S. Military ID with voter's name and photo (address not required). A government ID with voter's name, current address, and photo. Note: a student ID is not acceptable. An original or copy of one of the following documents that shows the voter's name and current address:
Utility bill, including cell phone bill
Bank statement
Pay stub
Government check or other government document
(These documents must have a date within one year of Election Day to be accepted as current.)
If none of the above documents is available, voters may use the last 4 digits of their Social Security numbers. Voters will then be given a provisional ballot. If the Social Security number matches a voter's registration the ballot will be counted.Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair has hit back directly at Councillor Doug Ford over his accusation that the chief had a hand in leaking news that Rob Ford is about to be subpoenaed to testify in the drug and extortion trial of the mayor's former friend and driver Alessandro Lisi.
Chief Blair, who this week had his request to serve a third five-year term rejected by the Police Services Board, said the Etobicoke councillor is "lying" by suggesting the news of the subpoena was "payback" by the police force that came from the top.
"Doug Ford is lying and I am prepared to take legal action," Chief Blair said Friday through his spokesman Mark Pugash after he was shown comments made by Doug Ford.
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Councillor Ford later said he stood by his comments, saying that the chief must be held accountable for the actions of the force. "He's the head guy and anything that happens, he is responsible for," he said.
The Ford brothers' once-positive relationship with the city's top cop turned sour over the past year and a half, after police launched an investigation into the mayor after reports of a video showing him smoking what appeared to be crack cocaine. Though the mayor later admitted to having smoked crack cocaine and spent two months in a rehab facility seeking treatment for drug and alcohol abuse, both Mayor Ford and his brother have long maintained the investigation was a political attack and a waste of taxpayers' money. They've accused Chief Blair of having a conflict of interest and being biased, called for his resignation and asked for the Office of the Independent Police Review Director to investigate the chief's behaviour.
Since he returned from a stint in rehab this summer, the mayor has said he has severed ties with his former associates, including Mr. Lisi. Mr. Lisi faces drug charges and an extortion charge for allegedly attempting to retrieve a video that appeared to show the mayor smoking crack. The mayor has not been charged.
On Friday, after a report in the Toronto Star that the police are poised to subpoena the mayor to testify in the Lisi case, Councillor Ford said the leak shows the political motivation of Chief Blair and is further evidence of the need for a change in leadership at the police force.
"It's just a little way of him saying 'here you go,'" Councillor Ford said in an interview. "It's unfortunate. It's not the way any police department works in the world and it shouldn't work that way. They want to play games at the highest level in the police department.
"Rob's changed his life. I just hope the top-ranking person in the police would change his life and follow the rules," he said later. "When you tell the media there's a subpoena and don't tell anyone else? That alone says it all right there, right there. That says it all."
He also told reporters the leak was "payback," but would not elaborate.
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Mayor Ford late Friday said he had not been subpoenaed. He refused to discuss the police investigation, preferring to slam spending by Waterfront Toronto and councillors' expense accounts.
"You know what, this is not even news," the mayor told reporters outside his office. " This is not even news. It might be news to you guys. It's not news to the average taxpayer."
Mr. Ford took aim at the $337,500 price tag for sand at Sugar Beach, a $14-million Waterfront Toronto project that was largely funded by the federal government. "Spending $14-million on a friggin' beach. Seriously. On a beach. Give me a break. On a beach," Mr. Ford said.
Asked about Chief Blair's threat of legal action, the mayor responded, "I've said what I have to say." Mr. Pugash would not discuss the reports of the subpoena, saying: "We don't comment on ongoing criminal investigations."
Councillor Ford said Friday he only learned the mayor might be served through the media. The Star quoted Rob Ford's lawyer Dennis Morris saying it's not a matter of if the mayor will get notice, but when.
When contacted by The Globe and Mail Friday, Mr. Morris would not comment on whether a subpoena is coming his client's way. "If [Detective Sergeant Gary Giroux] wishes to subpoena the mayor, that will occur," he said.
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Det. Sgt. Giroux would not say if or when police will subpoena the mayor, but he confirmed Project Brazen 2 – the high-profile probe into the mayor and his associates – is still active.
He said Mr. Ford has yet to speak with police, adding "there's still an open invitation."
With files from Kat SieniucImage Credit: Jaap Buitendijk; Photodisc/Getty ImagesBecause cruise ships were an essential part of J.K. Rowling’s stories, Harry Potter fans can pretend they’re “Wizards at Sea” on an August cruise aboard Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas. You pay for your cruise, and a $250 event fee, so this sounds like a private event aboard a vessel that will also be carrying Muggles. Brilliant. Mischief Managed, a professional ensemble of look-a-likes from the Harry Potter universe, have been hired to run the festivities, which will include, according to a release: “A Sorting Ceremony, Classes in Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts, Wizards Chess, Horcrux Hunt, Yule Ball, Quidditch Lessons on board taught by Harry, Cedric and the International Quidditch Association, Quidditch Match on land, Team Trivia Contest, Wizards Wheel of Fortune, Charity Auction, Vendors Room and Photo Shoot.” Events will only take place while the ship is at sea, never during port times (except for that Quidditch match, right?), so it’s really a question of how, when you’re not exploring stops in the Western Caribbean, you want to spend your time: Enjoying what the boat has to offer, or what the IQA does.
Has anyone ever done a theme cruise? I’ve only done one fan convention, a multi-day Buffy the Vampire Slayer event the year the show went off the air, and I suppose if money wasn’t an issue, it would have been nice to do it aboard the Freedom of the Seas instead of at the Friar Tuck Inn in the Catskills.Her docket could hardly be any busier.
For Canada's first aboriginal federal Justice Minister, the task ahead is replete with the immediate – marijuana legalization, promised changes to a terrorism bill and a framework for assisted suicide – and the longer-term, including a possible rollback of the Conservative government's tough criminal laws that helped cause the indigenous population in federal jails to spike.
And if that were not enough, as Attorney-General, Jody Wilson-Raybould, 44, is tasked with advising the Prime Minister on legal issues across all of government. Which gives her influence over the reshaping of Canada's relationship with its First Nations, one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's stated priorities, on everything from land claims to education to policing.
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And that could mean a shift from the federal government's traditionally adversarial relationship on land claims and other issues, said John Borrows, the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria and a former professor of Ms. Wilson-Raybould's.
"Right now, the litigation files often pit First Nations against the federal government. It's fair to say that in most... aboriginal title and treaty cases, the federal government is arrayed against the First Nations and Métis communities. She has options … it doesn't always have to be on the oppositional side. It's consistent with the role of the minister of justice to try to facilitate reconciliation and craft litigation opinions that go toward settlement as opposed to ending up in court."
Josh Paterson, the executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and a former First Nations lawyer, called the appointment "remarkable and important. For the statement to be made that the Crown justice representative, the leading law officer the Crown has, is going to be an indigenous person – that matters in and of itself."
Ms. Wilson-Raybould is no stranger to busy dockets. As a provincial prosecutor at Vancouver's Main Street courthouse in Vancouver from 2000 to 2003, at a time when local police were still laying charges for marijuana possession, she was involved when judges regularly dismissed criminal charges because of excessive delay.
She has been immersed in aboriginal issues since childhood, as the daughter of outspoken native leader Bill Wilson – who once told Pierre Trudeau that one of his daughters would be prime minister – and granddaughter of the late aboriginal elder Ethel Pearson. "The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree – she's part of a tradition of social responsibility," said Terry La Liberté, a Vancouver criminal lawyer. She has been regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations since 2009, and before that a member of the B.C. Treaty Commission, overseeing treaty negotiations between aboriginals and the Crown.
Ms. Wilson-Raybould has been an elected councillor of the We Wai Kai Nation and lives in Cape Mudge Village on Quadra Island, according to a Liberal website. Her husband, Tim Raybould, a management consultant who has a PhD from Cambridge University in England, is Westbank First Nation's chief negotiator for self-government, and senior policy adviser to the First Nations Finance Authority.
Eric Gottardi, a Vancouver defence lawyer, said Crown attorneys and the defence bar are pleased with the appointment. "She worked in the very busiest front-line courthouse that we have in this province."
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He said he expects her to be open to a greater emphasis on rehabilitation and restorative justice, including such measures as restoring the use of house arrest after the Conservatives banned it for more than 30 criminal offences.
Under the Conservatives, dozens of laws setting out mandatory minimum sentences were among those that pushed the aboriginal inmate population to 23.2 per cent in federal jails, although aboriginals make up just four per cent of Canadians. Other laws also fell hard on aboriginals, such as a victim surcharge that the Harper government made mandatory for all convicted criminals, no matter how poor. Aboriginal Canadians who committed mostly minor offences were at the heart of test cases on the law in several provinces.
Ghislain Picard, the Quebec chief of the Assembly of First Nations, applauded the appointment. "The indication Mr. Trudeau has seen fit to nominate one of our people in a very, very high-profile portfolio certainly indicates his willingness to strengthen the relationship with our peoples."
William Trudell, the head of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, said he expects an open, consultative approach that will include police, the Crown, judges and defence lawyers, and that will "enhance justice in this country and internationally."
Mr. Paterson described Ms. Wilson-Raybould as "very smart. She listens. I think she is going to be very thoughtful about a whole range of changes made by the last government that negatively impacted people's rights."
With a report from Les PerrauxUPDATE: Based on the one time I met and interviewed Biehn, his Instagram seemed legit. But people I trust are saying it’s not. So take with a pinch of a salt.
In an online Instagram conversation with the UK’s Cult Cinema Sunday, the actor says he has a contract and that “filming starts soon, hopefully.” So one way or another, Hicks is not dead.
Given Michael Biehn’s pretty wild reputation, I’d say that Neill Blomkamp should be careful what he wishes for…though I guess once you’ve worked with Die Antwoord’s Ninja, all bets are off.
I’m hoping he’s a clone, frankly. But given that this kind of undoing of deaths is totally common in comics, a long-running movie series running with the trope shouldn’t surprise me that much.LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At a press conference today at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention, Panasonic announced a range of new 4K production products, including the AG-DVX200 4K large-sensor, 4/3” handheld camcorder; AK-UB300 4K multi-purpose camera, and the AK-UC3000 4K-ready studio system.
AG-DVX200 4K Large-Sensor Handheld Camcorder Features Top-End Performance
Offering many top-end features such 4K/60p recording, a 13X optical zoom and a V-Log L gamma curve (12 stops of latitude, target) and delivering a shallow depth of field and a wide field of view, the DVX200 is the ideal companion camera to the company’s groundbreaking VariCam 35 4K camera/recorder.
The DVX200 will be optimized for 4K/HD production and shares the esteemed VariCam family characteristics of filmic tonality and colorimetry, with natural, subtle rendering of skin flesh tones. It will offer a V-Log curve emulating the natural grey-scale rendition of the VariCam 35. The camcorder will be available in Fall 2015 with a suggested list price under $5000.
The company is previewing the AK-UB300 4K multi-purpose camera for remote studio, weather and traffic reporting, image magnification and sports implementations. The UB300 is equipped with a one-inch MOS sensor that outputs a UHD signal up to 3840x2160/59.94p, with the ability to simultaneously output HD (up to 1080/59.94p).
Also shown for the first time is the AK-UC3000 4K-ready studio system, targeted at studios and productions requiring high-end functionality at an affordable price. The UC3000 outputs a UHD signal up to 3840/2160/60p, while also delivering superior picture quality in HD. The camera’s B4 mount accommodates the gamut of existing 2/3-inch lenses to maximize customers’ return on investment in existing lenses, and allows a wider and more economical choice of glass for sports, concerts and similar applications.
At NAB, it was announced that the award winning LUMIX GH4 will have firmware update (Ver.2.2) available later this month, enabling recording anamorphic video content. Unlike complex digital post processing needed to achieve the classic Hollywood look, many effects that have became so popular with anamorphic film capture can now be achieved optically in the LUMIX GH4.
Cox and Meredith Upgrade ENG with AVC-ULTRA Camcorders
Cox Media Group (CMG) has launched a group-wide upgrade of ENG with three of Panasonic’s AVC-ULTRA camcorders, the AJ-PX5000G, AJ-PX800 and AJ-PX270. CMG’s operations encompass 14 broadcast television stations and one local cable channel: the new camcorders are being implemented on timetable extending from 1Q 2015 through 1Q 2016. Ultimately, Cox Media will standardize on AVC-LongG25 acquisition.
Meredith Corporation’s Broadcast Group has purchased 30 AJ-PX800 AVC-ULTRA shoulder-mounts for ENG operations at its Phoenix station, KTVK-TV. Panasonic P2 has long been the predominant format throughout Meredith’s 15-station Broadcast Group.
P2 Cast Cloud Service Accelerates News Editing and Pace of Stories to Air
Panasonic is introducing P2 Cast, a cloud-based news production system that leverages the network features of the AJ-PX5000G, AJ-PX800 and AJ-PX270, integrating these camcorders’ network capabilities so content uploaded to the cloud is immediately available for reviewing and editing.
Newsroom systems can automatically pull back high-resolution video for air from the camera in the field; the video can range in quality from AVC-LongG12 through AVC-Intra Class100, depending on preference and available bandwidth. P2 Cast has been tested for the past several months by major international and domestic broadcasters (including Time Warner Cable NY1 News), and is immediately available in the United States and Europe on a free trial basis through September 2015.
On a related front, Panasonic is expanding its strategic collaboration with LiveU with a free firmware upgrade for AVC-ULTRA camcorders. The upgrade enables an integrated camera and live video uplink solution leveraging the LiveU Central cloud-based management platform so that camera operators can manage a live uplink while shooting video, essential for a one-person remote crew.
New HD Studio and Field Cameras
Building on the widespread success of the AK-HC3800 studio model, the company will introduce the high resolution AK-HC5000 studio camera, capable of high-speed output up to 200fps. The camera incorporates new 2/3” 2.2M 3-CMOS sensors with high sensitivity and low noise, and is 1080/60p native, making it ideal for sports trucks, and staging/rental applications where 1080i/720p operations must be native and clean.
Panasonic is premiering the AJ-PX380 1/3-inch AVC-ULTRA shoulder-mount camcorder with comprehensive networking capabilities and dual-codec recording, making it an optimal tool for fast-moving ENG operations. The PX380 joins the latest series of Panasonic’s AVC-ULTRA camcorders with built-in wireless/wired streaming capabilities, and will be available in September 2015 with a suggested list price under $12,000, including supplied lens and viewfinder.
Panasonic is debuting the A1, its latest wearable POV Action-cam, weighing a mere 1.6 ounces. The camera’s rugged structure keeps water and dust out, making it an ideal choice for any adventure thanks to its high durability. The A1 also shoots in total darkness with an IR light source.
Toughpad and Toughbook Enterprise-Grade Mobile Computers
Panasonic will showcase the latest Toughpad and Toughbook enterprise-grade mobile computers, offering power, connectivity and long-term reliability for professional video applications. This includes the next generation of the Toughpad 4K, the world’s first 20-inch tablet with a 4K resolution display. Now featuring a 5th Generation Intel® Core™ i5 vPro™ processor, as well as HDMI 2.0 input – and priced within reach of a greater range of businesses – the updated Toughpad 4K standard edition will be available in July 2015. Panasonic will also showcase the recently launched Toughbook 54, the thinnest and lightest 14" semi-rugged Windows notebook in its class. Available with an Intel® Core™ i7 processor, AMD FirePro™ M5100 discrete graphics, and a 1080p Full HD display, the Toughbook 54 features a full magnesium alloy drop-resistant design with built-in handle and spill-resistant keyboard.
Leading AV Technologies
NAB is likewise a showcase for Panasonic’s leading AV Technologies solutions, including the new PT-RZ12KU 12,000 lumens WUXGA laser projector, which boasts 120 Hz frame-replacement technologies and is compatible with high frame rate contents, reducing blur from motion and featuring a contrast ratio of 20,000:1. The new PT-DZ780 Series projector will also be on display, where attendees can take note of its extremely quiet fan and outstanding color reproduction. The booth will also highlight Panasonic’s 4K LED backlit LCD displays (including the 98” TH-98LQ70 and 84” TH-84LQ70) in addition that a video wall that leverages an ultra-narrow 0.14” (3.5mm) bezel and 700cd/m² brightness through the 55” TH-55LFV70. The LED Video Wall Display creates nearly seamless, vivid images across multiple displays for broadcast studio application.
For additional Panasonic NAB news, visit us.panasonic.com/nabpress. For more information about Panasonic professional video products, visit www.panasonic.com/broadcast or contact Panasonic at 877-803-8492.
Panasonic Solutions for Business
Panasonic delivers reliable business technology solutions that connect data with decision makers to drive better outcomes—for our customers and our customers’ customers. Panasonic engineers reliable products and solutions that help to create, capture and deliver data of all types, where, when and how it is needed. The complete suite of Panasonic professional solutions for government and commercial enterprises of all sizes addresses unified business communications, mobile computing, security and surveillance, retail point-of-sale, office productivity, visual communications (projectors, displays, digital signage) and HD video production. Panasonic solutions for business are delivered by Panasonic System Communications Company of North America, Division of Panasonic Corporation of North America, the principal North American subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation.
All brand and company/product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective companies. All specifications are subject to change without notice. Information on Panasonic solutions for business can be obtained by calling 877-803-8492 or at us.panasonic.com/business-solutions.
About Panasonic Corporation of North America
Panasonic Corporation of North America provides a broad line of digital and other electronics products and solutions for consumer, business and industrial use. The company is the principal North American subsidiary of Osaka, Japan-based Panasonic Corporation and the hub of Panasonic’s U.S. branding, marketing, sales, service and R&D operations. In Interbrand’s 2014 annual “Best Global Green Brands” report, Panasonic ranked number five overall and the top electronics brand in the report. As part of continuing sustainability efforts, Panasonic Corporation of North America relocated its headquarters to a new facility, adjacent to Newark Penn Station in Newark, NJ. It is the first newly constructed office tower in Newark to earn both LEED Platinum and Gold certifications from the U.S. Green Building Council.
Learn more about Panasonic at panasonic.com/pressroom.Sen. Marco Rubio, a likely Republican presidential contender in 2016, introduced legislation Thursday to roll back restrictive gun laws in the District of Columbia, arguing that congressional intervention is needed to “correct” laws that violate the Second Amendment.
Courting the guns right lobby, Mr. Rubio attacked the city’s long history of upholding prohibitions that have prevented law-abiding citizens from owning and carrying firearms.
“For years, the District of Columbia has infringed on its residents’ Second Amendment rights and rendered them vulnerable to criminals who could care less what the gun laws are,” the Florida Republican said in a statement. “This legislation will finally allow D.C.’s law-abiding residents and visitors access to firearms for sporting or lawful defense of themselves and their homes, businesses and families.”
Mr. Rubio’s “Second Amendment Enforcement Act of 2015” would make it easier for D.C. residents to purchase firearms and carry them in public by gutting the city’s gun laws and blocking the D.C. Council from enacting gun control measures. Among its changes, it would eliminate D.C. gun registration requirements, overturn the city’s ban on semi-automatic firearms and create a “shall issue” permitting system for concealed carry licenses.
Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, introduced similar legislation in the House on Thursday.
D.C. officials generally criticized the legislation as a dangerous attack on public safety laws.
“This proposal is reckless and disregards our country’s national security,” said D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, a Democrat. “All that would remain to protect the public leaders and citizens from gun violence is federal law, and federal law has proven to be inadequate.”
Gun rights activists welcomed the proposals.
“It can’t hurt to introduce a bill like this because it will at least open up a debate about how restrictive the nation’s capital can be,” said Dave Workman, an editor at a magazine run by the gun rights group the Second Amendment Foundation.
The gun rights proposal marks the second time in a week that D.C. laws have come under attack by a congressman with presidential aspirations. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who announced his White House bid Monday, introduced a measure last week that would overturn two recently approved anti-discrimination laws that he said would undermine religious freedom in the nation’s capital.
Though both Republican-controlled houses of Congress could pass the gun rights legislation, it would provoke a confrontation with the White House, where President Obama has sought to impose stricter gun control legislation nationwide and has voiced support for D.C. autonomy.
‘Right to keep and bear arms’
The District had a near total ban on gun ownership up until its laws were struck down by the Supreme Court in 2008. Since then, the city continued to uphold restrictive gun laws that allowed residents to possess firearms only in their homes.
The city’s gun laws took another hit when a federal judge ruled that the District’s ban on the concealed carry of firearms is also unconstitutional. D.C. lawmakers passed legislation to comply with the federal ruling last year that allows gun owners to get concealed carry permits only if they demonstrate a “good reason” to carry a concealed weapon in public.
Lawsuits from gun owners who deem the restrictions unconstitutional are pending in court.
The proposed legislation cites the District as “one of the most dangerous large cities in the United States,” despite a homicide count that has dropped from more than 400 killings in 1994 to 105 in 2014. Mr. Rubio said the legislation was needed to give D.C. residents a way to protect themselves.
“Federal courts have repeatedly found provisions of the gun control laws of the District of Columbia to be unconstitutional,” the proposed legislation states. “Despite these reproofs, District officials have repeatedly and publicly asserted their determination to continue passing laws aimed at curbing the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms by law-abiding residents and visitors.”
The proposal rankled D.C. representatives, who accused Mr. Rubio of political grandstanding.
“It should shock no one that Sen. Rubio, who is widely expected to soon announce a run for president, would try to raise his national profile and conservative bona fides, but they should be shocked to hear that he would try to use our local jurisdiction and laws to violate his own support for the principle of local control,” said Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat and the District’s nonvoting representative in Congress.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat who has made efforts to meet with federal lawmakers on D.C. issues in the past, will continue to reach out to committees with oversight of city affairs to make her opposition to the legislation known, said spokesman Mike Czin.
“We just ask folks to respect the democratic legislative process that we have in the District,” Mr. Czin said. “This is really just about presidential politics. It feels more like they are paying attention to us like we are Iowa and New Hampshire.”
Despite the sudden interest in local laws from contenders as they gear up for presidential bids, officials from D.C. Vote, a group that lobbies for D.C. voting rights, say the attacks are nothing new.
“It’s been just as vicious as past years,” said D.C. Vote Executive Director Kimberly Perry. “It’s difficult to imagine anything more frightening for any local jurisdictions than to be governed by Congress.”
Still, gun rights activists say the move by federal lawmakers could be the only option outside of the courts to force D.C. legislators to loosen gun laws.
Based in Bellevue, Washington, the Second Amendment Foundation was involved in the successful challenge of the city’s ban of concealed carry.
“The District government has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to even this point, and they’ve made the requirements as prohibitive as possible,” said Mr. Workman of the Second Amendment Foundation. “I think what they’re saying with the legislation is telling the city to knock it off.”
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.On Location Location scouts upset again over green bike lane in downtown L.A.
Their concern: The bright color would be a distraction to viewers, doesn't belong in period movies and makes it harder for L.A. to do what it does best: play other cities.
But the bike path still rankles location scouts and filmmakers, who see it as another hurdle to filming in Los Angeles.
City officials painted a 1.5-mile strip of Spring Street neon green in 2011 for a bike lane as part of larger effort pushed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to make streets safer and more inviting to cyclists.
Location scouts are once again red-faced over the bright green bicycle lane in downtown Los Angeles.
"As we all know, unlike other major cities, our downtown footprint is very small and limited and we've used this stretch for [an] 'anywhere in the world' big city for years and it is vital to us for many projects, " Ed Duffy, business agent for Teamsters Local 399, which represents location managers, wrote in a recent email to members.
After weeks of negotiations, the mayor's office assured location managers last year that the city would let the stretch of Springs Street between 3rd and 9th fade away, Duffy said.
Now, he said |
it’s a crossover outfit for a game like Dead Rising or an inclusion of the tried-and-true Konami Code, there are many ways for a game to host secrets for only its most dedicated fans to find.
The Evil Within 2 does just that, paying homage to many of its publisher Bethesda’s finest franchises through several Easter eggs that are sure to challenge the completionist in you. Though the game has yet to arrive, we’ve had some time to sit down and sift through its various chapters.
In each chapter of the semi-open world horror game, The Evil Within 2 includes several collectibles for you to collect such as the obligatory files and memories that provide more insight into the lore and backstory. Besides those, however, are eight “mysterious objects” that you can collect.
These mysterious objects are essentially Easter eggs that are spread throughout The Evil Within 2, each paying homage to several of Bethesda’s other core franchises. Because there’s only being eight of them in total, it can be a significant challenge attempting to find all of them.
Each Easter egg has a short description that alludes to its origins and can be displayed in your safe room. This allows you to go and look back at them anytime you want like a museum of sorts. Below, you’ll find all eight franchises that are represented in these Easter eggs.
Of course, this means slight spoilers for some of the secrets hidden in The Evil Within 2, so continue reading at your own discretion. We won’t spoil what all of the items are, but you will find mysterious objects from these various Bethesda titles:A series of emails between American diplomats in Pakistan and Washington over drone strikes are the focus of the criminal probe involving presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information, according to a report Thursday by The Wall Street Journal.
The emails in 2011 and 2012 were sent through a "computer system for unclassified matters" that gave the State Department input into whether a Central Intelligence Agency drone strike went forward, congressional and law enforcement officials briefed on the FBI probe told the Journal.
Some of those emails were then sent by then-Secretary of State Clinton's aides to her personal email account and private server, officials told the Journal.
The vaguely worded messages, however, didn’t mention the “CIA,” “drones” or details about the targets, the Journal reported.
The emails were written within the often-narrow time frame in which State Department officials had to decide whether or not to object to drone strikes before the CIA pulled the trigger, officials told the newspaper. The still-secret emails are still a part of the ongoing FBI investigation.
In January, the intelligence community deemed some of Clinton’s emails “too damaging" to national security to release under any circumstances, a U.S. government official close to the ongoing review told Fox News. A second source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, backed up the finding.
The determination was first reported by Fox News, before the State Department formally announced that seven email chains, found in 22 documents, will be withheld “in full” because they, in fact, contain “Top Secret” information.
Law-enforcement and intelligence officials told the Wall Street Journal that State Department deliberations about the covert CIA drone program should have been conducted over a more secure government computer system designed to handle classified information.
State Department officials told FBI investigators they communicated via the less-secure system on a few instances, sources told the Wall Street Journal, which happened when decisions about imminent strikes had to be relayed fast and the U.S. diplomats in Pakistan or Washington didn’t have ready access to a more-secure system, either because it was night or they were traveling.
Emails sent over the unclassified computer system sometimes were informal discussions that occurred in addition to more-formal notifications through secure communications, the officials said.
One exchange reported by the Journal came before Christmas in 2011 when the U.S. ambassador sent a note about a planned strike that sparked an email chain between Clinton's senior advisers. Officials said the exchange was clear those involved in the email were having discussions because they were away from their officials and didn't have access to a classified computer.
Click for more from The Wall Street Journal.Donald Trump suddenly lashed out at the influence of foreign lobbyists on Monday, calling to ban them from donating to U.S. candidates and accusing his rival of being corrupted by foreign interests. “The reason Hillary Clinton pushes for NAFTA, or the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and for completely open borders, is because her international donors control her every move,” Trump said, announcing what he called his ethics reform plan.
But newly filed campaign reports show several donations from foreign lobbyists to his own campaign. They are among a tide of other lobbyists, mainstream special-interest groups and consumer-facing companies that have begun to heavily fund Trump’s political campaign, which was previously fueled by small donors.
Marc Lampkin, a lobbyist who appeared at a campaign meeting in September at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., is a registered lobbyist for the Saudi Arabian government, as well as for number of U.S. companies including Johnson & Johnson, McDonalds, Comcast, and Pfizer. Lampkin, a former aide to Rep. John Boehner, gave the Trump joint fundraising committee $2,700.
David Tamasi, the D.C. chairman of the Trump Victory committee, is a registered agent of André Okombi Salissa, a leading politician from the ruling party in the Republic of Congo. Tamasi has organized fundraising efforts on Trump’s behalf and donated to the campaign.
Several officials from the lobbying firm BGR Group have donated to Trump. Two of them, founder Lanny Griffith and general counsel Dan Murphy, were spotted chatting about campaign strategy with Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. The firm represents a variety of foreign interests, such as the the embassy of Korea, embassy of Bangladesh, and the Center of Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court.
Bob Livingston, the former House Republican lawmaker turned lobbyist, was an early supporter of Trump’s campaign. Livingston’s registration forms at the Department of Justice, which monitors foreign lobbying, shows that he represents the Central Bank of Curacao and St. Maarten.
The latest quarterly disclosure for the Trump-Republican National Committee joint fundraising committee revealed contributions from other lobbyists as well. Charles Black, a former government official who helped rally support for NAFTA, later became a lobbyist for a number of foreign and domestic clients, and now represents Alphabet, the parent company of Google, recently became a Trump donor. Van Hipp Jr., the owner of American Defense International — a lobbying firm that specializes in representing weapons makers, including L-3 Communications, Northrop Grumman, and drone manufacturer General Atomics — gave $50,000, making him one of Trump’s largest K Street contributors.
Other lobbyists who now count themselves as Trump donors include Tim Costa, Daniel Crowley, Jose Fuentes, Steven Hart, and Kenneth Kies.
The latest filing for the Trump joint fundraising committee also reveals that several mainstream corporate firms are now explicitly supporting the Republican ticket. AFLAC, Reynolds America, Independence Blue Cross, and Continental Resources, the natural gas drilling giant, transferred cash to the Trump Victory using company political action committees. Murray Energy Corporation, the privately held coal mining company, gave $100,000 to Trump Victory, the largest donation from a corporate PAC. As we reported in August, the Geo Group, one of the largest private prison companies in the world, began backing both the Trump campaign and a Trump-supporting Super PAC.
Lobbyists do more than just donate to the Trump campaign. Trump’s transition effort is led by lobbyists, meaning lobbyists would play a role in helping to select the personnel and cabinet members of Trump’s administration, if it comes to that. Richard Hohlt, a lobbyist for Chevron, and pharmaceutical lobbyist Rich Bagger are leading that effort.It has come to light that the pilot episode for the up-coming Walking Dead spin-off (code named Cobalt) has been leaked, parts of which were published by Bleeding Cool. What they got their hands on was a hard copy of the script (or portion thereof), and knowing that other copies could easily pop up elsewhere, they scanned portions of it, and paraphrased the rest to get it online as quickly as possible.
The authenticity of the script has not been completely corroborated, but Bleeding Cool has been contacted by the lawfirm David K. Caplan of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP, with this notice:
Notwithstanding this, it has come to our attention that unauthorized excerpts from the unreleased Pilot script, as well as unreleased plot elements from the Pilot, are being distributed without authorization via your website…
Bleeding Cool removed the scanned images of excerpts from pages of the script, but replaced them with descriptions of what those scanned images showed.
After the following photo, we will be showing some of the scanned images (recovered from other sites) as well as an overview of the script excerpts. Consider this a SPOILER alert.
International Business Times reported that an AMC rep confirmed that the rumours of the show being called Fear the Walking Dead were true. This seems to be confirmed by the title on the script, as seen below:
Of course, this could also be the name of the pilot episode.
The show begins pre-walkers, at least not known by the population at large.
The pilot gives you a swerve, but the infection has not taken hold yet. The ‘walkers’ are not yet known to the population at large.
SCENE: Ian sees a friend being eaten by a friend.
We meet a dysfunctional family, headed by a mother and father (Madison and Travis), both teachers, their grown-up children Ian and Alicia, Travis’ ex Liza and their son Christopher. Unlike Rick’s family (from The Walking Dead), who are torn apart by the apocalypse, this family is tearing itself apart.
SCENE: CDC Virologist dispels rumours of the walking dead.
“Because the dead are coming, An urban legend, underground, being spread from person to person. It plays up the fact that we, the audience, know far more about what’s going on than anything else does and keeps teasing us toward the inevitable, in much the same way that Gotham does, but in the knowledge that it’s going to be over far sooner.”
Excerpt:
They circle an iPad. Footage from last night’s ‘accident’–
View from the NEWS HELICOPTER hovering over the scene. LAPD Cruiser and AMBULANCE below, LIGHTS PULSING. PARAMEDICS working an OVERTURNED CAR.
Costa
This is unreal, UN-real.
The footage is wide and high and fragmented. PARAMEDICS lay a SPINE-BOARD next to the car, driver’s side door ajar. They reach in, cut the seat belt to remove the crash VICTIM–
Costa (CONT’D)
…now watch this, watch it…
–as the Paramedics lean in, the Victim lunges. We can’t see the BITE or hear the SCREAMS–When someone asks me what are some of the best things that I have done in my life, I name only two things – becoming a vegetarian and starting my own blog. There are probably many others as well that I could come up with, but these are the two things that always instantly pop up into my mind. And because I have already written once about my experience of becoming a vegetarian here, in this post I would like to talk about how to start a blog that you would be passionate about, and why it’s one of the best things that I have ever done in my life.
How to start a blog
Interest in writing
During my school years, I remember thinking about how someday I would want to write my own book, where I would be able to share some of my most interesting ideas and thoughts with others. I knew it wasn’t something I could do at that moment, simply because I was too young. I didn’t have the necessary life experience, nor I could write like a poet. But as I got older and spent more time reading different material on the internet, I understood a couple of very important things. The first thing that became clear to me was that you don’t need to be a certain age to write a good book. There are so many young authors that write amazing things and at the same time, there are so many older authors that write junk. It really isn’t about how old one is, but rather the skills and the passion that one has for the subject.
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The other thing that became clear to me was that I don’t necessarily need to even write a book to share my experience with others. At that moment I have already stumbled upon many different blogs that were extremely well written and interesting. Not only the content was great, but also the way websites were designed and the atmosphere that I felt when visiting these blogs. I remember returning to these blogs day after day to get more of the content.
The internet has opened many doors to us. One great opportunity that we all now have is the ability to write and share our thoughts with the world regardless of whether we are a professional writer or not. Today we don’t need to have a signed contract with a publisher in order to get our emotions and ideas out there. We have the freedom to write about the things we love, and we don’t need anyone’s help to do it.
Choosing the niche
I know that some people go into blogging only to make money. Yes, making money as a blogger is possible, but that should definitely not be your main motivation. The reason for that is because any blog will require a lot of time to build it up. You will need to attract your audience, and in order to do so, you constantly need to create new content of good quality. You need to write things that others are going to enjoy reading about. And if your only motivation to start a blog is to make money, then you can forget about it. You are not going to be able to continuously write epic content if you are not interested in what you do. Would you be able to write a book on something you don’t care about? Of course not! It’s no different with a blog.
Unfortunately, so many people don’t understand this. They get into blogging, thinking they are going to make money fast, and when they fail to see the results in a month or two, they ditch the “business”.
When I decided that I want to start a blog, I had no doubts what I am going to write about. My niche became self-development. I know the niche is not very concrete, but that’s what really interests me. It’s not something I choose to like – it’s something that’s become a part of me.
The reason why self-development became my niche is because of the lifestyle that I am living. For very many years I was doing things that were taking me nowhere. I was wasting time, “having fun” and destroying myself. I was literally going into depression, and I knew that I needed to change my path as soon as possible. Luckily, I was able to “wake up” and radically shift the way in which I view the world.
My personal transformation has allowed me to live a happy life, and to not regret each day that passes by. I changed myself and I knew I wanted to help others do the same. By writing about things that have helped me make that transformation, I could motivate others to do the same. Making self-development my niche really was a no-brainer.
How to start a blog – WordPress, hosting, domain
If you are thinking of how to start a blog, the easiest way to begin is to use WordPress. WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems out there to hold your blog. There are thousands of free and paid themes (such as Elegant Themes, Thrive Themes or Theme Isle) that you can use, as well as thousands of plugins that create all kinds of functionalities for your website. What this means is that as long as you have a domain name (such as www.example.xyz) and a hosting to hold your blog on the internet, you can have your blog up and running without any additional costs in a matter of minutes. All you have to do is create content and share it with others.
One thing to keep in mind is that there are two different websites – www.wordpress.com and www.wordpress.org. WordPress.org can be disregarded for now. WordPress.com is a hosting service that will hold your WordPress blog for you. You can have your blog set up through the wordpress.com by choosing one of their payment plans. Currently they offer 0$/month, 2,99$/month, 8,25$/month and 24,92$/month.
If you are just starting out and want to see how WordPress works, using the free plan would be the right way to go. However, your website address would then look like this: http://example.wordpress.com. In the long run, you never want your own blog to have that WordPress word in the domain name, as that takes away the credibility and feeling that your website is actually a serious blog.
Therefore, if you know that your blog is something you are going to be passionate about and something that you will continuously work on, I would recommend to get a real hosting and your own private domain name right from the beginning.
For my blog I use Bluehost, and that is what I would recommend to you as well. They have cheap pricing plans, they always respond to questions and help you solve them. I have many times needed to contact them when I had a problem, and they were always there to help. Also, they support WordPress, which means that you can set up your blog with a click of a mouse. Since I worked as a WordPress developer, I don’t really need it to be that simple, but for people that don’t know how to code or are not very technical, this can be extremely useful.
Finally, as I already mentioned, you will need your own domain name. Usually, this is purchased separately and can be challenging for a beginner to set up with your blog, but with Bluehost, they offer you a free domain name when you sign up for their hosting. That also makes things easier and it’s how I got started.
How to start a blog – how it has changed me.
Creating my own blog and putting up content that I genuinely care about has done quite a few things for me. To begin with, it has helped me improve my writing and the ability to put thoughts into real sentences. Getting my thoughts across to other people has always been difficult, but now that I have been constantly working on it, it has become significantly easier. Being able to express your thoughts in a way that others can understand it is a very valuable skill to have, especially in the professional world. What good is your knowledge if you cannot share it with anyone?
Also, having a blog does what its purpose originally was, which is to help others. Whenever someone feels that they have received something of value from you, they thank you for it, and that’s truly wonderful. When people tell you that they enjoy your content, it means that you are on the right path.
Finally, the most important thing that having a blog has given to me, which I didn’t expect, is accountability.
What this means in practice is that by writing about something that has helped me develop myself, I become more aware of it and keep improving myself in it. When I write about some topic, I often need to research the idea a bit to make sure that the information that I am presenting is true and valid. By creating that research and by spending time to write each post, I become more accountable for the things I discuss.
For example, I wrote a blog post on how to stop worrying and being anxious all the time. I wrote about it because throughout most of my life I have been quite anxious, but I learned a few tricks along the way that have helped me battle that problem. However, after I wrote that blog post, I became more aware of the solutions that have helped me reduce anxiety, and since then been able to lessen anxiety to a greater extent. And these types of things happen almost after each blog post that I write. By discussing motivation, I become more motivated, and by discussing positive thinking, I become happier.
No matter what niche you choose, if you are passionate about it, you will improve yourself in that area as time goes on. As you keep writing, you will acquire new knowledge and you will be able to share more of it with others. Diets, dog training, basketball or dancing – absolutely any topic can become the theme of your blog.
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If you are afraid that you don’t know how to start a blog, don’t worry about it. Take baby steps. You don’t need to run up the whole stairs at once. Start with getting a hosting and a domain, get a free theme for WordPress and start putting out content. That is all you need to worry about in the beginning. As you become accustomed to having a blog, you can do further research. You can either watch free tutorials on YouTube, or ask someone more experienced to help you promoting your site. There really isn’t much to knowing how to start a blog. All you have to do is begin, and the rest will follow. In other words, take action! 🙂
If you have any questions related to blogging, feel free to post them in the comment section below. I will answer them to the best of my ability.
Thank you for being with us!
NOTE: some of the links on this page are affiliate links and will earn G.E.D ground a small commission if you sign up to the services. This adds absolutely no cost to you, but helps me earn a little something for the time and effort that I put into this blog. It’s also worth mentioning that almost all resources mentioned on this page are resources that I’m signed up, paid for and/or a regular user of. Thank you for your understanding.
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How to Start a Blog and Why It’s One of the Best Things That I Have Ever Done 5 (100%) 1 vote (100%)voteNEW YORK (TheStreet) -- What's the biggest complaint of cable and satellite customers?
I have to pay all of this money for a whole bunch of channels I don't even watch.
That era's about to come to an end after approval of the Time Warner Cable (TWC)/Comcast (CMCSA) deal.
The combined company has unprecedented leverage over cable networks.
If you're Time Warner's (TWX) Home Box Office (HBO) or Disney's (DIS) ESPN you have very little, if anything, to worry about.
That's because not only do subscribers want your programming, there would be massive cries of outrage if it was taken away or somehow messed with. The deals between these desirable networks consumers don't mind paying for and TWC/CMCSA will roll on unfettered.
However, if you're a network riding piggy back on your conglomerate's premier networks... if you're a network subscribers subscribe to only because it comes as part of their bloated package, you're screwed.
Expect what DIRECTV (DTV) did to The Weather Channel to happen 100 times over.
Consider CNN.
At this point, it has some life left. However, if it becomes much more irrelevant than it is now, it's parent company, Time Warner, loses all leverage when it negotiates with the TWC/CMCSA behemoth. It could end up The Weather Channel of news.
DIRECTV dropped The Weather Channel and nobody blinked an eye. That's because the notion of a 24-hour weather channel, without any other compelling content (though they tried to add some), has become obsolete. You pull out your phone, tap the screen and, within five seconds, you have all the weather information you could possibly need. Even in severe weather situations.
And, really, why should a cable or satellite provider waste time and resources on rebroadcasting what amounts to a useless signal?
In an age where we can access an unprecedented amount of news the same way we do weather, cable news networks must differentiate themselves in one way or another or they risk going the way of The Weather Channel.
Say what you want about the bi-partisan hackery of Twenty-First Century Fox's (FOX) Fox News or NBCUniversal's MSNBC, but they, along with, say, Viacom's (VIAB) Comedy Central, have carved out niches for themselves in the infotainment space.
If one or the other went away, there'd be outrage.What’s public for me is private for thee. At least that’s what Monroe County, N.Y. believes when it comes to where you drive your car.
Monroe police have been using high-speed cameras to capture license plates in order to log vehicle whereabouts. As of July, the County’s database contained 3.7 million records, with the capability to add thousands more each day. The justification for cops having records of the whereabouts of law-abiding citizens is that the vehicles are driven in public and therefore drivers have no expectation of privacy. It’s an argument that’s at odds with the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in U.S. v. Jones. In Jones, a GPS tracking case, the court held that individuals do have an expectation of privacy when it comes to their long-term whereabouts, even when using public roads.
If cops are determined to violate this privacy, then at least they could behave more consistently. Last summer, Rochester, N.Y.’s Democrat & Chronicle filed a state open records request — more commonly called a FOIL (for Freedom Of Information Law) — for information on seven of its reporter’s license plates as well as two city and county government vehicles. After all, if such information is public when collected, why would it change merely because it’s sitting in a database?
Yet, the request was denied on the basis that releasing the data could be an invasion of personal privacy or could interfere with a law enforcement investigation. I’m skeptical of these arguments for a couple reasons. First, the reporters consented for the information to be released and the government cars belong to the public, so there is no privacy interest here. Second, the cameras are unrelated to any particular investigation. While it’s certainly possible to imagine a scenario where a criminal plots his entire movements to avoid the cameras, it feels a bit outlandish and it’s hard to see how that meaningfully compromises the cops’ ability to catch crooks.
The newspaper is now asking a judge to overrule the County and release the records. Ultimately, if police are going to possess such technology, they are going to have to meaningfully engage the public to find ways to adequately preserve privacy. Until they do so, what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander.
Photo: Oli Scarff/GettyNote: I generally blog about subjects I don’t deal with in my day to day life at work. However, the article below mentions some work I have done at Capitaine Train. As a consequence, I think a disclaimer is needed here: I work for Capitaine Train, but the opinions expressed on my blog or anywhere else (Twitter, Google+, etc.), are my own, and have nothing to do with my employer.
In the past few months, I have been working on developing an Android application from the ground up. This app named after the name of the company, Capitaine Train, can be downloaded on the Google Play Store. Capitaine Train - which can literally be translated as “Captain Train” in English - is a 3-year-old startup born from a simple truth: getting train tickets in Europe was a pain in the ass. We, at Capitaine Train, aim to revolutionize the way people travel all around Europe by simplifying the overall train experience. The release of the Android application clearly represented an important step forward in this direction.
Trying to revolutionize the train experience in Europe is not easy. It requires us to achieve a tremendous amount of work: getting to know the various carriers, learning about the document/reservation requirements for each of them, integrating their price/time tables, binding our servers to their systems, etc. From a user point of view all of this is the hidden, but vital, part of the iceberg. Indeed, a travel need or desire starts from a simple search request: From where? To where? When? Who? Although these questions are simple, the search step is extremely important in the booking process. This is where the trip actually begins after all! We designed the Android app keeping this essential idea in mind by simplifying every bit of the process. In this article, I would like to tell you the story behind the implementation of the search experience in the Android app and how we used animations to enrich the user experience.
From web to mobile
When I arrived at Capitaine Train to work on the Android application, I started looking at all of the current ongoing UI-based projects. Some, such as the iOS app, were private but shaping up rapidly. Some others, the web app for instance, were already public and rather well appreciated from our users. My main job, at that time, was to imagine an Android application that could make users feel they were using the best Android app out there to book train ticket. The app had to reflect both the Capitaine Train essence and the Android look ‘n feel. Because the web app was the only public app at this time, I obviously based most of my drafts on top of it. Here is what the search form looks like on capitainetrain.com1:
Play mp4
While the two-panes (search form + options) design works perfectly on desktop we rapidly faced an issue on mobile: we did not have enough space to put both the form and the options panes on the same screen. Because mobile screens are small, we had no other choice than falling-back to a master/detail pattern of some kind. Two well-known and simple options were available to us: the master/detail pattern and the edition dialogs pattern. But we were not satisfied by these patterns. Indeed, dialogs completely breaks the user flow and would have been extremely annoying when filling at least 4 fields in the form (i.e. 4 dialogs). On the other end, opening a fullscreen “option” Activity for each field edition would have lost the user in an extremely complex screen hierarchy and app structure. I seriously thought none of these patterns were effective nor a good fit for the Capitaine Train Android app.
We definitely wanted to replicate the simplicity and obviousness of the desktop search so we finally ended up with a nice approach. Rather than opening a modal screen for each edited form fields, we managed to merge the form pane and the options pane into a single screen. By default, the application displays a search form with all of the available fields. Tapping on a field switches the screen to an “edit mode” where the edited field is visible on top and the rest of the form disappears to reveal the options available on the field. The video below shows an entire search flow use case:
Play mp4
The user flow demonstrated above works very nicely because of the transitions we designed. Indeed, none of this would have been usable without them2. Adding transitions into your application is the best way to enrich user experience by making your users understand the consequences of their actions. As Newton said, to every action there is a reaction: transitions explain what is between two UI states. They also reduce the impression of “stacking screens” when navigating from one screen to another. It makes the user feel the application is made of a single screen where UI elements animate to show and/or dismiss some parts of the app. In other words, transitions break barriers and transform app navigation into a natural flow.
Splitting the transition apart
Transitions are generally quick and barely noticeable. In order to better understand, create and/or reverse-engineer them it is interesting to consider slowing them down. In case you are in control of the application’s code, you can obviously switch all animation durations to some greater values. If you’re not, you can screencast the application and watch the resulting video frame by frame or in slow motion. Fortunately, Android comes with another extremely useful technique: a developer option called “Animator duration scale”. As its name states, this options scales all animation durations system-wide with the chosen scale.
In order to better understand what is happening when transitioning between the search form and the date/time edition mode, let’s use the aforementioned technique. The screencast below shows what the transition looks like at a 10x scale:
Play mp4
Looking at the slowed down video, we can look at the edition mode transition in details. More specifically, you may have noticed the final transition is actually divided into several sub-animations that are played in parallel with the exact same timing properties (duration, interpolator, etc.):
The focus animation consists of translating towards the top the edited field (i.e. the one the user tapped on) and all fields on top of it. The translation distance is the difference between the focused field’s top and the container’s top. Translating the focused field using this distance results in having the focused field stick to the ActionBar’s bottom.
animation consists of translating towards the top the edited field (i.e. the one the user tapped on) and all fields on top of it. The translation distance is the difference between the focused field’s top and the container’s top. Translating the focused field using this distance results in having the focused field stick to the ActionBar’s bottom. The fadeOutToBottom animation consists of dismissing all fields below the “focused field” to the bottom while fading them out away at the same time. The main purpose of this animation is to demonstrate the dismissed fields are not useful in the edition mode we are entering in.
animation consists of dismissing all fields below the “focused field” to the bottom while fading them out away at the same time. The main purpose of this animation is to demonstrate the dismissed fields are not useful in the edition mode we are entering in. The slideInToTop animation translates the options/edition panel in. It reveals the edition panel by translating it into the screen and fading it in at the same time.
animation translates the options/edition panel in. It reveals the edition panel by translating it into the screen and fading it in at the same time. The stickTo animation is optional and depends on the edited field. Because the “From/To” and “Depart/Return” are grouped, focusing on “From” or “Depart” requires hiding/overlaying the “To”/“Return” counter parts with a gray band. stickTo is just a y-axis-based translation of the gray band so that its top sticks to the focused field bottom.
The previously described sub-animations composed together creates the search form to edition mode transition. The counter part transition (i.e edition mode to search form) is not described here as it mainly consists on reversing the animations: unfocus, fadeInToTop, slideOutToBottom and unstickFrom.
Back to the code
Prior deep diving into the implementation details, it is important to point out Capitaine Train Android is compatible with Android 4.0+. I personally choose this minimum requirement in order to have full access to the ActionBar features as well as the new property-based animation framework. I obviously could have chosen to target a lower API level but this would have implied multiple code paths (ActionBarCompat VS built-in ActionBar) and the use of support libraries (ActionBarCompat, NineOldAndroids, etc.). I clearly thought we couldn’t match our quality minimum requirements targeting pre-4.0 Android releases. Finally targeting older releases of Android wouldn’t have helped us targeting our rather “tech-familiar” clients. As a side note, at the time of the writing, more than 50% of our install base run the lastest version of Android (4.4) while the official Android dashboard indicates only 8.5%.
Implementation details
Implementing the entire search form flow was a nice challenge. Indeed, we wanted the application to run as greatly as possible on every devices. Thus, we had do deal with a mammoth amount of screen sizes, densities and orientation. While it is generally not a problem at all with Android, it may start to become a small one when you create a fairly complex design. We mainly solved these issues by using a ScrollView as the root ViewGroup, using orientation-dependent field height and developing orientation-dependent layouts (for instance the date/time picker looks different in landscape).
From a developer point of view, Capitaine Train Android search form is part of a quite complex Activity : the HomeActivity. HomeActivity is clearly the first and main screen of the application. It is where 80% of our trip information can be found. HomeActivity is built on top of a ViewPager featuring 3 Fragment -based pages: SearchFragment, CartFragment and TicketsFragment. Each of these Fragment s is represented by a tab in the UI.
As you can easily understand, SearchFragment is where most of the code lies. SearchFragment is made of a fairly complex View hierarchy that can be reduced to the simple layout below:
layout/fragment_search.xml 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <FrameLayout android:id= "@+id/main_container" xmlns:android= "http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:ct= "http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto" android:layout_width= "match_parent" android:layout_height= "match_parent" > <com.capitainetrain.android.widget.ScrollView android:id= "@+id/normal_mode_container" android:layout_width= "match_parent" android:layout_height= "match_parent" android:fillViewport= "true" ct:autoScrollEnabled= "false" > <RelativeLayout android:id= "@+id/form_container" android:layout_width= "match_parent" android:layout_height= "wrap_content" android:clipToPadding= "false" android:orientation= "vertical" android:paddingBottom= "@dimen/spacing_large" > <!--... --> </RelativeLayout> </com.capitainetrain.android.widget.ScrollView> <FrameLayout android:id= "@+id/edit_mode_container" android:layout_width= "match_parent" android:layout_height= "match_parent" android:paddingTop= "@dimen/form_field_height" android:visibility= "invisible" > <!--... --> </FrameLayout> </FrameLayout>
Basically, SearchFragment is made of two distinct layouts. The first one, @id/normal_mode_container is the actual search form as you can see it when opening the application while the second one, @id/edit_mode_container is a simple container the field-dependent options pane will be added to.
Now that we know what the layout actually looks like, let’s finally focus on how the overall transition is performed. Whenever a field is tapped, SearchFragment adds (or replaces) a new Fragment to @id/edit_mode_container, switches the ActionBar to an ActionMode and starts animating to the “edition mode” using |
Hey Awesome Backers!
Exciting news, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. We’re super pleased to announce that we’ve finalized our final build for Adventures of Pip!
So polish up those pixel punching powers, Pip is heading your way to Steam on June 4th and on Wii U (NA) June 11th! Yaaay!
We want to thank you guys for being so patient and supportive during our short delay, we appreciate it!
Unfortunately, at this time, there is no news on the EU release of Adventures of Pip. We will update you guys on any info regarding an EU version of Pip when it's possible.
PS4 and Xbox One releases of Pip will also be announced once we have official release dates for them, we will let you know when we have some more information!
Steam Achievements — get ready to unlock them!
And for those of you enjoying our beta build on Steam Early Access, you’re in luck because we are bringing over a frequently asked for feature: Achievements!
While most achievements should unlock for those you who have been playing Early Access (does require completing a level to trigger), there might be some achievements that will require another play through. Don’t worry, you’ll soon be able to show off your platforming Pip skills to everyone!
Adventures of Pip is almost here, are you excited? We’ve spend a lot of time polishing the pixels to make this game awesome for you guys and we hope you enjoy it!Warning: even though this is the middle of November, I want you to know I practiced the abuse you are about to witness a month ago, before my Louisiana trip.
And, I must reiterate, I am in Florida, don’t do this in Minnesota.
Here’s the poor victim.
Ficus microcarpa née retusa, in the vulgar tongue, tiger bark ficus.
Are you ready?
It’s not gonna be pretty, sorry.
Oh, did you notice the broken branch?
That’s what happens when you try to bend an unbendable branch.
I didn’t need it anyway, first amputation.
The roots need just a little work.
I’m going to try to rake out the roots, it being so late in the season and all.
Maybe I’ll get a workout today.
So far so good…..uh oh! There’s a giant root in the middle that needs excising.
Breakin’ out the saw!
That’s a big chunk of root.
I’m going to have to be a little more, ah..aggressive, as it were.
Regular tools ain’t gonna cut it here…..sorry, bad pun.
Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound.
I might as well fix the roots too.
This grouping needs to be bent over and simplified…..I really need to focus on it a bit….
And this one is too chunky on the end but, more importantly, it needs to be bent up and flattened out.
I undercut the bottom to help bend it (we don’t need another breaking incident)
Some chopping.
And zer roots ees done.
I know, I was just going to comb them out. It’ll be ok, promise….I can see the future! (Actually, since it’s been a month and it’s growing again, I can safely say that what I’m doing here is not going to kill it. Or didn’t kill it. Or won’t….time travel grammar and getting the tense correct is hard).
Since I chopped the bottom back so hard and traumatized about 2/3rds of my readership, I might as well go for 100%.
Are you ready for the top chop?
I think you are….you’ve been waiting the whole post.
Why am I chopping it?
Easy, there isn’t any taper (or very little) in the trunk.
And with such beautiful roots, why shouldn’t the top follow?
And I know that I’ll get new buds all over the tree.
Here’s an example from earlier in the year on another tiger bark.
I chopped it just above my ring finger and it’s grown about 40 new shoots; so many that I’ll need to thin it out or I’ll get a big ugly knob of a trunk.
So…as you can guess…it’s the saw again.
And I get a big cutting too!
You bet that will root.
Here’s the tree….
…..a little more pruning….
It looks like a voodoo talisman or some weird harvest doll.
Freaky…I need to put it into a pot before it gets up and starts dancing.
Looks like it fits.
First, with a mostly rootless tree like this, fill up the pot with soil.
Then you, gently but firmly, push the trunk into the soil, rocking and twisting it down to the level you want it.
This ensures you don’t have any gaping air pockets.
I made sure to tie it down into the pot….I don’t want any nighttime visitors seeking revenge….
I’m fertilizing heavily.
And that’s it.
This is the “front”, as far as it even having one yet.
What I did here was a step in improving a piece of material that had good potential (but not necessarily style-able yet) and setting it on its path to being a good tree.
Most professional bonsai people would have tried to make it pretty in one step, to make it easier to sell more quickly, but I’m more interested in the art and the growing and the teaching more than I am in the selling.
Now, I think I need to tie the pot down to the bench too, that’s a creepy looking thing.
Is anyone in Minnesota looking to buy a tree?Motorists and bus passengers will face major changes to their daily commute to Dublin city centre, following the creation of the pedestrian and cycle plaza at College Green.
The new civic space, which will prohibit all traffic from crossing College Green to and from Dame Street, is expected to be in place by June of next year ahead of the beginning of operations of the Luas Cross City line the following September.
The plans, which will see changes and diversions to between 30 and 40 bus routes, and a ban on cars in certain streets, are available for public consultation from now until May 24th at dublincity.ie.
The council last November unveiled plans for the redesign of College Green, which included the pedestrianisation of the northbound traffic lane in front of the 18th century Bank of Ireland building opposite a two-way bus lane on what is now the south-bound traffic lane heading to Dame Street.
However, problems emerged with the design in relation to cyclists’ safety and and conflicts with buses and cyclists crossing the Luas line to access Dame Street from the northside.
Proposed College Green plaza
Red and blue arrows indicate bus and Luas corridor Pedestrian-only plaza at College Green Buses using Dame Street to divert via Church Lane
The council’s proposed solution is to extend the plaza, which would be reserved for pedestrians and cyclists, to the full width of the road, stopping all traffic travelling from Dame Street through College Green to Westmoreland Street, and travelling in the opposite direction, from D’Olier Street to Dame Street.
Buses would run along the same route as the new Luas tracks, north and south in front of Trinity College, and could use this route to access Nassau Street heading south, and Westmoreland Street heading north. On a trial basis, taxis would also be allowed to use the tram line route in front of Trinity.
No buses and taxis
However, buses and taxis would not be permitted to cross the plaza into Dame Street. Most buses currently using Dame Street to cross the city would be diverted onto other routes, while buses which continued to use Dame Street would turn around before College green, in a new U-turn lane.
Cars travelling north on Dame Street will have to turn right onto Church Lane, where the current traffic flow will be reversed to allow traffic to loop back to head south on Dame Street.
Cars will be banned from Parliament Street, although there will be limited access for deliveries, but buses will be able to travel in both directions on Parliament Street and on Capel Street Bridge, both currently one way southbound streets. Cars will be allowed turn right from Dame Street to George’s Street and cars and buses will be banned form Suffolk Street.
The changes are a “bold step” which will transform the city centre, the council’s acting director of traffic Declan Wallace said. “We are showing leadership here. It’s a bold step, and there’s a danger we might all end up on the bold step.”
Some 150 buses an hour currently travel through College Green. Dublin Bus head of operations Donal Keating said there were “pluses and minuses” for the service.
“If someone had said years ago there won’t be buses going east-west through College Green, an eyebrow would have been raised,” he said. Given the complexity of what has to be done here, I can see why this option was chosen.”SOURCEvapes in 2016 introduced the original SOURCE orb quartz single, double coil and terra atomizers. Many customers wanted to understand the benefit of quartz over ceramic, and whether there is still any benefit to using ceramic atomizers now that quartz is here.
Quartz Atomizer Benefits
The SOURCE orb quartz atomizers were quartz rods and quartz cups with a wrapped coil. For coiled atomizers, a full quartz bucket with quartz rods will result in a more efficient hit on your wax pen. The quartz bowl creates a more efficient environment for your materials to recirculate resulting in maximum efficiency.
Then you get to SOURCE nail quartz. These are coilless atomizers that hit straight from a bucket, giving you maximimum oil efficiency.
SOURCE coiled atomizers are designed with low placed coils and high placed airflow, to ensure you are not wasting material. In the SOURCE orb quartz coiled atomizers, the materials that fall off the quartz rods after being vaporized flow back to the center of the quartz bowl, and are thus re-used by the atomizer again. This creates a beneficial almost no waste scenario.
Photo: SOURCE orb double coil quartz atomizer on SOURCE orb 3 attachment
Ceramic Atomizer Benefits
The real benefit with ceramic vape pen atomizers is that when you have less than perfect material, most of the remaining material gets stuck around the ceramic bowl. This can then be scraped off and used as you like. You may not want to re-vaporize material after their first run through the coils, as these may have higher impurities which you do not want to taste.
Ceramic may be more ideal than quartz for these types of material. They also are lower cost than quartz, as ceramic is less expensive to produce than quartz. As vaporizer material qualities improve, ceramic will likely lose its use over time.
Photo: SOURCE 10cig atomizer with ceramic rod and cup
Downside of Ceramic Cup Atomizers
The main downside of ceramic cup vaporizer pen atomizers is that material can stick all around the bowl.
Harder Hits From Quartz Rods
Another noticeable difference between the quartz and ceramic atomizers is that the quartz will get hotter than the ceramic, and you can even still hit the quartz for a second after your battery is off. The higher heat put off by the quartz results in a harder hit. You can counteract this by just running a lower voltage on your battery with the quartz atomizer, to achieve a similar heat effect of the ceramic atomizers.
Low Temp Quartz Dabs
SOURCE quartz terra offers both the benefits of the no waste quartz bowl, with the low temp flavor of SOURCE terra by way of its ceramic ring heating element. This results in efficient and flavorful results. These atomizers are recommended to be run above 4.5 Volts, or they will not get enough power for a proper drag. This option has become a favorite among many avid SOURCEvapes customers. Recommended by many as the best tasting atomizer currently available anywhere.
Photo: SOURCE orb terra quartz atomizer as shown on SOURCE orb slim attachment
Your Dab. Your Choice
At SOURCEvapes, we are always striving to give our customers the best and most up-to-date options. Due to material variations and customer preference, we allow you, the customer, to choose which five pack of atomizers is best for you. Please see our updated review that will guide you on how to select your best atomizer type here.
Questions or Comments? Post Below!One of the more irritating parts of the new book Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign involves Clintonites whining about Bernie Sanders criticizing Clinton and dividing the party. Bernie’s challenge to Clinton was a perfectly normal event, given that there was no Democratic incumbent running for reelection. If the Clintonites wanted to see some real division and bitterness, they just needed to look at Trump and the GOP.
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Sanders was a challenger who took some rhetorical shots, won some states, and then endorsed the eventual nominee. This isn’t unusual. In 1980, Reagan faced the same kind of challenge from George Herbert Walker Bush. In 2000, George W. Bush faced the same kind of challenge from John McCain. In 2008, Obama faced the same kind of challenge from Hillary Clinton. So did party nominees who didn’t win the presidency: Walter Mondale, Mike Dukakis, Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney. Given that she wasn’t an incumbent, Clinton’s road to the nomination was about average.
And then there are the Republicans. The shots that Trump took from his Republican rivals were much sharper than anything Sanders threw at Clinton. There is nothing from Sanders that even begins to compare to Rick Perry’s calling Trump a “cancer on conservatism.” Sanders said he didn’t care about Clinton’s e-mails while Marco Rubio attacked Trump from head to... well... you know.
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Sanders gave a prime-time speech at the Democratic convention endorsing Clinton. Ted Cruz, Trump’s main GOP rival, gave a prime-time speech at the Republican convention whose implicit theme was that voters should elect Republicans to Congress in order to protect the Constitution from both Clinton and Trump. The resulting scene of a GOP convention booing a former candidate who was passive-aggressively attacking the nominee was like something out of the GOP disaster in 1964.
One of Clinton’s many advantages was that her party’s elected elites rallied around her to a normal degree, while the GOP’s elected elites obviously hated and despised Trump. House Speaker Paul Ryan would take every opportunity to distance himself from Trump whenever things got hot. Ryan made it a point to publicly disinvite Trump from a party unity rally. There is no keeping track of all the Republican elected officials who refused to endorse Trump, or unendorsed Trump (however temporarily), or suspended their support for Trump at one point or another. It was a lot.
Clinton had the advantage of a normal road to the nomination and a unified party. Trump faced the kind of intraparty hostility that is usually associated with blowout losers like Barry Goldwater in 1964 and George McGovern in 1972. The Clintonites (and their candidate) blew it.A deputy public defender was wrongly arrested by a San Francisco police officer when she tried to stop the officer from talking to her client in the Hall of Justice last year, the Police Department’s watchdog agency has determined.
But Deputy Public Defender Jami Tillotson is discouraged by the conclusion of the investigation into her arrest. She said that while the video clearly shows the officer was in the wrong when he handcuffed her, the findings seem to indicate there will be little to no accountability.
“If you give a citizen of San Francisco a black eye, you should be held accountable for that,” she said. “I’d like to see [the officer] at a desk job. I don’t think he has a good idea of the boundaries of his authority.”
The finding comes from the Office of Citizen Complaints, which investigated the January 2015 incident and issued their findings in December. The incident was caught on video.
Those case details were made public Friday by the complainant, and include findings that the officer made an arrest without cause, and that his detaining of a person without justification for a prolonged period was unwarranted.
Other allegations in the complaint were not sustained, but the OCC recommended that the department change its policies regarding interfering with a lawyer’s right to counsel their client and making inappropriate comments to the media.
The department could not say whether Chief Greg Suhr has made a ruling on the case. In sustained cases, the chief has the discretion to punish any officer for up to a 10-day suspension. Any punishment above that must go before the Police Commission.
Tillotson used to tell her clients that they should all file complaints with the OCC, despite many saying it was pointless. Now she agrees.
“I had more confidence in [the OCC] despite the fact that my clients were telling me it was a waste of time,” she said.
Tillotson was arrested Jan. 27, 2015, and booked on a misdemeanor resisting arrest charge for refusing to let a client of hers be questioned by a police investigator who was also trying to take pictures of the client.
The arresting officer, Sgt. Brian Stansbury, was questioning the man in connection with a separate criminal investigation.
Tillotson’s client was in court that day while she was in another courtroom for a case, when she heard that an officer was questioning her client in the hallway.
She walked into the hall and told her client he did not have to answer Stansbury’s questions, and tried to stop the officer from taking photographs. Stansbury objected and ultimately arrested her for resisting arrest and obstructing his investigation.
Since her arrest, the charges have been dropped and Suhr apologized for any distress the incident caused her, but has also insisted Stansbury had a reasonable suspicion to take the photos.
“I think this incident raises questions. Do the police have a practice of photographing people in courtrooms?” Alan Schlosser, the ACLU’s legal director for Northern California, previously said about the arrest of Tillotson.
Read more criminal justice news on the Crime Ink page in print. Follow us on Twitter: @sfcrimeink
Click here or scroll down to commentCS:GO offers a wide range of possibilities to customize your crosshair, but unfortunately most of the commands are not accessible through the game options and you need to know the console commands to activate them. This guide shows you all existing crosshair commands and helps you with additional explanations.
First of all, we highly recommend you to start a local server without bots to test different settings on different maps. A yellow crosshair might look good on de_nuke, but cause problems on brighter maps like de_dust2, so you will need to play around with some values. If you found your preferred settings, you should write them into your config/autoexec/valve.rc to save them permanently. Also keep in mind, that some of these settings will look different on different resolutions. All the images below were made with 1920×1080 ingame resolution.
cl_crosshairstyle
This command allows you to change the style of your crosshair.
Default: cl_crosshairstyle "0" // spreads while moving and shooting
Default Static: cl_crosshairstyle "1" // completely static
Classic: cl_crosshairstyle "2" // spreads while moving and shooting
Classic Dynamic: cl_crosshairstyle "3" // spreads while moving and shooting
Classic Static: cl_crosshairstyle "4" // completely static
Classic 1.6/CS:S Style: cl_crosshairstyle "5" // only spreads while shooting
Only cl_crosshairstlye 0, 2 and 3 are showing acurate feedback on your weapon’s bullet spread/recoil. cl_crosshairstyle 5 emulates the non-dynamic behavior of CS 1.6 and CS:Source, but like in both previous versions, this crosshair doesn’t accurately portray current weapon accuracy, spread or recoil. It only provides feedback about whether or not you are currently firing a weapon.
Now you might ask yourself “Which crosshair should I use?”. In the end it all comes down to personal preference. Only cl_crosshairstyle 0 and 1 are able to turn red, when you are aiming at an enemy – this can be an advantage for unexperienced players as you get additional visual feedback. However, you can disable this function with hud_showtargetid "0", if you don’t like it. cl_crosshairstyle 5 was added because of the high demand of veteran players and might be only interesting for you, if you really know how the recoil works. cl_crosshairstyle 1 and 4 are 100% static – no spread while moving or firing a weapon.
cl_crosshaircolor
cl_crosshaircolor allows you to change the color of your crosshair.
Red: cl_crosshaircolor "0"
Green: cl_crosshaircolor "1"
Yellow: cl_crosshaircolor "2"
Blue: cl_crosshaircolor "3"
Cyan: cl_crosshaircolor "4"
Custom: cl_crosshaircolor "5"
cl_crosshaircolor 5 (custom) lets you use the RGB color model. You will be able to control the amount of the three primary colors (Red, Green, Blue) to create your own preferred hue. Use this online ColorShemer to play around with some values and get a preview of your color settings.
cl_crosshaircolor_b "50" // min. 0 max. 255
cl_crosshaircolor_g "250" // min. 0 max. 255
cl_crosshaircolor_r "50" // min. 0 max. 255
cl_crosshairalpha
cl_crosshairalpha allows you to control the transparency of your crosshair. This command needs to be activated by cl_crosshairusealpha "1"
0% transparency: cl_crosshairalpha "255" // min. 0 max. 255
100% transparency: cl_crosshairalpha "0" // min. 0 max. 255
cl_crosshairdot
cl_crosshairdot allows you to enable a dot in the middle of your crosshair.
Disable dot: cl_crosshairdot "0"
Enable dot: cl_crosshairdot "1"
cl_crosshairsize
cl_crosshairsize determines the width and height of the crosshair-lines. Increase the value to get a bigger crosshair – you can also use 0.5 steps to increase/decrease the size.
Default: cl_crosshairsize "5" // min. 0 max. –
cl_crosshairgap
This command determines the middle gap between the lines of the crosshair. Use negative values to close the gap and positives to open it up.
Default: cl_crosshairgap "1" // min. – max. –
cl_crosshairthickness
cl_crosshairthickness allows you to change the thickness of the crosshair-lines.
Default: cl_crosshairthickness "0.5" // min. 0.5 max. –
cl_crosshair_drawoutline
cl_crosshair_drawoutline gives you the ability to enable a black outline around the crosshair-lines. This command doesn’t work with cl_crosshairstyle 0 and 1.
Disabled: cl_crosshair_drawoutline "0"
Enabled: cl_crosshair_drawoutline "1"
cl_crosshair_outlinethickness
cl_crosshair_outlinethickness determines the thickness of the black outline around the crosshair-lines.
cl_crosshair_outlinethickness "1" // min. 0.1 // max. 3.0
cl_crosshairgap_useweaponvalue
cl_crosshairgap_useweaponvalue defines whether the crosshair gap changes with the equipped weapon e.g. switching from an AK47 to a pistol will slightly spread your crosshair. This command was added later to mimic the crosshair behavior from CS 1.6 – it doesn’t work with cl_crosshairstyle 0 and 1.
Disabled: cl_crosshairgap_useweaponvalue "0"
Enabled: cl_crosshairgap_useweaponvalue "1"
Additional Commands
There are also some additional cvars to customize the spread of cl_crosshairstyle 2:
cl_crosshair_dynamic_maxdist_splitratio "0.35" // min. 0 max. 1
cl_crosshair_dynamic_splitalpha_innermod "0" // min. 0 max. 1
cl_crosshair_dynamic_splitalpha_outermod "0.5" // min. 0.3 max. 1
cl_crosshair_dynamic_splitdist "7"
Crosshair Examples
Coming soonOne night in Khartoum, Sudan, Osama bin Laden decides to take his family — four wives, 14 children — on a camping trip.
He drives into the desert, finds an isolated spot, then has his oldest sons dig ditches in the sand, long enough to fit each person. It’s the early 1990s, and bin Laden believes there’s a war coming between Muslims and the Western infidels. This is training.
“You must be gallant. Do not think about foxes or snakes,” he says. “Challenging trials are coming to us.”
Each child, including a few 1- and 2-year-olds, lies in a hollow. There is no water or food.
As night falls, a child’s voice whispers in the darkness, “I’m cold.”
“Cover yourself with dirt or grass,” bin Laden snaps. “You will be warm under what nature provides.”
Bin Laden’s first wife, Najwa, doesn’t like that idea, but, “I reminded myself that my husband knew much more about the big world than any of us. We were all pearls to my husband, and he wanted to protect us.”
That’s what it was like “Growing Up bin Laden,” the title of a forthcoming memoir (St. Martin’s Press) co-written by Najwa, who remains married to the monster, though she now lives apart from him in an undisclosed Middle Eastern location, with her fourth son — of 11 children — Omar.
It’s a world where women are never allowed outside the house, 12-year-old daughters are married off to 30-year-old al Qaeda fighters, pet dogs are used for target practice and the biggest household fight is over whether Islam allows refrigerators. “Jon & Kate Plus 8” it ain’t.
It is not the life that Najwa, now 51, would necessarily have chosen for herself, though she accepts it because “my husband says it is so.”
She neither defends nor lashes out at Osama. Terrorism is what he does for a living; all she needed to worry about was keeping his house in order.
Despite her neutrality, her story is still an indictment — showing us a terrorist leader who is embarrassed easily, obsessed with a long-dead father, terrified of women, and who thinks of his children as nothing more than cannon fodder.
Najwa grew up a rebel in the port city of Latakia in Syria. She refused to hide her hair and wore colorful dresses that didn’t cover her face or arms. She attended school, played tennis and was a fledgling artist who painted portraits and landscapes.
She met her first cousin Osama, the 9-year-old son of her father’s sister, when she was just 7.
“He was such a serious, conscientious boy,” she writes. “He was proud, but not arrogant. He was delicate, but not weak. He was grave, but not severe.”
He was also “shyer than a virgin under the veil.”
Osama was the son of Mohammed bin Laden, a construction kingpin and one of the wealthiest men in Saudi Arabia. He had the habit of calling his sons for inspection, then whipping them with a cane if they did not line up exactly by height.
Though conservative in most other ways, Mohammed delighted in having his wives re move their veils, then asking his nervous servants to pick the most beautiful one. Osama’s mother, tired of these shenanigans, divorced him.
Osama had a one-on-one conversation with his father only once. At age 9, he decided he would like a car. Escorted by his stepfather, he petitioned Mohammed.
“I will not give you a car. I will give you a bicycle,” the father replied. Osama went home crushed and gave the bike to a younger brother.
Then, as Osama recounted to his son Omar years later in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan, “one day several weeks later I received the biggest shock of my life. A shiny new car was delivered. For me! That was the happiest day of my young life.”
Soon after, Mohammed was killed in a plane crash, an event Omar believes left deep scars.
“Although my father was never one to complain, it is believed that he keenly felt her lack of status, genuinely suffering from his father’s lack of personal care and love.”
Osama concentrated on reli gious schooling, becoming more conservative by the year. His way of flirting was by saving the best grapes from Najwa’s back yard for her.
Their wedding in 1974 — she was 15, he was 17 — was a telling precursor to a joyless marriage. Dancing, joking and laughing were forbidden at the nuptials.
They immediately departed for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she was forced to wear the “dreaded veil” and full-length black robes. Her schooling was discontinued, tennis lessons canceled, her artwork forgotten. Najwa was almost perpetually pregnant, as Osama said it was important to make many warriors for Islam.
She lived a life in purdah, where females socialize only with members of their family. In nearly 30 years of marriage, she left the confines of her home only to visit relatives and to move to a different house.
Air conditioning, televisions, phones were all banned. Toys given as gifts to the children were destroyed.
Omar’s asthma was treated with honeycombs and onions, since modern medicine wasn’t allowed. Everything the family ate had to be bought the same day, since refrigerators were out of the question.
Bin Laden took three more wives — one picked by Najwa, though she admits that “few women dance with joy when they contemplate sharing their husband with other women.”
In 1979, the couple visited America. Bin Laden went to see Abdullah Azzam, a teacher and mentor of bin Laden who preached about jihad in Los Angeles, while Najwa stayed in Indianapolis with a family friend.
She recalls how a man stared at her black Saudi robes, veil and head scarf as they waited for a return flight to Saudi Arabia at the airport.
“With a jaw dropped open in surprise, and curious eyes growing as large as big bugs popping out of his skull, he actually stopped to gape at my veiled face,” she says.
“I wondered what my husband was thinking. I took a side glance at Osama and saw that he was intently studying the curious man.”
Najwa says Americans were kind and friendly, but the country was not to her conservative tastes. “My husband and I did not hate America, yet we did not love it,” she writes.
Bin Laden became a hero in Saudi Arabia because he fought the Russians in Afghanistan. But he began to clash with the royal family after they ignored his offers of military aid and instead let Americans liberate Kuwait in 1991.
The final straw, Omar writes, was when his father saw female American troops on his soil.
“Women! Defending Saudi men!” he cried.
Under pressure from the king, Osama went into a self-imposed exile in the Sudan.
Najwa and Omar describe two Osamas here. One happily tends his garden, delighting in sunflowers. The other walks with a Kalashnikov and a cane, wielded if any of his sons showed their eye teeth while smiling.
One is so embarrassed when his boat goes out of control that he slips into the water so no one can see him. The other rants into a Dictaphone, spouting epithets about America and Israel, pausing only to listen to his favorite station — the BBC — on a small radio.
One is a legend who has radicals visiting “to breathe the same air.” The other is a wounded man, secretly blinded in his right eye by a flying chunk of metal in his youth, who trained himself to use his left hand rather than being seen as weak by a culture that rejected the disabled, Omar says.
Pets met horrible ends. A monkey the children loved was run over by one of Osama’s men. Bin Laden had told him that “the monkey was not a monkey at all, but was a Jewish person turned into a monkey by the hand of God.”
A litter of puppies the boys adopted was gassed by al Qaeda fighters to see how long it would take them to die.
Finally, under pressure from the royal family and after assassination attempts, Sudan kicked Osama out.
In 1996, he found shelter with the Taliban and set up camp in earthen huts in the mountains of Tora Bora. Najwa’s kitchen consisted only of a portable gas burner to make food for 10 kids. The children slept on cotton mattresses on the concrete floor, and there was no furniture.
Bin Laden drafted his sons to be suicide bombers.
“Listen, my sons, there is a paper on the wall of the mosque. This paper is for men who are good Muslims, men who volunteer to be suicide bombers,” Omar recalls him saying repeatedly. One of Osama’s youngest sons ran to the mosque to sign up; his father did nothing to stop him.
When Omar responded with anger, bin Laden told him, “You hold no more a place in my heart than any other man or boy in the entire country.”
Omar once approached his father about his jihad obsession.
“My father, when is this killing and war going to stop?” he asked his father.
Bin Laden responded, “Would you ask a Muslim when he was going to stop praying to God? I will fight until my dying day! I will fight until I breathe my last breath! I will never stop my fight for justice! I will never stop this jihad!”
As for why bin Laden focused on America, he said: “Remember this: America and Israel are one bicycle with two wheels. The wooden wheel represents the United States. The steel wheel represents Israel. Omar, Israel is the stronger power of the two. Does a general attack the strongest line in battle? No, he concentrates on the weakest part of the line.”
A 20-year-old Omar eventually fled Afghanistan and begged his mother to do the same. Najwa decided to leave; her husband reluctantly conceded.
In the first week of September, Najwa handed Osama a ring as a token of her love.
“No matter what you might be told, I will never divorce you,” he said.
As she stepped foot in Syria a few days later with three of her children, the world changed. She watched the television in horror as the Twin Towers fell, claiming the lives of 2,991 people.
Though she refuses to criticize — or even implicate — her husband, she says: “I can only think and feel with my mother’s heart. For every child lost, a mother’s heart harbors the deepest pain. None can see our sons grow to men. None can see our daughters become mothers.”
Najwa says she has not spoken to Osama since the attacks and does not know where he is.
Omar, who has completely rejected his father and is petitioning to live in England, was at his uncle’s house in Saudi Arabia when he learned of the attacks.
“Come quickly!” his uncle said. “Come and see what my brother has done! See what your father has done! He has ruined our lives! He has destroyed us!”
scahalan@nypost.comMental illness is still murky territory for those who experience it, their families, and their church.
Not long after Rich Salazar moved to DeKalb, Illinois from California, he found himself knocking at the door of St. Mary's Church. The then-college student had recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was in crisis mode. Unable to reach his mother at work and not knowing where else to go, Salazar told himself, "I have to go to church."
Father William Schwartz answered his knocks and, although the parish was closed for the evening, invited him in. "He talked to me, calmed me down," Salazar says. The priest called his mother and told him he could stay at the church as long as he needed. "He was very kind. I told him the church has never let me down."
That's when Schwartz responded, "Someday it might."
For many Catholics experiencing mental illness and their families, the church can be both a place of welcome and alienation. Just as society has struggled with how to deal with those with mental illness, U.S. parishes and dioceses have found the area equally challenging.
Many in Catholic mental illness advocacy agree with Chicago Deacon Tom Lambert when he says, "As a church we're just beginning to address the issues on a church-wide and institutional level."
The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that one in four Americans has a mental disorder. Of those, one in 17 has a serious mental illness such as major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, or borderline personality disorder.
To Portland, Oregon psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Welch, those large numbers mean that every Catholic is affected by mental illness in some way. "The people next to you in the pews may have a mental illness or have family [members] who have mental illness," he says. "By virtue of Baptism, we're all equal members of the church, and we need to be mindful of that."
Shrinking stigma
As research has shown that mental disorders aren't just moods to be shaken off or, in severe cases, uncorrectable issues requiring time in a mental institution, the stigma once attached to them has slowly been eroding.
"The church's response parallels society," says Dorothy Coughlin, the Archdiocese of Portland's director of the Office for People with Disabilities.
Nancy Kehoe, a Society of the Sacred Heart sister and psychologist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, remembers a time when there was a lot of secrecy around mental illness. "If a nun had to be taken to the psychiatric ward in a hospital, there was a lot of shame in having a psychiatric disability," she says. "It wasn't even known to people immediately around her where she went."
On the flip side, Kehoe recalls the public nature of a Cambridge-area pastor who took leave for a few months. Upon his return he announced to his parishioners that he was experiencing depression and would be stepping down to serve a smaller parish and continue dealing with it. But, Kehoe notes, a pastor openly addressing his struggles with depression "was unusual even in 2009."
New Jersey psychologist Kenneth Herman started practicing in 1955 and says that at the time the Catholic clients who came to see him dealt with a lot of guilt, anxiety, and fear over their faith in everything from eating meat on Fridays to sexual issues. "It was a sin if you thought anything that was considered negative," he says. "You got the wrath of the church, and that produced a lot of guilt, especially with people who were a little fragile emotionally."
While Herman doesn't believe the Catholic Church did it intentionally, he says, "The church had an opportunity to send a lot of positive messages, but they didn't." By the time he retired a few years ago, Herman says he saw a change in how Catholics viewed |
said he has reached out to Tutman, who was certified by the alliance in 2004, “to try to figure out ways to increase our diversity.”
But Tutman is not unique in his feelings of isolation. Minorities in the nation’s largest environmental organizations said in interviews that they feel the same way.
In fact, they say, the level of diversity, both in leadership and staff, of groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Sierra Club and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is more like that of the Republican Party they so often criticize for its positions on the environment than that of the multiethnic Democratic Party they have thrown their support behind.
Some of the groups say they are working toward greater diversity. “I think that the concerns are absolutely well founded,” said Adrianna Quintero, a lawyer for the NRDC. “It’s taken too long for environmental groups to work closely enough with minority communities.”
Kim Coble, vice president of environmental protection and restoration for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the organization strives for inclusion, even though the percentage of minorities on its full-time staff is only 4.5 percent in a region where they represent nearly half the population.
“The environmental movement has a bit of a reputation as being a wealthy white community, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation works hard to counteract that,” Coble said.
The reputation is deserved, said Norris McDonald, president of the African American Environmentalist Association.
“This goes back a long way,” McDonald said. “It’s why I founded the [association] in 1985.... White groups weren’t hiring black professionals, and when they did, it was a hostile atmosphere. There were a handful of black professionals in the environmental groups then, and there are a handful now.”
Around the time that Tutman, now 54, was certified as a riverkeeper, the African American Environmentalist Association issued a report card for 26 environmental groups based on their diversity for 2003-2004. Eighteen declined to respond to the request for the makeup of their staffs, and most of the others received poor scores.
The association hasn’t issued a report card since because it was an exercise in frustration, McDonald said. “We moved on.”
They formed scores of smaller groups in low-income communities under the “environmental justice” banner and say they address issues that big groups do not: toxins leaking from power plants, urban food deserts where grocery stores don’t exist, efforts to pave over urban green spaces where children play.
They operate on shoestring budgets. A 2001 report on the origins of the environmental justice movement found that it gets only 5 percent of the conservation funding from foundations, while mainstream environmental groups receive the rest.
“We essentially have a racially segregated environmental movement,” said Van Jones, co-founder of the nonprofit Rebuild the Dream and a former adviser on green jobs to the Obama administration. “We’re too polite to say that. Instead, we say we have an environmental justice movement and a mainstream movement.”
Wilderness protection
The Sierra Club, billed as the nation’s oldest and largest grass-roots environmental organization with 1.3 million members, was founded in 1892. Like groups that followed, such as the Nature Conservancy in 1915 and the National Wildlife Federation in 1936, they were largely white, upper- and middle-class, and focused on the protection of wilderness areas.
Two decades later, Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” alerted Americans to the impact of pesticides and toxic pollution on the environment.
Acting on Carson’s revelations, the mainstream environmental groups helped to push chemical warehouses, pesticide companies and coal-fired power plants from rural and exurban areas, and many polluters migrated to low-income urban areas where people of color live.
In the 1980s, the Government Accountability Office, the United Church of Christ and the Commission for Racial Justice each issued reports that established a direct link between race and the location of toxic-waste sites, according to a study on power plants and their proximity to minorities released in December by the NAACP.
“You walked out your door and wondered, why does everyone have asthma?” said Al Huang, who coordinates NRDC’s environmental justice wing.
Robert Bullard of Texas Southern University said that in 1980 all five of Houston’s landfills were in minority communities, as were six of the city’s eight incinerators. He said mainstream environmental groups he approached for help did not seem concerned.
The environmental justice movement started with a battle in Warren County, N.C., in 1982. The state selected a largely black township as a site for a landfill to dump more than 30,000 cubic yards of soil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyl.
The residents lost, and minority environmentalists said they never forgot that mainstream conservation groups did not help.
In 1990, the director of the Southwest Organizing Project, Richard Moore, issued a letter signed by some 100 community and cultural leaders saying that the big green groups lacked diversity, failed to protect minorities from pollution impacts and had histories full of “racist and exclusionary practices.”
The following year, 600 leaders of mostly minority grass-roots organizations met in Washington and laid the groundwork for the environmental justice movement.
Today, minority communities — black, Latino and Native American — along with low-income white neighborhoods still bear a disproportionate burden of the nation’s toxic pollution. They are in the shadows of petrochemical plants and coal-fired power plants, the nation’s greatest source of stationary pollution, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Focusing on people
“The values of the mainstream environmental movement don’t focus on the needs of people. They focus on clean air, water and climate,” said Robert Garcia, founding director and counsel for the City Project in Los Angeles.
Thirteen years ago, the City Project was formed in an effort to block then-Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan from paving over 32 acres of green space near downtown for a collection of warehouses. “Mainstream environmental groups wouldn’t get involved,” Garcia recalled. “Some of the groups... said, ‘What do parks have to do with the environment?’ ”
Garcia said he had to lay out the plan’s potential impacts for them: If Latino children in those urban neighborhoods didn’t have a park, they wouldn’t see green space. Many of their parents don’t own cars. They don’t drive to the woods or beach.
Garcia and others argue that mainstream environmental groups are failing to get popular grass-roots supports for climate change and other initiatives.
Climate activists have to get outside Washington, build organizational networks across the country, stretching “far beyond friendly congressional offices, comfy board rooms, and posh retreats,” said a report by Harvard professor of government and sociology Theda Skocpol.
Phaedra Ellis, chief executive of Green for All, a San Francisco-based multicultural environment group, wondered whether the funders of mainstream groups are driving the divide.
“We’re applying for this grant, and they say don’t put in there the part about people of color and low-income. And we said, if you don’t want this in the proposal, we’re not a group you want to deal with.”
Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, based in Minnesota, said they need “to put a human face on the issue.”
Goldtooth said his network works with groups such as the National Wildlife Federation, attempting to stop the Keystone oil pipeline from extending across native lands from Canada to Texas. But big groups generally approach them only when they need something.
They “will not step up to fully support native rights,” Goldtooth said. “They’re allies of ours... [but]it’s not just asking us for help when they need it.”
Quintero said the NRDC agrees, and is striving to build a more diverse workplace. “Last year, we did a big analysis of what our diversity needs are, and we found that in order to attract the talent, [applicants] need to be allowed to do work where they feel like they are giving back to their communities,” she said.
The Sierra Club, whose director, Allison Chin, is Asian American, did not respond to requests for interviews. Spokeswoman Maggie Kao said the group has had an environmental justice arm for at least a decade. Still, several minorities who work for Sierra Club said it lacks diversity.
“Any movement or cause that’s racially exclusive will have less power and less influence,” said Jones, one of the few African Americans who sit on the board of the NRDC.
“You’re leaving out too many good ideas,” Jones said. “I think the cause of having a liveable, survivable environment is weakened by the fact that we have these divisions.”
Tutman said that he is committed to monitoring water contamination and going after polluters, that his family goes back for many generations in Prince George’s County, and that the Patuxent River runs through too many black communities he cares about.
But, he said, “I do think we’re invisible. The movement is inauthentic if it remains all white... if we can’t get a seat at the table unless we emulate their values.Doctors treating Michael Schumacher and other medical experts have told his family that "only a miracle" can save him, sources have claimed.
The seven-time Formula One world champion suffered serious brain injuries after hitting a rock during a skiing accident in the French Alpine ski resort of Meribel in late December.
He is being treated in hospital in Grenoble where he has been in an artificially induced coma for a total of 69 days.
Sources close to his family say the 45-year-old driver's wife Corinna and his brother, Ralf Schumacher, have been consulting brain specialists throughout Europe and have been told that his chances of recovery are minimal.
The family is said to be concerned that the French doctors treating Schumacher have little hope that he will recover and now assume that he will remain in a vegetative state for the rest of his life.
Experts point out that most artificial comas last for an average of three weeks. Schumacher's management team has insisted that doctors are gradually reducing drug levels to bring the driver out of his artificial coma and that he is currently in a "wake up" phase.
In a statement released on Friday, Schumacher's management team insisted there had been no change. "Michael is still in a wake up phase, the situation has not altered," said the driver's management team spokeswoman Sabine Kehm
At the management team's request, the Grenoble hospital treating Schumacher has kept news about his condition to a minimum. However sources close to his family say that the driver's prognosis is bleak. "The family has been told that only a miracle can bring him back now," a senior German journalist reporting on the Schumacher case said. " He is in a bad way but until the family issues a formal statement, we cannot publish anything," he added.
Another source added: "Doctors have given it to them straight. Miracles sometimes happen but there is little hope that he will come out of this."
A fortnight ago, Germany's Focus magazine reported that complications had obliged doctors to halt Schumacher's wake up process and that the driver had been put back into a coma. However Schumacher's management team denied the report.
Coma experts have stressed that the past week should have been crucial for Schumacher's wake up process as doctors would have been hoping for a sign that he was gradually becoming aware of his surroundings.
However last Sunday, the Schumacher family is reported to have spent Corinna Schumacher's 45th birthday gathered around the comatose driver's hospital bed praying in vain for him to acknowledge their presence.
Doctors say that the greatest risk facing the driver while he remains in a coma and unable to swallow properly, is the possibility that he will contract pneumonia as a result of his lungs being filled with fluid.
Should Schumacher manage to emerge from his coma, there appears to be little likelihood that he would be able to live a normal, active life.
Gary Hartstein, a former Formula One doctor, told the German media last week: "The majority of patients who come out of a coma alive after this amount of time suffer severe disabilities."An analysis of ONS figures finds fruit and vegetable processing and the hotel industry among sectors of the economy facing worst damage if free movement of people ends
A unique and detailed analysis has revealed which sectors of the economy would suffer most from a radical reduction in EU migration to Britain.
According to a GMB study of figures produced by the Office for National Statistics, in at least 18 specialist industries EU workers constitute more than 20% of the labour force. And many others would be left almost as bereft if their number declined.
The government insists EU workers living here will be able to stay post-Brexit. But there are fears that many will choose to leave when the drawbridge is raised in 2019 and that an eventual end of free movement will see future vacancies left unfilled.
Last week it was announced that the independent Migration Advisory Committee will examine the economic and social contributions and costs of EU citizens in Britain. Concerns over the impact on the NHS and residential care have been highlighted in recent months. But the ONS study reveals a reliance on EU workers across a broad range of industries, extending far beyond the caring professions.
It shows that nearly half – 47.6% – of employees in the fruit and vegetable “processing and preserving sector” are from EU countries. A similar proportion – 44.4% – are involved in meat processing. More than a third – 37.6% – of those processing fish, crustaceans and molluscs are EU migrants.
In agriculture, just under 35% of workers employed in what the ONS describes as the “growing of nonperennial crops” are EU citizens, along with more than a quarter of workers involved in the manufacture of prepared animal feed. And just under a quarter involved in the “manufacture of bakery & farinaceous [starch] products” are EU workers.
Many specialist sectors heavily reliant on people from other EU countries employ only a few thousand workers. Just over 1,000 EU nationals are employed in “the cutting, shaping and finishing stone industries”. But they constitute 22% of the workforce.
Outside of manufacturing, entire industries rely on EU workers for a sizeable portion of their labour force. They make up almost 230,000 of the 1.7 million people working in the hotel and catering industry – 13.5% of the total.
“Manufacturing is a real money-spinner for the economy,” said Jude Brimble, national secretary for manufacturing at the GMB union. “It provides good jobs and stimulates the supply chain in local communities, and, as these figures show, the whole sector is heavily reliant on the work of EU nationals. Workers from both the EU and the UK, as well as companies themselves, are understandably worried about what lies ahead.”
EU nationals comprise almost a third – 32% – of the 24,000 people employed in translation services. Roy Allkin, chair of the Association of Translation Companies, said the industry was worth £1.2bn to the UK. “At the moment the UK is a hub for internationalisation and language services because of how free we have been in the movement of people and things like that, and because people trust us as a business centre.
The British jobs Brexit makes hard to fill Read more
“If those advantages are taken away from us, where is that business going to go? At my own company, Wolfestone, we have about 35 employees, and I would say that probably at least 40 to 45% of the employees are from the EU. If free movement is restricted, that could hit us massively.”
Amid concerns from business about the impact that Brexit will have on the labour market, the home secretary, Amber Rudd, has said that the government would be seeking a transitional arrangement, which may involve the continuation of free movement, to ensure there would be no “cliff edge” for employers.
Brimble said: “If the government want to avoid driving the economy off a cliff, they need to engage with business and unions to make sure EU nationals who are already working in crucial roles, contributing to our economy, are protected, and to ensure proper workforce and skills planning for the future.”
Jimmy Buchan, business manager at the Scottish Seafood Association, which is likely to be affected by any shortage of EU workers, said some industries may need special dispensation if Brexit looked like it would cause a labour shortage.
“The ideal situation would be that they get to remain here,” said Buchan, who is supportive of Brexit because it will allow the fishing industry “to take control” of UK waters. “But look, we couldn’t have an open border. There comes a point in time where we run out of space, so there’ll have to be a controlled measure. So it’s how that controlled measure is implemented. If there is a clear need for a sector to have a free flow of people, then it should be granted, but on a case-by-case study of what the sector needs.”The Modern format is much maligned because every single Magic format is much maligned. The distribution of tastes is wide, and no format wins everybody over. Modern also has many, many fans. I’m a huge fan of the format. There’s no true objectivity in a discussion like this, but I think if you zoom out and try to locate a somewhat-objective viewpoint, Modern going into 2018 is one of the most diverse, healthy, and interesting formats that has ever existed in any moment in time.
If you head to a Modern GP, play a Modern PTQ online, or hit up a local event, your best guess about what deck, or even what type of deck your opponent will present is widely distributed.
Deck list aggregator mtgtop8.com presents the following statistics (as of 12/12/2017):
It can be both exciting and frustrating to have to prepare for more decks than you can even keep in mind at any one time. It’s exciting for obvious reasons—you don’t know what movie you’re walking into. When you try a new deck, there are a ton of matchups to learn and explore. It’s frustrating because the decks are powerful and sideboards are only 15 cards. This is part of why Modern isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. For me, I love the balancing act you have to play with every “fair” deck and the challenge of coming up with the right balance of speed, resilience, and consistency in the “unfair” decks. The fact that you don’t know exactly what your opponents will be up to in the tournament adds some variance and unpredictability.
Choose Your Own Adventure
Even though you will go mad if you try to control or predict what your opponents show up with, you get to choose what deck you play. The style of that deck will go a long way toward what your tournament feels like, and there are so many choices that are potentially viable.
What do I mean by style of deck? Well, if you want to play a “glass cannon” combo deck that tries to kill as fast as it can, Storm and Bloomless Titan come to mind. Want to combo people out but also have some interaction points? The list there is a mile long. Want to do the midrange thing? Jund and Abzan never go away—Jeskai makes it easy as well. Pure control? Go watch Gab Nassif’s stream for an evening—U/W Control is a great deck. You can lock people out (really firmly with Lantern, relatively firmly with Blood Moon decks, or softer with Eldrazi and Taxes). You can attack people, and I mean really attack them (with little regard for what they’re doing with Affinity or Burn, or with so much regard for what they’re doing that you have to know what card to Meddling Mage with the Humans deck). You can brew a deck. Pyro Prison, Hollow One, some of the new Saheeli takes—there are new decks popping up from time to time and they’re scary. You can ramp (a little with Eldrazi Tron, a lot with green Tron or B/G Tron, or really quickly with Bloomless Titan). You can blow up your opponent’s land or their hand. You can make tokens, cast Auras onto hexproof creatures, tap three Elves to make 3 green mana, etc.
What’s absolutely insane is that these are all powerful, viable decks. It’s not like Legacy, where you don’t know what your LGS opponent is going to show up with, but that’s because of pet decks and the retail price of Underground Sea. In Modern, someone could show up with Bogles and truly believe that it’s the best deck that week. And they could be correct (I’m trying to make sure Big Dan Ward doesn’t put me in a headlock at the next GP I go to). I don’t think I’ll be playing R/G Land Destruction (the names “Gruul Land Death” and “Gruul Land Loss” make me want to puke) at the next event, but I’ve lost to it multiple times. I haven’t played against Infect in a while for whatever reason, but next time I do I’ll be scared as hell, not relaxed in any way because “oh, this isn’t tier 1 anymore” (which is how I might feel against a fringe deck in a less robust format).
Modern is this unicorn format where a ton of decks are viable and no deck has all good matchups or even all-but-one good matchup. If your friend claims their deck beats everything, you have found an overconfident friend, not a breakthrough.
Deck Choice Is King, But Card Choices Matter Too
About that 15-card sideboard… you sometimes hear the argument that “it’s just random—you can put Leyline of the Void in your sideboard and never face Dredge, or you can leave them at home and play against Dredge twice, and the same is true of 50 other sideboard cards.” There is some truth to this. 15 cards feels really small in this format. But uncertainty does not equal pure randomness. Many tools are flexible. Will Anger of the Gods be good enough against Dredge compared to Leyline of the Void? Is Grim Lavamancer good enough against Affinity compared to Shatterstorm? If so, your Elves and Humans matchups just got better. Can you use Kolaghan’s Command to solve multiple problems?
Main decks are just as interesting. How many Scavenging Ooze should be in your Jund deck? Should U/W Control use Spreading Seas or rely on additional countermagic? How many Relic of Progenitus and Anger of the Gods or Sweltering Suns should be in your Valakut deck (which is really at least two decks, Scapeshift and Through the Breach)? Is the Through the Breach version of Valakut the way to go because it’s better at racing decks you can’t interact with?
Back to deck choice for a second. When other people’s card choices seem to be skewing in a particular direction, that might influence your deck choice. You might say to yourself, “people are really skimping on cards like Timely Reinforcements and the 4th Lightning Helix these days. It might be time to dust off the Burn deck.”
Something Different–It’s What a Format is Supposed to Provide
Maybe you are having trouble “embracing the variance” when it comes to the good and bad matchups that Modern is sort of famous for. I’ve heard players remark that there’s a reason they don’t enter rock-paper-scissors tournaments. They want to play Magic, not have their Tarmogoyf exiled by Karn or whatever they have in mind when they think “not a real game.” In my experience, those rounds show up, but not as often as you’d think. Even in your tough matchups, games are tight, outcomes sometimes surprising, and card choices and play sequencing can be the difference. But at the end of the day, there’s also the possibility that Modern isn’t for you. It’s true that if you play Temur Energy in Standard, you will have relatively few really bad matchups. But that gets tiresome in its own way—trust me—and I hope that you’ll at least check in with Modern when you get bored elsewhere.
What About Lantern, Should it be Banned Because It’s Frustrating to Lose to?
Absolutely not.
Oh, you wanted the reasoning too? First of all, once you have some familiarity with Lantern, it’s not much different than playing against a control deck that builds its advantage in a hidden zone (the hand) and runs relatively few win conditions. Yes, it can be annoying because hidden information makes it hard to scoop without sacrificing 0.5% or 1% wins, but Lantern pretty quickly moves into game states that are below 0.5% opposing equity based on public information. Playing versus an incompetent player is frustrating, but that’s true of any control deck that drags the game out. The competent Lantern players are fast and efficient.
I’ve played with and against this deck, online and in paper, and I think banning any part of it would be a big mistake. It’s fun that something so different thrives in Modern. It lets competitive players who enjoy a puzzle/lock deck scratch that itch. Modern is really all about scratching these itches and this one feels important to me. There isn’t another Lantern waiting in line to fill the void. It’s unique.
Just like Modern.By Michael Molinaro
USAMU PAO
FORT BENNING, Ga. - Nine years after losing his leg in a rocket-propelled grenade attack while on patrol in Iraq, Sgt. 1st Class Josh Olson has reinvented his Army career. Going from an Infantry squad leader to a wounded warrior, he is now a Paralympic shooter.
But in October of 2003, Olson's future had been less certain. Recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center with the loss of his right leg still fresh in his mind, Olson didn't know if the last page in his Army story had just been written. He was confident he would complete rehabilitation in time to return to his duty station at Fort Campbell, Ky., to welcome home his battle buddies returning from Iraq. The last time they'd seen him, he was being pulled out of the wreckage of a humvee. Olson knew he would walk again with the use of prosthesis. What he didn't expect was to discover a marksmanship talent that would lead him to make history at the Paralympic Games.
Nine years since the day that changed his life, Olson isn't just still writing his Army story, he is creating new chapters as a pioneer and inspiration to a generation of wounded veterans and Soldiers.
When Olson, a member of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, participates in the 2012 Paralympic Games opening ceremonies Aug. 29 in London, he will officially become the first combat-injured active-duty service member to ever take part in the event.
Through competitions and World Cups, Olson did well enough to secure a spot for the U.S. in rifle competition. In turn, the U.S. Selection Committee picked Olson to compete in two rifle event at the Games.
"When I got the call it was such a relief," said Olson, who will compete in Mixed 50m Prone Rifle and Mixed 10m Air Rifle. "I felt like 500 pounds was taken off my back. I sat down and knew I would never have to carry that weight again. Now I could focus on the games as well as getting the new guys here to the unit."
HISTORIC EXPANSION
The 'new guys' Olson refers to are injured Soldiers who are deemed able to continue serving on active duty. This past spring the Army approved the historic expansion of the USAMU with the addition of 24 new Soldiers to make up the newly-created Paralympic section and a marksmanship instructor group. It goes into effect Oct. 1. While his current focus is training for the Paralympic Games, he is also looking ahead to recruiting and mentoring other injured Soldiers who are facing similar life-altering circumstances and career changes as he did nine years ago.
"Now, instead of getting injured and being told 'thanks for your service' and you have to get out, the Army is affording Soldiers the opportunity to stay on active duty the same way I was," Olson said. "Now all of that knowledge isn't going to be lost and we can incorporate them into our shooting program and instructor group and keep making an impact on our Army."
In many ways, Olson is a pioneer, something that isn't lost on him. The poster child for humility, Olson recognizes he is setting examples all over the place for Soldiers who have been severely injured in combat. He said he looks forward to the day years from now when he can look back on this chapter in his life and see its results.
EMERGING TALENT
As part of his rehabilitation at Walter Reed, Olson said the nurses always tried to encourage patients to participate in activities. One of the outdoor events Olson took part in was a sporting clay shoot. After hitting 49 out of the first 50 shots that he took, people around him took notice.
The program director at the time called the USAMU and asked if they was interest in making wounded Soldiers into rifle shooters. Seven months later after a tryout and an interview, Olson was at Fort Benning assigned to the "Home of Champions."
"Anybody overcoming anything in life, if they have a goal, if they have something to concentrate on, it really helps," Olson said. "In shooting sports, it doesn't matter how old you are or what your athletic ability is. I was pretty good at it right away and that's when I realized that this is what I wanted to do."
At the unit he was surrounded by world champions, former NCAA champions and world-class talent at every firing point. While he envisioned having to work hard to warrant his new battle buddies respect, he didn't know that it had already been earned.
"When he first walked through that door I said to myself 'that is a Soldier,'" said Staff Sgt. George Norton. "That is a Soldier from the line who has deployed, who has a lot of guidance, and I better respect him.' That was before he ever even spoke to me. He had that presence. "
Olson worked hard at honing his new craft and in just a few years was an alternate on the 2008 Paralympic team. Not making the team stung, Olson admitted, but it was a motivational tool that he is reaping the benefits of this time around.
"One of the great things about shooting sports is even if you shoot a perfect score there is always some aspect you can improve on," Olson said. "It's what gets me out of bed every day. Some days I am tired, don't want to shoot that day, don't want to put my leg on--but there are people counting on me to perform well."
Olson added that he doesn't hope that those Soldiers who arrive at the unit follow in his footsteps but instead blow everything he ever did out of the water and succeed. That notion isn't lost on Norton or his teammates at the unit.
"Shooting is a thing he had found very therapeutic," Norton said. "So when he was given that opportunity I know he was able to use it. When they say he needed shooting I think shooting needed him, especially the Paralympic movement here in the U.S."
THERE ARE OPEN DOORS
If he isn't showcasing the Army worldwide in a competition or providing marksmanship instruction to Soldiers from around the Army, Olson is trying to inspire other injured Soldiers and veterans to realize that there are opportunities for them in the world.
"You may think all the doors are closed or shut in your face but if you look hard enough one is going to be open," Olson said. "A lot of people quit after they get told no time after time. You can't do that. If you keep trying, you'll find a door that opens."
The selfless acts of Olson are never lost on those at the USAMU. Junior Soldiers see him as someone they strive to be, not just as a shooter or as a Soldier, but simply as a person.
"Sgt. Olson is what makes this Army and this country great," said Sgt. Joe Hein. "With what he's gone through and what he's accomplished since he's been here and the people that he's impacted around the world, it's simply incredible. I try to live by his example."
If fans are looking for someone to cheer for this summer in London, they should cheer for Olson, Hein said.
Olson said that he has been preparing for his moment at the Paralympics since he signed into the unit seven years ago. He doesn't want to just go to participate in the Games - he wants to be the best in the world.
"I've been very fortunate to help liberate a country while in combat and make history," Olson said. "Well now I get to make history again but in a total new battlefield, in the sports arena. I get to show the world a whole new side of a U.S. Soldier then they may have ever seen. I am going to show the world that you can knock a Soldier down but you can't knock him out."
-30-
FORT BENNING, Ga. -- Sgt. 1st Class Josh Olson, U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, will make history when he competes in the Paralympic Games in late August in London. Olson is the first combat-injured active-duty service member to make the U.S. Paralympic team.
(Photo courtesy of USA Shooting)
FORT BENNING, Ga. -- Sgt. 1st Class Josh Olson, U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, competes in an air rifle match. Olson will become the first combat-wounded active-duty service member to compete in the Paralympics when he steps to the firing line in London.
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All this was going on under the nose of Tom Cruise, who, according to Wright, allowed Scientology’s leaders to pimp for him (no, no: all women), among other favors. Young women were told that they had been chosen for a “special program” that would require they drop their boyfriends. But the fish that got away, Scientologists believed, was Steven Spielberg. He told Haggis that Scientologists “seem like the nicest people,” and Haggis responded that “we keep all the evil ones in the closet,” which was close enough to being true that Haggis was in hot water with the Scientology powers-that-be. But he didn’t quit.
Haggis joined Scientology in 1975, when he was 21. Wright assures us that Haggis “never lost his skepticism,” but he must have misplaced it for a few decades. He remained a member and rose to be a top thetan among Scientologists through the death of L. Ron Hubbard and the rise of his successor, David Miscavige, who has often been described as sadistic. Then he read on the Internet about children “10, 12 years old, signing billion-year contracts,... and they work morning, noon and night.... Scrubbing pots, manual labor — that so deeply touched me. My God, it horrified me.” Still, he didn’t quit. Once again like American Communists on the eve of World War II, a few “useful idiots” like Haggis held on through every moment of doubt and twist in the story. What finally pushed him over the edge, away from Scientology and out into the real world, was the church’s refusal to endorse gay marriage. Now, I’m for gay marriage. And Haggis has two gay daughters, so it’s understandable that he should feel particularly strongly about this issue. But some perspective, please: it’s like hanging on through the Moscow trials and then quitting the Communist Party because it won’t endorse... oh, I dunno — well, gay marriage.
Lawrence Wright is so deeply into his material, and there is so much of it, that he sometimes doesn’t realize |
remove the tamarind tree and other trees and shrubbery which prevented the use of the Embassy parking lot as a helicopter landing zone.[21]
By the morning of 29 April it was estimated that approximately 10,000 people had gathered around the Embassy, while some 2,500 evacuees were in the Embassy and consular compounds. The crowds prevented the use of buses for transporting evacuees from the Embassy to the DAO Compound for evacuation and the Embassy gates were closed to prevent the crowd from surging through. Eligible evacuees now had to make themselves known to the Marine guards or Embassy staff manning the walls and were then lifted over the walls and into the Embassy compound. Among those arriving at the Embassy were Dr Phan Quang Đán, former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister responsible for social welfare and refugee resettlement,[15]:27 and Lieutenant-General Đăng Văn Quang.[15]:28
From 10:00 to 12:00 Major Kean and his Marines cut down the tamarind and other trees and moved vehicles to create an LZ in the Embassy parking lot behind the Chancery building. Two LZs were now available in the Embassy compound, the rooftop for UH-1s and CH-46 Sea Knights and the new parking lot LZ for the heavier CH-53s.[21]:5 Air America UH-1s began ferrying evacuees from other smaller assembly points throughout the city and dropping them on the Embassy's rooftop LZ. At 15:00 the first CH-53s were sighted heading towards the DAO Compound at Tan Son Nhut. Major Kean contacted the Seventh Fleet to advise them of his airlift requirements, until that time the fleet believed that all evacuees had been bussed from the Embassy to the DAO Compound and that only two helicopters would be required to evacuate Ambassador Martin and the Marines from the Embassy.[21]:6
Inside the Embassy, the evacuees had found whatever space was available inside the Embassy compound and evacuees and some staff proceeded to take alcohol from the Embassy's stores.[21]:6–7 From the billowing incinerator on the Embassy roof floated intelligence documents and US currency, most charred; some not. An Embassy official said that more than five million dollars were being burned.[15]:30
At 17:00 the first CH-46 landed at the Embassy. Between 19:00 and 21:00 on 29 April approximately 130 additional Marines from 2nd Battalion 4th Marines were lifted from the DAO Compound to reinforce perimeter security at the Embassy,[11]:195 bringing the total number of Marines at the Embassy to 175.[11]:196 The evacuation from the DAO Compound was completed by about 19:00 after which all helicopters would be routed to the Embassy; Major Kean was informed that operations would cease at dark. Major Kean advised that the LZ would be well lit and had vehicles moved around the parking lot LZ with their engines running and headlights on to illuminate the LZ.[21]:6 At 21:30 a CH-53 pilot informed Major Kean that Admiral Whitmire, Commander of Task Force 76 had ordered that operations would cease at 23:00. Major Kean saw Ambassador Martin to request that he contact the Oval Office to ensure that the airlift continued. Ambassador Martin soon sent word back to Major Kean that sorties would continue to be flown.[21]:6 At the same time, General Carey met Admiral Whitmire to convince him to resume flights to the Embassy despite pilot fatigue and poor visibility caused by darkness, fires and bad weather.[11]:198
By 02:15 on 30 April one CH-46 and one CH-53 were landing at the Embassy every 10 minutes. At this time, the Embassy indicated that another 19 lifts would complete the evacuation.[11]:199 At that time Major Kean estimated that there were still some 850 non-American evacuees and 225 Americans (including the Marines), and Ambassador Martin told Major Kean to do the best he could.[21]:7 At 03:00 Ambassador Martin ordered Major Kean to move all the remaining evacuees into the parking lot LZ which was the Marines' final perimeter.[21]:7 At 03:27 President Gerald Ford ordered that no more than 19 additional lifts would be allowed to complete the evacuation.[11]:200 At 04:30 with the 19 lift limit already exceeded, Major Kean went to the rooftop LZ and spoke over a helicopter radio with General Carey who advised that President Ford had ordered that the airlift be limited to US personnel. Major Kean was then ordered to withdraw his men into the Chancery building and withdraw to the rooftop LZ for evacuation.[21]:7
Major Kean returned to the ground floor of the Chancery and ordered his men to withdraw into a large semicircle at the main entrance to the Chancery. Most of the Marines were inside the Chancery when the crowds outside the Embassy broke through the gates into the compound. The Marines closed and bolted the Chancery door, the elevators were locked by Seabees on the sixth floor and the Marines withdrew up the stairwells locking grill gates behind them. On the ground floor a water tanker was driven through the Chancery door and the crowd began to surge up through the building toward the rooftop. The Marines on the rooftop had sealed the doors and were using Mace to discourage the crowd from trying to break through. Sporadic gunfire from around the Embassy passed over the rooftop.[21]:7–8
At 04:58 Ambassador Martin boarded a USMC CH-46 Sea Knight, call-sign Lady Ace 09 of HMM-165 and was flown to USS Blue Ridge. When Lady Ace 09 transmitted "Tiger is out", those helicopter crews still flying thought the mission was complete, and delayed evacuating the Marines from the Embassy rooftop. CH-46s evacuated the Battalion Landing Team by 07:00 and after an anxious wait a lone CH-46 Swift 2-2 of HMM-164[11]:200 arrived to evacuate Major Kean and the ten remaining men of the Marine Security Guards, this last helicopter took off at 07:53 on 30 April and landed on USS Okinawa at 08:30.[21]:8
At 11:30 PAVN tanks smashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace) less than 1 km from the Embassy and raised the flag of the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam (NLF) over the building; the Vietnam War was over.
Chaos at sea [ edit ]
During the course of the operation an unknown number of VNAF helicopters flew out of what remained of South Vietnam to the fleet. Around 12:00 five or six VNAF UH-1Hs and one of the stolen ICCS UH-1Hs, were circling around Blue Ridge. The VNAF pilots had been instructed after dropping off their passengers to ditch their helicopters and they would then be picked up by one of the ship's tenders. The pilot of the stolen ICCS Huey had been told to ditch off the port quarter of the ship, but seemed reluctant to do so, flying around the ship to the starboard bow he jumped from his helicopter at a height of 40 feet (12 m). His helicopter turned and hit the side of Blue Ridge before hitting the sea. The tail rotor sheared off and embedded itself in the engine of an Air America Bell 205 that was doing a hot refueling on the helipad at the rear of the ship. The Air America pilot shut down his helicopter and left it and moments later a VNAF UH-1H attempted to land on the helipad, locked rotors with the Air America Bell, almost pushing it overboard.[20]:24–25 The stolen Air America Bell 204, landed on Kirk, from where US Navy pilots flew it to Okinawa.[20]:20
So many South Vietnamese helicopters landed on the TF76 ships that some 45 UH-1 Hueys and at least one CH-47 Chinook were pushed overboard to make room for more helicopters to land.[7]:118 Other helicopters dropped off their passengers and were then ditched into the sea by their pilots, close to the ships, their pilots bailing out at the last moment to be picked up by rescue boats.[22]
Sea Stallions returning from the DAO Compound approach USS Midway
Evacuees offloaded onto USS Midway
VNAF Hueys and a CH-47 Chinook arrive at USS Midway
VNAF Huey full with evacuees on the deck of USS Midway
RVNAF Huey is pushed overboard from USS Midway.
VNAF pilot jumps from his Huey after dropping evacuees on USS Midway
One of the more notable events occurred on Midway when the pilot of a VNAF Cessna O-1 dropped a note on the deck of the carrier. The note read "Can you move these helicopter to the other side, I can land on your runway, I can fly 1 hour more, we have enough time to move. Please rescue me. Major Buang, Wife and 5 child." Midway's commanding officer, Captain L.C. Chambers ordered the flight deck crew to clear the landing area; in the process an estimated US$10 million worth of UH-1 Huey helicopters were pushed overboard into the South China Sea. Once the deck was clear Major Buang approached the deck, bounced once and then touched down and taxied to a halt with room to spare.[23] Major Buang became the first VNAF fixed-wing pilot to ever land on a carrier. A second Cessna O-1 was also recovered by USS Midway that afternoon.[7]:121
Major Buang on final approach
Major Buang taxies to a halt
Midway deck crew surround Major Buang and his family
At the same time as the aerial evacuation, tens of thousands of South Vietnamese fled towards TF-76 aboard junks, sampans, and small craft. MSC tugs pulled barges filled with people from Saigon Port out to TF-76. A flotilla of 26 Republic of Vietnam Navy and other vessels concentrated off Long Sơn Island southwest of Vũng Tàu with 30,000 sailors, their families, and other civilians on board. On the afternoon of 30 April, TF-76 moved away from the coast, picking up more refugees as they went. On 2 May, Task Force 76, carrying the Operation Frequent Wind evacuees and 44,000 seaborne evacuees and the RVN Navy group set sail for reception centers in the Philippines and Guam.[9]
Results of the evacuation [ edit ]
During the fixed-wing evacuation 50,493 people (including 2,678 Vietnamese orphans) were evacuated from Tan Son Nhut.[7]:122 Marine pilots accumulated 1,054 flight hours and flew 682 sorties throughout Operation Frequent Wind. The evacuation of personnel from the DAO compound had lasted nine hours and involved over 50 Marine Corps and Air Force helicopters. In the helicopter evacuation a total of 395 Americans and 4,475 Vietnamese and third-country nationals were evacuated from the DAO compound[11]:197 and a further 978 U.S. and 1,120 Vietnamese and third-country nationals from the Embassy,[11]:201 giving a total of 1,373 Americans and 5,595 Vietnamese and third country nationals. In addition, Air America helicopters and RVNAF aircraft brought additional evacuees to the TF76 ships. Many of the Vietnamese evacuees were allowed to enter the United States under the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act.
Some 400 evacuees were left behind at the Embassy including over 100 South Korean citizens, among them was Brigadier General Dai Yong Rhee, the intelligence chief at the South Korean Embassy in Saigon.[24] The South Korean civilians were evacuated in 1976, while General Rhee and two other diplomats were held captive until April 1980.[25] A group of Americans were also left behind or chose the remain in Saigon, 38 of them, together with their dependents, were evacuated to Bangkok on 1 August 1976.[26]
While the operation itself was a success, the images of the evacuation symbolized the wastefulness and ultimate futility of American involvement in Vietnam. President Ford later called it "a sad and tragic period in America's history" but argued that "you couldn't help but be very proud of those pilots and others who were conducting the evacuation".[27] Nixon's pledge of Peace with Honor in Vietnam had become a humiliating defeat, which together with Watergate contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected America throughout the 1970s.[28]
Casualties [ edit ]
For an operation of the size and complexity of Frequent Wind, casualties were relatively light. Marine corporals McMahon and Judge killed at the DAO compound were the only members of US forces killed in action during the operation and they were the last US ground casualties in Vietnam.[15]:56–7 A Marine AH-1J SeaCobra ran out of fuel while searching for USS Okinawa and ditched at sea, the two crew members were rescued by a boat from USS Kirk.[11]:201 A CH-46F Swift 1-4 of HMM-164 from USS Hancock flown by Captain William C. Nystul[29] and First Lieutenant Michael J. Shea[30] crashed into the sea on its approach to the ship after having flown a night sea and air rescue mission. The two enlisted crew members survived, but the bodies of the pilots were not recovered. The cause of the crash was never determined.[11]:201
Memorials [ edit ]
During the demolition of the Embassy, the ladder leading from the rooftop to the helipad was removed and sent back to the United States, where it is now on display at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum.[31]
The Cessna O-1 Bird Dog that Major Buang landed on USS Midway is now on display at the National Museum of Naval Aviation at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida.[32] The USS Midway is a museum ship in San Diego. Lady Ace 09, CH-46 serial number 154803, is now on display at the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum in San Diego, California.[33]
In popular culture [ edit ]
On the afternoon of 29 April 1975, Hubert van Es, a Saigon-based photographer for United Press International, took the iconic photo of Operation Frequent Wind of an Air America UH-1 on a rooftop picking up Vietnamese evacuees.[34][35] The building in the photo was the Pittman Apartment building at 22 Gia Long Street (now 22 Lý Tự Trọng Street), which was used as a residence by various embassy, CIA, and USAID employees. It has often been misidentified as the US Embassy.[36] Hubert van Es' photo is frequently used in political cartoons commenting on US foreign policy.[37][38]
The Second Act of the stage musical, Miss Saigon, depicts events leading up to, and during Operation Frequent Wind, with the main protagonists (Chris and Kim) becoming separated as a result of the evacuation. Writer Claude-Michel Schönberg has acknowledged that the musical was inspired by pictures of the evacuation. Hugh van Es believed that Miss Saigon misappropriated his photo and considered legal action against the show, but decided against it.[39]
In The Simpsons at the end of Episode 16 of Season 6, "Bart vs. Australia", the Simpsons are evacuated from the American Embassy as angry Australians gather outside in a scene reminiscent of Hubert van Es's famous photo. Homer asks the helicopter pilot if they are being taken to an aircraft carrier and is told that "the closest vessel is the USS Walter Mondale. It's a laundry ship".[40][41]
The operation was the subject of the 2014 PBS documentary Last Days in Vietnam.[42]
See also [ edit ]
Operation Eagle Pull
Operation Eastern Exit – the US military evacuation of Mogadishu
References [ edit ]
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Marine Corps.
Further reading [ edit ]
Engelmann, Larry. Tears before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam. Oxford University Press, USA, 1990. ISBN 978-0-19-505386-9
. Oxford University Press, USA, 1990. ISBN 978-0-19-505386-9 Snepp, Frank. Decent Interval: An Insider's Account of Saigon's Indecent End Told by the CIA's Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam. University Press of Kansas, 1977. ISBN 0-7006-1213-0
. University Press of Kansas, 1977. ISBN 0-7006-1213-0 Rhodes, J. E. (1979). The evacuation of Saigon: "Operation Frequent Wind". Marine Corps Command and Staff College. OCLC 14276659.
Todd, Olivier. Cruel April: The Fall of Saigon. W.W. Norton & Company, 1990. ISBN 978-0-393-02787-7
Archival collections [ edit ]
Guide to the Khanh Van Thi Nguyen Narrative on Operation Frequent Wind. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.Rail Resilience Highlights Need for Skepticism About New Transit Tech
Yesterday’s evening commute turned into a nightmare for passengers on the Altamont Corridor Express (ACE) train, when–according to the latest reports–a mudslide sent a tree onto the tracks and caused a major derailment.
The incident happened at 7:15 p.m., when train number 10 derailed in Niles Canyon, about a mile west of Sunol. According to an ACE release, there were 196 passengers. Four were seriously injured. According to reports, this is only ACE’s second incident in nearly 20 years of operations. Most passengers on the train were unharmed. Reportedly, passengers in the cars at the rear didn’t even realize the front of the train had derailed. Only “two of the five cars derailed,” explained Brian Schmidt, a spokesman for ACE.
Meanwhile, “Union Pacific is in the process of getting cars back on the tracks so they can move them out of the area, do inspections, and repair any damage,” said Schmidt. He said they would have a better idea of how long it will take to make repairs later today and restoring service by the end of the week was a possibility. “We’re hoping. We don’t know for sure. We’re waiting to find out the condition of the track,” he said.
Schmidt confirmed that air brakes, basic safety technology developed 150 years ago, almost certainly contributed to saving lives in this crash. Train brakes are connected to an air system by rubber hoses. If the hoses separate, as in a derailment, the air pressure drops and brakes along the entire length of the train are automatically applied. It’s a safe bet that’s what kept the last three cars from running off the tracks.
While train wrecks make for dramatic headlines, any Streetsblog reader should already know that cars are the big killer when it comes to transportation. That got underscored even as a reporter was covering the train crash. Still, the ACE wreck is a reminder that when you move people around in machines things will sometimes go horribly wrong.
Coincidentally, the Fuse, a web site that tracks energy policy, released a piece today about Hyperloop and California’s High-Speed Rail (HSR). (Featuring an interview with yours truly). Hyperloop is a proposal for a new transportation system that has people traveling in pods that shoot through long tubes at jet-aircraft speeds. So what happens when a mudslide hits a Hyperloop tube? Imagine if the tube suddenly came out of alignment as a wall of heavy mud and debris slammed into it–and then a capsule full of people came through at 700 mph?
In the event anyone survived the crash, how would rescue teams get to the passengers? It’s hard enough cutting people out of train cars, where first responders can at least see the cars and the people through the windows. But imagine trying to cut through a metal tube to try and find a capsule and then get into the capsule to get to survivors?
Is it unfair to compare Hyperloop to a lumbering diesel powered ACE train? Maybe, but High-Speed Rail (HSR), which the Hyperloop boosters seem to hate so much, has also shown itself pretty resilient to track misalignments. For example, in 1993, a French High-Speed Train was traveling at 183 mph through an old WWI battlefield in France during a period of intense rains. A hole opened up under the tracks–possibly from an old trench or fox hole–and the rails came out of alignment. The train derailed but managed to decelerate and stop without jackknifing. There were no serious injuries, due to the design of the wheels and passenger cars; built on years of experience and testing and dealing with real-world hazards.
The point is, it takes a long time to build a safe, fault-tolerant technology. New tech, even when it works, is by definition unproven. Businessmen from Silicon Valley need to remember that transportation technology is not the same as developing a new smart phone; nobody dies if a smart phone gets hit by a wall of mud. In the real world, transport tech has to stand up to a whole lot of potential disasters. That’s why claims that rail transit is a “dinosaur” technology, as made by Hyperloop Transportation Technologies’ CEO Dirk Ahlborn in the Fuse report, should be met with extreme skepticism, if not outright derision.President Trump will most likely fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court this year. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
The Supreme Court announced Friday it will add a second case this term to determine whether partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, accepting a challenge from Maryland Republicans who say the state's dominant Democrats drew a congressional district that violated their rights.
The court already has heard a challenge from Wisconsin Democrats, who challenged a legislative redistricting drawn by the state's Republican leaders.
[Supreme Court takes up Wisconsin partisan gerrymandering claims]
The cases could reshape the way American elections are conducted. The Supreme Court has never thrown out a state's redistricting efforts due to partisan gerrymandering, and political parties consider drawing the map one of the perks of being in charge of state government.
It is unclear why the court thought it needed another case, and it had previously declined to immediately take up the Maryland case Benisek v. Lamone.
But the new challenge raises a question of specific interest to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who is thought to be the pivotal vote on the issue.
Kennedy has wondered whether partisan gerrymandering retaliates against voters for their past support of a party's candidates, which he has said could be a violation of the First Amendment.
In the Wisconsin case, Gill v. Whitford, the court was considering a different constitutional issue, equal protection. The court heard arguments in that case in early October and has not issued an opinion.
The challenge in Maryland centers on the 6th Congressional District in Western Maryland, which was redrawn to include parts of heavily Democratic Montgomery County. The plaintiffs say that in the mandatory redrawing of congressional districts after the 2010 census, the state's Democratic leaders diluted the number of Republican voters in the district to ensure that a Democrat would win.
[Judicial panel refuses to order Maryland congressional districts redrawn]
The plaintiffs, Republican voters who live in the district, claim the legislature and then-Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, "targeted them for vote dilution because of their past support for Republican candidates for public office, violating the First Amendment retaliation doctrine," lawyer Michael B. Kimberly wrote in his petition to the court.
The legislature "reshuffled fully half of the district's 720,000 residents — far more than necessary to correct the mere 10,000-person imbalance in the district's population following the 2010 census," the petition states.
That resulted in a more than 90,000-voter swing in favor of Democrats, and the share of registered Republicans fell from 47 percent to 33 percent.
"No other congressional district anywhere in the nation saw so large a swing in its partisan complexion following the 2010 census," Kimberly wrote.
The incumbent, Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, had won by 28 percentage points in the old district.
In 2012, Bartlett lost to Democrat John Delaney in the new district by 21 percentage points. Delaney has represented the district since then.
A three-judge panel ruled against the challengers in August. In a 2-to-1 vote, the panel said the Republican challengers didn't prove the election results occurred just because of those redistricting changes.
The state's lawyers pointed to the fact that Delaney was almost defeated in his reelection attempt in 2014, and Republican Larry Hogan won more than 50 percent of the vote in the district in his successful campaign for governor.
Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) told the Supreme Court that showed candidates make a difference in the election outcomes.
"As the three-judge court noted, if an electoral loss is not attributable to 'constitutionally suspect activity,' but 'is instead a consequence of voter choice, that is not an injury. It is democracy.' "
The Supreme Court regularly voids redistricting plans because of racial gerrymandering. Although it has indicated partisan gerrymandering can also raise constitutional problems, the court has never been able to come up with a test to gauge when normal political considerations become too much.
Kennedy has refused to close the door to challenges, though. The Maryland plaintiffs point to his comments the last time the court attempted to come up with a test, in 2004.
Kennedy said citizens have a First Amendment right not to be burdened or penalized for their past "association with a political party."
"If a court were to find that a state did impose burdens and restrictions on groups or persons by reason of their views, there would likely be a First Amendment violation," Kennedy wrote.
While in the Wisconsin case a three-judge panel ruled that the state's entire legislative map be thrown out, the Maryland case involves a single congressional district.
"It does not rest upon statistical measures of partisan imbalance," the challengers told the court. "It does not ask the court to adopt any new doctrinal frameworks or approve any new legal standards."
The new case is Benisek v. Lamone. The Wisconsin case is Gill v. Whitford.Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca
This translation to English by Samuel Butler (1835-1902) was first published in 1900.
"Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original"
Partly a sequel to Iliad, Odyssey is the epic mythological journey of Odysseus (his Roman name is Ulysses). "Odysseus the Cunning" is the son of Laertes and Anticlea. After sacking the city of Troy by masterfully gaining entrance to the city with a wooden Trojan Horse, his journey to return home to Ithaca after the battle of Troy takes ten years. Among his many trials during this quest, Odysseus must first escape imprisonment by Calypso on the island of Ogygia, endure a battle with the Cyclops, survive a descent to Hades, and suffer the god Neptune's bitter wrath at sea. He goes through many trials, all the while Penelope his wife faithfully waiting for him but not knowing if he is still alive. With the help of Hermes and Zeus, and his son Telemachus, Odysseus is finally home, in his rightful place at the palace, "Hero of Ithaca". Unlike Iliad, Odyssey is written in more of a conversational story-telling style. It is a tale of exile, longing, temptation, patience, and cunning. It is also a timeless tale of everyman's journey to 'home', be it a spiritual goal or a given place. Odyssey has directly influenced other such classic works of literature including Dante Alighieri's 14th century Inferno, Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605), Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902), The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum, "Sinbad the Sailor" from Arabian Nights, Ezra Pound's The Cantos (1922), and James Joyce's Ulysses (1922).
One of the greatest works of literature to be written, this is an epic poem attributed to the blind poet Homer. Written as a sequel to the Iliad, the Odyssey tells of the long journey by the Greek hero Odysseus. He has just fought in the Trojan War, and now, along with his men, is returning home. Altogether, it takes Odysseus twenty years to return. His journey begins in Troy. On his return home he faces cyclops, lotus-eaters, sea monsters, and hostile giants. After getting through all these adventures, the hero finds himself trapped by a goddess on an island. Meanwhile, in Ithaca, the home of Odysseus, suitors have thronged his palace and are each trying to win the hand of Odysseus' wife Penelope. His son Telemachos believes that his father is still alive, and so, aided by the goddess Athena, sets out on a quest to find him.--Submitted by Bethany
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second--the Iliad being the first--extant work of Western literature. It was probably composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia. The poem mainly centres on the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known in Roman myths) and his long journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. In his absence, it is assumed he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, the Mnesteres or Proci, who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage. It continues to be read in the Homeric Greek and translated into modern languages around the world. Many scholars believe that the original poem was composed in an oral tradition by an aoidos (epic poet/singer), perhaps a rhapsode (professional performer), and was more likely intended to be heard than read. The details of the ancient oral performance, and the story's conversion to a written work inspire continual debate among scholars. The Odyssey was written in a regionless poetic dialect of Greek and comprises 12,110 lines of dactylic hexameter. Among the most impressive elements of the text are its non-linear plot, and the influence on events of choices made by women and serfs, besides the actions of fighting men. In the English language as well as many others, the word odyssey has come to refer to an epic voyage.--Submitted by Ledezma Brownpride13
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Recent Forum Posts on The Odyssey
Penelope's weaving in the Odyssey I need help writing a short paper on Penelope of how she copes with the loss of Odysseus through her weaving. Posted By Barbara1 at Thu 19 May 2011, 3:53 AM in The Odyssey || 1 Reply
The Odyssey: Prose VS Verse I was planning on reading The Odyssey again in preparation for Ulysses (I read it in verse form in high school) and figured I'd read the Samuel Butler prose translation this time. I was just curious, what are the pros and cons of reading it in prose vs. verse (aside from the obvious; that its original form is verse)? Just curious. Is the prose form basically rearrangement of the verse, or is there more drastic changes? Posted By Mutatis-Mutandis at Tue 10 Mar 2009, 11:33 PM in The Odyssey || 9 Replies
Need Major Help! What were the things Odysseus' learned at each place he visted and how did he get to each place? So far I have the Cicones for both, the Cyclops for the lesson he learned, but I still need the Lotus Eaters and the rest that came after the Cyclops. Posted By Hinata747 at Mon 26 Jan 2009, 12:48 AM in The Odyssey || 1 Reply
adventures in the odyssey can anyone tell me about the adventures in the odyssey? i have an english project due tomorrow on it. Posted By omgitsjuliexo at Sun 14 Dec 2008, 5:07 PM in The Odyssey || 0 Replies
Understanding Odyssey 1. What does the Odyssey give greater weight? Cite folklore motifs to support your answer. 2. What does the meeting of the assembly at Ithaca illustrate? What political organization is featured? 3. Why does not Telemachus become king of Ithaca? Why does not Laertes, Father of Oddyseus, come out of retirement to take over the reins of government and save Penelope from all her difficulties with the suitors? 4. Throughout the Odyssey, Homer contrasts the legend about the coming of Agamemnon with the story of Odysseus. What could be his purpose? 5. What transformation has taken place in the values and outlooks of the heroes of the Trojan war as manifested by Menelaus and his wife Helen? 6. In what way is Odysseus different from the typical epic hero? In your opinion, can he be considered the first modern man? 7. How can you interpret the wanderings and adventures of Odysseus in the year after the fall of Troy? 8. Describe the land of the Phaecians. What does it symbolize? What do Achaians and Arete idolize? Books 7-12 1. What does the raid on Cicone city of Ismaurus by Odysseus and his men demonstrate? 2. What can you associate with the lotus plant? Why do those who eat it quickly lose all memory? 3. What does the episode with the cyclops Polyphemus symbolize? 4. What does the crew of Odysseus symbolize in the episode of the bay of the winds given by Aeolus? What lesson is important? 5. What motif in European folklore is common and similar with Odysseus encounter with Circe? Can you think of a folktale that is familiar variant of the episode? 6. What other stories in Greek mythology parallels the visit of Odysseus to Hades? How do you regard this episode? 7. How do you view Odysseus? Encounter with the Sirens? What kind of test did he undergo? 8. Compare/ contrast the obstacles that Odysseus and his crew encountered on the island of the sirens and seylla and Charybdis. What kind of test did Odysseus master in Seylla and Charybdis? Posted By tmen at Sun 24 Aug 2008, 11:44 PM in The Odyssey || 1 Reply
I need a specific edition of The Odyssey Does anyone know where I can find the "Red Reader", "Teacher's Discovery 2005" edition of the odyssey. The ISBN is 075600338-8 and the bar code is 9 780756 003388. I can't find it at either B&N or Amazon and have checked both the bar code and ISBN online (search) and can't find it anywhere. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks. :bawling: Posted By Neekie at Thu 26 Jun 2008, 8:52 PM in The Odyssey || 1 Reply
Help with Book 22 Lines 390 - 419 Please! Hi everyone! Just looking for some help, I have to write only a 500 word essay on the internal structure, external connections, larger significance, also any intrinsic literary properties of this passage. But I'm really stuck. Book 22 Line 390 - 419 'Then Odysseus said to Telemachus: "Now call Euryleia.............which of them are disloyal to and which are innocent." (pp.340-341 - Penguin) or (p.274, Oxford world's classics edition.) Any help would be really greatly appreciated! Thanks heaps Posted By V07teh at Tue 25 Mar 2008, 2:37 AM in The Odyssey || 0 Replies
Homework on The Odyssey Odyssey Homework (And A Few Others) I have some homework on the Odyssey (Questions) that were assigned to me when we covered the book. The answers are not the greatest but hope they help :) Leave a message if there are problems/comments/anything else :) Posted By adzempire at Tue 4 Mar 2008, 2:41 AM in The Odyssey || 0 Replies
Odyssey hi guys, can u show me where I can buy the Book? Posted By nonvirna at Thu 21 Feb 2008, 6:26 AM in The Odyssey || 0 RepliesAt her Senate confirmation hearing yesterday, Mike Riggs reports at The Daily Caller, acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart said marijuana legalization would be socially disastrous, and even talking about it is irresponsible, since criticizing prohibition only encourages drug use:
What worries me is that we have seen—after years of stabilization of drug use—a spike. I believe that spike is directly related to all the conversation we are now hearing about the legalization of drugs.
Leonhart presumably was referring to recent increases in drug use measured by the federal government's National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The share of Americans 12 and older reporting past-year use of illegal drugs (overwhelmingly marijuana) in this survey was 15.1 percent last year. That's barely more than the 14.9 percent rate found when the survey began in 2002, but it is nine-tenths of a percentage point more than the 2008 number (a 6 percent increase!). According to Leonhart, all the talk about legalizing pot provoked by California's Proposition 19, which qualified for the ballot in March 2010 and was defeated a couple of weeks ago, somehow drove up marijuana use in 2009. Forget about whether that's plausible; it's not even logically possible.
Even if it were true, so what? There is nothing inherently problematic about an increase in marijuana use. From an economic perspective |
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